Met up quite unexpectedly Thanksgiving eve with Alan J. Porter, the hardest working writer I know (one of the nicest too!) and an expert on all things comics, James Bond and The Beatles, at my town's local comic shop of record, Austin Books and Comics (before I forget, welcome Maakies creator Tony Millionaire there Dec. 1).

Alan is a multi-tasker extraordinaire with all the creative work he's already doing plus a new James Bond book (before Bond 22 hits the silver screen next year), a day job that keeps him hopping and keeping the women in his life (two teenage daughters and a beautiful, young wife) very happy. So, it takes something pretty extreme to derail this man's train...

Unfortunately, all it took was a request to his daughter's high school English teacher that she be allowed to supplement her prose reading with graphic novels and comics, and there were good reasons for doing so beyond the obvious ones. After writing a comics blog for almost two years, I wish I could say I was surprised by said teacher's typical and uninformed response, but I wasn't. Judge for yourselves.

Makes you wish you could pull Stan Lee from behind a blackboard for instances like this, a la a spot Marshall McLuhan siting in Annie Hall...

Puts a rather sour spin on my pal Eddie Campbell's ongoing argument in the comics industry at large about the nomenclature of graphic novels and literature, doesn't it?

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