Big Big Big Broken Frontier Article: "What We Don't Know"

This one feels important. See if you agree.

Incidentally...

South Korean webcomic filmed for theatrical release.

America loses another race.

Undrawn

I made this.

Komaiku

I made this.

I Got A Theory...

...that Comic Sans is an almost infallible sign of an amateur.

Sluggy Freelance is an exception, but are there any others?

It Feels Vaguely Egotistical To Share This...

But it's just too damn hilarious. That little winged pencil is going to be making me laugh all morning long.

Looking To Be A Good Week.

The DDOS is well behind us now, and I'm getting ready to roll out some new projects this week! Kicking things off, I've finally gotten rid of that ugly pile of white on black that I've been calling a homepage. Clearly the new design needs a few things added to it-- I gotta get links to the guest storylines back in there, for one thing-- but I like the new minimalist look. It's kinda "oldschool Google."

And speaking of guest storylines, anyone who enjoys the things Gisele and I do together should head on over to Sluggy Freelance, starting midnight tonight. I've put a lot of my own heart into "Heart of Hearts," and worked closely with Pete Abrams to make sure it stays true to his characters. I hope the results are something you can enjoy whether you know Sluggy or not.

DDOS.

Penny and Aggie has sustained a DDOS on its MySQL server. The site's been down most of the day. I've been a pest to my hosts at Mosso and they assure me they're working to fix it. Developing.

So Today I'm Having Trouble With The Teenbit Newsbox...

And I ask my ol' buddy Dave Belmore for some help.

Chat transcript follows.

6:21 PM davebelmore: What I've got running locally here is a small image.

It was always says teenbit featured comic

everytime I hit refreash the image chancges

6:22 PM beween any on of 6 images

6:23 PM me: Should be 8 images, but that's probably not important. And when you mouse over it, it gives you the same link for the "Teenbit Featured Comic" part as the rest of it?

6:24 PM

davebelmore: yes

and if I click it takes me to it's web page

6:25 PM me: That's the way Version 1 should work, yeah.

The thing here is, I could get the rotators to randomized linked images, but I wanted them to randomize a linked imageMAP.

And that would be Version 2.

davebelmore: it does randomize the images

6:28 PM me: But not the imagemap. Gives me a whole lotta nothin' every time I try, and I'm stumped as to why.

6:29 PM davebelmore: okay I just emailed you my changes that work for me.

6:30 PM Aside from getting a yellow bar pop up at the top of the page.... that I have to say "allow"

it works just fine.

I think....

6:33 PM me: (test) (test) (test) (test)

6:34 PM OMG

WOW

...HOW

davebelmore: LOL I just did what you told me to do.

I removed the line breaks.

where you told me to do it

6:35 PM me: ...There were line breaks on both the Javascript rotators and I only removed them for one.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

davebelmore: LOL

me: And yet, YAY.

davebelmore: you told me to remove both

so I did :-D

me: Apparently I'm a better administrator than coder.

davebelmore: ROFL

Ryan North In A Nutshell:

"The thing about Internet fame is that you wake up in the morning, you check your email and there's like six emails from someone, people you've never met telling you that you're great, which is amazing for the ego. Then you go outside and nobody knows who you are. So if you're going to be famous, it's a good kind of famous because you can turn it off and as soon as your head gets big, you realize you're just a guy sitting at a computer refreshing his emails. There are more things you could be doing."

This attitude is why Ryan is one of the happiest people I know. I'm sure there are people who tell him he sucks, too, but he doesn't waste a second thinking about those. This whole interview is very interesting, especially since it's conducted by Joshua Fruhlinger, who is no stranger to comics on the Internet, himself.

"The Verge"

This is a project that I've been putting together with the unbelievably talented Sam Romero (click to see more of his work) and pitching to the publishers of graphic novels. Hope for the best for us!







Again, that's Sam Romero!

Puzzle!

Nyes!

View it in the frame below, or directly here. I would classify this puzzle as "moderate" to "difficult," so beware.

Yayyy Comics 2.0!

