Author: Xaviar Xerexes

GET YOUR SWAG ON: Jamie Noguchi is going to be remembered in history not for his amazing art on Erf World but for Puppy Cow!  Seriously – count me in the slightly disturbed camp when I see this Doctor Moreauvian mix of cute and cow.  Read this interview with him all about the cow-puppy plush toy he's selling after a successful kickstarter drive. Intrigued? Buy your own plushy hybrid here.

DEAD TREES WALKING: I was looking through the First Second publisher catalog for 2011 again and there's a lot of good stuff coming.  Beyond Vera Brosgol's Anya's Ghost, there's a collection of Ben Hatke's Zita The Spacegirl, MK Reed's Americus (illustrated by Jonathan Hill), Sara Varon's Bake Sale, Level Up from Gene Luen Yang, a collection of Zahra's Paradise by Amir and Khalil…. there's also another edition of Derik Kirk Kim's Same Difference. There's also a huge anthology of comics by all kinds of people you'll recognize called Nursery Rhyme Comics. I'm not even mentioning everything here – it's just the ones that struck me first as ones I want to read.  Also don't miss our review of Dave Roman's Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity today.

GOOGLE IT: Google celebrated Roger Hargreaves 76th birthday yesterday with special logos incorporating Hargreaves' childrens characters.  My friend down the street had those books when we were kids and I always enjoyed their simple drawings and humor.

Month of Webcomics: Brian Cronin over at the Comics Should Be Good blog is spotlighting webcomics this month.  So far he's written about MAX OVERACTS, THE LINE, AMERICAN BARBARIAN, REGISTERED WEAPON, EVENTY-SEVEN, MOON FREIGHT 3, BIRTH OF VENUS, and 99 REASONS TO WIN.  If you want him to spotlight your comic, send an email to bcronin@comicbookresources.com.

ALL HAIL SHAENON: TCJ has Shaenon Garrity writing a column for them again — this time she says her focus is on webcomics.  A nice summation of here and now on TCJ's approach to webcomics; plus Garrity's take on TCJ's possible coverage of the Covenant of Abraham is spot on.

Team United Kingdom, Bloody F'ing Yeah! Blank Slate Books' planned collaborative graphic novel Nelson looks interesting – even promising.  Scheduled for publication this fall, it's billed as 50 artists (including John Allison!) tellng the story of Nel Baker from her birth to the present day.

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Honestly, I wrote a GREAT post for today, but the blog ate it.

Still I want to mention that I'm excited to see Kris Straub bring F Chords back — everyone go read it!

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Apparently happy Star Wars day? Maybe thanks but no thanks for Jar-jarring it up Georgie…

Interviews with some interesting webcomickers: Angela Melick of Wasted Talent and Katie Omberg of Office Bitch.

Mailbag: Paul Houston writes in about the first issue of a new comics magazine, Renderwrx Magazine.  It's free and available for download as a .pdf file. I skimmed through it — it's 40 pages covering varied aspects of the comic book industry.  There's some kind of Comics Idol kind of evaluation section that was interesting (Donna Barr was one of the judges).  But to be honest, it's nothing I can't find at a ton of other online sites about comics that update daily (or almost daily) right in my browser. I'm not a big fan of downloading pdfs, especially for news — which is not something I'm generally interested in archiving.

SOME HYPE:  A nice publicity splash for Teenage Satan, a new forthcoming webcomic by Stephanie Buscema, Candis Cooke, and Marsha Cooke.

MY HYPE: I'm enjoying Scott Kurtz's 1940's style action/adventure storyline for the LOLBat in PvP.  The artwork in PvP has really impressed over the last year — it's clear that Kurtz is really working at improving his range.

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I woke up to an email from Rosscott(c)TM who posted a great "hmmm" essay on how a more modern Webcomic management system 3.0 might incorporate some of the cooler functions from other popular web 2.7 websites of today. There's a lot of potential good ideas in there and an already interesting comment discussion.  Get over there and let him know what you think about his ideas.  Ross could actually make some of this happen so the more information he can gather from readers and creators the better.

Oh Sony….. I wonder if Penny Arcade will unload on them again.

