Last week I attended the joint meeting of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association, and I heard papers on topics as wide-ranging as Morrissey, fandom, and identity through to Appalachian banjo stylings, and that’s a fairly narrow sampling of the various papers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer is perpetually popular, though the hot show this year seems to have been Gray’s Anatomy). The conference spans four days and has a conference program that’s about 400 pages long.

I’ve presented with the PCA before, both nationally and regionally, since for many years while I was in graduate school the Modern Language Association—the major pinnacle of conferences in my field — very much frowned on papers having to do with comics unless they had something to do with a children’s literature panel. But in the 12 years between when I began graduate school and now, there’s been a definite jump in the number of academics who teach comics, the amount of scholarship on comics (just check out ICAF, for starters), and the response to that scholarship both inside of and external to the academy. Even in the five years since I’ve finished it does seem like the proverbial tide has actually turned a bit.

For example, at this recent conference, there were lots of papers on comics. There’s a Comic Art & Comics interest group that ran programming for the duration of the conference. There were a series of panels about comics in other discussion groups, such as both the Medieval and the Composition & Rhetoric groups. There was even an entire panel organized around Sandman, dealing with Neil Gaiman’s use of myth in the series.

What particularly caught my eye, though, were the papers on webcomics. From just skimming the program (remember: 400 pages) I found two: one titled “Penny Arcade and the Manipulation of Subcultural Capitalâ€? presented by a scholar from the University of Calgary, and another, “The King of Lizards Comes out of the Closet: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Heteronormativity in Dinosaur Comics â€? by a scholar from West Chester University. And those are just the ones which name-check webcomics in their titles. There must have been others which mentioned webcomics in the body of the papers; for example, I heard a paper about “hipster librariansâ€? mention Unshelved, which makes sense given the subject matter. I know from posts on a comics scholars discussion list I’m on that there are folks worldwide writing dissertations about webcomics, which means the number of undergrad papers on them must be exponentially higher.

All of it made me return, again, to the question of context. In writing last week’s column on Minimalist Stick Figure Theater, I thought it would be a fabulous text to use in a women’s studies class. I think it’s a great webcomic, and it raises points worthy of discussion in a way that I think would be ideal for just such a class.

I know that there’s webcomics out there which poke fun at academic culture (which is great; it’s pretty goofy from time to time, and though there isn’t a secret handshake it does certainly have its own weird internal culture). What I’m wondering is if there are folks out there who have used webcomics in an educational setting, and, if so, which ones and how? How does a webcomic change when it is printed out and distributed to a class (sort of thinking about fair use and not fair use and outright theft, since that’s been the focus here for the last few days)? Is it realistic to assign students to look at websites for homework, since it’s becoming ever more rare to find students who are not online? And in ten years are we going to see the PCA flooded with papers about webcomics? I don’t know. But it’ll be interesting to find out.

Thoughts?

Editor’s note: David Hamilton wrote to me last week; he’d done an interview with Jeff Knooren of A Murder of Crows and Out In The Morning, and wanted to know if we wanted to run it. See that, people? That’s initiative, and we like it. Without further ado, David Hamilton and Jeff Knooren.

Jeff Knooren is multi-talented. In addition to drawing and writing “A Murder of Crows� and “Out in the Morning,� Knooren is programming a simulation game (think the money-hungry greed of monopoly, but instead of dice rolls you have to make cutthroat management decisions.) He also designs and sells cat furniture.

He’s not afraid to share his opinion, and he makes it clear that he is not going to be intimidated by the “webcomics community.� I had the chance to ask him some questions about how and why he creates webcomics, and the artistic and commercial direction of webcomics in general.

(more…)

So it’s not going to be Dick & Fart, LLC after all. Dang. But the offices of the new Scott & Kris show promise to have the highest Aviator density this side NASA in the Apollo days.

