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Comix Talk for Thursday, July 29, 2010
Reactions to Valerie D'Orazio's post on the looming closure of Friends of Lulu this September if more support and help isn't immediately forthcoming: Johanna Draper Carlson writes about recent problems with a hope that a reduced in scope FoL can survive; FoL co-founder Heidi MacDonald writes she offered to help with the FoL Awards and suggests she will work to keep it alive in some form no matter what happens to the organization; and Laura Hudson writes that the new transparency is a good thing.
MILESTONES: Fleen writes about the impending wrapup of Bellen! and Box Brown's shift to focus on his Everything Dies project:
This, I think, is what web/indy comics allow that print/corporate comics don’t — the ability to wrap up a story or strip, or turn it into something completely different, and let the creator not get subsumed by the creation. Look back at the early days of comic strips, and you’ll find creators that let one strip finish and another take its place all the time. Today, get into the papers with a big enough hit and that’s it — you’re locked in forever (I believe the legal term is in perpetuity) and long after you’re dead, something you thought might last for a decade is still be put together by the former assistants of former assistants or children and grandchildren.
CONVENTIONS
- This weekend is Okaton 2010 in Baltimore, Maryland. As always help me add events to the Comic Events Calendar.
- Tom Spurgeon's epic and entertaining write up of SDCC 2010.
Interviews: Good Comics for Kids blog has a video interview with Lark Pien
Reviews
- El Santo reviews the webcomic Pressed.
- Another review of Doug TenNapel's Ghostopolis from the Daily Cross Hatch; ComixTalk's review is here.
HYPE: Scott McCloud points to Justin Crane's new website filled with new and old comics.
Comix Talk for Wednesday, July 28, 2010
So two things ComixTalk-ish I want to mention:
- I need guest bloggers again due to vacation and other conflicts scattered throughout the fall. I'll be asking (you know: begging) several folks personally, but if this strikes you as an interesting opportunity send me an email (xerexes AT gmail DOT com) or a tweet (xerexes).
- Lately, I've been really interested in experimenting with some ideas for a radio show (podcast I guess) and would love any and all tips or pointers to good FAQs on all of the technical side of producing audio and/or video shows for the web.
INTERVIEW: Cross Topic interviewed Neil Fitzpatrick of the comic Neil Jam.
HYPE SQUARED
- Robot6 has the roundup of new books and projects from the Girl Genius universe. Phil Foglio must no longer sleep...
- Ooooh! The new Strange Tales 2 book from Marvel will feature the work of Kate Beaton, Nick Gurewitch, and Shannon Wheeler among many other big indie comicker names.
NOT WEBCOMICS: David Rees, creator of the webcomic Get Your War On, reincarnation of Andy Kaufman or frustrated Bob Villa? You decide!
CONVENTIONS: Scott McCloud offers a word of advice derived from his recap of the recent SDCC: patience.
FRIENDS OF LULU: Valerie D'Orazio blogs about the state of Friends of Lulu and although it's a very forthcoming post, it's probably not the entire story (there's always other sides to the story). Nevertheless I feel for D'Orazio who seems to have made efforts to improve things but had a hard time rallying support from members or outside supporters. In fact, to D'Orazio's view things have gotten to the breaking point as she writes:
If by September 2010 nobody steps forward and shows interest in helping run this organization, I will start taking steps to officially dissolve it as a non-profit. Then I will donate the leftover money (if any) between the other major comics charities, return the donated artwork, and ship the historical records and sketchbooks to a University or MoCCA. Before I would take steps to dissolve FoL (if it comes to that), I will personally contact a number of concerned parties via a mass email asking for volunteers to keep the organization going. I have been the president of a volunteer organization a couple of times now and I can tell you it's never easy! And not everyone has every skill set needed to run a group well -- success is often dependent on having allies who complement your weaknesses with their strengths. I don't know what's going to happen to FoL but hopefully D'Orazio's post will start a more transparent and public discussion on the future of this organization.Comix Talk for Tuesday, July 27, 2010
I'm sure there's a ton of good comics to read today and with everyone back from SDCC, well... what's next? To wrap up SDCC memories though, Gary has a transcript of the Webcomics Lightning Round at SDCC that he moderated - good stuff.
