Spawn #26

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

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

Susie Cagle

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

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

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

A.D.D.

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

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

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

Scam #1

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

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

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

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

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

Scarlet Spider

Say the name “Scarlet Spider” to a longtime Marvel reader and you’re bound to get a range of reactions. But come the new year, Marvel is hoping all the reactions will be positive and numerous when the new Scarlet Spider series launches on January11. As recently confirmed in Marvel’s Point One one-shot, the new Scarlet Spider is none other than Kaine, the Peter Parker clone recently cured during the Spider Island event. Unlike many of Marvel’s series set in New York, Scarlet Spider will enjoy the unique cityscape of Houston, Texas — one of many factors that has me looking forward to reading it. Before the series gets started though, series artist Ryan Stegman stepped away from his drawing table to take part in this Q&A. In addition to this interview, CBR also is offering a preview of the first issue. After reading this (and enjoying the preview), be sure to check out the recent installment of Comic Book Resources’ “Axel-in-Charge,” where Alonso interviewed Stegman.

Tim O’Shea: How did Marvel approach you about joining the Scarlet Spider creative team? Was getting to work with [series writer] Chris Yost a deciding factor in joining the project?

Ryan Stegman: I had been working on an issue of Amazing Spider-Man and I made it clear as I could to editorial that this is the type of stuff I wanted to be doing. I practically begged. And Steve Wacker said that he would love to have me back and but that ASM was booked up artist-wise for the foreseeable future. I couldn’t argue this, because the artists that they have are fantastic. So one day, out of the blue he called me up and told me about this idea and I was sold. No offense to Chris, but that wasn’t a selling point because I think I was hired before him! Chris turned out to be the icing on the cake.

O’Shea: Can you take folks through designing the new costume?

Stegman: I spent a lot of time thinking about it and thinking about it. I really knew that I wanted something very classic, with very few bells and whistles. I wanted it to read instantly and from a distance. I tried some stuff and sent it over to Skottie Young and he told me he hated it. Haha. But he had the same ideas as me for what we were looking for and so he helped me to refine it and really get rid of all the unnecessary crap that I wanted to put on it.

I also thought it was important to get rid of the hoodie because that’s Ben Reilly’s costume. I’ve taken a lot of heat for it, and I understand everyone’s attachment to it. But I want Kaine to be a different character…More edgy and frightening looking.

O’Shea: Are you inking yourself on the book (if not, who is)? You recently tweeted about experimenting with inking with a Cintiq. Are you hoping to eventually work on Cintiq for your pages, or how?

Stegman: No, I am not inking myself. I’ve been working with an inker since I worked on She-Hulks named Mikey Babinski. He’s a friend of mine and we’ve really developed a great working relationship. I have inked myself before, but I don’t have the patience for it! I can only really work in a much scratchier style or I find it to be no fun. So I’m glad to have someone that does that heavy lifting for me.

I do part of my work on the Cintiq. Layouts and I add my perspective digitally, then print that out onto the Marvel board in light blue and draw over it. I don’t foresee a future where I would draw completely digitally. For one thing, I like selling original art! And for another, I just can’t quite get the control that I need to have on it. It’s close, but not quite there yet.

O’Shea: Not every artist goes through Marvel’s Artist’s Training Program (as you recently discussed with Axel). What kind of lessons did you learn from Klaus Janson, for example?

Stegman: I learned so much in those few days! I learned a lot about storytelling and the business in general. But the biggest thing that Klaus imparted on me was to never take storytelling for granted. You need to make active decisions when laying out your pages. I guess before working with Klaus and Howard [Chaykin] I didn’t realize how much one could really get into that aspect and since then I’ve been obsessed. There’s plenty more that I learned, but that’s the most concrete thing.

O’Shea: Scarlet Spider is set in Houston. Creatively, what kind of visual opportunities does playing in a different cityscape provide?

Stegman: I have to study Houston and find out the feel of it. When I draw New York, I have a certain aesthetic that I go for. It’s generally kind of dirty and cramped. But Houston is much more wide open. So I just try to use the right reference and understand the city and hope it gives off the right feel. I am much more in tune with making Houston accurate. New York you can kind of put a bunch of pieces together and it just feels like New York. But with Houston, I’m paying attention to everything, right down to how they paint their crosswalks.

O’Shea: Not suprisingly, you read the Clone Saga in preparation for this new assignment, did it inspire you somewhat with some ideas to work into the present day project?

Stegman: Oh, yes. Chris and I are always firing emails back and forth to each other with ideas that we have. Just the other day I became obsessed with Ben Reilly’s impact webbing and told Chris that I’d love for that to be something that Kaine has. And it might end up being so!

Reading that stuff helps me to really understand Kaine as a character too. I think that now more than ever I realize how much baggage he has. So it really helps put me in the mindset of, “This is not Peter Parker … at all.”

O’Shea: Rather than give everything away, I was wondering if you care to discuss the Scarlet Spider supporting cast in general terms?

Stegman: We will be creating a lot of the supporting cast and villains from scratch. Which could not be more exciting for me. Today I was working on a character and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if he could make fire snakes?” and then I drew it. Because this is his first appearance! Nobody can say no, because nobody knows who the hell he is yet. And stuff like that is SOOOOO liberating artistically.

O’Shea: Looking at some of the pencils that CBR previewed for the project, one asset (among the many) is the unique way you layout the web lines (such as here) and how the Scarlet Spider uses them. I don’t think I’ve seen another artist be so unique with the lines. When and how did you realize that was an aspect you wanted to play with and exploit dynamically?

Stegman: The first time I saw Todd McFarlane draw webbing I knew that I wanted to draw webbing. Haha. It’s so cool. But beyond that, movement and energy are two things that I am very conscious of in my work. And the webbing just provides me with the opportunity to add movement and energy to the art. When done right, it really breathes. Plus, by putting webbing in the foreground you can create a lot of depth and cool compositions. I intend to keep pushing this stuff. I love it.

O’Shea: It’s clear in reading your discussion with Axel that this title has allowed you to challenge yourself creatively, can you talk about the thrill and challenge of that?

Stegman: As I mentioned earlier, the most challenging and rewarding part is that we get to create so much of it. But beyond that, I feel that this book really plays to my strengths and so I am getting to use all of the tools in my toolbox. And at the same time, I’m trying to add new tools. Drawing a spider-character is an interesting challenge in his own right because there are SO MANY poses you can put him in, given his flexibility. So figuring out new and exciting things to do is always fun.

O’Shea: Do you find Twitter to be an easy means to interact with readers?

