Whoops...

Forgot yesterday's favorite of the day:

"And that's when I truly understood how being a cartoonist is the most rewarding job in the world."

10/23: TV Comics Worth Watching

I was still grumbling about Heroes webcomics when this caught my eye: a report on the unqualified success of Joss Whedon's Buffy Season 8, and how Team Comics plans to follow up on it.

Well, okay, let's qualify that success a little. Buffy is sliding down the long tail here, wringing more money from a smaller audience. Audience numbers that make a smash hit in the direct market are laughable on network television. But whatever your business, a hit is a hit.

Money quote: "I think Joss physically opened up the idea that fan-favorite TV shows can have a renewed life if done the right way by the original creators."

Note the phrase "renewed life." Though the writer shoehorns Heroes into the article, most of the examples concern TV series that are not currently being broadcast. Unlike Heroes comics, these comics are not supplements but continuations to a story that would not continue any other way.

Of course, that works better for some series than for others. Few "original creators" in television have done as well for themselves in comics as Whedon has. But hey, let's dream for a second:

Crusade scripted by J. Michael Stracynski. Or, if he'd rather, another story set in the Babylon Fiveiverse.

Star Trek scripted by Peter David. Not "The Original Series," not any of the other series, just Star Trek, straight up. Give David that whole fictional universe and see what he does.

West Wing Season 9, scripted by Aaron Sorkin. No, I didn't like Studio 60, and it's madness to think Sorkin would swallow his pride and pick up with a new president created by the writers who replaced him. But I'd love to see him try it. And if Ex Machina can make it in this marketplace...

Batman Season 3, scripted by Adam West. Because sometimes readers should SUFFER.

---

PvP gamerpics and themes hit the XBox 360. Savvy. This seems like another step toward the integration of popular gaming strips with gaming software, not too far behind the Penny Arcade/Valve deal earlier this year.

Clickwheel's iPod/iPhone emulation technology is really humming along.

According to my e-mail, the Zuda launch party is scheduled for my birthday next week (October 30) in New York. From 5:30-6:30, the staff will be reviewing pitches "live" at Lansdowne Road, 599 10th Avenue (between 43rd and 44th Streets), New York, NY 10036. Newsarama quotes the e-mail in its entirety, but I can't find any mention of this event on Zuda's own site yet. If only there were some sort of online log where Zuda could put these things!

Odds and Ends

Penny and Aggie is on Tokyopop's site now.

Brian Clevinger gives a brief interview about his new direct-market series, Atomic Robo.

Favorite comic of the day: seriously, just start reading Octopus Pie regularly.

10/15: Monkeys Make Everything Better

I've never met Chris Onstad before he accepted his all-but-inevitable Ignatz for "Best Online Comic." He didn't look anything like what I expected.



(Pic via Comixtalk and Joe Zabel.)

Joey Manley has proposed a massive initiative to help Webcomics Nation cartoonists track (and presumably improve) their performance. Joey also continues to drop vague hints, like "a team of developers," that indicate he's got more resources than he did for his last major programming push. This stuff looks better than Google Analytics, seriously.

Happy birthday, Cat Garza!

Condolences to Chris Muir on the loss of his sister, Catherine M. Forsythe, to a cancer-related stroke.

Sayanora, Yirmumah.

But what about centaurs on motorcycles? Via Simulated Comic Product.

Rob Liefeld as T-Rex is, without a doubt, my favorite comic of the day.

Found via Keenspot ads: the producers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 are back... and they're riffing The Matrix, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek, Star Wars and more.

Brian Warmoth: still interviewin' good webcomickers.

Finally, HOLY CROW IT'S BILL WATTERSON. And he LIKES the Schulz book!