Moving on to iWebcomics, Joey Manley writes about the spate of new iPad apps for the traditional comic book companies. First, iPads aren't going to replace PCs anymore than PCs replaced TeeVees or replaced movies. The pie grows a bit and the slices change sizes but it rare that NEW THINGS replace EXISTING THINGS. Also I'm glad people are liking some of the new apps but until DC and MARVEL sanely commit to presenting their entire library of content in a digital format they're never going to put a dent in the illegal scanlation stuff let alone begin to grow an audience for their work beyond the direct market hard core crowd. I don't know -- would you be super-excited about watching LOST, if you got seasons 4-7 plus the STARTLING ORIGIN episode on the new iPAD ABC TEEVEE app but for the rest you had to go to used VHS stores to hunt for the tapes? WTF, right?
Welcome to the Dahlhouse by Ken Dahl
Welcome to the Dahlhouse by Ken Dahl is subtitled "Alienation, incarceration and inebriation in the new American Rome" and contains a string of short comics about growing old and angry in America. It also works pretty well as an scathing critique of George Bush's America and the decade of the naughts. Dahl is best known now for his autobiographical tale of an STD called Monsters, but this book is a great introduction to his cartooning talents.
Dahl starts off with a series of funny comics called "Old Punx Vs..." before shifting to a longer tale remembering his flight from San Francisco, California to Honolulu, Hawaii on September 11, 2002. It's a vivid description and critique of a time one year after the terrorist attacks on NYC and Washington DC. The targets of Dahl's anger and attention are varied though, the next lengthy piece runs through the history of zines and then lacerates the pretensions of those making zines simply to stroke their own ego. The centerpiece of the book, for me, feels like "The Origin of Army Guy" where a sad sack character decides to join the Army and gets a recruitment speech from a character that looks a lot like "Sarge" from Beatle Bailey. It's a funny, but extremely biting comic that delivers tough political critique in a funny way.
Much of the rest of the book is occupied by Dahl's alter ego, "Gordon Smalls" a lonely and alienated character who often narrates his day to, well us. Although maybe he's just crazy and talking to no one. Works either way I suppose. These comics are funny and get at another theme Dahl is interested in -- the loss that comes with growing old. Whether it's trying to pick up skateboarding again or visiting the swingset at an empty park at night, there's something sad but universal about Gordon Smalls. Almost everyone has dreams, skills, or life experiences you just can't go back to as you get older.
Comix Talk for Monday, July 26, 2010
MILESTONES
- Katie "Reva Sharp" Sekelsky's webcomic Magpie Luck blew past 100 strips a couple weeks ago and next week will hit 1 year. Congrats!
- Congrats to the "Roger Ebert of the webcomic set" -- El Santo -- for three years of writing webcomic reviews.
AWARDS: Congrats to Cameron Stewart for his webcomic Sin Titulo winning the Eisner for Best Digital Comic this year.
HYPE: The prequel comic to the movie Inception is pretty good actually.
INTERVIEWS
- Check out parts one and two of the Daily Cross Hatch's interview with Dean Haspiel
- The Washington Post has an interview with Berke Breathed.
FROM THE MAILBAG
Steve "Fabricari" Harrison writes "After taking a couple years on hiatus upon completion of my webcomic Fabricari: Ad Hoc, I've decided to cull together all of my Fabricari related comics and art in preparation for some sort of omnibus thinger. I've re-lettered and posted issues one and two online. As a bonus, I found a fifteen year-old uninked short story, the very first Fabricari comic; I inked it and also posted it on my site. It's a weird collaboration between my 19 and 34 year old self. It's a bit weird, but I couldn't be happier with the results. And coming soon: The re-scanned, re-lettered pages from issue three!
Sam Costello writes: I've got a new Split Lip site - now on its own domain at www.splitlipcomic.com. The main benefits of the new site are that the art is much bigger (about a third bigger), which makes for a much nicer reading experience. It also has a blog from me. It's got all 31 Split Lip stories - nearly 500 pages of free horror comics.
Christopher Baldwin writes about his wonderful (not just my opinion - check out the io9 review) new science fiction webcomic, Spacetrawler which has been running since January of this year.
I am planning it to be a 3 year project, with one book per year (it runs twice-weekly, so approx 104 pages per book). It is full color. The books will be divided similar to the Star Wars movies, where each stands alone but there is also an over-arching plot. Although a gag strip, there is a lot of depth in character and plot. And the cast is large enough that it took me about 5 months just to fully introduce everyone. Now that I have, things have begun happening en force, and judging by the comments on my page, people are loving that.Mini Reviews: Al Burian, Heather Bryant and Lauren Barnett
Lauren Barnett, whose comics I reviewed recently, sent me another mini with a short note attached:
Perhaps I'm a glutton for punishment, considering your last review of my work, but I figure, what the hell!
