Archive for the 'Webcomics' Category

Zuda’s first comics announced

10/24/07

Zuda finally announces the line-up and if it’s anything, it’s diverse, with known talents like Corey Lewis, Pop Mhan, Sho Murase and Steve Ellis up against total unknowns. They’re all competing for a briefcase with one million dollars in it, apparently. Anyway, here’s the PR:


In anticipation of the launch of Zudacomics.com, DC Comics announced today the ten entries in the first ever Zudacomics.com competition. These webcomics are diverse in both their subject matter and tone, spanning a wide variety of genres— from horror to western to fantasy. Aspiring creators and comics fans alike will be invited to vote for one of the ten comics to continue as a regular web comic on the site. The competition winners will, in turn, receive contracts to create a year’s worth of their comic for the site.

“If Zuda Comics are to have common traits they’re quality and diversity”, said Ron Perazza, Director, Creative Services. “For this first competition we selected people from different creative fields, both within and outside of traditional comics, based on the strength of their concepts. It was a bit of a creative experiment but the results were fantastic. This is going be a tough competition!”

The first Zudacomics.com competition features the following webcomics:

Title: Alpha Monkey
Writer/Artist: Bobbie Rubio/Howard M. Shum
Summary: In a misguided attempt to save his son from the destruction of Earth by a comet (which then happens to miss the Earth entirely) a scientist rockets his son into another dimension. The child ends up on a parallel world ruled by Monkeys! Given unique powers by the planet’s bananas, the young boy fights off invading monsters as the planet’s new defender, Alpha Monkey!

Title: This American Strife
Writer/Artist: Jason Longo
Summary: A quirky, humorous “Dear Diary” recounting of the artist’s observations on life, This American Strife is a sharp-witted visual stab at editorial blogging.

Title: Battlefield Babysitter
Writer/Artist: Matthew Humphreys
Summary: In a family of superheroes, in a city of superheroes, in a world of superheroes, Katherine Fields is a babysitter. But when a routine night of babysitting turns into a villainous invasion, Katherine finds herself transformed into a super strong heroine. At $8.00 and hour, it’s going to be a long night.

Title: Black Swan
Writer/Artist: Mulele Jarvis
Summary: A young college student, Nina, is embroiled in a 500-year-old vendetta when she encounters a spirit bound to a mystic dagger left on her doorstep. Implicated in murder and on the run from a detective possessed by a rival spirit it’s up to Nina to relive an age-old battle – without dying in the process.

Title: Dead in the Now
Writer/Artist: Corey Lewis
Summary: When Braz – a young, cynical boy – discovers the world’s first authentic zombie he decides to end Earth’s monotonous routine and usher in an age of zombie-infested, chaotic adventure! Gathering supplies and weapons, Braz sets his friends up like modern, urban Lost Boys with himself as their Pan.

Title: The Dead Seas
Writer/Artist: Pop Mhan
Summary: Legions of undead controlled by Necromancer warlords destroy life as we know it, plunging the Earth into a futuristic Dark Age. But it’s adventure and romance on The Dead Seas as a swashbuckling young pirate named Devin teams up with an adventurous crusader name Luna. Armed with the secret of Pandora’s Box, they set out destroy the Necromancers and save the world.

Title: The Enders
Writer/Artist: Tim Smith III
Summary: Aluna didn’t ask to be given godlike power and she certainly didn’t ask for her parents to be killed in the process – but the enigmatic alien known as The Ender works in mysterious ways. Without time to grieve, Aluna is tasked with using her power to save the Earth from imminent destruction. The only question – how?

Title: High Moon
Writer/Artist: David Gallaher/Steve Ellis
Summary: It’s the fading days of the Old West in the late 1890’s when an enigmatic drifter, Matthew Macgregor, ambles into the dusty town of Blest, Texas. The nights are cold in Texas as Werewolves secretly haunt the town, but Macgregor has a supernatural secret of his own. When the sun sets it’ll be a showdown at High Moon.

Title: Leprenomicon
Writer/Artist: Greg DelCurla/Fernando Ruiz
Summary: In old Ireland, when the banshee sings for you it means that your time on this Earth is coming to an end. But American Michael O’Connor refuses to take this news lying down. With the (forced) help of a kidnapped Leprechaun, he intends to solve the mystery of his own death even if it turns the world of faeries, gods, and plain old normal folk upside down.

