Anders Loves Maria
Joe Shuster Awards: Webcomic Nominees
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on May 14, 2010 - 11:38
The nominees for the 2010 Joe Shuster Award in the categoy of "Webcomics/Bandes Dessinées Web" are:
- Attila Adorjany – Metaphysical Neuroma
- Kate Beaton – Hark! A Vagrant
- Andy Belanger – Bottle of Awesome & Raising Hell
- Rene Engström – Anders Loves Maria
- Karl Kerschl – The Abominable Charles Christopher
- Gisèle Lagacé and David Lumsdon – Eerie Cuties & Ménage à 3
- Tara Tallan – Galaxion
- Steve Wolfhard – Cat Rackham
The 6th Annual Awards Ceremony is on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 at the Innis Town Hall (University of Toronto) with returning Master of Ceremonies Jonathan Llyr. The awards ceremony is held on the same weekend as the Toronto ComiCON FAN APPRECIATION Event (June 5-6).
Comix Talk for Monday, March 29, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 29, 2010 - 09:36
So here's a good question worth a think. Salon just let Reuben Bolling know it's canceling it's contract for Tom The Dancing Bug (which apparently means This Modern World is the last comic at Salon?) Tom the Dancing Bug is a smart, funny comic and the question now is -- what's the business plan for Bolling going forward? Seriously, if there's one cartoonist who I would volunteer time to help brainstorm and execute a new business model for, he'd be on the short list.
Penny Arcade Expo: Hope PAX East was awesome. I'll jealously read the reports trickling in today as attendees tell their tales of brushing against the PA crew and breaking into spontaneous nerdcore beatboxing in the hallways. In honor of the recent PAX East here's a link to Geekosystem's Top 10 Most Obscure PA characters.
Also, the Penny Arcade crew announced they would not be making a third installment in their videogames series but you can still read Macgasm's refresher review of the first two episodes of On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness here.
OTHER CONVENTIONS: In other con news, I'm still trying to make sure my schedule allows me to attend, but it looks like Rob Balder of Erfworld will definitely be there. Where? At Intervention of course. And don't forget the Comics Events calendar for dates for comic conventions and other events.
Milestones: Gordon McAlpin finished Book Four of his Multiplex webcomic. This comic has gotten better and better -- McAlpin does the character-driven material as well as the movie-driven stuff.
REVIEWS: El Santo reviews Evan Dahm's Rice Boy - it's another example of why El Santo is one of the best reviewers in comics right now. (My review of Rice Boy is here.)
INTERVIEWS: Sequential Tart has an interview with Rene Engstrom, creator of the completed webcomic Anders Loves Maria.
Opinion: I'd rather have Tatsuya Ishida on the editorial pages than most working editorial cartoonists. Ishida is at least as opinionated as 3/4 of them and his art runs laps (MULTIPLE FREAKIN' LAPS) over all of them.
iWEBCOMICS: Johana Draper Carlson talks about Alex de Campi’s Valentine comic, particularly the effort de Campi's making to bring it to multiple platforms simultaneously.
AROUND THE BLOGS: Last week, Howard Tayler had a great post on ideas and their value in the world - worth reading still. And Tom Spurgeon lists the webcomics suggested by readers of his site, The Comics Reporter. Not a bad list...
THE MAILBAG: Jason Whitley wrote to alert us to the return of Sea Urchins, which apparently used to be a newspaper-only comic (there's a book collection of these available here). The comic is by Whitley and Scott Eckelaert, but so far there's not much in the way of comics up on the website.
NOT WEBCOMICS: I've still only read one Scott Pilgrim book, but the trailer for the movie looks like great fun.
Comix Talk for Thursday, March 18, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 18, 2010 - 11:25
AWARDS: The Joe Shuster award nominees were announced. The webcomic category nominees are: Attila Adorjany – Metaphysical Neuroma; Kate Beaton – Hark! A Vagrant ;Andy Belanger – Bottle of Awesome and Raising Hell; Rene Engström – Anders Loves Maria; Karl Kerschl – The Abominable Charles Christopher; Gisèle Lagacé and David Lumsdon – Eerie Cuties and Ménage à 3; Tara Tallan – Galaxion; and Steve Wolfhard – Cat Rackham.
REVIEW: El Santo reviews By Moon Alone.
First and Last: Anders Loves Maria
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 9, 2010 - 02:01
We used to do an irregularly recurring bit here at ComixTALK called "First and Last" which seemed like a good idea to revive. Particularly with a comic like Anders Loves Maria where creator Rene Engström has not only constantly improved but also taken several stylistic leaps during the comic.
Comix Talk for Monday, February 8, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 8, 2010 - 02:01
Welcome to the new site design at ComixTalk. We're on a new server so let me know if it feels a bit zippier (it seems to be faster all around to me). Happy to hear about broken stuff -- I'm not done with tweaking things (never done!) and I can add it to the list. One thing I can warn you about is that a lot of the older URLs are still broken, but I hope to clear most of that up this week.
REVIEWS: I had the pleasure of sitting down with Copper in print this weekend and reading and re-reading it. Here's my glowing, gushing review. I also forgot to mention that we liked Kazu even before he was a star; here's the cover art he did for ComixpediaTALK back in 2004. Also, I'll have a review of Smile, the new graphic novel from Raina Telgemeier up this week. I did get a chance to read it this past weekend and it is an entertaining, moving story. Sure, the tale of the teeth and all of the work Raina had to go through are interesting, but she's done so much more with filling out the emotions and just the in-between-ness of those middle school years that it would have made a good story even without that hook.
