Hey, did you know that there were some significant things to happen in the world of webcomics in 2007? Well, it turns out that there were, and here are some of them. Despite the fact that they’re numbered, these are in no particular order of importance.

I mean, Happy New Year!

I usually get a little contemplative at the New Year; it seems a decent opportunity to both survey the past year and think about changes for the coming one. It was about a year ago that I was first put in touch with the Fleen folks (read: Gary), and so I thought maybe this post ought to take a quick look back over the previous year, as a refresher on what I read and liked. I think I’ve learned a fair piece about webcomics over the course of 2007, and I have some favorite webcomics finds from the year. I met a whole lot of webcomics folks (and I finally met Jeph Jacques, and the world didn’t end). I survived MoCCA, didn’t get sued, and ended up with a lot of t-shirts. So, yeah. Go webcomics!

But in reading through the archives, my first thought was Holy crap! I completely overwhelmed myself! I figured I’d go poking through the archives, review a little, and try to come up with a witty year-end round-up kind of thing, especially after reading ComixTalk’s People of Webcomics 2007 list (which struck me as kind of a weird list; I’ll leave more discussion to you folks and to Gary, but…yeah, weird, no?).

My math skills are not the awesome, but in the past year it looks like I wrote about nearly 40 different webcomics. I’m not counting the ones I just mentioned in passing or name-checked more than once, or the ones with which I was familiar before picking up this gig. Of these forty-odd, a few, like Tom Humberstone’s lovely Vented Spleen and Juan Santapau’s breathtaking The Secret Knots, are ones that I visit from time to time; they aren’t daily updates. Natasha Allegri’s Normal Life is another. One series ended–Mike Luce’s quirky, funky Fite!–and a handful of the other columns were either about one-shot series, like Israel Sanchez’s Saturday, or the body of work of one artist (such as Mark Burrier or Sarah Morean).

There are, however, a few with which I’ve kept up on a regular basis, and I was trying to figure out why that was. Why those webcomics? I mean, I like webcomics. I spend enough time on the internet; it’s not like it’s tricky to navigate. But in looking back through the archives, I found that there were some that I really enjoyed, like Kelly Vivanco’s Patches, that just fell out of my head (or my browser, I guess). There are a few others that I’m not following, just because the narrative didn’t catch my eye the same way the visuals did. But what I realized is that the ones I follow most regularly are either the ones with feeds, like Box Brown’s Bellen!, or ones that update once per week (cue Teaching Baby Paranoia) and I can remember to check back in. One of my favorites, Matthew Reidsma’s High Maintenance Machine, actually started selling original art within the last month; I could not resist.

I’ve actually spent the time since Thursday, when I was originally going to post, re-reading many of these webcomics, like Karen Ellis’s astounding Planet Karen, one of my favorite finds from this year, and catching up with the series I’ve missed (holy crap, Scene Language, I missed you! & congrats Corey Marie & Tod!). And, actually, I think that’s apt: instead of spending time writing about them, I’m actually closing the year reading them.

I can’t wait to see what 2008 brings.

The final word on Women In Refrigerators, by Randy Milholland. I’m starting to think he’s got a better grasp on the fundamental idiocies of the superhero genre than anybody else on the planet.

And new meme! Go here, and add your drawing of a bear in an ill-fitting hat (special thanks to The Strike-Breaking Dreamcrusher both for the tip-off, and for showing his skills of an artist).

Love Is … four webcomic sightings last week and two more since then. Per my entirely arbitrary standards, that makes it official.

Yeah, pretty thin today. Everybody’s off this week.

Hey everybody. I see the piece that I wrote up and scheduled to post yesterday monrning didn’t actually, but it’s long and now you get an extra one for today, so everybody wins. In fact, I just wanted to point out some of my nicer presents today.

First up, you may recall that about a month ago, my wife arranged for a rather special birthday present for me. What with my birthday falling on a Tuesday, one of the intended gifts was delayed a day, but there I was — barber to ninjas. I got to thank Chris Hastings in person with beer and cheesecake about two weeks back, and he never let on that the original of that page was already in the mail to me. “Sneaky”, “underhanded”, and every other word that might apply to ninjas also applies to Chris and his partner, Kent Archer.

