Legal | Attorney Evan Stassberg finds two significant problems with Comic-Con International's trademark-infringement claim against Salt Lake Comic Con over the use of the term "Comic Con": There are a lot of shows called "comic con," so it could be argued it's a descriptive term that's not specific to the San Diego event, and precisely because there are so many events that use that term, it could be argued that Comic-Con International organizers haven't been policing their trademark. Strassberg adds, "The Salt Lake organizers’ steadfast defiance and ongoing gravitas has turned a simple trademark dispute into a national news story with mountains of free publicity for the Salt Lake event. If this was intentional, it is an astonishing display of marketing genius. If this was mere happenstance, it is the comic book convention equivalent of the accidental invention of Post-It notes." [Deseret News]
Creators | Ed Brubaker discusses his Hollywood thriller The Fade Out, the end of Fatale, and his longtime creative partnership with Sean Phillips. [Complex]
Creators | Ed Piskor talks about his Hip Hop Family Tree, the second volume of which is out this week. [13th Dimension]
Creators | Cartoonist Hilary Price pays a visit to the studio of Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker. [Rhymes With Orange]
Creators | The local newspaper profiles U.K. artist Lisa Wood, who draws the comics Supreme: Blue Rose and Bodies under the name Tula Lotay and also organizes the Thought Bubble comics festival in Leeds. [Yorkshire Evening Post]
Creators | Henry Chamberlain talks with character actor, manga translator and comics creator David Ury, whose latest book is Everybody Dies: A Children's Book for Grown-Ups. Interesting side note: Ury was the translator of Me and the Devil Blues, the manga about the blues singer Robert Johnson. [Comics Grinder]
Creators | Editorial cartoonist Kevin Kallaugher is winding up a residency in Bermuda with an exhibit of his cartoons about the island at the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art. [Royal Gazette]
Manga | Ed Chavez, marketing director for the manga publisher Vertical, discusses one of his company's specialties, manga by and about women. Its lineup includes Kyoko Okazaki's Helter Skelter and Pink, Moyco Anno's Sakuran and In Clothes Called Fat, and the cute-cat manga Chi's Sweet Home. Chavez, who was a blogger and podcaster and worked for the Japanese publisher Kodansha before coming to Vertical, also talks about the changes in the manga market over the years and how manga publishers are working smarter these days. [Comics Alliance]
Comics | Vincze Miklós explains why The Phantom, hero of the eponymous comic strip, appears on traditional war shields made by the Wahgi people of Papua New Guinea in the 1960s and 1970s. [io9]
Conventions | Noreen Cochran talks to artists Joseph R. Wheeler III and Iyabo Shabazz, the husband-and-wife team that organizes OnyxCon, an Atlanta comics convention focusing on black creators. [Neighbor Newspapers]