Stegman: I love Twitter for that. I think back to my 15 year old self and wonder if my head would have exploded if Twitter existed. Because at that age, all I ever wanted to do was hear directly from my favorite creators. But I had to wait until Wizard Magazine came out. Then the internet came along and I would spend all day in the Wizard chat room on AOL and creators would pop in occasionally and it was the greatest.

Now I’m on the other side of that, and getting to talk to readers is the best. I’m a very extroverted person so it’s very unnatural for me to stay at home and work by myself. But Twitter allows me to talk to people and get it out of my system. I’ve even made friends with quite a few readers on there. Now, when I go to conventions, I get approached all the time, “I’m so-and-so from Twitter” and immediately the ice is broken. You know stuff about each other. So conversations get rolling as though we have known each other for a long time.

O’Shea: Were you able to get an Xbox on Black Friday?

Stegman: Haha. YES! I got one online. It should be arriving today, in fact. I honestly have no idea when I’m going to play it though. I have a 9 month old son and a job where I work 7 days a week. But hopefully I can make some time to play the Kinect dance games or something with my wife.

O’Shea: One looking in the rearview question, do you have a favorite scene from your work on Fear Itself: Hulk Vs. Dracula?

Stegman: In issue 2, the spread at the beginning of the issue was a big moment for me. I felt like I really captured the action that I had been going for in my work all along. Like I always wanted massive action scenes, but when I’d finish them they’d never live up to my expectations. But that one totally did. And it was the Hulk smashing monsters. Nothing better than that.

O’Shea: Any questions you’d like to toss out to Robot 6 readers?

Stegman: My question to Robot 6 readers is: Will you buy Scarlet Spider? PLEASE?!!!

Rub the Blood

One of the more interesting projects to pop up on Kickstarter lately is Rub the Blood, “an Art Comix tabloid that explores the lasting influence (for better or worse) of the Early 90′s Collector Boom comics of Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, etc. on today’s most fringe underground cartoonists.”

Co-edited by Pat Aulisio and Ian Harker, the project fittingly draws its name from a 1990s cover gimmick and features contributions from a variety of art comix pros. In addition to Aulisio and Harker, contributors include Josh Bayer, William Cardini, Victor Cayro, PB Kain, Keenan Marshall Keller, Peter Lazarski, Benjamin Marra, Jim Rugg, Thomas Toye and Mickey Z. Rub the Blood will debut at the 2011 Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Fest.

Aulisio and Harker were kind enough to share a few thoughts and details about the project and its inspiration with me; my thanks for their time.

JK: Where did the idea originate to put this anthology together?

Ian: It’s been something we’ve kicked around in various shapes and forms for a few years now. The joke was that one day Rob Liefeld will be just as adored among the art comix crowd as Fletcher Hanks is now.

Rub the Blood

Pat: Pretty much what Ian said, although I would add we were shooting around various ideas of some sort of tribute book involving “an art comic take on _____” and the idea of doing a tribute to the original Image Seven, and each person in the anthology would take on characters from each creator. It eventually ended up being just about Rob Liefeld and Extreme Studios mainly.

JK: Your Kickstarter page describes the project as “an Art Comix tabloid that explores the lasting influence (for better or worse) of the Early 90′s Collector Boom comics.” In your opinion, what are some of the “better” and “worse” elements of this particular era of comics?

Ian: Well, the collector’s boom thing inspired a lot of young artists from my generation. I was probably 12 years old when I saw the 501 Blues commercial with Rob Liefeld. The idea that a 16-year-old kid could draw comics professionally made the whole thing seem real. It was in a way the first dose of do-it-yourself ethos I ever had. These guys were all semi-naive artists creating their own characters; before that you only had the characters that were around for decades. I felt like I could be a part of it. Looking back, though, I think the boom was a net-negative for comics. It essentially killed the newsstand pipeline that brought new readers to comics and drove away a lot of skilled cartoonists who could actually tell a clear visual story. You don’t really get to choose what comics you come up on, though; I think those comics stay with you in one shape or form for the rest of your life. The first generation of underground cartoonists came up on EC and you can always see that influence in those guys. That’s what Rub the Blood is about, letting the demons run wild.

by Thomas Toye

Pat: Well, I was still in grade school at the time, and I vividly remember the X-Men Swimsuit Special, in particular the image of Psylocke with dinosaurs in the background done by Jim Lee, and me and my friends talking about having sex with all the women from X-Men in the 90s even though we had no idea how to have sex. So I guess you can say the oversexualization is a “worse” aspect of the collectors boom, but it’s true I can say those comics helped me discover sexuality and learn about the female anatomy (albeit incorrect) at a young age.

Another thing around the collector’s boom was trading cards. I collected the shit out of Marvel’s various card series of pin-ups of your favorite heroes, and learning about their history and stats on the back. I loved those and still have them all in a box rubberbanded together by series. You would get a trading card in the first issues of X-Force by Rob Liefeld and X-Men by Jim Lee.

And Wizard Magazine came out of the collector’s boom. Now they’re just a company of shitty comic conventions and no actual magazine. That’s where the infamous “Captain America with boobs” image Rob Liefeld drew was printed.

Rob Liefeld had a clothing line of oversized T-shirts with giant images of his comic covers.

Variant covers were also crazy then, too. I remember an issue of Gen13 had 13 variant covers, and the sad thing is you know there were people out there that bought 13 copies of the same comic because they thought it would be worth a ton of money in the future.

Stuff like this happened:

That original VHS was sold for like $29.95.

Swimsuit specials, trading cards, magazines based around comics, clothing lines, special edition variant covers, VHS specials … basically none of that shit would happen nowadays, which in the end is actually probably for the worst. I would take on any of those projects (we actually did make a VHS special, too!)

JK: And for those who don’t know, what’s the significance of the title, “Rub the Blood”?

Ian: It was the tagline on the cover of Bloodstrike #1. It was a gimmick cover that featured a dried-blood effect. I remember obsessing over this when I was a kid; I never really understood the damn thing.

Pat: Ian told me about this, and when we were just deciding to try to organize this, I was shopping for comics at a thrift store and found an unopened copy of it for 25 cents. The blood effect still worked! That’s when I knew we had to do this book for sure.

JK: How did you go about recruiting the creators who are working on the anthology?

Ian: Me and Pat have a lot of like-minded attitudes about comics. Pat’s philosophy on life is “Yeah Dude.” Rub the Blood is about the spirit of sitting at your mom’s kitchen table when you are 13 and drawing anatomy that you don’t understand. Like I said, there is a DIY ethos to that, and I think there is a spiritual kinship with the attitude of art-brut comix. Brian Chippendale has said in interviews that he never intended to draw like Gary Panter, he always wanted to draw like Jim Lee (I’m paraphrasing.)