Next, arriving on the 24th and just in time for Christmas, DJ Coffman sent me an unexpected gift — a hardcover copy of his Hero By Night miniseries (prompting one of my nephews to notice it on my desk and say, “Cool, I didn’t know the hardcover was out yet.” I don’t see him often and didn’t know that he read HBN, so yay to Coffman for bringing families together).

I was going to pick up the trade of HBN, even though I have the individual copies, as it both saves space on my shelves and allows me to donate the individual issues to people that might not be able to get comics easily (this week I’ve got two boxes to send to Chris Tarbassian at Operation Comix Relief, who will send any and all donated comics to US troops on deployment). So I get a handsome hardcover for my collection, my nephew feels a little less like the only geek in the family, and some troops get a diversion from their crappy immediate surroundings sooner than they would otherwise? That’s a win for all involved.

Two weeks ago, Jeff Rowland ran what I think is one of the funniest episodes in the history of Overcompensating; having missed out more than once on the chance to buy particularly funny originals of various strips by waiting too long, I emailed Jeff right away.

He told me that the original had been water damaged, and he couldn’t in good conscience sell it to me. It showed up in today’s mail, with three little water spots away from the main image, along with a mess of stickers and temporary tatoos and a Band-Aid™ brand adhesive bandage. All of these gifts, especially the Band-Aid™, are going to be treasured parts of my collection of webcomics art.

So to Jeff, DJ, Chris and Kent, and all the terrific creators that I’ve met in the past two years of fumbling my way through this pseduo-journalistic hackery, thank you. It’s no exaggeration to say that being around so many creative, funny people has made my life richer, and I’m going to keep trying to spread the word about the great work that all of you do.

So we’re full into the holiday season; whatever tradition you may follow, there’s an excuse to get well-fed and well-boozed with friends and/or family about now, plus or minus ten days. And at these times, we generally try to find the best things about ourselves, and today I have two books to share that I believe reflect the best of [web]comicry talent.

First up, The Kids’s Book Project, a benefit for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, spearheaded by Mike Rouse-Deane, and with more contributors than you can shake a stick at (I wrote ’em all up here last month, and I ain’t doing it again so make with the clicky).

Rouse-Deane gave each of his 50+ contributor’s one thing to look at: the page before the one they would be drawing, and the one after. One group of creators started at the forward and worked forward, the other at the end and worked back, and from there it’s an exercise in wandering digression that somehow comes back to a resolution of the original story.

Without giving too much away, I’ll note that the previously released image comprises page three, and that the story (at least at first, and then again at the end) concerns a pair of children named John Alexander Petdander Orlean and Susie James. It’s a fun ride, with much flipping to the back of the book to confirm who drew what. In fact, there’s only one thing missing and that may be the most important thing:

Mike Rouse-Deane has neglected to list his name anywhere in the book. Title page, intro, credits at the back, nothing. I suspect that he’s trying to not steal focus from the creators or the cause, but I’m calling shenanigans on that modesty. You put together a hell of a good project, Mike, and you ought to take a bow.

Secondly, something that I didn’t think I’d get to read yet. The always clued-in JRo let us know that the major booksellers moved up the street date of Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet; two hours later I was in the local Barnes & Noble (who appear to be shelving it in the children’s section) and breaking out my wallet.

Forget a body of work that spans the achingly wonderful Copper, the spare and unexpected Daisy Kutter, and sitting in the driver’s seat of the brilliant Flight anthologies. Kibuishi has just left those projects in the dust and announced himself as one of the premier talents in comics with Amulet Book One: The Stonekeeper.

If not for the fact that he’s still alive, I’d swear that Kibuishi was the reincarnation of Hayao Miyazaki, because Amulet reminds me of nothing so much as a Miyazaki story. All of the Ghibli touches are there: characters with open, simple, but incredibly expressive faces; the choice of the young girl (not quite ready to be a woman) as the protagonist; the stylish, otherworldly, and lovingly-crafted flying machines; the landscapes and critters that clearly come from a dream world that isn’t all rainbows and lollipops.

Into this mix are thrust Emily and her younger brother Navin; their mother has been taken from their new home by a nightmarish menace made of tentacles and teeth. When you’re a girl who’s already lost her father these circumstances demand you do whatever you need to do to get your mother back. In this case what needs to be done means accepting the help of a mysterious and long-lost great-grandfather, and taking on the powers and burdens of a magic stone in the titular amulet.

