Webcomics are represented in the following categories:

Best Publication For Teens

Best Humor Publication

Best Digital Comic

If I had to make a guess at this early stage, I’d say that Sugarshock! is a lock for the category that best matches “webcomics”, which is odd because it was a total of what? 15 pages? and the the criteria for the category read professionally produced long-form original comics work posted online. If Planet Karen got rejected for not being “long-form” (which it did), I’m not sure how Sugarshock! (which I enjoyed, but it’s essentially a one-shot) could possibly qualify. So okay — let the bitching begin!

The Eisners will be awarded at San Diego Comic-Con in July.

A time for Webcomics: Threat or Menace at NYCC has been set:

There’s a dizzying array of different models for delivering comics over the Web, from Webcomics, to PDFs for a fee, to ad-supported PDFs, to PDFs as promotional tool, and behind it all is the backdrop of illegal file sharing of comics. Are comics on the Web going to be a tool to increase the popularity of paper products, an alternate distribution channel that takes sales from retailers and circulation from libraries, or a threat to legitimate channels as illegal downloads grow? Hear from legacy publishers and cutting edge pioneers on this critical issue for the near future.

Two notes:

1. Although the description above lists the session on Friday, it’s actually on Saturday at 12:00 noon, in room 1E09 (it’s correct on the PDF session grid)
2. Big props to the organizers for fixing the name. Anybody that ever read Spider-Man knows that it’s “Threat or Menace”, not “Menace or Threat”.

Okay, going back to my planned lying in bed with a fever now. If I die, avenge my blood.

Lots of various news items to amuse you this weekend.

• From the ever-alert Christopher Baldwin, Stumptown has prompted Mayor Tom Potter of Portland to declare Portland Comics Month:
  

  The proclamation officially recognizes both the cultural importance and creative influence of this vibrant art form on the entire city.

  To champion and support Portland Comics Month, the Stumptown Comics Foundation has catalogued a staggering number of comics-related events in the Portland metro area for the entire month of April.

• Paul Southworth’s new-style guest week wrapped up with five entirely distinct Ugly Hill entries; look for the overflows to show up in Southworth’s fan art page.
• From the Webcomics Inspiring Big Things Department: Tiny Ghosts prompts a movement for a national peace memorial:
  

  One day while Stumbling on the Internet I came across a kind of photo blog. I found it here if you would like to check it out. The blog has two photos on a webpage which on the left picture of a Washington DC monument says “All the monuments they built were dedicated to war.” On the right on the 2nd photo of a peace sign spray painted on the side of an ordinary concrete wall it says “We had to make the monuments to peace ourselves.”

• After a few fits, starts, and attempts, Alien Loves Predator has returned to its weekly ways.
• And over at Unshelved, a question: is it product placement? Has the boundary between comic and commerce been breached? Bill Barnes responds to the controversy by explaining that it’s not an ethical violation here, then promises to be more careful about giving that impression here.

  To my eye, there wasn’t any kind of ethical lapse that went on, but kudos to Barnes & Ambaum for taking the criticism as a genuine expression of concern from faithful fans and not as an attack. It may not have been necessary, but it’s the sort of action that says the Unshelved lads know who they’re serving, and they’re willing to go out of their way to do it right. Good customer service never goes out of style.

Okay, let’s see: Mr Buffer claims to have a filler, the wordy trio are playing rotational games, Mr Pixel is drawing by hand, Mr Grumptacular is celebrating 11 years, the Swedish Reprobates have run afoul of the Motion Picture Ass. of America, the Dreamcrusher is also drawing by hand, and Ryan Estrada is nowhere to be seen. Yep, April Fool’s Day.

In serious news, the Guest Strip Project launched today, which ordinarily would not be reason to add it to the blogroll over there, but it’s got a few unique things going for it. For starters, there’s a roster of immense talent associated with it (starting with today’s first strip, courtesy of Christopher Baldwin), and the fact that it’s a limited-run strip. One year, and it’s gone. Keep an eye on the store for special merchandise offers during the next year, all for the benefit of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

And mark your calendars, everybody: May 22, Wigu returns with a hard reboot.

Contests! Want fame, acclaim, and the imprimatur of the most Mancunian of all known webcomickers? Then enter the 2008 Scary Go Round Feats of Strength competition. Alternately, if fancy words and skellingtons scare you, try this on for size, from Ben Lehman:

The Game Chef game design contest is a very large annual tabletop RPG design contest, with pretty deep roots in the small press / indepedent RPG design community. This year, for our contest, we’re holding an Artists First! contest. This means that we’re asking artists to draw illustrations for a game that doesn’t exist, then we’re going to ask designers to design those games based on the illustrations.

