Archive - Apr 2007 - Story
April 30th
Conference Materials
Submitted by Linda Howard Valentine on April 30, 2007 - 21:39
The Alternative Press Expo gave me a strong reminder about the usefulness and uselessness of the free table. It's a great resource, found at almost all conventions, a place to put old giveaway issues, business cards, flyers and such.
News & Views for April 30, 2007
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 30, 2007 - 16:14
HEADLINES
- Shaenon Garrity may not agree with me that Chris Muir's recent Day By Day comic is offensive but in her blog she entertainingly lays out the argument for why it is "the worst damn comic in the world"!
BUSINESS
- The Silent Penultimate Panel Watch (a pretty funny concept for a blog actually) steps aside from its normal fare of spotting silent comic panels to pitch an all webcomics-in-print alt-alt paper idea. I've heard this idea before but I've never heard rumblings of anyone actually running with it. In a way, however, the parody news newspaper The Onion is, as it expands its paper edition into new markets.
MILESTONES
- Kristy Vs. The Zombie Army hits 100 pages. (link from the Webcomic Collective blog)
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Derik Badman "live-cartooned" the Computer In Libraries conference. (link from Yet Another Comics Blog)
- Gilead Pellaeon posts his wish list of webcomics books.
- Comixpedia blogger Robert Anke writes a guest column for FLEEN called "The Good Kind of Stealing".
- Missed this but earlier this month Comixpedia columnist Brigid Alverson posted at Digital Strips about Postmodern Haircut -- a webcomic devoted entirely to the critic Noam Chomsky.
- Obiwan Kirk writes about a year of Knight Quest-Online on its current host and recent updates to Last Chance and The Dark Bane.
- Jonathan Dalton gives good grades to Dylan Meconis' current comic Family Man.
Comixpedia April Issue Update
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 30, 2007 - 11:40
This may be it for Comixpedia's April issue: be sure to check out Grant Thomas' primer on mini-comic covers (part 2), Michael Payne's review of Alan Foreman's S.S.D.D., and David Simon's essay on Science Fiction and Fantasy. May's issues will focus on All-Ages Webcomics and we're still looking for folks to review comics for the issue (Comixpedia does pay $10 for a published review). If you're interested please shoot me an email at xerexes AT comixpedia DOT com.
As always a thanks to our current sponsor, the Learn To Draw The Human Anatomy series. We've got three other advertising spots available right now (they appear below the LTDTHA ad) - if you're interested click here to see the low, low rates for placing an ad. (And you can always bid on a PW ad here)
April 29th
New Book From Surburban Tribe
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 29, 2007 - 21:39
Suburban Tribe: Too Many Notes is a trade paperback collecting strips from 2006 along with the first 24 Suburban Tribe strips with commentary from creator John Lee.
You can check out a PDF preview here.
Suburban Tribe is a member of the Hyena Comics group.
April 28th
Project Wonderful Updates
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 28, 2007 - 19:36
Project Wonderful
Project Wonderful Talk reports that the auction-oriented advertising service, Project Wonderful has added a couple of new features: campaigns and minimum bids. Campaigns provide a means to place a number of bids on various sites automatically by specifying parameters in the publisher search menu. Minumum bids allow an advertiser to set a mininum bid price for an ad.
The Gigcast Interviews Mr. Riot
Submitted by Black_Kitty on April 28, 2007 - 15:58
The Gigcast recently interviewed Mr. Riot creator of The Path and co-creator of the DrunkDuck community project, Civil War. He was also one of the artists who attended the DrunkDuck Artist Alley in Wizard World LA.
April 27th
News For Friday April 27, 2007
Submitted by Erik Melander on April 27, 2007 - 08:24
INTERVIEWS
- Newsarama interviews Kazu Kibuishi about Ballantine's Flight spinoff, Flight Explorer. This anthology collects the Flight stories suitable for all-ages, aiming at a younger audience. What will this mean for the regular Flight anthology? Not even Kibuishi knows.
NRAMA: Lastly, how does this affect Flight 5, if any? What plans do you have for the next volume? Is going the companion book approach the way to do future Flight anthologies?
KK: Hmm... I'm wondering how this will affect Flight 5 as well. I suppose we're about to find out! From its inception, the Flight project has been a series of leaps of faith, so I guess this is the next step. I'm just as curious as everyone else to know where it's all going to take us.
BUSINESS
- Scott Ransoomair (VG catz) is creating the official Final Fantasy XI MMORPG comic Adventure Log. Seeing as how Square Enix is the copyright holder according to the published comic page, I'm guessing that he's getting paid for it. We've seen similar arrangement before by Penny Arcade and PvP, I belive.
TODD GOLDMAN
- Dirk Deppey has a nice roundup of the recent developments in the Todd Goldman affair at Journalista. It covers the Cease-and-Desist campaign and the blogs that have removed their coverage (PWBeat, and Wired among other), the current livejournal meme and the effect of all this on Google search.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
- Technically this was the quote of April 24 I suppose and also found at Journalista. SLG Publishing's Jennifer de Guzman blogs about APE.
While there were a few people self-publishing their comics, there were fewer of them than in the past, and there seemed to be an even marked decrease in the charming photocopied, hand-stapled mini-comic. Last year, I either bought or was generously given several mini-comics or self-published comics (you can read about that here). This year -- I bought two (one by Johnny Siu and another called "Fremont Girl") and was given none. (Boohoo!) The assumption is that the do-it-yourselfers have moved to the web.
April 26th
A Story That May Knock Todd Goldman Out Of the Headlines For Awhile
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 26, 2007 - 21:47
Chris Muir is the creator of the webcomic Day By Day, which I think has been described as a "conservative Doonesbury".
His most recent comic puts Hillary Clinton in blackface.
I don't think I can add anything to this take from the blog Pandagon: "Um... really?" Well, except, this cartoon is ridiculously tasteless and I can't see how it's not racist. I wonder how Muir's three newspaper clients (Hemingford Ledger, Knoxville News-Sentinel, North County Times) will react to this?
Webcomics In Interviews
Submitted by moovok on April 26, 2007 - 19:04
Webcomics in Print is doing a whole lotta interviews this week. First of we tackled Steven L. Cloud, then we got to grips with Joe Dunn and we also reviewed the Stuff Sucks Behind The Scenes Sketchbookbook and our usual Monday Book News too.
No wonder I'm exhausted!
Go Check Out Eisner-Nominated Minus
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 26, 2007 - 15:45
Of the Eisner nominees this year for Best Digital Comic the one (I am embarrassed to admit) I hadn't gotten to reading yet was Minus by Ryan Armand. The first impression I had of reading it was how much it reminded me of Kazu Kibuish's Copper. Probably that was because of the formatting, the wonderful color scheme (although Minus is subdued compared to Copper, relying on more faded tones) and the similar viewpoint of a young person in a world more magical then our own. Minus is a bit more impish than Copper though. I think I really liked this one with Minus playing Cupid, this one waiting to play baseball with an asteroid, this one with bathtub mermaids, and this one with the littlest perrito.
Minus represents webcomics extremely well. It's a great read.