An amulet which, as it so happens, has its own views on things; at more than one point, the reader is left wondering exactly what price Emily will have to pay to save her family. With barely the initial setup to the story finished, it’s clear that this isn’t one of those happily ever after kinds of stories … it’s one of those nobody said getting what you wanted will make you happy stories, or maybe one of the sadder but wiser kind. It’s a new kind of all-ages literature, of a sort with BONE, and sure to please anybody you might choose to gift it to.

And best of all? If Book One released early, maybe that means that Books Two through as many as we can get Kibuishi to write will release early, as well. Right now, I’m ready to curl up with about a thousand more pages of Amulet.

Webcomics can save your life. Want proof? From the Introduction of Schlock Mercenary: The Tub Of Happiness by Howard Tayler:

In December of 1999 I had a heart attack.

Here I am, almost eight years later. I suspect that those chest pains were a clarion call. Less than three months after the ripping of that final, hairy bandage, I found myself telling Sandra, “I think I’ll pick up doodling as a hobby.” A week after that the first Schlock Mercenary character drawings were emerging, and within two weeks I was writing and illustrating strips.

Hold that thought, we’ll be coming back to it shortly.

Reading SM:TTOH, some notice that Tayler’s trying to play fair with the rules of his hard sci-fi universe; others note the art that rapidly progressed from its very rough original form to its present, less-rough form; many focus on the funny (with a hefty side order of BLAM). Me, I notice how reprehensible most of his characters really are.

They are mercenaries. Their defining motivation is there in the second panel of the first strip:

We’re a crack company of space mercenaries. We do “hurting people” and “breaking things”.

So we’ve got Good Guys whose stock in trade is murder and destruction and extortion — not for defense of their homes or grand ideals, but for money. They are not so very different from the union thugs portrayed in the storyline on pages 175 to 177, who are portrayed far less sympathetically than Our Heroes. By the time the book is done, they’ve directly caused a spasm of war that lays waste on a multiple-planetary scale and laid the groundwork for a broader conflict that will kill billions of sentients.

And yet, that war and those uncountable deaths somehow disturb us less than the fact that all that death and destruction was provoked by the act of spamming 30% of the galaxy’s population.

So Tayler’s working on some pretty dark thoughts, making us laugh at them, robbing those less social corners of his own soul of some of their power. I know that it’s working, because hanging out with Howard Tayler, he’s absolutely the sort of person I’d take to the town picnic and introduce to my neighbors as a friend, and totally not a societal danger that spends his days trying to convince me to care about mass murderers. Because dammit, I do care about them, and they do make me laugh.

Letting out the blackness between the parts of ourselves that we show the rest of the world has got to be a good thing. In Tayler’s specific case, that process (via cartooning) has had a salutary effect on his health. To recap, in the form of the famed Harper’s Index:

• Heart attacks suffered by Howard Tayler prior to becoming a webcomicker: 1
• Heart attacks suffered by Howard Tayler since becoming a webcomicker: 0

QED, people.

Got tipped off by the always clued-in Rich Stevens about a piece by David Byrne in the latest issue of Wired; he’s talking about the management of musical careers (vis-a-vis, how much do you want to give away to other people in exchange for their help). It’s designed as a comment on the music industry, but it’s really applicable to any kind of creative endeavor, such as webcomics.

Particularly interesting is his breakdown of six different models (with examples) of how to get your music (webcomic) out to the listening (reading) audience:

1. The 360° or equity deal; the creator is a brand that’s owned entirely by the publisher lock, stock, barrel, and they manage the entire thing for you (or without you)
2. The standard deal; ownership of the creation goes to a publisher, and the creator gets paid by them (after costs)
3. The license deal; the creator retains ownership, and a publisher has the rights to market/exploit the material for a period of time, after which they revert to the creator who can then exploit or shop them around
4. The profit-sharing deal; minimal upfront cash to the creator (who retains ownership), publisher performs marketing and distribution, and they split the proceeds
5. The manufacturing and distribution deal; the creator does everything except make and ship the final product, and the publisher is pretty much reduced to fee-for-service
6. Not a deal, but self-distribution — the creator does it all, but just as importantly, keeps all the money; with digital distribution costs of music approaching zero, look for this to be much more popular in the future

Right now, the traditional syndication of comic strips exists somewhere between 1 and 2;, comic book work-for-hire and Zuda-type deals straddle 2 and 3; I’d like to see the new ComicSpace do something like 4 or 5 (which would be the Aduz model of publishing); and most self-supporting webcomics artists live in zone 5 or 6 (depends on whether they ship themselves, or farm out fulfillment to someone like Topatoco).

