Publishing | Calvin Reid looks at how publishing is done on Kickstarter, and interviews Maris Kreizman, the general publishing manager, and Jamie Tanner, who oversees the comics category and is himself a comics creator. Comics campaigns have a success rate of nearly 50 percent, making them the fourth-highest category on Kickstarter (and way ahead of general publishing, which has a 32 percent success rate). Tanner sees the popularity of comics as an indication that people still like a print product, and, he pointed out, "setting up a [Kickstarter comics] project, offering rewards and a delivery date, is very much like any conventional comics publishing project." [Publishers Weekly]
Creators | Brandon Easton, creator of the Glyph Award-winning Watson and Holmes, talks about his documentary Brave New Souls: Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writers of the 21st Century, and about the challenges for black comics creators and fiction writers. [Hero Complex]
Creators | George Cran profiles Monty Nero, who will be writing the Amazing X-Men Annual; his self-published series Death Sentence, which is about to be released in graphic novel format, is what brought him to Marvel's attention. "Marvel read it and directly from that they approached me for the Amazing X-Men Annual. I had a few thoughts on Storm and they liked my take on that. I nearly fell off my chair when they got in touch. I also created my own villain which was a real thrill.” [Evening Telegraph]
Creators | Mark Millar does a brief interview about MPH, his new series about a team of teenage superheroes taking on corrupt businessmen in Detroit: "I think it’s the responsibility of Hollywood people to talk about the REAL WORLD as much as the fantasy worlds. I think comic fans are very sophisticated and love that our people will go for the stuff that on paper looks so risky." [The Michigan Times]
Creators | Darren Orf talks with Pretty Deadly writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Emma Rios in a two-part interview. [Paste Magazine, Paste Magazine]
Creators | The Comics Journal reruns a 2012 interview with the late Silver Age artist Dick Ayers, co-creator of Ghost Rider and inker for Jack Kirby, who died earlier this month at age 90. [The Comics Journal]
Creators | Sports cartoonist and columnist Murray Olderman, who was inducted into the Medill School's Hall of Achievement last week at age 92, talks about how he became a cartoonist and the book he's working on, a compilation of sports cartoons spanning his long career. [MediaBistro]
Creators | Brittany Mann interviews New Zealand political cartoonist Sharon Murdoch. [Stuff]
Festivals | Alison Wilgus reports on last weekend's Maine Comic Arts Festival (MeCAF). [Publishers Weekly]
Retailing | The seemingly redundantly named Space Cadets Collection Collection (it's a collection of collections, you see) in The Woodlands, Texas, has expanded rapidly since it opened in 2010, and owner Jennifer Ann King is looking forward to what is already a tradition for her store, having a booth at the Comicpalooza (which has also grown quite a bit in the past few years). [Woodlands Online]