Richard Alf

Passings | Richard Alf, who as a teenager fronted the money for the first three years of San Diego’s Golden State Comic-Con, the annual event that later became Comic-Con International, passed away Wednesday from pancreatic cancer. He was 59. Alf, who co-chaired the first convention in 1970 and became chairman the following year, later opened Comic Kingdom in North Slope, a business he sold by the end of the decade. [U-T San Diego, Mark Evanier]

Conventions | iFanboy, San Francisco’s Isotope Comics and Grant Morrison are teaming up for MorrisonCon, which will feature “A once in a lifetime opportunity to see Grant Morrison and 9 hand picked comic creator superstars, all together for one weekend, one time only.” They’ve released few details so far, but the website says it’ll occur next fall. [MorrisonCon]

Awards | Comic-Con International is now accepting submissions for the 2012 Eisner Awards, which will be presented in San Diego in July. The deadline for submitting materials for consideration is March 6. [CCI]

Legal | Former comics retailer Michael George, who was convicted of the 1990 murder of his first wife and given a life sentence in November, has asked the judge to acquit him or order a new trial. George’s lawyer filed documents last week that claim there was weak evidence and improper tactics during his second trial. They also plan to appeal the case. [WDIV]

Dragon Lady Comics

Retailing | Toronto’s Dragon Lady Comics will close in early February after nearly 34 years in business, a move the store’s manager attributes to rising rent and slowing sales. [The Joe Shuster Awards, blogTO]

Creators | Brandon Graham delves into his process for Prophet, the upcoming Image Comics relaunch of the old Rob Liefeld property. [Warren Ellis]

Creators | Collaborators Shane Houghton and Matt Whitlock chat briefly about BOOM! Studios’ new Peanuts series. [LA Weekly]

Comics | Chad Nevett provides a supplemental reading list for the Joe Casey-written Vengeance, for anyone “wanting to know the background on various characters and concepts Joe Casey is using in that series.” [GraphiContent]

Ronald Searle

Passings | British cartoonist Ronald Searle, best known as the creator of the fictional St. Trinian’s School, passed away Friday at a hospital near his home in southeastern France. He was 91. His spiky drawings of the wicked pupils of the girls school debuted in 1941 in Lilliput magazine, leading to five books and seven films. Searle, a Cambridge native, also co-authored (with Geoffrey Willans) the Molesworth book series. [Reuters]

Conventions | Four-day passes for New York Comic Con go on sale for $85 today at noon ET/9 a.m. PT. The event will be held Oct. 11-14 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. [press release]

Conventions | Comiket, the world’s largest self-published comic book fair, drew a total of 500,000 people for its winter convention, held Thursday through Saturday at the Tokyo Big Sight in Japan. Held twice a year, in August and December, the event doesn’t use turnstiles or unique passes, so a visitor who attends all three days would be counted each time. [Anime News Network]

Graphic novels | Writing for Newsweek, Maya Jaggi offers a broad overview of “the graphic novel renaissance,” highlighting such works as Zahra’s Paradise, Habibi and Logicomix. [The Daily Beast]

Tintin

Comics | Using Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin as a springboard, Charles McGrath examines Hergé and his beloved boy reporter. [The New York Times]

Publishing | A pair of articles take a look at the growing Indian comics industry. [The Times of India, Daily News & Analysis]

Creators | Who Is Jake Ellis? writer Nathan Edmondson is spotlighted during a signing in Medford, Oregon. [Mail Tribune]

Creators | The Grant MacEwan University newspaper profiles local writer Robert Burke Richardson. [West Edmonton Local]

Jerry Robinson

“What struck me in all the phone interviews was what a small fraction of Jerry’s life was getting covered. I don’t think most people realize how politically involved he was in issues of Free Speech (especially that of cartoonists) in countries where they don’t cotton to any kind of dissent. I don’t think most folks know how involved he was in the mid-seventies campaign to establish a credit line and pensions for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster on Superman. Most folks know that Neal Adams spearheaded that campaign and his efforts were vital in making Time-Warner realize that a horrendous situation had to be rectified and put right. Not to take anything away from Neal but it was Jerry Robinson who negotiated with senior Time-Warner execs of behalf of Siegel and Shuster. It was Jerry who closed the deal.”

– Mark Evanier, reflecting on the accomplishments of legendary artist Jerry Robinson,
who passed away Wednesday at age 89

Alvin Schwartz

Passings | Alvin Schwartz, the prolific writer who penned Batman comics and the Batman and Superman comic strips for DC Comics in the 1940s, passed away Oct. 28 after a long illness. He was 95. Before leaving comics in 1958, Schwartz wrote for most of DC’s titles, including Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and The Flash. [News from ME]

Creators | Tucker Stone talks to Mark Waid about his work on Daredevil, and Waid confirms that Marcos Martin, originally announced as the artist on every other arc, won’t be working on the book after issue #6: “Unfortunately, it was something that came up while we were working. He’s doing 4, 5 and 6. When he came on, I don’t think things were firmed up with his next project and now they have. I salute him, and I think it’s going to be great and I want to see him go off and do creator owned stuff. But my heart breaks.” [comiXology]

Bunker

Comics | Out magazine spotlights the debut of Bunker, the Teen Titan with “a decidedly more flamboyant twist.” [Out]

Comics | The Texas Library Association has released their “2012 Maverick Graphic Novel List,” which notes great graphic novels for teens. The list includes Daredevil Reborn by Andy Diggle and Davide Gianfelice, Astro City Shining Stars by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson, Kagan McLeod’s Infinite Kung Fu, Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers, Barry Deutsch’s Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword and many more. [Texas Library Association]

Creators | A Distant Soil creator Colleen Doran will appear on the Dec. 12 edition of Stalked: Somebody’s Watching, which will tell the story of a fan who “believes he is in love with her and inundates her with love letters, cards, and gifts. When she spurns his advances, he attempts to ruin her career by spreading lies about her throughout the industry, according to the show’s description.

