Tales from Outer Suburbia is the latest book from uber-talented artist Shaun Tan, following his wordless graphic novel, The Arrival. Tan is not really an experimental cartoonist – these are highly satisfying books that don’t really feel like they’re pushing formalist boundaries and yet his two books each refuse to stay within the expectations of the "graphic novel" format. I’m not sure Scott McCloud would concede that either one is actually a comic!
Another movie and pop culture parody comic? Yep – and for a new comic Deleted Scenes is pretty good. Not 100% out of the park funny but a pretty high rate of funny-ha-ha and a bit of funny-weird too.
UPDATE AT BOTTOM
An assortment of posts and thoughts on the ever-evolvin' world of comics (with a heavy emphasis on the webby part of it all):
Valerie D'Orazio posts some thoughts about how Marvel and DC might pursue a assimilate and conquer webcomics strategy (I believe she posits it as a 5 year plan). Joey Manley of various webcomic sites and business plans (disclosure – we use his advertising service on this site) posts some thoughts in response here. Many, many webcomic creators also replied in D'Orazio's original post. It's a good discussion. Here's the thing in a nutshell — if you're creating compelling content you used to have to go through a gatekeeper to get wide distribution. That's no longer the case with the web. A big part of a "paper" publisher's business plan (same as with a record company or a movie studio) is leveraging it's access to the platform. But what I think is possible but it would probably me a much more streamlined and efficient entity than any current publisher is a business plan that provides creative and editorial guidance to a series of projects. There is still room in this world for a third party to connect ideas with needed writers and artists to produce great comics — but the key difference is that the third party is no longer a publisher in the strictest sense of the word. They are probably going to be a matchmaker/editor with business savvy that will be flexible in its contractual arrangements with creators.
Somewhat related is IDW Publishing's annoucement that it's going to sell downloads of its comics (in pdf format) for $1.99 each. The post here seems to suggest the consumer choice will be digital for 1.99 versus more for the floppy (paper). Unfortunately for IDW it's not that simple — the people buying paper don't necessarily want to move to the web (and those that do may already be obtaining illegal copies of the books, a practical issue for the publisher to grapple with) and those that read webcomics (largely for free) may not value these comics in the same way. And since ultimately the web audience is much larger than the buying monthly comic books audience I don't see this working well for IDW…
UPDATED
Wow – well Valerie and her buddy Paul Debenedetto have some thin skins. Read if you're in the mood for unnecessary drama. Also for some ideas on what Marvel and DC might do in the post-Internet-eats-every-past-media-business-model world we're headed for, read Joey's new post. I think his idea for their potential future business model is closer to the mark than he gives himself credit for.
Got a note from James Duncan, the artist on Man Man this morning:
Howdy XX,
Wasn’t sure if this was news worthy or not for the site, but Man-Man comes to an end today… after 7 years, 2 versions, and lots of work, we’ve finally taken a rest. Matt’s still blogging, and working on his comics in print, and I’m going to doodle with my comic strip at www.kaesye.com, but for now we rest. Anyways, I hope all is well, and thanks for supporting us when no one else did!
James
James and Matt are good peoples and Man Man was a good comic; a silly, but often quite witty spin on the superhero genre. James’ art was always solid and Matt is an inventive writer. Be sure to check out their new projects — I think their best stuff is still ahead of them.
Two great panels – first with Kris Straub, Dave Kellett, Rob Balder, Phil Foglio,
Katsucon 15: Print, Web, or Both: What Should a Comic Artist Do? from kaiki on Vimeo.
Second with Michael "Mookie" Terracciano, Marty Day, Kris Straub, Dave Kellett, Brian Prindiville and Ross Nover and Brad Guigar.
Katuscon 15: How To Make Webcomics: From Sketch to Posting and All Points in Between. from kaiki on Vimeo.
I am a fan of John Allison — I’ve been reading Bobbins-Scary Go Round since literally within days of Day 1 online. So I was curious to read the discussion on his blog about his thinking aloud about his current webcomic and possible permutations of it. And I suppose the question of broader interest is — what kind of things take a quality webcomic (which SGR clearly is by leaps and bounds) to that higher xkcd/questionable content/pvp levels of success?
(John’s initial post titled State of the Onion is here, and a follow up post from today is here.)
The NY Times is reporting that Facebook is backing off of its recent new TOS and returning to its former one for the time being. Still for those of you posting original material there — good idea to read those TOSs carefully.
Consumerist posted about changes in Facebook’s Terms of Service agreement that became effective on 4 February: Facebook’s New Terms Of Service: “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.”
The big change apparently being that Facebook now claims rights to your content even if you drop off the service: “You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.”
I haven’t had a chance to dig into the details but if you’re using Facebook to post your original content it’s certainly a good idea to read the terms and conditions carefully to know what you’ve agreed to.
Selfish request: I just bought Manga Studio Debut 4 and started playing around with it. Does anyone have any links to relatively good tutuorials (video or just webpages) on the basics of using it — things like the toolset, inking, word balloons, etc. I’m trying to sort out what it’s good at versus plain ol’ photoshop.
It’s a two-fer holiday weekend in the U.S. of A so if Valentines Day gets you down be sure to get into some Presidentin’… or something. I thought I’d throw up a link to a comic from Neil Cohn that was released near a previous Valentine’s Day — it’s titled A Love Story (not to be confused with Love Story or Al Gore…)
If you’re more in the mood for a Presidential webcomic you can’t go wrong with Thinkin’ Lincoln.
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