iWebcomics

The iPad app for the digital comic Daniel Lieske's The Wormworld Saga is now available for free in the iTunes App Store. An Android tablet version is currently in development. The Wormworld Saga is an episodic graphic novel designed for tablets. Unlike traditional graphic novels, each chapter is digitally painted on a seemingly infinite canvas, providing an immersive reading experience that draws the reader right into a fully realized fantasy world.

The Wormworld Saga follows the life and adventures of Jonas Berg, who at a young age enters a parallel world through a forgotten painting in a dusty attic.  “Inside the Wormworld, Jonas finds indescribable wonders, new friend, love and hate, good and evil and he reveals his family legacy, which makes him become a central figure in an epic conflict that shakes the Wormworld and drives it to the brink of it’s destruction” says Daniel Lieske.

Produced by digital publisher Robot Media, the app for The Wormworld Saga allows readers to experience it the way it was meant to be read: the app provides better image quality and scrolling performance than the web version, and uses a seamless touch interface for reading.  Keeping with the spirit of the web edition, the app itself and the main narrative are available to everyone for free.

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The week is slipping away… I'll probably update this post later today but here's the AM version:

iWEBCOMICS

• Warren Ellis ponders the digital-only future, throws in some data on Freak Angels record and compares it The Walking Dead (which for most of its run has followed a more traditional direct market singles-in-print strategy).
• The Walking Dead — which I totally got into this summer — released same day in print and digital (iPad/Pod) with issue #77.  Both were the same price at $2.99. 
• Deb Aoki has a story with the publisher of a new manga anthology series, ComicLoud, available on the Kindle.

DEAD TREES WALKING  This story on the future fate of DC Comics is pretty plausible — I'm not sure how likely it is, but doesn't it seem like something a big conglomerate like Warner Bros would easily consider.

WHERE SHOULD I BE?  Erika Moen explains the pros and cons of Portland.

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Wow I was completely zapped by three days of con-mania this past weekend.  In any event, I've posted some photos, my first "live" interviews – well first I've recorded and shared with peoples like yourselves. I've got a few more to edit and post — hopefully by the end of the week along with a convention-report style wrap-up.  There's been a lot of posts on SPX (Tom Spurgeon's round-up of such posts is here).  I missed the panel there with Richard Thompson, creator of the best new comic strip in recent years — Cul de Sac but moderator Mike Rhode posted the audio from the panel.

iWEBCOMICS

Warren Ellis posted a little blurb about ideal digital format and pricing for comics.  There were some recent posts about the current price of monthly comic books pamphlets floppies 32 pages with staples thingees lately — prices have gone way up and that format is really not a cheap buy for entertainment anymore.  Digital comics could be.  Webcomics surely are — free is the ultimate sampler price.  I also missed posting about the speech on this future for comics that Mark Waid gave at the Harvey Awards ceremony — Waid followed up with a blog post containing a more polished version of the speech here — it's well worth reading.

NEW!!

David Willis — who I got to meet at Intervention — launched his brand spankin' new Dumbing Of Age webcomic.

DIFFERENT!!

John Allison writes that he's going to stop posting Bad Machinery as a webcomic, but instead turn towards finding a publisher for it.  Presumably to put out a print version that would help it to find more younger readers? 

MILESTONES

Co-creator Eben E.B. Burgoon writes that the 3rd anniversary of Eben 07 was this month plus they have a 3rd print collection out, titled Operation: 3-Ring Bound. To celebrate, they're holding a contest for a $20 amazon gift card & the line art of a celebratory anniversary poster drawn by D. Bethel  — anybody that comments on a comic during September will be entered to win.

HISTORY

El Santo writes a round-up of attempts to chronicle the history of webcomics including T Campbell's series on it here at ComixTalk.

