Publishing | Kodansha Comics announced Tuesday that its North American release of Makoto Yukimura's historical manga Vinland Saga could end following the seventh volume. "Please preorder and don't let this great series die!" the publisher wrote on Twitter, adding, "We're hoping we'll be able to license the next arc, but it's up in the air at the moment." Kodansha began the U.S. release of the series in October 2013. The seventh volume will be published Dec. 29. [Anime News Network]
Creators | In a radio interview, Neil Gaiman discusses returning to The Sandman, how he created the characters, and why he thinks it appeals to women readers: "When I started writing Sandman, I thought I should probably make sure that I have as many women in the story as men, and that they are as integral to the story as the male characters. And that is what I tried to do from that point out, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding." [NPR]
Best of the year | Rebecca Silverman offers up an opinionated and entertaining list of the best and the most memorable (not always for good reasons) manga of 2015. [Anime News Network]
Comics | Veteran Archie Comics writer Paul Castiglia talks about Christmas in Riverdale. [Sequential Tart]
Comics | Best American Comics editor Bill Kartalopoulos discusses five of the creators in this year's volume: Matthew Thurber, Henriette Valium, Gina Wynbrandt, David Sandlin and Andy Burkholder. [Los Angeles Times]
Comics | Preston Burt looks at five comics published by Retrofit, the small press helmed by Box Brown. [Geek Dad]
Cartoons | New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff offers some tips for cartoonists on getting their art into the magazine. [Co.Create]
Cartoons | Mankoff himself analyzes some cartooning students' work in a video. [The New Yorker]
Manga | A Japanese publisher has just published a collection of five stories about Okinawa by Barefoot Gen creator Keiji Nakazawa, who died in 2012. Nakazawa's strong anti-war philosophy is reflected in the stories, one of which was published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1970. "Ordinary people have absolutely nothing to gain but everything to lose from war," Nakazawa's widow Misayo quoted him as saying. "If there was no war, there would never be the suffering of atomic bomb victims and Okinawa residents." Nakazawa was a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima, which he chronicled in Barefoot Gen. [Asahi Shimbun]
Retailing | Comics shop pioneer Kim Draheim talks about the very early days of the business—he opened his comic shop in Auburn, New York, in 1975—back when comic shops were unheard of, so he had to convince people he wasn't selling porn or dealing drugs. [ComicMix]
Conventions | Cheyenne, Wyoming, joins the list of cities with their own comics conventions; Cheyenne Comic Con will debut on May 13, 2016. There's only one comics creator on the guest lineup so far, though: Artist Alfred Trujillo. [Wyoming News]