It’s a good opportunity for small time artists who want to make some business contacts for illustration, and I know that there’s a fair number of those out there in webcomicland.

In other news, I assume everybody’s seen the cover art for the forthcoming Great Outdoor Fight book over at Heidi’s place, right? Gotta say, it’s a little human-focused for my tastes. Perhaps our society is both hetero-normative and anthro-centric, but at least one cat would have been nice.

Finally, our discussion of webcomics and the economics of free is winding down, but it’s just heating up over at The Daily Cartoonist. My favorite part is where Wiley Miller (a cartoonist) tells David Willis (a cartoonist) to make his point “without the snark” (which is the stock-in-trade of … cartoonists). The best points are presently being made by Kris Straub, and it looks like it might not devolve into a vicious cycle of Get off my lawn, whippersnappers! vs. As soon as you stop making buggy whips, Old Guy!, but one can hope.

Okay, so I got this email in my inbox yesterday, from no less a personage than Robert Khoo … it seems that the upcoming New York Comic Con is interested in a webcomics vs. traditional comics panel, with Khoo and Rich Stevens representing webcomics:

NYCC got back to me. We’re all good for a Saturday or Sunday panel with Gary [editor’s note: Yeah, I’m a little shocked they want me, too] moderating. Someone from Tokyopop and another from DC will also be representing I believe. Their suggestion for the name of the panel is, I shit you not:

WEBCOMICS: MENACE OR THREAT?

Guys, I want that to be the title so bad. Anyway, the full NYCC programming schedule will be here in the next few days, and we’ll let you know as soon as time, location, and participants are set.

In other news, ComicMix continues its webcomickers interview series with bizarre man-child Jeff Rowland; it’s about time that Rick Marshall came up with a name for these interviews, since he’s cranking them out every week.

Spotted on the shelves (and at the AV Club): Flight Explorer by the Kazu Kibuishi Crew, and Lars Brown’s North World (been waiting for that ever since Brown introduced himself to me at SDCC last summer). Spotted in my mailbox: Chris Hastings’s Dr McNinja — Surgical Strike. Reviews on all three (and How To Make Webcomics) just as soon as I can plow through ’em.

And better late than never, from Mr T:

This news is a bit old, but I was a bit sick last week. To celebrate the ninth anniversary of Fans on St. Patrick’s Day, we’ve repeated the offer we gave in our very first comic book before going digital: giving readers the opportunity to guest-star in the series. You can see the results in our ninth anniversary installment here.

Let’s get caught up, shall we?

• The final comment on webcomics economics, from Box Brown.
• My copy of How To Make Webcomics came yesterday; only about a third of the way through but I’ll tell you this for free — Brad Guigar‘s a genius and dreamy.
• Don’t forget, Euro-people: The Thing kicks off this weekend in Mile End; for those of you in the Middle Atlantic states, Aaron “Latin Heartthrob” Diaz and Jeph “Un-Anagrammable” Jacques will be talking on Literature at the Margins, Friday and Saturday in Chestertown, MD.
• Tim Demeter reports a continual out-cranking of new features for Clickwheel:
  

  Clickwheel’s new quarterly ‘iNKED’ Anthology is a full-length (161 frames!) downloadable comic created specifically for iPod/iPhone, though also available in PDF and CBR format for PC reading. The 2000AD download service featured on Clickwheel has graduated out of BETA and now features improved interface, CBR support as well as subscription options.

  ALL of Clickwheel’s existing content is now available as an iPod download AND a CBR download. We have also added new bookmarking tools in our improved layout. Click ‘add to my channel’ to keep track of your favorite Clickwheel comics via the ‘My Channel’ browser on the Clickwheel homepage, or for comics with movie or PDF content, click ‘add to iTunes’ on feature’s episode list page.

• New interview up with the creators of Sketchies, courtesy of Geoffrey Golden.
• Apparently, having an infant daughter still leaves Krishna Sadasivam with too much time on his hands; he’s rebuilt the former perma-archive of PC Weenies from the ground up using WordPress / Comicpress. You’ll find daily updates, early sketches, alternate B-side versions, director’s commentaries, toon archives and more. Much more, even.
• And finally, Byrobot has hit the two year mark of increasingly erratic and peculiar content. How peculiar? The current series explores the life of a post-menopausal prostitute in a small Austrian village. Peculiar enough for you, Slappy?

Q: What do you get if you mix (from the right) Dean Haspiel, Raina Telgemeier, Rich Stevens, and Ted Rall, then get Collen Venable to wrangle ’em?

A: Webcomics: A Primer. The session started late due to A/V issues, but they were sorted out in time for Venable to invite each of the others to show a small sample of their work. Rall showed work by himself and others from the Attitude 3 collection, Stevens browsed the internets to show some of his latest web-only and newspaper strips, Telgemeier hooked up her iPod to show pages from Smile, and Haspiel had examples of Brawl and Billy Dogma to share. Yay, technology.

