The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted!!

One of my favorite internet-y t-shirts is still David Malki!'s "The Revolution Will Not Be Telegraphed" – for some reason my brain was stuck on variations of that all weekend.. "The Revolution Will Not Be Conveyed Via the Blades of the Semaphore Line!"  "The Revolution Will Not Be Transmitted Directly Into My Brain Via iBrain" Well you take it from there…

Also heads up – talented comics creator Gene Yang has a new website and blog.

INTERVIEWS

HYPE

  • Change is good and Danielle Corsetto looks to be mixing things up again for the cast of Girls With Slingshots this year. Today's is pretty funny.
  • I demand George Lucas hire Kevin Smith to adapt Nate Beaty's Life As A Wookie as the next Star Wars movie…
  • A series of sketches from John Allison – I actually like his looser, more dashed off work quite a bit although it only emerges in tiny bits in his finished comics.

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Trailer for GAAK Graphic Novel

First Run Publishing is publishing a print collection of Darryl Hughes' and  Monique MacNaughton's webcomic, G.A.A.K: Groovy Ass Alien Kreatures.  The webcomic ran for six years and was nominated for a Glyph Comic Award in 2007.

When a meteor crash lands on the outskirts of a small suburban town called Eden'sVille, it brings with it the kooky maniacal alien Gakk and his army of "Acme Instant Alien Kreatures" for a not so friendly visit from outer space.  Four misfit teens: geeky Zach, tomboyish Jemmy, genius nerd Plato, and wisecracking Chubs-set out to stop the invasion, save the world, and show the aliens that the kids of america don't take crap from nobody — and no body snatchers, either.

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There Are No Ruts in Rutabaga

Brainstorming a new title for the daily spotty updates I've called "Comix Talk" the last couple of years.

To me, one of the most not-covered stories of last year was the "upgrade" of Comicspace.com to the wordpress platform and it's seeming abandonment to spam. Along with the total absence of any significant announcements of new products, services, etc from the corporation Comicspace last year (please correct me if I'm forgetting anything) I'm not surprised to see a blog post like this one from Reinder Dijkhuis on getting out of Comicspace.

2010 IS SO LAST YEAR:  Susie Cagle has a series of comics on 2010 in review: part one, part two and part three.

HYPEY McHYPE:  Get a look online at Justin Madson's eerie dystopian future comic series, Breathers at MTV Geek. I'm a big fan of this and have bought all of the books so far.

DEAD TREE WALKING:  Tyler Page, creator of Nothing Better, has been posting about his (self) publishing experiences. At the end of last year he posted part 4 which covers dealing with Diamond (catch up on Part 1Part 2, and Part 3).

INTERVIEWS

HOW LONG UNTIL AMULET 4: Kazu Kibuishi posts that he's in the final push on Amulet 4 (yay!) and he posted a photo of his studio set-up.  These kind of photos can be pretty interesting — especially when you're in despair over your own shambles of a workspace (like… me).

COME OVER TO THE WEBSIDE: One of my favorite cartoonists Alex Robinson has writer's block. He blogs about it from time to time – part three from December entails a plan to just write a story. He also asked about publishing it online and there's a good discussion in the comments there. Before that he linked to an idea of using "100 themes" to generate ideas and work. His newfound discovery of the board game Settlers of Catan is probably not going to help with his productivity this year 🙂

AROUND THE WEB IN 80 BLOGS OR SO

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Comix Talk for Tuesday, January 4, 2011

I drew more sketches of webcomic characters yesterday, but so far resisting the urge to post everything I doodle this year.  Instead I'll link to Chainsawsuit which combines the anthropomorphication of time with counting down the days until the Olsen twins are legal.

ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG AT HEART: This time some advice from comic creator Rina Piccolo about happiness, money and creative freedom.

COPYFIGHT:  Another look at what's missing from the public domain in the United States this year because of the continued increases in copyright term lengths.  I'd love to see links to similar posts for other countries as well.

SHE'S CRAFTY: Gordon McAlpin posted this two part series last year on how he does the hand-drawn versions of his webcomic Multiplexpart one and part two.

LAND OF THE GIANTS: Whitney Matheson reports that Jim Woodring will debut his giant steel dip pen, January 9th in Seattle, WA.

YES BUT WHAT'S MY MOTIVATION: The Inkygirl blog is running a writing challenge to help motivate aspiring writers — would a comicking challenge work equally well?  

