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]

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]

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]

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]

Drunk Hulk

Crime | A drunken Coventry, England, man was arrested for selling drugs outside a nightclub while dressed as the Incredible Hulk. According to the article, “Police were alerted by his costume which was based on the TV and film character who becomes green and superhuman when angry.” [Coventry Telegraph]

Creators | Dinosaur Comics creator Ryan North discusses his work on BOOM!’s upcoming Adventure Time comic. [ComicsAlliance]

Creators | Colleen Doran posts some character designs she worked up years ago for a never-completed animation project written by Warren Ellis; she admits to using Star Trek actor George Takei as the model for the main character. [A Distant Soil]

Creators | Chad Michael Murray chats with his hometown paper about his debut graphic novel, Everlast, which had its genesis in a visit from a missionary who said that the end times are coming, and only 144,000 people will be saved: “In that, I thought, what if our world was to end and only a number of people would be left to reign, to give mankind a second chance? How would they be chosen? Out of that just stemmed this really cool story of people who are soldiers who need to find the chosen, the people who are destined to survive the end of days.” [The Buffalo News]

Publishing | Tom Spurgeon continues his year-end interview series by talking to Fantagraphics’ Kim Thompson. [The Comics Reporter]

Green River Killer

Graphic novels | Duane Swierczynski recommends three true-crime graphic novels. [NPR]

Publishing | Publisher Dan Vado recounts “five things we survived at SLG Publishing,” including rodents and bees. [Living Well, Beyond My Means]

Commentary | In their regular “The Catch-Up” feature, Noel Murray and Oliver Sava “kick around” the Vertigo series Y: The Last Man. Murray had only read the first volume previously, while Sava bought every issue when they were released. [The A.V. Club]

Life with Archie #16

Comics | CNN covers the upcoming wedding of Archie Comics’ Kevin Keller, who will get married to another man in Life with Archie #16. Keller was injured while serving in the military in Iraq and Clay Walker, his groom-to-be, was his physical therapist. “Riverdale is this picturesque vision of American life, and when you see yourself reflected in that, you have a role in even the most idealized version of the reality you live in,” said Matt Kane, associate director of entertainment media for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “That’s the difference between feeling like a rejected outsider and feeling like you’re a part of something.” [CNN]

Comics | Jim Caple worries that viewers of the Tintin movie won’t appreciate it the way he does, comparing old-school Tintin fans to old-school Boston Red Sox or Seattle Mariners fans: “That’s what I worry about. I worry there will be all these Tintin wannabes who only know the character from the movie, who don’t appreciate Herge’s genius, who don’t know what it was like to wait a month for the next 10-page installment or when you had to special order the few books made available in America. Fans who didn’t earn this movie.” [ESPN]

Creators | Kurt Busiek discusses his work on Dracula: The Company of Monsters, which returned from cancellation as a webcomic, as well as digital comics in general: “I’ve been interested in the possibilities of online distribution for a long time, and even pitched an idea for an online strip a decade or more ago, but my collaborators and I couldn’t afford to do it on our own back then, and we didn’t find any takers who wanted to back it. And there are stories I’d love to do online, and ways I’d like to try taking advantage of the online interface, instead of print, that I’m eager to try — but between deadlines on existing projects and my health issues, I haven’t been able to launch an online series yet.” [Biff Bam Pop!]

"Saga," from Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Creators | Fiona Staples talks with her local newspaper about her upcoming project with Brian K. Vaughan, the eagerly anticipated Image Comics series Saga. [Calgary Herald]

Creators | Sweets creator Kody Chamberlain gets the spotlight ahead of a book signing with Chew artist Rob Guillory. [The Times]

Creators | Here’s a heartwarming story for the holidays: A historian found some old comics about Saginaw, Michigan, in the local library and tracked down the artist, Vincent Faletti, whose work was published in The New Yorker and other magazines. It turns out that Faletti is alive and still cracking jokes at 95. [MLive.com]

Comics | The first issue of IDW’s Magic: The Gathering comic, originally scheduled to be released next week, has been pushed back to Feb. 1 due to “unforeseen printing challenges.” [ICv2]

Crime | Victoria, British Columbia, police have recovered a cache of stolen goods worth more than $10,000 — $8,500 of which was a comic book collection taken from an apartment storage locker. Police are returning the collection to its owner. [Victoria Times Colonist]

Fandom | Ology spotlights the marriage proposal of David Salomon, who proposed with a homemade take on an issue of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. “What is it about the gamers, the comic book Ologists, the sci-fi fans and the zombie slayers that makes them the kings and queens of romance?” [Ology]

The Marvels Project #1 ... not to be confused with Project Marvel

Sixty people were arrested Tuesday in a series of pre-dawn raids across Canada following a police investigation dubbed “Project Marvel” because many of the alleged gang members involved assumed the names of Marvel superheroes.

