Retailing | Following a price war during which it lost $11,000 a day, Overstock.com has vowed to match Amazon's price on books, including graphic novels, going forward. Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne thinks he can get better prices from publishers who want to boost competition for Amazon. However, as ICv2 points out, Overstock's graphic novel selection is smaller than Amazon's, and prices overall have risen since their recent price war. [ICv2]

Creators | Todd McFarlane recently claimed no work that was "trying to get across a message" has succeeded as a comic, but Laura Sneddon finds proof to the contrary at the Stripped festival in Edinburgh, where she talked to Joe Sacco, Paul Cornell, Stephen Collins and Grant Morrison about the ideas that drive their comics. [New Statesman]



Creators | Writer Hope Larson and artist Rebecca Mock discuss the graphic novel they're working on, Four Points. Larson said she pulled together the outline while on a book tour for her graphic adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time. Set in the 1860s, Four Points is a story for young readers about twins who travel from New York to San Francisco, encountering pirates and other perils along the way. [Hero Complex]

Creators | Artist John Romita Jr. talks about his Marvel work (Spider-Man is his favorite character) and his collaboration with writer Mark Millar on Kick-Ass, which is much less explicitly violent on the page than on the screen: "A scream off-panel or off-camera — a bloodcurdling scream — is still effective." [Scripps Howard News Service]



Graphic novels | Vivek Tiwary's upcoming graphic novel The Fifth Beatle, the story of Beatles manager Brian Epstein, will feature forewords by two insiders: Musician Billy J. Kramer, who was managed by Epstein, and publicist Andrew Loog Oldham, who worked for the Beatles in 1963 before shifting to the Rolling Stones. [Dark Horse]

Digital comics | The digital comic service Narr8, which lets users read and create motion comics, is releasing an iPhone version this week. [Venture Beat]

Exhibits | An exhibit of works by 46 cartoonists opened this week in Kathmandu, Nepal, with opening remarks by Nepal's first cartoonist, Gobardhan Bikram Shah. The purpose of the exhibit is to close the generation gap between younger and older cartoonists, according to organizer Abin Shrestha, and after the exhibit closes there will be meetings with newspaper publishers to try to make more room for cartoons. [Republica]

Retailing | Rod Battagliano explains why he opened Top Hat Comics in Lexington, North Carolina: "I wanted a place for kids to be able to come and hang out. We aren't like other shops, we encourage loitering." In addition to comics, the store sells games, action figures, and collectibles — and top hats, which are a favorite fashion accessory for Battagliano himself. [The Dispatch]