I’ve had a short list of webcomics that I’ve been meaning to write about, taking into account general suggestions from a few columns back about trying to…well, not pre-write columns, exactly, but have ideas at the ready. Part of what I enjoy about this column is that it’s more or less what strikes me at the time. I have a few longer things I’m thinking about, still, like syndication and reading preferences (online, offline, both, whatever), and puzzling through why one of the webcomics I really like isn’t quite so appealing in print form (this admission feels tantamount to heresy, I think, which is why I’m delaying on writing that piece).

Anyway, the latest webcomic I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, is Bellen! by Box Brown. He gave me a wee print version of some of his strips at MoCCA, and I’ve enjoyed reading it. It’s a really different kind of reading, though, than the comics online–for starters, the print version is significantly smaller as well as not in color–and it’s complicating some of the ways I’m thinking about work that’s both online and off (which I enjoy).

It’s partially the use of color that I find entrancing, but also the ways in which the characters relate to the world, where it doesn’t take itself too seriously but it also doesn’t feel too glib. HIs bio’s pretty basic: “Brian Michael Brown is affectionately known as box brown to his friends and allies. He draws a comic about a couple.”

He draws more, of course, which you can see on his blog. But I was hoping–since I know he sometimes reads this column–he’d be willing to comment a bit below with more information about the strip. How did it start…?

I haven’t seen the new movie, and while I very much enjoy the books this post isn’t intended as a promotional hurrah for the upcoming book release either. But lately I’ve been totally charmed by Matthew Reidsma’s plan, springing from a comment thread, to draw a different Harry Potter character each day until the final book in the series is released (so much so I contributed a very emo drawing of…well, I’ll let you go find it). Madness!

There’s some exceptional renditions of various characters by folks including Corey Marie (uh, so how come nobody turned me on to Scene Language, ’cause I’m kind of loving it?) and Tod (yes, these folks) and Clutch McBastard!

It’s actually worth checking out even if you’re not much of a fan of the books, since it’s cool artwork and an interesting way to see how different artists interpret the same characters ( part of why I generally really dig guest strips)—the post involving four different characters is a particularly keen example. In fact, some of the participating folks (I’m thinking of Box Brown in specific, who writes, charmingly, drawn with a pen and ink, and I had no clue who this person was, so I just guessed. How’d I do?) profess to not be familiar with the characters either…

I’m also enjoying it because in the comments I’m getting to find all kinds of new cool art, like this way cute stuff, and J.P. Coovert’s work as well, both of which I hadn’t seen before!

Some of us, Reidsma writes, are drawing a Harry Potter character every day until the last book comes out. Won’t you join us?

Yeah, I know it’s July.

But last week I was given a flyer (not by the author, but someone whose work I like and have written about previously) advertising a new webcomic called Haunted, by Joshua Smeaton. The copy on the promotional postcard asks, “What did you do for Halloween when you were 12? Trick or treating? Go to a costume party? Or run from psychotic ghosts bent on ripping out your soul?”

It’s a little too early to tell where the story’s headed since right now there’s only a few pages up–the first batch of which are in Latin–since Smeaton’s focusing on spreading the word about the project before he goes to regular once-per-week updates starting in August. So far I like it a fair bit; the coloring’s very compelling (especially on those exterior images of the house), the quirky font work reminds me of Sandman: Brief Lives, and the prologue caught my interest and I will check back see how it progresses. It was pitched to me as something for kids as well; there are a bunch of kids Scooby-Doo style on the front of the promo postcard investigating shadowy figures behind a nearby door so I’m guessing that it’ll be a kid-friendly comic. But it’s still early, so I can’t yet say for certain where it’ll go.