It’s a fascinating read, and if we envision the models on a y-axis (arbitrarily, we can put 1 at the bottom and 6 at the top), I fully expect to see musicians and non-independent [web]comickers climb up to the webcomics end of the scale. As the worlds of music, comics and movies all start to merge into a general art from digital tools, I hope that we’ll make newcomers to the world of self-managed creation feel welcome.

I realized this week that I needed to backtrack a bit. Last week I mentioned Geeks Next Door in passing, on my way to a larger, different piece. So I thought I’d jog one step back and actually write about it.

It’s billed as “the exaggerated tales of a geek couple and the people who live with them.” The main characters, Jessi and Matt, no doubt based on creators Jessi Bavolack and Matt Pascal, deal with cats, family and accents, and even frat zombies (probably better if you just go look at that last one). They’re often joined in their adventures by Jessi’s younger sister, Maggie, and a character named Barry (who seems to be the only one not based on an actual person).

I’ll keep this short, since that seems the trend here lately: you should have a look at this webcomic. I’ve found it kind of charming and winsome in reading through the archives. It’s still relatively new (ergo, not a whole lot of archives), but the characters are very compelling even though the idea itself (webcomic about a couple and their life? We’ve seen this before…) isn’t new. But, weirdly, that’s part of what makes it distinctive; it feels familiar in a number of ways. The characters sometimes borrow elements from manga, in the way faces (or fangs) look, and the overarching story (couple living together) is one we’ve seen–but these folks have a fun, goofy twist on it: the geek angle. It’s there, without knocking you totally over the head–and that’s one of this webcomic’s strengths: it’s very accessible to a wide range of readers.

There’s also some very nice color work in there, and I’m a sucker for good lettering. This webcomic’s worth adding to your list of reading for next week when (hopefully not if) you’re off from work. Fingers crossed we’re not socked in with snow again…

Editor’s note: in order to satisfy Andre Babyn’s concerns about the worth of what I’m writing (see yesterday’s comments), I promise that I personally loathe the creator of every item mentioned today¹, and would gladly run them over if not for the fact I’d have to wash my car afterwards. Thank you.

• Issue #1 of the ongoing Hero By Night series hit the shops yesterday; I liked this one more than the 4-part mini that won the Platinum challenge for 2006. Maybe it’s because origin stories are always a little clunky and forced as a result of the last 50 or 60 years of comics pushing the story in one fixed direction (exception: this year’s Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil).

  Other theories: it’s because having an open story means that DJ Coffman doesn’t have to cram in all the cool ideas into too few pages; it’s the co-writer he’s working with; it’s a difference in editoral policy; it’s a comfort level with the story and art; the month has an “R” in it. In any event, it’s shaping up to be nicely grim/gritty/überangst-free, and just plain fun to read. Plus (very small spoilers here) the last page features a giant monkey. Can’t go wrong there.

• The Create a Comic Project contributes to Shortpacked! updates today and tomorrow (link not yet live). Gotta say, for an 8 year old writer, that’s a pretty decent pacing on the joke.
• Coming out of WeMa (that’s Western Massachusetts for those not “in the know”), a possible webcomics meme sighting … although I think that probably five or more total contributions over at least three days would be required to make this officially memetic. Anyway, Love Is apparently NOT two naked six year olds who are married. It’s a whole bunch of dubious circumstances.

  Update: And that’s number four!

• It appears that tensions have cooled between Fleen (that is to say, me) and A Girl And Her Fed (that is to say, Otter), and I believe that she and I are now good (although I have this nagging feeling … sort of like I owe the Mafia a favor). If anything should happen to me, avenge my blood.

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¹ Not really. Except for 8 year olds that write good comics for the CCP. I can’t stand them.