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Dylan Meconis

TUESDAY MAXI-TWEET

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 28, 2009 - 09:45

Coming to the end of April -- there's a great cover from AP Furtado coming up for May.  The sponsorship slot (upper left hand corner of every page here) is open and cheap.  I'm tweeting at twitter.com/xerexes and in my backyard.  Remember anyone can post here at ComixTALK -- just log-in to your account here and post a "talk post" -- well-written and interesting posts will get promoted to the front page.  If you're already blogging somewhere else about comics it's easy to set-up an auto-import of those posts to your account at ComixTalk (log-in and click on the "add a feed" link).  And now the newsy stuff:

COLLECTIVE 'LECTIVE WHAT'S YOUR... WHAT RHYMES WITH THAT ANYWAYS?
Over at webcomics.com Brad Guigar answers a question about artist collectives.  I think the most critical thing to remember is that a group is no more than the sum of the people involved.  Make sure you can work with everyone before you commit time to a group.

JUSTIFY SOMEONE ELSE's HYPE
A comic from Maira Kalman covering a visit to the U.S. Supreme Court titled, May It Please the Court. (h/t to Journalista! and Scott McCloud.)

CRAFT
Journalista! linked to a recent video tutorial by Mark Crilley on "how to draw a manga-style eye" and Crilley's series of video tutorials is a nice free resource.

UNDEAD TREES
Dylan Meconis' BITE ME is now available in a single edition printed object you can purchase.  Great, funny story about vampires in the French Revolution

COPYRIGHT
Copyright is a really interesting topic in these days as technology allows for more and more creative re-use of material that seems to be remain under perpetual copyright (see this Techdirt post for a discussion of some copyright holders view that copyright should last forever minus one day).  While I'm sure many creators instinctively support copyright, I think many webcomic creators also now deeply understand how a more flexible approach to utilizing their copyright rights actually works to their benefit.  And then of course there are those webcomics that are built on someone else's copyrighted material, although in some cases the webcomic goes so far beyond the original work you wonder if they could make the argument that it's transformative (which btw is the crux of the current copyright dispute between the A.P. and Shep Fairey over his iconic Obama/Hope poster.)

WIKIWATCH
This is weirdly interesting - Wikimedia (parent of Wikipedia) is suing a group of artists who were using Wikipedia for their art project.  Maybe some webcomic should have thought of this! 

NOT COMICS
GI JOE Resolute - scripted by Warren Ellis himself was pretty nifty for it's less stupid take on G.I. Joe than the original 80's-ish era saturday morning cartoon series.  Ellis points to the finale on youtube.

DRAFT List of 100 Greatest Webcomics: Comedy and Drama

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 22, 2009 - 14:50

Last year I posted a couple times (Previous posts on this "research" project were here and here) about a possible article on "ComixTALK's 100 Greatest Webcomics" which would be something like the American Film Institute's list of the greatest movies of the last 100 years.

A recurring comment to the previous two posts was what is the criteria for this.  I'm always a little hesitant to give too much guidance when part of the point of asking this kind of thing out loud is to listen to the resulting discussion of what everyone else thinks the criteria should be.  For the AFI list judges picked films based on criteria such as Critical Recognition, Major Award Winner, Popularity Over Time, Historical Significance, and Cultural Impact.

That sounds about right to me.  We've got a round decade plus a year or two of webcomics to look at it.  Critical reception (both from peers and critics), and popularity are both relevant to thinking about the impact of a webcomic.  WCCA awards are somewhat indicative of what peers were impressed with in a given year and more recently awards like the Eisners and Ignatzs have recoginized webcomics.  Historical significance and cultural impact are a little harder to pin down but various "firsts" in webcomics are important and comics like Penny Arcade have had a much wider impact on popular culture than most comics do these days (put aside the legacy superheros of comics -- what other "new" comic, let alone webcomic, in the last decade has had a wide cultural impact?)

Another thing AFI did that might be useful here to help sort through the vast numbers of webcomics one could talk about is to also think about categories or genres of work.  Just as a simple matter of numbers if a webcomic isn't one of the best of a larger type of story -- or frankly, so startlingly unique it's hard to categorize -- then it's hard to imagine it's one of the 100 Greatest...

So to move things along I'm listing another "draft" of titles submitted by the crowds but this time I've tried to break them up into drama and comedy so as to help avoid complete apples to oranges comparisons.  In doing that I've realized (1) it's hard in many cases to decide; and (2) there are probably more comedic than drama on the list so far.  I think it would make sense to whittle down the two lists to 75 each so as the final list is no more than 3/4 of one type or the other.  Of course we could further do genre type lists but for now this was enough work on my part.

So -- your assignment (if you choose to play):

  1. Name the comic you're talking about (you're also welcome to nominate ones not on the list -- I KNOW there are many I haven't even thought about yet -- it takes time to review all of the corners of the web)
  2. Tell me where on one the two lists (comedy and drama) it should be (you could give a range of slots if you're not sure). (If you think I've got a drama on the comedy list or vice-versa let me know!  I'm not "done" - this is fairly dashed off still at this point)
  3. Tell me why!  Referencing awards, critics, historical achievements, strengths and weaknesses of the works are all really helpful!

