Blogs
Web Comic Secret Santa
Submitted by Erik Melander on November 18, 2004 - 07:03
Liz Walsh of Tao of Geek is organizing the Web comic Secret Santa project.
From the FAQ:
Web comic artists submit their comics to a list, and on a specific day, a random comic (*not* their own!) is sent to them. That artist must then produce a guest comic, or a piece of fan art, for that comic.
December 5th is the closing date for submissions when comics will be assigned and on December 22nd the guest comics may be revealed. A number of webcomics have already signed up.
Childs play charity dinner and auction
Submitted by Erik Melander on November 17, 2004 - 18:51
Penny arcade's Childs play charity will be arrangeing a dinner and auctionon the 9th of December to raise money according to a news post by Mike Krahulik. Tickets will cost 100 USD and the items auctioned will range from tours of Bungie and Wizard of the Coast to an appearance in the Penny arcade strip (full list of auction items available in the news post).
The charity has collected nearly 75 000 USD in the first two weeks with an aim of collecting 400 000 USD.
Amber "Glych" Greenlee scores publishing deal
Submitted by Erik Melander on November 16, 2004 - 17:28
Amber "Glych" Greenlee's No stereotypes is to be published by Sonic publishing upon completion. In a post on the No Stereotypes message board Glych is asking readers for their opinion on pricing as well as a suitable new title:
Greenlee:
Due to the title having to be changed for print for...um..sellability ("No Stereotypes" has always been a week title) what do you guys think it should be renamed as for the print version?
Webcomic creators to hold talk at NYU
Submitted by Erik Melander on November 15, 2004 - 22:46
On wednesday November 17th R Stevens of Diesel sweeties, Squidi of A modest destiny and Jeph Jacques of Questionable content are scheduled to hold at talk at NYU on webcomics. Ticket info can be found here (apparently it is free).
The talk will be held at:
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17 :: 7PM.
Kimmel Center Room 802
60 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10003
Vigilante, Ho! moves to Keenspot
Submitted by Erik Melander on November 14, 2004 - 21:17
Meaghan Quinn and John Troutman's western themed comic Vigilante, Ho! has moved from subscription site Graphic smash to free site Keenspot.
Girly leaves Keenspot
Submitted by Erik Melander on November 10, 2004 - 19:32
Josh Lesnick's Girly has apparently left Keenspot.
Lesnick on Keenforums:
I don't want a big deal to be made of it, because I didn't leave because of problems of dissatisfaction with Keenspot. I just wanted to start doing things on my own again, for reasons that are really hard to explain.
Keenspot's a good company, and I'll continue to support it from the outside.
Farley and Shaw's "The mother of all bombs"
Submitted by Erik Melander on November 9, 2004 - 16:58
I don't know how I've missed it, but Justine Shaw, creator of Nowhere girl, and Patrick Farley, e-sheep, has co-authored a Graphic novel entitled "The mother of all bombs" that is to be released in January 2005 as far as I can tell. A teaser is available.
Looking back at October
Submitted by Erik Melander on November 9, 2004 - 14:04
It is once again time to use my powers of hindsight to tell you what is already quite obvious, but hopefully I can bring something new to your attention.
If September was all about individual creators that quit, or was fired from, their day-jobs (and called on their fans for support), Octobers news was mostly about the two big corporate players, Modern Tales and Keen. I must admit that I am curious whether some years from now 2004 will be remembered mostly by the two things connected to these two entities that transpired in October.
The first I am thinking about is Keens entry into print syndication together with the Turlock journal. It is difficult to assess how much work Keen has put in to get an entry into print syndication. Perhaps it was simply timing, with the budget cutbacks experienced by many newspapers, and the managing editor of the Journal, Brandon Bowers, being a web-comic fan as I perceive it. The business model Keen uses is that they supply the newspaper with one page of comics FREE, but that they get ad-space on the page for whatever ads they want to run. What will be really interesting to see is how this relationship plays out and if Keen can expand into other newspapers.
In the same category, October saw Scott Kurtz's PvP syndicated in the Kansas City Star, also for free. Is this the beginning of a trend for newspaper strips or just freak occurrences? Time will tell.
Modern Tales head honcho Joey Manley supplied Octobers second big thing, the roll out of the first site in the much anticipated Webcomicsnation package. Originally meant to be a hosting service, Webcomicsnation has since then morphed into a group of tools (including hosting) aimed at small press comic creators. October saw the launch of the first one, Small Press Swapmeet.
Manley described SmallPressSwapmeet.com as a sort of ongoing "convention floor" for independent comics creators, allowing them to find their customers (and vice versa) every single day of the year.
Essentially for a monthly or yearly subscription fee small press swapmeet will provide advertising and a storefront for sellers. All shipping, handling and billing is handled by the seller or third parties such as paypal. I think it is clear that the biggest winners of Small Press Swapmeet are the consumers. Everything is neatly organised in both categories of merchandise and according to seller. There is also a rss feed that published new items available. The biggest hurdle of any site like this, getting enough sellers, has already been passed since any cartoonist active on any of the Modern Tales sites can use Small Press Swapmeet for free (and lets face it, there is quite a few creators on those sites even if not all of them use the service). In other words, the service can probably not fail, but the question is how many users outside of MT it will be able to attract. Until November 25th a subscription costs 2,95 USD/Month or 19,95 USD/Year, anyone that registers after that will be charged 4,95/month or 49,95/Year. This offer seems best suited for the traditional small press creators that have physical merchandise to sell (minicomix etc.). Most webcomicers seem to rely on others to handle physical merchandise, such as Cafepress. There is also the question as to how much merchandise you would need to sell in order to make up the subscription cost.
There is not much known about the other parts of the Webcomics nation suite, it will be rolled out piece by piece in the future. Will people who purchase the hosting package get free or discounts at the other tools? It will be interesting to see how this business model fares and I find myself agreeing with Bob Stevenson that Webcomics nation has the potential to be important to webcomics. Once again only time will tell.
There is one last thing that actually did not get the attention it deserved. At the Small Press Expo Pv comics announced that they were changing their business model by removing online subscription and instead focusing on their print offerings, while using the webcomics to attract audience. PV comics has some of the finest quality comics and I must admit that I am glad to be able to read them for free, but I can't help shake the feeling that this is something of a failure. Not a failure by PV comics, I believe they are making a business decision that I am sure they have considered from several standpoints, but a failure for the internet. Once again the internet as a marketing tool has won out over selling digital content.
That is all for this commentary. Care to add your own thoughts?
Head on over to the forum. No registration required.
Be Distracted With Cute
Submitted by Wednesday Burns-White on November 2, 2004 - 22:12
Tired of election tension? Not an American? Be distracted! With cute! Via Ping's Webcomic Finds: Webcomic Tans are SD personifications of webcomic entities. (Tans started out as representations of operating systems, but concepts have a way of evolving.)
Comixpedia's in there; it's one of RPin's. I'm all melty. Melty.
Goats pledge support to Child's play charity
Submitted by Erik Melander on October 20, 2004 - 16:04
In a news post Jonathan Rosenberg of Goats has pledged to donate a dollar for every t-shirt, book and print sold between now and December 25th to the Child's play charity organized by Penny arcade.
