Awards

Recognition of webcomic goodness

Comix Talk for Tuesday, April 13, 2010

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Culture Pop by Seth Kushnar

Seth Kushnar's CulturePop debuted this week.  The first one is about Alyssa Loveless talking about performing and her music.  I really dig Kushnar's website Graphic NYC, and this comic project looks very promising.  Different vibe but its somewhat similar to a great journalistic comic called CulturePulp by Mike Russell.

BUSINESS: Tom Tomorrow's current comic is a funny take on the Internet but a little bitter about the changes waste the Internet is laying to existing business models.  Tomorrow and Reuben Bolling are two extremely talented cartoonists that should be able to make it in the Internet world.  Maybe they need their own Robert Khoo business guru but if nothing else they ought to talk to Jeff Rowland at Topataco and see what they can do with taking control of their merchandizing opportunities.

LEGAL: Linda Joy Kattwinkel, Esq., Intellectual Property and Arts Attorney at Owen, Wickersham & Erickson writes a post on what to do when your artwork is being ripped off.  Good advice.

AWARDS: James Hudnall writes about his experience being a judge for the Eisner nominations this year.

MILESTONES: Shaenon Garrity reports that Daniel Merlin Goodbrey has concluded his webcomic All Knowledge Is Strange and started a new webcomic 100 Planets.

REVIEWS: LeftyFilms.com reviews this month's Zuda contestants. (h/t Artpatient.com)

HYPE: BleedingCool.com has a bit more and pix on the upcoming book Kill Shakespeare.  Plus a take from a Shakespeare scholar.

NOT WEBCOMICS: BleeedingCool.com has a round-up of the recent uncovering of work Jack King Kirby did for an animation house in the 80s.  Neat to see even more ideas from the comics legend.

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ComixTalk for Tuesday, February 16, 2010

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Greystone Inn by Brad GuigarWe 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):

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Comix Talk for February 1, 2010

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Child's Play CharityGood morning world. The Cranky Old Gnome blog offers an essay on webcomics called "Critiquing Free Content". (h/t Paperless Comics):

It got me wondering–to what extent can free content like a webcomic be criticized?  How much does the audience have a right to expect from the artist, and when do they cross that line?

iWebcomics: Paperless Comics has more reactions to the iPad announcement last week.

INTERVIEWS: Growly Beast has an interview with Gitte Tang Jensen of B.I.B.L.E. and Forbidden Planet has an interview with Daniel "Merlin" Goodbrey and his collaborator Sean Azzopardi on their comic Necessary Monsters.

VIDEO GAMES, VIDEO GAMES, VIDEO GAMES: Congrats – the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards are honoring Jerry, Mike and Robert of Penny Arcade, Inc. with an  Ambassador Award for their Child's Play Charity work.

AWARDS: SPACE handed out some awards and Ryan Dow won in the webcomics category for Introspective Comics.

REVIEWS: Delos reviews Urban Jungle by David Willborn, "a gag comic which mostly covers cubicle humor but also has geek humor, tech humor, animal humor, pokes fun at comics and talks about issues and culture without being preachy."

JUSTIFY MY HYPE: Sailor Twain or the Mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel. (h/t Scott McCloud); and David Lasky draws the ULTIMATE GRAPHIC NOVEL (in six panels).

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Comix Talk for Wednesday, January 27, 2010

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So today is the Second Coming?  The rumored debut of Apple's oversized iPod has sent the newspaper business into a tizzy but it is potentially VERY interesting to the world of comics.  I doubt the first generation of it (if it exists!) will be affordable enough but eventually this could become a serious platform for comics.  IF IF IF IF….

In non-rapturous news of the day, congrats to Ben Costa for winning a Xeric Grant for Shi Long Pang. I look forward to buying that book! (h/t Paperless Comics)  And in a true spirit of public service, Gary reads Platinum Comics Licensing's press release to decipher the latest business plan: "an in-house version of CafePress."

