These Comic-Con people, they have their ear to the ground. They are tastemakers," said actor-writer Marlon Wayans, who will be on hand to promote not only the Wayans' new animated series "Thugaboo" but also a comic book series he is writing. "The connotation of 'geek' has changed. 'Geek' now means cool."

The San Diego Comic Con (july 20-23) was intensely coveraged by the mainstream media, as in this Hollywood Reporter piece. Although centered around comic books, the Con has expanded into maybe the biggest pop culture event in the US.

AfterEllen, a site with "news, reviews and commentary on lesbian bisexual women and the media", profiles the new lesbian Batgirl from DC Comics.

Dallas-Fort Worth's Quick congratulates locals Scott Kurtz and Zeus Comics for their Eisner awards.

Wired also interviews Scott McCloud about his new book, Making Comics.

Wired checked the Comics Art Conference at San Diego and talks about the academic views of comics there presented.

The Philadelphia Daily News reviews the new DC comic book Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters.

Will Moss reviews a bunch of new comics at The Nashville City Paper.

Actor Robin Williams, answering to about his possible casting as Joker in the next Batman movie, talks about his love for comic books at Movies Online.

It’s interesting now that they’re kind of realizing with all the adult comic books — graphic novels, for those who are trying to upscale themselves. "Is it a comic book?" "No, it’s a graphic novel." "Is that porn?" "No, it’s adult entertainment. With accessories."

The Evansville Courier & Press profiles Joshua Elder, author of the graphic novel Mail Order Ninja and most unlucky man on Earth.

Gerard Way, frontman for the My Chemical Romance band, writes and draws a graphic novel, reports New Musical Express.

"The local library has become the latest conquest of the comic book at a time when museums are exhibiting comic art and cartoonists are winning prestigious literary prizes", says The Daytone Beach News Journal.

The success of manga at libraries - again at The Orlando Sentinel.

Comic book superheroes star aside top models in the latest Mouth2Mouth magazine.

We have a super superhero problem. Men in tights have infected too many aspects of American culture, not simply comic books, but Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, pop art, the HBO series "Entourage," and virtually every movie every summer.

So argues Karen Heller at the Philadelphia Enquirer. But throughout the articles, she just complains about too many superhero movies.

Van Jensen, at the Arkansas Democractic Gazette reviews Can't Get No, Kings in Disguise and the Graphic Classics collection.

"It’s not so much a kid thing." Maryland's Gazette finds out the big news about comics.

The Independent profiles The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation.

"OfficeMax, one of America's largest office supply distributors, announced that a special edition Marvel comic book titled Brain Drain, which honors middle school teachers as Super Heroes, is now available for free at OfficeMax's approximately 870 superstores across the country..." - Yahoo Finance

"Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are among 10 Super Heroes created by DC Comics who will be immortalized on postage as part of the "DC Super Heroes" commemorative postage stamps..." - Yahoo Finance

The Sacramento Bee reviews the Halo Graphic Novel.

"Urban Ministries, Inc., the largest independent African American media firm and a leader in non-denominational urban Christian media content, has announced the September launch of The Guardian Line, four separate comic book series..." - ICV2.

Superheroes are the stars of the new marketing campaign of the Magazine Publishers of America, reports The New York Times.

"These Comic-Con people, they have their ear to the ground. They are tastemakers (...) The connotation of 'geek' has changed. 'Geek' now means cool."

The Hollywood Reporter reports on how the annual San Diego Comics Convention became less about comics, and more of a marketing opportunity to geek-oriented TV and movie productions.

The LA Times goes for the same angle. It also devotes a blog to the Con, and gives some tips on Con-behaving.

The Onion A.V. Club reviews Rick Veitch's Can't Get No.

Douglas Wolk at Salon reviews a bunch of new graphic novels, including Brian Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness and Gilbert Hernandez' Sloth.

HarperCollins Publishers and Fox Atomic Announce Graphic Novel Publishing Imprint

The Financial Express profiles Virgin Comics and its intent to broadcast Indian popular culture worldwide through comic books and animation.