Good luck to the guys covered in this WSJ article, but if they want to make me a regular visitor, they can start by making their political sprites look more appealing and keep going by making sure that their best strips, rather than random crap, is what shows up on their homepage. After all, this isn't a new idea...

Re: TCJ #282

Recently, The Comics Journal got around to reviewing A History of Webcomics. I know you're all sick of watching me self-flagellate on this one, but I thought I'd share what I wrote Tim O'Neill in response to his review, because it covers most of my thinking about this kind of thing now:

It took me a while to get to my copy of the Journal this month, so I'm only just now being surprised, and a little touched, to see the review of A History of Webcomics.

If you haven't read my blog posts about the thing, it may surprise you to learn that I agree with most of your points these days. The book should've used footnotes, not endnotes, should've had page numbers, and now that you mention it, an index too. This is indeed a soggy subject. The ending of the Golden Age is indeed an arbitrary thing, an attempt to follow Scott McCloud's "we's who writes the histories gets to defines the terms" example, as are cute terms like "Pantspressionists" that I hoped would enter the lexicon (and boy, that sure didn''t happen).

The problems multiply after Chapter Four, when it moves from chronology to survey. It was just about achievable to track the beginnings of the form, the early underpopulated days, a few influential cartoonists and a pair of collective brands. It's a lot harder to get the big picture about things like genre, artistic movement and culture without the benefit of some considerable distance. Short essays covering focused topics, like yours, are probably a much more productive response to the field as it exists now. I'm sorry it took me this long to realize that.

Maybe in five or ten years we'll be ready for "History 2.0," but I suspect it'll indeed be written by someone else. I'm hoping to be making history between now and then.

I will take issue on two little points. One, it's "T Campbell," not "T. Campbell" (though my publisher got that wrong on the title page, too) and it's "webcomics," not "Web-comics." I know it's still a conspicuous neologism, but a quick Google search will tell you which term's come out on top.

Two, Achewood. I admit that the reader base for this one had largely escaped my attention-- I knew it existed but not that it was particularly popular. But being critically acclaimed or popular was never supposed to be enough for a strip to be mentioned. Names I dropped were supposed to have noticeably changed the game, or to exemplify some larger trend. Onstad has developed a following but he's not really part of the scene, and because Achewood is so difficult to summarize, I didn't want to use it as a quick example. As you say, there are probably too many comics cited in there as it is. [I got a lot of things wrong in this book but I did get one important thing right: history should not be a favorites list. That's a mistake I see too many people making now.]

But besides that, it's a good, thoughtful review. Now get back to talking about actual comics!

Online Encyclopedias and Webcomics.

To those who are frustrated with the slow growth of Comixpedia.org or anything at all about Wikipedia and webcomics...

It could be worse.

No, seriously, it could be worse.

(Yes, I know Uncyclopedia is some kind of parody, but a parody where you can't tell truth from lies is... just a little too on-the-nose for me.)

Teenbit Launches Today.

Today sees the quiet launch of Teenbit, a collective with a simple theme, simple goals, and simple pleasures. I'm spearheading this one, so you know it's got to be at least modestly interesting, right?

Free Gisele!

There's a whole lot to get caught up on with this blog. Let's start with the most important item: I have a problem.

My problem is that my good friend and collaborator Gisèle Lagacé needs your help.

Read more.

"Burgerzone"

It begins. Only five pages to show you now, but... I think they may interest you.

"Call For Submissions" Just Sounds So Racy.

(Cross-posted from Comixpedia, of all places.)

Are you a webcomics reader? Can you write?

Broken Frontier asked me to be their "webcomics editor" a couple months ago. Since then, Matt Koelbl and I have been having a high old time, introducing webcomics and webcartoonists to an audience that hasn't had much exposure to either. I enjoy hogging all the interviews with people like the Foglios and Shaenon (it's like going to a convention in my headset).

And yet, I'm prepared to give up most of the spotlight, because I also want to build something at the Frontier that will last beyond my tenure there. Frederik Hautain, the site's creator, and I want to lay the groundwork for an entire webcomics section, and that will take more than two contributors.