Creators | Tom Spurgeon talks to colorist Rich Tommaso about his work on Fantagraphics’ Carl Barks Library project. [The Comics Reporter]

The creator of The Family Circus passed away Tuesday at the age of 89, after what was by all accounts a wonderful life. Keane started drawing The Family Circus in 1960, and it is still going strong today — his son Jeff took over in recent years — and his 60-year marriage to Thelma Keane, the model for the mother in the cartoon, was a love match. Keane served as the president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1981 to 1983 and emceed its awards banquet for 16 years. Even before he died, his fellow cartoonists unfailingly described him as the nicest of nice guys, and startlingly funny. His niceness, apparently, had a bit of an edge.

Keane took The Family Circus seriously, seeing his mission as providing “good, wholesome, family entertainment,” a sort of cartoon comfort food for readers whose real-life families may not have been quite as warm as his fictional clan. In fact, one of the most touching tributes to his work came from Lynda Barry:

I was a kid growing up in a troubled household. We didn’t have books in the house, but we did have the daily paper, and I remember picking out ”Family Circus” before I could really read. There was something about looking through a circle at a life that looked pretty good to me.

For kids like me, there was a map and a compass that was hidden [in] “Family Circus.” The parents in that comic strip really loved their children. He put that image in my head and it stayed with me.

The Family Circus was such an iconic comic that it became a blank canvas for Internet wags who mercilessly parodied Keane’s work. He had a high tolerance for that; he told Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis that his parodies were fine as long as they were funny, and he actually did a crossover with Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead after Griffith featured Jeffy in his strip. It seems to be Amazon, not Keane, who purged the facetious “reviews” of his books such as this one:

It has been decades since Mr. Keane first turned the comic strip world upside-down with his revolutionary approach to the craft… his sparse, minimalist backgrounds, depicting the empty barren futility of the tangible universe vis a vis the soul and essence of our being… his characters rendered with almost stingy economy, e.g. a single nostril clearly Implies a second one… and not least of course the circular framework, which speaks of infinity in all directions, and breaks the rigid iron boundaries of the suffocating Teutonic rectangles..

One of the earliest web parodies (it started as a zine) was The Dysfunctional Family Circus, which posted Keane’s panels and invited readers to submit their own captions. Initially, Keane was cool with it; he told American Catholic magazine, “Some of their captions were funnier than mine.” When he felt the captions were going too far, though, he called the creator of the parody, Greg Galick. (OK, he had his lawyers write to him first, but most people would have stopped at that.)

And when the conflict was personalized, Galcik wrote, it spelled the end. “[A]s we got further into the conversation, I just realized I couldn’t really go on doing what I’m doing,” Galcik’s announcement notes. Bil Keane had surprised him. “He’s actually a nice guy….”

And Keane agreed to let Galcik run the comic for another week, so he could get to number 500.

The Family Circus may not have been most people’s idea of great art, but when I was a kid it made me laugh out loud. Not only has it become a fixture of everyday life in America, but Keane has contributed several cartoon concepts to the popular vocabulary, including the fictitious imps Ida Know and Not Me (who are the chief wrongdoers in the Family Circus household) and the dotted line that describes Billy’s detour-filled path around his suburban neighborhood. Best of all, Keane always seemed to enjoy what he was doing, and in his personal life as well as his professional role, he made a lot of people laugh. You can’t ask for a better legacy than that.

Link roundup:

King Features, Keane’s syndicate (the page received so many views yesterday that the site crashed)
IDW Publishing’s statement
Comic Riffs gathers tributes from fellow cartoonists
Stephan Pastis’s personal memories of Keane
Bil Keane obituary at NPR
Bil Keane obituary at The Washington Post

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]

Justice League #1 (Second Printing)

Publishing | DC Comics will allocate the second printing of Justice League #1, with retailers receiving 32 percent of their orders, which now won’t ship until Sept. 21, the same day the third printing will be released. ICv2 reports some stores are concerned that potential new readers drawn in by the publisher’s promotional campaign for the New 52 won’t understand the two-week wait to pick up a copy of the comic. The website also runs down the list of cable television shows during which DC’s New 52 commercial is airing. [ICv2.com]

Passings | Comic Art Community reports that artist Dave Hoover passed away earlier this week. Hoover, who drew runs of Captain America and Starman in the 1990s, more recently worked on Zenescope’s Charmed comic. Before working in comics, Hoover was an animator, working on Flash Gordon, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra: Princess of Power, The Super Friends, The Smurfs and many more in the 1970s and 1980s. [Comic Art Community]

The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man

Creators | In support of The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, his new superhero children’s book (with Jake Parker), Michael Chabon tells the Wall Street Journal he wrote it for “the primary focus group,” his son Abe. “This was a story that I wanted to write for him. He’s at the age when, boys in particular, you get into kindergarten and it becomes much more important that you know how to control your body and strength, to restrain yourself and hold yourself back. He was working through a lot of that stuff and occasionally struggling with it. Part of the recipe of a four or five-year-old boy is superheroes and fascination with superheroes. They want to wear costumes all the time. They’ll wear their costumes to school. Part of what makes a superhero a superhero is the ability to use his body and have this incredible power and strength. It seemed like the superhero was a perfect figure to create a little story about someone who needs to control his power and recognize the limits of his power.” [The Wall Street Journal]

Creators | Continuing his publicity tour for Habibi, Craig Thompson talks about the new book in advance of this weekend’s SPX, which Thompson is attending as a special guest. [Washington City Paper]

Green River Killer: A True Detective Story

Creators | Writer Jeff Jensen chats with Geoff Boucher about his true-crime graphic novel, Green River Killer: A True Detective Story. [Hero Complex]

