Conventions | WonderCon Anaheim has announced the first round of guests for its April 3-5 show: Neal Adams, Becky Cloonan, Aaron Kuder, Kevin Maguire and Dustin Nguyen. [Toucan Blog]
Publishing | Oni Press is seeking a new director of publicity, following the departure last month of John Schork. [Oni Press]
Publishing | Magnetic Press is looking for a marketing assistant. [Magnetic Press]
Retailers | The Laughing Ogre chain has announced its Lansdowne, Virginia, location (Phoenix Comics & Toys) has lost its lease and will close Dec. 18. That store is managed by chain co-owner Gary Dills, the former ComicsPRO treasurer named as the subject of an investigation into a possible misuse of organization funds. The chain has two other locations, in Fairfax, Virginia, and Columbus, Ohio. [Laughing Ogre, via Bleeding Cool]
Creators | Gilbert Shelton talks about Zap Comix in a previously unpublished 2012 interview. [The Comics Journal]
Creators | Eric Powell discusses such general topics as how he got started in comics and what makes The Goon so special before settling into a more specific conversation about the latest Goon miniseries, Occasion of Revenge. [Bleeding Cool]
Creators | Joyce Brabner talks about her new graphic novel Second Avenue Caper, set in New York during the AIDS crisis of the early 1980s, and the importance of humor in dark situations, her depiction of a vanished Lower East Side, and her collaboration with her late husband, Harvey Pekar. [Jewish Daily Forward]
Creators | Liz Prince discusses her graphic memoir Tomboy, and autobiographical comics in general. [Comics Alliance]
Creators | Ron Bryant, whose cartoon about Nicki Minaj recently went viral, talks about his work, which focuses on the black community and its issues: "One of the biggest distractions we face as a people is the desire to be entertained. If something doesn’t make us laugh, we become quick to dismiss it as too serious. My GG series has been compared to a soap opera. It is far from that. The stories depict the struggles and events we face today as a people." [Daytona Times]
Creators | Pete Sickman-Garner started drawing comics in college, and his graphic novel Hey Mister was the first book published by Top Shelf. Then he took a long hiatus, from 2001 to 2006, before starting work on Come Hell or Highwater Pants, which was just published this year — and made The A.V. Club's Best Graphic Novels list. "I always thought it was because I had kids, but my first daughter was born in 2003, and while going through old journals, I realized I'd stopped a full 2 years before that," he said. "So it really had nothing to do with raising kids. I'd just hit a block. I couldn't come up with a story I liked. When I'd first started, the strips were gags. I was young and trying to be obnoxious. But as I got older, I started writing longer stories with more complicated characters, and when I went to write the next book, I felt like I didn't have anywhere for the characters to go." [MLive]
Best of the year | Rob Kirby lists his picks for the top 10 minicomics and non-minicomics of 2014. [My Blog]
Digital comics | Jackie Dove pays a visit to the Digital Comic Museum, a website that collects public-domain comics, dating from 1959 or earlier, for users to download for free. [The Next Web]
Conventions | Henry Chamberlain reports in on the inaugural Comic Arts Los Angeles (CALA) festival. [Comics Grinder]