Comix Talk

WINNING! Have you had enough of Charlie Sheen this week? Check out Charlie Sheen Family Circus and superheroes quoting Charlie Sheen.  And PVP too.

MILESTONES: Fleen catches that Owne Dunne has announced he's bringing back You Damn Kid on March 7, 2011. At the beginning of the century when YDK was new it was vital online – a bleaker, darker and funnier version of the television show, The Wonder Years.

MAILBAG

• Patrick writes that he's just released the first (of twelve) issue for a new comic series called Winter City. The story would be categorised as a Dark and Thrilling Crime Drama with a little horror/slasher mixed in. The art has been professionally produced to a very high quality standard.
• Emergency Webcomic is a miniseries written and illustrated by Chief Nyamweya. It is based on pre-independence Kenya as seen through the eyes Chege Karobia and Kim (Dedan Kimathi).
• Biff Zongo is a new webcomic by Swedish cartoonists Fredrik Sjöholm and Jan Kustfält. Inkers Allstars wrote about them and the new comic.

HYPE

• If I didn't mention this before be sure to check out Steve Horton's webcomic anthology series Spinning to Infinity.  I checked this out when Steve collaborated with Gordon McAlpin and TJ Kirsch on a page for it.
• Minecraft plus Fruit… Enthusiast? WINNING!

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So last day of February already. The year is 1/6 over already.  

DEAD TREES: Zach Weiner's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – now with lots more fiber!  It's a print volume titled Save Yourself Mammal! collecting the very funny, science-savvy comic, coming out this April. And the profits on the book will go to DonorsChoose which funds lots of cool science projects that will help today’s children grow up to become tomorrow’s scientists.

OLD SKOOL: Big Shiny Robot remembers Aaron Farber's Men In Hats. Farber's Pentasmal was pretty funny too.

OSCARS: Well Gordon's probably a bit bummed that How to Train Your Dragon didn't win but Shaun Tan did win for animated short.

MAILBAG: Jason LaTendresse writes about his new webcomic Three Panel Throwdown which just started up and updates on the 3rd, 13th and 23rd of each month (tri-monthly?)  The webcomic has a good high-concept concept: one panel for each contender with the last panel revealing the winner.  Not much in the archives yet — Optimus Prime vs Prime Meat and Johny Cobra Kai vs. Johnny 5 are the first ones.

MOTION COMIC: Dean Haspiel has a new motion comic out called The Angel which is actually really good.  I'm pretty sure I'm on record not really enjoying the vast majority of motion comic efforts over the last 2-3 years (but if not well now I am) so it's still not my favorite approach to story-telling, but this one does some things well. There is a real intelligence to how the panels are shifted, the limited animation included and most of all – the visual movement and appearance of the text is very good.  Here it is – what do you think?

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At Comixtalk HQ, we spent yesterday in serious contemplation of the contributions presidents have made to America.  Er, well I did play Fallout 3 which does have a post-Apocalyptic robot president.

BUSINESS: Tom Spurgeon uses a Lewis Trondheim series to illustrate why he thinks the comic book pamphlet format is dead for alt-comix.

CRAFT: John Allison has some interesting thoughts on what he would have done differently with his Scary Go Round comic based on what he's learned since.

MARKETING: Do ads that pick up on the specific content of the webcomic work better? Dunno but Lauren Davis catches David Willis being funny with Penny & Aggie.  Jeph Jacques takes a turn with it too.

HYPE: Comic Alliance has a preview of the webcomic-creator created Strange Tales 2 from Marvel.  Weird, funny takes on classic superheroes.  And from the ComixTALK blogs, Gail Scott, Space Pilot by Mark Toner starts this Thursday.

MCBOOKS: Just a thought – I probably should see if there are any good deals at Borders while it's closing up some of its mega-stores.  Susie Cagle draws a comic about it.

COPYFIGHT:  This short video with Neil Gaiman on why he doesn't stress so much about online piracy of his books is interesting mostly because it's Neil Gaiman but also he's got a point:

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Well I'm writing this post so the first thing I'm mentioning is that I did a "cover" of a panel from the 80s comic book Spiderman Versus Wolverine for the Repaneled blog — it's up over there today.  I think the "cover" concept blogs are all pretty fun; there's a lot of them actually.  Repaneled is on the newer side but has a lot of interesting work up already.  UPDATE: Speaking of covers, friend-of-ComixTalk-for-life James Duncan has a cover of an Alpha Flight issue up at the Covered blog.

MILESTONES: It's the 7th anniversary of Richard Thompson's Cul De Sac. This comic is so good, it's kind of a shame it wasn't around for the last newspaper golden era of Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side, it more than holds it own.

