e-Manwha Research

Reference notes for an upcoming Broken Frontier article:

Examples of e-manwha sites here and here and here.

Also, this article cites "Apartment" as a pioneer in online manwha. A little checking reveals that it has made the transition to film, as in this previously-linked story. Card Boy Bebop is another Korean comic to become a film, and Priest is going Hollywood.

Collge student's report on Korean webcomics, 2005.

2005 report on growth of market.

2005 Publisher's Weekly on Netcomics.

2005 report on more general Asian webcomic movement.

2007 report from BusinessWeek.

Netcomics, the English-language representative of Ecomix, Korean leader in e-manwha.



Netcomics' recent Alexa ranking: 110,588. 208 Technorati links. Gather Compete.com and Quantcast data and compare: Boxcarcomics, Wirepop, Tokyopop, Keenspot, Comics.com, Penny Arcade, Ecomix.co.kr.

A Season In Review

Everything Matt Koelbl and I have done for Broken Frontier so far, in one place.

"Publishing Follies"

Todd Allen did a lengthy interview (about 1800 words, give or take) with me about my tenure on Broken Frontier. Allen writes about business issues and opportunities facing cartoonists in a digital world. I found his questions and statements fair and insightful.

PF: Did the terms of the contract match your verbal discussions?

T: Not at first. The first thing I signed was an NDA about their upcoming business plans (not, obviously, their past and current practices, or we wouldn't be talking). Then they gave me a modified version of the same boilerplate that they give to artists on their properties. But it wasn't modified enough. The language could have been interpreted as a non-compete clause, which I sure as hell couldn't sign when I was doing my own online comic that competed with Platinum's Drunk Duck for mindshare! Things like that. So I asked Platinum to modify the contract and sign some statements which would address all my worries, and they did so. (The noncompete was narrowed to mean that I couldn't work for other comics news outlets like CBR.)

More.

Asian Marketing Is Very... Asian. McDonald's Marketing Is Hopelessly Condescending.

Are these two great tastes that taste great together?

No.

Notes From The Funeral.

"The Gibbs clan are interesting people because they are interested people."

"I like the beard. It makes you look older."
"Well, something was going to."

"I think one of the reasons she kept going was that it just never occurred to her to stop."

Very much enjoyed talking with Robert G. Jacobsen, nuclear physicist, professor, xkcd fan.

Also enjoyed catching up with Philip McLaughlin, a childhood friend who's now a sous-chef in Chapel Hill.

Obituary: Ethel M. Gibbs passed away June 25, 2007. She was born May 11, 1905, to John Morris and Amy Estelle Markley in Gratersford, Pa. She graduated from Hood College in Frederick, Md., in 1926 and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. She married Dr. Albert G. Gibbs in 1929 and lived in West Nanticoke, Pa., until 1942 when Albert went into the Navy. They retired in 1959 and moved to Virginia Beach. She belonged to Princess Anne Country Club, Princess Anne Garden Club, Virginia Beach Garden Club, Norfolk Botanical Gardens and the Garden Club of America. Her gardens were on the Norfolk Botanical Garden Annual Tour when she was 95. Her many other interests and talents included world travel with Albert, acting in little theaters, exhibiting Ikebana arrangements, oil painting, knitting, reading, playing bridge and mahjong until she was 101. She was preceded in death by her parents, two brothers and her husband. She is survived by her three daughters, Caroline Jacobsen (Robert) of Wheaton, Ill., Gwen Gibbs of Dallas, Texas and Sally Shook (Lou) of Chapel Hill, N.C.; a sister-in-law, Jane B. Markley of Schwenksville, Pa.; five grandchildren, Robert G. Jacobsen (Heather) of Berkley, Calif., Jennifer Jordan (Fred) of Sherborn, Mass., Dr. Edwin McLaughlin (Debra) of Virginia Beach, Virginia Hawley (John) of Virginia Beach and Philip McLaughlin of Chapel Hill; nine great-grandchildren; and a goddaughter, Elizabeth Holm (Mike) of Alexandria, Va. Special thanks go to Jewish Family Services and the women who took such good care of her this past year and Dora Fuller, her faithful housekeeper... In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Virginia Beach Rescue Squad, 740 Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach, VA 23451.

