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On Tuesday, April 9, Brian K. Vaughan, creator of the popular comic book "Saga," released a statement on Tumblr claiming that the newest issue of his series was blocked from the App Store because of some potentially offensive imagery. “Fiona and I could always edit the images in question,” Vaughan wrote, referring to Fiona Staples, his co-creator, herself a popular comic book artist since the mid-2000s, “but everything we put into the book is there to advance our story, not (just) to shock or titillate, so we’re not changing shit.”

The images in question? Two postage-stamp-sized images of explicit (but not, by any means, erotic) gay sex.

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Artist Chris Sprouse has abandoned the digital series, saying the media firestorm over Card had become a distraction, according to a statement released Tuesday.

"It took a lot of thought to come to this conclusion, but I've decided to step back as the artist on this story," Sprouse said. "The media surrounding this story reached the point where it took away from the actual work, and that's something I wasn't comfortable with. My relationship with DC Comics remains as strong as ever and I look forward to my next project with them."

Sprouse's departure has put the project on hold while DC searches for his replacement. As a result, Card's "Superman" will not appear in the first collected issue this May.

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The longtime Batman sidekick is to be killed off in today's installment of the "Batman Incorporated" comic books. The character, currently, portrayed as a ten-year-old who is also Batman's son, is reportedly killed fighting his own clone.

The portrayal of Robin as a pre-teen indicates just how much comics series were subject to change before this particularly seismic alteration of Batman's life. Robin, in particular, has shifted identity over time -- previous to the current filial Robin, the character was a young woman Batman was close to. (Though it's not part of the comic-book canon, the most recent Batman film franchise concluded with -- spoiler! -- Robin taking on his crime-fighting role after a stint with the Gotham City Police.)

In order to keep the flagging comics industry afloat, books consistently have thrown their longstanding plotlines into disarray of late. In 2010, Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker broke up; that same year, a gay character showed up in the ultra-heterosexual Archie Comics universe.

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By old, I mean from the 1940s and 1950s, the genre’s Golden Age, when "Superman," "Batman," and "Wonder Woman" were just being scribbled to life. Since I was weaned on comics from the '80s and '90s — titles like "Sandman," "Swamp Thing," "X-Men," "Hellboy," all of which were captivating, literary, and, to those willing to overlook popular stigmas, sophisticated — it was difficult for me to access early "Superman" archives in any genuine emotional sense. Though I ended up reading them through, I found the content, while left-leaning and vivid, very much a product of its time, sometimes gruff, sometimes macho and, as far as current standards go, predictable. The main interest I took was historical, anyway, a glimpse into wartime and American identity as portrayed by Jewish immigrants, with identities of their own. But being brought up around the onset of the millennium I often felt as though I was being asked to marvel at the genius of a fort composed from twigs and mud, knowing all too well that the museum housing it had walls concealing reinforced titanium.

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Robert Kirkman, the co-creator of "Walking Dead," makes no such claims of AMC's adaptation of the comic book that made the flesh-eating undead fashionable again. In fact, he embraces the vast differences between "Walking Dead" the television show and "Walk Dead" the comic book.

"Oftentimes, I'm the one driving it," Kirkman told me.

The differences between the TV show and the comic were apparent as soon as the show debuted on Oct. 30, 2010.

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Decades before the movies and TV shows and fast-food tie-ins, before the lunchboxes and the Halloween costumes, a tiny, understaffed and restlessly creative magazine publisher began churning out pages and pages of comic book art. Whereas comics had once been characterized by junky kids’ titles, repetitive genre pieces and stiff, wearyingly noble superhero archetypes, Marvel characters were a revelation. Marked by humor, pathos and bold artwork, they were refreshingly complicated creations.

Perhaps the most complicated creation of all, however, was Marvel itself. As Sean Howe details in his exhaustively researched and extraordinarily compelling "Marvel Comics: The Untold Story," the company behind the creative onslaught was as contradictory and capricious as any of its characters. In the “Merry Marvel Bullpen,” friendships were wrecked, careers were destroyed and hearts were routinely broken. Peter Parker’s stint at the arachnophobic Daily Bugle was, in comparison, like working at Google.

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Jerry Siegel happened to be born in a gritty Jewish precinct of Cleveland, too, in 1914. And being Jerry never was easy. His trouble began in first grade. The stubby six-year-old had proudly memorized the rules for asking to pee. You raised your hand; the teacher acknowledged you and said it was okay to go to the bathroom. The boy behind him did it. A pigtailed girl followed. But there was no reply when Jerry raised his hand. Finally the teacher turned his way: “What do you want?” He told her. “No,” she said. Maybe she thought he was faking. Maybe it was that he was short, shy, wore glasses, and was the child not of refined German Jews but of unwashed immigrants from Eastern Europe. Whatever the reason, his bladder swelled and a puddle formed under his seat. With other children pointing, the teacher descended: “Leave the room, this very instant! Go home!” “At an early age,” Jerry recalled decades later, “I got a taste of how it feels to be victimized.”

