Comix Talk

Sorry for the lack of updates this week, but your ace reporter is feeling a bit under the weather right now. So let's open up the ComixTALK mailbag!  First there's a note from John Allie who wrote an essay about feminism as it pertains to webcomics. There have been more than a few controversial comics and statements by cartoonists all of which Allie tackles in the essay.  It's very interesting work and well worth reading.  Here's one snippet from it that sets out its thesis:

The openness of the webcomics medium has made it fertile ground for female cartoonists, which has led to an influx of women into the field, both as creators and readers. While misogyny may still exist in many popular webcomics, readers do not allow these slips to pass without comment, and the number of webcomics by, for, and about women is increasing.

And of course how about a little hype for some new webcomics:

Nathan Bonner writes that after some 900+ pages and nearly seven years, my space adventure webcomic Indavo ended last May. I have recently switched gears and worked with my partener-in-crime, Jamie Miller, to produce a new webcomic – Shamus Stone.  It's a film Noir-style Detective comic set in 1946 Chicago. It updates twice a week in glorious Black & White (No offense!)

steven "Scruffy" Atherton writes about his new webcomic Warts…And All which chronicles the misadventures of a somewhat disfunctional, riddled with "isms" American family.  Comprised of a well meaning (albeit befuddled) father, a perpetualy at the "end-of-her-rope" mother, and an assortment of psychological disorders disguised as children. Sometimes raw,  sarcastic, violent, blunt, it is always spinkled with a touch of love (haha).  Anyone who has ever had to suffer a family should take consolation in the fact that they are not alone. 

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I really got a kick out of this fan made trailer for an Axe Cop movie:

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A few things from the web worth reading this morning:

DIGITAL COMICS: Brigid Alverson compares a couple of recent stories on pricing and profits in digital comics distribution.  One of those stories is Todd Allen's breakdown of the revenue on a digital comic sale versus a print comic sale.

AWARDS:  Are the Reubens the only major comics award program that doesn't recognize webcomics in some fashion?  Btw, submissions for nominations to the 2010 Reubens are dues by February 6th.

THE MORE YOU KNOW: Brigid Alverson links to Paul Gravett's series of creator profiles and recommended reading.

CRAFT: Evan Dorkin posts some panel work he's done recently for Oni's upcoming Yo Gabba Gabba! anthology.  Jeph Jacques also posted a sketch of some new characters for his webcomic Questionable Content.

PLUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

• I like kale so naturally I liked Anne Emond's comic about kale!
• Lucy Knisley presents the "Weakness Fair" which is a great concept and a gently funny comic.
• I should have mentioned that Jenn Manley Lee's amazing Dicebox has a print version of its Book One out this month and that she's now serializing Book Two on the web. (h/t McCloud!)

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The blog TechDirt covers the dust-up between the webcomic Schlock Mercenary and the Franklin Covey company which has a trademark on the title of the popular book by Stephen Covey, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People."  Schlock's creator Howard Tayler has a funny and concise post up on the cease and desist letter he received regarding his parody "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates" which he is now retroactively changing to "The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries."

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Some brief updates to this week's news.  Alaska named a Comics Laureate once so James Kochalka's gig as Vermont's Comic Laureate is the second state to create the post. The Comics Code Authority probably was defunct as of 2009 as a functioning organization since DC and Archie Comics used the label but were no longer submitting their books for content review.  Wizard World is no longer publishing either of its former magazines — the comics one and the toy one.  Leon is still getting larger though…

INSTANT KARMA

• The Drawn! blog features a great quote from Chuck Close, "The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration." Read the whole thing.
•  Alan Gardner quotes Steve Niles in a let's try not to be negative post at the Daily Cartoonist.

PLUGITY PLUG PLUG

• BIG BUSHY BEARD TIME!
• Have you checked out The Realist? — it's beautifully drawn, surreally engaging. I really liked the most recent comic.
• I can't decide if the Potty-Bot is the cutest or most disgusting sci-fi robot of all time… The second chapter of Christopher Baldwin's Spacetrawler is starting off strong though!

REVIEW: Tangents reviews Namesake.

NOT WEBCOMICS: You should bookmark Fake Criterions if you're not already reading this blog.  Hilariously over-serious posters for movies that are anything but.

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Vermont has named James Kochalka it's Cartoonist Laureate.  At first glance this struck me as an oddity, a grafting onto a centuries old tradition of the poet laureate, BUT the more I've had the notion sit with me, the more think there's something to it.  As a medium, I would argue the potential for comics is tremendous, particularly in the this age of a video and image-savvy population.  Supporting a cartoonist along with or instead of a poet would arguably have the potential for a much greater impact on society at large.  Coverage at The Beat, Center for Cartoon Studies, and The Comics Reporter.

SUPER ART CONTEST: Scott McCloud links to a Google Doodle contest — he'll be one of the 9 judges.  Details are here – the deadline for registration is 11:59:59 PM Pacific Time (PT) on March 2, 2011 and all doodle submissions must be postmarked by March 16, 2011 no later than 11:59:59 PM Pacific Time (PT). I imagine there may be some submissions to this contest from my kids.

SUPER ART FIGHT: A wrap-up of the recent SA9 battle royale results.

BUSINESS: Indigo Kelleigh links to The Illustrated Section, which offers digital comic downloads for sale.

