Crime | Police in St. Charles, Missouri, have arrested 24-year-old Adam Radigan and charged him in the Monday-morning robbery of a comic store employee. The robbery occurred in the parking lot as the employee walked out of the Fantasy Shop with a bank bag that contained $26 in coins. The suspect allegedly indicated he had a gun and demanded the bag; after the employee handed it over, fled on foot. Nearby schools were briefly locked down after the incident. [The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, KDSK]

Comics | "Seattle and the Northwest have carved a lasting niche in the comics world by applying the same traits to cartoons that we apply to music — lo-fi, provocative and introspective. Our comics are often funny as in peculiar, not necessarily funny as in laugh-out-loud, our heroes bumbling rather than swashbuckling": Tyrone Beason looks at Seattle's thriving alt-comics scene, and talks with Peter Bagge, Ellen Forney, Tom Van Deusen and the organizers of the Short Run Comix and Arts Festival. [The Seattle Times]



Comics | Ethan Sacks looks at Captain America's roots in Manhattan's Lower East Side, where co-creator Jack Kirby grew up, and turns to Roy Thomas, Stan Lee and Joe Quesada for supporting quotes. [New York Daily News]

Comics | Oregon Public Broadcasting looks at Comics for Change, a set of minicomics about Portland activists. The comics are published by the nonprofit Know Your City. [OPB]

Creators | James Kochalka didn't just answer Dave Scheidt's questions about his new book The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza, he illustrated the interview as well. [The Huffington Post]



Creators | Danica Novgorodoff discusses her newest graphic novel, The Undertaking of Lily Chen, which delves into the Chinese custom of ghost brides, female corpses that are buried with the corpse of a single man so he can have happiness in the afterlife. Novgorodoff first heard about ghost marriages from an article in The Economist, and she was struck by one image in particular: grave robbers marking a grave with a wheat stalk tied with a ribbon. "That image was very compelling to me — it’s both frightening and beautiful — and the first piece of artwork I made for The Undertaking of Lily Chen was a full-page painting of a field of graves at night, with one grave marked by a ribbon the color of a wedding dress (red, according to Chinese tradition)," she said. [WFPL]

Creators | Rohan Williams profiles British artist Mike McKone, who is working with Jeff Lemire on Justice League United. [Scenestr]



Creators | Kelly Sue DeConnick, writer of Captain Marvel and Pretty Deadly, discusses how she gets things done. [Fast Company]

Creators | Justin Melkmann, whose day job is supervising producer for The Daily Show, talks about his punk rock comics and how they tie into the experience of playing in a punk band, which he also does. [Art Rock]

Editorial cartoons | Russian political cartoonist Sergei Elkin finds plenty of fodder for satire in President Vladimir Putin and his government, but he says censorship comes from within: "Personally, I have never had any problems with the government. As for the media, sometimes when I draw something particularly critical, editors have refused to print it. They feared the consequences." [The Moscow Times]



Graphic novels | The British anthology To End All Wars, a collection of short stories, was put together to counter commemorations of the war that have a "jingoistic" tone, including Education Secretary Michael Gove's assertion that schools should teach that World War I was a "just war" that was fought to stop German expansionism. Co-editor Jonathan Clode contributed a piece called "The Coward's War," the story of Thomas Highgate, who was executed for desertion. "In 'The Coward’s War' I wanted to take the sheen off the idea that the war was this grand, happy adventure which everyone signed up for," he said. "People didn’t know what they were buying into. Now that there are no living survivors we felt it was important to counteract the jingoistic message of a lot of the centenary coverage." Profits from the book will go to Medicins Sans Frontières. [The Independent]

Retailing | Graham Cracker Comics of DeKalb, Illinois, will celebrate 15 years in business this month with a series of events, including Heroclix for a Cause and a Star Wars trivia contest. The DeKalb store is actually part of a chain of the same name. [Daily Chronicle]