Publishing | This wrap-up of the third annual India Comic Con, which drew an estimated 50,000 attendees (up from 15,000 last year), doubles as a snapshot of that country's $22 million comics industry. The growth of the market is attributed in large part to the rise of graphic novels, which are luring young-adult readers. [The Times of India]
Comics | Writing for The Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky weighs in on the backlash over DC Comics hiring Orson Scott Card in an article titled "The Real Reason to Fear a Homophobe Writing a Superman Comic": "It's disturbing to have Orson Scott Card writing Superman, then, in part because Superman is supergood, and the supergood shouldn't hate gay people. But it's also disturbing, perhaps, because Superman is a violent vigilante — and because violent vigilantism in the name of good is often directed not against injustice, but against the powerless." [The Atlantic]
Creators | Geoff Johns talks about his plans for Justice League of America: "It's not Batman and Superman and the big, big characters, and we can do a lot of pretty crazy stuff with these guys. People are going to be pretty surprised. It gets a little bit more wild than what you'd see in Justice League proper." [USA Today]
Creators | Dan Nadel interviews Gabrielle Bell about her recent work, including her graphic novel Voyeurs and the short story "Cody." [The Comics Journal]
Creators | In a webcast video, Dean Haspiel discusses independent comics and mini-comics, having donated his collection to the Library of Congress. [Library of Congress]
Comics | Tom Kaczynski talks about his Uncivilized Books, which he describes as "a book trade/mini-comics hybrid." Their highest profile book so far is Gabrielle Bell's Voyeurs. [The Morton Report]
Comics | This must be Kaczynski's week, as James Romberger talks to him as well. [The Hooded Utilitarian]
Comics | Reporter Donna Vickroy sits in on a Chicago-area high school class in which students are reading Price and Prejudice — the Marvel version. [Southtown Star]
Business | Chris Powell, who came to Diamond Comic Distributors last year from the Lone Star store chain, has been promoted to the newly created position of vice president of retailer services. [ICv2]
Manga | Sean Gaffney provides some context for the new manga licenses announced last week by Viz and Seven Seas. [A Case Suitable for Treatment]
Digital comics | I took a look at Kickstarter as a digital comics marketplace; compared to other digital storefronts, the prices are on the high side, but everything's a DRM-free download, and you get it straight from the creator. [Good E-Reader]
Conventions | The first Warner Robins Comic Con seems to have gone well, with between 500 and 700 attendees heading to a local hotel to compare costumes and meet local writer Matthew Smith (Simon Says), inker Roy Snyder, and Michael Koske, who has played a variety of zombies on The Walking Dead television show and webisodes. [The Telegraph]
Exhibits | The widow of Roy Lichtenstein, who became famous for paintings that appropriated panels from comic books, confides that her late husband was "not a fan" of comics and he was not happy, in later years, that he was pigeonholed as the comic book guy. An exhibit of Lichtenstein's work will open tomorrow at the Tate Modern. [The Independent]