At Blog@Newsarama, Kyle Latino interviews Michael Murphey, of iVerse Media, about their Star Trek: Countdown comic for the iPhone. Latino himself usually doesn’t by Star Trek comics, but he was impressed by the way this one was adapted to the new medium:

What really blew me away was how sucked in I was to the comic itself. There were clearly many choice that were made in the adaptation of this comic to touch phones that took advantage of the devices: segmenting longer panels into multi-screen panels, cropping panels and letting the wordballoons outside the gutter allowing the art to breath, slight zoom in repeated panels to display all the captions from wordier panels. There was never a sense of claustrophobia with caption and balloons crushing the storytelling.

That’s hard to accomplish on a handheld. Also, it was cheap!

This is a bit old, but it’s interesting: Gearlog test-drives comics on the Kindle.

Over in Japan, an older manga, Boys Be…, is getting a new lease on life via cell phone. The new series, Boys Be 2009 1, updates the original storylines of the 1991 manga.

On the French side, PC World has an article about adapting BDs to mobile-phone formats.

And here’s a solution for those who can’t afford an iPod to read their free comics apps on: Make your own!

Here’s a good laugh to end the week: C.B. Cebulski puts his comic S.A.S.E., about the grueling job of submissions editor, online for all to read for free.

At Blog@Newsarama, Henry Chamberlain interviews Box Brown, creator of the webcomic Bellen! and a Xeric award winner; this article was the first time I had seen the news that Bellen! is going to be part of comics.com, which is owned by United Features Syndicate.

The list of finalists for the Joe Shuster Awards, which honor the best Canadian comics creators, is up, and the list of webcomics/bandes dessiness web is impressive:

Kate Beaton for Hark! A Vagrant
Michael Cho for Papercut
Lar De Souza and Ryan Sohmer for Least I Could Do and Looking for Group
Kathryn and Stuart Immonen for Moving Pictures
Karl Kerschl for The Abominable Charles Christopher
Gisele Lagace for Menage A 3
Ramón K. Pérez for Kukuburi and Butternut Squash (with Robert Coughler)
Cameron Stewart for Sin Titulo

There’s plenty of good reading in there.

Congratulations to Jon Adams, who has managed to keep Truth Serum going for an entire year! He is celebrating by bringing in some guest artists to contribute to this week’s strips. (Via Robot6)

Here’s a timely review of a topical comic: Sarah Boslaugh reviews Economic Meltdown Funnies, which explains the current economic crisis and, from the looks of it, gets a few yuks in as well.

Indigo Kelleigh starts the relaunch of Ellie Connolly, a webcomic that I enjoyed very much in its previous incarnation, despite its brevity (and Bengo, I don’t mind her nose—she’s supposed to be funny and adventuresome, not sexy).

Matt Fraction and Fabio Moon announced yesterday that they are bringing back Casanova as a free, online comic, in color. Judging from bloggers’ reactions, this had better not be an April Fool’s joke. UPDATE: Pwned!

David Goodman has some advice on calculating how big a buffer a webcomics creator should have, and commenters chime in with their own experiences as well, at webcomics.com.

And over at the forum Panel and Pixel, webcomics creators discuss how often they update, how many pages they post at a time, and how they get the word out. (Via ComixTalk.)

The Washington Post’s Michael Cavna talks to Scott Kurtz about his use of Twitter and other social networking methods to build an audience.

Marc Alan Fishman explains why you should be reading Garfield Minus Garfield at ComicMix.

You know, a lot of iPhone apps sound kinda dumb, but I like this one: RingTales has an app that allows you to look at New Yorker cartoons on your iPhone. Since they are single-panel cartoons, I would imagine the format would work a bit better than chopped-up comic books, and the fun part is that you can shake the phone to get a new, randomly chosen set of thumbnails.

At the Gillian’s Heart blog, Dave Baxter touts the newest comic for the Google Android platform, Endless Buenos Aires #1.

I’ve got to run to work, but before I go I have three words for everyone.

Wes Frickin’ Molebash.

Tom Spurgeon asked for webcomics suggestions from his readers, and he posts their latest recommendations at The Comics Reporter.

Shaun Manning interviews Nick Gurewitch about The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack, the print edition that’s shipping even as we speak. At The Daily Cross Hatch, Brian Heater posts part 2 of his interview with Gurewitch as well.

The Baltimore Sun takes a look at Disney’s multi-platform comics thing, Time Jumper. What’s nice is that Stan Lee, who is involved in the project, seems to be as excited about the content as the technology. (Via Robot 6.)

Sean Kleefeld discusses why comics publishers aren’t rushing into digital distribution. The short answer is that they don’t know where to begin, and the incentives aren’t really there either. At Pop Syndicate, Chris Williams takes a look at the problem from the other side; reporting from the ComicsPRO meeting, he discusses what digital distribution might mean for comics retailers. Reporting from the field, here’s Christopher Butcher as he liveblogs this month’s Previews:

Second FREAKANGELS collection. That one is the best-selling (for us) Ellis collection in years… I wonder what that says about alternate distribution methods eh?

Of course, that’s strictly anecdotal…

Meanwhile, Dan Hipp announces that the third volume of Gyakushu! will be online-only. The first two volumes, which were print-only, were published by Tokyopop

If selling T-shirts is an essential part of the webcomics business model, they might as well be good T-shirts; at webcomics.com, Brad Guigar posts the video of the T-shirt design panel at New England Webcomics Weekend. Also: Emerald City Comic Con is this weekend!