Creators | Retired Marine Capt. Dale Dye and his wife Julia Dye discuss Code Word: Geronimo, which tells the story of SEAL Team Six and the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. [USA Today]

Reviews | Spencer Ackerman takes a look at the 9/11 Truther comic The Big Lie, saying Rick Veitch’s newest work “makes Frank Miller’s forthcoming Holy Terror seem calm and reasonable.”[Wired]

Reviews| Robot 6 contributor J. Caleb Mozzocco reviews Boys of Steel, a children’s book about Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster that tells a carefully restricted version of the story as a picture book but adds a more unvarnished version at the end in text form. [Every Day Is Like Wednesday]

Troop 142

Reviews | Greg McElhatton reads Mike Dawson’s Troop 142 in collected form, after having followed it as a webcomic, and finds that it’s a somewhat different experience: “It was fun, that sort of story about young men at camp that instantly feels real. But reading again a year later, all in one sitting? There’s a much stronger emotional heft to the story that I think is slightly lost in serialized format.” [Read About Comics]

Reviews | Similarly, Xaviar Xerexes finds that the collected edition of Zahra’s Paradise packed a punch that the webcomic didn’t: “This may be the most emotional, involving comic I’ve read this year. I’ve read along with the webcomic but sitting down with the book and reading the story from start to finish was immersive and cathartic.” [ComixTalk]

Comic strips | How do you get your comic strip picked up by King Features? It’s a long shot in this market, says editor Brendan Burford, but he lays out the basics of what they are looking for. What not to do: Submit your comic in a glitter-covered binder or a toilet seat. Oddly, the comments get hijacked by fans of something called 2 Cows and a Chicken, which they keep pleading with Burford to pick up, even after he explains nicely why he can’t. File that under What Not to Do. [DailyINK Blog, via The Daily Cartoonist]

Retailers | Three comic shops within a mile radius of one another? That makes Falls Church sound like heaven. [Falls Church News-Press]

Flashpoint #3

Comics | Flashpoint editor Eddie Berganza talks to USA Today about the midpoint of DC’s big summer event series and how it might tie into the September relaunch: “They’re starting to figure out where these 52 are coming from, and it’s staring them right in the face with Flashpoint. A lot of the concepts, a lot of the ideas, they’re cropping up within the pages. You have a book called Frankenstein in the Flashpoint world, and guess what, we’re doing Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE. You’ll see a couple of other background players start showing up that become more important as we go into September.” [USA Today]

Retailing | Borders Group warned investors on Tuesday against buying any more of the company’s stock as it soon could be worthless. If a federal bankruptcy court approves the $215-million opening bid submitted last week, the bookseller would become a subsidiary of the privately held Direct Brands, owner of the Book of the Month Club and Columbia House, meaning stock will no longer be traded. [The Detroit News]

Passings | Manga writer Shinji Wada, who teamed up with You Higuro on the lighthearted romance/caper/parody Crown, has died. [Anime News Network]

Teen Angels and New Mutants

Creators | Saga of the Swamp Thing artist Steve Bissette talks about his new book, Teen Angels and New Mutants, a 400-page “history of the ways entertainment has exploited teenagers, both fictional and actual, and partly a critical analysis of the early ’90s comics series Brat Pack.” [Shelf Life]

Creators | Tom Neely, who was interviewed just yesterday by Robot 6, talks more about his “painted novel” The Wolf. Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles will host a launch party for the book on Thursday Friday. [LA Weekly]

Creators | Whilce Portacio, Francis Manapul and several other Filipino comic book creators answer questions about their work and provide updates on their latest projects. [Philippine Daily Inquirer]

Creators | Jillian Tamaki gives an in-depth interview about her career, Skim and her job as an art instructor, among other topics. [The Comics Journal]

Digital | Paperkeg describes a social encounter with a comics retailer who made some recommendations, just the sort of thing that happens all the time in local comics shops—except that this time it was all digital. [Paperkeg]

Neil Gaiman

Politics | The controversy in Minnesota continues over Neil Gaiman’s speaking fee, with a state House Republican committee chairman now recommending a $45,000 cut to the Twin Cites’ regional library system budget to make up for the Legacy Fund money paid to the author and comics writer in May 2010. “I simply subtracted out $45,000 — just making a point,” Rep. Dean Urdahl said. Gaiman responded that the move “seems like a sad way to make a point.” He talks at length with CityPages about the controversy. [Star-Tribune]

Passings | Prolific Argentine comics writer Carlos Trillo, co-creator of CyberSix, passed away over the weekend while on vacation in London. He was 68. Trillo, whose career spanned five decades, collaborated with such artists as Eduardo Risso, Jordi Bernet, Juan Bobillo, Carlos Meglia and Domingo Roberto Mandrafina. [TN.com, via The Beat]

Retailing | Peter Panepinto turns a Free Comic Book Day preview into one of those perennial articles about the potential effects of superhero movies on comic-book sales. [Carroll County Times]

Conventions | Deb Aoki wraps up the first day of last weekend’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival. [About.com]

Flashpoint #1

Publishing | Brian Truitt continues his preview of DC Comics’ Flashpoint event, which puts The Flash in the spotlight. “He’s not about a hundred guys who run fast,” Geoff Johns says. “He’s not Green Lantern where Green Lantern is about this intergalactic space corps. The Flash’s huge canvas is time. I’ve always said when I was redoing both these characters, it’s time and space. Batman’s the ultimate crime vigilante superhero. You will never ever top Batman, and for time travel and crossing all these different planes of reality, you’ll never top the Flash. The Flash owns time.” [USA Today]

