Legal | A dancer seriously injured last month during a performance of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark insists the accident was caused by malfunctioning equipment and not, as the show's producers contend, by human error. Daniel Curry made the claim in documents filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court that seek to prevent the production from altering or destroying the computerized stage lift before his experts can inspect the equipment in preparation for a potential civil lawsuit. He's also requesting maintenance records and any internal reports about the accident. The 23-year-old Curry was injured during the Aug. 15 performance of Spider-Man when his leg was pinned in an automated trap door. According to court papers, he suffered fractured legs and a fractured foot, and has had to undergo surgeries and unspecified amputations. [New York Daily News, The New York Times]
Passings | Eldon Pletcher, former cartoonist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, has died at the age of 94. Pletcher got his start as a soldier stationed in Europe during World War II, sending cartoons to the military magazine Yank. That got him a job after the war at the Sioux City Journal, and he moved to the Times-Picayune in 1966. He retired in 1984 but kept making cartoons, most recently for cartoonstock.com, until shortly before he died. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]
Comics | Kevin Pang explores the many connections between comics and wrestling. Fun fact: Jill Thompson designs the ring gear for wrestler Daniel Bryan, who was briefly WWE champion this week. [Chicago Tribune]
Creators | In two separate interviews, Chris Ware and Barbara Slate talk about their work. Both will be appearing this weekend at the Burlington Book Festival in Burlington, Vermont, which will include graphic novel programming done in cooperation with the nearby Center for Cartoon Studies. [Seven Days]
Creators | Jeff Smith discusses the evolution of self-publishing. [GalleyCat]
Creators | Paul Gravett talks to Isabel Greenberg, whose debut graphic novel, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, is a playful spoof of history set in a period before the Permian and Mesozoic Eras, when the earth had three moons. [Paul Gravett]
Creators | Former DC and Marvel artist Al Nickerson talks about his digital comic Act of Faith, in which superheroes deal with angels and demons without realizing it; Nickerson shows what is happening in the physical world and "behind the scenes" in the spiritual world as well. [Christian Post]
Creators | Mayor Jim Gray declared Wednesday "Joel Pett Day" in Lexington, Kentucky, marking the opening of an exhibit of the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist's work. Pett was unfazed, saying, "What does that mean? Do we get free drinks?" [Lexington Herald-Leader]
Conventions | Writer Greg Rucka is looking forward to the second Rose City Comic Con this weekend, because it's about time Portland had a good comic con: "This town is lousy with comics folks. But this town has also been lousy about comic book shows." [Oregon Live]
Digital comics | Omar L. Gallaga, who returned to comics after a long hiatus thanks to this year's Free Comic Book Day, talks to Chip Mosher of comiXology and Brendan Zuern of the brick-and-mortar store Austin Books & Comics about why print and digital comics are coexisting so well. [Austin American-Statesman]
Commentary | Jeff Greenfield compares reports that Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was addicted to violent video games to the work of Fredric Wertham in the 1950s. [The Daily Beast]