Passings | Artist Sid Couchey, an illustrator who brought many a Little Lotta story to life during the halcyon days of Harvey Comics, passed away March 111. He was 92. Couchey's long career stretched from serving as an assistant to Superman co-creator Joe Shuster to steady if uncredited work in a number of comics during the 1950s, Harvey in the 1960s and 1970s, and a whole second career as a local-interest cartoonist, drawing comics about Champy, Lake Champlain's answer to the Loch Ness Monster. He also may have been the first artist to embed a real-life marriage proposal in a comic. [Press-Republican, via The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Heidi MacDonald talks to Brian K. Vaughan about Saga, his general absence from social media, and jumping from Marvel and DC to Image: "I think at the end of the day I really believe in creator owned books, I wanted to do a book that the artist and I could own and control outright and as much as I loved the other companies I worked for in the past, I feel that Image is one of the few companies left that I would consider having a real creator owned contract." [The Beat]

Creators | Roger Langridge tells how his gig on The Muppet Show comics grew out of some (mostly) unpublished work he did for Disney Adventures, talks about his current work and interests, and offers a few pearls of wisdom: "The writer with less talent who admits from the outset that writing is difficult and is prepared to work at it will write better material in the long run than the writer with more talent who thinks it’s easy." [The Hourly Planet]

Creators | Si Spurrier chats about his work on the Crossed saga for Avatar Press. [Previews]

Creators | Tonci Zonjic discusses his work on the latest Lobster Johnson comic The Burning Hand, and even shows off a bit of exclusive artwork. The story is set in New York in the 1930s, and Zonjic say he relied on old photos, movies, and comics for inspiration, but not too much: "However, with comics like Torpedo, which is part of my DNA, you realize that lot of these older comic book artists relied on the few photography books that were around, so you start recognizing certain backgrounds or swipes from newspaper comics. There's a number of episodes of Torpedo where the same mailbox pops up over and over, to fill up the space. So I had to put in that mailbox too, as a joke, but took it as a bit of a warning not to rely too much on comics for reference and try to just see how they handled conveying the general feeling of the period." [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | Renee French is the guest on the Talkee Hut podcast this week. [The Comics Journal]

Publishing | Veteran editor Ralph Macchio, who retired in August after 35 years at Marvel, is profiled by his local newspaper. [NorthJersey.com]

Creators | The San Francisco Chronicle is looking for the greatest bald man in the Bay Area, with the nominees including Daniel Clowes. [SFGate]

History | J.L. Sedelmaier shows off a 1942 Superman novel that features artwork by Joe Shuster — and canonical details that had not appeared in the comic yet, such as the details of Superman's early life. The artwork is loose and gestural, not really what readers of the comics would expect. [Imprint]

Comics | Michelle Ealey celebrates Women's History Month by counting down her top ten favorite female comics characters. [ScienceFiction.com]