Archive - Apr 20, 2009
More Webcomics Coming From Avatar Press
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 20, 2009 - 15:37
Excerpted from Newsarama coverage of the Avatar Press panel at the FX International Show:
[Editor-in-Chief William] Christensen indicated that Avatar is planning to follow-up FreakAngels with other web projects. He couldn’t leak it yet, saying that they wanted to make sure they had enough inventory so they can debut it with a lot of issues in the can. They handle web comics differently, as they actually pay all the talent involve. So they aren’t going to switch over to doing all the comics as webcomics, since finances would never permit it. Freak Angels has obviously worked well, but they aren’t going to flood the webcomic market. Avatar will launch something later this year. Christensen said that they do have tens of thousands of fans reading the webcomic every week, but the finances behind it are still a little untested.
NYTimes Covers xkcd book
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 20, 2009 - 12:45
There are a few interesting details in this NYTimes article on how Randall Monroe teamed up with the founder of Reddit to publish his upcoming xkcd book. The article also makes too much of the "a book? based on web stuff?" angle that probably wouldn't occur to anyone under 50, but at least it follows that with some succint coverage of some of the reasons why people might want books based on web content.
Musicslu Model for Pre-Selling Webcomics?
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 20, 2009 - 10:41
Musicslu is a website that provides a handy solution for pre-selling an album of music. It's nothing magic -- get a bunch of fans to pre-commit to a certain amount of cash and once that number is reached everyone pays in. Artist makes some income, fans get new stuff, nasty pirate type issues avoided.
At first it struck me that this site might provide a model to make it easier for more comic creators to pre-sell books based on their comics but as I noodled over it I wonder if this kind of approach might be a way to make it more feasible to sell webcomics over the web. Here's how it could work. First - this doesn't replace the values of free webcomics -- you couldn't pursue this approach without already having webcomics out there for free (with the possible exception for those artists already famous). But if you wanted to start a second project online this might be the way to see if there's sufficient interest from your fans to devote the time to it.
Writing Excuses Podcast Analyses Watchmen
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 20, 2009 - 09:22
This sounds like it might be interesting -- in this episode, the hosts of Writing Excuses tackle the writing in The Watchmen.
Viz Goes With Free For New Takahashi Comic
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 20, 2009 - 09:20
Rumiko (Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2) Takahashi’s new manga series will be released in weekly installments simultaneously in the US and Japan. And the US version? It will be available as a free webcomic.
Instantaneous release of the manga in both English and Japanese is all by itself pretty big news.