Chris Ullrich covers the Comics on Handhelds panel at SXSW.

At Publishers Weekly, Michael Fitzpatrick takes a look at Fujitsu e-book reader, recently launched in Japan, which seems to be the first e-paper reader to incorporate color. The FLEPia will go on sale April 20, and it sounds a lot like the Kindle except for the color and the fact that it costs $1,000. According to the article, the Fujitsu folks are working on bringing the price down and developing a U.S. edition, so stay tuned.

Brendan Wilhide reviews ComicZeal, an iPhone app that allows you to read comics, in color, using the standard iPhone navigation (swipe, pinch, tap). You can download some Golden Age comics for free or import your own in standard formats.

On the other hand, Sean Kleefeld expounds on the chief disadvantage of reading comics on the iPhone and similar devices: They are too small.

At Salon, Olly Farshi reviews the iTunes version of James Patterson’s graphic novel Daniel X.

Moving in a perfect cultural circle, British creator Sean Michael Wilson has just sold a comic for adaptation to Japanese mobile phones and e-books. The title? It’s a Japanese translation of his comic Lafcadio Hearn’s Japanese Ghost Stories—that’s right, a British comic about Japanese literature is being translated into Japanese. (I have seen the print version of the comic, actually, and it’s lovely.)

Lee Cheriolis was at New England Webcomics Weekend, and he posts the first of several videos, this one being Print vs. Web vs. A Bear, at Blog@Newsarama. Kevin Hodgson of The Graphic Classroom made a video, too.

Chickenhare creator Chris Grine is parting ways with Dark Horse and putting his comic online. (Via Robot6.)

Here’s another find from Robot6: a Webcomics 101 article from Interface, which styles itself “The Journal of Education, Community, and Values.” You can tell it’s a scholarly article ‘cos there’s footnotes!

In a rare moment of unanimity, we all really hated The Black Cherry Bombshells when it ran on Zuda, but the joke was on us: BCB won their month, and they are now celebrating their first anniversary. Plus I met the creators at NYCC and they were really nice guys who looked like they were having a good time making their comic. I’ll be reviewing it soon, but in the meantime, check out all the anniversary happenings on their MySpace blog. And look, here’s an interview by their local paper!

CSI: Colonies: The Smithsonian has a new kids’ webcomic, The Secret in the Cellar, about a forensic mystery from the 17th century, based more or less on fact. (Via The Graphic Classroom.)

Xaviar Xerxes talks to Brian Brabendererde, creator of Soul Chaser Betty, and Monty Kane of Planet Saturday at ComixTalk.

Brian Heater interviews Nicholas Gurewitch, creator of Perry Bible Fellowship, at The Daily Cross Hatch.

Larry Cruz reviews a manga with teens that look like teens, Evil Diva, at The Webcomic Overlook.

New blog alert: The UK site Down the Tubes has launched a news blog focusing on digital and mobile comics.

At the Newark Webcomics Review, Allison Bergh checks out a workplace webcomic, My 25 Percent.

New webcomic to check out: Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell (rec’d by Valerie d’Orazio via Twitter).

This has unfortunately fallen off the radar for us around the Digital Strips offices, but that could partly be attributed to last year’s webcomic Harvey going to a top-notch strip that hasn’t updated in at least a year’s time. 

Still, that’s why you, yes YOU, need to get on the stick and get your Harvey ballot out before midnight on Friday. Go to HarveyAwards.org and get either your PDF or text file and fill that sucker out! Professional is such a lenient term these days that you can probably mention the strip you do (because, let’s face it, you ALL do strips now) and get your ballot seen by the proper eyes.

Everyone is mentioning their own nominees, from David Malki touting his first Dark Horse produced collection, Beards of Our Forefathers, to Scott Kurtz requesting that the webcomics love be dispersed to the well-deserving women of webcomics who have really blown up in the last year.

Both Kurtz and Malki are also quick to nominate the Halfpixel-produced How to Make Webcomics in the Best Biographical, Historical, or Journalistic Presentation category. Ryan Sohmer also throws his and buddy Lar DeSouza’s hats into the ring as well, so with so many great names in the running, it really will be hard to choose.

But that’s why you have to get out there and do your part! Together, we can make sure these awards go to the right recipients!

Yet another NEWW panel has been collected and whittled down to its essence, leaving you, the listener, to enjoy the very best parts, this time, via Gastrophobia’s David McGuire!

The panel was “Webcomics From Memory” and the participants were:

• Kris Straub (Starslip, Chainsawsuit)
• David Willis (Shortpacked)
• David McGuire (Gastrophobia)

The challenge? Each creator was asked to draw various characters, chosen by the audience, and to do so solely from memory. The results are amazing, frightening, and confusing. Enjoy all of the above! 

And thanks again to David McGuire for the summation. Look for an interview with the inimitable creator in the coming days!

The biggest shame of the whole weekend for this lucky reporter was missing out on not one, not two, but ALL of the panels that went on during the NEWW event. But hey, someone had to volunteer to keep people out of that parking lot across the street, am I right? Huh?

In terms of the panels, all were well attended and much enjoyed, though the most buzzed-about feature was easily the Halfpixel crew getting together for the first live taping of Webcomics Weekly. Every creator and fan I came across during NEWW had their own highlight of the panel, so now it’s time to make one of your own. The live panel is now available on the Webcomics.com site. Enjoy it for the first time (like myself) or relive the magic that was made on that fateful day in Easthampton, MA.

Also, join me in playing a fun little game: Where, during this panel, do you think it was that Brad Guigar made this face?