Author: Xaviar Xerexes

Just got a bunch of books in from Microcosm Publishing that I will be taking a look at this week (thanks Jessie Duke!).  If you've got a book or other webcomic-related object you're interested in having reviewed send it to "Robert Tanner, P.O. Box 3362, Arlington VA 22203" — I can't promise every book will get a full-blown review from someone (most do though) but they all get a mention on the site.

If you're going to read one thing today I'd recommend this great post on Will Eisner by Christopher Irving over at GraphicNYC.

CRAFT: Erika Moen shows you how she made the cover art for her second print volume of DAR.

MILESTONES: It's Odori Park's first year anniversary on the web his upcoming Saturday.  Creator Chris Watkins is soliciting guest strips to help celebrate – send them to him by March 15th.

TOOLS: At Webcomic Planet, Bryon Wilkins reviews the Comic Life software — it's primarily marketed as a photo to but Wilkins talks about its comic-making usefulness.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE: It's Shark Week at Hockey Zombie!  It's also Hockey Zombie's fifth year anniversary.

JUSTIFY GENE's HYPE: Creator Gene Luen Yang reminds us that Derek Kirk Kim is serializing T.U.N.E. at lowbright.com RIGHT NOW (It's also planned to be published in dead tree format by First Second).

NOT WEBCOMICS: Ted Rall time – first, Scott Kurtz throws him into a recent comic — unless you've followed the online Kurtz-Rall verbal fragfests I'm not sure that's a 4th panel-worthy cameo there.  Second, I saw this story on TechDirt where they reported that Rall recently argued "that Italy got it right in finding three Google execs criminally liable for a video some kids posted to Google Video."  Rall is now officially in the running with Wiley for the all-time webcomic-luddite title. 

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OSCARS!  I bailed on watching them this year — maybe the highlights will be on the youtubebox?  Anyhow though, the Comics Reporter reported that ACADEMY AWARD WINNER Jeff Bridges is also a cartoonist.  Whodathunkit?  A few tiny site notes — (1) you can add your first/last name, homepage and webcomic URLs and a picture to your ComixTALK user account (restoring us to 2006 functionality! yay…); (2) if you add your name it'll show up on your blog and forum posts instead of your account name; (3) oh yeah, a small forum is back up (with a link to the ancient pre-2005ish forums) and maybe we'll do something with that this year.

INTERVIEW: Brigid Alverson snags an interview with the anonymous writer of Zahra's Paradise, which is about a mother searching for her missing son in the aftermath of the protests following the Iranian presidential election of 2009.  Brigid also has a great roundup of all ages comics reviews and interviews.

THEORY: Scott McCloud writes about this article by Tokyo-based Craig Mod on different contents’ ability (or lack thereof) to migrate easily from device to device.  I get McCloud main take on Mod's article which is sort of a warning that if we're not careful webcomics will get stuck with a bad "metaphor" for "reading/viewing/processing" them but I don't really buy it.  I think the web is still incredibly fluid and open to innovation and I don't really see where the network effect is that would lock us into something.

BUSINESS: The Casual Webcartoonists writes about how to price your artwork.

CRAFT: Project Waldo has a post on making word balloons.

VERSUS: Webcomic Planet is hosting a "webcomics war" where comic creators "try to dominate the playing field by earning points by advertising their own sites."

JUSTIFY KONRAD's HYPE: Someone's list of webcomic recommendations — seems like a good mix of stuff!

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Another week gone by already?! 

BUSINESS: Boing Boing links to a study showing that generally an ebook release is correlated with increased print sales.  Hard to do this kind of study with free-all-the-time webcomics but I do think it's high time academics did more work with data on these questions.

DEAD TREES: Robot6 notes that the new graphic novel collection of the webcomic Haunted by Josh Smeaton is now available.

REVIEW: El Santo lowers the one-star boom on Las Lindas.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE: Reality Amuck today tackles Green Email and Spam with funny results.

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INTERVIEW:  A great interview with Joey Comeau and Emily Horne of the long-running webcomic A Softer World. They have a new book out collecting the webcomic (it's their second book).

WASHINGTON DC STUFF: There was a couple of appearances by Dean Haspiel and the ACT-I-VATEs last weekend. Area blogger Comics Girl writes up one of the appearances and Mike Rhode interviewed Jim Dougan (who wrote the excellent graphic novel Crazy Papers — art'd by Danielle Corsetto).

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INTERVIEW: Graphic NYC interviews Scott McCloud.

iWEBCOMICS:  Bleeding Cool blog reports that a new beta version of Longbox, the comics reader-and-collector-and-social-networking software, will be available to the public this weekend.  Prior versions of Longbox were in private beta..

CONTEST: The Escapist website webcomic contest has a couple of additional judges you might recognize: Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics) and Brian Clevinger (8 Bit Theatre). The deadline for entries closed February 28th and winners will be chosen the week of March 8th.

JUSTIFY THE HYPE: The Comics Are Evil blog spotlights an old skool webcomic, The Parking Lot is Full, by Pat Spacek and Jack McLaren.

MILESTONES: Chris Crosby's Superosity hits its eleven year anniversary.  That's super! (h/t FLEEN)

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It looks like a busy month for conventions and stuff in webcomicsland. The calendar is a google calendar so it's easily importable into calendar programs and embeddable in other websites.  I'm also happy to have others become co-maintainers of the Comix Events Calendar – tweet or gmail me at xerexes.  Along those lines I just added info on MoCCA — the Daily Cross Hatch has the program for this year (and it looks very interesting!).

INTERVIEW: SFGate talks to Jason Shiga about his new multi-ending graphic novel, Meanwhile. (h/t Brigid Alverson)  Also a review of Meanwhile at Forbidden Planet. (h/t Journalista!)

REVIEW: El Santo reviews Ben Costa's Xeric Award winning Shi Long Pang, the Wandering Shaolin Monk.

And Delos rounded up the news of last week!

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Storming the Tower has a post up about how cartoonists draw themselves compared to what they actually look like – it's fun and they collected a lot of examples.

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After the hub-bub of Hot Topic selling a t-shirt ripping off artwork from Vera Brosgol this week, I am really mad to read of yet another another incident today over at The Consumerist.  Hot Topic is selling buttons ripping off Meghan Murphy's artwork from Kawaii Not.

Here's a link to the sad, LONG list of Hot Topic problems at the You Thought We Wouldn't Notice blog.

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