Lit Links: Comic-Con and Publishing Intern Hell

Word Up approved lit-links for your case of the Mondays:

*This half of Word Up doesn't buy as many comics as she used to, but check out Galley Cat's intellectually exhaustive coverage of San Diego's Comic-Con Festival. Holler, tons of important, extremely famous people got their geek on (including Sameul L., promoting New Line Cinema's SNAKES ON A PLANE.) Seth Cohen was there, too. It appears Brody wrote an actual comic called The Red Menace, loosely based on U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy's communist witch hunt, which had a stranglehold on Hollywood in the 1950s (what wouldn't we give for a graphic novel of Atomic County...) with Rachel Bilson's DAD?

*From Carla Blumenkranz’s My Life and Times in American Publishing (via Maud Newton). Think being a publishing intern is an easy gig? "Then Kristy told me to find the new Jesus. Those weren’t the exact words she used. Her superior (a sturdy, headbanded woman named Kate) had commissioned Kristy to find a new spiritual leader. The market was ripe for it, Kristy explained. All we had to do was find him. I would know him when I saw him, because he was a clean-cut, non-white, Christian male. He had a manifesto already on the market (so Emperor could easily buy the rights) and a sizable cult or congregation (so he’d be good on television)."

* The Globe's Gail Caldwell gets down with Pynchon conspiracy theories.

*The Future of Borders: "George L. Jones, the newly appointed chief executive of Borders Group, one of the nation’s largest book retailers, is a onetime aspiring rock star who went on to help Target create its bargain upscale aesthetic and revived the Scooby-Doo character for Warner Brothers."

*Warning! These Pretty Packages May Contain a Lot of Long Words. The Observer mourns publishers sexing-up and dumbing-down the classics. (via MediaBistro)

*Perusing the Bookshelf of the Undulating Curve of Shifting Expectations!: The Backlash to the Backlash = Keanu Reeves. So best.