Keenspot
What the Hell?! Con
What-the-Hell?! - a free convention/event!
WHERE: Guilford College, Greensboro, NC
WHEN: February 9AM-11AM
WHAT: Panels, Gaming, Anime, Geek Auction, Iron Chef, Fire Dancing, and more
WHO: Jennie Breeden (The Devil's Panties); Greg Carter (Abandon); Larry "mcckenzee" Holderfield (Sinister Bedfellows); and Christopher B. Wright (Ubersoft).
Tuesday Mid-Morning NewsBlast (UPDATED)
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 6, 2007 - 13:13
COMIXPEDIA
- First off thanks to our current sponsor, the webcomic Zortic by Mark Mekkes. There are three (slightly cheaper) ad spots below that are still available.
- Don't forget! This Friday is the last day to post your questions for our upcoming community interview with the creators of the Blank Label Comics collective. Post your questions in comments to this thread.
HEADLINES
- Nerve.com presents its Comics Issue with "an essay on just what Sandman means to goth girls of all ages." (probably NSFW) (hat tip to The Beat).
- DIGITAL STRIPS is taking your calls. The formerly non-live podcast is jumping on the live livecast bandwagon this Wednesday (feb. 7th) at 9 PM (presumably ET).
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The first extensive review of PvP: Animated that I've read is at Digital Strips as well (and includes some comments from PvP creator Scott Kurtz)
INTERVIEWS
- Shaenon Garrity interviews Box Brown, whose daily strip bellen! follows the relationship of significant others Ben and Ellen and was recently added to the Modern Tales lineup.
- The Beat catches a video interview with James Kochalka (creatror of American Elf) at the opening of Fine Toon: The Art of Vermont Cartoonists opening at the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe Vermont.
VALENTINES DAY
- Blind Date II is coming soon - we'll start posting comics on Valentine's Day (and then throughout February).
- Chris Daily has Valentine's Day cards featuring your favorite Striptease characters in some sizzlin' smokey positions, bringing you the romance as only they could for purchase. For only $5.00, you get five high-rez images of the cards ready to print.
- FLEEN points out other V-Day cards from The Devil's Panties, Scene Language and Dinosaur Comics.
WIKIPEDIA WATCH
- Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary provides the most recent wiki-rant. In a comment there I tried to lay out my current thinking of what's "broken" about Wikipedia. It is simply that the deletion process as it currently exists is not really the same as the creation and editing process. UPDATE: Tayler writes further in response to feedback.
- Brad Guigar also wrote about the recent deletion of the Wikipedia entry for his comic Evil Inc. which appears not only on the web but in several newspapers.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- Terrence Marks has a great post up explaining how useful Piperka is for reading webcomics. Piperka is hard to sell (like Tivo was/is) but once you start using it, you get how useful it is.
- I forgot to post about Benjamin Birdie's new project but The Beat reminded me. Birdie has teamed up with blogger Beaucoup Kevin on The Rack about a comic book shop.
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So long as we're browsing The Beat's webcomic entry archives check out some other plugs from Heidi MacDonald:
- @ the 8 Spot by Wilson Ramos and Eric Rivera is a weekly webcomic that chronicles the life of comics freelancers.
- La Muse by Adi Tantimadh and Hugo Petrus is a weekly science-fiction comedy webcomic.
- FLEEN also has multiple webcomic plugs today.
- And Journalista! gets in on the plug action too linking to the blog Same Hat! Same Hat!! which looks at Sascha Hommer's comics -- many of which are available online, including his full-length Insekt.
- Heck even the Comics Reporter is doing it! Here's a review of Daniel Spottswood's Disquietville Volume One - much of this comic also appears online.
Interviews, Manga and the Monday Morning News (UPDATED)
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 5, 2007 - 11:31
Dig that new cover from Frank "Damonk" Cormier and Meaghan Quinn! Our February issue is focused on webcomic collectives and we've got a lot of great articles on tap for it. This morning I've posted the first two articles for this month's issue:
An interview with Mark Mekkes in his role as chairman of the WCCAs, now in its seventh year. There were a lot of changes leading into this year's program and hopefully, this interview helps to shed some light on things.
