Perennials.

I've enjoyed singling out some of my favorite webcomics installments this week. Have you enjoyed reading about them? Then you might enjoy the "Thirty To Go" series, my last work for Broken Frontier. First three installments up here and here and here.

"How Not To Die At Your Convention Booth"

One quickie just in time for San Diego.

Blowing Bubbles: Jeff Webber

Jeff Webber, VP of product development for uclick, talks about the current state of mobile comics in America and his company's present and future.

Webcomics Review: Magellan

Conflict of interest alert: With no prompting but some editing from me, Matt Koelbl reviews Magellan for Broken Frontier.

P.P.S.

Official Zuda press release is here. A little bit more information, mostly common-sense stuff, about which Web 2.0ish technologies the site will be using, and how it plans to roll out some features at San Diego, well before the "content launch" in October.

DC Spills The Beans. Slush Pile or No?

We now know the name of DC's online initiative: Zuda Comics. Comics will be submitted by users and selected by editors, and the most popular of them will get a one-year contract. Comic Book Resources has an interview with Ron Perazza while The New York Times has more details (reproduced for non-subscribers at CNET.)

For now, a few thoughts:

Ron is a bit slippery when it comes to who gets which legal rights, but it does sound as if Zuda's contracts will be worth a closer look: "I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not exactly sure what the specific legal terms are to use, but throughout the company we make all sorts of deals and they're not all buyouts or work-for-hire and so forth. This is a creator driven initiative, so our deals reflect that." Glad to see they're at least taking the creators' rights question seriously, but we'll have to see a contract before we see what their answer really is.

Paul Levitz: "One of the problems that comics have today, I think, is that open door is much more closed. This creates a more open door." In other words, "We're tearing down the wall..." Backlash will probably begin before I post this, but I think Levitz, like Rosenberg, is using the word "comics" as shorthand for "direct-market comic books." This is a mistake, but it's a common mistake, and it's a hard one to avoid when your audience knows little about true webcomics.

The New York Times gets it wrong with its first paragraph. I wish I could say I'm surprised by that. This is not a "slush pile."

Slush piles contain every submission that a publisher receives, which means that many Web 2.0 sites like YouTube or Blogger, where publication is instantaneous, are like "digital slush piles" that almost never get edited.

But as Ron says at CBR: "If you want to actually make comics, you can submit your stuff to us and all the submissions will be poured through internally to make sure that things are of a certain quality or standard, then we select a bunch of those and put them online every month."
So, apparently, Zuda is a collection of its best submissions as chosen by editors. What you'll see on the site will already be filtered, unlike the content of a Webcomics Nation, Drunk Duck or Comic Genesis. More like Modern Tales.

It might be more on target to call this an "online comics reality show." American Idol puts twelve singers through a competition, and one of them gets a recording contract, a similar incentive to the one-year contract Zuda is offering. But obviously Idol gets thousands of applicants, and has to filter them before broadcast.

The San Diego Comic-Con initiative is interesting: would-be cartoonists will be given postage-paid postcards to send back to Zuda. That idea seems to respond to the popularity of Postsecret, a blog that's currently #9 on the Technorati Top 100. Explosm.net, which topped two of our recent webcomics traffic surveys and placed fourth in the third, is #32 on Technorati. Postsecret usually features words and pictures in combination, in a sequence chosen partly by chronology and partly by the site creator. If you're flexible with your definitions, you could argue that this means Postsecret could be the most popular online comics series in existence. But that's another discussion.

We'll see where things go from here.

(Cross-posting to Broken Frontier.)

P.S.

P.P.S.

More Fun Comics Links

Over at Broken Frontier.

Broken Frontier: World Wide Webcomics

Boy, this one took a while, but there's a lot of good stuff in it. Some highlights:

Finland treats support for the arts as a matter of national urgency, and Finnish cartoonists report that their commission rates, adjusted for the exchange rate, are far superior to those of their American counterparts. With that kind of incentive, more Western Europeans are likely to be picking up styluses in the years to come...

