Panel & Pictures: Changing Colors
In this month's Panels & Pictures, Derik A. Badman shares some examples of color use in a variety of comics, with an emphasis on the use of shifting color palettes within the same work.
The Visitors Guide to Templar, Arizona: An Interview with Spike
Charlie "Spike" Troutman is the talented creator behind the well-received webcomic (and book) Templar, Arizona. The comic is a story about a town that may or may not completely conform to the regular laws of reality and features a growing assortment of interesting characters who both intrigue and intimidate the protagonist, a young man named Ben. Spike has also created other webcomics, including Sparkneedle, Lucas and Odessa and Playing With Dolls (which used Sims Online screen captures for the artwork). Continue Reading
Forget it, Jake. It’s Friday.
Rolling news update today:
MILESTONESÂ
DEAD TREES
In its heyday, MAD magazine was required reading for happy mutants. Every (cheap!) issue was jam-packed with terrific cartoons, highlarious parody, social commentary disguised as sophomoric humor, and quite a few jokes that I pretended to get but was secretly too young to understand. The Don Martin Department was always my favorite section (along with Dave Berg’s strips and the sacred fold-in) so I’m salivating over the publication of The Completely MAD Don Martin, a beautifully-packaged two-volume collection of everything Martin ever did for MAD, from 1957 to 1987.
REVIEWSÂ
- Mr. Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon, reviews Thingpart by Joe Sayers.
- Charles Yoakum reviews Danielle Corsetto’s Girls With Slingshots. (h/t Journalista!)
- Jason Michelitch reviews Awesome: The Indie Spinner Rack Anthology. (h/t Journalista!)
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Poking fun at Walter Disney (link from Boing Boing).
- Tom Spurgeon asks "Are Superhero Comics Near-Exhausted?"
- FLEEN catches the end of Yirmumah, D.J. Coffman’s long-running humor webcomic.
- Also at FLEEN, Anne Thalheimer muses about what’s a webcomic. This might be boring or interesting to you – depending on whether you’ve seen this line of writing/thinking before.
- Matt-Matt Shepherd links to LOLcat Wasteland. Holy Ragged Claws, indeed!
Thursday Next Reporting For Duty…
COMIXTALK
- A thanks to our current sponsors: The Electric Church by Jeff Somers; TimePeeper by L. Neil Smith and Sherard Jackson; and the Learn to Draw the Human Figure anatomy training course. Sponsorships are sold in weekly allotments and can be purchased here (Premium slot) or here (the next slot down). We also thank the many fine folks who’ve advertised with us through Project Wonderful including the as-of-this-moment advertiser: ComicsBy.Us. If you’d like to bid for advertising on ComixTalk visit our page at Project Wonderful here.
NEWS
- Might be some later but for now I wanted to point everyone to Matt Reidsrow’s cool "poster" (it should be anyhow!) of people from/at SPX (and I’m not saying it’s cool just because Matt included me… okay that might have had a tiny little bit to do with it…). I’m reading Matt’s mini-comic – High Maintenance Machine – right now actually (I bought the boxed set at SPX) so I’ll hopefully write about him again soon.
I Don’t Like Mondays
AWARDSÂ
- In a bit of a surprise (to me at least) Papercutter #6 edited by Alec Longstreth won Outstanding Debut in the Ignatz Awards (A surprise not because Longstreth’s book didn’t deserve to win but because very famous cartoonist Bill Griffith had a book nominated in this category: Zippy: Walk a Mile in My Mu-Mu). Chris Onstad won the Outstanding Online Comic for Achewood. The full list of awards are available here in simple text form, all on one page (please someone at the WCCAs use this format for releasing your list of winners next time).
INTERVIEWS
TECHNOLOGY
- Joey Manley has a big post on questions and comments on tailoring stats for webcomic creators in the next generation of his hosting service WebcomicsNation. I still need to read it a bit more carefully but if you’re interested in stats or WCN you should probably give it a look.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- Johanna Draper Carlson plugs Little White Mouse and flags that creator Paul Sizer is now posting it online with updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- A NYTimes article compares the "suffering" of Charles M. Schulz to the great artists of history. A lot of this coverage is coming on the heels of the new biography Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis. (The family of Schulz seems to hate the biography but I saw Alan Gardener’s link to a favorable review from Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson.)
