Legal | Signe Wilkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, has been named in a defamation lawsuit filed against the newspapers by Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery and his wife Lise Rapaport. The judge and his wife accuse the two papers of running a smear campaign against them, and the suit specifically mentions a Wilkinson cartoon satirizing their marital and work relationship (it's complicated). Blogger Alan Gardner adds that he hasn't been able to find a case in which a cartoonist was successfully sued for defamation, although in this case the newspapers' reporting is part of the issue as well. [Philadelphia, The Daily Cartoonist]

Publishing | Trinie Dalton writes an appreciation of Dan Nadel's recently shuttered PictureBox: "It elevated comics and D.I.Y. projects into objects of high-design beauty, often through collaborations between zinesters, cartoonists, musicians, animators, and graphic designers eager for revolutionary assignments; or through showcasing artists who prove those camps are not mutually exclusive, like Ben Jones of Paper Rad (Pig Tales, B.J. and da Dogs, Men’s Group: The Video, New Painting and Drawing). PictureBox proved to me that not everything related to radical book design happened pre-1980, and that Nadel was out to chronicle its renaissance." [The Brooklyn Rail]

Digital comics | Dave Steward, founder and CEO of Lion Forge Comics, talks about his company's line of original comics and retro titles based on 1980s TV shows such as Knight Rider and Miami Vice. [PC Magazine]



Creators | Mike Mignola walks us through the first five issues of Hellboy in Hell: "I did know once I had Hellboy underwater with mermaids, and once I got him back and made him the heir to the throne of England — I did know that I’d gotten so far from where that character used to be that he was headed for hell. There are certain things you do with a character where you go, 'I can’t turn back now.' Sometimes those dominoes start falling faster than you anticipate and you get some place you knew you were going, but you get there sooner than you thought and that’s what happened." [The A.V. Club]

Creators | Dylan Meconis (Family Man, Outfoxed) is the guest on the New Disruptors podcast. [BoingBoing]

Creators | Carly Tribull, a graduate student in entomology who creates comics about insects, draws a comic to answer an interviewer's questions about why she makes comics and how she balances that with her studies. [Scientific American]



Creators | The Missoula, Montana, newspaper profiles local artist Leila del Duca, who makes her big-publisher debut this week with Image Comics' Shutter, written by Joe Keatinge. [Missoulian.com]

Graphic novels | Noah director Darren Aronofsky and artist Nico Henrichon discuss their graphic novel of the same name, which is based on the screenplay of the film but has very different visuals. Their conception of the ark is similar, however. "The ark didn't need to be pretty and didn't need to be shaped like a boat," Hernichon says. "There's nowhere to go with the ark — it just needs to float efficiently until the flood is finished." [USA Today]

Political cartoons | A political race in India has turned into a battle of the cartoonists, as supporters of two candidates, Simarjit Bains and Manpreet Ayali, have taken to posting political cartoons on Facebook. The candidates may be miles apart politically, but the students drawing the cartoons seem to have a similar attitude: It's a opportunity to get some experience while supporting their candidate. [The Times of India]

Manga | As Japan's new consumption tax went into effect, former Prime Minister Taro Asō (who is known to be a manga fan) was seen buying a volume of Golgo 13 and a bottle of mineral water at a convenience store. [Anime News Network]

Conventions | Jamie Hale looks forward to Linework NW, a new comics festival in Portland, Oregon, with a strong focus on artists and art comics. [The Oregonian]