“It floundered in my head for a long time”: A local newspaper covers the hell out of a library visit by Mouse Guard creator David Petersen. It’s a nice thorough profile of Petersen, how his signature series came about and what else he’s working on.

You know who I bet is really hard to throw a surprise party for?: Batman, who turned 70 yesterday. See, even if you managed to keep the party secret from the World’s Greatest Detective, and he didn’t happen to find and unravel any clues alerting him to the planned celebration, when he got back to the Batcave and turned on the lights and you jumped out and said “Surprise!” his combat-honed instincts and lighting-fast reflexes would probably have him hurling Batarangs in your direction before you even got to the “prise” in “surprise.” (UPDATE: Er, just like this, actually. Check out Studio Over Floden’s entire Batman birthday gallery here; it’s fantastic.  I found this link at Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter).

Speaking of Spurgeon: He posted a super-short story from Matt Maxwell about Judge Dredd…at prom.

“Here are some of my co-workers recommendations, in addition to Watchmen and Kabuki: Circle of Blood“: Her co-workers recommend Maus and Danger Girl as good graphic novels to start with. That’s right, Maus and Danger Girl. Maus, I get, but Danger Girl? And weirder than just Danger Girl, of course, is Maus and Danger Girl. Also, the “Pow!” in the headline looks a little lonely without the “Biff!” and the “Bam!”…

Don’t worry comics industry, The Cincinnati Inquirer reports that “Comic book market thriving”: This terrible newspaper article seems mostly focused on promoting Free Comic Book Day and one of the comics shops in the writer’s area that will be celebrating it, so I suppose it’s all fine and good in that regard. It’s full of some pretty silly statements when it comes to talking about the industry in general, though. For example, there’s the word “thriving” right there in the headline, in an article that saw print a few days after the big industry news was that sales were only down a few percent instead of a whole lot, and that no book managed to move 100,000 copies or more. Then there’s this: “Marvel, creators of Spider-Man, X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man, is the industry leader and traces its origins to 1939. The company reported record sales in 2008 of $676.2 million and a net income of $205.5 million, also a record.” Okay, but are those hundreds of millions for sales of comics, as the sentence implies, as Marvel isn’t just a publisher of comic books anymore? And if it does refer simply to Marvel’s comic book publishing efforts, then  when it refers to “a record,” does that have anything to do with the cost of the books being $2.99 to $3.99 instead of a dime or three-quarters or $1.75? Because I find it hard—well, impossible, really—to believe that Marvel sold more comic books in 2009 than they did in 1991. Or even  in 1984 or 1973 or 1966. And what are we supposed to make of this? “That’s a long way from the first half of the 20th century, when the forebears of modern day comics were called the funny pages and jammed in local newspapers.” Weren’t comic books twenty-to-thirty years old by the halfway point of the 20th century, having already had one big, huge boom in the 1940s? Reading this article reminded me that I shouldn’t be sad about the death of the American newspaper—those guys have been asking for it for a long time now, haven’t they?

Here is a picture of Randal Munroe in a ball pit: The New York Times covers the webcomics creator responsible for xkcd , and his unique-ish approach to a hardcopy version of his online strip, which will kinda sorta include the alt text gags, only not as alt text. (RELATED: Spurgeon reacts).

Is the Covered blog, in which artist draw “cover versions” of comic book covers, a contest?: Because if so, Robert Goodin wins. (Link stolen from FLOG!, which has some Stumptown coverage and photos up at the moment).

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