Lazy Friday "Blogging"

Fridays are always good for a smattering of topics and news bits and links and such, so let's get right to it:

-Diamond Comics Distributors recently changed their policies regarding what comics they'll carry. The great comics news blog The Beat has been all over the story, and you can read it here. The Cliffs Notes version of the policy is that, if Diamond does not get at least $2,500 in orders on a particular book from retailers, they will no longer carry that book.

This new price is raised from the previous policy tag of $1,500. This move is expected to hurt many small press publishers, and kill others outright. The blogosphere reacted strongly this week, and here are two interesting (and scary) takes on the issue: from Rich Johnston at Comic Book Resources; and from The New York Times.

As someone who hopes to release a graphic novel on a small scale in the very near future, this one hits close to home for yours truly. It's scary, but then again, everything is scary these days. Diamond was forced to lay off workers last week, and now the company is doing what it sees best allows them to weather this economic storm.

Now, because I don't know enough about the situation to start ranting and raving about how unfair the new policy is, I'll just shut up now. But it is.

Unfair, I mean.

-Should have mentioned this the other day, but then it would have been too relevant, I guess. Anyway, it's certainly more fun than the previous item! Comics fans should enjoy this article, from The Onion about President Obama and some Conan the Barbarian comics.

-Earlier this week, Neil Gaiman's latest offering, The Graveyard Book, won the prestigious Newbery Medal. You can read Gaiman's account of being told about it here. Good news, and congrats to the author!

-And, finally, we'll end on a happy note for all the uber-dorky comics/cartoon fans out there. Disney has announced that, after many years, the much-loved Fox animated X-Men series that ran in the 90s will be coming to DVD. You can read all about it at Newsarama.

Well, that's all she wrote for today, folks. Happy Friday!