The Milt Priggee cartoon as the center of the controversy

Political cartoons | Cartoonist Milt Priggee stands by his editorial cartoon, which appeared in the Kitsap (Washington) Sun, depicting a recently slain toddler as an angel and "America's gun culture" as the devil. Priggee and the newspaper's editor have come under fire from the public and from the grandfather of the 2-year-old, who accuse him of using a tragedy to score political points. Priggee said his goal was to get people to think critically about gun culture: "A cartoon is a simple machine to make the reader think, not joke. It's not a comic strip, it's not entertainment, and this is where newspapers have fallen down. They have not taken any kind of opportunity to educate the public because a lot of times people come to an editorial cartoon and they say, 'Well there's nothing funny about this. Why is this in the newspaper?'" [MyNorthwest.com]

Manga | In an article published last month but that just came out from behind the paywall, Deb Aoki takes a comprehensive look at the current state of the North American manga industry. [Publishers Weekly]



Creators | In an interview with Sean Nelson, Daniel Clowes looks back at Eightball, 25 years later: "It was a comic that people talked about, but it was still during that time when a guy who was collecting Alpha Flight or whatever would hear about a comic like Eightball or Love and Rockets and add it to his weekly pull list at the comics store. It was hard to tell if it was a lot of those guys or if it was all these kind of tastemakers in the counterculture who were responding to it like they'd never read a comic before." [The Stranger]

Creators | Dean Haspiel talks about the next arc of the superhero comic The Fox, part of Archie's Dark Circle line. [The Mary Sue]



Comics | Presidential candidate Rand Paul gets his own bio-comic from Bluewater Productions. [US News & World Report]

Collecting | Comics collector and CEO Chuck Cordray shares five lessons he learned from comics and comics collecting. [Entrepreneur]

Education | Students from Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, talk about their experience making a comic about a Times Square street performer as part of a college media conference in New York. The workshop was led by professors Michael Taylor and Randy Duncan, who are writing a textbook titled Creating Comics as Journalism, Memoir, and Nonfiction. Comics creator Josh Neufeld is collaborating with them. [The Oracle]

Conventions | Editorial cartoonist Daryl Cagle compares the National Rifle Association convention in Nashville, Tennessee, to Comic-Con International in San Diego. [NJ.com]

Retailing | The Hero Support comic shop in Washougal, Washington, has managed to stay open despite severe damage from a fire that occurred on March 28. Co-owner Rebecca Dotson said they are raising money via GoFundMe to avoid using their insurance (and risk having their coverage dropped), and they hope to be back to normal by Free Comic Book Day. [Camas-Washougal Post-Record]