Conventions | Vulture examines efforts by ReedPOP, producer of New York Comic Con and C2E2, to take a comic con-style approach to Book Expo America with BookCon, billed as "the event where storytelling and pop culture collide." On Saturday, the final day of the country's largest publishing trade show, the public is invited (for a $30 admission fee) to interact with authors and publishers, get autographs, attend film panels and even catch a sneak peek at an upcoming release. "You can see the Comic Con logic: Draw in rabid fans across genres and media any way you can," Vulture's Boris Kachka writes. "What publishers would like to know is whether they will come for the books — and eventually buy them." [Vulture]
Publishing | Dynamite Entertainment will republish the Shaft novels and create new graphic novel adaptations, the company announced Thursday at Book Expo America. While detective John Shaft is best known from the 1971 movie, he is also the lead character in seven novels that were published from 1970 to 1975. Dynamite also announced a graphic novel deal with fantasy author Brandon Sanderson and additional properties from three authors already on its list, Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs and Dean Koontz. [ICv2]
Creators | Writer Charles Soule talks about his work on Swamp Thing and Superman/Wonder Woman. [Hero Complex]
Creators | Matt Kelly interviews Brian Lynch, whose creator-owned comic Monster Motors is being published by IDW. [Comics Creator News]
Creators | Paul Gravett profiles Chinese comics creator Coco Wang and presents a two-page sample of her work. [Paul Gravett]
Creators | Dave Mabell profiles cartoonist Eric Dyck, who went to school in Alberta and has returned there to live, and has just published his second collection of cartoons about the area. [Lethbridge Herald]
Superheroes | Marshall Lemon argues that secret identities are an outdated concept, which is why they don't stay secret when comics are turned into movies. [The Escapist]
Comics | Reporter-on-the-scene Jef With One F tallies the five best local comics he picked up at Houston's Comicpalooza. [Houston Press]
Merchandise | Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions (ShoPro) has granted merchandising rights for Doraemon to its subsidiary, Viz Media. Doraemon, the story of a robot cat from the future, has been a phenomenally popular comic and anime in Asia for 25 years but has only recently come to North America; Disney will be running the anime starting this summer on its Disney XD satellite channel, and the manga is available digitally via Kindle. [Crunchyroll]
Retailing | Chris Wasser visits some comic shops in the Dublin area and finds that comics are cooler than ever and yes, a lot of the readers are women. [Independent]