Nothing to plug that I saw on Wednesday (but of course, if you have something to talk about, leave your Twitter feed in the comments and I’ll add it to my list) but there was something nice to ponder from Evan Dahm late that night:
evndahm listening to classical music while drawing makes me feel like i am drawing the most important thing in the world 7:10 AM Jun 17th via web from Asheville, NC
If you’ve seen Dahm’s work, you know that this isn’t hyperbole.
The tweet below is pretty self-explanatory and to answer your question, Evan, I got you the first Google image search result for “happy birthday”. Enjoy and to the rest of you, go check out Pajama Forest, the most expressive, adorably zany semi-journal comic on the Web!
EvanDiaz Did you guys know that today, Pajama Forest is 1 year old! Happy Birthday to MEEEE 😀 (what did you get me?) about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck
Happy Birthday, Pajama Forest, from Underpants… Christmas Time? Homer Simpson!
On a day marred with Twitter issues (start scoping out the official Status blog for insider updates when this chicanery goes down again) and the kick-off to the E3 gaming convention (I will buy Kinect day one and I’m working on Red Ringing my current 360 so I can pick up the snazzy new model), a lone self shout-out from Meredith Gran caught my attention:
granulac The new Octopus Pie book comes out 6/22, and I’m kicking off my signing tour at Comics Dungeon in Seattle! Info: http://tinyurl.com/2f2fus8 15 minutes ago via web
Check out the tour schedule and stop by your local bookstore when Gran comes to town to say hey and pick up a collection!
Going forward, I doubt weekend tweet thread posts will be made as webcomic news/chatter tends to be more about breakfast items present on Saturday morning (the more indie the creator, the weirder the accoutrements) and weekend activities. However, when Ryan Sohmer posted this late Sunday night, I had to make it known to the Digital Strippers everywhere:
sohmer Introducing Gutters: http://the-gutters.com/ about 9 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone
This new webcomics series has been in works for some time now, with sneak peeks afforded previously, once again, on Twitter. It’s a collaboration between Sohmer and Lar DeSouza, along with other comic creators bent on parodying and satirizing the superheroes we’ve come to know and love over the last few decades. It’s gorgeous, it’s fun, and you can find out more about it at the link above.
Enjoy and have a great week, Strippers!
Let’s finish off the week in TTotD with a plug for a true friend of Digital Strips, Lucas Turnbloom. Not only is the 2nd collection of Imagine This, “Dewey Defeats Truman”, ready, but a second, all-ages book that appears to feature many of the bears from IT, will also be releasing soon, both by the end of July.
RobertThePlant FINALLY, Details on my 2 new books: http://imaginethiscomic.com/?p=1928 3 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone
Check the article out and you’ll also find the announcement that he is working on a new webcomic for one of the stars of the former NBC show, Heroes. I doubt any of the stars had much to do with the fact that the show bombed creatively after the first season, so hopefully this is only the start of another great work from Lucas.
Thursday was looking like another wash as far as intriguing tweets go when this juicy little bit of info came down the wire from Evan Dahm, creator of such incomparable works as Rice Boy and Order of Tales, the latter of which is the subject of this tweet thread.
evndahm ok I thiiiiiiink I should have the last big huge update of OoT up around the 4th of July but I am still working it out 31 minutes ago via web from Asheville, NC
i am getting all emotional thumbnailing the end of this comic. that is kind of silly. about 1 hour ago via web
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mdnytecartunr @evndahm Last, like, ever? I fell so far behind and now it may be too late! But your stories will always live on in my print library. 9 minutes ago via Echofon in reply to evndahm
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evndahm @mdnytecartunr I’m like 40 pages ahead of the current update, nearing the end. It will always be there for you to read though! about 1 hour ago via web
If you’re like me and have fallen behind, or have yet to read any of the story at all, you now know what your plans are for the weekend.
Only the second day of this brand spanking new feature and Twitter decides to seize up and stifle the entire thing! So no thread for today.
Instead, go read this post about an interview with the guys behind The Guns of Shadow Valley, our pick to win the Eisner award this year. Then go read the interview. Then come back tomorrow, provided that Twitter can get its act together by then.
