Publishing | Todd Allen analyzes the sales of DC Comics' New 52 titles from their September 2011 launch to the past month. Sales of any series tend to drop off from one issue to the next — Allen compares it to radioactive decay — and when the numbers drop below 18,000 for a couple of titles, DC tends to cancel them in batches and start up new titles to replace them. That plus crossovers and strong sales of some flagship titles has kept the line fairly stable until recently, but as Allen notes, the replacement titles tend to crash and burn pretty quickly, and overall sales have dipped a bit. [Publishers Weekly]

History | David Brothers has a great column for Black History Month, featuring Krazy Kat, All-Negro Comics and other titles by black creators. [Comics Alliance]

Manga | Ed Chavez, marketing director for the manga publisher Vertical Inc., is at India Comic Con, and he says manga publishers are in talks to bring manga to India. [The Economic Times]



Creators | Andy Khouri talks to Sam Humphries about the next run of Uncanny X-Force, which will feature artist Adrian Alphona — his first series since Runaways: "Adrian's got great emotional range for his characters, and that's great for a book like Uncanny X-Force where there's a tendency for characters to be spiky and snarky. But Adrian's also got a fantastical side (if you've seen his gorgeous sketchbooks, you know). So I'm excited to flex that side of his artistic ability as well." [Comics Alliance]

Creators | Jim Rugg, Jason Lex and Ed Piskor interview Gary Groth for the "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" podcast. [Boing Boing]

Graphic novels | Architecture critic Martin Filler gives his insider's take on Chip Kidd's Batman: Death By Design, including mapping some of the characters to their real-world counterparts. [New York Review of Books]



Comics | Travis Gray posts some thoughts after reading all the Star Wars comics in chronological order. [Metro Pulse]

Retailing | Edinburgh, Scotland, gets its own anime and manga specialty shop. [The Scotsman]

Retailing | Here's something you don't see too often: Shadow Walker Cards & Comics of Battle Ground, Washington, is a comics shop run by a mother-daughter team. [The Reflector]

Retailing | Jetpack Comics of Rochester, New Hampshire, has been chosen as Rochester's 2012 Downtown Business of the Year. [Foster's Daily Democrat]

Fandom | Dr. Harold Finch explains how his love of superhero comics led him to a career as project director for the Apollo program — and how Kansas City BBQ inspired his solution to a logistical problem. [KCTV]