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Looking back on these, there’s some good info there. Wouldn’t change a word of it. But it reminds me that the Internet is really quite a stunningly valuable resource. Had I had access to this kind of information fifteen years ago, you’d be reading LARRY YOUNG PRESENTS CAPTAIN AMERI CA right now… and I’m very curious indeed to see what the new kids in comics do with their nearly unrestricted access to the information that the Internet provides. Little from Column A, Little from Column B September 7, 2001 Really been all over the place this week, what with arranging the printing for The Foot Soldiers, Volume Two and Couscous Express , as well as attending what I can of WEB2001 since my pal Warren Ellis is present ing a keynote panel with Grady Booch and Thomas Dolby. Scroll down a bit on Warren’s link, and read about this panel. It’s quite a brain trust assembled, there. Anyway, with all the running around, I’m just going to riff a little on odd things this week. Just sit back and pretend we’ve gone out for sushi, and if you don’t like the hamachi or the nise-gani, maybe you’ll dig on the California rolls coming up… One of my favorite columnists, Jon Carroll, wrote an entertaining and funny piece about pedestrians this Tuesday past. The whole thing’s googlable; give it a read. It’s not a waste of your time, at all. It’s quite funny, as are most of Carroll’s columns. Except, you know, the serious ones. Those aren’t funny, at all. But in the course of his ruminations… pleas, really… to pedestrians and his entreaty for them to employ the proper usage of body language and hand-signals to indicate their bipedal intentions, he wrote this bit: "Use the miracle of body language to indicate that you have no intention of darting in front of the car. Having done that, you may add a graceful wave to your repertory. Your actions are clear and unambiguous." (Aside to Our Man in Timonium: WASABI!)

...and of course, that last sentence made me realize, in six words, the problem everyone has with Marvel.

Marvel’s like a pretty girl on the side of the street, facing the oncoming onslaught of the Pop Culture Audience careening at her at high speed, behind the wheel of the latest hip automobile. Marvel catches the audi-

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