I Do Not Think HBO Understands the Meaning of that Word…
Techdirt has a post up on HBO’s efforts to scour the internets of footage of the Inaugural concert. There are more details on all things legal over at this Talking Points Memo post – which is the Inaugural committee owns the copyright and HBO has a 6 month license to it (an exclusive license I suppose). Continue Reading
And the greatest music video of all time?
IÂ nominate Spike Jonez’ video for Buddy Holly by Weezer.
I’ll Have the Last Splash
Damn if it wasn’t overplayed to death when it was released but hearing it again after several years absence… yep Cannonball is a great song (and one of Spike Jonez earlier videos)
DRAFT List of 100 Greatest Webcomics: Comedy and Drama
Last year I posted a couple times (Previous posts on this "research" project were here and here) about a possible article on "ComixTALK’s 100 Greatest Webcomics" which would be something like the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest movies of the last 100 years.
A recurring comment to the previous two posts was what is the criteria for this. I’m always a little hesitant to give too much guidance when part of the point of asking this kind of thing out loud is to listen to the resulting discussion of what everyone else thinks the criteria should be. For the AFI list judges picked films based on criteria such as Critical Recognition, Major Award Winner, Popularity Over Time, Historical Significance, and Cultural Impact.
That sounds about right to me. We’ve got a round decade plus a year or two of webcomics to look at it. Critical reception (both from peers and critics), and popularity are both relevant to thinking about the impact of a webcomic. WCCA awards are somewhat indicative of what peers were impressed with in a given year and more recently awards like the Eisners and Ignatzs have recoginized webcomics. Historical significance and cultural impact are a little harder to pin down but various "firsts" in webcomics are important and comics like Penny Arcade have had a much wider impact on popular culture than most comics do these days (put aside the legacy superheros of comics — what other "new" comic, let alone webcomic, in the last decade has had a wide cultural impact?)
Another thing AFI did that might be useful here to help sort through the vast numbers of webcomics one could talk about is to also think about categories or genres of work. Just as a simple matter of numbers if a webcomic isn’t one of the best of a larger type of story — or frankly, so startlingly unique it’s hard to categorize — then it’s hard to imagine it’s one of the 100 Greatest…
So to move things along I’m listing another "draft" of titles submitted by the crowds but this time I’ve tried to break them up into drama and comedy so as to help avoid complete apples to oranges comparisons. In doing that I’ve realized (1) it’s hard in many cases to decide; and (2) there are probably more comedic than drama on the list so far. I think it would make sense to whittle down the two lists to 75 each so as the final list is no more than 3/4 of one type or the other. Of course we could further do genre type lists but for now this was enough work on my part.
So — your assignment (if you choose to play):
- Name the comic you’re talking about (you’re also welcome to nominate ones not on the list — I KNOW there are many I haven’t even thought about yet — it takes time to review all of the corners of the web)
- Tell me where on one the two lists (comedy and drama) it should be (you could give a range of slots if you’re not sure). (If you think I’ve got a drama on the comedy list or vice-versa let me know! I’m not "done" – this is fairly dashed off still at this point)
- Tell me why! Referencing awards, critics, historical achievements, strengths and weaknesses of the works are all really helpful!
Peachy Keen: An Interview with Donna Barr
Donna Barr was born in the mill town of Everett, WA. She is a prolific cartoonist and writer who embraced the web relatively early on as a means to further expose the public to her creative work. She is probably best known for her comic series, The Desert Peach, about Pfirsich Rommel, the fictional homosexual younger brother of Erwin "The Desert Fox" Rommel — it has been in publication since 1988. Another comic series from Barr is titled Stinz — it is about Steinheld Löwhard, a centaur in an imaginary land called Gieselthal where humans and centaurs live.
I got a chance to interview her via email over the last couple of months and really enjoyed our exchange.
Obamanos Day Two: Webcomics
Obama! It’s day two of your presidency… why haven’t you solved global warming yet!! How about some webcomic-y news in the meantime:
TOP STORY
Kris Straub has a really good post on why he essentially did a reboot of his comic Starslip recently. For anyone hoping to have a popular strip the advice on "the pitch" is well worth reading.
INTERVIEWS
Brian Warmoth has an interview with Jon Rosenberg of Goats.
An interview with Zach Weiner of the screamingly funny Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
REVIEW
Ping Teo takes a look at Shi Long Pang.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
Lea Hernandez has a new website at http://divalea.net/.
Has anyone used this site called Komix! – it appears to be a piperka type of comics update/reader.
New Location for Logging In, Posting a Blog, Other User Options
I haven’t really finished integrating the styling of it into the site but I’ve moved all of the handy functions readers at ComixTalk might need on to a "user bar" at the very top of the site (right now it’s colored blue). Up there you can log in, and once logged in edit your profile, post a talk post or view your existing talk posts at ComixTalk. If there are other functions that would be handy to have up there please let me know.
This Day in ComixTALK: Inauguration Special
2009: OBAMANOS!!
2008: ComixTALK interview with the creators of Blank Label Comics.
2006: Kris Straub contributes a theme song for R K Milholland’s Something Positive comic.
2005: Announcement of never-finished Patrick Farley/Justine Shaw comic Mother of all Bombs.
2004: ComixTALK wanged!
Webcomic Artists and the Obama Inauguration
Over at Talkaboutcomics, Eric Monster Millikin writes:
So today’s the big Obama Inauguration Day, so I thought I’d take a look at what unusual things some of my webcomic-making compatriots and I are up to.
Chris Yates (reprographics) is auctioning off the third and final edition of his Obama-styled hand-crafted wooden art puzzles. The first debuted at Comic Con International this summer and sold instantly. The second was commissioned by the Manifest Hope Gallery (curated by Shepard Fairey, MoveOn.org, Moby among others) and auctioned for charity during the DNC in Denver. It’s starting at just a buck! Over on eBay.
I did a big Inauguration/MLK Day painting with Obama, Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and others and then sold it to a group of about 80+ newspapers with a total circulation of like 7+ million. At least one paper ran it huge on their back page, as you can see in this glamour shot of me relaxing inside the dark mansion of forbidden love.
It says “Reaching the Dream” up in the upper right. You can see Thurgood Marshall right in the middle, Shirley Chisholm below him, and Jesse Jackson partially obscured by my kung fu grip.
Randy Milholland over at Something Positive is doing a series of strips about the inauguration. This is unusual because this is probably the most attention Randy’s ever given to politics. It brings a tear to my eye!
So there you have it. If you spot any other unusual Obama festivities from the world of webcomics, feel free to post them in comments.
And then continue to party.
Recent Comments