But in poking around the website, I found that this author also does a diary comic (an example of which you can see above)! It’s already pretty well established that I’m something of a soft-touch when it comes to diary comics. About his own work, Smeaton writes, “In August of 2002, I attended the San Diego Comic Con with my friend Dennis. He picked up a book called “The Sketchbook Diaries” by James Kochalka. I thought it was a brilliant idea & I’ve been doing my own Cartoon Journal ever since. My grammar is pretty bad my perspective is crap and my character likenesses are even worse. But I think it works. ”

I found it kind of weirdly charming, actually. The archives go back to January 2004, so there’s a fair amount to read since they update daily. It’s basically Josh’s life, complete with job stuff, housemates, a dog named Moose, travel, movies, drawing comics (it’s kind of neat to see the progress he makes on Haunted show up in the diary comics), and so forth. A neat feature that I haven’t yet seen with many diary comics is links to the actual pictures he’s referencing, or referring to within the strip. I certainly enjoyed the time I spent looking around the site, and I’ll certainly go back to check out Haunted when it goes to regular updating next month.

There are loads of MoCCA recaps out there (go look at the funny mustache picture on that last post) to read and see. I thought I might take a slightly different tack with this week’s column. It’s less about the hi-jinx and more about what gets people through the door. When I got on the train in New Haven on Saturday morning, I wondered how long it would take before I saw someone else heading to MoCCA. Not very long after, a guy got on the train a wearing a Diesel Sweeties t-shirt, and at the Prince Street subway stop I saw a kid in a Books Rule t-shirt.

I’d never been to MoCCA before, and I actually found it kind of overwhelming; it was hot and crowded and loud, and, of course, great fun. Admittedly, I walked in a little rattled, discovering the person just ahead of me in the entry queue, who I’d not seen in years, was the last boy to break my heart (the beer I was handed somewhat shortly after lessened this weirdness substantially). I managed to navigate my way upstairs to the 7th floor to the Trees and Hills table before finding a map to the place.

Spread out over three rooms of varying sizes, plus another room seven floors above the main floor, MoCCA felt kind of like SPX but larger and more chaotic somehow. Maybe it was because everything seemed kind of on top of everything else (literally and figuratively, I guess, with this year’s addition of the 7th floor tabling space), or because the tables were close together or the lighting low. But the traffic on the main floor didn’t seem to slow at any point when I wandered through. However, it had a similar vibe to SPX; there were still folks walking about who didn’t have tables but wanted to trade minicomic print versions of their webcomics, and there were loads more people in attendance than listed in the program, what with all the folks sharing tables. And, of course, there were just folks looking to trade, including Suzanne Shaver who did this cool comic called The Cat Nap, and Kenan Rubenstein’s TICK, which is this amazing high-production values comic done up to evoke the feel of a calendar.
(more…)

It’s been mentioned already, of course, but my short list of what to see at MoCCA is a little different from some of the ones Gary listed out earlier. The whole thing feels a little like The Small Press Expo, which I haven’t been to in (many) years but enjoyed greatly when I was there. Of course again, part of the fun with that was cramming four minicomics artists into one small shared table to cut way, way down on costs; I’m certain some of that will happen this weekend as well; I hear Matthew Reidsma‘s going to be there. Anyway, there’s a really interesting article about last year’s MoCCA, which got me thinking….

I’m excited to see Liz Baillie’s work, which I started reading primarily through a review I’d written for Xerography Debt . I’ve never seen the Dumbrella fellas in full convention swing, so I’m looking forward to that for certain. I like Pat Lewis‘s work, and Cathy Leamy’s.

But I want to hear what other people are interested in seeing! What are your recommendations for a first-time attendee?

I’m actually really excited about MoCCA, now that I’ve actually gotten my head around going (I kind of forgot that I’d agreed to go…). Part of what turned the tide from freaking out to looking forward to it was actually taking some time to sit down and look through the list of attendees, which ranges from a number of folks I already know, including the amazing Cathy Leamy , to folks whose work I know but have never met (like Pat Lewis). It’s a little bit of ‘zines, a little bit of minicomics, larger publishers, smaller publishers, and a bunch in between. It’s also exciting because every year I say I’m going to go and I never quite make it there.

