Webcomics | Shaenon Garrity looks at the problem of webcomics going viral without any attribution to the artist or link back to the original site, often because that attribution has been stripped from the image itself. She cites the case of Rachel Dukes, whose "Life With/Out a Cat" comic racked up half a million views for the uncredited version, while the one with her signature received just 81,000. [The Comics Journal]

Retailing | Brian Hibbs, owner of Comix Experience in San Francisco, has announced he'll assumed ownership of Comic Outpost from Gary Buechler as of Monday. "It only took me 24 years to do it, but finally Comix Experience will have a second store!" Hibbs writes on Savage Critic. He goes into more detail on the Comic Outpost website, telling customer, "Comix Experience runs pretty differently from Comic Outpost, but I want to assure you that we have no intention of changing the essential nature of the Outpost. Customers dictate the kind of store that exists, and we’ll be dedicated to bringing you the same passionate and engaged love-of-comics service you’ve received from Gary over the years!" [Savage Critic]



Graphic novels | Sarah Lightman talks about her new book Graphic Details: Essays on Confessional Comics by Jewish Women, the graphic novel she just completed, The Book of Sarah, and her involvement with the women's comics forum Laydeez Do Comics, which she co-founded. [Lilith]

Awards | Apparently there are enough manga and anime about food in Japan to warrant creating a special award: The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced the winners of the first Japan Food Culture Contents Awards this week, and they included Silver Spoon (by Fullmetal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa) and two manga that have been licensed in English, Moyashimon and Oishinbo. [Anime News Network]



Comics | Quiana Whitted looks at the ways anthropomorphism reflects race in George Herriman's Krazy Kat. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Creators | Jeet Heer explains how he came to write a comic strip about Canadian politics, Party Lines, which is illustrated by Ethan Rilly (Pope Hats) and runs in the magazine The Walrus. [Sequential]

Creators | Cara Spoto profiles Tony Kinnard, an artist who created a comic about mental illness in order to help lift the stigma surrounding it; the comic is being distributed by the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. [Sioux City Journal]



Creators | Artist Darick Robertson (Transmetropolitan, The Boys) talks about his newest comic Ballistic, from Black Mask Studios (the publishers of Occupy Comics). [13th Dimension]

Comics | Lew Stringer presents a brief history of the British comics character Minnie the Minx, whose adventures continue to run in The Beano, on the occasion of her 60th birthday. [Blimey!]

Digital comics | Manga maven Jason Thompson tries out a new motion-comics service for manga, Manga 2.5. [Anime News Network]

Comic strips | Stories like this is why local papers exist: A 10-year-old boy sends a question to the Ask Shagg comic strip and gets an answe r— and a plushie of Shagg E. Dawg. [Crestview News Bulletin]

Retailing | Brothers Joe and Fred Bills didn't have much of a business plan when they opened Escape Hatch Books, a comics and bookstore, in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, in September, but they did figure out one thing: They located their store near Franklin Pierce University, so it would be a convenient stop for students. [Monadnock Ledger-Transcript]