Deadlines and You
By Ernst Schneidereit
Deadlines are the lifeline of the writer. When writing for compensation, they are vital. When writing for the joy of it, like this, they are mandatory.
I swore to myself that this webzine would feature some coverage of the February 2009 WonderCon in San Francisco, a comic art and pop culture event that I attended for the first time, before Comic-Con 2009. A smaller sibling to the major Comic-Con held in San Diego every summer, WonderCon never seemed worth my attention before. Yet, it has grown up and is now worth the visit, as you will hopefully see.
Nevertheless, Comic-Con is the big event and this year I will be in attendance. With that will come updates and information for 2009 on this website. Comic-Con’s first event, Preview Night, is tonight as I write this, and thus a major form of deadline. To keep my promise to myself, and you few search engine readers, I present the July 2009 issue of Arts Are Up!
This webzine has taken a much larger swing to comics than I ever expected. It was unimaginable twenty years ago when I was working in arts journalism. Comics have finally started to break a barrier in the U.S. that probably never existed in Japan, where comic art is one of the number one forms of public consumption. Not that comics have reached that level of popularity here, but their characters, writers and artists are receiving a respect and attention they have not seen in years, if ever. The creators have accomplished this not through marketing or movies, which undoubtedly help, but through tremendous leaps in the quality of writing, printing and art.
Look for a list in our Resources section in upcoming days that will feature “Comics for People Who Don’t Like Comic Books”. I think anyone would find something they could enjoy in this selection, hopefully broadened by my time at Comic-Con 2009.