Pat: Me and Ian have worked together on a variety of different things for a while now, and to have a curated anthology we do together was just a obvious step in our comic relationship. We have the same taste, and together we know enough awesome cartoonists. We came up with a dream list of people to get involved. For the most part, everyone that’s in the book we had some sort of pre-existing relationship with before. Except for Bald Eagles, I think Ian met him once, but we were both just big fans of his work and the insanity that he isn’t published more. We contacted him and since then, he’s been one of the most entertainingly insane cartoonists to work with and talk to. Love that guy!

JK: Have you guys already seen some of the contributions? If so, what can fans expect?

Ian: A lot of gnarly drawings and comics. Big boobs, pouches, big guns, shoulder pads. They just don’t look the way you’d expect.

Pat: Your new favorite comic ever.

Pat Aulisio and Josh Bayer's Conon

JK: Besides through Kickstarter, where else can folks buy the book?

Ian: People will have to wait and see. We’re kind of just working it on the convention circuit and seeing where it goes from there. If you really want one the best thing to do is pledge for a copy on Kickstarter. This thing is intended to be a one-off weirdo artifact more than anything else.

Pat: Each contributor will get a decent amount of copies, so you’ll have a variety of different artists to buy it from either on their websites or at art shows, conventions, etc. It’s almost better without wide distribution. It’s one of those things you have to go through an effort to get. But if you want to distribute our book go ahead and contact me! We can work something out!

JK: You’ve already hit your fundraising target on Kickstarter. What do you plan to do with any extra money above and beyond it?

Ian: We could go a few ways with it, but it’s definitely all going into the book itself. That could mean more copies, more pages, better format, maybe all of the above. 50 percent of our print run is going to the contributors either way. They did an awesome job.

Pat: It’s all going into making the book BETTER.

JK: What else have you been working on lately, or have planned to release over the next few months?

Bowman

Ian: Me and Pat will be co-editing the next issue of our newspaper-comic Secret Prison for the first quarter of 2012, and I’m also working in the embryonic stages of an even more preposterous project with Box Brown for late 2012 based on the groundbreaking manga Garo.

Pat: My new three-issue comic series-turn-graphic-novel, Bowman. The first issue is out in November from Retrofit Comics. I already started inking issue #2. It’s an epic life-spanning adventure of lost astronaut David Bowman. I’m also doing a long-form, snail-mail jam comic based around Conan the Barbarian and a talking duck with a Spider-Man mask with Josh Bayer titled The Unforgiving Blade of Conon. That is coming out the same time as Rub the Blood. Me and josh are doing a signing Friday, Dec. 2 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Jim Hanley’s Universe in Manhattan. I also got a Xeric Grant comic I’m applying for to try to get the last of that opportunity. It’s a 32-page collection of various anthology work I’ve done the last year and a half.

Rub The Blood is a unique anthology put together by Secret Prison editor Ian Harker and Yeah Dude Comics‘ Pat Aulisio, pulling together some of the most esoteric of Art Comix vets as well as more well-known creators like Jim Rugg (Afrodisiac) and Benjamin Marra (Night Business). The book’s title is a not-so-subtle homage to an early 1990s cover promotion for Rob Liefeld’s Bloodstrike #1 where the blood depicted on the cover had the feel of velvet. Rub The Blood will debut at the 2011 Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Fest in early December, and will presumably be available at subsequent conventions.

I intended to post this last week as the project was soliciting donations via Kickstarter, but by the time this post came up they’d already reached their $1,000 goal — with only 16 backers. It shows that although not everyone in comics remembers this era’s artwork fondly, those that do really do. Although they’ve reached their goal, you can still donate to increase the print run and be a part of this revival. Check out the Kickstarter site to donate and see the video, which includes a 90s era WWF background music track.

Yoshiki and Stan Lee

Stan Lee, Todd McFarlane and Japanese rock star Yoshiki will debut their new project, Blood Red Dragon, at the San Diego Comic Con next month.

Lee and Yoshiki announced they were working together at the New York Comic Con last year. According to the press release, the project “features a surprise and first-of-its-kind publishing innovation that combines the unique skills of these three world-renowned artists.”

Here’s a description of the project, which features a character based on Yoshiki:

Blood Red Dragon Issue #0, the first in the series published by Todd McFarlane Productions, focuses on the origin of an ancient and benevolent force, locked in an epic battle with the dark armies of Oblivion. Creative expression and destiny collide, as once in a generation an individual is born with the potential to unlock the awesome might of the Blood Red Dragon, thus channeling a power beyond comprehension and assuming the mantle of Earth’s protector. When agents of Oblivion discover that the key to accessing the Blood Red Dragon’s energy lays in music—the melodic heart of the human spirit, they launch a series of violent attacks on musicians across the globe. As he performs in front of a large crowd during the opening show of a massive world tour, drummer and keyboardist Yoshiki comes face-to-face with his destiny, experiencing a transformation that will forever change his life—and possibly the fate of the world.

Yoshiki, co-founder of the metal band X Japan, is huge in his native country; in addition to being a musician and producer, he also has his own jewelry line, his own wine label, a VISA card and, to top it off, his own Hello Kitty product line, Yoshikitty.

IGN has some of the concept art from Todd McFarlane Productions.

Jack Kirby

Legal | Brent Staples pens an editorial for the New York Times on the legal battle between the Jack Kirby estate and Marvel: “The Marvel editor Stan Lee sometimes offered general ideas for characters, allowing the artists to run with them. Mr. Kirby plotted stories, fleshing out characters that he had dreamed up or that he had fashioned from Mr. Lee’s sometimes vague enunciations. Mr. Lee shaped the stories and supplied his wisecrack-laden dialogue. And in the end, both men could honestly think of themselves as ‘creators.’ But Mr. Kirby, who was known as the King of Comics, was the defining talent and the driving force at the Marvel shop. Mr. Lee’s biographers have noted that the company’s most important creations started out in Mr. Kirby’s hands before being passed on to others, who were then expected to emulate his artistic style.” [New York Times]

Awards | Writer Neil Gaiman (Sandman, The Graveyard Book) and artist Shaun Tan (The Arrival, Tales from Outer Suburbia) are among the winners of the 2011 Locus Awards. Gaiman’s “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains” won for best novelette, while “The Thing About Cassandra” won best short story. Tan won for best artist. [Locus Online]

Legal | Jeff Trexler reviews the legal battle between Warner Bros. and the heirs of creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster through the filter of the Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane decision, where a judge ruled Gaiman has copyright interest in Medieval Spawn, Angela and other Spawn characters. [The Beat]