Not this year!

One of the folks I’m most looking forward to catching up with, since it’s been too long since I’ve seen any of his recent work, is Mark Burrier. He publishes a number of print-only works, like Noose, and some sketchbook collections, and has a really interesting gallery of his different comic and illustration works (including a fabulous skateboard design. I was first introduced to his work at SPX and was kind of captivated by his website, which I find uses color in evocative ways. There’s something about the combination of the delicate linework and the way he uses color that I find very compelling.

While he’s perhaps not technically a webcomics artist, you can see little bits of his comics through his website. He’s certainly one of those artists who I wish did publish online more frequently, but it’s also one of those cases where I’m totally smitten with the print-only works as well; they have amazing covers and are absolutely worth checking out in person.

Watch for some more of my MoCCA picks for next week’s column…

Lately I’ve been thinking about webcomics sites, specifically how they’re being hosted. What’s really caught my eye are the very basic, DIY kinds of hosting. Of these, I’ve of late been transfixed with webcomics that are available through Livejournal (or those to which I’ve been introduced through Livejournal). Many webcomics have RSS feeds, so updates and new comics and such appear more or less automatically. I’m a major fan of this technology, in part because I have a job which requires me to be online a fair amount as it is (which means when I’m home getting online’s less attractive as an option).

And there’s always the question of remembering to click; there’s a small handful of webcomics that I click to on a daily basis, but it’s becoming more and more common for me to just get them through my friends page if they aren’t ones I read regularly (and some of those are ones I read regularly because they pop up over there). In my defense, I’m getting settled at the new place: I can’t find my flash drive and I’m still painting over the paneling. It’s all making me a little crazy–I’m really ready to be done with it all–and has caused me to space out a bit on important things (for starters, I’ll be at MoCCA later this month; stop by the Trees and Hills table…!)

So things like “simple” and “sweet” are even more so given the state of disrepair, boxes, and so forth in my immediate surroundings. Lately I’ve been really into the totally compelling Normal Life by Natasha Allegri. This site was one of those suggested way back in the beginning when I first started posting here, and it was one I’d always meant to name-check. When I first looked at it, I found that her color work was so breathtaking and her linework so crisp that I immediately wanted to try color work to see if I could capture some of that same emotion, the easy, evocative grace of her images. They remind me a little of Hope Larson‘s work and Leela Corman’s as well. It’s amazing stuff, and I feel like I ought to have mentioned it earlier. I’m not sure how much other work she has out there–or if it’s somewhere other than Livejournal–but what I’ve seen basically just makes me want to see more of her work. It’s gorgeous, and sweet, and straightforward in a way that’s, weirdly, exactly what I want to see.

On the heels of last week’s post about deadlines, I got a little distracted with relocating down the highway (which I’m unfortunately suspecting revokes my membership in the so-called Webcomics Mecca of the Northampton area…). In getting settled, I spent a little time driving around my new city trying to sort out the electricity. My new city is a municipality, which is kind of interesting (now that I’m over being baffled by how to make the electricity in the new place work). Still, it took a trip downtown to file some paperwork to get it all sorted out, and I got lost on the way back to the highway. But it got me thinking about how we’re introduced to things and concepts; I’ve been stewing on a few questions about webcomics that I haven’t been able to answer in any kind of concrete way, and then I thought a little audience participation might be in order.

See, I don’t know that many folks personally who read webcomics (and the ones I do know who do read webcomics pretty much read the same ones that I do). My shorthand for finding new webcomics, lately at least, has been either Google or from recommendations. Hence, I ran across this webcomic, which didn’t have much to do with the topic (though in Googling “webcomic” and “electricity” it was one of the first ones that came up and it made me laugh out loud, so…).

I’ve already name-checked the webcomics that functioned as my proverbial gateway drugs, and some of the comments on earlier columns mentioned good recommendations, but I’m curious about where people started when they started reading webcomics. Are you still reading those same webcomics? I’ve heard from a few folks that they’ve given up on certain webcomics they once rather liked, which I think is interesting and a little unfortunate (but, again, a fair amount like off-line comics reading…).

