Footnotes In GazaWins Ridenhour Book Prize
The Ridenhour BookPrize for truth-telling in pursuit of social justice and the public good—namedin honor of Ron Ridenhour, the man who exposed the My Lai massacre—has beenawarded to the non-fiction graphic novel Footnotesin Gaza by Joe Sacco. Previous winners include Imperial Life in the Emerald City (now adapted into the movie Green Zone,) Maxed Out, The Dark Side andEmma's War. Footnotes in Gaza will be the first graphic novel to be honoredwith this prize.

Dash Shaw; NeoIntegrity at MoCCA
The works of Dash Shaw, creator of Bodyworld and The BottomlessBellybutton, and a collection of comics works from the nascent NeoIntegrityart movement are the subjects of the newest exhibits at New York City's Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Shaw is anEisner-nominated indie comics creator, known for his eclectic imagery andidiosyncratic storytelling who has also created a series of animated shortfilms for IFC. NeoIntegrity was a 2007 show at the Derek Eller Gallery, showcasingthe works of over 180 artists, some of whom were comic creators andillustrators, in an attempt to create a new art movement which moved beyondquestions of high and low culture. Now curator Keith Mayerson is back with anexhibit hosted at MoCCA, founded on the same principles and devoted toiconographic art as a storytelling medium-NeoIntegrityComics Edition. The 210 artists with works in the new NeoIntegrity showinclude Charles Addams, Tim Burton, Theodor Geisel (Dr. Suess), Walt Kelly andBasil Wolverton. Both exhibits arecurrently open to the public and will run until May 30. More information is available on the MoCCA website. MoCCAis located at 594 Broadway, Suite 401, New York, NY between Houston and Princestreets. Admission to the museum is free to members and children under 12, $5to the general public.

Manga Creators Protest Tokyo Obscenity Bill
Manga creators and publishers are incensed at aproposed obscenity ban currently under discussion by the Tokyo MetropolitanAssembly. Originally slated for a vote last Friday, the bill will be underdeliberation until this June. If passed, the bill will require manga depictingcharacters that look or sound under eighteen in sexual situations not to besold within Tokyo city limits, and minors to be restricted from access to mangadepicting rape and other acts of violence. Publishers Shinchosha Kodansha,Hakusensha, Shueisha and Shogakukan—the giants of the manga industry—have goneon record protesting the ban as a blow against freedom of expression. Notablecreators who are publically expressing their opposition to the bill includeRumiko Takahashi (Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2),Gosho Aoyama (Case Closed) and Fujiko Fujio A. (Doraemon) among many others. More details can be found at AnimeNews Network and BleedingCool.

New Batmanfrom Neal Adams?
Classic artist Neal Adams may be back with a new Batmanseries. Rich Johnston of the comics news blog Bleeding Cool posted a large collectionof heretofore unseen Neal Adams art this Monday, purporting to be from a newmaxi-series due out this summer. Apparently from a work entitled Batman: The Odyssey, the art depictsBatman fighting a monster, quarrelling with Aquaman and fighting alongsideRobin. More details and the artworks in question are available here.

Hotwire andR. Sikoryak's Carousel
Eisner-nominated anthology comic Hotwire is the latestwork to become the subject of comics creator and impresario R. Sikoryak 's comics-as-performance-artproject Carousel. Multimedia performance experiences of music, dramaticreadings, projected comics art and more, Sikoryak's Carousel has been a fixtureof the comics scene for over a decade. The Hotwireevent will feature comics creators Danny Hellman, Sam Henderson, MichaelKupperman, Tim Lane, Jayr Pulga, David Sandlin and Chadwick Whiteheadperforming their works as well as Hotwireeditor Glenn Head and Sikoryak himself. The event will take place at theMuseum of Comic and Cartoon Art beginning at 7 p.m. on March 25. Admission isfree to MoCCA members and $5 to thegeneral public.

Gaiman's NeverwhereComes to Stage
Eisner and Newbery winning author and comics creatorNeil Gaiman's BBC miniseries Neverwhereis now being turned into a play by the LifelineTheatre of Chicago. Adapted into a bestselling novel by the author and acomics miniseries for Vertigo by Mike Carey and Glenn Fabry, this will be thestory's first exposure as live theater. Playwright Rob Kauzlaric - who alsostars as the play's protagonist, Richard Mayhew - adapted the work for thestage alongside director Paul Holmquist. Lifeline Theatre's production of NeilGaiman's Neverwhere runs from April30-June 20. More details are available on the LifelineTheatre website and BleedingCool.

This Week @ Good Comics For Kids
This week SchoolLibrary Journal's blog Good Comics forKids had a review of Cityof Spies, roundtable reviews of the manga Emma and Raina Telgenmeier's Smilethe 3/17listing of comics suitable for all ages, and a FirstTaste is Free, Kids links roundup from Brigid Alverson.

This Week @ The Beat
This week at PWCW editor Heidi MacDonald's blog The Beat, she covered the San DiegoComic-Con hotellottery- otherwiseknown as theinfamous Hoteloween - a process complicated by the presence of AlGore and other health care big wigs next door, artfrom the new bestselling Twilight mangaand a dissectionof the book's production difficulties, the nominees for this year's JoeShuster Awards (for comics by Canadians) and ReubenAwards (from the National Cartoonist's Society), Kirbyand the fate of comics, the scoop on the new Pood comics anthology, Vampirella's new deal with Dynamite, the upcomingsixth Scott Pilgrim volume, IDW'samazing ascent to the ranks of Diamond's Premier Publishers (joiningMarvel, DC, Dark Horse and Image), Los Angeles' new RocknComic Con featuring Stan Lee, and book tour dates for DanielClowes, James Sturm and John Porcellino as well as guest columns by YenPress's Rich Johnson on comicswith spines and comics historian Craig Yoe on cartoonistMilt Gross.