Sheldon by Dave Kellett is one of my personal favorites. The story centers on a young boy genius who runs his own multi-national corporation while still trying hard to have a normal childhood. He lives with his Grandfather and a talking duck, the result of one of Sheldon’s brilliant experiments. Sarcasm apparently came with the power of speech.
The writing is very clever and I really like the line work in the strip. While clearly inspired by classic newspaper strip styles, Continue reading
Creating comics for the web opens artists and writers up to new possible formats for their work. An interesting trend in web comics is the journal comic. Artists are posting comics based on events that actually happen to them or that they observe in real life on a regular schedule, much like a blog in comic form.
The Journal Comic Jam has a large collection of links to these types of comics and you’ll find a wide range of comics there. Continue reading
The UW Daily, of the University of Washington-Seattle, is running an interesting story touching on the slow demise of print comics and the rising awareness of web comics. The article, by James Fraser, specifically mentions the end of the Garfield comic strip and references Comixpedia. Interesting read, although it will seem obvious to those of us who have been following this trend for some time.
MTV U, a part of the MTV network of cable channels that broadcast directly to colleges and universities across the US, recently held a competition for aspiring cartoonists. Participents were asked to submit their college newspaper based comic strips for review and the winner got a 6 month publication deal with United Media. The winner was Tony Carillo and his work can be seen on the MTVU web site.
Penny Arcade recently sold out of their limited edition Twisp & Catsby – Tea With the Moon prints. It looks like someone bought two at the time and one of them is now up on eBay. If you missed out before now is your chance to try again. It is an original lithograph signed by both Gabe and Tycho.
One of my favorite comic strips on the web is Penny Arcade by Gabe and Tycho (aka Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins). This strip focuses on video games and the video game industry for it’s humor. However, the jokes are often very obscure and usually require that you know about the game being referenced and read the posts that go along with each update in order to understand the joke completely. But, when you do get it the strips are usually laugh out load funny. The artwork is particularly stylized and very refined. Continue reading
There is an interesting article over at Comixpedia.com about what it takes, or what it should take, to be ‘funny’ in a web comic strip. A lot of it is off the cuff and a bit curt, but there’s some good advice here.
I just came across a new web comic called “You’ll Have That” by Wes Molebash and presented by Viper Comics. The story revolves around a young married couple and their relationship. The writing is pretty funny and clearly comes from experience. There was a story-line about eating out and dealing with the wife’s complaint over steak not being done that I can totally relate too. It made me laugh out loud.
One of my favorite comic strips on the web is PVP Online, written and drawn by Scott Kurtz. The strip follows the trials, tribulations, and geekness of the staff of a video game magazine. Despite the video game premise the writing in PVP (which stands for Player Vs. Player) is very well rounded and touches on all of popular culture through gaming nerds’ eyes.
The strip is updated every day and has been published to the web since 1998. Continue reading
This is my first post on my first attempt at writing a web log, or “blog”. This blog has a purpose, a theme. I’m interested in and a fan of web comics and here I will write reviews and opinions and links to interesting comics that I find on the web.
The current state of the classically printed comic strip is in a sad state. Newspapers have traditionally been the the main source of such pop art, but space is extremley limited and in most cases shrinking fast. Continue reading