Rob Hanes #12: Stranded On A Desert Island
What do we call the 24-ish pages soft paper comic book these days with the explosion of graphic novels, collections of comics in print, etc.? I guess we stick with "comic book" as meaning a 24-ish page floppy book. Randy Reynaldo is sticking with the comic book format for his series about intrepid adventurer Rob Hanes.
Weekend Webcomics Wrapup
I hope everyone had a good week – I was mostly offline, enjoying the beach. I got back to discover a new Jellaby comic from Kean Soo. One of the best kid-friendly comics out there and always a pleasure to see a new one online.
It was also fun to see ComixTalk included in Ataraxi Theater’s "webcomic merit badges" it posted this week — one of them is the "Eye of Xerexes" — awarded for drawing a cover to ComixTalk. And there were a lot of other good links you might want to catch up on:
INTERVIEWS
CBR had a good interview with Jon Rosenberg of Goats.
An interview with Brian McFadden of the topical webcomic Big Fat Whale.
The Daily Cross Hatch has the first part of its interview with Jordan Crane.
MILESTONES
Andrew Farago finishes the first huge arc of his webcomic William Bazillion.
BUSINESS
Former syndicated newspaper comic creator Michael Jantze announced he was starting up a new webcomic titled Rave On. Why is this interesting in an era of many former print comic folks launching webcomics? One, Jantze was an early defector from print, taking his comic The Norm to a pay-to-read model online. I have not kept up with how that has gone for Jantze after some initial reporting, but perhaps it has gone well enough because he is using another pay-to-read model for this new webcomic Rave On. Should be worth following up on.
DEAD TREES
A preview of the upcoming Act-I-Vate print collection.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
Webcomic — Sixteen Miles to Merricks by Barnaby Ward.
Art — Robbi Rodriguez.
DESIGN
Brigid Alverson offers her thoughts on webcomic website design.
TOOLS
Comicrank looks like it might be an interesting twist on the comic ranking site model.
Ignatz Nominees for 2009
You can find a list of all the Ignatz award nominees here at the SPX site. The nominees for Outstanding Online Comic are:
- Bodyworld, Dash Shaw
- Danny Dutch, David King
- Thingpart, Joey Alison Sayers
- Vanessa Davis’s comics for Tablet
- Year of the Rat, Cayetano Garza
Wow! Wowio In the News Again
BUSINESS
News that WOWIO has been bought from Platinum by Platinum CEO, Brian Altounian. Um wow. Someone not on vacation like myself should ask both Altounian and Platinum for comment on the following questions: Did the Platinum Board approve this purchase by Altounian in his individual capacity (and what’s the make-up of the Platinum Board – how many "outside" directors are there); What are the terms of the deal and was there any third-party evaluation of that deal (just how arms-length was this transaction) and finally, when is WOWIO and/or Platinum going to pay off its debt owed to content creators?
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
Wow – great round up of online comic news from Tom Spurgeon here. Not even going to excerpt, just hit the link.
Tom Spurgeon also announced that he was going to try and compile a list of the 100 greatest comics for this decade. File your suggestions with him here.
Vacation Week! And Need a September Cover!
Very light posting this week! The X-Family is on vacation.
But I do not have a cover for September! Do you want to have your 1000 x 400 image as the cover art for ComixTalk next month? I can’t won’t pay but you will get your name and a link to your own website under the cover for the month (and the cover image remains your (c) — all I need is a nonexclusive license to display at ComixTalk). This is probably the last year for cover art for ComixTalk too… I’ve been thinking it may be time to phase it out.
For October there’ll be cover art from Charles Schneeflock Snow of Sordid City. I’m still working on setting up November and December as well. If you’re interested, post a comment here or shoot me an email at xerexes AT gmail DOT com.
The Awesome Blossom is Blooming!
First off – Websnark has a second post up today – this one on the current Achewood saga. Nice to have Eric back (and writing about webcomics)!
INTERVIEWS
A great interview with Kate Beaton, creator of Hark A Vagrant. Apparently we have Emily Horne of A Softer World to thank for encouraging Kate to put her comics online.
DEAD TREES
Shaenon Garrity writes about her experiences self-publishing the first print collection of her webcomic Skin Horse. Also worth noting is Garrity’s new comics collective — the Couscous Collective.
BUSINESS
Brigid Alverson has the scoop on Tokyopop’s ambitious online undertaking.
Cory Doctorow writes on why free e-books should be part of a writers strategy – the advice seems worth considering for comics creators too.
Websnark is Back
After a bit of a break, Eric Burns has a new post on videogames at websnark.com. If you're new to Websnark, go check it out and if gaming's not your thing skim through some of the archived entries on webcomics. Burns has a way with the phrasing that is infectious (and not in the swine flu way).
Also if you've got more time on your hands, hit his 2004 NaNoWriMo novel — you can find it starting November 1st in the archives.
Wednesday
HEADLINES!
This week’s big story is probably going to be the announcement of the "Comic Strip Superstar" contest from Andrews McMeel Publishing and Universal Press Syndicate. Entrants have to submit their work by September 12th. Brad Guigar at Webcomics.com writes a lengthy breakdown of the press release well worth reading. Like all of these never-ending corporate comic contests, one really has to read the fine print carefully and fully consider the trade-offs before entering. And my own two cents — there is no magic wand that will instantly grant you a "comics career" let alone make you a "superstar". Make sure you evaluate clearly whatever you’re actually going to get and rationally decide that it is well worth what you’re giving up.
CRAFT
Scott Kurtz blogs that the Webcomics.com crew is starting a brand new live stream called Webcomics.com University. Kurtz’s first session will be this Friday and cover "line quality and how I try to achieve a clean look in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet."
TECHNOLOGY
Longbox – the planned comics reader for the web, iphones, etc has a video of the forthcoming beta version. (h/t Journalista!)
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade did a variant cover for the comic adaptation of Steven King’s and Peter Straub’s The Talisman.
Fonts Fonts Fonts
The comments to this blog post from John Allison has a nice discussion of fonts, where to find and talk about ’em and even some ways to make your own.
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