Quote From That Thing I'm Doing With That Guy.

I still can't tell you what it is but I'll post a few snippets of dialogue. Here's one from one of our more eccentric characters:

"Of course I respect Schulz. He taught hundreds of millions of people that life is unrelenting misery, that they will never kick the football or talk to that red-haired girl or even fly a goddamn kite correctly. I hope I can piss on the dreams of one-tenth as many people! But he should never have stopped doing the strip. That work was the only thing holding him together. He died almost instantly after he quit. If he'd stayed with it, he could've had another year or two at least, maybe more, and if Charlie Brown's life was bleak before, can you imagine what Peanuts would be like if Schulz was a half-dead zombie, unnaturally kept alive by sheer work ethic? Now I hate everything Johnny Hart stands for, but I gotta say, I want to go out the way Johnny Hart went out. Heart attack right at the drawing desk. Hard. Core."

(Thanks to The Comics Curmudgeon for the Johnny Hart observation.)

(Mostly) Webcomics-Related Links

The Bamboo One is a drawing tool pitched directly to webcartoonists.

If this excerpt isn't one of those movie trailers that shows all the good parts, then I'll probably be buying Douglas Wolk's new book.

Japanese men can't get laid.

PAX triples in size.

Don't drink and eBay.

Celebrating twenty years of Sam and Max.

Read 'em While They Sleep: Indefinite Hiatus

Sometimes webcomics just fade off into the background. The scene tends to focus on who's updating right now, and "indefinite hiatus" is, more often than not, the creator's kiss of death to his creation. I don't know if any of the following webcomics have many future updates ahead, but I would like to appreciate them while they're online:

More.

Komaiku Komplete.

For the Thing:

"Rugged, outdoorsy."
"Rock-hard abs." "Pearly white teeth."
Sounds pretty, don't it?

Many more here and here.

Komaiku Kwestions.

Yesterday's stunt seems to have inspired as much confusion as enthusiasm:

"What?

What the hell?

I mean...
Why?

And in inverse-alphabetical order?"

Reverse-alphabetical order: I put them up in an order that would guarantee I didn't mess up and post one of them twice. There's no reason they have to be in any particular order.

Why komaiku? I get weird ideas sometimes. I wanted to experiment with the Americanized haiku-- a sensory lightning bolt-- and match it to comics, an exclusively visual experience. Most of the poems play on taste, scent, kinesthetics or other senses.

Why 100 in a day? Well, firstly, I had already roughed out almost all of the poems weeks ago, so I wasn't writing that many all at once. I had been posting one a day for about four weeks and the project showed few signs of growth.

I wanted to experiment with a huge temporary boost in posting (with relatively little promotion) to gather data I can use elsewhere. Plus, I wanted to go ahead and complete this project so I'd be free to start others. My original goal for this site was 115 haiku, we have 121 now. Movin' on!

Off to Ethel's Funeral...

Blog and Broken Frontiersmanship when I return.

100 Haiku Posted In Eight Hours

Begins seven minutes ago.

WANTED: Webcomics Journalists

My term with Broken Frontier lasts until the end of August. Sadly, I won't be renewing. It's probably obvious I'm still enjoying hell out of this position, but it's consuming too much time for too little capital these days, and I've accomplished my primary goals for it.

So we're starting to seek my replacement.

I wouldn't recommend getting into this for the money. The current rate is $300 a month for editors, who should write at least one piece of their own per week, and contributors are volunteer. I would instead view it as a step toward building your audience and career in the longer term, and a chance to help cover the medium. (Comixtalk has a lot going for it, but Xaviar and crew can't do it all.)

Send any applications to Frederik Hautain, site manager, at frederik@brokenfrontier.com. If you have any more questions for me, send 'em to my e-mail address, linked above.

Today on Broken Frontier:

Money quotes from the latest batch of webcomics.

Random Links 6/27

Via Something Positive: How to save Internet radio.

Sex discrimination at Walt Disney, 1938.

For my own reference: Femfan outrage over the latest superhero marriage.

