Christopher B. Wright continues to triumph over adversity. Today sees the return of his second strip, Kernel Panic, after too long an absence. The archiving is still a bit wonky, but that will presumably be fixed up as the site continues its redesign.

Welcome back to Alan and his crew, and please — only one Binky at a time.

Okay, one shakeup, but this is webcomics, people — we can milk this thing bigtime if we put our minds to it.

Seven months into his announced tenure, Eric Burns has stepped down as the editor of Modern Tales. One month after leaving Modern Tales, Shaenon Garrity has taken up the mantle; details here. Combine this with the shift from T Campbell to Tim Demeter over at Graphic Smash (curiously not yet noted on the GS front page), and I half expect a wholesale editorial shift to sweep the webcomicsphere.

In other news, Fleen readers are stuck with Gary Tyrrell as editor. Deal.

Paul Southworth has some projects to get done, so for the next month we get Ugly Hill with bonus DVD commentary!

Samuel L. Jackson has a video interview up at The OC; you can hear what real-life webcomicker Jeff Rowland sounds like!

Reviews on the books that I picked up at SDCC to start soon; I’ve finished first reads of everything except THOW. We all know that book is going to be a lightning rod no matter what gets written here, so I’m reading it very carefully; when the shitstorm is inevitably released, I want to be able to back up what I say.

Speaking of Mr. T, you may not have him to kick around any more. Peep this. Or is it possible that this is culmination of all of Campbell’s plans, and now he can assume his new identity as Tim Demeter? Keep your eyes open and your brain sharp, ’cause this could be a bumpy ride.

Okay, that covers the happenings at the SDCC Webcomics School panels; I’m thrilled by the positive reaction they’ve gotten so far. Here’s what’s going to happen with them:

1. Your suggestions — what did you find missing from the discussions? What topics do you think would make for a good set of lessons about how to do webcomics?
2. Ask the experts — finding out from people who do webcomics well what lessons they want to convey and fleshing out these session notes with futher content; also, asking the participants to list out any topics that they wanted to get to during the sessions but didn’t.
3. Ruthless editing — having a narrative of the sessions is nice, but it doesn’t make for a good teaching/research tool; we’ll deal with some of the overlap, expand and trim as needed, and generally turn them into something a little more readable.
4. Permanent home — they will be placed here at Fleen as a permanent resource. A free Fleen t-shirt¹ to whoever comes up with a really good name for these lessons.
5. Planning for next year — this was the second SDCC with a webcomics curriculum, and maybe it’s time to add some 200-level courses. Start brainstorming and let’s get a discussion going about what you’d like to see covered next year, and who you want on the panels. I don’t have anything to do with organizing these things, but we can use this forum as a feedback mechanism.

I’d like to take this time to publicly thank all of the panelists: Dave Kellett, Jon Rosenberg, Brian Fies, Phil Foglio, R Stevens, Kristofer Straub, Scott Kurtz, Mike Krahulik, Jerry Holkins, Robert Khoo, Howard Tayler, Jennie Breeden, and Phillip Karlsson, for all their expertise. Between them, I think you’re looking at about a century of direct cartooning and webcomics experience.

Extra big thanks to Bill Barnes for his moderation and direction of the panels. He was also largely responsible for putting them together, so if you liked ’em, be sure to thank him.

Finally, a request for everybody reading this: if you attended one of these sessions, if you wanted to attend but couldn’t, and especially if you lined up but didn’t get in, please contact the organizers of SDCC and let them know what sort of demand there is for this kind of panel. Be polite, but let them know, in Krahulik’s words, “that webcomics are kind of a big deal now.”

Back to regular stuff next week; look for book reviews and whatever happens on the day. Thank you, and drive safely.

¹ Note: Fleen t-shirts do not actually exist.

Continuing from yesterday; if you’re interested in some of pictures of these sessions, Gilead Pellaeon has ’em, along with his writeups of these sessions.

Webcomics 103: Making Money
At the podium, Bill Barnes (Unshelved)
On the panel, Robert Khoo (Penny Arcade), Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary), Jennie Breeden (The Devil’s Panties), Phillip Karlsson (Dumbrella Hosting), and Scott Kurtz (PvP).

The Sign Said, “I’ll Just Blow It On Bandwidth”
Barnes opened up the floor to questions, and the first one dealt with making money when starting out — and how can comic books be a part of that? Khoo leapt to the fore with a strong answer that we’ll quote here: “I don’t know why everybody has a fuckin’ hard-on for the book deal. This is webcomics. The goal is not to make comic books when you can do so much more. You can create lots of kinds of content, you can monetize lots of different things.”
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Dave Kellett mentioned something to me over the weekend in San Diego, something potentially cool. Well, it’s up at Blank Label now, so I guess it’s gone from “potentially” to “thoroughly” cool.

Seems our Dave will be doing a stint as Cartoonist-in-Residence at the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California. Past C-i-Rs include Mike Jantze, Dan Piraro, and Pixar animator Don Crum. Look for Kellett at the Sparky shrine on December 9th, and then again on the 10th at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco.

This is the report of the third “Webcomics School” panel session at SDCC. After everything is vaguely back to normal around here, we’ll consult with the session moderator and panelists, expand these recaps, and keep ’em conspicuously posted as a resource for webcomics creators. Please note that these writeups are lengthy, and continue behind the cut for a good long ways.

