Author: Xaviar Xerexes

This Friday-Saturday is Intervention in Bethesda, Maryland, just north of Washington DC.  Lots of fun folks will be there, maybe you too?  Believe it or not I am on a panel on Saturday late afternoon titled "The Outside Perspective: Webcomic review/news sites" — does that sound exciting?  Perhaps we should rename it "WEBCOMIC MONSTER TRUCK DEMOLITION DERBY: SATURDAY! SATURDAY! SATURDAY*" but I don't think I can produce any actual monster trucks on one week's notice.  Nevertheless it will be at the very least me, talking about writing about webcomics and maybe (knock on the nearest wood-simulated product) a few special guests.  

The other panels going on at the same time include (1) a Q & A with the guy who does Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire who I have not met and so will not again; (2) a panel on Net Neutrality which perhaps is a panel I should have been on myself but now am wondering who is on it!?!?; (3) the Viral Video room where I am assured no one will catch anything (much); (4) Comic Press ADVANCED! workshop which actually will probably be 50% more useful than anything I say and (5) Club 242 Autopilot which is probably too hip for the likes of me.  Oooh plus right afterwards at 6 PM in a different room is the Webcomics.Com Lightning Round with at least Brad Guigar (and maybe another Half-Pixelite?).  Good thing I'm not going on right after that – you can't top genius like that…

By coming to my panel you're also bound to miss the chance to see anything at SPX at that time which includes a spotlight on legendary comic dude Jamie Hernandez; and Johanna Draper Carlson's panel on comics for younger readers with the likes of Raina Telgemeier and Drew Weing.

Wow I wonder what will happen at this panel from 5 PM to 6 PM to entice you to come despite the many other choices you (yes you!) could make this coming Saturday.  Well… me too!  Is there anything you think would be particularly interesting for me to talk about?  Or do?  I'm not above gimmicks here folks 🙂

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Another interesting launch this past week!  Michael Jasper and artist Niki Smith relaunched their webcomic In Maps & Legends on September 1st.  They won DC's November 2009 Zuda contest, but their run there was cut short by the abrupt shutdown of Zuda by DC. 

So the creators have cooked up a multi-outlet publication plan with the first issue for sale at 99 cents at a variety of online distributors:

• Comixology (iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, Web Reader)
• Graphic.ly (iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, Web Reader)
• Robot Comics (Droid Phone – coming 9/6/10!)
• Amazon’s US Kindle Store (Kindle format)
• Amazon’s UK Kindle Store (Kindle format)
• DriveThruComics (PDF download)
• Wowio (PDF download)
• Scribd (PDF download)

The comic is about a young woman caught up in a plot between our world and another:

Kaitlin Grayson considers herself just an artist until she gets recruited by a strange man named Bartamus, who shows up at her place in the middle of the night and demands she use her skills to save his dying world. Soon Kait gets caught between two worlds, and if Bartamus’ world falls, Earth is next — along with untold other worlds.

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A big thanks again to all of the great guest bloggers this past month.  The site would have been pretty dead without their lively posts and comments. I'm extending the guest blogging one more week because I need a week now to dig out from the avalanche of work that piled up during my travels in August.  This coming week we'll have posts from two comic creators: Brandon Carr and Ben Gamboa.  Both have worked with webcomics for sometime now and I think you'll enjoy their contributions.

While I'm here let me point out a few stories I thought you might find interesting as well as take care of some of the ComixTalk mailbag.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF WEBCOMICS

Dave McElfatrick, one of the four creators of Cyanide & Happiness and the only one not based in the United States (he's from Ireland) — recently got a visa to the U.S after initially getting rejected:

McElfatrick turned his Internet celebrity to his advantage: He asked his fans to sign a petition to show the government that “his work and the comic he’s a part of have a huge global audience.” More than 146,000 signatures later, the US Immigration Office has reversed its initial judgment: Today, McElfatrick announced that he’s been approved for the visa.

Also, I just saw this article in the Times of India on webcomics there.  A few links in it to the webcomics mentioned — a range of quality to be sure but great to see a story on a thriving scene there. 

MILESTONES

I heard from the man himself, but haven't had a chance to post until now: Box Brown wrapped up Bellen! and launched a new comic project with three full stories in the archives for Everything Dies.  Brown got some deserved hype from USA Today here.

BUSINESS

I've never heard of publisher DarkBrain, LLC before but they recently announced that all of their webcomic are now available for free.  Their comics includes original music, and voice-over narration, hmm…. not sure what to make of that.