Creators | Nicole Rudick has an in-depth interview with Jim Woodring about his odd visions and the inspiration for Weathercraft and Congress of the Animals. [The Comics Journal]

Retailing | The Boston Globe’s John Dyer talks to two local retailers, That’s Entertainment and Comicopia, about DC Comics’ move to day-and-date digital publishing. [Boston Globe]

Witch Doctor

Creators | Witch Doctor writer Brandon Seifert discusses his Image/Skybound series about a supernatural doctor: “…Morrow’s sort of character archetype — the occult doctor — is a very old idea in horror fiction, but I’ve never seen it played straight,” he says. “Characters like Van Helsing are generally treated as generic monster hunters, and I wanted to see a doctor who approached the supernatural the way a [real] doctor would. And then last in the concept was the idea that all the monsters needed to cause actual diseases from biology.” [io9]

Creators | Tom Field looks back at the life and career of the late Gene Colan. [The Comics Journal]

Comics | Paul Gravett picks the comics he’s most looking forward to from the June Previews. [Paul Gravett]

Comics | Sebastian Strangio looks at several comics — or “gruim-chaek” — produced by the North Korean government. He says the comics are “unabashedly propagandistic, serving up outlandish plots that help inculcate reverence for Great Leader Kim Il Sung and the regime’s perennial battles against imperialists of all stripes.” [Slate]

Retailing | After 16 years in business, Empyre Comics in Glen Burnie, Md. will close its doors on June 30. [The Capital]

Retailing | The American Press profiles Lake Charles, La. comic shop Paper Heroes. [American Press]

reMIND

Webcomics | Lauren Davis spotlights Jason Brubaker’s webcomic-turned-graphic novel, reMIND. “… there’s a lot to enjoy in this online version, from the beautiful, animation-inspired artwork to the epic backstory of love, betrayal, and neurosurgery. And that’s before we get to a mecha-enhanced Victuals fighting his way through a city of lizard men,” she writes. [io9]

Fandom | To help celebrate the birthday of Smurfs creator Peyo, more than 4,800 people dressed as smurfs gathered in Brussels, London, Athens, The Hague, Dublin, Mexico City, Panama City, Warsaw, Moscow, Johannesburg and New York Saturday to break the Guinness World Record for the “largest gathering of people dressed as smurfs within a 24-hour period in multiple venues.” That’s a lot of smurfs. [Metro]

Fandom | Matt Alt translates a 1983 essay from lolicon magazine Manga Burikko telling the otaku it’s time to drop their idealized notions of puberty and grow up. [Neojaponisme]

Asterix

Publishing | In the latest twist in a bitter, and prolonged, family feud, the daughter of Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo is seeking to have her parents declared mentally incapable of running their affairs. Uderzo’s only child, Sylvie, accuses her parents’ advisers of “pillaging” and “destroying an entire family.” Albert Uderzo, 83, fired back by accusing his daughter and her husband of “legal harassment” stemming from his 2007 decision to remove them from senior positions in Editions Albert-Rene, the publishing company he founded in 1979, following the death of Asterix co-creator Rene Goscinny. The family quarrel erupted into the public eye in 2009, when Sylvie Uderzo criticized her father’s decision to sell his stake in the company to Hachette Livre and authorize the publisher to continue Asterix after his death. [The Independent]

WonderCon

Conventions | Marc Graser previews this weekend’s WonderCon in San Francisco, “a more intimate affair than Comic-Con” — it will attract about 39,500 people — that’s appealing more and more to film studios and television networks. “It’s not a regional show any longer,” says David Glanzer, director of marketing and public relations for Comic-Con International. “It’s a national show. We like to call it the comic industry’s biggest little secret. It’s intimate enough where people have a good time but attracts superstar guests.” [Variety]

Retailing | Calvin Reid Ada Price surveys a half-dozen comics retailers, who offer a perhaps surprisingly upbeat snapshot of the direct market. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | By now you’ve probably seen something about Rob Granito, who for several years has traced other artist’s work — everyone from Ty Templeton to David Finch to Arthur Adams — and passed it off as his own on eBay and at conventions. In addition, his list of fake credits includes everything from Calvin & Hobbes to Batman to Iron Man 2. Following the death of Dwayne McDuffie last month, Granito even posted a Facebook message saying “he was a pleasure to work with,” despite never actually working with the well-respected creator.

Several sites have already hashed through the details: Bleeding Cool’s Rich Johnston has been on the story since last week, while Andy Khouri at ComicsAlliance has a thorough summary on the situation. Heidi MacDonald Kate Fitzsimons has an editorial up over at The Beat, while the site Legit-o-mite has a collection of exhibits that include not only pieces of artwork Granito is alleged to have copied, but also a news article that shows he appeared at a post office in Kiamesha, N.Y., in 2006 and signed DC Comics postage stamps he didn’t draw. Since the allegations came to light, Granito has reportedly been banned at several conventions, including DragonCon and Wizard World. [RobGranito.com]

Art Spiegelman

Creators | Art Spiegelman talks about the evolution of comics: “There was this generation that grew up reading comics, having been turned into social misfits by them, and they wanted to make comics for their peers. It was the first time you had comics by and for adults that weren’t just about making money. That movement planted the seeds for what we have today.” [Calgary Herald]

Creators | In a wide-ranging Q&A, Todd McFarlane discusses everything from toys to plans for another Spawn movie to his approach to comics: “Sometimes being different — not better, just different — can score you a lot of points for your career. So when I went off to do Batman, I put my interpretation down for that. People thought it was cool. There was lots of black and big giant capes. Then with Spider-Man I put these new webbings on him, and changed the way he swung and even the way the webs looked. I remember thinking, what if you shoot the webs toward camera and do all these kinds of clever shots? So I had to create the webs to feel like they were three-dimensional instead of the way they had been doing them for, literally, 30 years which was three lines and a bunch of Xs through it. It looked flat. Some of the management thought I was messing with Spider-Man because I didn’t think what they had done was [relevant] anymore. They wanted to know why I didn’t draw the classic Spider-Man? My answer was that John Romita Sr. had done that already. I’d be a fool to draw like that. So why don’t I draw a funky Spider-Man that no one has ever seen and just let the chips fall where they may? Luckily, people were looking for a refresh at that moment and they went ‘Oh!’” [My DVD Insider, via The Comics Reporter]

Comics | The secret origins of Charlton’s Thunder Bunny. [Big Shiny Robot]

Spawn creator Todd McFarlane channels his inner Bob Ross and shows you how to draw a face. This is a third in a series of videos he’s posted; he’s also covered how to draw eyes and how to start a comic page. You can find them all on the McFarlane Companies YouTube page.