As of February, after a year in the market, Netcomics was getting 2,000 pageviews a day. Ice Kunion is moving into the translated e-manhwa business and doesn't seem eager to repeat Netcomics' model: its website, still under construction, announces that upon its launch, all titles will be free to read.

More.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Webcomics Review: Multiplex

Today on Broken Frontier, Matt Koelbl reviews Multiplex.

Artistic Critiques

Via Fleen: Josh Lesnick offers some artistic critiques of popular webcomics.

Would I like this piece as much if: 1) Josh didn't use "What We Don't Know" correctly as a jumping-off point and 2) Josh was less kind to Gisele?

Maybe not quite as much, but I'd still be glad he did it. It's the kind of criticism that I'm trying to encourage. The essay probably won't make his life any easier, but I'm glad he wrote it.

Here it is.

Blowing Bubbles: Top Cow

A few weeks ago, we spoke to Filip Sablik of Top Cow, about Top Cow's partnership with IGN and their resulting online store. Top Cow is a direct-market company taking its first steps into the digital marketplace.

More.

Blowing Bubbles (Chat) with Aaron Williams

BF: Hello, and welcome to another installment of Blowing Bubbles. This is T Campbell, and I'm here with Aaron Williams, creator of Nodwick, PS238, Full Frontal Nerdity, co-writer on Truth, Justin, and the American Way... and what do you do in your spare time, create Pluto?

Aaron Williams: I did, but an editor hacked it down to sub-planetary status. My fans started a letter-writing campaign and Disney is still sending me "cease and desists" over the name.



Continued.

Life on the Frontier.

I've viewed my time at Broken Frontier as a chance to wash out the taste of History, and I think it's been successful. Pieces like "What We Don't Know," "Just Another Online Comics Day," "One Word or Two?," "Webcomics' Greatest Superhero?" and the two-part series "Talking With Wikipedia" have done what I set out for them to do, and they still hold up reasonably well to my scrutiny now.

I don't think I'm a particularly great interviewer. But I do think I've had some particularly great interviewees, and I've enjoyed the chance to get personal with people whom I admire or whose work I enjoy. And I've appreciated the chance to feature Matt Koelbl's reviews.

All in all, this has been a good experience for me. But has it been good for you? Discussion of webcomics on the Broken Frontier forums has been pretty, um, dry. A couple pieces have sparked some discussion elsewhere, but I don't think any of them, except possibly "Wikipedia," have attracted as much interest as recent posts on this blog have. That's a sign, to me, that I might need to re-evaluate the long-term strategy.

So where do I think this is going? The immediate future holds more interviews and a higher percentage of chat interviews, a more serious run at the state of RSS feeds, an evaluation of the state of Internet advertising, and a fun look at the modern emoticon. But where's it going in the long term? Still mulling, and seeking feedback, as usual. Comment below or e-mail me.

An Apology.

The originally posted version of "Feed Along With Me (Part 1)" (corrected here) was a rush job that should never have been posted as it was; it contained misleading language and a couple of flat failures of observation, and was gleaned from far too small a sample size. I'm not sure which bothers me more: that I made so many mistakes in such a small space or that only one person called me on making any mistakes at all-- a person who called me on a similar gaffe last year. No, wait, I am sure: it's the "making so many mistakes" one. Quickly corrected in both cases, but you all deserve better. I'm aiming to make it at least five years before I have to make any more "quick corrections."

Coming tomorrow: a self-assessment on the Broken Frontier work to date and where I think it's going. If you have any comments on that, dear reader, now is the time to share them...

Feed Along With Me

(Article mirrored from Broken Frontier. Posted here first due to technical issues.)

Comics that I follow regularly with the aid of Google Reader: 16.

Comics that I follow regularly despite the fact that they have no RSS link that I've seen: 6.

Ratio of said comics: 16 to 6.

Same ratio last year: 7 to 13.

