Man, I gotta write all my posts with the caps lock.

Wes Molebash’s Zuda Comics entry, The Litterbox Chronicles, faces scrutiny of the flaming kind on the comment board for his strip. For days now, a user known only as Maledicta has taken Wes to task for not only the quality of the strip but for the method by which he is garnering votes.

Being a comment board, there has been a tendency for the discussion to slip into the flame war territory, but by and large, heads are staying cool and the Wesheads are coming to the defense of their leader.

The discourse centers around the fact that Maledicta feels Wes’ approach of “Everyone come to the site, register, and vote for me!” is unfair and borders on ballot-box stuffing, which, after a quick Google search, I see is not nearly as vulgar as I thought.

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Are the Wikipedia webcomics wars over? T Campbell takes a lot of time to figure out that he really doesn’t know, but his analysis is still pretty interesting. There’s more at the Webcomics.com forum. Meanwhile Nicholson Baker has written a more general article on fighting “extremist deletion” on Wikipedia that includes a discussion of the webcomics controversy.

Gary Tyrrell muses on webcomics startup financing, which begs the question of what would constitute an investment-grade webcomic.

Here’s another link-worthy post on the business of webcomics: Von Allan takes a hard look at site stats and dollars. it’s interesting reading as a case study of a new cartoonist; he compares his popularity to that of Warren Ellis, looks at how his readership changes with time, and analyzes how he is using Project Wonderful to bring in readers.

The latest issue of Dark Horse Presents is up at MySpace.com; DH does a good job of not being too MySpace-y, with a relatively simple landing page and easily navigable archives. Plus the comics are pretty good.

The second chapter of the Cloverfield web manga is up, and Tagruato posts a translated version.

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The Webcartoonists Choice Awards were announced last night, in a live and online ceremony. The envelope please…

Outstanding Comic: Girl Genius, by Phil and Kaja Foglio
Outstanding Newcomer: Octopus Pie, by Meredith Gran
Outstanding Artist: Tracy J Butler of Lackadaisy
Outstanding Writer: Kaja and Phil Foglio of Girl Genius
Outstanding Character Writing: Templar, Arizona by Spike
Outstanding Long Form Comic: The Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew
Outstanding Short Form Comic: Perry Bible Fellowship by Nicholas Gurewitch
Outstanding Single Panel Comic: XKCD by Randall Munroe
Outstanding Comedic Comic: Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik
Outstanding Dramatic Comic: Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddel
Outstanding Layout: Copper by Kazu Kibuishi
Outstanding Use of Color: Dresden Codak by Aaron Diaz
Outstanding Black and White Art: Lackadaisy by Tracy J Butler
Outstanding Photographic Comic: A Softer World by Emily Horne and Joey Comeau
Outstanding Character Rendering: Lackadaisy by Tracy J Butler
Outstanding Environment Design: Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio
Outstanding Website Design: Lackadaisy by Tracy J Butler
Outstanding Use of the Medium: Dresden Codak by Aaron Diaz

Congratulations to all the winners!

You know, there really is something to this bloggin’ thing. I mean, news needs exposure, we have some exposure, and so condensing news that others have reported on and researched equals more exposure. It’s a simple equation, nothing befitting any XKCD stick-figurie (new word!) but still one that fascinates me.

Now that we’ve indulged my bit of self-discovery, let’s tear into some folks, shall we?

– First up, Wizard. No, not the company who makes your favorite collectible card games, the one who owned the comic reporting world and threw it away to focus on babes and other, you know, dude stuff.

If you’ve picked up an issue of Wizard: The Comics Magazine lately, you must have a back issue in your possession. These days, Wizard goes with the tagline, “The #1 Men’s Pop Culture Magazine.” No, really.

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ComiXology has a two part interview with Dorothy Gambrell, creator of Cat and Girl, in which she talks about making a living and reminisces about the olden days:

In 1999 I wasn’t even aware that programs like Dreamweaver existed. When Cat and Girl began everything on the website had to be sloppily hand-coded through telnet. Everything was harder then and we lived for three weeks on hard tack

And we liked it!

Wendy and Richard Pini are the latest old skool comics creators to jump on the digital bus: They will be putting all of the Elfquest backlist online starting next Friday. (Via Journalista, who got it from Fleen.)

I haven’t had time to look at this yet—expect some commentary when I do—but 741.5 Comics blogs about Steve Ditko’s Avenging World, which is available for download here.

There’s some great news I just picked up from the faux muck-rakers at Fleen! It looks like the Jess Fink/Hot Topic debacle has been resolved!

…

Just waiting until the jump, so I don’t screw up the flow of the front page.

A bit longer…  There!  Now we can…

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At Webcomics.com, T Campbell lists webcomic articles he’d like to see. There’s plenty of blog fodder there—go take a look.

David Welsh reviews the print version of Louis Trondheim’s Little Nothings, which looks on track to be one of the outstanding comics of the year. If you read French, the original is here, and for Anglophones, publisher NBM has a good-sized sample on its site.

Jonathan Callan wraps up his interview with Kristopher Straub at Comic Book Resources.

Not really webcomics, but related to the general concept of giving stuff away for free in order to increase sales: Neil Gaiman responds to a bookseller who complained that he put an audiobook up for free download. (Via Comics212.)

If you’re planning to go to New York Comic-Con (I am!), check out their magazine, which you can download for free.

Figures that as soon as we decide to cover this crazy train called Zuda (3:10 to Zuda jokes, strip forthcoming), someone who has planted their feet firmly in the fertile grounds of webcomics decides to give it a go.

Via ComixTalk (seriously, change the name), I’ve found that Wes Molebash of You’ll Have That fame has thrown his hat into the ring with The Litterbox Chronicles. Check out the eight strip run over on the Zuda site, sign up with the Zuda service (upper-right-hand corner, don’t worry, it’s painless), and bump good ol’ Wes even further into superstardom! And stay tuned for our March Zuda wrap-up, which we will cleverly title in the near future!

Ginger Mayerson interviews William Lidwell, the founder of WOWIO, for the Journal of the Lincoln Heights Literary Society, and he talks real dollars and cents:

In terms of compensation, I believe we are leading the digital world. In the fourth quarter of 2007 alone, we paid out more than $500,000 in royalties. We regularly hear from our content partners that they make more through WOWIO than through any of their other digital channels of distribution—in some cases, more than all of their digital channels combined. The 2008 royalty rates are fifty-cents per download for books, and 25-cents per download for comics. These rates will be adjusted downward as the number of users grows, but the net effect will continue to be a significant opportunity for creators and publishers to receive incredible exposure and compensation for their work.

People unclear on the concept: If you haven’t heard of manga publisher Infinity Studios, don’t feel bad; it’s been a while since they last published anything, and their books were hard to find to begin with. Continue reading →

Plenty of news to get this week started off right, including a big name comics publisher with more webcomics collections in the works and yet another plagiarism scandal, with the work being displayed on T-shirts this time around. Let’s get right to it, shall we?

– The biggest story in webcomics right now is, unfortunately, a negative one. Jess Fink, creator of the deliciously filthy Chester 5000 XYV and Dirty Limericks over at AdultWebcomics.com (links absolutely NSFW), has had a T-shirt design of hers (pictured below) stolen and sold to the folks at Hot Topic for sale in their shops. The crew over on Fleen, friendly rival and also-ran of Digital Strips, appear to have a LOT of free time and have written about the situation here, here, and here.

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