Awards | March: Book One, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell, was honored this morning at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia with the Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award, recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults. Other youth media winners include: Lucy Knisley's Relish, the Alex Award as one of the 10 best adult books that appeal to teens; Chip Kidd's Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design, a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults; and Brian Selznick, recipient of the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award. [press release]

Passings | One of Fiji's best-known cartoonists, Laisiasa Naulumatua, was remembered by his former editor as someone who relied on humor rather than venom to make his point. A number of former government officials, including a former prime minister, came to pay their respects to the cartoonist, who used the pen name Lai, at his funeral on Saturday. [The Fiji Times]

Creators | Kelly Sue DeConnick talks about her new Image Comics title, Bitch Planet, which will debut later this year: "I have this real love, this genuine affection for the exploitation films of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. We’ve talked about it with “Pretty Deadly” in terms of some of the pinky violence films that came out of Japan and some of the really trashy old westerns…. And so with this I wanted to do that. I could have fun with that; I could have a real sense of humor about it and then also turn over some of these real questions." [Hero Complex]

Creators | Tom Spurgeon devotes this week's Sunday interview to Rich Tommaso, who has recently begun self-publishing his comics. They kick off the interview with a discussion of Tommaso's other gig, which is re-coloring the Disney duck comics for Fantagraphics' reprint series, and then get into the nuts and bolts of making comics. [The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Jamar Nicholas, who won acclaim for his graphic novel adaptation of Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun a few years ago, talks about his life and work as an exhibit of his drawings, titled "Jamar Nicholas: World Building," opens at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania. [Chestnut Hill Local]

Creators | Teri Maddox profiles local creator Alex Schubert, whose Blobby Boys comic runs in Vice magazine and was recently published as a collected edition by Koyama Press. [Belleville News Democrat]

Creators | John Rose, who draws the newspaper strip Snuffy Smith, talks about reading the comic as a child, the infrequent appearances of Barney Google, and how he has updated the long-running comic for modern readers. [The Roanoke Times]

Commentary | Ryan Holmberg ponders the significance of a photograph of a child in postwar Hiroshima reading a copy of the American comic Crime Does Not Pay. [The Comics Journal]

Conventions | It's always convention season somewhere, it seems; Jamie Hale reports in on last weekend's Wizard World Comic Con in Portland, Oregon. [The Oregonian]

Exhibits | Youssef Shokry visits an exhibit of the work of Bay Area cartoonists, including Rube Goldberg and Gus Arriola, at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. [The Daily Californian]