Comix Talk Special Weekend Edition

Xaviar Xerexes Leave a Comment

What I'd miss?  Here's a few things from the last couple weeks and the Comix Talk mailbag worth checking out

MILESTONES

OPINIONS

HYPE

  • Nina Paley has new webcomic, Mimi And Eunice.  Recently Paley is pretty well known for her animated feature film Sita Sings the Blues, but she's also got several earlier comics projects under her belt including Nina's Adventures, Fluff and The Hots.  Cute stuff – worth checking out. Paley is also sticking with a copyleft license for this work – more details on the About page.
  • Nicholas Brendan (who played Xander Harris in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) along with illustrator Rafael Santiago, is launching a webcomic, Very Bad Koalas. It follows the adventures of Avery and Irving, two koalas on the run from the authorities in their 1958 Cadillac El Dorado and "their struggle with addiction." Finally a comic addressing the eucalyptus crisis in the koala community!  Lauren Davis notes that Brendan is the second Buffy alum to write a webcomic; Emma Caulfield, Brendan's on-screen girlfriend, is the wordsmith behind Contropussy.

CRAFT: Comics Worth Reading has a good post on how to break into writing for comics.

INTERVIEW: Battlemouth interviewed Max Huffman of Mocktopus.

MAILBAG

  • Andeh Pinkard writes that The Goddamn Panty Brigade is a webcomic about a group of punk girls who are pulled into the amazingly mystical world of aspiring pop idols.
  • David Cooper writes that his webcomic Perpendicular Universe has reached its 200th comic.  The comedy webcomic is about the adventures of Steve, Eric and Grizzly.

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A Webcomic Presentation for SXSW

CreateAComic Leave a Comment

South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive is one of the major conventions for innovative techniques in pop culture. For 2011, I've submitted a proposal of my own related to the Create a Comic Project: "Interactive Comics: Techniques to Enhance Math Education." This year, from what I can tell, it's the only submission dealing with webcomics and one of the few touching on comics in general.

In order to be selected, proposals have to earn a positive response from the public in addition to the judges. I'm hoping you'll take the time to register with SXSW's Panel Picker and vote for it so webcomics can be represented alongside of SXSW's other major technological innovations.

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Otakon 2010 Part 3

CreateAComic Leave a Comment

In this, the final part of my review of Otakon 2010's webcomic events, I'll look at the two sponsored by the Create a Comic Project: the "Make a Manga Tournament" and "Manga, Literacy, and Children." The tournament is based on similar events I've done at the New Haven Public Library since 2007 and has also been held at Tekkoshocon. I like having fellow webcomic creators serve as judges. This year had Erin Ptah (And Shine Heaven Now), Kittyhawk (SGVY), and Kuroitenshi (King of the Web) return from 2009, joined by Samantha McDaniel (Kibou) and Jamie Haram (Picatrix). There's an open invitation for all webcomic people to join in, so if you're interested in being a judge in 2011, let me know. A benefit: Otakon pays for your badge if I let them know in advance who's helping.

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Work! A Rant

Max Vaehling Leave a Comment

In the first of his writing advice posts, Alexander Danner quoted a piece of advice aspiring writers often get. I paraphrase instead of looking it up because I've heard it often enough:

"Write every day! Treat it like a job! A job wouldn't allow for exceptions, would it?"

Part of that is useful advice. But it's kind of difficult to separate the crop from the crap. Alexander already said everything you need to hear about the "write every day" part, so I'll concentrate on the job thing.

What makes work a job? As opposed to a hobby? (Apart from pay? 'Cause that would be too easy.) I've been through lots of discussions about what a job is since I finished my studies and didn't seek a paying job right away. What I didn't get from those, I got from magazines targeting frustrated office workers. I think I've heard enough to distill some kind of definition out of what people with a job have to say about jobbing:

  • It's for the money, and for the money only.
  • You work for a boss who doesn't understand you.
  • Customers are idiots.
  • It's stressful.
  • It's eight hours a day. At least.
  • It's unappreciated.
  • It's repetitive rather than creative.
  • Work time is the opposite of spare time.

I could go on, but the canon is clear: A job, to a lot of people, is doing something for money that you despise or at least wouldn't do otherwise, usually in an environment that drains you of your creativity. Of course I'm totally exaggerating and ignoring all the great creative freelance jobs. I'm really after a meme here, rather than a sociological panorama. And the belief is really out there: People have actually told me that labor isn't labor unless it stinks. As opposed to the cool, creative stuff I do, which therefore must be a hobby, and could I please go cut my hair now and get a real job?

So, that's how I should treat my comics work? With despise? I don't think so.

Of course, there's a lot to be said in favor of treating it like a job. Even if you don't actually want to make money with it. If you put in your labor and develop a work ethic, you'll get better at it. And it'll help you evolve from the mind set that claims you're just a hobbyist who won't ever get anywhere with it. Which is the first step in actually becoming a professional. If that's your aim, it's all the more important to treat your comics work like it's a job.