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Early in 1992 my phone rang. At the time I was an art director at a book publisher in Manhattan, and it was some time before I learned the art of being taken to lunch. On the other end was a book agent. “Do you want to go to lunch?” “No thanks,” I replied. “Then I guess you don’t want to meet Jack Kirby?” Less then an hour later I walked into the lobby of the hotel where the Kirbys were staying. I was the first to arrive, and walked over and introduced myself to Jack and Roz. The raison d'être for the meeting was that Jack and Ray Wyman were shopping around "The Art of Jack Kirby." I will save the details of that meeting for another time, but suffice it to say Jack regaled me with war stories over lunch, and I met one of the greatest influences on my early life. Unfortunately I could not convince my publisher how important I believed the book to be. Sadly, almost exactly two years later I learned Jack had passed.

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A new exhibition at New York City's Rubin Museum (an institution wholly dedicated to the art of the Himalayas) will show you "the most complete collection of comics related to Tibet ever assembled." A number of them may already be familiar to you; as curator Martin Brauen explained to me this week, popular comic figures like Donald Duck, Lara Croft and Tintin all make appearances. All the comics -- from the obscure and frivolous to the overtly political -- capture Tibet as it has been perceived by artists and readers at different points over the course of past several decades.

Click through the following slideshow for some truly remarkable images from the exhibition.

Why did you decide to do this exhibition now?

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[caption id="attachment_230862" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Kevin Eastman"][/caption]

These days, the so-called San Diego "Comic" Con's main attraction is sugary TV and movie confectionery. But if you enjoy graphic novels and cartoons – and, well, scary stuff – you may have attended the recent Comic & Horror Con at Long Beach, Calif.'s Convention Center.

While SDCC has been around for over 40 years, the relatively pint-sized LBHCC just started in 2009. But it certainly doesn't seem new. In fact, it feels downright retro. Sure, it had its panel sessions about "Robot Chicken" and Web comics and "Transmedia." But the longest lines of autograph seekers were for Kevin "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" Eastman and, well, John "Halloween" Carpenter… 1980s, anyone? Hell, there was even a stage for group readings of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and other such classic radio drama performances.

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Before "Peanuts" there was "Skippy." And "Always Belittlin'." And "The Clancy Kids." And a wealth of other illustrations by Percy Crosby, one of America's most talented comic strip artists. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1891, Crosby's illustrious career began when he was in his teens, at a Socialist newspaper where fellow workers called him "Comrade Crosby." It ended in 1964 when he died, isolated and destitute, in an insane asylum. He had been committed 16 years earlier when he was diagnosed, possibly wrongly, as paranoid schizophrenic and delusional.

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With that in mind, these are books with reasonably complete narratives and a minimum of the following:

1. Superheroes: True, some die-hard fans will never tire of this motif, but for the rest of us the Burden of Specialness is like gum with all the flavor chewed out.

2. Scene after scene of characters in their mid-20s sitting around in cafes kvetching about their love lives.

3. Three dozen identical panels in which the schlubby protagonist stares off into the middle distance, followed by one nearly identical one in which he sighs.

4. Darkness, oh such very dark darkness. This quality is probably a lot more appealing if you live with one of those chirpy moms who's always urging you to think positive.

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Beaton, a native of Nova Scotia who recently relocated to Brooklyn, N.Y., began writing comics about historical figures and characters from literature for her college newspaper; her first strip offered tips for surviving a Viking invasion of campus. "The response was way bigger than I ever imagined," she said recently over lunch. "I knew that I had something."

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At the center of the storm is Jim Lee, DC's co-publisher, who has the job of expanding readership without losing longtime fans. He also happens to be the artist on DC's Justice League, one of the books that debuted this week. While juggling his drawing, signing and publishing duties, Lee took some time to discuss how the relaunch went and the future of comic books in a digital world.

You had a huge midnight signing at Midtown Comics in New York with writer [and DC's chief creative officer] Geoff Johns on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. What was the highlight?

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Plympton's work on Fox's "The Edge" and MTV's "Liquid Television" in the 1980s and '90s were so ahead of their time it's amazing the networks allowed it -- but he now bemoans the lack of American distribution for adult cartoons. (My personal favorite of his is "25 Ways to Quit Smoking.") He hates Internet piracy, but loves the international audience it has provided him. He's collaborated on videos with both Kanye West ("Heard 'Em Say") and Weird Al Yankovic.

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Not so for "Misfits," a British comedy-drama about to begin its 3rd season on the E4 network. The five teen protagonists are neither heroes nor antiheroes: They are "troubled youths" hit by lightning while performing community service. And they spend most of their time hiding their newfound abilities, wishing they'd just go away. They're mistrusted by the authorities and have less desire to save the world than to save their own crumbling relationships. "Misfits" feels less like a superhero show than an episode of the original "Skins" -- if Tony were immortal and talked to the dead and Sid could turn back time whenever he screwed up.

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Fine artists look down on graphic designers. And graphic designers look down on comics artists.

Like all generalizations, this one isn't entirely true. For one thing, a great number of successful designers look into the work of comics artists, very often and very closely.

Chip Kidd is, of course, the prime example. He was also the obvious choice to moderate a discussion about the art of design, and how it relates to comics, at the recent San Diego Comic-Con. Panelists included Seymour Chwast, Craig Yoe, Michael Gross, and Mark Chiarello. You can find a thorough report on the session at Comic Book Resources.

Afterward, I asked these super-pros about design projects that were directly inspired by the comics medium. And here are their answers.

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