Welcome to Digital Strips, the first webcomic podcast. Our purpose from the beginning has been to bring the 5% of webcomics worth reading to the rest of the world. The Digital Strips blog provides coverage of the webcomic community with news and commentary from our crack team of reporters. The podcast consists of reviews of webcomics, with the occasional interview of webcomic authors and personalities, round-table discussions, and general advice on how to create and run a webcomic.

The very first post was made on January 14th, 2005 and the podcast aired for the first time ten days later on January 24th, 2005. The podcast and blog were originally run solely by Zampzon and Daku until the two found the site was growing faster than hoped. Since our humble beginnings Zampzon has left to start Bramble Vine Comics and Daku was joined by Steve “The Geek” Shinney, Jason “The Midnight Cartooner” Sigler of Amazing SuperZeroes, and Brigid Alverson of MangaBlog.

The podcast and blog have many firsts to its name. The list includes the first comics podcast, one of the first skypecasts, the first audio/video interviews of webcomic artists, and the first webcomic blog to pay its contributors on a per post basis. It is also the second longest running comic blog behind The Comics Reporter. The popularity of the show has increased over the years to the point where it’s contributors are considered top critics in the field. Daku has been interviewed by the New York Times and by T Campbell for the Blowing Bubbles series of the online magazine Broken Frontier. The Digital Strips website was mentioned as a major milestone in T Campbell’s book, The History of Webcomics, and has been linked on a continual basis by ComixTalk, Journalista!, and Tom Spurgeon.

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Daku “The Rogue” Memmel (aka Heiko Ramirez)

Hails from the city of Atlanta where he grew up and returned to after running around the states for school and work. Although he has worked for many companies it has been the many hours behind the keyboard, spent on DS, that have been his most gruesome memories. Since 2012 Daku has pulled back into a owner/editor-in-chief position, which is a nice way of saying he’s become next to useless.

Jason “The Midnight Cartooner” Sigler

My biggest beef with the world of webcomics is how inclusive it is. I tell folks I do a webcomic and then have to immediately follow it up with my own definition of this burgeoning but still infantile art form. Digital Strips has the potential to get this message out, with the help of Comixpedia, Zoinks Magazine, and other publications. Not only will I contribute my ideas and thoughts towards this goal through this site as The Midnight Cartooner, but I’ve also got a healthy start on my own webcomic, The Amazing Superzeroes! There’s nothing more to say except… stay tuned!

Steve “The Geek” Shinney

Countless schoolyard beatings caused The Geek to draw back in fear from all contact with humans. In high school he found comfort in the glow of his computer screen and works of comic geniuses like Watterson, Adam and Amend.Now a (comparatively) well adjusted adult, The Geek combines the two with an unhealthy obsession with web comics. A writer at heart, story and characterization are what keep him truly hooked, however he’s never declined any kind of candy from a stranger, so he does appreciate “eye-candy strips.”You don’t want to meet him in a dark alley; he fights dirty.

Terence “The Average Joe” McManus

After nearly nine years working in corporate Archaeology, Terence threw caution (and all common sense) to the wind to pursue his dream of a career in writing. A longtime listener of the podcast, Terence had no idea where to begin this new career path, until he heard the siren call of the Digital Strips website…

The hooks of webcomics well and truly embedded in his soul, Terence has previously been a co-host of the Webcomic Beacon NewsCast and had run his own webcomic before parenthood became his priority in 2014. He is excited to finally justify the hours he spends every week trawling the net following Steve and Jason’s latest recommendations as “research”.

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Think you can write with the best of us? Well take a look at this.