Comic Depicts Bear Stearns Implosion
Comics just keep popping up in new and unexpected places. To wit: Financial publication Portfolio has posted a webcomic of sorts that explains the dramatic fall of investment firm Bear Stearns earlier this year amid the ongoing mortgage crisis.
For those who aren’t especially interested in economics, it’s about as exciting as watching CNBC (maybe a half-step above paint drying and grass growing). But, at the very least, Portfolio’s interactive viewer is quite nice.
Also, the comic doesn’t go into enough detail to explain what landed Bear Stearns in such hot water to begin with.
Oh, and here’s the uninformed and (largely) unintelligible take on comics from a blogger at Blogging Stocks:
Graphic novels are generally targeted toward a market the could best be described as anime freaks: junior high and high school kids who shop at Hot Topic, listen to bad music, and read graphic novels.
Let’s just chalk this up as the latest lesson that comics and finances are oil and water.
The
Kids, it’s been a rough six months for me. Well no, I take that back, it hasn’t. I should start off by saying that I’ve had a lot of advantages to take me through my most recent period of unemployment. I was eligible to collect over $300 a week in unemployment insurance (thank you, FDR!). My former job kept me on COBRA so I also had health insurance, of which I took full advantage during my involuntary extended vacation to get all my medical and dental check-ups out of the way. The premiums rose considerably a couple months ago, but the unemployment payments (which ran out two weeks ago) helped a lot, as long as Robin took care of the rent and bills. Which he did, as fortunately he’s been employed during the entire time (thank you, DC Comics!). Plus, my mom has been there to help out when I’ve needed it.
Born in 1957, Hilary Barta began his comic book career in 1982 when he was hired at Marvel to help ink The Defenders #108. In 1984 he moved to First Comics to ink Warp, and slowly graduated to penciling as well. In 1988, after work for Eclipse, Marvel, and First, Barta launched both Marvel’s What The—?! and DC’s Plastic Man.
George Takei, known for his roles on Star Trek and Heroes, as well as co-writing Star Trek comics with 
So you were pleasantly surprised at The Incredible Hulk, and you still can’t shake that ending to Battlestar: Galactica. There is nothing better to do than plunge on with this week’s latest batch of new comics and DVDs, plus: 
or 
Sixty years ago next year, the remnants of the Fleischer Studio teamed up with the folks at St. John Comics (Tor, Three Stooges, and the original 3-D comics) to create Casper The Friendly Ghost #1. It lasted five issues. Paramount, owners of the Fleischer operation, took the license over to Harvey Comics and a legend floated off the ground.
Dash Shaw has a strange habit of defining things, of explaining all the elements of his world in minute detail.
(Fantagraphics, $29.99), that microscopic focus takes on monumental scope as Shaw relates the foibles and piccadiloes of the Loony family when the patriarch and matriarch announce a divorce after decades of marriage.
