Skip to main content

Bill Holbrook

Comix Talk for Friday, July 09, 2010

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on July 9, 2010 - 09:53

C'mon weekend!  Okay this first story struck me as a great project.  Jennifer Ouellette writes about a collective effort to create a webcomic telling the amazing story of 20-something Dutch primary school teacher, Hanny van Arkel, who discovered a strange blue/green smudge on an image of what was otherwise a standard spiral galaxy now referred to as "Hanny's Voorwerp."  The full comic will be released at Dragon-Con in Atlanta, Georgia, this fall.

MILESTONES: Wow, it's the FIFTH anniversary of Gordon McAlpin's Multiplex.  Congrats!  If you're not reading this smart comic about the crew working at a local multiplex definitely check it out.  A wonderful combination of character-driven and movie culture comedy.

iWEBCOMICS: Lauren Davis notes the release of a new version of the controversial webcomic app from Dale Zak. Noted without comment from me today as this is a topic that requires more time than I have this morning.

THE MORE YOU KNOW: Yesterday we noted Paul Bryant Johnson gave a class at a summer webcomics camp.  Today he posted online his presentation on "Finding the Balance Between Words, Pictures and Time in Making Comics."

WE WILL... WE WILL... HYPE YOU!

FROM THE MAILBAG:

  • Peter Conrad writes "I took down attemptednotknown.com last year because of some hackers who used the site for nefarious purposes. I've relaunched it with way more content, and I'm uploading stuff every week now!"  Peter is another long-time webcomic creator who I'll always remember for creating Zeenster - an app to read comics on the Palm OS.
  • Tommie Kelly writes "I did the webcomics Road Crew and From Rags To Rockstars.  I have a new webcomic... There are about 70 strips online at the time of emailing and it updates five times a week. Mon to Fri...  It's called Something Wonderful and it deals with religion, beliefs, new age, spirituality and Mac owners among other things."
  • Stephanie O'Donnell writes "I'm Stephanie O'Donnell, artist for the webcomic Perfect Agent.  It is written by Greg Carter (creator of Abandon and Love Is In The Blood). It started last year and we're now 2 full stories in."

CONVENTION 'VENTION WHAT'S YOUR INTENTION?

  • Hey it's San Diego Comicon time again -- FLEEN is all over getting you your guide to webcomic booths so be sure to check in there before you go!
  • Also in new webcomic convention on the block news, Intervention added award winning Sci-Fi author (and soon to be Webcomic author) Ben Bova to its inaugural lineup. Bova, Rob Balder, and Bill Holbrook will be debuting their new online webcomic collaboration at Intervention called Duel in the Somme.

Kevin & Kell reinstated in Atlanta Journal-Constitution - in color!

Submitted by Terrence Marks on January 22, 2009 - 03:16

About a week ago, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution cut 13 strips when they downsized their comic section.  Kevin & Kell was one of them.  There was an online poll to determine which 2 got restored.

To quote the cartoonist, Bill Holbrook:

In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey is astonished by the outpouring of support that he receives from the citizens of Bedford Falls. I find myself in a similar state of mind as the readers of “Kevin & Kell” have pitched in to return the strip to The Atlanta Journal Constitution comics page, effective Monday.

Words cannot express my gratitude for your votes in the paper’s poll. The strip has always relied on its readers to continue, never more so than in this case. This victory is entirely your own.

I’d like to also thank folks such as Tom Smith and Randy Milholland for spreading the word about my situation, and to all those who participated. Terrence and Isabel Marks, who color “Kevin & Kell,” also kept their readers updated.

In the end this was an example of the power of the online world’s ability for people to come together and create a community. Again, I thank each and every one of you out there.

Some Jibba Jabba With Webcomics' Own Mr. T

February 23, 2008 - 23:13 | Xaviar Xerexes

I've known T Campbell for a number of years now and we used to kid that he's the hardest working man in webcomics but there's definitely a kernal of truth to that.  This guy writes a lot of webcomics and than he goes out and writes about webcomics as well.  And although he's no longer local to my neck of Virginia and no longer writes for ComixTALK  I thought it would make a good interview to catch up with him as we barrel on into 2008. 

If you haven't run into T before, well, his webcomic projects include Fans, Penny and Aggie, Search Engine Funnies, Rip and Teri, and Cool Cat Studio.  He's got another one out just now called Sketchies (with co-writer Phil Kahn and art ist Ryan Estrada).  He wrote for ComixTALK before writing for other sites as well as turning his History of Online Comics series into a book.  He also spent a number of years editing the action webcomic anthology site Graphic Smash.

Updates On Entries in the Ill-Fated Webcomic Directory Project?

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on July 24, 2007 - 14:31

I built a "library" of webcomics and creators back in the fall of 2005 which I put into beta before realizing it was too much editorial work to deal with and the same information could be better provided through the community edited webcomic wiki - COMIXPEDIA.

Nevertheless looking back on the assortment of names collected (some from me, some sent in from you) I wonder if anyone has any significant updates on these creators 18 months later. Maybe we should interview some of them?

A World of Fantasy

June 26, 2007 - 21:33 | Michael Payne

Fantasy webcomics this month, is it? A large topic.

And we can make it even bigger. I mean, depending on how technical you wanna get, all fiction is fantasy. It's stuff that never happened, at any rate, and that's as basic a definition of fantasy as I can think of.

Ursa Major Awards Voting Open

Submitted by Erik Melander on March 20, 2007 - 07:32

The Ursa Major Awards have released their list of nominees for 2006. The award, which is also known as the Annual Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Award, is presented for excellence in the furry arts. Voting is open until April 14 and requires registration after which the ballot can be sent in by email.

MomoCon

Atlanta, GA. - January 10, 2007 - Anime O-Tekku of Georgia Tech is pleased to announce the return of MomoCon, an annual anime/gaming/comics convention held in Atlanta, GA, March 17-18, 2007 at the Georgia Tech Student Center and Instructional Center. The convention is free of charge to all attendees and family friendly, so people of all ages are encouraged to attend!

One Page per day or Ten pages per week?

Submitted by Altercator on July 3, 2006 - 19:23

The common problem with webcomics right now, is that they're mostly one page per day. Long from, story based comics such as Megatokyo seems to have no end in sight.

Why not have them delivered in at least six or ten pages per week? Or how about in the usual Mon/Wed/Fri schedule, have at least three to five pages of comics posted online?

Also, why not complete an episode of a webcomic ahead of time before posting them bit by bit according to schedule?

Dykes To Subscribe To?

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 28, 2006 - 10:42

Alison Bechdel, creator of Dykes To Watch Out For posts in her blog about the possibility of charging readers a modest subscription fee to receive the comics via email as soon as they're done.  Bechdel would delay posting them on the web for a month or so.  And if that's not enough she offers an alternative idea:

Hey, and what about this? The email version could be like HBO. I could leave all the swear words in, and perhaps even have occasional frontal nudity. Instead of the #@&*'s and artful drapery that I employ in the newspaper version.

There was a lot of discussion from fans in the comments there.  I wonder what Comixpedia readers think of this idea.  Surely someone has tried this already - has it worked for anyone?

The More I Learn, the Less I Broadcast

Submitted by pclips on April 24, 2006 - 20:44

The More I Learn, the Less I Broadcast

This is an official rant. It's very long.

An incident today really threw a spotlight on a major attitude change of mine, which has happened within the last six months to a year. I no longer look to any public webcomics blog or forum to productively share and receive information about webcomics. I barely participate. I'm genuinely disgusted with the state of webcomics discussion, and it's not worth my time either to wade in and try to raise the level of debate, or to keep sifting for signal in all the noise.