Passings | Eisner Hall of Fame nominee Fred Kida has died at the age of 93. Kida was an active comics artist for almost 50 years; he got his start drawing Airboy for Hillman Comics in about 1940 and went on to work for Lev Gleason and then Marvel. He assisted Will Eisner occasionally on The Spirit and also drew a number of newspaper strips, including Flash Gordon and The Amazing Spider-Man. "He was a good, dependable artist who drew beautiful women, handsome heroes and some of the ugliest villains in comics," said Mark Evanier. [News from ME]

Publishing | ICv2 has a two-part interview with Dynamite Entertainment CEO Nick Barrucci, who has plenty to say about variant covers, the launch of Twilight Zone and Legenderry, their Gold Key properties, and what's coming in the year ahead. [ICv2]

Creators | Evan Dorkin talks about various things, including that time John Buscema freaked out a roomful of fans by telling them he didn't care much for superheroes (he preferred drawing Conan): "There was this dead silence in the room after he said he didn’t like superheros, it was like he sucked all the air out of the room and was choking out all us fanboys. You could tell the crowd was freaked out, I know I was. Buscema wasn’t being nasty or a jerk about it, he was just being honest and was hoping people would ask him questions about stuff other than The Avengers (they didn’t). I wasn’t disappointed with Buscema as a person, he just killed me with the idea that a comic artist might not love the hell out of what they were drawing. It was a bucket of cold water in the face of a naive fan and aspiring comics artist." [Comics Tavern]

Creators | Royden Lepp talks about the third volume of his graphic novel series Rust. [Comicosity]



Creators | Chris Claremont, who will appear at Asbury Park Comic Con this weekend, talks about getting his first gig with Marvel, his work on the new Nightcrawler series and whether the comics format allows enough space to tell the stories he wants to tell. [13th Dimension]

Creators | British television personality Jonathan Ross met with fans and signed copies of his third comic, Revenge, together with artist Ian Churchill recently. [Banbury Guardian]

Comics | Menstrupedia, a 90-page comic with accompanying website, aims to provide much-needed information about menstruation for girls and women in India, where the topic is so taboo that 80% of girls don't know what a period is until they have their first one. [Today]

Retailing | Turlock, California, has a new comics shop: Sky High Comics & Collectibles, which opened last week with a combination of new comics and old ones from owner Raymond Hannagan's collection. But don't try to buy that first issue of Daredevil: “The first one is on display for people to see, as I encourage people to come in and just enjoy the comics as well, even if they don’t necessarily plan to buy one. I want everyone to feel welcomed to come and enjoy my collection,” Hannagan said. [Turlock Journal]



Comics Conventions | Asbury Park Comic Con started fairly small in 2012 and has made the leap to "full-blown comic convention," according to co-founder Cliff Galbraith, with a guest list that includes Chris Claremont, Jim Steranko, and J.H. Williams. But it wasn't easy: "We didn’t know what we were doing," Galbraith said. "We thought we had a pretty good idea. But, just because you’ve been to a convention doesn’t mean you can run one, the same as if you’ve seen somebody play a cello it doesn’t mean you can play one." The con is this weekend. [The Daily Record]

Comics Conventions | Becky Cloonan will be a guest at the Lakes International Comics Festival in the UK next October; previously announced guests include Scott McCloud, Gail Simone, and Junko Mizuno. [Cumbria Live]