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Form Is Function by John Barber

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Licensing: not just for Microsoft anymore?

Last September, Yahoo Japan announced plans to launch an online manga rental system, whereby readers could buy 80-day licenses to read volumes of manga like Astro Boy or Cyborg 009. The licenses would be 360 to 400 yen, which is about three or four dollars (or was when I was in Tokyo last summer, anyway).

It’s certainly one of the biggest commercial webcomics ventures you’ll find: big, big comics in a country that loves it some comics. Continue Reading →

I Hate You All by Dalton Wemble

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Hey there, seniorita, that’s very astute
Why don’t we get together and call ourselves an institute.

Well, I think that’s sort of how it goes, anyway. I can’t really remember. But what I do remember is that later in that same song – Paul Simon’s "You Can Call Me Al", by the way – somebody walks on down the alleyway with a roly-poly little bat-faced girl.

"So what," you ask, mouth agape and eyes quickly glazing over in the benighted absence of some sort of fast-moving things you can zap with your BFG?
Continue Reading →

Joey Manley Interviewed By You, the Readers

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As the Fates would have it, Joey Manley is a Colonel.

He’s also the Field Marshal behind the great wall of subscription-service, webcomic-related product known as Modern Tales. Having been creepy-crawling around the webcomics community scene since about mid-2000, he first started up with a webcomics reviews/interviews site called talkaboutcomics.com. Only months later, he decided that the world was ready for a subscription-based webcomics portal, even if some seemed wary of the prospect of paying for something that had "always" been free to date.

But already a few years have passed, and Manley’s dream stands tall in the garden of fruition — not only has Modern Tales endured, but it has grown, branching out to include a host (literally) of sister anthology sites, as well as promote key solo artists, too. Now, with a few new fun gifties to hand out from his bag of webcomics tricks, the Colonel takes a few moments out of his uber-busy day to respond to you, the reader, on all things webcomics, business… and chicken (seriously). Continue Reading →

The History of Online Comics by T Campbell (Part 5)

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Spot And The Panda

"Whatever happened to Bryan McNett?"

It's a question experienced webcartoonists ask each other, now and again. It was a question many of them asked their e-mail inboxes as they pounded their desks in frustration.

In one respect the answer is easy: McNett is now a video game developer. He posted to an abortive, eponymous blog in September 2003.

But to the webcomics community, he is as remote as if he had passed to the Great Beyond. Many of today's webcartoonists don't even know who he is. Those webcartoonists who did business with him consider him a failure. Some who knew him had reason to hate him. And because he has never told his side of the story, it's difficult to balance the picture. Yet in his contribution to webcomics history, McNett may be as important as any of his successors, maybe even as important as any of the Five Horsemen. Continue Reading →

Xaviar Xerexes Interviews the Special Events Editor, Matt Shepherd

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Matt Shepherd is quite simply the man behind the man-man. An Anglophone living in Quebec, Canada, he was roped up by the Comixpedia crew to become the Special Events editor. From his devious Canadian mind was spawned the latest installment of Fright Night, and the most current machination is the love-infested Blind Date event for the Valentine's period. In this interview, Matt spills the beans on his comic book pasts, and his burning, bilious jealousy of our Editor-in-Chief's things. Continue Reading →