DC Comics app

Digital comics | ICv2 estimates the total value of the digital comics market in 2011 as $25 million, triple the 2010 figure, and boldly predicts that digital will account for 10 percent of the entire comics market in 2012. Digital sales grew faster in the second half of the year, which ICv2 attributes to three factors: DC’s decision to release its New 52 comics digitally the same day as print, the industry-wide trend toward same-day print and digital releases, and the proliferation of different platforms on which to read digital comics. As for digital taking away from print, the publishing executives ICv2 has spoken to over the past few months don’t seem to think that is happening. [ICv2]

Retailing | Retailer and journalist Matt Price takes the temperature at the ComicsPRO Annual Members Meeting, which kicks off today in Dallas, noting that members remain interested in DC’s publishing plans, and report “very strong sales” for Image’s Fatale and Thief of Thieves. [Nerdage]

comiXology

Digital comics | ComiXology CEO David Steinberger talks about how comiXology got started (he was trying to figure out how to catalog his comic collection), his first comic book and what comic art he would most like to own. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Comics | Heritage Auctions will sell 12 “ashcan” comic books created in the 1930s and ’40s for trademark purposes, including one of three Action Funnies known to exist. [Art Daily]

Creators | Japanese creator Takehiko Inoue has resumed work on his long-running series Vagabond, after taking a lengthy break, first for health reasons and then because he lost interest in it. He told fans he wouldn’t go back to work on the series, which is serialized in Kodansha’s Morning magazine, until he regained his enthusiasm for it. That seems to have happened, and the new chapter is being colored. Vagabond is published in North America by Viz Media. [Anime News Network]

Saucer Country #1

Creators | Paul Cornell discusses his upcoming Vertigo series Saucer Country, which combines his love of UFOs with politics: “I don’t like stories about stupid politicians, I like stories about politicians who show skill and daring, and by the end of the first arc, Arcadia’s used her political instincts to get her and her team out of an immediate danger, and on the way to being able to use the powers of a candidate to start investigating what happened to her.” [USA Today]

Creators | Amy Reeder talks about her new gig as the interior artist for Batwoman: “What I like about Kate is that she’s so subtle for a lead character … like she says very little and our job is to read behind the lines, which makes it impossible not to feel invested and empathetic towards her. She’s got a little of the edgy in her. She’s a nuanced balance between feminine and masculine, which is tough to pin down.” [DC Women Kicking Ass]

Creators | Yuko Shimizu, cover artist for Vertigo’s The Unwritten, discusses her process, influences and career. [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | Noelene Clark talks with artist I.N.J. Culbard about his upcoming Vertigo series The New Deadwardians, and adapting H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. [Hero Complex]

Friends With Boys

Creators | Eva Volin chats with Faith Erin Hicks about her upcoming graphic novel Friends With Boys, fantasy, young-adult comics, and keeping motivated while struggling with the creation process: “I started doing online comics years and years ago, and even though comics are really hard to create, I fell in love with making them. With comics you have to learn how to draw everything really well. It’s not just drawing people, comics are backgrounds and props and cars and animals and learning to draw these things from all angles and in a style that is appealing and fresh. It’s a constant struggle to update and improve my skills. But even though it’s a struggle, it’s something I really love to do. A well made comic is my favourite thing in the world, and I want to someday be the person who makes that comic and gives a reader enjoyment.  It’s like that completely annoying saying: Nothing worth doing is easy to do. Besides, someone has to make comics about flying unicorns and puppies … (Disclaimer: I have not made this graphic novel yet and probably never will. Apologies to 11 year old me.)” [Good Comics for Kids]

Creators | Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa guests on the comiXologist podcast to talk about his work on the graphic novel Fantastic Four: Season One, and other matters. [comiXology Blog]

Creators | Ryan North answers questions from the public about his upcoming Aventure Time comic. [The BOOM!Pen]

Creators | Katie Monnin interviews Star Wars comics writer John Jackson Miller. Fun fact: He has a master’s degree in Soviet studies. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Artwork by James Sturm

Creators | Market Day creator James Sturm explains he’ll be boycotting The Avengers movie because he believes Jack Kirby, co-creator of many of Marvel’s longest-lasting characters,  “got a raw deal”: “What makes this situation especially hard to stomach is that Marvel’s media empire was built on the backs of characters whose defining trait as superheroes is the willingness to fight for what is right. It takes a lot of corporate moxie to put Thor and Captain America on the big screen and have them battle for honor and justice when behind the scenes the parent company acts like a cold-blooded supervillain. As Stan Lee famously wrote, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’” Tom Spurgeon notes the position seems to mark a shift for Sturm, who wrote the Eisner-winning 2003 miniseries Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules for Marvel. [Slate, The Comics Reporter]

Michael Chabon

Creators | The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay author Michael Chabon discusses a recent short story he wrote for The New Yorker about a comic book writer and artist who had a falling out, noting who they may or may not be based on: “Well, the obvious answer is Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Stan and Jack met in the forties, began collaborating during lean times in the fifties, jointly revived the fortunes of Marvel Comics in the sixties, and then underwent a creative divorce that seems to have resulted in a certain amount of acrimony on Kirby’s side. So the outlines of the story are similar. But Feather and Conn are not Stan and Jack; their fates, their experiences, their biographies, and their personalities are quite different. Jack Kirby died in 1994, still idolized by fans, surrounded by his loving family, as far from the embittered loneliness of Mort Feather as you can be. And Stan Lee is still going strong, a potent creative force who seems to bear up under the tribulations and triumphs of a long and interesting life with the élan for which he has always been famous.” [The New Yorker]

Comic strips | The Chicago Tribune has spoken: Editors pulled last Friday’s Doonesbury strip because it “broke from its satirical mission in order to deliver a direct fundraising appeal for a specific charity that the author favors. The Tribune’s editorial practices do not allow individuals to promote their self-interests.” [The Daily Cartoonist]

Amelia Rules!

Creators | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson talks to Jimmy Gownley, creator of the all-ages Amelia Rules series, about his experiences from self-publishing to signing a multi-book deal with Simon & Schuster. During the interview, Gownley dropped a bombshell: His next Amelia book, the eighth in the series, will be his last—at least for a while: “Amelia was a huge learning experience for me. I came out the other side a very different person and artist. I want to take all those lessons and put them into one book that combines all of that.” [Publishers Weekly]

Editorial cartoons | Times are tough for editorial cartoonists, but The New York Times cattle call for artists to provide work on spec for their Sunday Review section — and the measly fee of $250 per cartoon for the winners — is raising a hackles in the cartooning community. [Comic Riffs]

Creators | Ao Meng chats with French artist Boulet a.k.a. Gilles Roussel, about his recent webcomic Darkness, among other topics. [NOVI Magazine]

The Hookah Girl

Creators | Erica Friedman interviews artist Marguerite Dabaie, creator of The Hookah Girl, a memoir of growing up in the Palestinian Christian community in the U.S. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Commentary | Librarian Robin Brenner and the contributors to the Good Comics for Kids blog discuss whether the inclusion of dialogue in graphic novel biographies makes them fiction. [Good Comics for Kids]

Commentary | Joe “Jog” McCulloch pays a visit to Dredd Reckoning to discuss Vol. 17 of Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files with host Douglas Wolk. [Dredd Reckoning]

Copyright | Mike Lynch calls out MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes show for displaying a cartoon by Lian Amaris without asking her permission, let alone compensating her. To his credit, Hayes responded on Twitter, saying “we absolutely should have credited it and will rectify.” [Mike Lynch Cartoons]

Academia | Columbia University librarian Karen Green lays out a possible typology of comics, discussing the different ways they can be broken up for teachers who want to use them in a variety of different academic settings. [comiXology]