Things are very open right now, so this is a good chance to reach an audience of comics fans who are still learning webcomics, and to have some fun. Let me know what you'd like to do, and we'll take it from there!

"Graphic Smash Reunion"

Naturally, they're all in prison. Considering how liberally Fans made use of other people's characters, I'm happy to see Jackie getting a little screen time, even if her circumstances are unenviable.

Penny and Aggie: After-"Dinner" Party

Whew.

Almost six months ago, I wrote:

"Dinner for Six" is, I think, the funniest Penny and Aggie story to date. One dinner. Six people. Three romances. A few misunderstandings. COMPLICATIONS. Permanent changes. Sixty-plus strips. Begins today!

I went into the story knowing almost exactly what I wanted. I had quite a list.

I was trying to re-invigorate the series as a funny comic after the thoughtful "Behind Closed Doors" and "Pod People," the funny but brief "Tees and Cues" and the utterly depressing "Undertow."

I wanted a story that featured both Penny and Aggie front and center with a little more focus on Aggie, another course correction from the stories that had come before.

I wanted a bedroom farce without bedrooms. (Admittedly, the world seems to be Charisma's bedroom.)

I wanted to play with reader sympathies, making villains out of the series' "heroes" and heroes out of its "villains" and then maybe switching again.

I wanted this screwball comedy to set Penny, Aggie, Karen and Marshall all on courses of change for future storylines.

I wanted to tell the story of Charisma right, because I knew that after this one I wouldn't get much of a chance, and because the path she takes clearly outlines some of the choices teenage girls face as they approach womanhood.

And I wanted to conclude Nick's arc, and show that his attempt to recapture his younger days with Charisma, while an exciting interlude, was ultimately doomed.

I know the story was a bit long for some in parts, but the length was necessary to get all that stuff done. Without the complications piling onto complications, Aggie and Charisma never would have gotten frustrated enough to burst out with their moments of truth, moments which have now changed their lives for better and for worse, thrown Nick and Karen into choices of their own, and finally allowed readers to see Marshall the way I've seen him from day one. As for Penny's puzzling reaction to the situation, we'll be unpacking that in upcoming stories, too. And we had to distract you all from the giant loose end left on Penny's cell phone...



It's been a long road, but I got everything I wanted. Today's a happy day.

52 #52: 43 Notes

Responses to the end of the 52 megamaxiawsumseries. Don't even TRY to keep up with this if you haven't read the story...

1. Wait, you're kidding, right? Time-eating Mr. Mind messes up 51 alternate earths... and he just happens, by pure accident, to mess them up in ways that restore the specific alternate-Earth scenarios people wrote about in the sixties and seventies? That's like if you blow up a small mountain, and all of the pieces fall together in the exact shape of the Gaza Pyramids.

2. I'm on board with this "multiverse of possibility" thing, I really am, but we already have a bunch of stories about the Quality Comics/Nazi Earth and the Captain Marvel Earth and the Charlton Earth and the 1980s-1990s-model Wildstorm and and Kingdom Come and such. You're advertising 51 new worlds and you think I'll be happiest if you sell me used worlds for the same price? I'm ready to read about a terrorist-ruled Earth, a new funny-animal Earth, an Earth full of manga tropes, a world where Bruce Wayne and Hal Jordan exist but superheroes and power rings don't, or maybe a world where there's just Wonder Woman and no other superheroes (and there never WILL be, ever). Now, I wouldn't be reading DC Comics in the first place if I wasn't fond of old ideas, but I want those old ideas to be part of a recipe that takes me somewhere new, not to a self-congratulatory clip show with the theme: "Gosh, DC and the companies it's absorbed sure have published a lot of nifty stories."

3. At times, 52 seems to agree with me. Rip Hunter says: "Look around you... there's so much more happening out there than we could ever have imagined... That's the way things should be." Thematic statement of the series? I think so... which is why the restored Earths seem out of place.

