Sold some books, made some new friends. This was the most professional affair I’ve ever attended. Very organized, well placed and an audience of eager readers who came for nothing but good reading material. No incidents, good food, excellent music, and the friendliest set of literary giants you ever saw. I’m glad I came.

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Had an interesting week. I was interviewed by one of my favorite sources for news surrounding HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). My love for Black colleges goes without question. Both my parents went to HBCUs (My Mom met my Dad at Florida Memorial and got her 1st Masters at Clarke College), and 2 of my kids went to Howard University. HBCU Digest was kind enough to give me an opportunity to tell part of my story as well as my views on the future of HBCUs. It’s a great site that covers everything from Campus News to Post Graduate milestones. Read the interview here, then check out the entire site here.

As an instructor, you try to be as clear as possible when asking for files to be saved in a compatible format for grading. This task can sometimes stump the best of us. Fear not, my friends, for you’re in good company. Here’s what’s up:

Most browsers have the necessary powers to view the most common formats. For example, the MPEG format (Motion Pictures Expert Group),is a good choice for quality video. However, there are many options. The point is to be sure it’s compatible, and the necessary plugins are clearly available if not previously installed. If you’re going to be watching any video (which of course you are) on your computer, you should definitely be prepared to play/accept WMV, FLV, MP4, MOV and SWF. Confused? Check out the list below for brief definitions:

• .3gp – the most common video format for mobile phones
• .asf – (ASF is a shell, which enables any form of compression to be used; MPEG-4 is common. Video in ASF-containers is also called Windows Media Video (WMV))
• .avi – Audio Video Interleave – a shell that enables any form of compression to be used; MPEG-1 and a variant of MPEG-4 are common)
• .flv – Flash video played through a .swf file.
• .m2v – MPEG-2 Video file
• .mov – Quicktime video; enables any form of compression to be used; Sorenson codec is the most common.
• .mp3 – MPEG layer 3 audio;
• .mp4 – MPEG-4 Part 14. Most commonly used to store digital video and digital audio streams
• .mpeg, .mpg, .mpe – Moving Picture Experts Group
• .ra – Real Audio

Even if you haven‘t figured it all out yet, lighten up. You can actually upload almost any video, as long as it’s in a compatible format. Many players will accept multiple file formats, so you can use one app for all video. But no one expects you to know everything at anytime. Just what’s best for that particular file. Do your homework.

Now that I’ve completely confused the crap out of you, don’t sweat it. Have a cookie. The oracle says as soon as you leave this post, you’ll feel right as rain. But just in case you got a stale cookie, this will surely lift your spirits. Have a better one.

E.C. Segar, the man behind Popeye the Sailor, received an appropriately raucous birthday message from Google Tuesday. Its home page features the husky hero smacking around Google’s logo and about to swallow a quick serving of his favorite meal, canned spinach.

Today marks what would be the American cartoonist’s 115th birthday.

Elzie Crisler Segar was born and raised in Chester, Illinois, a small town near the Mississippi River. The son of a handyman, his earliest work experiences included assisting his father in house painting and paper hanging. Skilled at playing drums, he also provided musical accompaniment to films and vaudeville acts in the local theater, where he was eventually given the job of film projectionist. At age 18, he decided to become a cartoonist. He took a correspondence course in cartooning from W.L. Evans of Cleveland, Ohio. He said that after work he “lit up the oil lamps about midnight and worked on the course until 3am.”

Segar moved to Chicago where he met Richard F. Outcault, creator of The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown. Outcault encouraged him and introduced him at the Chicago Herald. On March 12, 1916, the Herald published Segar’s first comic, Charlie Chaplin’s Comedy Capers, which ran for a little over a year. In 1918, he moved on to William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago Evening American where he created Looping the Loop. Segar married Myrtle Johnson that year; they had two children.

Segar eventually created the Thimble Theatre cartoon strip in 1919. After nearly 10 years of Olive Oyl and others gracing its panels, the series introduced a new character – a balding sailor with an eye patch, anchor tattoos, preposterous forearms, and a curious vocabulary.

Popeye soon outgrew the Thimble Theatre, earning his own cartoon strip, animated series, and live-action movie starring Robin Williams.

After prolonged illness, Segar died in 1938 of liver disease at the age of 43. Segar’s longtime assistant, Bud Sagendorf, took over the strip and continued it for two years.

In 1971, the National Cartoonists Society created the Elzie Segar Award in his honor. According to the Society’s web site, the award “was presented to a person who has made a unique and outstanding contribution to the profession of cartooning.”

So Happy Birthday, Elzie. We’ll all be celebrating your life over a can of spinach tonight.

