Claudia Dávila’s Luz: Girl of the Knowing is a cheerful webcomic about an ominus situation: the coming oil shortage. Spurred by the simple fact that world oil production has peaked and will decline from here on in, Dávila decided to use the medium of comics to teach some simple lessons about the coming crisis and ways to cope with it. Luz, the title character, copes with blackouts, thinks about what she may have to do without someday, and learns about gardening by watching her neighbor, Mrs. de Souza.

Despite her gloomy topic, Dávila emphasizes the positive and the practical. In one episode, Luz watches Mrs. de Souza harvest and preserve her tomatoes, and Dávila includes a link to a page explaining how to dry your own food. Blackouts inspire an impromptu barbecue. And when Luz visits the farmer’s market in January, she learns that she can have local food even in the dead of winter. While Luz can get a little earnest at times, as when she gives a presentation on peak oil to her class, her friend Robert, an internet addict with a thing for stuffed bunnies, helps keep it real.

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Matthew Reidsma’s High Maintenance Machine is a diary comic that captures a moment from each day of his life. The webcomic has an intimate feel—Reidsma seldom uses more than six panels, and the focus is firmly on a few characters: Reidsma, his wife Wendy, and a handful of their friends. Sometimes the point of the comic is immediate and piercing, and other times it is obscure. Reidsma also collects his work into a monthly mini-comic that includes extras not found online.

Digital Strips: You say on your site that High Maintenance Machine began when you “kind of freaked out” on your 30th birthday. Can you explain a bit more about where it came from and how it fits into the rest of your life?

Matthew Reidsma: Whenever I thought of my long-term goals and aspirations I’d always say, “by the time I’m 30 I’ll do such-and-such.” When I turned 30, I couldn’t say that anymore, and I hadn’t done most of the things I told myself I would do. I wasn’t sure what I had done with those 30 years, so I felt like I needed a way to record the daily rhythm of my life. I tried keeping a written diary, but it didn’t feel right. Since I’d drawn comics about myself since I was a kid, I decided to get on the journal comic bandwagon. I set a goal of drawing a strip every day for a month, and posting them online. That was a year and a half ago.

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Josh Way is the creator of Chronicle, which details the tribulations of Chuck Burke, a hotshot big-city newspaper editor who is sent to the sticks to revitalize a small-town paper. Chronicle is gently funny, mining the classic smug city slicker/wily country folk theme for some fresh new laughs. Much of the humor stems from the quirky cast of characters that Way has imagined into being.

I told Josh that I would only ask five questions, but I liked the Comic Book Mode feature on his site so much that I slipped in a sixth question about that. I have seen other sites group old comics on a single page, but Way’s versions was more polished and made reading the archives a snap.

Digital Strips: Updating daily is quite a commitment. How do you find the time to do it?

Josh Way: There are three major factors that allow me to maintain my commitment to a daily comic strip.

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Shaenon Garrity shows a breadth of talent that is unusual in today’s segmented comics market: She is a writer, artist, and editor of webcomics, manga, and superhero comics. Her day job is as a freelance manga editor for Viz, but she has also written for Marvel. She is the editor-in-chief of Modern Tales, but print manga readers know her chiefly for her hilarious Overlooked Manga Festival postings on her LJ.

Garrity is also one of the busiest people in the webcomics community; she always seems to have several projects going at once. She writes Smithson, a supernatural comedy set at a small liberal arts college, which has recently gone on hiatus, and Li’l Mell, the adventures of an irascible first-grader. She was both writer and artist for Narbonic, an off-the-wall comedy about a mad scientist, which is complete. And her newest project is Skin Horse, which draws by herself and co-writes with Jeffrey Channing Wells. It would spoil the fun to describe it here; check below for Shaenon’s explanation.

Digital Strips: Smithson has just gone on hiatus for a while, leaving many plot threads dangling. What are your plans for that?

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Like Minus and the print manga Yotsuba&!, nemu*nemu blends cuteness and humor into a relaxing and often funny read. Creators Scott Yoshinaga and Audra Furuichi, who are based in Honolulu, draw the strip in a simple, manga-influenced style and often bring in references to Hawaiian and Japanese culture. In addition to running at its own site, nemu*nemu has recently joined the lineup at Sugary Serials. Yoshinaga and Furuichi expect to have the second print volume ready for this year’s Kawaii-Kon.

Digital Strips: Let’s start with the elevator pitch: Describe your comic in 25 words or less.

Audra Furuichi: A web comic featuring the adventures of Nemu and Anpan, two magical stuffed toy pups, and their owners Anise and Kana.

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As promised, here is the second half of my interview with Dresden Codak creator, Aaron Diaz!

1) Which of the archived strips are your favorites and why?

I don’t know if I have a single favorite. There are a handful that I enjoy for different reasons. Girl vs. Bear, I think is my most balanced strip as far as using humor, adventure and science references. It has a good rhythm, and I really enjoyed drawing those Civilization Ghosts. Another favorite is Zhuangzi, which I think is understandably one of the least beloved among fans. In hindsight it was way too esoteric for its own good, and without an extensive knowledge of ancient Chinese literature I don’t think it makes a bit of sense. However, I will say that one guy once wrote a magnificent essay on the Zhuangzi comic and how he interpreted it. I think that’s the only essay on my comics that I’ve ever seen. It was pretty neat.

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On the last episode of Digital Strips: The Webcomics Podcast, Brandon, The Geek, and myself reviewed Dresden Codak by Aaron Diaz. By the time we wrapped things up, it was universally agreed that we loved and wholeheartedly endorsed the adventurous strip.

However, it was also agreed that we still had several questions we wanted answered. So, I took it upon myself to drop Aaron a line and ask for the answers. Luckily, he was more than happy to give an interview, and an awesomely verbose one at that! As such, this is part 1 of the follow-up interview to Episode 120 with Aaron Diaz! Enjoy!

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