A few years ago, there was a bit of an uproar about "webcomics rippers," best summed up by Jonathan Rosenberg's manifesto on the matter here. What surprises me is this:

The central complaint against "ripper" programs was (and still is) that they provide all of the entertainment value of the site but provide no opportunity for cartoonists to make money in exchange-- no ad revenue, no links to subscriber content or merchandise. And yet some of the Web's most popular strips are now doing just that to themselves with their own RSS feeds... at least day by day. Update: It's been pointed out to me that strips like Diesel Sweeties and Goats, while they don't embed ads or merch in every post, include marketing messages as part of their overall feed. Cat and Girl, on the other hand, seems content to just give us the strip, with the result that I haven't actually gone to the Cat and Girl site in half a year.

At the moment, my main strip makes no promotional use of the RSS feed, because I used the default version of SomeryC. I'm trying to figure out one of two directions to go with that feed. One method would be to embed ads and merchandise links in the feed itself. Update: Unshelved and Dinosaur Comics do this with every-post ads and occasional announcements, while Questionable Content currently runs an ad for its latest piece of merchandise in its feed.

The other method is to reduce the RSS feed to a link to the latest page, as you'll see in the feeds for Penny Arcade, the Giant in the Playground strips and others. My principal source of reluctance here is that, to me, the point of RSS seems to be delivering things to a busy audience-- a reminder is good, but actual content is better. I know that I prefer to see actual strips in my Google Reader-- even though I do feel vague guilt about not paying my dues for them.

I'm late to the game with RSS. I let P&A go without a reliable feed for months and I'm still figuring out where I stand. So before I take these thoughts and actions any further-- what do you think? Should more comics feed comic, ads and merch together-- feed just the link to the latest episode-- feed just the comic, despite my puzzlement-- or feed something else entirely? How can comics handle their RSS feeds "correctly?"

Discuss.

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

This one feels important. See if you agree.

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!

"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!

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.

Todd Goldman, Read This. Or Don't: It's Your Life.

Over the last week, I've tried repeatedly to get in touch with Todd Goldman, because I believe there's got to be another side to this story. No, not the story that his company has plagiarized Dave Kelly's design-- that's an open and shut case. Goldman more or less copped to the charge, shifted a little blame to subordinates, but pledged to donate all profits from the shirt straight to Dave Kelly, which was certainly a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, Goldman has two feet, and the other story is the minefields he's stepped in before and since said confession. He or someone claiming to be him has accused Kelly of pedophilia, posted pornographic images to defame Kelly which ended up being seen by minors, hijacked the MySpace account of the person who originally reported the theft, openly mocked anyone who expressed concern about this...

...and, now, enlisted his lawyer to threaten anyone who reports on any of the above, even when such reportage sticks to verifiable facts.

Hey, see what I just reported on, there?

Bring it, Felix. That's right. I said come and get me. I support Gary Tyrrell to the point of putting my neck out right alongside his.

Now, I say "or someone claiming to be him" because, well... it's the Internet, the land of identity theft. There's still the shadow of a doubt. Someone else could have been acting in Goldman's name to make him seem worse than he is. The shadow grows fainter with time (that e-mail was tagged as coming from smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com? The MySpace hijacking used an image privately hosted on the davidandgoliathtees.com server? UH-OH), but a shadow remains. Tyrrell was responsible enough to raise that possibility, not that Felix or Goldman seem to care.

But if Goldman is being misrepresented... why hasn't he stepped forth to denounce these actions? Don't tell me he's not aware of them, not when this story has already affected his bottom line.

Well, Mr. Goldman, if you can read this, I'm giving you one more chance. I can't pretend to be on your side, but I can promise you an interview where you can tell your side, uninterrupted and unedited, to a comics news source. In terms of public relations, that's probably the best offer you're going to get at this point. Contact me here.

I don't expect a response to this. My gut tells me that everything "Todd Goldman" does and says is indeed Todd Goldman-- the persona is just too internally consistent with the guy whose most famous quote is an incitement to violence. But this is one time I'd be happy to be wrong.

Prove me wrong, Mr. Goldman.

