Archive - Jan 2007 - Story
January 29th
News For Monday, January 29, 2007 (UPDATED)
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 29, 2007 - 11:07
Wow - it was a huge weekend for webcomics!
AWARDS
- The WCCA nominations are out (full list here). Webcomic creators can vote for their choice up until February 11th. This year, the awards are to be announced at MegaCon in Florida on February 19th.
- We also started a discussion on the weekend on which new comics from 2006 that didn't get a nomination for Outstanding Newcomer might have deserved one. Tell us what you think here.
- DAJB points out that the U.K.'s Eagle Awards are upon us again, and that they have a category for webcomics.
- The Comics Reporter notes that new at this year's Joe Shuster awards will be the Oustanding Canadian Web Comic Creator Award. The Shuster awards take place June 9th. Submission for nominations are open.
- Talk About Comics points to a report that the short film Everything Will Be OK directed by Don Hertzfeldt and based on his webcomic Anesthetics, won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival.
- The National Cartoonist Society is accepting nominations for it awards. Nominations are due by February 23rd. Apparently, you do not need to be an NCS member to be eligible for an NCS award. However, they do not have an award for webcomics nor do they seem to consider publication online as part of their criteria for qualified nominations. I wonder when that will change...
EVENTS
- I posted the Blind Date II pairings this weekend. If you forgot to sign up and want to participate I will try to facilitate additional pairings on a rolling basis today. Go to the thread and post a comment if you want to join up.
MAGAZINE
- Grant Thomas writes about putting a webcomic into print and discusses some of the differences between the print-on-demand and the do-it-yourself approaches.
- Xaviar Xerexes presents a look at Big Panda, a webcomics host and portal from the mists of history with comments from a long list of creators, including Chris Crosby and Darren "Gav" Bleuel, John Allison, Eight, John Robey, Josh Lesnick, David Willis and more.
BUSINESS
- MSNBC is replacing Fox Trot (and possibly The Boondocks) with new comics. They're conducting a poll on it. This is MSNBC's webcomic lineup we're talking about - probably a pretty high-profile placement (I don't have any actual data on traffic though). Unfortunately it appears they are only considering work from Uclick! - probably because of an exclusivity term in a contract.
HOW-TO
- Bryant Paul Johnson posted a very useful "how to" on how he makes his webcomic Teaching Baby Paranoia.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Bid to Win a Guest-Star Appearance in PC Weenies #1000.
- Love is Psychosexual wraps up on Adultwebcomics.
- Speaking of adult webcomics, check out the almost but not quite SFW (so far) There's Always Porn by Bob Sugar and Wiz Rollins.
- Webcomics In Print presents its weekly round-up of webcomics in print.
- Comics Worth Reading flags the release of the second Penny & Aggie book.
- The Comics Reporter points to a Washington Post story on Suicide Rabbit, a webcomic popular in China.
- T Campbell urges webcomics creators to vote responsibly.
- The Blank Label Comics group snagged nine WCCA nominations.
January 28th
WCCA Nominations Out
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 28, 2007 - 14:10
The full list of nominations for the upcoming WCCAs is out - get the list here or click read more (the WCCA site is slow today so I copied it into this post here).
- Half Pixel
- Keenspot
- Aaron Diaz
- Abby Lark
- B. Shur
- Bernie Hou
- Brad Guigar
- Chris Hallbeck
- Christopher Hastings
- D.J. Coffman
- Dale Beran
- Dave Kellett
- Dave Roman
- David Hellman
- David Malki!
- David Willis
- Emily Horne
- Eric Millikin
- Fred Gallagher
- Howard Tayler
- Jennie Breeden
- Jerry Holkins
- Joey Comeau
- John Allison
- Josh Lesnick
- Kaja Foglio
- Kazu Kibuishi
- Kris Straub
- Michael Lalonde
- Mike Krahulik
- Nicholas Gurewitch
- Paul Southworth
- R.K. Milholland
- Raina Telgemeier
- Ryan North
- Ryan Sias
- Ryan Sohmer
- Sarah Ellerton
- Scott Christian Sava
- Scott Kurtz
- Scott Ramsoomair
- Shaenon K. Garrity
- Spike
- T Campbell
- Tatsuya Ishida
- Terrence Marks
- Tom Siddell
- Zach Weiner
- A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible
- A Softer World
- Girly
- Penny Arcade
- PvP
- Sinfest
- What Birds Know
- Wondermark
- Zebra Girl
January 27th
My Brother the Deep Sea Diving Comedian
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 27, 2007 - 23:15
My brother Ubigod is a diver - he lives on the water most of the year, diving underwater and welding things. He also draws a comic (sporadically) called Sea Snafu. PLUG! Anyhow I wanted to test the YouTube embedding code here at Comixpedia so here's my brother Ubigod and others doing their best Kids In The Hall schtick.
Newcomers That Didn't Get Nominated
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 27, 2007 - 10:45
I still don't know whether the WCCA Best Newcomer award is for new comic or for new person(s) but either way with all of the comics coming out in 2006 I'm sure it was tough to get a nomination this time (link to nominations here). Let's post some suggestions for comics that started in 2006 that you're surprised didn't get a nomination.
