Publishing | DreamWorks Animation's announcement on Monday that it is launching its own book-publishing unit doesn't mean the end of the road for its comics licensees, at least not yet: ICv2 talked to representatives from IDW Publishing, which publishes the Rocky & Bullwinkle comics, and Ape Entertainment, which has had a number of DreamWorks licenses, and both say that this won't affect their comics. [ICv2]
Auctions | A collection of comics that included the first issues of The Amazing Spider-Man and the British satirical comic Viz, as well as long runs of several Marvel series, brought in almost £25,000 (about $41,300 U.S.) at an auction in Newcastle, England. The majority of the comics were from a single collector whose wife decided to put them up for sale after he died. For those who are curious about the details, Duncan Leatherdale of The Northern Echo liveblogged the auction. [BBC News]
Comic strips | Several newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News (the only one that anyone seems to be naming) refused to run two of Scott Adams' Dilbert strips last week that mocked a decision by the Supreme Court of India to re-criminalize sexual activities "against the orders of nature," including gay sex. [FirstPost]
Comics | Shashank Chouhan interviews Sharad Sharma, the founder of World Comics India, which trains young people to create comics as a form of social action. Sharma and his team travel to rural communities and work with marginalized people whose problems (from a drunken headmaster in the local school to radiation exposure) don't attract much attention in the mainstream press. “Just imagine if a person is telling his or her story, they will take it to 200 people, which means you don’t need somebody who is (an) activist sort of person who will spread out some social message,” Sharma says. [Reuters]
Creators | Jimmy Palmiotti talks about his new graphic novel Denver, and the nuts and bolts of crowdfunding it on Kickstarter. [Den of Geek]
Creators | Matt Emery interviews writer/artist Richard Fairgray about his new series Blastosaurus (co-created with Terry Jones), which debuted this week on comiXology. [Sequential]
Creators | Frank Barbiere talks about his Image Comics series Five Ghosts. [The Kindle Post]
Libraries | Here's a mini-documentary (less than three minutes) on Karen Green, who has been building up Columbia University's graphic novel collection with a number of important acquisitions, including original work from Al Jaffee, Chris Claremont, and Wendy and Richard Pini. [13th Dimension]
Review | Dan Kois takes a long, thoughtful look at Michel Rabagliati's Paul books. [Slate]
Commentary | David Harper addresses the diminishing value readers and publishers place on artists, relative to writers, in superhero comics. This is an interestingly analytical piece that looks at sales numbers and the dynamics of the Big Two. [Multversity Comics]