We crosstalk, clone ourselves like it’s going out of style, think we’ve got this all figured out on our own, protect the increasingly lethargic dog, and turn arms into hams with our surprisingly delicious review of Nonesuch in this dangerously religious episode of Digital Strips!
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If you’ve ever been kicking around the ‘slice of life’ genre page on Line Webtoon, then chances are you’re familiar with the wildly-popular webcomic My Giant Nerd Boyfriend by Fishball. After all, with nearly twenty MILLION subs and over 320 episodes, it’s kind of hard to miss.
What you might have missed, however, is that My Giant Nerd Boyfriend is the latest Webcomic to officially land it’s own short animated series—as a Webtoon original animation, no less!
The MGNB animated series officially launched last week and it’s certainly… interesting!
Continue readingHitting you hot off the presses of the cultural Zeitgeist, it’s the Digital Strips Blog here with the nominees for the 2019 Eisner awards!…
…two weeks after they were announced!
But tardiness aside, there’s some interesting titles on the block this year. We can’t help but notice, too, that 60% (or, three out of the five) of the offerings in the Webcomics category are hosted on Line Webtoon — but then, the pervasiveness of that ever-expanding hub of Webcomics content is no surprise to erstwhile listeners of the Digital Strips podcast now, is it?
Here, then, are your Eisner Awards 2019 Webcomics Category finalists.
Continue readingDon’t click away! It’s not the title of a Jane Austen novel you’ve never heard of (well, I guess it could be if ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ is a real thing…). This week, we’re continuing our dive into all things Webcomic Demonic by moving on from Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell to look another way demons can work their way into the hearts of their comic’s protagonists—the more, erm… direct approach.
If you were on Line Webtoon anytime last week, then it’s a pretty sure bet you were treated to the news that:
“Save Me” BU (BTS Universe) has launched on Webtoon!
Webtoon’s synopsis of the comic runs as follows:
Seven boys. Best friends. Their fates intertwined through the good times together, but also the tough times, as they have gone their separate ways and suffered greatly as a result. When all is almost lost for these boys, one is given a special chance to go back in time and help his friends fix the mistakes that led them down this path. He’ll do anything to save them, but can he? Or is he too late?
So far, so good. But who are these seven boys, you might wonder—and what… on earth… is the “BTS Universe”? It’s okay! You wouldn’t be the only one, especially if you’re not living in South Korea or the United States right now, where BTS Fever is hitting epidemic proportions.
Continue readingHappy… *checks calendar* What? November?! When did this happen?
Oh, right – I’ve been lost in the all-consuming vortex which is Tales of the Unusual by Seongdae Oh.
Webtoon continues to grow and now it’s getting some heavy hitting names like Stan Lee and Warren Ellis on the service. Also, we look at a comic that is charming, fun, and adventurous in 7″ Kara by Becca Hillburn.
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If you’ve been following the podcast’s recommendations over the past few years, then odds are you’ve ended up somewhere on Line Webtoon once or twice.
Webtoons offer a great reading experience for webcomics: posting multiple pages for each chapter means you can blitz through really meaty chunks of a comic each update, and the way the posts flow into one another (particularly on mobile devices) leads to a real sense of ‘just-one-more’ishness equalled only by a packet of crisps or free booze at a work Christmas party.
Many regrets were had. Photo credit: istolethetv
But as you’re scrolling to the bottom, waiting for that little arrow to bump and tick you over into the next strip, you go past the comments. And inevitably, you see some variant of the following:
“Witty comment pertaining to the latest update. (Edit: OMG! This is my first top comment you guys! Thank you, thank you, please remember that [cartoonist] is the real hero here, please like and support their work. Who thought this little thing I dashed off with barely any thought would be so popular haha I love you alllllllllllllll)”
The psychology behind commenting on the internet has been subject to a number of investigations, articles and academic papers over the years – but it seemed to me that this phenomenon was a little different to the standard trolling or ‘First!’ comments that plague other creative platforms like YouTube. So why do people feel the need to edit their comments once the original achieves some popularity? Continue reading
Greetings, Digital Strippers*!
Most of you who’ve been listening to the podcast or reading through the blog over the past few years will be familiar with the love and respect the show has for Danielle Corsetto’s Girls With Slingshots and Stuck at 32. And if you’ve stumbled down the Webtoons rabbit hole once or twice, chances are you’ll have come across Monica Gallagher’s Assassin Roommate. You might also be familiar with Monica’s work as an Indy artist/creator on Bonnie & Collide, Nine to Five or her slew of other comic projects.
Today, these two creators of comics about strong, independent women came together (with colourist Mae. S. Keller) to launch their new collaborative comic: Boo! It’s Sex.
We’ve spent the past month looking at words – podcasting webcomics is, after all, dependant on the hosts or interviewees talking (or else is dull listening, indeed).
My experimental podcast series “Enemy Mime” never got off the ground for some reason…
Image credit: Bandita
But webcomics are a vast and descriptive medium that doesn’t, itself, always rely on those words. We’re talking, of course, about the pantomime comic, and how they speak to us simply and effectively through their art – not their dialogue.