Has MoCCA peaked?

"More than half of all teens have generated media content and roughly a third of teens online have shared content they produced with others." Part of what promises to be an excellent Wikipedia study from a name I trust.

Bonus.com announces webcomic and produces seven episodes before taking it out of beta. That seems pretty backward to me.

"What Would Wonder Woman Do?: An Amazon's Guide to the Working World. Key phrases: Paradise Island, Justice League, The Perils of the Office Romance." No, really, this exists.

Finished!

"Verge" done.

Tomorrow, I will be releasing 100 haiku on this site over a period of eight hours. Pretty much because I feel like it.

Sergey Brin, Billionaire Romantic

No pre-nup, even.

It's one of my great frustrated ambitions to do a story about the lives of Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Last time I tried it, I got about thirty pages out of a hundred done. But I think I'm just going to have to wait until they're a lot older and history's verdict is in.

Also, via Heidi: ginormous guide to comic book podcasts.

And congratulations to webcartoonist Mitch Clem for his mention on PC World's "100 Blogs We Love." I found ABC News' version first, but they copied it over without keeping hyperlinks in the article. SERIOUSLY, ABC, GET WITH IT, GEEZ

On the Verge with The Verge

Nine outline points to go; got sidetracked into two long but fruitful discussions with old colleagues, now invited to a housewarming and forced to procure food for myself. Will return and finish outline late this evening. This, I vow.

Finishing "Verge" Outline

I'm super late on this, so I'm spending the next few hours on it. A brief snippet for your amusement:

6. Time slows almost to a stop. Zylo still seems capable of conversing with his Body, and uses that to try to get a handle on the situation while the bullet hovers inches from his face. Short answer: the same cybernetics that Zylo has been using to interact with his body and the Ultranet are now in emergency overdrive, allowing him to think at electronic speed.

7. But thinking is not the same as moving-- the fastest he could move would not be fast enough. Zylo is reminded, and we learn, that human speech is no longer a purely physical process: since anyone or anything worth talking to has electronic communicators, speech has become more like chat, complete with elaborate emoticons and other extra features. This gives Zylo a ray of hope: he can't escape the bullet, but maybe he can talk to something that can save him...

Today's Broken Frontier Is Nothing Too Special...

Really, all I do is take a long time to link to this review of the state of the art in popular webcomics, which this blog has spotlighted before. So if you've been reading here, you're already ahead of the curve.

"Meat and Bones"

Another written-in-2001, published-in-2002 Cool Cat Studio story begins today.

In some ways this is a lot like looking at old baby pictures, but at least we did some actual research into bodybuilding culture for this one. Nice to see Gisele breaking away from her usual "type" of female figure, too.

How'd I Miss This?

I'd heard Paris was freed after three days but not that she was sent back to jail afterward. I guess that Doonesbury sequence would work after all.

And I don't know whether to be embarrassed about not knowing that...

...or proud.

UPDATE 6/27/07: Phil Kahn informs me she was re-freed late yesterday. I guess that's an example of the problems of doing a topical strip. And, oh yeah, an example of injustice.

Best Wishes and Prayers to Steve Gerber.

One of the most inventive comic-book writers of the 1970s has announced several health problems. One of said problems, ulcerative colitis, is "the nuclear equivalent of irritable bowel syndrome." Another, pulmonary fibrosis, is ultimately fatal.

"Above all, just in case anyone's tempted, do not accuse me of courage in the face of adversity. I'm scared shitless. (And no, it's not because of the colitis.)"

The HERO Initiative is helping to pay Gerber's medical bills. If it upsets you to think about the comic-book writers and artists of the 60s and 70s and how little payback they've received, you could do worse than to look into this organization.

Goodbye, Ethel.

Ethel Gibbs passed away this morning.

I've written about her before, here and here and here and here (caution: comment links on older posts do not work).

She turned 102 last month.

I visited three times after she'd been laid up in a hospice with a bruised leg. The first two times, she was lively and chatty, although I think she was kinder to her visitors than her caregivers. ("She loves men," one of those caregivers said, a bit ruefully, as I walked in.)