INTERVIEWS

• PW has an interview with Tatsuya Ishida, creator of Sinfest, on the publication of a second Dark Horse print collection of his comic. Ishida is impressively reclusive in this tweetin' social media world we live in.  I tried (not all that hard really) to get an interview with him in the first couple of years of ComixTALK and struck out everytime.
• Mike Rhode interviews Steve Conley.  Conley is working again on his webcomic Bloop.

Pluggity Plug Plug

• Another funny update to Faith Erin Hicks' The Adventures of Superhero Girl.
• FIFTY CHICKEN McNUGGETS AND YOU KNOW IT'S ON!
• I don't play much Team Fortress 2 but I'm guessing from this VG Cats comic that creator Scott Ramsoomair does.

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Forgive my shoehorning two stories into Oz land:

First the end of the Comics Authority Code – reported on by Newsarama, summed up by BOing Boing:

57 years after the Comics Code Authority was created to certify that comics bearing its seal had been censored and did not contain anti-authoritarian, sexual or counterculture content, it has finally died. The CCA was formed in response to the moral panic brought on by the Seduction of the Innocents, a medical hoax perpetrated by American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham who testified that comics were a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. (Paradoxically, Wertham was also a pioneering civil rights campaigner — he apparently believed in freedom but just wasn't interested in sharing).  As of February, no major comic will bear the CCA seal any longer — February being the month that Archie drops the iconic serif A. When Archie no longer cares about your certification of squeaky cleanness, you are truly dead.

Second, the news today that Wizard is reorganizing and apparently no longer publishing a print version of Wizard World.  

I never bought or read a print anything from Wizard so I won't miss anything. But this is the same company that started a pretty good website earlier this decade — which featured a pretty great group of young writers — and for whatever reason basically erased it after a too brief period of time.

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INTERVIEWS

• CBR talks to Carla Speed McNeil about the new Finder books coming out from publisher Dark Horse.
• The Beat has an interview with the authors of the law and superheroes blog, Law And the Multiverse.

BE OUR GUEST: Christopher Baldwin is filling in on art chores for the all ages webcomic Snowflakes.

EUROPE

Zampano is new webcomics site that features established European comic creators. The site has been up and running successfully for two years in German. Recently it has added English and French versions of its comics. Updated five times a week, Zampano showcases free serialization of  autobiographical, political, experimental and fantastic graphic novels by creators like  David Boller (Kaos Moon, Witchblade, Spider-Man, Elfquest), Rene Lehner (Oscureo) et Rudolph Perez (Zebra).

MAILBAG

Richard Pulfer writes that his webcomic Blue Yonder is running a contest that asks fans submit to submit a superhero character that Pulfer and co-writer Luke Perks will proceed to pen a demise for in a one-page story.  Art will be by Diego Diaz, the artist on Blue Yonder.  The deadline for submissions is February 1^st, with the winners announced and posted on the website soon after. 

Pulfer adds that while the contest might sound a bit morbid, it’s not without precedent. In 1988, DC Comics held a telephone poll determining the fate of the second Robin Jason Todd, resulting in the acclaimed Batman story “A Death in the Family.” DC also held a contest for fan-submitted superheroes in 1998. The winner Retro was killed by the supervillain Prometheus, who used his identity to enter the Justice League’s Watchtower HQ.

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I miss Journalista! I never tried to exhaustively link-blog last year and won't this year either. These link-heavy "Comix Talk" posts include stories that I find interesting and think others will too. So what kinds of things do I look for?  I got back into comics in the nineties through the birth and growth of webcomics.  So I have an ongoing interest in digital stuff about comics.  I'm also eclectic in my tastes in comics, much like my tastes in music, books, film etc.  I'm not sure what the buzzword is/should be (the "new mainstream"?) but I look at comics through "non-superhero-only" glasses and in my world every genre is equally important. I'm also trying to practice what I used to preach which is that creating is as important as consuming and have picked up pen and paper (and wacom)  again. So I'm usually interested in things that seem helpful to me in my own efforts to make webcomics.

And hey we're getting closer to a 100 likes for the new ComixTALK Facebook page – help put it over the century mark!  Thanks.

GOOD DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP: Richard Thompson, creator of Cul de Sac writes:

My friend the redoubtable and unstoppable Chris Sparks of Sparking Design has launched Team Cul de Sac, a fundraising site for Parkinson's research.  It's a part of TeamFox, the Michael J Fox Foundation's fundraising arm, which in the last year alone raised almost 4 million dollars for research.

The project is looking for donations of drawings of characters from Cul de Sac for a book that will come out from Andrews Publishing — the deadline in May 15th.

HYPE: Scott McCloud and Brigid Alverson recommend the new The Abaddon.

REVIEW: Tangents reviews Girl Genius.

INTERVIEW: The Daily Cross Hatch posts the first part of its interview with Susie Cagle.

CRAFT: Gary had this great post yesterday at FLEEN with links to posts on facial expressions and athletic models.  Great stuff for working on the art-ing.

WORDS: Lea Hernandez offers some advice on writing a graphic novel.

CONVENTIONS: Intervention opens up registration for its 2nd edition, including the Comicpress workshops with developer Frumph.  The other convention in the DC area, SPX, opened up it's exhibitor registration this week.

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