Amazon

Retailing | Rumors have begun to swirl that online retail giant Amazon plans to open a brick-and-mortar store in Seattle within the next few months to help gauge the profitability of a chain. The store reportedly won’t just sell e-readers and tablets, but also books from Amazon’s newly launched publishing division. [Good E-Reader, Gawker]

Publishing | Japanese publisher Shueisha Inc. released the 65th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s pirate manga One Piece last week with a first printing of 4 million copies, tying the record set in November by the previous volume. [The Mainichi Daily News]

Retailing | Howard Ackler writes about the final days of Dragon Lady Comics, the Toronto retailer that closed last week after 33 years in business. [National Post]

Garry Trudeau

Creators | Garry Trudeau reacts to The Chicago Tribune’s refusal to run last Friday’s Doonesbury strip because it included a QR code that led readers to the charity DonorsChoose. The Trib ran a note that said it does not allow comics creators to “promote their self-interests.” Trudeau said, “I’m not sure ‘self-interest’ quite applies, since (a) DonorsChoose is a charity, and (b) I have no formal connection to it,” and he pointed out that the paper ran Thursday’s comic, which included a QR code that directed readers to Trudeau’s own website — “which actually was in my self-interest.” [Comic Riffs]

Creators | J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman discuss their approach to DC Comics’ Batwoman title: “We keep using this mantra of there’s no status quo in the book, and we want everything to continue moving forward and never have an issue where you read it and go, ‘Oh. Tomorrow everything can be back to normal.’ There is no normal,” Blackman said. [USA Today]

Creators | Jeff Parker has begun to post some of his comics scripts on his website, starting with several Marvel Adventures scripts. [Parkerspace]

Creators | J.M. DeMatteis shares an introduction he wrote for a Modern Masters edition focused on his Abadazad collaborator Mike Ploog. [J.M. DeMatteis's Creation Point]

Oyster War

Creators | Panel Bound talks to Ben Towle, illustrator of Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean and creator of the webcomic Oyster War: “I run into a lot of people who have ideas for this and ideas for that, but look: ideas are a dime a dozen. ‘A school for wizards.’ That’s a great idea. Lots of people have had that idea. Only one, though, had the perseverance to write Harry Potter while her mother died and her marriage collapsed—and then stick with it after seeing it rejected by twelve publishers.” [Panel Bound]

Commentary | Joy Kim ponders the difference between teams and team-ups. In a team story, such as the pirates of One Piece, the members work together and character development occurs in that context. “In contrast, in a team-up story, the individual characters always trump the idea of the team. While there’s a certain amount of entertainment value in watching the various members of the Justice League react to each other’s styles, that’s also often all there is to the story. The character-changing moments for the members happen, for the most part, within their own monthly titles, not in Justice League; even when they do happen outside the character’s main title (usually as part of some big crossover event), they are more about the character as an individual than about the team as a unit.” [Joy Kim]

Digital comics | Ryan Penagos, editorial director for Marvel Digital Media Group and Marvel.com, discusses Marvel’s digital strategy with host Peter Biddle in a recent episode of MashUp Radio. [MashUp Radio]

Digital comics | Sean Kleefeld sets out to review digital-first comics and finds the pickings are slim; almost all digital comics have a print version as well. So he takes a broader look at the state of digital comics and sees a market that is still in flux. [The Comic Book Bin]

Reviews | Paul Gravett posts a generously illustrated review of James Chapman’s British Comics: A Cultural History. [Paul Gravett]

Justice League #5

Sales | Sales of comic books and graphic novels to comic books stores through Diamond Comic Distributors increased 27.5 percent in January compared to the same month in 2011. Comics were up 32 percent while graphic novels were up 18 percent compared to 2011. DC Comics dominated all 10 spots at the top of the chart, with Justice League #5 coming in at No. 1. Batman: Through the Looking Glass was the top graphic novel for the month. [ICv2]

Passings | British comics artist Mike White, who illustrated Alan Moore’s The Twisted Man and numerous other stories for 2000AD, Lion, Valiant, Action and Score ‘n’ Roar, has passed away after a long illness. [Blimey!]

Publishing | Because the world demanded it, apparently, Random House plans to publish e-books of all the collected editions of Garfield newspaper comics. [Down the Tubes]

A Batmobile replica from Gotham Garage

Legal | Lawyer Jeff Trexler explains the ins and outs of copyright as it applies to the bits and pieces of the comics and movie world — the Batmobile, costumes, Stormtrooper helmets — and how a lawsuit over Mike Tyson’s tattoo could have put all of DC’s characters into the public domain. [The Beat]

Creators | For the past few years, the Pizza Island studio in Brooklyn has been home to seven of the brightest stars in comics these days: Kate Beaton, Domitille Collardey, Sarah Glidden, Meredith Gran, Lisa Hanawalt, Deana Sobel and Julia Wertz. Now they are turning in the keys and heading their separate ways, and Laura Hudson talks to all seven about what their plans are for the future. [Comics Alliance]

Creators | In a video of a presentation at the Fantagraphics bookstore, writers Mark Long and Jim Demonakos discuss the origins of their graphic novel The Silence of Our Friends (illustrated by Nate Powell), which is based in part on Long’s memories of his father, who was a white reporter covering the civil rights struggle in Texas in the late 1960s. [Graphic Eye]

Bucko

Creators | Jeff Parker and Erika Moen talk to Lauren Davis about the end of their webcomic Bucko, which wrapped up last week after a year. Here’s Moen on their collaborative process: “Parker asked me in the beginning what kind of story I’d like to draw, and I told him I enjoy drawing 20-somethings going on misadventures. And then, of course, Parker borrowed liberally from the flotsam and jetsam of my life, such as the name ‘Bucko.’ ‘Bucko’ is my nickname for my brother and has been ever since we were kids. I don’t even think about it, when I answer a call from him I start with ‘Hey Bucko…’ Parker liked that so here we are. The rest of the collaborative process was Parker giving me completed pages and me responding ‘Parker, I can’t draw that, people will lynch me!!’” [Comics Alliance]

Publishing | Tom Spurgeon talks to editor Michael Catron, who has just returned to Fantagraphics after several years’ absence and is already working on a variety of different projects. [The Comics Reporter]

Diamond Comic Distributors

Publishing | John Jackson Miller profiles Diamond Comic Distributors to mark its 30th anniversary, offering a timeline of major events in the company’s history. [Comichron]

Conventions | Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai and AdHouse Publisher Chris Pitzer both report on their experiences at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. [Angoulême]

Retailing | Dark Horse Publisher Mike Richardson will give the keynote address at this week’s ComicsPRO Annual Membership Meeting. [NewsOK]

Retailing | Hypno Comics will open Saturday in Ventura, California. [Ventura County Star]

Wolverine: The Best There Is #3

Comics | David Brothers explains why Wolverine: The Best There Is is indeed the best Wolverine story of 2011: “Rather than being a story where Wolverine is the absolute best there is at what he does, and what he does is tear through anyone and everyone with ease, we get a story where Wolverine is forced to slow down, change his tactics, and think things through before really getting loose (because we have expectations for Wolverine stories, of course).” [4thletter!]