Title: Raining Cats and Dogs
Writer/Artist: Sho Murase
Summary: A young, snake-haired gorgon named Mika, winds her way through the contemporary, everyday wonderland of dating, work, after-hours adventures and everything in between alongside her friends Apple (a rokurokubi energy-vampire), Feebe (a bake-neko cat girl) and Akiha (a normal human).

Following the site’s launch, the majority of the competitions will feature webcomics submitted to Zuda through the website’s submissions process. As with the inaugural competition, Zudacomics.com’s visitors will vote for the webcomics that they want to see continue on the site.


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Hello, ZUDA Tuesday

10/24/07

Zuda, DC’s much awaited all new initiative, arrives in one week, according to an email sent to their mailing list. Also word of a launch party that day.

It’s been a while since our last e-mail. What can we say? It’s been kind of hectic here as we finalize development, do testing and fine tune the site. Hopefully you’ve seen some of our ads running in select issues of DCU, Vertigo and WildStorm comics. The other imprints have been very supportive so don’t forget to spread some of your comic dollars their way. We here at Zuda HQ are planning on doing things a bit differently - once we go live, we’re going to give our comics away for free! Take that, Corporate America! So when do we go live? I’m glad I rhetorically asked that.

Zuda Comics goes live October 30th, 2007!

On that magical day, when fairies push back the clouds and allow the golden rays of the sun to shine through, flowers bloom to the sweet melodies of harps, a parade of majestic, rainbow-colored unicorns prance down Broadway and corruption is eliminated as the rule of law is reestablishing in the United States (ok, maybe that last one is a bit far fetched) you’ll be able to read our first ongoing series and read, rate, vote and more in the first Zuda Competition!


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Gurewitch and the Ape

10/21/07



Ray Quentin sends us a video of the now famed Nicholas Gurewitch/Great Ape skit at this year’s Ignatz Awards. Sadly, the lighting was so low in the auditorium that you can’t really see the monkey’s very funny actions, but some of the charm comes across.

Platinum fun

10/12/07

For those who like following the internet trail of Platinum and Arcana, there’s a fun thread at the Digital Webbing Forums in which DJ Coffman (!), Andrew Foley, Lee Nordling and even Platinum’s Dan Forcey all take part.

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In other recent Platinum news, Weird Adventures in Unemployment is finally online (above). You’ll recall that this is the webcomic which Mike Strang created, only to have it taken away from him after editorial differences. This was possible because he had signed a work for hire contract. There’s more on this on the Comixtalk forum where Strang addresses Brandon Carr, the cartoonist was was hired to actually execute the strip. (Platinum does credit Strang as the creator.)

Brandon, I hold no beef with you being a scab worker like the players of the 87′ NFL season.

Thank you acknowleding that this project wouldn’t have happend without me. Which also earned you a paycheck.

My critque of your work though stems from the fact that my intial vision was far more ambitious. Therefore my disapointment upon seeing this minimalistic rendition. We went from Clerks to Dilbert.


The moral, as always, SHOW YOUR CONTRACTS TO A LAWYER BEFORE YOU SIGN THEM!

Hawthorne starts Thinktank Comics site

10/10/07

Hysteria-0002
Artist Mike Hawthorne, of late working on Vertigo’s THE UN-MEN, has joined the growing ranks of “traditional” comics artists taking their books to the web with the launch of ThinkTank Comics, a website which will serialize his books HYSTERIA, which has already had runs at Slave Labor, Radio Comix, Oni Press, and Image Comics, certainly making it one of the best travelled creator owned series we can think of. The site will also host Hawthorne’s latest side projects. Anyway, more in the PR:

Many may know Mike Hawthorne from his new Vertigo series The Un-men, or his work at Marvel, or even his Eisner nominated run on Queen & Country. However, only a few fans of the artist know the book that started his career was his creator owned series, Hysteria. Hysteria was originally self-published by Hawthorne under Thinktank Comics. After the initial run, newer installments to the series were published by Slave Labor, Radio Comix, Oni Press, and Image Comics. The series is now breathing new life as a daily web comic on Hawthorne’s new site, ThinktankComics.com.

