Seriously, I’m not spoiling anything by reposting such a kickass image, so just click through and prepare for something awesome coming from the co-creator of Axe Cop.
The Bearmageddon Is Coming!
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Drawing Breasts Is Tough (But Fun) Business
If you’re a man, and you enjoy drawing boobs, chances are you’re doing it wrong. And that’s not terribly unexpected! Neither having regular access to the subject you’re drawing nor experiencing them attached to you first-hand (for 99.843 % of the community, at least) leads one to draw from reference and/or flighty fantasy when drawing some monumental mammaries.
But artist Ovens of Chipperwhale is here to guide the fellas in the art, and joy, of properly depicting truthful tatas. Let them sag, don’t worry about always giving a proper salute! Nipples have their place on a breast, and it is not always pointing directly at you! And other unknown facts are yours if you follow the handy link below! WARNING: There are other links included in said article which can form quite the deep rabbit hole. Wordplay very much not intended, but well done nonetheless.
The art of boobs, Caperton (Feministe)
Comic-Con: Retailers/Publishers Decide Maybe Digital Distribution ISN’T The Devil
Before I begin, make sure to click the link at the bottom of this post to read the full article. It includes lots of details that I won’t go into here, but is well worth the read.
It’s not hard to see why some retailers and/or publishers might be reticent about jumping into the digital distribution craze that’s sweeping through the comics industry. The money stream completely changes and, in most cases, shrinks, and no one wants less money for their product. However, a panel went down at Comic-Con this year where that very real conundrum was discussed, with Scott Kurtz and Mark Waid (representing the Web and paper comic book communities, respectively) heading up the rundown.
Whether they’re laughing and skipping or kicking and screaming, retailers are seeing the revenue being missed in the digital stream and are largely ready to get their share. But with the big two (Marvel and DC) putting more and more content online, there is too much money to be missed by not offering some sort of service to that end, not to mention the squelching of the pirating movement, which is a big problem for nearly any form of entertainment these days. DC is even launching an initiative this Fall, to coincide with their line-wide relaunch of nearly every title they put out, which will see all of their comics coming to the digital marketplace day-and-date with the paper editions. While prices will keep many people from picking up the digital copy in its first month (when the price will be the same as the shelf copy), I know I can certainly wait a month to read the stories I want to read without having to mess with storing a physical copy afterwards.
Also of note in this discussion is the idea of formatting content for reading on digital devices, mostly made up of the growing iPad contingent. Notably, Love and Capes creator Thom Zahler keeps this in mind when laying things out and adjusts accordingly. The more the digital thought process permeates the comics industry, the more this kind of thinking will have to become second nature. Of course, oddballs that must be read in a certain context and fashion will still exist because as long as people care about comics as a storytelling device, there will exist a niche of creative, mind-expanding content.
Comic-Con embraces the iPad era, Jason Snell (Macworld.com)
JManga.com/Yen Press Brings Japanese Publishing To The Web, Mobile, Tablet Devices
Big news out of Comic-Con, shared via none other than our good friend and webcomicker extraordinaire, David Gallaher (you have to actually Google most of his work as it’s largely behind a Flash-based, link-hating site, but search it out you should).
It appears that Yen Press and several Japanese publishers are gearing up to bring manga to the U.S. in a big way, as big as, say, Comixology’s push to distribute digital comics for the big comic book publishers based in the U.S.
Yen Press brings with them a localized version of their iPhone app which features a great deal of manga, while the publishers have come together to form JManga.com, a destination for the hottest and most popular manga, coming straight from Japan. The Yen Press app is already available in the App Store and JManga.com should be launching in near future, but given the ridiculous popularity these works already enjoy here, it’s not hard to imagine something like this being a huge hit with the target audience.
Admittedly, I do not find myself in that group, but with mainstream American comics gaining increased traction in the digital arena (despite being largely derivative and exhaustingly recycled), a move like this is sure to do at least a few favors for a type of comic that has already permeated several forms of American entertainment.
