Around the Horn

What's hip, what's cool, what's shiny & new for the past week in the Comics Blogosphere:

Tim is Hurting, but still manages to like The DC Comics Encyclopedia.

Shane offers all you Near Mint Heroes the chance to win a copy of the first Walking Dead trade.

Jon of the Mae Mai brings to our attention African super-heroes and Tijuana Tintin.

Comic Queens Erin & Kerry call for an end to variant covers. From your mouths to the comic gods' ears.

Dorian sings about discounts at comic shops and explains why he hates manga.

Matt discusses New Frontier as he takes a drive down Highway 62.

Mark the ChaosMonkey looks back at the origins of the Ultraverse: The Ultraverse First Issue Spectacular! and The Strangers.

Jason discovers The Power Pack(ed) Fansite, and a lot of blogging Power Pack fans come out of the closet, including Kevin & TangognaT.

Bookslut Jessa still doesn't like Blankets.

Ian in the Brill Building talks about Thor for no reason.

Ed takes a break from The Low Road to discuss hip hop comics.

Tom explains how the first two issues of The New Teen Titans ate his brain.

Jog spends way too many words discussing Youngblood.

James is Reading Along with DC's old "Meanwhile..." column.

There's no Cognitive Dissonance as Joanna announces the Fallen Angel contest winners.

Will puts on his X-Ray Specs and wonders "What the hell is a cave merman?!?"

Several people come back from SPX, including Pulse's Heidi, and Christopher (via friends Vera & Kean). Even the mainstream press gets in the game, via Whitney at USA Today. One of these days I'll have to get there myself, but for now I'll just have to live vicariously through friends who come back with lots of new stuff to share.

Finally, Phoebe Gloeckner puts out a call for suggestion and donations for a comics collection at a university library. In particular, my library (although Annette, our Art & Design librarian, is the lucky one who actually gets to select and purchase the items). Obviously I'll have more to say about this, probably next week sometime.