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Blank Label Comics

Webcomic Telethon benefitting Hurricane Katrina victims

Submitted by Brad Guigar on September 1, 2005 - 14:25

Blank Label Comics is hosting a webcomic telethon to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. It will be held the week of Sept. 12 at www.webcomictelethon.com. Actual dates are to be announced later.

Brad Guigar, who has organized previous webcomics telethons benefitting MDA (http://mda.altbrand.com/01mda.shtml), is organizing the event.

All of the revenue generated from site advertising, donations, and proceeds from merchandise bought through the site will be donated to the Red Cross to help in disaster relief.

The site will be updated several times during the course of the telethon with new comics, encouraging readers to come back often to see the new strips and donate money when their favorites are displayed.

If you'd like to participate, please do the following:

(1) Contact Brad Guigar at bguigar@yahoo.com and tell him you will be participating. This will help us plan the event.

(2) Do a comic. Now. It doesn't have to be about hurricanes or disasters or the importance of charity... but those themes are appreciated. The final should be no wider than 600 pixels. Any depth is fine. Do not include a large title, in the image... that will be included in a text line under your comic, linked back to your site.

(3) Send your comic to bguigar@yahoo.com. GIF, PNG and JPEG are all acceptable formats. In your e-mail, include your name(s), the title of your strip, and your URL.

(4) Spread the word. Watch www.webcomictelethon.com for banners and buttons to use to start alerting your readers. Blog about it. Post it on your sites. Get the word out.

The Fall and Rise of buzzComix

August 21, 2005 - 23:13 | Al Schroeder

One of the most popular webcomics top lists and forum board was buzzComix (AKA bCx), which was run by Mneonix08. In mid-May it went down, and only went up again this August first. Mneonix08 talks about the perils and pleasures of running such a list, what exactly happened, and what new features are out there.

Guerrilla Marketing by Blank Label

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 18, 2005 - 10:51

Joey Manley noted that comicwindows.com, a url mentioned in the NYTIMEs article on webcomics, was in fact not taken (it is still unclear what site NY TIMES writer Sarah Boxer meant to include in her article) but of course, not for long.

comicwindows.com now forwards to Blank Label comics. That has to be the best $15 or so spent on a domain name since Onlinecomics.net picked up bigpanda.net when it went defunct (Big Panda was an early webcomics portal).

Starshift Crisis Changes Its Name?

Submitted by TSal on August 16, 2005 - 11:05

The crew of the Fuseli has encountered a potential legal "Crisis" of its own. Starshift Crisis by Kristofer Straub, hosted by Blank Label Comics, is changing its name to Starslip Crisis.

Through The Looking Back Glass by Erik Melander

July 10, 2005 - 23:00 | Erik Melander

Flamewars are certainly fairly common in the small world of webcomics, and this month's column will be devoted to the one that took place at the beginning of June. The instigator was this strip by Penny Arcade, which in turn was a response to this Comixpedia news post. Things soon escalated as more and more people became involved.

Although a public brawl such as this is usually made up of hot air, there are often at least some interesting discussions within it.

Webcomics: A Medium not A Genre....

Submitted by Altercator on July 1, 2005 - 05:23

And this rant comes from this very reader who only has ideas & theories about what's up with webcomics. I'm only young and naive, so if I'm wrong, please correct me for my sake.

So here goes:

Webcomics should be a Medium for comickers (artists, writers, creators) to tell stories; not a Genre as defined by what's currently telling the stories like Penny Arcade, Pvp, Keenspotters, BlankLabelheads and so on. Webcomics shouldn't be just about typical circle of friends stories that's happening in a lot of online comics out there. Webcomics should be an avenue for creators to bring out their ideas, tell stories they wish to share, explore themes that deserved to be mentioned and so forth.

What do you think?

Webcomics 103: Making Money Panel At San Diego Comicon

Submitted by Erik Melander on June 23, 2005 - 13:33

David Willis has annouced that he and the rest of Blank Label Comics will attend a number of panels at the San Diego Comicon. Willis will attend a panel entitled Webcomics 103: Making Money. Should be interesting, especially considering the recent discussions regarding the economics of webcomics.

In other con-related news, Josh Lesnick has a con report from A-kon.

Whereas at previous cons, there were around 2-3 panels related to webcomics, and this year, there were around 25. And... people showed up to them; all of them. It was quite mind-blowing!

Dave Kellett And Greg Dean Join Blank Label Comics

Submitted by Brad Guigar on June 22, 2005 - 15:25

Two veteran webcartoonists have joined forces with Blank Label Comics -- a recently formed co-op of independent cartoonists.

Dave Kellett, creator of Sheldon, and Greg Dean, creator of Real Life, bring a total of twelve years of webcomics experience to the group. Each will play key roles in the group's ongoing development.

Advertising Networks? Best Better Worst?

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 9, 2005 - 14:50

If anyone's interested I wanted to talk about what ad networks and systems out there are good and seem to work well with webcomics.

Of course you can do it yourself as many webcomics still do (I do that for banners here at Comixpedia) but there are others who can do it for you (for a small fee but of course they do work for you which often includes obtaining people to buy ads in the first place, no easy task).

I also use blogads here which has a different format and which seems to be growing in popularity this year on Comixpedia (it's caught up to the banners I think at this point). On Blog Ads what do you think about the image/text combo - just different or better?

For regular banner ads I think Keen is using Burstnet and several Dumbrellistas are using Indie Media. I think Blank Label is doing it inhouse at this point. Anyone else worth thinking about?

I've used Google ads too but never made much back from them (nor gotten much traffic here from advertising on them elsewhere).

Manley has his http://www.openadnetwork.com/ but so far it's not generally available (or is it? that site is just a picture right now).

Digital Strips Interview Kirstofer Straub And David Willis

Submitted by Erik Melander on June 6, 2005 - 06:06

In their latest podcast, Digital Strips interview Kristofer Straub and David Willis, two of the founders of Blank Label Comics.