Retailing | While Captain America: The Winter Soldier Ultimate Collection cracked Nielsen BookScan's Top 20 graphic novels sold in bookstores, making it the first Marvel or DC Comics release since January to do so, the April chart was again dominated by three familiar titles: The Walking Dead, Attack on Titan and Saga, which claimed a combined 13 spots. The horror series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard led the trio with six volumes, followed by Hajime Isayama's dystopian fantasy with four, and Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' space opera with three. The 36th volume of Masashi Kishimoto's hit manga Naruto was No. 1 in April. [ICv2.com]

Events | On the eve of the 11th Toronto Comic Arts Festival, The Japan Times looks at both the growing presence of manga, and Dork Shelf talks with festival director Christopher Butcher about its Comics vs. Games 3 showcase. Meanwhile, the National Post is running a series of conversations between artists attending TCAF, beginning with Georgia Webber and Seo Kim, and Réal Godbout and Nick Abadzis. You can read more of its festival coverage here. [Toronto Comic Arts Festival]



Comic strips | The New York Post abruptly dropped its comics page on Tuesday, with no notification to its readers or the syndicates whose seven strips the newspaper carried. The Post, which has yet to release an official statement about the decision, had published Garfield, The Wizard of Id, Rhymes With Orange, Mallard Fillmore, Heart of the City, Non-Sequitur and Dennis the Menace. [Romenekso, Comic Riffs]

Controversy | The nonprofit Hub City Writers Project in Spartanburg, South Carolina, has launched Writers Speaking Out Loud, an initiative to protest proposed funding cuts to two state universities that selected gay-themed books -- one of them was Alison Bechdel's graphic novel Fun Home -- for their summer reading programs. [Comic Book Legal Defense Fund]



Digital comics | The first volumes of Invincible and The Manhattan Projects and the second volume of Saga have been added to the Humble Image Comics Bundle (more than 33,000 of the bundles have been sold since April 29). A portion of the proceeds from the pay-what-you-want sale of the digital collection will benefit The Hero Initiative. [Humble Bundle]

Digital comics | Jeffrey L. Wilson offers a brief snapshot of the digital landscape, and recommends 10 comics worth downloading.  [PC Mag]

Creators | Writer Joshua Hale Fialkov discusses his digital comic turned Oni Press series The Bunker. [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | Artist Michael Dialynas talks about The Woods, his new BOOM! Studios comic with writer James Tynion IV. [Multiversity Comics]

Books | Heidi MacDonald recommends eight books about comics. [Publishers Weekly]