T Campbell's Blog

Alexander Danner interviews Gisele and John Waltrip, among others.

Penny and Aggie fans need their mixer tape!

HISTORY OF WEBCOMICS consumed me yesterday: nearly done with Chapter 3 ("done" in the sense of "drafted enough to move on till the last revision"). Confirmed Scott Kurtz and Pete Abrams as chapter illustrators. Got way too much on tap today to polish it off properly, though. Soon...

The Sluggite Koan begins today.

YEEEEEK!

To be honest, I'm TERRIFIED. I've gotten some great pleasure from handling other people's characters whom I loved-- but fans of comics like Sluggy can be very, very protective. I hope this goes over well.

I certainly couldn't ask for better art, though. That HS Kim stuff is beautiful.

Fans brings my tally of Shortbread nominations to three.

Back last year, when we were trying to do a deal with the comic-strip syndicates, I wrote that I was gravely concerned about Scott offering his strip for free. I thought he was offering it for free for good, not just "advancing" it for a year.

Always read the fine print.

Yeah, that's corrected for the History...

Digging into Scott Kurtz now for THoW. Like with Frazer before him, I want to give the guy a fairer shake than I think I did last time-- his artwork looks a lot better to me now, for one thing.

And I stumbled across the closest thing I'm likely to find to a "he-said-he-said" on the Crosby-Kurtz feud.

No one will ever know the truth for sure 'cept maybe Crosby and Kurtz themselves, but here's the next best thing.

The P&A links just keep coming. Here, a Newsarama interview about the characters.

...is a friend of mine.

Thank goodness Eric's finishing these up.

So, after an extended period of not-much-happening-on-this-front, Tom Bird, agent of agents, sent out my query letter for the Rip and Teri TPB to his contact list.

There have been very many responses.

A promising number of them are positive.

I am so bowled over by this that even my dental appointment can't scare me.

1. Reviewing the WCCA nominations. It's amazing how many people list their "favorite artist" as a URL, a strip title or a strip title preceding an actual name.

But y'know, worth it for the community.

(My counts are double- and triple-checked by other hands, by the way.)

Even if I hadn't just made that promise in the previous post, I really can't imagine any circumstances under which I'd retract this one. And for once, it's not for artists but for writers, or artists who write. From Digital Webbing:

"LEARN ABOUT CARTOONING AND GET PAID FOR IT. I am the writer of an e-book on how to become a cartoonist. It was written several years ago and sorely needs an update, but I find myself too involved in other projects to give it the attention it deserves. Sales of this book represent regular revenue for me, which I will split with a writer who helps me revise and update it. I'll be available to give a helping hand or advice where it's needed."

We'll sort out the exact terms of the split individually, but won't proceed until you're satisfied.

Send writing samples here.

I have to restructure The Grahams for business reasons (and because I'm a bit preoccupied), meaning I can't guarantee a firm script before this winter and can't really guarantee I'll pursue it at all. This is a personal one, and there are a lot more variables here than with something like Meanwhile (which is so easy to produce it feels like the opposite of work).

So I did something I've never done before and hope never to do again-- I retracted an assignment I'd given when the artist was ready to produce.

He didn't take it super well. He wasn't bitchy about it, but wasn't "comme ci, comme ca" either.

I feel like a louse, and I should. When I got into this field, I noisily proclaimed that I didn't promise what I couldn't deliver. I know that's a little much to expect of yourself, but I think I can at least say this much: I'll never promise an assignment I can't deliver.

Never again.

(Clarification: I didn't make him do work for which he was then not paid. I'd never ever EVER do that, not even if my house burned down. I just told him work was coming and then it wasn't. Which is bad enough.)

Finished the first two chapters and the Sluggy section, pretty much. Up next: User Friendly. Meantime, look for some revisions to this site's link structure in the next 24.

If anyone who reads this blog knows their way around programming for optical character recognition, I'd appreciate it if you got in touch.

I know. Long, LONG shot. But it never hurts to ask, right?

We'll be seeing more of him pretty soon, looks like.

He's like, 97% less annoying than in Episode II.

Not perfect. A few logical holes. The acting undermines the climactic moments a bit. But it has actual tragic force, some entertaining dialogue and vastly improved characterization. Worth your time.

