Two things that could be of interest to capital-W Webcomics.

First up, the long-memoried among you may recall that most of year ago, we at Fleen tried to answer the question, How many readers do you need to make a living? We never got enough offers of data to do a proper analysis, but that hasn’t made the question go away. Fortunately, somebody else is taking a stab at answering it. I give you Jan Jaap Sandee, webcomicker and business student:

I have to write a business plan for a business. I chose to write a business plan for a webcomic and making a living off of this.

However to do this I have to do a viability test. For this purpose one of the things I have is a survey. To clarify the survey is about 5 to 10 minutes, and there’s no veiled advertising.

Eventually the entire research will result in an interesting document regarding living off of a webcomic. I have no problems sharing this document and/or relevant information.

Jan, we’re taking you up on the offer — send us a copy of the business case when you’ve got it done, and we’re sending you as many survey respondants as possible.

As to the other thing that may have some bearing on capital-W Webcomics, we mentioned way back in July that the Halfpixel Duo of Straub & Kurtz (makes them sound like a hero team … I’ll let them worry about which one is the sidekick) are working on a book about how to make them (webcomics, that is … stay with me, son), due in January from Image. Turns out that Straub and Kurtz aren’t making that book anymore.

That’s because the book will be made by Straub and Kurtz and Kellett and Guigar. Since the Webcomics Weekly podcast produced by the four of them is all about how to make webcomics, it makes perfect sense that all four ‘casters be in on the book. I was interested in the book before, but now I’m counting days; between those four guys you’ve only got about 30 years of webcomics experience. If you’re trying to make a webcomic, or trying to make one better, this book could be the online equivalent to Comics & Sequential Art.

New Little Dee book! Woo hoo!

Time to clear the mailbag — first of all, appologies to Mitch Clem for missing a time-sensitive piece of news. Make him feel better by checking out his webcomic, if you don’t regularly.

Next up, Wes Molebash of You’ll Have That fame is dippin’ a toe into the wearable merch pool.

Alert reader Dave Martin wanted us to know that Mike Witmer of 44 Union Avenue (also on GoComics) has started a new webcomic called Pinkerton. Dave tells us So far it’s a lot of fun… which is good enough for me. I love things that are fun.

[Quick note for any that clicked the GoComics links above — you’re likely to see a large banner for For Better Or For Worse, and should be aware that today is the start of the End Times for FOOB (with bonus points to Comics Curmudgeon fill-in Uncle Lumpy for the term Fööberdämmerung).]

Speaking of the Comics Curmudgeon (an entirely worthwhile daily read), somebody using that name (but not Josh Fruhlinger, the real Comics Curmudgeon) wrote the following:

Here’s some topics: How about Dinosaur comics [sic] sucking ridiculously lately? Is it just me or has it turned into nothing more than glorified chat transcripts? I mean if I see a dinosaur saying “dude” one more time I think I might… I think I might die.

And I love Ryan North, and I know he’s done a lot for the community. I also love Dino comics. But sometimes, when your old dog gets sick, you have to put it to rest, you know? I think Dino comics [sic] has probably reached that point.

Also, what’s with Ben Shur and iamarocketbuilder.com lately? Has there been any mention of that here? I really like what he’s done. I hope he continues. He’s kind of right, too. I mean— has Ryan North kept Dinosaur Comics on longer than he should’ve because it’s his bread and butter? Probably!

Dear Mr Not Really The Comics Curmudgeon: As tempting it is to say It’s just you, there is no correct answer to that question. Every strip is a matter of taste, and any collection of fans will disagree about the ups and downs of a particular strip (hell, even The Great Outdoor Fight has detractors). For myself, I don’t see a decline in the quality of Dinosaur Comics, and as awesome as that I Am A Rocket Builder page is, I don’t see that it’s directed solely at Ryan North.

Finally, for those not listening to the new Webcomics Weekly podcast (with ScottKrisDaveandBrad), it’s damn good. If you make a comic, listen especially for the Tips and Tricks section that has so far been kicking in about 30 — 35 minutes into the show. The discussion about hand-lettering vs. computer fonts was worth the price of admission by itself.

Happy 400th stripperversary to Bryan Paul Johnson’s Teaching Baby Paranoia, which in today’s round-number-intensive installment features mermaid boobies. Woo!

Mike Rouse-Deane of Webcomics In Print has expanded into webcomics review & commentary in print, with the launch of Webcomics Anonymous. If this whole, We like webcomics and we’re gonna write about ’em field gets any more crowded, I might be able to retire on the vast sums that Fleen has earned me. I’m gonna be eatin’ the generic cat food!