Unfortunately, neither the press release from the Toronto Police Service nor the report from The Toronto Star lists which characters the accused, some of whom are as young as 14, chose. I’m guessing there’s at least one Punisher, though, and probably two or more Wolverines.

However, we do learn that gang with the youngest members is Young Buck Killaz, which I’ll pretend is a reference to James “Bucky” Barnes.

The operation is being described as one of the largest ever in Canada, with more than 900 officers from 22 law-enforcement organizations simultaneously executing 67 search warrants across the country. Project Marvel grew out of May a robbery and subsequent shooting in Toronto.

Angoulême International Comics Festival

Conventions | The Angoulême International Comics Festival has announced the Official Selections for the 2012 festival, which will be held Jan. 26-29 in Angoulême, France. Eddie Campbell’s Alec, Craig Thompson’s Habibi and Daniel Clowes’ Mister Wonderful are among the almost 60 graphic novels on the list. [Angoulême]

Editorial cartoons | The Columbus Dispatch suspended political cartoonist Jeff Stahler after finding that his Monday cartoon was too similar to a New Yorker cartoon published in 2009. At The Daily Cartoonist, Alan Gardner posts several of Stahler’s cartoons alongside earlier pieces with similar punchlines. While one can debate whether Stahler lifted his ideas from the older cartoons, it’s obvious that he drew them in his own style, unlike David Simpson, who was recently accused of copying Jeff McNally’s cartoons. [Comic Riffs]

Crime | Several pieces of original artwork, among other items, were stolen from the car of AdHouse Publisher Chris Pitzer while he was in New York City last weekend for the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. Pitzer is offering a reward for any information leading to the recovery of the artwork. [AdHouse]

Creators | Congratulations to Any Empire creator Nate Powell and his wife Rachel on the new addition to their family, Harper Powell. [See My Brother Dance]

Creators | Writer Neil Gaiman talks to illustrator and filmmaker Shaun Tan. [The Guardian]

Batwing #4

Creators | Writer Judd Winick discusses his work on DC’s Batwing comic: “Bruce and Batman are these emotionless beasts who are driven by rage and seek justice and do everything they can to just stay focused on the mission: fighting crime, stopping the bad guy, finding the clues, putting the pieces together. But as we’ll learn, David Zavimbe’s a very emotional character. He’s much more self-aware in that way: He knows what he is, where he’s come from, and what he has to overcome.” [USA Today]

Creators | Artist Ben Bates talks about working on the upcoming New Crusaders digital series. [ComicsAlliance]

Creators | Felicia Day discusses The Guild comics, including the 2012 Free Comic Book Day offering from Dark Horse, as well as her work on Dragon Age: Redemption. [TFAW]

Creators | Sean Kleefeld interviews Rina Piccolo, creator of the comic strip Tina’s Groove and the webcomic Velia, Dear. [MTV Geek]

Analysis | J.L. Bell introduces the concept of a “plumber’s review,” a review that looks at the work through one narrow field of expertise: “Say, a review of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island focused entirely on details of south Pacific navigation, or an analysis of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover for its remarks on coal mining. In the academic world, it’s the comments from the professor miffed that you haven’t said more about the particular event or compound or poetic form that he or she happens to study.” This can be good or bad, he notes, and he points out a roundtable discussion where it proved useful. [Oz and Ends]

Reviews | Kristy Valenti reviews Richard Marschall’s The Sunday Funnies: 1896-1950. [comiXology]

Fashion | Don MacPherson notes the latest in robotic-insectoid couture. [Eye on Comics]

Michael George

Former retailer and convention organizer Michael George was sentenced this morning to life in prison for the 1990 murder of his first wife Barbara in their Clinton Township, Michigan, comic store.

