Rob Balder
I-CON 26 - Stony Brook NY
26th annual I-CON, featuring webcomics creators Jon Rosenberg (Goats), Jeff Rowland (WIGU/Overcompensating), Steven Cloud (BOASAS), Rob Balder (PartiallyClips/Erfworld). Rob Balder is also Filk Guest of Honor.
Late for Monday, Early for Tuesday News
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 16, 2007 - 00:21
More articles uploaded to the January issue of Comixpedia Magazine: an interview with Tyler Martin, creator of Wally & Osborne and another installment of Full Story Highlights which features completed webcomics. Don't forget to check out last week's articles: an interview with Foxy Lollop creator Mike Lacroix, Jon Morris' Plea for Hand-Lettering comic and 24 Hour Pixel People interviews King Arthur.
And now on to the news & views!
HEADLINES
- Two new collectives launched today. The first one being Lunchbox Funnies which is billed as an all-ages comics collective. There's a blog post from co-founder Tyler Martin here and a bit in our interview with him (also posted today). The other one is called Sugarskull and features "an eclectic group of webcomics that have banded together to bring their collective Rock to the world – no two are alike, but they play together nicely all the same. The list of comics there includes Vampirates, The Awakened, Small Noises and The Reader.
- Diesel Sweeties newspaper-style is showing up now on comics.com. To me at least, Rich's sensibility is pretty different then the bulk of what's on the newspaper page so it was interesting to see the comics United Media chose to recommend to readers of DS: Monty, Opus, and The Grizzwells. (Also of Clango-related interest: FLEEN has a short write-up of Rich Stevens's recent webcomic creator-strewn surprise 30th birthday party.)
- Scott Kurtz is using Project Wonderful to offer some ads on his PvP website. He's trying to limit them to use by other webcomics.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- Peter Bagge does his best imitation of John Stossel as channeled by Rob Corddry. Gimme a break!
- Howard Tayler gives a well-deserved plug to Rob Balder's and Jamie Noguchi's Erfworld.
- Words & Pictures is always funny but today's hits that father of under 6 year old demo perfectly...
- As if xkcd needs a plug from Comixpedia, but today's (Monday) flowchart kept me laughing for much longer then you'd think. Must be all the engineers in my family tree.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Superhero theme songs - I think all of these are real...
- Another Narbonic retrospective podcast as Narbonic: Director's Cut continues.
- The Comics Reporter links to an issue of Foreword that focuses on comics. I haven't read this magazine before but a quick skim looked interesting.
- Johanna Draper Carlson writes an interesting blog on comics. This post on why webcomics don't show up in many best of year lists for comics (really comic books) is interesting.
- World Freehand Circle Drawing Champion. This is oddly impressive... (link from Boing BOINg)
Arisia Convention
Arisisa is New England's largest and most diverse science fiction and fantasy convention. There are 3 scheduled panels on webcomics including one with Eric Burns, Wednesday White, Kelly J. Cooper and Rob Balder.
Where: Hyatt Regency Cambridge, Cambridge, MA
Under appreciated comics.
Submitted by Shishio on December 28, 2006 - 11:25
Just wondering what comics you all think deserve more recognition.
- Array
- Comments
Comixpedia's People Of Webcomics List For 2006
It's the third annual Comixpedia People Of Webcomics List. This was the hardest one yet to compile. There's a lot of webcomics and a lot of people doing interesting things in and around webcomics. This list, as in past years, is an odd effort to compare apples and oranges: artistic achievement, audience popularity, technical achievement, business savvy, news-making impact all go into the mix.
- Act-I-Vate
- Boxcar Comics
- Drunk Duck
- Girlamatic
- Keenspot
- Brian Fies
- Brian Moore
- Chris Crosby
- Chris Onstad
- D.C. Simpson
- D.J. Coffman
- Dale Beran
- Dave Roman
- David Hellman
- Dorothy Gambrell
- Eric Burns
- Eric Millikin
- Fred Gallagher
- Fred Grisolm
- Gene Yang
- Gordon McAlpin
- Jason Little
- Jeph Jacques
- Jerry Holkins
- Joe Dunn
- Joey Manley
- Jon Rosenberg
- Kazu Kibuishi
- Kris Straub
- Lark Pien
- Mike Krahulik
- Mitch Clem
- Neil Babra
- Nicholas Gurewitch
- Owen Dunne
- R.K. Milholland
- Randall Munroe
- Rich Stevens
- Rob Balder
- Ryan North
- Scott Kurtz
- Shaenon K. Garrity
- Spike
- T Campbell
- Ted Rall
- Thomas K. Dye
- Tim Demeter
- Tom Brazelton
- Tom Siddell
- Tyler Martin
- Warren Ellis
- Wes Molebash
- Zach Miller
- A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible
- Achewood
- Cat and Girl
- Penny Arcade
- PvP
- Sinfest
- xkcd
- Yirmumah
- You Damn
- People of Webcomics
The Webcomic Clause 3: The Totally Decent Clause
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on December 8, 2006 - 10:32
BUSINESS
- Reinder has a good post on two recent webcomic-big-deals: ComicSpace and Project Wonderful. ComicSpace does the basics of social networking around comics right (you can put up a profile and links to other accounts as "friends") but it's longer-term future will likely depend on what new features it rolls out.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- At the most recent Washington Webtoonists meetup there was much discussion of the popular new science-nonfiction webcomic xkcd by Randall Munroe. Here's a good interview with Munroe at Redhat Magazine.
