Category Archives: Announcement

Tweet Thread of the Day ~FOR~ Monday, June 14, 2010

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On a day marred with Twitter issues (start scoping out the official Status blog for insider updates when this chicanery goes down again) and the kick-off to the E3 gaming convention (I will buy Kinect day one and I’m working on Red Ringing my current 360 so I can pick up the snazzy new model), a lone self shout-out from Meredith Gran caught my attention:

granulac The new Octopus Pie book comes out 6/22, and I’m kicking off my signing tour at Comics Dungeon in Seattle! Info: http://tinyurl.com/2f2fus8 15 minutes ago via web

Check out the tour schedule and stop by your local bookstore when Gran comes to town to say hey and pick up a collection!

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Pookey G ~NEEDS~ Your Help!

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Seems like it wasn’t long ago that a man named Pookey G (real name supposedly Gabriel Dunston) roamed the halls of Digital Strips, bringing his wit and wisdom to our digital pages on a regular basis. After he took his leave of DS, Pookey started a webcomic (as we are all wont to do) and now he needs your help to keep it going.

Things change, we shift and alter our plans, and babies come. Life happens, and we all experience it. Now, you have a chance to help one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever “met”. If it’s in your heart on this fine Monday (or any other day, depending on when you read this post), stop by and order a sketch to help a Digital Strips brother out!

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Tweet Thread of the Day (Weekend) ~FOR~ Sat., Sun., June 12-13, 2010

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Going forward, I doubt weekend tweet thread posts will be made as webcomic news/chatter tends to be more about breakfast items present on Saturday morning (the more indie the creator, the weirder the accoutrements) and weekend activities. However, when Ryan Sohmer posted this late Sunday night, I had to make it known to the Digital Strippers everywhere:

sohmer Introducing Gutters: http://the-gutters.com/ about 9 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

This new webcomics series has been in works for some time now, with sneak peeks afforded previously, once again, on Twitter. It’s a collaboration between Sohmer and Lar DeSouza, along with other comic creators bent on parodying and satirizing the superheroes we’ve come to know and love over the last few decades. It’s gorgeous, it’s fun, and you can find out more about it at the link above.

Enjoy and have a great week, Strippers!

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Tweet Thread of the Day ~FOR~ Friday, June 11, 2010

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Let’s finish off the week in TTotD with a plug for a true friend of Digital Strips, Lucas Turnbloom. Not only is the 2nd collection of Imagine This, “Dewey Defeats Truman”, ready, but a second, all-ages book that appears to feature many of the bears from IT, will also be releasing soon, both by the end of July.

RobertThePlant FINALLY, Details on my 2 new books: http://imaginethiscomic.com/?p=1928 3 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

Check the article out and you’ll also find the announcement that he is working on a new webcomic for one of the stars of the former NBC show, Heroes. I doubt any of the stars had much to do with the fact that the show bombed creatively after the first season, so hopefully this is only the start of another great work from Lucas.

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Wowio Now Owns ~MILLIONS~ Of Horribly Designed Webcomic Sites (DrunkDuck)

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Forget the hype, forget the press releases; the move by Wowio, the premiere site for eBooks online, to purchase DrunkDuck, one of the largest warehouses of webcomics on the Internet, gives them a load of digitally-distributed comics to choose from. Are they all great? No. Are some of them great? Not really. Are a select few worth taking a look at? Yes, and so Wowio now owns that handful of webcomics. With the recent buyout of WeVolt to leverage their social networking skills, Wowio is setting itself up to be a power player in the webcomics space. Of course, by power player, I mean, “company to own a lot of comics”.

Now if they would just buy out a web designer to alter the God-awful designs that haunt the spaces behind the DrunkDuck comics themselves, we might be in business.

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Tweet Thread of the Day ~FOR~ Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

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Time for a new regular feature for the site, and since The Geek has deemed me Master of Tweets for Digital Strips, I shall post daily that which tickles my fancy, straight from the free realm that is the Twitterverse. I kick this party off with a three-fer, some choice thoughts that seemed to permeate the thin layer between posts to become something larger in the scope of the community.

First up, Scott Kurtz take issue with Marvel’s idea to release a test digital comic book day and date with the print version, but still make the digital customer pay more. I couldn’t agree more with pretty much everything he’s said on the subject, but here’s what kicked it off:

Why Marvel shouldn’t care about what retailers think. http://bit.ly/9aa6Mt about 14 hours ago

You like this comic? Want to save a tree? You’ll need to pay more then, please.