4. Of course, it'd be easier to take that thematic statement seriously if Rip hadn't also said, on the very same page, "Mr. Mind... wreaked unimaginable havoc on fifty-plus earths. We can never take the chance that it can be done again." Booster Gold: "Aren't you worried that so much is broken?" Rip Hunter: "Broken or opened? Blah blah multiverse of possibility." Booster: "Wait, so is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Rip: "It's all in how you look at it." Booster: "But you just said UNIMAGINABLE HAVOC--" Rip: "No, I didn't 'said' that, any more. I'm a time traveler. I just made that part of the conversation never happen."

5. Page 3: "Each parallel Earth an exact copy of ours in every way." My God, I could be traveling into alternate universes ALL the TIME and NEVER KNOW IT! And it also WOULDN'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO MY LIFE WHATSOEVER!

6. Page 5: "Connor Kent?" Booster doesn't know Superman's secret identity, does he? If he doesn't he just got a big clue...

7. Soooo, any permanent effects on the Phantom Zone from being eaten, half-digested and spit back out? I feel a song coming on. "Sum-times I fe-el like I live... in a regurgitated re-aaaa-li-ty..."

8. The dynamic between Daniel, Booster and Rip is pretty charming and makes the exposition actually believable for the most part. I usually hate how much talking and explaining happens during superhero fights, but in this case Rip really does need to keep these guys up to speed to make sure they don't do anything rash. It really WOULD be funny to see time travel used to facilitate conversation, though...

9. I have nothing but good things to say about Booster Gold's development as a character this issue and during this series. He still believes in the value of fame ("Modesty's for the forgotten") but no longer seeks it for himself. And I love the concept of his upcoming series, where he makes everyone think he's an idiot so that time-travelers from the future will never bother to assassinate him. For someone like Booster, there can be no greater penance. Powerful stuff.

10. The Blue Beetle-Booster Gold sequence is, as others have said, sad and sweet and much better closure for their friendship than anything else we've gotten. It's so good that I'm willing to ignore the fact that Booster doesn't exactly act like the multiverse is gonna die if he doesn't hurry. (But maybe in time-travel you don't need to "hurry..." but then, why not take some time off between panels to rest up and get a massage... thinking too much again, aren't I?)

11. Similarly, it's nice to see Booster's football past come in at the climax, but really, dude, the cannon is going to throw harder than your arm. Trust me on this.

12. Most unexpectedly successful makeover of the whole series: Sivana. DC's head writers clearly seem to identify with this bald-headed hyperintelligent obsessive freak. Can't think why.

13. I'm a little iffy on Skeets' survival after all the mourning Booster does for him, but Booster's gonna need someone to talk to who's in on his scam, someone he can trust to keep his secret even unto the grave.

14. Egg Fu (I refuse to call him anything else!) looks real good in his cameo here, but I hope he starts hatching better plans than "Operation eBay."

15. Ralph's encounter with Jean Loring was a storytelling highlight of the series, maybe its best single issue. Funny how so many of the best DC Comics are the ones performing damage control on other, more questionable plots. Maybe this is why we're addicted to reboots in the first place: too much of a good thing?

16. 52 succeeded in making me want to see more Lobo. He's actually pretty funny when you stop using the same five jokes about him. And he's showing up in Waid and Perez's Brave and the Bold? Good tiiiiimes.

17. One more did-Adam-Strange-have-eyes-during-that-story-or-not bit of ambiguity in the flashback! Drink!

18. Starfire did a nice job standing on her own in this series, away from the Titans and Nightwing. Her determination to honor Buddy was a great touch. We'd all like to see more of her, right? I'm NOT just asking because I pitched a Starfire special at the New York Comic-Con this year! That's a bonus incentive, honest!

19. There doesn't seem to be much left to say or do with Buddy Baker. For most of the second and third acts his story looked like a direct steal from Swamp Thing #62 (and it wouldn't be the first or second time that Animal Man stories seemed uncomfortably heavily influenced by that series). I'm with Douglas Wolk: let the man have his happy ending.