The third time I visited her was the day of her fourth stroke. It took me a while to realize her condition, and a while longer to understand that it had changed since the last time the hospice workers had checked on her. She couldn't speak well, but they had pointed me to her matter-of-factly. I assumed everything that could be done for her was being done.

As the hospice workers and I finally realized something was wrong, I tried to keep talking until the ambulance arrived.

I told her everything I could about my life and the world around us, the world she always took such an interest in. But we only had one meaningful exchange that day, if you can call it meaningful:

"Ethel, can you hear me?"
[with difficulty] "I reear oo, T."

She took hold of my arm a couple of times as the paramedics arrived. Slurring unintelligibly.

Trying to tell me something.

I only saw her once after that, in the hospital bed. The TV was on and turned to Cops, of all things. She was fast asleep and stayed that way. I couldn't bear to wake her.

Her family saw to it that she died at home in bed, not in a hospital. I have faith that this made her happy. It was always the way she wanted to go, surrounded by loving family. She never regained the power of speech, but my parents visited her four days ago and said that she seemed to understand them.

One hundred years and more.

Life is valuable no matter how much of it you have.

"Fallen Arches," Undrawn Script

Conclusion to Cool Cat Studio's 9/11 storyline, never drawn for a combination of reasons that aren't important now:

1. Aftermath of "Friends in High Places." Sophia looks down at the floor, or perhaps at Billy, her unborn child. Now Mike is on his cellular phone. He's pinching the space between his eyes at the top of his nose, as if he has a slight headache. Liz turns away from us, folding her arms, keeping her thoughts to herself. Jeremy casts a nervous glance at Belinda. Belinda grasps the table. She grits her teeth. She's taking charge.

TV: One hour after the collapse of the second tower...

Belinda: Everybody out.

More.

Approved New Design For PnA Site (Coming Soon)

Rejected Design for PnA Site:

iPhone-Phriendly PnAs

Homeless Comic-Book Artist.

Unusual perspective.

Via Eric Millikin.

When The Jesusphone Comes

The iPhone, has skipped past the traditional moco development industry, focusing instead on Web-based applications and a modified version of the Safari browser. That's great news for digital cartoonists who don't want to have to learn a new platform. And it eliminates [the] cost to entry. Which means that you-- yes, you-- can be an iPhone developer.

More.

How Many Webcomics Plan "Big-Screen Premieres?"

AFAIK, one. Okay, it is Wendy Pini, but still, that's thinking ahead.

78 Myths Busted and Counting.

Good source of story ideas.

The Dangers of Spokesblogging

New technology, old conflict of interest. Naturally a professional concern for anyone who writes about the field and makes friendships or business relationships within it. Discussed here.

7 Unusual Military Animals

Yikes.

Political Cartoons From Japanese Opposition Party

Reported: Democratic Party of Japan uses comic to rally the public against a large scale tax hike.

Comic.

Intriguing Storytelling Previews From Doonesbury

Some of these seem to be jokes, but it looks like at least one of them is not: Celeste saves B.D. from himself, again. I kind of hope they all turn out to be true. Even though the Hilton jail story ended sooner than we thought. "Time again for our Doonesbury Planner" implies that Trudeau has done this before, but I must have missed those strips. Anybody know if he has a history of following through?

Mystery Project.

There are a few projects I need to keep under wraps for various reasons, even though I'd love to tell you about them. All I can do is drop a few hints.

I'm doing a collaboration with a longtime friend via Google Docs. Yesterday we managed to crank out 15 pages together, and I learned two things:

The time students are required, by generally agreed-upon etiquette, to wait for teachers to show up if the teachers are late to class: twenty minutes. Or sometimes ten minutes for regular professors, and twenty for PhDs.

Water Ice is a concoction without which Philly just wouldn't be Philly.

This one will be a while in the making, but I'm feeling good about its future.

The Name Keeps Making Me Think "Coffee." This May Be Intentional.

You probably already know this, but the MoCCA festival is becoming a real hotspot for webcartoonists and other interesting folks. If you're in the vicinity of New York, it's a good way to spend a weekend!

Ginormous Screenshots From Penny Arcade: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

Click the image for full-size display. Many more at the link.

