All The Best Pandas Are Murderous
Happy 400th stripperversary to Bryan Paul Johnson’s Teaching Baby Paranoia, which in today’s round-number-intensive installment features mermaid boobies. Woo!
Mike Rouse-Deane of Webcomics In Print has expanded into webcomics review & commentary in print, with the launch of Webcomics Anonymous. If this whole, We like webcomics and we’re gonna write about ’em field gets any more crowded, I might be able to retire on the vast sums that Fleen has earned me. I’m gonna be eatin’ the generic cat food!
And speaking of webcomics in print, I’ve been seeing quite a few of such at my friendly local comic shop; along with Guigar’s how-to manuals of evil and Satanic porn and other detritus of the intarwubs, there’s a shiny new print collection of the first Panda Express story.
PX! Book 1: A Girl And Her Panda features a total of four chapters plus bonus material; publisher Image has gone all-out, providing a nice, heavy, glossy paper, allowing for the gorgeous, subtle colors (I love that radioactive glow) of A Girl And Her Panda to really pop on the page.
Now you could read the 100+ pages of PX!B1:AGAHP online, but this is a book that deserves to be picked up and paged through, to really wallow in and enjoy particularly when you consider the following, posted by co-creator “Art Monkey” (aka Manny Trembley) the day before the the book hit shops:
… It’s all excuses but if I whittle away the debris and garbage to reveal my dark heart I’d have to say I’m tired of making PX! right now. I should’ve taken a break and worked on a different project after book one. But I wanted to stay the course with PX! (we have four total books planned and we’re only one and half books done with the mega story) But I feel like I’m forcing PX! And that’s a crappy feeling. The art feels forced and I’m less and less happy with my own production of the book.
I’m trying to force myself to finish Book two before I wipe my slate clean and draw something completely different. And frankly it’s not fun to force it. … The question I have for you guys is would you run screaming to the hills if we took a break and produced a totally different book for the site. A “PX! presents…” kinda thing.
You know what might make Mr Monkey (and his partner, “Grammar Cowboy”, aka Eric Anderson) feel better? If you bought the book. It’s lighthearted, all-ages fun, it’s got a goat who’s a jerk, and more radioisotope-powered panda than you can shake a stick at. Success for this book means that other creators maybe get the nod from publishers willing to pick up printing costs, and those who self-publish are more likely to get space in the Diamond catalog. Official corporate suits with MBAs think there’s a market for webcomics on the shelves, or DC wouldn’t have launched Zuda with an explicit eye towards reprint volumes.
It’ll be at least year before any of Zudabooks hit the stores, but in the meantime, your best-loved webcomics can be there if a couple of gatekeepers get convinced, and the way to do that is with the potential for revenue. That’s a lot of benefit for $17 now; pack lunches next week instead of hittin’ the cafeteria, and you’ll be thanking me while you’re enjoying PX!B1:AGAHP.
Speaking of round numbers, Arthur, King of Time and Space hits 1200 Sunday.
That’s daily.
In a row. Since the very first.
At this rate I’ll catch up with Howard Tayler … uh, three years eleven months and seven days after he dies. Plus his buffer.
By Paul Gadzikowski on 08.31.07 1:53 pm
Congratulations, Paul! Don’t compare yourself to people who’ve been doing it longer — my only advantage is that I started before you did.
1200 daily strips, with no interruptions? That rocks hardcore. Kudos!
By Howard Tayler on 08.31.07 11:37 pm
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