George was found guilty a second time on Oct. 11 after his 2008 conviction was overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct and the release of potential new evidence. Prosecutors contend that George shot his wife in the head in the back room of their store July 13, 1990, and then staged the killing to look like a robbery so he could collect money from an insurance policy and a shared estate, and start over with another woman.

The Detroit News reports that 51-year-old Michael George, who maintains he was asleep on his mother’s sofa at the time of the shooting, was also ordered to pay restitution of $130,000 to John Hancock Life Insurance Co.

A tearful Michael George, sitting in a wheelchair, addressed the court, saying, “Something will be found. Someone will come forward. I have never harmed a woman in my life. Let’s not forget no one saw me there — no one.” He plans to appeal the conviction.

Barbara George’s sister and brother also spoke, directing their comments to Michael George as well as his daughters Tracie and Michelle, who supported their father but were absent from the courtroom today at his request.

“We think about you all the time,” Christine Ball said, reading from a prepared statement. “Your mother lost everything. She didn’t get to hold you and watch you grow up. I know we sit at opposite sides of the courtroom, but we have and always will love you.”

Amazing Fantasy #15

Crime | A man in Lincoln, Nebraska, told police that a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, valued at $15,000, disappeared from his home sometime between Oct. 27 and Monday morning. The 1962 issue was kept with other comics, but the man claims several people had been in and out of his home since he last saw it. A near-mint copy of the comic, which features the first appearance of Spider-Man, sold at auction in March for $1.1 million. [Lincoln Journal Star]

Creators | Writer Greg Pak has set up a page to take donations for former comics writer Bill Mantlo, whose tragic situation was detailed in an article last week. “Bill Mantlo has had a huge influence on me as a writer and reader,” Pak said. “His Micronauts stories blew my mind as a kid and his Incredible Hulk run laid the groundwork for the themes I explored my five-and-a-half year run with the character.” Money donated through the site goes directly to Mike Mantlo, Bill’s brother, for Bill’s ongoing care. [Greg Pak]

Conventions | Joe Keatinge and Pollyanne Birge have been confirmed as president and secretary, respectively, of Portland, Oregon’s Stumptown Comics Fest. Keatinge is the writer of the upcoming series Brutal, Hell Yeah and Glory, and executive editor of Image’s PopGun anthology. Birge has worked with the City of Portland on arts and culture policy under Mayor Sam Adams and is currently the vice-chair of Portland’s Independent Publishing Resource Center. The organization is accepting applications for additional board members. [Stumptown Comics Fest]

Any Empire

Creators | Nate Powell discusses his graphic novel Any Empire, which takes place in the same fictional town as his previous graphic novel, Swallow Me Whole: “I didn’t intend on Any Empire’s placement in Wormwood, but at a certain point, I realized I was narrating it within the same fictionalized version of Little Rock present in Swallow Me Whole. After asking myself ‘why not?’ the possibilities of weaving these tales into the same town seemed really exciting! I’ve really enjoyed the character cameos and figuring what certain characters would be like at certain times, but I envision the town as a quasi-magical nexus wherein each tale can float around pretty freely. Swallow Me Whole’s Wormwood contains a little bit of Richmond, Virginia, as well, and Any Empire’s Wormwood has a little bit of Montgomery, Alabama, where I spent some of my elementary school years, but Little Rock remains the general template.” [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Creators | MAD Magazine‘s Sergio Aragones is the latest creator to contribute art to the Team Cul de Sac Parkinson’s Disease fund-raiser. [Comic Riffs]

Creators | Jeff Kinney admits he thinks of himself as “a cartoonist who couldn’t crack into newspapers.” That was Kinney’s dream job, but when he realized he would never make it in the newspaper field, he created Diary of a Wimpy Kid and settled for success, popular acclaim, and riches instead. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

Reviews | David Anderson reviews Merik Tadros and Greg Houston’s self-published comic River Jordan, a drama set among Arab Christians in Jordan. [Spandexless]

Mike Meyer

The Illinois man who stole thousands of dollars worth of Superman memorabilia from a mentally disabled collector in late August has been sentenced to six years in prison.

The Belleville News Democrat reports that Gerry Armbruster, 38, pleaded guilty today to stealing the collection from Mike Meyer and assaulting and robbing an elderly man. Armbruster befriended Meyer, a 48-year-old man who lives on Social Security and works part-time at McDonald’s, before swindling him out of more than 1,800 Superman comics, figures and other memorabilia he’d been collecting since 1974.

