Dear Fiction Writers,

Please leave Dracula alone.

With the end of October imminent, kids in many countries are looking forward to that most scary of holidays: Halloween. Dressing up in costumes, banging on complete strangers' doors, and begging for candy… good times to be had for all. However, the end of October also brings us to a special time in the world of webcomics.

Specifically, the anniversary of webcomic The Asylumantics. Chris Cantrell has reached a major milestone with his comic... on October 31st, 2005, The Asylumantics will turn four years old. With the comic's birthday rapidly approaching, Chris has planned a book sale, custom figurines based on the cast, and a contest that promises a great prize pack.

Jason Thompson has been delighting and horrifying webcomics readers for years, but perhaps his most memorable creation is The Stiff, currently running on Girlamatic, a disturbing story that straddles horror, teenage angst, teenage romance, but remains uniquely its own mix. Jason's mix of horror and high school seemed especially appropriate for an interview in the month of Halloween.

I'm having trouble taking it all in. It was an amazing experience. I'm still shutting my eyes and taking myself back to the time I spent there, with all the good times I had and all the new friends I made.

There are three important things to know for reading this: I have never been to a gaming convention before. I have never been to New Jersey before. And I have never been a guest to a con before. So bearing those things in mind, here's my report...

One of the most famous theories that Scott McCloud set forth in Understanding Comics was that of "closure." He stated that this was the phenomenon by which people's minds "fill in" what occurs between two comic panels. Now, in other writings of mine, I've argued that any linear panel-to-panel explanation of how people understand sequences of images has multiple problems. However, in this piece, I'd like to take aim at one particular example of McCloud's and use it to illuminate a broader phenomenon that occurs in both visual and verbal expression.

You probably know Toy Division. (Note: Toy Division is NSFW) Although little more than six months old, it already has a huge following and a reputation that ranks it among the most twisted comics on the ‘net. Billed as a venture into SSexploitation, Toy Division features kewpie-doll faced dictators, sexual deviancy, and grotesque medical experiments on human subjects. The artist behind this delightful moral abomination is Mimo.

In an especially Spooktacular edition of Welton Colbert, Welton talks about Orneryboy by Michael Lalonde.

Let’s start with my own work. I’m no judge of whether it’s the best out there, but it seems well-received enough, and I know it better than anyone else’s because I know what I was thinking.

For years Mike (Grimwit the Clown) Rojas has been alternately entertaining and horrifying readers of Natch Evil with the story of Saffron, a maniacally gleeful female "lust killer." It seemed fitting in the month of Halloween to interview the creator of one of the most entertaining homicidal maniac in webcomics.

With the arrival of October, many countries around the world begin to celebrate Halloween. What better time to celebrate the ghouls, goblins, witches and demons that roam this earth better than with a good webcomic? There are many webcomics out there that address the issues of heaven and hell, demons and deities, and good vs. evil. However, few of them approach the subject quite as well as Jack does.