Crime | Police in Petoskey, Michigan, arrested a 31-year-old man early Wednesday morning after he allegedly climbed to the roof of a downtown hardware store dressed as Batman. Mark Wayne Williams of Harbor Springs -- yes, his middle name is Wayne -- has been charged with trespassing, disturbing the peace and possession of dangerous weapons, as he reportedly carried a folding steel baton, weighted (sand-filled) gloves, and a can of chemical irritant spray.

Williams said at his arraignment that he didn't realize the items were illegal, but didn't offer an explanation as to why he was hanging off the roof of Meyer Ace Hardware dressed as the Dark Knight. The incident apparently isn't Williams' first encounter with police: The city's public safety director said he had previously dressed as the Crow, but didn't give any further details. [Petoskey News]

Crime | The expired website domain of defunct manga publisher Go! Comi is being used in a scam by an unknown party to solicit donations under the guise of resurrecting the company. "It is not real," Audry Taylor, Go! Comi's former creative director, warned last night on Twitter. "Do not donate. Gonna my lawyers on them." [Anime News Network]

Publishing | The 62nd volume of One Piece has sold 2.37 million copies in Japan, making it the 13th consecutive volume of Eiichiro Oda's pirate manga to break the 2 million-copy mark. [Anime News Network]

Digital comics | Todd Allen looks at the growing number of comics offered for Barnes & Noble's Nook eReader. [Publishers Weekly]

Awards | Shojo pioneer Moto Hagio has won the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award, which will be presented June 10 at the 40th Japan Cartoonist Awards ceremony. [Anime News Network]

Creators | CNN profiles Geoff Johns, with an eye toward DC Comics' Flashpoint event: "I didn't want to take the DC universe, put it in a box, shake the box and pour it out. I wanted to take the major characters and show what they could be like if they were put on a different path." [CNN.com]

Creators | Walter Simonson discusses his landmark 1983-1987 run on Marvel's Thor: “My intention was when you were reading the Thors I was doing, they would not feel like the Thors you were reading for some years – they were different. I wanted to create something that had the excitement of the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby work, where they introduced new concepts every 20 minutes. While I didn’t want to go back and do those stories, I did want to create the feeling I had when I had read those stories and loved them … You have to find some new way to bring in new ideas and throw stuff at the readers. Hopefully, they’ll enjoy it and stick with you.” [Mania]

Creators | Chester Brown is spotlighted in advance of the Saturday launch party for his new graphic novel Paying for It: A Comic-Strip Memoir About Being a John. [The Gazette]

Creators | Alex Fellows, who won this year's Doug Wright Award for best emerging talent, chats about his comic Spain & Morocco. [CBC Books]

Creators | Vasilis Lolos talks about his webcomic Hats, which debuts this week at MTV Geek: "Hats is about not giving a fuck about the comic making process and cutting it close, haha. I just wanted to do something that I set myself free of coming up with a script, making thumbnails or any kind of plan. Comics tend to be OCD and by the numbers -- and at some point, I felt that I wanted to move away from it, initially it wasn't even a conscious effort it was more like 'I just want to make something fun.' When I start on a Hats comic I have no idea what I'm doing, it's like automatic writing." [MTV Geek]

Art | Illustrator Jason Crosby walks through the process of creating a cover for SF Weekly. [SF Weekly]

Fandom | Steve Wing explains what attracted him and his childhood friends to Marvel comics in the early 1960s: "The Hulk was this rampaging engine of destruction, sure, but still, deep down, he was basically a nice guy. That is, he was the reverse of how we actually were in seventh grade, me and Rick and Jerry: all too nerdishly nice on the surface, but underneath raging. Raging, because in our day-to-day lives we were subjected to casual schoolyard violence and related humiliations. We might sidestep, we might negotiate, but sometimes an actual fight happened, messy, clumsy, sweaty, nauseatingly fearful and confusing. So of course we were drawn to the glory of comic book battles, the perfectly framed punches, the clean hard connections, the grace and balance displayed by heroes even in the midst of a complete ass-over-teakettle wipeout." [Salon.com]