What’s with Penny Arcade these days? Updates have been spotty, and today is hardly the first day that the main page has been updated with no comic. Now when I say “spotty”, I don’t mean Mac Hall spotty. I mean spotty for Penny Arcade. I remember a time when there would be an update in time for my 11 am ICT class, last week I had to wait until nearly midnight.

Usually, I’m firmly in the “webcomics are free so quit your yapping” camp when it comes to complaints about quality/consistency but this is Penny Arcade we’re talking about here. These are the pros. I know they’re busy these days, what with their childrend, charity and awesome convention that people are calling the new E3 (but not Gabe), but I hope they don’t loose sight of what got them there. Regular, high quality updates that had me laughing when I should have been building databases.

Good news everyone! Zach Miller is here to spread the good word! Mitch Clem has been filling us in on all the religious antics in Chicago. I’m wondering how much of what we see represented in convention comics actually happens.

For example, would a vessel of Jesus Christ really call me a slovenly dip-wad? I don’t even know what that is!!

So if being a Rocket Pirate isn’t exactly your thing, why not lend your artistic talent to Jason Salsbury; who is apperently looking for an artist.

Jason Writes:
Been really busy. Sorry for the lack of news updates. Got big plans coming.

Enjoy….

Keep your dog off my lawn

Jason

By way of a more detailed explanation, Scott Kurtz writes:
My buddy Jason, who writes the comic strip The Pet Professional is looking to start up a whole new comic strip. He’s looking for an artist and if you’re interested you should email him at loganpvp@gmail.com

Jason is a super writer, so if you’ve got the goods in the art department, drop him a line!

I’ve been a little worried about Unshelved since I got back from Europe. Something hasn’t seemed quite right. I was a bit unimpressed by the free computer and chocolate statue storylines, as they seemed a little under development and lacked the usual richness of the strip.

Today though, I’m willing to forgive the Overdue Media guys. It seems as though our buddy Bill is having some hard core back trouble. I’ve been there. It sucks. I hope he gets better soon and comes back to delivering the Unshelved we all know and love.

Oh, and before anyone says that I’m suddenly down on Unshelved; I thought it was really fun to have Randy present an episode of the Unshelved book club, even if he is likely to put a lot of people off The Game – which is actually a very good book.

Warren Ellis; comic author and God of the Internet sent out the following press release type thing on his email list Bad Signal today:
Who wants to be a Rocket Pirate?

Joey Manley talked me into curating a mass webcomics site. I’ve known
Joey for getting on for six years now. It’s partly my fault that he
got involved with comics at all. I suspect this is his revenge.

People who want to make webcomics are invited to submit their ideas
to me for membership in the Rocket Pirates, a webcomics collective
which will be housed at http://www.rocketpirates.com .

Rocket Pirates will be the first site to launch with the new Webcomics
Nation Collective Edition technology, which will be available as a
commercial product for people wanting to quickly and cheaply launch their own
multi-creator webcomics portals sometime in the next few months. Because
we’re all about being quick and cheap, believe me.

(more…)

It’s nice when Ryan North does my work for me. I can sip my morning coffee, squint through my hangover and have a steaming goblet of web comics news sitting right there in my inbox waiting for me. Thanks Ryan.

So anyway, the good Mr North was point us bitter, haggard wordbeasts in the direction of For Better or For Worse – where Lynn has started to “animate” the comics. I’m all for that sort of thing. I’m a big Homestar Runner fan. I loved the Dilbert cartoon. I like most things animated/internet/comic related, but a character blinking in a panel or two is not an animated comic.

Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but when you read a piece of sequential art you have to read it in order to experience it fully. This is quite difficult to do when your eye is constantly being drawn to some sort of movement in the upcoming panels. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the movement was something exciting, but it isn’t. It’s blinking.

Hey everyone, I have returned from Europe in more or less one piece. If you’re interested, you can read about it here over the coming week or two. I would like to give a massive shout out to the Fleen reader I met on the train to London. I hope the British treated you well.

Coming home after over two weeks without web comics (I tried to keep up with the ones I said I would but it was pretty much impossible) was interesting. Many years ago, I went on holiday for a whole month and when I came home I just didnt have the time/ inclination to catch up on all the comics that I read so I wound up seperating the wheat from the chaff and only filling myself in on the ones that I really liked. This time round, that didn’t happen. All the comics I read regularly these days are pretty much all gold, so coming home to two weeks worth of material on each site was like sitting down to watch a DVD box set of a bunch of my favorite shows, except that it’s all free!

Ah, the simple joy of web comics, how I missed it.

Well gang, I’m off to Europe for a couple of weeks tomorrow, and here’s what I’ve been thinking. What web comics am I going to be able to read while I’m gone? Now, as you could imagine, a fellow who writes for a site such as this reads a lot of web comics. At best, I’ll be confined to over priced internet cafés and half-functional hostel net terminals for the next 16 days, so I have to do some streamlining. I have to decide which comics I can live without and which I can not possibly stand to miss a single panel. 

Even though I don’t think I’ve missed two whole weeks of Sluggy since I was 13 years old, the current story line just isn’t keeping me interested. I might just catch up when I get home, if my brain can handle the shock. 

Questionable Content has me on the edge of my seat right now. Martin has Dora, the coffee shop is busy and Faye is getting her head straight. QC is building toward something; I can’t wait to see what. Of course Jeph is running a guest week for much of the time I’ll be a way, so maybe I’ll just wait this one out too. 

Something Positive is entering into another theatre related story line. I can’t get enough of these. I love SP almost all the time anyway, but I’ve done bits and pieces of acting and crewing in my time and these stories always ring true. 

As well as SP, I might keep an eye on Press Start To Play, just to remind me of home! That should give me more than enough time on European internet terminals to do the things I’m supposed to be doing; like finding hostels, maps, train timetables and lists of laws I’m likely to break. 

Stay cool, Fleeners – I’ll be back eventually! 

Have you seen all the merch Penny Arcade is dropping? If I wasn’t so poor right now, I would be totally excited. As I understand it, not all of our readers are poor – so I thought I should share.

Mainly, I’m stoked about the new books. I picked up Bacon Robots as soon as it dropped and I’m really glad that the guys aren’t hanging around with the release of their next books. If you haven’t picked up the first collection, it looks like they’re putting out a pretty sweet looking hard cover. I think it would be the perfect beginning to any PA merch collection, but if you don’t feel like buying one yourself how about buying me one, eh?

… Tatsuya Ishida! Also, PJ Hart, who has been absent from these pages due to a dangerous mix of personal and professional problems. Anyway. Let’s talk more about the new Sinfest.

When I first started here, one of the first things I did was get on Tat’s back about his extended absences. I was close to bringing it up again when out of nowhere, a new comic appeared along with a brand new website! The new site itself oozes simplicity from html pores that were once clogged with clutter, and today’s strip is old school Sinfest, just the way you remember.

It’s worth noticing also that  there is no trace of Keenspot anywhere on the site, so that’s another loss for them. I wonder if Tat will get snapped up by any of the other comic collectives. My money is on Blank Label.