Just got back from the Miami Book Fair International, and I wanted to plug an excellent website for products used in creating comics. I’ve been drawing all my life and I know how tough it is to find supplies that get the job done right. Canson is an all-in-one resource for all things comic related.

Fanboy, Canson’s line of comic and manga papers, offers exceptional benefits to both experienced illustrators and those just starting off. Canson has been manufacturing paper since 1557, using the finest fibers and purest water in mills dedicated to creating art papers.

Fanboy™ Papers are offered in industry standard sizes for comic strips, comic book pages and covers and manga pages and covers. When you need the good stuff, go here first.

Jessica Rabbit may have been the sexiest drawn character in toon history, but Marge Simpson has the title of being the first toon to grace the cover of Playboy magazine. Her pose is not an original gesture, though. The cover pose is actually a double tribute. The original pose belongs to Darine Stern, the first African American woman to be featured on a Playboy cover, back in 1971. Apparently the folks at Playboy used this image of Darine as inspiration for their latest issue with “The Simpsons” cartoon character Marge on the cover.

Here’s a quote from Playboy editorial director Jimmy Jellinek posted in last month’s CNN blog on Playboy’s choice of imagery:

“We decided to re-create [it] because it’s one of our most iconic covers, and because Marge’s sexy blue beehive immediately made us think of Darine Stern, whose beautiful, voluminous hairdo was front and center on the October 1971 cover.”

Darine Stern (c. 1948-1994), an American fashion model from Chicago, was the first black woman to be on the cover of Playboy. That was in October 1971. She was not, however, the first black woman inside Playboy – that was Jennifer Jackson in March 1965. Stern died of breast cancer at age 46.

The Simpsonized three-page pictorial, featuring a scantily-clad Marge in cartoon lingerie, was “obviously tongue-in-cheek,” new Playboy CEO Scott Flanders told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It had never been done, and we thought it would be hip, cool and unusual.” For Hefner, “Marge Simpson is the quintessential girl next door who stole our hearts 20 years ago and has held them captive ever since. We were delighted to learn she wanted to grace the pages of our magazine. Her pictorial is truly stunning,” he told CNN.

Playboy magazine is hoping that the Marge Simpson shoot will re-energize the magazine’s based in a market where all forms of print teeter on the brink of extinction. This “all business” move comes on the heels of a disappointing first half of 2009, during which Playboy lost some attention from the demographic it does have — the average reader is a 35-year-old male. The magazine came in 200,000 short of its 2.6 million rate base — the minimum circulation a magazine promises to advertisers — according to BusinessWeek.

This may not seem like much to most of you, but some of us have waited a long time for this moment. Disney, has finally produced an animated feature film with an african-american lead. News flash: she’s not a lioness, a fish, a hyena nor a crow. She’s a sista, and animated in all her glory. Welcome to the table, my lady.

The Princess & The Frog is a fairy tale centered on a young girl named Princess Tiana who lives in New Orleans’ French Quarter during the Jazz Age. No doubt the critics will have a problem with this. The press will probably label this as controversial (which will guarantee a terrific box office weekend), and proceed to trash it as an insult to blacks and creoles. Shame.

I, however, will be standing in line on opening weekend. If you’re still on the fence, check out the trailer above. It’s worth a few hours out of your life to see disney break new ground on the eve of 2010. To quote Hancock,”Good job.”

Many of you have probably never heard of Enki Bilal, but he is a major influence in my life as an illustrator. When I was in college, I came across a copy of Métal Hurlant, a French comics anthology of science fiction and horror comics. It was started by another artist who caught my eye a few years before named Jean Girard (more popularly known as Mœbius). It eventually was brought to the US by National Lampoon magazine and retitled “Heavy Metal”.

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The unthinkable just happened. The Walt Disney Co. snatched up Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion in a 60% cash and 40% stock transaction, a deal so huge that it stunned Wall Street, instantly putting Disney in the “superhero” business overnight. This move gives Disney access (and control) of Marvel’s most popular characters such as Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Iron Man. Plans to use these characters on rides at its theme park and in a variety of consumer products, will be limited only by any existing agreements approved before the merger.

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The passing of Michael Jackson has caused many to reflect on their encounters with him. Some are downright extraordinary. As wild as this one sounds, it’s quite true. Michael and Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee almost collaborated on a buyout of the Marvel empire. During their conversations, Jackson expressed a personal interest in working on a “Spider Man” movie. In the grand tradition of Marvel Comics’ famous series, Lee’s response offered up a “What If?” tale involving Jackson and Spider-Man tailor-made for an alternate Marvel universe. Check out “Stan the Man” in an MTV interview: