The number of losers is now up to 6. It’s not quite the fallout Zampzon predicted but I won’t mind if you point that out. They have been dropping out about once a week but even at that rate it looks like this will last for another 50 weeks.
For many of you reading my news posts you might have figured out one of my main sources of information is The Comics Reporter. I always find Tom’s articles and reviews to be insightful and entertaining and reading through this interview I get the feeling that’s just the type of person he is in real life. If you make your way over to Comic Foundry you can read this interview which was posted last Friday. This interview is especially revealing for me as he answered questions concerning how to critique comics. Continue reading
BifSniff has announced a new way of getting your weekly dose of BifSniff glee. In the announcement you can see how they believe one of the methods rising in popularity is weblogs. There are an ever increasing number of strips, much like our personal favorite Last Drop, which are delivered alongside a blog. Thanks to some free code the guys have written you can have the most recent single panel strip appear anywhere.
I never thought I would hear this happen but it looks like UComics is actually syndicating Yenny. We’ve reported before on Comics Sherpa and our disdain for forcing artists to pay for posting their strip online. It looks like this approach is finally paying off for David Alvarez who also is a member of the Modern Tales group. I never had a chance to get around to Yenny but after reading it thanks to this announcement I’m going to have make an effort to read through the archives.
It always comes down to money. How can I, the lonely web comic artist, get more exposure and money? One solution is take your digitize art work and go hardcore. Well, at least start selling your archives in print form. We’ve reported before on the success of Megatokyo but Comixpedia has a nice round-up of several strips doing just that. Perhaps even more enlightening is Mom’s Cancer going into print. This announcement happened shortly after the strip was nominated for an Eisner.
The NYU paper Washington Square has a simplistic view of the world of web comics spurred by the two students. These students are Ryan Grim and Dave Gonzales and as you can find from the article they create the comic Dos Factotum. The article continues to go on and explain how web-based comics are becoming a popular “hobby” for art and writing students. They mention another strips called Lunchtray Ninja by Greg Mourino and continue on discussing the difficulties of keeping a strips up and running. The main hurdles are the cost of hosting and simply staying with the comic and consistently posting.
I’m starting to understand why News shows report about the local fire unit saving Mrs. Frisbee’s cat. Finally there’s something news worthy for web comics. Over at E&P there is a great article about the web gaining ground over newspapers. There is a recent Carnegie Study that found the “new generation of technology-savvy young people are getting their news in ways that threaten the very viability of newspapers.” The end result was a trend that 25-34 year olds are twice as likely to use the internet and consider it just as trustworthy. Probably the most interesting tidbit was mention of The Northwest Voice, Continue reading
Yes I realize most cartoonists are actually Mac Users but it’s hard not to use such a catchy title. I was reading through The Beat when I came across this lonely little link. It’s for a program called Comic Life for OS X. This is such a fantastic idea but it begs the question of is it truely more useful then Photoshop. Its hard to ignore a price tag of $40 though. Has anyone taken a look at this? As a PC user on the verge of getting a Mac I love hearing about such useful programs for creating web comics.
In one of those rare moments of complete sanity a young cartoonist is to be syndicated based solely on his skill. Imagine that. The creative mind behind F minus, Tony Carrillo, is poised to be syndicated by winning the first-ever mtvU STRIPS contest. Tony’s work became popular through being printed in the ASU run State Press and was considered so good that everyone believed it to already be syndicated and hte paper was merely piking up. It looks like the printed world may actually have found a clue in this method of finding fresh new and entertaining talent. I guess I now have to find more information on this mtvU Strips contest.
The master nominee list has been released for the 2005 Eisner awards. We reported before over the possible creation of a ‘Best Digital Comic’ award and it looks like the category made it past the judges. The nominees for the first ever Eisner award for best digital comic are:
Athena Voltaire, by Steve Bryant
Bento & Starchky, by zer0 (Peter Branting)
Copper, by Kazu
Jonny Crossbones, by Les McClaine
Continue reading