This isn’t Hawthorne’s first foray into webcomics, but is by far the most encompassing. The Hysteria webcomic will run Monday through Friday starting with the original series and working forward. “The plan is to eventually have all of the Hysteria stories online, including the shorts published by various companies as well as One Man Gang”, Hawthorne said, “with the conclusion to One Man Gang still being released in print form by Image”.

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Strongbad takes on Webcomics

10/10/07

Strongbad
Lappy 486.

Girlamatic open for submissions

10/9/07

Girlamatic is accepting submissions from October 6th through November 5th, 2007. They will be open again in April. Editor Lisa Jonte has a list of guidelines that are pretty good guidelines for anything, so we’ll quote a few:

1. Look at what’s already on GAM. There’s plenty to see that will give you an idea of what we’re looking for and what we usually publish. GAM is kindly disposed towards good manga and Oni-like comics, but we’re not tied to a single visual style. We are looking for comics with well-defined characters, a good story to tell and with appeal to either young adult or adult women.

2. BEFORE YOU SEND ME YOUR PITCH, read How To Write a Book Proposal, by Michael Larsen. While it is geared towards non-fiction proposals, it does teach everything you need to know about crafting a readable proposal. I can’t say for sure I’d know if someone HASN’T read this when they pitch, but I sure can tell who HAS. What I DON’T want to see is your entire story written out in a single-spaced block in email. Have mercy. Write your proposal and put it up as a web page, or send it as an attached .rtf or Word file.

3. Email me at gam.editor@gmail.com, subject line “GAM: (title)”, otherwise my spam filters will eat it. To this address, send me the URL of your comic or sample pages and proposal.

4. Do NOT tell me your proposal isn’t your best work. If it isn’t, why should I look at it? If you usually do things like use “u” for “you”, “4″ for “four” and “LOL” for punctuation, DO NOT when you write me. I expect to see a command of conventional English. Also, sell yourself without resorting to emoticons. They are for casual correspondence, which a professional proposal most certainly is not.

5. Show me that you already know how to put a comic/images online. I want to see clean presentation (which means learning how to use an image editing program to take out grays from scans), good lettering (many decent free fonts available at blambot.com, so there’s no excuse for lettering in Times New Roman).

Links and stuff

10/8/07

§ Over the weekend, Tom thought a LOT about webcomics.

§ CBR interviews Eric Reynods about MOME not too long ago:

When you started “Mome,” you had something different from the typical alternative comics anthology in mind, correct?

Before “Mome” started, what I see as the dominant anthology that’s out there, at least in the terms as what I perceive as being the best work, was “Kramers Ergot,” and “NON” when Jordan Crane was doing that. A few other things here and there, but I guess that “Kramers” has become the big one. And I totally love it. I think that there has been some perception that “Mome” was at odds with “Kramers.” I never intended that to be the case, although I did intend for it to be very different. I simply wanted it to be more accessible. Some people may take that for better or worse because “accessibility” is going to imply a little bit more conservatism than you’d find with “Kramers.”


200710081221§ We usually avoid linkblogging to the outrageous statements of John Byrne, because that would be a daily website, but this takedown of CAPTAIN CARROT link which is going around is too funny not to share.

CAPTAIN CARROT was a virtual textbook of How to Get It Wrong. The internal logic was constantly skewed. What would prompt anyone to coin the term “pig iron” in a world inhabited, at least in part, by intelligent pigs? Wouldn’t that be an awful “racist” slur? What would an “alley cat” be in a world with intelligent cats? And, seriously, can we imagine a “real” superhero called, say, Captain Hamburger?

The book had all the earmarks of a “parody” — but, of course, it was a “parallel universe”, not a parody!! — done by civilians. By people who do not “get” the language of superhero comics. Appalling, when you consider who actually created it.

And let us never forget the solemn pronouncement from The Powers That Were, lo these many years ago —- “CRISIS is going to get rid of all the parallel Earths — except the one inhabited by Captain Carrot!”


§ Jeff Smith, pull your pants up.

