“Sketchnotes” are an increasingly popular form of visual note-taking. By combining text and images, sketchnotes are not only beautiful, but often easier to recall than text alone. The technique is an effective way of capturing notes and ideas in the classroom, meetings and conferences.

All next week, illustrator and senior UX/UI designer Andy McNally will be sketchnoting Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) for us, starting with the big keynote on Monday.

Andy has been covering Apple’s events as sketchnotes for some time. We ran some of his sketchnotes from last year’s event, which proved very popular. He’s back again this year, and is planning to publish sketchnotes from a variety of sessions at the conference.

Before he gets started, Andy shared some tips and techniques for getting started on sketchnoting yourself. Let’s take a look:

In this week’s All-New X-Men #40, long-time team member Iceman comes out as gay — his secret being revealed through an endearing conversation with telepathic teammate Jean Grey.

But Iceman’s far from the only LGBT character in sequential art history. As one of Cult of Mac’s comic gurus, I combed through the archives for six more examples of beloved LGBT comic book characters to demonstrate the medium’s continued commitment to diversity.

The revelation? That’s it’s far from the headline-provoking novelty it once was. And that there are more than you might imagine.

And to think some readers probably figured Tim Cook — with his Tony Stark-like tech fortune and desire to make the world a better place — was the world’s only gay superhero.

If you’re a fan of Marvel Comics (and, frankly, who isn’t?) you’ll likely be pleased as punch to hear of the publisher’s latest offer.

To celebrate Comic-Con International, Marvel is opening up its online archive — consisting of more than 15,000 books that date back as far as the Golden and Silver ages — for the princely sum of one dollar.

Who are the Guardians of the Galaxy and why should you care? Marvel Studios gave lucky fans a nice long look at the weird team of space heroes during an extended sneak preview of the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

The 17 minutes of footage introduced the five key players: Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (played by Chris Pratt); talking raccoon Rocket and his treelike buddy/protector Groot; beefy blue badass Drax the Destroyer (part-time WWE wrestler Dave Bautista); and steely, green-skinned assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana). It also gave us a sustained looked at the movie’s not-so-secret weapon: humor.

Who’s the baddest of the bad?

Got your own favorite underappreciated supervillain? Let us know in the comments below.

Faster than a speeding bullet, ComiXology has scaled the ranks in the App Store in what seems like a single bound.

As one of last year’s top-grossing iPad apps, the digital comics platform has sold an astonishing 6 billion comic book pages since its 2009 debut — 4 billion of those coming in 2013 alone.

In helping revive an industry that was almost dead on its feet, ComiXology has done for comics what iTunes did for legal music downloads.

At the height of its success, it’s now been snatched up by Amazon for an undisclosed amount of money — prompting the question of whether Apple has missed out. (Particularly when taking into accounts the reports that Amazon is reportedly set to debut a smartphone of its own — capable of busting out 3-D.)

After all, ComiXology’s CEO David Steinberger has always had big ambitions. He once wrote that his “crazy goal” was to turn everyone on the planet into a comic reader. Sounds just like Steve Jobs.

Before the acquisition, CEO David Steinberger told Cult of Mac ComiXology’s backstory and its deep ties to Apple.  Sometimes the Cupertino company has acted as its Krypton-esque home planet, and other times more like its Lex Luthor-style nemesis.

Ready for ComiXology’s secret origin story?