INTERVIEW: Danielle Corsetto of Girls With Slingshots.

REVIEW: Delos reviews Insert Comic by Zack Holmes.

And how about some links to fill-out your morning read — here's the list of webcomics the readers of the Washington Post nominated for its Comics Riffs poll on "Best Webcomic of the Decade": "Devil's Panties" ; "Devin Crane" ; "Eric Monster Millikin" ; "Girl Genius" ; "Girls With Slingshots" ; "Hark! A Vagrant" ; "Jesus and Mo" ; "Kevin and Kell" ; "Least I Could Do" ; "Navy Bean" ; "The New Adventures of Queen Victoria" ; "Order of the Stick" ; "Penny Arcade" ; "Perry Bible Fellowship" ; "Pibgorn" ; "PvP" ; "Questionable Content" ; "Red String" ; "Schlock Mercenary" ; "Sinfest" ; "UserFriendly.Org" ; and "xkcd."

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Webcomics Headlines for Tuesday November 24, 2009

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AWARDS
The Webcomics List is having an awards program this year.  According to their rules, "Everyone actively involved in webcomics in some way can nominate candidates for the awards. You can nominate up to three comics for each [category]."  Nominations are open until December 13th and the winners — to be selected by panels of judges — will be announced on January 24th.

AV Club includes two webcomics in its best comics of the decade list: Achewood and American Elf. (h/t El Santo)

NOT COMICS
The Penny Arcade "reality show" is surprisingly moving — really well done and looking forward to future episodes.  (Much better than the PA comic would suggest!)

BUSINESS
Sean Kleefeld comments on a recent story (one in a continuing series apparently) about how "the internet ate my comic" — this story in the Peoria Journal focusing on comments of frustration with the Internet from Julie Larsone, the creaor of the Dinette Set comic.

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Eisner Nominees for 2009

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This year’s Best Digital Comic category nominees for the Eisners is an interesting mix:

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Harvey Award Nominations Due This Week

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Got a webcomic?  Harvey award nomination ballots are due before midnight, March 27th – you can download from HarveyAwards.org and email a completed ballot to harveyballots@hotmail.com.  They’ve got a "professional requirement" for participating in nominations but I can’t find any specifics right now on their website other than this:

Nominations for the Harvey Awards are selected exclusively by creators – those who write, draw, ink, letter, color, design, edit or are otherwise involved in a creative capacity in the comics field. The Harvey Awards are the only industry awards both nominated and selected by the full body of comic book professionals.

The winners are going to be presented on October 10th, 2009 in Baltimore as part of the Baltimore Comic-Con.  This year, our Master of Cermonies will be Scott Kurtz of PvP.  Last year in the Best Online Comic category, Nicholas Gurewitch won for Perry Bible Fellowship.  Full press release after the jump:

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June Issue Coming: Steampunk Ahoy! And Eisner Nominees Wrap-up

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Our June issue is going to look at steampunk in webcomics.  Our cover art from Klio takes a departure from the traditional Victorian-era imagery of steampunk to imagine an alternate world technologically-advanced Roman empire.  Klio’s webcomic, SPQR Blues, however, is not only a rollicking good story but historically accurate.

We’ve also wrapped up our May issue with the last of our reviews of the nominated webcomics for the Eisner Best Digital Comics category: The Abominable Charles Christopher by Karl Kerschl,  Understanding The Process by Joe Infurnari, PX! by Manny Trembly and Eric Anderson, Immortal by Dean Haspiel, and SugarShock! by Josh Whedon and Fabio Moon.

It’s a strong batch of nominees this year and I recommend folks check them all out.  Although they range in subject and approach, they all have very strong writing and art — basically they’re really good.  It’s a ways off to Eisner night (Friday, July 25th) but in the meantime why not share with us your prediction on who will win this year’s Digital Comics category (and any other category you’re interested in writing about).

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