Conventions | Salt Lake Comic Con may have achieved near-San-Diego proportions in just two years, with an estimated 120,000 attendees, but most of those seem to be locals, according to Scott Veck of Visit Salt Lake: Just 800 hotel rooms were booked through the local tourist organization, as opposed to 3,000 for the big Outdoor Retailers trade show. About 15 percent of Salt Lake Comic Con attendees were from out of state. [Fox News 13]
Creators | Mumbai, India, editorial cartoonist Kanika Mishra was infuriated when controversial religious leader Asaram Bapu said the victim of a highly publicized gang rape shared responsibility for the crime. When the news broke that Asaram was accused of raping the 16-year-old daughter of one of his followers, Mishra drew a series of cartoons about it — and then, when his supporters threatened and harassed her, she drew about that, too: "I decided not to send this message that I am afraid of these goons. I made more and more cartoons on Asaram as his followers abused and threatened me." Mishra is one of two recipients of this year's Cartoonists Rights Network International Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning. [India West]
Comics | Alan White talks to Simon Thorp and Graham Dury, the two main writers for the British satire magazine Viz, which started out as a local fanzine, hit the big time and is now being published in a more modest way out of a garden shed (but still has a respectable circulation of 60,000). [BuzzFeed]
Comics | Michael Dooley looks at two recent books that tell the history of comics in visual form, Monte Beauchamp's bio-comics anthology Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World and Drew Friedman's Heroes of the Comics: Portraits of the Legends of Comic Books. [Print]
Creators | Jesse Lonergan talks about All Star, his graphic novel about a star baseball player in a small town and the tough choices he makes when everyone else wants to give him a pass. [Comics Alternative]
Graphic novels | With this year's Banned Books Week focusing on graphic novels, I spoke to teachers, librarians and other experts about the place of graphic novels in schools, both in the classroom and in school libraries, looking at the benefits they offer and how to avoid potential challenges. [School Library Journal]
Comics | James Johnston explains why so many Marvel comics are set in New York City ("presumably because comic god Stan Lee, when making a new character, would look out his Midtown office window, say 'Good enough!,' and then take a lunch break") and makes the case for Spider-Man being an NYU grad. [NYU Local]
Retailing | Satellite Comics and Games of Chatham, New Jersey, opened on the Labor Day weekend; the owners are neighbors who discovered a mutual love of comics. [The Alternative Press]
Retailing | Samantha Lipkin profiles Athens, Georgia, comic shop Bizarro Comics, which started as an offshoot of a record store, Wuxtry Records. [The Red & Black]