This is actually one of the harder things I struggle with in writing reviews. I come to comics with an incredibly enthusiastic attitude -- everyone should make comics, everyone should draw, everyone should try and tell a story. I don't want to contradict that in reviewing work but apart from that enthusiasm I'm not encouraging anyone to confuse quality with lack of it. All things considered, readers have limited time, they ought to read the best and most interesting work (at least interesting to them). But there's a big difference in reading a (a) great comic; (b) mediocre, but competent comic and (c) really bad comic. And then overlaying that - you can often make some pretty good educated guess about the creator; does she have talent; does she have a passion for the art or the story; does she show promise to improve? So I often feel bad criticizing work, especially when it's work where I'm impressed with the creator and believe it could be better or that better work is sure to come. It's the difference between hope and indifference to comics with any number of flaws.
But in any event, here's three more short reviews of minis I've been reading this week from Al Burian, Heather Bryant and Lauren Barnett. If you're interested in getting a mini reviewed at ComixTalk, you can find our contact information on the About page.
stripShow 2.5 released!
I’m pleased to announce the release of version 2.5 of stripShow, the all-in-one webcomics solution for WordPress!
Version 2.5 features AutoComic, allowing webcomics creators to use virtually any WordPress theme, not just themes designed specifically for webcomics. Thanks to the magic of JavaScript, you can mix comics with your regular blog and still take advantage of stripShow’s features such as searchable transcripts and storylines.
Also new in 2.5 is a handy interface to add comics directly from WordPress’s Add Post page. No longer do comics have to be added from a separate page.
A Wafer Thin Bit of Comix Talk
Slooooooow day today - I'm sure there'll be lots of things coming out of the Comicon all this week though.
Be sure to check out El Santo's GUIDE TO WEBCOMICS. It's funny and informative.
Also, thinking of starting a webcomic? Jenny wrote this uber-long guide to webcomics you might want to check out.
Comix Talk for Wednesday, July 21, 2010
I have a review up of the first print collection of the webcomic Quitting Time. I'm not at San Diego's thing this year -- and from what I read, perhaps it will be LA's thing next year? Might as well move it to Las Vegas then...
MILESTONES
- Today is the 3000th Sheldon strip. Congrats to Dave Kellett!
- Today is the 400th Capes & Babes strip. Congrats to Chris Flick!
INTERVIEW: Daily Cross Hatch has an interview with Dean Haspiel.
REVIEWS
HYPE
- El Santo points out a very funny comic made by Emmy C. and Anthony “Nedroid” Clark called Lizzy.
- Tauhid Bondia is back with a choose-your-own-adventure-style webcomic called Epicsplosion. (h/t Digital Strips)
NOT WEBCOMICS: Scott Kurtz made this video? According to a press release for the Picross 3D™ video game for the Nintendo DS™ he did.
Quitting Time
Quitting Time is a webcomic by Michael Moss and Linda Howard. Both have participated at ComixTalk over the years as well as at a number of other webcomic sites. Michael Moss not only works on Quitting Time, but also Gods Playing Poker and Shadensmilen. (He also lives in the Outer Richmond neighborhood in San Francisco -- I lived in the Inner Richmond neighborhood one year, many years ago, -- a great neighborhood!) Linda Howard letters and edits Quitting Time, Gods Playing Poker and Kirt Burdick’s How to be Bulletproof.
Recently, they've released a print volume of Quitting Time titled "I Love the Smell of Corporate Evil in the Morning!". It includes a slice of the comics that ran up until January of this year. Quitting Time is about retail work and focuses on a fairly ordinary guy named Nate. Nate works retail jobs like coffee shop barista and a video game store clerk. He has a son named Timmy and a roommate named Frank. Frank is... not ordinary. There are also a number of other wacky characters that show up in each storyline. The best thing about Quitting Time is that Moss has obviously worked retail and when it captures a small moment of what its like to stand on your feet all day dealing with demanding customers and corporate doublespeak, it's at its best.
Comix Talk for Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Really the only thing worth posting this AM? Axe Cop and Dr. McNinja in the TEAMUP of the century. Predator-Aliens? Jason-Other Serial Killer Guy? Pitosh!
DEAD TREES: So how is the last volume of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series?
AWARDS: Techland predicts Cameron Stewart's Sin Titulo to win the Eisner this year.
REVIEW: El Santo reviews the webcomic 1977.
Comix Talk for Monday, July 19, 2010
I reviewed Justin Madson's Breathers series for you today. You're welcome. Also help out Reinder Dijkhuis with some guest art so he can get "swearing Kel off the front page" of his webcomic Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan.
REVIEWS
- El Santo reviews Digger.
- Midnight Fiction reviews Skin Horse.
