Really Old Posts from the Pre-Crash Blog

January 30, 2004

Keenspace Down?

Posted 1 day ago on January 30, 2004: Someone said it had been down for a couple of days and keenspace.com isn’t coming up right now. Anyone have the story?

UPDATE: An announcement on the Keenspot forums states that the Keenspace server is dying. No estimate for time to restoration of service is given.

 

January 29, 2004

BookSlut’s Best of Comics for 2003

Posted 1 day ago on January 29, 2004: I’m sure somewhat posted this before but I thought it was worth linking to. I’m glad she mentioned Derek Kirk Kim’s Small Stories but more important to me was this: Finding Persepolis in the Middle Eastern Studies section at Borders. Absolutely critical. If comics want to take a place as the close relative of literature well purveyors of literature–BOOK STORES–have to take them seriously. That means organizing them in a way that will appeal to the wide range of book buyers (It will obviously help to have a wide range of comics to appeal to them but that’s another post) and that clearly means intermixed with the rest of the books, not stuck in the back with the superhero rags. I also liked the fact that Finding Persepolis looked like a book. Felt like a book. Looked like it belonged there.

Reading and ‘Riting!

Posted 1 day ago on January 29, 2004: Sequential Tart takes you to school! Katherine Keller gives some good advice, not unlike our own EIC with the mad editin’ skillz, Damonk.

Thursday Late Night Blogging

Posted 1 day ago on January 29, 2004: Man I had a long day today. So no blogging… Btw did the Comixpedia site go down for a bit in the late afternoon? I can never tell when I can’t get it at work if it’s the site or my access there or something in between or what. (Sometimes I remember to check it on anonymizer.com which cuts through some recurring issues on the access end but I forgot about that today). Saw that Keenspot had an ad for Keenspot Premium in the Newsbox today. I know it’s tough all over but it doesn’t look to me like Keen has updated the Premium offering since we reviewed it last year. The initial page still focuses on things like faster servers and ad-free viewing of keen sites. No list of comics exclusive to Premium. It is just my opinion (I’d be curious as to how many people have actually taken up the Keen Preemie offer) but I don’t think money for improving the delivery of free comics is a compelling value proposition. I pay money for comics and I might be willing to pay Keen money for some of its comics but Keen Premium still feels like a glorified fan club/tip jar to me.

January 28, 2004

More Wednesday Blogging From Xerexes

Posted 3 days ago on January 28, 2004: Lots of links from the incomparable Journalista!:

Aaron MacGruder may have an animated television show? There’s a mention at the end of this article which is otherwise about MacGruder’s increasingly obsessed obsession about Condaleeza Rice.

Do you need a copy of the rules to Calvinball?

The Comic Treadmill discovers a really horrible comic shop. I wrote about my trip to a comic shop on Free Comics Day last year. I didn’t get to hear a stream of obscenities but it wasn’t much better. My current thinking is this (1) comics need to get into bookstores. That means different formats than the traditional comic book size; and (2) there is room for a national chain in the "pop culture" space – that could include comic books but it would have to include much more – collectibles, games, gaming, etc. Done right it could work really well. Anyone got 10 million to invest with me? 🙂

Helpful Drawing Hints

Posted 3 days ago on January 28, 2004: From boing boing comes this page on shots for boring scences in comics (you know those ones where the characters are just there talking but not doing anything).

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Xaviar Xerexes

Wandering webcomic ronin. Created Comixpedia (2002-2005) and ComixTalk (2006-2012; 2016-?). Made a lot of unfinished comics and novels.