Passings | Tony Auth, editorial cartoonist for The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1971 to 2012, died Sunday at age 72. Auth, who won both the Pulitzer and Herblock prizes during his lengthy career with the newspaper, began drawing as a child, when a lengthy illness confined him to bed for a year and a half. He graduated from UCLA in 1965 with a bachelor's degree in biological illustration, and worked as a medical illustrator for a time. He began his cartooning career doing a weekly cartoon for a local alternative newspaper and then started drawing a thrice-weekly cartoon for the UCLA Daily Bruin. He left the Inquirer in 2012 to pursue digital cartooning and became the Digital Artist in Residence for WHYY's News Works. In addition to his cartooning work, he illustrated 11 children's books. His editorial cartoons have been collected into two books, and Temple University has begun fund-raising for an archive of his work. Michael Cavna has a roundup of tributes from Auth's colleagues at Comic Riffs. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]



Publishing | Box Brown and Jared Smith talk about Retrofit Comics, their partnership with retailer Big Planet Comics, why they focus on "floppies," and their desire to get their comics to the "large swaths" of the country where they are not available. [2d Cloud]

Creators | Michael Cavna talks with Jules Feiffer, who at 80 has just published a new graphic novel, Kill My Mother, and was a featured guest over the weekend at Small Press Expo. [Comic Riffs]

Creators | Christopher Yee talks to several people involved with The Sakai Project, a fund-raiser to help pay the medical costs of Stan Sakai's wife Sharon, who has a brain tumor. [Los Angeles Register]



Creators | Director and producer Eric Dean Seaton is self-publishing his original graphic novel Legend of the Mantamaji, which features an African-American lead character. The story was inspired by Batman, and Seaton built it up with elements from African and Egyptian history. [Ozy.com]

Digital comics | Manga creator Ken Akamatsu (Negima) has set up a new digital archive of out-of-print manga that can be read for free. Previously, only the most popular titles were available digitally, but Akamatsu wants to encourage members of the public to upload lesser known titles, although he will get permission from the creators before making them available to readers. [Asahi Shimbun]

Conventions | Coming up this Saturday: Alpha Omega Con, a Christian comic con sponsored by the Christian Comic Arts Society. Comics guests include Mike Kunkel (Herobear and the Kid), Mike S. Miller (Justice League of America) and Bongo Comics co-founder Bill Morrison. [Nuke the Fridge]

Conventions | Steve Wyatt, director of the first Reno Comic Con, "called in some favors" to bring in artists from The Simpsons, Futuram, and My Little Pony, as well as the actors who played Darth Vader in Star Wars and Miss Beadle on Little House on the Prairie. "We don't do this for money, we do it for fun," said Wyatt, who claims to have organized his first comic con at the age of 9. "I don't want to lose money – don't get me wrong – but we don't do this for money. That's not our goal." [Reno Gazette-Journal]

Conventions | Reporter Andrew Talkov takes a more mercenary look at this past weekend's Wizard World Richmond, noting the guests were there to make a living, with fees of $25-$65 for autographs and more for photos. When asked what his favorite projects were, actor Bruce Campbell replied, "the ones where the checks cleared." [Richmond.com]