Awards | A committee chaired by writer and historian Mark Evanier has chosen Elliot S! Maggin and Richard E. Hughes as the recipients of this year's Bill Finger Awards, which honor writers whose work has not gotten the recognition it deserves. Maggin is a longtime comics writer whose credits include Green Arrow, Batman, Justice League, Peter Parker, Strange Sports Stories, and the Marvel Classics version of The Iliad. Hughes, who died in 1974, was a prolific writer who worked under a number of pen names. He created The Black Terror for Standard Comics in the 1940s and later became editor at American Comics Group, where he scripted many comics. He is the co-creator of Herbie Popnecker, the Fat Fury, who later got his own comic. The awards will be presented at the Eisner Awards ceremony at Comic-Con International in San Diego. [Comic-Con International]



Auctions | The original artwork for the cover of Thor #159, drawn by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta, will go up for auction next week in the UK with an estimated price of £5000 – £8000. The cover is the only comics item in the auction, which otherwise focuses on 20th century toys, chiefly model trains, planes, and automobiles as well as toy soldiers. [Down the Tubes]

Technology | Visitors to Denver Comic Con will be able to check out a virtual comic that provides an immersive, 360-degree experience. [KDVR]

Creators | A mixed crowd of movie fans and Native American history buffs came to see actor and writer Ethan Hawke and artist Greg Ruth discuss their collaboration on Indeh, a graphic novel about the Apache War that features the young Geronimo. [Chicago Tribune]

Creators | The local paper profiles writer, artist, and animator Angela Lao, whose comics and cartoons take a wry look at life in Macao. [Macau Daily Times]

Comics | Kawai Shen discusses the way the online part of our lives is depicted in comics. [Cute Juice Comics]



Comics | In the wake of the Orlando attacks, Heather Hogan returns to Strangers in Paradise, a book that changed her life after a comic shop staffer encouraged her to read it many years ago. "My church had been warning me about stuff like this my whole life. You read a book about homosexuals or, say, a boy wizard, and you might get tricked into feeling sympathetic towards them and you might forget how they’re pawns of Satan and you might get dragged right into their lifestyle. Kyle insisted and I relented. It was free and he was so eager to share a comic book he loved. It turns out my church was right: Ten pages into Strangers in Paradise I realized what Jesus was talking about when he promised that when I found the truth, I’d be set free. Katchoo loved Francine, and it was perfect and heart-wrenching and sweet and sexy and fraught and easy and normal. So normal. Loving another woman — loving another woman — was normal, and I was free." [Autostraddle]

Awards | The Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Committee has chosen Walla Walla Valley cartoonist Jimmye Turner as the latest recipient of its Silver Smokey Bear Award, which is one of the highest honors that can be given for work in the prevention of forest fires. Turner is a fire prevention specialist with the U.S. Forest Service who spreads the word through comics featuring Sanford the Sage Grouse and other original characters. [Walla Walla Union-Bulletin]