I interrupt this regular blog feed to announce that Johanna Draper Carlson, of the site, ComicsWorthReading.com, has posted an interview with Sam and Lilah creator and writer, Jim Dougan. It’s got some very interesting tidbits about the Zuda Comics contestant, many of which I wanted to know during our recent ZudaWatch podcast!
So check the interview and don’t forget, the ZudaWatch starts right below me, just scroll down or click the above link and enjoy the ride!
In miracle news, webcomickers the world over are currently having a discussion about the success of the comic strip syndicates versus the option of making a living on the Web.
The miracle? I haven’t seen one mother dragged into this thing, and it’s been going on for a while now! At the heart of the discourse is a generational gap of sorts between those utilizing the traditional syndicate method and the fellas (and ladies, no discriminatin’ in these Internets) earning their keep via methods they themselves have set and followed.
The names involved are familiar ones: Rich Stevens, Dave Kellett, Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub (if Guigar joins in, we’ll have a full Voltron robot) Howard Tayler, Gary Tyrrell, Ted Rall, Eric Millikin, Dawn Douglass, and Danielle Corsetto, among many others. (All names link to strips, so take a look and I’ll be here when you get back). If you have any stake in the comic/cartooning world, you owe it to yourself to check this thread and maybe even voice your opinion.
Kurtz even goes so far as to suggest jamming all these folks into one podcasting booth via Talkshoe and hashing things out in person (er… sort of). Save the horrid B.O. that would result from so many bodies in such a tight space, that is one conversation I’d love to be in on. Hopefully he’ll make the whole thing available to the public, because I know I could always use another podcast to listen to.
And thanks to the Fleeners and The Daily Cartoonist for the setup! Here at Digital Strips, if we can’t do it for you, we’ll watch someone else do it and then talk about it!
Greetings! Too much to talk about! Jump in! It’s Interest Piquers, the 03.25.08 Edition!
– First, and most egregiously, the ComixTalkers have uncovered a sinister secret behind a new comicking tool called Bitstrips. Apparently, through some fancy wordspeak, the Bitstrips crew can claim joint ownership of just about anything you create with their tools. Scope this quote, straight from their terms of agreement:
Anything, including any comic strip, character, scene and/or text, that You create and/or make publicly available for use and modification through Bitstrips Tools by Bitstrips or its users (“Shared Content“), shall be jointly owned by You and Bitstrips with You and Bitstrips deemed to be joint authors. Any Shared Content that is modified by a third party user of Bitstrips will be owned solely by Bitstrips.
Beware! Bitstrips will help you with your webcomic creating needs, but should you develop enough skill with that, you will owe them your soul.
Also, this can be used to make silly strips in mockery of the whole thing, like David Willis did here.
After hootenanny that was this year’s WCCA, we couldn’t help but notice there was quite the hullabaloo brewin’ about this strip Lackadaisy. Rubes we may be, the crew here at Digital Strips have never to be one to shy away from some rip-roarin’, Web comicy fun. And thats just what we found when we mozied over to www.lackadaisycats.com to see what creator Tracy Butler had in store for us.
I think I got some of my hick mixed in with my flapper back there. I apologize.
What we did find however was a really good strip, full of fun atmosphere, strong characters and some of the best artwork any of us have seen on the Web. That’s the short of it, for the long of it, check out the show.
I looks like we’re getting back into the swing of things here. This seems like as good a time as any to remind everyone that we’ll play your audio promos in our show for free. Just keep it short, related to Web comics and in MP3 format and we’ll take care of the rest.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to teach my neighbor’s cats to smuggle rum and shoot a Tommy gun. It’s slow going.
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Webcomic collectives are great for increasing your exposure and networking, but they sure can feature some darned complex web addresses. Our recent reviewee, Sin Titulo, was just one strip that suffered from this malady. And on a podcast where you try to keep it around twenty minutes every time out, taking five right off the bat to rattle off the strip’s address is downright maddening.
But fear not, mystery lovers! Creator Cameron Stewart has switched the strip over to a much simpler URL! Sin Titulo can now be found at the aptly lettered:
And that’s your follow-up primer! Stay tuned for a sitdown conversation with Cameron, in which I promise you I will get answers to this intriguing mystery…
Greetings, fellow ZudaWatchers! When next we podcast, our discussion topic will be the March competitors over on DC’s Zuda Comics contest. While we wait for that, I figured I would jot down my quick thoughts on each entry. Check out the opinionated fun below and stay tuned for our first ZudaWatch podcast, coming soon!
