The good folks aver at the web comic And Then You Die have announced a new contest. We like hearing about the different ways comics come up with to promote themselves. For this contest they are asking people to read through their archives and list all the cultural references mentioned throughout the whole comic. As a prize they are giving away their first printed book, some bits of swag, and even original artwork.

We had a chance to speak with the crew from And Then You Die while we were at ConnectiCon and we’ll be playing that interview in an upcoming show, so be sure to watch for that.

Talk About Comics – Joey Manley has a nice little write up of Scott McCloud’s book Reinventing Comics. This is a response to the recent drama over the viability of webcomics as a medium. Manley makes several good points concerning how the same old topics are being debated (infinite canvas, micropayments, etc.) even though it’s been 5-8 years since Reinventing Comics was published and how the target audience for the book was to bring comic readers to the web.

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With all the love expressed by the recent NY Times article it’s nice to find that there are people writing articles on the subject who actually read the material. Two days ago Ryan Nyburg wrote a rather pleasant article in the Oregon Daily Emerald about comics on the internet being a GOOD idea. He points out the decline of syndicated comics in your Sunday paper and how “every time I open up to the comics page I get the nagging feeling I a?m reading something written for 5-year-olds.”

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In a twist, that’s more ironic when considering the name of the strip, Dan Piraro has submitted two different versions of his strip Bizarro to newspapers. The original version of the strip had an unsettling comment directed at government views on gay marriage. In the strip a doctor is talking to a man outside a delivery room and is telling him:

Your husband is in the recovery room. You could go back and see him if you like, but our government-sanctioned bigotry forbids it.

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It was only a matter of time before such a group was created. In Savage Disassembly what we have is a peer review community for and by comic writers and artists for the purpose of helping the web comic community. Despite the overwhelming number of web comics one must first realize just how few respected and successful comics there are in comparison. You can of course try to find one of the many review sites and live journal critiques but both have their pitfalls as the sheer number of web comics can prevent the few critiques from making comments. Continue reading →

Sarah Boxer has an article in the New York Times today about the state of web comics as seen through all the 2005 winners of the Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. The apparent gist of the article is web comics are kind of neat, but they aren’t quite there yet.

Just like every other major media journalist who has even mentioned web comics, Boxer first brings up Scott McCloud’s books on the potential of comic art and the benefits of going digital. Continue reading →