SDCC 2011: Yen Announces 3 Licenses, Publishers Unveil JManga.com, Brigid Alverson (MTV Geek Blog)
Digital Strips Podcast 252 – Review – Turbo Defiant Kimecan (Douches and Crackers)
We’re bringing you a shorter episode this week, either due to laziness or lethargy in the news arena, your pick. With that second segment removed, we’re bringing you a concentrated, laser-focused show full of nothing but webcomics talk. Oh, and also Disney animated features. And Baywatch. I think that’s about it, though. See? Laser-focused.
Apparently next week we’ll be reading a couple of comics and taking them head-to-head, for what purpose I’m not sure. But read Battlepug (8:13)Â and RatFist (8:50) and come back next week for the brawl to end them all! A couple of other comics mentioned in our opening arguments:
- Aquapunk (6:35)
- Our Valued Customers (7:38)
Taking us into our second segment is a tune that’s been on my mind recently, beautiful retooled by OCRemixer, Jonah-B. It’s the title theme to The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, “Dark Shores of Hyrule” (11:18). Figured I’d find something from that game to encourage me to jump back in and finish the recently released 3D remastering on the 3DS. And you should do the same starting August 12, when Nintendo is dropping the price from $250 to $170. Hey, I need more people to StreetPass with, so sue me.
What’s that? Oh. Right. Laser-focused.
Our review segment is full, and I do mean full, with talk about our featured review:
- Turbo Defiant Kimecan by Ferran Daniel, James Caballero, Salvador Vasquez, Jorge Gonzalez, Luis Silva, Aaron Lenk, Carlos Campillo, and Igor Filjusin (13:29)
This is fairly unapologetic manga, with a few caveats, and pretty entertaining manga at that. This is especially shocking coming from me, a self-professed manga hater, but this is a quality comic in nearly all regards and sucks you in and never lets go. In our discussion, we also mention:
- Gingerbread Girl (14:15)
- Indistinguishable From Magic (18:33)
- Blambot (20:55)
Be sure to drop a comment below, if only to tell us how to pronounce “Kimecan”.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Help These Scurvy Dogs (as mentioned on Digital Strips Episode 251)
Do you love webcomics? Do you love board games? Do you love funding Kickstarter projects? Then you’re probably one of the 13 people who have already contributed to seeing this game through to completion.
Dern and O (only in webcomics, right?) of Hello With Cheese have decided to create a pirate board and card game called Scurvy Dogs and they’ve taken to the now ubiquitous funding brand for help. They’re even bringing along friends Jamie Noguchi (Yellow Peril) and Lar DeSouza (Least I Could Do, Looking For Group) to help illustrate the whole thing. It all sounds like a promising project and one I’m very interested in purchasing when/if it’s funded.
So stop by the KS site and give what you can!
Digital Strips Podcast 251 – Harvey Nominees 2011
What up guys, I’ve been having computer problems all morning, which is a lame reason for a lame show write up but hey, what can I say, Jason is totally lame.
This week, we do our annual look at the Harvey nominations for best online comic. As much as I piss and moan about how big timey awards don’t get webcomics, I do think they’re starting to, and I’m super glad they’re at least trying. This year’s list is certainly not what I would have picked, but it’s a good one and it gives us a lot to talk about.
We start by talking about how hot it is in various places and why Jason can’t play games. We then get into how Steve may buy a Chromebook which gets Steve talking about his latest love Fumbbl and invites you all to kick his butt at playing a pretend sport with pretend types of people.
The music for both breaks this time is “You Are My Sunshine” by Reflector.
News is pretty limited this time around. We talk about Chickenhare’s (7:00) possible animation deal and Steve’s definite racism towards ogres is revealed. The only other news is a blip about Hello with Cheese (9:00), Lars deSouza, Jamie Noguchi are making a board game which gets us off topic onto bored games and somehow to another podcast of Jason’s recommendation, Totally Rad Show (9:45)
Talking about other podcasts gets us thinking about a throw down we had weeks ago so we finally get into the Day[9] vs Giant Bomb discussion and other podcasts we like, such as Filmsack.
