Comix Talk for Wednesday, April 13, 2011

I have too many online projects this year and with some web work now in the mix for my day job, I feel ComixTalk slipping a bit.  My apologies.  I really appreciate everyone who reads this site, whether you have for years or just found it recently.

HANG IN THERE: I had heard the touching, inspiring story behind the publisher of the print collection of Dustin Harbin's journal comic but Dustin's comic of it is a great tribute to Anne Koyama.

CRAFT: I've been meaning to link to Austin Kleon's How to Steal Like An Artist presentation for awhile.  It's good, entertaining advice.

TO THE BOOK CAVE!:  Lauren Davis reviews the mainstream publishing industry dropping several comics creators and then turns to plugging Meredith Gran's new self-published collection of her webcomic Octopus Pie.  The cover for Listen At Home with Octopus Pie is perfect for the strip — pre-orders are going on now.

TO THE MINI BOOK CAVE!: J.T. Yost has a new mini-comic out worth checking out – Losers Weepers #3, which continues Yost's project to create a fictional narrative woven around actual found letters, journals and notes.

MILESTONES:  Dolby von Luckner, the co-creator of the webcomic Frederick the Great: A Most Lamentable Comedy, wrote to let us know it just hit its 400th episode.  Unfortunately Dolby forgot to include the URL for the webcomic when writing. Luckily for Dolby I noticed that the URL was probably part of his email address.  Congrats on knocking off the first 400!  I could have left it at that but I think this is a comic where the creators are young (or young at heart?) and maybe some feedback would help.  I only had time for a cursory look, but art-wise, the creators need to keep practicing, take some life-drawing classes, bust out a copy of Scott McCloud's Making Comics (or similar useful advice books), look for some tips on scanning and prepping your images for the web.  There's obviously a lot of enthusiastic plotting and cramming in of ideas and references into the strip but without improving the art, it's not ready for prime-time.  All of which is to say don't give up.  Making 400 episodes of something is GREAT practice and hopefully you've already seen some improvements in your 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.