Sluggy Freelance
Important Dates in Webcomic History?
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 6, 2003 - 21:19
We're working on compiling important dates in webcomic history - if you've got some suggestions post them here. Thanks!
2003 WCCA Nominees Released
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2003 - 22:00
The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards' Nominees for 2003 were released this week.
Voting for award winners is ongoing from now until June 29th and the winners will be announced on July 6th. Read on for a list of the nominees:
- Events
- Cayetano Garza
- D.C. Simpson
- Daniel Merlin Goodbrey
- David Willis
- Derek Kirk Kim
- Eric Schwartz
- Faith Erin Hicks
- Fred Gallagher
- Greg Dean
- Howard Tayler
- Indigo Kelleigh
- James Kochalka
- Jamie Robertson
- Jerry Holkins
- Jim Zubkavich
- John Allison
- John Barber
- Justine Shaw
- Lee Adam Herold
- Maritza Campos
- Mike Krahulik
- Patrick Farley
- Pete Abrams
- R.K. Milholland
- Rich Stevens
- Scott Kurtz
- Scott Ramsoomair
- T Campbell
- Tatsuya Ishida
- Vera Brosgol
- Zach Weiner
- American Elf
- Chopping Block
- Penny Arcade
- Sinfest
- Sluggy Freelance
Stop Drawing Bad Manga! by Shaenon K. Garrity
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Here's the deal. I work for a manga publisher, Viz LLC, purveyors of such titles as Phoenix, Inu-Yasha, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, and Shonen Jump. I'm surrounded by manga and the attendant detritus of Japanese pop culture for eight hours a day, five days a week.
I like it. A lot.
And yet I don't like most manga-style American comics.
On this side of the Pacific, manga-style seems to mean one of two things:
The Blue View by Boxjam
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I like wit, perhaps to a fault.
Everyone knows that ninety percent of everything is garbage. So I should have known, when I offered It's not Country. It's Johnny Cash, as a way of saving this great man's canon, that my friend would call me on it. I did it, of course, because Country has come to be sluggish bland pop with a twang, nothing at all like what Cash does.
Time For Webcomics To Hop on the Hollywood Hobbyhorse?
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Underground. Edgy. Raw. Inventive. Independent. Webcomics have all of that and more. That said, the following may seem like an absurd question, but it needs to be asked: are webcomics having an impact on mainstream popular culture? When do we get to pay 8 dollars to watch Sluggy Freelance II: The Search for Oasis or an animated Fanciest Froglin on the big screen, or flip the channel to Mad Science with Doctor Helen Narbon on the television?
Sluggy Freelance by Pete Abrams
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Sluggy Freelance. SLUGGY FREAKIN' FREELANCE! Over a thousand comic strips! THIRTY-FOUR CHAPTERS! SEVEN books! Almost SIX YEARS! The paraphernalia for sale! The support sites! The tribute sites! The Pete Abrams worship - it's everywhere. Plug "Sluggy Freelance" into Google and you get 25,600 hits.
Where does one even plan to begin to start to talk about this comic?
Measuring the Webcomic Audience
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Let's cut to the chase. Quantity does not necessarily equal quality. Of course, it does not necessarily preclude quality, either. In fact, some might argue that 50,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong. It's certainly a well-worn question in every medium of popular entertainment: "how'd you do last night, kid?"
In almost every other medium there's an established mechanism for counting the audience and providing information on what the audience is watching or buying or reading or clicking on. So why not a bestsellers' list for webcomics, an Arbitron system focused on our particular universe? Regardless of whether we love, like, hate, or are indifferent to the most popular webcomics being produced today, it is information that ought to be available to the interested members of the reading public. It could provide some clues as to where the online audience is today versus six months versus two years from now. It could help to keep score of the growth (or decline) of our overall webcomic reader audience.
A Community Interview: You Decide What to Ask Pete "Sluggy Freelance" Abrams
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on May 5, 2003 - 00:01
Okay, folks -- it's time for Community Interview #2! This time, Pete Abrams has agreed to step to the interview podium to answer your questions. Here's how it works -- pose your question to Pete by posting a comment in response to this very post.
ONE QUESTION PER COMMENT, PLEASE.
If you see another question you think is interesting, moderate it up. If you see one that's not so useful, moderate it down. This worked fairly well for our first Community interview with R Stevens, but we need more people to submit questions. So fire away!
We'll take questions through to this Friday. The ten best questions will be sent to Pete to answer, so make 'em good!
Lights, Camera... (In)Action! in Webcomics by T Campbell
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POW! ZAP! AARGH! WHACK! TATTARRATTAT!
In comics' very early days (at least since the Katzenjammer Kids), they threw slam-bang bim-bam-boom thrills, spills, and chills right at their readers' eyes. Today's online comics are not so visceral. They affect the heart and mind more than the guts. And many would call that progress. But the progress has had its price.
The Addiction
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My heart was racing.
My eyes were glazed, my muscles tense. I took a slight, masochistic pleasure in the repetitive motion injury I was developing in my shoulder. I kept glancing over that shoulder, afraid of being caught, but the fear only added to my excitement.
I had been surfing a popular online comics site on company time.