November 14th DRAFT version of 100 Greatest Webcomics List

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 13, 2008 - 21:02

This is an update to a previous post here, thanks for the cumulative suggestions on that thread.  JUST so we're clear - this is open-sourced to everyone research for a possible article to appear next month at ComixTalk.  I don't endorse the list or the order at all; at this point I've tried to include all of the suggestions I've gotten and I also went through all of the comics ComixTalk has ever reviewed and pulled quite a few titles.

We're at the point where it'll be most helpful if you tell me comics you think should go on the list, where (what number approximately) and which comic should get bumped.  If you just want to change the order you can do that to but there'll be another post before the month's through asking for help with that.  

100 Greatest Webcomics Thread

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 9, 2008 - 12:41

NOTE:  An updated version of this list is here - please go there to offer your suggestions and comments.  Thanks!

Panels & Pictures: The Pleasures of the Comics

October 19, 2008 - 23:05 | Derik A. Badman

In this month's column Derik A Badman discusses the seven pleasures that keep him reading a comic.

Dancing with Comics - Illustration by Dylan Meconis

All Time Most Popular At WebcomicsNation.com

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on July 30, 2008 - 16:32

 Webcomicsnation.com tracks the most popular comics hosted on its service:

  1. Templar, Arizona by Spike
  2. Narbonic By Shaenon K. Garrity
  3. The Non-Adventures of Wonderella by Justin Pierce
  4. Narbonic: Director's Cut By Shaenon K. Garrity
  5. The Bare Pit by Noodtoonist
  6. Carpe Diem by Graveyard Greg
  7. Bellen! by box brown
  8. Surviving Mars By Brian Daniel
  9. Paradigm Shift By Dirk I. Tiede
  10. Year One By M.Parkinson
  11. Venus in Points Alice Hunt
  12. Neil Lisst
  13. Supernatural Law by Batton Lash
  14. Maxwell the Demon by Tonia Walden
  15. Family Man by Dylan Meconis
  16. Elvenbaath Written and Illustrated by Dotty
  17. Nothing Better by tyler page
  18. Freak U. By A. Prosser
  19. Naoko Muragama: Video Game Champion By Shaun Henderson
  20. Breakfast of the Gods Book One: The Last Good Morning By Brendan Douglas Jones
  21. DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary By Erika Moen
  22. The Front By Jerzy Drozd
  23. REVVVelations Written and colored by Stan Yan, Illustrated by Jolyon Yates
  24. Smithson Written by Shaenon Garrity, Art by Robert Stevenson, Brian Moore, and Roger Langridge
  25. Pint of Ink Illustrated Amusements by Dee Hews

A Burgeoning Apparatus

July 19, 2008 - 22:44 | Michael Payne

In the eternal struggle between "story comics" and "gag comics," I tend to come down on the side of the long form.  Yes, a little chuckle is good, but I'd rather follow characters through an adventure, even if that adventure is just them trying to return a library book or attending a "meet the tenants" party in their apartment building.

Webcomic Wire - 6/19/08

Submitted by NightgigTim on June 19, 2008 - 13:33

Drawn from sources all over the world wide web…

Webcomics Weekly #38 talks about the Orphan Works Bill.
The Harvey Award nominees are out.
ComixTalk catches up with Dylan Meconis, creator of Bite Me! And currently working on Family Man.
ComixTalk interviews Kilo Burrell of SPQR Blues.
Webcomic Overlook gives a one punch review of Castle Vidcons. In correction to [...]

Updates from the World O' Webcomics

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 16, 2008 - 16:43

Thanks to our current sponsors: the webcomic Please Rewind, and the Learn to Draw the Human Figure video series.  More sponsorships available - CHEAP! 

The June issue continues here at ComixTalk: an Interview with the creator of SPQR Blues -- Carol "Klio" Burrell; an interview with Faith Erin Hicks who just won the Joe Shuster award for Canada's Favorite Comic Book Creator, an interview with Dylan Meconis, the creator of Family Man; and Dr. Haus reviews Gun Baby.

TOOLS
Digital Strips blogs about the release of Jerry Stephens' new webcomic management system - BitArtist.  If anyone gets a chance to test this out please let us know what you think of it.

WRITING
Howard Tayler's podcast Writing Excuses covers plot twists.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE
Jim Zub has written a story for  the Pop Gun 2 anthology with artwork by Chris Stevens.  It looks awesome!

Could it be?  Is Caleb coming back to webcomics?

Funny -- Webcomic Warrior Action Figures!

THAT'S HOLLYWOOD JAKE
Lots of superhero movie casting rumors at Blog@Newsarama including this interesting bit that Robert Downey Jr. is in negotiations to star in DreamWorks/Universal’s Cowboys & Aliens, based on the Platinum Studios graphic novel by by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley, from an idea by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.