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Barb Lien-Cooper

The March of the Collectives

March 12, 2007 - 00:44 | Xaviar Xerexes

A collective, loosely defined, is any sustained grouping of webcomic creators. What they do together varies greatly from group to group. Some are largely a peer group offering each other critical feedback and encouraging support. Others throw in cross-promotion for each others' work. Some build a collective brand with logos, advertising and a central website. Some share business experience and expertise in areas as varied as merchandise, books, conventions, hosting and website creation.

And what did I find from my research? There's a tremendous number of collectives out there (and that I never want to attempt another "survey" article again). And, oh yeah, checking out collectives can be a great way to find excellent new comics.

News for the First Weekend of January 2007 (UPDATED)

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 5, 2007 - 22:33

I won't be online much this weekend so stay safe out there on the digital badlands...

BUSINESS

Most Read Project

Interviews

DEAD TREES

JUSTIFY MY HYPE

Tangents Webcomic Reviews Join Panel 2 Panel

Submitted by Tangent on August 26, 2005 - 07:39

After a month hiatus, Tangents Webcomic Reviews is back in business with reviews, rants, and more, but now at Panel 2 Panel.com.

Greenlee, Howe and Lien-Cooper Joins Forces

Submitted by Erik Melander on July 18, 2005 - 13:08

Some time ago, Amber "Glych" Greenlee announced that she was consolidating her comics on a site of her own, Panel2Panel.com. Now comes word that she will be joined there by Barb Lien-Cooper and Ryan Howe. Lien-Cooper and Howe brings their comic Gun Street Girl, which was previously part of subscription site Graphic Smash.

"Basically, our goal in making Gun Street Girl a web comic was to reach as wide an audience as possible," said writer Barb Lien-Cooper. "However, we've learned that being on a site with a pay subscription wall was counterproductive to our purposes. Since there's no real corollary between the degree of professionalism of a web comic and whether it's free or pay, and since some of the web audience finds pay sites to be a turn-off and a distraction, we feel this move is the best thing for us to do."

ATHENA VOLTAIRE Flies to GRAPHIC SMASH

Submitted by Steve Bryant on March 23, 2005 - 16:53

Critically-acclaimed online comic ATHENA VOLTAIRE will be moving from ModernTales.com to its sister site, GraphicSmash.com on April 4. The comic, which Warren Ellis described as “if THE MUMMY and VAN HELSING were actually, you know, good,” was recently named one of the best webcomics of 2004 by The Webcomics Examiner. The series follows the exploits of the titular heroine, a globetrotting aviatrix, as she battles Nazis, mercenaries and the occult.

Interview with Barb Lien-Cooper (Gun-Street Girl)

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 7, 2005 - 19:35

Gun-Street Girl's Barb Lien-Cooper had an interview with SilverBullet Comics last month. Hope you all didn't miss this one.

If you're interviewed, reviewed, written up or are just engaged in any other form of shameless self-hype you really should send a link or a note to Comixpedia. We like you (yes, you!) and we'd like to post something.

Hindsight is an exact science.

Submitted by Erik Melander on September 30, 2004 - 19:47

As the end of September approaches it might be interesting to look back at what webcomic events made the headlines.

Professional webcomicers
September saw two webcomic creators take the leap and try to turn their hobby into professional careers. In truth I suppose it would be more correct to say that Howard Tayler, creator of Schlock Mercenary, took the leap and Jeff Rowland, creator of Wigu, was pushed. While Taylor assures his readers that he and his family is in no critical financial situation as a result of his career change, Rowland notes that he needs the support of his readers.

I will need your support, however, in the coming weeks. As bad as I despise the entire "donations" aspect of Inter-Net art, I am going to ask for your help in a fund-raiser of sorts, if only to secure my habitation.

Will draw for food
Rowland is not the only webcomic creator that found himself forced to make a career change. Jamie Robertson also found himself out of a job and announced that Clan of the Cats would end at christmas without finishing the current Dracula story line. Robertson also has a fund-raiser of sorts as a possibility for continuing COTC, Sebo's kitty klub. I'm not sure how well that has worked, the only figure I heard was that he needed 250 subscribers and at the time of the announcement he had 16.

This was, however, not the last creator to turn to his readers in attempts to build a bussiness model in September. Michael Jantze, creator of The Norm, did the opposite of what many webcomicers aspire to and left syndication after finally becomming fed up with it. His wife apparently conviced him to try the webcomic route and he agreed IF she could get enough subscribers by November 1st.