So…where did y’all start?

I’ve been thinking a fair piece lately about how experience can sometimes alter our understandings of things. One of the first, most important, and basic pieces of advice you’ll hear offered to new webcomics folks, more than just about anything else, is to stick to your updating schedule.

It’s a lesson I’ve taken to heart with posting here, and I only update once a week. I don’t know how you thrice-weekly updaters do it, let alone those who update daily, but I have a whole new kind of respect for you. This year’s been a little nuts for me, and this week is no exception. I’m in the middle of moving, and I was thinking in the car on the last trip to the new house that one major advantage of online comics that I had completely failed to consider is that I don’t have boxes of them stacked up in my kitchen waiting to be transported down the highway.

So I got home and instead of packing, I got online and Googled “webcomics” and “moving” since lately I’m all meta about my reading and my life. I landed at Venus Envy by Erin Lindsey (I’m very, very late to this party, apparently, given the amount of other press I found on this webcomic!). Right now the webcomic is kind of on hold, for a number of different and difficult reasons, but the hiatus also presents the chance for those of us (by which I mean me) not familiar with the site to get caught up on the archives.

There are sections of the webcomic which are autobio, including strips about stress and school, not updating, and getting engaged, all of which are in addition to the regular strip. There’s also a good About page, which I enjoyed reading, plus the Links page is an interesting combination of other trans webcomics out there plus resources about transsexuality, as well as an interesting interview on Comixpedia.

There’s a lot of archives and I’m reading through them in fits and starts in between all this moving and packing and painting. But I like the strip a lot, and not only because it’s adding another voice to an under-represented demographic in webcomics. I feel like these characters are pretty compelling, and that’s significant. It’s something that keeps readers coming back, and judging by the message boards, there’s an exceptionally strong (and vocal) readership at work here.

I’m not sure I can help, though, with Gary’s request from yesterday (this one: somebody please make somebody else cranky so that we have something for tomorrow ). Other than, of course, opening the floor to suggestions for that right-hand margin over there…

Lately I’ve been wondering about some of the less tangible elements of webcomics. I’ve thought a fair bit about how webcomics appear in different contexts; what happens, for example, when webcomics surface at academic conferences, in classrooms, as coloring books, or printed out and taped to your computer monitor (weird, maybe, but it happens) or your fridge. What happens when the webcomics you follow go on holiday or hiatus (for whatever reason, but having kids is a really good one–congrats, folks!) and so you get guest strips (over 18 on that last link please, though I know you’re all gonna click it now)—which I kind of adore—instead? I’ve been thinking about fair use and copyright, in part due to the idea of printing webcomics for later use (be that reading or for the classroom or whatever), and the relative advantages and disadvantages of publishing online and offline.

I had to laugh a little when someone recently described me as “old school� in my publishing tastes; he was right, of course, but it got me thinking about, basically, why do I like what I like in webcomics? What qualities, if any, do these works share with each other? Do they share those qualities with comics that I enjoy offline? (Shouldn’t they?)

Because while my enjoyment of these works isn’t solely due to the context in which I encounter them, or experiencing the works in question, or even hobnobbing, in the archaic verb sense, with the folks who create them (though, embarrassingly, I quite literally squealed with delight recently at seeing new pages of this work-in-progress) those things are each in their own ways a bit of a factor. If someone goes to the effort of putting a book in my hand, it’s way more likely I’m going to look at the website they’re promoting and spend some time, you know, reading it. It’s actually how I got into at least one of the webcomics I now follow (smart marketing, you!). But, in truth, since the only thing I’m losing is a little time, clicking on a link isn’t really all that difficult. It seems more to be A) what keeps me reading that day and B) what hooks me enough to click on it again and again (lather, rinse, repeat).

So, to this end I tried a little experiment this week.
(more…)