Joey Manley
Monday Morning News
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 26, 2007 - 12:09
**ahem** cheap advertising available...
HEADLINES
Continuing rumbles over how to turn the CBR/CBZ file format into the mp3 of comics, this time from Modern Tales publisher and WebcomicsNation owner Joey Manley:
All I need is RSS-with-enclosure subscribability — a CBR reader that acts just like a podcast catcher, in short, only snagging .CBR or .CBZ files, instead of .MP3’s.
I can’t take credit for this idea. take a look at this thread started by the well-known comics writer Warren Ellis almost two years ago. “TIVO for comics,†he calls the idea. That pretty much sums it up.
INTERVIEWS
- The Indie Spinner Rack podcast has interviews with Viper Comics and a few of its creators (link from Journalista!).
- If you haven't stopped by the Webcomics In Print blog recently -- they've got a whole bunch of interviews up from the recent U.K. Webcomic Thing convention.
DIGITAL FORMATS
- Publisher Active Images has announced that it will distribute the Image comic book Elephantmen on mobile phones. These comics on mobile phones press releases have been steadily coming out for a couple years now. What I haven't seen is stories on how well that's working out for anyone. Do readers like this format? Do creators see a dime from distribution this way (or gain new readers or otherwise increase their audience?)
- Flickr gets more comics-friendly. I guess Flickr has given up on insisting its site is solely for photos since it now allows users to define images loaded to the site as "photo, illustration/art/cgi, or screenshot". (link from Drawn! blog) Speaking of Flickr, Drawn! also spotlighted Applegeeks artist Mohammad "Hawk" Haque's flickr stream where he posts photos altered to include miniature versions of himself.
SPRITE: The UnComic
- Sprite comic creator alert!! Philipp Lenssen has posted over 700 sprites that he created for a never-released fantasy-style game. Even better is that they're available under a Creative Commons license. (link from Drawn! blog)
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- Tyler Martin is the artist on two new webcomics: The Check Family, which is about lacrosse and also appears at LaxPower; and Double-A Zone which appears on the official NCAA blog.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Raina Telgemeier and Gene Yang were selected by Booklist for their 2007 Top 10 Graphic Novels for Youth. (link from Flight blog)
- Ring, ring, ring, BANANARCHY!!
- In not-comics, Broken Frontiers has a column on the hip-hop subgenre of nerdcore.
- The magazine Animation has an interview with Todd Rosenberg about turning his webcomic Odd Todd into cartoon project. (link via Journalista!)
Bring the Newz!
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 19, 2007 - 10:13
MAGAZINE
- Terrence Marks did a five part series on married creators this month - be sure to check out all of the interviews: Tod and Corey Marie Parkhill, Andrew Farago and Shaenon Garrity, Scott Kellogg and Kathryn Garrison Kellogg, Mason and Amber Williams, and Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier.
- We also have a new feature from Sebastian Parsons that speculates about the motivations for creating webcomics. And in our regular columns, Derik Badman examines of a page of Jaime Hernandez's Flies on the Ceiling for Panels & Pictures and Neil Cohn (along with illustrations from Tym Godek) compares speech/thought bubbles and panels for Comics Theory 101.
HEADLINES
- Reinder Dijkhuis has an interesting essay on Project Wonderful. My take on Project Wonderful is that it's a wonderful platform for a web-based advertising system but what remains to be seen is whether it turns into an advertising service. A service needs some entity interacting with traditional media buyers (usually advertising agencies) to sell them ad space on the platform. Whether that's PW creator Ryan North who takes that on or some other arrangement, it's a piece of the puzzle necessary to the long-term success of PW. Don't get me wrong though - I'm a big fan of PW right now and I'm optimistic about it.
INTERVIEWS
- Digital Strips has an interview with Chad Diez, the former artist on The Pet Professional and now working on the relaunched (NSFW) The Sophisticated Pig.
- Earlier this month Digital Strips also had an interview with Wes Molebash on the release of his new book, You’ll Have That, Vol. 2 (DS also reviewed it here).
- Broken Frontiers has an interview (audio) with Chris Hastings, writer and penciler of Dr. McNinja.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- You guys all read the Websnark already, but be sure to check out his post about the great sci-fi strip Crimson Dark. I've been reading this since literally Day 3 and it's very good.
- Another Websnark post about which I can agree is this one that says nice things about Bobby Crosby's +EV. Comixpedia reviewed +EV back in October 2006.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Debbie Ridpath Ohi (the creator of Will Write For Chocolate) lists 5 reasons why she blogs. Following up on Sebastian Parson's article can you list 5 reasons why you webcomic?
- Check out Webcomics-In-Print for coverage of this year's Blooker Award nominees and the recent U.K. Web & Mini Comix Thing.
- Colonel Joey Manley links to a post at the website Your Mom's Basement (what a great name for a website...) called The Tricks of Turning Pro. Parody or not!?! We link, you deride...
- T Campbell has an interview (audio) with B. Shur, the creator of I Am A Rocket Builder. Coincidently, Shur has seriously revamped the IAARB website and it has a note stating "Coming Soon: New Comics!"
- Pink Raygun posts "Top Ten Signs You Might Be A Fangirl".
BREAKFAST OF THE GODS Book One is complete!
Submitted by poyorick on March 18, 2007 - 21:07
Brendan Douglas Jones (that’s me!) is proud to announce the completion of The Last Good Morning – book one of his critically acclaimed and controversial comic book series Breakfast of the Gods.
