Late and short

A few years ago, the Seattle Public Library started a deal called something like What If Everybody in Seattle Read... [fill-in-the-blank]. The idea was to generate a community literary experience by having lots of people read and discuss one author's work (or works) at the same time - sort of a great metropolitan book group. Well, the idea caught on, and although they have shortened the name to Seattle Reads, they do it every year. And this year, the book they are reading is a graphic novel: Marjan Satrapi's Persepolis.

I have the pleasure of participating in one the events associated with Seattle Reads this year, and that has added to the academic busy-ness that has kept LSB from being as chock-full of nostalgic goodness as I had hoped it to be. I want to share with passersby some info regarding this project.

This is the info page for Persepolis from the publisher, Random House.

This is the SPL page for the Seattle Reads project.

This is the SPL page for this year's activities.

This is the detailed schedule of events. (Unfortunately, Satrapi is had to delay her visit from March, when most events are occurring, until May.) maybe you can figure out which one is me.

If you are in the area, I hope you get a chance to participate in this. I think it's evidence of how cool Seattle is that it can consider and approve a graphic novel as its library's book-of-the-year. I also think it is one more step in the mainstreaming of comics / comix / graphic novels / sequential art. (Man, we need to agree on a name for this stuff.)

Anyway, just so this space doesn't get too high-falutin', here's the cover of the next comic book:

This is the issue that has the Sidney Mellon-scripted Thunderskull "erotica." But more of that anon!