In the eternal struggle between "story comics" and "gag comics," I tend to come down on the side of the long form. Yes, a little chuckle is good, but I’d rather follow characters through an adventure, even if that adventure is just them trying to return a library book or attending a "meet the tenants" party in their apartment building.
Theater Hopper by Tom Brazelton is a webcomic sort of, but not entirely about Tom, his wife Cami and their friends. The creator, Tom Brazelton (as opposed to his four-color alter ego) is coming up on six years of the webcomic. Neither fatherhood nor the Star Wars prequels have stopped the man from making fun at and with the movies. Over the last couple of months I interviewed Tom about the webcomic, his third print collection and other necessary pop culture topics.
Ever get frustrated with the breakneck pace of the modern life? Ever wish you were one of those carefree hippie spirits, your dreams undulled and your eyes permanently lit with sparkles? Chillax, broseph, because today, I’m going to dig in to Octopus Pie. Octopus Pie is a fanciful take on a modern Odd Couple as they try to survive life’s perils in New York City. The comedy series is written and drawn by Meredith Gran (Not Gonna Take It, Skirting Danger). The comic is very new — barely a year old in fact — yet it’s already received a WCCA: the 2008 award for Outstanding Newcomer. (Octopus Pie was also nominated for 2008’s Outstanding Black & White Art and Website Design awards.)
The Beat is reporting that Platinum’s purchase of WOWIO is a done deal. WOWIO is also aiming to relaunch the site between July 23rd and August 4th.
According to the SEC filing, Platinum is paying 3.15 million for WOWIO — paid in shares of Platinum with payments stretched out over the next year.
Apparently so this August. Rick Marshall has a really good interview with creator Jeph Jacques over at ComicMix today.
Delve back into our archives and you can read Wednesday White’s 2005 review of the comic, and Yolanda Janiga’s interview with Jacques.
Plus see my recent "interview" with Martin York, the "original" Martin on Questionable Content.
I wasn’t going to post again about the New Yorker cover that got the media so worked up this week but this cartoon/column by Tom Tomorrow is too funny not to link.
A couple of Platinum-related odds n’ ends today:
DJ Coffman gets a CEASE AND DESIST letter from Platinum regarding the herobynight.net and ,org URLs that apparently Coffman personally owns. Lots more in Coffman’s post on his post-Platinum thoughts on Platinum including this key bit:
So yeah, that boggles my mind. 24k? Brian just passes me off as any creator who would complain to a publisher about not enough promotion. But the guy’s problem is, and he admitted this to me is, he just doesn’t KNOW comics. For all intents and purposes, and not a surprise to many, Platinum isn’t in the comic BOOK business.
I’ve got a large number of "how-to" type books to review and so I’m going to try and make the theme of August about tutorials and tips. I don’t have a cover artist lined up for August, however and in the spirit of doing something different I’m going to open it up to submissions. Here’s the plan — if you’re interested in doing the cover for ComixTalk for August (that’s the 1000 x 400 image that sits at the top of the site) submit a quick sketch (and any explanatory notes) of your idea by the end of July 21st. I’ll pick one idea for the artist to do a final version for the site. Submit your sketches to xerexes AT gmail DOT com and include any links to work you’ve done online.
There’s no pay for cover art, however, you retain the copyright (you do have to give me a non-exclusive license to display it online), get your name and linkage under the cover for the month and if you’re interested we’ll run a free left-hand column ad for you.
For the record Johnny Jonesy does not actually come by my house for reals but that’s probably because his Mom won’t let ‘em borrow the station wagon.
Continue Reading
Recent Comments