20. Lady Styx in 52: Scary as hell. Lady Styx in Mystery in Space: Surprisingly hands-off and nearsighted. I'm hoping she's handled carefully in the next few years.

21. The death of Vic Sage, AKA Charlie. Would that be short for "Charlton?" The return of Earth-4, Earth-S/Earth-5 and Earth-X/Earth-10 probably has some connection to the way the characters who were originally part of those Earths now seem to be dropping like flies on Earth-1 (Blue Beetle dead, Shazam dead, the Freedom Fighters slaughtered at the beginning of Infinite Crisis, now Vic and probably others I'm forgetting, plus Captain Atom seems permanently out-of-universe).

22. I have a higher opinion than Wolk's of the Luthor-Steel battle: though I agree it was padded. Padding aside, we finally get to see Steel standing in for Superman, just as he meant to when he first picked up the hammer. But like Buddy, he seems to have reached a good stopping point-- with so many superheroes around, Luthor gone and Superman back, I think he'll be happier in his workshop than gallivanting around with the Justice League.

23. I'm gonna take issue with Black Adam crying over Isis. It's a homage to Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, but if you look back at her original death scene, we don't see him cry. And I think that is significant: Adam channels grief into rage, not sorrow, which is why he had so much rage before he met Adrianna, and it's the best motivation for his final rampage. (Logic sure isn't: "Criminals hidden within the Chinese government killed my family... SO AUSTRALIA MUST PAY!!!")

24. Presumably, Rip has been teaching Supernova a whole lot about spacetime football... even though Rip was planning to use a big cannon to... um... okay, the cannon was supposed to lob Skeets in and Supernova was supposed to take it the rest of the way... right? Sure, okay.

25. This "time loop" meme has been done before, in Alan Moore's Supreme and a twist on Barry Allen's death in Secret Origins, and probably lots of other places. Though it really doesn't make a lot of sense unless Mr. Mind forgets everything about his previous existence every time, and never ages, and the ripples through time that he creates never affect his own timeline, and AAAAAAGH. Oh, hell, it does have a certain elegance... though I wouldn't have minded seeing an extra page where these logical questions were turned into surreal brain-benders, the way Morrison does so well.

26. Sivana and Mind's scene recalls a scene from Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?", but it certainly ends a lot more happily for the mad scientist.

27. Come to that, the big two-page "welcome home" spread seems vaguely reminiscent of the final panel of Civil War, though it's a lot more appropriate here than there.

28. And as we come full circle here, I'll try to articulate my problem a bit better. I get the significance of the opening and closing spreads. 51 unexplored worlds, who wouldn't be excited by that? I just wish the worlds felt less familiar and more fresh. The only world that doesn't come off as a second-rate superhero society is the world of the Atomic Knights.

29. The message here seems to be propagandistic: that DC's "New Earth" (Earth-1, right?) is pretty close to The Ideal Earth, and you're all so lucky to be reading stories about The Ideal Characters already! I have the same general problem with DC One Million, which advances the idea that one million months in the future, society will still be slavishly devoted to re-producing the Justice League, never having developed any heroic icons that surpassed them. Likewise, Star Trek promises you a rich society of dozens of alien races, and then you get there and realize the aliens are almost all humans with expensive makeup and narrowed emotional ranges.

30. The above is, I think, a serious problem for the superhero genre as it exists today. There is nothing wrong with building on the past... but DC and Marvel stories seem so focused on previouslies, there's not much intellectual room for new ideas. When 52 has produced new ideas, it has excelled, and it's done so more often than any major series since the days of Jack Kirby. It would have been nice to go out with some really new ideas, too.

31. Incidentally, I would even sacrifice my beloved Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew to the altar of Truly New Earths. But I admit that if they show up in some form in the future, I'll complain a bit less than I will about Earth-4.

32. Isis not so dead after all? With the disillusioned attitude she possessed in the moments before she died? Could be interesting... Or... perhaps this is a new Isis? Does the power live on after she's gone? With Black Adam out of action, would she get all the attention from the Egyptian Gods? I'm intrigued...

