Let’s get started, shall we?

• J Baird (you remember him from the Create a Comic Project here, here, and here) wrote to us in search of artists:
  

  I’m working on putting together a simple teaching guide concerning kids and comics. It won’t be anything on McCloud‘s level, but it’ll give some nice tips on how to simplify certain aspects of comics that may prove useful to potential volunteers. Like Rousse-Deane‘s The Kid’s Book Project, the guide is not for profit.

  More details of what Baird’s looking for over at ComixTalk.

• Also at ComixTalk, it’s gang interview time with the lads of Blank Label.
• Redesigns ho! Starslip Crisis (now with new, shorter URL and a spoiler-laden but concise new reader’s guide) and Las Bragas del Diablo are sporting new looks this morning. In addition to the new look, Starslip creator Kris Straub has a blogposting that nicely illustrates the fact that challenges inherent to achieving the status of professional webcomicker aren’t necessarily the same as the challenges to staying there. Compelling stuff; would-be pros, ignore at your peril.
• Advice for the budding webcartoonist from the woman who causes me to live in terror and who also wrote this nippleriffic little ditty. >sigh< Is it too much to ask that I be able to go a month without fear of being murdered?

Hopefully back to normal data access next week; in the meantime, I found something interesting at Occasional Superheroine: marketing yourself and your comics.

Valerie D’Orazio writes extensively on dead-tree comics and on the surface that’s the intended audience of this piece, but she’s really talking to anybody that’s creating comicslike art independently (which is as neat a definition of the webcomics-as-job crowd that I can come up with). What should be of special interest to any independent [web]comicker are items 3, 6, 7. To wit:

3. You Are Selling YOU

It is important that you have another non-comics stream of income either coming in or immediately waiting in the wings … if you seem desperate, if that next [project] is going to be the difference between you paying your phone bill or having to use smoke signals, people are going to pick up on it.

Do a quick check on your overall image. [Y]ou should be able to present yourself well. You should be able to be interviewed well. You should speak clearly. And you should be positive about yourself and your accomplishments.

6. Network Network Network

If you want to build or increase your network base, be “cool” about it. Don’t seem like an opportunist. Opportunists are talked about behind their back and called Opportunists. You avoid this by relating to the people you wish to network with as human beings and not Editor #5 or Big-Time Writer. Be natural.

Remember the old adage, “the people you see on the way up are the people you’ll see on the way down.” Say you’re moving up the ladder and you decide to treat Assistant Editor Y like crap. Assistant Y could be the guy in charge of hiring your ass one day. He or she could be in charge of the whole editorial department, even the president of a company. This happens more times than you think. And now Assistant Editor Y, who you dissed eight years ago, tells everyone: “don’t work with X.” And you’re X! Don’t be X. Don’t even be W.

7. Reach Outside The Comic Book World

The success of comics like Perry Bible Fellowship and Y The Last Man have largely come from outside the standard comic book community. There is a whole untapped market of potential readers out there. Find other on-comic niches that might cotton to your comic and reach out to them.

Go read the whole piece — it’s brief, full of terrific ideas, and should give you plenty to chew on.

If you haven’t listened to the latest Webcomics Weekly podcast (number 21, yo), pay special attention to Alex Guigar (age five!) at about the 41:40 mark, where he implores his dad to engage in the age-old ritual of beating another kid’s dad with his mad comic drawing skills. Note the quiet confidence in Brad Guigar‘s voice as he assures his son of victory.

In non-ass-handing webcomics news, I’ve been emailing back and forth recently with Kate Beaton, to whom I really must apologize for not mentioning her before today. She’s been doing some kick-ass journal-style comics (did you check out her tales of returning to the family homestead for Christmas?).

Beaton’s also been doing some challenge projects; much like John Campbell‘s famed 50 questions, Beaton asked for historical topics and did comics on the first 20. Astoundingly, it turns out that Benjamin Disraeli may in fact be ripe material for the webcomics treatment.

Anyway, historical figures and events, ranging from Tesla to Emperor Norton, from Canadian Heritage Minutes (my favorite: “This nation’s name is Ka-Na-Da” with a close second to the Springhill Mine Disaster of 1958) to Good Queen Bess, with a soupçon of Pope and naked CBC personalities. Come for the history, stay for the awesome.

