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The Blue View by BoxJam B. Boxjam

January 2, 2004 - 00:00 | BoxJam B. BoxJam

Here's a survival scenario for humans (or whatever sentient species we have become, or has replaced us) in a couple of billion years, when it gets too hot to live here on earth. I'm going with the assumption that interstellar space travel is either impossible or very, very sucky.

We're going to build our own star.

BoxJam's Doodle Returns

Submitted by Boxjam B. Boxjam on December 21, 2003 - 00:07

Timed to coincide with the one week in the whole universe people are least likely to notice, BoxJam's Doodle will return on Monday, December 22.

BoxJam will, as always, be experimenting with form and content.

2003: Year in Review From the Mouth of Your Fave Webtoonists, by Kelly J Cooper

December 8, 2003 - 00:06 | Kelly J. Cooper

2003 was a pretty scary year. Whether you agree with it or not, war is a pretty terrifying thing. We lost another space shuttle, another crew, and – in a bad case of déjà vu – followed a flurry of finger-pointing in the aftermath.

The Blue View by BoxJam

November 30, 2003 - 23:19 | BoxJam B. BoxJam

I had to make a phone call today to the town of Hawthorne, California – yes, to the town itself. The woman who acted as the town's agent was disappointed to talk to me. I'm shutting down a store in a famous chain there.

The Blue View by Boxjam

November 10, 2003 - 00:02 | BoxJam B. BoxJam

Well, here goes. I thought long and hard about this, trying to decide if it was appropriate for a column, and then I came to a carefully thought-out decision based on the fact that my column was due last week.

Q&A: what makes a comic a favorite?

Submitted by kjc on November 4, 2003 - 03:50

I was thinking - being the curious and over-analyzing type - what makes a webcomic your favorite?

Look at your favorite webcomic - or your top five or your top ten - and think about which elements put it at the top of your list.

Is it good art? Good storylines? Humor? Memorable characters? In-jokes? A detailed universe that you want to explore? An approach that's fresh and intriguing? An example of a genre for which you have some strange attraction? Consistency in updates (or perhaps a failure to dissapoint)? Quotability? Shock value? Topical issue coverage? The mockery of things you like to mock as well? The exploration of stuff you enjoy (gaming, programming, talking to pets) or hate (working in a cube-farm, paying bills, living with strangers)? Other stuff I haven't thought of here?

Randomization & Participation Rates

Submitted by Shepherd on October 31, 2003 - 14:51

Somebody asked in another thread why the panels weren't randomized such that we got an equal number of responses, but I figured I'd start a new thread on the subject in case people had any helpful suggestions re. the way this was done.

Regarding randomization... my randomization method was to randomly assign the seven panels, BUT to ensure that all panels were assigned equally at the same time. So the very first e-mail I received had a random 1/7 panel, the second e-mail a 1/6 randomization, and so on down to the seventh, where they were guaranteed a certain panel to make sure everything was even... but the randomness of receiving the e-mail at that particular time compensated for that, as well as the fact that the preceding six had been decided randomly so, by extension, the seventh was in fact random as well.

I then repeated the same cycle over and over.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that all panels were +/- 1 evenly distributed (we didn't have a multiple-of-seven number of participants)... BUT since we had a 33% flake-out rate, not all panels received FINISHED entries. Rosenberg's, inexplicably, had one, for instance, Bill Duncan's had two, Shaenon and Roger and Roy had quite a lot.

I can't account for anything except randomness regarding how people completed certain starter panels. Fame obviously wasn't a factor, because Jon is arguably the "biggest" of the starter panel contributors. Openness of the starter panel wasn't a factor, because Roy's was 100% open to interpretation, while Roger's was very, very directed. Artistic merit didn't really enter into it, as all starter panels were meticulously rendered and there was no completion bias on the basis of style, colour/B&W or computer/hand-drawn panels.

In the future, I think I might restrict the number of opening panels for this sort of thing more, or just skip this particular concept -- not through any particular dislike for it, but in favour of trying new things. Believe me, there is no shortage of event ideas on this end.

Zombie, Uh, Undead Americans

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on October 22, 2003 - 12:34

That Ed Grug one was really funny! Nicely done.

A Little Butch Never Hurt Nobody: David Wright chats with Lee Adam Herold (pt.2)

October 12, 2003 - 21:41 | David Wright

Lee Adam Herold has been delighting and horrifying webcomic lovers with Chopping Block for the past three years, and what better time than Halloween to sit down and have a chat with him. Recently, David Wright of Todd and Penguin managed to get Herold to spill his guts about such diverse topics as his new book and plush doll, his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, his religious faith, and his love of goth babes.

Somewhere amidst all that they even discussed the comic.

Read part 1 of this interview here.

The Blue View by BoxJam

October 5, 2003 - 23:01 | BoxJam B. BoxJam

Breaking Out of The Norm by Use of Penguin

This month I thought I'd do something out of the ordinary, and write a column about comics.

I know, I know...a Blue View column about comics? It surprised me, too, but I heard Berke Breathed's got a new comic debuting on November 23rd, and I wanted to write about it.

It's gonna suck.