Passings | British cartoonist Ronald Searle, best known as the creator of the fictional St. Trinian's School, passed away Friday at a hospital near his home in southeastern France. He was 91. His spiky drawings of the wicked pupils of the girls school debuted in 1941 in Lilliput magazine, leading to five books and seven films. Searle, a Cambridge native, also co-authored (with Geoffrey Willans) the Molesworth book series. [Reuters]

Conventions | Four-day passes for New York Comic Con go on sale for $85 today at noon ET/9 a.m. PT. The event will be held Oct. 11-14 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. [press release]

Conventions | Comiket, the world's largest self-published comic book fair, drew a total of 500,000 people for its winter convention, held Thursday through Saturday at the Tokyo Big Sight in Japan. Held twice a year, in August and December, the event doesn't use turnstiles or unique passes, so a visitor who attends all three days would be counted each time. [Anime News Network]

Graphic novels | Writing for Newsweek, Maya Jaggi offers a broad overview of "the graphic novel renaissance," highlighting such works as Zahra's Paradise, Habibi and Logicomix. [The Daily Beast]

Comics | Using Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin as a springboard, Charles McGrath examines Hergé and his beloved boy reporter. [The New York Times]

Publishing | A pair of articles take a look at the growing Indian comics industry. [The Times of India, Daily News & Analysis]

Creators | Who Is Jake Ellis? writer Nathan Edmondson is spotlighted during a signing in Medford, Oregon. [Mail Tribune]

Creators | The Grant MacEwan University newspaper profiles local writer Robert Burke Richardson. [West Edmonton Local]