Jeremy Love pretty much swept this year’s Glyph Awards, which honor black comics creators; Love’s Bayou, which was one of the first Zuda comics, took top honors for Story of the Year, Best Writer, Best Artist, Best Comic Strip, and Best Female Character. Elsewhere, Sean Kleefeld reviews the print edition of Bayou, paying special attention to the way the horizontal-format comic translates to the printed page.

And here’s more good news: Digital Strips favorite Good Ship Chronicles is back, after being on hiatus for… well, a while anyway, because I think it was on break when we reviewed it last June.

New comic that’s worth a click: Odori Park, a cute family gag strip with a bicultural twist: Mom is Japanese, Dad is American. (Found via ComixTalk.)

At Robot 6, Tim O’Shea talks to Nick Bertozzi about Iraq War Stories, an anthology of stories by the students in class at the School of Visual Arts. Nick is also posting the students’ work at Act-I-Vate, so go take a look.

Chris Andersen, creator of The Ego and the Squid, will do an original piece of art for anyone who donates $10 toward Erin and Noah’s Zero Gravity Wedding. (Disclaimer: Erin and Noah are friends of mine, but I actually found this link on Fleen.)

Also noted at Fleen: Tom Mason interviews Miles Grover, creator of Thinkin’ Lincoln.

Last but not least: Christopher Butcher strongly recommends you read this story arc in Achewood, and he cements the deal with a crafty webcomics analogy.

Warren Ellis has issued one of his periodic calls to webcomics creators to come forth and show their work at Whitechapel. If you’re a creator, seize the moment; if you’re a reader, check out the thread for some new comics. (Via Robot 6.)

PWCW’s Ada Smith looks at Smith Magazine, which is home to some of the best webcomics on the internet, including AD: After the Deluge and Shooting War.

Ryan Estrada did some spring cleaning at his website and then posted his contribution to the Flight 4 anthology, Mystical Monkey.

Here’s an interesting hybrid: Jim Munroe is publishing the first issue of Sword of My Mouth, his post-rapture story, as a print comic, but issues 2-6 are digital only and available by paid subscription. When it’s all done, he’ll collect the whole set as a print graphic novel. He offers several purchase options, and it will be interesting to see if this model succeeds. (Via Robot 6.)

Joey Manley is rather coy in the intro to this press release about educational computer games, but it involves E-Line Ventures, the parent company of ComicSpace, and it seems like there may be some comics on the way as well.

Johanna Draper Carlson talks to writer Kevin Church and artist Max Riffner about their newly launched webcomic, Lydia, subtitled “A comic strip about corporate culture.”

Shaun Manning interviews two new talents whose work will be debuting on MySpace Dark Horse Presents: Alec Longstreth (R.J. Jr., The Dragon’s Librarian) and Carolyn Main (A Day at the Zoo).

Dark Horse has a Star Wars: The Old Republic webcomic, which helps set the scene for a planned MMORPG set before the opening of the movies.

Recent reviews:

Larry Cruz on Glam (The Webcomic Overlook)
Delos on The Horrible Pirates (ComixTalk)

Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson talked to ICv2 about his company’s mobile comics strategy. Dark Horse released four of its existing comics for the iPhone last week, using an app they designed themselves. Richardson noted that the company is still tinkering and mentioned Umbrella Academy as a title he’d like to see go mobile. As for putting up their whole catalog, Richardson said, “Someday all of our library will be available in electronic delivery systems, but it may not be all on one system.”

Johanna Draper Carlson reads the press release about the new Archie iPhone comic, but she can’t find the app.

Scott McCloud’s post about how the Kindle is vertical but our eyes are horizontal is brief, but things heat up in the comments section.

The historical drama Tenchijin is being adapted into a yaoi manga for mobile phones. This raises a chicken-and-egg question, as a large proportion of the manga sold for mobile phones is yaoi (male-male romances)—so did they decide to go mobile, and then to bring the boys-love angle in, or vice versa?

Not strictly comics, but related and interesting to boot: Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly reports in from the Digital Book 2009 conference, and three key points emerge: The e-book audience is largely female, romances are hot, and DRM sucks. Good stuff.

Let this be a lesson, kids! Your parents don’t want you to stay up until all hours of the night because then you get to do all the cool stuff you miss when you go to bed on time. 

Case in point? On Monday night, just when I was about to shut down and call it a night, my Tweetdeck updated with a Tweet from Ryan Estrada, who was in a giving mood. He stated:

The first 5 people to tell me what to draw get their drawings drawed!

I seized the opportunity and shot a quick reply. With no immediate reply as to approval/denial of the request, I resumed my shut down protocol and hit the hay. What a grand surprise to wake up to this, the very first fan art for the new Digital Strips Adventures! And before it’s even launched! That’s got to set a precedent, right?

Iconic, no? The Digital Strips Adventures crew, courtesy of Ryan Estrada

Mucho thanks to Estrada for whipping up this image for us and stay tuned for the launch of the comic itself very soon!

Alexander Danner is back! After being away from the internets for a while, he announced at the ComicSpace blog yesterday that he has restored his archives and has two ongoing series, Gingerbread Houses and Simpleton: A Writer’s Sketchbook.

Christopher Irving talks to Joe Infurnari, whose webcomic The Process was nominated for an Eisner last year.

Johanna Draper Carlson talks to Gina Biggs, creator of the long-running manga-style webcomic Red String. Although Dark Horse dropped the print volumes due to low sales, Gina is self-publishing volume 4 and says she makes as much from the comic as she did working retail (and probably enjoys it a lot more).

