Fairy Tail Creator at SDCC
Del Ray Manga announced that Hiro Mashima, the creator of manga series Fairy Tail and Rave Master, will appear at San Diego Comic Con. Mashima will be on a panel Saturday July 26from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Mashima will also be signing at the Del Ray booth Friday July 25from 2:30 to 3:30 and on Saturday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Official Autographing Area 1. Tickets are required for the signings; tickets will be distributed at the Comic Cellar booth. Any one who purchases a volume of Fairy Tail from the Comic Cellar booth will receive a ticket to one of the signings. More information can be found at the Del Ray website.

Kodansha To Set Up in U.S.
ICv2.com, a comics and pop culture trade news site, is reporting that the Nikkei Financial News Services reported that Japanese manga publisher Kodansha is planning to set up a U.S.-based subsidiary to publish and translate its manga for the U.S. market. Kodansha is a much sought after licensor by U.S. manga publishers. The house supplies manga to Random House's Del Rey Manga imprint through a coventure agreement in addition to licensing manga to a number of other American publishers. There were many rumors about Kodansha’s plans to set up a U.S. office at the recent BookExpo convention in Los Angeles.

PW The Beat: Frank Miller, Paul Pope and More
Over at The Beat, Heidi MacDonald gathers the comics issues of the day in one convenient blog, and offers commentary on all of it. She tracks down rumors that Frank Miller is working on a graphic novel sequel to his hit graphic novel/film 300; notes that Eric Stephenson is replacing Erik Larsen as publisher of Image Comics and takes note of the death of acclaimed comics artist and founder of Aspen Comics Michael Turner from bone cancer. In addition she comments on the somewhat baffling discovery that DC Comics apparently refused to allow an excerpt of Paul Pope’s Eisner award-winning Batman Year 100 to be included in Houghton Mifflin’s prestigious anthology Best American Comics. Go Figure.

Dabel Bros., Del Rey To Publish Wheel of Time
Dabel Brothers Publishing, a comics packager noted for high quality comics adaptations of notable prose series, will create a comics adaptation of acclaimed fantasy novelist Robert Jordan’s bestselling Wheel of Time series. The Dabel Brothers will begin publishing a periodical comics series in December 2008 and Del Rey Books will publish book format graphic novel collections of the series, which will likely be released in late 2009. The first volume of Jordan’s 11-volume Wheel of Time series, The Eye of the World, was published in 1990 and the series has sold more than 14 million books. In 2009 Tor Books will publish the 11th book of the prose series, A Memory of Light, which was completed by writer Brandon Sanderson after Jordan’s death in 2007.

Papercutz on Cell Phones
Papercutz is making their Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew comics available on mobile phones via uclick’s GoComics mobile phone comics reader. A new chapter of each title will be released weekly. More information can be found at the GoComics' website.

Abel and Madden on NPR
Jessica Abel and Matt Madden appeared on NPR’s All Thing’s Considered on June 29discussing their new comics’ textbook, Drawing Words and Writing Pictures: A Definitive Course from Concept to Comic in 15 Lessons. The segment can be heard on the NPR website.

Wendy Pini Live Podcast
Wendy Pini, creator of Elfquest, will be at Meltdown Comics on July 2 at 8 p.m. for the taping of a video podcast for Comics on Comics. The filming will be in front of a live audience, and Robbie Peron will host the podcast. Meltdown Comics is located at 7522 W. Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, Calif..

Rutu Modan in The New York Times
A new comics strip by the award-winning Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan is being featured on the New York Times website.