I'll start with Home On The Strange which is pretty consistently funny and does a good job of tackling messy romantic geek life. I'm not saying HOTS was robbed but I wouldn't have been shocked if it had been nominated either.
What else have you(s) got?
January 25th
Plug Friday
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 25, 2007 - 22:32
Not much chance of posts from me tomorrow so if anyone has anything to plug, post a user blog and when I get a chance I'll front page it. I'm not sure if plugs for projects are effective or not (feedback there would be helpful) but they can't hurt, can they? Everyone is more than welcome to plug their stuff at Comixpedia - frontpaging it depends on the overall news flow at the site and how interesting the plug is (milestones, achievements, novelty are better plugs then "hey I updated again").
Also this Friday (tomorrow) is the last day to sign up for Blind Date II - we've got 48 signed up so far - you can still get in on the webcomic making mayhem by posting your name and webcomic to this thread.
News For Thursday, January 25, 2007
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 25, 2007 - 11:12
AWARDS
- The new schedule for the WCCAs means the nominations will be released this week. I've posted the nominees for Best Comic and Best Newcomer in the post below. It does feel odd to call these the 2007 WCCAs though as they are aimed at recognizing webcomics published in 2006.
BUSINESS
- Missed this but Goats creator, Jon Rosenberg wrote a short bit on the end of Bitpass. Rosenberg was not a fan of micropayments, including Bitpass.
- An update on the Scott Kurtz Outreach to Syndicated Cartoonists Project: the Daily Cartoonist reports that Scott Kurtz is talking with Arlo and Janis creator Jimmy Johnson.
Dead Trees
- Boing Boing blog had a good post on the latest Doonesbury book, Heckuva Job, Bushie! I've been trying to include more coverage of comic strips in Comixpedia as all of them are online and some of their creators, including Gerry Trudeau, are very web-savvy.
- Blogger and Sci-Fi author Cory Doctorow released his latest book, Overclocked, under a creative commons license (he always does this actually) and Martin Cendreda made a mini-comic of one of the stories called "Printcrime". It's available for download here.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge is a new webcomic about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina published at Smith magazine.
- A webcomic adaptation of the novel 1984. So far pretty interesting work.
Nominees for 2007 WCCAs
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 25, 2007 - 10:18
The WCCA nominations are dribbling out today:
OUTSTANDING COMIC FINALISTS:
- Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio
- Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell
- Narbonic by Shaenon Garrity
- Perry Bible Fellowship by Nicholas Gurewitch
- Scary Go Round by John Allison
- Templar Arizona by Spike
OUTSTANDING NEWCOMER FINALISTS:
- Aldus Maycombe by Janine Harper
- Breakdown by Elizabeth A
- Lackadaisy by Tracey J. Butler
- Out There by R C Monroe
- The Broken Mirror by Elanor Cooper and JJ Naas
- What Birds Know by Emelie Friberg and Mattias Thorelli
That is a really strong group of candidates for Outstanding Comic, including last year's Outstanding Newcomer winner (Gunnerkrigg Court). I haven't read all of the nominees for Outstanding Newcomer for this year - that's probably just more evidence of how many webcomics there are now...
UPDATE: We have an interview with the creators of What Birds Know in this month's magazine - click here to read.
January 24th
News for Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 24, 2007 - 11:27
INTERVIEWS
- Wizard interviews Scott Sava, creator of The Dreamland Chronicles. Sava put out an ambiguous press release recently stating that he had reached the one million reader mark. This interview touches on that and although the answer is still slightly ambiguous it appears that Sava has about 6000-8000 daily readers of his webcomic.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Another Time.com blogger notes Chris Onstad's Achewood, this time using it a as hook to talk about how webcomics may do to newspaper comics the same thing Craig's List is doing to newspaper classified ads. (hint: destroying them...)
- FLEEN rounds up news from Owen Dunn's YDK, Andy Bell's The Creatures in my Head and Ryan Smith's Funny Farm.
- Creator Lea Hernandez offers tip on how she structures her working day.
- Endurance cartoonist and world traveler Ryan Estrada posts the first video update from his current expedition.
January 23rd
Catching Up With Comixpedia Contributors
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 23, 2007 - 15:53
A lot of folks have come and gone (and sometimes come back again) through the "halls" of Comixpedia. I imagine from time to time it'd be nice to recognize where some of them are now.
Catherine Harrell did the webcomic Jen and contributed an article on fantasy world building to Comixpedia back in 2004. She appears to have continued on with comics and illustration and you can keep up with her new projects at her current blog, The Blackberry Smoothie.
Piracy, Copyright And You
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 23, 2007 - 13:35
The current copyright system is the subject of intense debate among creators, consumers, technology companies and corporate copyright holders. Here's an interesting article on the subject from Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Publishing that makes the excellent point that the current system is tilted to the few have-a-lots and that "obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy." There are also reports that at least one of the major record corporations is considering releasing music unrestricted in the MP3 format.
Considering that webcomics are essentially the comics-equivalent of unrestricted MP3 files, I suppose comics are a little bit ahead of the curve here. Although comic book companies have not jumped in with both feet, newspaper syndicates largely have and many major creators have already embraced the obscurity is worse than free perspective of O'Reilly.
I'm going to use this post as an excuse to link to a great roundtable interview on comics and copyright that Comixpedia previously published in 2005. Still very relevant if you missed it the first time.
