Digital | Sean Kleefeld points out the launch of Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels, "the first ever scholarly, primary source database focusing on adult comic books and graphic novels," the site's home page says.

The site currently hosts 24,000 pages of comics and a small number of The Comics Journal issues -- all with the permission of the copyright holders -- with plans to eventually expand to 100,000 pages of materials. The site's advisers and partners include Fantagraphics' Gary Groth and Kitchen Sink Press' Denis Kitchen. Access to the site is available for one-time purchase of perpetual access or as an annual subscription. [Underground and Independent Comics]

Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson rounds up reactions from the manga community on the recent layoffs by Viz Media. [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | John Jackson Miller crunches direct-market sales estimates for April, comparing them with previous years. [The Comichron]

Newspapers | Steve Tippie, Tribune Media Service's vice president of licensing, talks about the cancellation of the 86-year-old Little Orphan Annie comic strip. [Comic Riffs]

Digital | Zippy creator Bill Griffith and Soup to Nutz creator Rick Stromoski discuss the possibilities the iPad and similar devices might have for comic strips. [Hartford Courant]



Creators | Comics creator Frank Miller talks at length about the "peculiar craft" of drawing a comic book. "Novice comic book artists often try to imitate film, moving the characters ever-so-slowly, breaking a single action into endless, nearly identical images, each image changed from the last only incrementally, inch by tedious inch. That approach usually belly-flops, only reminding the reader that he’s looking at static images, showing everybody, in no uncertain terms, that movies move, and comics don’t. Novice comic book writers, on the other hand, simply pile on the words, robbing the form of its energy and vitality, often unintentionally insulting the reader by cluttering the drawing with descriptions of the drawing, making either the pictures or the words irrelevant, and boring the reader to distraction. Still, you gotta find a way to slow the reader down without boring him, or, worst of all, confusing him. A confusing comic book hits the trash can or recycling bin faster than junk mail." [Frank Miller Ink]

Creators | Naif Al-Mutawa talks about the success of his comic series The 99 and attending the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington, D.C. [Palestine Note]

Creators | Peter Hartlaub profiles Daniel Clowes upon the release of his latest book Wilson. [SFGate]

Creators | Jeff Yang talks to Belle Yang about her new graphic novel, Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale. [SFGate]

Creators | If it's Wednesday, it must be time for artist Paolo Rivera's Wacky Reference Wednesday. Today he shares how he created the cover to Amazing Spider-man #641.



Fandom | Harry McCracken explores the origins of the word "fanboy" in a post that references everything from a fanzine created by cartoonist Jay Lynch and Glenn Bray to a character on the gone-but-not-forgotten cartoon Freakazoid. [Technologizer]

Organizations | Terri Heard talks to Reading With Pictures founder Josh Elder about the organization's goals and the upcoming Reading With Pictures Anthology, which features "comics and education-themed stories." [Publishers Weekly]

Blogosphere | Rich Watson, who has blogged about race and comics for many years, has announced he's stepping away from blogging. "I don’t feel as enthusiastic about it as I used to, for a number of reasons. Comics have become too expensive – $3.99 for 22 pages of a piece of a story is not a bargain. In Marvel and DC’s case, their superhero books rely far too much on continuity minutiae and excessive violence. And recent trends have made it clear they’re not interested in paying little more than lip service to the idea of multiculturalism. Yes, there’s still good stuff out there, and I’ve done my best to write about them, but after ten years… I need a break." Watson says he'll continue to administer the Glyph Awards and plans to focus on making his own comics. [Glyphs]

Humor | Chris Sims presents "The Periodic Table Of Super-Powers." [ComicsAlliance]

Crime | A 42-year-old California man was arrested at the Canadian border for trying to bring a weapons cache into the country that "included batarang-type throwing knives, Chinese throwing stars, and sets of 12-inch knives embedded on gloves like the prosthetic blades of comic-book character Wolverine." [The Vancouver Sun]