News of the theft drew worldwide attention, with fans and creators from as far away as Australia and the United Kingdom rallying to replace Meyer’s stolen items.

Police arrested Armbruster in mid-September while investigating the forcible robbery of money and jewelry from a 76-year-old man, and were able to recover Meyer’s collection. The grateful fan, who lives with his dogs Krypto and Dyno, pledged to give the donated memorabilia to charity. “People were generous to me,” he said at the time. “This is how I can be generous in return.”

Armbruster’s sentencing comes as Meyer is on vacation in Cleveland, birthplace of Superman, courtesy of Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop. He and Keith Howard, who organized the effort to replace the stolen items, visited the former home of Jerry Siegel on Monday, and today toured area comic shops, where they received gift certificates. Their trip will conclude tonight with a party at Carol & John’s.

“I feel like I’m connected with Siegel and Shuster,” Meyer told the Plain Dealer from the living room of the Siegel house, “a piece of history was created here.”

Michael George

The jury in the second Michael George murder case found the former comics retailer and convention organizer guilty today, according to the Detroit Free Press.

George, 51, was accused of fatally shooting his wife, Barbara, on July 13, 1990 in the back room of their Clinton Township (Mich.) comic book store. This is George’s second trial and second guilty verdict. Macomb County Circuit Judge James Biernat Sr. overturned the first verdict, citing prosecutorial misconduct and the release of new evidence that could lead the jury to believe another person was responsible for the murder of Barbara George. The first trail resulted in George being sentenced to life in prison before it was overturned.

The jury deliberated Thursday, Friday and today for a total of about 14 hours before delivering the verdict.

Janelle Asselin

Publishing | DC Comics associate editor Janelle Asselin has left the company, reportedly for a job with Disney. She clarifies on Twitter that, contrary to a report, she wasn’t escorted from the building on Tuesday but, rather, left “at my leisure.” Asselin had been with DC since 2008, working primarily on Batman books like Batman and Robin, Batman: Streets of Gotham, Red Robin, Birds of Prey and the relaunched Batman, Batwoman, Detective Comics and Savage Hawkman. [Bleeding Cool]

Publishing | Longtime editor Betsy Mitchell is taking early retirement from her post as editor-in-chief of Del Rey, where she helped create Del Rey Manga. Tricia Pasternak, a former Del Rey Manga editor herself, has been promoted to editorial director. Del Rey was established as a science fiction prose imprint; the manga line was created in 2004 and was mostly shut down in 2010, when Kodansha began publishing its manga directly in the U.S. However, Del Rey still publishes a handful of manga and graphic novels, including xxxHolic, King of RPGs, and Deltora Quest. [Publishers Weekly]

Legal | In a twist that sounds like something out of a comic (or even an ad from an old comic), a witness in the Michael George trial testified he saw someone wearing an obviously fake beard outside George’s Clinton Township, Michigan, comics shop a few minutes before George’s first wife Barbara was murdered inside the store in 1990. [The Tribune Democrat]

Starfire

Comics | The latest critique of Starfire comes from Michelle Lee’s 7-year-old daughter, who was a big fan of the incarnations of the character in the Teen Titans comic and animated cartoon. She summarizes the whole problem with childlike simplicity: “Well, she’s not fighting anyone. And not talking to anyone really. She’s just almost naked and posing.” [io9.com]

Comics | Former superhero reader and current manga blogger Deb Aoki describes the Starfire/Catwoman controversy for her manga fanbase and discusses how shonen manga manage to provide good, even fanservice-laden, stories for men without alienating their female readers: “The fascinating and diverse female casts of Bleach and Naruto are a big part of these series’ appeal to both male and female readers. Yes, there are some busty babes in both series — but Soul Reaper Rangiku Matsumoto is a commanding officer in the Soul Society in Bleach, and Tsunade is a strong and dynamic Hokage (leader) of Naruto’s ninja village to name just a few.” [About.com]

Comics | Brian Truitt spotlights Marvel’s ABC television tie-in Castle: Richard Castle’s Deadly Storm, the just-released graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Lan Medina. [USA Today]

Wolverine and the X-Men #1

Comics | Writer Jason Aaron and editor Nick Lowe discuss the upcoming debut of Wolverine and the X-Men, which establishes Logan as headmaster of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. [The Associated Press]