INTERVIEW: This Week in Geek interviewed Jim Zubkavich.
CRAFT: Jeph Jacques shows his progress on a print he's making for SDCC.
HYPIN' THE CUBE
- Comics Worth Reading points out a great journal comic with a twist- each comic includes a recipe. I Think You're Sauceome by Sarah Becan is pretty awesome.
- John Troutman has a new webcomic out since April called Lit Brick where he riffs on the canons of literature. Seriously - he's gone from Bede's An Ecclesiastical History of the English People to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.
FROM THE MAILBAG: Creator Ted Sikora writes to tell us about Hero Tomorrow, an indy film about David, a guy who creates a comic book character called Apama. After his girlfriend makes him a costume of Apama for a Halloween party, David starts dressing up in it to fight crime. To help promote the film Sikora put together a comic book online of Apama The Undiscovered Animal.
Breathers by Justin Madson
Breathers by Justin Madson is a series of self-published comics that I first found out about at SPX. It's up to Issue #5 now and it remains an intriguing premise with some great characters and story arcs. (There are actually six books as there is an Issue #0) From what I can tell jumping around the web, it's criminal how few mentions of it there are, considering how good it is. Some of that is simply due to its minimal presence on the web (which it would be well suited to as each book's chapters are episodic in nature) but it's also just another reminder that simply producing good work isn't always enough to connect with a big audience.
The world of Breathers is one where a virus has rendered the air unfit for humans to breathe without the assistance of a breather -- a mask to filter out the virus. The world is fairly well-adapted to this new status quo when the story starts although people do remember the world before. Madson does a nice job of thinking through the implications of this situation, but this is not a hard core science fiction type story; it seems more interested in its characters and is even prone to bits of magical realism.
Comix Talk for Friday, July 16, 2010
It's just one of those quiet news days (watch, right after I post, something HUGE will happen...). Have a great weekend!
MC HYPE-Z: The Sisters Grimm webcomic starts today with a schedule planned for weekly updates on Friday. Writer Dave Pauwels describes it as "The comic is your average adventure-comedy-political thriller-space rock opera. Set on Mars, in the year 2339, it follows a garage band and their exploits against a backdrop of Martian civil war." The webcomic is drawn by Nicolas R. Giacondino, who lives in Argentina - his Deviant Art page is here.
VIDEO GAMEZZZZ: Cameron Stewart reveals that he and Karl Kerschl and writing and drawing a new comic miniseries for Ubisoft, based on their hugely popular Assassin's Creed videogames.
PR0N: Erica Henderson explains in a short comic why 3D porn may not be such a good idea (SFW actually).
DEAD TREES TELL NO TALES
- Axe Cop is coming to paper via publisher Dark Horse in Spring 2011.
- The Excessively Authentic Dresden Codak 2010 Sketchbook is now available -- it contains behind-the-scenes stuff and Aaron Diaz's daily drawings and speed paintings of the past year.
- Ben Costa's Pang: The Wandering Shaolin Monk, Volume 1 book is now available. He writes, "This is a Xeric Award-winning, full color, hardcover book, 192 pages (with an additional page of the story that won't ever go online). All for $20 plus shipping! And from now until August 16th you can get the book with a custom sketch inside on the title page for FREE."
Comix Talk for Thursday, July 15, 2010
In the last issue of Dark Horse Presents on MySpace, there's a new Bee story from Jason Little; a comic based on the video game Mass Effect, a comic written byLeVar Burton plus a funny riff on a scene from Star Wars by Frank Stockton. Future issues of DHP will be at Dark Horse's own website. (h/t Scott McCloud)
I also point you to a comic on digital civil rights in Europe that is pretty interesting, particularly if you're interested in the topic. (h/t BoingBoing)
CODE: The new convention Intervention will be hosting a workshop on Comicpress for Wordpress run by one of the developers, Frump. This is a great idea, one that I'm surprised I haven't seen at other webcomic-friendly conventions. Attendees to the workshop will get a bonus -- a free download of the automated Cast addon for ComicPress. The Cast addon displays cast members in a totally new way, showing when they first appeared in the comic, how often they have been in the comic, all of the comics they were in with links and other statistics as well as individual biographical information.
CONVENTION: Gary reports that Jorge Cham is organizing another Webcomics newspaper-style handout for this year's San Diego Comicon.
REVIEW: Roya Grinstead reviews the webcomic Romantically Apocalyptic with which the reviewer "was floored by its miraculous visuals, its marvellous concept, and its delightfully dark, whimsical, and twisted humour."