Congratulations to Kate Beaton, who won the Douglas Wright award for Best Emerging Talent for her History Comics.

Free on the web: The Midpoint Press blog is posting a page a day from the manga The Obama Story.

Here’s a nice local-paper profile of Zuda artist Adam Atherton.

Webcomics.com has a slew of nuts-and-bolts articles about the more mundane aspects of making money via webcomics: Copyright and trademark issues, joining a collective, shipping your work, preparing a media kit, and optimizing your Project Wonderful ads.

Les McClane’s Johnny Crossbones is shifting to a daily schedule. (Via Robot 6.)

Recent reviews:

Larry Cruz on Part 1Bodyworld and Finder (The Webcomic Overlook)
Marc Alan Fishman on Full Frontal Nerdity! (ComicMix)
Larry Cruz on The Lady’s Murder, Speak No Evil, andVs. (The Webcomic Overlook)
Xaviar Xerxes on Old Man Winter and Other Sordid Tales (ComixTalk)
Xaviar Xerxes on Pax Avalon Diana Kingston-Gabai on Skin Horse (The Savage Critics)

IDW, the third-largest publisher of print comics, has created a new position, director of e-publishing, and hired Jim Webber away from uClick to fill it. That’s the news hook in this PWCW article by Heidi MacDonald, but there’s plenty of food for thought in there, including the fact that IDW expects to sell as many of its Star Trek comics via iTunes as via print—and the print run on their first issue was 15,000. Also, it looks like Apple is moving on a ratings system that would allow more adult content in the iTunes store, so this sort of thing won’t be happening so much.

Bookmark this: ICv2 lists all the comics available on iPhone/iPods. They plan to keep adding and updating, which should make it a useful tool.

Dark Horse joins the growing list of publishers making their comics available on the iPhone with the release of the four-issue series Terminator: Death Valley. Shaun Manning of Comic Book Resources talks to Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson about the hows and whys.

Alterna Comics is jumping on the mobile bandwagon as well, with plans to bring their catalogue, which includes Mr. Scootles, Jesus Hates Zombies, and American Terror: Birth of a Human Smart Bomb, to the Android, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

At PC Magazine, Sascha Segan discusses Apple’s rumored Kindle killer (dubbed the iPad) and why it might not be such a bad thing for Amazon.

Technology watch: BoingBoing has a post about colored ink for e-readers, a necessity if comics are ever to migrate to that platform. (Via ComixTalk.) However, Engadget catches a rumor that PVI, which makes the display for the Kindle as well as the Sony e-reader, is having problems with its colored e-ink technology.

After an appearance via his comics on CBS’ Big Bang Theory and a growing recognition of his work, Brock Heasley is taking his webcomic, Superfogeys, nowhere but up. This interview at comics megasite, Newsarama, about the success thus far of Superfogeys and Heasley’s participation in this year’s Free Comic Book Day, is only further evidence of this rising star.

Scope the interview to serve as an appetizer for my review of Superfogeys, which be posted soon!

The big news yesterday was the release of the Kindle DX, which is bigger and has better graphics than the Kindle 2. It’s also more expensive, with a $489 price tag. The selling point is that the Kindle DX can handle newspapers and magazines, and quite a few people are eyeballing it for comics as well, but it still lacks that essential ingredient: Color.

Engadget takes a first look at the Kindle DX and even has a video demo.

And how will it do for comics? As always, the first stop is The Beat, where folks gather around Heidi’s water cooler to compare notes. Kelson Vibber sees definite potential as a comics platform, and Lori Henderson looks at how it stacks up as a manga reader. Glen Hauman at Comic Mix sees the lack of color as an obstacle.

Finally, a few items that aren’t specifically about comics but may be of interest to readers and creators: At the New York Times blog Bits, Saul Hansell compares the marketing philosophies behind the Kindle and the iPod: Sell a lot of books to a few people (Kindle) or a few books to a lot of people (iPod) and considers the ramifications of the rumored Apple tablet. And the ireaderreview has an interesting analysis of e-book costs and pricing.

Every month, you expect the same great review crew to take a look at the current month’s crop of ten in ZudaWatch and every month we deliver. Well, not this month. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties in the recording and translating process, we won’t be able to bring you our detailed and thorough analysis this month.

We can, however, note that it is still a very, VERY tight race for first in this month’s competition, between Ryan Estrada’s The Kind You Don’t Bring Home To Mother in first place and Axel Medellin Machain’s Earthbuilders in second (many other creative hands on this one, check the site for the list). The momentum just shifted back in Estrada’s favor, so this looks to be another race that is just too close to call!

Right behind them is a continuation of the webcomic series, Intergalactic Law by Lisa Fary and John Dallaire, subtitled Grey Squad. All three, I can assure you, were approved by all of us at ZudaWatch so this is a race that is a joy for us to watch. And it’s not too late to make your voice heard! Jump in there, get registered, and make your vote count!

Hopefully some of you know the strip’s name because you already follow it, but others might recall Marooned, Tom Dell’Aringa’s cute sci-fi outer space epic, from last year’s Webcomic Idol competition. Regardless, the milestone cannot be ignored as Tom, Captain John, Asimov, Ugo, and all the others celebrate their 100th strip today.

Stop by to wish Tom a happy 100th and stay to read the archives. I’ll be posting a review of Marooned sometime in the near future, so go catch up on the comic so you can contribute to the lively debate that’s sure to follow!