I like web comics. I like dead tree comics. I like my web comics mostly because they are like the dead tree variety, only free. I’m really not asking for much more, to be honest.

Despite this, I recently visited the Telltale Games website, to download something and discovered web comics the Telltale way. The Sam and Max Comic is interesting. You look at it and you say “what is this? where is my dialog and sound effects?” and then you unwittingly hover your cursor over a pane and lo and behold! Dialog! Sound Effects Etc!

This is an interesting approach, and one that is obviously only possible when utilising electronic media. Sometimes, when reading a comic, our eye is drawn to a boisterous sound effect in the last panel, which can ruin the pacing and set up of a strip. Same goes for dialog within a panel. Sometimes we can get distracted by dialog in bold or italics, and not read things in order, once again ruining the experience the author had in mind for us. In Sam and Max, this is not a problem. As you hover your cursor over a panel, the dialog and sound effects appear in the order that they were intended.

Personally, I am undecided as to whether this is genius or novelty. The concept is sound, I think, but having to manually hover over every single panel makes extended reading slightly cumbersome. A bit more like playing a video game perhaps?

Well, that’s understandable I suppose…

As of me posting this, there is nothing about this on the Penny Arcade front page, so here it is incase you haven’t heard:

Penny Arcade and Hothead Games Join Forces to Create Video Games Based on the Penny Arcade Characters and Universe

A release date for the first episode of Penny Arcade Adventures is to be announced. 

So yeah… holy crap. Awesome.

Music updates from the Webcomic world.

Laurie of Count Your Sheep is singing in the shower, a Beatles classic: All Across the Universe. I suggest the Fiona Apple version of All Across the Universe, it’s a heart breaking rendition from the Pleasantville soundtrack.

5ideways has a 5oundtrack, and there’s a new song out. The LJ update says, “If this were a Disney movie, that would be Axolotl’s big song and dance number, a la ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’ from The Little Mermaid or ‘Friend Like Me’ from Aladdin.” Check out the comic and the entire soundtrack.

And for all of you readers of Video Game comics… I feel I must inform you that you should go out and hear a symphony if you are in the Detroit, Philly, or Vienna (VA) areas. Play! A Video Game Symphony is an international tour. Go get cultured. I’ll be there tonight in Detroit.

My buy-list for SDCC is getting longer, as in addition to Kristofer Straub’s second Starslip Crisis book, there’s a new comprehensive volume of Wapsi Square coming from Paul Taylor. Big, beefy bargain books, too, clocking in at 180 and 160 pages respectively.

Speaking of Blank Label, Steve Troop has a new gig doing puppet videocasts over at Kevin Smith‘s site; the link to Troop’s video wasn’t working on Tuesday, but since he’s scheduled to run on Friday’s, I imagine that makes sense. Also worth noting is a list of fairly impressive names that Smith has contributing to his relaunched site: Fred Hembeck, Paul Dini, and the cast/crew of Scrubs will be bumping elbows with Troop at the website Christmas party.

Given how long Troop’s been at this game, that makes him an overnight success after a decade-plus of grinding effort — our sincere congratulations to him, and wishes for future ass-kickery.

Remember way back when I was musing on the possibility of Hollywood produced web comic movies? Yeah. That was fun. Anyway, as it happens, there is something out there that seems to resemble the antics of certain gaming comics caught on camera, but perhaps not to Hollywood standards. It is called Mega64. Perhaps you have heard of it.

These guys are out there physically doing the funny stuff that we’re used to seeing portrayed by cartoon cats, and it entertains. As long as you can forgive some pretty dodgy camera work and sometimes equally dodgy sound (I’m personally fine with it, since those things are my own primary mode of expression) then you’re in for a treat. In particular, the Hitman, Metal Gear and Shenmue episodes have been huge hits with those who have wandered past my monitor. Beyond the funny (and a lot of it is really funny), it’s also a pretty good message to be sending to the kids. The Mega64 guys often wind up getting in trouble with someone or other for their antics, so maybe the message here is that you can’t just go out and act out your favorite video game without getting in trouble. Unless maybe it’s Tetris.

