ComixTALK

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.

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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. 

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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:

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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)

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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.

And Delos rounded up the news of last week!

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Storming the Tower has a post up about how cartoonists draw themselves compared to what they actually look like - it's fun and they collected a lot of examples.

After the hub-bub of Hot Topic selling a t-shirt ripping off artwork from Vera Brosgol this week, I am really mad to read of yet another another incident today over at The Consumerist.  Hot Topic is selling buttons ripping off Meghan Murphy's artwork from Kawaii Not.

Here's a link to the sad, LONG list of Hot Topic problems at the You Thought We Wouldn't Notice blog.

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As of the end of today I am resigning as editor of Clickwheel.net and GraphicSmash.com and removing my comic, Reckless Life from both sites.

I’m not so narcissistic as to assume this is interesting news to anyone but I would like to clarify that this is not a commentary on either site or the brilliant creators doing great work in both places.  I’d like to thank the folks behind these sites, Rebellion LTD, Will Simons and Joey Manley for the opportunities they provided me and T Campbell for making those opportunities possible.  Extra special thanks to all of you who kept up on my various webcomic projects over the years.

In the coming days I’m going to be writing an ongoing blog series on my experiences in the comic industry both pro and amateur, print and web.  If anyone can profit from my triumphs and tragedies in the business of the business I will be offering my experiences for anyone who wishes to hear them.  All of this will be happening at: timwagon.com

And if you liked my comic, Reckless Life you’ll be able to find out how to get access to the archives there as well as learn a little about my new creative projects.

I’m Tim Demeter.  You stay classy internet.

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What a week it was... or was it?!  El Santo posts up a question about "what age of comics" are we in?  I think both in terms of the evolution of digital platforms and explosion of variety of subject matter this decade represented the beginning of a new era.  What to call it though?  Digital is only half the story.

SWIPER NO SWIPING! Two incidents of bad behavior this week - one already rectified.  FLEEN has a writeup of Hot Topic's selling of ripped-off artwork from Vera Brosgol.  I saw bits of the twitter stream on this yesterday and while Hot Topic seriously needs to revamp it's IP review in its process of acquiring product, the "producer" of this shirt was some band. (The Beat has a picture comparing t-shirt to artwork)  Artists ripping off other artists? Not cool guys.  The other big to-do this week was Nick Simmon copying artwork repeatedly from the manga seriesTite Kubo Bleach.  Simmon's publisher Radical has pulled his book for now.

MONEY MONEY MONEY:  Rare comic books sell for one million dollars.  Okay, whatever?  I don't care one way or the other about rare comic book sales -- I like to read comics, not collect physical artifacts.

INTERVIEW: CBR interviews Phil Foglio about his current webcomic Girl Genius.  The Foglios are having a donation drive for their colorist Cheyenne Wright who was quite ill (but good news! is recovering).

CONTEST: Raina Telgemeier is having a contest where you can win a copy of her new graphic novel Smile.  Deadline is this Sunday!

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AWARDS: The National Cartoonist Society has announced the nominees for the Reubens and up for Cartoonist of the Year are Stephen Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Dan Piraro (Bizarro) and Richard Thompson (Cul De Sac).  So humor me for a moment -- I think comics would be well-served to unite its several major comics awards.  The Reubens, for example, seem to me to be firmly established in the public's mind with the kind of gag a day, four panel serial strip that dominates the newspaper today.  You could easily carve out a number of categories at the Eisner's for serialized comedy strips and just call 'em Reuben awards within that larger program. 

DEAD TREES: The Beat notes that cat garza's Year of the Rat has been collected into a print version.

REVIEWS: El Santo reviews Girls & Sports.  It gets 1 star out of 5.  See El Santo doing the hard work of reading certain comics... so you don't have to.

VIDEO GAMES? VIDEO GAMES! Jeph Jacques draws some funny Mass Effect webcomics.

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I'm pretty excited about hearing Onezumi Hartstein's news - she and webcomic web-guy Harknell have organized a new convention called Intervention: Your Online Life, In Person. A Convention with Webcomics, Videos, Music, and You. It looks very cool, very webcomic-friendly but also firmly rooted in online, not comic book. 

