Prized supplies

Jim McNeal has often talked about Chinese students' preference for school supplies over toys as premiums and treats. It can be true in the US, too. Here a girl uses her own discretionary dollars to buy the "cutest" pens.

Flatbread and geometry

At the Fancy Food show in Chicago last month, along with Lithuanian liquors, Japanese pine needle juice and all manner of "healthy" dark chocolate, were homely flatbreads.

Why are they popular these days?

The answer offered by an enthusiastic flatbread puveyer was that they're "not the circles and squares that everyone's so tired of." I wondered if rectangles could possibly be so much more appealing a form. He said, "No, they get broken up--into sharp angles and uneven shapes. That's what makes them interesting."

I thought of Cheetos, which get their appeal from weird shapes--and that was the only thing that made me keep from raising a skeptical eyebrow.

Occupational Hazard

While signing autographs at New York Comic Con 2008, Edgar & Ellen's illustrator, Rick Carton, got a dose of the pranking he invents. An 11-year-old fan named Jason popped him in the face with a whipped cream pie. Rick's brother (and Jason's co-conspirator), TV writer, Billy Carton had an Edgarish look as he laughed in the background.

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