Tom Spurgeon is the blogger at The Comics Reporter and he recently posted his Best Comics of 2009. It's an interesting mix and he's certainly become more webcomic savvy over this past decade — this list includes work from names such as Kate Beaton, Dash Shaw and Eleanor Davis. Worth reading…
AWARDS: The Hugos now include a regular Best Graphic Novel category — which is really pretty fantastic. This year's nominees include two webcomic entries: Girl Genius, Vol. 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm — Written by Kaja and Phil Foglio, art by Phil Foglio, colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment); and Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse — Written and illustrated by Howard Tayler. (h/t Robot6)
CONVENTIONS: Pete Abrams, creator of Sluggy Freelance, is going to be at Intervention. Jamie Noguchi, creator of Yellow Peril, former artist on Erfworld is going to be at SPX.
INTERVIEWS: I missed this in my mailbag last month, but Public Radio Kitchen interviewed Franklin Einspruch about his painted comics which he posts online at The Moon Fell On Me. Einspruch is creating a kind of comic tone poem with his work; I found myself liking it more than I would have expected. It's largely a very peaceful experience reading through his comics.
FROM THE MAILBAG: I got a nice email about a comic called Indestructible Will which is about a character who doesn't feel pain (apparently a real medical condition). Unfortunately the comic is only available in pdf format, so you have to download each chapter before you can read it. There's just no reason to do that. Most readers aren't going to go to the extra step of downloading your unknown work when they could just as easily read a jpg, png or gif in their browser.
I got an email about FR33, self-described as "a webcomic about a drug abusing self-proclaimed artist, seeking his place in a near-future world of free culture" which is another photo comic. Since I'm giving out practical website advice today, I'd redo the "about" page to tell readers a bit more about the comic, maybe even try to pitch the longer-term arc of it to try and sell the comic.
Time is running its online poll on the world's most influential people in government, science, technology and the arts and this year one of the candidates you can vote for are the "Penny Arcade guys." Currently Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik are 11th on the list. (h/t 1UP)
REVIEW: El Santo tackles the denizens of Tackleford in a review of John Allison's Bad Machinery.
CRAFT: Webcomic Builder has a few words of inspirational advice for improving your art.
FROM THE MAILBAG
Poseur Ink which published the Side B anthology has a Kickstarter drive going to pre-sell a new book, Octobriana from Steve Orlando and Chaz Truog. Orlando is the author of the innovative adaptation of Paradise Lost; and Chaz Truog is the artist of Grant Morrison's legendary Animal Man. Poseur Ink describes the book as "an action-filled fantasy piece that follows the heroine, Octobriana, on her quest to claim her title as the goddess of lust. Set in Soviet Russia, with chapters full of sex, psychics and Russian mythology, this new incarnation looks to be a titillating thrill."
Ed Contradictory is a webcomic with an archive back to 2007, with a lot of meta stuff going on, jokes about the creator's control over the comic, etc. The art is serviceable, but boring in a repetitive, and bland kind of way. The comic does seem to keep getting better though and to the extent you love jokey meta kind of webcomics, this might be one for you to check out. (In fairness Greg Burgas at CBR liked it a lot more than I did).
A pitch for Cheapjack Shakespeare, a webcomic with a decently polished pr pitch attached. Except that the website itself is still sporting "hosted free, courtesey ofGo Daddy.com" — guys, there's plenty of free webhosting not cluttered up with ads and stuff designed to make your site look like an escapee from Geocitites. (Let alone maybe you should spring a few bucks for hosting?). In any event, it looks like the webcomic "preview" on the site is really a promotional piece for a desired movie deal. The webcomic preview is available at a small size — too small to read actually — and with an interface that's a bit of a pain. Sorry not to be able to comment on the story itself but if I can't read the comic, not much to say.
Got an email about the Charlestown City Paper's coverage of a photo comic called Blood Rose. I'll admit up front, the number of photo comics I've liked in my life is pretty small. And this one started off confirming my bias – static scenes, horribly clunky dialogue; but I was impressed with the visuals after finishing the story. Charlie Thiel staged a lot of action really well and the actors were pretty decent. But the dialogue… oy, that's got to improve. (It wouldn't hurt to polish up the website either). Anyhow, the next storyline debuts today in the afternoon (EST I suppose).
Terrence and Isabel Marks have some special comics for April Fool's Day up at Namir Deiter and You Say it First, along with some thoughts on the first webcomic swap. Any other worthy April Fool's pranks to pass along? (Digital Strips has a list of a few here)
In hopefully not-fooling news, I'm very interested in the new Bento Comics site which offers "mix-n-match" anthologies through Lulu with a pretty impressive roster of creators on-board. Brigid Alverson has a short write-up of the project at Robot6.
