Author: Xaviar Xerexes

Very light posting this week!  The X-Family is on vacation.  

But I do not have a cover for September!  Do you want to have your 1000 x 400 image as the cover art for ComixTalk next month?  I can’t won’t pay but you will get your name and a link to your own website under the cover for the month (and the cover image remains your (c) — all I need is a nonexclusive license to display at ComixTalk).  This is probably the last year for cover art for ComixTalk too… I’ve been thinking it may be time to phase it out.

For October there’ll be cover art from Charles Schneeflock Snow of Sordid City. I’m still working on setting up November and December as well.  If you’re interested, post a comment here or shoot me an email at xerexes AT gmail DOT com.

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First off – Websnark has a second post up today – this one on the current Achewood saga. Nice to have Eric back (and writing about webcomics)!

INTERVIEWS
A great interview with Kate Beaton, creator of Hark A Vagrant.  Apparently we have Emily Horne of A Softer World to thank for encouraging Kate to put her comics online.

DEAD TREES
Shaenon Garrity writes about her experiences self-publishing the first print collection of her webcomic Skin Horse. Also worth noting is Garrity’s new comics collective — the Couscous Collective.

BUSINESS
Brigid Alverson has the scoop on Tokyopop’s ambitious online undertaking.

Cory Doctorow writes on why free e-books should be part of a writers strategy – the advice seems worth considering for comics creators too.

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After a bit of a break, Eric Burns has a new post on videogames at websnark.com.  If you're new to Websnark, go check it out and if gaming's not your thing skim through some of the archived entries on webcomics.  Burns has a way with the phrasing that is infectious (and not in the swine flu way).

Also if you've got more time on your hands, hit his 2004 NaNoWriMo novel — you can find it starting November 1st in the archives.

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HEADLINES!
This week’s big story is probably going to be the announcement of the "Comic Strip Superstar" contest from Andrews McMeel Publishing and Universal Press Syndicate. Entrants have to submit their work by September 12th.  Brad Guigar at Webcomics.com writes a lengthy breakdown of the press release well worth reading.  Like all of these never-ending corporate comic contests, one really has to read the fine print carefully and fully consider the trade-offs before entering.  And my own two cents — there is no magic wand that will instantly grant you a "comics career" let alone make you a "superstar".  Make sure you evaluate clearly whatever you’re actually going to get and rationally decide that it is well worth what you’re giving up.

CRAFT
Scott Kurtz blogs that the Webcomics.com crew is starting a brand new live stream called Webcomics.com University. Kurtz’s first session will be this Friday and cover "line quality and how I try to achieve a clean look in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet."

TECHNOLOGY
Longbox – the planned comics reader for the web, iphones, etc has a video of the forthcoming beta version. (h/t Journalista!)

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade did a variant cover for the comic adaptation of Steven King’s and Peter Straub’s The Talisman.

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The comments to this blog post from John Allison has a nice discussion of fonts, where to find and talk about ’em and even some ways to make your own.

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CBR reports that Dark Horse’s webcomics series “MySpace Dark Horse Presents” returned to MySpace.

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Isn’t "I Hate Mondays" the name of every Garfield collection?  Journalista! linked to a review of the Garfield Minus Garfield book that Jim Davis put out.  Davis coopted the derivative work created by Dan Walsh (he did include Walsh in the book effort – he penned the introduction). I thought the idea of GMG was clever but I don’t think I could read a whol book’s worth of them myself.

Julia Keller combines an apologia for covering graphic novels in her beat as literary critic for the Chicago Tribune with praise for the recent comic adaptation of Farenheit 451. (h/t to Hero Complex)

New news on Sony’s E-reader — Sony plans on supporting an open platform for content on the machine (which is a big contrast from Amazon’s approach with the Kindle). (h/t Journalista!)

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Another interview with Dean Haspiel promoting the upcoming print collection, The Act-i-Vate Primer.  Dean has a Billy Dogma story in the anthology of work from Act-i-Vate creators.  It also has comics from Joe Infurnari, Roger Langridge, Nick Bertozzi, Molly Crabapple, and Mike Cavallaro among others.  I’m looking forward to reading it.

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The webcomic Teaching Baby Paranoia —by cartoonist Bryant Paul Johnson—celebrated the publication of its 500th strip on Friday August 14th, 2009.

The long-running strip, which debuted in January of 2000, is a mélange of historical fiction and pseudo-academic nonsense, drawn in a classically cartoony style, and annotated with footnotes of dubious accuracy.

The 500th strip (link below), titled "The Henderson Gospel" is both an artistic and structural departure from the norm.

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INTERVIEWS
Dean Haspiel talks to CBR about the new ACT-I-VATE Primer, a book featuring comics from creators on the roster of the ACT-I-VATE webcomics portal.

Tim O'Shea has an interview with Carol Lay who has a new book out called The Big Skinny which is a combination diet book and memoir in comics.

UPDATE: CBR has a really good interview with Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics (and the dude who runs Project Wonderful advertising).

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
Richard Thompson of Cul de sac points to a recent Tom the Dancing Bug comic on the news of that comic's climbing to the top of the Rankopedia rankings for comics strips.

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