Lulu "Blooker" Staffers Discover They Are Annoying.

Well, that's got to be humbling. Via The Register: a low-key poll sponsored by the Blooker Prize attempts to find the ten most annoying words about the Web:

1. folksonomy
2. blogosphere
3. blog
4. Netiquette
5. blook
6-8. [undisclosed]
9. cookie
10. wiki

Sample size is only 2091, which is a shame. I'd love to see a larger poll broken down by generation.

Blowing Bubbles: Jennifer Delk

BROKEN FRONTIER: Hello, all! This is T Campbell, this is Blowing Bubbles, and I'm here with Jennifer Delk to discuss an interesting venture that involves webcomics and many other forms of media. The project is called "World Without Oil," and the idea, as I understand it, is to imagine the consequences of peak oil and what comes after-- "play it before you live it," as the slogan says. Now, you live in San Francisco, where the project got started. Were you involved with it from the beginning?

JENNIFER DELK: Oh, well, I went to the San Francisco Art Institute for a year, and one of my instructors there was Jane McGonigal, who was a co-head of the game. So she actually brought it up to our class before it started, and asked if any of us wanted to join in the project.



More.

Shaenon Knows How To Tribute.

I could do a lot worse than link to Shaenon Garrity's blog. It makes me learn things.

This time out, she has a tribute to Carl Gustav Horn, prolific manga editor. Among Horn's gifts, apparently, is the ability to bring lively English to his translations. Among Shaenon's gifts is picking samples that make Horn's ability clear, even if you don't speak a word of Japanese.




Much more at the link.

Few or Many?

If you read this blog regularly, you may have noticed post-count is up. I'm experimenting. Do you like it, or are you drowning?

It's 9/11, Garfield!

I often look back on my old work with a mixture of pride and embarrassment, and rarely is the mixture quite as volatile as it is with this story.

Sometimes it looks absolutely fine to me. The idea is that Camus the cat, like many Americans on September 10, arguably like America itself, thinks that he's got life all figured out and he's pretty close to invincible. At the very least, he thinks his position is secure enough that he'd see any potential threats coming. And then the world just turns upside down. I think that works.

And sometimes it just looks really tacky, stretching a comedy character past the breaking point. Alvin, Simon and Theodore say "no" to marijuana! Betty Boop wears a rape awareness ribbon! It's 9/11, Garfield!

See what you think. The script for an unpublished sequel, "Fallen Arches," airs Monday.

The New Greatest Films OF ALL TIME until home depot sponsors another special

A couple years ago, I had the idea to watch all the movies on AFI's original "100 Years, 100 Movies" list. I got through to #58 (except I skipped Raging Bull for some reason) before I had to drop the project, and I was thinking of picking it back up when I heard about the new edition.

Nitpicks:

1) I think it's kind of hilarious how AFI makes access to these lists on its own site members-only, as if you can keep something a secret AFTER airing it on national television.

2) There's a curious inconsistency: their press release claims Casablanca is #2 and Godfather is #3, as they were in the old list, but the TV special had those numbers reversed.

3) And not even Morgan Freeman can convince me that this list now represents "the greatest 100 films of all time... [films that] will endure," while explaining that we need a new list because our perspectives have changed.

But none of that's a big deal. All 123 films in both lists are worth seeing. I guess I'll start back up with Raging Bull and Rebel Without A Cause, and work my way from there. Of the combined 123, how many have you seen?

Webcomics Review: Multiplex

Today on Broken Frontier, Matt Koelbl reviews Multiplex.

Noted for Reference

Nine ways to draw black women's hair. Considering how often Gisele experiments, we might be consulting this sooner than I expect.

American Cartoonist II

Here's another cartoonist contest a la American Idol. Unlike the "Comic Book Challenge," which farms for intellectual property that Platinum Studios can promote, this one seems more concerned about promoting the use of "Comic Book Creator" software.

Some of their copy is just begging to be mocked-- "aspiring comic artists who have never laid out a page in their lives?" I think the real market for this is busy cartoonists who would prefer to automate the most boring parts of their technique and open up new possibilities. But we'll see.