Creators | Jonathan Callan has started a Facebook campaign to persuade the Animation Writers Caucus to give a Lifetime Achievement Award to the late Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie’s wife Charlotte has posted there, asking that members of the Caucus nominate McDuffie via write-ins, as his name is not on the eligible list. [Facebook, via Blog@Newsarama]

Creators | Kate Beaton gives a pair of interviews about her popular webcomic Hark! A Vagrant!, which has received a printed collection from Drawn and Quarterly. [The L Magazine, io9.com]

Creators | Geoff Johns discusses DC’s relaunched Aquaman, which debuts today: “Everybody around has at least heard of Aquaman, and they’ve probably heard all the jokes — the same jokes Aquaman’s heard — and they have their opinion on Aquaman. Whether it’s good or bad, that’s what the book’s all about.” [USA Today]

Creators | For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, writer Jim Ottaviani was interviewed about his new graphic novel Feynman while riding on a teeter-totter with the interviewer. [HD Teeter Talk]

Comics | Caroline Small, the treasurer for Small Press Expo, meditates on the difficulty of bringing art-comics to a wider audience. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Americus

Censorship | The Good Comics for Kids bloggers, many of whom are librarians, discuss MK Reed and Jonathan Hill’s Americus, a graphic novel about religious fundamentalists challenging a YA fantasy novel in a small-town library. The discussion touches on the issues the book raises and the way those issues are portrayed in the graphic novel. [Good Comics for Kids]

Comics | Kristy Valenti takes a look at Rob Liefeld’s fashion sense: “From a fashion (and commercial) perspective, ideally, a superhero artist should create an iconic costume (for example, Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man kit, Gil Kane’s Green Lantern look, or even Power Girl’s indefatigable “boob window”); Liefeld’s costuming is more like a collection, with certain motifs he returns to.” Such as high-waisted pants, shoulder pads and French-cut bikinis. Call in the fashion police! [comiXology]

Comics | Daniel BT suspects that life is imitating art as DC’s latest effort matches all too closely a Cracked parody of superhero comics art from the 1970s. [Sunday Comics Debt]

Manga | Translator Tomo Kimura lists the top ten manga creators in Japan and the number of books they have sold, from a list compiled by Nikkei Entertainment magazine. All ten are published in the U.S. as well as Japan, and One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda tops the list with almost 55 million sold. [Tomo Kimura's Translation Notes]

Asterix

Creators | Eighty-four-year-old artist Albert Uderzo, who created Asterix the Gaul in 1959 with writer René Goscinny, has announced he’s retiring, saying he’s “a bit tired” after 52 years of drawing. The news came as publisher Hachette celebrated the sale of 350 million Asterix books worldwide. Uderzo, who took over writing after the death of Goscinny in 1977, said he has found an as-yet-unnamed successor to continue his legacy, beginning with a new book planned for release in late 2012. [Reuters, BBC News]

Passings | Italian comics writer and publisher Sergio Bonelli, whose company Sergio Bonelli Editore (formerly CEPIM) releases such titles as Dylan Dog and Nathan Never, passed away Monday in Milan. He was 79. [UPI]

Legal | A witness testified Monday in Michael George’s murder trial that she heard the defendant and his first wife Barbara George have a particularly heated argument in their Clinton Township, Michigan, comic store on July 13, 1990, only hours before Barbara was shot and killed. [Detroit Free Press]

Makeshift Miracle

Creators | If, after reading Brigid Alverson’s Robot 6 interview with Jim Zubkavich, you’re itching for more about the return of Makeshift Miracle, USA Today’s Brian Truitt profiles the creator and offers a look at some of Shun Hong Chan’s concept art. [USA Today]

Creators | Batman writer Scott Snyder talks more about Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, and a war between the Dark Knight and a centuries-old organization for the soul of Gotham City. [Hero Complex]

Creators | Writer Duane Swierczynski chats briefly about DC’s relaunched Birds of Prey, and how Poison Ivy fits into the team: “She wants to be a force for good, right now. At this moment. And she brings a skill that they really need because part of the threat in the first couple of issues is someone who uses mind-control drugs and she’s immune to that stuff. She doesn’t have that problem. And she’s extremely useful at interrogating people as you will see. Again, though, her story won’t be told for a few issues as to what’s going on in her head. I never think anyone though is a true villain, I think everyone just has different motivations honestly. Even the worst villain in a crime novel — they have good reasons for doing what they’re doing usually.” [Ology]

