Archive
March 11th, 2010
Comix Talk for Thursday, March 11, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 11, 2010
Good morning y'all, I almost skipped updating the site today but than I saw this: Josh Lesnick's WEBCOMIC PONY PARTY. 'Nuff said.
DEAD TREES: Ben Costa posts that he won a xeric grant and has the cover art to the book he'll be self-publishing, Pang, The Wandering Shaolin Monk, Vol. 1: Refuge of the Heart. I'm looking forward to this book.
Also another installment from Tyler Page on his experiences in self-publishing his comic Nothing Better. Part 1 is here and part 2 is here. (A part 3 is coming)
BUSINESS: The Daily Cross Hatch has an interview with Bellen creator Box Brown about the fundraising website Kickstarter. In related news, James Kochalka's Kickstarter drive to fund a video game he thought up has met its goal so GAME ON.
COPYRIGHT: Copyright is a weird thing sometimes in this age of MEDIA MEDIA MEDIA all around us. Take this example of a post examining Dave Devries series of paintings based on children's drawings. What's the kid's (c) versus what's Devries? You might think there's an obvious answer but take the questions seriously and I bet you start to think a bit harder about it.
REVIEW: El Santo reviews Natalie Dee.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel. Also 'nuff said.
March 10th
More Comix Talk
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 10, 2010
A few more stories worth checking out today:
JUSTIFY SOME HYPE: Comics Alliance has a preview of David Malki!'s new Wondermark book -- Dapper Caps and Pedal Copters. It's been great to see Malki!'s success with the Wondermark books from Dark Horse Publishing.
INTERVIEWS: An interview with Mike Russell of the alway funny webcomic Culture Pulp. Culture Pulp is non-fiction, usually taking on a movie or an event in the Northwest. And Von Allan gets interviewed -- his graphic novel (which used to be serialized on the web at Girlamatic but I don't see it there now) is The Road to God Knows.
BUSINESS: An article on epublisher WOWIO's excitement about the iPad. I'm excited about the iPad too, but given WOWIO's history I am going to wait and see what they bring to the world in terms of product and contracts before spending too much time reporting on their revival.
ALWAYS BE PREPARED: Webcomic Marketing has a list of items to put in a convention travel kit. It's a really good idea to have a check list before leaving for a convention.
Comix Talk for Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 10, 2010
Just got a bunch of books in from Microcosm Publishing that I will be taking a look at this week (thanks Jessie Duke!). If you've got a book or other webcomic-related object you're interested in having reviewed send it to "Robert Tanner, P.O. Box 3362, Arlington VA 22203" -- I can't promise every book will get a full-blown review from someone (most do though) but they all get a mention on the site.
If you're going to read one thing today I'd recommend this great post on Will Eisner by Christopher Irving over at GraphicNYC.
CRAFT: Erika Moen shows you how she made the cover art for her second print volume of DAR.
MILESTONES: It's Odori Park's first year anniversary on the web his upcoming Saturday. Creator Chris Watkins is soliciting guest strips to help celebrate - send them to him by March 15th.
TOOLS: At Webcomic Planet, Bryon Wilkins reviews the Comic Life software -- it's primarily marketed as a photo to but Wilkins talks about its comic-making usefulness.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE: It's Shark Week at Hockey Zombie! It's also Hockey Zombie's fifth year anniversary.
JUSTIFY GENE's HYPE: Creator Gene Luen Yang reminds us that Derek Kirk Kim is serializing T.U.N.E. at lowbright.com RIGHT NOW (It's also planned to be published in dead tree format by First Second).
NOT WEBCOMICS: Ted Rall time - first, Scott Kurtz throws him into a recent comic -- unless you've followed the online Kurtz-Rall verbal fragfests I'm not sure that's a 4th panel-worthy cameo there. Second, I saw this story on TechDirt where they reported that Rall recently argued "that Italy got it right in finding three Google execs criminally liable for a video some kids posted to Google Video." Rall is now officially in the running with Wiley for the all-time webcomic-luddite title.
March 8th
Otis Frampton Comes Alive!
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 08, 2010
Otis Frampton, creator of Oddly Normal has a new webcomic called Escape From Planet Nowhere and it looks fantastic. It's a sci-fi adventure kind of story with a classic sci-fi look. He explains the new comic and goes through how he created the look in this video:
ComixTalk for Monday, March 8, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 08, 2010
OSCARS! I bailed on watching them this year -- maybe the highlights will be on the youtubebox? Anyhow though, the Comics Reporter reported that ACADEMY AWARD WINNER Jeff Bridges is also a cartoonist. Whodathunkit? A few tiny site notes -- (1) you can add your first/last name, homepage and webcomic URLs and a picture to your ComixTALK user account (restoring us to 2006 functionality! yay...); (2) if you add your name it'll show up on your blog and forum posts instead of your account name; (3) oh yeah, a small forum is back up (with a link to the ancient pre-2005ish forums) and maybe we'll do something with that this year.
INTERVIEW: Brigid Alverson snags an interview with the anonymous writer of Zahra's Paradise, which is about a mother searching for her missing son in the aftermath of the protests following the Iranian presidential election of 2009. Brigid also has a great roundup of all ages comics reviews and interviews.