Something kind of interesting crossed my (virtual) desk recently. (It wasn’t Orbitz, though that would have been awesome.)

It was an email about 17 Sensational, Free, and Downloadable Graphic Novels. Last month, someone I know mentioned something that certainly sounded like he had a version of Watchmen on his computer. I kind of shuddered at the thought, but mostly because, well, it’s Watchmen. I so loved reading that book, what with the panel structure and use of color and so on. It wouldn’t be the same, of course, but I feared it might lose something, or the reading would shift. (Well, duh, on that last one: of course it’s going to be a different kind of reading.) But, you know, how interesting. “I wonder what they picked,” I thought, and off I went.

Anyway, Daniel of Daily Bits writes, “I want to highlight a booming segment of the online free culture movement: graphic novels. Each link will take you to a page where you can download or view a high quality graphic novel or excerpt [my emphasis] freely and with no strings attached.”

Shows what I know; I didn’t realize it was booming. (more…)

Like all good souls, I was looking forward to today’s release of David Malki !‘s long-awaited movie, Expendable. Unfortunately, it looks like the release will be pushed back a week, so mark your calendars for 23 January when it debuts as part of the Now Film Festival. Now all we need is a Wondermark movie (score by Kris Straub), and all will be well.

Also! If you didn’t make it to MoCCA for Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics, you’ve officially missed your chance. But you still have time to get your ass to the Cartoon Art Museum in San Fransisco for Shaenon Garrity‘s Cartoonist-in-Residence gig this Saturday.

So work has taken me to a place that is seemingly designed to crush all hope. Although I get a cell signal outside the building, it disappears as soon as I step inside. The security guards treat me like a convicted felon wanting to breach their perimeter. My pass doesn’t allow me outside for lunch, so I must make use of a mediocre-quality, overpriced cafeteria that doesn’t take money — I had to purchase a stored-value card in order to eat, meaning that I’m floating one of the largest financial houses in the country a zero-interest loan (with no chance of ever getting my change back at the end on of the week).

Needless to say, the phones are internal-only, and the internet “access” does not allow me to get to work email, work intranet, Gmail, Fleen, or nearly any other site on the planet. But I am allowed, but some weird chance, one means of sending (no receive, alas, but I’ll take what I can get) messages to the outside world:

The website banhammer has somehow allowed Sheldon to slip through its grasp, and at Sheldon there is a link to “Send [a strip] to a friend!”. Thus, I was able send today’s strip to my wife with a postcard message attached, politely informing her that I would most likely be psychotic by the time I got home.

Those of you stuck in similar circumstances (say, in the midst of a civil uprising against a particularly despotic regime) may want to make use of similar techniques to get word to the outside world about the atrocities you witness. Webcomics: Spreadin’ Freedom™.

In the meantime, Monday also featured Pixel!Boobies (SFW, NSFW) at Diesel Sweeties, and Little Dee‘s second book got a wonderful review courtesy of the Washington Post.

Two things today:

1. For those of you who skipped the reading assignment, Real Life now has a non-Cliff Notes version.
2. By the time you read this, it will have been 754 days since Fleen launched, meaning that I’ve been doing one of these, on average, 0.8899 posts per calendar day since we launched, which is considerably more than the five times a week you were originally promised. Since I hope that means I’ve built up a reservoir of goodwill, I pray your indulgence as I write about something even less tangentially related to webcomics than normal.

   So why the hoo-ha over 671 postings? Because when you add in the contributions of others who’ve written here are Fleen, it comes to an even 1000. I felt that a) that was worthy of some remark, and b) I’m stuck with extremely limited internet this week, and this convenient landmark could be noted quickly and with a minimum of cross-linking.

   This somewhat inconsequential site launched as part of a elaborate plot at world domination by a Machiavellian schemer (who, as it turns out, literally owns my soul), but children have a way of growing away from parental expectations.

   It’s gratifying to think that my (sometimes-desperate) attempts to find something vaguely informative or amusing to fill this space has been worthy of your attention. You’ve let me know when I’ve been slacking, you’ve taken me to task when we’ve disagreed, you’ve rallied about when I was warned to Govern Myself Accordingly. If nothing else, I hope you’ve found it true that the comments are open to all and sundry, that nobody’s point of view has been suppressed, and that the shitstorms provoked by our strict adherance to tabloid ethics have been, at the least, diverting.