Blowing Bubbles (The List)

People I'm inviting to Blowing Bubbles today:

Jeremy Ross, Jon Rosenberg, Joe England, Joey Comeau and Elizabeth Horne, Josh Blaylock, Josh Lesnick, Kazu Kibuishi, Kristofer Straub and Scott Kurtz, Logan DeAngelis, Mark Mekkes, Maritza Campos, MC Frontalot, N!cholas Gurewich, Owen Gieni, Paul McSpadden of the Harvey Awards, Paul Southworth, Pete Abrams, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Randall Munroe, Randy Milholland, Randy Waxman, Regis Maher II, Rich Burlew, Richard Bruning, Ryan Estrada, Ryan North, Sarah Ellerton, Seraphim, Shaenon K. Garrity, Starline X. Hodge, Thin Slice, Tim Berners-Lee, Tim Demeter, Tom Siddell, Tracy J. Butler, Wendy Pini, Xaviar Xerexes, Zach Miller, Zach Weiner...

Greg Dean, Scott Christian Sava...

...and representatives of Mars, Inc., Jeep, Wal-Mart, Google and Microsoft.

Note this isn't a list of promises. Some of these guys may be podcast-shy, even though they couldn't possibly be worse speakers than I am. Others might be waiting for the call from Jon Stewart's people. Others may have become my archenemies for the year and forgotten to tell me. I'M SORRY, BUT AFTER THE SECOND OR THIRD TIME THAT HAPPENED, YOU'D GET PARANOID TOO.

EDIT: This was meant to go out last night but both it and the invitations got delayed by sweet, sweet sleep. Invites are going out today-- Friday.

Blowing Bubbles: Daku the Rogue, Bernie Hou

Two more interviews, one with webcomics' longest-lasting podcaster and one with one of the more inventive webcartoonists.

The current plan is to do 100 of these and then either end the series or change its focus. I've got a long list of people I want to invite! I'll share it with you later today.

A couple of people have asked if there's an RSS feed for them and all I can answer is "not for a couple more weeks at least." Both this blog and Broken Frontier have RSS feeds, though, so you can use those.

Blowing Bubbles: Brandon "Enigma" "Scrubbo" Sonderegger

Two new webcomics pieces in Broken Frontier today. One is a review of Life's A Bluff by Matt Koelbl... the other is the fulfillment of a two-month-old ambition.

Thanks to Enigma for his forbearance and his perspective on the much-talked-about and little-understood Anna Nicole Smith.

Back In The Saddle!

My computer problems are finally well and truly banished, my schedule problems are also behind me, and with a mighty heave-ho, Blowing Bubbles is back in action with installment #10. Thanks to Eric Burns and Wednesday White for classing up the effort.

Podcaster Disaster!

For reasons I don't entirely understand, my recent "Blowing Bubbles" sessions are not recording as they should be. I may have lost two conversations. "BB" is therefore on hiatus until I figure this out; it should return no later than Monday.

Consolation prize: a new Matt Koelbl review of a strip that I'm happy to shower with publicity, Tyler Page's Nothing Better.

Don't Judge A Strip By Its Title.

I've always been optimistic about Chris Daily's Striptease, partly because I know him, but partly because I'd like to see one comic-book artist strip get it right. Though the early installments weren't anything special, by the time I started following the strip he was really starting to hit it out of the park, and since then his batting average keeps getting better, especially since he chucked the "will-they-or-won't-they" subplot. So I'm glad to throw the spotlight on him now.

Yo, Search Engine Designers!

I'd like to do a couple of interviews with a search engine programmer, one about search and comics to be presented as an audio podcast on BrokenFrontier.com, and one about the current state of search to be presented on my own site. I'm just looking to get the perspective of someone who works in the field. Let me know if you're interested.

(I don't really expect anyone to respond to this, but hey, you never know. I didn't expect to get an answer from Jimmy Wales, either.)

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Questions for Brian Michael Bendis

So far I've had two or three people fail to respond to my requests for interviews.