Christian Miller and I haven't talked much since my brief foray into Los Angeles a couple of years ago. He's a nice fellow, aspiring screenwriter. We briefly discussed bringing one of his scripts to Graphic Smash, visited an art museum together, and that was pretty well that.

Seems he's in the news now.

As THoW illustrators: Charley Parker and Hans Bjordahl, two of webcomics' founding fathers. W00t!

A little while ago, I announced Gisele and I were coming back to Keenspot.

Then Paul Southworth, David Willis, Steve Troop, Kristofer Straub and Paul Taylor all announced they were leaving. And Brad Guigar announced the end of Greystone Inn. (And then he announced he was leaving Keenspot while I was writing this post.)

I am forced to conclude that we have cooties.

But seriously, we're not the only strip to join recently. (Perhaps Mad About U has cooties.) And when I first joined Keenspot its roster had 40 strips to today's 64. I don't know what the healthiest size is for a company like Keenspot, but I think a period of constriction is natural about now. Still, it's clear that popular perceptions of the company are changing.

Websnark is on the case, and quoting History of Webcomics to draw its conclusions, a fact I find both flattering and intimidating. It is certainly an interesting time to be writing that history...

Word up for HS Kim, the badass mofo who beat all other comers to become the official artist on the Pop Star proposal. Check out his Tina here. I'll put up some more of his work later, yo.

Confirmed: David Willis and Bill Holbrook for The History of Webcomics chapter illustrations.

Also confirmed: Gisele Lagace on cover design. (Cover will use illustrations from many different artists.)

People I still need to e-mail before I can really call Chapter One "final:"

Hans Bjordahl, Dominic White, Ivan Sutherland, Scott E. Fahlman.

Tomorrow... (yaaaaaawn).

If the first chapter of your history is called "Prehistory" and you write it, does that mean you've started writing history?

3,040 words down. The History of Webcomics, Chapter One: Prehistory currently includes information on the following:

• The origins of art
• The nature of comics
• The origins of the Internet (Vannevar Bush, J.C.R. Licklider and Ivan Sutherland)
• The emoticon
• ASCII art
• Slugs
• Where the Buffalo Roam
• How Mosaic changed everything

So what did I miss?

We're gonna get some hate mail for this.

I wasn't planning on seeing the last couple of episodes of Enterprise. After all, I'd noisily retired from the series a year ago and nothing I heard really made me regret it. Brent Spiner inspired a brief pang, but I got over that when I heard the plot of his arc. I don't like the word "fanwank;" I think it's unnecessarily vulgar and insulting. But nothing else fits.

Two things changed my mind: first, the awful coverage. Too many news articles about the end of Enterprise seem to be written by horribly biased Trekkies (no, not "Trekkers"). I want to be informed about these things.

Second: the desperate last-ditch move of hiring actual writers. (I hear Manny Coto was pretty good too, but nothing was getting me back for a full season.)

The verdict? Not too bad but not great. "Terra Prime," the one with the writers, was a solidly entertaining action story, not without its coincidences and cliches, but mitigating them with some surprise twists and the best villain I ever saw on Enterprise. "These Are The Voyages" opens with a clever conceit, but the story rationale makes no sense. Trip's story really doesn't have any relevance for Riker except "sometimes it's okay to disobey," and I think Troi could rack her brains and come up with a slightly better parable than that. Unless Riker was really meant to learn the lesson, "hook back up with your ex now, because you never know when you might die in an explosion." That would have been funny, but I can't tell if it was intentional.

The actors did a fine job, ESPECIALLY Connor Traineer, whose best scenes were the highlight of both shows. Linda Park finally got a couple of interesting scenes (watching her try to dismiss a nine-year-old crush was great fun). Even notoriously unhappy camper Jolene Blalock turned in some great work (and no wonder she was unhappy: I still counted two incidents of T'Pol abuse, and I wasn't really trying).

All in all, a somewhat dignified end to an otherwise embarrassing chapter in science-fiction history. Worth seeing if you have some personal stake in Trek. But if you just want a good popcorn SF fix, stick with Clone Wars. And if you want the kind of intelligent SF that Trek used to be, read a good book.

I was a huge fan of this site around the time I was moving to Graphic Smash. I never really believed that free content on the Web would just disappear, but as a business model I thought pay-for-play had a much brighter future.

