Links: News for the New Year

At Robot 6, Michael May talks to Ted Naifeh about his work on Courtney Crumrin, which relaunches in full color in April.

BOOM! Studios is planning a series of comics based on the Nickelodeon series Adventure Time, with a stellar lineup of writer Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics) and artists Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline, who worked on several of the Muppet Show comics.

It’s all good fun until someone gets sued: A court has ordered Antarctic Press to stop distributing its Diary of a Zombie Kid books after Diary of a Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney sued them for trademark infringement and sundry other wrongs. It appears from the papers that Antarctic agreed to the restraining order and is negotiating with the Wimpy Kid people. Apparently Kinney is anything but wimpy when it comes to protecting his intellectual property; the Wimpy Kid books sold 52 million copies, while Antarctic’s book sold 850. On the other hand, there has been nary a peep out of Kinney about the Papercutz parody, Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid, possibly because its cover is so different from the trade dress of the Wimpy Kid books.

In other legal news, former Sonic the Hedgehog artist Ken Penders continues his quixotic quest to retain the rights to the characters he originated for the Sonic universe; he has sued game companies Sega and Electronic arts, and Archie has sued him. The Archie case goes to trial next month; in the meantime, Penders is planning a new set of graphic novels based on the characters he claims are his.

Atomic Robo creator Scott Wegener is the guest on the latest Comic Book Diner podcast. And Publishers Weekly had a nice article recently on Comic Book Diner member John Gallagher’s Buzzboy, which is available three ways—in print, as part of an app, and as a webcomic.

Kiel Phegley reviews the comic that came in a cereal box.

Reviews: Johanna Draper Carlson posts brief reviews of a handful of comics, including Princeless and Fraggle Rock Classics, at Comics Worth Reading.

Richard Bruton on Bake Sale (Forbidden Planet blog)
Kevin Hodgson on Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year (The Graphic Classroom)
Greg McElhatton on Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes (Read About Comics)
Elizabeth Bird on Drawing from Memory (A Fuse #8 Production)
Beth Scorzato on The Dreamland Chronicles (Spandexless)
Beth Scorzato on vol. 1 of Ernest and Rebecca and vol. 1 of Sybil the Backpack Fairy (Spandexless)
Johanna Draper Carlson on Miss Annie: Freedom! (Comics Worth Reading)
Beth Scorzato on Page by Paige (Spandexless)
Patrick Smith on Princeless #1 and #2 (Spandexless)
Greg McElhatton on Rust: Visitor in the Field (Read About Comics)
Greg McElhatton on Snarked #3 (Read About Comics)
Adrian Neibauer on Three Shadows (The Graphic Classroom)

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