Fashion eyewear aside,this venture brings to mind some curious possibilities about how webcomickry collectives (and business relationships) overlap and intersect in various ways: Starslip Crisis is part of Halfpixel, and also part of Blank Label Comics, but the rest of Halfpixel is not part of Blank Label; neither is PvP, but PvP: The Series is (in conjunction with Blind Ferret Entertainment) and also, presumably, part of Toon Hound Studios (but not Toonhound Studios); Toon Hound (but not Toonhound) has a relationship with Image; plus it (that would be Halfpixel again) has a store, which may or may not sell the products of any/all of the above.

From a corporate standpoint there’s a chance that if Kurtz and/or Straub gets hit by a bus, the lawyers are going to be teasing apart the interests for the next decade. So let’s just call it a way for a couple of friends to be able to work together; given all that the two accomplish already, picking themselves up and going to a separate place to work (rather than working from their respective homes) has the potential to explode their productivity. Either way, Fleen offers a hearty welcome to the new Halfpixel.

Speaking of The Onion, “Ordway” writes wanting to know what’s up with the editorial cartoon that’s been running in that hallowed paper for the past six months or so. It’s garnered much consternation, although I would have thought that it was obviously a parody of a bad editorial cartoon. All the cliches are there, from clumsy “jokes” to marginal art to the fetish for labelling everything. I mean seriously — labelling a pair of underwear as “underwear”? It’s a spoof, people. Although I must confess, if I open the paper and don’t see a crying Statue of Liberty, my day is a little sadder.

And you know whose work appears in The Onion? David Malki !. It’s old news by now but if you hadn’t heard, Lynn Johnston isn’t retiring after all. Instead, she’ll turn FBOFW into a permanent clip show, which is a terminally depressing thought. Johnston’s real reason for bowing out:

I could not sustain a gag a day strip (daily). Because if you’re doing the kind of work that is gag-a-day, eventually you’re going to have to work with writers. One brain cannot come up with a gag a day.

As Malki ! wrote in response to Johnston’s difficulty thinking up one joke per day: I’m sure she didn’t MEAN to insult hundreds of comics writers she’s never heard of (not to mention plenty of her syndicated colleagues), but I think she kinda did. More than that, she’s keeping new creators from having a shot at the 2000+ papers she runs in now, which is an additional kick in the teeth to hundreds more writers she’s never heard of.

Finally, I can’t tell you how many times I wish I had balls this big.

In honor of International Women’s Day I decided that this week I’d cull suggestions from the folks I know who read webcomics. I was specifically looking for something created by someone who identifies as female that felt pro-equality to me without necessarily identifying with the f-word, which I know makes some people nervous (but it really shouldn’t), and had interesting things to say about gender. The immediate option was Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For but even though it is available online, I have difficulty thinking of it as a webcomic because for so long it’s been a print-oriented piece, either through syndication or through trade paperbacks.

The search raised an interesting issue, one I plan to consider in a future column: there are lots of webcomics out there with strong, smart female characters who don’t look like the stereotypes of women in comics (you know exactly what I’m talking about here, folks). They’re complete characters who make their own choices about life, and work, and sex. They hold a range of different jobs, from coffee baristas to mayor’s aide and saving the world from the devil to working in the sex industry.

And many of these webcomics are created by men, which is not a surprise given the arc of the industry. Many of these creators are, in fact, very attuned to equality and don’t hesitate to respectfully call fans out for sexist comments on messageboards or blogs as well as to actually use the word “feminism” in their webcomics without making it too much of a glib punchline (sometimes, anyway. See again Diesel Sweeties). And I think that’s worth noting.

But I’m lately interested in learning more about women in the industry especially since what’s so great about webcomics—easy access to cheap-ish publishing without editorial boards and so forth—should, in theory at least, lead to less of a potential divide than we’ve seen in the history of the comic book up until about Sandman and Love & Rockets. (I’m skimming the surface, obviously, but if you want to read more on the topic, there’s lots out there– Trina Robbins, Friends of Lulu , and Sequential Tart are three which pop immediately to mind).

