Comics | The editor-in-chief of the Boston Phoenix denies accusations that the alternative weekly canceled Karl Stevens' satirical comic Failure because advertiser Anheuser-Busch was offended by last week's strip, which referred to Bud Light as "diluted horse piss." Stevens, whose comic has appeared on ThePhoenix.com since 2009, claims he was told by the art director that Failure was being canceled specifically because of the Bud Light jab. "Apparently I offended Bud Light, and cannot be trusted,” Steven told Publishers Weekly. However, Editor-in-Chief Carly Carioli called the accusation "categorically false," insisting Failure was canceled because it no longer fit The Phoenix, which has changed from a weekly newspaper to a weekly magazine. “It is categorically false that Karl’s strip was discontinued due to any outside objections. As the Phoenix’s editor in chief, it was my sole decision to discontinue Failure,” Carioli told The Boston Globe. “There were no sponsor objections — zero — to this strip or any other that I’m aware of.” [Publishers Weekly, The Boston Globe]

Comics | Al Jazeera spotlights the growth of Comic4Syria, a Facebook group launched in July to collect and publish cartoons about the bloody ongoing Syrian uprising. While the project's founders were concerned it would be a failure, the group now boasts more than 13,000 followers. [Al Jazeera]

Comics | With the final print edition of The Dandy arriving next week, Fiona McCade laments the decline of U.K. children's comics: "I can live without my little boy being raised on every e-number under the sun, and his generation has some fairly good trashy telly of its own, but I am sad that he’ll probably never know the joy of a proper comic. By 'proper,' I don’t mean the sort of glossy magazine-type thing that the likes of the Dandy and the Beano slowly morphed into. Or those awful, teen-angst mags such as Jackie, full of fab pix of boy-bands and advice about intimate itching. No, I mean those glorious one- or two-colour paper comics, that cost pennies and took you to weird and wonderful places where goodies were goodies, baddies were baddies and if someone got hit, then the blow went 'Thunk!' and people always screamed 'Aaagh!' (or, for Look-In readers, 'Aaarrrrggh!'). [Scotsman]

Creators | Julia Wertz discusses her new book The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, the development of her style, and the confessional nature of her work: "I think the confessional aspect is just an effect of doing autobio work. But I’m very careful about what I present and what I leave out. I omit a lot. I’ll let the reader into my head for a while, which seems very intimate and confessional, but then I’ll leave out huge chunks of time or difficult experiences I don’t want the public to know. Sometimes I find certain information doesn’t complement or complete the story, and can instead drag it down." [Los Angeles Times]

Creators | Eva Volin interviews Faith Erin Hicks in a video recorded over the summer at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference. [Good Comics For Kids]

Comics | Zack Smith and Chris Roberson offer a reading list for anyone who wants to learn how to write comic books. [USA Today]

Comics | SF Weekly has extended the deadline for entries for its annual comics issue from Friday to Dec. 5. [SF Weekly]