The British Film Institute is celebrating 100th anniversary of the birth of Hergé (Georges Remi) with an evening of English-language versions of the live action 1961 film Tintin and the Golden Treasure. The showing also includes rare footage of Hergé speaking in English about his creation (from the 1975 BBC programme Them and Us: Belgium) and Tintin as a Mastermind subject (BBC 2004). 

Ticket information is available at the BFI website. (Via Forbidden Planet)

Before you give your hard-earned money to Gary Groth and Kim Thompson for their recently announced Fantagraphics Legal Defense Fund, you should know a few facts about publishing companies and their insurance obligations. Fact #1: It is highly unlikely that a company the size of Fantagraphics isn’t covered by a standard publishers insurance policy for lawsuits precisely like the one they now find themselves entangled in with author Harlan Ellison.

While it is rare when a publisher is found liable for incitement or negligent publication, there have been certain well-publicized instances where publishers have been forced to pay damages resulting from the content contained in their publications. For instance, the publisher of Soldier of Fortune was held liable for the death caused by a "hit man" following the magazine’s publication of an advertisement for a professional mercenary. Speech may be protected by the First Amendment, but that doesn’t give you the right to yell, "Poker game!" in the middle of a crowded firehouse. For instance, speech designed to incite lawlessness isn’t protected by the First Amendment. Neither is slander. When slander is written, that’s called libel.

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Ian Brill, a man who calls himself the Earth-Prime Jimmy Olsen and who clearly hasn’t seen the shirts at the DC booth at WonderCon, reports that Hero Squared is coming to a close, according to BOOM! Studios head Ross Richie, who also says "this will be the last word for J.M. DeMatteis when it comes to the superhero genre."

Marc, Marc, Marc… don’t you know that never is a very long time in the span of the eternal cosmos that is but a metaphor for the mind of the infinite… er, just never is a long time.

Keep an eye on your bandwidth, comics folk — if Cory Doctorow or Mark Frauenfelder or any other contributor to the must-read "Directory of Wonderful Things" site Boing-Boing notice you, your traffic may just bounce into the stratosphere.

So far in the past couple days, Cory’s briefly reviewed the new Jack of Fables collection (which should make Andrew Pepoy very happy – remember that name, you’ll be seeing a lot more of Andrew in the near future on ComicMix!) and Mark has recommended three comic art books, including Matt Madden’s 99 Ways to Tell a Story.  So far all the links have gone to the Amazon offerings of the books, but authors should still beware of the Google effect…