Features
Revenge of Kung Fool by HyungKim Sun
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The Webcomic Blues
I got those webcomic blues, pretty baby,
And I got those webcomic blues.
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Got me a comic strip, it be on the net.
Got me a comic strip, it be on the net.
Free for everybody, ain't helpin' my debt.
Can't draw for nuthin', no one seems to mind.
Can't draw for nuthin', no one seems to mind.
Four panels, punch-line, jus' another grind.
Feel like a junkie, always needing hits.
Feel like a junkie, always needing hits.
Open Soapbox: Webcartoonists Are Communists
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Webcartoonists are communists.
That's right... they're all commies. Or maybe socialists, but that's as close as should make no difference to someone who is merely 'left-wing,' let alone decently 'conservative.' See, a REAL cartoonist is paid by a large, properly-capitalist organization called, in true Republican fashion, a Syndicate. He or she pours creative energy into work that is edited, collated, marketed, and pushed to the Free Press, where it can be shared with millions of humor-hungry people in exchange for newspaper subscriptions. It is The American Way (in America, and even in countries that claim to hate America... it's still the American Way.)
Paying for It: Webcomics Are Still Cheap Thrills
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There are plenty of webcomics you can read for free, but a growing number of sites are beginning to charge for some or all of the webcomics they publish. Now that you may have to hand over your hard-earned cash to read your favorite webcomics, it’s important that you know what you’re getting so you can decide where to hand over your hard-earned cash. This article is part one in a series that will review sites where you pay for webcomics. We will tell you the costs of joining such sites.
Time For Webcomics To Hop on the Hollywood Hobbyhorse?
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Underground. Edgy. Raw. Inventive. Independent. Webcomics have all of that and more. That said, the following may seem like an absurd question, but it needs to be asked: are webcomics having an impact on mainstream popular culture? When do we get to pay 8 dollars to watch Sluggy Freelance II: The Search for Oasis or an animated Fanciest Froglin on the big screen, or flip the channel to Mad Science with Doctor Helen Narbon on the television?
Makeshift Musings and Comic Book Bliss by Jim Zubkavich
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Physical Connections In The Electronic World
Summer is here and the convention season is upon us. It’s time to strain and pull ourselves away from our computers and hopefully make some sort of real human contact with the people that we’ve learned about through e-mails, forum posts and web pages. These are webcomics and comic communities bringing people with similar interests together, and showing quite clearly that most costumes look ridiculous on the average human being.
Art and Narrative: A Regular Eisenstein, Or Something…
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A Regular Eisenstein, Or Something…
That comics and film have much in common is pretty much a given. The bond they share as mediums of visual communication is strong, and over the years there has been a great deal of cross-pollination between the two artforms. I’m not talking about comic adaptations of films or films based on comic books – although there certainly are a lot of those these days – but rather the nuts and bolts that hold the two mediums together.
Damonkey Business: The Best WebAward One Can Give is Link-Lovin'
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The Best WebAward One Can Give is Link-Lovin'
Spring has sprung, the grass has ris', I wonder where the birdies is?
Lining up to register for the WCCAwards, that's where.
From The Rack To The Screen
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When I was a kid, my cousins collected comics. Jeff had his bagged, boxed and stashed away, with an offer of several thousand dollars on it when the comic market took off. Steph kept hers in a cardboard box under the bed and let me read them. I liked Steph's collection better, but then she didn't have to worry so much about her books – she wasn't a collector.
Ready.gov Made My Skin Turn Blue by Eric Millikin
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Eric Millikin is the son of a laid-off auto worker, grew up in a trailer park and has an IQ around 150. He is also one-half of the creative team behind Fetus-X, currently published on Serializer.net. In this feature, Millikin examines the recent launch of the Homeland Security Department's Ready.gov site and how the federal government may already be using webcomics to control your brain. Please click the "read more" link below to read "Ready.gov Made My Skin Turn Blue."
Measuring the Webcomic Audience
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Let's cut to the chase. Quantity does not necessarily equal quality. Of course, it does not necessarily preclude quality, either. In fact, some might argue that 50,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong. It's certainly a well-worn question in every medium of popular entertainment: "how'd you do last night, kid?"
In almost every other medium there's an established mechanism for counting the audience and providing information on what the audience is watching or buying or reading or clicking on. So why not a bestsellers' list for webcomics, an Arbitron system focused on our particular universe? Regardless of whether we love, like, hate, or are indifferent to the most popular webcomics being produced today, it is information that ought to be available to the interested members of the reading public. It could provide some clues as to where the online audience is today versus six months versus two years from now. It could help to keep score of the growth (or decline) of our overall webcomic reader audience.
