Only the second day of this brand spanking new feature and Twitter decides to seize up and stifle the entire thing! So no thread for today.
Instead, go read this post about an interview with the guys behind The Guns of Shadow Valley, our pick to win the Eisner award this year. Then go read the interview. Then come back tomorrow, provided that Twitter can get its act together by then.
Yet another perk of following a webcomic’s RSS feed; creators tend to mention when they are interviewed or mentioned in other media, thus providing you with a quickie post you don’t really even have to exert any effort towards! Thanks, James and David!
Go here and read a nice write-up of the comic The Geek and I universally agreed should win the Eisner this year, including some process stuff (always a favorite of mine) as well as general items about the comic in general. If you haven’t already, the link below will let you read the story thus far. Highly recommended.
Click this to check out the best webcomic of 2010
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.
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!
This site has nothing to do with webcomics but it’s such a simple and nice service I couldn’t help but mention it. It’s called ComicPull and it’s a site that allows you to create and manage a custom online subscription for comic books. When you find a comic that interests you, click “Pull This” and every time a new issue  is released, they’ll order it for you. They’ll ship out your comics based on your shipping preferences. It’s like having your own comic book store right at your fingertips.
This probably happens once a year but on The Webcomic List forums I found this story about a guy who has created a flash based comic. This james113 created a production using flash. It includes music and still frame cels in front of a more detailed background. Kind of like a japanese visual novel. Unfortunately he doesn’t post the comic so I can’t actually give you a first-hand count. The discussion goes into how anything that consistently moves isn’t a comic, but it still presents a story through visual means.
Years ago, shortly after Zampzon went on to other things, there was a serious discussion around DS becoming hosting site and/or webcomic listing site for those strips we thought were the best. The discussion went in several directions:
There must have been months of discussion and it all ended with the status-quo. That probably explains my confusion over why Webcomicz would even consider making their own top list. There hasn’t been much reaction to the announcement but hopefully something good will come out of it.
Has anyone heard of Mooky Chick? It’s a weekly online magazine for alternative women. It features alternative style, beauty, health, relationship and careers advice, music and general alternative culture. Most importantly they seem to be embracing webcomics and have dished out some decent advice. Some of it obvious (draw good, use good words) and the rest just makes since (good characters, avoid cliches, and don’t procrastinate).
Found a new site trying to give the basics on how to start your own webcomic. It’s short and barely adequate, but it does give just enough information for anyone to start looking for more. Actually it’s a better list then you’ll find almost anywhere else, based on our experience with DSA. For instance having a more than one strip is essential. You have to give your readers a reason to flip through and stick around. Using a hosting site can save a lot of problems (never heard of Comic Dish before this article) but I would also recommend pursuing something like Comic Press. Getting a comic email address and following a schedule seem obvious but you’d be surprised how many mess either of those up.
Found a new webcomic collective in the Webcomic Factory. Not sure about the name but it is the brainchild of Christian Beranek and Tony DiGerolamo.  Together, they created this webcomic “hub†from a variety of artists.  The concept of the Webcomic Factory is to create a professional hub of quality comic entertainment. It’s like a digital version of the funny pages in a newspaper mixed in with traditional comics and Japanese Manga. Already, Christian and Tony have acquired a huge library of affiliated content and they look forward to creating new content for you every day.
SWOR has a new update finally. This new issue is a lot better than the first, not just because they’re using a hot girl with red skin. There’s still the problems with pacing and not having any idea of what’s going on. The best update seems to be to the flash engine. Perhaps I missed this before but you can click on the right and left sides and a page turning graphic reveals the next or previous page. Can I get that?
Found a new comic and it has the best name I would be afraid to use: Contropussy. This is a webcomic by Emma Caulfield, Camilla Rantsen, Christian Meesey and Thomas Mauer. It chronicles the adventures of Contropussy and her friends. By day, Contropussy is an ordinary house cat, but at night she comes alive and searches for excitement in the world outside. Think of it as a more subversive Sex and the City with animals. The strip is updated every Monday and Friday and they’re hoping to go daily once they get enough donations.
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?
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!
This came up in an alert and I have no idea what to think about it. There’s some vague memory in my head hearing about Kiva on NPR but then I have a vague memory about everything, like walking through life under a permanent sense of deja vu. This project was inspired by the Comic Creators Alliance charity. While Yamiloo was trying to think of an original way for webcomic artists to earn money, she remembered a Sister Claire food contest. The idea is simple: each artist creates a postcard design, of which they print 10 limited editions. The cost of printing and mailing the cards will be covered by the minimum donation. A minimum donation will get a “general” card, and the limited edition cards will be priced a bit higher. The limited cards will have personal messages from a character in the comic, and be signed by the original artist. All the proceeds will be donated to Kiva.
Seen the new webcomic Facebook page? Some random side-effect of when Facebook created a page for everything or maybe someone finally thought it up and followed through. Webcomics now have it’s own page that the world can link to promoting their love of the art that is digital.
If it’s not another blog it’s another list. There is another webcomic ranking site out there. This one is called the WebcComic Super 100 List. This goes beyond the existing The Webcomic List, the Belfry Webcomic Index, Webcomicz, and the most popular of them all TopWebComics. Let us hope it doesn’t go the way of Buzzcomics.
Found an AOL Small Business series called the Startup Online Reality Series. Laura found herself interested in a comic called The Oatmeal by Matthew Inman. Surprisingly she also goes deep and does a real in-depth and well researched article. Almost as if she’s taking the medium seriously and not just trying to get some easy search hits. First we are given some quotes from Matthew on how he went from rags to self-sufficient. Then there are mentions of xkcd, Penny Arcade, PvP, and Achewood on their success along with information from Brad Guigar. Perhaps my favorite quote is from Inman where he tells us he had 200,000 visitor but only 50 of them were willing to help support him.
Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone? Although in this case they didn’t so much pave paradise as just stop updating it.
We’re getting in the wayback machine once again to take a look at where our horizons picks from a time long gone are now. It’s a strange occurrence, as all from the first show have disappeared into the ethernet, while everything from the second show lives on and goes strong. Along with all this nostalgia we hit the news feeds for another addition of Digital Strips Google News Alerts.
Join us, won’t you for a look at a simpler time with some complex and awesome comics.
Show Notes.
No More Zuda
David Gallaher
Night Owls
Goats
Fleen
Octopus pie
Superhero for a day
GhostPimp
KittyHawk
Mimes
Tiny Kitten Teeth
Penny Arcade
Lookouts
Lovecraft is Missing
Rice boy
Order of the Stick
Joe Loves Crappy Movies
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