Comix Talk for Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Did anyone miss me? ….. …. <cue the crickets!>  I've started throwing up shorter quicker links to all thing interesting (to me!) at another site I'm in the process of refurbishing (just look at the right hand column or click here).

REBOOT:  Okay, top story? Fleen has a note that strange things are afoot at the website of the classic early webcomic Makeshift Miracle. Stay tuned? Jim Zubkavich's fantasy webcomic was very well done for its time, particularly its coloring. It was also a nice twist on the other-world fantasy trope, not quite as mind-blowing as the recent inside-out take on Narnia in Lev Grossman's novel The Magicians but there might be some similarity of appeal.  While on the subject of Grossman, fans of his book should listen to this interview with Lev Grossman on the pending release of the sequel The Magician King.

ACROSS THE POND: Some U.K. news as these guys interviewed John "Bull" Allison of Bad Machinery while he was sketching for the masses at the SPX convention.  Also – Saveur tapped Allison for a recipe comix on the very British "Toad In The Hole" dish.

DOUBLE CHAI LATTE: I saw pretty recently that Darrin Bell, involved with two syndicated newspaper comics, his own Candorville and Rudy Park which he does the art on, moved his long-time comics discussion forum, Toon Talk, to a Facebook page.  There's a good interview with him here about his comics, how he got started and his recent collection of Candorville, The Starbucks at the End of the World.

HIPSTER THIS: The Comics Worth Reading blog posts a favorable review of Octopus Pie. I'm already a fan of Meredith Gran's comic, but this review does look favorably on a period when Gran shifted from everyday updates to longer, slightly less frequent updates.  That experimenting really helped Gran find the right format and tone for Octopus Pie and hopefully it continues work for her creatively and financially.

TRUE COLORS: Brittany Klontz wrote in about an infographic called Behind the Colors: A Closer Look at Comic Book Color Palettes that is nicely done. It's a run through common color schemes for heroes and villains.  I've seen the website it's on before — Colour Lovers has a lot of good material on palettes on color selection.

UNRINGING THE BELL: Gabrielle Bell was nominated for an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Webcomic for a diary comic she took down. In an interview with Bell at CBR, Bell explains that she always intended to take them down (h/t Robot6).  It's something I've encountered before — the ease of publishing on the web also enables (to some extent) unpublishing on the web.

MILESTONES: I also want to make sure I mention on this site the sad passing of Michael Hart, who was arguably the inventor of the E-Book and definitely the founder of Project Gutenberg. While e-books were probably inevitable, Hart saw it early and made it his life's work.

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Xaviar Xerexes

Wandering webcomic ronin. Created Comixpedia (2002-2005) and ComixTalk (2006-2012; 2016-?). Made a lot of unfinished comics and novels.