Your eyes do not deceive you … it’s the return of Shelf Porn! We had a pre-holiday lull in submissions that led to several Shelf Porn-less weeks, but luckily Andrew Chapman sent in a fresh batch to feast you eyes on. He and his wife have a great collection of graphic novels, toys, a Tintin puppet and even a table made from Captain America’s shield.

We love sharing people’s shelves, but we can’t do it without you! So if you’d like to see this feature continue, please send in your Shelf Porn to jkparkin@yahoo.com.

And now let’s hear from Andrew …

*****

Hi there, welcome to what we call “The Library.” We really should have borrowing cards at the door … hard to keep track of what a friend has what sometimes. When my wife and I got together, our respective book and toy collections merged to form one giant melting pot of popular culture.

The McFarlane monsters are my wife’s…yep.

A few random figures and some heroclix i’ve no idea how to play it but they look good

Tintin used to be in the hall..until he got decapitated. When it happened the second time, it was time to move him. The Mrs loves Universal Monsters. She flipped out when she found the Dracula and Werewolf cut outs.

Tree beard on a rocking horse … why not?

We made this Captain America coffee table a few years ago.

Who needs real Transformers when you’ve got Distortion Androids?

And finally our action figure cabinet

Thanks for letting us share!!

The Walking Dead #77

Publishing | Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson talks at length about market share, the economics of creator-owned comics, fallout from the prolonged legal battle between Todd McFarlane and Neil Gaiman, and retailer concerns about simultaneous print and digital release of The Walking Dead: “… I was honestly a little thrown by the sheer amount of invective generated by the day-and-date release of a single Image digital title, sold at exactly the same price point as the print version of the book. Nobody was undercut, nobody had an unfair advantage, and I don’t see how it’s any different from offering the book for sale through any other storefront. Virtually every comic is available digitally on the same day it’s released to comic book shops — for free — and that has been the case for several years at this point. Publishers have slowly begun to establish a foothold in digital publishing, but I would be willing to bet more people downloaded The Walking Dead #77 for free than paid for it through our app. In fact, I’ll even go one better and speculate that more people downloaded The Walking Dead #77 illegally than bought the print comic. And you know what? The book’s sold out — we have more reorders than we can fill and we both know those reorders wouldn’t be coming in if retailers weren’t selling out of the books.” [Bleeding Cool]

Viz Media

Publishing | Viz Media has been teasing “HUGE news” that “changes everything,” leading some to speculate the manga publisher will announce digital distribution. [Kuriousity, via MangaBlog]

Publishing | Tokyopop’s Mike Kiley wades into the often-thorny issue of what qualifies as manga: “In my humble opinion, while my roots are in Japan and my first love of ‘comics’ really comes from Japan, I think a lot of these distinctions have become meaningless.” [The New York Times]

Retailing | Amazon’s sales rose 39 percent in the third quarter to $7.6 billion, helped in part by the debut of the Kindle 3 in June. [The Wrap]

Retailing | Hi De Ho Comics & Books in Santa Monica, Calif., one of the oldest comics-specialty stores in the United States, is moving to a larger location. [Hi De Ho Comics & Books]

Passings | An obituary and tribute appear in the Medford, Oregon, newspaper for colorist Jonny Rench, who passed away Saturday. [Main Tribune]

Creators | Laura Hudson chats with Kate Beaton about Marvel’s Strange Tales II, the evolution of her work, reader reactions, Wonder Woman, The New Yorker and more. [Comics Alliance]

Spawn: The Dark Ages #1

In the days following last week’s ruling in the long-running copyright dispute between Todd McFarlane and Neil Gaiman, we heard from Gaiman, countless fans on both sides, and an Image Comics founder. However, we didn’t get comment from McFarlane — that is, until last night.

“Neil Gaiman has the absolute right to defend his position,” he wrote on Twitter. “That’s one of the great privileges we all have in this country.”

That’s it; just two sentences. That’s in stark contrast to Erik Larsen, who has tweeted on the subject more than 50 times since early Monday. His flurry of comments, which were largely critical of Gaiman, drew a few replies from the writer.

“Waves. Hi Erik,” Gaiman tweeted last night. “When Todd comes out of bankruptcy you owe me $40,000. [...] Of course @erikjlarsen is grumpy over me winning again. He ran Image when the 1st round of the case gave me a $40,000 judgment against them. Last time @erikjlarsen blamed the loss not on Todd breaking the law, but on a female jury (& now on a female judge?) http://bit.ly/cbrs8i.”

This morning, Larsen fired back at Gaiman’s initial tweet with, “what did *I* ever do to you? Seriously. What was it that *I* personally did to you which would warrant such a thing?” Minutes later, he added: “How did you ever come up with Spawn on a horse, @neilhimself?”

When one Twitter follower, Brandon Fox, replied, “Dude, a judge, a jury, & the court of public opinion ALL believe @neilhimself deserves a portion of a characters he CO-created,” Larsen answered: “and a jury decided OJ Simpson didn’t kill his wife. What’s your point?”

Spawn: The Dark Ages #12

“The Neil Gaiman thing perplexes me because it seems so unfair. The characters he created were clearly derivative of the ones Todd created. How anybody can look at Medieval Spawn and side with Neil just shows their bias against Todd. It’s Spawn on a horse, for cryin’ out loud! Everything Neil created was derived from Todd’s creations and all of it was designed by Todd. Claiming ownership just seems really unfair. Now Todd is forced to have people sign work-for-hire contracts. It’s sad — but that’s the price we all have to pay.”

– Image Comics partner Erik Larsen, on last week’s ruling that Todd McFarlane
owes Neil Gaiman a share of profits from the derivative characters Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany

Spawn #9

Legal | The big news over the weekend was that a federal judge ruled in the latest chapter of the prolonged Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane legal battle that the characters Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany are simply derivatives of their earlier creations Medieval Spawn and Angela. Therefore, Gaiman has a right to a share of profits from the properties.