THEORY: Scott McCloud writes about this article by Tokyo-based Craig Mod on different contents’ ability (or lack thereof) to migrate easily from device to device. I get McCloud main take on Mod's article which is sort of a warning that if we're not careful webcomics will get stuck with a bad "metaphor" for "reading/viewing/processing" them but I don't really buy it. I think the web is still incredibly fluid and open to innovation and I don't really see where the network effect is that would lock us into something.
BUSINESS: The Casual Webcartoonists writes about how to price your artwork.
CRAFT: Project Waldo has a post on making word balloons.
VERSUS: Webcomic Planet is hosting a "webcomics war" where comic creators "try to dominate the playing field by earning points by advertising their own sites."
JUSTIFY KONRAD's HYPE: Someone's list of webcomic recommendations -- seems like a good mix of stuff!
March 5th
Comix Talk for Friday, March 5, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 05, 2010
Another week gone by already?!
BUSINESS: Boing Boing links to a study showing that generally an ebook release is correlated with increased print sales. Hard to do this kind of study with free-all-the-time webcomics but I do think it's high time academics did more work with data on these questions.
DEAD TREES: Robot6 notes that the new graphic novel collection of the webcomic Haunted by Josh Smeaton is now available.
REVIEW: El Santo lowers the one-star boom on Las Lindas.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE: Reality Amuck today tackles Green Email and Spam with funny results.
March 4th
Comix Talk for Thursday, March 4, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 04, 2010
INTERVIEWS: Time's Techland Blog is the next step on the Penny Arcade book tour. Sean Collins interviews Nick Gurewitch about some short comics he did for Marvel. Marvel? Yeah Marvel! He has Hulk and Wolverine comics in an upcoming book. CrunchGear interviews Drew and Natalie Dee of Toothpaste for Dinner fame. And David Harper interviews Brock Heasley, co-creator of Monsterplex, the most recent winner of the Zuda contest. Heasley's other webcomic is the superheroes in a retirement home comedy -- Super Fogeys. (h/t to Paperless Comics which does a far most exhaustive job than I of tracking down webcomic-related interviews and reviews around the web)
REVIEW: Christopher Irving at GraphicNYC gives Raina Telgemeier's Smile a great review.
LEGAL BEAGLE: Long article at CBR on the Incarnate/Bleach copying scandal and the line on plagerism and homage/inspiration in general. If you're interested in the subject, worth a read.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE Channeling Randy Jackson for a minute: Dude, Rosenburg you just killed it tonight! That thing is hawt! Seriously - this animated panel of Goats is great fun and doing it as an animated gif is practically like employing medieval age technology by the standards of Internet time.
AROUND DEM BLOGS: Hope Larson reminds you that she is not Bryan Lee O'Malley's secretary. Alexis Farjado announced that his new Kid Beowulf book The Song of Rowland is off to the printers.
March 3rd
Comix Talk for Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 03, 2010
INTERVIEW: A great interview with Joey Comeau and Emily Horne of the long-running webcomic A Softer World. They have a new book out collecting the webcomic (it's their second book).
WASHINGTON DC STUFF: There was a couple of appearances by Dean Haspiel and the ACT-I-VATEs last weekend. Area blogger Comics Girl writes up one of the appearances and Mike Rhode interviewed Jim Dougan (who wrote the excellent graphic novel Crazy Papers -- art'd by Danielle Corsetto).
March 2nd
Comix Talk for March 2, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 02, 2010
INTERVIEW: Graphic NYC interviews Scott McCloud.
iWEBCOMICS: Bleeding Cool blog reports that a new beta version of Longbox, the comics reader-and-collector-and-social-networking software, will be available to the public this weekend. Prior versions of Longbox were in private beta..
CONTEST: The Escapist website webcomic contest has a couple of additional judges you might recognize: Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics) and Brian Clevinger (8 Bit Theatre). The deadline for entries closed February 28th and winners will be chosen the week of March 8th.
JUSTIFY THE HYPE: The Comics Are Evil blog spotlights an old skool webcomic, The Parking Lot is Full, by Pat Spacek and Jack McLaren.
MILESTONES: Chris Crosby's Superosity hits its eleven year anniversary. That's super! (h/t FLEEN)
March 1st
ComixTalk for Monday, March 1, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 01, 2010
It looks like a busy month for conventions and stuff in webcomicsland. The calendar is a google calendar so it's easily importable into calendar programs and embeddable in other websites. I'm also happy to have others become co-maintainers of the Comix Events Calendar - tweet or gmail me at xerexes. Along those lines I just added info on MoCCA -- the Daily Cross Hatch has the program for this year (and it looks very interesting!).
INTERVIEW: SFGate talks to Jason Shiga about his new multi-ending graphic novel, Meanwhile. (h/t Brigid Alverson) Also a review of Meanwhile at Forbidden Planet. (h/t Journalista!)
REVIEW: El Santo reviews Ben Costa's Xeric Award winning Shi Long Pang, the Wandering Shaolin Monk.
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