More On The Comic Book Challenge

There was a long (civil!) discussion in the comments to this first post on Platinum Studio's Comic Book Challenge. Scott Rosenberg, the Chairman of Platinum emailed me to tell me they had read the discussion here and were making efforts to provide further information on the contest. If you're interested in that there's now a FAQ at The Comic Book Challenge site and an interview with Scott Rosenberg at the comic book news site Broken Frontier. (And full disclosure, The Comic Book Challenge is now running banner ads at Comixpedia)

Also in the interview, Rosenberg notes the somewhat similar Comic Book Resources' Comic Book Idol competition which seems to have been a one-shot deal in 2004 (or does it take place every year?). Maybe we need one of these contests for webcomics?…

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All you have to do to poke someones curiousity

Oh what fun stuff I found today.

"Queer Women in Webcomics" – looks like Queer webcomics are less than 1% of all webcomics out there, good thing or bad thing?

"'Man of feel' may save us from endemic homophobia" , looks like it wasn't enough for Superman's canadian origins to come up (again), but he has now become a posterboy for the gay community. Oh and, Superman returns is now in theatres today.

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Eek, Autobiographical!

What is it that both fascinates and averts us to autobiographies? When we see “autobiographical” on a comic we’re more likely to skip over it. “Who wants to read about someone brushing their teeth?” Yet when we read something that we know is from life it adds more power to the story. It’s a double edged sword. The public must be tricked into reading autobiographical comic strips but once they’re sucked in then there’s only that much more flavor because it’s “true to life”

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Is the highest level of culture porn?

The internet is a revolutionary thing. A boundless forum for free speech and expression.

It’s mind blowing to simply imagine the possibilities. But face it, mostly it’s used for one thing;

Porn.

There was another time of high culture and art. The Venus De Milo is the most famous of Greek sculpture. I heard a couple years ago about some scandal because they found (or hypothesized, don’t remember the exact article) that the Venus De Milo was put in bath houses so men could jack off. She was porn.

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PopMatters PopComix

Okay quick question here: Pop Matters has a new "PopComix" section which is publishing the archives of Diesel Sweeties, Boy on a Stick and Slither, Out Of My Head, Scary Go Round and Wigu as if these webcomics were just starting today (i.e. with the first one). I assume these creators gave PopMatters permission to do this (Or should we ask them? R? Jeff?) and assuming these creators gave PopMatters the go ahead to do so wWhy start at the beginning of the archives as opposed to picking up from the current day? It's not like PopMatters readers can't go check out the archives at each of these webcomics' own sites.

Also on a grumpy publisher note (that would be me – the grumpy publisher…) I love the chutzpah of PopMatters' submission page where they explain contributors don't get paid:

Note: We are unable to pay you for your work at this time, but you will not go entirely uncompensated; your 'pay' is the opportunity to address our readership, currently 1 million-plus unique readers per month and counting. Some of our writers have been called upon for their opinion by such media outlets as the BBC, NPR, MSNBC, Radio Australia, and VH1. Also, USA Today.com, Alternet.org, and Movies.com have regularly picked up links to PopMatters articles and posted quotes from PopMatters writers.Â

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