Comix Talk

Over at webcomics.com there’s a great overview of print on demand (POD) services available.  Definitely worth bookmarking.

Continue Reading →

Life is pretty busy for me these days so I haven’t been the best judge this year at the Bomb Shelter Webcomic Idol shindig but luckily DJ Coffman and Brad Guigar have been handing out constructive advice on the forums.  After a couple weeks voting has narrowed the competition down to five and the Bomb Shelter guys have twisted the rules a bit to call on the judges to pick one of the bottom three to exit the competition.  I don’t know when they’ll announce which comic that is. UPDATE: They did.

The remaining five four webcomics are: Lawn Darts, Marooned , Shi Long Pang, and Simulated Comic Product.

Continue Reading →

The cover art for November is from Michael May, the creator of Eros Inc. and Stock Footage. I think Michael’s got talent and his webcomics are definitely worth checking out.  Be sure to sift through the archives of the movie-targeted Stock Footage and catch up on his current comic Eros Inc.

In site update news, I am going to shut down the forums here.  Two reasons!  One they’re aren’t being used a heck of a lot; and two, I’m really impressed with the new webcomics.com and the forums over there are accomplishing everything we ever tried to facilitate at Comixpedia/ComixTalk in terms of constructive discussion amongst webcomics creators.  Webcomics.com is not really aimed at non-creators, but it’s got a tremendously friendly vibe right now and you really ought to check it regularly.  Webcomics.com has the support of Penny Arcade (in some fashion, they’ve at least bought the URL from T Campbell for the Halfpixel guys to use) and of course it’s being led now by Halfpixel which is four of the most successful webcomics creators, period.  Out of those guys, I’ve met Dave, Kris and Brad at varous points online and off and they’re all good guys and in comics for the long haul so I have no doubt this site will only get bigger and better.

I’m always going to be proud of having had a hand in starting Comixpedia/Talk and keeping it running for — wow — 6 years now.  I am pretty sure I’ve written more about comics than I ever would have imagined.  I’ve learned a lot too — not surprisingly reading a lot of comics and interviewing a lot of people about them is a pretty educational experience.  My interest in comics back then was never entirely pure – mostly I was attracted to the DIY energy of it all, especialy webcomics before the turn of the century when it was all a lot harder and more mysterious out there.  But over time comics as comics really captured my interest.  Comics as a medium is fascinating and people are using it to tell some pretty awesome stories right now.  It’s an exciting time.

Continue Reading →

NOTE:  An updated version of this list is here – please go there to offer your suggestions and comments.  Thanks!

Continue Reading →

What’s going on over at ComicMix?  Earlier this year they lost online editor Rick Marshall (who is now at MTV) and more recently I’m seeing a number of stories on the site.  Heidi MacDonald notes that they’ve ended all of their online columns; and Todd Allen examines their business model and notes that there doesn’t seem to be any serious effort to monetize the webcomic portion of the site.

ComicMix is owned by Brian Alvey, who got his start with Weblogs, Inc.  Alvey hasn’t written about ComicMix on his blog for a long time though.  His main project appears to be the blogging platform Crowd Fusion.

Continue Reading →

MILESTONES
Wes Molebash is ending You’ll Have That.  He’s going to wrap it all up on January 2, 2009 and will debut a new comic in February. (h/t FLEEN)

The comic strip Opus ended with main character Opus escaping to the children’s book Goodnight Moon.  Uh, okay…   LA Times blog has a post with an interview with Breathed here.  Tom Spurgeon also links to this recent interview with Breathed on the comics in general.

BUSINESS
Dirk Deppey writes extensively today about the problems daunting an online sales model for comics that incorporates existing offline retail outlets.  He’s responding to an earlier post on the subject by Tom Spurgeon.

I’ve seen several posts about the revamp of United Media’s website Comics.com.  Here’s Tom Spurgeon’s take on things; here’s Alan Gardner’s take.

INTERVIEWS
Another interview with Chris Hallbeck of The Book of Biff (we had an interview with Chris here on ComixTalk last month).

An interview (audio) with writer of many webcomics, T Campbell.

CELL PHONES
Am I missing something?  Is there any reason to get excited about Peanuts pseudo-animations for the cell phone screen?

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
The Escapist writes about humor sites and webcomics.  A lot of good links in there.

Darrin Bell’s Toon Talk forum has moved to a new location.

Continue Reading →

I don’t talk politics on this site, but I will today.  I am amazed and thrilled that Barack Obama is now our president-elect and filled with a new confidence and hope that people of good will and faith in America can come together to solve our problems and build a better society for generations to come.  If you supported Obama don’t stop now — keep involved and speak up to make yourself heard.  Presidents and elected officials tend to do the right thing when they hear SUPPORT for the right thing.  And if you supported the other guy, remember we’re all Americans first and find ways to work together with your fellow citizens in this time of REALLY BIG PROBLEMS that need to be solved.

And to all of our non-United States readers, be patient with us.  The USA is a big ship and it’s going to take awhile to turn it around and get it set on a new course.

-x

P.S.  I knew it was going to happen but I’m still amazed that my adopted home state of Virginia voted for Obama.  Wow…

Continue Reading →

Rick Marshall asked webcomic creators who their characters would vote for and has a post on it at his blog this morning.

ALSO VOTE (for reals!). 

Continue Reading →

First of all a list of those webcomics that got voted "off the island" during Week 1: The Superfogeys, The Book of Biff, Xylia, Newspaper Comic Strip, and Calamities of Nature.  That leaves five more contenders for the title (and I think going forward only one webcomic leaves per week now): Lawn Darts, Marooned, Shi Long Pang, Simulated Comic Product, and Soul Driver.

There should be more comments on the forums over there this week for the remaining five webcomics.

Continue Reading →