Creators | Mike Huddleston chats, not entirely seriously, about Butcher Baker, Righteous Maker, his new Image Comics collaboration with Joe Casey: “Joe and I had both been on the professional arm wrestling circuit for several years and kind of knew each other from competitions. It just happened that we were both sidelined last year with injuries, so being out of competition for a season we had time to kill and started talking about other jobs we could have. I had heard you could get really rich making independent comics, so I convinced Joe to give writing a shot and the rest is history. Joe has had these characters in his head since he was like 6 years old, so I’m not sure how many issues he has planned. We’ll see if he can keep his schedule once he’s back in competition.” [Bloody Disgusting]

One Piece, Vol. 27

Crime | Police in Fukuoka City, Japan, arrested three 17-year-old males on charges of shoplifting the first 57 volumes of One Piece, the insanely popular manga series by Eiichiro Oda. [Anime News Network]

Comics | J. Caleb Mozzocco writes at length about the 2010 Marvel miniseries Doomwar. [Every Day Is Like Wednesday]

Comics | Jeffery Klaehn posts a gallery of Thor art, and posts his list of the Top 10 Thor covers by Jack Kirby and Walter Simonson. [Pop]

Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One

Awards | Adam Hines has won the graphic novel category in the 31st annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his debut book Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One. The other nominees were Dash Shaw’s Bodyworld, Karl Stevens’ The Lodger, Carol Tyler’s You’ll Never Know, Book II, and Jim Woodring’s Weathercraft. [press release]

Conventions | More than two years after canceling its Los Angeles convention, Wizard World announced it will return to the city Sept. 24-25 with Los Angeles Comic Con, to be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Big Apple Comic Con, which previously had been scheduled for those dates, will be moved to the spring. [press release]

Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson talks with Viz Media Vice President Alvin Lu about the expansion of the publisher’s iPad app to include iPhone and iPod Touch. [Publishers Weekly]

You & Me, Etc.

Publishing | Margaret O’Connell looks at the role Tokyopop played in bringing boys’ love manga to the English-language market. [Sequential Tart]

Publishing | In the past two years, $943,118 has been raised for comics projects through Kickstarter. [Bleeding Cool]

Passings | Margalit Fox pens an obituary for comic strip historian and archivist Bill Blackbeard, who passed away March 10 at age 84. [The New York Times]

Creators | Veteran writer Roger Stern is interviewed in advance of his Free Comic Book Day appearance at Chautauqua Comics in Jamestown, N.Y. [The Observer]

Creators | Carla Speed McNeil discusses bringing her acclaimed Finder series to Dark Horse. [Sequential Tart]

Comics | In light of the recent uproar, here’s a look at Superman’s history of “un-American activity.” [Comicbook.com]

Bill Blackbeard

Passings | Writer, editor and historian Bill Blackbeard, widely credited with saving the American comic strip from the ash heap of history, passed away on March 10 at a nursing home in Watsonville, Calif. He was 84. A lifelong collector of comic strips, Blackbeard founded the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art in 1968, filling the garage and basement with thousands of bound volumes of old newspapers let go by libraries when they converted their archives to microfilm. His collection grew by the 1990s to 350,000 Sunday strips and 2.5 million dailies, which eventually made their way to Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. Blackbeard wrote, edited or contributed to more than 200 books on cartoons and comic strips, including The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, 100 Years of Comic Strips and Fantagraphics’ Krazy & Ignatz series.

Numerous obituaries and reminisces have appeared since yesterday, most notably from R.C. Harvey, Tom Spurgeon, Jeet Heer, Dylan Williams, ICv2.com, and Dan Nadel, who collected a handful of tributes. [The Comics Journal]

Borders

Retailing | The bankrupt Borders Group, the second-largest book chain in the United States, is investigating whether any of its customers’ personal data was exposed on a website that purportedly contained information about its loyalty program. The website, which has been taken offline, reportedly published a searchable database of information associated with Borders Rewards, which has more than 41 million members. The site was apparently set up by the marketing firm that helped the bookseller design and implement the program. [AnnArbor.com]

Retailing | Judith Rosen surveys independent bookstores in New York, and finds things are better than one might expect. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | Danny Graydon talks with Fables writer Bill Willingham about the origins of the Vertigo series, collaborating with Mark Buckingham, the forthcoming original graphic novel Werewolves of the Heartland, and the title’s enduring appeal: “It’s a story in which you can understand what we’re trying to do in a single line – characters you know from fairy tales in a modern setting – so it’s available and open to people who wouldn’t be inclined to pick up a brand new series. The other thing is that we have been blessed with a fanatical and evangelical readership. They put these things in the hands of their non-comic book reading father or mother or girlfriend and what have you and say ‘This is why I love comics’ and a lot of people get attracted to the series that way. [Danny Graydon, via Forbidden Planet International]

Creators | Paul Morton interviews Shaun Tan. [The Millions]

Crime | A man was wounded Sunday in Columbus, Ohio, after a shotgun being used as a prop in an amateur Spider-Man movie fired, striking him in the leg. No charges were filed. [WBNS-10TV]

Archie Comics #1

Comics | A copy of Archie Comics #1, published in winter 1942, sold at auction last week for $167,300, setting a world record for an Archie title and a non-superhero comic. “Archie may have a ways to go to catch the likes of Superman and Batman, his Golden Age counterparts,” said Lon Allen, managing director of comics for Heritage Auctions, “but you can bet that collectors sat up and took notice when this comic brought that price. This amount exceeds the priciest of Spidey and Hulk comic books we’ve sold, which brought in excess of $125,000 each.” [Luxist]

Retailing | REDgroup Retail, which owns the Australian booksellers Borders and Angus & Robertson, has laid off 321 employees at the two chains following the closing of 38 stores. The company entered into administration last month. [ABC News]

Retailing | Borders Group has asked a bankruptcy judge for more time to decide whether to assume or reject its 681 leases, including those for 674 stores. If granted, the extension would give the company until Jan. 12, 2012, to deal with its leases. [Detroit Free Press]

