They’ve built up a bit, so here’s some highlights:

• Joe Decie wrote:
  

  Hello there, I’ve been drawing a comic on the internet since January. Some of it true life diary strips some of it made up a little bit. As I’m new to all this any comments, reviews, criticism etc. would be welcome.

  Joe, I like your art and your narrative style seems to fit the material well. Although I see that you’ve done some 60 installments since January, I almost didn’t learn that because of the text immediately below your masthead:

  Daily? maybe. Weekly? mostly.

  Lots of people aren’t going to come back if they don’t know when you’re updating; you seems to be averaging a bit more than 3 updates a week, which would be a much better thing to put there. Give potential readers a reason to come back, and I think they’ll like what they see.

• From the world of big-time indy publishers, Top Shelf goes webbish:
  

  American indie-comics publisher Top Shelf Productions launches today its new free digital comics initiative, Top Shelf 2.0. Updated 5 days a week, the new program will showcase a huge variety of talent both old and new, introducing creators to new fans — and fans to new creators — with a constant stream of new stories.

  With each day’s new story, co-editors Brett Warnock and Leigh Walton will unveil another piece in a rolling assortment of previously featured artists and new debuts. As a special bonus for the site’s launch, the initial offering features ten stories by twelve creators, demonstrating the vast diversity of comics and cartoonists involved.

  Much more at the link, naturally. Initial impression: part editor-screened collective, part anthology-in-the-making. I don’t know Leigh Walton, but Brett Warnock’s a stand-up guy, and anything that allows for the possibility — no matter how remote — that I might get fresh Owly more often than two or three times a year (FCBD and whenever the new book’s done) is worth my attention. And be sure to bring hats to MoCCA, Runton — got a baby nephew on the way that’s gonna need one.

• Received from Wes Molebash:
  

  On Wednesday May 14, I had the opportunity to teach some kids at a local elementary school how to draw cartoons. We had a really good time, and my friend, Chris Free, took a ton of pictures.

  Wes’s headline for this missive: Children Are Our Future; we at Fleen are strongly in favor of both the future, and children (as long as they stay the hell off our lawn).

• Not really webcomics, but nicely written and sent from a webcomics creator: Von Allan on unexpected fallout from the Fantagraphics/Diamond deal.
• And for the three of you that aren’t already squeeing in delight: Tyler Martin‘s latest release of ComicPress is out:
  

  ComicPress, the popular WordPress theme for publishing comics, has just gotten a much needed upgrade to ComicPress 2.5. It was entirely rewritten from the ground up. The CSS code is 100% cleaner, easier to customize and harder to break. Also all the queries and functions have been both updated and enhanced.

  In addition to these changes, the theme now comes packaged with five various layouts to get you started: Standard Edition, 3-Column Edition, Vertical Edition, Vertical 3-Column Edition and the Graphic Novel Edition. Publishing comics and converting large archives of comic files to ComicPress has never been easier with the release of the new ComicPress Manager plugin for WordPress as well.

  Just a personal thought, but f you create a webcomic that runs off ComicPress (and a lot of you do), or read webcomics that run off of ComicPress (and all of you definitely do), drop Tyler a line thanking him for his hard work. Thanks to him, new creators don’t have to have major designer chops for their sites to look good (thus placing the emphasis on the comic), and the rest of us don’t have to look at as many sites that draw their inspiration from MySpace and Comet Cursor. Flying Spaghetti Monster bless you, Tyler Martin!