Dorothy Gambrell is a prolific creator, probably best known for her webcomic Cat and Girl. We've interviewed her twice before, once for our March 2003 issue, and again for our October 2004 issue. We've also reviewed her webcomic Cat and Girl and her webcomic The New Adventures of Death. I got a chance to catch up via email with what she's working on now.
John Allison has been making webcomics for almost as long as the world wide web has existed. First with the comic Bobbins and then since 2002 with his current project Scary Go Round. We reviewed Scary Go Round in our December 2005 issue and interviewed John for our 2003 issue (John also did the cover art for our December 2005 issue). I got a chance to catch up with him via email on the eve of the 6th anniversary of Scary Go Round.
All kinds of webcomics have been impacted by an exploding transformer has temporarily taken out that functionality. As Joey notes it hit WCN and Adultwebcomics.com and other Joey-hosted comics like American Elf.
It looks like Blank Label Comics has suffered from it too.
Our June issue is going to look at steampunk in webcomics. Our cover art from Klio takes a departure from the traditional Victorian-era imagery of steampunk to imagine an alternate world technologically-advanced Roman empire. Klio’s webcomic, SPQR Blues, however, is not only a rollicking good story but historically accurate.
We’ve also wrapped up our May issue with the last of our reviews of the nominated webcomics for the Eisner Best Digital Comics category: The Abominable Charles Christopher by Karl Kerschl, Understanding The Process by Joe Infurnari, PX! by Manny Trembly and Eric Anderson, Immortal by Dean Haspiel, and SugarShock! by Josh Whedon and Fabio Moon.
It’s a strong batch of nominees this year and I recommend folks check them all out. Although they range in subject and approach, they all have very strong writing and art — basically they’re really good. It’s a ways off to Eisner night (Friday, July 25th) but in the meantime why not share with us your prediction on who will win this year’s Digital Comics category (and any other category you’re interested in writing about).
D.J Coffman explains in his blog that he has stopped work on the Platinum published comic book, Hero By Night, because of "financial issues at our publisher". Hero By Night issue #4 apparently is partially done but won't be released on schedule because the colorist, Jason Embury has also stopped work on it. The "financial issues" are not explained but it does appear that Coffman and Embury were not getting paid at all or on time by Platinum for recent work on Hero By Night. Coffman suggests the possibility of taking Hero By Night the full webcomic route but doesn't seem to have made any decisions yet.
While Coffman seems to emphasize a continuing good relationship with Platinum (he seems to indicate future projects to come with the publisher) I can't imagine this news about the 2006 Comic Book Challenge winner will be good for the 2008 Comic Book Challenge contest. Just last week Platinum changed the rules on its contest to allow entrants to pitch via video (instead of making the trip in-person to San Diego, CA) and extended the deadline from May 31st to June 14th.
The Abominable Charles Christopher by Karl Kerschl is the fifth of this year’s Eisner nominees for Best Digital Comic.
LEGAL
If you haven't read enough about how bad the new Tokyo Pop contest contract is read Tom Spurgeon's straightforward breakdown of the various flavors of crap contained within it. (Lea Hernandez also has links to most of the posts on the subject here.)
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
Will Wheaton and Greg Williams have a webcomic up about nostalgia — Star Wars action figures to be specific.
Joe Infurnari who does the Eisner-nominated webcomic, The Process, announced he will also be posting a new webcomic titled The Transmigration of Ultra-Lad on the ACT-I-VATE site.
DEAD TREES
Comics Worth Reading has a short review of the print collection of the webcomic America Jr.
Word Balloons has a review of Kean Soo's Jellaby book.
SWAGALICIOUS
I really like this t-shirt from Dorothy Gambrell (Cat and Girl).
NOT WEBCOMICS
NerdWorld has a post up about the freshly released Penny Arcade game and the almost here Homestar Runner game.
LEGAL
Lea Hernandez (and lots others) has been commenting on how bad the new contract from TokyoPop for their superstars of manga contest is. Does every freaking comics publisher now hold "contests"?
INTERVIEWS
The Scienteers intervew Josh "Girly" Lesnick.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
Hey! New Boxjam’s Doodle!
Hey! New update to Fear My Dear, the sequel to Dean Haspiel’s Immortal.
Another interesting article from the early mists of ComixTalk time (our March 2003 issue) is T Campbell’s article on Webcartoonist community. Campbell considers the extent of dialogue amongst webcomic creators and compares it to subcommunities in art, movies, etc.
I’ve also begun preliminary work on a potential article for later this year and I’d like as much help from everyone as possible. It’s a 100 Greatest Webcomics kind of article – the idea being something like a "you’ve gotta read these 100" before you die (or 100 to recommend to others to read)… Make suggestions and argue with me (and others) over a draft list here in the new forums.
The Scienteers have a short review of the wrestling comic, Rival Angels.
Brandon Carr posts that the lack of updates to the Weird Adventures in Unemployment comic is due to health issues (his and his computer). I’ve been trying to do an interview with Carr – I think his computer problems have been part of the reason that hasn’t come together yet.
NOT WEBCOMICS
On the heels of Penny Arcade’s game, now we get a Strongbad game too? And for the Wii!? EXCELLENT.
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