MILESTONES: Last week marked the end of Anders Loves Maria, the breakout webcomic from Rene Engström. I'll second Gary's thoughts on the tale. Perhaps the ending felt a bit abrupt, even forced, but you can't deny it's impact. It's also worth noting that Engström's art continually improved throughout the comic and that in re-reading the archives of this comic, I'm even more impressed with where she is now as a creator. I hope the next comic comes soon.
CONTESTS: Ryan Estrada is competing in this month's Zudalympics and he needs your vote. His comic is called Sci-Fi Drive-By and you can vote by visiting his website. In non-Zuda voting, Comic Riffs, the Washington Post's blog about comic strips is having a Best Webcomic of the Decade Popularity Contest -- voting closes this Wednesday. The seven contenders are: Girl Genius, Hark! A Vagrant, Least I Could Do, Penny Arcade, The Perry Bible Fellowship, Schlock Mercenary, and xkcd.
Hodgepodge of Webcomic Links
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 28, 2009 - 15:45
Here's some interesting stuff from the many Firefox tabs still open on my screen this weekend:
BUSINESS
Comics Worth Reading reports that the first edition of the long-running British anthology 2000 AD is now downloadable for free at Drivethrucomics.com
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
Tiny Kittens has this crazy collage-like style that reminds me of the art in classic Golden kids books. Some or all of its creators had a hand in the now-defunct webcomic Combustible Orange.
I "heart" Tapes looks interesting - I think I saw a link to it from Anders Loves Maria.
MILESTONES
Kris Straub hits 1000 episodes of Starslip. Congrats!
Dave Kellet, with the help of his readers, tries to nail down when Sheldon first went online.
LEFT A NICE CORPSE - UPDATED
A new "feature-ette" I'll repeat whenever I'm out of other ideas: webcomics that died too young. For now most of the ones I'm thinking about were really good comics that for whatever reason the creators abandoned before they found their audience (and most likely before webcomics as a whole began to really take off). The first one is an old favorite of mine titled Waiting For Bob which went on hiatus in 2002, seemingly to return but simply hasn't. No explanation of why the series completely stopped and yet someone seems to have taken care to keep the site up and running. I'm sure I'm missing something (and I suppose I really should do some "reporting" here.) on the why but I'm more interested in the "what if" -- I think Waiting For Bob by Doug Shepard (current website? Talked with the real Doug via twitter and that website isn't him. My apologies Doug!) and Katrin Salyers, which probably had a decent audience for its time, was a bit ahead of its time in that I think today much more of its likely fanbase is online and comfortable with reading webcomics. It had three interesting characters, was not overly reliant on "tech" references and definitely had some drama mixed with the jokes. I really think it would do well today.
Strip Features
Submitted by Delos on March 27, 2009 - 10:00
Tangents reviews Starship Moonhawk and the Newark Webcomics Examiner looks at Traitor. Webcomics Finds reviews Rice Boy and Seek and Destroy. (And El Santo is taking spring break. Enjoy yourself, masked one. The internet will be here when you get back.)
Courtesy of Comixtalk, Comic Book Resources and Newsarama, we have a plethora of interviews; Planet Saturday, Soul Chaser Betty, Wondermark, Anders Loves Maria and Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Let’s add the Joe Kubert interview to the list, too.
The best part of this article on ComixTalk about some of the more tired webcomic ideas is not the actual rebuttals. Those make some sense, though I have less of a problem with the ideas than others seem to. The best thing is the very contents of the very last comment (at this time) by Scarfman. He said that “webcomics, like internet fanfiction, doesn’t have a higher rate of crap than other creative endeavors; it has a higher rate of exposure.”
Your Post-Webcomicstock Weekend News Update
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 23, 2009 - 09:54
Monday morning - two new interviews for you to check out: Monty Kane of Planet Saturday and Brian Babendererde of Soul Chaser Betty. Also check out our current sponsor, the webcomic Null Knowledge.
AWARDS
Dude! Howard Tayler received a HUGO nomination for a storyline of Schlock Mercenary titled "The Body Politic". Dude. Congrats Howard! UPDATE: Hey, overlooked that Phil and Kaja Foglio also get a nomination - for Girl Genius, Volume 8 and the storyline "Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones". Dude and Dudette!! Congrats are in order to all of the nominees.
Also, Kate Beaton received a nod in the "Best Emerging Talent" category of the Doug Wright Awards for her otherwise untitled History Comics. Congrats Kate!
INTERVIEWS
CBR has an interview with Rene Engström of Anders Loves Maria.
Newsarama interviews Joe Dunn of Joe Loves Crappy Movies.
Here It Is! Blog interviews David Malki! of Wondermark. (h/t Journalista!)
BUSINESS
Surprisingly -- to me -- a relatively new strip that originally started on Comics Sherpa, The Argyle Sweater, hit 200 newspapers.
Webcomic Wire - 2/27/09
Submitted by NightgigTim on February 24, 2009 - 14:36
Drawn from sources that are sure that there is no bottom…
