Comix Talk

INTERVIEWS
UPDATE: Rick Marshall interviews David Willis of Shortpacked!

Joey Comeau from A Softer World interviewed Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics — sort of like webcomics own version of Interview magazine.

Rick Marshall has an interview with Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content.

TIPS AND TOOLS
JOURNALISTA points to an article by Ben Towles on artist supplies worth perusing.

Daniel Whiston has an interview with Alan Moore on writing that is awesomesauce.  (also h/t to Journalista!)

AROUND THE WORLD IN A BLOG
FLEEN points to a strange website called mezzacotta that apparently Irregular Webcomic creator David Morgan-Mar has something to do with. Funny, cryptic or what: the website states that the asking price for the URL and the "idea" is €1 million prior to launch and €5 million afterwards.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE
A few folks pointing to Capes and Babes a comic about comic book culture.  A topic ripe for tackling (I like SubCulture which also hits this subject) and if anyone else has some sugested comics in this area fire away.  (Thanks)

The Fragile Gravity crew did a week of strips at Sluggy Freelance recently.  Go check it out!

Anyone been reading My Life In A Cube?  Funny autobiographical (?) stuff from about first job (thereabouts) working in a cube farm.

ALSO – Melonpool creator STEVE TROOP has a new comic called CryptoZooey!  He plugged it here last week but I don’t think a lot of folks saw it over the weekend.  Full press release for the new strip — click "read more"

Continue Reading →

Kris Straub is one of the nicest guys I've met in webcomics (although 99% of that has been online – our brief in-person meeting was saying "hi, 'sup" at last year's SPX).  Besides being part of the ever-present Half Pixel crew (with whom he wrote How To Make Webcomics) and working on lots of comics and animated series (say, when is PvP Season 2 coming?) he's got a new album out called Aviators Hide the Tears that includes that rollickin' "I'm on the Internet…" song he wrote (I can't remember the name of it but it runs on his slipcast videos).

Also he does make a lot of comics.  His main gig these days is the science-fiction flavored Starslip Crisis which to my mind is one of the smarter humor comics out there.  Kris' strength and weakness in writing is often going meta on things — making the joke and simultaneously analyzing it.  To my mind it works more often than not and really with Starslip he's broadened his approach to everything so that "meta-ish" isn't so predominant in his work anymore.

If you want a concentrated does of meta, however, check out Straub's re-run of his first comic, Checkerboard Nightmare, where he basically made a comic about webcomics and online culture, circa 2000ish.  For the re-run he's making short video commentaries.  We ran two Straub comics at ComixTalk — Modern Humor Authority and later installments of Checkerboard Nightmare — both some of my favorite things we've published (click here for the webcomics archives at ComixTalk).

Continue Reading →

Ah Slade, you never quite made it here in the States.  Oh well you’re all over iTunes now.
Continue Reading →

COMIXTALK
New feature articles this morning including the wrap-up of Tim Broderick’s column on bringing his webcomic Odd Jobs to print in the graphic novel Cash & Carry.  Also today’s the last day to send in a sketch if you’re interested in doing the August cover for ComixTalk (more details here).

INTERVIEWS
ComixTalk interviews Tom Brazelton of Theater Hopper.

The Comics Reporter has an interview with David Malki! of Wondermark who has a book collecting the comic out from Dark Horse.

REVIEWS
El Santo takes a look at Octopus Pie.

Michael Payne looks at long-running webcomics Clan of the Cats and CRFH!!!.

Derik Badman reviews The Lady’s Murder.

SMALL SCREENS
Journalista! links to a Wall Street Journal report that DC Comics will convert some of its comics into semi-animated slideshows to be sold at the iTunes store for computer and cellphone viewing.  This sounds like Clickwheel a bit doesn’t it?  Anyhow, Newsarama has more on this.

PUBLISHING
Comics Worth Reading examines the webcomic efforts of publishers Boom Studios and SLG.

Continue Reading →

But it probably only happened in my imagination…
That dude has made three of my favorite comics on the internet things plus he’s the t-shirt king.  He probably needs a jingle though.  Here’s a suggestion:
Call Mr. T-Shirt, that’s my name, that name again is Mr. T-Shirt!
Or how about:
Call Mr. T-Shirt, that’s my name and with my […] Continue Reading →

The Beat is reporting that Platinum’s purchase of WOWIO is a done deal.  WOWIO is also aiming to relaunch the site between July 23rd and August 4th.

According to the SEC filing, Platinum is paying 3.15 million for WOWIO — paid in shares of Platinum with payments stretched out over the next year.

Continue Reading →