Features

The Blue (Inter)View: Dan Piraro, Creator of Bizarro

Leave a Comment

For we who inhabit the cartooning world, 2004 may well be remembered as the year of Dan Piraro.  Piraro is the Reuben-Award winning cartoonist of Bizarro (best panel three years in a row), and in a few short days, he will be attending the Reuben Awards again, this time nominated for "Best Overall Cartoonist". He’s also got a successful book out and has organized a political comedy show tour.

And when Comixtalk asked him for an interview, he was gracious enough to say yes.

Continue Reading →

I Hate You All by Dalton Wemble

22 Comments

Naked Field Parties and You

When I was a chipper young lad of 12 or 13, there was (as there was every year) an election for Student Council at my beloved Poughkeepsie High. One wag, running for some minor position like Sock Hop Coordinator or Master of the Punchbowl or something, applied all the intellect and graphic design skills that one could expect a 15-year-old who spent most of his time blasted at "field parties" to muster.
Continue Reading →

RSS, Webcomics, and You: Syndication Methods Online (Part 2)

Wednesday White 1 Comment

Last month, we spoke of arcane wonders. We learned what XML-based web content syndication is, how it works, and a few ways in which webcomic creators might make use of it. In this installment, we’re going to expand on the possibilities raised briefly in the last article, and hopefully correct some misperceptions about how syndicated feeds are used by readers.Last month, we spoke of arcane wonders. Continue Reading →

Open Soapbox: Comictastic: ‘tastic or not so ‘tastic?

31 Comments

Comictastic: ‘tastic or not so ‘tastic?

I’m getting tired. It seems I’ve been reading discussions on the whole Comictastic thing for … three or .. maybe 5 .. or 6 hours now. (link, link, link, link) It’s silly. No, Comictastic and similar programs are not a "distribution system", they are NOT "redistributing" your comics – your web server is doing the distributing. Comictastic and similar programs don’t even do "deep linking" which has been found illegal in at least one US court case. Comictastic and programs like them are simply specialized web browsers doing something that I have done manually in the past; requesting only the image of the comic from the web server because of bandwidth concerns. Continue Reading →

“I’ve Been Robbed!”: A Practical Guide to Copyright Infringement

3 Comments

Here's a scenario: you're browsing the Internet, looking at various sites, when you unexpectedly come across some very familiar comics. You know all the characters. You can quote from the dialogue. You know exactly how the story ends, without even having to read it. And yes, it's even got your name in the credits. It is, in fact, your work, reproduced on someone else's site. They never even asked permission.

What do you do? Continue Reading →