- I’m sure everyone has already seen this from Homestar Runner, but I just never got around to posting it. Check out Strongbad’s take on starting a webcomic… DON’T!
- Jon "Goats" Rosenberg’s "Republicans For Voldemart" bumper sticker gets a mention in this NYTimes article.
Just Got Back from SPX Day One
I’m only doing one day of SPX this year (today) which is too bad because it was chockfull of cool people and good comics. I just got home from spending the afternoon there and I’ll have a more "formal" (yes I’m making the air quote with my fingers in my head as I write that word) convention report later this weekend but I thought I’d do a quick post right now.
Join me in "read more" land if you dare!
Dark Horse Has Another Webcomic In Print Success
The Trial of Colonel Sweeto, the first print collection of The Perry Bible Fellowship is selling well. Publisher Dark Horse has had previous successes with webcomics in print, including Fred Gallagher’s Megatokyo (now on CMX) and Penny Arcade by Tycho and Gabe.
Maintenance Comic Book Optioned for Movies
Publisher’s Weekly has a story on Jim Massey, the writer of the Oni Press comic Maintenance (and webcomic creator), which was recently optioned by Warner Bros. for a feature film. Continue Reading
Monday’s Starting To Happen
COMIXTALK
- Features article update: Tim Broderick begins a new series of articles on taking your comic to a traditional publisher — an option every comics creator should consider. I also catch up with what’s going on now with five folks who appeared in the pages of ComixTalk in a previous October issues: Jon Morris; Jamie Robertson; Bill Roundy; Thomas K. Dye; and Lee Adam Herold.
- I’ll have details on the winners of the Blade DVD giveaway tonight (entries closed this past Friday at midnight)
COMICS JOURNALISM
- This is interesting to me at least: Imaginova Corp., a digital media company that manages a network of several science and technology-focused Web sites, has acquired Newsarama.com, a news and community site geared for comic book fans. The company’s network of sites includes Space.com, LiveScience.com and Aviation.com. Though the new acquisition’s editorial is not science based, Imaginova CEO and president Dan Stone said that the site reaches a similar audience. (h/t Dirk Deppey)
BUSINESS
- More on Zuda from Todd Allen.
- Mike Lynch tells you what to do after you’ve sold a comic to a magazine.
INTERVIEWS
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Digital Strips reviews White Ninja.
- August Pollak has a new book of comics out: Junk in the Toaster will debut at this weekend’s SPX.
- Tom Spurgeon (Comics Reporter) writes up his mixed feelings towards webcomics. Tom doesn’t cover webcomics as much as he should which is a shame because he’s a good, even-handed observor. More coverage of the digital screen from him will be good. As to the points he’s making in his essay I’ve heard them all before and for the most part they’re hardly worth making let alone taking the trouble to take apart. (Someday I will try to write a more coherent where we’ve been and where we’re going type of essay though that may help serve as sort of an insta-rebuttal to some of the sillier memes of criticism of "webcomics".)
- Mike Hawthorne puts his comic Hysteria online.
A Road Less Traveled: Taking Your Webcomic to a Traditional Publisher
I thought things were changing. Apparently I was wrong.
When Zuda released its contracts last month, I think they showed that the major comics publishers are more interested in acquiring properties than publishing books. As Gary Tyrrell over at Fleen said about the contracts, "Webcomics can do better and so can you."
Believe that! Contracts like Zuda’s play off the insecurities of creators — you’re the harshest critic of your work. Put that aside. If the comics industry refuses to change the way they operate, go to the publishers who will give you a fair deal.
I have a book coming out in January with a small but respected publisher, and receive compensation comparable with others in the prose publishing industry.
I thought things were changing. Apparently I was wrong.
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