From the mailbag

• Nina Paley writes that she has a new webcomic — Mimi and Eunice.  Paley is the uber-talented artist and creator behind the animated Sita Sings The Blues and her earlier comics: Nina's Adventures, Fluff, and The Hots.
• Nikole Jones writes about her webcomic Full Armour — a humorous action adventure all ages comic which has two stories finished and is in the midst of its third one.  It's the saga of thirteen kids that make up a team that takes on special missions.  Jones describes the comic as "one part character study, one part globe trotting treasure hunt, and one part explosive action with blue daemons and angels with no mouths."
• Jerome Genevray writes that he's made a trailer for Le Greenboy — a movie project he's working on about a superhero in Paris which will feature two actresses you may have heard of: Alysson Paradis (the sister of the wife of johnny Depp -) and Diane Dassigny plus Aurélien Jégou stars as Greenboy.  It's got to be a comedy — it's about a guy who dresses up in a green costume and picks up litter, inspiring others to do the same.  I think there's an unintentional cross-border laugh though — apparently supporters of Le Greenboy put their index finger and thumb on their forehead in the shape on an "L" — that's slang for "loser" where I grew up.

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Daniel and Amanda Potter were guest bloggers at ComixTalk this past August.  Daniel's webcomic Walking The Lethe is coming as a print graphic novel.  It's written by Dan and the first two chapters are painted by Sam Ireland and the second half of the book is illustrated by Aditia Wardhana.  Walking the Lethe Volume #1 encompasses the first four chapters of main character Richard Harrison's journey to win back his wife from her untimely death:

He will scour the afterlife until he finds her and will break down the heavenly gates if that’s what it takes. This first volume takes him from his home in Boston Mass, through the shadowscape and into America’s mountains of faith, the ghosts of the Twin Towers.   All the while, Angels and Demons battle over the fate of his journey.

Walking the Lethe Volume 1 is available for pre-order for 15 euros (not sure what the exchange rate to US dollars is but I'd guess this is about $20?) — the price goes up on September 19th.

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Our evening began in Peter Scharro's our comfortable study in his the beachhouse where the glowsticks were just right, the WiFi was in the background and the Red Bull was delicious…  Anyhow blogging from the beach this weekend, A big thanks to last week's guest bloggers: Harknell, Onezumi, Sam Costello and Steve Troop. 

This week (if memory serves, I lost my notes!) we have Brandon Carr, Scott Story and Derik Badman.  I'm going to let them introduce themselves but all have been making comics online and off for quite awhile now and I think you'll enjoy their contributions to the site. (Brandon will be blogging next week actually)

I've been on an undead horror kick lately.  Read World War Z, in the middle of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and just knocked off a bunch of The Walking Dead (not totally caught up yet though).  Heck I even managed to watch Zombieworld earlier this summer.  Any other recommendations for me — comics in particular?

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Sorry to drop in on a guest bloggin' week, but thought I'd point out that the 2010 Ignatz nominees are out — here's the nominees in the online comics category:

• Callahan Online by John Callahan
• I Think You’re Sauceome by Sarah Becan
• The Lesttrygonians by Stephen Gilpin
• Reliable Comics by David King
• Troop 142 by Mike Dawson

Also two other deadlines for submitting work for consideration are coming up this fall:

• The 2010 Isotope Awards for Excellence in Mini-Comics is accepting nominations through October 1st.
• The editors of the Best American Comics anthology are accepting submissions for material published within the eligibility dates (September 1, 2009, through August 31, 2010, for the next edition) until September 7th.

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Rachel Dukes of publisher, Poseur Ink, writes:

Rachel Dukes from Poseur Ink here… We've run into a family emergency and need to liquidate our stock of books in order to make room for a family member to move in with us. (And to pay off debts in case further emergencies arise.) If you wouldn't mind, we would be forever grateful if you could make a small blog post and let your readers know that the books are currently 50% off ($5 and $11, respectfully). There's still about 300 copies of each book left, so we have a ways to go; but we need to get these out of our apartment asap.

There are more details at her blog here.

ComixTalk reviewed Side B here – it's a nice book with creators including Jeffrey Brown, Jim Mahfood, Box Brown, Lucy Knisley, Todd Webb, Joe Decie, and Mitch Clem.

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Let me repeat my thanks to all of the guest bloggers for posting so many great posts in my absence.  Thanks to last week's bloggers: Alexander Danner, Brian Moore, John Baird and Max Vaehling.  My biggest regret is that I didn't give them all their own week (if you weren't able to check out the last week flip through the archives for a ton of advice on writing, review and links to great comics).  And one more thanks to the week one bloggers: Ben McCormick, and Amanda & Daniel Potter.

For this week we've got a great group of comic creators and instigators.  They'll all be introducing themselves but here's a brief summary:

Steve Troop is the creator of the comedy sci-fi comic Melonpool and the comic CryptoZooey.  He's been making comics for over 10 years now.  He's also made some excellent puppets and they have appeared in several places including a They Might Be Giants video the Kobe and Lebron MVPuppets commercials.

Sam Costello is the prolific writer and creator behind Split Lip the horror webcomic series.

Harknell and Onezumi are a force to be reckoned with!  Onezumi is a webcomic creator and Harknell is a website coding ninja.  Both are very cool folks and longtime supporters of this site as well as their own webcomic community sites.  We're lucky to have a bit of their time as they are gearing up for the first edition of the convention they've created: Intervention which is coming very soon in September.

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