Archive - Jun 4, 2004
Dog Complex Launches Brand New Referral Program
Submitted by 3Dave on June 4, 2004 - 17:22
Dog Complex kicked of a brand new service on Tuesday, June 1st, that rewards readers for telling others about the strip. The idea is simple: A reader registers at the site, is issued a unique URL, passes it on to their friends and family, and gets a point each time someone visits Dog Complex. The top 3 point leaders at the end of the month get prizes, like DVDs, books, strip prints, and more. Not only that, but there are also random prize drawings as well, so that users of the system do not have to feel like they're out of the running just because they don't have a lot of friends.
Something Profitable?
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2004 - 16:21
After R K MilHholland challenged his readers to pay his salary for the year so he could devote himself fulltime to Something Positive, it appears that Milholland's faithful may in fact help him to quit his day job.
MilHholland reported this week that his donation drive was closing in on $20,000.
TLS: Rants/Reviews in May
Submitted by dreamshade on June 4, 2004 - 16:09
The Rants / Reviews section of The Laughing Steve was meant to be an experiment in creating a portal and writing reviews for webcomics located a bit more out of the mainstream. As of the month of May, there are now over 50 reviews on the site. Reviews for May include 21st Century Fox, The Amoeba, Rules of Make Believe, and The Wotch.
BoxJam's Back - Yes We Missed You Blue Guy
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2004 - 16:02
Will Eisner Profiled in Washington Post
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2004 - 14:12
Read up on Eisner's lastest project in Post article. (Free, but annoying registration is required to read the Post online).
Wired Covers Sprite Webcomics
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2004 - 14:11
In this Wired News story on sprite comics, Lore Sjöberg namechecks Comixpedia.
Oh yeah, he also talked to two of the biggest spriters around: David Anez and Brian Clevinger. He also talked with Fred Gallagher and Mike "Tycho" Krahulik. Good coverage of the entire sprite webcomic story.
Live Journal Webcomic Community
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2004 - 13:52
I check this LJ community out now and again but it's not a necessarily informative place. Lot of links from creators though. Would anyone be interested in seeing recent posts from it on Comixpedia?
Stand Up Comedy Webcomic
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2004 - 13:08
Well I guess this is interesting. Basil White is a stand up comic who is now doing a webcomic. Yeah it looks a lot like Red Meat but I don't think Max Cannon can actually be credited with inventing the clip art and weird, Andy Kaufmanesque humor combination for comics. Can he?
When Spiders Attack!!
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2004 - 01:42
Several threads on Jeff "WIGU" Rowland's message boards cover the recent spider bite received by Rowland. Rowland was bitten by a brown spider on the leg earlier this week, but is reportedly on the way to recovery.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery Jeff!
Why Review Webcomics? The Hard Dialogue
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2004 - 01:31
In his blog, Hard says no one should review webcomics because they're free to readers. Let's take a look at more of his post:
I don't think reviews have any place in the webcomics community. Period. Why?
1) Because they're FREE. If you complain about something that is free, you're being ungratuitous. If you critize people who are essentially doing unpaid volunteer work, you're a jerk. Reviews exist so that people gather opinions about something before they buy a ticket, or buy a product.
(One may argue that TV reviews are similar. Well, you don't see a lot of TV reviews, and the people who make TV shows get paid for what they do. They get PAID to entertain you. Webcomic artists do NOT.)
First of all, anyone who paints a review, negative, positive or mixed as "a complaint" is just missing the point. A review is an attempt to point out the characteristics or a work, what works, what doesn't and why someone may or may not want to experience the work. Anyone can review something. You do in a sense everytime you recommend or pan a work to a friend. Your friends know something about you however so they may not need anything more than a yea or nay. A review such as published at Comixpedia tries to explain why we're saying yea or nea.
And why review webcomics other than everyone working at Comixpedia loves webcomics and thinks it's the future of the comic artform? Hard suggests that only a jerk would criticize free art. Nothing's free I suppose is the answer. From a purely transactional point of view most readers don't have time to read everything. Time spent reading one thing when they would have enjoyed something else is not free. So I say, no, free art gets no pass because nothing is truly free from the reader's perspective. But more importantly from the larger perspective of the medium it is important to take the work seriously. To treat it as any other medium which is treated seriously. Actions can change attitudes. Comixpedia may not be the voice that changes attitudes regarding webcomics but for now we are leading that charge as best we can. Webcomics are an innovative splinter from the comic medium, something that began as merely a repurpose of existing forms of comics (comic strips, comic books) and is even now pulling at those conventions to become something else: new, different, more.
Serious work should be reviewed. Serious artists should be familar with other work and go beyond it, not just repeat it. Reviews play a vital role in disseminating information in a community of artists, publishers and the audience. There are in fact a lot of people making webcomics. We are not reviewing everyone. In fact Comixpedia early on made a decision not to review work that was not arguably serious.
What do I mean by "serious" here? No matter the level of popularity or visibility of the artist, if the work is worthy it should be taken seriously. Even flawed work can be worth taken seriously. That's half of it. The other half is work that is popular or supported in a highly visible way. At this stage in the development of webcomics something published on Modern Tales or PV or Keenspot or part of a collective like Dumbrella is meant to serious in the sense that I'm using the word. Some fairly high percentage of webcomics is probably not meant to be taken seriously and they are never part of the ongoing dialogue between artists and the audience that is going on in the webcomics community. Hard's webcomic, in my opinion meets both criteria for "serious" and therefore should be reviewed.
In general, I try to stay away from posting hotly negative things about other people's comics. In the interviews and such I am more apt to point out comics I like than comics I don't like. It's because I know that most people, like myself, are doing the strips for little money or no money at all. Simple manners tell you you don't slag on people who are doing their best with no tangible reward in what they do.
I don't see anything to disagree with there. A review is a far cry from Hard slagging on someone in an interview though. Every review at Comixpedia has come from a reviewer who has read the entire work in question. It is edited by the staff. There is a huge difference between what Hard describes and a review on Comixpedia.
People often post reviews to get the attention of the comic artist. It usually works too. I don't link to reviews -- I link to interviews, but not to reviews. Why? Because, if you're reading the links page you've already formed an opinion of my comic. What someone else has to say is irrelevant. So why give reviewers hits?
I'm not sure I have much to add to what I already said other than to repeat that most people are interested in what other people have to think about a comic. Friends' opinions are important obviously, but reviews play a different role. Reviews in fact can be tremendously relevant to ongoing discussions of the evolution of webcomics as a whole in addition to evaluation of the specific work being reviewed. The fact that Comixpedia publishes online increases the "conversational" aspect of everything we publish. What I'm writing right now is really only possible because we're online, Hard writes online and we can link to each other.
I've always thought that people who want to get popular in a chosen field but don't have the skills to become popular in that field will become critics instead. It's a cheap and transparent way to become an "authority" in that field, without having the skills to master that field.
A charge as old as time. True to some, true for others. Ultimately irrelevant to why criticism and reviews are important to the ecosystem of an art form.
Anyways, I'm still pissed at Comixpedia and refuse to read it anymore. Checkerboard Nightmare hit the nail right on the head.
I think this is a shame as Hard was a thoughtful poster on the boards at Comixpedia. I will say that I think the webcomic from Checkerboard Nightmare was pretty funny. I'm not entirely sure Straub meant it to be serious (in fact I have it on decent second-hand authority that no he didn't) but even if he was it was pretty funny.
