The webcomics blog about webcomics

Friday, I’m In Love

Links and graphics to be added to these reports later. But hey: Saturday update! Here are the haps from Friday at San Diego Comic Con:

  • The Lovely Lads of (Blank) Label have a plan for domination; these gentlemen do not merely constitute a group of like-minded talents, but the cogs of a finely-tuned Webcomics Engine that seeks to operate with maximum purpose and efficiency. If you meet Paul Taylor, speak up, as I fear his hearing has been damaged a bit from sitting between the very loud shirts worn by David Willis and Howard Tayler.
  • The Dangerous Dudes of Dumbrella, by contrast, do not have a plan any more elaborate than “have fun with friends” and “make sure the booth has exactly what the fans want” (and that includes not merely merchandise and the ability to pay with plastic; it also means access to creators who are accessible and truly appreciative of their visitors). Sadly, nobody took me up on the $1 Challenge, and so the world does not know what the collective noun for members of Dumbrella is.
    Update: There have been multiple guesses in the comments and let me say, you’re all so far away from the real answer, it’s not even funny. Hint #1: The answer is in the form a “____ of ____”. Hint #2: No variation of the world “Dumbrella” appears in the answer.
  • I have a new found respect for Bill Barnes, Kris Straub, and Dave Kellett with their mad moderation skills. A snap invite and hasty acceptance led to me standing at a podium and microphone to “run” the Dumbrella panel. Really, it’s an easy job, since all you have to do with Messers Bell, Cloud, Rosenberg, Rowland, and Stevens is to wind ’em up and let ’em loose.
  • Not that the good Mr Barnes doesn’t know what it’s like herding cats; he did an admirable job keeping Webcomics 102: Finding Your Audience moving at a smart clip; large room (estimated 200 capacity, SRO), with a fans/want to make webcomics breakdown of about 25/175. There will have to be a fuller explanation later about what happens when you put R Stevens, Kris Straub, Scott Kurtz, Gabe, and Tycho on stage together, but for now, we’ll let Kurtz summarize it with one word: lesbians.
  • I was unable to attend the Keenspot Spotlight on Awesomeness, but I understand that there was a screening of Meredith Gran’s Polar-oid (do a search in that little box over to the right). What was actually pretty “Keenspot awesome” that I did see was witnessing Jon Rosenberg talking to a nice young lady about her strong negative feelings on Keenspot, urging her to ever greater heights of verbal disdain while Darren “Gav” Bleuel was standing right behind her, finally introducing the two of them. Very funny, and Jon — you’re going to hell.
  • Cool Thing of the Day: At the BLC panel, Dave Kellett on syndication vs. going it alone, quote, In this liminal state, where print is dying and webcomics are rising, I know of no syndicated cartoonist who has been syndicated since 2000, who doesn’t have a second job, unquote.
  • Right there, ladies and gentlemen, that’s why webcomics matter.

  • Possibly Cooler Thing of the Day: You may have had some difficulty getting through to the site yesterday. That’s because Scott McCloud, in an interview with Wired.com, listed Fleen (along with Comixpedia and The Webcomics Examiner) as a good place to learn about this crazy medium we love. “Fleen’s become a good source,” he told me. For the record, I did not squee like a 13 year old fangirl, but that glow you see on the horizon is me in an incandescent state of joy.

Saturday Sessions of Note: How to Make Compelling Web Comics with Lee Marrs at 4:00 to 5:00 pm, Webcomics 103: Making Money at 6:00 to 7:00, and with Bill Barnes, Robert Khoo, Phillip Karlsson (Dumbrella Hosting), Howard Tayler, and Jennie Breeden. I’ve wanted to see webcomics business guys like Khoo and Karlsson on stage for a while so this one looks good.

“so the world does not know what the collective noun for members of Dumbrella is.”

wouldn’t it be “the Dumbrelli”?

So much for Saturday updates.

[…] First, you can find great write-ups on some of the panels I sat on at fleen.com. Gary Tyrell practically transcribed Webcomics 103: Making Money. Here’s Part One and Part Two. Other Blank Label Comic cartoonists can be heard from in the transcriptions of Webcomics 102, and Webcomics 101. Oh, and the Blank Label Comics panel got mentioned in his Friday Recap. […]

[…] syndicated cartoonist who has been syndicated since 2000, who doesn’t have a second job. — Dave Kellett, Blank Label panel, San Diego Comic-Con 2006 Fleen: Any idea what your print efforts worked out to on a per-strip basis? Did you clear minimum […]

RSS feed for comments on this post.