PvP

We took the best of the readers' questions and mixed in some of our own to conduct this interview with the six current members of Blank Label Comics: Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary), Steve Troop (Melonpool), Paul Southworth (Ugly Hill), Paul Taylor (Wapsi Square), David Willis (Shortpacked) and Greg Dean (Real Life).

Webcomics to Animated Series Updated

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 16, 2008 - 13:40

Your favorite animated videogamin' webcomics are making plans for another season of cartoons:

Scott Kurtz of PVP says:

Is there going to be a season 2: Both Ryan [Sohmer] and myself want to make a season two, but itâ€™s not going to start right away. Weâ€™re going to see how the DVD sells before deciding how to move forward. We want to give the PvP readership what it wants, and if thatâ€™s more DVDs instead of online subscriptions, thatâ€™s how weâ€™ll move forward. I also need a break from the production schedule to make time for the extra traveling Iâ€™ll be doing this year to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the strip and promote the How to Make Webcomics book.

When is the DVD coming?: As soon as Episode 12 is complete, weâ€™re starting production on the DVD. All of our voicecast became huge fans and supporters of the strip over the last year and they really want to help make the DVD special. So weâ€™re going to be recording commentary tracks and filming some behind the scenes stuff to include. Iâ€™m hoping to be in LA next month doing just that. My personal goal is to have DVDs in time for Emerald City Con.

Ryan Sohmer of Blind Ferret Entertainment says:

Blind Ferret Entertainment is proud to announce the development and distribution of a 2nd Season of Ctrl+Alt+Del: The Animated Series. Financed entirely by Blind Ferret Entertainment, the new season is scheduled to begin airing in March 2008.

More from the Blind Ferret press release after the jump:

The March of the Webcomics

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 4, 2008 - 12:49

Back in town with a rolling update for Friday (and the weekend). Should be new cover art and articles up on Sunday.

HEADLINES

If you missed it check out Comics Worth Reading's interview with Chris Crosby over Diamond's rejection of Keenspot's participation in this year's Free Comic Book Day. Crosby's various comics entities have participated in FCBD for several years now so it is surprising that they will not be allowed to participate in this year's event. If the given explanation are true, however, it's just more evidence of how insular the thinking of the monthly comic ~~book~~pamphlet industry is by restricting their promotional event to existing direct market titles.

BUSINESS

Satstu.com has an article on the state of the not-growing newspaper comic strip business. It also has a link to Chicken Wings which is a webcomic aimed at the aviation industry. In 2008 I'm going to predict that if there's enough public interest in something there will be at least one successful webcomic about it. How much public interest in a subject is enough? That's something I hope we can all get a better handle on this year - maybe with actual numbers and demographics.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congrats to Jeph and Christi on their engagement. And hope everyone caught Jeph's pretty cool little reader-participation holiday comic. My gift to the happy couple is that something happens in Questionable Content this year. I keed, I keed...

JUSTIFY MY HYPE

New Years Day, Goats wrapped up its multi-verse saga with Jon in charge of hell? The first comic in the next storyline is up now... Don't let anyone kid you - combining consistently funny updates with a (somewhat) coherent storyline is hard. Throw in some actual character development - that's ISO 9000 there, baby! Last year, Goats began to hit a stride of humor and unpredictablilty in a just-plain-fun story - let's hope Rosenberg can do it again in 2008.
A long way off but a firm date in May for the wedding of Brent and Jade should shake things up at PvP. PvP is more sitcom than storyline but every now and then Scott Kurtz successfully mixes up the elements of this long-running strip.
SMBC is brillant. I love the punchline picture / set-up text jokes (kind of a reverse humor-fu) - here's one of my recent favorites with the added wha! of mixing D&D and sex. Probably too PG-13 to ever fit comfortably in newspapers but somehow it'd be great to sneak this into mid-America's breakfast reading.

COMRADES IN ARMS

CONGA: The collective network of great artists is a pretty nifty site - not sure if its a collective or just a site spotlighting artists but either way its full of wonderfully cool art.

Comments

#22 of Shuriken Diaries and a thought on "The Big Guys" linking eachother, aka the vicious cycle

Submitted by Ninja-bot on December 20, 2007 - 17:40

The latest strip of Shuriken Diaries, "Mudansha", can be enjoyed by clicking HERESMOKEBOMB!

ComixTalk's People Of Webcomics List For 2007

December 20, 2007 - 13:31

And now... the fourth annual People Of Webcomics list! I'll be the first to admit that this list gets harder and harder to compile as the lines between "webcomics" and just plain "comics" blurs harder than a greasy windshield in the middle of a West Texas downpour. Plus as publishing comics on the web and other digital formats becomes more commonplace it gets harder and harder to find those "firsts" that take comics in new directions whether artistic, technical or businesss-oriented.

The Buddy Cop Fantasy Therapy Hour

December 2, 2007 - 22:33 | Dr. Haus

In this episode, Dr. Haus takes a look at the webcomic The Prime of Ambition. Watch as he tries to help an androgynous black elf and white elf couple come together to realize that they both want the same things. Will Dr. Haus succeed in bringing the two sides together, or will this be as futile as trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis? Read on and find out.

This is Dr. Haus' second review for ComixTalk; last month he reviewed the webcomic Slackerz.

PvP
Reviews

Looking Back Through 2007

December 2, 2007 - 18:53 | Xaviar Xerexes

In years past (2004, 2005) we undertook the monumental chore of picking out the biggest headlines of the year. This year, I took another swing at it. So without further adu, here's the biggest webcomic headlines of 2007.

If I missed a story you think was key to this year, please post it in the comments to this article.

ComicPress 2.1 Released

Submitted by Tyler Martin on November 27, 2007 - 03:06

ComicPress 2.1, the latest version of ComicPress, accomodates the new Widgets and Tag features introduced in the last two major releases of WordPress as well as various other improvements.

ComicPress continues to help webcomic creators create their websites and publish their comics with WordPress. Modified versions of the theme are now seen at such Webcomic sites as Scott Kurtz's PVPonline, Chris Harding's new We The Robots, Warren Ellis' upcoming Freak Angels and even the creative use of it for a comic podcast as seen at Around Comics.

The theme is attractive enough to be used as is, but simple enough to be customized the way you want it with a little CSS know-how. By creating your website with WordPress, you are taking advantage of one of the most popular and well-produced content systems as well as tapping into its vast amount of support and its wealth of addons.

Letâ€™s hope for more of these!

Letâ€™s hope for more of these!

The ComixTalk Interview with Blank Label Comics