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Next up, nearly everyone on the Internet today (everyone I listen to, anyways) passed around this YouTube link for a possible Mortal Kombat reboot. Too many people to choose from, so I’ll grab a tweet from Paul Southworth, whose backgrounds on Not Invented Here I praised earlier in the day:

Man, this new Mortal Kombat movie looks INTENSE! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJHbdmbeaXQ

Upon further review, that would appear to be a joke link from Paul. He does that sometimes. Instead, I will borrow a retweet from him, courtesy of Scott Johnson, host of various excellent podcasts on the Frog Pants Network:

RT @extralife: Good lord. They really are doing this. http://bit.ly/bxrSnt #mortalkombatreborn

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Last but surely not least, Charlie “Spike” Trotman weighs in on the syndicated strip debate (not really a debate any longer, just a continuing thorn) and throws in some tips on how to grow your comic to boot. A lengthy thread, but when this girl gets goin’, it’s best to just sit back and listen:

“Syndicates are There for a Reason.” Oh, Daily Cartoonist. Why can’t I quit you? http://is.gd/cHz1v

Okay okay to be totally fair: Syndicates used to be meaningful, relevant organizations with a purpose. Syndicates got you into papers.

And there was a time when being in papers was a good decision that could eventually lead to a long, professional cartooning career.

BUT the average paper reader is now between 40 and 50. Less than 1/4 of Americans under 35 read a daily paper. The market is shrinking.

Newspapers are in decline. It’s much harder to make a living as a strip cartoonist. Syndicates can’t sell for artists like they used to.

Fiending for syndicate representation these days is like pounding on the door of a building under demolition, begging to be let in.

Cuz it’s been asked: If you want to be a professional cartoonist, 1) Start a webcomic 2) build an audience 3) publish & sell collections.

Don’t make any merch (books, shirts) until your readers ask, assume 1 in 100 will ever buy stuff, work hard, and know it’s not guaranteed.

That is what’s worked for me. Other stuff works, too, but that is what I did.

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Thanks for the wit and wisdom, folks, and all in 140 characters or less!

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Code Green ~IS~ … Well, Just What It Sounds Like

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If you’re sick and tired of the abuse the environment has been receiving lately (especially given the recent nastiness spewing forth to ruin poor Mother Earth) and if you’d like a cartoon or two to help you work out your frustrations, then this might be the project for you. Editorial cartoonist Stephanie McMillan is posting a new editorial cartoon every Monday on her site, Code Green, in an effort to help spread the word about the injustices occurring every day in various crimes against the environment.

The rub here is that she asks for donations for each cartoon used. Take a JPEG, hi-res or low, and use it wherever you see fit… so long as you pay for the work you intend to use. So far it seems like this pay-as-you-like method is working, and so long as the patron sees the value in these cartoons, she shouldn’t have to worry about being short-changed for this service. I’ll admit that personally I don’t have a need for editorial cartoons in any capacity, so this idea is clearly not for me.

But what do you think, Digital Strippers? Is there merit in this scheme, or is this yet another Internet monetary plan destined to go belly up?

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Warren Ellis ~PRESENTS~ Webcomics Week

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Warren Ellis, world-famous comic creator and writer of the popular webcomic, FreakAngels, is offering up his forums for yet another week to anyone who wants free advertising for their webcomic. Make no mistake about it; regardless of whether or not your comic is good, this will get some eyeballs on it. You can’t fault the guy for doing what he can to help now, can you?

Stop on by his forums and post a little something about your comic today!

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Badaboom Is The ~NEW~ Comic Sans

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This is more of a rant, so the bulk of the conversation will be reserved for an upcoming Digital Strips podcast (new show every Monday or your money back!) but stop… right… now. If you create a comic or are part of the lettering team on a comic, take a moment to review your fonts and typefaces. If Badaboom is among your repertoire, then congratulations, you’ve chosen a versatile font that can be used in a variety of ways and is the perfect comic-book-y font.
If only it could used for good

If, however, Badaboom is your only font, head on over to Blambot where you can pick up a multitude of free fonts for use with dialogue, sound effects, and more and stop ruining the webcomic community.

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Pajama Forest ~PRESENTS~ Super Awesome Kite Flier Extreme! (To The Max) for iPhone/iPod Touch

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These days, to make it in the digital funnies realm, you not only have to update your comic on time, with extra content and clever enough punchlines to inspire T-shirt after topical T-shirt, but you also have to worry about every other digital tie-in that you could possibly make with your work. Facebook, Twitter, forums, email blasts, and now, iPhone games.

These little suckers are easy to make, hard to master, and many webcomics already have their own game/app to carry around with you 24/7, permeating your brain stem and infecting your attention span. Now you can count Pajama Forest, the hilariously drawn strip from Evan Diaz, amongst those digital comic elites. The new PF game, Super Awesome Kite Flier Extreme! (To The Max), is now available in the iTunes store for the low, low, almost-free price of $0.99! Carry PF with you wherever you go with this amazingly named game today!

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