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Archive - Aug 2009

Date
Type

Nina Paley Discusses State of Sita Sings The Blues

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 31, 2009 - 16:34

Nina Paley's Sita Sings The Blues is an amazing animated movie that almost never got released due to copyright issues.  Paley has embraced a business strategy for it not unlike the typical webcomic approach.  To paraphrase Paley: "the content is free; fans buy containers." (h/t to TechDirt)

Disney Buys Marvel

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 31, 2009 - 09:15

Walt Disney Company is buying Marvel.  I think this won't change much -- just a consolidation of Marvel's focus on exploiting its roster of Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko/Chris Claremont/Etc created characters.

Derek Kirk Kim Serializing Tune on His Website

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 31, 2009 - 09:06

Derek Kirk Kim, the creator of Same Difference and Other Stories, returns to the web by serializing - one panel a day - his new comic Tune at his website Lowbright.

Josh Neufeld's Book Party for A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 31, 2009 - 08:47

August 30th

Rob Hanes #12: Stranded On A Desert Island

August 30, 2009 - 13:01 | Xaviar Xerexes

What do we call the 24-ish pages soft paper comic book these days with the explosion of graphic novels, collections of comics in print, etc.?  I guess we stick with "comic book" as meaning a 24-ish page floppy book.  Randy Reynaldo is sticking with the comic book format for his series about intrepid adventurer Rob Hanes.

August 29th

Weekend Webcomics Wrapup

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 29, 2009 - 11:05

I hope everyone had a good week - I was mostly offline, enjoying the beach.  I got back to discover a new Jellaby comic from Kean Soo.  One of the best kid-friendly comics out there and always a pleasure to see a new one online.

It was also fun to see ComixTalk included in Ataraxi Theater's "webcomic merit badges" it posted this week -- one of them is the "Eye of Xerexes" -- awarded for drawing a cover to ComixTalk.  And there were a lot of other good links you might want to catch up on:

INTERVIEWS
CBR had a good interview with Jon Rosenberg of Goats.
An interview with Brian McFadden of the topical webcomic Big Fat Whale.
The Daily Cross Hatch has the first part of its interview with Jordan Crane.

MILESTONES
Andrew Farago finishes the first huge arc of his webcomic William Bazillion.

BUSINESS
Former syndicated newspaper comic creator Michael Jantze announced he was starting up a new webcomic titled Rave On.  Why is this interesting in an era of many former print comic folks launching webcomics?  One, Jantze was an early defector from print, taking his comic The Norm to a pay-to-read model online.  I have not kept up with how that has gone for Jantze after some initial reporting, but perhaps it has gone well enough because he is using another pay-to-read model for this new webcomic Rave On.  Should be worth following up on.

DEAD TREES
A preview of the upcoming Act-I-Vate print collection.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE
Webcomic -- Sixteen Miles to Merricks by Barnaby Ward.
Art -- Robbi Rodriguez.

DESIGN
Brigid Alverson offers her thoughts on webcomic website design.

TOOLS
Comicrank looks like it might be an interesting twist on the comic ranking site model.

August 25th

Ignatz Nominees for 2009

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 25, 2009 - 09:10

You can find a list of all the Ignatz award nominees here at the SPX site.  The nominees for Outstanding Online Comic are:

August 24th

Wow! Wowio In the News Again

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 24, 2009 - 09:29

BUSINESS
News that WOWIO has been bought from Platinum by Platinum CEO, Brian Altounian.  Um wow.  Someone not on vacation like myself should ask both Altounian and Platinum for comment on the following questions: Did the Platinum Board approve this purchase by Altounian in his individual capacity (and what's the make-up of the Platinum Board - how many "outside" directors are there); What are the terms of the deal and was there any third-party evaluation of that deal (just how arms-length was this transaction) and finally, when is WOWIO and/or Platinum going to pay off its debt owed to content creators?

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
Wow - great round up of online comic news from Tom Spurgeon here.  Not even going to excerpt, just hit the link.

Tom Spurgeon also announced that he was going to try and compile a list of the 100 greatest comics for this decade.  File your suggestions with him here.

August 23rd

Vacation Week! And Need a September Cover!

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 23, 2009 - 20:07

Very light posting this week!  The X-Family is on vacation.  

But I do not have a cover for September!  Do you want to have your 1000 x 400 image as the cover art for ComixTalk next month?  I can't won't pay but you will get your name and a link to your own website under the cover for the month (and the cover image remains your (c) -- all I need is a nonexclusive license to display at ComixTalk).  This is probably the last year for cover art for ComixTalk too... I've been thinking it may be time to phase it out.

For October there'll be cover art from Charles Schneeflock Snow of Sordid City. I'm still working on setting up November and December as well.  If you're interested, post a comment here or shoot me an email at xerexes AT gmail DOT com.

August 20th

The Awesome Blossom is Blooming!

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 20, 2009 - 13:06

First off - Websnark has a second post up today - this one on the current Achewood saga. Nice to have Eric back (and writing about webcomics)!

INTERVIEWS
A great interview with Kate Beaton, creator of Hark A Vagrant.  Apparently we have Emily Horne of A Softer World to thank for encouraging Kate to put her comics online.

DEAD TREES
Shaenon Garrity writes about her experiences self-publishing the first print collection of her webcomic Skin Horse. Also worth noting is Garrity's new comics collective -- the Couscous Collective.

BUSINESS
Brigid Alverson has the scoop on Tokyopop's ambitious online undertaking.

Cory Doctorow writes on why free e-books should be part of a writers strategy - the advice seems worth considering for comics creators too.