Creators | Although he almost missed the anniversary, Mark Waid celebrates 25 years as a comics professional by recalling his first day of work at the DC Comics offices: "If you’re wondering what an Associate Editor does – or did in 1987 – I’ll list my job duties those first two days. Ready? Here we go: I erased Green Arrow pages. Eight hours a day for two days." [MarkWaid.com]
Publishing | DC Comics' Senior Vice President of Sales Bob Wayne and Vice President of Marketing John Cunningham are pretty upbeat about DC's most recent graphic novels — with some justification, as a number have made The New York Times graphic books best-seller list. “Batman: Earth One has been a runaway bestseller for us, even better than Superman: Earth One," Wayne said. "People are familiar with the Superman: Earth One title and we don’t have explain what the new book is about.” [Publishers Weekly]
Comics | The BBC has a quick roundup of comics around the world; it's interesting in a compare-and-contrast sort of way, but the brevity of the capsule descriptions (American comics = superheroes) doesn't really do justice to the subject matter. [BBC News]
Creators | The Greece, New York, newspaper profiles Steve Skeates, who received the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing at this year's Eisner Awards ceremony. Skeates started as an editorial assistant to Stan Lee but quit after two weeks and moved to DC Comics: "At Marvel, he was forced to write dialogue for characters based on pictures created by an artist. It was the other way around at DC, where writers would produce a script that dictated the drawings. " But Charlton was the best of all, because they never turned down a script. [Greece Post]
Creators | Colleen Coover chats briefly about breaking into comics, her influences and her new Monkeybrain Comics series Bandette. [TFAW.com]
Creators | Sean Michael Wilson, a Scottish writer who lives in Japan, talks about his latest graphic novel, which is based on his youth in a suburb of Edinburgh: “Some people might think there’s nothing happening, but it’s about how we lived as kids. We went to the chip shop, it starts to rain. You feel warm inside, shelter under a tree, talk rubbish. To make it more dramatic would be artificial." [Scotsman.com]
Creators | Writer Grace Randolph tells Brian Truitt how her series Supurbia, which BOOM! Studios has just promoted from four-issue miniseries to ongoing series, was inspired by The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and how she tried to bring real-life problems and idiosyncrasies to characters that are based on superhero and supervillain archetypes. [USA Today]
Creators | Harry Mendryk disputes the attribution of several stories in vols. 6 and 7 of Marvel Masterworks to artists other than Jack Kirby. If you love detailed, panel-by-panel examinations of Kirby's penciling style, well, today is your lucky day. [Jack Kirby Museum]
Comics | Steven Thompson reminisces about his introduction to the world of underground comics — and notes some later encounters with the creators. [Booksteve's Library]