10/12: It's A Big Jungle Out There

If anything does keep me doing in-depth blogging, it's going to be the raw ego-boost of the links thrown my way from a few people who are much better bloggers than me. I've been giving Gary a hard time lately, but he's on that list. So is Dirk Deppey. Yesterday was a massive ego-stroke, because I actually made the title of yesterday's Journalista post, "A Better Breed of Publisher." Deppey's response to my thoughts on the Zuda contracts are worth reproducing in full:

Publishing contracts fascinate me. During my time printside with the Journal, I never missed an opportunity to quiz publishers and creators about business, and while I'm by no means an expert on the subject, I can tell you the following about the sort of contracts offered by the more reputable indy publishing houses:

1. They don't require you to sign away your copyrights or trademarks.
2. They usually offer royalties of somewhere between 12-18% of the cover price, after advances (if any) have been recouped - which is to say, once the printer, distributors and retailers have taken their cuts, the remaining profits are split pretty evenly down the middle between publisher and creator.
3. They don't require exclusivity, nor do they include "non-compete" clauses.
4. The rights to published properties revert back to the creator after a certain, set period of time and/or period of inactivity on the part of the publisher.
5. The creator usually has veto power over ancilliary licensing and promotional uses of the work.

Much is made over "industry standards" in publishing contracts, but this only reflects the fact that the traditional comics industry has some astonishingly shitty standards. The above is actually less reflective of what you'd get in dealing with companies like Tokyopop and DC Comics, and more reflective of the prose-publishing industry, which actually has standards. It's the difference between doing business with a shark who only sees you as an intellectual-property sharecropper, and someone who actually respects you for the work you create - and it's a big difference.

Moral: If you respect your rights as a creator, don't do business with someone who doesn't likewise respect those rights. The alternative isn't self publishing; it's doing business with a better breed of publisher. Others have successfully held out for better. If your work is good enough, or meaningful enough to you, then you should too.

Okay, let's put it like this. If you are being offered the kind of deal that Deppey describes at the same time that you're being offered a standard comics-industry deal-- and let's assume the advances are equal, too-- then of course you should take the former deal. What are you, stupid?

But let's take a look at my situation. I have two properties I've been shuttling around to bookstore publishers for years, three more I've added to the stack more recently, and one more on the way. I've learned a lot in the last six months, and I think every step we've taken has gotten us closer to a sale. But... no sales yet. I'm making plans to change that in 2008. But I'm not betting the farm on it, just because others have succeeded in doing so.

This "better breed of publisher" isn't better in every respect-- it takes seemingly FOREVER to make up its mind to publish ANYTHING, and it doesn't have much side freelance work to go around.

Meanwhile, doing Divalicious has not only given me a decent advance and my initial entry point into the bookstore market, it's led to a lot more freelance work and allowed me to get started on a public-speaking career.

5% of something is worth more than 15% of nothing. And 5% of three or four somethings...?

I write a lot. I like writing. And when I've got a plan, I'm pretty fast. The idea I have for my Zuda submission is harder to execute than some scripts, so it's taking more time, but it's still moving along pretty quickly now. My standard deal with artists is a 40-60 split or some kind of advance on same. So by my calculations, the Zuda contracts would make me about $800 for a twelve-hour day. Or $5600 for a body of work that will have taken seven or eight working days.

If Zuda doesn't bite, we end up with another creator-owned property, with which we can do whatever we choose. But assume it does.

The trademark will rest with DC. I don't expect the rights to revert back in time to do me much good. And they'll be able to adapt it however they want, up to and including hiring a second creative team onto it if my artist and I prove "difficult." There are royalties offered, but certainly not on a par with the percentages Dirk cites.

On the other hand, this would be my first work for any branch of DC, a profile-raiser for my other work, an interesting experience and a way to build contacts. My Rolodex for the comic-book industry is still pretty thin, and if this is half the ice-breaker that Divalicious was...

So is that $5600 worth it to me?

That'd be a HELL YES.

I can't afford to make everything I do a long-term investment. (Or a short-term investment, either... hence, those pitches for bookstore publishers.)

Dirk makes an eloquent case in his conclusion, but I don't buy it. I don't believe that the prose-publishing industry "respects my rights" any more than the comic-book industry does-- I think that each market's offerings are determined by commerce, not "respect." In time, I think the bookstore market will exert pressure that forces DC, Marvel and Tokyopop to become more like it, but that doesn't mean I should ignore the advantages of working with each group in the meantime.