And speaking of webcomics in print, I’ve been seeing quite a few of such at my friendly local comic shop; along with Guigar’s how-to manuals of evil and Satanic porn and other detritus of the intarwubs, there’s a shiny new print collection of the first Panda Express story.

PX! Book 1: A Girl And Her Panda features a total of four chapters plus bonus material; publisher Image has gone all-out, providing a nice, heavy, glossy paper, allowing for the gorgeous, subtle colors (I love that radioactive glow) of A Girl And Her Panda to really pop on the page.

Now you could read the 100+ pages of PX!B1:AGAHP online, but this is a book that deserves to be picked up and paged through, to really wallow in and enjoy particularly when you consider the following, posted by co-creator “Art Monkey” (aka Manny Trembley) the day before the the book hit shops:

… It’s all excuses but if I whittle away the debris and garbage to reveal my dark heart I’d have to say I’m tired of making PX! right now. I should’ve taken a break and worked on a different project after book one. But I wanted to stay the course with PX! (we have four total books planned and we’re only one and half books done with the mega story) But I feel like I’m forcing PX! And that’s a crappy feeling. The art feels forced and I’m less and less happy with my own production of the book.

I’m trying to force myself to finish Book two before I wipe my slate clean and draw something completely different. And frankly it’s not fun to force it. … The question I have for you guys is would you run screaming to the hills if we took a break and produced a totally different book for the site. A “PX! presents…” kinda thing.

You know what might make Mr Monkey (and his partner, “Grammar Cowboy”, aka Eric Anderson) feel better? If you bought the book. It’s lighthearted, all-ages fun, it’s got a goat who’s a jerk, and more radioisotope-powered panda than you can shake a stick at. Success for this book means that other creators maybe get the nod from publishers willing to pick up printing costs, and those who self-publish are more likely to get space in the Diamond catalog. Official corporate suits with MBAs think there’s a market for webcomics on the shelves, or DC wouldn’t have launched Zuda with an explicit eye towards reprint volumes.

It’ll be at least year before any of Zudabooks hit the stores, but in the meantime, your best-loved webcomics can be there if a couple of gatekeepers get convinced, and the way to do that is with the potential for revenue. That’s a lot of benefit for $17 now; pack lunches next week instead of hittin’ the cafeteria, and you’ll be thanking me while you’re enjoying PX!B1:AGAHP.

Okay, I get it, sort of. Dave Kellett‘s wired into the Hollywood Elite, attracting the attention of luminaries such as Neil Patrick Harris, Cobie Smulders, Alyson Hannigan, and his wife Gloria Calderón Kellett.

I get that being tied into that power structure allows you to have the contacts to do what normally only the the targets of front-page coverage of US Weekly and InTouch Weekly get to do: throw a party in swanky Beverly Hills locales and have other people pay for it. I don’t resent that he’s able to do these things and I’m not, nor that he hasn’t seen fit to throw such a party for anything less than the launches of his various books (although if he felt like throwing such a party for, say, a celebration of webcomics journalism, that’d be might awesome of him).

What I don’t get is, exactly what the heck goes into the drinks known as the Squee and the Sheer Awesomeness? ‘Cause I got a bar and shakers right here in my dining room and a fairly good collection of ingredients and tools, but I ain’t grindin’ up lizard or nothing. While we contemplate such, be sure to pick up your own copy of 62% More Awesome, which I believe you will find as compelling a purchase as I did.

No time, almost no network, so we’ll be borrowing a line from the foreword to Starslip Crisis Volume 1 that I should have mentioned yesterday.

• Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne and the Golden Trilobyte is Phil and Kaja Foglio’s latest. Check it. It’s got mad science, loopy fun, tragic loss, Jägermonsters and the big reveal about The Other. Everybody is more than they were except Bangalore Dupree, who remains a simple, happy, bloodthirsty maniac. If you buy lots of them, I’m sure it will in some way facilitate the Foglios getting onto a better host so you can get your 3x/week fix more easily.
• The Adventures of Dr McNinja No. 1-3 is Chris Hasting and Kent Archer’s latest. Check it. Ninjas, lumberjacks, gorillas, raptors, high-fives, a pissed-off clone of Ben Franklin, and the Power of Moustachery. How could you not love this? The cover is a perfect recreation of an old comic and it just gets better from there. Get it before the inevitable big-screen adaptation leads to Happy Meals and McNinja burgers.
• 62% More Awesome, The Third Sheldon Collection is Dave Kellett’s latest. Check it. It’s got lizards and space and hairy backs and kneeling before Zod and squee and Crotchley Labs helping us all to defeat the Communist Menace via the power of coffee cup lids. It’s not available at the Sheldon store yet, but look for ’em after the fabulous book-premiere party on the 19th in Beverly Hills. Seriously, all other webcomics artists? Find out how Kellett manages to get sponsored parties at incredible hotels with free booze thrown for him and do it too. Seriously.

