The one thing minis and webcomics have in common is the DIY spirit. Make a comic and put it out there for people to see. Here's some short reviews of minis I've been reading this week from Lauren Barnett, Kelli Nelson, and the Trees & Hills Comic Group. If you're interested in getting a mini reviewed at ComixTalk, you can find our contact information on the About page.
Pretty quiet today although check out this stunning creative innovation from the newspaper comic B.C. Wow! Now that's how you stay hip and current…
INTERVIEWS: Josh Lesnick, creator of Girly, is interviewed by the INTERNET!
REVIEWS: Johanna Draper Carlson has a review of the new mega-Penny Arcade book, The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade. For all the reasons she's a bit lukewarm on it, I will probably love it.
CRAFT: Nice little tutorial from Jim Zubkavich on the process for a recent illustration he did.
BUSINESS: The Beat reports that Graphic.ly, "a fairly new but bold player in the digital comics distribution field", has announced the acquisition of iFanboy, the popular comics news and information community. Graphic.ly is in "private beta" — anyone using it right now?
DEAD TREES: Scott McCloud writes about a forthcoming project from Jason Shiga called Meanwhile. I've seen pictures of the original hand-crafted version of this "choose-your-own-adventure" style comic but not the actual artifact. Shiga is a dang good, inventive comic creator.
Interviews: WebcomicBuilder.com has an interview with Gianna Masetti, the creator of The Noob, a gamer comic set in an MMORPG.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
Back in 2006, we did a "First and Last" snapshot of PvP by Scott Kurtz. Even then Kurtz had shown a lot of growth artistically from the origins of the comic. It's worth revisiting PvP again, as Kurtz has probably shown even more growth since 2006 then in the period up to then.
We had the Son of Snowpocalypse in Washington DC yesterday. Not all that exciting actually. Also finally saw AVATAR in 3D on Sunday night. (Ain't Mrs X cool to take me to that for Valentines Day?!) Reviews were dead-on; awesome world-building and special effects to carry it off, story was Dances With Wolves With Four Eyes and Gil Slits. All in all, a great movie experience.
AWARDS: Tom Spurgeon has a list of the nominees for this year's Glyph awards.
MILESTONES: Congrats to Brad Guigar on 10 years of comicking! Brad has had a heck of a decade pioneering this thing we call webcomics and I hope there's lots more to come. In his blog post there's a BIG hint that a full collection of his first strip, Greystone Inn, will be coming to print.
Also docking in close to 10 years is the Flight anthology series. Kazu Kibuishi announces that Flight 8 will be the last edition of that very successful project.
INTERVIEWS: Growly Beast has an interview with Tom Dell'Aringa of Marooned and The Internet Review of Science Fiction has a fairly indepth interview with Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary. UPDATE: Graphic NYC has an interview with Raina Telgemeier, who's most recent work is the graphic novel Smile.
JUSTIFY VARIOUS PEOPLE'S HYPE:
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS: Kids book author/illustrator Mo Willems takes a crack at Hilary Price's Rhymes With Oranges this week. Also details on Hilary's trip to Cuba with Jeannie Schulz and other cartoonists including Alexis Fajardo. Haven't talked with Alexis in years – maybe I better catch up with him! 🙂 (h/t Daily Cartoonist)
SECRET SCIENCE ALLIANCE ACTIVATE! The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook by Eleanor Davis won this year's CYBIL award for the graphic novel category. The CYBILs are the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards. And TCJ posted a four part interview with Eleanor, husband Drew Weing and the rest of the creative crew from the Secret Science Alliance book. Here's part one (with links to part 1 & 2 and part 3 & 4):
Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher is a household favorite here. Both of the x-girls (especially the youngest) raved about the book. It's a really exciting tale, jam-packed with action and plot points. Creator Jake Parker has tremendous art chops and visually this book is like a revved-up Saturday matinee special.
Happy One-of-Several-Hallmark Holidays or maybe we could call it Sgt Pepper's Day? I saw some funny V-Day cards you might enjoy — add other good stuff in comments, please? BloggerDad has a couple of batch (2010, 2009) worth checking out. Awkward Valentines is totally hilarious. (psst, did you remember to send Diesel Sweeties cards this year?) Gamer comic 2PStart covers that genre in cards.
MILESTONES: Medium Large hits 1000 strips! Congrats to Francesco Marciuliano, who also writes Sally Forth. Medium Large should be on your reading list. File under "consistently really damn funny".
Code: A beta of the latest version of the Wordpress webcomic tool, stripShow, is out. A true beta so don't use on a live site yet but I bet Brad would love as much feedback and bug reports as possible.
Review: Robin Gibson reviews the revived Commander Kitty.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS: The latest issue of the International Journal of Comic Art is out.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE: The Monsters In Real Places blog is a great art meme concept. Take a real picture, draw in a monster, send it to this blog.
We're finally digging out of the snow here in Washington DC — apparently the volume of frosted flakes falling felled a record. Anyhow – wanted to let everyone know that new user registrations are back online at Comix Talk. You don't need to register with Comix Talk to comment on anything BUT registering gives you the ability to have a user blog and post to Comix Talk news and hype if you so desire. New registrations are not automatically approved, however, so it may take up to a day for me to check them.
All Ages: El Santo had an interesting overview of what makes comics good for kids. A good source for what's new with all ages comics is the Good Comics for Kids blog. I've certainly had more interest in these comics again as my kids have gotten into comics.
No Good Deed Goes Unpublished: Coyote Trax has an article about webcomic creators involvement in charity and other good deeds. El Santo had a recent post about the comic Snowflakes participation in Heart Health Month.
INTERVIEWS
I saw this blurb about Flattr over at Boing Boing today – a new micropaymentsdonations service from Peter Sunde, a creator of the Pirate Bay. It's in beta though, not sure I'm going to sign up for it yet. In a nutshell, the idea is akin to a shared tip jar — people pay Flattr a monthly tip and than Flattr divides it up among all of the content creators you've clicked a Flattr button for that month.
OMFGUIHAJB!!!! It is snowing again in Washington DC. IT IS SNOWING… AGAIN. I have a review of Smile up today. In addition, be sure to check out the bonus comic Raina Telgemeier did. I saw this funny comic about one of the downsides of the Internet today (see above) – Gemma Correll has lots more great illustrations on her Flickr page.
Congratulations: 1Up names Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik to their five most influential people in videogames for the last decade.
Weird, but something I suspect many readers here might be interested in checking out — MyWebWill purports to be a service for managing your digital identity after death. Think about it — you're going to create a ton of stuff online in your life, some of it at least as important as any physical stuff you'll leave behind.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE: Jamie Noguchi has a new webcomic called Yellow Peril. Jamie was the original artist for Erfworld, is a heck of an artist and part of the Super Art Fight crew. Jamie also runs Monster Cutie which is a great source of tips and craft for illustrators.
Last, not comics but this Oscar nominated short, Logorama, is all kinds of weird-cool. Language is very NSFW btw.
Recent Comments