My work, all my work, means a great deal to me. (My speed's a double-edged sword... I'm proud of it but always wondering if I'm going faster than I should.) But the reason so many artists make bad deals is they let their emotions get the better of them-- the eagerness to find an audience at any cost, or the desperation for validation, or the pride of ownership, even if these things have no practical value. (I did pick an idea that I think would be more profitable in Zuda's hands than in my own.)

Today's marketplace presents clear opportunities for those who can think "art" with one part of their brain and "business" with another. That's never come naturally to me, but I'm trying hard to learn.

10/11: Getting Out More

Congratulations to Jim Massey for his Hollywood fortunes, and Nicholas Gurewitch for his impressive Amazon sales streak. And speaking of webcomics success...

Tom Spurgeon says it's time he started taking "this webcomic thing" a bit more seriously... albeit with more good intentions than enthusiasm, like a new gym member signing up on New Year's Day. Among the reasons for this is that Tom, like Sean T. Collins, finds webcomics boosters annoying when they equate popularity with quality, or financial success with either.

I can't really argue with that.

I've made that mistake myself often enough, proceeding from "if this is popular, there must be a reason, and it'd be interesting at least from a cultural perspective to explore that..." which has resulted in a lot of crap in my Google Reader that I'm only just starting to thin out now.

But... glass houses, you know? It seems to me that many of the Ignatz nominees are likewise guilty of equating other things with quality, things like obscurity and a determined assault on the senses. In some cases, the work's lack of popularity with any general public seems to be proof of its worth. It is rewarded and buoyed up by a niche as self-congratulatory and insidery as the webcomics cults... or the makers and consumers of the worst of superhero comics' "continuity porn."

The name "alt-comix" implies a "mainstream" that is not addressing the public's artistic needs. If your world is the newsstand/direct market, then the need for an "alternative" quickly becomes apparent. But if your world includes the graphic novel market and the webcomics market, then things get murkier, especially since one-time "alternative" creators like Harvey Pekar and James Kochalka are now making more headway in those new markets. And then there's manga.

But this "alt-niche" has evolved under the assumption that the comics market is the newsstand/direct market, and it actually seems more interested in clinging to its feelings of persecution than in coming in from the cold. Sean, I don't think this kind of comics is part of the problem because it has fewer readers than Diesel Sweeties. I think it's part of the problem because so much of it doesn't read like it's the least bit interested in getting more. And you can have wonderful thoughts and fantastic insight, but they don't mean much if you don't share them with the whole class.

As distasteful as bragging about your audience numbers may be, it still seems better to me than writing and drawing specifically for the art-house critics. Dinosaur Comics and xkcd have demonstrated that you can get FREAKIN' HUGE audiences WHILE doing comics that address the great philosophical questions, the many quirks of everyday life and other esoteric topics... AND you don't even have to be a great artist to do so.

(P.S.: No, I don't hate all the Ignatz nominees, and no, I'm not telling you which ones get my goat. I'm more concerned about a general trend here, one that I'm glad to see in decline.)

10./10: Meh

I'm getting a bit discouraged about doing lengthy essays in this blog. Lately it seems like half the time I try it, someone whose opinion I care about totally misses what I'm going for-- and I tend to see that as not a flaw in the readers, but a flaw in me.

In Monday's essay, I did not mean to say that the only choices for your career were "don't do business with anyone stronger than you" and "submit to Zuda." Certainly there are a lot of cartoonists who are doing business with plenty of stronger companies that are nevertheless giving Zuda a miss. My personal response to it is probably pretty clear, but there are a lot of quirky things about my own approach to my career that won't apply to a majority of creators.

I was trying to say that some of the arguments against Zuda seem to be arguments that would apply under any circumstances involving stronger companies. Buying those arguments greatly limits one's options. It means you can't deal with ComicMix, Modern Tales, United Features Syndicate or a dozen other companies that have the potential, at least, to move your career forward.

Further, let's presume, for the sake of argument, that Zuda is a bad deal... if so, then an argument that proceeds from "all contracts are evil" (or "large companies are evil") won't turn Zuda into a good deal. In fact, they give Zuda a disincentive to offer a good deal, because you've told them that you're a lost cause, so they won't even try to engage you.