Maggie Thompson, who has been covering every twist and turn of the case from the beginning, offers her take on the ruling. Meanwhile, John Jackson Miller revisits sales estimates of the Spawn issues written by Gaiman, Alan Moore, Dave Sim and Frank Miller. [MaggieThompson.com, The Comichron]

Organizations | Friends of Lulu appears to have been spared from dissolution after volunteers stepped forward to fill board positions. [Occasional Superheroine]

Comic-Con International

Publishing | Calvin Reid looks at the importance of Comic-Con International for smaller publishers looking to sign licensing deals. “It’s the biggest show of all for us, and part of coming to San Diego is meeting with producers,” said Top Shelf Publisher Chris Staros. “Meeting someone once at Comic-Con is the equivalent of 10 meetings in L.A. We’ve had about a dozen meetings this year and they can all lead to stuff.” [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | Tom Spurgeon mulls six industry stories “that seem almost certain to flower before the winter holidays.” [The Comics Reporter]

Publishing | Dave Elliott, the former editor-in-chief of Radical Publishing who last year sued the company, is now the editor of Benaroya Publishing. The new publisher will release titles through Image Comics beginning in May 2011. [ICv2.com]

Publishing | As Taschen expands its high-end retail presence, Liesl Bradner traces the comic-book roots of the 30-year-old German publisher. [Los Angeles Times]

Creators | Neal Adams and Andy Diggle have signed with William Morris Endeavor. [Heat Vision]

Creators | Douglas Wolk chats briefly with Paul Cornell about Action Comics and his upcoming miniseries Knight and Squire. [Techland]

Auctions | A copy of Batman #1 is expected to sell for $40,000 on Thursday. [Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]

Spawn: The Dark Ages #1

A federal judge has dealt another blow to Todd McFarlane in his long-running copyright dispute with Neil Gaiman, ruling that the characters Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany are mere derivatives of their earlier creations.

In a decision filed Friday, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb declared that the three characters are simply variations of Medieval Spawn and Angela, co-created by Gaiman in 1993 for McFarlane’s Spawn series. Therefore, McFarlane has until Sept. 1 to provide Gaiman with an accounting of money earned from Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany. As co-owner of the copyrights, Gaiman is entitled to one-half of the profits.

McFarlane’s attorneys had argued the three characters were based on the Spawn universe, and not on earlier creations. Gaiman, and ultimately the judge, disagreed.

The case, which began last month in Madison, Wisconsin, is rooted in the prolonged legal battle between Gaiman and McFarlane over ownership of Medieval Spawn, Angela and Count Nicholas Cogliostro. A federal jury found in 2002 that Gaiman has a copyright interest in the creations. However, in 2004 Todd McFarlane Productions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following the $15-million judgment in the Tony Twist case, leaving Gaiman unpaid. With TMP now emerging from bankruptcy, Gaiman petitioned for a ruling on the “knock-offs,” and an accounting of what he’s owed by McFarlane.

Crabb’s decision is interesting for a few reasons, not the least of which is the role continuity and story logic plays in her findings.

“Much as defendant [McFarlane] tries to distinguish the two knight Hellspawn, he never explains why, of all the universe of possible Hellspawn incarnations, he introduced two knights from the same century,” Crabb writes. “Not only does this break the Hellspawn ‘rule’ that Malebolgia never returns a Hellspawns [sic] to Earth more than once every 400 years (or possibly every 100 years, as suggested in Spawn, No. 9, exh. #1, at 4), it suggests that what defendant really wanted to do was exploit the possibilities of the knight introduced in issue no. 9. [...]

“If defendant really wanted to differentiate the new Hellspawn,” the judge continues, “why not make him a Portuguese explorer in the 16th century; an officer of the Royal Navy in the 18th century, an idealistic recruit of Simon Bolivar in the 19th century, a companion of Odysseus on his voyages, a Roman gladiator, a younger brother of Emperor Nakamikado in the early 18th century, a Spanish conquistador, an aristocrat in the Qing dynasty, an American Indian warrior or a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I? It seems far more than coincidence that Dark Ages (McFarlane) Spawn is a knight from the same century as Medieval (Gaiman) Spawn.”

As a bonus, Crabb uses the phrase “kick-ass warrior angels” in reference to Domina and Tiffany.

Writing on his blog last night, Gaiman doesn’t seem as relieved as you might expect: “I wish I took some kind of joy in this, but I don’t. At this point all I hope is that Todd can do an accounting for all the comics I wrote for which he paid no royalties, and the rest of it; and that he’ll settle up and I will make some comics charities very happy; that his comics company will finally come out of bankruptcy; and that I can forget this forever.”

Neil Gaiman

Legal | Neil Gaiman addresses some of the news coverage of his continuing legal dispute with Todd McFarlane, which was punctuated this week by an evidentiary hearing regarding the characters Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany: “There are some knock-offs of the characters I’ve co-created that Todd published and made toys of over the years, and I felt they were derivative of the characters I’d created (or in one case, one actually was the same character I’d created). Todd didn’t want to pay anything at all on them so he (not me/my lawyers) took it back before the judge. Nobody ‘stole characters’ and there’s no argument over ‘ownership of characters’ going on. We’re now waiting for a ruling on if those characters are (in my opinion) derivative or (Todd’s opinion) not of the characters I co-created and have an established copyright interests in. It’s not an ‘epic battle.’ The epic battle was fought and won in 2002.” Gaiman and McFarlane have until July 25 to submit additional arguments. [Neil Gaiman's Journal]

Legal

Legal | Simon Jones has commentary on the defeat this week of a controversial bill in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly to tighten regulations on the sexual depictions of minors in manga, anime and video games: “This is a social battle waged in legislature, and the ultimate goal is to once again push adult content back into the darkest recesses of society, by getting people accustomed to the idea of granting rights to fictional characters, and eroding the rights of real people to have free and unpleasant speech.  In the logic of the censors, this would have been an intermediary step to a complete porn ban; if we can convince the people that non-obscene manga can harm children, why not say the same for adults?” [Icarus Publishing]

Digital comics | Graeme McMillan talks to ComiXology CEO David Steinberger about his company, the newly announced BOOM! Studios comics app, pricing, and retailer reactions to digital distribution. [Techland]

iPad

Digital comics | After a week of owning an Apple iPad, Chris Sims declares, “It is basically the perfect way to read comics.” [Comics Alliance]

Publishing | Dark Horse has stealthily launched a company blog. It doesn’t appear to have an RSS feed yet, though. [Dark Horse]

Conventions | Donna Rolando previews the New Jersey Comic Expo, which is expected to draw “certainly over 1,000″ people on Saturday to the Riverdale Armory in Riverdale, New Jersey. Comic guests include Denny O’Neil, Irwin Hasen, Joe Staton, Bob Wiacek and Jim Salicrup. [NorthJersey.com]

Events | Ellen Spitaleri reports on “Hometown Superhero,” an exhibit of the comic art collection of Dark Horse founder Mike Richardson at the JC Lillie Performing Arts Center in Milwaukie, Oregon. [Clackamas Review]