33. ...far more intrigued than I am by the prospect of Teth-Adam himself. I'm with Wolk again: his story had an ending, and should be left there. But Pete Tomasi has apparently left editing to write a Black Adam sequel, so it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Not respecting a strong ending is another problem superhero comics are facing these days... although strong endings are rare enough that the problem isn't half so pronounced.

34. And that's something for which 52 deserves praise. It would have been easy to turn this whole story into a teaser for Countdown, but instead, it really is an ending... and the one teaser the story does contain doubles as a fitting conclusion to the life of Ralph Dibny.

35. One Black Adam plot that would interest me: Sivana had Adam at his mercy for days and ran all kinds of tests, right? He's surely got some detailed genetic information, right? Actual cell scrapings, the kind you can't usually get from an invulnerable, magical being, which would be very very valuable now that Adam is human and he's leaving genetic material wherever he goes. Say Sivana offers that information to some shady government operatives who want the glory of bringing in the world's most wanted mortal. But he wants... something in exchange. Nothing unreasonable, mind you... a trifle, really... heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.

36. Guess Intergang's Apokalyptic plans for Earth are still worth worrying about. That spontaneous firepit sure looks Darkseidy to me. And I hear Darkseid's the star in COUNTDOWN, with a big musical number and everything. Hey, maybe that promo for COUNTDOWN is supposed to look like Darkseid is standing in a hole!

37. The children's drawings say "Darkseid" to me, too. In fact, they remind me of this quote from Darkseid's appearance in, of all place, Teen Titans/X-Men:

Kitty Pryde: "You!! You're the thing from my nightmare! You're real!"

Darkseid: "I am indeed! Adults deny me, but children know me for what I am. That makes them dangerous, and worthy to be cherished, for in their innocence lies the universe's salvation, and in the loss of that innocence, my ultimate victory!"

38. Glory be. I didn't really think they'd actually kill Dibny! I mean, they showed an actual death scene and followed it up with a symbolic death scene and there was a funeral and they made damn sure the character had nowhere else to go, but this am comics, you know?

39. This looks like as close to a happy ending as suicidal Ralph and brain-squished, can-never-be-un-raped Sue are going to get. I'm not sure exactly how a ghost who can go anywhere and see anything can really be challenged by a mystery, but don't tell me, okay?

40. Granted, the ending would look slightly happier if the artwork made Ralph and Sue look like the merry spirits that their clothes and dialogue seem to evoke. Instead Dibny looks awkwardly not-quite-stretched-and-not-quite-in-proportion, as if that Gingold finally gave him Marfan syndrome, and Sue looks like a rotting corpse with falsies. Ease up on the inks and measure the proportions, fellas.

41. I figured the Batwoman had a good chance of survival... Montoya'd come from Nanda "we cure everything" Pardat, after all, and if she's watched movies at any time in her life, she knows that the letter of prophecies always comes true. It's how you can defy the implications of their statements that counts!

42. Nice coincidence: Montoya reconstructs the Bat-Signal just before Batman comes back to town. I wonder if the World's Greatest Detective will ever figure out that it wasn't meant for him? (Wouldn't it be HILARIOUS if right after the last page, Batman showed up? "What is it, Montoya?" "....AARGH!")

43. Hey, DC managed to get not one but two lesbian superheroes out of this! Good for them! (But no male gays, because they're icky and lezzies are hot.) Does that mean that Batwoman and the Question can BREED A NEW SUPER-RACE OF LESBIANS? I'm sure there's a prophecy about that somewhere. You have to admit, it would set Batwoman apart from the other Bat-spinoffs.

Today Is Online Comics Day and Free Comic Book Day...

And I barely knew it.

You know what's really sad? I walked into the comic-book store today and picked up 52 #52 (which had been delayed in my store), then walked right back out again without even noticing that there were free comics for Free Comic Book Day. The poor retailer asked me "are you sure that's all you want?" And I said "Yep," thinking, Boy, he's pushy today for some reason.

