I certainly have my own must have artists for future issues of comixpedia, but who would you like to see?

Over at Balloon Tales, there is an interesting roundtable discussion on lettering with Lee Nordling, Al Davison, Richard Starkings, Todd Klein, Kurt Busiek, Marv Wolfman, Michael T. Gilbert, Batton Lash, Bob Ingersoll, Bill Knapp, Malcolm Bourne, Steve Leialoha, Leonard Kirk, Howard Cruse, Steven Grant & Bryan Talbot.

Link courtesy of Neil Gaiman's blog.

First up this week is a new journal comic: http://www.philintheblanks.com. This is Phil McAndrew's new website where you will be able to find his journal comic (formerly known as The Daily Phil), sketchbook, and illustrations.

Second is Eden Cafe a manga style 4-koma comic about five ordinary girls living in a ordinary town.

Also last but not least, be sure to check out the all new flash animated webcomic Briadonix.

Somebody asked in another thread why the panels weren't randomized such that we got an equal number of responses, but I figured I'd start a new thread on the subject in case people had any helpful suggestions re. the way this was done.

Regarding randomization... my randomization method was to randomly assign the seven panels, BUT to ensure that all panels were assigned equally at the same time. So the very first e-mail I received had a random 1/7 panel, the second e-mail a 1/6 randomization, and so on down to the seventh, where they were guaranteed a certain panel to make sure everything was even... but the randomness of receiving the e-mail at that particular time compensated for that, as well as the fact that the preceding six had been decided randomly so, by extension, the seventh was in fact random as well.

I then repeated the same cycle over and over.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that all panels were +/- 1 evenly distributed (we didn't have a multiple-of-seven number of participants)... BUT since we had a 33% flake-out rate, not all panels received FINISHED entries. Rosenberg's, inexplicably, had one, for instance, Bill Duncan's had two, Shaenon and Roger and Roy had quite a lot.

I can't account for anything except randomness regarding how people completed certain starter panels. Fame obviously wasn't a factor, because Jon is arguably the "biggest" of the starter panel contributors. Openness of the starter panel wasn't a factor, because Roy's was 100% open to interpretation, while Roger's was very, very directed. Artistic merit didn't really enter into it, as all starter panels were meticulously rendered and there was no completion bias on the basis of style, colour/B&W or computer/hand-drawn panels.

In the future, I think I might restrict the number of opening panels for this sort of thing more, or just skip this particular concept -- not through any particular dislike for it, but in favour of trying new things. Believe me, there is no shortage of event ideas on this end.

I'm still a little unclear on what Comics Monthly is - parts of the sites links don't work yet (for example there is a "subscribe" button but since it doesn't link to anything there is no way to find out what you may subscribe to) - but they are linking to several cool webcomics in the Halloween theme. A good site to visit today!

The Hougan in the Hat is back! Again! Check out today's Monster Hollow Halloween special "Hougan Hears a Howl", featuring the cutest little voodoo priest you ever did saw ;)

Journalista! points us to NPR for an interview with Gary Larson. Larson has just released The Complete Far Side anthology.

Tech Central has a story on Chris Muir's Day To Day.

Chris Muir is a 40-something Florida-based industrial designer by day, and a cartoonist by night. Technologically savvy, conservative, and very much tuned in to the subjects that interest bloggers, Muir's comic, Day By Day has become a hit in the blogosphere.

Muir's strip has four central characters, although it frequently goes "on location" to the offices of the politician or media figure du jour. It combines the political feel of Doonesbury (although from the other side of the political aisle) with the office atmosphere of Dilbert.

The Continuity Pages is a cool little site covering comic books. They've just started a "news" column called The Comics Blotter which may be of interest to you but their bread and butter, so to speak, is hosting pages devoted to comic book continuity.

The Continuity Pages is a descriptive, hyperlinked catalog of comics and related books, organized alphabetically by primary author (or corporation) and then in a logical order. This order is not necessarily alphabetical by title, numerical order by issue, or order of publication. Such an organizational stragegy does much to make sense of American comic book publishing, in which the continuing narratives of some characters or families of the same run through multiple titles. Every comic or book appears in the Continuity Pages only once. Whenever possible, hyperlinks are used when refering to a volume on another page or to an creator with his own page.

ANNNNNNNNNND that's a wrap! Sort of. I still need to collect mailing addresses and so on and so forth.

Thanks to all who participated -- it was a blast! I hope tihs has breathed new life and direction into the FN concept and we can just head upward and onward from here on out!

- Matt