Crime | Police in San Antonio, Texas, arrested two men on Friday on charges of stealing $5,000 worth of comics from a local collector. After the robbery, the collector contacted local comic shops and asked them to keep an eye out for the stolen goods. Several retailers gave police information, including a license plate number, that led to the arrests of Gino Saenz and Jose Gonzalez on charges of theft. [San Antonio Express-News]
Digital comics | Humble Bundle sold $3 million worth of DRM-free digital comics in 2014, the first year in which the company included e-books and comics in its bundles. Total e-book revenues were $4.75 million, of which $1.2 million went to charity (including the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund). That may sound like a lot of money, but as director of e-books Kelley Allen said, “The numbers generated by the book bundles look like a rounding error in comparison to video games,” because the audience for the latter is so vast. Humble Bundle's e-books are DRM-free, which has been a stumbling block for traditional book publishers, but comics publishers are more flexible, Allen said. [Publishers Weekly]
Legal | Jakarta Post Editor Meidyatama Suryodiningrat may be prosecuted for blasphemy for a cartoon published in July— despite the newspaper apologizing a few days after it appeared. The cartoon, by Stephane Peray (who goes by the pen name Stephff), shows an ISIS flag changing into a skull and crossbones as it's being raised. The blasphemy charges stem from the flag's inscription, "There is no god except Allah." After meetings with police, the Indonesian Press Council announced last week the charges would be dropped and the matter treated as an "ethics violation," but a police spokesman said they're still planning to review the case. The newspaper's lawyer, Todung Mulya Lubis, said, "The Post had only wanted to participate in the government’s effort to fight against IS’s influence in our country. In the cartoon, it merely tried to portray the brutality of IS who did a violence on behalf of religion." [Jakarta Globe]
Creators | Victor Moscoso talks about cartooning, symbolism and the future in an interview conducted in 1972, when he was 35. [The Comics Journal]
Publishing | Sean T. Collins interviews Leah Wishnia, the editor of the alt-comics anthology Happiness. [The Comics Journal]
Comics | Graeme McMillan counts down 10 underrated Christmas comics. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Collectors | Fargo, North Dakota, fifth-grade teacher Mark Adamson has about 4,000 comics in his collection, which focuses on the Silver Age, and he has a rack of all-ages comics in his classroom as well. [Inforum]
Documentaries | Marisa Stotter talks about her just-released documentary She Makes Comics, and what she learned about the history and current place of women in comics while making it. [Comicbook.com]
Conventions | Nathan Hardin reports in on the fourth annual Comic Book, Sports Card and Toy Show at Biggs Park Mall in Lumberton, North Carolina; it was more of a collectors' show, with a focus on retailers, rather than an entertainment spectacle, but there was a Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine van parked outside as well. [Fayetteville Observer]