Johanna Draper Carlson interviews Danielle Corsetto, creator of Girls with Slingshots, about making a living as a webcomics artist—and why she doesn’t have an RSS feed.

Over at Comic Book Resources, Alex Dueben talks to Scott Christian Sava, one of the nicest guys in comics, about The Dreamland Chronicles, including his choice to use a 3D look and the economics of producing a comic that way (spoiler: it’s expensive).

Comix Talk has a nice interview with Laura Innes, creator of The Dreamer, which has just made the leap from the web to print. If that’s not enough for you, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review profiles her as well.

Comic Book Resources has all of issue #13 of Elephantmen up as a free preview, and they say it’s a great jumping-in point if you’re interested in reading the series.

Longtime manga editor Jake Forbes, who is now working on the Return to Labyrinth series, takes a look at an interactive webcomic, MS Paint Adventures and finds a lot to love about Jason Shiga’s work as well.

Glenn Carter reviews the print version of Kevin Colden’s Fishtown at Comics Village, and Dave Ferraro takes a look at the print version of The Dreamer at Comics-and-More.

This week seems to have brought a bumper crop of advice and opinion on the internets, some of it actually useful and worthwhile. Here’s a sampling of potential interest to webcomics creators and readers:

First of all, if you haven’t been by Webcomics.com since the change of proprietors, go take a look. They have reinvented themselves rather nicely as a news and how-to’s site, and at the moment, they have a nice selection of pieces up on topics like inking, writing press releases, and actually getting the damn comic done.

Jim Munroe, creator of Therefore, Repent!, recently gave a talk on how to get your writing in front of readers’ eyes. It’s not just about comics, but the piece is worth reading, and the illustrations that Ramon Perez did during the talk make it well worth the click. (Via Comics212.)

From the other side of the page, John Jakala has a don’t-miss list of what he, as a reader, wants to see from digital comics at his blog Sporadic Sequential.

And on the technical side of things, Sean Kleefeld explains digital file formats, including pesky terms like “rasterized.”

Everyone’s yelling about DJ Coffman again, but we’re not going there. Instead, here’s some alternative webcomics news.

The first print editions of Zuda comics have been announced: Bayou and High Moon got the nod. Actually, I got a print sampler of Zuda comics at NYCC, with a rather odd horizontal format. It will be interesting to see if they reformat the webcomics to fit the standard vertical page.

If you listen to the podcast, you know I’m a fan of Hereville, by Barry Deutsch. He recently signed a print contract with Abrams (publishers of Diary of a Wimpy Kid), which gave me an excuse to chat with him at PWCW.

At Comic Book Resources, Timothy Callahan interviews Kevin Colden about Fishtown, which is also about to make the move to dead tree media.

Meanwhile, CBR’s Shaun Manning talks to Marvel’s John Cerilli about Marvel’s Digital Comics Universe as we approach the anniversary of its launch.

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Sean Kleefeld notices a Zuda comic that moved to another site after the contest and wonders what happened to the other non-winners. David Gallaher drops in in comments to point to quite a few that have found new homes. In face, I think the losers can be winners with Zuda, because they can attract a following and then go off on their own, unencumbered by contracts. Also, Zuda keeps all the old comics, winners and losers alike, up on their site.

New webcomic alert: Be the first one to jump on the bandwagon for Kitty Hawk, a nice action comic set in 1933 and starring a female pilot and some very sharp alternative aviation designs. It’s by Braden Lamb and Vincent LaBate and has an interesting, mostly realistic style.

If hot babes in classic planes isn’t your thing, how about some graphic design humor? 1PtRule is a new webcomic about the hilarious things that happen to those who toil in the trenches of Quark. Unfortunately, the webcomic is difficult to navigate as the designers have dispensed with the bourgeois conventions of “first,” “next,” “back,” and “archive” directionals. Ironic, no?

Also, in case you were missing it, Continue reading →

Shadowline recently launched a webcomics page, and I visited it with great curiousity. At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson commented that there wasn’t a lot of novelty to it:

On the one hand, using creators with some experience means the publisher and readers can have faith that they know how to meet promised deadlines and their work will have a certain level of quality. On the other, this looks kind of like leftovers. But then again, why shouldn’t they reuse the material if it means reaching a new audience? Maybe because it diverts traffic and Google juice between two sites?

Well, as someone who regards leftovers as a tasty, no-prep lunch, I’m pretty much on board with this. Seriously, I sampled the comics on this page and liked most of them. I had seen Finder before—it’s hard to avoid, even for someone like me whose interests are pretty specialized—and I had heard of a few of the others, but having them gathered on a single, easily bookmarked page is mighty convenient.

At Publishers Weekly Comics Week, Todd Allen agrees that the lineup is solid but asks: Where’s the money?

There are no ads in the Flash-based Web comics player. There is no merchandise to buy. There are no links to other sites. This is odd, Continue reading →

Gary Tyrrell tackles a loaded question: How do you gauge the popularity of a webcomic?

