57th Street

This past Sunday saw a welcome addition to the New York Times Funny Pages from the amazing Norwegian cartoonist “Jason.”

It’s called Low Moon, and I don’t know why you’re not reading it right now.

Much of Jason’s work relies on timing rather than dialog to tell his stories. It’s not unusual for whole pages to pass without a word spoken between any of Jason’s anthropomorphic characters. Jason’s strong lines, and fiercely regular panel work underline an overall feeling of disconnection and silence between his characters. In our modern world, filled with denizens increasingly detached from those around them it sometimes seems a little too real to be comfortable. For many mainstream comic readers, this might feel slow and draggy — verging on the boring.

But Jason is making a new kind of comic. A wittier and more subdued experience instead of the bombastic explosions of extravagance which has long been the staple of the medium. Instead, Jason’s comics carry a quiet weight, and can feel cripplingly lonely at times, and incredibly funny the next.

More off beat artists and writers like Jason have come into the comic market in recent years, and have started to make a mark on the industry. A lot of attention is being given to these so-called “indie” or “indie-style” comics, and it may just revolutionize the industry.

The Entertainment Consumer Association has stated the obvious, but it seems to have been necessary.

We’d like to extend our condolences to the families, friends and classmates of those who were affected in the school shooting at Northern Illinois University.

Separately, we are disgusted, but no longer shocked, to find that anti-game activists are again rushing to conclusions about what drove Stephen Kazmierczak, the clearly disturbed 27-year-old who police say was responsible for this tragedy, to commit such an act.

Blaming video games for the behavior of the mentally-challenged is vile on many levels. And, as Generations X and Y mature, it is extremely likely that just about all of us have played at least one video game at some point in our lives.

Drawing a parallel between games and violence without any substantive proof is sensationalism for its own sake. This is a sad event, made worse by the irresponsible actions of attention-seekers and the media that has given them a platform for their reckless venom.

[Game Politics]

I’m not quite sure what I can add to this statement, except to say that while it saddens me that these things apparently need to be said, at least someone did.

I am oft concerned that people are quite willing to blame art and entertainment, and are more than willing to ban them then they are to ban firearms. I would remind them which amendment comes first in the bill of rights.

A blogger named Joshua Marshall of www.talkingpointsmemo.com was awarded one of the most prestigious awards in journalism, the George Polk Award for investigative journalism. If anyone was wondering whether print journalism is dead, this is a pretty clear sign.