Commentary | Kristy Valenti looks at Habibi and Paying for It, two brown-covered graphic novels about male sexual obsession, a genre she dubs “dick lit.” [comiXology]

Creators | Zippy creator Bill Griffith is the guest on the video interview show Mr. Media Radio. [Mr. Media Radio Interviews]

Suicide Squad #6

Creators | Writer Adam Glass talks about the new story arc in DC Comics’ Suicide Squad that focuses on Harley Quinn. [USA Today]

Analysis | Nicolas Labarre looks at a particularly interesting six-panel sequence from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher. [Comics and the U.S. South]

Digital | The Vietnamese Communist Party may think they can censor provocative comics like Killer With a Festering Head, but tech-savvy teens know better. [The Washington Post]

Comics | John Parker looks at Spawn through the lens of history: “For those read the comic during its initial publication, the Spawn Compendium is a virtual time machine, whooshing us back to the joy and confusion of our teens. For entirely new readers it must be like studying artifacts. Spawn is the quintessential ’90s comic, inseparable from the trends and events that lead to its creation, and its subsequent impact on the industry.” [ComicsAlliance]

Comics | William Cardini discusses his work on Rub the Blood, the ’90s Image tribute project edited by Ian Harker and Pat Aulisio. [The Daily Texan]

Comics | KC Carlson talks about the long-in-development The Judas Coin by Walt Simonson, which he got a sneak preview of when trapped at the Simonson house during an ice storm. [Comics Worth Reading]

A Batmobile replica from Gotham Garage

Legal | A judge refused to dismiss DC Comics’ lawsuit against Gotham Garage, a manufacturer of custom-made Batmobiles, ruling that the design of Batman’s vehicle is indeed copyrightable. DC sued the California company in May for copyright and trademark infringement, claiming Gotham Garage is confusing the public into thinking the cars are authorized products. The manufacturer asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the U.S. Copyright Act affords no protection to “useful articles.” The judge disagreed, ruling that Gotham Garage “ignores the exception to the ‘useful article’ rule, which grants copyright protection to nonfunctional, artistic elements of an automobile design that can be physically or conceptually separated from the automobile.” [The Hollywood Reporter]

Legal | Nancy Hass provides a broad overview of the legal battle at Archie Comics that pits Co-CEOs Jon Goldwater and Nancy Silberkleit against each other for control of the 73-year-old company. Silberkleit, who spoke briefly to Hass before a New York judge issued a temporary restraining order last month, called claims that she’s threatened and harassed the publisher’s employees and vendors “completely untrue.” [The Daily Beast]

comiXology

Digital | Four of the 10 top-grossing iPad apps for the past week were comics apps: comiXology’s Comics, DC, and Marvel apps and the Viz Manga app. [Media Bistro]

Digital | Alan Gardner gives the Pearls Before Swine iOS app a rave review but questions whether other creators will have the chutzpah to make videos of themselves, as creator Stephan Pastis does, and cross the line from creator to performer. [The Daily Cartoonist]

Passings| Wolverine and the X-Men writer Jason Aaron remembers Mike Pandel, a long-time employee of A Comic Shop in Orlando, Florida, who died this week following a traffic accident. [Jason Aaron]

Retailing | Christopher Butcher has some advice for fans who are outraged by the high price of “out of print” books at online bookstores: The book may not really be out of print, and it may be available a lot cheaper somewhere else. [UDON Entertainment]

Janelle Asselin

Comics | Former DC Comics editor Janelle Asselin discusses the work she did for her thesis on the subject of women and comics, how to bring in more female readers and more. [DC Women Kicking Ass]

Comics | Martha Cornog shares a list of 25 recommended graphic novels for African-American History Month. [Library Journal

Webcomics | In the days before the Super Bowl, Larry Cruz looks at a handful of sports-themed webcomics. [The Webcomic Overlook]

Comics | U.K. publishers are relying on nostalgia and escapism to bring new readers to the action title Strip Magazine, which runs old and new comics, and is expanding its distribution from comics stores to newsstands (as well as its iPad app). [BBC News]

Grimjack #1

Commentary | Rajan Khanna looks back at the 1980s independent comic Grimjack, by writer John Ostrander and artist Tim Truman. [tor.com]

History | R.C. Harvey delves into the history of the long-running newspaper strip Mary Worth and the controversy over whether or not it was the successor strip to the Depression-era Apple Mary. [The Comics Journal]

Advice | Colleen Doran has some resources and advice for freelancers and creative artists on how to deal with one of the biggest challenges of the creative life: Finding affordable health insurance. [A Distant Soil]

Fandom | CBR contributor TJ Dietsch details how he bound his single issues of Justice League into hardcovers. [United Monkee]

One Piece, Vol. 46

Crime | An energetic thief stole all 64 volumes of One Piece from a Japanese bookstore by stuffing 10 volumes at a time in his duffel bag. As One Piece is the most popular manga in Japan, he could have gotten a good price for his booty at a used manga store, had the forces of law not intervened. [Kotaku]

Legal | Michael Cavna talks with cartoonist Susie Cagle about being taken into custody again over the weekend during Occupy Oakland protests. [Comic Riffs]

Creators | Kiss member Gene Simmons still remembers the postcard he got from Stan Lee as a kid. [Noisecreep]

Comics | Jeff Parker and Erica Moen’s webcomic Bucko has reached its last panel, but Parker says a book is on the way, and there will be “exciting news” at Emerald City Comic Con. [Parkerspace]

Creators | Patrick Smith interviews Jeremy Whitley, co-creator of Princeless, an all-ages comic that has been getting good word-of-blog lately: “I think you’ll see as story progresses that fight scenes especially get pretty comical. In fact, I think that things like the lampooning of outfits and fairy tales and princess culture are the important heavy lifting of Princeless. They make adults who have lived with this stuff go “YES! THAT!” but hopefully kids who are seeing this stuff for the first time will be conditioned to see those sorts of things as ludicrous from an early age. It’s hard to get bs past kids on stuff like that anyway.” [Spandexless]

Jill Thompson, by Seth Kushner

Creators | Jill Thompson reminisces about modeling for P. Craig Russell and talks about her work on Wonder Woman, Sandman, Finals, and the all-ages comic Scary Godmother in a wide-ranging interview with Christopher Irving. [Graphic NYC]

Creators | Mike Jasper, co-creator of In Maps and Legends, talks about his love of fantasy and his experience launching the comic on Zuda and then moving it to other digital programs when Zuda folded. Fun fact: Although they have been working together for two and a half years, Mike and his collaborator Niki Smith have never met in person. [Graphicly Blog]

Comics | Funky Winkerbean fans rejoice: Tom Batiuk will release the first volume of collected Funky strips earlier this year. Readers who are familiar with the current depressing storylines will be surprised by the earlier strips, which are much more light-hearted and in fact quite funny. [The Daily Cartoonist]

Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether

Comics | Greg Rucka discusses plans for the collection edition of the webcomic Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, and with a variety of digital and print formats on the table, asks readers what they would prefer. [Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether]

Graphic novels | The American Booksellers Association has published a list of the best selling graphic novels in independent bookstores for the two months ending Jan. 22. [Bookselling This Week ,via Graphic Novel Reporter]

Graphic novels | Paul Gravett lists some tempting graphic novels due out in March. [Paul Gravett]

Webcomics | The collaborative site Act-I-Vate celebrates its sixth anniversary today. [Acti-I-Vate]

Review | Robot 6 contributor Christopher Mautner reviews Government Issue: Comics for the People, 1940s to 2000s, which he finds as dreary as its subject matter, despite a few high points: “Easily the best comic of the bunch is Walt Kelly’s “Pogo Primer for Parents”, a visual lecture on the importance of properly monitoring your child’s television habits that is so charming and funny that it only serves to underscore how drab and lifeless all the other excerpts are by comparison.” [The Comics Journal]

Spawn #26

Legal | Neil Gaiman comments briefly on the settlement agreement that ends his decade-long legal dispute with Todd McFarlane over Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cogliostro, and a handful of derivative characters: “The main thing is, I feel like an awful lot of good things have come out of it. … I think the various decisions, particularly the [Judge] Posner decision, were huge in terms of what the nature of dual copyright in comics is. What is copyrightable in comics is now something that there is a definite legal precedent for. There were a lot of things that were … misty in copyright [law] that are now much clearer. And it’s of benefit to the creator.”

