xkcd
2007 2Pi-Con
This weekend is 2Pi-Con, the biggest science fiction, gaming, and lifestyle convention in the Pioneer Valley.
WHEN: This weekend - August 10-12
WHERE: Clarion Sovereign Hotel, West Springfield, MA
This sounds heck-o-fun - I kind of wish I lived close enough to go. Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content is one of the guests of honor and also attending will be Randall Munroe of XKCD and The Ferrett of Home on the Strange. Small crowd, cool guests.
Seventh Day Webcomicists
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on July 8, 2007 - 11:43
COMIXTALK
- This week's guest blogger will be Scott Story (Johnny Saturn). A big thanks to last week's guest blogger August Pollak (Some Guy With a Website). I also want to thank Whitney June Robinson for drawing this month's cover art for Comixtalk.
HEADLINES
- Sequential Tart goes to a weekly format. This week features a review of Jeremy Arambulo's Let's Do This; an interview with Scott McCloud's wife Ivy and two daughters Sky and Winter, as they wind up their 50 state tour in support of Scott's new book Making Comics.
- The comic Penny Arcade will be available through the videogame maker Valve's digital distribution system Steam. That's almost certainly a great new way to get a videogame-related webcomic to an interested audience. Everyone who has downloaded a game through Steam (Half Life 2 anyone?) has a little icon in the windows bar (and probably some equivalent on the Mac) for it.
DEAD TREES
- The Beat reports that Dean Haspiel and Michel Fiffe of the webcomic collective ACT-I-VATE are bringing their webcomics to print in a black & white, three-issue creature romance double feature, entitled BRAWL, this October.
WIKI WATCH
- Your wikipedian taunt of the month. courtesey of xkcd.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- I thought Penny Arcade's Ruxpin comics were farce but after seeing this I'm not so sure...
- Comics212 gives a fairly positive review to Questionable Content (although he disliked the basic plot up until Faye and Martin broke off their romantic tension)
Random Notes for Thursday, June14, 2007
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 14, 2007 - 11:14
A site note: as we'll be moving to the name ComixTalk next month, I've enabled the URL comixtalk.com which should now (or very soon) work (comixpedia.com will still continue to point to this site as well).
STOP THE PRESSES
- Journalista! catches the announcement that Tak Toyoshima’s Secret Asian Man has been picked up by United Features.
- FLEEN noted that Chris Baldwin's Little Dee will run at comics.com until the end of July. If there's no offer of syndication then Baldwin will move the strip back to its own domain at littledee.net.
GOING TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- Skull is Somewhere in Time. (Pop culture reference alert: the Christopher Reeve/Jane Seymour movie)
- Geek romance gone awry, xkcd style.
NOT WEBCOMICS
- Nerd Cord group Dual Core namechecks the Penny Arcaders in the new song First One's Free.
Thursday, Muddy Thursday, And the Battle's Just Begun! (UPDATED)
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on May 24, 2007 - 15:22
ANGST
INTERVIEWS
- T Campbell does the audio interview thing - this time with Nick Gurewitch, the creator of The Perry Bible Fellowship.
- NPR interviewed Berke Breathed about his new kids book Mars Needs Moms.
MILESTONES
DEAD TREES
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- xkcd - which may be the most popular webcomic around now - has an ongoing storyline this week.
- Scary Go Round's Sea Serpents and Snail Ladders is an awesome update on Chutes and Ladders - I'm going to have to blow it up and print it out to play it.
- Matt Koelbl likes the webcomic Basic Instructions - something I've plugged before here at Comixpedia.
- Brigid catches the new webcomic lineup at Seven Seas' websites.
- Jack likes Corey Marie's Scene Language.
GOING TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- The Back of the Envelope Blog updates you on the plot of popular webcomics (so you don't have to read them?).
- T Campbell is annoyed at the coverage given to the webcomic based on the Heroes tv series.
- The Daily Cartoonist blog writes about Mark Pett's Guinness World Record for the largest comic strip - a very large version of a strip from his Lucky Cow comic and a group of Scottish students attempt to break the record for the LONGEST comic strip. (Insert if it's not Scottish it's crap joke here)
- Dirk Deppey links to another funny parody comic from Beaucoup Kevin - this one titled "How To Make Love The Punisher Way".
Is The Man Keeping Us Down, Or Is It Just Us?
Submitted by Erg on May 22, 2007 - 17:10
Entitlement, anyone?
XKCD Is a Phenomenon
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on May 17, 2007 - 09:15
xkcd creator Randall Munroe speaks at MIT and the rocket scientists-in-training go wild!
MOST READ 2007
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on May 11, 2007 - 12:45
Alexa features xkcd as one of its "Movers & Shakers" today. (Usual Alexa caveats, etc, etc) xkcd's Alexa ranking is 3,541 which is really good for any website, let alone a webcomic.
Wellington Grey Makes Funny Flowcharts
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on May 9, 2007 - 14:52
Shades of xkcd! Wellington Grey arguably doesn't create comics so much as flowcharts, but whatever, they're often extremely funny and remarkably insightful. A few favorites include:
Tuesday! Tuesday! Tuesday!
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on May 8, 2007 - 10:00
INTERVIEWS
- Animation Insider interviews webcomic creator Chris Moujaes (Coz/Effect and Battlegate).
COMICS CONVERGENCE
- I'm not sure what this story has to do with comics but it is interesting: book publishers are rethinking the value of audiobooks -- in particular this article is about an author who rushed out the audiobook well in advance of the hardback in order to capitalize on an Oprah Winfrey Show appearance.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Eric Millikin has an interesting request: Any good books for a webcomics class?
- Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum, releases a comic they created about and for the Book Expo America convention as a pdf.
- Derik Badman on non-plot-based narrative in comics.
- Neil Cohn writes about the concept of "coercion" in language (with comics used as examples). Coercion seems to be related to the McCloud concept of "closure" (which McCloud discusses in his book Understanding Comics).
- Jon Lee's favorite webcomic is xkcd.
Talking xkcd With Randall Munroe
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Randall Munroe, writer of minimalist computer/romance humor comic strip xkcd, was kind enough to grant Comixpedia an email interview, where he discusses how to pronounce the title of his comic, some thoughts on producing the strip, and which raptor style dinosaur he would prefer to be attacked by. Enjoy!
