Michael Payne
Payne's fiction has been published by the likes of Tor Books, the Writers of the Future Contest anthology, and Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, and his capsule book reviews appear weekly on the SFWA web site. He's written webcomic reviews for the Webcomics Examiner, is the Registrar for the Webcartoonists' Choice Awards, and his webcomics are Terebinth (updated five times a fortnight), and Daily Grind (updated five times a week as part of the Daily Grind Iron Man Competition). He doesn't draw very well.
Surreal Estate
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I tend to stick to my comfort zone when it comes to webcomics. Reading about a new one here or on one of the other review sites, if I'm not familiar with the creator or if it doesn't sound a little like something I already read, I'm sorry to say that I'm not all that likely to go and take a look. Unadventurous: that's me.
So I'm very glad I took a chance three-and-a-half years ago and signed up for the Daily Grind Contest. It's introduced me to a whole group of comics from my fellow competitors that I doubt I would ever have known about otherwise, and I'd like to mention three of them at some length here -- Trains of Thought by Stephen Burrell (his Livejournal page is at http://stephenwastaken.livejournal.com), Tartpop by Phil Redmon (his Livejournal page at http://destro-simpson.livejournal.com), and Young Adventure Friends by Billis, a.k.a. Bela Whigimill.
A Burgeoning Apparatus
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In the eternal struggle between "story comics" and "gag comics," I tend to come down on the side of the long form. Yes, a little chuckle is good, but I'd rather follow characters through an adventure, even if that adventure is just them trying to return a library book or attending a "meet the tenants" party in their apartment building.
Le Cute Nouveau
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Michael Payne examines new examples of the "new cute" in comics: Dreamleak by Greg Fraser, Fuzzy Things by Jonathan Sario, and Ghost Farm by Jessica McLeod. The "new cute" is using the tropes of "cute" to tell stories that are richer, deeper, and more heartfelt than anyone would've thought fluffy bunnies, towheaded kids, and smiling asparagus could support.
In Search of Vanished Webcomics
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As the new year brushes away the crumbs left from devouring the old one, I find myself thinking of vanished webcomics: those that've come to the end of their storylines, those that've just stopped, and those that've disappeared altogether.
As the new year brushes away the crumbs left from devouring the old one, I find myself thinking of vanished webcomics: those that've come to the end of their storylines, those that've just stopped, and those that've disappeared altogether.
Out of the Inkwell: Print Comics Now on the Web
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A friend of mine, reading my last article for ComixTalk ("A World of Fantasy"), wondered how I could write a whole piece on fantasy webcomics without mentioning Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio.
So I had to admit that it was only the artwork and some of the dialogue that got me through the very slow opening section of that comic. And just as I was finally gleaning enough information to get a feel for the character and the setting, they tear the character out of the setting and throw her down some place new. I've tried, but Girl Genius just isn't for me.
Thinking about it, though, and with this summer's Comic Con International still on my mind, I realized that several webcomics that I do read were also once published on paper. So here I am, writing about Girl Genius without actually writing about it so I can focus instead on Finder by Carla Speed MacNeil, Xeno's Arrow by Greg Beettam and Stephen Geigen-Miller, and Galaxion by Tara Tallan.
A World of Fantasy
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Fantasy webcomics this month, is it? A large topic.
And we can make it even bigger. I mean, depending on how technical you wanna get, all fiction is fantasy. It's stuff that never happened, at any rate, and that's as basic a definition of fantasy as I can think of.
Tales of the Questor by Ralph Hayes, Jr., Reviewed by Michael Payne
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"All-ages" means a story in which anyone who enjoys a little action, a little thought, and a little character interplay will find something to like, and where that enjoyment will only deepen as the reader gets older. The webcomic Tales of the Questor by Ralph Hayes, Jr. more than lives up to that definition.
Days of Future Pissed
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Michael Payne reviews Alan Foreman long-running webcomic, S.S.D.D.,and finds it anything but cute. To the contrary, the sprawling, aggressive world of Foreman's imagination is like a Molotov cocktail thrown directly at your computer screen.
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