Matt Melvin, one fourth of the team behind the webcomic Cyanide and Happiness has written a book titled . It's full of illustration from Melvin and DJ Coffman, but basically it's a text book. Which is kind of out the usual bailiwick of ComixTalk. (Is there a TextTalk?) Still we got a free copy of the book for review purposes and there is a pretty strong connection to webcomics so…
Comic-Con International, North America’s largest comic book and popular arts convention, today announced this year’s nominees for the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award. The Manning Award is presented to a comics artist who, early in his or her career, shows a superior knowledge and ability in the art of creating comics. The 2010 nominees are:
Hey I heard that NING was phasing out their free social networky hosting in favor of $$$-only options. I wonder how many webcomics used NING for something or other and are any of you willing to pay for it now?
AWARDS: Congrats to Karl Kerschl for The Abominable Charles Christopher winning best webcomic at this year's Joe Shuster Awards.
DE AWARDS: The Netherlands-based Clickies Award ceremony took place this past weekend at a major comics convention: Stripdagen Haarlem 2010. There are three categories – each with four nominees:
As soon as I see news of the winners I will update this post.
INTERVIEWS: The Drawn Blog has a great interview with Graham Annable, creator of the wonderful Grickle comics.
REVIEWS: Friend of ComixTalk Derik Badman's 20 Out of 30 Days minicomic gets a review on TCJ.com.
HYPEY MCHYPEY: The Drawn Blog has a snapshot of the new Tigerbuttah book from Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson.
FROM THE MAILBAG
It's Peanut Butter And World Cup Time! Can I get an ole?
iWEBCOMICS: Bleeding Cool has a look at Comixology's iPad Comics Reading App ported to the PC.
UNDERSTANDING HYPE: Scott McCloud plugs Alan Rose's comic about his life in Nebraska: L’il Rose of Corn.
NSFW HYPE: Brigid Alverson covers the launch of Filthy Figments, a subscription-only adult webcomics site featuring work from Gina Biggs (Red String), Jennie Breeden (The Devil's Panties), Robin Edwards (Cardboard Angel), Amy Stoddard (Patches), Kittyhawk (Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki) and Megan Gedris (I Was Abducted by Lesbian Pirates from Outerspace).
INTERVIEW: The Toronto Star interviews Rina Piccolo about her new webcomic Velia, Dear and being homesick for Toronto.
BUSINESS: Webcomic Planet suggests Squareup's iPhone/Android app for conventions. The app is a credit card reader — it'll let you take credit cards as payment.
I hope everyone had a great weekend. I grilled the heck out of some meat on Monday and good times were had by all. Speaking of food, the Portland Mercury offers up a ballsy cooking lesson from Achewood creator Chris Onstad. (h/t Waxy). I challenge you to read that one all the way to the end.
AWARDS: The 2010 National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Awards were announced — According to the NCS members Zits by Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman is the best comic strip and Rhymes with Orange by Hilary Price is the best panel in the newspapers this year… I actually think Rhymes does have some amazing work but Zits, while extremely well-crafted, feels like a bland family sitcom translated to the newspaper. These are both very safe choices although given the glacial rate of change in newspaperland there's not really much in the way of dangerous choices the NCS could have made.
ANTHOLOGY: A new webcomic collective – or maybe better to say online anthology? Space Dock 7 is a science fiction themed hub for seven new webcomics that have strategically adopted an update schedule staggering their weekly updates so that each has its own day.
HYPIN THE HYPE
I Want You To Feel the Pressure by M. Thomas Harding is interesting. The first thing you might notice however is how much the art and format of it look like Dresdan Codak. In fact the main character of IWYTFTP is kind of similar visually to a prominent character in Dresdan. It's worth mentioning that similarity, but it's not like Harding is slavishly copying — his comic is set-up to be about a super spy and her friends, but the first chapter was mostly about a night at a club — we'll see what the second chapter winds up focusing on. He's making progress with making the characters distinct and interesting, he's decently adept with the plot and there are some good beats in the individual comics. And his artwork is improving so possibly he'll get to a point where it doesn't seem to ape Dresdan so much.
Clockworks by Shawn Gaston is a lot of fun. It's not perfect but it has a lot of things going right. Visually, the comic is fantastic — Gaston has a great sense of color and design. The artwork is almost iconic at times where the characters can be submerged into the larger pattern of the panel. The whole world of Clockworks isn't necessarily unique but it's a well-done mashup of steampunk and fantasy images. Although there's a largely dark palette at work the use of color is really well thought out – it's often just very nice to look at. Story-wise after 90+ comics there's a bit more of the overall world revealed and you have a better sense of the characters. There's a lot of mystery and a bit of confusion as to motivation sometimes but give Gaston props for sticking (mostly) to the show not tell rule of story-telling. If you read the about page you learn that the webcomic is based on a roleplaying game that Gaston is running with a group of friends (inspired by this Dork Tower comic). I don't know how to feel about that — on the one hand, I now know that there's a structure to the world we're reading about that Gaston is borrowing, but on the other hand, the characters in the webcomic come from the roleplaying which may or may not lead to narrative coherence as the thing plays out (what makes a satisfying role-playing experience does not necessarily equal a satisfying narrative experience for the reader). I am going to give Gaston the benefit of the doubt and encourage you to as well (particularly if this is the type of story you'd already like).
Recent Comments