It has been just about a year since Marvel Comics launched their digital comics site, and now they are moving in a slightly new direction with some online-only titles based on their characters. Johanna Draper Carlson has some observations and a poll at Comics Worth Reading.

How much of a High Moon fan are you? Would you dress up as a character from High Moon and take a picture of yourself in order to get some High Moon paraphernalia? That is a question that each of us must answer in our hearts, but if you think it’s going to be a yes, do it by November 1.

After a ten-year hiatus, The Mighty Tubularman is back!

The implosion of Platinum Studios has been a topic of conversation all over the blogosphere. If you’re just emerging from your cave, Continue reading →

Scanlations helped create the manga publishing industry, but some publishers regard them as a major threat nonetheless. This week, ICv2 interviewed Tokyopop marketing director Marco Pavia and one of the questions that came up was whether scanlations are stealing sales, as some retailers claim. Pavia didn’t sound too worried:

Honestly, it’s a challenge to battle all those sites. On our site, we’ve run manga for free for a limited time and we’ve seen a spike in sales. Two Fruits Baskets ago, we released a whole volume online for free for a limited time, and we actually saw a spike in that volume’s book sales over the first week compared to the previous volume’s book sales over its first week. A few other series–Loveless–some of our original stuff–we’ve definitely seen a positive impact on sales when we’ve released something for free for a limited time as a promotional, marketing tactic.

To be honest, I wouldn’t know where to begin. We know about some of the top pirate sites, but they’re ubiquitous. It would be challenge to try to fight them. We certainly don’t have the resources to fight each and every one.

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Hmm, this is interesting: Chuck Rozakis, who has a background in economics, is writing about the theory of webcomics at ComicMix. Check out his latest column on the Superstar Theory, or why we can’t all be Scott Kurtz.

Speaking of Scott Kurtz, he and Dave Kellett will be speaking about webcomics tonight at SCAD.

Here’s a nice freebie from Dark Horse: They are posting vol. 1 of Banya The Explosive Delivery Man online, for free, a chapter at a time. It’s a Korean comic (manhwa) and, as you would expect from the title, pretty violent but also nicely drawn and worth a look.

Ambrosia Comics has gone on hiatus, and they have released creators from their contracts, which is refreshing.

Inspired by visits to two conventions in two weeks, where she met lots of artists and saw lots of comics, Johanna Draper Carlson samples some new webcomics at Comics Worth Reading.

Xaviar Xerxes talks to Gordon McAlpin about Multiplex at Comix Talk.

The Black Cherry Bombshells made it to the top of the Zuda competition a few months ago despite the protests of the Digital Strips Zudawatch gaggle. Find out what makes creators Johnny Zito and Tony Trov tick in this interview at Pink Raygun. And here’s a little Zuda-on-Zuda action: Over at ComicMix, High Moon creator David Gallaher interviews Zito and Trov as well, to kick off his new column Mixing It Up.

People seem to be making lots of lists lately. Dave White of Blog 7415 lists the webcomics he reads, the ones he has dropped, and the ones that are at the border, while Johanna Draper Carlson accentuates the positive at Comics Worth Reading with some new webcomics worth reading. And this post, 10 Great Webcomics You Should Not Share With Your Kids, from Wired’s GeekDad blog, has been making the rounds a bit but is worth a look if you haven’t seen it already.

At The Floating Lightbulb, Ben Gordon critiques the business model presented in How to Make Webcomics. Then Gary Tyrell critiques the critique at Fleen.

Meanwhile, Sean Kleefeld ponders why one would buy a dead-tree version of a comic that’s online for free.

Blooks are getting to be old hat, but can you really make a book out of a MySpace page? Randy Lander of Comic Pants takes a look at a possible first, the print edition of MySpace Dark Horse Presents.

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I just popped in to check on Tokyopop’s Manga Pilots, which caused an uproar in the blogosphere a few months ago. Despite all the arguing, nobody really seemed to read the comics, and I wanted to do that, so I took a look at a few. When I got to The God Shop, I noticed something interesting: The creators must think this is Zuda, because they have a blog of their own and are promoting the comic on it. They even have a link to the comic, which is good because there is no indication on the Tokyopop home page that the Manga Pilots even exist. Anyway, on this standard Tokyopop page you get the same web interface that has been there from the beginning: Click on the cover image and Tokyopop’s manga viewer, which is not bad but a bit small for my eyes, opens up in a separate window.

But Tokyopop has been looking to improve their website, and it turns out the webcomic interface in their beta version is a lot different. Take a look at The God Shop here. Does that remind you of anything? Hmmm?

That beta site still needs help; it has way too many scroll bars, for one thing. But my biggest criticism would be the webcomic itself, which is too small to be legible when it is embedded in the page. Problem is, their “full screen” version isn’t really full-screen—it’s the same size as their existing manga viewer, just set on a black background that fills the rest of the screen.

I would say more tinkering is in order.