Archive - 2010
April 11th
Don't Take Things Too Seriously: Giffen and DeMatteis
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 11, 2010 - 12:27
Despite my blocking it from my memory for awhile I did buy comics in highschool -- for a few years at least. I can't remember all of the titles I bought from the comic shop relatively nearby, but I do remember Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis' run on Justice League. My memories of that original run are a little fuzzy now (although I suppose I could dig the issues out of a box in the basement), but I got a huge fix of their trademark bwhahaha humor by picking up trade collections of Formerly Known As the Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League -- two series they did earlier this decade.
Now I'm trying to sort out how to follow the current Giffen (co-written by Judd Wicnick) Justice League series titled "Generation Lost". Apparently D.C. is running two alternating bi-weekly Justice League series this year -- do I have to follow the other one -- "Brightest Day" -- to figure out what's going on or can I just read Giffen's series? And I realize this ain't going to be on the web, but seriously... now that I'm wanting to read something new from DC I'm struck again and 10 times clearer, how stupid it is to tie a business model to a single distributor and a limited number of specialty shops while ignoring the greatest distribution system ever invented...
April 9th
This Day In Comix Talk -- April 9th
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 9, 2010 - 11:01
A lot of chatter over this year's Eisner nominations around the webtubes as everyone winds down for the weekend. Here's a look back at webcomics' permanent record:
2009
- Last year's Eisner nominees for Best Digital Comic were: Bodyworld by Dash Shaw, Finder by Carla Speed McNeil, The Lady's Murder by Eliza Frye, Speak No Evil by Elan Trinidad, and Vs. by Alexis Sottile & Joe Infurnari.
2008
- After a lengthy hiatus, Barry Smith returned to webcomics with a new project Inktank.
2007
2006
2005
- Everything Jake by Mike Rosenzweig hit its five year anniversary -- I guess that makes it 10 years in 2010.
2004
- We gave a plug to the website Comics By Email. It looks like it's still in operation.
2003
- The web is an often fragile beast -- Jen Contino's story about Iain Hamp's Darwin's Complex (and the webcomic itself) is entirely lost to broken linkage.
- Greg Stephens not only created the webcomic Zwol but created one of better publication systems -- conceptually at least - for his site zwol.org.
April 8th
2010 Eisner Nominees Announced
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 8, 2010 - 17:24
The 2010 Eisner Nominations have been released (h/t El Santo) The nominees in the Best Digital Comic category are:
- Abominable Charles Christopher, by Karl Kerschl
- Bayou, by Jeremy Love
- The Guns of Shadow Valley, by David Wachter and James Andrew Clark
- Power Out, by Nathan Schreiber
- Sin Titulo, by Cameron Stewart
Comix Talk for Thursday, April 8, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 8, 2010 - 07:06
Fleen reported yesterday that Phil Foglio caught that Merriam Webster had "webcomic" up as a new word for April 2010. I've always liked webcomic because (1) it's self-explanatory and (2) no one calls comedians doing something online "webcomics".
CONVENTIONS: MoCCA is this weekend. Sam Costello the creator of the horror webcomic Split Lip will be debuting a special limited edition of its Volume 2 trade paperback with a new, previously unpublished story and a new cover by Shane Oakley. The 10 stories in the collection offer 160 pages of disturbing, intellectual horror stories with art by Sami Makkonen (Hatter M vol. 2), Anthony Perruzo (Zuda), John Bivens (Comic book Tattoo), and Jason Ho (Agnes Quill).
And Brigid Alverson has a round-up of lots more great books that will be available at MoCCA.
INTERVIEWS: The Beat has an interview with Hope Larson and Raina Telgemeier. Together they're hosting the "Drink & Draw Like A Lady" event.
AWARDS: You can make nominations for the Eagle awards now. Go Intertubes go...
FROM THE MAILBAG
So The Boy with Nails for Eyes by Shaun Gardiner is pretty interesting. It's a webcomic with music, and a kind of delayed, cinematic presentation of the panels on a "page" that pushes -- but in my mind mostly doesn't break -- the boundary of comicness. Really in terms of experimenting with the notion of a comic embedded in the web, this is fantastic stuff. And the interface used to navigate within the "page" and to go from page to page is pretty easy. So far there is only one chapter up of what is supposed to be a much longer story. The art is fantastic, the brief text so far interesting, hard to guess if the work as a whole will be satisfying but certainly Gardiner's setting a high bar for himself. I heartily recommend checking this out.
Nate Wunderman wrote to mention his webcomics E.I. and Time Corps. Talk about extremes - I went from being immersed in the webbiness of The Boy with Nails for Eyes to Wunderman's comics which are all presented in pdf format. I can't repeat this enough -- use an image format that's native to browsers. You want to offer a .pdf as an alternate version, great, but start with something from the holy trinity of image formats; gif, jpg and png.
April 7th
Comix Talk for Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 7, 2010 - 16:58
Another day that got away!
REVIEWS: El Santo has a review of Moon Town by Steve Ogden.
INTERVIEWS: Robot6 has an interview with Jarrett Williams who does the webcomic Lunar Boy, and this July will see the release of Super Pro K.O.!, a graphic novel.