The question then turned to the philsophical “Why webcomics?”, with Rall providing the most cogent answer — immediacy. Unlike working in print where weeks can go by between original work, reader reaction, and counter-reaction, webcomics offer the ability to put the strip up and receive immediate feedback and community with the readers. Or, as Stevens put it, I get the strip up at 11:57, and by 12:02 people are emailing me with spelling corrections.

This led to the question of when to post — a simple question that appears to have no answer. Haspiel had a web-traffic expert tell him that Tuesday morning at 11:00am is the idea time to put content up and have people pay attention; Rall said that Friday is the peak day for editorial cartoons; Stevens noted that his peak traffic is on Mondays. Speaking authoritatively, Telgemeier noted that Wednesday is the peak day for dental comics.

Almost without prompting the conversation turned to who a webcomicker is; Rall noted that all cartoonists, in effect, are webcartoonists now. The work gets put up on the internet, which provides a larger audience but also makes it easier for people to send you death threats.

Asked if a uniform size for the comic help in eventual syndication/print efforts, Haspiel noted that he made every page of Billy Dogma a uniform block, but then thought about the possibilities for placing things inside the block instead of the restrictions of the form. Stevens once made a 58 panel comic because he got inspired, but wishes I’d been like Dean. I had to release PDF E-books of my old strips because I can’t print them.

The next question dealt with mobile devices. Haspiel points out that in a world where people can watch LOST on the subway, they may as well read my comics. Stevens noted that iPhones don’t require much in the way of reformatting, but Telgemeier worried about page compositions being lost in such a small space. Haspiel agreed with that being the major drawback, but Stevens felt that a good enough story would hook the audience and drive them to a book version.

Okay, you know how there’s sometimes an elephant in the room, and you’re just waiting for somebody to point it out? Elephant time. Venable then opened the floor to questions, and the first one dealt with the economics of free: “What does the boss think about you putting out on the net for free what they’re trying to sell?” Rall jumped in with both feet:

If I were in charge of the world … I would force everything offline. All cartoonists, all newspapers, no more archives, nothing. And every cartoonist would make fifteen times as much money. Giving it away, I think it’s insane and stupid.

For those who remember the qualifications that Rall made at SPX last fall, where a similar statement was couched in terms of specifically editorial cartoonists, there was no such qualification this time. It was a blanket statement, and it was made while sitting next to one of the strongest proponents of a business model where you (quoting now) Give away a ton of stuff, and edit down to things of value [that you can sell].

From this point, the dialogue got pretty fast; what follows is as close to verbatim as I was able to notate. Haspiel was the first to respond with a disagreement:

If it’s good, it’ll sell; Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead, they put music out for free but also for sale. I would almost insist on new contracts with publishers that I could put portions of content online, because it builds an audience.

Rall responded:

Only print pays. Otherwise, you have to be in two businesses. You have to be a cartoonist and a businessman, and not many can do that.

Stevens, not quite close enough to his mic:

Great! You’re trying to keep people out [of the cartooning business] and that’s great. It’s less competition for me. If you have a story that’s compelling …

Rall:

I can’t make money on t-shirts. I can’t design a t-shirt that will sell.

Stevens:

You can sell novels and books. You have bestsellers.

Rall:

A book will only sell for 6 to 12 months. They don’t pay enough to live on.

Stevens:

So? Adapt!

Rall:

And what kind of hours do you have to work to make a living, Rich?

Stevens:

Not enough! I’d work 24/7 if I could.

[I believe that with that last line, both Stevens and Rall felt that his own point had been made — Rall because Stevens spoke of working insane hours, and Stevens because he thinks sleep interrupts his compulsion to work.]

The next question from the audience came from Calvin Reid, and came straight back to the issue just concluded: Rall spoke about the good old days, when many more cartoonists were making a living, some doing extraordinarily well in terms of today’s dollars. But wasn’t it just as hard to break in to big-paying syndication deals back then?

Rall thought the question was misleading, that there is no ‘breaking in’:

You have the illusion of breaking in, but until you are paying the bills, you are not a professional, working cartoonist. It’s harder to break in now because the overall pool of money is smaller.

Stevens responded:

Is it? I wouldn’t have tried to break in [to syndication] if you hadn’t called me [editor’s note: Rall recruited Stevens into his current syndication deal]. And what if ‘professional’ isn’t your goal? If you’re not watching TV, you’re doing a comic and it’s paying your internet bill? That’s a better hobby than watching the goddamn Food Network.

