In miracle news, webcomickers the world over are currently having a discussion about the success of the comic strip syndicates versus the option of making a living on the Web.

The miracle? I haven’t seen one mother dragged into this thing, and it’s been going on for a while now! At the heart of the discourse is a generational gap of sorts between those utilizing the traditional syndicate method and the fellas (and ladies, no discriminatin’ in these Internets) earning their keep via methods they themselves have set and followed.

The names involved are familiar ones: Rich Stevens, Dave Kellett, Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub (if Guigar joins in, we’ll have a full Voltron robot) Howard Tayler, Gary Tyrrell, Ted Rall, Eric Millikin, Dawn Douglass, and Danielle Corsetto, among many others. (All names link to strips, so take a look and I’ll be here when you get back). If you have any stake in the comic/cartooning world, you owe it to yourself to check this thread and maybe even voice your opinion.

Kurtz even goes so far as to suggest jamming all these folks into one podcasting booth via Talkshoe and hashing things out in person (er… sort of). Save the horrid B.O. that would result from so many bodies in such a tight space, that is one conversation I’d love to be in on. Hopefully he’ll make the whole thing available to the public, because I know I could always use another podcast to listen to.

And thanks to the Fleeners and The Daily Cartoonist for the setup!  Here at Digital Strips, if we can’t do it for you, we’ll watch someone else do it and then talk about it!

Greetings! Too much to talk about! Jump in! It’s Interest Piquers, the 03.25.08 Edition!

– First, and most egregiously, the ComixTalkers have uncovered a sinister secret behind a new comicking tool called Bitstrips. Apparently, through some fancy wordspeak, the Bitstrips crew can claim joint ownership of just about anything you create with their tools. Scope this quote, straight from their terms of agreement:

Anything, including any comic strip, character, scene and/or text, that You create and/or make publicly available for use and modification through Bitstrips Tools by Bitstrips or its users (“Shared Content“), shall be jointly owned by You and Bitstrips with You and Bitstrips deemed to be joint authors. Any Shared Content that is modified by a third party user of Bitstrips will be owned solely by Bitstrips.

Beware! Bitstrips will help you with your webcomic creating needs, but should you develop enough skill with that, you will owe them your soul.

Also, this can be used to make silly strips in mockery of the whole thing, like David Willis did here.

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The webcomic news just keeps flowin’ in and I just keep lettin’ it sail right by! But lo, what’s this? I seem to have accrued a clog in my usually steady flow! Must be time to apply some WordDraino (patent pending) and unclog that stubborn drain. Here it comes, it’s Interest Piquers for the week ending 3/22/08!

– As most Americans know, driving anywhere these days is so expensive, it’s nearly idiotic. Bike, walk, do whatever you have to do to get to where you need to be, just don’t do it in a gasoline-fueled vehicle.

Well it will probably tick you off further to know that not only is Steven Cloud, creator of the existential short strip, Boy on a Stick and Slither, not only is he doing a fair bit of driving these days, he’s doing it from London to Mongolia. Now I flunked world geography (I can barely find my way out of my neighborhood most days) but that sounds like a looong trip. Why do it, Steven’s Livejournal post?

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Man, I gotta write all my posts with the caps lock.

Wes Molebash’s Zuda Comics entry, The Litterbox Chronicles, faces scrutiny of the flaming kind on the comment board for his strip. For days now, a user known only as Maledicta has taken Wes to task for not only the quality of the strip but for the method by which he is garnering votes.

Being a comment board, there has been a tendency for the discussion to slip into the flame war territory, but by and large, heads are staying cool and the Wesheads are coming to the defense of their leader.

The discourse centers around the fact that Maledicta feels Wes’ approach of “Everyone come to the site, register, and vote for me!” is unfair and borders on ballot-box stuffing, which, after a quick Google search, I see is not nearly as vulgar as I thought.

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You know, there really is something to this bloggin’ thing. I mean, news needs exposure, we have some exposure, and so condensing news that others have reported on and researched equals more exposure. It’s a simple equation, nothing befitting any XKCD stick-figurie (new word!) but still one that fascinates me.

Now that we’ve indulged my bit of self-discovery, let’s tear into some folks, shall we?

– First up, Wizard. No, not the company who makes your favorite collectible card games, the one who owned the comic reporting world and threw it away to focus on babes and other, you know, dude stuff.

If you’ve picked up an issue of Wizard: The Comics Magazine lately, you must have a back issue in your possession. These days, Wizard goes with the tagline, “The #1 Men’s Pop Culture Magazine.” No, really.

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There’s some great news I just picked up from the faux muck-rakers at Fleen! It looks like the Jess Fink/Hot Topic debacle has been resolved!

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Just waiting until the jump, so I don’t screw up the flow of the front page.

A bit longer…  There!  Now we can…

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Figures that as soon as we decide to cover this crazy train called Zuda (3:10 to Zuda jokes, strip forthcoming), someone who has planted their feet firmly in the fertile grounds of webcomics decides to give it a go.

Via ComixTalk (seriously, change the name), I’ve found that Wes Molebash of You’ll Have That fame has thrown his hat into the ring with The Litterbox Chronicles. Check out the eight strip run over on the Zuda site, sign up with the Zuda service (upper-right-hand corner, don’t worry, it’s painless), and bump good ol’ Wes even further into superstardom! And stay tuned for our March Zuda wrap-up, which we will cleverly title in the near future!