"Teens' librarian knows what's popular" (manga, it is), says the Houston Chronicle.

Richard Gehr reviews Rick Veitch's Can't Get No and Ellen Forney's I Love Led Zeppelin at Newsday.

Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy are adapting Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Kidnapped into a comic book for the One Book One Edinburgh campaign, reports The Sunday Herald.

"If Stevenson had been alive now I like to think he would have been writing Batman stories because he had exactly the right kind of mind for it", says Grant.

One of The Scotsman's talks about A Scanner Darkly ("the latest example of graphic images flowing into the cultural mainstream as a way to tell grown-up stories") and reviews Tintin and the Secret of Literature.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch profiles the Virginia Commonwealth University collection of comic books.

The Edmonton Journal discovers webcomics.

Star Gazette notices Virgin Comics.

Suicide Girls talks to graphic novelist Jessica Abel about her last work, La Perdida, and to comedian Brian Pohsen about his first comic book, The Last Christmas.

The Toledro Free Press is excited with the Marvel Western line of comics.

The Altoona Mirror talks to Jay Hosler about his plans of creating educational comic books for Biology classed, with funds from the National Research Foundation.

Rememberign the 1893 World Fair, the Chicago Sun-Times interviews Chris Ware, who sets one poignant scene of his Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth graphic novel in the Fair.

Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Queasada will appear in Comedy Central's The Colbert Report this Thursady, 7/27, according to Wizard Universe.

The Washington Post pays attention to "The Gordon Lee Case", a comics related trial currently going on. Gordon Lee, from Georgia, while giving away more than 2,000 comics during a fair, allegedly gave to a minor a comic that had a brief nude scene. Giving a minor something with the slightest hint of sexuality is a felony in the state.

"Comics Aren’t Just For Kids Anymore! ...Now they’re also for adults with childlike mentalities and adolescent male power fantasies... misunderstood urban intellectuals... and movie producers looking for ‘fresh’ ideas and readymade storyboards!"

Westender talks about underground comic books.

The M Modern Gallery, at Palm Springs, has opened an exibition of painting based on the Batman TV series, some of them by Adam West, the actor who played Batman in TV - Los Angeles Times.

Salt Lake City Weekly profiles local author Derek Hunter, from Pirate Club comics.

People Magazine finds out actress Rosario Dawson is releasing her own co-written and starred comic book, OCT: Occult Crimes Taskforce.

The US Postal Service is releasing a limited series of stamps based on DC Comics superhero characters, announced last year. The Gazette interviews PS and DC representatives about the release.

"Back then, no one knew about it [graphic novels] and it was really hard to find," said the Hamilton 17-year-old, who borrowed most of them from friends. "Now, it's like everyone knows about it. Everyone owns some or has some or has read some. It's exploded, basically."

The Boston Globe reports on the boom of graphic novels teen readership in libraries.

Novel Graphic, a graphic novel line from Farrar, Straus & Giroux' division Hill and Wang, announces its second line-up of non-fiction graphic novels at ICV2. Joining the adaptation of The 9/11 Report and the biographies of Ronald Reagan and Malcolm X, which will be released this year, there will be bios of J. Edgar Hoover, and illustrated histories of the Students for a Democratic Society group, of the Beats and of the Vietnam War, as well as a comics version Introduction to Genetics.

Harvey Pekar is involved as a writer in two of the projects. Pekar, of American Splendor fame, seems to be the go-to guy for every mainstream American publisher who doesn't know anything about comics and wants to join the booming graphic novels market.

The Denver Post review of A Scanner Darkly (the movie) says it "is a graphic novel on screen". "Graphic novel" seems to be the cool/must-use-often (and oftly misused) term of the season.

Elements from the Green Lantern comic book are used by political comentator Matthew Iglesias as a metaphor for USA's foreign policy, at TPM Cafe.

OnMilwaukee interviews comics editor Denis Kitchen, who helmed the publication of underground comics throught the 70s and 80s and nowadays takes care of Will Eisner's legacy.