Festivals | After moving the event last year from New York City's 69th Regiment Armory to Center 548, the Society of Illustrators has announced a new host venue for the 2016 MoCCA Arts Festival: Metropolitan West on West 46th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues. Programming will be held at Ink48, a boutique hotel at the corner of 10th Avenue and West 48th Street. The festival is scheduled for April 2-3. [Society of Illustrators]
Publishing | Archie Comics Co-CEO Jon Goldwater goes into depth about the changes at the venerable publisher, including the launch of the highly successful zombie comic Afterlife With Archie and the relaunch of the flagship series. Although the shift may seem spontaneous, Goldwater contends it's all deliberate: "I don’t think anything’s organic. Everything we’ve done here has been thought out and discussed and it’s all come from us." Archie writer Mark Waid and Jughead writer Chip Zdarsky weigh in as well. [Paste]
Creators | Jennifer Hayden explains why her memoir The Story of My Tits is a graphic novel rather than a prose memoir: "After 15 years of trying to write fiction, I knew I couldn't do this story justice with words. When I use words alone, I lie. The paper is too wide open. Having a single box to fill with limited space for words disciplines me, and my art tends to tell the truth. I found that a graphic novel enabled me to amplify all the aspects of this story -- comedy, tragedy, minor details, larger metaphors -- to make a more lifelike soup than I could with words." [Shelf Awareness]
Creators | Ethan Young writes about his struggle to create his historical graphic novel Nanjing: The Burning City. [Paste]
Creators | Dave Acosta explains why having an English degree helps him be a better artist; his current comic is the Dynamite Entertainment crossover Swords of Sorrow: Vampirella and Jennifer Blood. [Press & Guide]
Creators | In a radio interview, Roz Chast talks about her acclaimed graphic novel Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? and the exhibit "Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs," which is ongoing at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Northampton, Massachusetts, through Oct. 26. [NPR]
Creators | On the Word Balloon podcast, Dean Haspiel and Gregory Benton discuss Hang Dai Studio, and Tom Spurgeon talks about his Patreon campaign and the Comics Arts Festival he's organizing in Columbus, Ohio. [Word Balloon]
Conventions | Salt Lake Comic Con co-founder Dan Farr and his colleague discuss the preparations for Salt Lake Comic Con. [Good4Utah.com]
Retailing | The comic shop formerly located in the basement of Happy's Flea Market in Roanoke, Virginia, is reopening in a new, above-ground locale. [WSLS]
Retailing | The Quaker Square General Store and NewsStand Comics in Quaker Square on the University of Akron campus is closing; the building is a former hotel converted to a residence hall, and the university says the business is no longer sustainable. [Akron Beacon Journal]