The public’s reaction to Hitman may be a cause for concern however…

Fleen masthead designer/once-upon-a-time webcomicker/real-life GynoStryker Meredith Gran has just posted her thesis animation in support of graduation from the School of Visual Arts. Like, just now, in the past 45 minutes or so.

Go and feast in the brilliance that is … Polar-oid.

Randy Milholland tells us in the latest S*P newsbox that his friend Erica Henderson has been animating an S*P strip; to be more specific, the first S*P strip. So far, it’s a work in progress — about one and a half of the four panels are done, and it’s still at the pencil rough stage. Buy the characters are well-done, the animation is smooth and natural (watch Davan scratching his nose in the first 20 or so frames … nice job of keeping the characters from just standing there), and the voices sound pretty close to what’s in my head when I read the strip. The only downside to doing full animation like this is it takes a long time, but when it’s done well it’s worth it. This looks like it’s got a lot of potential.

Also, the parade of webcomics books continues apace, as Bunny chimes in with preorders. While some are not fans of the single-panel webcomic format, Lem’s got some real twisted genius going on, barely moderated by long, fluffy pink ears. Watch for 90 of the best strips to hit sometime late May/early June, subject to printing delays, university workload, and the Royal Mail.

Here’s that comment that Jeff avoided so assiduously: we’re pleased to review PvP Alive!, the first of a promised series of animated interludes. Hey, remember the original Spider-Man cartoons? Strip out the color from that bad boy, add in a few frame transitions, involve fewer Canadians in the creation, and that’s a pretty good approximation of Kristopher Straub’s “Blamimation”. The story (Skull can’t sleep so he bugs Brent; alternately wacky and sexy hijinks follow) is also arguably better than what came out of my TV when I was a wee sprat.

But this is the thing: in college, I was part of the creative team of a weekly comedy show at the campus radio station. Forget being able to pace a visual gag (something Kurtz and Straub know a little bit about) … writing funny for the radio is hard. The best you can hope for is that you come up with some in-jokes between friends and not too many people call up the request line to tell you that you suck. From their voices, it’s clear that Kurtz and Straub are having a good time (and if you drink as many beers before watching PvP Alive! as SK & KS did before recording it, you’ll enjoy it too). Really, that’s the only criteria that you can use to judge this little venture — they’re enjoying themselves, and if they keep up with the threatened further episodes, they’ll likely get better. If they get better enough, they might make Tim Buckley reconsider his price points. Now that would be funny.

The following item is hot off the presses and posted entirely without comment.

Scott Kurtz wrote:
PvPonline.com, in association with Nightlight Press is pleased to start off 2006 with a bang.

Since the strip started in 1998, PvP readers have been clamoring to see their favorite characters BROUGHT TO LIFE on their computer screens. Well, thanks to some ingenious technology, that possibility is a reality TODAY!

To bring PvP ALIVE! to life, I consulted with world renowned “Fantastician”, Kristofer Straub about finding an affordable and efficient way to bring PvP ALIVE! on a regular basis. Kristopher has recently been tinkering with a new media called BLAMIMATION that he’s been looking to try out on a new project.

And so, PvP and Nightlight press is proud to present the first of many episodes of our brand new feature: PvP ALIVE!

Well. Okay.

One comment.

Scott may have had too much eggnog this season.

Tim Buckley is one of the growing number of webcomic artists who have achieved enough success to be doing what they love full time, without need or want for another job.

Ctl-Alt-Del has achieved this success through the usual means – good art, consistent effort, interesting characters and well-written story arcs full of twists and surprises. He’s also willing to start a few fires.

Despite being a gamer comic, about two guys who sit on a couch and play video games, Tim finds new and strange stories to tell and characters to introduce, and then kill.

Ctl-Alt-Del is one of the better comics out there, and Tim deserves all the credit and all the blame he gets. You could do a lot worse than to read this on a regular basis. Although rumor has it you don’t want to play Worlds of Warcraft with him.

But the big news these days at Ctl-Alt-Del is that it’s going animated!

This is practicaly unprecedented in the webcomic world, and should be very interesting to follow.