Time for a new regular feature for the site, and since The Geek has deemed me Master of Tweets for Digital Strips, I shall post daily that which tickles my fancy, straight from the free realm that is the Twitterverse. I kick this party off with a three-fer, some choice thoughts that seemed to permeate the thin layer between posts to become something larger in the scope of the community.
First up, Scott Kurtz take issue with Marvel’s idea to release a test digital comic book day and date with the print version, but still make the digital customer pay more. I couldn’t agree more with pretty much everything he’s said on the subject, but here’s what kicked it off:
Why Marvel shouldn’t care about what retailers think. http://bit.ly/9aa6Mt about 14 hours ago
You like this comic? Want to save a tree? You’ll need to pay more then, please.
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Next up, nearly everyone on the Internet today (everyone I listen to, anyways) passed around this YouTube link for a possible Mortal Kombat reboot. Too many people to choose from, so I’ll grab a tweet from Paul Southworth, whose backgrounds on Not Invented Here I praised earlier in the day:
Man, this new Mortal Kombat movie looks INTENSE! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJHbdmbeaXQ
Upon further review, that would appear to be a joke link from Paul. He does that sometimes. Instead, I will borrow a retweet from him, courtesy of Scott Johnson, host of various excellent podcasts on the Frog Pants Network:
RT @extralife: Good lord. They really are doing this. http://bit.ly/bxrSnt #mortalkombatreborn
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Last but surely not least, Charlie “Spike” Trotman weighs in on the syndicated strip debate (not really a debate any longer, just a continuing thorn) and throws in some tips on how to grow your comic to boot. A lengthy thread, but when this girl gets goin’, it’s best to just sit back and listen:
“Syndicates are There for a Reason.” Oh, Daily Cartoonist. Why can’t I quit you? http://is.gd/cHz1v
Okay okay to be totally fair: Syndicates used to be meaningful, relevant organizations with a purpose. Syndicates got you into papers.
And there was a time when being in papers was a good decision that could eventually lead to a long, professional cartooning career.
BUT the average paper reader is now between 40 and 50. Less than 1/4 of Americans under 35 read a daily paper. The market is shrinking.
Newspapers are in decline. It’s much harder to make a living as a strip cartoonist. Syndicates can’t sell for artists like they used to.
Fiending for syndicate representation these days is like pounding on the door of a building under demolition, begging to be let in.
Cuz it’s been asked: If you want to be a professional cartoonist, 1) Start a webcomic 2) build an audience 3) publish & sell collections.
Don’t make any merch (books, shirts) until your readers ask, assume 1 in 100 will ever buy stuff, work hard, and know it’s not guaranteed.
That is what’s worked for me. Other stuff works, too, but that is what I did.
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Thanks for the wit and wisdom, folks, and all in 140 characters or less!
This one comes late in the day, straight from the Twitters (via Lucas Turnbloom, creator of Imagine This and the latest participant in the Digital Strips Adventures experiment) and it will make your day, no doubt about it.
Reading like an Adult Swim bit, Axecop purports to be written by 5-year-old Malachai Nicolle and his brother, 29-year-old Ethan Nicolle. The story behind the strip is strange and fascinating enough, but it’s when you actually get to the “story” that the true magic begins.
Try, just try to imagine the kind of things a child would conjure up to be drawn by a very capable comic artist, and then multiply that by at least a hundred. Seriously, this is just stupid, madcap, beautiful, zany, insane stuff and you would be an idiot for not checking it out ASAP. And if that weren’t enough, it also offers up a slick website that features a Flash comic reader unlike any I’ve ever seen. Go scan through a strip or two and tweet it to the mountaintops, like every other creator on Twitter has been doing all day.
UPDATE: And… this comic has officially blown up. Entertainment Weekly decided to make Axecop their Site of the Day and BAM! The site is suspended. Of course, I like to think that my scoop here contributed to this monumental overflow of bandwidth, but regardless, Axecop ain’t goin’ away any time soon! And when the site comes back up, you can find that out for yourself as well.