SPACE SUCKS at Act-i-vate

10/5/07

200710051222
Space Sucks once of De-act-i-vate moves over to Act-i-vate. It’s by Pedro Camargo, I believe, although he signs his name as Sillicon Needle and the only way you can find out who this comic is by is a small signature on the splash page.

Seriously, I like the whole LJ community of comics creators but I’ve noticed many of the younger folk out there tend to make their real name very hard to find. I know it’s all cool and haxxor but it may not be the best move, professionally. A word of advice: make sure your real name is out there and findable. Someone may like you.

PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP a best-seller

10/4/07

PerrybiblesweetoWe were tooling around on Amazon the other day, and happened to notice what the best selling graphic novels were. #1 is something called DARK HUNGER by Christine Feehan, apparently a manga-ized version of a dark Vampire tale. To be honest, we never heard of this, but perhaps it’s another plank in the bridge between grown women and comics. (It’s currently Amazon’s #3 bestselling ROMANCE.)

The #2 GN seller is, just as surprisingly, the first collection of The Perry Bible Fellowship by Nicholas Gurewitch. Dark Horse has been the leading publisher to bring webcomics to print, and they look to be doing very well with his one. At press time here’s how it ranked:

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #449 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in these categories:
#1 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Publishers > Dark Horse
#1 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Comic Strips
#2 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels


The best part? The book isn’t even out yet.

Chemistry set lauches KID HOUDINI

10/4/07

Kidhoudini Promo
PR:

The Chemistry Set and creator Dwight L. MacPherson are pleased to announce the launch of Kid Houdini and the Silver Dollar Gang on the 81st anniversary of the death of legendary escape artist and showman: Harry Houdini.

Kid Houdini mastermind Dwight L. MacPherson is the creator and writer of such titles as Shadowline/Image’s “The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo” and “Archibald Saves Christmas” as well as Arcana Studio’s “Dead Men Tell No Tales” and Silent Devil Productions’ “Jim Reaper: Week One” and “Lil’ Hellions: A Day at the Zoo.” MacPherson also penned two stories for IDW’s “Gene Simmons’ House of Horrors.”

Kid Houdini and the Silver Dollar Gang follows the adventures of young Harry Houdini after he ran away from his family home in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1886. Caged and mistreated by the cruel circus owner, Professor Murat, Harry and his misfit friends Lydia the snake girl, Hans the legless boy and the Siamese twins Jacques and Joe solve mysteries under cover of night. No case is too daunting nor dangerous to sway their scrutiny… if you can pay their fee: one shiny silver dollar.

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Links we liked

10/3/07

200710031243§ We’d be completely remiss if we didn’t point out Tom Spurgeon’s comprehensive post on the great cartoonist Bill Mauldin in advance of Fantagraphics’ release of Willie & Joe: The WWII Years.

§ Joey Manley posts a series of very pertinent Merchandise Questions for those looking to self leverage their properties:

Here is a set of questions for those of you who sell, or who would like to sell, merchandise — self-published books, t-shirts, fluffy toys, PVC figures, bumper stickers, posters, prints, etc.


§ Occasional Superheroine write up Monday’s New Voices panel at MoCCA:

I was going to title this post “New Voices: The Next Generation of Female Comics Creators, but if I took anything with me from yesterday’s panel discussion sponsored by the Friends of Lulu and held at The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in NYC, it was that gender wasn’t the point. These artists are expanding the boundaries and potential of the medium, period.

ComicMix comics launch

10/2/07


ComicMix debuts its long teased original comics with Grimjack, a new front page, a new comics reader and so on. Check it out.

Clickwheel update

09/24/07

Clickwheel has been around for a bit as the first company to attempt to take advantage of comics on the iPod. While it hasn’t been maing many headlines lately, it does have some recent updates in regards to the new generation of iPods:

In the wake of Apple’s new iPod line, Clickwheel, the site for creating and distributing comics to iPod and iPhone, is proud to unveil a brand new look as well as added features and content at Clickwheel.net, including community tools and exclusive online content featuring 2000AD’s flagship character, Judge Dredd.

The new Clickwheel front page features an updated look, a built-in player for viewing content on your computer and new features for registered users including: bookmarking tools that alert users when their favorite comics have been updated, a listing of the top ten downloaded features daily and those most recently updated and added, and rating and tagging tools to help both readers and creators enjoy and share their comics.

