Monthly Archives: January 2009

Le Webcomic Potpourri

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Ah, monsieur! Please sample le following webcomic stories, oui?

  • Best part about the post-Starslip Starslip: necks! Huzzah! Incidentally, Cutter looks a lot more like Sawyer from Lost … which is a good thing! Mr. Straub, you need to have a little talk with Joe Quesada on how to remake long-running comics.
  • Incidentally the 2008 Weblog Awards are over. To no one’s surprise, the winner for Best Comic Strips is xkcd. Yay. Hey, does it matter, really? Everyone had fun, the popular guys won, Comics Curmudgeon defied the haters in the Humor Category, and the always affable Wil Wheaton of Star Trek: Next Generation got to feel good about himself, winning the Best Celebrity Blog and all. (Eventhough I did publically endorse Kanye West….) Besides, it’s not like it’s a real award… unlike the Xeric Awards, whose winners were also announced this week (hat tip from the Comics Reporter).
  • And now, to tie the first two items together…

    20080509

  • In case you missed it, Jackson Ferrell of This Week in Webcomics posted his two-part interview with Tony Piro, creator of Calamities of Nature (a Weblog Award finalist). The negative reviews from my old stomping grounds at Comic Fencing get brought up — of which I was not a part of, by the way. Mr. Piro seems to be quite an engaging fellow, so be sure to check it out!
  • Drew from Toothpaste For Dinner relives the early days of the internet with Andrew Zimmern Ate My Balls. I laughed at it more than I should have. Also, I came to the realization that I am now pretty frikkin’ old. According to Wikipedia, the whole Ate My Balls thing started in 1996.
  • Webster’s Dictionary defines a “neck” as: “1 a (1): the part of an animal that connects the head with the body (2): the siphon of a bivalve mollusk (as a clam) b: the part of a garment that covers or is next to the neck.” Every single one of those sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Especially the clam one (which somehow warrants a higher definition usage than the one pertaining to clothes).
  • I got this press release from Neil Kleid via e-mail:

    As comic book fans around the world usher in a brand new year, the creators of Image Comics/Shadowline’s offbeat webcomic, ACTION, OHIO, invites you to spend time in a little town hiding a very big secret;

    http://www.shadowlinecomics.com/webcomics/#/actionohio/

    Action, Ohio – written by Xeric Award winning author Neil Kleid and illustrated by Paul Salvi – asks what might happen if the Silver Age of comic book was created to hide the existence of real-life superhumans living in the heart of Ohio?

    Running one page per week at Image Comics/Shadowline’s webcomics hub, the story explores detective Andrea Bruce’s private dilemma and the sacrifices she must make in order to save an isolated community struggling to contain its secrets. Choosing between solving a murder and opening a Pandora’s Box of evil or putting aside her vendetta to help a group of heroes contain their existence and freedoms, Andrea unfolds the mysteries of a sleepy little town that inspired the Silver Age of comic books and races to find a killer before he forces its inhabitants to reveal themselves and destroy the world.

    And I was, like, “Holy crap! Image has a webcomic front now?” Anyway, I gave Action, Ohio, a fairly good review at Comics Fencing back when it was competing for a Zuda contract in May, so I may just have to revisit it to see where the story ended up going.

  • Bengo, don’t you know what kind of incredible power you have? Don’t abuse it. Use it … for good.
  • Do you hate Pokemon? Not as much as Atticus from Mokepon, I’ll wager. Yeah… it’s basically a Pokemon fanfiction. But the art is pretty solid, and the story had me hooked for the 19 pages published. If you want to see a fella get pissed off about Charmander, this is your comic.

The Webcomic Overlook #64: Nawlz

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I realize that I’m probably going to alienate a huge portion of my readers here, but I find xkcd to a rather hit-and-miss comic. This is coming from someone who has an engineering degree. (The again, as Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory says, “Engineering is merely the slow younger brother of physics.”)

However, I will point out that there are times when Randall Monroe is on the money. Take for example, this toon plotting the Probability the Book is Good vs. Number of Words Made up By Author which specifically targets cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson. It works because Monroe is on the money: the propensity for silly-sounding techno-terms in cyberpunk novels is pretty damn embarrassing.

I will concede that there’s at least one good reason why Cory Doctorow, William Gibson, or, hell, the Shadowrun series writers indulge in such tortured gobbledy-gook. If you don’t spend too much time over-analyzing the meanings of each abbreviation and slang term, the odd cadence puts you into a trance, more or less. There is a point when things become unknowable, and you, the reader, sort of accept it. The words are akin to Latin spoken in a pre-Vatican II liturgy, generating the enchantment of a magic spell, only rooted in the future rather than in the past. What I’m saying is that cyberpunk is a quasi-religious experience. Quite bizarre, when you think about it: cyberpunk is often surrounded in nihilistic, godless trappings, yet technology itself tend to take the unexplainable form of a mysterious deity.