While the details of the settlement are confidential, it’s known that Gaiman and McFarlane now share ownership of Spawn #9 and #26, as well as the first three issues of an Angela spin-off series. [Comic Riffs]

Susie Cagle

Legal | Cartoonist Susie Cagle, who has been covering the Occupy movement, was arrested again over the weekend and subsequently “unarrested” during protests in Oakland, California. Cagle wrote on Twitter that an Oakland police officer “charged and grabbed my arm, threw me so hard it was numb for 5 minutes.” She said she was also told by an officer her release was a “favor.” [The Daily Cartoonist]

Conventions | Comic-Con International has released its complete special guest list for the 2012 convention, which takes place July 12-15 in San Diego. The list includes Mark Waid, John Romita Jr., James Robinson, the Hernandez Bros., Paul Levitz, Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, Nate Powell and Becky Cloonan, among others. [Comic-Con]

Creators | Writer Jim Zubkavich says that in its first week as a webcomic, Skullkickers had more unique visits “than all three printings of Skullkickers #1 combined.” He says he hopes that “a combination of web page view ad payouts, print comic sales, digital comic sales, trade sales and convention sales will work together to keep the series running strong so I can tell the entire story I have planned.” [Fleen]

A.D.D.

Creators | New-media expert Douglas Rushkoff discusses his graphic novel A.D.D., a cautionary tale about the importance of media literacy: “The whole trick in turning something from non-fiction to fiction seems to be less about predicting imaginary scenarios than it is about making the unseen reality visible. So really, what you need to do is come up with visual, identifiable characters and circumstances that depict what’s actually going on in a way that we can see it.” [The Huffington Post]

Creators | Girls co-creator Joshua Luna discusses his new comic, Whispers. [Biff Bam Pop]

Creators | Peter Milligan talks about Red Lanterns and the introduction of a human character to their ranks: “He’s an important new character shot through with pathos, one whose vestigial humanity — and unusual powers — will be key when Atrocitus is trying to save the Red Lantern Corps from destruction.” [USA Today]

Scam #1

Creators | Joe Mulvey talks about his new comic Scam, the trials of being a solo creator, and promoting an indy title. [Graphicly]

Creators | Although there is no official word on the topic, speculation is running wild in New Jersey that 19th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast has been denied admission to the New Jersey Hall of Fame for the third year in a row due to objections to his anti-Catholic cartoons and crude caricatures of Irish immigrants. [NJ.com]

Review | Ron Richards takes an advance look at Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. [iFanboy]

Review | Rob McMonigal gives us the birds-eye lowdown on The Show Must Go On, a collection of Roger Langridge’s pre-Muppets work. [Panel Patter]

Manga | While a manga’s popularity on 4chan might not be a selling point in the United States, a Japanese author is touting her manga (which is scanlated over here) as “a smash hit on the overseas version of 2chan!!” [Kotaku]

Jerusalem

Awards | The gold medal for Best Graphic Album at the Angoulême International Comics Festival went to Guy Delisle for Jerusalem, and the jury awarded a Special Prize to Jim Woodring for his Congress of the Animals. Veteran French creator Jean-Claude Denis was awarded the Grand Prix de la ville d’Angoulême, so he will preside over next year’s festival, as Art Spiegelman did this year. Two manga won awards as well: Kaoru Mori’s A Bride’s Story won the Intergenerational Award, and Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s autobiographical A Drifting Life received the World Outlook Award. The Heritage Award went to Glenat’s edition of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck. [Paris Match]

Conventions | New Orleans Comic Con, held over the weekend, receives plenty of coverage, with spotlights on Stan Lee’s panel, aspiring creators and cosplayers. [Reuters, The Times-Picayune]

Creators | Paul Hornschemeier has received the first graphic novel residency from the Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art and Thurber House. The three-week residency, designed to help graphic creators develop a work in progress, includes a stipend and housing in an apartment near the boyhood home of James Thurber. [press release, via Comics Worth Reading]

Creators | Garth Ennis gives a brief interview on his plans for The Shadow, which he promises will continue to be “set firmly in 1938.” [ICv2]

Hell Yeah #1

Creators | Brian Truitt talks to Joe Keatinge about Hell Yeah, his new series about a world where ordinary mortals and superheroes live side by side; Truitt calls it “Keatinge’s blender of awesomeness, taking everything he loves about the medium and turning it up to 11.” [USA Today]

Creators | Gene Luen Yang pays a visit to a manga club at a Gainesville, Florida, middle school [The Gainesville Sun]

Retailing | The local paper peers inside the door of Salinas, California, comic shop Current Comics and chats with the staff a bit. [The Salinas Californian]

Comics | Five artists give their take on superheroes in an art exhibit located, appropriately, in Riverdale, New York. [New York Daily News]

Comics | Joey Manley confesses that he took up cigar smoking at least in part because of the influence of comics. [Mr. Manley]

Merchandising | We had heard about the Wonder Woman lipstick, but it turns out that Smurfette and Hello Kitty have inspired lines of cosmetics as well. [The New York Times]

Valiant Entertainment

Retailing | Former retailer Atom! Freeman, now sales manager for the revived Valiant Entertainment, has set out to contact every comics retailer in the direct market to promote the publisher’s upcoming superhero line. What has he learned? Retailers are divided on the importance of variant covers, and they don’t place a high value on returnability, but they care a lot about timeliness: “I try to ask every retailer I speak with what his or her biggest concern is in dealing with a new publisher. The number one answer I get is timeliness. Retailers want to know that they will have a consistent product shipped on a consistent schedule.” [ICv2]

Retailing | Todd Allen’s survey of readers of The Beat, admittedly a specialized audience, reveals that more than two-thirds use pre-ordering as their primary method of buying comics, although many will pick up a few off the rack as well. [The Beat]

Awards | Paul Register, founder and organizer of the Stan Lee Excelsior Awards, writes about how the awards, which are selected by 11- to 16-year-olds in the U.K., came to be and why they are important: “In a system that rarely studies complete texts and doesn’t overtly place a huge importance on the clear benefits of children reading outside the classroom, comics have become marginalised in schools at a time when their potential for raising literacy standards amongst teenagers has arguably never been greater. The Excelsior Award is an attempt to give children the opportunity to take ownership of their own reading and to feel that reading books that they actually want to read – as opposed to being told to read – is not a waste of time.” [Comics Forum]

Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes

Publishing | Fantagraphics President Gary Groth comments on Matthias Wivel’s review of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, adding some insight with regard to re-coloring the comics, numbering the volumes, the order of the stories, and the shortcomings of earlier reprint editions. [The Comics Journal]

Digital comics | Webcomics creator R. Stevens used iBooks Author to compile a collected edition of the December Diesel Sweeties comics, and just a week later, he reckons that 10,000 people have downloaded the free e-book. He discusses the pros and cons of the system, as well as distribution (he chose to use Dropbox rather than the iBooks store) and sees it as a serious strategy for the future. [Diesel Sweeties]

Creators | Alex Berry talks to Zegas creator Michael Fiffe about making comics and writing about them: “Well, I’m a cartoonist first and foremost. All the other stuff is just a way of sorting through my own interests and learning curves. The first interview I conducted was based on a personal need to find something out. I had tracked down the cartoonist Trevor Von Eeden and wanted to know what he was up to and how his career developed. You know, basic interview stuff, except it didn’t exist for him, so I sought it out myself. From that, I learned to somewhat voice my own views and approaches to comics.” [Spandexless]

Sugar Falls: A Residential School Story

Creators | David Robertson talks briefly about his graphic novel Sugar Falls: A Residential School Story, which tells the true story of a Native American girl who was sent away to a boarding school and subjected to abuse and discrimination. There is a short preview at the site as well. [CBC Manitoba]

