Manga | Eiichiro Oda's hit pirate adventure One Piece has sold 130.15 million copies in Japan since 2009, the year that market research firm Oricon began reporting book sales. The series, which debuted in 1997, has 72 volumes -- a total of 300 million copies -- in print. [Anime News Network]

Tributes | The statue of Family Circus creator Bil Keane was finally unveiled in Scottsdale, Arizona. [KPHO]

Events | We relay a lot of stories in this space about cartoonists being suppressed abroad, so it's heartening to see a country where conditions have improved: Next week, there will be an exhibit of cartoons in Myanmar, as part of the Tazaungdaing festival. The Tazaungdaing comics show is a longtime tradition that was shut down in 1997 under pressure from the government but was resurrected in 2011 when censorship laws loosened. The exhibit takes place on a street named for U Ba Gyan, who was a prominent cartoonist in the 1930s; he used to exhibit his cartoons by putting them on lanterns around his house, to escape official censors. [Myanmar Times]



Creators | As the retrospective of his work is about to open at New York's Jewish Museum, Art Spiegelman looks back on his work: "I'm not prolific. It's just that I've now lived long enough that it looks like I might have been." [The Wall Street Journal]

Creators | John McMurtrie talks to Joe Sacco about his latest book, The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme, and how creating it was different from his other books, which are based on his direct experiences. [Bookmarks]

Creators | Dan Wagstaff interviews Gene Luen Yang about his growth as a creator and his most recent work, Boxers & Saints. [Casual Optimist]



Creators | Ed Piskor talks about his magnum opus, Hip Hop Family Tree, which he has planned as a five-volume set. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

Creators | Katie Green gives a "director's commentary" on the dilemmas she faced while creating her memoir of anorexia, Lighter Than My Shadow. [Forbidden Planet]

Creators | Comics creator and critic Jean-Pierre Dionnet talks about his long and colorful career. [The Comics Journal]

Comics culture | Artist Tess Fowler talks about her struggle to call out and fight against misogyny in the comics world. [Truthout]

Creators | U.K. artist Dudley D. Watkins, who created Oor Wullie and The Broons for the Scottish newspaper The Sunday Post and drew Desperate Dan and Lord Snooty for the children's comics The Dandy and The Beano, will be honored with a commemorative plaque as part of something called The Commemorative Plaque Scheme, which probably sounds more nefarious than it really is. [BBC News]