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Experimental Comics Roundup

Alexander Danner Leave a Comment

Exciting, boundary pushing comics, particularly webcomics don’t seem to be as common as they once were.  Some experimental creators have moved on to more mainstream projects, some have stopped making comics.   And some comics that once were daring in their format, like Dinosaur Comics, have just ceased to seem experimental as they’ve become mainstays of the webcomics scene.  That last is a good thing, of course—normalizing ideas that were once bold is how the doors to further new ideas are opened wider.

Of course, unusual projects do still come along, so here are a few that have caught my notice recently.

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Dylan Dog: Movie Announcement, Sneakily Turned into Comic Review

Max Vaehling 1 Comment

Dark Horse, 2009

We've heard some good news about comic book movies recently, with Joss Whedon adapting The Avengers and the Scott Pilgrim movie not sucking at all and such. Me, I won't be able to watch Scott Pilgrim for quite a while because it opens pretty late in Germany (January! What's the excuse for that?!), so let me take a look at another new comic book adaptation I haven't seen.

A couple of days ago, a trailer for the upcoming Dylan Dog movie, Dead of Night, hit the nets. The movie is supposed to open around Halloween, but I've heard that they've postponed it until 2011, so don't hold your breath. I originally meant to share the trailer here, but as it turns out, it wasn't an official release, just something they cranked out for "the International sales folks". That's good news, because the trailer sucked big time. I'm not getting into the lousy special effects here because a) they've fixed them since, and b) I like them trashy. What irritated me was that the movie didn't resemble the comics at all. (Now that isn't exactly newsworthy either – anybody who's seen, say, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Constantine will have noticed a pattern long ago.)

Let's take a look at the comic instead. Unless you're Italian, you may not be too familiar with it. In Italy, it's one of the best-selling comic books ever. In the United States, Dark Horse issued seven stories, recently collected into a 700-page collection.

Dylan Dog is a paranormal investigator who claims he doesn't believe in the supernatural, but is open to anything. He lives with his sidekick Groucho who may or may not be the resurrected Groucho Marx, though he surely behaves that way, testing everybody's patience by constantly cracking jokes. Dylan has a sense of humor, too, but he is more of a darker, moody nature. His fascination with the supernatural seems to stem from his conviction that the natural world doesn't make much sense either. He's an ex-cop, a recovered alcoholic, and he constantly falls in love with his female clients, which is usually doomed from the beginning.

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This Day In ComixTALK: August 20, 2010

Xaviar Xerexes Leave a Comment

Another trip in the webcomic wayback machine:

2009

The secret of Kate Beaton's webcomic origins revealed! The mystery of Shaenon Garrity's self-publishing saga uncovered! Plus links to Brigid Alverson on TokyoPop's online presence and Cory Doctorow on why e-publishing has to be part of a writer's strategy.

2008

I interviewed Clint Hollingsworth (creator of The Wandering Ones) and Barry T. Smith (creator of InkTank).

2007

Lewis Powell began a week of guest blogging at ComixTalk. Among other topics, Lewis wrote about Eric Burn's post on fan appropriation of the ending of For Better of For Worse.

2006

Guest blogger Lisa Jonte wrote about the subtle art of rejection.

2005

We linked to the Journey Into History blog's review of Vir Bonus, the unfinished webcomic from former ComixTalk blogger Giant Panda.  The next day Eric Burns wrote a Feeding Snarky column about pr0n comics.

2004

The manga webcomic anthology site, Wirepop, celebrated its first year anniversary and Keenspot moved its headquarters to Cresbard, South Dakota.

2003

Joey Manley wrote about The Comics Journal forum notice of Drew Weing's webcomic Pup.  I think most of those TCJ-era links are shot (this one is) which is too bad. Drew has posted a not-complete archive of Pup strips at his website,   Be sure to check out Drew's current webcomic and book, Set To Sea and say hi to him at SPX this fall.

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Grey Vampires and Green Cowboys

BMoore Leave a Comment

Gus and His Gang by Christophe Blain
First Second

Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar
First Second

This is a quick examination of some color, drawing and design techniques used in two great bandes dessinées. I've kept Vampire Loves close to my drawing table for some time now, trying to glean some ideas and inspiration from Sfar's art. More recently I picked up Gus and His Gang and that's also been both enjoyable to read and to look over, saying "How did Blain do that …?" Both artists have versatile, energetic, and very "cartoony" art styles, in the best sense of using all the tools of caricature, exaggeration, and symbolism that are available to cartoonists. They are Big Guns and worth close study. Some other artists in this vein that I enjoy, but didn't have time to fold into this post, are Kerascoet and Emile Bravo, both of whom have some work available in English (and probably a much vaster amount in French.) I hope you'll look them up!

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