One of the greatest things about webcomics is the fact that at any time that the whim strikes you (even in your underwear), you can go dig through the archives and remind yourself why you love a strip. New installments show up on whatever schedule, but you can read the whole thing en masse as much as you like. But sometimes, even the online archives don’t quite deliver; sometimes, the ease of just flipping through a book is the only way to go. This is especially true of heavily plot-driven strips, and we have some examples with us today.

At their heart, Starslip Crisis and Wapsi Square are mysteries — in the one case, whether or not the universes survive the reality-bending nature of the Starslip Drive, and in the other whether or not we’ll all survive the reset of an ancient calendar machine (side note: the reset of the universe in 2012 when the Mayan calendar runs out is a surprisingly popular theme in webcomics these days). All the character development and plot evolution that sat in the back of your mind become much more clear and powerful when there are up to a half-dozen strips open before your eyes, with no loading delay or scrolling.

In Starslip Crisis Volume 1, the small clues that indicate that not all is well in the future world of art criticism become more apparent; the relatively short story arcs become much more clearly linked to the central theme, even when (as in the overloaded with future potential “Chronomantic” arc) it’s not immediately apparent where the tie-in sits. Cleverly, Kris Straub has borrowed a page from popular syndicated comics, having released relatively thin collections of about nine months of strips, then aggregating those (and more!) in an extra-thick omnibus collection; this allows for Straub to make books frequently available, and to squeeze completists like me for an extra $15 as I re-buy those same comics in the omnibus. Straub! I shake my fist in impotent rage at you, thus!

Paul Taylor’s second self-published Wapsi Square collection, The Demons In My Back Pocket, shows off his distinctive character design (and occasional forays into infinite canvas) with a gloriously-large trim size (an earlier Keenspot-published collection has a small trim size and doesn’t serve Taylor’s art nearly as well). The Wapsi story has been slowly revealed in little hints here and there, with the character-driven arcs interleaved with the mystery-driven arcs — watching the evolution of both occur in fast-forward gives one respect for Taylor’s dicipline in being able to plan out and develop the story over such an extended fashion.

By contrast, it’s mostly not necessary to read Scary Go Round in big chunks in order to see all the subtleties since the many story arcs (38 to date, sadly not all reprinted) tend to be self-contained. Every once in a while there will be a call-back to an earlier plot point, but John Allison’s tendency is to not revist in such a fashion for months or even years. Regardless of continuity carryover, it’s wonderful to just sit and wallow in Allison’s lush, beautiful art for the year’s worth of comics in Great Aches.

By contrast, the, uh, Big F*ck-Off Book of Panties (or, The Devil’s Panties, Volume 1) doesn’t have a plot, or characters to develop in that it’s a collection of a half-decade’s worth of journal comics. Naturally, journal comics are all fictionalized to some degree or other (here most notably in the condensation of a series of creator Jennie Breeden’s roommates into one character named “Beth”), but it’s the mostly-true story of a girl and her stompy boots.

Reading the 280+ pages provides an interesting progression as Cartoon Jennie (described by Breeden as angrier, more violent, and generally a wish-fulfilment version of herself) slowly sheds her more cartoony aspects and Real Jennie is revealed. Given that the strips cover a period of time starting in Breeden’s college days, this strikes the reader as particularly authentic — after all, doesn’t college seem like a larger-than-life time in your memory? Doesn’t the process of growing up feel like a gradual shedding of personas and weird characters on your periphery as you settle into a committed relationship, career, home, and the rest?

So everybody that enjoys good autobiography (with games and puzzles in the back!) should grab a copy of TDPV1 (and good news for those of you in New York: Midtown Comics had copies on the shelf 5 days ago; if your shop doesn’t have it, the Diamond order code is APR073942). And as a final side note, Breeden has pointed out on her site that a printing error resulted in three pages being omitted; they can be seen here.

In other news, it’s comics week at The AV Club, and the aforementioned Chris Onstad interview is up, along with James Kochalka talkin’ music.

