Manga | Huge news for manga fans this weekend: Yen Press has picked up the license for Fruits Basket, one of the top-selling shoujo (girls) manga of all time. The story of Tohru Honda, a teenage orphan who becomes involved with a large family that suffers from an ancient curse, Fruits Basket was originally published in North America by Tokyopop and arguably helped create the manga boom of the mid-2000s. The series often made the USA Today bestseller charts, and together with Sailor Moon, it brought girls and women into the comics world in large numbers for the first time in decades. Also, it's a cracking good read. Yen Press will publish it in deluxe two-in-one omnibus format with a new translation. [Anime News Network, Yen Press]
Retailing | The Walking Dead maintained its hold on bookstore sales in November, with four volumes landing on BookScan's Top 20 (including Compendium Vol. 3 in the top spot). However, the manga One-Punch Man and Tokyo Ghoul also registered three volumes each, while three of Marvel's Star Wars titles also found homes on the list. [ICv2.com]
Best of the year | Brian Heater asks a bunch of creators and journalists, including Dean Haspiel, Bob Fingerman and Mimi Pond, to name their favorite graphic novels of 2015. [Tech Times]
Best of the year | Mark Peters starts his roundup of the best comics and creators with the comment that "What could this be but a new Golden Age?" That would be even more true if he had looked beyond the Big Two and Image Comics for his picks. [Salon]
Best of the year | Slate's book reviewers choose their favorite graphic novels of 2015. [Slate]
Gift guide | Ken Eppstien compiles a list of comics by Columbus, Ohio, area creators. [Columbus Alive]
Comics | The Philadelphia Museum of Art has commissioned a 24-page comic, Prometheus Eternal, to accompany its exhibit of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, including his masterpiece "Prometheus Unbound." Published by Locust Moon Press (Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream), the comic is an anthology that includes work by Andrea Tsurumi, Grant Morrison, David Mack and Paul Pope, with covers by Bill Sienkiewicz. [The New York Times]
Creators | Loren A. Lynch interviews Sam Humphries about his new Image Comics series Citizen Jack, and looks at the recent popularity of politically themed comics. [The Nation]
Creators | Isaiah Broussard discusses his webcomic Crackers & White Wine, which takes a satirical look at politics, especially racial politics. [Houston Press]
Creators | Artist Freddie Williams II does an interview with his local (Kansas City) TV news station. [Fox 4 TV]
Conventions | Nirmala George reports in, with photos, from Delhi Comic Con in New Delhi, India, which took place this past weekend and was expected to draw 40,000 attendees. [Centre Daily Times]