Modern Tales Family Goes Downloadable
Submitted by Joey Manley on March 11, 2007 - 23:13
Today I'm happy to announce that the Modern Tales family of websites (Modern Tales, GirlAMatic, serializer and Graphic Smash) is the first major webcomics network to embrace the downloadable CBR format for full-length, high-resolution d
Webcomics And The Direct Market
Submitted by Erik Melander on March 7, 2007 - 08:27
Warren Ellis' forum The Engine has a thread on webcomics and the direct market (i.e. comic book shops). The discussion ends up being more about the problem retailers see with creators debuting their comics at cons without offering them at shops at the same time, but also has some interesting discussion for webcomics with an eye on the traditional comics market.
Retailer Brian Hibbs:
In most cases, my knee-jerk reaction to something (anything) that is being made available to me secondarily is going to be minimal if not nil orders. [...]I've got no real concern about creators having an equal or better crack at the hardcopy sales, but where the advantage directly turns against me (ie: offering for sale BEFORE I have a fair crack at the work... be that on-line, or, yup, even in person at a convention or something), then I'm way way WAY less likely to support that work with my purchasing dollars as a retailer.
Hibbs elaborates a bit on this saying that he does not see as big a problem with comics offered free online. The problem is if the consumer has already paid for the comic in some format, which would make him/her less likely to buy it again through a store.
Happy 5th Birthday, Modern Tales
Submitted by Joey Manley on March 2, 2007 - 10:56
I've heard that 99% of start-ups fail within the first five years. So this is a significant moment for us.
Also: five years is the longest I've ever held one job.
TalkAboutComics Podcast: Todd Allen and the Economics of Webcomics
Submitted by Joey Manley on February 27, 2007 - 18:33
Joey Manley interviews Columbia College business professor Todd Allen, whose 2003 study "The Economics of Webcomics" will be released in a heavily-revised second edition in a few weeks.
New York Comicon
I assume people know already that today is the first day of this weekend's New York Comicon. (But just a reminder - anyone can submit an event to our events calendar)
Joey Manley has a good post on the non-webcomics makeup of today's webcomic panel at the 'con. I believe FLEEN is attending with a press badge so I'm hoping they'll be writing up any and all news coming out of the events in the Big Apple (here's one last what-to-see post from FLEEN before Gary heads out the door). We'll all find out what got hyped up soon enough...
Rolling Thursday Webcomic Thunder (UPDATED)
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 22, 2007 - 11:26
WIKI WATCH
- Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub and Paul Southworth will be talking about Wikipedia and webcomics on PVP Live tonight. Click through for time and details.
THE COMIXPEDIA (dot org)
- A letter from Wikia, we need more administrators and for the love of god, someone help me with the templates!
HEADLINES
- Comics Worth Reading reports on the fate of the Friends of Lulu Empowerment Fund. Short answer: no more fund. Here's an excerpt from information provided by FOL President Shannon Crane concerning the problems surrounding the creation of the fund last year:
Ronee Bourgeois suggested to our entire board that we start an empowerment fund. We agreed that yes, it would be a wonderful idea. Unfortunately, instead of being patient to let the ENTIRE board come up with guidelines, rules, etc, she announced the new fund to the comics community without the board’s consent. We found ourselves between a rock and a hard place. We did what we could to make it work, and now we find that this is not something that we will pursue any longer.
- Joey Manley flags a job opportunity at DC Comics for a Web Content Administrator.
MILESTONES
- Unshelved reaches its 5th Year anniversary. Created by librarian Gene Ambaum and cartoonist Bill Barnes, the strip started February 16, 2002, and now over 35,000 readers enjoy the strip every day.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- Bernie Hou of Alien Loves Predator hints at big projects to come this year. He also shifts from twice-weekly updates of ALP to the dreaded "whenever I can" schedule.
- It's role-playing gamer meta-humor (getting overplayed recently?) and it just started (so not much to go on) but Cat's Grace may turn out to be a find. It's reasonably entertaining in a cute and unoffensive way (the use of toys in the photo-art helps).
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
- Hey! Eric's back with a post about J. Grant's second novel (Grant is also a webcomic creator - most recently of Two Lumps). Burns is comparing Grant to George Carlin and generally raving about it -a very positive review.
- Reinder writes about the WCCAs that "[f]or all the criticism the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards for 2007 have received (admittedly, I could write that opening line about each previous edition of the awards), they do reflect a trend in webcomics towards more technically sophisticated material. In particular, the artistic standards of the nominated comics have been higher than ever this year."
- Deppey on men's magazine FHM versus comic book magazine Wizard: "I’d love to crack a joke about the culture of the two magaziness being similar, but frankly, FHM gives the distinct impression of having a readership that likes to get laid every once in a while, making the comparison somewhat dubious."
- Digital Strips latest podcast sounds good: a review of Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell and news about the upcoming New York Comic Con and the recent WCCA Online Ceremony.
- Johanna Draper Carlson (CWR) comments on this year's Glyph Award nominees.
- It's not on my radar screen but this parody of Marvel's Civil War cross-over series is funny.
G.A.A.K--Tooncasting a Giant Shadow!!!
Submitted by TheDeeMan on February 11, 2007 - 07:41
I remember telling Webcomics Nation founder Joey Manley that I thought that, above and beyond the hosting, RSS feeds, etc, that WCN offered, the single best feature was tooncasting. Which I guess is just Joey's fancy-assed term for syndication.
Let me say that again. Syndication.
