Comic-Con 2008 kicks off in San Diego soon — July 24-27 — and the web/indy/whatever–comic presence seems to grow bigger each year. If you’re going you’re already set b/c this thing, as a practical matter, sold out long ago (I think you can still get a hotel room in the next state over…).
Some awesome panels this year include:
I really don’t know what this one means.
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JUSTIFY MY HYPE
Boom Studios is putting up more of its comics as webcomics on its site.
BUSINESS
Neil Gaiman has a writeup of the positive results of his recent free experiment putting his novel American Gods (quite good btw!) online for awhile — sales of his books at independent bookseller were up considerably. Techdirt also has a post on the wider trend of publishers trying out the free ebooks strategy. Some of this is validation for the free model of webcomics but there are also wrinkles to be learned from the experiments of text publishers. In part, I’m interested myself in seeing how publishers, as opposed to creators navigate free and for-sale.
POLITICS
I know there’s some hubbub about a swing and a miss cover to the New Yorker (speaking of which Reuben Bolling did a much better take on that satirical idea); forget that, the real story is the New Yorker’s interview with Chris Onstad of Achewood.
TOOLS
You can read comics on the iphone. In Japan, software company Celsys is pushing the iphone for reading manga.
Good story (with some holes) on Platinum’s possibly shaky finances. We get to learn a lot about Platinum because it’s a public company. Other publishers and larger quasi-publisher like companies like Keenspot that are private – we don’t learn anything other than what the owners tell us, which isn’t usually much.
Key facts? Platinum is clearly spending money — but is it making any regular income? Platinum lost MORE than 5 million in 2007 and had less than $5000 dollars in cash on hand at the beginning of this year.
Platinum also points to a library of 5600 characters in its IP portfolio as having been recently valued at "about $150 million:" by a firm called Sanli Pastore & Hill, Inc. However, only two Platinum properties are currently under option for films: Unique at Disney and Cowboys & Aliens at Dreamworks. I’m really curious about this 150 million number — what is it based on (and how many of the 5600 characters are recognizable to the public in any meaningful manner?) and how much of it is actually realized versus theoretical.
If you were putting together the band you’d definitely need Kris Straub in there. I don’t even know if he plays bass but I put him there so I could include Mitch Clem from NN2S on lead guitar (I don’t actually know if Mitch plays himself). I can’t think of a drummer although there must […] Continue Reading
INTERVIEWS
Tom Spurgeon has a great interview with Daniel "Merlin" Goodbrey, creator of several interesting webcomics as well the infinite panel tool, the Tarquin Engine.
Brigid writes about the Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allen Poo (an unfortunately named comic in my opinion) which has a second print volume out. There’s an interview with the creators at Comic Book Resources.
Newsarama has a nice interview with Thomas Baehr who has a new comic on ACT-I-Vate called The End is Here.
AWARDS
Time to vote for the best editorial comic on science issues at this year’s Science Idol.
The Beat has the list of this year’s Xeric grant winners: Gary Scott Beatty – Jazz: Cool Birth; Marek Bennett – Breakfast at Mimi’s Doughnuts; Eroyn Franklin – Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory; Jason Hoffman – Mine; Jack Hsu – 8-9-3; Jenny Jaeckel – Spot 12; Dave Kiersh – Dirtbags, Mall Chicks and Motorbikes; Alex Kim – Wall City; stef lenk – TeaTime; Justin Murphy – Cleburne; and Felix Tannenbaum – The Chronicles of Some Made.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
Erfworld artist Jamie Noguchi has started a sketchblog.
The Daily Cartoonist reports that Tribune Media Syndicate explained that Comicspage.com was taken down after the company was not able to move the database away from a server that TMS no longer owned. The company is planning a “next iteration of the site,” but in the meantime, they’re directing traffic to gocomics.com and facebook to allow users to continue read and comment on their comic offerings.
I just got a haircut finally…
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With lots of jokes on the intertubes about Twitter and even more now that Twitter seems to be on the futz every other minute I thougt this Joy of Tech Twitterized version of Don McLean’s American Pie was one of the best ones I’ve read.
…But lately Twitter’s made me shiver
With every packet not delivered…
Tomorrow’s Foxtrot is a nice nod to some of the most popular webcomics: Penny Arcade, PvP, xkcd and The Joy of Tech. I read it on paper this morning but it probably won’t be online until tomorrow.
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