Platinum Studios
Webcomic Wire - 10/3/07
Submitted by NightgigTim on October 3, 2007 - 19:32
Drawn from sources freshly swept under the carpet…
Todd Allen has an article in Comic Book Resources about Platinum Studios, Inc. and their filing for IPO.
Sheldon creator Dave Kellett along with Kris Straub, Scott Kurtz, Brad Guigar will be collaborating to author a new book from Image Comics called How To Make Webcomics. Exact release date [...]
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News To Use for Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on October 2, 2007 - 09:16
We're having this giveaway content for BLADE: HOUSE OF CHTHON and the deadline is this Friday October 5th. I am giving away 5 copies so until we get more than 5 entries you can't lose by entering... details on the contest here.
RECENT FEATURE ARTICLES
- Recent interviews include Cool Cat Cartoonist: An Interview with Gisele Lagace; Filling the Void: An Interview with Shayna Marchesei; and Talking with PC Weenies Creator Krishna Sadasivam. Recent features include Integrating Text And Images In Comics; and Out of the Inkwell: Print Comics Now on the Web.
BUSINESS
- The most excellent band Radiohead left their label a year or so ago. Instead of signing with a new label they've decided to release their latest album over the intertubes. And, shades of webcomics, the price you pay for the download version... is up to you. You can pay zero or ten dollars or thirty pounds -- it's up to you.
OTHER HEADLINES
- Bomb Shelter has a podcast up on this year's Webcomic Idol.
- Brandon Carr is back, working on Weird Adventures in Unemployment, which according to credited creator Mike Strang, is a Platinum Studios-owned webcomic that Strang no longer has any thing to do with.
Justify my Dead Tree Hype
- Faith Erin Hicks (creator of the webcomic Ice) has a comic coming out of SLG in November called Zombies Calling with a great nod-to-the-Clash cover. It was also just her 29th birthday. Happy Birthday!
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Editorial cartoonist Andrew Wahl recently launched “An Off the Wahl Perspective,†a new blog featuring his latest cartoons. The OtWP Blog also includes Wahl’s behind-the-toon commentaries, along with news about Off the Wahl Productions other projects.
- An interview with Max Estes, creator of My Life As a Bunny. (h/t Journalista!)
- Brian Roney reviews Shortpacked!
Platinum Studios finally unveils the comic they squeezed creator Mike Strang out for!
Submitted by strangq on October 2, 2007 - 01:04
Hello Comic Book Creators,
My name is Mike Strang and a few months ago I posted a controversial blog here about how my dealings with Platinum Studios Comics over my creation Weird Adventures in Unemployment and how they removed me from it.
also detailed in a great article by Heidi Macdonald here...Â
 http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/06/20/breaking-work-for-hire-is-bad/
Good Ship Gigcast 109
Submitted by NightgigTim on September 26, 2007 - 22:35
Interview with Tauhid Bondia of Good Ship Chronicles, webcomic news and commentary and DD news from BK and SpANG!
Contact The Gigcast
The Gig-Line, give us a call: 1 (206) 203-3334
e-mail: gigcast@nightgig.com
or Comment Here!
Congrats David Davis - http://www.drunkduck.com/2007_Drunk_Duck_Awards_Winners
Errant Apprentice has a new look http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Errant_Apprentice/
Comic
Webcomic Wire - 9/26/07
Submitted by NightgigTim on September 26, 2007 - 17:39
Drawn from the deep deep south…
Comixpedia is looking for a new logo.
Webcomic Idol submissions are open at Bomb Shelter Comics.ÂÂÂ
ComicsBy.Us, a new social book-marking site dedicated to comics.
Top 5 Ways to Promote Your Comic Online conversation thread.ÂÂÂ
Another top recommended webcomic list.
Todd Allen on Platinum Studios IPO filing.
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Todd Allen on Platinum Studios IPO Filing
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on September 26, 2007 - 14:17
Todd Allen has an interesting analysis of Platinum Studios based on reading its SEC filing for an IPO.
Platinum Studios Seeks Interns While Sign-Ups for Wizard World Texas Is Still On
Submitted by Black_Kitty on September 15, 2007 - 16:03
This is pretty old news but for those of you who don't know, Platinum Studios is seeking two individuals who might be interested in an internship at their LA headquarters. Hours and days are flexible but it must be on a weekday as the office is not open on weekends. It's an unpaid internship but it is an opportunity to gain some experience and network with other people. More information can be found at the link above.
Meanwhile sign-ups for the DrunkDuck Wizard World Texas Artist Alley is still open but it's now "standing room only." The reserved tables are now at their maximum capacity of four per table so while sign-ups are still welcomed, there's no guaranteed table at this point. However DrunkDuck artists are pretty nice and in the past people have shared tables and traded spaces.
Platinum Studios Files For IPO
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on September 11, 2007 - 10:03
Kevin Church has a post on Platinum Studios filing with the SEC to become a public company (it filed a SB-2 statement with the SEC). Kevin's post is a little bit of snark with some highly superficial speculation on the traffic at Drunkduck.com (a site owned by Platinum Studios). He links, however, to an American Ventures magazine story slash press release on Platinum Studios filing which also details Platinum's closing of a $5 million dollar round of equity financing. Digital Media Wire also filed a story on the potential IPO but no one seems to offer any independent reportage on the details of the financing round or the realistic prospects for an IPO (including the almost prequisite speculation on initial valuation).
