Fleen: The Awkward Christmas Dinner Of Our Obligation To Existence » I Demand Full Page Comics On Sunday, Dammit

So Agnes is like Peanuts, and Prickly City is like Calvin and Hobbes in this guy’s Weltanschauung, but Diesel Sweeties is crap? Oooo-kay.

Let’s cleanse our paletes after that unpleasantness, shall we? Chris MacNeil wrote to tell me about his more than 10-years-in-the-making strip, Rooby Moon, which has been archive-ported to the internet, and has new strips being drawn. Check out the newest strip (#134, for those of you playing at home): it’s gloriously full-page, like Krazy Kat mixed with Little Nemo.

Actually, the full page strips are a new thing for MacNeil, but I’m really loving all those panels. It’s like Rudolph Dirks-era Katzenjammer Kids (avoid the modern version as if your sanity depends on it). Anyway, MacNeil is creating these strips the size of a full newspaper broadsheet — pen and ink on 19″ x 24″ Bristol board! — before photographing and coloring digitally.

If the revolution ever occurs and we ditch the teeny-weeny EyeStrain-O-Vision™ that plagues modern newspaper comics, I want Rooby Moon in my paper. The only downside is that size means that Rooby Moon updates only sporadically; if you visit MacNeil’s site and encourage him (maybe pick up a copy of his regular-size strips), maybe we’ll get it more frequently.

Quick things:

Mailed by several people: yes, yes, I get it — moustaches.
Also via several people (but credit Lem as first, most appreciating the importance, and having an awesome comic): Amazon has decided to take on Lulu in a no-holds-barred stab at print-on-demand supremacy. It could give webcomics creators access to Amazon’s store, but it’ll cost you. I haven’t had time to go through the terms and conditions with a fine-tooth comb, so right now let’s just call this there’s a new player in the game and we’ll figure out the implications as we go along.
Wizard. Brian Warmoth. Kit Roebuck of Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life. Interview.
See, it’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and it’s gonna fall on his head, so it’s all about gravity! Shut up, I thought it was hilarious.

Rooby Moon is gorgeous. Thanks for the tip.

Gary, I’m not sure it does cost you to have a book on Amazon through CreateSpace.

The books themselves don’t have any setup costs, they’re sold through the Amazon main site *and* an e-store on CreateSpace, and you get a commission based on how much you put the price at and how much Amazon takes (flat rate + per page on top of that). Considering how much they take when you sell a book through them anyway (I’d have to find out how much exactly), I think it’s possible to make the same amount of money on the books without the initial outlay.

That said, even when you take that into account, you’re probably looking at a slightly pricer-than-average book (which is similar to Lulu if I recall).

Something that Warren Ellis points out far better in his Bad Signal message, is that those who aren’t interested in making money, but want to get something like a good quality ‘zine out there at a fairly decent cost can use the service. I suppose exactly the same as you can use Lulu. But the distribution system is the biggest draw.

Then again, I could be reading that page entirely wrong.

The other downside is that it’s US-only at the moment (even if it ships internationally). Which should go somewhere to prove that I’m not an Amazon.com advertising drone.

Lem,

I was basing my comment on a reference on the pricing page that the percentage/unit cost that Amazon charges goes up if the book is listed on Amazon.com. I’m not looking at the numbers right now, but I recall a 20% cut if you sell through CreateSpace, 30% on Amazon.

Ah! I see.
Actually, that’s rather interesting.

Sorry, completely missed that bit. In my defence I as more interested in finding out what the IP scenario would be. That being rather important for these things.

Anges may be terrible, but I don’t think that makes Diesel Sweeties syndicated strip genious-material.

DS works much better online, if you ask me. The syndicated stuff feels flaccid compared to the longer-form online work, and, if I would be honest with myself, I doubt I’d read it if it weren’t for being an online DS regular.

Lucas,

Actually, I was struck by the fact that the author of the piece described Agnes & Peanuts as fundamentally similar merely because both have kids talking as if they were adults. Likewise, he described Prickly City as like Calvin and Hobbes solely because they have a kid talking to a jaded critter.

With criminally superficial analyses like that, I don’t think his opinion on Diesel Sweeties should be given much weight.

[…] up an earlier story, Chris MacNeil reported an encouraging upsurge in readership after our mention of Rooby Moon last […]

[…] today, Gary Tyrrell, over at fleen.com, wrote up a great review of Rooby Moon, and nearly 180 people came and read my strip today. That’s 177 more than have […]

[…] a card that I was supremely happy to receive — you may recall how pleased I was to discover a strip called Rooby Moon last year. Then the RSS notifications tapered off, and it it seemed no […]

[…] Moon (kindly see here and here to refresh your memories) is revealed this very day as both gone and not gone. Let’s […]

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I Demand Full Page Comics On Sunday, Dammit

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