Month: November 2005

An Introduction to Writing Mystery Webcomics

kjc Leave a Comment

While every genre offers its own inherent challenges, especially when reworked for web publication, mystery stories offer concerns unlike those of any other genre. All stories raise the tension about what’s going to happen next, but mysteries are unique in being primarily concerned with unraveling events that have already happened. (This is the primary factor that distinguishes mysteries from other types of crime fiction, where the killer is already known, and the goal is simply to catch him or her.) This unusual structure leads to a number of complications in dealing with serialization, improvisation, and other commonplace facets of web publication. Continue Reading →

Through the Looking Back Glass by Erik Melander

kjc Leave a Comment

The last couple of months have seen a fair amount of fiddling with revenue models from businesses that make their money from webcomics, but not individual webcomics per se. What I'm thinking about here are what one could refer to as the publishers of webcomics. The launch of Joey Manley's Webcomics Nation back in August and Keenspot's announcements at Comic-Con are the ones that spring to mind.

But it is not only the big dogs of webcomic "companies" that are re-examining their businesses. Clickwheel has been covered previously as a promising idea. Combining the photoIpods ability to show images and RSS 2.0 to easily syndicate content. As I remember it, the original business model was to charge for the Clickwheel application. The user could then subscribe to the different comics Clickwheel provided. The comics were created by various artist paid for their work. Continue Reading →

I’m Just Drinking..

Xaviar Xerexes 4 Comments

NaDruWriNi took place yesterday. This is the “drink heavily, write speedily” one night tribute to Jack Kerouak version of National Novel Writing Month for those with neither the patience or sobriety for that more serious event.

I see that Eric participated. (And so did Wednesday). Occultio sorta did and Phil definitely did. Feel free to add links to your efforts, if you haven’t deleted it in a fit of mid-morning “omigodwhatdidiwrite” regret.

UPDATE: Phil has a wider roundup of posts. Continue Reading →

Episode 2 of Silver and the Periodic Forces

Xaviar Xerexes Leave a Comment

Silver and the Periodic Forces is a new webcomic from Jerzy Drozd and Sara Turner (who previously collaborated on The Replacements). They are pursuing an interesting “update” strategy – when an episode is done they run it in serial form, updated daily. Not sure what the gap is between episodes, but since Episode 2, entitled “Ripple Effect” began updating this week we know we’ll get daily updates on it until the storyline is done.

Having read the complete episode 1 and the current storyline so far, I can say this is a fun mix of superheroes and supervillians and science fiction. It has a serial movie/Saturday morning cartoon/old-school comic book feel to it. And the bad guys show a lot of potential, especially a big lemon-colored lug called “Bulu”. Continue Reading →

Uncategorized

The Kennedy Tales go to Graphic Smash

DianaKennedy Leave a Comment

Antique White House РThe Kennedy Tales by Diana R. Sass̩, debuts this week on Graphic Smash.

AWH features a President John F. Kennedy in an alternate universe, where he is married to 4 women and 2 men. The stories are “a mix of subtle humour, crazy ideas and high adventure. But also with a deeper meaning.”

The current story “Empire of Darkness” is a huge epic: President JFK is dragged into a visit of a little country in Europe to meet with its intolerant and fanatic leader. After a couple of diplomatic sidekicks and annoyances, JFK and his family are in mortal danger. A dramatic journey trough the wild mountains begins. Continue Reading →

Uncategorized