Crime | A bronze statue of Dennis the Menace stolen nearly a decade ago from a playground in Monterey, California, was discovered in a scrapyard in Orlando, Florida. Commissioned by cartoonist Hank Ketcham and installed in 1988 at the Dennis the Menace Playground, the life-size statue is valued at between $25,000 and $30,000. The statue was about to be melted with other metal objects last month when the scrapyard owner's daughter recognized the comic strip character. Monterey officials replaced the statue five months after it disappeared; they'll move the replacement once the original is returned. [ABC 7 News]



Creators | Tite Kubo, creator of the long-running manga Bleach, left Twitter abruptly on Sept. 3. The previous day, he posted "[Notice] Tomorrow night, after about 24 hours I will delete my Twitter account. Until that time, please direct message me." While Kubo, who has maintained an active presence on Twitter for some time, did not give a reason for his departure, the editor of Weekly Shonen Jump stated on Friday that phony photos of the manga-ka, which had originated on Twitter, were circulating online. (Apparently this post, which is in Japanese, shows the false photos — it looks like the first one is the real Kubo and the others are people pretending to be him.) The Shonen Jump editors threatened legal action, saying "such acts infringe upon the personal rights of Tite Kubo." [Anime News Network]



Legal | Amnesty International's petition to free imprisoned Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani has garnered almost 10,000 signatures. Farghadani was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for her cartoon showing members of the Iranian parliament with animal heads. She now faces new charges of "illegitimate sexual relationship short of adultery" for shaking hands with her male lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi. [The Independent]

Political cartoons | As he concludes his term as president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, Jack Ohman reflects on how the role of political cartoonist has changed in recent years. [Comic Riffs]

Political cartoons | Donisen Donald rounds up work by some of the most influential political cartoonists in Africa. [Ventures Africa]

Creators | It's just a coincidence that the new graphic novel Democracy, set in Greece in 490 BC, is coming out just as Greece is going through major political turmoil, say writer Abraham Kawa and artist Alecos Papadatos (Logicomix). [The Independent]



Creators | Robert Kirby interviews Josh Simmons, whose Black River is just out from Fantagraphics. His story "Seaside Home" was nominated for an Eisner Award. [The Comics Journal]

Creators | In a video interview, Tanzanian cartoonist James Gayo talks about his character Kingo, who stars in a newspaper strip that is popular in his home country and now is spreading to Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. [BBC]

Graphic novels | Michel Rabagliati is celebrated as a chronicler of the Quebecois way of life following the premiere of the film Paul à Québec, based on his graphic novel of the same name (The Song of Roland in English). [The Star]

Comics | Pakistani creators Gauher Aftab, Mustafa Hasnain, and Yahya Ehsan are fighting terrorism with graphic novels. Hasnain says he and Aftab had been working on their story for a while, but the attack on a school in Peshawar kicked his efforts into high gear; rather than going to protests and vigils, he says, "I realized what we can do instead is to use our strength to create good quality content and spread awareness about why and how extremism matters." [The Diplomat]

Kickstarter | The Kickstarter campaign to bring Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen to libraries and schools has met its $36,000 goal. [Anime News Network]

Conventions | Joe Gordon reports on the comics scene at the Edinburgh Book Festival. [Forbidden Planet]