1. The Winnipeg Free Press reports on Lynn Johnston's induction into the Order of Manitoba:

Johnston, 60, rose to fame in the 1980s with her comic strip For Better or For Worse, now seen in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide.
Johnston, who now lives in northern Ontario, said she was "flummoxed" at the recognition.

"I'm ready to move back now," Johnston said, adding she feels a special place in her heart for our province.

"It would be great to call this home," she said.

2. The National Post interviews George Zotti, manager of Toronto comic book store Silver Snail, about what it takes to work for his elite organization:

if you want to work in his Queen West store, you'd better know your She-Hulk from your She-Ra, because Zotti has more questions than the Riddler when it comes to hiring a new clerk.

Do you like manga? Do you like action figures? Do you have a collection? And perhaps most crucial of all, are you a Marvel guy or a DC guy?

"That kind of gives me an idea if they know what they're talking about or if they're just trying to bluff," says Zotti. "Just because you have retail experience doesn't mean you're qualified to work here."

3. The Globe and Mail examines new trends in male-centric homedecorating, where the action figure is king. Interview subjects include Tom Spurgeon and Bart Beaty:

Bart Beaty, a University of Calgary professor who writes about comic books as visual culture, has confined his collection of comics and graphic novels to two areas of his house: The pamphlet-style Batman and Superman comics are in a closet in the basement, but the 3,000 European graphic novels he collected while researching his next book are on display in his dining room.

"We have people over for dinner and they sit there and stare and go 'What the hell is that?' " he said. "But I like the way it looks."

4. Toronto pop culture nerds are flocking to Friday Fright Night at the Bloor Cinema, according to The Globe:

Some horror fans are skeptical of Fright's claim that they screen real prints. But a visit to the projectionist's booth proved the reels were, in fact, real. Three months ago, the cinema acquired new, smaller lamp houses for their projectors, which help to create sharper colour and image.

Steve Manale, a 34-year-old comic-book artist, was one who noticed. "That print was perfect," he said, "I didn't see one scratch or splice."

5. The Globe's James Adams takes the pulse of Raincoast Books on the eve of the publication of the final Harry Potter novel. Raincoast is also a big graphic novel distributor, counting D+Q among its clients. Now that the Harry Potter craze may be winding down, how does Raincoast plan on filling the gaps in its publishing schedule?

As the Potter boom unfolded, Raincoast did expand editorially, buying the Polestar and Press Gang imprints in 2000, while moving more into children's literature (earlier this year it hired Tonya Martin, a New Yorker from Rowling's U.S. publisher, Scholastic, as children's books editor).

It had earlier brought in Joy Gugeler, managing editor for Vancouver's Beach Holme Publishing, to supervise a new Canadian adult-fiction program. But that program was folded last year, and while Raincoast's staff of 130 is almost double what it was a decade ago, the growth has been on the distribution, sales and marketing side.

"Still, you have to think that, had the latest Potter been released later this year, or in the spring of 2008, its suggested Canadian list price likely would be lower than $45, given the lag in price adjustment that seems to occur: in strictly mathematetical terms, the current price is actually a 2004 price"

That is not the case with the Honest Ed's store site, which would mean both the demolition of an iconic building and a jump across Bathurst for the development that has been creeping west along Bloor out of the city core.

Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone says that the city has not seen a proposal to redevelop the site. But if it does, he thinks redevelopment should not include Mirvish Village, the retail strip of converted houses along Markham Street, which the Mirvishes turned into arty stores and restaurants decades ago.

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