Comic Round-Up: October 29, 2014

"I Am Groot" by Canada-based Justin Currie

[Previously: Artist: Justin Currie ]

Interview: Comic Riffs talks with Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher and Babs Tarr, the new creative team on Batgirl, about the comic’s new look and direction.

Interview: Jim Woodring looks back on career built on unnerving visions

Interview: Joshua Rivera writes about collecting comics: “One of the first pieces of advice given to me when I started reading comics as an adult — years after the primary color blur of early childhood, where I didn’t care so much about quality—was to follow creators, not characters. Characters, you see, are owned by corporations, beholden to sales, or the whims of people who may not share an interpretation that matches up with yours. Find the right creator, though, and you’ll gain appreciation for characters you already love in a completely new way, or find yourself fascinated by characters you never gave a second thought.”

Interview: Leyla Aker, Viz Media’s vice president of publishing, discusses the state of the company and the manga market in general; sales are up, after plummeting in 2007, and backlist sales have been surprisingly strong.

Interview: Shawn Kittleson talks about writing the Mortal Kombat X digital-first series.

News: Alexis Deacon has won the 2014 Observer/Cape/Comica graphic short story prize for “The River,” “a luscious, tangled, whispering kind of story” that earned him £1,000 (about $1,611 U.S.). The runners-up were Fionnuala Doran’s “Countess Markievicz” and Beth Dawson’s “After Life.” The short-story competition has been held annually since 2007 by London’s Comica Festival, publisher Jonathan Cape and The Observer newspaper.

The Bakersfield Now covers the Bakersfield Comic Con, which in seven years has grown from 400 attendees to more than 2,500.

Darryl Cunningham creates nonfiction comics on complex subjects — his latest is on the factors behind the 2008 banking crash — but he still applies the basic principles of cartooning to his work.

The Secret History of John Constantine

Todd Luck started drawing College Follies in the 1990s, when he was in college; he printed one issue, then set it aside until last year, when he put it on comiXology. He talks about the economics of print vs. digital, and how comiXology made it possible for him reach a wider audience.

Why Marvel Fans Are Losing Their Damn Minds

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