Listen to the sound of thinking: "It's not about agreeing or disagreeing -- opinion isn't really the point of criticism, although that's what everybody takes away from it -- it's about watching a thesis being developed, about watching an idea being defended."

That's not me, online comics reviewers, that's award-winning writer and essayist Jon Carroll, and, unless you're Harlan Ellison, Carroll's a better writer than you, so pay attention to what he writes. No one cares about your opinion; people care about how well your idea of things are outlined and defended. So, all you guys emailing me in high dudgeon, offended by one parenthetical paragraph in what's ostensibly a review of Dukes of Hazzard, with all of your impassioned defenses of past reviews (parenthetically, again, I note that only one of the six of you who wrote to me yesterday was the guy I was talking about, so all of the rest of you have guilty consciences) need to defend your ideas within the body of your reviews and not contained in frenzied albeit well-intentioned emails to me. In that vein, here's some more cheap shots and bon mots from around the Internet:

First up: we've finally made an honest woman out of Josh Richardson.

Jason Richards opened up Riot! today, and posted up a pic of the color key and original art pages I sent him to congratulate him on his new shop. We'll be hearing more about his shop in the future.

Greg from Comics Should Be Good loves The Annotated Mantooth. But, honestly, who doesn't? Communists, that's who.

You can meet the booze-addled malcontents behind last year's World Series at Comicopia this Friday in Boston, as reported by my friend and yours Brad Searles: "The two gents behind the best Red Sox fan blog out there, Surviving Grady, will be stopping by the best comic store out there, Comicopia in Kenmore Square, this Friday night from 6-7pm (then heading to the game, 'natch). They'll be signing copies of their every-fan-should-own-it collection of Red Sox writings that AiT/Planet Lar recently released. It's perfectly captures the entirety of last year's spectacular season, all the ups and downs and ups and big-time downs and unbelievable ups from a couple obsessed points of view. Loved it. So catch 'em Friday night, or on Sunday, August 28th from 1-2pm and 5-7pm (unless the game goes long, of course)."