Much like the swallows that return each year to Capistrano, Flight has returned to lovers of [web]comics with its latest edition (that would be #4 for those of you playing along at home). Each year Flight bumps up its page count, giving the creators within ever more room to stretch their creative legs and giving the readers ever more fabulous work to read.

In a marked departure from earlier volumes (especially the first), F4 has largely abandoned its eponymous theme, and seems to be focusing less on slipping the surly bonds of gravity in favor of a more dream-like approach to the stories. Sometimes the connections to dreaming are fairly literal:

• Clio Chang tells a charming story of what happens to fairy tales backstage, waiting for bedtime
• Ryan Estrada has a whimsical exploration of what happens to a novice meditator whose spirit guide is a jerk
• Dave Roman brings an autobiographical tale of his life-long insomnia

More frequently, the dreams are metaphorical:

• Vera Brosgol’s hilarious falling-in-love story, where a dream girl’s one tragic flaw restores the peace between battling brothers
• Ovi Nedelcu‘s piece — with character designs occupying the precise midpoint in my brain between The Dover Boys, Ralph Phillips and Edward Gorey — in a loopy, funny, carefree story about a boy and his dream ride
• Bannister and Joel Carroll (with Corentin Jaffré on colors) contribute a story where a boy’s medium-grade hair-raising adventure takes a sudden turn into bad dream territory
• Kazu Kibuishi‘s rather melancholy story about deferring your dreams to stay in the place where you belong; this has been a recurring theme in his Flight contributions, and it underscores an interesting tension between finding yourself and doing what’s expected of you

Other standout stories include Scott Campbell‘s tale of Igloo Head and his (?) friend Tree Head, in a land of odd personages with odd heads (which includes the single funniest line of the book — Dude! You’re losing all of your guys!), and Lark Pien‘s story of a lonely girl and a selfish son of a bitch (with colors so soft and unlike the bold statements she made in American Born Chinese).

For me, though, the best story was Fábio Moon‘s Cortina, which takes a perfect moment captures it — holding tight and refusing to let go through — deft narration and stunningly beautiful art. Moon’s contribution is one of the briefest in the book, but in six short pages he demonstrates why he (and twin brother Gabriel Bá) have rapidly become Brazil’s greatest cultural exports, having neatly displaced cachaça, international football stars, and supermodels.

The only down notes in the collection for me were the absence of personal favorites Johane Matte and Kean Soo, but judging from the endpaper that may be resolved in Spring 2008 with the debut of Flight Explorer.

Bottom line: Flight 4 is, typically for the series, one of the best [web]comics releases of the year. Get it.

In other news today, Wes Molebash has a righteous amount of excitement built up, seein’ as how the You’ll Have That one-shot is featured in this month’s Wizard Magazine (#191) in the Indie Buzz section of the Secret Stash:

It’s not often that webcomics make a successful transition from online to the printed page, so it speaks volumes that this heavenly little bastard has become one of the favored comics around the Wizard offices. Spotlighting the hilarious life of newlyweds Andy and Katie, this one-shot collects the best of 2006’s online strips by Wes Molebash, with a brand-new cover from Scott Kurtz (PvP) so easily accessible for new readers it may as well be the first issue. With a precise vision of male geek life and the hotties who love us, YHT will have you cracking up and wondering how Molebash snuck a camera into your life.

Could it be that our friends at the online version of Wizard (who are fond of webcomics) are spreading the gospel to their dead-tree brethren? The YHT one-shot goes on sale tomorrow at comics shops everywhere, or now-ish at the Viper online store.

And Fleen Fave Dave Kellett can be seen in today’s blog post cavorting with college hotties. Tough job you got there, Dave-o.

Seems like it’s open season for new webcomics blogs. On the one hand, you’ve got Useful Lies, which going by the profile is written by a gent named Dalion Barinon in Spain. Overall tone: enthusiastic, voluble, somewhat lacking in depth. I don’t want to rag on somebody who’s just getting started, but if you’re going to write about webcomics (or any kind of comics, for that matter), you really want to minimize sentences that include:

Ah, well, we at Fleen have certainly written worse ourselves. Welcome to the game, Dalion.

Secondly, there’s Your Webcomic Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad, which (Zoidbergian references aside) is credited to John Solomon, a pseudonym. It’s — well, it lives up to its name. Solomon hates your webcomic and will tell you in detail why, although his savage critiques are miles from, say, Josh Lesnick’s desire to analyze, praise & damn in equal measure, and make everybody’s art better. The rhetoric is pretty over-the-top, and reading YWISAYSFB reminds me of my halcyon days reading Ed Anger. Seriously, if your first blogpost includes the line:

This is because anyone who likes Dominic Deegan is a fucking moron. (emphasis original)

then I figure your tongue has to be pretty far in-cheek (and what the hey — he’s driving up David Willis’s hits and books sales so that’s all good). In any event, everybody say hello to Dr Zoid Solomonberg!

