Comix Talk

A big thanks to everyone who volunteered to do some posting while I'm galavanting around this month!  This week we have three guest bloggers:

Daniel Potter is a mild mannered vascular biology researcher by day and a slightly deranged writer at night.  He blames this unlikely combination on the fact that his right and left brain have filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences and are seeing other people.  Due to the quirks of biology both halves remain in Dan’s head where they are frequently heard shouting at each other by his loving wife. Dan resides in Maastricht, the Netherlands with his wife, two cats, and quarreling gray matter.  To ease tensions Dan has created Walking the Lethe, a comic that asks the question: What happens when you ask a demoness to send you to Heaven?

Amanda Potter is the owner and operator of Fallen Kitten Services and the webmaster for Walking the Lethe.  Amanda is an informational professional (yes, a librarian) who has harbored a not-so-secret love for comics in its various forms ever since reading Asterix and Elfquest as a child. After a long period of “serious” education, Amanda’s husband dragged her across the ocean to the Netherlands where she had no excuse not to pursue a business bringing together a love for comics and a passion for online organization.

Tovias (a.k.a. Ben McCormick) began making webcomics in August of 2003 and made every rookie mistake possible. After six years of attempted webcomic starts and stops, he left his job as a systems engineer and now works full-time on his latest comic, Reality Amuck.  He currently lives in Southeastern Virginia with his wife, five kids, two cats, a studio full of comic books and action figures (“THEY’RE NOT DOLLS!”) where he writes and draws webcomics into the wee hours of the night.

August 16th: Brian Moore, Alexander Danner, and Max Vaehling

August 23rd: Steve Troop, and Sam Costello

August 30th: Brandon Carr, and Scott Story

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Why hello there!  Xavier’s not home but we found these keys under the door mat.  I figure I might as well make myself some tea and sit by this nice fire I've built in his kitchen sink.  Oh who the hell am I? I'm Daniel Potter of Walking the Lethe and I'm here with Amanda Potter of FallenKitten.com, we're your guest bloggers this week.  Come, take a seat and we'll kick off the week with five of my personal favorites at the moment.  

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Thanks for the replies so far from folks with low user accounts numbers for the then and now story I'm working on.  Still interested in more comments if you're interested in sharing your stories and thoughts.  Also – there's a list of ComixTalk members here which for now shows basic info (including ID#) but I hope to spiff up more as time goes by.

BUSINESS: There has been some hype about the new webcomic Oh, Brother! from Jay Stephens and Bob Weber Jr. because they're backed by King Features and for awhile I didn't really see any big deal about it, but reading the comments to this thread at the Daily Cartoonist, I think the fact that King set these guys up in a very typical indy webcomic type situation is potentially very interesting.

HYPE:  Here's a story about the webcomic Moss by Yoon Tae-ho — so popular in its home country of Korea that a movie version has already been made. (h/t Comic Reporter).  Tae-ho's current webcomic is called SETI and is available here.

REVIEW: Lauren Davis reviews Sam Costello's Split Lip Volume 2.

NOT WEBCOMICS: Jamie Noguichi has a kickstarter project for PuppyCow, a new toy he wants you to luuuuuvvvvv…

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I suspect posting will be relatively light this month unless I get my act together this week and recruit some more interesting guest bloggers (I'm still open to unsolicited offers to guest blog!).  I started a little work on a story I thought might be interesting if I uncovered anything — basically I tried to contact the first 100 members of ComixTalk thinking I might discover a mix of stories from people who've stayed pretty visible in comics to those whose stories maybe have never been well-covered.  I've gotten a few responses but it's too much work in tracking down folks to take that approach for any larger number of member accounts. (If you have an old account at ComixTalk you're having trouble accessing please let me know — I'd be happy to try to help you out)  So my new pitch is — if you joined ComixTalk (Comixpedia in those days) in 2003 and you're interested in giving me a snapshot of now and then for you in comics (I have some questions I've been emailing to folks; but that's what I'm after) please email, comment here or tweet me. 

MILESTONES

• Lauren Davis writes about the ending of Bellen! by Box Brown — sounds a bit Newhart-ish to me!
• Spwug writes about the ending of Dreamless, a webcomic they thought stopped a bit suddenly.

HYPE

• Raina Telgemeier has a new short webcomic up called Can I Try An Eskimo Pie?
• John Allison with the definite version of The Hulk!
• Darryl Cunningham writes another well-done journalistic comic — this time a debunking of the "moon landing was faked" story.

INTERVIEWS

• Brigid Alverson interviews Phil Foglio, on recent new projects involving his webcomic Girl Genius.
• Deb Aoki interviews Bryan Lee O'Malley.
• The Webcomic Factory runs an interview with Ivan Cortez, the artist on the webcomic, The Gentlemen’s Club.
• Tim O'Shea has an interview with MK Reed.

CONVENTIONS: SPX announces that Dean Haspiel and Kate Beaton will be guests this year.  Between SPX and Intervention that is going to be an epic comics weekend in the DC area. 

MAILBAG: I got an email from creator Lee Leslie about the webcomic RiGBY, an Epic Webcomic about the Tales of an Amateur Barbarian.  RiGBY follows the adventures of the titular hero as she navigates a world of reanimated skeletons, warriors on dinosaurs and savage snake-men.  Leslie describes the webcomic as combining "the fun world-building of high fantasy stories like Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian with a fun and relatable protagonist.  Basically, she’s the love child of Indiana Jones and Red Sonja.”

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Good news for the Friends of Lulu organization, Valerie D'Orazio's public plea for help has led to the assembling of an unofficial board to assist her in righting its ship.  

MILESTONES: Questionable Content hits 7 years of comics on the intertubes.

Interview: Newsarama interviews Ethan Nicolle of the webcomic and soon to be Dark Horse book, Axe Cop.

REVIEW: El Santo gives Tim Buckley's Ctrl-Alt-Del a massively complete review, worth reading no matter what your opinion of Buckley's work is.

CONVENTIONS: This year's visit by Fake Stan Lee to the SDCC is as funny as last year's and includes (at about 2:42 in) a visit to the PvP booth:

MAILBAG: Peter Fairfax writes about his webcomic Valentines Dei, which is a futuristic detective story with a gritty feel.  Fairfax is a bit raw still with the writing and artwork but it's not so rough that the comic doesn't work.  It starts a bit slow, but Fairfax has packed a lot of ideas into the concept — it's not a huge archive (it started this past February) so if it sounds interesting, be sure to check it out.

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