Business
Making money with webcomics. Seriously!
Comix Talk for Thursday, February 18, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 18, 2010 - 11:49
Pretty quiet today although check out this stunning creative innovation from the newspaper comic B.C. Wow! Now that's how you stay hip and current...
INTERVIEWS: Josh Lesnick, creator of Girly, is interviewed by the INTERNET!
REVIEWS: Johanna Draper Carlson has a review of the new mega-Penny Arcade book, The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade. For all the reasons she's a bit lukewarm on it, I will probably love it.
CRAFT: Nice little tutorial from Jim Zubkavich on the process for a recent illustration he did.
BUSINESS: The Beat reports that Graphic.ly, "a fairly new but bold player in the digital comics distribution field", has announced the acquisition of iFanboy, the popular comics news and information community. Graphic.ly is in "private beta" -- anyone using it right now?
Flattr: Not Micropayments But Microdonations
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 10, 2010 - 20:44
I saw this blurb about Flattr over at Boing Boing today - a new micropaymentsdonations service from Peter Sunde, a creator of the Pirate Bay. It's in beta though, not sure I'm going to sign up for it yet. In a nutshell, the idea is akin to a shared tip jar -- people pay Flattr a monthly tip and than Flattr divides it up among all of the content creators you've clicked a Flattr button for that month.
Comix Talk for Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 27, 2010 - 10:40
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."
Comix Talk for Friday, January 22, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 22, 2010 - 11:00
Psst. Super art fight this weekend..
I think I've mentioned it before but whatever compulsion I might have once had to share with you every scrap of webcomic-related stuff... well I ain't feeling it. So it's great that others are taking care of it and this week you can't go wrong with this round up of webcomic reviews, interviews and stories from Brigid Alverson's Paperless Comics.
SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NEW NEW ECONOMY: Tom Spurgeon writes about Julie Larson's decision to move from a deal with Creator's Syndicate to self-syndication. You really can't extrapolate much from a story that includes one newspaper comic (Larson's) and one webcomic (Apokalips) as the basis for discussion. I feel bad for folks like Larson who are stuggling with the double whammy of tectonic shifts in technology and a bum economy. But I also think it's annoying and self-defeating to write about how the Internet is killing everything. The Internet is part of the environment now. It's the least-cost, most effective publishing tool ever invented -- when before in history has ANYONE been able to potentially reach EVERYONE on the planet at the minimal costs needed to put up a website? That fact is AWESOME and no one in their right mind would trade it away for preservation of past pratices.
The other thing to keep in mind is that there used to be certain channels of content that we consumed because it was there in a format that required us to read/watch/listen to it on the format's terms. That's going, going, gone. Watch teevee when it's scheduled? Nope, TIVO. Listen to radio live? Nope, not if you don't want to - podcast, iTunes, etc. Read the daily comics in the morning at breakfast? Nope, even newspaper comics are ARCHIVED and available on the web. I can see it in my kids' habits. I used to come to the content in a lot of cases... for my kids all content is a library. They watch/listen/read their favorites -- it's RARE that they ever engage with content because it's there. What does that mean? I'd bet a lot of things, but one thing that seems obvious is that FAVORITES will win an even bigger share of whatever new business models sustain creators. If in the past it made sense to appeal to the largest audience possible (which often meant a softening and blanding up of material) to get into the newspaper, I think creators have to understand that's probably a really BAD strategy now.
PODCAST: The long-running webcomics podcast, the Webcomic Beacon, has two more episodes up: Fan Fiction and Black & White versus Color.
JUSTIFY TOM'S HYPE: Tom Spurgeon also linked to Smoke Signals, a free all comics newspaper based in Brooklyn. The first two editions are available for a free download at their website.
Ralph Bakshi on Surviving Tough Times
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 19, 2010 - 01:39
Boing Boing links to a panel where famed animator Ralph Bakshi talks about surviving tough times taking art by the hands and making your own fate:
Webcomics Headlines for Tuesday November 24, 2009
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 24, 2009 - 10:27
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.
Micropayments 3.0? iCents
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on October 8, 2009 - 09:31
Scott McCloud links to iCents.net today -- a micropayments-like set-up that is centered around creating "paid links". I poked around the site this morning and to be honest I'm not entirely sure what it does that isn't already out there in various apps and software bits. It (thankfully) doesn't set up another payment system (it's relying largely on paypal and other similar stuff) -- it looks more like a bit of code that developers can use to incorporate it into their sites.
If anyone tries this out on a website they run, let us know about your experience.
Project Wonderful Updates
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 27, 2009 - 13:14
I hadn't messed with Project Wonderful settings on my websites in awhile so some recent updates there were news to me. Anyone else run into these lately? Thoughts and anecdotes to share?
1. Tougher Restrictions to Get In: Now even with a user account at PW you still have to submit additional websites for review before you can create an ad box for them. There are some guidelines here for the minimums to get accepted. It sounds fairly objective to me and it's not a very high hurdle for any website that is alive and functioning.
2. Tougher Standards for Staying In: It also looks like PW is now concerned with ad performance and will remove a site from the program if it's performance is lacking. Again it's not a particularly tough standard - read more for the email from PW:
To The Webcomicmobile!
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on October 15, 2008 - 10:12
BUSINESS
I have been losing interest in tracking the latest Platinum Studios/WOWIO outrage but for what its worth FLEEN points to some recent links on creators allegedly still not getting paid. Journalista! links to Todd Allen's take on the current PLATINUM-ized WOWIO business and finds a lot to be pessimistic about. And Sean Kleefeld looks at some metrics that show a serious drop-off in WOWIO's traffic.
INTERVIEWS
Youth Radio has an interview with Lela Lee of Angry Little Asian Girl. (h/t Journalista!)
The Washington Post's Comic Riffs blog writes about the online comics category nominees at the recent Ignatz awards and has a mini-interview with nominee Tracy White of TRACED.
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS
The same Washington Post blog is running a poll on what to replace Opus with now that Berke Breathed has vacated the funny pages again.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
Prism Comics debuts its latest comic, Joe Carr’s The Catty Corner.
ComicMix discovers Rich Burlew's Order Of The Stick.
NOT QUITE WEBCOMICS
FLEEN also has a short, interesting bit on the intersection of videogames and webcomics. In particular there's a link to BRAID a new game that David Hellman, the artist from the too-short-lived A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible, was the art director for. While FLEEN did note the Penny Arcade plug for BRAID, they didn't mention the all important endorsement from rapper Soulja Boy.
Rich Stevens Will Pixel You a Portrait
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on October 10, 2008 - 08:58
The Diesel Sweeties 8-Bit Maestro, Rich Stevens, is taking commissions:
If you’ve ever wanted to see yourself in hand-drawn 8-bit form, here’s your chance! I’m still digging out of a mountain of debt brought on from expenses incurred while I was syndicated, but hopefully this can put a dent in it.
The portrait studio is open and will run until October 31.