(And I'm not just going after Gary Tyrrell here-- I think a lot of the response is implying the bias which he states outright. Gary's generally much, much better than that, which says to me he's getting caught up in a wave.)

That's what I meant.

Assuming I haven't screwed it up this time.

Best Wishes To Chris Muir

Hope his unspecified family emergency resolves quickly and happily.

Strong Bad on How To Make Webcomics

He's got you covered. (Video)

10/9: We Haz A Logo

Yesterday's essay took way more time than it should have (I've simply got to get this blog's time consumption under control), so we're going simple with today's.



What do you think?

10/8: Zuda Zero-Sum

The last of the verdicts on the Zuda contracts are rolling in.

Since before I fell ill last week, I've been trying to reach some kind of grand conclusion, some explanation of why I seem so out of step with the rest of the good old "webcomics community" on this issue. (Those who agree with me seem to be outside observers newer to the field, like Tom Spurgeon and Todd W. Allen.)

I don't mean to harp on this, but when a generally sensible observer like Gary Tyrrell asserts and affirms that "all contracts are... about protecting your interests by explicitly denying the interests of the other party," then I feel like I've slipped into some alternate universe.

I have a contract with Gisele Lagace which is most definitely not about that. It's an agreement between equals, or near-equals, spelling out what she and I can each expect from our partnership.* With some other artists, I've contented myself with a verbal agreement, but I could not do business with any artist if we didn't know what we expected from one another. That is the first function of a contract to me.

The second function is insurance. Dave Sim once said, "No corporation will ever pay a creator enough to sue them successfully," and I think a lot of creators would agree with that. It's true that Warner has more lawyers than an individual creator ever will. But these days, the negative publicity caused when a company breaks the letter, not just the spirit, of its contract is a powerful deterrent.

Furthermore, just because a company has more money for lawyers than you does not mean they want to spend it. Creators tend to view a lawsuit as a zero-sum game: either the plaintiff wins or the defendant does. But the legal system bleeds both parties of time and money. And we Americans are a lot more lawsuit-happy than we were in the 1930s. Warner didn't get rich by inviting a million lawsuits, and it doesn't expect to stay rich by doing so, either.

If you mistrust contracts completely, then that leaves you with two alternatives. The first is to try to do business with corporations on a handshake basis. This is, of course, ridiculous. Even I don't trust DC to take care of me purely out of the goodness of its heart. I wouldn't vest that trust into any company that had more resources than me.

The second alternative is never to do business with anyone who has more resources than you.

"Do It Yourself."

Ultimately, I'm just less of a pure DIY guy than most of the other people who talk a lot about webcomics. I'll always do some things myself, and I've been doing more than I would've done five years ago, but I decided long ago that I'd need partners to create the visuals I wanted, which makes me a little more comfortable seeking out partners in other areas, I think.

None of the above argues that Zuda contracts are right for you. But don't confuse the recognition of a bad deal with a distrust of all deals. Your career can do better.

Movin' on.

UPDATE: Or not quite. Clarifications here.

*In case you're wondering, Gisele gets 60% of the profit from any work we do together, and 50% of any profit from any work done by third parties... movie royalties, for instance. I earn my 40% share not just by scriptwriting but by taking care of a lot of the odds and ends of the business, including clear and verifiable financial reports. Gisele and I do trust each other, but I want her to be absolutely sure of me as we go forward.

"Hating The Korean Wave"

Hey, Dirk, hope you're gonna link this one. This fascinating study of the online and print comic "Hating The Korean Wave" and it's Web-based marketing seems a bit tentative in its conclusions, but, at the least, it shows a side to webcomics-- and comics-- that boosters like me would prefer to deny.

10/5: End-of-Week News Roundup

Back in the game! Let's get some odds and ends out of the way first.

Happy birthday, Mark Mekkes!
Mike Strang, creator of Platinum Studios' Weird Adventures in Unemployment, now written and drawn by Brandon J. Carr, is still not happy about being squeezed out. His account does make interesting reading, but I'm not sure it's as flattering to himself as he believes.