Comics | Ben Morse celebrates the exploits of The Ray, a superhero who didn’t quite make the big time. [The Cool Kids Table]

Comics | Tom Gill takes a long look at the work of Garo manga artist Yoshiharu Tsuge, with particular attention to his classic work The Incident at Nishibeta Village. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Angoulême

Conventions | Wim Lockefeer lines up the exhibits he’s looking forward to at the 39th Angoulême International Comics Festival, which begins today in Angoulême, France. [The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log]

Legal | Cartoonist Albert Lekgaba was sketching the proceedings of the Botswana Court of Appeal when security officers asked to step out of the courtroom, confiscated his work, and told him he could not draw in court, “especially if the judges were present.” When the judges learned of this, however, they informed the court registrar that sketching is indeed allowed, and they ordered that Lekgaba be readmitted to the courtroom and his sketches returned to him. [The Botswana Gazette]

Passings | California newspaper cartoonist John Lara has died at age 56. [Coastline Pilot]

Creators | Heidi MacDonald sums up a number of recent posts on piracy and the creative life in one mega-post, and a lively discussion follows in the comments section. [The Beat]

Eisner Awards

Creators | Tom Spurgeon cast his votes for the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame, and he urges other readers who are qualified (or who think they may be qualified) to do so as well: “The way I look at it, a Hall of Fame is a cultural document that has a chance of surviving decades into the future when things like our on-line text jeremiads and late-night hotel room conversations about what’s valuable in the medium will have long faded from memory. It’s worth having whatever small input one can have on something like that, particularly as time will also drive any objections we have from relevance.” [The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Frank Cho is so busy these days that he has decided to postpone the release of his miniseries Guns & Dinos: “I want to apologize to all my fans out there who were eagerly waiting for this book. But with only half the book done and no time to complete it, it’s only fair to reschedule the release date when the mini-series is completely finished. Fear not, I’m planning on releasing it before the year is out.” [Apes and Babes]

Retailing | Retailer Chris Brady, owner of 4 Color Fantasies in Rancho Cucamonga, California, explains why he embraces digital comics: It brings new readers to the medium, and his comiXology storefront pays him 15 to 30 percent of cover price without much effort on his part. [The Press-Enterprise]

Daredevil #8

Comics | Colin Smith sees Mark Waid’s Spider-Man/Daredevil crossover as everything a good comic should be — smartly written, accessible to new readers and grounded in reality despite the fantasy elements: “Waid’s super-people are always individuals before they’re crime-fighters, and for all the fun of the roof-running and the holographic illusions, it’s the moments of betrayal and sadness and self-deception which stay with the reader after the comics have been put away.” [Too Busy Thinking About My Comics]

Comics | Warren Ellis gets an advance copy of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga #1 — yes, the one with the breastfeeding on the cover — and finds it good. However, he also worries that the market may not be mature enough for the book, both because of its length and its juxtaposition of different types of elements. [Warren Ellis]

Creators | Sean T. Collins interviews horror comic creator Julia Gfrörer: “I’m most interested in making art about feelings and experiences that are hidden or obscure, uncomfortable to talk about, frightening to even think of. It should be challenging for me to create, and for you to consume. I guess that it often comes off as overwrought and melodramatic, but like the song says, I can’t come through half-stepping.” [The Comics Journal]

Comics | Larry Cruz celebrates Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, which he admits has a “stodgy” feel but nonetheless boasts glorious art and a gripping story in an unusual format. [The Webcomic Overlook]

Review | Matthias Wivel takes a look at the Fantagraphics edition of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes. [The Comics Journal]

Review | Philip Shropshire reviews the second volume of Ed Piskor’s phone-hacker comic Wizzywig, which takes the protagonist on a through-the-looking-glass trip through the criminal justice system. [Comics Forge]

San Diego Convention Center

Conventions | San Diego City Council on Tuesday approved the basic funding plan for the proposed $500 million expansion of the San Diego Convention Center, home to Comic-Con International. At the center of the financing scheme is an assessment district that adds between between 1 cents and 3 cents per dollar to room taxes of 224 hotels with more than 30 rooms. Those hotels closest to the convention center would be assessed an extra 3 cents per dollar, and those farthest away could be charged an extra penny per dollar.

The expansion plan has a ticking clock, as Comic-Con has signed a deal to remain in San Diego through 2015, but larger venues in Las Vegas and Anaheim have been lobbying organizers to look elsewhere. [NBC San Diego]

The Last of the Greats #1

Piracy | I Vampire and The Last of the Greats writer Joshua Hale Fialkov wades into the ongoing digital piracy discussion, declaring, “You can’t be an asshole anymore”: “Up until a few years ago, there was still enough of an audience to make up for the percentage of you who are stealing. But, not anymore. Now, everybody steals, or, at least a higher percentage of the total audience than those that pay. The comic market consists of about 200,000 people, on the high end. Now, certainly, you’ll have your Justice Leagues and Batmans and Flash’s that do amazing sales and are generating profits. But almost every other book that isn’t up there in the top 25 or so titles is almost certainly losing money. So, if I’m Warner Bros or Disney, or, in the case of Last of the Greats, ME, and I see that we’re busting our asses monthly on something that’s not only not profitable but is actually losing money, what other choice do I have but to shut it down?”

David Brothers takes issue with virtually all of Fialkov’s comments, particularly his assertion that pirates are “singly responsible for ruining the comic book industry”: “To put forth the idea that piracy on the part of consumers is ‘singly responsible’ for anything, especially when piracy by its very nature is impossible to nail down in terms of concrete numbers and cause & effect is dishonest. Bootlegs have always existed, whether in barbershops or art galleries. They’ve been here, and they aren’t going away. Do they cause harm? Any idiot knows the answer to that question is ‘yes.’ But for my money, the thing that killed comic books is ‘everything else.’ We’re living in an all-new status quo, and I keep seeing people, especially comics people, acting like piracy is the sole cause of all their ills. When no, that isn’t true, and a half glance at the world will tell you so.” [Joshua Hale Fialkov, 4thLetter!]

Stan Lee

Creators | Stan Lee reflects on his 70-year career and discusses the way comics have changed in his lifetime, breaking with the Comics Code, and how to create strong characters: “One of the keys is, and it may sound funny, talking about characters with super powers, but one of the keys is to make your characters as realistic and believable as possible. Even if they have super powers, you say to yourself, ‘Well, if somebody had a super power like this, what would his life be like? Wouldn’t he still maybe have to go to the dentist or wouldn’t he have to worry about making a living? What about his love life?’ You’ve got to make characters that your reader can believe exists or might exist.” [IGN]

Creators | Brian Wood continues to make the rounds about his newest projects, The Massive and Conan, as well as the two ending at Vertigo, Northlanders and DMZ. [The Weekly Crisis]

Comics | Stumptown Trade Review lists seven things “independent comics did first,” including the graphic novel, the omnibus and Web-direct distribution to consumers. [Stumptown Trade Review]

Comics | Cyriaque Lamar looks back at the half-man, half-woman villain He-She, “the most cunning, the most vicious, the most fiendish killer of all time.” [io9]

Digital comics | Johanna Draper Carlson looks at Marvel’s digital offerings (via its app and comiXology) and isn’t impressed with the price or the presentation. [Comics Worth Reading]

