Archive - Jan 2007 - Story
January 23rd
News for Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 23, 2007 - 11:24
MAGAZINE
- We've got an interview with the creators of the fantasy webcomic, What Birds Know. Check out the interview - then check out the comic!
- Next month's issue focuses on collectives! If you are part of a collective of webcomics creators and are interested in being part of next month's issue drop me an email at xerexes AT comixpedia DOT com.
INTERVIEWS
- Fleen has an interview with Paul Southworth, creator of Ugly Hill.
- Fleen also recently ran an interview with Wiz Rollins - Rollins pens the D.J. Coffman comic, Yirmumah.
AWARDS
- Journalista! catches the news at website ICv2 that Gene Yang won the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature for young adults for his graphic novel, American Born Chinese. The Printz Award is given out by the American Library Association.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- A new blog at Time.com, Nerd World, sings the praises of Chris Onstad's Achewood.
- Newsarama takes a look at the webcomics making up the new collective Lunchbox Funnies.
- A write-up in the NYTimes of a movie based on Marjane Satrapi's best-selling and critically praised comic-book memoir, Persepolis. The animated movie, filmed in France (and in French) will be released in America this year. Interestingly, it was animated entirely in France and Satrapi herself directed the film.
January 21st
Noted Without Comment
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 22, 2007 - 01:20
It was very cool how supportive folks were for Eric Burns and Wednesday White on their getting engaged. It reminded me this weekend that I have this distinct memory that Eric first encountered Wednesday upon reading an article she had written for Comixpedia in 2004.
A very good article I might add, called Geek Women: Your Little Standards-Compliant Fantasy.
Weekend News Jam
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 21, 2007 - 11:06
Some webcomic news for Sunday morning:
BUSINESS
- T Campbell has a post on micropayments, triggered by the announcement of the pending shutdown of Bitpass, a micropayments service that never quite seemed to take off. (Tech blog Gigaom also notes Bitpass' passing.) There were heated debates over micropayments at Comixpedia although in the last year or so with the current trend away from subscription and micropayments models we haven't discussed it quite as much.
- John Batelle who wrote a book on Google and manages advertising for several high-profile blogs ponders how to better capture value from readers who arrive via search. All of this post seems to me to be potentially applicable to webcomics.
DEAD TREES
- Webcomics in Print takes a quick look at the new Boy On A Stick And Slither book. Although I haven't seen the book I have seen the webcomic and BOASAS is deceptively clever - beyond many of the strips being simply funny at first read, there's a lot of ideas slithering under the surface.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Kelly J. Cooper asks "if you are self-employed, how do you organize your day?" A good question to ponder for many webcomic creators who are self-employed or wish to be some day.
- The Kea's Nest points out an Everything2 article on webcomics called "Webcomics and the democratization of the media".
- The new Woman's Work collective now has a group blog at the site.
- This is an interesting idea - send in your offhand sketches to David Malki! (creator of Wondermark) for his new project Scraps of Crap.
- I used to read this back in the nineties but had forgotten about his site. If you're a fan of comics Comics I Don't Understand is an entertaining site. He primarily focuses on comic strips (although I think he accepts nominations to consider). It's a simple concept - he posts comics that don't make apparent sense and the readers offer serious to snarky explanations.
January 19th
I See Your Snakes On A Plane And Raise You...
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 19, 2007 - 22:05
Holy Sheep-dip Batman! When is this movie coming out in America?
All we need now is the Jeff Rowland t-shirt... 
January 18th
An Interview with Rich Stevens
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 18, 2007 - 12:41
An interview with Rich Stevens on the newspaper-style Diesel Sweeties launch with good details on the syndication deal itself. Also Stevens recommends his Dumbrella compadres as other plausible newspaper candidates. I don't know about that actually - I'd like to see all of them in my newspaper but in terms of whether I think we will see them, well I could see BOASAS in newspapers, but I'm not sure about the others.
The question for today: what webcomics do you think could be most successfully translated into successful newspaper comic strips?
Ze Frank Ze Crying All The Way To Ze Bank
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 18, 2007 - 12:30
Does anyone else watch Ze Frank - I really like the whole short concentrated web video format. When it's done well it's got a lot of potential. Anyhow I saw this article about him getting all hollywooded-up - I don't know if he can translate his "stuff" to Hollywood...
January 17th
Short Wednesday News Break
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 17, 2007 - 14:52
INTERVIEWS
- An interview with Rudy Park artist Darrin Bell and writer Matt Richtel on their latest storyline which includes the death of a major character.
- An interview with American Born Chinese creator Gene Yang.
- An interview with Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis.
- An interview with Lisa Fary and John Dallaire of Intergalactic Law.
- A profile at Vanity Fair with Michael Silberkleit and Richard Goldwater, co-publishers of Archie Comics.
AWARDS
- The Comics Reporter has information on judges and nominations for this year's Isotopes Awards (awarded for excellence in mini-comics).
Very Small Post
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 17, 2007 - 10:42
Dorothy Gambrell does wonderful, whimsical charts on her blog Very Small Array. This one tracks the popularity of her Cat and Girl book relative to world population. Canadians love their Cat and Girl!
This one - a year in review - tracks various things. Gambrell seems to do this one every year. I just really like the way Gambrell communicates visually - her sensibility is apparent in all her comics, but sometimes I think this other non-comic stuff is more representative of some "ur-Gambrell" quality she has.
Also add Gambrell to the "webcomics goin' to hell in a handbasket" list for this one.
January 16th
Want to Blog For Comixpedia?
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 16, 2007 - 23:11
As we head into 2007 I'm fairly positive about the course Comixpedia is on. We're heading for another software upgrade within Drupal that will let me do some cool things (probably end of January) and I'm working on getting new life and a little more content into the magazine. Lots of stuff I'm excited about.
But I'd like to get some other people involved in the daily blogging here on the front page. It's already helped that so many people post "user blogs" every day, but in terms of front page posts (and spotting user blogs for promotion to the front page) I think things would be better with at least a few more people participating.
Why blog for Comixpedia? Actually I'd like to know the answer to that myself :)
In all seriousness Comixpedia has several good things going for it: it's the oldest ongoing webcomic news and commentary site around, it has a pretty decent share of the "reading about webcomics" audience (and our news is syndicated at the webcomics hub The Webcomic List), and it has an audience filled not only with webcomics-savvy fans, but creators, publishers, and others contributing in significant ways to webcomics.
I'm not looking for clones of myself, but other interesting voices to add to the daily mix. I'm looking for all kinds of people from any kind of background. Ideally we're also looking for someone(s) who can submit 2-3 posts a week and would stick with it for at least 6 months (say til July).
If you're interested here's how to apply - I'd like anyone who wants front page status here at Comixpedia to post a comment here with anything they want to write about why they'd make a good addition to the front page here at Comixpedia. Then over the rest of the month (up to and including Jan. 31) write at least three "try-out" posts using your user blog (write more if you want). A "try-out" post should be the kinds of things you'd want to write on the front page. BE SURE TO TAG these posts with this tag - "new blogger" (in topics) so I know they are posts for consideration for front page status. I'll post a round-up of links to all of the try-out posts on Feb. 1st so I can get feedback from the rest of Comixpedia on who should get front page status.
Important Stuff For 2007
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 16, 2007 - 22:16
This is kind of a catch-all sticky post that'll be up here for awhile.
- Comixpedia.org needs administrators.
- Click read more for the magazine themes for 2007.
- New advertising options at Comixpedia for 2007.