Harvey talk starts at 19:30, I’ll just list the comics nominated since we jump back and forth between them a lot:
Guns of Shadow Valley
Gutters
Hark! a Vagrant
LaMorte Sisters
PVP
Bonus points if anyone can find the point where the friggin chickadee started chirping out side my window.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Digital Strips Podcast 250 – Book Club – Order of the Stick – 3rd Edition (There Sure Are A Lot Of Animated Movies About Dinosaurs)
I can’t think of a snappy intro, so just imagine Jason in a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat with a couple comically over-sized maracas singing “Zombie Jamboree.†That way, you’ll be entertained and we don’t have to worry about copyright infringement.
It’s Book Club time again and that means (for the foreseeable future) more Order of the Stick. Before we dive deeper in to the monster and punchline-filled catacombs of this comic, however, we idly chitchat about how Jason thinks he looks like Harry Potter and probably thinks he looks like everyone else in the world. Meanwhile, I’m just happy to be awake for this episode.
We then mention the milestones recently hit by Dinosaur Comics and Girls with Slingshots and I get a little pissy about how there’s no chance for me to high five all the comics creators I’d like to. We then talk about a couple interesting examples from both sides of the spectrum on the art theft that recently happened to The System (although now I found the story and it wasn’t as much of direct copy as I was led to believe, you can read up on it here) and Hijinks Ensue as well as a comment by Scott Kurtz on the whole issue.
Jason does a quicker version of his recap and we get into the comic by around the 21 minute mark. We then talk about character development, the growing relationships, and how sometimes, a silly comics about adventurers can lead to some pretty in-depth discussions about philosophy and morality. Or at least how they can for me.
The music this time was “Airbrushed RAC” and “Mess”, both by Anamanaguchi. As always, we live for feedback, please leave it below.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Digital Strips Podcast 249 – Review: Gingerbread Girl (You Could Catch Her, But You Probably Don’t Want To)
I promised myself that I wouldn’t do another of those cheesy intros that I do here, where I say something like “This week on Digital Strips, you’ll actually learn something..†and then proceed to reveal that all you learn is something bad about Jason. And I could totally do that this time too, in the first five minutes we learn that he’s a weiner, an old man and kind of a pervert. But really, we already knew all that and it also comes up that I’m a bit of a creeper, so I’ll just leave it be.
This week we’re talking about Gingerbread Girl by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover, where we meet Annah Billips and her twin ripped from her own brain, Ginger. It’ll make more sense if you read the comic.
We start out this week with all those discoveries mentioned above, then jump into Google + and social media in general and why I just don’t get it.
We then go off the rails into the first break with a cover of “Crazy Train†by Jason Heath and the Greedy Souls.
Next it’s news, where we cover:
- Aki Alliance being released and make fun of Ryan Estrada for making so many comics
- Look at Warren Ellis’s new comic gimmick
- Talk about Ellie Connelly’s new Kickstarter project
- Briefly buzz over the Harvey nominations
- Rejoice in the create of Wormworld going full time and use Imagine This’ Name the Panda contest to vent our frustrations at each other.
The next break is a version of “Send Me an Angel,” by Emily Zisman and Ryan Avery.
Finally we get into the actual comic. We talk about the spastic storytelling style, why too many narrators is bad, the difference between a story and a set up and how bad navigation can make you hate a comic. We also hit on the art, the portrayal of Portland and the interesting set up contained therein. And we write me into the comic, so I can do some much needed bodily harm to a character or two.
Please, drop us a line about what you think.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Help Name Lucas Turnbloom’s Adorable New Character
Involving the audience in the making of a comic has long been a method of involving them on a more personal level with the stories that they enjoy reading. Scenes From a Multiverse has been doing that since it started, asking the readers to vote on which universe gets a stay of execution and which will float away into the ether, (likely) never to return again.
Well now it’s time to throw on those thinking caps and help Lucas Turnbloom give life to his newest creation, a cute panda bear birthed of the Build-A-Bear Workshop in lieu of main character Clovis’ recent disappearance.
The prize up for grabs is a signed copy of the newest Imagine This collection, “Toys in the Attic”, which debuts at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. Get to thinkin’ and get to writin’, the deadline for the contest is midnight next Wednesday. Full contest details can be found in this handy post.