The war is over, the prophecy has been fulfilled, the great journey is at an end. The epic that is Rice Boy has come to an end. Rice Boy is/was a long form comic following the adventures of an unlikely messiah, the small and unassuming Rice Boy. Creator Evan Dahm has done and excellent job. Go check it out. If you’re still not convinced here’s a review of the strip Midnight and I did a while back.

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This weekend the London Underground Comics (LUC) launched their first full convention classed as No Barcodes. The event packed 50 artists (both from small press and web) onto 12 tables and created a whole new experience for conventions much like Caption later in the UK. Continue reading →

Well, Tokyopop introduced their Manga Pilot program this week, and the internet lost no time in opening up a can of whoopass on it. First blood goes to Lea Hernandez, who points to a major problem with the contract: It requires creators to sign away their droit moral, the crazy notion that creators can retain control of their works. Lea has been critical of Tokyopop’s global manga contracts in the past, but Tokyopop really left themselves open to this by not only posting their contract online but also attempting to put it in user-friendly language, while retaining several blatantly user-unfriendly clauses. At his LJ, Bryan Lee O’Malley picks up the cudgels and pretty much finishes this contract off. At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson wonders if she’ll even bother with Tokyopop books from now on. Also weighing in: Christopher Butcher, Niki Smith (who was considering sending in a story and has reconsidered), Gia Manry, Jen Wang, and Hope Larson.

All these people are looking at it as comics creators. I used to be a book editor before I became a freelance writer, so my perspective is a bit different.

To me, Lea nailed it—signing away the droit moral is bad. When you read about people having long-term snarling matches with their publishers, it’s usually about that sort of thing.

Also, one of the big points people are making about the contract Continue reading →

Lisa Anderson has some advice for would-be webcomics artists at Comics Village, and it’s actually pretty good counsel for anyone thinking of embarking on a creative career: plan ahead, be original, stay committed. And there are a few suggestions that I wish more webcomickers would take to heart, such as this advice on website design:

Before running off to the land of fancy effects and complex coding, consider your readers. Black backgrounds are rarely a good thing, as most colors (especially fonts!) look horrible on it. Standard red and blue should not be used atop one another…they have different depths, and many can become sick at the difference it causes their depth perception. Frames can be handy, but bad layouts and complicated formatting can leave the reader lost and annoyed. Try to keep your archive neat and accessible. (A personal pet peeve are those archives based purely on date posted. It makes finding specific arcs or strips impossible.) When it doubt, go for something simple with a soothing color scheme.

Here’s my own pet peeve: putting so much stuff up top that I have to scroll down to read the comic. Sometimes I can’t even find the comic in the mess of banner ads, titles and subtitles, blog posts, pictures of the kitties, whatever. Almost as bad Continue reading →

Just a quick bit of news because I can’t seem to delete my double post of my review below, but I can replace it with something else (Yay Internet!).

Maniac Graffiti, one of my favorite comics that I’ve never mentioned hear because only World of Warcraft players  would enjoy it has come to an end. Creator Anya has decided to quit the game and with it the comic. The strip however, is still excellent and I urge everyone who does or has played WoW to check out the archive. The strip had a lot of great in-world jokes and a really fun and intricate style about it. You should also take a look at the commissions of other people’s characters that are included with a lot of the later strips. All in all a great look at the world’s most popular MMORPG.

In other, yet similar new, VGCats creator Scott Ramsoomair has started a new comic based entirely on the PokeSaga called “Super Effective.” I don’t know how long a strip all about Pokemon can last, but I’m happy to see him try.

Did your grade school have a big toy? A big piece of play ground equipment for the kinds the climb all over to burn off extra energy and possibly hurt themselves. My school had a great big toy. It came with all the essential big toy parts, ladders, slides, monkey bars but ours also have a castle, complete with turrets and a draw bridge, a space ship with lasers, a view screen and a helpful robot and a superhero/supervillian lair full of all kinds of super equipment.

While all the “cool kids” (no one is really cool in fourth grade) were playing football and trying to kiss girls, my friends and I were having the time of our lives pretending to be all the cartoon heroes of the time: Ninja Turtles, He-man, Darkwing Duck, the Thundercats. I don’t know who kids these days are pretending to be, but they should be imaging that they are in the World of Quest.

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