Author: Xaviar Xerexes

C'mon weekend!  Okay this first story struck me as a great project.  Jennifer Ouellette writes about a collective effort to create a webcomic telling the amazing story of 20-something Dutch primary school teacher, Hanny van Arkel, who discovered a strange blue/green smudge on an image of what was otherwise a standard spiral galaxy now referred to as "Hanny's Voorwerp."  The full comic will be released at Dragon-Con in Atlanta, Georgia, this fall.

MILESTONES: Wow, it's the FIFTH anniversary of Gordon McAlpin's Multiplex.  Congrats!  If you're not reading this smart comic about the crew working at a local multiplex definitely check it out.  A wonderful combination of character-driven and movie culture comedy.

iWEBCOMICS: Lauren Davis notes the release of a new version of the controversial webcomic app from Dale Zak. Noted without comment from me today as this is a topic that requires more time than I have this morning.

THE MORE YOU KNOW: Yesterday we noted Paul Bryant Johnson gave a class at a summer webcomics camp.  Today he posted online his presentation on "Finding the Balance Between Words, Pictures and Time in Making Comics."

WE WILL… WE WILL… HYPE YOU!

• The Geeks With Curves blog praises Wapsi Square by Paul Taylor as a comic with strong female characters and fluid and professional art.
• (We got) The Beat blog plugs The Moon Prince by Kevin Mutch as its webcomic weekend reading.
• Lauren Davis points to the now halted journal webcomic Ellerbisms by Marc Ellerby noting that "[Ellerby's] ability to recognize the narrative in his own life, really resonates with me."

FROM THE MAILBAG:

• Peter Conrad writes "I took down attemptednotknown.com last year because of some hackers who used the site for nefarious purposes. I've relaunched it with way more content, and I'm uploading stuff every week now!"  Peter is another long-time webcomic creator who I'll always remember for creating Zeenster – an app to read comics on the Palm OS.
• Tommie Kelly writes "I did the webcomics Road Crew and From Rags To Rockstars.  I have a new webcomic… There are about 70 strips online at the time of emailing and it updates five times a week. Mon to Fri…  It's called Something Wonderful and it deals with religion, beliefs, new age, spirituality and Mac owners among other things."
• Stephanie O'Donnell writes "I'm Stephanie O'Donnell, artist for the webcomic Perfect Agent.  It is written by Greg Carter (creator of Abandon and Love Is In The Blood). It started last year and we're now 2 full stories in."

CONVENTION 'VENTION WHAT'S YOUR INTENTION?

• Hey it's San Diego Comicon time again — FLEEN is all over getting you your guide to webcomic booths so be sure to check in there before you go!
• Also in new webcomic convention on the block news, Intervention added award winning Sci-Fi author (and soon to be Webcomic author) Ben Bova to its inaugural lineup. Bova, Rob Balder, and Bill Holbrook will be debuting their new online webcomic collaboration at Intervention called Duel in the Somme.

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Well let's just dive right in, shall we?

Milestones: I just saw a note on Mark Mekkes blog that he'd moved his webcomic Zortic off of Keenspot this month and is now part of a science fiction anthology webcomic site called Quark Comics.  The comics on Quark's roster include: Outsider, Zap!, Zortic, Saucer Seekers, Jump Leads, and Station V3.  Mark has been in the webcomics game for 10 years (maybe more) and also had a gig creating and maintaining the (now on hiatus) WCCA awards.

INTERVIEW: Mike Rhodes interviewed Evan Keeling, cartoonist and founding member of the DC-area cartoon group DC Conspiracy.

CRAFT: Bryan Lee O'Malley gives you some pointers on word balloon placement on the page.

GOOD DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP: FLEEN reported yesterday that the Web-Comics Auction for the Gulf Coast, had raised a total of $1654.51 so far. There are 12 days left with several heavy hitters still to bid on.

THE MORE YOU KNOW: Webcomic creator Bryant Paul Johnson helped out by teaching a session at a webcomic summer camp in Massachusetts. They also had a session with cartoonist Hilary Price, of Rhymes with Orange.  Seriously!  A webcomic camp for middle school students — not bad!

ZUDAMANIACONTESTS:  The Washington Post's "Next Great Cartoonist" contest is down to five contestants: Hoxwinder Hall by Daniel Boris, Real Time by Bob Erskine, Forever Endeavor by Thomas Mullany, Stupid Inventor by Zachary Snyder, and Imogen Quest by Olivia Walch.