I find it strange that, in my some two years of reading and reviewing webcomics, I haven’t come across many examples of cyberpunk comics. Sure, there’s plenty of zombie apocalypse comics, steampunk comics, and space opera comics. But cyberpunk? And when one such comic eventually did cross my path, I found myself a little hesitant to even call it a webcomic … that innocuous term suddenly sounding limiting and restrictive.

The comic, Nawlz, is written by Sutu, who’s real name is Stu Campbell and who hails from Australia. The Nice Produce blog says that he’s design HUDs for military applications. While this might be turn out to be nothing more than an irrelevant piece of trivia, I feel it helps me understand Nawlz‘s unique take on storytelling.

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Pantsless Bombshells and the Perfect Storm

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Ah, the promo art of Zuda Comics’ Black Cherry Bombshells. It’s notable for two things: one, it seems to have nothing to do with what Black Cherry Bombshells is about. Sheldon Verra, illustrator of the promo art, is not the one who does the comic. That would be Sacha Borisich, whose artwork can be found in small insets to the middle left. It’s sorta bait and switch.

The second, which got Comics Worth Reading‘s Johanna Draper Carlson and Fleen‘s Gary Tyrrell up in arms, is much more obvious: the gal in the middle is not wearing any pants. A cheeky move. (Wait. That’s probably not the right term.)

The real art, apparently.

The real art, apparently.

It’s sorta become a perfect storm of some events that have been happening in print comics. First, there was Josh Tyler’s inflammatory remarks over at Comics Blend that women, in general, don’t like superheroes and that movie studios are stupid for even doing films about them. Then came an even bigger controversy when writer Bill Willingham (The Elementals, Justice Society of America) mentioned, on the politically conservative Big Hollywood blog, that superheroes need to drop the grim-and-gritty schtick and embrace goodness and patriotism again. (I should point out, by the way, that while passionate message board denizens are predictably sniping back and forth, several levelheaded liberal-leaning commentators, like Kurt Busiek and Heidi MacDonald, have actually stood up for Willingham and insist that he does have a point.) Both articles have been heavily circulated and argued in online debate circles. Discourse over the political correctness of comic book characters are in style this month, perhaps a result of the simmering emotions building up on the way to the Presidential Inauguration.

And now it’s come to webcomics, albeit via a company strongly tied to the print industry.

So, is the promo art of Black Cherry Bombshells sexist? Exploitative? Or … is it something else?

Incidentally, I’m guessing that, based on the screwball interview at Robot 6, it’s an intentional Sin City-inspired parody subverting the comic’s true mission statement that the creators were ultimately OK with. I sent an e-mail to Tony Trovarello, but all I got was a short response about how no one mentioned the space pen.

Okay.

Metapost: It’s *champing* at the bit.

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I was reading an article on ESPN.com lately, and I came across this phrase:

Fans in Calgary can’t really be chomping at the bit to see the New York Islanders, can they?

To which my mind immediately said, “No, no, no, it’s champing at the bit, you ignoramus hockey reporter!” And immediately I was ashamed.

Yes, “champing at the bit” is the actual correct usage, since “champ,” as a verb, means “to bite or chew, especially noisily or impatiently.” And why do I know this? Because Brad Guigar (Evil Inc.) casually mentioned this little fact on a Webcomic Weekly episode. And now this little detail will bother me to no end, driving me crazy, bit by bit, like Chinese water torture.

Curse you, Guigar! You are truly EVIL INCORPORATED!

(Also, now I can’t hear “champing at the bit” without also hearing it done in Dave Kellett’s (Sheldon Comics) mock-Midwestern accent.)

Webcomic Team-Up of the Gods

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So… Keepspot just issued a press release (gleaned here via Comixtalk) that Bobby Crosby and Sarah Ellerton are teaming up on a new project called Dreamless.

Apple Valley, CA, January 11, 2009 – Illustrator Sarah Ellerton (Inverloch, The Phoenix Requiem) has teamed with writer Bobby Crosby (Marry Me, +EV, Last Blood) to launch Dreamless (dreamlessmovie.com), a new weekly comic on the Keenspot webcomics network. The high-concept plot has yet to be revealed, but it has been described as “a fantastical romantic tragedy like you have never seen before.”

Said Crosby, “When I put out a call for artists, I was pleasantly surprised to hear from [Ellerton]. This seemed like the perfect project for Sarah and I want to thank her for the incredible job she’s doing.”

