Creators | With the announcement that Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios is back in business, former Extreme Studios employee and current Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson reflects on his time with the studio. "From 1992-1998, Extreme Studios was more or less my life. Youngblood, Supreme, Brigade, Bloodstrike, Team Youngblood, New Men, Prophet, Youngblood: Strikefile, Bloodpool, Glory... We put out a lot of comics, and for the most part everyone involved was incredibly young. Rob and I were amongst the oldest at 25. So many of the artists involved in various aspects of production were just out of their teens, and that made the work as frustrating as it was fun. But looking back, the main thing I remember about that time is Rob wanted to share his success with people who loved comics and wanted to make a living in the business as much as he had." [It Sparkles!]

Webcomics | A Distant Soil creator Colleen Doran, who began serializing the comic online in 2009, notes "my bottom line is up significantly, and my online audience is ten times higher than when I started the five day a week online serialization of A Distant Soil 2.5 years ago." She also shares advice she received when she started the endeavor that hasn't worked for her. [A Distant Soil]



Creators | Orchid writer and musician Tom Morello shares his thoughts on his new book, politics and social issues in comics, and the story in Action Comics #900 that featured Superman renouncing his citizenship, among other topics. [Vulture]

Creators | Speaking of politics in comics, Marzena Sowa talks to Hero Complex about her upcoming Vertigo graphic novel Marzi: "When I started to write Marzi, the first stories concerned my daily life in Poland: I wrote about my family, my neighbors. Then, progressively, political questions started to appear and I realized that the politics had so much space in my childhood life I hadn’t even imagined. Marzi is getting bigger, and her curiosity and will to understand the world is getting bigger too. She feels concerned by the world and she tries to understand it — understand why it doesn’t work correctly. At a certain point she starts to speak, she is not only a mute witness of what is happening in her country. She starts also to claim her own freedom; but for instance she is maybe too small to be heard by her parents, but she won’t give it up." [Hero Complex]

Creators | The New York Times profiles the husband-and-wife cartooning duo Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman. [The New York Times]

Creators | Phil Hester and Jonathan Lau discuss their work on Dynamite's Bionic Man comic book. [TFAW]

Creators | Mark Waid talks about his work on Marvel's recent revival of the CrossGen title Ruse. [Mulholland Books]



Creators | Daniel Clowes talks about re-release of "The Death Ray" and his "drift toward more sympathetic figures" in his work: "I decided at a certain point that one of my goals is to find a way to connect with the characters no matter how awful they may seem or how hard they are to be around, to try to look at their humanity and find a way to love them by the end." [Montreal Gazette]

Creators | Jonathan Liu catches up with Anya's Ghost creator Vera Brosgol after sitting on a panel with her at Portland, Oregon's Wordstock. [Wired]

Creators | Underground comics legend Robert Crumb shares his other "passion" -- early 20th-century popular music. [BlogCritics]

Creators | Robin Furth discusses adapting Stephen King's The Dark Tower to the comics medium, collaborating with Peter David, and Stephen King's thoughts and involvement. [Biff Bam Pop! - part 1, part 2]

Comics | Saladin Ahmed looks at four of comics legend Jack Kirby's "most ethnically adventurous creations" -- The Thing, the Howling Commandos, Black Panther and The Black Racer. [tor.com]



Comics | The Beast Must Die at the Mindless Ones blog looks back at Mark Wheatley and Rick Burchett’s covers for Black Hood, from DC's early 1990s !mpact line [Mindless Ones]

Commentary | Robot 6's own Sean T. Collins reviews Brian Ralph's Daybreak. [The Comics Journal]

Fandom | Looking for a Halloween costume? Found Item Clothing details 34 pop culture costumes you can make on your own, including Wonder Woman and Charlie Brown. [Found Item Clothing]

Robots | The Calgary Sun spotlights Phil Allen, who created a giant robot he hopes to sell to help pay for his wife's liberation treatment for multiple sclerosis. “Science fiction has been talking about robots for 70 years and now I know why there aren’t any ... It’s a huge undertaking when you decide to build one.” [Calgary Sun]