Author: Joey Manley

Modern Tales, the leading publisher of subscription-based webcomics, announced today that cayetano garza jr’s “Whimville” comic strip has launched as a standalone subscription-based website, whimville.com.

http://www.whimville.com

“cat’s been wanting to do this solo subscription site for quite some time,” said Manley. “This is part of our growth plan for those Modern Tales cartoonists whose work becomes popular enough to sustain a website commercially all by themselves.” Other solo sites published by the company include Lea Hernandez’s RumbleGirls.com and James Kochalka’s AmericanElf.com. Continue Reading →

Joey Manley writes:
Many of you may remember that talkaboutcomics.com started its life as the home of an audio talk show about webcomics that I used to do.

When I launched Modern Tales, my time and energy had to be devoted elsewhere, and I converted the site to a forum hosting service.

I’ve always thought that web-only talk shows about comics made a lot of sense, though.

One of the things I wanted to do, way back when, was work with Lea Hernandez on a talk show of her very own — her personality is so dynamic, her opinions so strong, and her position in the industry is so unique, that there’s no way a great show wouldn’t result.

Now it’s real. This will be a weekly thing, every Saturday.

Follow “read more” link to listen to the first episode of the show Continue Reading →

Modern Tales, the leading publisher of subscription-based webcomics, announced today that “Ice,” by webcomics star Faith Erin Hicks (“Demonology 101”) will be joining the line-up of ModernTales.com, the company’s flagship anthology publication. “Ice” will debut today (Tuesday, May 6, 2003) on the ModernTales.com website, and update twice weekly (Tuesdays and Thursdays) thereafter.

“We’ve been wanting to get Faith on board for the longest time,” said Joey Manley, Modern Tales’ Publisher. “And now the stars have finally aligned. ‘Demonology 101,’ which Faith has described to me as a ‘mere practice comic,’ is phenomenal – as her thousands of readers will tell you. Her new Modern Tales series ‘Ice’ kicks it up a notch or two. People who know Faith’s work – and, perhaps even moreso, people who don’t – are going to be blown away.”
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Modern Tales, the leading publisher of subscription-based webcomics, announced today that the comic strip “The Bizarre Life of Charlie Red Eye,” by Perth, Western Australia’s Edward J. Grug III and Matthew William Boyd Langfield, Esq., will be joining the line-up of its flagship online anthology ModernTales.com. Joey Manley, Editor and Publisher of Modern Tales, selected this strip after sifting through more than 200 entries submitted as part of a rare open call for new comics on the site. “We usually recruit by private solicitation,” said Manley.

“But every now and then, it’s important to open the doors to new faces and voices.” Manley said that submissions of new comics are not currently being accepted at Modern Tales. “We’ll make an announcement on our homepage any time we’re looking for something, and we’ll give a very specific date range during which we’re willing to look at submissions, just like we did this time. Once the decision has been made, it’s final.”
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April 21, 2003

Modern Tales, the leading provider of subscription-based webcomics, is proud to announce
that its subscriber-only anthology series Longplay is changing from a monthly to a weekly schedule.

‘It just makes sense,’ says Longplay editor Joe Zabel. ‘I mean, you serve a banquet one course at a time–you don’t put the plates on the table all at once. We’ve been serving a banquet of comics every month, but it’s gotten to be too much for people, and so some of our best comics get neglected.’ Continue Reading →

We’ve received some fantastic submissions for the open Modern Tales slot — everybody who submitted (and followed directions) will be hearing from me within the next few days or weeks. Thanks to all of you!

Please forgive us for the amount of time this is taking — but we’re really being thorough, going through all the work, and making sure we really understand and appreciate, for what it is, each submission that has been submitted. We feel we owe you guys that much. There’s about eight submissions so far that have made it through to the “contender” phase (out of about 200 submissions received correctly during the submission period). Each of them is a gem.

We haven’t looked at all of the submissions yet, though (I found a few buried in my inbox just this morning) so there’s a chance that there will be more contenders.

It’s going to be very, very difficult to select just one for the open slot.

We are still accepting submissions of completed short or long stories (8 page minimum) for Modern Tales Longplay, of course.

http://www.moderntales.com/submissions.php

Joey
www.moderntales.com
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… not just for filing taxes, but also for submitting comics to Modern Tales for the slot left open by Patent Pending’s departure for Goats Premium. Once the deadline has passed, I’ll start actually looking at the submissions. Within a week or two, I expect to have winnowed out the field to the main contenders, whose work will be shown to the other Modern Tales cartoonists for advice. Modern Tales isn’t a democracy, though, and I’ll be making the final decision on my own. That will probably take more than a month. Continue Reading →

The Eisner Awards are arguably the “Oscars” of the comics industry. Last year, there was a bit of a squabble on message boards about webcomics (they were not deemed worthy of their own category in the awards, and no webcomics were nominated, or considered for nomination, in any of the other categories).

This year, quietly, without any inordinate fanfare, the Eisner judges slipped a nomination for one webcomic, Justine Shaw’s Nowhere Girl, into one of the major existing categories (“Best New Series”).

Yay for Justine!

Yay for the Eisners!

More details on this year’s Eisner nominations. Continue Reading →

Paradigm Shift creator Dirk Tiede has decided to take a one-month hiatus (rumor has it he’s preparing a print PS collection). While he’s away, the awesome Meaghan Quinn (creator of Keenspace favorite Eat the Roses) will be stepping up with a brief mini-series, only available on Modern Tales: The Adventures of Samuel Orange, P.I.. It’s only for one month, so be sure to stop by (especially if you’re not a subscriber — as with most other MT comics, only the current episode will be free at any given moment — after the story is completed, only subscribers will be able to read it at all).

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Modern Tales, the leading publisher of subscription-based webcomics, announced this week that its newest offering, girlamatic.com, a webcomics anthology targetting female comics readers, has launched to tremendous success.

“This is our biggest launch since Modern Tales itself,” said site publisher Joey Manley (the company publishes numerous targetted webcomics sites, including the avant-garde serializer.net, the action-packed AdventureStrips.com, and several single-cartoonist sites, such as James Kochalka’s AmericanElf.com).

“The established comics industry, whether mainstream or ‘alternative,’ doesn’t exactly have attracting female readers at the top of its priority list,” said Joey Manley. “And I’d say that that’s a shame … but, hey, they’ve left a huge business opportunity open for us. I couldn’t be happier.” Continue Reading →