Hello There!

Welcome to any new readers who might have come here by way of Newsarama. You've caught this blog, and me, in a transitional period, but if you're looking for samples of my comics writing work, it's best to check out the dropdown menu at the top of the blog and explore from there!

Happy to see you.

The Last Lie

"I'll have something more interesting up tomorrow." Said in the previous post. Two weeks ago.

Occasionally, I might be delayed by technical difficulties, but there's no excuse for this kind of failure to deliver. I have to hold myself to a higher standard than that, going forward.

I'm taking some important steps to make sure I can meet that standard. But I won't tell you what those steps are until they're made. Well, I will tell you that one of those steps is the decision not to tell you the rest of those steps.

The Brain Drain Continues...

Most of my thinking about webcomics just now is getting focused into the new Webcomics.com, meaning that I haven't got much left over for this space. I'm not yet sure where that leaves this blog... I've got some new projects to promote, but that's not really something you can sustain on a day-to-day basis.

Today, though, is an interesting day, projectwise. Spent some time talking with an ad rep and fixing bugs on Webcomics.com. Got to get RipAndTeri.com up and running, modify Faans.com, and outsource some work on Webcomics.com and "The Matrix," the latter of which is now 50% done.

Interesting to me, indecipherable to you. Eh, I'll have something more entertaining up tomorrow.

What I Did Today

Not much time for blogging about webcomics when I'm finishing a whole site about webcomics instead.

Webcomics.com. Check it out. Let me know what you think. "Finished" is a relative term, nothing carved in stone...

Zzzzz... uh... DAHHHHH?

I'm allowed a day off yesterday, I had to chase birthday cake with Halloween candy. I'm still vibrating now but I HAD TO. IT WAS HALLOWEEN.

The big news of the last two days has, of course, been the official Zuda launch, which took place around 6PM on October 30. Once again I feel as though I've been woken from a deep sleep and thrown into deep confusion.

In many ways, this is not what I guessed! Some of the PR may have been misleading, but in some cases I was just wrong. My supposition about weekly updates appears to have been inaccurate, though I'm not sure 52 comics installments is enough to hold a readership's attention for a year, no matter how you spread 'em... at least, not a readership with the numbers that Zuda would be looking for.

There's certainly more of a range in style and tone here than I would have thought, though many (not all) of the entries suffer from diseases common to American comic books: misused decompression, thin characterization that only serves plot, and plot that only serves action sequences. The art tends to retain fewer comicbooky bad habits, though the gratuitously T&A-displaying, third-generation-copied anatomy can be found if you go looking for it. (Believe it or not, Battlefield Babysitter, not every reader is so mesmerized by a drawing of a teenage girl's bare bum that you need to stop the narrative so that we can admire it.)

Favorite of the bunch? So far, I'm torn between Leprenomicon and Dead in the Now. The former drops us into the middle of things with a charming combination of humor and action... unfortunately, its last few pages hinge on a line of dialogue that we readers do not see, which is confusing and makes me wonder whether its omission was intentional. The whole thing errs a little on the side of confusion, though I'd rather have that than boring exposition. The title implies a really interesting MacGuffin and larger plot that the creators are presumably saving for after they win.

The latter is a great use of Corey Lewis' unique drawing and storytelling style, featuring the most idiosyncratic character of the lot... but I'm having a hard time getting over how similar it is to the beginning of Death Note. I think I'm gonna give my vote to Corey, though, because he's shown us the money often before and I think he'll probably take things in an interesting new direction.

Besides, which other Zuda feature has its own custom-designed Zudalogo? No other feature, that's which.

Best thing about Zuda: The full-screen reader (as opposed to the default reader), which, seriously and for reals, might eventually change the way we read webcomics.

Worst thing about Zuda: The current genre distribution and/or labeling. Seriously, guys, no romance? Not one romance? And does anyone understand "modern" as a genre, anyway?

Reportage on Zuda's actual launch party.

Land whales: Uclick, having brought original comics to the cell phone, now plans to bring those cell phone comics to the Internet.

Interesting survey of the major comic-book brands on Myspace.

Brad, Kris, Paul and Ringo: The Webcomics Weekly foursome go ahead and make the marriage official.

Favorited-- it's a three-way tie. This is the best I've seen from PvP in quite a while (coming on the heels of some work I liked... less). It's got that awareness of pop culture, human nature, and how they intersect that attracted me to the strip, way back when. Bonus points for making great use of a character the comic books have recently, messily discarded-- and for the spot-on dialogue in panel four.

"And yet, they're still safer with me."

"That was actually the real Bill O'Reilly."