Photo by Hunter Gorinson

Jason Kothari (Left) and Dinesh Shamdasani are now the heads of Valiant Comics

In 2005, Dinesh Shamdasani and Jason Kothari, two slight, sleep-deprived undergrads from USC and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, respectively, sat in Kothari's dorm room surrounded by the towering boxes of legal documents that had consumed their lives for the past six months. The childhood friends had just failed in their quest to purchase Valiant, their favorite comic book company.

It had been a long shot. In the 1990s, Valiant was the third largest comic book company in the world, rivaling DC Comics for market share and boasting more than 1,500 characters. With no prior experience in the industry, and only Shamdasani's vast knowledge of Valiant's library and Kothari's nearly completed business degree to guide them, the two fans had gotten in the ring with millionaire Marvel execs and wealthy industry insiders to fight for the rights to Valiant.

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Liz Ohanesian

Sheika Lugtu of OMG Cow at Long Beach Comic Expo

See our coverage of Long Beach Comic Expo 2011: "Long Beach Comic Expo: Five Things We Love About Small Conventions."

Sheika Lugtu is 24 and a student at Long Beach City College. A couple of years ago, she returned to school and decided to document her life in comic form, one panel a day. "At the end of the year, I'd have something to show for it," she says.

Lugtu published her comic, called OMG Cow, online. She acquired a following, but the audience made it clear that they wanted something tangible. So she printed copies off her computer and stapled them together. "I started charging for it because it costs a lot of money to print out 365 pages," the Long Beach-based artist explains.

Like a lot of writers and artists, Lugtu chose to eschew the the world of book deals in favor of self-publishing. At Long Beach Comic Expo, a small, one-day event that focuses almost exclusively on comics, self-published books are the norm. Works range from raw to slick, from mini-comics to art books, and are sold largely by the creators themselves.

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Liz Ohanesian

Posters by Rhys Cooper

Joss Whedon's take on Marvel's dream team, The Avengers, hits U.S. theaters at midnight. With anticipation for the movie swelling, a host of hot artists brought their own renditions of the famed superheroes to Gallery 1988 on Melrose Avenue for "Assemble."

The show, which actually takes place at a space across the street from the pop culture-centric gallery, is similar to Gallery 1988's recent Adult Swim event. There's a mix of gorgeous, one-of-a-kind pieces with hefty pricetags. However, there are also a lot of prints available, most of which are selling for around $45. "Assemble" opens today and will run through Sunday. Check out some of the standout pieces from the show here.

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For more coverage visit our post on last year's event, "Comikaze Expo 2011: First-Time Convention Brings Big Names, Big Crowd" and check out photos from Comikaze Expo 2011.

It's official. Comikaze Expo, the new pop culture fan convention that took the Los Angeles Convention Center by storm last fall, is now Stan Lee's Comikaze, Presented by POW!.

In its first year, Comikaze Expo brought in 40,000 attendees, a number that's massive even in comparison with long-running events. This year, the convention is doing something unprecedented by partnering with the biggest name in the comic book industry.

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Ivan Fernandez

Well...let me tell you

Rick Klotz (above) wants you to know what the fuck is really going on in the world. He knows he can't reach out to a curious audience via mainstream publishing outlets, so Klotz, founder of Freshjive, went to USC for Shelf Life 2: A Big Day for Small Press to sell his latest zine -- those little pamphlet-sized magazines made from scratch that you can find in independent bookstores.

The event, a celebration of independent art and publishing curated by the USC Roski School of Fine Arts and by Visions and Voices, featured nearly 100 independent artists, writers and publishers who promoted and sold their work.

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The world is becoming increasingly paperless, but don't tell that to the paper peddlers at last Sunday's inaugural L.A. Zine Fest, who proved that if you can doodle something clever, copy, staple and distribute -- voila -- you've got a zine.

Nearly 90 DYI-ers from Gardena to Portland gathered to sell and trade their comics, drawings and stories at downtown's the Last Bookstore, at an event that also included workshops and panel discussions led by Meltdown Comics, Machine Project and Grrrl Zines A-Go-Go, in addition to a talk with Henry Rollins and publisher V. Vale.

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Photo courtesy of Sam Humphries

Comic book writer Sam Humphries

Today, Marvel announced that L.A.-based writer Sam Humphries will be joining veteran comic book author Jonathan Hickman as co-writer of Ultimates, an alternate-universe version of the Avengers superhero team. Humphries will come on board with issue 10 of the Ultimate Comics series, set for release in May.

For Humphries, who says he had comic book ambitions back when he was 10, this is a rare and amazing opportunity. He'll be working alongside with Hickman, a writer he admires, and he's a longtime Marvel fan. Humphries says he's acquired an impressive amount of knowledge about Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four since childhood.

"The Marvel universe feels like home to me," he says.

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Tina's Mouth: An Existential Diary (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

"I'm an alien (but my parents are Indian.)"

Tina Malhotra's journey through a high school existential crisis was difficult. Bringing her world to life was just as wrenching.

Author Keshni Kashyap and illustrator Mari Araki spent four years working on the graphic novel Tina's Mouth: An Existential Diary, which was published in January. Kashyap was trained as a filmmaker and Araki is a surrealist painter. The pair had to teach themselves the comic form while melding the book's substantial text with some 1,000 drawings.

"I'd rather kill myself than do another graphic novel [about Tina]," Kashyap says flatly. "It was so hard to do." Besides, "The world is such a rough place right now. I don't really want to write about privileged teenagers anymore."

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Shannon Cottrell

Spotted at Animé Los Angeles.

I think I'm hooked on Homestuck.

Homestuck is a web comic, the fourth story in the MS Paint Adventures collection created by Andrew Hussie. It started in April of 2009 and is ongoing, with five acts completed and a sixth one underway. If you want proof of its popularity, go to a comic book or anime convention and look for the gray kids with orange and yellow horns. You'll see a lot. And, if you can't get to a convention, check out the fan-generated work on Tumblr.

I started reading Homestuck last summer, after seeing a large group of people cosplaying characters from the series at Anime Expo. After reaching the midpoint of Act 1, though, I got busy and put it aside for a long while.

Then last weekend at Animé Los Angeles I wandered down to a Homestuck cosplay meet-up with a couple friends. It was massive, at least 100 people from what I saw. The following day, I asked my pal Charleett, who has become something of a Homestuck evangelist, about the comic.

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Lina Lecaro

Alex Segura and Dan Parent at Golden Apple

What do gay marriage, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and the band KISS have in common? In the crazy world of comics, everything.

Newer, edgier titles have been known to push the boundaries of expectation or mesh disparate imagery and pop culture references, but it's a particular nostalgic title that's rocking out and rocking the boat politically at the moment: Archie.

Used to be, Archie's most probing debate was about who was hotter in Riverdale: Betty or Veronica. The eternal question about which girl Archie should choose continues and the writers have come up with a clever way around it: alternate story lines that explore the title character's married life with each gal. There's even a graphic novel about it called "The Married Life: Two Worlds. Two Loves. Two Destinies."

Coming mid-January, one of those storylines will see the ginger-haired protagonist break up with one of the gals too. But it will also see a historic union: the marriage of Riverdale's only (out) homosexual resident, Kevin Keller.

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