Lucky Star

Publishing | Longtime industry hand Jason Thompson has written a thoughtful essay on why the manga industry is in trouble, going beyond the American scene to point out structural problems in the Japanese market: An aging readership, the decline of print and the reluctance of Japanese publishers to embrace digital publishing in any coherent way. “Perhaps wary of creating an iTunes-like behemoth which could drive prices down,” Thompson writes, “publishers haven’t united in any reasonable way to create a consistent digital newsstand/bookstore format for their titles.” This, of course, has just made life easier for the scanlators. He also points to a shift toward the individual creator — it’s the big publishers who are hurting, while self-published and indy manga are on the rise. All this may sound familiar to American comics fans, but Thompson’s prescriptions for the future — more gag manga, simpler art, more color, and motion comics — don’t seem like convincing ways to rescue the industry. An iTunes-like behemoth is probably the way to go. [io9]

Awards | The Horror Writers Association has released the preliminary ballot for the 2011 Bram Stoker Awards, which includes a graphic novel category. [Horror Writers Association]

Awards | The Japanese publisher Shogakukan has announced its 57th annual manga awards. [Crunchyroll]

Retailing | The comics business is booming in Johnson City, Tennessee, and the retailers are giving a lot of credit to DC’s New 52. [Johnson City Press]

Fukitor

Creators | Jim Rugg interviews Jason Karns, the creator of Fukitor. Don’t feel bad if you have never heard of Fukitor, but do check out the article: Rugg starts out by explaining why the comic is important — and why he thinks it is deserving of greater renown. [The Comics Journal]

Creators | This interview with Caleb Melby, writer of The Zen of Steve Jobs, makes some interesting points about journalism and, in particular, journalism that uses the graphic novel medium. However, it’s hard to get past the fact that Forbes assigned Melby to write the Jobs book when he was an intern at the magazine, just out of college. [@PSFK]

From The Sixth Gun #5

Creators | Cullen Bunn walks through his process for writing an issue of The Sixth Gun. [CullenBunn.com]

Creators | Lunch Lady creator Jarrett Krosoczka hands out some solid advice to elementary school students about drawing comics and perseverance: “I tell the kids to write for the love of coming up with stories. I try to show them what I did as a child and show them it doesn’t have to be great … The main thing is they use their imagination. Writing is using your imagination on paper.” [The Press of Atlantic City]

Comics | Paul Gravett treats us to a brief survey of comics creators in the Middle East, an area where sequential art seems to be flourishing right now. [Paul Gravett]

Comics | An exhibit in New York looks at the way comics have portrayed Tibet over the past six decades. [PRI's The World]

Persepolis

Legal | The trial resumed today, if only briefly, in Tunis for the president of a Tunisian television network accused of “insulting sacred values” when he aired the adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Tensions were so high in the courtroom that proceedings were postponed until April. The Oct. 7 broadcast resulted in an attempted arson attack on the network’s offices and the arrest of some 50 protesters. Nessma TV President Nebil Karoui, who apologized in October, is charged with “insulting sacred values, offending decent morals and causing public unrest” because of the outrage triggered by a scene in Persepolis showing God, which is prohibited by Islam. [AFP]

Organizations | Stumptown Comics, the organization that puts on the Stumptown Comics Fest every year in Portland, Oregon, has added three new members to its board: Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Charles Brownstein, Boilerplate co-author Anina Bennett and editor Shawna Gore. [Stumptown Comics]

Awards | The First Fictions literary festival and the publisher Myriad Editions announced the winner of its First Graphic Novel competition: Gareth Brookes, whose graphic novel The Black Project will be published next year by Myriad Editions. Blogger Richard Bruton notes that the shortlist of seven graphic novels was so strong that one judge, Bryan Talbot (Alice in Sunderland) felt they were all “worthy of publication.” [Forbidden Planet]

The Massive

Creators | Brian Wood talks about his upcoming Dark Horse series The Massive. [Biff Bam Pop!]

Creators | Shane Houghton and Matt Whitlock discuss their work on BOOM! Studios’ Peanuts comic book. [Biff Bam Pop!]

Creators | In an interview tied to the upcoming release of the George Lucas film Red Tails, Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder (who worked on the film) reflects on his life in comics and the end of Boondocks: “My issues were totally about: one, I just burnt out on the strip and the deadlines were brutal. Two, I didn’t feel like there was much of a future in print. I thought I needed to quit because I saw the newspapers slowly going away. I didn’t want to be caught off guard. I felt more comfortable being a screenwriter, and as I learned how to become a producer, it seemed like a more natural fit for me than cartooning.” [Comics Alliance]

Goliath

Creators | Tom Spurgeon talks to Scottish writer and artist Tom Gauld, whose Goliath, which retells the Biblical story of David and Goliath, is due out from Drawn & Quarterly in a few weeks. Gauld’s work is not well known in the U.S., but he deserves to be; it’s worth clicking over just to see the art. [The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Writer and editor Shaenon Garrity makes her list of the best cartoonists of her generation, by which she means cartoonists born in the 1970s. That’s a fairly broad range and includes Craig Thompson, Gene Yang, and Chris Onstad, among others. [comiXology]

Creators | Michael Cavna interviews CW Cooke, the writer of the Steve Jobs bio-comic — the Bluewater one, not The Zen of Steve Jobs — about the challenges of writing about such an iconic and polarizing figure. [Comic Riffs]

Criticism | Sexism in Tiny Titans? It’s different from the type you find in adult comics, but J.L. Bell notices that the girls do a lot of babysitting—and the boys do almost none. [Oz and Ends]

Retailing | Darrin Williams, owner of Comic Envy in Asheville, North Carolina, answers questions about comics, why he became a retailer and his approach to Free Comic Book Day: “It’s a program that started about 10 years ago, and each year it has been the biggest day of the year for me. Ostensibly, it is designed to promote comics in general and get new readers in. All the publishers put out ‘free’ books, but it still costs the shops. I try to go pretty deep, but I run out of books. I think it’s successful, and I try to do stuff above and beyond. I’m working on a puppet show and lining up a kid-friendly band. I want it to be an event.” [Asheville Citizen-Times]

Friends With Boys

Comics | Faith Erin Hicks discusses the role of “acting” in comics: “I remember when I was drawing the final episode of my old webcomic, Demonology 101 (the 5th episode). That episode ended up being something like 100 pages more than all the other episodes, because that was when I started to explore the idea of acting in comics. I wanted to spend time on characters’ emotional reactions and inner thoughts in the comics, so everything ended up being much more decompressed. I had to give space to the characters, so they could react to a cruel/funny/sad comment by another character, or silently work through their inner struggles. That episode was the first time I connected drawing comics with the idea of myself as a director: the characters were my actors and I was directing them in a performance. And it was up to me to make sure that their performance supported the story to the best of my ability.” [Friends With Boys]

Comics | The Mindless Ones annotate the gigantic last issue of the pre-New 52 Batman Incorporated. [The Mindless Ones]

Creators | Gary Mann posts an appeal for help for colorist Tom Ziuko, who is facing serious health problems with no insurance and limited financial resources. [20th Century Danny Boy]

Commentary | David Brothers recommends Giannis Milonogiannis’ Old City Blues, which is now available on comiXology. [ComicsAlliance]

Events | Floating World Comics in Portland, Oregon, will host artwork from Emi Lenox and Natalie Nourigat beginning Feb. 2. [Floating World Comics]

Megaupload

Legal | The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI on Thursday shut down the popular file-sharing site Megaupload, seized $50 million in assets and charged its founder and six others with running an international enterprise based on Internet piracy that’s cost copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. The FBI has begun extradition proceedings in New Zealand to bring company founder Kim Schmitz, aka Kim DotCom, to the United States. He and three other associates are being held without bail until Monday, when they’ll receive a new hearing. Three others remain at large. They face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

News of the shutdown was met with retaliation by the hacker collective Anonymous, which attacked the websites of the Justice Department and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Founded in 2005, Megaupload allowed users to anonymously transfer files like movies and music and, certainly on a much smaller scale, comic books. The Hong Kong-based company, which reportedly employed as many as 155 people, is said to have made $175 million from ads and premium subscriptions. According to the indictment, DotCom, whose assets apparently include a fleet of cars, took in $42 million from the operation in 2010.