“I’m really excited about this collaboration with Bobby Crosby for Dreamless,” said Ellerton. “I’ve never worked with a writer before, so it will certainly be a new and hopefully enjoyable learning experience for me. Illustrating for this project will push me creatively and issue me with artistic challenges that I may not have had the courage to do in my own projects. Bobby has written entertaining and unique stories in the past, and I’m confident Dreamless will be no different.”

Now this site hasn’t been kind to Bobby (Marry Me reviewed here, Last Blood reviewed here), but I’m always in awe how the guy manages to attract decent artists (Remy Mokhtar and Owen Gieni, respectively). And now, Sarah Ellerton of Phoenix Requiem (reveiwed here on Comixtalk)? A 2008 WCCA Finalist for Outstanding Artist?

Interesting.

The Webcomic Overlook #63: Brawl In The Family

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Nintendo bestowed upon us mortals a veritable Gift From Mt. Olympus when they released the Super Smash Brothers series. Not necessarily because it’s a great fighting game. I mean, the game itself is alright, but I find myself oftentimes irritated by the zoom out features which render the characters like pinpoints upon an admittedly lush battlefield. Eventually, my bloodlust takes over and I begin to long for the simple face-punching, body-slamming of the Tekken games.

No, the greatest achievement of the Smash Brothers series is that it’s now totally legit for budding story writers to have all Nintendo characters and some prominent hanger-ons interacting with the camaraderie of junior high classmates. It’s like the Grand Unified Theory for characters, canonizing all sorts of absurdity, the likes of which have not been seen since Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny did the tandem skydive in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I expect that, somewhere, an intrepid young writer has penned a story where Princess Zelda rebuffs the romantic advances of Sonic the Hedgehog in order to travel the universe with her one, true love, Pikachu. And the scenario itself is completely plausible! It isn’t just some fevered, candy-induced dream like “The Smurfs meet the cast of How I Met Your Mother!” These crossover shenanigans are best portrayed in Awkward Zombie (reviewed here, yet Ms. Tiedrich’s comic is hardly the only one that celebrates Smash Brothers‘ oddball diversity.

You know who gets unfairly shunned by webcomic writers, though? A tubby, bubble-gum pink spheroid with a bottomless appetite that we all know and love as Kirby. This seems terribly unfair. Three of the fighters — Meta Knight, King Dedede, and Kirby himself — from 2008′s Super Smash Brothers Brawl are characters from Kirby’s world. Yet Kirby-centric works are infinitesimal compared to the sheer volume of material devoted to chronicling the dysfunctional love lives in the Mushroom Kingdom. (Note: this does not reflect how Kirby fiction fares in Japan, as the little guy is friggin’ Elvis over there.)

Fortunately, Matthew Taranto has come to the rescue with Brawl in the Family. It’s a strip about Kirby, Kirby, and Kirby. It also stars other folks from Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which is to be expected by the title. (And in the unlikely case you were wondering… no, at no point in the comic does Kirby meets Archie Bunker. Come to think of it, there aren’t any families, either, so I have no idea what that title’s referring to.)

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Part III of PW Beat’s Year End Survey, plus Comixtravaganza at Seattle libraries

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WEBCOMICS AMONG TOP STORIES OF 2008, PART TROIS

Part III of PW Beat’s Annual Year End Survey went up. Regarding webcomics, the responses aren’t as indepth as they were for Part II. However, Ms. McDonald begins this list with this interesting note: “For once, in my five years of doing this, there was consensus on both last year’s big story and next year’s: economy and digital.”

Here are the parsed responses, as usual.

Rantz A. Hoseley, cartoonist, editor

What was the biggest story in comics in 2008? Biggest story? Pick ONE?… Yeesh.

Ok, it was surprising that the launch and story of Final Crisis seemed to be so disorganized, so ill-planned, given the creators involved. Especially when compared to the machine-like precision that Marvel pulled off with Secret Invasion. On a different note, it warms the cockles of my black, cynical heart to see so many “indy” creators not only working on comics for Marvel and DC, but most importantly, not changing their style of storytelling or the visual signatures that makes their work distinctively THEIRS. Five years ago, that’d be unheard of. It was also the year that publishers, across the board, recognized and admitted that there needs to be a viable digital option for comics. Again, five years ago, getting an consensus on that would be unheard of.

The creator that had the most impact? Matt Fraction. Whether head-fucking the readers with Casanova, rebooting disco-era B-list characters in a way that satisfied fans ‘perceived memories’ of how good they really were, or making properties like Iron Man and the X-Men compelling and relevant again, he’s the creator who many of us admire and were excited to see become a powerhouse this year.

