So why haven’t I been talking about Machine of Death on this site? You know, the book written and illustrated by webcomic creators like David Malki !, KC Green, Ryan North, Kate Beaton, Dorothy Gambrell, Rene Engstrom, Ramon Perez, Cameron Stewart, Kris Straub, John Allison, and many others that debuted #1, beating out both John Grisham and Glenn Beck? Well, like Glenn Beck, I was totally blindsided. Distracted. Likely by video games.

Fortunately, Lauren Davis at Storming the Towers is far more astute. She’s written an excellent post as to “Why ‘Machine of Death’ is important for webcomics.”. An excerpt:

What better way to defragment your audience than to show them stuff they already love alongside stuff they might love? If I’m already reading Dinosaur Comics or Wondermark, I might pick up Machine of Death and suddenly it’s “Ho! What’s this Cat and Girl business?”

And there are more projects like this in the pipeline. It won’t have the same broad appeal as Machine of Death, but TGT Media is publishing Webcomics: What’s Cooking? which is exactly what it sounds like: a cookbook with recipes written and illustrated by webcomic creators. Spike Trotman’s Smut Peddler, which is accepting entries through December 2011, is bound to find a cushy audience with porno comics from the likes of Erika Moen, Tom Siddell, and Spike herself.

Some of these creators still have a lot to learn about their own ecosystem. But what Machine of Death tells us is that they are organized; they are skilled marketers; and they are sprinting happily into the future of comics, whatever that may be.

Full disclosure: as part of her post, Ms. Davis refers to an odd little list I put together on this site. It’s pretty humbling, especially since I think Ms. Davis’ post is far more lucid than mine.

Webcomic awards. Who needs, em, right?

YOU do!

Well, maybe “need” is not the right word in this case, but it would be nice for some of that internet recognition. One such award, still in its infancy, is The Webcomic List Awards. From Comic Bits Online:

Launched last year to replace the now defunct Web Cartoonists’ Choice Awards, the Webcomic List Awards exist to recognise the best that online comics have to offer and nominations are open to everyone involved in the creation, promotion or distribution of comics.

The categories covered in the awards are:

Best Comic,

Best New Comic, for webcomics launched on or after the first of November 2009.

Best Colour Art,

Best Black and White Art,

Best Non-traditional Art, covering all artistic techniques other than conventional drawn images, such as photography, pixel art and 3D art.

Best Writing,

Best Character,

Best Gag-a-day Comic,

Best Longform Comic,

Nominations will run from the 8th of November until the 20th of December after which the comics with the highest nominations will be handed to a panel of judges who will pick the winners in each category to be announced in an online illustrated ceremony on the 31st of January next year.

The judges committee is for the most part particularly splendid this time around, as it includes such luminaries of print and digital like Scary Go Round‘s John Allison, former editor of Judge Dredd and 2000AD John Bishop, and My Cage creators Ed Power and Melissa DeJesus. And then you get scrubs like this jerk.

So check it out! And if you’re one of those types who disdains webcomic awards in all shapes and forms … well, I can’t be held responsible if xkcd sweeps all the categories.

I intentionally try to steer this site away from what can be defined as “politics.” Partly because the first misstep of discussing politics is assuming readers are of the same opinion as you, and typically as an opinion review-writing individual I tend to resent anything that pegs labels. However, I am sorta caught at a dilemma when such “politics” cross into the realm of webcomics and I’m somewhat obliged to talk about it, eventhough most of the time it’s nothing more than internet drama.

So the latest such kerfuffle happened last week when Kate Beaton mentioned, in my opinion using a quite reasonable tone, that she was a little creeped out when guys complimented her with a “Marry me.” As a guy working in a field where women are definitely in the minority, my female colleagues do relate a lot of stories where they’re upset how their gender tends to trump quantifiable achievements. And, let’s face it, comics culture, despite inroads by manga and webcomics, are still a bit of a boy’s club.

This set off a discussion about feminism on the internet. It … pretty much went how you’d expect a “discussion about feminism on the internet” would go. Which then leads us to the latest response, where cartoonists sympathetic with Ms. Beaton’s position start drawing webcomics featuring male genitalia (NSFW). At this point, you suddenly realize: it’s politics as usual. You start with someone trying to tell folks that she’s uncomfortable with people saying “Marry me,” and you end up with drawings of penises.

Which is not unlike the mid-term elections, when you think about it.

Don’t forget to vote on Election Day!

(h/t to reader Dane Thulin and Robot 6)