The new ComicMix is here, and its proprietary reader is here too. I'll leave the interface critique to Joey, except to vehemently second him on the matter of RSS feeds... RSS is a must in today's marketplace: more and more hardcore readers like me are relying upon it. The content of ComicMix is too new to call, really, but I think a lot of it will stand or fall on how thoroughly the creators, as well as their publisher, embrace "this Internet thing."

Simulated Comic Product has a program out called Boxen for the making of panel borders (assuming you only want rectangular borders-- but then, few cartoonists are really pushing those boundaries lately, it seems). Requires .Net 2.0, which means that Mac loyalist Gisele is unlikely to try it out and let us know how well it works. What about... you?

I'm mostly linking this so I can find it later when somebody asks "Did anybody ever do a really extreme animated panel in a webcomic?" (Thanks to Xaviar.)

Great news: How to Make Webcomics now has four authors.

One of those authors, Dave Kellett, had a really great week this week with his "Starbucks sequence" (beginning here.) I'm not gonna be able to declare "favorites of the day" this week but Kellett would almost certainly have made it with Monday's or Tuesday's installment.

Hmm, and this might've done it for Wednesday. Ethan is a lot funnier when not actually ruining the lives of his friends, and here he's almost an underdog.

The Complete Ryan Estrada

Ryan's own input makes me fairly confident that this tally of his guest strips and other accomplishments is now complete. (Although posting one extra strip somewhere in secret, and not telling anyone for years, would be JUST LIKE HIM.)

Still Catching Up: Jason Thompson Interview

My friend Andrew Farago has a lengthy but excellent interview with my friend and one-time collaborator Jason Thompson, author of Del Rey's Manga: The Complete Guide. (I've seen a preview copy, and if you have any manga-loving friends with birthdays coming up? You could do a lot worse.) They also discuss Thompson's insightful mix of horror and rom-com, The Stiff.

The interview's in The Comics Journal, available here.

Reckless Life Calls It Quits

Missed it: Tim Demeter goes out with a smile. Like Cox and Forkum, Tim was getting tired of his project, but you wouldn't know it from Reckless Life's last and best arc, "Murphy's Law." You can start that arc here or the entire series here.

Tim continues to edit Graphic Smash and Clickwheel, and has promised a kinda-sorta sequel to Reckless Life called Bustout Odds, sometime in 2008. Early adopters can go ahead and subscribe to the RSS now.

Cox and Forkum Call It Quits

One of the most popular editorial cartooning teams on the Internet by any measure I can find, John Cox and Allen Forkum, have given up regular editorial cartooning for financial and emotional reasons. Chris Muir gives them an insidery salute.

Scroll down Daryl Cagle's blog for an interview (no permalinks, sorry). Tom Spurgeon has pretty good commentary:

1) they were considered a conservative cartooning team, which is supposedly one of those thing the marketplace desires, 2) they were never able to generate much of an income despite having a not-inconsiderable on-line presence, 3) their cartoons were visually accomplished, something many people believe the market desires, and 4) it's harder to make a marginal cartooning enterprise work when any potential revenue is shared by two people.

Naturally, point #2 interests me the most. I'm not sure that they got as much revenue out of their site as they could, but then again, I can see how they might resist going beyond a few Google Ads-- they could sell advertising space, or go with a banner ad, but what if the resulting ad conflicted with their own politics? Penny Arcade has run ads for games that the strip has scorned, with little apparent controversy, but I don't know if the audience for political cartoons would be as understanding... after all, video games don't really determine the future of the free world.

I don't share their political leanings, but Cox and Forkum often reached across ideological lines to make me think a little, and Cox is a gifted caricaturist. I'll miss the team.

A Modern Humor Authority

One more check mark: Justin Rude of The Washington Post calls getting mentioned in Penny Arcade "an indicator of video game success." To be fair, he backs that up with actual download and member figures, but uses the PA mention as his principal indicator of "buzz." I was trying to figure out why this seemed odd, and then it hit me:

Is this "indicator" status anything like being a "notable reference?"

Favorite of the day: UH oh...

Quickies

Slow, slow news day.

Congrats to Paul Southworth on the birth of his lovely boy.

Favorite comic of day: Daniel Merlin Goodbrey's "Songs The Beatles Didn't Sing." (Link only good 'til 10/01.)