Intervention is about bringing together the people you read, watch, listen to, and connect with all in one location to party, educate, and appreciate the opportunities the Internet gives all of us.

The only wrinkle is that it's on the same weekend (September 10-12) as SPX which has become quite a webcomic-friendly forum too.  They are in the same general suburban area though (northish of Washington DC) so maybe a lot of people will do both this year (FLEEN seems to think this is possible) -- I think it would be well worth it for you to try.

The early guest list is starting off well, in addition to Onezumi and Harknell, there'll be an edition of Super Art Fight and these webcomic dudes:

• Rob Balder – Erfworld
• Michael “Mookie” Terracciano – Dominic Deegan
• Darren Gendron and Bryan Prindiville – Hello With Cheese
• Steve Napierski – Dueling Analogs
• Ross Nover – The System
• Pete Abrams – Sluggy Freelance

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Another short update today...

WOWIO Prez Brian Altounian gives some more details to Sean Kleefeld on further financing plans for the e-publisher.  I did get at least one creator yesterday confirm to me that he did indeed get paid what WOWIO owed with some interest.  As far as I know Altounian is still the President of Platinum Studios, even though WOWIO is corporately separate from that entity now.

NOT WEBCOMICS: Valerie D'Orazio has released a free online copy of her book, Memoirs of an Occasional Superheroine.

Well hmm, not a whole shaking this morning I guess.

Interviews: Rick Marshall at MTV Splash Page has a great interview with the guys at Penny Arcade about their new book and a book tour this year.

Conventions: Everyone seems to be writing about the possibility of ComicCon leaving San Diego when its current contract is up - here's the San Diego local newsprint article that kicked off the hype.

BUSINESS?: Sean Kleefeld catches some interesting tweets from Brian Altounian, owner of e-publisher WOWIO including:

Launching MoneyTV campaign for WOWIO today. Part of larger marketing campaign that will put WOWIO on the map just in time to go public.
Feb. 18

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Welcome to Monday! May I direct your attention to a review of several mini comics posted late Friday?  If you enjoyed John Allison's COMIX REMIX of the above photo, you might want to check out the entire series he posted to FLICKR.

REVIEWS: Delos reviews Odori Park by Chris Watkins and El Santo reviews the Xeric Grant-winning Haunted by Joshua Smeaton.

INTERVIEWS: Growly Beast has an interview with Alice Hunt and Tracy Williams of Goodbye Chains.

REMIX: The Webcomic Builder has a lengthy essay on fan-comics; something maybe we ought to relabel "remix comics"?

NOT WEBCOMICS: Kickstarter fund drive for an American Elf videogame?  I'd buy that for a dollar!

INTERNATIONAL:

• Scott McCloud highlights something I'd actually missed in reading the new Zahra’s Paradise at First Second: its availability in multiple languages: English, Farsi, Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch.
• Not sure if this is good or bad but Bleeding Cool notes that "After filing for bankruptcy, German TV company TV-Toonland has sold Svetlana Chmakova’s manga-adapted TV show My Life Me to Classic Media. It will air in France and Canada later this year."
• Digital Strips has some factoids on webmanga, including Shuhuo Soto's earnings this year alone.

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The one thing minis and webcomics have in common is the DIY spirit.  Make a comic and put it out there for people to see.  Here's some short reviews of minis I've been reading this week from Lauren Barnett, Kelli Nelson, and the Trees & Hills Comic Group.  If you're interested in getting a mini reviewed at ComixTalk, you can find our contact information on the About page.

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Pretty quiet today although check out this stunning creative innovation from the newspaper comic B.C.  Wow!  Now that's how you stay hip and current...

INTERVIEWS: Josh Lesnick, creator of Girly, is interviewed by the INTERNET!

REVIEWS: Johanna Draper Carlson has a review of the new mega-Penny Arcade book, The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade.  For all the reasons she's a bit lukewarm on it, I will probably love it.

CRAFT: Nice little tutorial from Jim Zubkavich on the process for a recent illustration he did.

BUSINESS: The Beat reports that Graphic.ly, "a fairly new but bold player in the digital comics distribution field", has announced the acquisition of iFanboy, the popular comics news and information community.  Graphic.ly is in "private beta" -- anyone using it right now?

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