Two years later, the site's gone. This is a dead link. And pay-for-play-- seems to have stopped pretty much where it is. It's healthy, but it's not taking over from free any time soon. The hot content tickets these days seem to be podcasting and blogging instead-- in other words, vanity press.

This has not gone unnoticed in the Modern Tales camp. There have been some recent moves to adapt our model, and there will be more.

First off, GG solicited a quote from me in honor of Gaming Guardians' wooden anniversary.

Second, GG and I are collaborating on something we call... "Crime Scene on Multiple Earths." I'm plotting, he's scripting.

Coming soon to a Graphic Smash near you.

Just in time to begin our next storyline, "The Ticket," on Monday.

So basically, you can read the full-sized archives for free instead of as part of a Modern Tales subscription or the teeny-tiny Comics Sherpa archives. Good things for you!

Penny & Aggie's had a busy publication history, what with MT, Sherpa, Alias and a long, ultimately fruitless development period with the Washington Post Writer's Group. But I think Keenspot is likely to be the strip's online home for a long while. Good to be back with Maritza, Jeff, Jamie and the gang.

Now is as good a day as any to observe this... the day was yesterday, but the party's tomorrow.

Ethel Gibbs has lived next to my parents' house my whole life. She gave me sugar cookies when I was a kid, and gave us all panatone bread for Christmas every year. We've had the pleasure of her company at the family get-together each Thanksgiving, and I do mean pleasure. Although her children and live-in housekeeper help her get around, she's still living in her own home and preparing most of her own food-- and food for others.

Exceptionally sharp-witted, she is often better informed about current events than I am and is usually reading or watching something of interest. She's curious about the world, listening and understanding quite well as I described the appeal of the Ranma 1/2 manga series. But she's also got many colorful memories, hearing about the sinking of the Titanic as a girl, spending young adulthood in the bustle of Depression-era New York, and framing the latest televised debates in the context of Nixon versus Kennedy.

We've flirted a time or two, but it's all in fun. I'm too old for her.

Happy hundredth, Ethel.

Mm hm.

Man, I actually looked up to Michael Jackson in the '80s...

How I'm related to Dubya: I wish this were a surprise. Neat site, though. Nice use of Wikipedia.

Along the same lines, we can get computers to play the Kevin Bacon game for us now. Or connect ANY actor to any other. And hey, that reminds me... I recently learned I'm in the "extras" section for Trekkies 2. Does that mean I have a Bacon score of 3? The mind boggles.

I've just ordered the DVD and haven't seen it yet, so this is not an unqualified endorsement... but I gotta say, the film crew was very nice, very accommodating.

Not at all like Technorati, which seems to be actively trying to jerk me around.

I'm starting to figure this out. It's not one-character words they have trouble with. Z Campbell and C Campbell are fine, as are all other one-letter variations except A Campbell and T Campbell. Other "T" combos don't work either.

Now ignoring "A" in strings is pretty standard. A is what Google calls a "wildcard," a word so commonly used that searching for it is generally more trouble than it's worth (though Google will let you search for it if you use quotes. But why should "T" be a wildcard too? My only guess-- and it's kind of a desperate one-- is that so many bloggers write "don t" and "isn"t" for "don't" and "isn't" that Technorati's just like, "eh, skip this one."

Yeah, that's right, Technorati. I'm saying your marvelous technology can't handle contractions. Uh-huh.

If anybody has any more info on this, or a good Technorati alternative, I'd love to hear it. My ego-surfing must not be blocked! I have needs!

On the topic of things I tease you about... way back, I promised the cover to "Uptown Girl" when that script was done. Well, here it is... and damn. I mean, damn. Gisele can draw.

You'll see this illustration on the cover of Penny and Aggie #4, and one other place pretty shortly.

Done Tuesday: Detailed (and I do mean detailed) descriptions of chapter illustrations for The History of Webcomics. We're gonna try and get some real rock stars on these. In fact, I asked for a few names that I would have been insane to try and get last year. But, y'know, it's THE Freakin' History of Webcomics. This moment is greater than me.

No, I'm not telling you who they are yet.