1) Jury's still out on one guy, so I won't mention him till I'm sure.
2) I always knew Mr. T was a long shot.
3) No word from Brian Michael Bendis for a while now.

This doesn't shock me. Bendis is in great demand as an interview subject, and the only way I know to contact him is an AOL e-mail address that is probably spam-choked, and a forum which is infrequently traveled. Wouldn't surprise me even if the message got through and he's too busy to answer to anyone who isn't from one of a few "name" comics sites. I might get the chance to ambush him at Wizard World Philadelphia, but I'm not counting on it.

If I did interview him, though, here's what my big questions would be.

1) What's your feelings about the Internet? You've spoken out against it pretty strongly in the past, but you haven't avoided using it altogether.

2) I'm gonna zero right in on one of your stories which resonated strongly with me. I thought New Avengers #15 seemed like it contained some veiled comments on modern online communications. On the one hand, you've got Carol Danvers' blog, which unfortunately didn't read much like a blog to me. Or at least it had no distinguishing characteristics that made it a blog instead of a magazine article. No comments section, one long post instead of five or six read in reverse chronological order, no hyperlinks... I note that you've avoided blogging for the most part, just posting links to the latest articles of interest to Bendis fans. Does the form repel you? Or does the environment?

3) The other big connection to the Internet in New Avengers #15... again, just how I'm reading this... is J. Jonah Jameson and the way the Avengers try and fail to handle him. Being a writer in your position, you deal with a lot of trolls who are clinging to irrational hatreds for their own reasons. (Not all critics are trolls, but the trolls are so much louder!) Have you ever felt, as Iron Man seems to feel, "Oh, I just need to invite these guys into the penthouse, look 'em in the eye and clasp their hands as human beings, and we'll get past all this silliness...?"

4) Is there any sympathy to Jameson's point of view? I mean, he's not totally wrong when he says the Avengers tried to buy him. Do we have to just let trolls be trolls?

5) Your forum has stricter rules about member behavior than most and, to the casual observer, they seem well-enforced. Would you like to see those rules adopted in other discussion forums across the Internet?

6) What's your take on digital distribution for Marvel? For independents?

7) Do you think your views on these things are fairly typical among Marvel's current creators? With a few exceptions, your crowd doesn't mingle with the indy webcartoonists much.

Maybe I'll get my chance. Till then...

Broken Frontier Does CBR (But Not That CBR)

'Nother 'cast. I felt I was a little off my game on this one, but Jim Shelley was totally on his, and he taught me some neat things about the .CBR format. Maybe he'll teach you, too.

Now I have to find someone else to take the other side of this whole ongoing file-sharing debate. Like that'll be hard.

I've been giving some thought to cutting back on the editing time I devote to these. I do a lot of umming and uhhing and pausing and so do some of my subjects, but fixing that is taking me about one hour per podcast. On top of preparing questions, doing the actual interview, clipping graphics and putting it all live, that means about two-and-a-half hours per 'cast, total. (And that's not counting the time I spend chitchatting with interviewees after the show, 'cause that's just fun.) So I didn't edit this one too much.

See what you think about it, and tell me what you're thinking about these. I can always use more criticism from readers, listeners and friends.

'Nother New Podcast...

David Willis today.
David Willis is awesome.




Doing a lot of work for Tokyopop-- can't say more than that about that right now.

Took an interesting lunch where I learned that Chick-fil-A's ad campaign was inspired by the work of Gary Larson. In retrospect that seems kind of obvious.

Treecomics?

Actual quote: "What better way to pay tribute to Cap than to have his Marvel Zombies counterpart taking the battle to a group of evil fascist Zombies! Take that, Zombie Hitler!"

...I'm speechless. Movin' on.

Great new interview with a couple of cartoonists whose new strips I hadn't even heard of three months ago: JJ Naas and Elanor Cooper.



My business final went well, too.

Hm. Think webcomics will become so widespread that the word "treecomics" will go mainstream? Probably not, but why should that stop us from using it?