Publishing | Oni Press has promoted associate editors Jill Beaton and Charlie Chu to editor. [press release]

Creators | V. Gangadhar and Swati Daftuar write tributes to Indian comics pioneer Anant Pai, who passed away on Feb. 24 at age 81. [The Hindu]

James Kochalka

Creators | Lauren Ober offers a lengthy profile of James Kochalka, Vermont’s first cartoonist laureate: “I’m kind of like the state flower now. I can’t really expect myself to be the state flower, can I? I can’t be that pure. Can I be as pure as the clover?” [Seven Days]

Creators | Paul Constant talks with Mike Mignola about folktales, the world of Hellboy, selecting collaborators, and becoming a writer: “The last thing I ever expected was being a writer. I only became a writer because I realized nobody was going to read my mind and write the perfect story for me. It was entirely an excuse to draw what I wanted to draw. I actually gotta say, in this five years of doing writing, I have written things I’m pretty proud of. I could see continuing as a writer. There’s no problem making up stories, there are a billion stories I’d like to do and a lot of great artists I’d like to work with. But you gotta make decisions. What’s really fun to me is doing the drawing. When I write for other people, I’ve got to leave them a lot of room to do things their way. There’s always a part of me that knows how I would do the story, but the way I’ve kind of lived with it is ‘Let them do it their way. This story over here we’re going to do ourselves. I do it my way.’ That’s where I am.” [Portland Mercury]

Comics | Glen Weldon casts an eye over BOOM! Studios’ newly announced Peanuts graphic novel. [NPR]

Organizations | NBC Nightly News discovers the nonprofit 826NYC and its Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company. [NBC Nightly News]

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

Broadway | The New York Times reports the producers of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are considering delaying the $65 million musical for a sixth time, until as late as June, a move that would make the show ineligible for this year’s Tony Awards. Speculation about another possible postponement follows a wave of scathing reviews, reports that comics writer and playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa had been approached to rewrite the book, and the hiring of veteran conductor and musical supervisor Paul Bogaev to help improve the production. A spokesman for the show would only say that, “Opening night remains scheduled for March 15.” [ArtsBeat]

Comic-Con | Hotel reservations for Comic-Con International will open at 9 a.m. PT on March 9. A preliminary list of hotels included in the Comic-Con block is available on the convention website. [Comic-Con International]

Passings | Robert Samsel, a comics retailer and an early writer and editor at Wizard magazine, died unexpectedly on Feb. 18 at MidState Medical Center in Meridan, Connecticut. He was 46. Mark Seifert has a remembrance. [The Record-Journal]

The Beano

Publishing | Alan Digby, editor-in-chief of The Beano and BeanoMax, is retiring from DC Thomson after 40 years. He’ll be replaced by Michael Stirling, the publisher’s deputy head of children’s entertainment. Digby was only the fourth editor of The Beano since its debut in 1938, stepping into the role in 2006. [The Drum]

Organizations | Calvin Reid briefly spotlights the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | Patti Martinson interviews brothers Ethan and Malachai Nicolle, creators of Axe Cop. [Sequential Tart]

Creators | Crime novelist Ian Rankin, who previously wrote the graphic novel Dark Entries for Vertigo, confirms he’ll pen a comic strip for Mark Millar’s CLiNT magazine. [The Guardian]

Creators | Entertainment Weekly‘s Jeff Jensen sings the praises of a Marcos Martin-drawn page from The Amazing Spider-Man #655. [Shelf Life]

Universal Uclick

Comic strips | In what Michael Cavna so accurately describes as “a seismic shift” for the world of newspaper syndication, United Media has announced it will outsource all editorial, production, sales, marketing and distribution functions for its 150 comics and other features to Kansas City-based Universal Uclick. (Tom Spurgeon likens the move to Marvel outsourcing all of its titles to DC Comics.) The transition begins immediately, and is expected to be complete by June 1. United Media’s stable of strips include Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, Rose Is Rose and Marmaduke. Universal Uclick’s lineup includes Doonesbury, Non Sequitur, Garfield, For Better or For Worse and the recently added Peanuts and Dilbert. [Comic Riffs]

Passings | Anant Pai, who’s credited with launching India’s comic industry in the 1960s with his series Amar Chitra Katha (Immortal Picture Stories), died Thursday of a heart attack. He was 81. Affectionately known by his fans as “Uncle Pai,” he also created the children’s series Tinkle and had spent the past three years working on Glimpses of Glory, which chronicles 40 defining moments from Indian history. After falling and fracturing his foot, Pai underwent surgery of Saturday, which prevented him from attending the first Indian Comic Con, where he was to be given a lifetime achievement award. [The Associated Press, India Real Time]

Blogosphere | Neilalien, the godfather of the comics blogosphere, marks his 11th anniversary today by announcing his retirement from regular blogging. [Neilalien]

Borders Group headquarters

Retailing | Representatives of Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House and Perseus Books Group have been appointed to the committee of unsecured creditors involved with Borders Group’s bankruptcy. [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | Andrew Smith spotlights Jon Goldwater, co-CEO of Archie Comics, focusing on recent changes at the company, including the elimination of the Comics Code seal: “You push it as far as you want to push it within the integrity of the characters. These characters, even though they’re high school students … have a 70-year history. So when a mother or a father or a kid or whoever picks up an Archie comic, there’s a certainty in that comic. They know what they’re getting. But what we want to do is, we want to sorta push it as far as we can within that certainty.” [The Commercial Appeal]

Publishing | The publisher of the controversial comic Chopin: New Romantic will return the $41,200 it received from Poland’s foreign ministry to produce the work. [Warsaw Business Journal]

Creators | Grant Morrison talks about the animated adaptation of All-Star Superman, and hints at a possible return to the Man of Steel: “I still have a few Superman stories I’d like to tell.” [Hero Complex]