As an aid to readability, these recaps are presented not as a transcript of a Q&A (although certain sections will quote participants at length, due to extremely critical information that doesn’t deserve truncation), but as a heavily edited narrative, with “takeaway” lessons that summarize the mood of the panel in response to each topic of discussion. Fleen welcomes corrections or clarifications from the participants.

Webcomics 103: Making Money
At the podium, Bill Barnes (Unshelved)
On the panel, Robert Khoo (Penny Arcade), Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary), Jennie Breeden (The Devil’s Panties), Phillip Karlsson (Dumbrella Hosting), and special surprise guest Scott Kurtz (PvP) fresh off his Eisner win. Back to room 3, seating 150, with every seat filled. Fan:want to make webcomics ratio of about 20:130.

Who We Are, How We Got Here
Barnes opened the session with a general question to the panel, asking each, “How did you get here, and how do you make your money?” Given the wealth of experience and wisdom at the head table, the answers took nearly a third of the allotted time; pay attention to their answers, as there will be a test later.
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This is the report of the second “Webcomics School” panel session at SDCC; look for the third tomorrow-ish. After everything is vaguely back to normal around here, we’ll consult with the session moderator and panelists, expand these recaps, and keep ’em conspicuously posted as a resource for webcomics creators. Please note that these writeups are lengthy, and continue behind the cut for a good long ways.

As an aid to readability, these recaps are presented not as a transcript of a Q&A (a shame, really, as a transcript of what quickly became The Scott & R Show would be really, really funny), but as a heavily edited narrative, with “takeaway” lessons that summarize the mood of the panel in response to each topic of discussion. Fleen welcomes corrections or clarifications from the participants.

Webcomics 102: Finding Your Audience
At the podium, Bill Barnes (Unshelved)
On the panel, R Stevens (Diesel Sweeties), Kristofer Straub (Starslip Crisis), Scott Kurtz (PvP), and Jerry “Tycho” Holkins & Mike “Gabe” Krahulik (Penny Arcade). More than 200 people can fit in the room, if 50 of them stand around the perimeter; Krahulik suggested the audience ask for a larger room next year, and to let the con organizers know that “webcomics are kind of a big deal now.” Moderator Bill Barnes started by asking the audience how many of them were there specifically to hear a creator speak, and how many to learn how to make webcomics; it comes down about 200 to 30, in favor of learning webcomics. Given the sheer number in the audience, Barnes opted to immediately open the session to questions from the floor.

Giving The People What They Want
Asked how often they pander to the audience in an attempt to boost readership, Holkins and Krahulik commented that Penny Arcade has a history of being “self-indulgent” (Holkins) and sometimes irritating people who just want a videogame gag. Put another way, “I got a lot of angry mail after Kenny Rogers saved Gabe from hobos” (Krahulik). But, Kurtz said, while you don’t want to pander, you do want to keep the audience engaged by providing something accessible.
Takeaway — If you want to do hobos, do hobos — but your audience needs to be hooked if hobos aren’t their thing.
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This is the report of the first “Webcomics School” panel session at SDCC; look for the other two in the forthcoming days. After everything is vaguely back to normal around here, we’ll consult with the session moderator and panelists, expand these recaps, and keep ’em conspicuously posted as a resource for webcomics creators. Please note that these writeups are lengthy, and continue behind the cut for a good long ways.

As an aid to readability, these recaps are presented not as a transcript of a Q&A (in fact, the sessions were quite wide-ranging and sometimes anarchic), but as a heavily edited narrative, with “takeaway” lessons that summarize the mood of the panel in response to each topic of discussion. Fleen welcomes corrections or clarifications from the participants.

Webcomics 101: Getting Started
At the podium, Bill Barnes (Unshelved)
On the panel, Dave Kellett (Sheldon), Jon Rosenberg (Goats), Brian Fies (Mom’s Cancer), and Phil Foglio (Girl Genius). Let’s see, that’s funny, funny, funny, serious, funny. Everybody milling around the podium is polite until Rosenberg asks Fries, “Is it okay if I make fun of your mom?” “We do,” comes the reply. Laughter, broken tension, and smiles all ’round as the audience is coming in. There’s space for 150 people in room 3, and just about every chair is taken.

Word of Mouth
Barnes introduces the session as “year two of webcomic school at SDCC”, and starts off with a question for the panel: “What brought you to publish on the web?” The answers varied from “accident” (Kellett was prepping a syndicate submission and wanted to share his efforts with family and friends) to “malice” (since they got on each other’s nerves, Rosenberg’s roommate wanted to keep him busy for a couple hours in the evenings), to “necessity” (Fies wanted to get the story out and get feedback as it was happening), to “getting smart” (Foglio had advised many people that the economies of print are not in their favor, and the web is).

The common thread was that all of them saw things balloon and grow in a grassroots fashion (in Foglio’s case, increasing readers of Girl Genius eightfold and tripling sales of the reprint volumes).
Takeaway — When readers like what you do, they will tell people.
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DJ Coffman wins the Comic Book Challenge!

Details here and here. Good luck with the book, DJ, and make sure you have fun with it.