I also thought tomorrow was Mother's Day until about 15 minutes ago. Reading 52 has clearly broken my sense of linear time.

But more on that later. Today, most of my promotion for webcomics not my own was centered on getting things set up at Broken Frontier. It's been a busy week for webcomics on the site:

1) Introduced "The Daily Read" feature to Broken Frontier. This feature is all about throwing spotlights onto individual webcomics achievements, mostly storytelling achievements because that's how I swing, but as widely ranging quality stuff as I can manage. UPDATE: This quickly became the weekly "Read Along With Me" because every once in a while I do get too ambitious for my own good.

2) More podcast interviews! Got 'em with Maritza Campos, Ryan Estrada and Phil and Kaja Foglio.

If you're a fan of Campos' like I am, her interview is essential listening: in it, she discusses her attitude toward her characters and toward the prospect of ending her series. Hearing it will make you more fearful for the characters' future, not less...

Ryan Estrada is rivaled only by Scott McCloud as the world's most intriguing traveling cartoonist (and Scott's adventures are lasting a year while Ryan's have so far lasted his whole adult life). The world is richer to have him in it.

And the Foglios are two of the only people who can really claim to be veterans of the print world and highly successful in the online one. To anyone who cares about what the different formats mean for business and creativity, their opinion matters.

3) And the "This Month In Webcomics" feature, which I already covered here.

Promoting webcomics besides my own is sort of most of my job at Broken Frontier right now, so really, it feels like I'm cheating here to excuse how little I got done today.

I put the finishing touches on a couple of short works about Penny Arcade and Diesel Sweeties, which I'll be releasing as part of a larger project later this month. They're meant as tributes, hope they'll be seen that way! (He said, ducking.)

And I'm sending out an e-mail tonight as part of a campaign to help out the WCCAs. But don't be too proud of me about that either: I've been dawdling on it for months until Online Comics Day shamed me back into action.

So... odds and ends. Keep your eye on the main site for the holiday... I betcha they'll report on some real contributions next week.

Similarly:

Naruto: The Abridged Series.

(Not quite as funny... but a nice chaser.)

Recommended...

If ever an animated series needed to be abridged, Yu-Gi-Oh would be it. Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series is like your typical YouTube exercise, but funny. Really funny. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard for so long. Start here and keep hitting the "previous" button to get to later episodes. Yes, that doesn't make any sense, but trust me.

"ZAP WHAM POW: Windows Presentation Foundation and the Next Generation of Online Comic Book Reading"

Here's the seminar I've been pondering.

Direct link to Windows Media Video here. I believe there's also a Zune file for it, but this thing would look like crap on the Zune and you don't have one anyway.

(What, you thought it was going to be available in a non-Windows format? Get serious.)

Thanks to Joey Manley again for the heads-up.

Microsoft Comics 3.0

Adam Kinney, Beth Goza and the mysterious Ray Palmer give us some on-the-spot reporting on the Windows seminar I mulled yesterday. Movable backgrounds? Simulated page-turning? Infinite canvas option? Animation? This thing clearly has applications far beyond cartooning, but including cartooning.

Talked it over with Joey Manley. Our information is still limited at this stage, but based on what we have, I have to agree with him:

"This sounds like a Flash-killer."

The Month In Webcomics (Odds and Ends Department)

I've got a piece on Broken Frontier here that covers the biggest stories in webcomics this April: Todd Goldman, the Eisners, and the continued spread of promotional webcomics.

While I was researchin', I found a few things that weren't quite "story of the month" material, but were still kinda fun:

Fascinating interview with Liz Greenfield, the creator of Stuff Sucks, reveals how a cartoonist grows up with a traveling musical family.

Profile of MC Frontalot, Penny Arcade's "official rapper."

Larry Smith, one of the few people who can claim to be a true webcomics "publisher." His SMITH Magazine has sponsored Shooting War and A.D.: After The Deluge.

The AOL Sports Blog features the sports-themed "chat webcomic" The Dugout.

And author Jonathan Lethem reads online comic superhero borderline slash fiction starring himself and Michael Chabon.