Auctions | Sotheby's auction of comics and comics art over the weekend in Paris brought in about $4.1 million for 189 works, including Hergé's cover art for the 10th-anniversary issue of Le Petit Vingtième (the magazine where Tintin first ran), several Tintin pages, and pieces by Hugo Pratt, Charles Burns and Osamu Tezuka. An acrylic and crayon illustration by Dave Stevens created in 1988 for the first issue of The Rocketeer Adventure Magazine (at right) fetched $66,017, a record for the late artist's work. [Paul Gravett, Artnet]

Creators | "Hobbes was as much my alter-ego as Calvin was": In an excerpt from the new book Exploring Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson talks about how he came to comics, how he developed the style and characters of Calvin and Hobbes, and the continuing popularity of the strip years after it stopped running in newspapers. [Comic Riffs]



Creators | The Comics Journal reruns Gary Groth's 2007 interview with manga creator Yoshihiro Tatsumi, who died over the weekend. [The Comics Journal]

Creators | Phoebe Gloeckner, who'll give a lecture Saturday as part of Detroit's Comics Jam, discusses her current project and the importance of honesty in her work: "To me, no human experience is off-limits, because that's what art is about: human experience. To categorize something as shocking or not shocking or boring or not boring, it doesn't really mean anything to me." [Metro Times]



Creators | Ahead of this weekend's Smudge! Comic Arts Expo, Matt Tracy interviews festival founder Matt Dembicki, who's the editor of several nonfiction comics anthologies, including Trickster: Native American Tales, as well as the creator of XOC and other original comics. [Northern Virginia Magazine]

Comics | Marcia Lynx Qualey reports on a fascinating symposium on Arab comics (with links to other sources, for those who are interested), including talks on the shift from local comics to imports, the use of comics as state propaganda, and the significance of the use of different languages. [Your Middle East]

Political cartoons | Global Voices rounds up some cartoons protesting the Myanmar government's harsh treatment of student protestors. [Global Voices Online]

Manga | Yen Press announced four new manga licenses recently, including two game tie-ins, Final Fantasy Type-0 Side Story: The Reaper of the Icy Blade and Rose Guns Days Season One. [ICv2]

Conventions | Amanda Gray covers a small convention in South Bend, Indiana, which appears to have consisted entirely of people buying and selling used comics. [South Bend Tribune]