MAILBAG

• Charles Cutting wrote to let us know that the Illustrated Ape website is hosting the first installment of his webcomic The Dream Quest of Randolph Carter. The next episode will be posted as soon as it is finished (Cutting says hopefully no later than November the 1st).
• J.T. Yost debuted some new mini comics at SPX including It's Dream Time, Snoop Doggy Dogg.  I got a review copy and hope to have a review up later this month.  I interviewed Yost at SPX — it's part of the 5 interview video here.
• Stan Wojohowitz wrote that he's launched a new webcomic after 18 months of development called The Psychotic Episodes.  It's about characters exploring issues of psychiatry and mental health.  The first issue, including related blog posts, seems to be about mental health issues for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
• Stefan Strasser writes out with a different pitch for his webcomic, "Most webcomics start out with a lavish update schedule and then cut down the number of new strips during the course of time. Chicken Wings is now going the opposite way. Starting this week, the comic will update three times a week instead of just one.  Chicken Wings is a comic aimed at aviation enthusiasts and about a bunch of chickens working in a small aviation company.

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So while I was still thinking about what I should write on my last day of posting here, I noticed that ComicSpace had got itself a makeover. They've upgraded the whole system from whatever it was before to Wordpress. The transition wasn't exactly seamless; they're still working on the kinks. Some data seems to be lost, some displays weirdly. If you have a ComicSpace page, it might be a good idea to stop by and clean up your profile now. (If you're like me, you haven't done that at least since the makeover started a week ago.)

You do remember ComicSpace, right? A couple of years ago (2006), OnlineComics.net's Josh Roberts created the site, aiming for a "MySpace for comics". For a while, it seemed like the place to go if you wanted to connect to other comics people (or, more to the point, webcomics people). Personally, I lost touch with it over time, although I was very interested when Webcomics Nation's Joey Manley announced a merger of the two site families (including OnlineComics.net, Modern Tales and others) in 2007. The sites still haven't merged, although they're all part of the same company, E-Line, now. So much about the history. So what has changed?

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In my first post, I called webcomics in Germany “a fringe experience”. If that makes it sound like there isn’t much going on out here in terms of webcomics and that we’re a little behind on things, I can assure you – about half of that is exaggerated.

It’s not like we don’t have good and popular webcomics. Quite a lot, actually, including several Internationally-known titles. If you’ve been around in the scene, you might well know Arne Schulenberg’s superhero photo comic Union of Heroes, Sarah Burrini’s semi-(if you don’t count the talking mushroom and the jazz-loving elephant, or maybe, what do I know)autobiographical Life Ain’t no Pony Farm or Sandra and Woo by Powree and Oliver Knörzer (which makes it only half-German, actually – Powree is from Indonesia). Maybe you remember demian5’s ‘Classic’ When I Am King, from way back when Infinite Canvasses were all the rage. (Actually, demian5 is Swiss. But when I say ‘German’, I usually mean the language rather than the nationality. It’s really a small scene as is.)

If you’re looking for new German-language titles, Das Webcomic-Verzeichnis is a good place to start. It lists more than 200 titles, both old and new, cartoon and long-form. You might also want to check web 2.0 platforms like MyComics, toonsUp and Comicstars.
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A few more stories worth checking out today:

JUSTIFY SOME HYPE: Comics Alliance has a preview of David Malki!'s new Wondermark book — Dapper Caps and Pedal Copters.  It's been great to see Malki!'s success with the Wondermark books from Dark Horse Publishing.

INTERVIEWS: An interview with Mike Russell of the alway funny webcomic Culture Pulp.  Culture Pulp is non-fiction, usually taking on a movie or an event in the Northwest.  And Von Allan gets interviewed — his graphic novel (which used to be serialized on the web at Girlamatic but I don't see it there now) is The Road to God Knows.

BUSINESS: An article on epublisher WOWIO's excitement about the iPad.  I'm excited about the iPad too, but given WOWIO's history I am going to wait and see what they bring to the world in terms of product and contracts before spending too much time reporting on their revival.

ALWAYS BE PREPARED: Webcomic Marketing has a list of items to put in a convention travel kit.  It's a really  good idea to have a check list before leaving for a convention.

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