Members of The Unofficial Apple Weblog are easily flattered by guest appearances in tech strips. (And Joy of Tech has finally gotten around to installing a decent RSS feed, thank goodness.)

9/27: xkcd's "Non-Happening" Actually Happens

One of the most popular webcomics creates a convention out of thin air by announcing a time and place where nothing was supposed to happen. Was this really something Randall Munroe didn't intend, or a brilliant marketing move? Hard to say but it's an accomplishment either way.

Afraid I'm too busy for a detailed post today. Coming soon: final thoughts on Zuda contracts, the smiley in crisis, and notes on online advertising. Join us tomorrow, eh?

"Live-Action Webcomic"

Choice phrase from this piece about short online videos. Webcomics and YouTube: allies or competitors? I'm mulling.

T-Shirt Immortality

Four years after what seems to be his last mention on Penny Arcade, the elusive Batjew continues to touch lives through his iconic shirt.

iPhone Emulator For Clickwheel

Oh wow, that is pretty handy.

Scott McCloud Has 2008 Covered, Thanks

Scott McCloud is on the move again, and this time, uncharacteristically, he's going back, not forward. Before Scott was "that webcomics guy" and before he was "Mr. Understanding Comics," he was writing a delightful, thoughtful science-fiction adventure called Zot. (Or Zot!, but I've always had trouble with titles that contain their own punctuation.)

HarperCollins must like the way McCloud's books have been selling for them, because they've announced plans to collect the last 26 Zots into a monster 576-page "phone book" edition and sell them for the insanely low price of $22.95. Geez, you guys are aware that the dollar's in trouble, right?

This isn't quite "the complete Zot," but Scott's of the opinion that his work got a lot better after #1-10. I do think the best Zots came later, and the climax in #10 was a little off, but #1-10 did have some fantastic storytelling moments, particularly the climax to #3 and all of #5. Fortunately, those ten are already available in trade elsewhere.

I loved Zot and still haven't tracked down a few of the later issues, so I'm pretty well guaranteed to buy this. HC also plans to do a big promotional push for it, which is interesting, since the last thing we heard from Scott was that he wanted to stay quiet for a while and work on hundreds of pages of new stuff.

SPOILER WARNING: While Zot Online is a pretty good sequel to the series, it is a sequel, meaning that if you read it first, you will know a lot about how the printed series concludes.

Faves In Different Flaves

Favorite (disturbing) comic of the day: "Yes, Mother."

Second favorite (funny) comic of the day: Least I Could Do reveals a part of Rayne's thought process that only leads to more questions. As the marginalia says, "I don't know either."

Webcomics.com Update

Progress... major progress. One step back and ten steps forward. The one step back is a temporary suspension of the Webcomics.com forum, which will be moving to Webcomics.com instead of remaining at the Penny and Aggie site.

Lookin' like we'll have something to show you before the end of the month.

Catsby Uber Alles

Well, after that depressing screed, let's close with some good news. Other bloggers like Johanna are abuzz about the Death Note adaptations, and well they should, because it's an excellent series. But hey, I'm a webcomics booster first and foremost, so I'm more interested in this: the first webcomic-based live-action TV series I've seen. And it's Catsby, the best manhwa I've read all year, online or otherwise.

And hey, there's a musical play too!

Hat tip to William G.

Fave of the Day: "Davvy!"

Randy Milholland has teased Something Positive readers for months, hinting that Monette had done something so unforgivable that the Macintires, who had adopted her as one of their own, would now disown her. But how bad could it really be?

Her first appearance in the strip was as a "failed lesbian," who couldn't stop sleeping with guys, but couldn't see how this might challenge the "lesbian" label. She eventually did find a nice girl, and achieved some moments of clarity when it counted. But the rest of the cast-- particularly main character Davan Macintire-- has always known she was on the slow side. And you don't stay mad when the chihuahua ruins the carpet, because hey, what did you expect? It's a dog. How bad could it really be?

The answer to that question-- a toxic mix of stupidity and genuine achievement-- says some very interesting things about how Monette regards Davan, consciously or otherwise. And while Randy's expressions are often more functional than virtuosic, the last panel seems to have figured out the perfect eyebrow shape to suggest a throbbing forehead vein.