How many subscribers do they need?
As previously noted Jamie Robertson needed at least 250 each paying 2,50 USD to keep doing his comic. Jantze needs 4000 subscribers to keep going, each paying at least 25 USD. Some swift calculations bring the sum of money to a minimum of 100 000 USD unless I'm mistaken... They currently have 661 subscribers. As an extra incentive they give away one ipod mini to a subscriber as they reach each 1000 subscriber plateau.

This made some ripples in the blog-pond as several people gave their opinion on these events. Most seemed to agree that 25 dollars was somewhat expensive. I'm reminded of the sister of a friend of mine who made a living as an artist. She an exhibit where she showed her latest works that were sheets of photopaper that had been run through an x-ray machine at the airport (or something like that). The pricetags on these artworks were, in my uneducated opinion, rather high and when I asked her about it she explained to me, much in the same way one explains something to a child, that if they were cheap no one would buy them.
Anyways, it is interesting that The Guardian online also had a story about online charity, or cyber-begging, including a couple of paragraphs on Randy Milholland. But perhaps the most interesting entry was by Eric Burns of websnark entitled "On supporting webcomics and the survival of the fittest fandoms".

The question is, how many fandoms is the average webcomic reader a part of, and how many of them can they afford to support

Who snarks the snark
Websnark is no doubt one of Septembers success stories. The quality and quantity of its entries propelled Websnark onto most "Must read"-lists. This quote from Joey Manley's blog pretty much sums it up.

Websnark.com is the talk of webcomicsland right now. Everybody who's anybody (yes, I'm an elitist -- and so are you, actually) is reading it.

Modern tales
Speaking of Joey Manley ofcourse brings us to the topic of Modern tales. That Modern tales and its sister sites have relied on subscription sales as a bussiness model has probably noone missed, but now they also sell adspace.

Subscription support will continue to bear the most weight in our business model, but we have decided to try to mix it up a bit, especially now that banner advertising seems to be coming out of the post-dotcom-crash doldrums.

September also say the debut of Graphic novel review, edited by Alexander Danner. A strong first issue shows promise of greatness and even got plugged by USA today.

The Webcomic examiner
The webcomic examiner will be allowed to wrap up this little trip down memory lane. Septembers issue had a great cover by Chris Watkins as well as a focus on the work of Derek Kirk Kim. Some really good stuff and I do believe that they are starting to find "their voice". There was also a "guest editorial" of sorts by Barb Lien-Cooper entitled "Webcomics have rights".

While I'm the last person in the world who wants to cause trouble, something about comic book review sites on the web is starting to bother me. It's the fact that many web sites dedicated to comic book journalism simply refuse -- often without explanation -- to review web comics.

Replies to this at Cognitive dissonance blog and Trickle of consciousness did not agree with her sentiments though.

Well that ends Septembers round up of things. Got an opinion on this, I'm itching to hear it. Perhaps I'll try to add some actuall analysis of events for next months roundup (if I do one that is).

Graphic novel review classifieds

Submitted by Erik Melander on September 24, 2004 - 10:48

Not much interesting going on out there in La-la-land but one thing I noticed earlier this week is that Graphic novel review has a classifieds section. Looking for a collaborator? Maybe you have something to sell? This is the place (well, one of them) to let people know so.
For instance, both T Campbell (Fans!) and Barb Lien-Cooper (Gun street girl) are looking for artists to collaborate with.

Pulse interviews Barr, Lien and Bryant

Submitted by Erik Melander on July 27, 2004 - 19:33

Pulse has a roundtable interview entitled THE WORLD of WEBS - Lien, Bryant, & Barr Talkin' Webcomics.
Mike W. Barr is the veteran of the three with acclaimed work such as Camelot 3000. He is curently writing Sorcerer of fortune published on Modern Tales sister site Graphic Smash.
Barb Lien-Cooper writes Gun street girl, also on Graphic Smash.
Steve Bryant is one of the artist on Athena Voltaire, published on Modern Tales.

The roundtable is an interesting read, even though the title is somewhat misleading as it has very little to do with webcomic in particular.

Athena Voltaire relaunches on Monday, June 21st

Submitted by Steve Bryant on June 18, 2004 - 11:08

Athena Voltaire will update daily from June 21 through August 16, culminating in a new episode on Tuesday, August 16. The strip will continue its weekly Tuesday update schedule from there.

Set in the 1930's, Athena Voltaire chronicles the globetrotting adventures of its titular heroine. Series co-creator/artist Steve Bryant describes the book as "Indiana Jones starring a James Cameron-style female pilot." Bryant continues "Obviously, that's an oversimplification, but that's the 'high concept' in a nutshell. Mix in liberal doses of Hitler's bizarre occult obsessions, creatures and lots of cliffhangers and you get a good idea of what we're doing."