Conventions | Comic-Con International has sold out, almost two months ahead of last year. Passes for Sunday, the last remaining day, went the way of the dodo early this morning.
In 2008, the convention sold out a little more than a week before the opening.
Four-day memberships for the July 23-26 event disappeared first, back in mid-March, followed by Saturday and Friday in April. Thursday passes sold out just last week. [Comic-Con International]
Legal | Brigid Alverson reports the first volume of Ayano Yamane’s yaoi series Finder has been added to Germany's "list of youth-endangering media." Under the country's Youth Protection Law, the manga, published by Tokyopop's German division, can't be distributed to minors or even advertised. According to Alverson, that "means that bloggers in Germany can’t even mention it." [MangaBlog]
Legal | Wired's David Kravets provides a brief but solid overview of the Christopher Handley manga-obscenity case, while manga scholar Matt Thorn clarifies recent comments and coverage. [Threat Level, Matt Thorn]
Sales charts | John Jackson Miller reads April's direct-market tea leaves, and uncovers a milestone: "The top-selling comic book at Diamond, with first-month orders of at least 104,100 copies, was Detective Comics #853, a Neil Gaiman issue — and it is amazing to consider that this is probably the first time that this, the longest-running ongoing series in American comics, has ever topped the charts." He notes that even in 1967, when the Batman TV show was all the rage, Detective was still DC's seventh best-selling title. [The Comichron]
Retailing | Sales at the Borders Group fell 12.1 percent in the first quarter of the year, to $641.5 million. [Publishers Weekly]
Conventions | The July 10-12 Screaming Tiki Cleveland Super-Con will include a ribbon-cutting for the restored home of a teen-age Jerry Siegel -- where he and Joe Shuster created Superman -- and the unveiling of commemorative signs designating Kimberly Avenue as "Jerry Siegel Lane" and Amor Avenue as "Joe Shuster Lane." [Plain Dealer]
Events | Organizers appear to have dampened excitement for the opening of Belgium's Herge museum by making things difficult for the international news media. [Forbidden Planet International]
Publishing | Manga pundits discuss the significance of Viz Media's Shojo Beat and its cancellation. [Good Comics for Kids]
Publishing | Yaoi Press founder Yamila Abraham reports that on-demand printer Docucopies has refused to print the publisher's Yaoi Coloring Book, citing nudity on several pages. Abraham writes: "There are side views of nude characters, but naughty bits are not visible. There are no sex scenes, but some images are suggestive that sex is coming. It didn't even cross my mind that a printer might not agree to print it." [Yaoi Press, via Anime News Network]
Creators | Jimmy Palmiotti discusses his work on DC's Power Girl and Jonah Hex. [Pink Raygun]