Among these comics are three pieces exclusive to Clickwheel. For users new to the concept of comics on the iPod we have part two of Colin White’s Comics on small Screens, a series exploring the possibilities of creating comics in this new medium. Clickwheel is also the exclusive home of a new series from the creators of the phenomenally popular webcomic, Brat-Halla called Random Encounters. True to its name, Random Encounters is an RPG/Fantasy driven comic packed with action and humor for fans of any genre. Both of these comics are available as iPod/iPhone formatted comics ready for download, or as PDFs that can be viewed on any PC or iPhone.

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Tom Hart presents THE MONEY WARRIOR

09/24/07

Themoneywarrior
Tom Hart has a new comic strip up at The Panelist, called The Money Warrior. A new strip by Tom Hart is always a cause to celebrate.

I’ve teamed up with the terrific folks at The Panelist.com, a website about investing ethically, to start a new weekly strip, The Money Warrior!

The Money Warrior’s on the hunt! He’s current, direct, ruthless and primal! The Money Warrior wants to kill you some money!

Check the first strip directly here.

The Money Warrior started as a bit of a parody of Jim Cramer of Mad Money, and in fact I created the first iteration for my Metro strips. But those strips reminded me that in the end, I dislike parody and that I’d rather invent my own creations, something new from a starting point of parody. The folks at the Panelist recognized a similar traveler in the Money Warrior, and asked for more.

Zuda contract are up!

09/21/07

200709212109
The contracts for DC’s much talked about new webcomics initiative have been posted a few weeks before the site’s October debut. Go read and digest.

Yay! A new controversy!

Kare-Kare Komiks joins Chemistry Set

09/19/07

Kare-Karekomiksimgupload
Webcomic collective Chemistry Set welcomes another strip:

The Chemistry Set is pleased to announce that Filipino comicker Andrew Drilon and his series, Kare-Kare Komiks, is joining it’s line-up. Previously displayed at Warren Ellis’ forum The Engine, Drilon is bringing his unique and emboldened take on comics to a bigger semi-monthly starting September 19th, 2007.

“These are wonderful,” says Warren Ellis. “I swear, the Pinoy make comics in the same way that the Icelandic make music … Fucking genius.”

‘Kare-kare’ is a traditional Filipino dish that incorporates various assorted ingredients into a delicious, meaty stew. ‘Komiks’ is a term for sequential art made in the Philippines, referring to Pinoy mass-produced newsprint comic books. Put these two together and you have Kare-Kare Komiks, the new semi-monthly webcomic at The Chemistry Set. Kare-Kare Komiks is an ongoing collection of self-contained short comics by Andrew Drilon that explores new flavors of the sequential art experience.



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Modern Tales announces new line up

09/18/07

While the comics industry worries and frets about distribution and continuity and what not, the webcomics world just putters along, a seemingly free flowing fountain of creativity that, it is easily predicted, will someday take over the world. To wit, Shaenon Garrity writes of new additions to the Modern Tales line-up:

Modern Tales (www.moderntales.com), one of the Web’s premier webcomics sites, is proud to announce the addition of five new comics to its lineup for the second half of 2007. The new comics are:

+ Little Dee, by Chris Baldwin, (above) a daily strip about a little girl raised in the woods by animals. Baldwin is best known as the creator of Bruno, one of the longest-running and most acclaimed webcomics, which ended early in 2007.
+ Planet Saturday Comics, by Monty and Kelli Kane, a monthly comic about “childhood, parenthood and memory,” based on the creators’ own experiences as kids and as parents.
+ Gothbunnies, by Joanne Wojtysiak, a whimsical fantasy about three rabbits dealing with their new home and its overgrown, magical garden.
+ No Stereotypes, by Amber “Glych” Greenlee, a sprawling fantasy about an immortal searching for his lost love, the ordinary girl who might be what he’s been looking for, and the troublemaking gods who get in their way. No Stereotypes is returning to Modern Tales after a long absence.
+ All Knowledge Is Strange, a new strip by renowned experimental webcartoonist and minicomics creator Daniel Merlin Goodbrey. All Knowledge Is Strange replaces Goodbrey’s previous comic on Modern Tales, Brain Fist.

