Conventions | Small Press Expo organizers apologized to exhibitors for the problems they experienced trying to register for the show. Despite several server upgrades ahead of time, the site went down when the "tsunami" of applications hit on Sunday morning. They then opened up PayPal to take the table orders, but they were unable to shut it down when all the tables were sold. They are sorting it out now, and if the tables were oversold, refunds will be issued. Roger Langridge depicted his registration experience on his blog. [SPX Tumblr]
Publishing | After 13 years of publishing and promoting yuri manga, Erica Friedman is stepping down as Yuricon events chair and giving up on publishing: "I can’t afford print, you don’t want digital, the JP companies won’t talk to me and all the many differences between JP publishers and US fans are so huge and insurmountable. I don’t have the energy or clout or money to bridge the gap." [Okazu]
Commentary | "It’s high time comics creators themselves re-appropriated [Roy Lichtenstein's] original sources and turned the spotlight back onto the brilliant, unsung illustrators who originated them," writes critic Paul Gravett, who proceeds to do just that in a lengthy article that includes an interesting exchange between Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons and art critic Alastair Sooke. [Paul Gravett]
Awards | Cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt is a finalist for a James Beard Foundation award in the Humor/Journalism category, for her cartoons about chefs for Lucky Peach. [Comic Riffs]
Scholarship | Jeet Heer interviews editor Walter Biggins, who has helped craft a line of scholarly books about comics as acquisitions editor at The University of Mississippi Press (including Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby) and is now moving on to a position as senior acquisitions editor at the University of Georgia Press. Biggins is the editor behind [The Comics Journal]
Creators | Kelli Korducki talks to Jaime Hernandez about 30 years of Love and Rockets. [Hazlitt]
Creators | Richard Gagnon pitches a reporter on a story: As Columbia Pictures is getting a tax break from the state of New York to film the next Spider-Man movie there, perhaps some of the windfall could be passed along to Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko. [SRBissette.com]
Awards | The committee has been announced for this year's British Comics Awards. [British Comics Awards]
Comics | What hath Kickstarter wrought? In the wake of the highly successful Veronica Mars movie campaign, Russ Burlingame talks to creators about the comics they would bring back if the people demanded it (and put up the money). [Comicbook.com]