Author: Xaviar Xerexes

I helped create Comixpedia and ComixTalk. Currently working on finishing a lot of unfinished comics and novels.
Blog / Comics

Rereading Octopus Pie

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Some webcomics I’m struck by how much a reread of a long stretch of archives — entire stories at a gulp — can change my perception of the project. Octopus Pie is one of those — I always liked it but I am not sure I got all of the characters the first read through.  And then of course, it is much more reliant on story than it initially appeared to me the first time around.  Meredeth Gran still chucks out four panel gags with the best of them but in Octopus Pie she is/was reaching for something more character-driven …

Blog

4th Planet from the Sun: Mars

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I just finished Kim Stanley Robinson‘s 2132 so space and Mars is already on my mind.  Robinson is probably best known for his Blue/Green/Red Mars trilogy.  All of those books touch on terraforming Mars, the concept that we might alter the atmosphere — the entire planetary system — of Mars such that ultimately it could be inhabitable by humans.  Here’s a video on the idea from Michio Kaku, a Professor of Theoretical Physics at CUNY and Science-Person-On-TeeVee: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrvhOepio4Q&w=560&h=315] But today, we haven’t even sent a human to Mars.  Still in my lifetime the most exciting part of the space program has …

Blog

Mobile By Necessity

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No power for a couple of days around here which delightfully have hovered around 100 degrees – a gazillion degrees considering the yogurty humidity. Still I was able to escape to work today and the temperature has drifted back into a saner realm. UPDATE: Day 4 of no power.  Does this qualify as a ironically unironic first world problem?  I am camped out a Starbucks today (the indie coffee shop nearby is a little too hip and otherwise stuffed with people today) next to a table of Italians who for some reason are now and then bashing SpaIN BUT NOT …

Blog / Culture

IPO: Initial Person Offering

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Somewhere between joke, art project and odd sincerity is Mike Merrill’s life as a publicly traded person with his very owner investors and stock exchange.  Kottke or Baio linked to this Motherboard profile of Merrill — it’s weird, fascinating, basically a compelling read.  Let’s put some context on this story upfront: Merrill lives in Portland. Sorry Portland, but Portlandia has given me the notion that weird things do happen there. I guess Merrill has raised some money from this but I’m not sure that’s really the point of it.  Is there a point? I’m not sure there needs to be. …

Blog / Comics

Voids Where Prohibited

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Some webcomics I just lost track of in moving from different ways of organizing what webcomics I was trying to keep up with.  Voids by Shayna Marchese is one of those.  It was fun re-reading it, it’s one of the few webcomics I’ve read that captures an aimless, lonely feeling, especially in the art which does a great job of capturing the space of the city.  The webcomic hasn’t been updated since 2009 — couldn’t find any notes on whether Shayna ever intends to return to the project or not.

Blog / Comics

Kickstart My Art

Xaviar Xerexesby Xaviar Xerexes

Funding has been a source of constant experimentation in the webcomics arena since almost the start.  You give away the webcomic, the thing that you are in the whole thing to do and the question becomes how do I make a living.  Or maybe just, how do I fund this cool idea I want to do with the webcomic next? Kickstarter didn’t necessarily bring new ideas but it did bring solid execution, a well-designed platform and eventually a real community around its mission.  Webcomics seems to have used it a lot for pre-funding books and other spin-off things based on …