An interview with Zach Weiner in FORBES!  I can hardly wait until the annual FORBES Richest Webcomickers list(C)TM comes out.  Also apparently the new FORBES Spiffy Short Bio Writing Service(C)TM is now open for business: Zach Weiner is a full time cartoonist based in Santa Barbara. In addition to SMBC, he co-writes SMBC Theater, writes for Snowflakescomic.com, and recently published Captain Stupendous via IDW. You can read his Star Wars graphvella here. Nice

Loved Dave Kellet's Literature(C)TM collection of his Sheldon webcomic and like Scott Kurtz would be thrilled if he won an Eisner for it. Eisner voters – not convinced by my endorsement?!?! Dave has offered a free PDF copy of the book for you to review before you vote. I've been catching up on Beastie Boys recently (not to be confused with the also awesome Beagle Boys) and Kurtz's name is just begging for a good rap rhyme.

Hmm Comics Worth Reading rounds up even more free comics for Eisner VOTERS: Afrodisiac, Gene Luen Yang’s Prime Baby is online at the New York Times Magazine website, Julia Wertz’s Drinking at the Movies has had many of its pages posted at her old website and Boom! has announced that you can read I Thought You Would Be Funnier online.

Ooh Boy On A Stick Tumblr and Slither!  And Lauren Davis' flags that Gisèle Lagacé and Dave Lumsdon have launched an Eerie Cuties spinoff called Magic Chicks.  Gisele's art work is always worth checking out.  That's a wrap folks!

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Another week, another month.  Here's something fun I found this week — Calamity Jon Morris submitted a fake Criterion cover this week for the movie Carry On Camping.  Not familiar with the Fake Criterion blog? Overly serious covers for ridiculous movies – a treasure chest of wit and visual hijinks abounds.

MILESTONES  9 years of Wondermark! Holee David Malki!  Be sure to check out the recent parody of the modern maker movement — "The Tinkerer's Handbook (The Magazine For People Who Cannot Leave Well Enough Alone).

REVIEWS: Lauren Davis reviews Quantum Vibe and Escape from Terra.

BELIEVE THE HYPE:  MetaFilter links to comics by Nick St. John.  Slice-of-crazy-life stories with simple drawings.

DEAD TREE WALKING: Austin Price and Matthew Rainwater are proud to announce the release of Garage Raja: Going Underground. The first in a series of graphic novels collecting their webcomic, this volume contains the first six issues of the series in one sleek, affordable trade paperback. An adventure story in the tradition of such classics as Herge’s Tintin and Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, Garage Raja:Going Underground follows the adventures of Ned, Reginald and Ghurnst — members of the titular band — as they encounter everything from an underground city of Mods to a tribe of barbaric Lizard-People in the search for their missing drummer. Collected here in high-quality print, this first volume contains over 200 pages of content, including scenes, commentary and sketches that cannot be found anywhere else, not even on the website! If you’re looking for a break from the glut of humor based webcomics, an alternative to the superheroics that dominate the industry, or a comic that loves music and music history as much as you do, then look no further than Garage Raja (Album 1): Going Underground!

FRIDAY THE 13th 29th:  Sam Costello's Split Lip, the horror webcomic called “some of today's best horror comics" by the Providence Phoenix, is debuting its latest collection, Termites In Your Smile and Other Stories, at the Boston Comic-Con this weekend (Artist's Alley #109) and it will also be available online here.  The 8 stories in this collection offer 176 pages of off-kilter, disturbing tales of horror and suspense. It features stories written by Sam Costello and art by Sami Makkonen (Deadworld: Slaughterhouse), Jason Ho (Agnes Quill), Christine Larsen (LaMorte Sisters, Valentine), and others. The book, with a cover by Shane Oakley, also includes commentary and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the creation of each story.

TOOLS:  Andreu Ratés Garcia writes about Comics Fever (developed by a Spanish company Plung Interactive) which provides a platform for creators to publish and sell their comics, "all over the world using digital storefronts in different mobile devices and tablets (iPhone, Windows Phone, Android, iPad, etc). This platfrom democratizes the publishing process. Any artist can publish and manage his content in the platform, set the price for his products, and see how are the sales going in real time, and get his 20% share each 3 months."  A quick look at the website shows that it's launching May 15th and "free" to register before May 31st.  Unfortunately there's nothing to do but register — no demo, no real explanation of the service on the website.  So maybe worth checking back on later next month.