Before Megaupload was taken down, the company posted a statement on its website claiming that allegations it facilitated massive breaches of copyright are “vastly overblown”: “The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch.” [USA Today, The New York Times, CNET]

J.M. DeMatteis

Piracy | In response to recent conversations about the Stop Online Piracy Act, comics writer J.M. DeMatteis shares his thoughts on comic book piracy: “The bottom line — my bottom line, anyway — is this: If you’re enthusiastic about a particular creator, buy his or her work and then let others know about it. If you spread the word via file-sharing, it’s not much different than loaning a friend one of your books or CDs. Just as I once became an obsessive fan after taping my friends’ vinyl albums, many of your friends will become fans who’ll spend their hard-earned money on actively supporting that creator’s work.” [Creation Point]

Creators | Lynda Barry will be the spring artist in residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [University of Wisconsin-Madison News]

Creators | Movie producer and former Marvel Studios President Avi Arad chats briefly about his new manga The Innocent: “I’ve been in the world of comics all my life, and specifically into Japanese comics in the early days, before manga attempted to penetrate this market. I wanted to do The Innocent a long time ago. It stayed with me quite a while. Once I got out of Marvel Comics, it was one of the things on my bucket list to do a manga. I had an idea and I followed it, and here we are.” [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Dancer #1

Creators | Nathan Edmondson discusses Dancer, his upcoming Image Comics miniseries with artist Nic Klein about a retired assassin and his ballerina companion on the run from a sniper in Milan. [USA Today]

Creators | Jennifer Anderson spotlights Oil & Water, the new Fantagraphics graphic novel by Steve Duin and Shannon Wheeler that examines the impact of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf. [Beaverton Valley Times]

Creators | Collaborators Kurtis J. Wiebe and Tyler Jenkins talking about their upcoming Image/Shadowline series Peter Panzerfaust, which reimagines Peter Pan and the Lost Boys as Nazi resisters during World War II. [USA Today]

Publishing | Dave Ferraro and Patrick Markfort discuss the small publisher Sparkplug in their latest podcast. [Comics-and-More]

Neil Gaiman

Internet | Sandman co-creator Neil Gaiman joined with Trent Reznor, Aziz Ansari, OK Go and 14 other members of the creative community in signing an open letter to Congress against the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act. “We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services – artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result,” the letter states.

Warren Ellis and Fantagraphics have also come out against the bill, while Peter David, who is against the bill in its current form, takes aim at those who “endorsed the piracy, supported the piracy, enabled the piracy, felt their own actions weren’t piracy, and now refuse to accept the consequences of their own actions.” ComicsAlliance has posted an editorial against the bill and rounded up webcomic reactions to the blackout. [NeilGaiman.com]

Alex de Campi

Creators | Artist Jimmy Broxton, a.k.a. James Hodgkins, shares his side of being asked to leave Ashes, the sequel to Alex de Campi’s Smoke that held a successful Kickstarter campaign last year. “… I’m incredibly sorry about the whole thing, and for me, it’s not just about the money, or lost earnings, or how Kickstarter works, this has come as a huge creative blow. I had committed to spend the next year drawing Ashes, the script is quite brilliant, Alex is an extremely talented writer, I very much wanted to be part of something that I thought was going to be special. I hope people can see that commitment from the work I have already produced for the series.” De Campi responds on Kickstarter, relating what she contends was a tumultuous collaboration process in which she “felt bullied” by Hodgkins. [The Beat, Kickstarter]

Retailing | Ryan Haupt argues that better comics shops are one solution to the problem of piracy, a notion that gets some pushback in comments. Regardless, he does make some good suggestions as to how comics shops can improve (some are obvious, yet widely ignored) and points out the problems with buying comics at bookstores. [iFanboy]

Retailing | ComicsPRO President Joe Field talks up the sixth annual meeting of the retailer trade and advocacy group, being held Feb. 9-11 in Dallas. [Flying Colors Comics]

DC Comics

Publishing | DC Comics Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee talk at length about the thinking behind the company’s line-wide relaunch. “I’ve been using the expression ‘death by a thousand cuts,’” DiDio says. “There are a lot of things that we could have been doing better across the line: We could have been writing better, we could have been drawing better, we could have been editing better, we could have been marketing better. By doing the relaunch it allowed us to examine every aspect of our business and look at it from a point of view of if we were building a business today, how would we build it? How would we create characters? What types of stories would we tell? How would the world feel? And we changed the interior look of our books and we changed the exterior of our books. And by introducing the same day digital aspect, it forced us to rethink our production process. We were faced with a lot of delays. And we were losing loyal fans who were coming week in and week out because the books weren’t there. And we had to make a new commitment to deliver our product on time. People said to me, ‘How’d you let things get so out of control?’ It’s like one day waking up and you’re 30 pounds overweight. You’re not exactly sure how you got 30 pounds overweight, but you know you didn’t eat 30 pounds of food the night before. It just happened.” [Fast Company]

Awards | Sarah Glidden’s How To Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less won a 2011 MEOC Middle East book award, presented last month at the Middle East Studies Association conference in Washington, D.C. [Middle East Outreach Council]

The Art of Brett Ewins

Creators | Former Judge Dredd artist Brett Ewins suffered serious head injuries Saturday after he allegedly stabbed a police officer who responded to complaints about a man shouting throughout the night. Police say when they arrived the 56-year-old Ewins attacked them with a knife. One of the officers received minor wounds during the struggle, but Ewins was hospitalized, where he remains in serious condition. The newspaper report asserts the artist, best known for his work on Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper for 2000AD, has a history of mental-health problems. [Ealing Gazette]

Digital | Salon staff writer Andrew Leonard relates his son’s disappointment upon learning that Viz Media was turning Shonen Jump magazine into an online publication: “The older we are the less we like change. But for every grumbling codger who departs this mortal coil there’s a new baby born who seems to know how to do a two-finger swipe on an iPhone touch screen right out of the womb. And yet here was a clear example of a bond with the printed word, the material object, that transcended generational divisions. Eli told me to he wanted me to sign him up for Shonen Jump Alpha, but he didn’t seem enthused by the prospect of reading the latest installments of his favorite manga on the flat screen. If my 14-year-old could be transformed into a crotchety old codger, then maybe, just maybe, the culture really is losing something valuable as everything goes virtual.” [Salon]

Golgo 13, Vol. 1

Creators | The Sankei Shimbun newspaper profiles Takao Saito, the 75-year-old creator of Golgo 13, who reveals he’s planning the ending for his long-running action manga. Golgo 13, which follows the global exploits of an assassin for hire, debuted in November 1968. [Anime News Network]

Creators | Greg Pak discusses his new Aspen Comics/Valhalla Entertainment miniseries Dead Man’s Run. [USA Today]

Creators | Brian Truitt spotlights Guillaume Bianco, whose graphic novel Billy Fog and the Gift of Trouble Sight was recently released in North America by Archaia. [USA Today]

Creators | Texas artist Trent Westbrook talks about the local success of his comic Corpus Christi. [Caller-Times]

Jennifer de Guzman

Publishing | Jennifer de Guzman announced that, after 10 years, she has left her position as editor-in-chief of SLG Publishing: “My decade SLG was, I suspect, like no other decade anyone has spent working anywhere. I had great co-workers and got to work with fantastic creators, all of whom I will miss very much. (Though because this is comics and a community like no other, we will always stay in contact.)” [Possible Impossibilities]

Retailing | Chris Powell, current general manager and chief relationship officer for Texas-based comic chain Lone Star Comics, has accepted the newly created position of executive director of business development for Diamond Comic Distributors. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund board member will start his new position in March. [ICv2]