HYPEY McHYPESALOT:  Tim Stimmons plugs Jason Brubaker's reMind over at Geekweek:

reMIND differs a bit from standard webcomics– in fact, Jason bills it as "The Making of a Graphic Novel"– The site is actually more of a blog about the work-in-progress of independently creating a Coffee-Table OGN mixed with the sensibilities of a high-end design book. Having recently been awarded the prestigious Xeric award, he's well on his way to realizing his vision.

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In June 2008, a new form of live entertainment was born. Titled "Art Fight", it placed artists head to head in a competition that was equal parts Pictionary and Pro Wrestling.  Now, two years later, the phenomenon known as Super Art Fight returns to their home base of Baltimore, Maryland for a FREE headlining event: SUPER ART FIGHT 7, Live at the Metro Gallery on July 17th, during Artscape 2010!

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This is fun – Haplog is a website that pulls together a bunch of different publicly available data about a website and then estimates its "worth".  Estimates in webcomicland range — the top may be xkcd which gets a $1.7 million score followed by Penny Arcade at $669,725 and Questionable Content comes in at around $480,000.

MILESTONES: This month marks the 10th anniversary of the English-language run of the fantasy webcomic Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan.  Congrats to creator Reinder Dijkhuis!  

iWebcomics: Brigid does a round up of all the recent "digital" news.  While there is something to chew on in thinking over the disclosure of DC's plans for compensation for digital editions of its works, in general I'm fairly underwhelmed by the recent announcements.  The true business-shifting pitch for DC or Marvel is something like rhapsody for comics.  I'm also glad to read that Ron Peraza of DC mention that he will either bring Zuda creators into DC proper or work to let them out of their contracts with their rights back.  The whole interview with Peraza at Robot6 is worth reading for more insight into the shutdown of Zuda.

As far as DC's compensation scheme goes, Bleeding Cool reports that DC offered "for every work published by DC in a digital format, writers and pencilers will each receive additional compensation equal to 5% of DC’s net receipts derived from the sale of that work. Inkers will receive 3% of DC’s net receipts. Those of you who have a creator-owned deal in place with us will receive a creator royalty of 3% of DC’s net receipts."

INTERVIEW: Tom Spurgeon presents an edited transcript of his panel with Richard Thompson, Cul De Sac, at Heroes Con. Thompson is the creator of one of the best new comics in the newpaper (or anywhere really).

FROM THE MAILBAG: Sam Costello is back with another comic in his Split Lip horror series – Make Westing adapts Jack London's classic tale of high-seas murder to comics.  Written by Costello and drawn by Anthony Peruzzo, it follows a ship stuck for months trying to catch the wind to round Cape Horn and the lengths to which its captain will go to catch a westward gust. 

AROUND THE BLOGS

• C'mon it's Shaenon Garrity time! A new column at TCJ about Norb a comic strip by Daniel Pinkwater and Tony Auth from the 80's, and Garrity's correspondence with Pinkwater (and Pinkwater replies with a comment!).
• Ping Teo talks about "the thin veneer between art and science in good storytelling."

NOT WEBCOMICS: Apparently the video below almost got Best Buy employee and webcomic creator Brian Maupin fired.  It's $@^ing hilarious (but some of the language NSFW). Be sure to check out his webcomic Also Coin Operated.

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MILESTONES:  Evan Dahm finishes his second major long-form webcomic Order of Tales and already has announced a sequel, Vattu, to begin on July 26th.  Congratulations to Dahm on finishing another story from his fantastically imagined world of Overside.  Click here for ComixTalk's review of Order of Tales and the earlier  comic Rice Boy.  UPDATE: Lauren Davis has a good review of Order of Tales at io9.

DEAD TREES ON THE HORIZON: Writer/creator Darryl Hughes and artist Monique MacNaughton, the creative team behind the 50's style alien invasion adventure webcomic G.A.A.K: Groovy Ass Alien Kreatures, have negotiated a book deal with Anthony Coe, publisher of the independent small press book publisher First Run Publishing, to collect and publish GAAK as a graphic novel.  First Run Publishing will be releasing the GAAK graphic novel into bookstores in September.

BUSINESS:  I got an email from Travis Legge who is trying to raise funds to create a video series on the web using public domain superheroes (the first one planned is The new adventures of Miss Masque: Scourge of the Underworld). 

