Yep, I made up a word. Wanna fight about it? Since Daku beat me to the punch on the weekly round-up of news (courtesy of our new news board which you, yes YOU, can post to!), I figured I would write about the webcomics that piqued my interest for one reason or another this week. It’s bad, it’s good, it’s my weekly Interest Piquers!

– First off, for whatever reason, I’ve fallen behind on my reading of deadmouse’s Ballad over on Modern Tales (pay comics are ridiculous, by the way, but that’s a topic for another day). I was turned onto it by Digital Strips, natch, and I immediately fell in love with the amazing feel and forboding atmosphere that deadmouse is able to create. Through a link to Modern Tales I once again came upon this forgotten gem of my pull-list and quickly positioned it right back on top, where it belongs. You should do the same.

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A funny thing happened to me tonight. While taking some notes for a review of Press Start to Play by Adam Law and Darryl Walker, which recently became a founding contributor to the gaming comics collective, Gamers Pair of Dice, my opinion of the strip evolved over the course of my page and a half of thoughts, good and bad, on this seemingly derivative webcomic (it is, after all, a gaming strip).

Before assembling my opinions, my first impression was that it did nothing new for the genre and so it should be largely ignored by your webcomic pull-lists. However, while putting together bulleted lists, Continue reading →

Well I’ve been waiting on the totals all weekend, but it is now official: last week was the biggest week in webcomics EVER. There were not one, but TWO huge announcements that came out of the annual San Diego Comic-Con. First, at the Eisner Award ceremony, Scott Kurtz was presented with the Best Digital Comic award. Not to be outdone, D.J. Coffman was announced as the winner of the Comic Book Challenge, with his property, “Hero By Night”?, being optioned for production in both print and television. Suddenly, we’ve got two mega-super-giganta-celebrities on our hands. Can anything top such a huge, blockbuster week? Funny you should say that.

I’ve been sitting on this jaw-dropper for some time now, but today I got the go-ahead phone call to give Digital Strips the exclusive first. Together, with Stan Lee, Steven Spielberg, Joss Whedon, and Jesus Christ, I am bringing my own new property, “Erotic Samurai Lesbians from Mars”? to the big screen. After the movie drops in the Summer of 2008, the ESLM will head to Cartoon Network for a guaranteed five-year cartoon series. This series will be supplemented by an ongoing comic book, a five-novel book series, and finish up with another feature film, produced and directed by Peter Jackson. Seriously, this is the ONLY thing that would be big enough to take away from these two huge pieces of news. Congratulations to both Scott Kurtz and D.J. Coffman for their achievements and here’s to hoping there’s nowhere to go from here but up.

With my interest piqued and my mind sparked by the most recent Yirmumah! story arc, I have a simple question for you all:

Comic book or comic strip?

Those of us who frequent both forms of art are immediately thrown into a frenzy to defend one or the other, but what about everybody else? What of those who know nothing of the differences between these two story-telling techniques? And why should we have to choose between the two? Can’t we have both?

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The following rant was meant for the Comments area of Daku’s post about the strip, Doctor Fun. Simply put, it got away from me. BIG TIME. So I have cut and pasted the glorified goodness to my column for you to peruse. If you’re not an artist, please excuse the loaded question in the conclusion. Enjoy.

William G’s first comment on the matter of whether or not it’s ethical or right to leave no reason for ceasing updates on a webcomic seems like more of a personal statement than anything concrete or steadfast. Many would argue that there comes a point, regarding traffic numbers, fan participation, or mainstream penetration, Continue reading →

When you think professional, what does your mind first go to? Experience? Ability? Respect?

For me, all of these things come to mind, and this is why I can consider myself a professional in my field. I do a weekly webcomic; I take great care in proof-reading and editing my own work until it is fit for publishing online; and I have now been at this work for nearly two years, producing over 100 strips with hundreds more to come. So why is it that so many of my professional colleagues can’t be bothered to spell check their own work before committing it to the web?

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While a subject such as this is generally reserved for a webcomic’s respective message board, a cold land, rife with fan loyalty and bitter resentment, we’ll just agree that this may be carried on in that arena at a later date.

For readers of my column here on DS, you know of my interest in the experiment that is now The Pet Professional. This previously stellar strip has seen a creative shake-up not once but TWICE in as many weeks and now faces the possibility of having four different artists in a rotation more crowded than a guest strip week.

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