Creators | Any Empire and Swallow Me Whole creator (and our special guest this weekend for What Are You Reading?) Nate Powell appeared at the United Nations earlier this month with several teen-fiction writers who contributed to What You Wish For, a benefit book to fund libraries in Darfuri refugee camps in Chad. Video of the event can now be found on the U.N. website. [Top Shelf]
Business | Details on the collaboration between Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment Inc. and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s Vuguru have emerged: The two companies will work on a YouTube channel called "Stan Lee's YouTube World of Heroes." The channel is one of the 100 online video channels announced by the Google-owned video site, which seeks to add "professional, high-quality programming" to its site. [Los Angeles Times]
Business | They might move slow and eat people, but MSNBC estimates that zombies are worth about $5 billion to the economy. [MSNBC]
Creators | In answering a question about how to break into the business, Glory and Hell Yeah writer Joe Keatinge shares advice from his long road to becoming a comics writer. [Joe Keatinge's Comics & Stories]
Creators | Writer J.M. DeMatteis shares a not-entirely-true-but-still-funny essay from the Hero Squared paperback that recounts how he and Keith Giffen began working together. [Creation Point]
Conventions | Chris Eberle, owner and organizer of next weekend's WildPig Comic Convention in Central New Jersey, is profiled. [My Central Jersey]
Conventions | Elizabeth Keenan covers the New York Comic Con panel "It Gets Better (With Comics!)," featuring writer Ivan Velez, Jr., manga creator Rica Takashima, Zan Christiansen of Prism Comics, and Marvel editor Daniel Ketchum talking about gay and lesbian characters in comics and their own work as gay creators and editors. [MTV Geek]
Conventions | The Long Beach Press-Telegram profiles this past weekend's Long Beach Comic and Horro Con. [Long Beach Press-Telegram]
Commentary | The anonymity and distance provided by the internet make it easy to slam creators, but Josh Flanagan asks that reader think twice before dismissing a comic with a curt phrase (as he once did): "I’m not saying you have to like everything. Lord knows I don’t. But I can never get it out of my mind that there are people who made those comic book pages, and sooner or later, I’m going to run into them at a comic book convention, and have to look them in the eye. And if I’ve criticized their work, I need to feel like it was valid and respectful." [iFanboy]
Commentary | Jonathan Liu reviews MK Reed and Jonathan Hill's anti-censorship graphic novel Americus. [Wired's GeekDad]
Commentary | Richard Bruton critiques Erik Skillman and Jhomar Soriano's noir graphic novel Liar's Kiss. [The Forbidden Planet Blog Log]
Commentary | Rachel Cook counts down her personal ten best, from Tintin to Shortcomings. [The Guardian]