Most of the new comics are running on Modern Tales now; No Stereotypes will debut in the coming weeks. Modern Tales editor Shaenon K. Garrity will interview the creators on the blog Talk About Comics (www.talkaboutcomics.com). The first interview, with Little Dee creator Chris Baldwin, is already available here.

INFINITE CANVAS opening coverage endless

09/17/07

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Last week’s INFINITE CANVAS opening of webcomics art display at MoCCA continues to be one of the best covered comics events this side of a Cup O’ Joe panel, proving that these webcomics people are pretty web savvy. Dean has the photo parade:

Ryan Roman pix Links:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Tim Hamilton pix links:
Part 1
Part 2


Wizard’s Brian Warmouth interviews curator Jennifer Babcock:

“I pitched the idea back in March,” explained Babcock, a Los Angeles native who specializes in Egyptian artwork. Babcock, who publishes her own webcomic C’est la Vie, joined with MoCCA to plan and assemble the exhibit, titled “Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics.”

Organizing the exhibit, which according to Babcock is the first museum exhibit of its kind and scale focusing specifically on webcomics, demanded a great deal more strategy and inventive presentation than most MoCCA floor shows. In addition to the original penciled and inked examples, Babcock needed to accommodate comics that are entirely digitally produced and stretch them out to sizes beyond what conventional printers are capable of handling.

Infinite Canvas photos - UPDATE

09/14/07

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Nikki Cook - shares photos from the PARADE WITH FIREWORKS party AND the INFINITE CANVAS opening at MoCCA> THe latter was a rip-roaring success, with many cool people including the Zuda Crew and other local webcomics luminaries. Scott McCloud was on hand and dropped by for a bit at the beginning and end — the middle was interrupted by a wild rush to rescue his beloved Cintiq from savage cannibals or something — we didn’t quite get the whole story.

Above: Elizabeth Genco and Nikki Cook.

UPDATE: The webcomics world reacts to the show, via Gary Tyrell at Fleen:

Last night, the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art in New York City opened its latest exhibit, and for the first time webcomics made it into the world of culture and connoisseurs. I don’t get to too many museum exhibition openings, but I do know one thing — when the room is packed wall-to-wall and the air conditioning is insufficient to cool the air from all the people, it’s not because of the snacks or the booze. It’s because people want to see the pretty stuff on the walls. By that criterion alone, the opening of Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics would have to be judged an enormous success.

To Do 9/13 NYC: Infinite Canvas at MoCCA

09/13/07


Despite what this poster implies the main feature of tonight’s Webcomics art show at MoCCA will not be oogling male cartoonists….it will be ART!

ComicMix.Com launches COMICS

09/10/07

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As Mike Gold put it, the worst kept secret in comics was announced yesterday at the Bltimore Comic-Con — ComicMix.com is going to be doing new webcomics content, leading to the staff pointing excitedly to a computer monitor, as seen above.

Please note. I said “brand-new” and “major comics talent.” And I said free.

What talent, you might ask? Well, to name but a few, and in alphabetical order, we’re talking about Mike Baron, Rick Burchett, Chris Burnham, Michael Davis, Ian Gibson, Dick Giordano, Mike Gold, Stuart Gordon, Mike Grell, Bo Hampton, Glenn Hauman, Marc Hempel, Lovern Kindierski, Linda Lessman, Jay Lynch, Frank McLaughlin, William Messner-Loebs, John Ostrander, Andrew Pepoy, Bob Pinaha, Michael H. Price, Bill Reinhold, Nick Runge, John K. Snyder III, Joe Staton, Martha Thomases, Robert Tinnell, Timothy Truman, Trevor Von Eeden, Mark Evan Walker, Matt Webb, Mark Wheatley, Skip Williamson, Marv Wolfman, and John Workman. And more. You think we’re going to tell you everything?

But we will say this: here are the features we’re working on: Black Ice, Demons of Sherwood, EZ Street, Fashion In Action, Fishhead, Glamours Inc., GrimJack, Jack Johnson, Jon Sable Freelance, Munden’s Bar, Naked Brain, PayDay, The Prowler, Simone & Ajax, and White Viper. All are trademarks of their owners, by the way, so watch your ass or Glenn Hauman will get very angry. If he’s got to “TM” everything in sight, you should respect his loving efforts. And not all of that stuff will be going up on Day One – we’ll be starting with six.