MILESTONE: Spwug notes that the webcomic Dreamless by Bobby Crosby and Sarah Ellerton has only one page left to post. A review of the comic by Spwug is here.
DEAD TREES: Scott Kurtz announced that he is leaving Image to return to self-publishing his comic books.
The Queen's Hype: The Independent newspaper hypes some webcomics including The Oatmeal, Hyperbole and a Half, Cyanide and Happiness, The Perry Bible Fellowship, Ctrl+Alt+Del, xkcd, and Girl Genius.
Comix Talk for Tuesday, July 13, 2010
We haven't linked to the return of Mocktopus yet so be sure to check it out.
MILESTONES: Harvey Pekar passed away yesterday at age 70. I never met Pekar, but he was an important creator who wrote honest portrayals of life in his comics. Many pages of tribute and condolences around the web today.
CONVENTION: Intervention announced that artist and webcomic creator Molly Crabapple, the founder of the Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, will be there both on a panel as well as running a Dr. Sketchy’s event at the con (Currently scheduled to take place Friday Sept.10 from 7-10pm). Excellent!
COLLECTIVES
- It looks like the Blank Label Comics group has entered the phase of rock band stardom where one member of the original group plus newcomers = profit. Okay I tease a bit - if I'm reading the new website right David Willis is the only remaining original member but the newcomers are no slouches: Spike and Kel. I really haven't followed up on BLC for awhile so I guess I missed the rest of the original crew going their own ways.
- The SpiderForest Collective is accepting applications for new members until July 24th. SpiderForest was started in 2004 by Ran Jado and is home to over 30 comics. There are 3 requirements for members: update your comic, help vote in new members, and display the rotating SF banner above the fold on your site.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 A BLOGS
Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel
Despite the angst of the long underwear crowd bemoaning the lack of superhero comics for kids, it is such a great time in comics for kids. The old model of kids going to the drug store for a few comics for a quarter is long gone, but it doesn't matter as libraries and book stores have a healthy stream of all ages graphic novels, not to mention that you can find great age appropriate webcomics too.
The latest young adult graphic novel from publisher Scholastic is Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel (creator of the videogame character Earthwork Jim). TenNapel has created a spin on the traditional notions of purgatory, etc., by creating an afterlife way-station that functions very much like actual life with a city and different groups living together in it. This gives TenNapel lots of room to stretch his visual imagination with skeletons, mummies, goblins and zombies populating the crowds. The art is very sharp and TenNapel does a great job with the main characters -- a boy named Garth and the "supernatural immigration officer" Frank Gallows who accidentally sends Garth on into Ghostopolis. There's also Claire Voyant, Gallows' ghost girlfriend and Garth's grandfather Cecil. So much of the "world" that TenNapel built here is full of details and vibrant imagination that you're really sucked right into the book from the get-go.
Probably because it deals with death (and when the story opens, Garth is very sick) and some of the images could be a little intense for very young kids -- this one is probably better for 10 years or up. Just a guess really as my kids are younger than that and I'm not sure I'm going to let them read it... yet.
Comix Talk for Monday, July 12, 2010
Your post-World Cup comics report (start your planning for Brasil 2014 now!).
iWEBCOMICS: Comics Worth Reading has a round-up of some of the digital comics reader programs out there now. She picks Comixology as the industry leader to date, based largely on its embrace of handhelds and wider selection of comics.
INTERVIEW: Sequential Tart has an interview with A. David Lewis, creator of the webcomic Braveplay.
ALL THE HYPE THAT FITS
- Chachic plugs the webcomic Stuff No One Told Me.
- Tom Spurgeon plugs a bunch of webcomics from Ty Templeton.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 2 BLOGS
- Robot6 links to Bea AD, an exquisite corpse webcomic, which is a fancy-shmancy way of saying it's a webcomic group jam with a few extra rules.
- The Daily Cartoonist links to a report that John Kovalic is bringing back Dork Tower and Kovalic add some details in a comment there.
Congrats to Angela Melick and Trevor
Angela Melick, creator of the great webcomic Wasted Talent, just got married. Congrats! Wasted Talent is a very funny auto-bio journal comic about a woman engineer -- I think it's only gotten better as Melick got out of school and into a job; and despite a full-time job, her cartooning chops have continued to improve.
I've been meaning to try and get an interview with Angela and her now husband. In addition, to being a great comic, Trevor moved Wasted Talent over to the CMS Drupal -- a great implementation and I'm hoping to get some more insight into how he and she planned and implemented the move over to a CMS that still is pretty foreign to webcomic sites (it is the CMS that ComixTalk runs on).
