Digital comics | Casey Baseel has more details on Kadokawa's new digital manga service ComicWalker, which will launch on March 22. The service will include a mix of original comics and manga that are currently serialized in Kadokawa's magazines, such as Shonen Ace. The comics will be available in English and Chinese as well as Japanese, although initially just 40 will be translated. Kadokawa hopes to add French translations as well, to bring in readers in France and French-speaking Africa, which is not well served by manga publishers right now. The first three chapters of each series will always be available for free; collected editions will be available online two weeks after print publication and will remain available, for free, until the next volume comes out. The idea is clearly to use digital to entice people to buy the volumes in print, and to draw new readers to older series, Kadokawa is adding color pages to the classics Mobile Suit Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion. [Japan Today]
Webcomics | Gary Tyrrell provides some context on Namco Bandai's webcomics site Shiftylook, which announced Monday that it will shut down soon. [Fleen]
Creators | Batman writer Scott Snyder presents a preview of Batman #29 and discusses bringing back Stephanie Brown, bringing in Harper Row, and how Harper's hero name, Bluebird, pays tribute to a real-life girl who creates comics of her own: "I’m very proud to be able to give something back to her and, more than just her, I think what she represents is this new generation of readers that grow up loving comics and want to see characters that reflect who they are as well, women and people from different demographics that aren’t usually represented. I think it’s important for us to create characters that speak not just to our own interests and the things that we grew up with but also characters that speak to a new generation of readers. " [Hero Complex]
Creators | Here's a local-boy-made-good story about Amelia Rules creator Jimmy Gownley, whose The Dumbest Idea Ever, a memoir of growing up and making comics in the small town of Girardville, Pennsylvania, was just published by Scholastic. [Pottsville Republican Herald]
Creators | Green Lantern writer Robert Venditti talks about his plans for Hal Jordan — and the three characters he has recruited for his war council: "Hal doesn’t need yes-men. He needs people who’ll challenge him and tell him when he’s going astray." [Comicosity]
Creators | Noelene Clark talks to artist Andrew Groves, who drew one of the posters in the upcoming Adventure Time: A Totally Math Poster Collection. [Hero Complex]
Creators | Stephen Mooney discusses his comic Half Past Danger: "It’s all of the elements and scenarios I loved as a kid watching movies on a Saturday afternoon in front of the TV in one huge melting pot. The challenge was making all of those disparate segments meld seamlessly into one grand narrative." [Comics Creators Network]
Manga | Jordan Yerman summarizes an interesting lecture (with illustrations) about manga's roots in 18th- and 19th-century woodblock prints. [Vancouver Observer]