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COLLECTIVE BARGAIN: I don't pay as much attention to collectives as I used to — I don't think anyone does actually. Or maybe it's just that the form of collective has mutated, adapted and evolved to the point where it's not really recognizable in the way it once was.  Or maybe I just don't pay enough attention.  What were we talkin' about?  Well one of the longest-running collectives is Blank Label Comics and Gordon McAlpin (creator of Multiplex) just announced that he's joined us with Dave Willis (Shortpacked), Kel McDonald (Sorcery 101) and Spike (Templar, Arizona).

EDITORIALIZE THIS: Darryl Cagle writes about how he worked with the redesign at MSNBC.com to incorporate slide shows of related editorial comics to certain articles. Cagle has a point that grouping editorial comics by topic makes obvious sense.  I still think a lot of the editorial comics work I see online is the comic equivalent of a mediocre pun, but good for him and others for experimenting with better ways to get their work to more people.

INTERVIEW: The Daily Cross Hatch posts the first part of an interview with Peter Bagge.  Bagge is an interesting artist who doesnt' do all that much press — should be a good read.

WALTER CRONKITE's FABLES: Cracked.com offers Non-BS versions of fables in this comic.

FROM THE MAILBAG:  The Assemblers, the long running webcomic appearing on DrunkDuck, has just been collected into graphic novel format by Transfuzion Publishing..  Written and illustrated by Andy Dudak, The Assemblers is a futuristic tale of destruction yet also rebirth.  A preview is available on myebooks.com.  The story centers on October 30th, 2151. Traditionally Devil’s Night has been a celebration of havoc, but in the future, mischief in the Age of Nanotech is much more complicated. Three young vandals, Bardo, Shiyu, and Dwyer, team up tokeep the spirit of their egg-throwing forbearers alight.

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I know a lot of webcomics creators are fans of Steve Jackson Games.  Steve Jackson Games is holding a month-long contest for webcomics that refer to their Munchkin game. At the end of the contest, the SJ Games Men in Black will vote on the winners.  Some nice prizes for this — $1,000 first prize, $500 second prize, $200 third prize, and some honorable mentions which will win your choice of Munchkin core sets.

The contest begins on May 1, 2011 and ends on June 1, 2011. To enter the contest, send a link to your webcomic to contest@sjgames.com. The link should be to the page on which the comic appears, not just your home page. The e-mail entry must be sent to SJ Games by noon (Austin time) on June 1, 2011. Please include your name, address, and e-mail address. 

Lots more details at their website.

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Voting is now open for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards for 2011. Comics professionals can vote by mail or online. You can download a pdf of the ballot or vote online.  The deadline for voting is June 13th. The results of voting will be announced at the Eisner Awards Ceremony on Friday night, July 22, during Comic-Con International: San Diego.

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Friday… Friday! Webcomics… webcomics! Typin' at the keyboard… I know making fun of that song is well and truly done but for some reason its sonic worm has respawned in my ear this morning.  So… you're welcome.

Spacetrawler continues to be awesome.  Go read.

She binded me with science! Um they may be doin' it wrong in the world of Dresdan Codak.

You know what's pretty good but horrible for ya? Mixing up a bag of jelly beans and M&Ms and then eating the whole thing.  That's what I hear anyhow…

I did not get a preview copy of Vera Brosgol's Anya's Ghost graphic novel but I am looking forward to buying one.  Gary did get a preview and writes a very positive review.

Have fun storming the sand castles!  Lauren Davis posts about cartoonists' evolving self-portraits.

Psst Clark? Lois is not amused. I am no longer sure if my favorite Kate Beaton comics are historical or fictional character ironization.

Ping posts on what happens to your webcomic when you're dead? Probably for most people, nothing.  As in it'll linger on until hosting and registrar plans run out and then disappear or be claimed by the URL-lapsing spaminator.  For those making a living at their work, however, that copyright is going to pass onto your heirs and you probably ought to come up with a plan to pass that on.  Not necessarily to make more comics, but just to have a plan so someone is looking out for your work and your website when you no longer will.

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