KICKSTART MY ART: Another very worthwhile Kickstarter project, this one from Steve Bryant, the creator of Athena Voltaire. Robot6 reports that Bryant is seeking to raise money to focus again on the comic. And I'm not going to mention Kickstarter without plugging Patrick Farley's drive to revive Electric Sheep.
MILESTONES: Christopher Wright's Help Desk turned 14 years old this week. Jon Rosenberg's Goats turned 13 years old. Congrats to both!
DEAD TREE DELIVERY: The creators of Monster Commute write about the advantages and disadvantages of self-distribution.
AROUND THE BLOGS: From ComixTalk reader blogs, Mariana Paletta writes about her recently completed first webcomic, Alphie and Sophie Venustar and Super Comix King writes that the second issue of Action Teenz is up.
The day has officially gotten away from me. Two things to mention though:
Scott McCloud endorses the E-Sheep Kickstarter drive. Help Patrick Farley make more comics, folks!
INTERVIEWS
LEGAL: CBR has an interview with Nina Paley with some good discussion about copyright in the digital age. Paley had epic copyright battles in getting her fantastic animated film Sita Sings the Blues released.
REVIEWS: Charley Parker talks about Asaf Ahanuka's effort to serialize an english language webcomic version of his Hebrew language comic, The Realist.
Conventions: Gary had the first part of his PAX East round-up yesterday, more to come this afternoon.
AROUND THE BLOGS: An amazing series of ABC driven artwork from Neill Cameron.
NOT WEBCOMICS: James Kochalka has a supporting role in a new movie Mars, that looks pretty interesting. Shot entirely on greenscreen, it has a rotoscoped animated look not entirely unlike the videogame Borderlands.
So here's a good question worth a think. Salon just let Reuben Bolling know it's canceling it's contract for Tom The Dancing Bug (which apparently means This Modern World is the last comic at Salon?) Tom the Dancing Bug is a smart, funny comic and the question now is — what's the business plan for Bolling going forward? Seriously, if there's one cartoonist who I would volunteer time to help brainstorm and execute a new business model for, he'd be on the short list.
Penny Arcade Expo: Hope PAX East was awesome. I'll jealously read the reports trickling in today as attendees tell their tales of brushing against the PA crew and breaking into spontaneous nerdcore beatboxing in the hallways. In honor of the recent PAX East here's a link to Geekosystem's Top 10 Most Obscure PA characters.
Also, the Penny Arcade crew announced they would not be making a third installment in their videogames series but you can still read Macgasm's refresher review of the first two episodes of On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness here.
OTHER CONVENTIONS: In other con news, I'm still trying to make sure my schedule allows me to attend, but it looks like Rob Balder of Erfworld will definitely be there. Where? At Intervention of course. And don't forget the Comics Events calendar for dates for comic conventions and other events.
Milestones: Gordon McAlpin finished Book Four of his Multiplex webcomic. This comic has gotten better and better — McAlpin does the character-driven material as well as the movie-driven stuff.
REVIEWS: El Santo reviews Evan Dahm's Rice Boy – it's another example of why El Santo is one of the best reviewers in comics right now. (My review of Rice Boy is here.)
INTERVIEWS: Sequential Tart has an interview with Rene Engstrom, creator of the completed webcomic Anders Loves Maria.
Opinion: I'd rather have Tatsuya Ishida on the editorial pages than most working editorial cartoonists. Ishida is at least as opinionated as 3/4 of them and his art runs laps (MULTIPLE FREAKIN' LAPS) over all of them.
iWEBCOMICS: Johana Draper Carlson talks about Alex de Campi’s Valentine comic, particularly the effort de Campi's making to bring it to multiple platforms simultaneously.
AROUND THE BLOGS: Last week, Howard Tayler had a great post on ideas and their value in the world – worth reading still. And Tom Spurgeon lists the webcomics suggested by readers of his site, The Comics Reporter. Not a bad list…
THE MAILBAG: Jason Whitley wrote to alert us to the return of Sea Urchins, which apparently used to be a newspaper-only comic (there's a book collection of these available here). The comic is by Whitley and Scott Eckelaert, but so far there's not much in the way of comics up on the website.
NOT WEBCOMICS: I've still only read one Scott Pilgrim book, but the trailer for the movie looks like great fun.
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