Legal | A federal judge has lifted the delay in the ferocious legal battle over the rights to Superman, allowing attorneys for Warner Bros. to proceed with deposition of the families of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright issued the stay last month while he considered an appeal on a procedural ruling, but on Tuesday he modified the order, permitting the studio to "proceed with full discovery of [heirs] Joanne Siegel, Laura Siegel Larson, Jean Peavy and Mark Peavy." The depositions are expected to begin immediately. [THR, Esq.]

Retailing | Bookstores had their worst month of the year in September as sales slipped 7.7 percent, to $1.51 billion. [Publishers Weekly]

Piracy | Colleen Doran argues that it's the middle-class artist, not the rich corporations, who are the real victims of digital piracy. [The Hill]

Crime | Houston police have arrested two people believed to be responsible for stealing thousands of dollars worth of comics from stores around the city. Bedrock City Comic Company was hit at least four times. [My Fox Houston]



Publishing | Calvin Reid looks at the latest attempt by Humanoids to gain a foothold in the U.S. market. “Our approach has changed,” says Bob Silva, editor-in-chief of the new Humanoids U.S. Office. “We’re set up to be more efficient. We’ve learned a lot from the previous experiences here.” [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | Former Marvel editor Nate Cosby pulls back the curtain on superhero-comics solicitations: "Superhero comics have been an event culture for a long time. The big difference now, in my opinion, is that the companies lost patience with waiting for infrequent events to pad the bottom line, and decided to program them non-stop (the equivalent of putting nothing but Bruckheimer movies out every week of the year, instead of holding them for the summer and holidays). When the returns started diminishing, the companies tried going back to focusing on individual ongoing titles, but marketed each book as if they were all huge events (again, to pad the bottom line). This creates confusion in the marketplace. It’s easy math: Huge Event x Huge Marketing Push = Huge Sales Huge Marketing Push / 30 Mini-Events = So-So Sales & Lack Of Event Individuality" [NateCosBOOM]



Publishing | John Jackson Miller compares sales of X-Men #1 -- recognized by Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single comic book -- to those of One Piece and finds that, well, they're really difficult to compare: "I think the takeaway is that One Piece, as a tankouban, stands a good chance to be the international record-holder when it comes to bound-edition bookshelf comics (without undertaking an exhaustive survey of all European and Japanese comics, I can't go farther than that), while X-Men Vol. 2, #1 very likely holds the worldwide title when it comes to periodical newsrack comics with staples." [The Comichron]

Publishing | Marvel teamed with the New York City Mayor's Office of Media to produce an eight-page Spider-Man comic that spotlights job growth in the city. The comic, by Warren Simons and Todd Nauck, was distributed in Tuesday's edition of the New York Daily News, is available as a free download using the Marvel App. Mayor Mike Bloomberg liked Phil Jimenez's depiction of him on the cover so much that he's adopted it as his Twitter profile picture. [New York Daily News, Marvel]

Creators | Paul Levitz talks about his return to writing, Taschen Books' 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, and his tenure as president and publisher of DC. [Publishers Weekly]



Creators | Brian K. Vaughan discusses the end of Ex Machina, the planned movie adaptations of Y: The Last Man and Runaways, and his television work: "... This is the first time in 10 years that I haven’t had some kind of major comic-book deadlines, so it’s been nice that my sellout television day job has afforded me the opportunity to sit back and decide what I really care about before having to write something just to keep the lights on." [The A.V. Club]

Creators | Brian Heater kicks off a two-part interview with Roger Langridge. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Manga | Carl Horn and Kristy Valenti delve into one of my favorite series, Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki's The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. [comiXology]

Comics | David Brothers recommends five comics for die-hard Harry Potter fans. [Moviefone]

Politics | TV's Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, has swapped his tattered denim pants for a badge, joining an armed volunteer posse formed by controversial Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio to target smugglers and businesses in Maricopa County suspected of employing illegal immigrants. Update: Ferrigno's wife Carla Ferrigno asserts that her husband wasn't sworn in as a member of the posse and that his quotes were taken out of context. [Reuters, via Gawker]