Creators | Mike Rhode interviews Nick Bertozzi. [Washington City Paper]

Creators | Michael Avon Oeming discusses Powers, Mice Templar and Takio. [The Montclarion]

Hereville

Awards | Barry Deutsch’s Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword has been nominated for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as part of the prestigious Nebula Awards. “When the nice lady from the Nebula committee called me, she said this is ‘essentially the Nebula Award for young adult books’,” Deutsch writes. Although graphic novels are specifically mentioned in the Andre Norton Award guidelines, this appears to be the first time one has been nominated. The award was established in 2005 in honor of prolific science fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton, who passed away that year. The winners will be announced May 21 in Washington, D.C., during the Nebula Awards banquet. [SFFWA]

Passings | We’ll collect reactions later today to the sudden death of respected comics and animation writer Dwayne McDuffie — Comic Book Resources has remembrances from more than a dozen industry figures — but I wanted to go ahead and point to a handful of links: The Associated press obituary; a few words from Christopher Irving, accompanied by a beautiful portrait of McDuffie photographed by Seth Kushner on Feb. 13; the origin of Static; and a look at Spider-Man anti-drug PSA comics written by McDuffie. There’s also McDuffie’s message board, where he interacted candidly with fans on a regular basis. Two threads are devoted to the news of his death and memories of the creator they often referred to as “the Maestro.” The site’s administrator has posted a message last night on the main page: “Dwayne’s family and friends would like to thank everyone for the outpouring of condolences. They are much appreciated in this difficult time.” [Dwayne McDuffie]

Amazon Kindle

Digital comics | Todd Allen examines now Amazon’s pricing policies are forcing some publishers to rethink using the Kindle as a platform for their comics. [Publishers Weekly]

Digital comics | Gus G. Sentementes spotlights the move by Diamond Comic Distributors into digital distribution with its recently announced partnership with iVerse Media. [The Baltimore Sun]

Publishing | Poland’s foreign minister has ordered the pulping of a controversial graphic novel about the composer Chopin commissioned by the country’s Berlin embassy. Designed to promote Polish culture to German schoolchildren, the comic included a profanity-laden story in which a modern-day Chopin goes to a concert at a prison with his skinhead friend. The approach, intended to make Chopin more accessible, backfired, leading to the destruction of all 2,000 copies. [Warsaw Business Journal, TheNews]

Creators | Geoff Boucher chats with veteran artist Joe Staton about taking the reins, with writer Mike Curtis, of the Dick Tracy comic strip: “My involvement with Dick Tracy and Chester Gould goes back about as far as is possible. My mother said that when I was 3, I was found in the kitchen floor with the Sunday funnies, trying to copy a picture of Tracy. That would have been in 1951. Everything I’ve learned or developed in terms of my art since then has been built on those first encounters with Tracy. That’s why I’m not trying to ‘ape’ Chester Gould’s style (or Rick Fletcher’s, or Dick Locher’s, for that matter). I just always have the faith that when I get down to basics, I’ll find Tracy waiting for me.” [Hero Complex]

21: The Story of Roberto Clemente

Creators | Cartoonist Wilfred Santiago discusses his upcoming graphic biography 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente, which will be released in April by Fantagraphics Books. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | Alex Dueben talks with Camilla d’Errico about her influences, art school and her new art book Femina and Fauna. [Suicide Girls]

Creators | Collaborators Joshua Hale Fialkov and Rahsan Ekedal discuss Echoes, their new miniseries from Top Cow Productions’ Minotaur Press imprint. Note: The first issue is being serialized here at Robot 6. [Major Spoilers]

Creators | Thom Atkinson briefly spotlights Frank Quitely, who’s holding a workshop today as part of the Glasgow Film Festival. [The Skinny]

Creators | King City creator Brandon Graham has moved his always-entertaining and informative blog to a new location. [Royal Boiler]

Perry Moore

Passings | Perry Moore, executive producer of The Chronicles of Narnia movie franchise and author of Hero, was found dead Thursday in his New York City apartment after an apparent overdose. He was 39. A longtime comics fan, Moore wrote the acclaimed 2007 young-adult novel Hero, about the world’s first gay teen superhero. At one point he and Stan Lee were developing the book as a series for Showtime, but the cable network ultimately passed.

Moore was outspoken about the portrayal of gay characters in mainstream superhero comics, releasing in 2007 a “Women in Refrigerators”-inspired list of ignored, mistreated or retconned LGBT heroes. He also appeared at Comic-Con International in 2008 and 2009 on the gays in comics panels. [New York Daily News]

Borders

Retailing | A bankruptcy judge on Thursday told Borders Group it can liquidate 200 of its 642 stores immediately, allowing the bookseller to begin going-out-of-business sales today. Meanwhile, publishers are expected to inform the chain at a meeting scheduled for next Thursday that they won’t ship books to the retailer under normal terms. “A company in bankruptcy can’t expect that we would extend credit in the same way as before,” one publisher told Publishers Weekly. [Publishers Weekly]

Retailing | A small fire broke out Thursday in the basement of 11 St. Marks Place in New York City, the building that houses St. Marks Comics, resulting in the temporary closing of the 27-year-old store. [The Village Voice, DNAInfo]

Comic Relief

Retailing | Jessica Rossini has still more on the closing of Berkeley, Calif., retailer Comic Relief. There’s nothing new to the article, but it’s worth checking out for the accompanying photo of manager Chris Juricich loading longboxes into the back of a hearse. [The Daily Californian]

Passings | Mark Evanier writes a remembrance of Joanne Siegel, wife of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, who passed away on Monday. The Los Angeles Times also publishes an obituary. [Los Angeles Times]

