The webcomics blog about webcomics

? Raaaadio Sweetheart On The Aaaaiiiiiirwaves ?

♪ Maaaaaximum fuuuuuuunnnnnnn! ♪

I might be the only one, but I miss the discontinued theme song to The Sound of Young America, a radio show about things that are awesome, hosted by America’s Radio Sweetheart, Jesse Thorn.

Readers with a good memory will recall that we have spoken about Mr Thorn previously on this page, and that he’s generally the best interviewer in the radio business right now. I can think of no demographic crying out for lengthy interviews with hip-hop artists less than that of public radio listeners, yet that’s exactly who Jesse provides them for — and interviews with comedians, writers, and the odd (sometimes very odd) webcomicker or two. He keeps a statistically older/whiter-than-the-median audience listening to people they don’t have a pre-existing interest in because he’s that damn good.

And now, Thorn and his general awesomporium have a new storefront provided by TopatoCo. When we spoke with Holly Post, VP of TopatoCo a while back, there was an unused bit from that interview where she mentioned (all offhand-like) that there were people that create stuff on the internet that’s not webcomickers that they might find to be a good fit. At the time, I figured she was talking about, say, Brandon Bird, but now I see that they were thinking bigger. Congratulations to all involved.

  • Chris Yates has schemes, which apparently he might share some hint of tomorrow. We at Fleen have heard some reports of what could be Very Big News, and are just waiting for confirmation; will Yates, in fact, tell us about how he’s getting ready to make ***-*** ****** ******* for a major, international ****** *******? Watch his strip and this space for updates.
  • Gunerkrigg Court‘s first book got really delayed as its publisher had cash-flow problems; now that those are sorted, we can look for volume 2 next month. To celebrate, creator Tom Siddell is talking with CBR about the forthcoming volume.
  • For the past week or so, Joey Manley has been holding forth on how to make it in the world of webcomics, but today’s musing on the topic is the one you need to read — it’s why it’s flat-out impossible for you to achieve success in webcomickry:

    Have you given up yet? Good. Because if I was able to talk you out of it so easily, with one stupid blog post, then you didn’t have what it takes. Not everybody gets to make a living at webcomics, because not everybody is talented enough and determined enough to do so. And guess what? That’s just fine. You’re better off where you are. Making a living at webcomics is hard, it’s unlikely, it’s the most impossible thing you could ever decide to do for a living, and in order to stand a chance you have to want it so badly that you’re willing to push through anything, anybody, any time, push beyond human reason and common sense, and then push a little harder, even, than that, if you’re going to really commit yourself to the grueling effort that is required to succeed at webcomics (or at any art, but maybe especially webcomics).

    Hint: Don’t stop reading until you reach the end.

[…] big Chris Yates secret project list that we hinted at yesterday is now live, and we at Fleen can now reveal exclusively, from a conversation that took place over […]

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