Filling the Void: An Interview with Shayna Marchese

Shayna Marchese is the creator of Voids, a webcomic about Sara, a young woman in New York City.  I like Voids a lot — it's a quiet comic that casts a careful eye on its main character as well as the city she lives in. I caught up with Marchese via email earlier this month to find out a little more about her and Voids.

Can you tell us a little about yourself? Where are you now: where are you from?

Continue Reading

Cory Doctorow on Free Electronic Books Do Sell Printed Books

Blogger, science fiction writer and copyright activist Cory Doctorow writes about his experiences making a free download of his printed books available and why he believes it has increased his sales. Doctorow doesn’t do comics but to the extent his experiences can be generalized it’s hard to image why they wouldn’t apply equally to comics.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Check out our roundtable on comics and copyright which featured Doctorow, among others.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Comixpedia (comixpedia.org) Looking For New Logo

Over at the new Comixpedia, Josh writes:

Comixpedia.org needs a new logo! Xaviar Xerexes and I think the current logo is a little too close to the Comixtalk logo. Anyone wishing to submit a logo for consideration can upload it and post it to the New logo page, or send it to me at my first name at this domain and I’ll post it. Submissions should be 135×155 pixels. —Josh

Which is true – I think it needs it own identity to complete its separation from this site. Comixpedia (comixpedia.org) is only going to get bigger and bigger under Josh’s management so some of you might be interested in crafting something for it.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Jack Thompson Vs. Scott “Extra Life” Johnson

Scott Johnson, the creator of the webcomic ExtraLife, is running a "Photoshop Jack Thompson" contest which apparently provoked an email from Thompson demanding that Johnson "cease and desist". Thompson previously tangled with the creators of the webcomic Penny Arcade and is probably best known for continuously blaming society’s ills on the existence of video games. Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Bombshell Brings Back Webcomic Idol

Bomb Shelter Comics Collective is holding their Webcomics Idol competition again. I’m doing the judge thing which for me at least boils down to plug the comics that I like and try to say something constructive about the ones that don’t totally float my boat. Here’s more from Bomb Shelter:

It’s that time of year again, folks. That’s right, time for the second annual Bomb Shelter Comics Webcomic Idol competition. We did this last year as a spur of the moment kind of thing, and while it didn’t turn out very well, we weren’t prepared for how big it was going to get.

This year, we’ve geared up and got ready for the event in advance. We’ve got a hand-coded voting application being tested right now, we’ve got some co-sponsorship for the event this year, and we’ve got some really top-notch judges lined up so far.

DJ Coffman & Xavier Xerexes are returning as guest judges while we welcome Wilson Ramos Jr. & Gary Tyrrell as new editions to the judges panel. We’ll probably have a couple more before the actual competition.

Submissions will be open from October 1st until October 14th. A link to the submission form will be posted on the morning of October st so keep an eye out. Be sure to sign your comic up when registration opens.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Not So Neutral Intertubes

You may have heard stories about network neutrality over the last year or so.  The basic debate is whether or not we need law to enforce the nondiscrimination and openness of the current Internet now that there are drastically fewer ISPs in business in a high-speed/broadband world.

So this is not webcomics but something for every independent artist to think about.  Here’s David Isen’s post on what a non-neutral Internet service might be like.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized