100-year-old South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond died Thursday night, June 26.

While opinions on Thurmond vary widely, it's impossible to overestimate his importance in South Carolina history.  Heroes and Dragons wishes to extend our condolences to Thurmond's family and friends (who account for about 1/3 of our state's population).

We also want to warn visitors to our home town of Columbia to beware the high volumes of traffic downtown.  Senator Thurmond's body lies in state at the Capitol Building downtown this Sunday and Monday, June 29 and 30.  His funeral is planned for Tuesday, July 1 and will likely tie up traffic along I-20 as well as downtown.  If you're traveling to Heroes and Dragons in the next couple of days, please be aware of the traffic situation and plan for delays.

If anyone has legal insight on whether or not Di's appearance in X-Statix is potentially actionable by her estate, please e-mail us.  We're curious.

Alan Moore is releasing more rarely-seen gems through through Avatar Press.  This time it's Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths, a graphic novel anthology of early U.K. work from Warrior magazine and other sources.  more

Frequent New Yorker and MAD Magazine contributor Peter Kuper will adapt Franz Kafka's novella The Metamorphosis as a hardcover graphic novel this August.  Kuper is no stranger to adapting Kafka, having released an adaptation of "Give It Up!" and other short stories in the early '90s.  English teachers and librarians, call us to order 'em today!  (Ask for Tug.)  more

To entice new readers to their hardcover Archives collections, DC Comics will release a 48-page Golden Age DC Archives Sampler for only 99¢.  more

Amelia Rules again in a new series by creator Jimmy Gownley this October.  more

Todd DeZago and Craig Rousseau are working on a new grassroots comic called The Perhapanauts that will be printed at the local copy shop, sold through their web site, and distributed through conventions and mail order.  more

Discus-throwing, lightcycle-riding computer-age super-hero Tron is back in a new video game (Tron 2.0) and a new comic from Disney/88 MPH.  more

Rich Johnston explains why Grant Morrison's sequel to Marvel Boy is dead in the water and paints a vivid (if only theoretical) picture of Marvel Comics in turmoil in this week's Lying in the Gutters column.  There are all sorts of other rumors in Rich's one-year anniversary column.  more

GAME NEWS

Topps is buying WizKids, the makers of HeroClix and Mage Knight.  more

AWARDS & FESTIVALS

Sean Kleefeld of Cincinnati, Ohio, is "Comics' #1 Fan" — the winner of Diamond Distribution's Free Comic Book Day promotion contest.  more 

Larry Young and Ryan Yount from Astronauts in Trouble took plenty of pictures at last weekend's MoCCA Festival.  more

OTHER MEDIA

Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond will appear on an episode of the WB's Static Shock next season.  more

WWE wrestler Rob Van Dam will open his own comics retail store, RVD's Five-Star Comics, in Long Beach, California in July.  more

Believe it or not, our webmaster shares a passion with Van Dam — they're both fans of Ghost Rider, with Van Dam claiming to have a "Ghost Rider museum" in his home!  Small world, eh?

Laura Elena Harring (Mulholland Dr) and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (X-Men) have been cast in the upcoming Punisher movie alongside Thomas Jane and John Travolta.  more

LEGAL NEWS

Chaos! Comics and all of its characters and stories (except those pertaining to Lady Death) are up for auction.  Bidding begins at $7,500.  more

Arkansas has passed a vaguely-worded law (Act 858) that prohibits the display of "any material that is harmful to minors."  As usual, there are no guidelines for determining what is "harmful to minors," and there won't be until someone is successfully prosecuted for a violation of Act 858.  The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) and American Booksellers Assocation have filed suit against the law.  more 

INTERVIEWS WORTH READING

• Rich Johnston of All the Rage and Lying in the Gutters on digging dirt and seeing the big picture 

• Neil Gaiman on The Sandman: Endless Nights and returning to Vertigo after a long absence

• Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir on New Mutants

• Bill Willingham on Fables and his upcoming Nightcrawler story in X-Men Unlimited

• Madison Clell of Cuckoo on why someone with multiple-personality disorder would choose to make comics

• Daniel Way on Gun Theory

• Michael Lark on Gotham Central

• Patrick Zircher on Nightwing

• James Pascoe on inking Barry Kitson for Empire

• Scott Rogers of Shooting Star Comics Anthology

Coming Events

Lord of the Rings CCG League meets this Tuesday, July 1 at 4:00pm.

H&D Comic Club will not meet this Thursday, July 3.  Because of the Independence Day holiday, we will instead meet on Thursday, July 10 at 7:30pm.

Site to See

This week's Site to See is the Encyclopedia Mythica, a treasure trove of information about myth and folklore from around the world:

Set aside a couple of hours and dig deep into the site.  There's great stuff here!

Question of the Week

With two new full-time staffers, our webmaster is doing more in-store training than site updates.  Expect a slight slowdown in site development this week as we work to bring everyone up to speed on the Dragon's computer systems.