Done Monday-Tuesday: Three actually usable pages of "Eagles' Endgames" and a whole lot of raw material that needs a rewrite. Sometimes this is the way it goes. We're in no immediate danger of missing any deadlines, though... David just handed in another strip and it looks gorgeous. I think the last panel is going to get people talking.

You could do worse.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA!

This is just... this is...

It feels like David is writing Shortpacked just for me now*. The XXX thing, the Fans tip of the hat, the hilarious Transformers and Justice League bits, the "call bull$#@!" sequence, and now... this.

PHA HA HA HA HA HA HA! That made my whole Monday, and it's not even Monday yet!

*(But of course he isn't. He's smart enough to construct a set-up that works even if you've NEVER seen R&T.)

I spent the morning doing something really important (Quicktime).

Thanks to Forrest Doss for telling me this piece somehow managed to not get restored to the Fans archives... until now.

All of Fans is free for the next 14 hours.

Not done Thursday: Anything whatsoever for Webcomics Appreciation Day. Apparently I'm not alone. I had something plotted out involving friendly emoticons, but a) my computer kept crashing due to unrelated tasks and b) I just didn't feel good about it-- it felt like I was banging something out just out of duty. Maybe Eric Burns is right (again) and we've moved past the need to formally "appreciate" webcomics. You know, the same reason we don't have a "Money Appreciation Day."

Also not done: a few communications to guys I really need to get in touch with. If you're one of them, have patience with me, please: I'm trying to get all my thoughts in order. One of the people waiting on me is Scott McCloud, so, y'know, don't take it personally.

Plenty has been keeping me busy in the meantime. Lessee here...

Finished sending in basic proposals for Tokyopop. At their active encouragement, I sent in three. One is that "Sphalt" thing I mentioned earlier, and one is for a pre-existing webcomic-- not the one you're thinking. A few artists have tossed their hats in the ring for the Pop Star series pitch-- I'll announce a formal decision soon.

Finished initial outline of the ghostwriting project. Looks like it's too Danielle Steele and not Fitzgerald enough for the client, but he liked the scene breakdown and the writing style, so we've got a basis to proceed.

The last holdouts from the Graphic Smash crash (or "SmashCrash 2005") are restored. Still not taken care of, though, are strips who actually left us some time ago and got shuffled back into the system in the crash. Soooooooooooooon.

Comics podcasters unionize.

Didn't much care to learn about this. I don't want to come off as disloyal, but Gisele and I are breaking our backs to get these books to you on deadline, and our efforts have run aground on the shores of our printer. We're sorry for everyone who expected to have Penny and Aggie #1 by now. On the upside, those colors are beautiful. If you haven't seen P&A in full color, you haven't seen P&A.

Kristofer Straub exposes me as a girl, or possibly a baby.

My old UCLA buddy Tarun Vohra is alive! He resides in India and my e-mail messages to him after the tsunami went unanswered until now. Tarun's a really good egg and a talented scriptwriter. The world's a better place now.

Up next: Podcasting Free Comic Book Day, and finishing off the rest of the "Eagles' Endgames" script.

Maritza Campos refers me to The Living Comic blog. This Fans obituary is interesting because of its ruminations on the Graphic Smash model. It's called "A Cheapskate's Tribute," which is such a good title it belongs on Comixpedia.

Spent most of today on the ghostwriting plot, trying to make the scenes the client definitely wants work within a larger framework. And yeah. All I can say about THAT.

Digital Strips joins the crowd. So does Eversummer Eve. And almost forgot Radioactive Fanboys.

Doing a little bit more ego-surfing to make sure I didn't miss anyone, I discover Penny and Aggie has inspired a character name in Gossamer Commons. Interesting!

Aw, man, CEO Dad is getting cancelled.

Lots of movement on the podcasting front toward unification of all the comics podcasts out there. I 'spect there'll be a link I can point to fairly soon...

Alexander Danner weighs in, and Comixpedia hits me with a double-header.

Sunday was fun. New podcast about watching Man-Thing. Hitchhiker's may offend purists, but I think it's much closer to the spirit of Douglas Adams than we had any right to expect. The biggest deviation I saw was that Arthur Dent wasn't a COMPLETE wuss, and considering that I all but screamed at him when I was reading the books, "STOP BEING A WUSS!," I'm not too upset about that.

I'm off to New York today to meet with John Barber and Joe Flood, but will be back by late tonight.