Miles Morales

Publishing | Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso answers questions about Miles Morales, the new Spider-Man of the Ultimate Universe: “When a little boy or girl looks at Spiderman, they do not see race. They do not see anything but the bright colors and the human shape. I think it is very easy for them to project themselves into that suit and to imagine themselves in that suit. Part of the thrill for me is knowing that there are little boys who will now pick up a Spiderman comic and see that after the adventure and the mask is peeled back he will look like them. As a Hispanic, it is nice to see Spiderman’s [...]  last name resemble the last name of my son.” [Fox News Latino]

Publishing | SanJose.com profiles SLG Publisher Dan Vado, who talks about why he started working in comics: “I think comics decided for me; I don’t think I really had any choice. There was never any point where I said, ‘This is what I’m gonna do.’ Comics was always something I was going to do while I’d figure out what it I was gonna do, and I guess I never really figured it out.” [SanJose.com]

Kate Beaton

Publishing | The Beat names its comics industry People of the Year. [The Beat]

Creators | Brian Wood chats about his upcoming Dark Horse series The Massive: “The world it inhabits is sort of a minefield of current events, of divisive politics (global warming, regime change, corporate bad-behavior, etc) but all that has sort of come to pass by the time the story opens. The damage has been done, and so its less about why/how things got so bad and more about, okay, what do we do now? Powerful social themes, but not political in the same way DMZ is.” [Suvudu]

Creators | Comics writer and filmmaker Kevin Smith answers questions about women and comic shops as he touts his new TV reality series Comic Book Men: “This is a show about these four dudes who work in this store. There are no women [in the store] yet…There should be a Comic Book Women, and good willing, there’ll be a spinoff Comic Book Women, and I’ll make shit ton of money.” [ThinkProgress]

Super Pro K.O., Vol. 1

Creators | Jarrett Williams discusses his work on the Oni Press graphic novel series Super Pro K.O. [Spandexless]

Creators | Writer Kyle Higgins looks at what’s ahead for DC’s Nightwing. [USA Today]

Comic art | The collaborative art blog Relaunched puts out the call for contributors to “Watchmen Too,” a Watchmen 2 theme month. [Calamity Jon, Save Us]

Commentary | Don MacPherson looks back at some of his favorites of the previous year. [Eye on Comics]

Fandom | When asked during a 60 Minutes interview whether his company was thin-skinned, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason popped his claws: “We’re like Wolverine and our skin has been melted off, and we’ve had Adamantium fused onto our bones.” [Nerd Reactor]

Aquaman #1

Digital comics | Geoff Johns explains how digital presentation made him re-evaluate his approach to writing Aquaman #1, as digital readers focus on stories panel by panel rather than page by page. He notes that they also spend more time on individual panels, taking in all the details before moving on: “It’s weird to go back and look at some of the old comics now. If you read something in this fashion you will notice stuff that you skipped over so quickly because your eye takes in the whole page instead of the panel individually. I think that’s probably one of the biggest advantages of digital.” Johns also reveals digital considerations have also led him to scale back on internal dialogue to “let the art and characters expressions speak for themselves.” [Variety]

Digital comics | On a related note, Shaun Huston ponders the challenges of making “comics as we know them” work on digital devices: “While there’s some latitude to read full pages on the iPad, and the Fire at 4.7” x 7.5” (or the Nooks) affords that option more realistically than the iPhone or similarly-sized devices, in all of these cases there will be situations where most readers will shift to Guided View in order to effectively see some particular detail on a page. For many, Guided View will be the primary choice, which is a qualitatively different experience than reading page-by-page. In fact, while in that mode, ‘the page’ arguably becomes irrelevant as panels are strung together into one linear sequence, rather than into a series of page-specific sequences.” [PopMatters]

Washington City Paper

Comic strips | Only nine months after returning syndicated comics to its pages, Washington City Paper has again eliminated them amid budget cuts. The alternative newspaper initially dropped comics in February 2009 in a bid to save money following the bankruptcy of parent company Creating Loafing. [DCist]

Publishing | Todd Allen catalogs retailer complaints about Marvel’s apparent long-running inability to keep its collection backlist available. “They’re a publisher that publishes their trade books like they’re periodicals” says says Eric Kirsammer, owner of Chicago Comics. “They don’t really have a backstock. I’ve been told by Marvel they don’t.” [Publishers Weekly]

Best of the year | Steve Higgins counts down the Top 10 graphic novels of 2011, and the best of DC’s New 52 titles. [Playback: STL]

Creators | Alan Corbett discusses his new graphic novel The Ghost of Shandon, set in 18th-century Cork, Ireland. [Cork Independent]

Comics | Houston news outlets make note of the debut of Marvel’s Scarlet Spider, which is set in the city. [Your Houston News, My Fox Houston]

Legal

Legal | A teenager was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison for his role in the July 2010 theft of a valuable comic collection from an elderly Medina, New York, man, who later died of a heart attack. Eighteen-year-old Juan C. Javier, who pleaded guilty last fall to attempted second-degree burglary, is one of seven people whom police say were hired by businessman Rico J. Vendetti to break into the home of Homer Marciniak to steal his comics. Marciniak, 77, awoke during the burglary and was beaten, suffering only cuts and bruises. However, he had a fatal heart attack later that day. Eight people, including Vendetti and Javier, were indicted in November 2010; the indictments were dismissed against four of the accused so the U.S. Attorney could charge them with murder under federal law. [The Daily News]

National Cartoonists Society

Awards | Michael Cavna talks with National Cartoonists Society President Tom Richmond about the addition of the Online Comics Strips category to the prestigious Reuben Awards: “This is definitely a “first step” in recognizing online cartooning in the NCS divisional awards. It’s been discussed and explored for several years, and there are a lot of challenges involved. I picked the brains of several big names in online comics, and worked with the board to try and come up with criteria for eligibility that were in keeping with the other divisions and the NCS rules. This is what we came up with.” [Comic Riffs]

Digital comics | Comics and religious apps account for the 10 top-grossing iOS book apps this week. [eBookNewser]

Digital piracy | Bryan Young consider who should shoulder the blame for comics piracy: “Comic publishers need to understand why people are doing it and address the issues. People are pirating these comics, right or wrong, because they don’t believe they should be paying the same price as for a print copy of a comic. It’s as simple as that. The average comic book, in print or digital, costs about $2.99 per issue. With print, you have printing costs, shipping costs, wholesale costs and everything else to contend with to turn a profit. It makes sense that they’re priced the way they are. But a digital comic? Digital comics have far less overhead.” [City Weekly]

Thief of Thieves #1

Creators | Entertainment Weekly chats briefly with Robert Kirkman about Thief of Thieves. [Shelf Life]

Creators | Young artists should have a five-year plan, Sean Gordon Murphy firmly believes, rather than sitting around tweeting and waiting to be discovered. He offers some concrete steps, some of which are counterintuitive: “With a little bit of effort, could you write a C+ story? Of course you could! C+ is better than most comics. We deal in an industry where characters fight crime in their underwear — don’t be intimidated into thinking you couldn’t put together a half decent script if you tried.” Writing is not only an asset for the beginning artist, he points out, it also helps them become planners. [deviantART]

Comics | Oliver Sava considers what makes a good all-ages comic: “The best titles have elements adults can latch on to as well. Roger Langridge’s The Muppet Show is one of the best humor comics published in the past decade, using the comic-book form to capture the spirit and energy of the television series. Each issue has an overarching plot broken up by one- or two-page comic strips depicting the show’s different sketches, and Langridge’s experience with adult humor on titles like Fred The Clown keeps the jokes from being too infantile.” [The A.V. Club]