End of the Summer Edition of What's On My Monitor
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on September 3, 2007 - 08:36
I had a good summer - hope you all did too. I tend to leave open a lot of windows in Firefox thinking I'll get to writing a snappy comment about them and often never do. Let's see what I can come up with while I close out my summer readings....
THE LOWDOWN ON DOWNLOADSÂ
- WOWIO is a site that offers a lot of comics (and ebooks too) for download, some of them free. There's a good post by T Campbell here on his experience working with the site to offer his comics and over here is some skepticism from FLEEN. Campbell reveals that he gets 50 cents per unique download of his comic. I signed up myself earlier this year with a "non-anonymous" email (I think I used a comixpedia.com one) and don't remember being bothered by the information requested. If the information requested did bother me well here's a tip. For a lot of sites I use a set of information I've created to give to sites I think anonyingly ask for too much information. That way they know nothing about me and yet I can remember the "information" if I need it later for some reason (like recovering a password). I don't think of it as all that different than giving physical stores made up zip codes when they ask for one (which I do all the time too). (There's some regional group of newspapers websites - including this one - that asks everytime you read a story for your birthdate, gender and zip code. That is damn annoying!)
JUSTIFY MY HIP HYPE YOU DON'T STOP
- xkcd on commitment and... well why commitments can unravel? Randall Munroe (to me at least) gets better and better. It's early success I chalk up as much to individual comics (like the maps) that caught the web-o-sphere's attention but I think he's gotten more consistently funny and insightful. xkcd also got a nice plug recently on Drawn!
- Big Fat Whale is one of my favorite comics... this is a great example of when Brian McFadden really nails something well. (Speaking of good opinion comics T Campbell notes that August J. Pollak's Some Guy With A Website is now featured on the Huffington Post. Wow congrats to August! (August guest blogged here earlier this summer if you want to catch some of his comic-related thoughts.)
- The Ferrett highlights the long-running Full Frontal Nerdity and links to some classic good stuff from it.
INTERVIEWS
- Wired Magazine had a great feature on the Penny Arcade boys - online here (and MSNBC.com had one with them here). These guys haven't reached the end of their success yet - they're going to start getting into the mainstream pop culture in even more prominent ways in the next 2-3 years. PC World has a writeup of a new website home for their forthcoming PA videogame.
- Slice of Sci-Fi interviews Bobby Crosby and Owen Gieni. Crosby is the brother of Keenspot co-CEO Chris Crosby and the creator of Last Blood. Gieni is the artist on Blood as well as Chris Crosby's Sore Thumbs.
MILESTONES
DEAD TREES
- Daily Crosshatch has a review of the new Perry Bible Fellowship book. Titled The Trial of Colonel Sweeto, it's published by Dark Horse and collects published comics as well as some unpublished ones.
PIXTIONARY
- If you missed it - a great set of pictures of the recent Toronto convension (TCAF) and another set from the massive Penny Arcade gamers convention (PAX).
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- A funny post on the over-use of the speech bubble in Web 2.0 company logos.
- Hey Oscar Wilde! is a blog that posts sketches of literary authors and characters. Fun lit-nerd stuff!
- Galaxiki is billed as a "fictional galaxy anyone can edit!" I haven't really checked it out much but it sounds like it could be an interesting idea. All depends on the details I think...
- Harknell takes a look at a webcomic using Wordpress to run it site. The comic is Dead of Summer and they're using the the ComicPress 2.0 theme for Wordpress.
- I can't remember where I stole this link from but damn I am down for The Comic Curmudgeon's Dogma 95 manifesto for "editorial" comics. I hate most traditional one-panel "editorial" comics and it's rare that I get anything out of them. For a long time it's been the weekly strips like This Modern World that have taken the gauntlet of insightful sequential art opinion and moved it far far down field.
- Jorge Vega won the 2nd Platinum Studios Comic Book Challenge with his Gunplay comic. (T Campbell links to the pitch and some early fragments).
- T Campbell links to image optimization tips for search engines. Seems like a good page to check out - the better Google et al can find your images the better people can find your comic.
Three More Days to go for the Comic Book Challenge!
Submitted by Black_Kitty on August 22, 2007 - 20:45
Only three more days left before voting closes for the winner of this year's Comic Book Challenge! The top three finalists were revealed earlier this month and they were: Josiah Grahn's Banana Barry, Shawn Granger's Grey Shades, and Jorge Vega's Gunplay.
The winner of this year's Comic Book Challenge will be announced on August 28th and will be published by Platinum Studios. The winner will also receive a copy of Toon Boom Solo, Comic Book Creator Super Pack, and an Intuos3 6x11 tablet. The winning entry will also debut at a Wizard World Tour event in 2008.
Additional information about prizes and timeline can be found at Platinum Studios' Comic Book Challenge website.