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Comix Talk for January 3, 2011

2011? Yep it's another year, another decade.  Another Monday…

ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG AT HEART: I don't think I realized Zach "SMBC" Weiner had a personal blog before (THE WEINERWORKS) – his posts on becoming a webcartoonist are pretty interesting.  Zach has a level of self-awareness and criticial self-assessment that is enviable.  The most recent post in the series covers his decision to go back to school to study SCIENCE! (part one, part two, part three).  It kind of stings me a bit as while I've learned a LOT from reading comics and writing about comics, I haven't actually consistently made comics in awhile now.  Here's something from Zach that I will print out and tape to the wall, "Hard work doesn’t guarantee success, but lack of hard work almost certainly guarantees failure."

INTERVIEW: Tom Spurgeon interviews Andrew Farago, webcomics creator, manager of the the Cartoon Art Museum, and husband of Shaenon Garrity.

iWEBCOMICS: Comics for the Kindle? – Tom Mason has some suggestions.

HIATUS: Krishna Sadasivam puts his techy-geek (or is that geeky tech) webcomic PC Weenies on hiatus until February.

Random Plug for 2010: The crossover storyline of last year I'm going to call for this one between GWS and SP.

KICK START MY ART: Michael Gianfrancesco just launched a Kickstarter project to fund a new comic anthology called Show and Tell, a Comic Anthology about Learning and Teaching. This anthology is part of a larger project — the New England Comic Arts in the Classroom Conference, which will be held March 26th in Providence, RI. Guests at the con will include Raina Telgemeier and Tracy White. The editorial board for the anthology includes Michael Gianfrancesco, Dr. Jennifer Cook, Heather Bryant, Dan Mazur, Caitlin Plovnick, and Alexander Danner.

MAILBAG:  Ben Haugen writes, "If you get a second, check out  saggynutbag.com  It's only a couple years old, but it's starting to get some momentum all on its own… I don't do any advertising for it other than word of mouth and with possibly the worst domain name on the internet, most people wouldn't come across it (unless they found it while searching for something else)."  Okay — a quick review of the most recent comics. It's stick figure art so it's all on the writing of the jokes and they are (a) all offensive and (b) some are kind of brutally funny, but also I thought some really missed.  It's no Crying Macho Man but it's sense of humor is in the same general place. Worth checking out if you like that kind of humor.

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Happy (Almost) New Years

It's been a heck of a fun 2010 at ComixTALK for me, but also exhausting.  Soloing a blog isn't easy — it's not my job (I have a whole 'nother life as a lawyer from 9 to 6 PM, at least, and being a husband and dad (and starting and stopping every other project offline and on that caught my short attention span this year).  So I'm not sure what's in store for the site next year.  I'm brainstorming and contemplating — if you have any bright ideas to add to the mix feel free to say hello (xerexes@gmail.com or tweet xerexes).

NOT WEBCOMICS: Derik said this went well when he swapped in some CDs for stuff.  Anyone have a bad experience with iPODmeister?

INTERVIEW: Tom Spurgeon with an indepth interview with Dylan Horrocks.

CODE: I'm not sure why someone would want to run a comic off of VBulletin software but this looks like a project trying to do just that.

LOCAL: Mike Rhode links to everything he wrote about comics in DC for the Washington City Paper this year.

SOME RANDOM WEBCOMICS TO BE THANKFUL FOR

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Heeeeere’s Santa!

A little holiday cheer from Reality Amuck (click here if you don't get the reference)

BEST OF 2010: The MTV Geek blog posts its best digital comics and webcomics of 2010.  Wired's ALT TEXT posts the Best Webcomics of 2010.

INTERVIEW: Tom Spurgeon interviews journal comicker Dustin Harbin.

MAILBAG: Joseph Hewitt of Ataraxia Theatre writes that he is crowdsourcing which storyline to focus on in 2011.  More details here — he's posted sample chapters from three different projects (the three samples are relatively short- 5 pages, 19 pages, and 9 pages). 

AROUND THE BLOGS: Sophia Wiedeman draws a webcomic for The Daily Cross Hatch. I've reviewed a couple of Sophia's mini comics — both of which were very interesting reads.

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Happy Holidays

Comic by Ape Lad

Happy Holidays everyone!  This comic above is by Ape Lad (for Boing Boing)

COMICS PRESS: Today's the last day of Journalista 2.0 and Dirk Deppey posted a long list of great news sources (something he also did when Journalista 1.0 ended).  No real details on why Fantagraphics/TCJ laid him off other than comments that they couldn't afford a full-time blogger.  If so that's a shame as TCJ's embrace of the web in recent years has certainly made it more accessible — I guess the question remains if its made it more sustainable.

MERRY HOLIDAYUS!: The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas is probably the funniest new Christmas thing you'll experience this year (h/t Lauren Davis)

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