And that’s where we’re going to end it, since my hands are getting tired and I still have to go back and format and linkify everything above. In any event, plenty there to argue about in the comments. Let’s finish up with some vaguely contextual quotes:

Rich Stevens, on Dean Haspiel — He’s hunky.
Colleen Venable, on Haspiel’s observation on the number of people reading webcomics from work — That’s a great thing about webcomics.
Stevens, on same — We’re why there’s a recession.

Haspiel, on the benefits of webcomics — Webcomics are lifting the veil between creator and audience.
Raina Telgemeier, on reader interactions — I’ve gotten hate mail over Baby-Sitters Club from 13 year olds with detailed reasons why I was The Devil.
Venable — At least they’re writing!

Edit to add: The spam filters are getting a little aggressive on this comment thread; from what I can tell, it’s mostly due to people that haven’t posted much in the past posting a lot now. Apologies to Eric Millikin and Ted Rall, who have had posts eaten or delayed. If you have difficulty, please send an email to us via the Contact page and we’ll do what we can.

Note: Edited to fix an incorrect photo; Fleen thanks Leah Schnelbach for her eagle eye. Gina Gagliano is shown second from left here, along with Alex Cox of Rocketship, Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly and PW Comics Week, and John Shableski of Diamond; all but Cox were members of the organizing committee.

So SPLAT! was a big success. Big props to Gina Gagliano, who had the idea; Leah Schnelbach (on the right, during the raffle) , the assistant director of the New York Center for Independent Publishing (who graciously allowed me in), Karin Taylor, the director of the NYCIP (who kept everything running) and the entire organizing committe (especially Dave Roman, who tipped me off about the event, put me in touch with the organizers, and had to miss the day due to illness — we’re glad to hear that he’s feeling better).

As I told several people on the day, it didn’t feel like the first iteration of a conference; things went smoothly, the panels were informative and had a heady mix of guests and topics, and the library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen (“By Hammer & Hand All Arts Do Stand”) was a beautiful venue. In fact, the most serious complaint I can come up with is, that in a building that in part houses a plumbing trades school, I’d have expected the hot-water faucet in the loo to work.

The symposium itself was divided into three tracks — one on the what & why of graphic novels; a second on making them; and a third on graphic novels in schools and libraries. I spent most of my time on track one, but crossed over to three — having no pretensions of artistic ability, I left the “how to make ’em” sessions to those that would benefit.

In terms of presentation, the Who Reads Graphic Novels? and Webcomics: A Primer seemed to run most smoothly; this was probably a function of the panelists present and the moderators — wrangling smart, opinionated people is an art form, and Evan Narcisse and Colleen Venable just seemed to do the best job of it (it doesn’t hurt that Narcisse has both a conversational style and voice very similar to that of Elvis Mitchell).

The most purely fun session was probably that with Margeaux Del Guidice and Michael Lizardi, a pair of school librarians from Long Island speaking on Comic … In A School? Using Graphic Novels to Enhance Student Achievement; they had some terrific info for teachers and librarians looking to get past the legacy of Seduction of the Innocent. In fact, by my estimate a good 20 – 25% of the attendees appeared to be from the school/library field, which I found to be encouraging. Talking with Charles Brownstein (executive director of the CBLDF, and a panelist in the schools/libraries track) confirmed my suspicions — the librarians and teachers and there looking for a path to build their graphic novel collections. That want this material, and they’re pushing to include it in their collections; everybody who’s doing comics and isn’t Bill Barnes & Gene Ambaum, take note.

We’re going on a bit long here, so the detailed recap of the webcomics panel will have to wait tomorrow. But I’ll leave you with one teaser — Ted Rall was in fine form, and he’s no longer couching his dislike of internet archives solely in terms of editorial cartoons.

Quotes of the Day:
Scott McCloud, feelin’ the early-morning hungries — Oh my God, they have donuts!
Calvin Reid (R), in the keynote interview with McCloud (L) — [Meredith Gran’s (R) Octopus Pie collection] looks terrific, by the way.

Yeah, this could be a catchphrase to rival Stop salting ham!

Conventions:

• Wizard (ack, ptoo) World LA kicks off today, with appearances from Kellett and Malki !. Word is that Pugboy will have a copy of his new collaborative book for you to paw through.
• The UK Web & Mini Comix Thing is next weekend in swingin’ London, with the likes of John Allison, Rene Engstrom, Meredith Gran, Liz Greenfield, Chris Hastings, Roger Langridge, Lem, Carly Monardo, James Turner, Weebl, and many more cool webbers in attendance. If you’re on that side of the Atlantic, do drop in.

In other news: Batman, by Jamie Dee Galey; Hereville restarting; a remix contest to celebrate the release of the first book of the chronically-underreviewed Simulated Comic Product; and a new sketch blog some veteran fantasy webcomickers