   For an unpaid gig that regularly results in complete strangers letting me know exactly to what degree I’ve been fellating Jon Rosenberg, it’s been a lot of fun, and I hope you stick around for the next 671 postings.

Next week doesn’t look good, either. In the meantime, let’s channel some old-school Saturday morning cartoons, courtesy of Jerzy Drozd and Sugary Serials:

[Sugary Serials] has announced the release of the print editions of their first three issues, spotlighting the inaugural titles in the all ages anthology. The comics are inspired by the stories found in Saturday morning cartoons, and are created by some of the finest artists of the webcomics and print comics industries.

The comics are available in a variety of ways; on the web site, or they can be downloaded to the user’s PSP or favorite comics reading program. The comics anthology is collected in print at the end of each month and can be purchased from the IndyPlanet web site. The online archives will always remain free.

Sugary Serials promises some unique features to set it apart from the usual online comics collective or anthology. The stories are brand new, and the lineup will constantly change. Every month at least three stories are featured on the web site in 8-page “acts�. The stories run anywhere from 8 pages to 32 pages. As each story is completed, it will be replaced by a brand new title. The constantly changing lineup will ensure fresh content every few months.

The first three issues collect Chet Lucero’s DREAMFORM DEFENDERS, a story where spacemen, barrel kings, and sheriff mummies defend children’s dreams from the evil phantasms of the nightmare; Sara Turner and Jerzy Drozd’s EQUALIZERS OF THE DIVIDE, a fantasy adventure filled with robot bears, snake men, and demons made of wood; and Mark Rudolph’s CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS, a story featuring a boy tipping the cosmic scales of good vs. evil during his visit to a traveling mummy exhibit at the county fair.

For those of you wondering, it appears that there is more than one highly creative Jerzy Drozd out there. Wacky.

When they hand you the fancy paper and the hood, be sure to credit reader Hugh Campbell:

I had to share this thing I noticed. Since comics can only be snap shots into the characters lives there is often a buildup of an hours, event, over weeks of real time.

This one extreme example that sticks in my mind is from a strip called Apple Continuum…. [S]ince the strip began on 2002-5-15 and ended on 2006-7-6 there have been 147 strips. But upon reading the strip, those four years of writing and drawing have resulted in one and a half days of comic time.

Therefore there is a ratio of .375 “comic days” for each real time year. I would like to read find out other comics ratio but I am still just one man and can’t hope to figure out all of them.

If you want to start figuring Wigu, it’s neatly divided into story–days for your convenience (complete with clock times in the books). Oh, and new Dresden Codak, in case you hadn’t noticed. Much of the story that’s happened over the past calendar year has been within a span of 24 to 48 hours.

You know, I realized recently that I’d mentioned Tragic Relief, but I hadn’t really written much about it. It’s a project–and recipient of a recent Xeric Foundation grant–by Colleen Frakes. Her work, according to her bio, has been featured in one newspaper, two literary magazines, seven anthologies, eleven zines, and counting. (But you can see more of her work at cowboyorange.com, and be sure to check out the gallery. That lobster wedding portrait? Yeah. I own it. Full disclosure: Colleen and I are in at least one anthology together and were very nearly classmates.)

I’m predicting that she’s going to be one of the folks to watch this year.

Evidence, you say? Show your work?

Okay. For starters, there’s the fact that Tragic Relief, on issue #5, landed a Xeric. Her linework’s evocative; it’s one of those works that’ll pull you in with a deceptively spare style. It’s a style you’ll see reflected across her work, whether its paintings, illustration, or her comics work. She’s also one of these painters who parts with her work for cheap: she has originals for sale as well. (As if you could pass up these cute things?)

As if this weren’t enough, she’s currently serializing her reincarnated series, Marya and Death, over here. It’s a project she abandoned some time ago to revive online; it’s developing nicely, and it’s interesting to see an artist return to a work that’s been set aside for a little while with fresh eyes and a newer perspective. Again, you’ll see that same spare style, but look at the cool color work Frakes is doing here. It’s worth starting at the beginning and reading through the chapters as they develop. But be sure to also check out her guest strip on Reina Telgemeier’s SMILE, a charming if tragic tale of teeth, tripping, and trauma.