- Speaking of washington-based webtoonists, check out the new webcomic Erfworld: The Battle for Gobwin Knob, from Rob Balder and Jamie Noguchi. It's being published at The Giant In The Playground, which is Rich Burlew's (creator of The Order of the Stick) website.
REVIEWS
- Webcomics In Print looks at The End webcomic.
- Derik reviews two recent anthologies of comics: An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories edited by Ivan Brunetti; and Big Fat Little Lit edited by Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Tom Spurgeon comments on the growing interest in the "who will Liz Patterson end up with" in the last year of the long running comic For Better Or For Worse.
- Shaenon Garrity and Andrew
GarrityFarago have a story in the new Marvel Holiday Special with art by Ron Lim. - The videogame website, Joystiq, debates whether or not to keep Penny Arcade in its weekly gamer webcomics poll.
- A documentary on Tin Tin is now available online.
NOT WEBCOMICS
Giant in the Playground Launches Second Webcomic
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on December 4, 2006 - 14:59
Erfworld by Rob Balder and Jami Noguchi will debut December 7th on Rich Burlew's (The Order of the Stick) website The Giant In The Playground. On his website, Rich Burlew writes:
Time for a big announcement. We're adding another webcomic to the site! Erfworld: The Battle for Gobwin Knob is a brand-new comedic fantasy (or is that fantastic comedy?) story from the skilled hands of author Rob Balder (PartiallyClips) and illustrator Jamie Noguchi (Angry Zen Master). This great new story will appear twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, starting next Thursday, December 7th.
News for November 27, 2006
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 27, 2006 - 07:51
NEWS
- The New York Times covers DC Comics' latest attempt to expand beyond it's core demographic for superhero comics. The article discusses DC's planned launch in 2007 of a new series of titles under the Minx label aimed at young women. Newsarama fills in the rest of the creative line-up:
- Novelist Cecil Castellucci (Boy Proof) and artist Jim Rugg (Street Angel), on The P.L.A.I.N. Janes
- Clubbing, by Andi Watson (Geisha, Love Fights) and Josh Howard (Dead@17);
- Good as Lily, by Derek Kirk Kim (Same Difference and Other Stories) and Jesse Hamm (Comics to Bore and Confuse You);
- Re-Gifters, which reunites the My Faith in Frankie team of Mike Carey, Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel.
- Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub announce PVP: Animated, a monthly series launching in February 2007. They have also posted a new Blamimation! episode titled Hallway Hijinks.
- Happy Birthday!
?to Jon Rosenberg, creator of the hilarious comic, Goats. Apparently, I was half-asleep when I wrote this morning. Happy 33rd Birthday + 2000 Episode of Goats!
INTERVIEWS
- An interview with Jeff Knooran, the creator of A Murder Of Crows.
- A podcast interview with the creators in the Act-I-Vate collective.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- The Comics Reporter links to this scan of an official U.S. government comic book about President John F. Kennedy.
- The Comics Reporter posts a "holiday shopping guide" for comics. Interesting picks...
- Drawn! links to a great multi-step painting tutorial from Bob MacNeil. He covers everything from the initial planning stages and composition to painting and software methods and tips.
- Webcomics In Print rounds up the latest webcomic books. Git along li''l webcomic doggies!
Further Thoughts On the Most Read Project
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 21, 2006 - 10:57
It's been two years since Comixpedia published an update to our Most Read project which tracked the audience shares of webcomics.
It was difficult to determine readership numbers then, it's just as difficult to conduct any kind of "Internet ratings" now. But it's an extremely useful process for Comixpedia as it helps to ensure that we are not overlooking significantly popular webcomics in our coverage (It is not a prerequisite that a webcomic be "popular" to merit coverage. The strength of readership of a particular webcomic, however, is a legitimate tool for deciding what we should write about). If you have suggestions for future efforts in this area feel free to post a comment here.
PhilCon
PhilCon is a science fiction con with plenty of comics (and LEGO!) action.
Here's the "comics" track of events:
- Sat 12:00 PM in Parlor B—Graphic Tales: Comics, Graphic Novels, and SF (106)
Since the 1930?s, with the debut of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and a certain strange visitor from another planet, comics and SF have been intertwined. Characters like Batman, Iron Man, Green Lantern, and the X-Men all contain heavy science fiction influences. And titles like The New Gods, The Eternals, and The Legion of Super Heroes (which took place in the 30th century!) are basically serialized space operas. So why does it seem like so many fans of either genre don?t seem to see any similarity? Our panelists will look at comics from an SF perspective.
