Webcomics Are From Uranus: Potentially Something

Webcomics are constantly being compared to comics made available in print mediums: pros and cons, webcomics breaking into print, print on the web, etc. Much of this discussion is generated from people who read and create webcomics, and is written in defence of webcomics. Oddly enough, it’s not as if you hear the masses screaming that webcomics are inferior to print. Maybe it’s simply inferred by everyone, the same way comic fans infer that their favorite medium is supposed to be inferior to prose or movies?

So maybe I’m just giving everyone a reason to argue their point when I say that right now, I consider webcomics to be not as good as other mediums. Continue Reading

The Community Interview with GPF’s Jeff Darlington

Jeff Darlington is responsible for one of the longest-running and most popular geek webcomics ever to exchange packets with your modem – General Protection Fault. Having started out innocently enough in 1998 with what looked like a gag-a-day strip with tech- and geek- humour, Darlington sneakily managed to take his webcomic to crazed serial heights, with the now-(im?)famous year-long mega story arc "Surreptitious Machinations".

In this Reader-run Interview, Darlington speaks about crossovers, women's sexuality, geek vs. gamer strips, and everyone favorite subject – crackpot scientists.

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Redefining Convenience: Places to Read Comics Besides the Bathroom

In the days before I discovered webcomics, I worked an office job where I generally had at least a couple of hours each day when there simply wasn't anything useful for me to do. Of course, I was still expected to look busy. I couldn't exactly put my feet up and open a book. In fact, when I wanted to read, there was really only one place I could go. And that was – you guessed it – the bathroom. Yes, I confess – I too have spent many hours hiding in the loo with a book. Continue Reading

Tao of Geek’s Liz Walsh interviewed by Yolanda Janiga

Liz Walsh is 26 years old and a fairly recent graduate of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, where she studied computer science and earned her geek spurs. She grew up and still lives in Ottawa and describes herself as a "creative, passionate, thoughtful, antisocial, ambitious, [and] short temper[ed] (*grin*)" type of person. Her webcomic, Tao of Geek, is about geekery of all stripes, from computers and video games to role-playing games to anime. Walsh is a fan of geeks and her webcomic shows it.

"Geeks can be funny. Geeks can be serious," says Walsh. "It's all in who they are. They're more than just fanatics of some games, or people who dream in C++. They've got minds. They've got family. They've got friends. They've got personality. They can be the person that has aspirations of being on the stage based on how well they roleplay Garok the Mighty. They can be the person whose impeccable logic (from long nights of programming) lets them win any debate they enter, even against tenured politicians. They can be the person who creates a media empire based on the fantasy world they created during those long lectures at school. They can be *anyone*."

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Form is Function by John Barber

Mean What You Say, but Never Say What You Mean

Continuing down last month’s David Mamet trek towards an aesthetic of creating comics….

Brian Michael Bendis is a big Mamet fan. When I read a Bendis script a little while back, I was really impressed; I liked it because it read like a script to a comic, not like he was trying to impress anybody. It wasn’t full of witticisms and fancy descriptions, it was bare-bones writing that provided a structure which could be turned into a comic.

What I liked about Bendis’ script was that it was made up of panel descriptions like: “Shot of guy’s face.” And “Same as 2.” “Same as 2, closer.”

At first, every growing-up-thinking-comics-scripts-should-look-like-Alan-Moore-scripts bone in my body reacted against this. Wait, I thought, shouldn’t Bendis be saying what the face looks like? Continue Reading

Writer’s Best Friend? The Editor’s Role in Webcomics by Alexander Danner

As everyone knows, chief among the benefits of producing an independent webcomic is the freedom from any sort of editorial input or criticism. In the absence of the editor's stifling presence, a comics creator can maintain a pure artistic vision, and is thereby free to reach his or her full potential.

That seems to be the prevailing opinion, anyway. That editors might actually have useful skills and services to offer is a little-considered possibility.

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History of Online Comics, Pt. 7: The Beginnings of a “Modern” Age? by T Campbell

Conventional wisdom held, as late as 2001, that the only sustainable economic models for online comics were ad-based. Either the comic carried advertising in some fashion, or it was itself an advertisement for its own merchandise. "Pay-to-read" models were mostly based upon speculation and mostly spectacularly unsuccessful. Even Scott McCloud found his position as comics pundit threatened over his endorsement of "micropayments".

Tycho of Penny Arcade was one of several cartoonists who took McCloud to task for it: "This guy's take on human nature is spun from pure fancy. He imagines that other people – in fact, that everyone– would gladly pay for things if given the chance to do so. That is demonstrably, empirically false– most especially so on the Internet, and most damningly so where content is concerned." They eventually mended fences, but the point of wisdom had been made.

However, Joey Manley was never much for listening to conventional wisdom. Continue Reading

Al Schroeder talks with Zebra Girl’s Joe England

What's black and white and geeky all over?

Perhaps the most charming freak in comics since Benjamin J. Grimm has been a certain involuntarily transformed, zebra-striped demonness who does tech support on the side, and who can set fire to people that infuriate her with her mind. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Zebra Girl has grown from cult favorite over the years, making a changeover from Keenspace to Keenspot this year, and delighting more and more readers with each black-and-white-and-read-all-over update. We interviewed Zebra Girl's creator, Joe England, and got a quick glimpse into his hand-coded, Zebra-striped universe.

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