Inquirer Wackiness Continues

Yes, earlier today we all learned two Inquirer editors tried to have sex, but failed. But there’s more! As also reported today, the Inquirer will soon eliminate its Image and Neighbors sections.

Here’s the memo from Inky ME Sandra Long:

Hello everyone,

I want to let you know of several significant changes that will take place in the next few weeks.

The Inquirer will publish the last edition of the Neighbors sections on Sunday, July 27. We began publishing Neighbors in 1982 following the close of The Bulletin as a way to capture more suburban readership. We started with Horsham Neighbors and continued to expand through the 1980s.

At its peak, Neighbors covered suburban Pennsylvania and South Jersey in microcosmic detail, chronicling events from weekly planning and zoning meetings to wrestling meets, hockey meets and school lunch menus.

We will also combine the Sunday Arts and Entertainment and the Image section on beginning August 3. The last Image section will publish July 27. We began publishing Image when the Inquirer Magazine folded in July 2003.

Details will follow on how we will move some of the content to other sections from Neighbors and Image.

The decision to close the Neighbors sections and Image was made as the company does everything possible to control expenses against the background of a recession in the businesses that advertise in our newspapers and on our website.

In addition, we are looking at ways to reduce the number of pages in the Comics section.

If you have questions, please let me know.

Thanks,
Sandra

Sandra D. Long
Managing Editor
The Philadelphia Inquirer

Not big enough of a shakeup for you? Fine: Management is considering combining the Inquirer and Daily News photo and copy desks, sources report.

Still not enough? Okay, get this: The Inquirer only has two comics pages. (I guess she could be writing about Sunday’s comics section.) If I can’t get my Dennis the Menace and Ziggy fix there, where the hell will I get it?

Larry West Supports… No One!

Now that Jesus White has delivered his endorsement, it’s about time we found out who ineligible mayoral candidate Larry West thinks should be mayor.

And what do you know! He emailed me a little bit ago:

Hey, how are you? Long time, no write, huh? Well, I’m working on a new site and campaign called “None of the Above”, where I basically say that no one running should be President. The front runners are only “OK” in my eyes. There’s more to come, but have a few images you may like [see at right--dmac]

More images here.

-Larry

So there you go: Uhh… nobody. I assume when he writes “the front runners,” he means Clinton and Obama and not John McCain. In fact, I’m pretty sure of that.

Flat, Pale Character Wanted By Police

Officials released this sketch of a suspect in a homicide in Delaware last month. “Be on the lookout for the very pale man,” a release said. “He is considered armed and dangerous, as he appears to have stepped right out of an indie comic book.”

Suspect Sketch Released In Deadly Del. Shooting [AP/CBS 3]

A Week Off And Nothing Changes

If you’re wondering, I took a week off from blogging because if I didn’t take a break soon I’m sure my brain would have melted into a goo of some sort. This might happen anyway, but I’d like to try to avoid that kind of PR nightmare for my death. But just because I wasn’t blogging doesn’t mean I didn’t take notice of the news last week.

There were a few news stories I almost thought about getting off my ass and writing about. I mean, some dude stole about 20 manhole covers, and he was 38! The cops managed to catch him by doing a stakeout, presumably in the sewers under manhole covers. “Okay, here’s manhole number 21–” “Gotcha!”

I also really enjoyed the Inquirer’s coverage of Wizard World, which included the photo at right. Being a nerd, I played quite a few Final Fantasy games when I was younger and, uh, what the hell have they done to Final Fantasy? Did I ever know any girls who dressed like that when I was 15? Hell, fuck that: Did I ever know any girls who dressed like that and played Final Fantasy when I was 15?¹

Anyway, when I last played a Final Fantasy game, the characters all pretty much looked like this:

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Tommy The Loan Shark: Philly Voters Are Stupid!

Oh ho ho! Tommy the Loan Shark isn’t just a character on street corners anymore!

You got it. Like every other good American, Tommy the Loan Shark now has a blog. He’s also growing up, apparently since he now apparently goes by “Tom the Loan Shark.”

