Publishing | Both Marvel and the manga publisher Yen Press are caught in the middle of the Amazon/Hachette dispute: Hachette is accusing Amazon of suppressing sales of Hachette titles in order to force the publisher to agree to its terms, according to The New York Times. Marvel uses Hachette as its distributor and Yen is a Hachette imprint; ICv2 found evidence that several of Amazon's cited tactics, which include shipping delays and lower discounts, were being used on their titles. In fact, Amazon is offering no discount at all on Yen Press titles at the moment. [ICv2]
Comics sales | ICv2 runs the numbers on April comics sales, and The Amazing Spider-Man #1 is the spring phenom: After three months of no comic selling more than 100,000 copies, ASM #1 sold more than 500,000, thanks in no small part to its nearly 50 variant and retailer custom covers, generating a record $3.19 million. Two other comics, Superior Spider-Man #31 and Batman #30, also hit the six-figure mark. ICv2 has the numbers for the top 300 comics and graphic novels as well. [ICv2]
Creators | Raina Telgemeier talks about Sisters, the followup to her much-praised YA graphic novel Smile: "At first I said I would never write a companion to Smile because it's a very personal story. But the more I talked to kids after they read Smile they were like, 'And then what happened?'" Telgemeier will go on tour this fall with Kazu Kibuishi, creator of Amulet and editor of the Flight anthologies. [The Wall Street Journal]
Creators | Mimi Pond, who used to draw a fashion page for The Village Voice, returns to answer some questions about her graphic memoir Over Easy. [The Village Voice]
Creators | Roz Chast talks about taking care of her parents in their final years, an experience she chronicled in Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? [The Washington Post]
Manga | The government of Futaba, Japan, a town near the damaged Fukishima Daiichi nuclear power plant, has made an official complaint to the publisher of the manga Oishinbo regarding a storyline in which the main character gets a nosebleed after a trip to the area. The characters in Oishinbo travel around Japan sampling local foods in an attempt to create the greatest Japanese meal ever. (It's taking a while, as the manga has been running, with one break, since 1983.) The plant is located in an agricultural reason, and consumers have been concerned about eating food from the area ever since the plant was damaged in the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011. The publisher, Shogakukan, will address the issue in a news article in the magazine that carries the manga. [The Wall Street Journal]
Digital comics | Josh Centers provides a thorough introduction to DRM-free digital comics, including the different formats, where to get them (legally) and how to read them. [TidBITS]
Conventions | This is a big year for Appleseed Comic Con, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as it moves from one day to two and welcomes a roster of guests that includes Peter Bagge and Jim Steranko. [Fort Wayne News-Sentinel]