Process | J.M. De Matteis shares his 2003 proposal to CrossGen for Abadazad, “the one that fired up editor Ian Feller and publisher Mark Alessi and lured the legendary Mike Ploog back into the comic book field.” [J.M. De Matteis]

Mike Meyer

Police in Granite City, Illinois, have arrested a man suspected of stealing thousands of dollars worth of Superman memorabilia from a mentally disabled collector in St. Louis. Better still, they were able to recover the collection and return it to the owner, a very grateful Mike Meyer.

The Post-Dispatch reports that 37-year-old Gerry A. Armbruster of Granite City was connected to the late-August theft during the investigation on Thursday of the forcible robbery of money and jewelry from a 76-year-old man. Armbruster has been charged with one count of residential burglary for the Superman theft, and one count each of robbery and aggravated burglary for the incident with the elderly man. He’s being held in jail on $100,000 bond.

Armbruster allegedly befriended Meyer, a 48-year-old man who lives on Social Security and works part-time at McDonald’s, before swindling him out of more than 1,800 Superman comics, figures and other memorabilia he’d been collecting since 1974.

The theft quickly drew worldwide attention, with fellow fans from as far away as Australia and the United Kingdom rallying to replace Meyer’s collection. According to the Post-Dispatch, officials in Cleveland offered to pay for Meyer to tour the house where a young Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created the Man of Steel, while the Metropolis, Illinois, Chamber of Commerce has its own plan in the works.

Meyer, who now has close to double what had been stolen — with more promised or already en route — plans to give those donations to charity, likely a children’s hospital.

“People were generous to me,” Meyer, who lives with his dogs Krypto and Dyno, told the newspaper. “This is how I can be generous in return.”

Legal

Legal | Jury selection is set to begin today in Mount Clemens, Michigan, in the second trial of former retailer Michael George, charged with first-degree murder in the 1990 shooting death of his first wife Barbara in their Clinton Township comic store. George, 51, was convicted in 2008, but later that year a judge set aside the conviction, citing prosecutorial misconduct and the emergence of new evidence that might have resulted in a different verdict. [The Detroit News]

Retailing | Retailer Mike Sterling answers questions about DC’s relaunch, noting his store saw an uptick in sales before the relaunch: “In our case, comic sales have been increasing … slowly, but steadily. And judging by demand for the new Justice League #1 and the interest we’ve seen in DC’s next batch of first issues, we’re expecting a bit of a bump in sales over the next few weeks. Whether that bump sticks, even as a slight net gain after the initial excitement over the new launches peters out and we see what the sales levels on these titles will actually be, remains to be seen. But I’m optimistic. My fear was that our upward store sales trend may have been derailed by DC cancelling everything and starting again, alienating the readership we were building, but for the most part that doesn’t seem to be happening. But, you know, in six months or a year or so, we’ll know for sure.” [Progressive Ruin]

Retailing | Eric Levin, owner of Atlanta’s Criminal Records and co-founder of the Free Comic Book Day-inspired Record Store Day, may have to close his shop by Nov. 1. “We’ve been underwater ever since the economy became distressed,” he says. “We’ve been on a rescue mission for three years. I’m done paying for it by myself.” The store, which marked its 20th anniversary last month, does “above par” business selling CDs, records, comics, graphic novels and magazines. However, that hasn’t been enough to make up for the costs of moving to a larger space and hosting live music events, combined with the recession, a “miserable” holiday season and a market shift to digital music. Tom Spurgeon rounds up reactions from some publishers and cartoonists. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Dark Horse

Publishing | Officials in Milwaukie, Oregon, are negotiating with Dark Horse to move 20 of its 130 employees to the second floor of one of the company’s buildings in hopes of freeing valuable storefront real estate on Main Street to lease to retailers. [Oregon City News]