Conventions | Shruti Chakraborty previews the inaugural Indian Comic Con, being held this weekend in New Delhi. [India Real Time]

An early drawing of Lois Lane by Joe Shuster, who used Joanne Siegel as a model

Passings | As Comic Book Resources reported, Joanne Siegel, wife of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and the model for Lois Lane, passed away Monday in California. She was 93. Although news of her death first circulated online via Brad Meltzer’s Twitter account, the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Michael Sangiacomo had the first official report, only hours after he wrote about the installation of signs bearing the honorary street names “Joe Shuster Lane” and “Lois Lane” in the Cleveland neighborhood where Siegel and Shuster created the Man of Steel. CBR’s Kiel Phegley spoke with Meltzer, who met Joanne Siegel while researching his novel The Book of Lies. Heidi MacDonald, meanwhile, has reaction from Bradley Ricca, who’s working on a documentary about the Siegel family. The Hollywood Reporter and The Superman Super Site also have obituaries. More will certainly appear throughout the day. [Comic Book Resources]

Publishing | Acclaimed cartoonist Alison Bechdel (Fun Home, Dykes to Watch Out For) has been named the guest editor of the 2011 edition of The Best American Comics, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. [Shelf Life]

Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson spotlights the “quiet revolution” at Archie Comics that finds the publisher expanding into graphic novels and digital delivery, further diversifying its characters and tackling more topical issues. [Publishers Weekly]

Comic Relief

Retailing | Comic Relief, the famed Berkeley, Calif., store that’s struggled since the death of founder Rory Root, closed Monday. The inventory and fixtures have been purchased by Jack Rems, founder and owner of Dark Carnival Books. There are plans to open a new store, but it won’t be called Comic Relief. [The Beat]

Broadway | Despite overwhelmingly negative reviews, the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has seen a 3 percent increase in ticket sales, grossing $1.33 million in the past week. It’s the second-highest grossing show on Broadway, behind the long-running Wicked. [Arts Beat]

Creators | Sean Michael Robinson begins a three-part interview with Cerebus collaborator Gerhard. [TCJ.com]

Mike Mignola

Creators | Mike Mignola discusses the setting and architecture of the Hellboy universe: “I have never done a story in a shopping mall because, even if I’m not drawing it myself, I don’t want to see somebody draw a shopping mall. In the Hellboy world, and in other things I’ve done, those places almost don’t exist. When I do Eastern Europe — and I’ve been to Eastern Europe, and I’ve seen the shopping malls and the god-awful housing projects and things, and there are horror stories that take place in there, I have no doubt—but I gravitate toward the classic, clichéd, spooky places, whether they truly exist in this world or not.” [BLDGBLOG, via The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Brian Truitt talks to Top Cow Publisher Filip Sablik and collaborator/longtime friend John Mahoney about the upcoming miniseries Last Mortal. [USA Today]

Comics | Douglas Wolk recommends five comic-book collections to read as an introduction to Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. [Techland]

Art Spiegelman

Awards | Art Spiegelman on Sunday won the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, marking only the third time an American has received the honor (the other two were Will Eisner and Robert Crumb). “Considering my poor skills, I’m looking a little like the president Obama receiving the Nobel Peace prize,” he told the festival by telephone from the United States. Spiegelman will serve as the grand marshal for next year’s event.

Other winners at the four-day festival, which drew an estimated 200,000 visitors, include David Mazzuchelli for Asterios Polyp (Grand Jury Prize), and Naoki Urasawa and the late Osamu Tezuka for Pluto (Intergenerational Award). The full list of winners can be found here. [Agence France-Presse]

Retailing | The beleaguered Borders Group announced on Sunday that it’s delaying January payments to vendors and landlords in an effort to save cash while it tries to complete a debt restructuring. This marks the second round of delays for the bookseller, which has been pressuring large publishers and distributors to agree by Feb. 1 to convert late payments into $125 million in loans. The bookstore chain announced just last week that it secured a $550 million credit line from G.E. Capital, but only if several tough conditions were met — including an unlikely agreement from publishers. [The Wall Street Journal]

Jeff Alexander

Passings | Mike Rhode reports that Jeff Alexander, a former executive director of the Small Press Expo and coordinator of the Ignatz Awards, passed away over the weekend, apparently of a heart attack. The SPX website and Greg McElhatton have tributes. [ComicsDC]

Publishing | Dark Horse has announced it’s delaying the planned January launch of its proprietary platform for distributing digital comics, stating only that “factors beyond our control have impacted our plans and we are working to address these new developments.” [Dark Horse]

Publishing | Rich Johnston reports on rumors that Marvel will experiment with a 20-page/$2.99 price point approach for some of its books. [Bleeding Cool]

Legal | A Swedish appeals court on Friday upheld the conviction of a manga translator for possessing 39 drawings that violated the country’s child-pornography laws. It did, however, reduce the fine imposed on Simon Lundström from about $3,866 to $864. [The Local]

Conventions | Kari Dequine reports on last weekend’s Wizard World New Orleans Comic Con, which was expected to draw 10,000 attendees. There’s a related photo gallery. [Times Picayune]

Tokyo International Anime Fair

Conventions | Ninety-one exhibitors now have withdrawn from the upcoming Tokyo International Anime Fair following increased restrictions by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on the sale of manga and anime containing “extreme” depictions of sexual acts. Organizers of the March event acknowledge that there will be just 153 exhibitors. [The Independent]

Creators | Matthias Wivel posts the first part of a transcribed interview with Chris Ware conducted in May at the Copenhagen International Comics Festival. [TCJ.com]

Creators | Matthew Price interviews legendary MAD cartoonist Sergio Aragones. [The Oklahoman]

Comics | Ben Morse explains why super speed is better than flight. [The Cool Kids Table]