AROUND THE BLOGS: A brief update on Nemu*Nemu plans for the year including conventions and print volumes of the popular webcomic.
April 5th
Be Kind; Please Rewind
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 6, 2010 - 02:01
Chris Cantrell, long-time webcomics creator, has a new collection of his most recent webcomic, Please Rewind, called At The Movies (We reviewed Cantrell's other webcomic The Asylumantics here.) It's the second collection of comics, from roughly 2007 to 2008 in the archives on the website. It clocks in at 48 pages filled with almost 100 comics (in black and white with a color cover).
Tom Spurgeon's Best Comics of 2009
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 5, 2010 - 13:21
Tom Spurgeon is the blogger at The Comics Reporter and he recently posted his Best Comics of 2009. It's an interesting mix and he's certainly become more webcomic savvy over this past decade -- this list includes work from names such as Kate Beaton, Dash Shaw and Eleanor Davis. Worth reading...
Comix Talk for Monday, April 5, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 5, 2010 - 09:02
AWARDS: The Hugos now include a regular Best Graphic Novel category -- which is really pretty fantastic. This year's nominees include two webcomic entries: Girl Genius, Vol. 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm -- Written by Kaja and Phil Foglio, art by Phil Foglio, colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment); and Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse -- Written and illustrated by Howard Tayler. (h/t Robot6)
CONVENTIONS: Pete Abrams, creator of Sluggy Freelance, is going to be at Intervention. Jamie Noguchi, creator of Yellow Peril, former artist on Erfworld is going to be at SPX.
INTERVIEWS: I missed this in my mailbag last month, but Public Radio Kitchen interviewed Franklin Einspruch about his painted comics which he posts online at The Moon Fell On Me. Einspruch is creating a kind of comic tone poem with his work; I found myself liking it more than I would have expected. It's largely a very peaceful experience reading through his comics.
FROM THE MAILBAG: I got a nice email about a comic called Indestructible Will which is about a character who doesn't feel pain (apparently a real medical condition). Unfortunately the comic is only available in pdf format, so you have to download each chapter before you can read it. There's just no reason to do that. Most readers aren't going to go to the extra step of downloading your unknown work when they could just as easily read a jpg, png or gif in their browser.
I got an email about FR33, self-described as "a webcomic about a drug abusing self-proclaimed artist, seeking his place in a near-future world of free culture" which is another photo comic. Since I'm giving out practical website advice today, I'd redo the "about" page to tell readers a bit more about the comic, maybe even try to pitch the longer-term arc of it to try and sell the comic.
April 3rd
Time 100 Competition: Penny Arcade Guys
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 3, 2010 - 09:44
Time is running its online poll on the world's most influential people in government, science, technology and the arts and this year one of the candidates you can vote for are the "Penny Arcade guys." Currently Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik are 11th on the list. (h/t 1UP)
April 2nd
Comix Talk for Friday, April 2, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 2, 2010 - 12:15
REVIEW: El Santo tackles the denizens of Tackleford in a review of John Allison's Bad Machinery.
CRAFT: Webcomic Builder has a few words of inspirational advice for improving your art.
FROM THE MAILBAG
Poseur Ink which published the Side B anthology has a Kickstarter drive going to pre-sell a new book, Octobriana from Steve Orlando and Chaz Truog. Orlando is the author of the innovative adaptation of Paradise Lost; and Chaz Truog is the artist of Grant Morrison's legendary Animal Man. Poseur Ink describes the book as "an action-filled fantasy piece that follows the heroine, Octobriana, on her quest to claim her title as the goddess of lust. Set in Soviet Russia, with chapters full of sex, psychics and Russian mythology, this new incarnation looks to be a titillating thrill."
Ed Contradictory is a webcomic with an archive back to 2007, with a lot of meta stuff going on, jokes about the creator's control over the comic, etc. The art is serviceable, but boring in a repetitive, and bland kind of way. The comic does seem to keep getting better though and to the extent you love jokey meta kind of webcomics, this might be one for you to check out. (In fairness Greg Burgas at CBR liked it a lot more than I did).
A pitch for Cheapjack Shakespeare, a webcomic with a decently polished pr pitch attached. Except that the website itself is still sporting "hosted free, courtesey ofGo Daddy.com" -- guys, there's plenty of free webhosting not cluttered up with ads and stuff designed to make your site look like an escapee from Geocitites. (Let alone maybe you should spring a few bucks for hosting?). In any event, it looks like the webcomic "preview" on the site is really a promotional piece for a desired movie deal. The webcomic preview is available at a small size -- too small to read actually -- and with an interface that's a bit of a pain. Sorry not to be able to comment on the story itself but if I can't read the comic, not much to say.
Got an email about the Charlestown City Paper's coverage of a photo comic called Blood Rose. I'll admit up front, the number of photo comics I've liked in my life is pretty small. And this one started off confirming my bias - static scenes, horribly clunky dialogue; but I was impressed with the visuals after finishing the story. Charlie Thiel staged a lot of action really well and the actors were pretty decent. But the dialogue... oy, that's got to improve. (It wouldn't hurt to polish up the website either). Anyhow, the next storyline debuts today in the afternoon (EST I suppose).