Creators | Brian K. Vaughan discusses his upcoming Image Comics sci-fi/fantasy series Saga. [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | J.H. Williams III talks about Batwoman, and the media firestorm surrounding the introduction of a lesbian Kate Kane in 2006: “The way DC announced the character way back when put people on their heels a little bit. There wasn’t any solid plan behind the character yet, so some took it as a publicity stunt—and it wasn’t at all. As people started to see there was potential for this character as a deep-rooted one you can believe in, some of that hubbub went away. She’s a legitimate character people can find things to relate with. We’re not being exploitative with her being a lesbian. We’re treating it as with any other character regardless of what their sexual orientation is—that’s a small part of who they are as a person. It’s not all about her being a lesbian and I think that’s made her a bit of a beacon for people to get behind the character instead of it being a publicity grab or something that doesn’t sit as a three-dimensional person.” [FrontiersLA, via J.H. Williams III]

Creators | Craig Thompson chats briefly about his new graphic novel Habibi. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | The works of Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are on display in Shanghai, China, as part of the traveling IllustraBrazil exhibition. [The Wall Street Journal]

Comics | Brendan Wright looks at last week’s Justice League #1 in the context of Grant Morrison and Howard Porter’s JLA #1 from 1996. [The Wright Opinion]

Legal

Legal | A Michigan judge on Monday denied a defense motion to dismiss the murder case against former retailer and convention organizer Michael George, who will now stand trial a second time in the 1990 shooting death of his first wife Barbara. His trial is set to begin Sept. 7. George, 51, was convicted in 2008 of killing his wife in their Clinton Township comic book store. However, later that year Macomb County Circuit Judge James M. Biernat set aside the conviction based on claims of prosecutorial misconduct and the emergence of new evidence that might have resulted in a different verdict. [The Detroit News]

Comic strips | On Sept. 11, the Sunday comics pages will mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11 as 93 strips from six syndicates participate in “Cartoonists Remember 9/11.” After publication, the strips will be collected at CartoonistsRemember911.com. [USA Today]

Education | Updating Monday’s report about rising waters in White River Junction, Vermont, imperiling The Center for Cartoon Studies’ Schulz Library, Director James Sturm says that while the building was seriously damaged, thanks to the efforts of students, staff and alumni, not a single book was lost. Cartoonist Jen Vaughn, meanwhile, details the rescue, with accompanying photos. [The Comics Reporter, The Beat]

Ultimate Comics Fallout #4

Retailing | Don MacPherson dissects Marvel’s offer of a free ad to retailers who order 5,000 copies of Ultimate Comics Fallout #4. [Eye on Comics]

Comics | Johanna Draper Carlson and K.C. Carlson assemble “12 Horrible Superhero Stories for Women,” from the debut of Supergirl in Action Comics #252 to the rape of Sue Dibney in Identity Crisis. [Comics Worth Reading]

Digital | Graphicly has added 15 graphic novels, including The Dapper Men, Atomic Robo and Irredeemable, to the selection of comics it makes available via the Nook. [Graphicly blog]

Creators | Abhay Khosla talks at length with writer Mark Sable. [Savage Critics]

Creators | Writer Kieron Gillen catches everyone up on the state of Marvel’s X-books. [Hero Complex]

Creators | Writer Kurtis Wiebe discusses his Image Comics horror series Green Wake. [The Weekly Crisis]

Review | Cyriaque Lamar praises Kagan McLeod’s Infinite Kung Fu: “It’s all bonkers, but within its tapestry of fists and forbidden arts is an immensely readable fantasy tale.” [io9]

Gags | This anecdote about Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson isn’t true, which is just as well. If it was, I would be weeping, wailing, and gnashing my teeth. [The Onion]

Marathon County Sheriff's Department

Well, not this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but one who looks a lot like him. Police in Marathon County, Wisconsin, have released a photo of the type of mask — Raphael, I do believe! — used last week in the robbery of a Wendy’s in the delightfully named town of Rib Mountain. That’s right, a Wendy’s, not a pizza parlor.

According to WSAW-TV, employees arrived to work last Monday morning to find Raphael and another man, wearing a nondescript black ski mask, already inside. Detectives say one suspect had a gun, and the two duct-taped the employees’ hands and ankles before making off with an undisclosed amount of cash.

There’s no mention of how the robbers got inside the restaurant. I’d suggest that police start by searching for sewer access. But be warned: The suspect is believed to be cool but crude.

Robert Crumb

Creators | Robert Crumb has decided not to attend Graphic 2011, an arts festival scheduled for Aug. 20-21 at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Crumb told The Australian he withdrew from his headline appearance because of an article in the Australian newspaper The Telegraph that called him “a self-confessed sex pervert.”

