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In Strip Search, Jennifer M. Babcock reviews and recommends comic strips available in print and on the web.

I’m such a jet setter this summer! Within a week of coming back from Egypt I was back on the plane to Paris, France- ooh la la.

Now, most of what I was doing in Paris was pure vacation fun time but I did some Egyptological research there as well, and of course… comic hunting. Many Americans don’t realize this but the French are quite fond of comics, or “BDs” (short for bande dessinee) as they call them. Go to the Virgin Megastore on the Champs Elysees and you’ll see an entire floor dedicated to them. Fnac, the French equivalent of a Barnes and Nobles, also carries a tremendous supply of comic book albums, and if you take a stroll through the Latin Quarter, you’ll find numerous shops dedicated to comics and cartoon paraphernalia. While I was in Paris, there was an arts magazine that dedicated its cover to R. Crumb and his latest comic Genesis and another one that came out with its annual “BD issue,” which was all about French comic artists.

The French are often seen as cultural snobs so it may surprise many readers to hear that even adults embrace comics as a genuine and legitimate form of art/literature making, but I think if we look at what Francophone countries have in their comics history, it becomes more understandable. Most famously, Belgium, churned out comic greats like Herge (Tintin) and Peyo (Les Schtroumpfs AKA The Smurfs). More recently Americans have come to know the work of the Iranian-French author Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis).

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Michael Carlisle examines the world “outside” sequential art to find… more sequential art.

I had the distinct pleasure, during a random walk down the aisles of BookExpo America last May, of finding a preview copy of Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, which is due for release in the US on September 29, 2009.

First, I’ll say that I am overjoyed that this book exists, as it shows that mathematical content can be relayed, and relayed well, in the comics medium. I am also rather frustrated by the existence of this book, as I did not write it myself.

If I was to sadly be scooped by someone on the comic I wanted to write about mathematicians, logic, infinity, madness, world wars, and self-reference, then I would hope it would be by Apostolos Doxiadis (whose Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture I’ve read only a portion of but am awaiting the rest) and Christos Papadimitriou (whose Combinatorial Optimization text I used as an undergrad, and will use again when planning a course I’m teaching in the fall).

(Them, or maybe Neal Stephenson. But he’s already done a few things similar to this, in text, for cryptography, calculus, and religion.)

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In Media Madness, Matt. Murray reviews, revisits and rambles about comics, cartoons and their interactions in and with related media.

I read some disappointing news over at Dark Horizons last week — rumor has it that Hayden Christensen will be playing Mandrake the Magician in some Criss Angel style adaptation of the Lee Falk comic strip of the same name.  Ugh.

While I’m not adverse to updating and playing with what is clearly a dated concept and character, I am frightened and saddened by choosing uber-douche Angel as the mold to recast the hero in (he evidently has a cameo as well) and then there’s casting Dork Vader himself to carry the production… In the words of Patton Oswalt doing his impression of Nick Nolte as Han Solo: Aw Hell, Chewbacca!

How the hell does this guy still get work? Has no one been to the movies in the past ten years? This kid buckled under the weight of the second Star Wars trilogy and was outperformed by the special effects and Billy Fu@%ing Elliot in Jumper. He can barely sustain the illusion of having an emotion on screen, how are we supposed to buy into the fact that he’s the world’s greatest illusionist and escape artist?

(In better news, Djimon “Give Us Us Free” Hounsou is in it too.  I’m assuming he’s playing Mandrake’s African sidekick Lothar as he’s absolutely perfect casting in that department.   So here’s hoping that maybe the producers and director aren’t complete shortbussers.)

In honor of this disgusting piece of casting that will no doubt amount to a staggering disappointment, and the death of another potentially cool classic comic franchise (The Phantom and/or Spirit, anyone?), I’ve assembled a list of the 5 worst performances in movies adapted from comics in the past 10 years or so.

Disclaimer: Enjoy the list, but by no means don’t watch the films. Really. You shouldn’t. Not only are they horrible performances but these people will get paid in some way, shape or form if you pick up the disc or watch it via some other legal means. Don’t encourage crap kids, it only begets more!

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