The new stuff launches on October 2, the first of many ambitious webcomics initiatives in the works.

Notable quotables

09/10/07

Newly announced LEGION writer Jim Shooter tells Wizard what’s going on:

Okay, as a former writer, EIC and current comic book legend, what do you think of the current state of the industry?

The art in comics is generally better than ever, the writing is often clever and glib, but in spite of that, far too many comics are utterly unreadable. Even hardcore fans find many comics daunting to follow! The craft of comics storytelling is all but lost. A who’s who of industry big shots have privately agreed with me when we’ve discussed exactly this subject, but it’s a tough problem to fix, given the often huge egos of the creators, general creative anarchy and lack of trained editorial people. I’m happy to say that where I work now, DC, appears to be taking the lead in bringing back the craft. My editor, Mike Marts, is really good. He knows what he’s doing and makes you make it right. A lot of good stuff is happening at DC. I’m back where I started 42 years ago…and very happy to be there.


200709100923WaPo express interviews Percy Carey, aka MF Grimm whose graphic novel just came out:

» EXPRESS: Are there incidents that you just couldn’t include?
» CAREY: It’s a lot of things that I didn’t include. That’s another reason why the medium of the graphic novel was cool. Say, for instance, if it was a film, then there’s a lot of detail that you would have to put in between. But a graphic novel was to my satisfaction, or my taste, because I was able to dictate it the way I chose. In my music I talk a lot about my life, but at times there’s no way to edit certain things when you’re discussing via MCing, or poetry, or things of that nature. The graphic novel is a great medium when you just want to get a story across but not tell everything about yourself.

AVIVA-Berlin interviews ANGRY LITTLE GIRLS creator Lela Lee — Lee’s strip has just been reprinted in Germany:

AVIVA-Berlin: Did you expect your “Angry Little Girls” to become so successful, even international? Why can women from all over the world identify with your characters and their stories?
Lela Lee: Honestly, I had no idea it would become such a success with women all over the world. I think women all over the world are thought of as second class citizens, not as capable as men. So maybe that´s why “Angry Little Girls” resonates with women. We are universally connected by frustration of what women are expected to be.

Webcomics show at MoCCA

09/5/07

Activaterposter
This is actually a pretty significant show, with Penny Arcade, PhD, Sluggy Freelance, User Friendly, Diesel Sweeties, Mom’s Cancer, Act-i-vate, Finder, Supernatural Law, Questionable Content, Something Positive, Scary Go Round, Achewood, Narbonic, Goats, and Scott McCloud all represented. The opening is September 14th.

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) is proud to announce its upcoming exhibit: Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics, set to open on Sept. 13.

“Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics” brings comics from the web page to the MoCCA stage. The exhibit explores three aspects of online comics: the unique format and design of webcomics, their appeal to niche audiences, and the transitions between web and print comics.


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Transmission-X TV launches

09/3/07

2007-08-29
Transmission-X the Canadian web comic consortium has announced even more improvements, now including a monthly video broadcast. (Above, THE ABOMINABLE by Karl Kerschl.)

In addition to its daily schedule of free comic strips, Toronto-based webcomics collective Transmission-X is set to launch a weekly video broadcast, entitled TX-TV, beginning Friday September 28 on YouTube and iTunes. TX-TV will present the creative professionals of the Transmission-X collective in candid situations as they struggle to conceive and assemble their comic strips while balancing industry commitments and a fiery studio group dynamic.

Each episode will run approximately 5 minutes in length and will spotlight Transmission-X strips, in-studio creative struggles, round-table discussions, comic con footage and more, and feature all the members of the Transmission-X collective and guest professionals from throughout the comic book industry.

TX-TV will be available to watch on the Transmission-X Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/transmissionxcomics) and for download from www.transmission-x.com in several formats and resolutions, including versions optimized for iPod and hi-res AppleTV (720P). Subscriptions will be available through YouTube.com and the Apple iTunes Music Store.

TX-TV is created and produced by Brenden Fletcher, formerly of the award-winning podcast “The Horcast”.