“It’s a very, very disappointing situation,” Graphic co-curator Jordan Verzar wrote on the show’s Facebook page. “There were a legion of people eagerly anticipating his visit and the Graphic team and Sydney Opera House had been working for months to pull together the shows he was involved with and to supply an enjoyable first visit to Australia for him. I sincerely doubt that he will ever make it to Australia now. It’s a very sad day, but I’m still excited and looking forward to the rest of the great shows happening at Graphic next weekend.” [The Australian]

Retailers | Birmingham, England comics shop Nostalgia and Comics was damaged during the riots of the past few days; no one was injured, but the windows were broken. [The Forbidden Planet blog]

Comic strips | For Better or For Worse creator Lynn Johnston has posted her entire foreword for Fantagraphics’ The Complete Peanuts (1981-1982) on her site. [For Better or For Worse, via Flog]

Creators | Batman annotator David Uzumeri interviews Grant Morrison about, well, Batman, as well as Action Comics, Multiversity and more. [ComicsAlliance]

"Saga," from Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Creators | Nathan Wilson interviews Fiona Staples, one of the creators who was name-checked a lot during last week’s women-in-DC-comics discussions. Don’t get your hopes up, though: Staples would rather be drawing horror comics. “You’re limited by a lot of things when dealing with superheroes. There are constraints from the fans, the publishers, and the companies who own the characters. There are the decades of history that bind the characters. It’s possible to be innovative with them, but it’s a struggle.” [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Creators | In a pair of interviews, J.H. Williams III discusses his career and the long-anticipated debut of Batwoman: “I’ve always handled female characters, dating back to my time as co-creator on Chase, then Promethea, and then Desolation Jones, to show how strong they are.  I’m not interested in drawing sexy vixens, but rather realistic women.  I find this much more attractive and beautiful.  This allows them to be fully formed characters, and not just fantasy objects.  It allows you to get involved with them.” [ComicsBlog, Multiversity]

Creators | We all know about musicians who make comics; Josh Flanagan takes a look at comics creators who make music, from Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley to Joe Quesada (seen filling in on guitar with Kirby Krackle). Rock on! [iFanboy]

Crawl to Me #1

Creators | Alex Dueben talks with Alan Robert about Crawl to Me, his new horror miniseries from IDW Publishing. [Suicide Girls]

Creators | Steve Bennett takes a look back at Carleton Waugh and his comic strip Hank, the story of a serviceman returning to civilian life after World War II: “Hank had also lost a leg in the war and he just one of a number of wounded servicemen being targeted by a group of leftover isolationists to ferment discontent and spread racist, anti-Semitic propaganda. The politics were extremely progressive and according to Waugh the strip was ‘a deliberate attempt to work in the field of social usefulness’.” From an artistic point of view, Waugh did some interesting experimentation with lettering, but alas, most of the strips have disappeared. [Super I.T.C.H.]

Commentary | Call this “Caleb reads the comments so you don’t have to”: Robot 6 contributor J. Caleb Mozzocco provides a quick roundup, with links, at the big comics controversies of the past week or so, in case you were too busy living your own life to follow them closely. [Every Day Is Like Wednesday]

Reviews | Rob Clough reviews Jason’s Isle of 100,000 Graves. [The Comics Journal]

Reviews | Richard Bruton dives into the latest Alan Moore opus, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen—Century 1969. [The Forbidden Planet blog]

Craft | Gerry Giovinco meditates on how hard it actually was to draw a straight line (let alone a curved one) before we had computers to do it for us. [CO2 Comics]

WPXI reports that on Saturday evening, Pittsburgh police Det. Robert DiGiacomo was in an unmarked vehicle looking for the suspect in an assault. Suddenly a man matching the suspect’s description opened the car door, sat down and told the detective to get out. When the officer drew his gun and ordered 21-year-old Micah Calamosca to exit the car, the suspect reportedly responded that he was part of the cast of the Christopher Nolan film … and that stealing the vehicle was just part of the script.

As you may have guessed, DiGiacomo didn’t buy the explanation. Calamosca was subsequently arrested, and faces a charge of robbery of a motor vehicle. A police vehicle. I’d have at least gone for Batman’s Tumbler. Heck, he has three, so he may not have missed one.