Borders

Retailing | Troubles continue for Borders Group as the retailer filed notice Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Executive Vice President Thomas D. Carney and Chief Information Officer D. Scott Laverty have resigned. Just last week Borders, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, announced it’s delaying payments to some publishers as it attempts to restructure its credit lines. [GalleyCat]

Passings | Longtime retailer Carl Tupper, who owned BSI Comics in Metairie, Louisiana, for 30 years, passed away on Dec. 29. He was 70 years old. [BSI Comics, ICv2.com]

Libraries | Four of the top five young-adult titles checked out from the New York Public Library in 2010 were manga: Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto, Tite Kubo’s Bleach, Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, and Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Z. Jennifer Holm’s graphic novel Babymouse and Jeff Kinney’s comics-prose hybrid Diary of a Wimpy Kid were the top two children’s titles. [NYPL Wire]

Organizations | Child’s Play, the charity founded in 2003 by Penny Arcade creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, raised $2,294,317.53 in donations in 2010, setting a record for the organization, which provides toys and video games to hospitals worldwide. [Gamasutra]

Death Note Black Edition, Vol. 1

Publishing | Deb Aoki looks ahead to 82 new manga series and one-shots set to debut this year. [About.com]

Conventions | Jessica Testa previews the first Amazing Arizona Comic Convention, which will be held Saturday and Sunday at the Mesa Convention Center in Mesa, Arizona. Guests include Robert Kirkman, Rob Liefeld, Jeph Loeb, Joe Benitez, John Layman, Ryan Ottley, Cory Walker, and cast members from The Walking Dead. [The Arizona Republic]

Creators | Tom Spurgeon continues his holiday interview series with writer Kelly Sue DeConnick: “Every story is absolutely perfect when it only lives in my head. I’m confident, I have all kinds of ideas, snippets of dialogue, etc. — it’s like a high almost. And then… I have to start writing it down. And once those ideas meet the real world and I can examine them from even the distance of my eyes to the page… well, that’s when it becomes clear that I’m not a genius after all.” [The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Writer Ruthie Kott relates a humorous story told to her by Paul Hornschemeier. [Gapers Block]

Webcomics | Todd Allen and Scott Beaderstadt’s comic Division and Rush has moved from the ChicagoNow website to its own domain. [Division and Rush]

Adrienne Roy

Passings | Prolific colorist Adrienne Roy, who was a fixture of DC Comics for more than two decades, passed away on Dec. 14 following a year-long battle with cancer. She was 57. Although Roy’s work appeared in countless DC titles, from Green Lantern and Superman to Warlord and Wonder Woman, she’s best known for her extensive runs on Batman, Detective Comics and The New Teen Titans. Mark Evanier notes that “Her long tenure on Batman (more than 600 issues of various comics featuring the character) meant that her credit appeared on more tales of the Caped Crusader than anyone else except for Bob Kane.” CBGExtra posts an obituary written by her husband Anthony Tollin. [News from ME]

Publishing | Rich Johnston reports on rumored contract changes at DC Comics that would affect all new creator-owned titles in the DC Universe and Vertigo imprints. [Bleeding Cool]

Publishing | Storm Lion, the Singapore-based multimedia studio behind the 2008 Radical Publishing miniseries Freedom Formula, has closed on the heels the summer layoff of 30 employees in Singapore and Los Angeles. The closing leaves a planned movie adaptation, to be produced by Bryan Singer, “in limbo.” [The Straits Times]

Josh Blaylock

Publishing | Josh Blaylock, founder of Devil’s Due Publishing, frets that sudden cover-price cuts by DC and Marvel will lead to a “direct market massacre” in February: “Even in the best of times the holiday spending craze is over, everyone has spent their post-X-mas, January gift money, and the lull begins, and this will likely be one of the flattest X-Mas seasons in memory. This year, as our currency buys less and less essentials (I’m talking food and clothing, not your essential weekly publications), February is already poised to be tougher than ever, but it’s also running parallel with the forced 25% drop in sales from the majority of DC and Marvel titles. It’s an open wound plus salt.” [JoshBlaylock.com, via The Beat]

Retailing | Frances Dinkelspiel follows up on last week’s report about the imminent closing of legendary Berkeley, Calif., store Comic Relief. The article mentions that two employees have been laid off, but that the family of founder Rory Root is apparently talking to a potential buyer. Rich Johnston and Heidi MacDonald have commentary. [Berkeleyside]

Retailing | Drew Sullivan, owner of Ash Avenue Comics and Books in Tempe, Ariz., said his store had an exceptional November, thanks in large part to brisk sales of The Walking Dead, triggered by the popularity of the AMC television adaptation: “That comic book is one of our biggest sellers right now. We can’t keep it stocked. [...] It’s basically introducing new customers to the world of comics.” [East Valley Tribune]

Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson considers the pitfalls of comics age ratings. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Sleeper: Season One

Publishing | Tom Spurgeon pens a eulogy for WildStorm, complete with a list of favorite titles. [The Comics Reporter]

Conventions | Jayson Peters previews Amazing Arizona Comic Convention, which will hold is debut event Jan. 8-9 at the Mesa Convention Center in Mesa, Ariz. Guests will include Robert Kirkman, Rob Liefeld, Jeph Loeb, Joe Benitez, John Layman, Ryan Ottley, Cory Walker, and cast members from The Walking Dead. [East Valley Tribune]

Creators | Dean Haspiel posts his comic-strip tribute to Harvey Pekar that appears in the year-end issue of Entertainment Weekly. [LiveJournal]

Creators | Amy Mebberson talks about kids’ comics and BOOM! Studios’ Muppet Show titles. [TFAW.com]

Best of the year | David Allen Jones compiles his favorite comics of 2010, including Scalped, The Sixth Gun and Empowered. [Popdose]

Best of the year | Larry Cruz looks at the “Webcomic Moments of 2010.” [The Webcomic Overlook]