Archive - Nov 2008 - Story
November 30th
Sci-Fi Webcomic Ex Astris: From Cell Phone To Cellulose
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 30, 2008 - 22:24
John Freeman and Mike Nicoll's comic Ex Astris which appears online at exastris.co.uk is in the latest issue of the British SF comics magazine Spaceship Away. I'm not sure how it's laid out in the magazine -- online it's a bit like one of those animated clickwheel comics as it was formatted for cellphones. It also appears at mobile phone comics hub ROK comics.
Personality Type of Your Blog?
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 30, 2008 - 12:26
This won't really work on a webcomic (unless it's been transcribed than I suppose it might work) but Typealyzer purports to apply the BriggsMyer Personality test to your blog. I ran ComixTalk.com through it:
ISTP - The Mechanics
The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.
The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.
Seems about right...
November 28th
New Comic: Lifestrips
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 28, 2008 - 22:08
I checked out a new strip called Lifestrips - I like it. Kind of a combination of American Elf and A Softer World. Very short rchive so far but if you're into journal type comics I'd recommend trying it out and seeing where it goes.
Setting Up an iMac
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 28, 2008 - 15:20
Hope everyone recovered from Turkey Day (or regular day in the rest of the world)!
And I have been following the news in Mumbai India and my condolences go out to anyone who is suffering right now. Beyond our common humanity I'm betting a lot of you (like me) have a lot of friends and colleagues with family in India (let alone living there right now) and I have just been struck by that watching the news of these awful terrorist attacks there. I have a colleague visiting India right now (not in Mumbai though) and I was there for work last December. Heck I could still be going there this December.
And my PC conked out again (I have to pay someone to fix it next week so I can extract the files) so I bought an iMac. So far so AWESOME! 1 minute to set up and here I am posting to ComixTalk on it. I've got lots of extra stuff to set up on it (I'm going to need to do the boot camp thing for WIndows on it) still. In any event if anyone has any tips to share on cool stuff or sites for the iMac to share please let me know! Thanks.
November 26th
Get Your Webcomic Stuffing Here!
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 26, 2008 - 10:08
Happy Thanksgiving to all of those (including me) in the good ol' US of A tomorrow. Despite it's historically shaky roots, it is AN AWESOME holiday that combines getting along with everyone else (at least for one day a year!) AND FOOD... lots and lots of food. I highly recommend it to any nation around the world.
A few stories of interest today:
An interview with John Backderf (more widely known as "Derf") - he's not much for the web but I've always thought highly of his work on his strip The City - funny, insightful, he's also been able to do some truly amazing longer form stories like TRASH and MY FRIEND DAHMER. He has a new book out now -- Punk Rock and Trailer Parks. (h/t JOURNALISTA!)
Todd Allen cranks through some numbers on whether creators would be better off working outside of the Marvel/DC-plex. This is all coming out of a very comic book-specific debate Robert Kirkman and Brian Bendis had online earlier this year. (One web-related bit - he has the PvP comic book sales numbers in his chart.)
The Daily Cartoonist has a round-up of "how I became a syndicated cartoonist" stories.
November 24th
Countdown to Webcomic Turk Or Treat!
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 24, 2008 - 10:43
A few sporadic links to webcomic stories. Wha?!?
Interviews! Get your interviews! We did one with the creator of the webcomic Dr. Eldritch, Jennifer Contino interviewed Lora Innes, the creator of the spiffy, historical action comic, The Dreamer, and Tom Spurgeon talked with James Kochalka. The Spurgeon interview with Kochalka is a good one, be sure to read the whole thing.
REVIEW-O-RAMA: Hey, ComixTalk contributor El Santo continues to tackle webcomics at his blog -- most recently he's got an interesting review up of Sarah Zero.
SMALL SCREENS: Uclick released Bone formatted for the iPhone/iPod. (It must be based on the Scholastic color versions, which btw are up to volume 8)
November 23rd
Webcomic Idol 08 Almost Over
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 24, 2008 - 00:42
There are 3 webcomics left in Bomb Shelter's Webcomic Idol and after the elimination thing-a-ma-bee there'll be just two this week. I think the plan is that they'll announce the winner sometime after Thanksgiving.
The least vote getter is Simulated Comic Product (that's a good thing in this contest - people are voting to eliminate comics). I mostly like this one - it's more often funny than not and every so often there's a truly unsettling one that gives you a little jab of tension. But it's a weekly updating comic without a story or true characters -- while it may be the one to win the contest, it just isn't one of the most funny comics of its type out there... yet.
Marooned is a science fiction comic, with a story and characters and a twice-weekly updating schedule. I think it has a lot of potential. I'm torn over the art. On the one hand it's simple style is fine for the story and mostly Tom Dell'aringa has a handle on it. But other times, when he tries to draw something out of the core cast, like backgrounds or some of the robots, I do wish he had put more into it.
Shi Long Pang is a totally different animal than the other two. We're 125 pages into a probably pretty epic story. It's a comic about the story and the characters. I think Ben Costa is spinning an entirely fantastic tale here. I am sure if he keeps up the quality of work this will be a great story to sit down with and read from start to finish.
November 20th
An Interview with Derik Badman
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 20, 2008 - 17:09
Check out this interview with Derik Badman, creator of Things Change and a columnist here at ComixTalk (and he has his own blog).
November 19th
It Was A Hat Lobster!
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 19, 2008 - 19:07
Check out the latest and greatest webcomic critic! The HAT LOBSTER reviews FANS with the same technology that lets President-elect Obama beam his radio address straight to your computer screen! Set phasers to "totally"!
Check out the Hat Lobster's review of T Campbell's FANS -- on video! -- part 1 and part 2.
November 18th
Looking For a New Home For FrightNight.org
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 18, 2008 - 11:36
So - is anyone interested in taking over Frightnight.org? Fright Night began as a big cross-promotional webcomic effort in 1999 and continued in that vein for a couple of years (I took over the organization of it in 2000). Later on, I used the site for "events" sponsored by ComixTalk. More recently it's been fairly dormant.
I am never going to have time to properly use the URL and I'd love to see someone else use it. I have put out a couple of emails to folks but would be open to pitches from others. The only hitch is I want to see the existing archives of past events stay up at the URL but otherwise I'm open to ideas on its future use. Post a comment here or email me at xerexes @ gmail DOT com. I'll probably start making a decision on December so best if you pitch me your idea(s) before the end of this month.