Tick, tick, tick.

Clickwheel's Second Act

Clickwheel is back, with exclusives. The general public will probably be most interested in the Judge Dredd spinoff, but as for me, I'm downloadin' for the Justin Pierce and Joe Dunn material.

Get Your Achewood Tattoos Right Here

"Right here" being Portland, Oregon. Well, I guess you'll just have to visit, won't you?

(Direct link to the tattoo parlor in question here.)

Better Dating Through Geekery

Scott Kurtz has announced that Dino Andrade, the voice of Skull in PvP Animated, now has a geek-centric dating site, Soul Geek. I've seen a similar concept at Otaku Booty, but I haven't done enough online dating that I could tell you which service is better yet.

This may change. :)

Favorites!

Tell you what, let's do three. Monday's always an embarrassment of riches and I really don't want to choose between these...

Questionable Content has finally run out of esoteric musical references and started using mainstream ones that are esoteric to the characters. The silent penultimate panel just kills me.

"Well, what's the point of a reunion if I can't learn about the sordid past of the girl who always slaps my ass after sex? That's my God-given right as an astronaut."

And finally, the delightful 62-page journey into a child's imagination, "The Upside-Down Me." All-ages friendly, and how!

9/24: "Huh Huh Huh, He Said 'IANAL'"

One long post today to give people a chance to catch up on Saturday's stuff. And my mind's still on Zuda today, so let's just pick up the numbering where we left off:

6) IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer) is one of the more useful Internet acornyms, and never more so than in cases like this. As Joey Manley points out, Zuda ITSELF is advising would-be submitters to check their contracts over with a lawyer. I am not a lawyer. Neither are most of the usual commentators. I'll be seeking legal counsel about this through the week and I'd join Joey and Zuda in urging other observers or would-be submitters to do the same... seek their own legal counsel, that is, not wait for a comics-law blog post to do the legwork for them. What's important to you may not be important to us. (I will post what I learn here, but it could take time.)

7) That urging is Zuda's single best PR move to date. It's unimpeachable, yet it protects the imprint from the old PR problem of "Siegel and Shuster stories." And more immediately, it reduces the authority of impulsive bloggers without legal training, giving Zuda more of a chance to shape its own story.

8) Zuda's worst PR move? The blog page, which after two months still says, "Come on...one thing at a time, ok? Seriously we'll start this up later." Grammar check, anyone? It just sounds so defensive, almost paranoid. "GET OFF OUR CASE, MAN!"

Was anyone AFTER them about this? I mean, of all the things people wanted from Zuda, a blog is WAY down the list.

9) More attention should probably be paid to the Zuda message boards, where Perazza and Johnson are answering questions that come their way. Activity has been slow, but, um, I'm pretty sure it's poised to pick up.

10) Gary Tyrrell isn't happy with the contracts, and plans to spend the week explaining why. Buried in the ALT text of his latest post is this choice tidbit: "Today, we use the foreboding Zudalogo, because all contracts are inherently about ensuring that -- if needed -- you can cut the other guy's heart out and he's legally obligated to provide the blade."

...ALL contracts, Gary?

Favorite comic of the day... let's just do two tomorrow.

Update: 11) And one more, since there's already been a bit of confusion about this: the "submission agreement" covers the rights of those who submit to the contest but are not selected, the "rights agreement" covers the rights of the original creator or creators of a selected SERIES and the "services agreement" cover the rights of the creators of the individual EPISODES of said series. In about 98% of all webcomics, the creative team that created the series is still creating the episodes, but there are notable exceptions like Life's a Bluff and Megatokyo. If you are not one of those exceptions, and you are selected, then you are entitled to both the compensation outlined in the rights agreement AND the compensation in the services agreement.

And We're Out

Webcomics Weekly has an excellent new episode about print runs.

See you all on Monday!