Among the Silver Stars– It’s a risky move to do the entire strip with a reversed-palette, black-and-white look and unfortunately, it doesn’t pay off here. The lines aren’t strong or consistent enough to pull off the effect and certain ultra-detailed surfaces and textures are offset by others that look criminally unfinished by comparison.
Day of Prey– This is quick and fun, from start to finish. Here, the cartoony look really works (it’s got a Mad Magazine vibe to it, twisted and humorous working well together) and tells the story of a fish casting his line for humans. I’m not sure if this violates the rules in any way (doesn’t the winner go on to be a longer-form work?) but I’d certainly like to see more from creator Ramon Cavalcante.
The webcomic news just keeps flowin’ in and I just keep lettin’ it sail right by! But lo, what’s this? I seem to have accrued a clog in my usually steady flow! Must be time to apply some WordDraino (patent pending) and unclog that stubborn drain. Here it comes, it’s Interest Piquers for the week ending 3/22/08!
– As most Americans know, driving anywhere these days is so expensive, it’s nearly idiotic. Bike, walk, do whatever you have to do to get to where you need to be, just don’t do it in a gasoline-fueled vehicle.
Well it will probably tick you off further to know that not only is Steven Cloud, creator of the existential short strip,
Boy on a Stick and Slither, not only is he doing a fair bit of driving these days, he’s doing it from London to Mongolia. Now I flunked world geography (I can barely find my way out of my neighborhood most days) but that sounds like a looong trip. Why do it, Steven’s Livejournal post?
I’m off to Anime Boston this weekend, H2 recorder in hand, and if all goes well I’ll be chatting up some folks on Artists Alley. In the meantime, here are some webcomics stories you may not have seen.
Gary Tyrrell has a lengthy post on the panel Webcomics: A Primer, which includes lots of nuts-and-bolts discussion among creators Dean Haspiel, Raina Telgemeier, Rich Stevens, and Ted Rall about timing, format, and “the economics of free.” Set aside some time to read the lengthy comments thread as well.
At Broken Frontier, Tyler Chin-Tanner interviews Joe Infurnari about his webcomic The Process. I don’t really have words to describe The Process, but the art is wonderful and you should really just go look at it for yourself.
Shaenon Garrity deconstructs the WCCAs in her latest comiXology column.
At Precocious Curmudgeon, blogger David Welsh reviews the print version of North World.
I can’t imagine there has been a huge demand for this, but Harlequin and SoftBank Creative just announced that they will be making Harlequin manga available for cell phones starting next month. Enjoy!
Over in Japan, the publisher Shueisha is launching an online manga magazine, Ultra Jump Egg. Go to the link for an explanation of how to navigate the pages if you don’t read Japanese but want to see the art anyway.
We had so much fun last time that we decided to do another show. This time we leave the world of gag-a-day strips and delve in to the mysterious world of Sin Titulo by Cameron Stewart. It’s been a while since we’ve reviewed a strip like this (please keep any comments about how it’s been awhile since we reviewed anything to yourself) and it was fun to dig into a story I got to second guess for a bit.
Sin Titulo (which either means “Without Title” or I’ve truly failed my high school Spanish teacher), is a dark, creepy noir tail that kept us reading and, at least in my case jumping, all the while maintaining a sense of class and timeliness that is hard to find online.
We do something a little different with a regular review section and then an in-depth, spoiler-filled analysis section where we try and figure out what really is going on in Stewart’s mind.
All this mystery and a brief overview of what we thought of the WCCA winners (we recorded this a week ago so it was sort of timely way back then). Join us and get that warm fuzzy feeling that only listening to Digital Strips can give you.
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Over at Webcomics.com, T Campbell posts the top webcomics for March, based on Compete and Alexa rankings. As usual, caveats and analysis follow. Also posted on WC.C lately: Elanor Cooper interviews Sarah Ellerton, creator of Inverloch and The Phoenix Requiem, and Alexander Danner plays “where are they now” with four webcomickers who have moved on to other projects.
I wish I had been able to get to this: Gary Tyrrell reports on the graphic novel symposium Splat!, and Karen at Pen in Hand posts her illustrated notes.
Rick Marshall of ComicMix talks to Wes Molebash about his Zuda experiences so far.
At The Webcomic Overlook, El Santo has a very thorough and entertaining review of the print version of Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, which we discussed briefly in our most recent podcast.
Eric Burns’ lengthy post on why he is bored by Kevin and Kell caused me to take a look at it out of curiosity, and I ended up really enjoying it. Go figure.
Vintage comic link of the day: Golden Age Comic Book Stories presents Fired! by Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta, from Crime Suspenstories #17, June-July 1953.