The first installment of a new column on web manga by Brigid Alverson. Brigid already blogs about manga at her own site MangaBlog and our good friends at Digital Strips. At Comixpedia, she'll be rounding up the good stuff -- and telling you what to avoid as well.
HEADLINES
- It looks like the promised comics-hosting functions of ComicSpace are now available. Haven't tried them myself yet so if anyone has any opinions to offer add them in the comments.
- I don't know if this is still open or not, but Ryan Estrada was looking for creators to help with this year's online presentation for the WCCAs.
INTERVIEWS
- Shaenon Garrity interviews Whitney June Robinson, creator of Alma Mater (which you may have seen advertised here on Comixpedia). AM is now on the Modern Tales lineup.
- Gamer News interviews Steve Napierski, creator of Dueling Analogs.
REVIEWS
- Independent Propaganda reviews two webcomics: Wireheads and Martian.
- The Ferrett talks up Yet Another Fantasy Gaming Comic:
...YAFGC is alive in ways that other strips aren’t; that’s partially because it’s drawn in pencil and has the raw energy of a sketch, but also because Rich Morris has the talent of a classic Disney animator; he manages, with a few quick strokes of his pencil, to bring people to life so that the way they stand, hips cocked, tells you more about them than the dialogue ever would.
DEAD TREES
- 2007 is going well for Jim Zubkavich, the creator the 2002 webcomic Makeshift Miracle which debuted in print last year (after substantial rework on portions of it) and is now starting to appear in book store chains.
CONGRATULATIONS
- Todd and Penguin creator David Wright is going to be a dad! Not surprisingly that means Todd and Penguin will be on hiatus for awhile (until May). While Todd and Penguin is on hiatus, Wright is posting the first months of the comic which were lost when Keenspot's server crashed in 2002. Wright explained that he was unable to find the first few months of comics until recently - so now, after five years, they are going back on the web.
- Terror Island and The Crown Prince both hit the 100 strips milestone.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- Engtech asks "What's your favorite webcomic?".
- Dave Roman posts some of the cartoons Todd Webb drew at their wedding (cute idea to have a "wedding cartoonist").
Biggie Panda: Old Skool Webcomics
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One way to think of the history of webcomics is as the big bang of comics. At the beginning there were far fewer webcomic creators and they were (virtually) clustered together much more tightly (hence all the wistful talk of "webcomic community") and then, if the inflationary webcomicology theory is correct, those early webcomic exploded into the universe of comics online we have today.
- Altbrand
- Keenspot
- Bob Roberds
- Boxjam
- Chris Crosby
- Dave Kelly
- David Willis
- Fred Gallagher
- Greg Dean
- Ian McDonald
- Illiad
- Jeff Darlington
- Jeffrey Rowland
- John Allison
- John The Gneech Robey
- Jon Rosenberg
- Josh Lesnick
- Maritza Campos
- Mark Mekkes
- Mike Leffel
- Pete Abrams
- Peter Zale
- Scott Kuehner
- Scott Kurtz
- T Campbell
- Tatsuya Ishida
- Terrence Marks
- Thomas K. Dye
- Tim Broderick
- Chopping Block
- Girly
- Penny Arcade
- PvP
- Sinfest
- Sluggy Freelance
- User Friendly
- Zortic
- Features
WCCA Nominations Out
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 28, 2007 - 14:10
The full list of nominations for the upcoming WCCAs is out - get the list here or click read more (the WCCA site is slow today so I copied it into this post here).
- Half Pixel
- Keenspot
- Aaron Diaz
- Abby Lark
- B. Shur
- Bernie Hou
- Brad Guigar
- Chris Hallbeck
- Christopher Hastings
- D.J. Coffman
- Dale Beran
- Dave Kellett
- Dave Roman
- David Hellman
- David Malki!