Unknown Soldier #22

Creators | Writer Joshua Dysart discusses his recently canceled Vertigo series Unknown Soldier: “… I still think that we’re going to see a complete ending. It’s not the ending I would of ultimately liked to have done, but back in December I literally had a dream that we were canceled. And it wasn’t a prophetic dream because our numbers were bad it was just kind of my unconscious waking me up, literally. I called my editor and decided, before we ever got the cancellation notice, that we would start working on the ending. And so we devised a way to begin planting these elements that would allow us to wrap up if we had to in a quick manner, but still give us open enough spaces that we could put other stories in there.” [The Unseen Eye]

G-Man, Vol. 1

Creators | Snow Wildsmith interviews cartoonists Ben Towle and Chris Giarrusso. [Good Comics for Kids]

Creators | Johanna Draper Carlson chats with cartoonist Sarah Becan about her Xeric Grant-winning minicomic The Complete Ouija Interviews. [Comics Worth Reading]

Creators | Tom Mason checks in with the creators of Malibu’s Ultraverse. [Comix 411]

Graphic novels | Eva Volin leads a roundtable discussion of Foiled, by Jane Yolen and Mike Cavallaro. [Good Comics for Kids]

Spawn #9

Legal | A federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin, heard testimony Monday from Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane and Dark Ages Spawn writer Brian Holguin, but didn’t rule on Gaiman’s claim that he’s owed royalties from the characters Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany.

In 2002, a jury found that Gaiman co-owned the copyrights Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cogliostro, which he created in 1993 for McFarlane’s Spawn series. Since then the two creators have attempted, with little success, to determine how much money Gaiman is owed for the three characters.

On Monday, Gaiman testified that he thinks Dark Ages Spawn is merely a copy of Medieval Spawn, while Domina and Tiffany are copies of Angela. Holguin, who created Dark Ages Spawn, said any similarities to Gaiman’s character were unintentional, while McFarlane argued that all of the versions of Spawn share certain features. The judge gave both parties until June 25 to submit additional arguments. [The Associated Press]

Eisner Awards

Awards | Today is the deadline for comics professionals to vote online for the 2010 Eisner Awards. [Eisner Awards]

Conventions | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson previews the graphic-novel elements of this year’s American Library Association Annual Conference, being held June 24-29 in Washington, D.C. [Publishers Weekly]

Conventions | Florida Supercon, which kicks off Friday in Miami, gets a spotlight. Comic guests include Pat Broderick, Paul Gulacy, Greg Horn, Clayton Henry, Georges Jeanty, Jason Latour, Jim McCann, Ariel Olivetti, Khoi Pham, Rafa Sandoval, Bill Sienkiewicz and Fred Van Lente. [The Miami Herald]

Invincible Iron Man Annual #1

Publishing | If you can overlook “Pow! Splat!” and “Holy technology, Batman,” this is actually a pretty decent snapshot of the comics market for a general, local audience, with a focus on recent moves toward digital delivery and the reactions of retailers and fans. “The Marvel download is an unknown in the business,” said Scott Croft, owner of Heroic Adventures in Edwardsville, Illinois. “Some retailers are afraid it will siphon sales off. Others think we will reach customers we’re not reaching now. My hope is it will generate interest in the comic itself.” [Suburban Journals]

Publishing | NBM Publishing founder Terry Nantier discusses the company’s early years, format decisions, erotic comics, and more. [Comic Book Bin]

Publishing | Editors John Jennings and Damian Duffy talk about the upcoming anthology Black Comix: African American Independent Comics, Art and Culture. [Publishers Weekly]

Aquaman down

Editorial cartoons | Michael Cavna rounds up 10 of the best cartoons about the BP oil spill. [Comic Riffs]

Retailing | After nearly eight years in Tacoma, Washington, Comic Book Ink is moving just outside the city limits, to a larger, and less expensive, storefront in the Lakewood Cinema Plaza. [Weekly Volcano]

Creators | Ted McKeever talks about his new Shadowline miniseries META 4, which he describes as “a journey of self-discovery on a road trip of bizarre nightmares, twisted romance and scientific comedic insanity, spanning from Coney Island to the desolate Midwest.” [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | Artist Cliff Chiang chats briefly about his work on Human Target, Doctor 13 and Neil Young’s Greendale, and teases an upcoming issue of DMZ and an as-yet-unannounced book with writer Brian Azzarello: “One of my friends told me it was the book I was born to draw, and I’m really excited for it.” [JoBlo.com]

Creators | Tom Mason spotlights cartoonist Roy Crane, creator of Buz Sawyer and Captain Easy. [Comix 411]

Todd McFarlane

Legal | A federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin, will hear arguments today regarding Neil Gaiman’s claim that Todd McFarlane owes him money for his copyright interests in three characters — Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany — that he says are derivatives of their earlier creations Medieval Spawn, Angela and Count Nicholas Cogliostro.

“Our view is McFarlane just took some of the characters Neil was a co-creator of and just gave them different names,” Gaiman’s attorney Allen Arntsen told The Associated Press. “It’s a matter of principle.” In court filings, McFarlane attorney James Alex Grimsley denied Gaiman has any rights to the three additional characters, claiming they’re not based on the earlier creations. [The Associated Press]

One Piece, Vol. 27

Legal | A 14-year-old in Nagoya, Japan, has been arrested for allegedly distributing  One Piece, Naruto and other manga on YouTube before the titles’ release dates. The teen is accused of photographing the books page by page and uploading them as slide shows between Dec. 22, 2009, and Feb. 9, 2010, then announcing on Twitter what he’d done. Police are investigating how the boy obtained the manga before release. [Anime News Network, TG Daily]

Legal | The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly has voted down a controversial proposal to tighten regulations on the sexual depictions of minors in manga, anime and video games. [The Mainichi Daily News]

Publishing | Ka-Ming Cha provides a snapshot of the U.S. manga market, with a focus on digital piracy. [Publishers Weekly]

Parker: The Hunter

Publishing | IDW Publishing has released Darwyn Cooke’s acclaimed adaptation of Parker: The Hunter as its first original graphic novel available on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. [Hero Complex]

Comic strips | The Honolulu Star-Advertiser has actually expanded its Sunday comics section. Among the additions is Deb Aoki’s Bento Box. [Star-Advertiser]

Awards | Tuesday is the deadline for comics professionals to vote online for the 2010 Eisner Awards. [Eisner Awards]

Conventions | Tirdad Derakhshani and Kelly Rowles report on this weekend’s Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con. [Philadelphia Comic Con]

Conventions | A video report from the second annual Cherry Capital Con in Traverse City, Michigan. [9&10News.com]