9/22: ZUDA ZUDA ZUDA DAMMIT WHERE'S THE SNOOZE BUTTON

So the wait is over at last. A few quick thoughts about Zuda's recently released contracts:

1) The timing of the release is interesting. I've complained about how long DC had taken to get these online. But then I had a chat with Ron Perazza, who told me that this contract was just taking a long time to hash out, and they'd release it as soon as it was ready. I believe him. But there's no way the time of week of this release was unplanned, not with the Wall Street Journal just happening to mention Zuda the very next day.

When I worked for The Man, one of the tips I picked up was to fire people on a Friday afternoon. Don't give laid-off employees the opportunity to throw a hissy-fit and poison productivity for the week. I'm wondering if similar thinking drove the decision to release these contracts Friday. "We may THINK we've got our bases covered, but let's reduce the odds of an Internet s**tstorm anyway, hm?"

2) At last I can safely disclose the payouts for top Zuda contributors, and they're worth taking seriously: $250 per "screen," with a couple of additional bonuses, and a royalty package that-- with apologies to my friends at Tokyopop-- is easily the most generous I've seen from a major publisher.

3) What the deal means for webcomics as an art form is a little tough to judge until we find out what kind of comics Zuda's audience likes. And Zuda is as unsure of that as anyone. I think the weekly frequency is still going to keep them from being a really major player in the space: a Sunday-only strip just doesn't seem to be enough to hold people's attention these days. But I don't think Bruning and Perazza are stupid, so maybe that was never their plan. Maybe they intend to be more of a Modern Tales, a choosy repository of high-profile, infrequently published comics.

4) And for that matter, nothing really prevents Zuda from doing it this way for 6-12 months and then starting to roll out the daily features.

5) The reversion of rights is likely to be the issue that critics focus upon. It certainly seems like the Zuda team worked a lot on this part. It's kind of baroque-- you might end up with rights to the comics but not film and TV rights based upon them?

But I don't have much interest in reversion because I consider it pretty unlikely to happen. DC is good at keeping nearly forgotten properties in play just so they don't lose the rights. Which is why that royalties package has my full attention instead.

At this point, I've made my position on this kind of thing pretty clear, but Webcomics.com means some new people will be reading this, so just for the record:

It's silly to think that publishers are evil for wanting to retain rights as long as they can. Publishers offer you a trade-off. You should get some promotion, some help in building a career, and most of all, you should get money. In exchange, publishers need the right to use your work for their own ends, or they will cease to publish.

Some people cannot abide this kind of trade-off. Some people cannot abide doing without this kind of trade-off. Some people, like me, like to make the trade for some projects and keep others close to the vest. I think we'd all be a lot happier if creators and commentators spent more time doing what they wanted, and less time promoting their position on this as the only position worth having.

Update: more Zuda stuff here.

E-books Expand Marketplace

Dirk Deppey spotted this Sony-Borders deal, which could mean important things for anyone who traffics in panels and pixels. Tokyopop seems to be all over this market already. If Gisele's and my early experience with Wowio and the improvements in the Sony Reader are any indication, the e-book market looks like a growth sector in 2008.

Fave of The Day

Just an ACT-I-VATE day today. Drockleberry's latest installment just keeps on amazing me.

Also of note, today's Wall Street Journal mentions the Zuda initiative and three webcomics-turned-graphic novels. (Well, Megatokyo is more of an ongoing series, but why quibble?) Of the three, the one I didn't already know was Parade (with fireworks), which has a nice clean style and a foreign-movie feel.

The Falling Pulp Standard

This post by Heidi McDonald about 1500 comic books that Publisher's Weekly can't even give away got me thinking. Heidi attributes the difficulty to the rise of the trade paperback format, and I'm sure that's part of it. But it does seem to me that the idea of comics as collectibles is a lot less prevalent in the comics community than it used to be. As webcomics gain acceptance, the value of the average floppy comic book declines.

Correction And Continued Confusion: Flex Comix

My apologies for an error on Wednesday: Jorge Vega notes that Flex Comix is a print-and-cell-phone comics company, not a cell-phone-exclusive comics company.

Therefore DC's decision to translate its comics into English-language print editions makes a little more sense.

But only a little, because all the press releases about Flex's acquisition stressed the cell phone connection, and DC already has a manga division, CMX. Why not lead with the aspect that makes Flex distinctive, instead of b