In other news, I shamefully neglected to list Tyler Page along with the other creators I met at MoCCA, and have been enjoying the hell out my copy of Nothing Better, volume 1. My minireview of this book: Terry Moore + flashing back to college (sometimes painfully so) = you should give Tyler Page money and read it yourself. Speaking of books, looks like Karen Ellis will be dropping one sooner rather than later. My minireview of this development: Awesome.

Thanks to everybody for trying to gin up some conflict on my behalf; you’ll never know how much it touches me to know that webcomics were willing to start a riot on my behalf.

We’ll start with a little something for our readers in the northeastern corner of the US: looks like they won’t be digging up Tom Carvel after all, and I think we all know the reason: zombies.

Megatokyo Volume 5 dropped yesterday; gotta say, it reads much better in bulk than on a per-installment basis. I’d pretty much given up reading MT except in three- to four-week chunks because I’d lose the thread of the story. Of great interest are the timeline and reader’s guide in the back of the book:

• the former puts the whole plot into perspective — from strip 1 to the present day is roughly two months of story time, and everything from June 2001 forward represents a week
• the latter includes character bios so you can remember just who the heck everyone is

Now I’m starting to wonder just how big a story Fred Gallagher intends to make out of Megatokyo; at this point, I think I’d be surprised if we’ve reached the halfway point yet.

Two reviews on tap this week — one brand new (but not quite a book), and one that’s not exactly new (but an actual book). Let’s take ’em in order.

Actually new last week was issue 1 of DJ Coffman‘s Hero By Night. I don’t read a lot of superhero comics, but this was pretty enjoyable. The art is bright and clean for the modern-day segments of the story, slightly muddied and 4-color looking for the parts that took place in the past. Coffman’s got a good sense of pacing, an interesting story hook on the “misfit stumbles into being a hero” trope, and some pretty snappy dialogue. If I had to describe it, I’d say it was more in line with the “Origins” storyline at Yirmumah than Coffman’s other work. It’s only a couple dozen pages, so it’s tough to get a feel for the overall story, but early indications are good.

Obligatory nod towards controversy: much has been said of how Platinum Studios is not an actual comic book publisher, and how their Comic Book Challenge is merely a mechanism to strip-mine ideas from creators. Whatever may be true, Platinum has now managed to publish at least this one comic book, and in all his public statements, Coffman has expressed that he’s happy with the deal. As long as everybody keeps their act together long enough to finish Hero By Night (and do a trade reprint of the four issue run), then I’d say things will have turned out about as well as could be expected.

Next up: Penny Arcade Volume 3: The Warsun Prophecies, which continues the comprehensive reprint of strips into calendar year 2002. Curiously, Dark Horse appears to be shipping the Penny Arcade books to mainstream bookstores first, leaving the direct market comic shops out of the loop for weeks.

2002 was a pivotal year for Penny Arcade, with creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik making a living on reader donations and “Club PA” gift art; it was into this marginally sustainable business model that one Robert Khoo introduced himself, and began the transformation of Penny Arcade, webcomic to Penny Arcade, viable business. Struggle and deprivation can force creativity to new heights, and many things that would become hallmarks of Penny Arcade made their debut in 2002:

• The first rear-angle shots of characters appeared early in the year, as Krahulik’s art evolved past a talking heads model (including his interpretations of other art styles, like classic Kirby energy blobs or educational films)
• The [in]famous Fruit Fucker (curiously missing from the archives, originally running 11 Feb 2002) made his visual debut; he’s practically the symbol of the strip now (true story: I saw Krahulik doing sketches at San Diego last year, greeting each person with a sketchbook with a cheerful, “Fruit Fucker?”, and 98% of the time the reply was a hearty “Yeah!”)
• The Tube, later to become key to some of the strip’s most imaginative stories and art
• And, critically, Carrot Cake Soup, easily the most delicious idea of 2002

As with previous volumes, nice job of printing, although two or three strips appear slightly blurry, probably the result of being reproduced from low-res originals. All in all, a good year for the strip, a good collection of laughs, and a critical year for Holkins & Krahulik personally. Oh, and an intro by Scott Kurtz, full of bile, invective, and more than a little love.