AWARDS: The Glyph Award nominees are out and nominated in the Best Comic Strip or Webcomic category are The K Chronicles by Keith Knight; Marty’s Diner by Dmitri Jackson; The Revolutionary Times by Brandon Howard and Sean Mack; Solomon Azua by Jake Ekiss; and World of Hurt by Jay Potts.

INTERVIEW: The Phoenix New Times interviews Matt Inman about his webcomic The Oatmeal.  His first book, 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch A Dolphin In the Mouth, is coming out on March 5.

REVIEWS

• The Daily Cross Hatch reviews Julia Wertz's Drinking At The Movies, and Comics Worth Reading links to a preview online of the book.
• Tangents reviews the looong running webcomic Megatokyo.

JUMP TO HYPE SPEED

• Caldwell Tanner has another funny comic up at College Humor — this one a now and then about snow days.
• Fleen notes the return of Michael Jonathan to his webcomic Eros, Inc.  Worth checking out!

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I heard it was Warren Ellis' birthday this week – be sure to wish him a happy birthday and go read his excellent webcomic Freak Angels.  Ellis also launched another tell me about your webcomic threads at his highly trafficed forum Whitechapel.  I have often discovered excellent new work from those threads – worth checking out.

MAJOR MILESTONES: I'll second Fleen's writeup of Brad Guigar's 11th year in webcomics – the guy is the Paul Bunyan Cyborg of webcomics. And also it's 9 years of Unshelved so I'll also second Fleen's congrats there too. (And this has been your weekly "Catching up late with Fleen" episode!)

MINI MILESTONES: Steve Hardoin's Billy Rabbit, a webcomic about a girl named Kiki and her sarcastic rabbit, reached 50 comics. The rabbit is always getting himself into trouble and Kiki is forced to bail him out, however, Kiki is more like her pet than she would ever admit.

iWEBCOMICS: Morten F. Thomsen, the CEO of digital comics platform Oxicomics, writes that his company is about to "release the first truly HTML5 based comics reading application for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iTouch), Android, Symbian and desktop/laptop computers (Windows, Linux, OS/X) – no Flash – only open, standard web technologies – while still creating an immersive reading experience that readers have grown accustomed to."  He also adds that publishers will be able to use the self-service platform to publish comics in ways that no other digital comics platform offers.  Choose between “Complete” issues and “Ongoing” issues (e.g. unfinished, webcomics model with regular page postings), and offer the purchased comics for true ownership (free from DRM) – not just for rent like all other digital comics applications out there today.  In addition, since the application is 100% HTML, there are no AppStore approval processes (or censorship) – all comics can be distributed as they were intended by the creator – without having to conform to antiquated moral codes.  

HYPE: Lots of ink on a new webcomic from Mike Norton called Battle Pug.  I hope it's good, but I wonder if Dave Kellett should be owed a cut 🙂

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I've gotten a couple of pings from the very polite person working for YouCast: the Social Media Company about a press release for a webcomic prequel to an upcoming television show. Webcomic prequels and sequels to television shows and movies are almost a genre now.  Maybe award shows need to start a new category for these kinds of comics.  

So it's a ways off — June 2011 — but Steven Spielberg has a new television series called Falling Skies that will be on TNT (hey – better distribution than Current TV amIrightKeith?). The webcomic is written by Paul Tobin and illustrated by Juan Ferreyra and will bridge the gap between the 12-page Falling Skies comic released at New York Comic Con. Also – colored by Andy Dalhouse and lettered by "font majeur" (like that?) and webcomic creator NATE PIEKOS.

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Well happy Valentines Day! In the spirit of the day, check out the Comics Reporter round up of its readers' five favorite kisses from comics. In Xaviar X. Xerexes news, I am running again – I have this foolhardy notion that running a marathon this year is a life-affirming, motivational goal.  I have a long way to go to get ready for it.

INTERVIEWS

• The Comics Reporter has an interview with Darryl Cunningham, who has posted several well-received journalistic comics in the last year.
• Ben Morse has an interview with Sean T. Collins on his webcomic Destructor.
• Tim Brouk interviews Ben Hatke of Zita The Space Girl.
• The TGT podcast has an audio interview with Chris Watkins of the romantic/family/cross-cultural comic Odori Park.

REVIEW: Delos has a review of Yehuda Moon and The Kickstart Cyclery.

BUSINESS:  Brian Hibbs has his annual analysis of the Bookscan data for graphic novels.  A lot of data — very interesting to get a sense of how bookstores did with comics last year.

NOT COMICS: Comic Riffs has an interview with Sylvain Chomet the creator of the Oscar-nominated animated feature, The Illusionist.

WORTH GETTING OFF OF THE COUCH: Nick Bertozzi is signing his new book on Lewis and Clark at Big Planet Comics in Bethesda on February 26th from 4-6 pm, and he's accompanied by Jason Little, whose book Motel Art Improvement Service was one of my favorites of 2010. (h/t ComicsDC)

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