Comix Talk for September 16, 2010

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Wow I was completely zapped by three days of con-mania this past weekend.  In any event, I've posted some photos, my first "live" interviews – well first I've recorded and shared with peoples like yourselves. I've got a few more to edit and post — hopefully by the end of the week along with a convention-report style wrap-up.  There's been a lot of posts on SPX (Tom Spurgeon's round-up of such posts is here).  I missed the panel there with Richard Thompson, creator of the best new comic strip in recent years — Cul de Sac but moderator Mike Rhode posted the audio from the panel.

iWEBCOMICS

Warren Ellis posted a little blurb about ideal digital format and pricing for comics.  There were some recent posts about the current price of monthly comic books pamphlets floppies 32 pages with staples thingees lately — prices have gone way up and that format is really not a cheap buy for entertainment anymore.  Digital comics could be.  Webcomics surely are — free is the ultimate sampler price.  I also missed posting about the speech on this future for comics that Mark Waid gave at the Harvey Awards ceremony — Waid followed up with a blog post containing a more polished version of the speech here — it's well worth reading.

NEW!!

David Willis — who I got to meet at Intervention — launched his brand spankin' new Dumbing Of Age webcomic.

DIFFERENT!!

John Allison writes that he's going to stop posting Bad Machinery as a webcomic, but instead turn towards finding a publisher for it.  Presumably to put out a print version that would help it to find more younger readers? 

MILESTONES

Co-creator Eben E.B. Burgoon writes that the 3rd anniversary of Eben 07 was this month plus they have a 3rd print collection out, titled Operation: 3-Ring Bound. To celebrate, they're holding a contest for a $20 amazon gift card & the line art of a celebratory anniversary poster drawn by D. Bethel  — anybody that comments on a comic during September will be entered to win.

HISTORY

El Santo writes a round-up of attempts to chronicle the history of webcomics including T Campbell's series on it here at ComixTalk.

MAILBAG

  • Charles Cutting wrote to let us know that the Illustrated Ape website is hosting the first installment of his webcomic The Dream Quest of Randolph Carter. The next episode will be posted as soon as it is finished (Cutting says hopefully no later than November the 1st).
  • J.T. Yost debuted some new mini comics at SPX including It's Dream Time, Snoop Doggy Dogg.  I got a review copy and hope to have a review up later this month.  I interviewed Yost at SPX — it's part of the 5 interview video here.
  • Stan Wojohowitz wrote that he's launched a new webcomic after 18 months of development called The Psychotic Episodes.  It's about characters exploring issues of psychiatry and mental health.  The first issue, including related blog posts, seems to be about mental health issues for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
  • Stefan Strasser writes out with a different pitch for his webcomic, "Most webcomics start out with a lavish update schedule and then cut down the number of new strips during the course of time. Chicken Wings is now going the opposite way. Starting this week, the comic will update three times a week instead of just one.  Chicken Wings is a comic aimed at aviation enthusiasts and about a bunch of chickens working in a small aviation company.

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Interviews with Five Creators at SPX 2010

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Here's a longer clip of five interviews I did in a row at SPX this past weekend.  These creators' work largely has more of an indy feel and while they all have web presences I think all are a bit more focused on print.  I have reviewed work from J.T. Yost and Sophia Wiedeman before but it was my first time looking at comics from the other three.  Yost had a Xeric Award winner in his book Old Man Winter (reviewed here) and Wiedeman had a Xeric Award winner in her book The Deformitory (reviewed here).

In order I talked to Steve Secks about his comic Life Is Good, Sara Lindo about her comic Carl In Love, Marguerite Dabaie about her comic The Hookah Girl And Other True Stories, Sohia Wiedeman about her comic Lettuce Girl, and J.T. Yost about his two new series — one about dreams and the other about found objects.

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Interviews with Sara Turner and Jerzy Drozd

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I got a chance to do short interviews with Sara Turner and Jerzy Drowd at SPX this past weekend.  

Sara was there to promote her new comic The Ghosts of Pineville.  They also had a print collection of The Replacements, a webcomic that originally ran on GraphicSmash.com that Sara worked on with Jerzy.  Jerzy and Sara put out a lot of their work under their Make Like A Tree banner where you can also find out more about what they're working on.

Jerzy was there to promote a new minicomic, Tiny Hamiltons, that he did with his wife Anne.  He also let slip that he's already written another volume of his webcomic The Front although it sounds like it won't be until next year at the earliest that we'll see it on the web.

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Interview with Chris Impink of Sledge Bunny

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I had a chance to do a quick interview with Chris Impink at Intervention.  Chris is the artist for a new webcomic — Sledge Bunny — his previous project was the webcomic Fragile Gravity.  Sledge Bunny is about roller derby and this is a great point to jump in — a healthy archive has set up the characters and now things are about to happen!  Chris is also one of the founders of Super Art Fight – a live art competition, sort of a combination of WWF and pictionary.  Chris and tag-team partner Jamie Noguchi won their bout last Saturday night (No kidding on the WWF part — opponent Bryan Prindeville picked Jamie up and his tag team partner Kelsey Wailes duct-taped his legs together.  I was half expecting someone to break out a deck chair on someone!)

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