The site he's using to raise funds looks like a Kickstarter competitor — it's called IndieGoGo. I hadn't heard of it before.  From it's FAQ page:  "IndieGoGo charges a 9% marketplace fee on funds raised.  Projects are also responsible for 3rd-party payment processing and international wire fees.  If you reach your goal, IndieGoGo pays you a 5% cash bonus on every dollar raised.  Your net cost is just 4%."  In contrast, Kickstarter states that "If a project is successfully funded, Kickstarter will apply a 5% fee to the funds raised. If funding isn't successful, there are no charges."  The other major difference is that Kickstarter has an all-or-nothing fundraising model whereas IndieGoGo looks like you collect the money as you go whether you reach your goal or not (although you pay more to IndieGoGo upfront, 9%, until you hit your goal).  Has anyone used both and can offer perspectives on the differences?

FROM THE MAILBAG: An email from Francsco Disa, about a new webcomic, called "I" which features images found by Disa from around the web by googling simple tags. Disa also mentions that he is only using images under a public domain or creative commons license.

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You know it's always so cool to find an enjoyable comic you haven't heard of before.  The Battle of Dovecote Crest is one of those and its mix of cute romance, historical reenactment and history is a great idea and well done. The comic is written by Hailey Bachrach and drawn by Bridget Underwood.  (h/t El Santo)

So what other webcomics do I need to discover this summer?

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That's what she said?  Did I miss the memo?

THIS DAY IN COMIXTALK:  A probably not all that popular feature I've done from time to time (usually on Fridays) is "This Day in ComixTalk".  How about instead I just spotlight some great articles from our archives.  Today, take a look Calamity Jon Morris' comic contributions: the two part Plea For Hand-Lettering series (one and two) and 16 Panels That I Don't Think Work All That Well.

WANT: I would pay to see a Steampunk version of Ghostbusters:

ZUDAMANIA:  Yes DC is shutting down Zuda.  How much was the "Zuda" brand worth though, do you think?  DC also has an amazing record with creating new imprints, doesn't it?

HYPEY McHYPESON: Yes Clay, Star Trek jokes are a good way to get a traffic bump. But it was funny so all is forgiven.

NOT WEBCOMICS: Graham Annable, creator of Grickle has a video-game out from Telltale Games called Puzzle Agent.  It definitely looks like Annable has transplanted his visual sense to the game.

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Comics is not film but film does seem to borrow a lot from comics these days.  Here's a clever reuse of Wally Wood's famous 22 panels that always work:

After watching this, check out Jon Morris' spin — 16 Panels That I Don't Think Work All That Well from the ComixTalk archives.

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Is it in fact appropriate to wish my neighbors to the North a "Happy Canada Day"?  If so, well then, cheers and happy no-longer-colonies day!  

Hypey Mc Hype: Barry Smith and coffee always equals a good InkTank strip 🙂

Oooh Pretty… Flight 7!  Kazu Kibuishi posts previews from the upcoming installment of the comics anthology series.

Even Reuben Bolling Gets The Blues: The creator of Tom the Dancing Bug gets some high profile links to his comics but unfortunately not to the "approved" postings of them.  This sucks but it's inevitable that things like this will happen.  Best to be prepared by putting in a clear URL to your work on the comic image itself.  Any other tips?

Last One To Leave MySpace, Turn Off the Disco Lights: I saw on Comics Reporter that Dark Horse is moving its webcomics portal/monthly anthology off of MySpace and back to its own website.

Review: Lauren Davis tackles the post 9/11 thrilller webcomic Nathan Sorry.

INTERVIEW: Mike Rhodes interviews Donna Lewis for the local alt weekly paper.  Lewis's webcomic is Reply All which to be honest is a mess in terms of art (it looks like MS Paint) but does have some good moments in the writing.  Not really funny so much as an honest and knowing tone, it's a pretty good effort at a comic built around an adult woman's point of view.

NOT WEBCOMICS: I don't know if these are "authorized" but someone has made funny little animations out of a few Kate Beaton comics.  This take on her "Two Watsons" comics cracked me up silly this morning.

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Sean Collins has an "aha" moment reading a recent interview with Meredith Gran, creator of Octopus Pie.  Yeah, webcomics has its own center of gravity and there's a whole generation of creators and readers who've grown up in that gravity well.

CONVENTION: Brigid Alverson files a report on the recent annual American Library Association meeting — lots of graphic novels in the mix.

INTERVIEW: The Avoid the Future blog (great name for a blog!) interviews Box Brown on the release of his third Everything Dies book. (h/t Journalista!)

REVIEWS: El Santo covers Wendy Pini's Masque of the Red Death and Lauren Davis reviews The Meek.

HYPE: Justin Madson just released the fifth book in his self-published Breathers series – it's available at his website. Below is a short trailer for the series (dramatizing a scene from the first book) which has shots of the comic interspersed in the live action.

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