Apparently, Tommy won’t be writing much on the blog, being that fins are awful hard to hit a keyboard with. He does have a description, that includes this sentence: “I decided to forego the traditional philanthropist route and give millions of dollars to a group of truly deserving Philadelphians: TV station executives. I am spending $500,000 a week to keep these brave men and women off the streets.” Ha ha! Get it! Tom Knox is bad for… ah… spending his money how he wants to!

But he has appeared in two comic strips so far. The first shows Tommy in front of a “LOAN” statue a la the LOVE statue — ho ho! — and basically goes like this: “Will your PAYDAY LENDING be an issue in the campaign?” “No.” Seriously.

The second strip, reproduced at right, calls all Philadelphia voters idiots for wanting free spaghetti dinners and thinking they might want to vote for the guy who gives them free spaghetti dinners. Or maybe it’s a press conference and it’s attacking the media, who also like free dinners.

Either way, I don’t see how this plan could really fail to stop Tom Knox.

Tom the Loan Shark
Tommy gets a website [Fight for Room 215]

In The City, City Of Philadelphia

I don’t really know anyone who reads the comics page anymore. But I do. (This is one of many things that makes me, erhm, unique. Yeah, that’s a nice way to put it.) I don’t read the comics page to enjoy the comics, though; I read the comics page because it’s absolutely awful. Seriously. I assume there’s some sort of rule that a comic has to be abso-effing-lutley terrible.

There are a couple of okay, even decent ones, but usually I read the comics page and go, “Hmm. Garfield was one of the best comics today.” Okay, that’s unfair to a lot of comics, but you get the point.

As such, let’s take a look at yesterday’s Curtis.

Yep, that famous rapper from Philly, “Compton Kaheem.” The Comics Curmudgeon, who I wrote about in a Top 5 last year, frequently notes that Curtis appears to be written by a 70-year-old white man. Which seems pretty true.

Yesterday he noted the distance between Compton and Philadelphia, but there’s another problem, too. If “Compton Kaheem” is already known as the best rapper to come out of Philly — at least by a whatever-year-old boy — he probably came up during the height of the East Coast-West Coast rap feud. He might as well have been named Dallas Cowboys Kaheem.

Battle of the sexes [The Comics Curmudgeon]
Curtis 02.05.2007 [Houston Chronicle]

Leggo My Sluggo

I go on assignment for two days and what happens? I miss the greatest letter to the editor in the history of letters to the editor.

Here’s the letter, in full:

We are outraged by the July 20 “Nancy” comic strip.

By making light of Nancy beating Sluggo to a pulp in a jealous rage, the strip trivializes relationship abuse and suggests that violence is an acceptable way to resolve personal disputes.

Domestic violence should not be a punch line for a cheap joke. You and the strip’s authors owe your readers an apology.

Judy Kahan, Chief Executive Officer
Center Against Domestic Violence Brooklyn, N.Y.

After the jump, some thoughts.

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Comic relief

The Sunday Inquirer yesterday had a big story about how big name scribes — Stephen King, Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and others — are now doing the writing for comic books.

For these guys, it’s not about making money, it’s just about getting to do a comic book. And that makes sense. Aside from the fantastic Y: The Last Man — the illustration at right — I haven’t read a comic book since about seventh grade, but that doesn’t really matter; if someone asked me to write a comic book I would jump at the chance. It probably has something to do with the fact I can’t draw, but it’d also be effing cool to have written a freakin’ comic book.

Anyway, one of the authors now writing a comic book is from Philly, and he shared his memories with the Inky (emphasis mine):

“Growing up in Philly, I went down to Fat Jack’s on Samson Street every week to buy comics,” says Mat Johnson, 35, the award-winning novelist (Hunting in Harlem) who is writing the Papa Midnite voodoo series for Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics.

Now, you might think that’s an Inquirer copy editing error, but, really, come on: He’s from Philly. He totally calls Sansom Street it “Samson Street.” It’s easier to say, and I think it’s pretty clear that we Philadelphians will pronounce anything however the hell we want. In fact, I’d like to take the time now to praise the Inky for its accuracy.

Comiuc turn [Inky]
Y: The Last Man