Conventions | This weekend’s Screaming Tiki Comics, Toy & Pop Culture Convention in Niles, Ohio, is spotlighted. [Valley24.com]

Lynda Barry

Conventions | The Alternative Press Expo, held Oct. 16-17 in San Francisco, has announced four special guests: Lynda Barry, Daniel Clowes, Rich Koslowski and Tony Millionaire. [Alternative Press Expo]

Creators | Rachel Cooke profiles Daniel Clowes. [Guardian]

Creators | Snow Wildsmith interviews Dave McDonald and Andy Runton. [Good Comics for Kids]

Creators | College student and aspiring comics creator Jason Salas talks about his five-week summer internship at MAD Magazine. [Las Cruces Sun-News]

Politics | Japan’s new national policy minister, Satoshi Arai, said he regrets his now-defunct political organization reported comic-book purchases as official expenses. [The Mainichi Daily News]

Neil Gaiman

Legal | Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane will return to court next month after more than seven years to hash out how much Gaiman is owed for his copyright interests in Medieval Spawn, Angela and Count Nicholas Cogliostro. Gaiman wants to learn how much money was generated by three other characters he claims are derivative of those he co-created with McFarlane: Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany.

McFarlane asked for another trial on the issue, but on Tuesday U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled that Gaiman has a plausible claim, and ordered an evidentiary hearing to be held on June 14. [Wisconsin State Journal]

Conventions | As the bidding war for Comic-Con International continues, convention organizers have asked San Diego hotels to sign contracts guaranteeing room rates for the next five years. A decision on whether the four-day event will remain in the city after 2012 was expected weeks ago, but Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer said that’s been delayed because the competing cities — Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Diego — continue to amend their offers. He now expects a decision within the next month. [The San Diego Union-Tribune]

Disney Publishing Worldwide

Publishing | Disney Publishing Worldwide is now managing the global children’s licensed book publishing business formerly overseen by Marvel. [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | Dave Carter wonders what the closing of the CMX manga imprint might tell us about the future of DC Comics. I follow most of his line of thinking — DC wants to publish properties it can exploit in other media — but he loses me with his prediction the “days are probably numbered” for creator-owned works at the company. It seems unlikely that DC would cut off its primary source for new properties and, in the process, push creators to the company’s competitors. [Yet Another Comics Blog]

Graphic.ly

Publishing | Andrew McDonald profiles Graphic.ly CEO Micah Baldwin: “I don’t even think we’re close to the ‘p’ of profitability yet. Depending on what happens over the next 12 months, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were not profitable for the next 18 months. We’re in serious build mode. I won’t give you [revenue] figures; mostly because I just don’t know them, and they’re small. We’ve been out for a month. We’re a little bit ahead of plans, which is good. We’re getting more users and more purchases than we expected early on, which I think is great.” [StrategyEye]

Legal | The attorney for Michael George, the retailer and convention organizer awaiting a new trial in the 17-year-old murder of his first wife, said “it looks hopeful” that his client’s family will be able to raise the money for bail. George, who has been incarcerated for the better part of 30 months, reportedly is confined to a wheelchair and unable to walk without assistance. [Daily American]

Conventions | Matthew Sheppard reports from last weekend’s Bristol International Comic & Small Press Expo. [Den of Geek]

Creators | Daniel Clowes discusses his new graphic novel Wilson: “I find malcontents to be amusing. I have a lot of friends who are cranky complainers, and I guess I have a high tolerance for that.” [The Oakland Tribune]

Moving Pictures

Creators | David Howard interviews Kathryn and Stuart Immonen about their collaboration Moving Pictures. “We’ve been asked a lot about the difference between Moving Pictures as a webcomic and as a book and really, we never considered it to be the former,” Kathryn Immonen says. “It was a comic on the web and I think that’s a different beast. We serialized it weekly and put it online simply as a way to impose a deadline that would ensure that it got done.  The script itself, if you can call it that because it really was composed almost solely of dialogue, was completed quite some time ago. So by the time we got around to turning it into a comic, it was kind of a new and unfamiliar work for both of us.” [Torontoist]

Creators | Ryan K. Lindsay chats with Ivan Brandon about Viking. [The Weekly Crisis]

Patrick the Wolf Boy

Creators | Art Baltazar talks about kids’ comics: “I wanna do kids books forever. That’s what I am. I’m a cartoonist and I wanna draw cartoons and comic books. I’m not a guy who’s drawing this to write Final Crisis one day or something. I wanna do this. If I can’t create something or write cartoons, I’ll go nuts. I gotta draw every day at home, even if I’m on the couch or whatever I’m doin’. I just gotta do it man. I live so I can draw stuff … and see movies.” [Mania]

Comics | Ten of the most politically charged comics, from Air Pirates Funnies to Y: The Last Man. [Geekosystem]

Guardians of the Globe teaser

In the latest teaser from Image Comics, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn declares that he, too, is a member of the Guardians of the Globe. He joins Invincible — revealed on Monday — although judging from the tongue-in-cheek quote, it’s not willingly: “Todd lost a bet so he’s loaning me out for this.”

DC's Paul Levitz and Guinness’ Craig Glenday

Longest Running Sitcom and Longest Running Animated TV Series – With over 443 episodes, The Simpsons is the longest running sitcom (by episode count) and longest running animated series. During its 20th season (2008-09), The Simpsons finally overtook the 435 episodes of former record holder The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952-66).

Best-selling Comic (single edition) – Spider-Man No.1, first published in August 1990, is the Best-selling Comic (single edition). With an initial print run of 2.35 million, the record-breaking edition was sold with a variety of differently colored covers and several reprints were ordered to keep up with high public demand.

Longest Continuosly Published Comic Book – The longest running comic book is Detective Comics, which has been printed continuously by DC Comics in the USA since Issue #1 in March 1937. The comic introduced the character of Batman in Issue #27 in May 1939.

Most Successful Sci-fi TV Show – Doctor Who, the longest running sci-fi television show, is now the Most Successful Sci-fi Show on Television. Based on the length of the show’s run and international sales data, the series about the adventures of the iconic Time Lord was presented with the new record at Comic-Con 2009 International.

Most Digital Effects in a TV Series – Farscape employed about 25 computer artists to create between 40 and 50 effects shot per episode. The effects team had just seven days to work on each episode, at a rate of 22 episodes per year.

Largest Gathering of Zombies – The record largest gathering of zombies was achieved by 3,894 participants in the ‘Red White and Dead Zombie Party’ in association with Night Zero on July 3, 2009 in Seattle, Washington. Ryan Reiter, Artistic Director for Freemont Outdoor Cinema Events.

Picture via The Source