- David Willis
- Emily Horne
- Eric Millikin
- Fred Gallagher
- Howard Tayler
- Jennie Breeden
- Jerry Holkins
- Joey Comeau
- John Allison
- Josh Lesnick
- Kaja Foglio
- Kazu Kibuishi
- Kris Straub
- Michael Lalonde
- Mike Krahulik
- Nicholas Gurewitch
- Paul Southworth
- R.K. Milholland
- Raina Telgemeier
- Ryan North
- Ryan Sias
- Ryan Sohmer
- Sarah Ellerton
- Scott Christian Sava
- Scott Kurtz
- Scott Ramsoomair
- Shaenon K. Garrity
- Spike
- T Campbell
- Tatsuya Ishida
- Terrence Marks
- Tom Siddell
- Zach Weiner
- A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible
- A Softer World
- Girly
- Penny Arcade
- PvP
- Sinfest
- What Birds Know
- Wondermark
- Zebra Girl
Free Comic Book Day '07 is nigh!
Submitted by netpoet on January 23, 2007 - 10:17
Every year, ComicGenesis in association with Keenspot assembles some of its best comic creators from around the web and gathers them together under a common banner: the Free Comic Book Day book, or FCBD book.
Collection of SEBO Comics Now Available in Print
Submitted by Jamie Robertson on January 19, 2007 - 17:14
SEBO, a spin-off comic strip from Clan of the Cats is now available in print from Lulu.com. This first addition includes the first year of the comic’s run. Here is the URL for the book at Lulu.com.
A small book of art from COTC is also in the works, as well as a graphic novel of the Dracula story which will be published through Keenspot.
Girly Book 2 and the Cutewendy reprint, coming soon from Studio Zoe
Submitted by joshl. on January 11, 2007 - 01:09
Possibly against better judgement, Josh Lesnick has decided to publish the next Girly volume, as well as the Cutewendy reprint, through his own company Studio Zoe.
Rolling After Christmas News Post (UPDATED)
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on December 26, 2006 - 16:16
Wow - I'm exhausted. Grey skies and a little rain for the day after Christmas. Hope you all have had a happy winter solstice season so far.
NEWS & VIEWS
- On the heels of Comicne.ws comes Plugg.us which is another digg-clone for comics. There's nothing wrong with comics-focused versions of more popular social networking tools, in fact it's great that this stuff is emerging. But the trick to success with these comic clones is whether or not they garner a critical mass of users (which is the same key to success for the original versions of any social networking site). Comicne.ws came pre-sold to CBR's significant audience, ComicSpace came pre-populated with OnlineComics large directory of webcomics. I'll wait and see with Plugg.us as it doesn't seem to have any similar affiliations to jumpstart it.
- Joey Manley has been using Alexa to show trends of various webcomics hosting services (here and more recently here). It's a bit tangential to interest in tracking individual webcomics' audience numbers but nevertheless interesting to see how other hosting services match up to the somewhat entrenched coke and pepsi of the market.
- Writer Caleb Monroe has set up a page intended to be a guide for beginning comic creators.
INTERVIEWS
- Wizard interviews John Allison, creator of Scary Go Round.
- The WordBalloon podcast has an interview with Steven Bryant, creator of Athena Voltaire.
REVIEW
- The Digital Strips podcast has a review of Butterfly by Dean Trippe.
MILESTONES
- Minimalist Stick Figure Theater reaches number 600.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- I can't tell whether Chris Crosby's Sore Thumbs spin-off project, Cecania's Private Party is a webcomic or a porn site. Time will tell I guess...
- Aeire and Chris Daily are teaming up for a new webcomic project debuting sometime next year. Check out a few preliminary sketches here.
NOT WEBCOMICS
- Art Room is an online drawing tool and gallery from the Saatchi Gallery. Holy high-low culture collision Batman!
500th Terebinth Page (Plus Daily Grind Update)
Submitted by MHPayne on December 22, 2006 - 12:23
I've never utilized my space here, but since yesterday marked the 500th page of Terebinth, the comic I update five times a fortnight that isn't my entry in the Daily Grind Competition, I thought I'd make mention of it.
XEREXES: Let me use Michael Payne's blog post as an excuse to do a year-end update on the Daily Grind contest.
