After the departure of Tracey Spicer from Ten and Naomi Robson from Seven's Today Tonight, Crikey is calling it the "boning season" in television. Of course, officially neither of them were actually sacked - Robson made her own decision to move on and Spicer's contract expired. It makes one wonder, however, how many more departures will occur over the festive season. The rumour mill is already running hot, but I have it on good authority that one Brisbane TV program that is routinely written off around this time of the year will definitely be back in 2007.

"Wearing Superman pajamas and covered with his Batman blanket, comic book illustrator Dave Cockrum died Sunday." So begins a remarkable Associated Press story on the death of the man who illustrated the X-Men comics in the 1970 and, apparently, co-created the characters Storm, Mystique, Nightcrawler and Colossus.