Blank Label Comics
The New Melonpool
Submitted by Airsick_Moth on November 9, 2005 - 15:36
Melonpool, the sci-fi comedy strip by Steve Troop, scrubbed its archives clean in favor of a brand-new comic book page format. This marks a new chapter in the strip's history, and a great jumping-on point for new readers.
Melonpool launched on April 28th, 1996, and has five book compilations to date. The veteran strip tells the story of the crew of the Steel Duck, a group of alien misfits who crashland on Earth.
Melonpool is a part of Blank Label Comics.
Checkerboard Nightmare Ends With Year Five
Submitted by Airsick_Moth on November 8, 2005 - 23:50
The webcomic satire institution Checkerboard Nightmare turns five years old this week, and to celebrate, it's ending.
CxN will definitely return in a new form, but the strip for November 11, 2005 marks the end of its existing continuity. Read from the beginning of the storyline that's sure to be the most important moment in human history ever.
Checkerboard Nightmare by Kristofer Straub is a part of Blank Label Comics.
Revisiting an Article on Collectives from March 2004
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 2, 2005 - 15:41
Back in March 2004, Bill Duncan wrote a feature looking at the then new explosion of smaller collectives of webcomics. The article mixed in larger publisher sites like Modern Tales and Wirepop, but mostly examined on creator-focused groups such as Altbrand, Ape Law, Dayfree Press, Exile Comics, PV Comics, Razor Comics and Rocketbox Comics. Some of these have thrived since, most notably Dayfree Press which has continued to maintain an active roster.
But since then other successful groups such as Dumbrella and the newly formed Blank Label Comics reemphasize how important collectives can be to furthering the success of webcomic creators. In large part these two groups most visible success is in shared business and technical savvy.
It is probably fair to look at any collective and ask what is its identity? Sometimes that's not really apparent. But two examples where there is an impression associated with the group name that come to mind are Boxcar and Pants Press. The newly formed Boxcar Comics has the good fortune to have well-known D.J. Coffman as a member and he seems to have passed along some of his promotional and business experience to his new colleagues. The lower-key Pants Press group's members may not stand out for marketing activity but they have received consistently high critical marks over the last two years. That can speak volumes too.
While we're on the subject of collectives, feel free to tell us about yours - make sure to include its name and URL.
BLC Members Guesting At PvP, Starting Today
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on October 28, 2005 - 12:13
Scott Kurtz has turned over pvponline.com to Blank Label Comics members while he's at Blizzcon this weekend. The first guest webcomic is from Steve Troop of Melonpool was yesterday from Kris Straub.
Howard Tayler Brings 'Schlock' to Blank Label Comics
Submitted by Brad Guigar on October 20, 2005 - 10:56
Howard Tayler, creator of the popular webcomic, Schlock Mercenary, has joined the webcomics publishing co-op Blank Label Comics.
Monday Cup of Webcomic Coffee
Submitted by marvelouspatric on October 10, 2005 - 12:11
First off, check out the post immediately below to get the scoop on the first week of our October issue.
And now the news...
Tom Spurgeon catches another sign of the apocalypse, The Globe drops Garfield.
Still checking out Warren Ellis' The Engine from time to time. But today, I accidentally found another "engine" site - this one the home of a UK creators' collective. On this engine, there's an interview with Alan Moore there worth reading (Go to this page and scroll down for the link). There's apparently plans to have webcomics there too although nothing is posted at this point.
This week's Digital Strips podcast focuses on webcomics collectives. (While we're on podcasts I'm not sure I remembered to link to the Blank Label Comics interview with Eric "Websnark" Burns from awhile back.)
Benjamin Birdie has moved his webcomic Genre City: Plan B from Modern Tales to his webcomicsnation site, !Pass. This means the archives are now free so go forth and read. Definitely worth it! (And after you read it you can, like me, start hounding Birdie for more updates. But we hound out of love Ben, really we do!)
Marvelous Patric is having a sale - starting today (October 10) for a limited time, subscriptions to his webcomic Freaks N Squeeks are only $15 a year (normally $20). Month to month subscriptions are $2.00 per month, making the yearly subscription an even better value during this limited time offer.
No one has dropped out of The Daily Grind contest this month. Given that I'm expecting this contest to end when some of them are in nursing homes, I'm not shocked but someone has dropped out each month so far (four did in September).
Tuesday Means Webcomics
Submitted by RiESC on September 28, 2005 - 13:21
So I'm traveling this week and only sporadically online and in touch with the webcomic gesalt. But here's what caught my eye in my rapid surf session this morning.
This week's "I can't believe he made that topic funny" award goes to Jon Rosenberg for the latest Goats. All I can say is that Neil (or is it Bob?) has one hell of a urinary tract.
I have a not-finished SPXPO report on my laptop right now but in the meantime check out Tom Spurgeon's roundup of SPXPO reports. Also he links to another DC-area event, the 10th annual International Comic Arts Festival which takes place in October.
The Webcomics Telethon now has a book for sale. That has been an amazing effort by the Blank Label guys and webcomic creators and fans all around.
One more reason why Wednesday White is cool - giving Eric crap for not appreciating the Ur-Muppet. Honestly though compared to the original Muppet Movie, the rest of them are uneven. And if you are old enough to have watched them as a kid, rewatching the Muppet TV show episodes now - they hold up pretty well.
Phil Kahn gives a rave up to Big Fat Whale which is a great satirical strip. BFW is by Brian McFadden who I met at this year's SPXPO. (I reviewed BFW positively sometime ago on Comixpedia)
And last but not least I almost let this slip in my over-busy schedule this month but it's the DECADE anniversary of Deathworld by Rudi Gunther. Rudi is a heck of a nice guy having helped out on many webcomic events like Fright Night and his work on Deathworld shows tremendous evolution over the years. If you're new to the strip a good place to start is with the "Dark Heart" storyline (hat tip to Ping Teo for that suggestion).
Webcomic Telethon Raises an Estimated $28,635
Submitted by Brad Guigar on September 19, 2005 - 22:05
The Webcomic Telethon for Hurricane Relief was planned as a two-day event to encourage donations to the Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
It ended up being the most important week in webcomics. And it isn’t over yet.
Wednesday Updates
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on September 7, 2005 - 14:32
Anyone else see that Warren Ellis' new forum/site "The Engine" is up? Ellis is certainly webcomic savvy although he hasn't dipped his creative toes into the online waters. The Engine might be a webcomic friendly space - on his Bad Signal list he seemed to suggest that for certain creator-only segments of the site, webcomic creators would be as welcome as print only folks (granted he made it clear he was going to be selective towards everyone though)
The Washington Examiner has an article on James Kochalka. The Examiner is a freebie but more of a mainstream paper than a typical weekly alt paper. Which might explain why the author of this piece seems barely able to comprehend Kochalka's work.
Digital Strips reports on a new podcast from the Blank Label folks.
NY Times will run comics.
Yirmumah says to donate to Hurricane Relief!
Submitted by DJ_Coffman on September 3, 2005 - 15:24
Yirmumah Creator, D.J. Coffman says on his blog today:
"I want to emphasize again-- if the webcomics community could raise $34,656.63 for Conneticon to not go bankrupt, we should be able to raise much more than that for this Hurricane relief effort. If we don't I'm gonna be really dissappointed in the webcomic community and it's readers. Let's do this thang!"
Webcomics Telethon will be presented by BlankLabel comics on Sept 13th and 14th at www.webcomictelethon.com