My favorite book of the year, in a year where there were a surprising number of good ones? Patsy Walker: Hellcat. Brilliant and hysterical writing, combined with lively, fun, kinetic art. Comics… especially mainstream comics, need more books like this.

Also, we have a certified comic book loving Star Trek geek headed to the White House in a few weeks. Honestly, that’s a day I thought would never come. Let us just hope that (since he’s an admitted Spider-Man fan) he’s taken the credo “With great power comes great responsibility” to heart.

…

Mike Dawson, cartoonist

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2009? Well, it’s clear that there’s going to be some rocky times ahead for traditional book publishers. All that news about those New York publishing houses putting a moratorium on new acquisitions isn’t good, and neither are all the job losses. I have a good feeling about the more established comics companies, like Fantagraphics, D&Q, and Top Shelf, though.

I would say that online comics would be part of the biggest story of 2009, but webcomics have been happening for years now, and will just keep on growing. I do think that more and more respectable cartoonists are going to take their work online, and that webcomics will continue to gain more respect.

…

Nick Barucci, publisher Dynamite

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2009? Well, the obvious one is that this summer will be the summer of SCI FI and Comic movies. The less obvious will depend on how fans start accepting digital comics, and whether or not digital will start replacing the so called waiting for the TPB syndrum that we keep hearing.


What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2009? Continuing the road we’re on. There’s honestly no greater business than comics. It’s the greatest business in the world.

…

Jeff Newelt, AKA Jahfurry

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2009? The biggest story in comics in ‘09 will be Paul Pope’s BATTLING BOY selling over a million copies; the re-release of Rick Veitch’s BRATPACK (before Authority, before The Boys, before Wanted, etc BRATPACK brought on the twisted heros); and the online debut of an independent comics master. Cannot be named yet but a certain great will be offering new free online comics in ‘09.

Also, three of the releases I’m most looking forward to, and that i think will make a huge splash are A.D.: New Orleans After The Deluge the graphic novel documentary by Josh Neufeld that started as a webcomc on SMITH and will be released by Pantheon in August augmented and expanded; an original BEANWORLD graphic novel “Remember Here When You Are There!” by Larry Marder. and Grandville, an anthropomorphic steampunk graphic novel by the always outrageous Bryan Talbot.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2009? Reading WarrenEllis.com every single day, perhaps the only blog I’ve looked at every single day for the past 2 years. The man is a leader.

…

Alex Cox, retailer

2009 Projects: Continuing to run ROCKETSHIP, plus various webcomics not worth mentioning.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2008? I would say it was a tie between the release and subsequent reception of two books: WHAT IT IS, and THE GREAT OUTDOOR FIGHT.

WHAT IT IS was a lovely book, with wide crossover appeal among several markets, and a tour that brought out as broad a range of fans as you could hope for. It reminded everyone that Lynda Barry is something of a modern master, and expanded our scope of how “comics” can look, and how they can interact with the reader. Seeing people experience that book for the first time was really amazing, and it was a terrific affirmation of why we do what we do.

THE GREAT OUTDOOR FIGHT was much the same, but with the added bonus of reminding us that it’s not the delivery method (web comic), or format (hardcover reprint) that matters, it’s Content above all else that makes people love comics. This was a funny story, well-told, about engaging characters, and none of the details of publishing ultimately make a difference. People respond to the content, and we saw droves of fans show up at every stop on Onstad’s tour to prove that.

…

Chip Mosher, marketing director

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2009? Digital distribution of comics coming to the fore coming hand-in-hand with increased sales of floppies and trades.

…

Dan Goldman, cartoonist

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2009? The head-smacking realization in the mainstream that digital comics can, in fact, be a more lucrative model than print.

DO WEBCOMIC ARTISTS DREAM ELECTRONIC SHEEP?

Also, here’s something that I wouldn’t have been aware of if my car wasn’t in the shop getting some bolts tightened and some rather pricey engine parts replaced. There was a copy of the Seattle PI lying around in the customer-waiting lounge, and something in The Arts section caught my fancy.

If you happen to be in the Seattle area be sure to check out Comixtravaganza, a free event sponsored by and held at the Seattle Public Libraries. It’s aimed at teens, though I understand visitors from all ages tend to drop by. There’s workshops where you can meet with local artists, talks, and, most importantly, free food. It’s also a good excuse to check out the Central Library (for the last day, Jan. 31, only), which looks like a building straight out of Blade Runner.

DIDN’T THIS SITE USE TO DO WEBCOMIC REVIEWS?

Check in later today for a brand-spankin’ new Webcomic Overlook review! Meanwhile, I got a really busy day ahead. The wife and I are taking in a nice new golden labrador home with us, so I foresee a long day to catering to his canine needs.