Where I landed was reading In the Puddle by Cique Johnson. It’s a mostly-auto-bio webcomic (it’s described as “functioning as a personal diary”) about the life of Cique and her boyfriend Axe, who work in Philly and live in Delaware (a quirky fact I relish as a native Delawarean myself) with their flying fox bat, Atreau. The webcomic follows these characters in and out of goth clubs and work situations and discussions ranging from everything from ethical sluttery to RenFairs, from pirates to babies and so forth. Cique describes the plot as “Together these devout Pastafarians brave mosh pits, exploding tomatos, hot bikinied women and epic battles! Thus is life in Phildelphia and Delaware.” (If my time in graduate school in Delaware had been more like ITP, I would have had a hell of a lot more fun.).

Initally, I found In the Puddle a little hard to follow, primarily because the coloring in it is different from what I’ve gotten used to in webcomics. Often, only a character’s hair will be colored, which at first made me stumble a little in reading (it sort of altered my visual flow in a way I wasn’t expecting. But it grew on me). In the Puddle has a very quirky sensibility to it, one that’s smart and respectful and distinctive. There are guest strips and innovative clothing uses and I’m just finding it a lot of fun to read. I’ve very much been enjoying sifting through the archives and I think it’s a webcomic worth mentioning.

Enjoy! & see you next week…

Slow day. Yep. Shall we dip into the mailbag?

• Like round numbers? JG Brin wrote us last week to point out that his webcomic, The Crown Prince, hit strip #100. The happy news got lost in the shuffle of the Wikiwars (which tragically continue), but Brin soldiered on with quiet determination and produced stirp #101 in the meantime. Inside sources indicate that Brin may even be at work on #102 as we speak.
• Howsabout that Brinkerhoff? There’s something about the character designs that reminds me of Life In Hell with a case of pygmyism, and that’s never a bad thing. Anyhoo, Brink will be going the comic book route, with the first issue, I Bet It Tastes Like Licorice due in full-color glory at Emerald City Comic Con next month. Creator Gabe Strine is soliciting for letters to be included in the first issue, so get writing.
• Webcomics: we’re all friends here.
• New Livejournal comic! André Babyn (who used to do Canadian Creation Myth) has returned with Frank and Earl The Astronauts. Babyn informs us that It has poor art but not so poor that you will be spending ten seconds wincing at it. In fact, the art is about 37.8 times better than CaCreaMy, so that’s all right. No crazy astronaut ladies yet, but I have hopes!
• Spot the reader! Brian Wilson tells us that Hookie Dookie Panic is running a cameo contest in which the readers can post their photos and be drawn into the strip. Six have been so honored, with more to come. Seriously though — the concept is slightly dangerous; you never know what kind of whacko the reader might turn out to be.
• And wrapping things up, Michael Moss celebrates a year of torturing smiley faces and celebrating the “life” of register jockeys. Something tells me that the latter has a great deal to do with inspiring the former.

Editor’s note: This is the first of the Fleen Guest Columns; this came about because we were put in touch with Anne Thalheimer, who has some interesting views on comics, art & suchlike, and was amenable to writing them up for us.

Anne, by the way, has studied comics at the graduate level, written a book on gender/comics issues, has written on comics for Popmatters, and works in that [web]comics-friendly Mecca of Northampton, MA. Want to join in the fun? Throw us a suggestion, we’ll ask you to send us some copy; just like the Op-Ed page, if it doesn’t require too much fixin’ we’ll run it.

Both Natalie Dee’s work (which she calls “comic art�) and Sam Brown’s (which he calls “stick figure art�) are interesting to me for a number of different reasons. I enjoy the similarities in their visual styles; the simple lines, bold colors, and the “cute� feeling they both evoke. I also like the seeming dissonance between this “cute� look and the fact that Dee’s work often as not is peppered with profanity and Brown’s is, well, there’s monsters and fangs and bloody folks. These are not necessarily bad things; as a reader, I actually find the dissonance they create kind of engaging.

Brown’s work is particularly savvy in this sense, as he creates pieces from titles readers email him, and so you click on the title and the image opens, and you’re left to wonder how a certain title sparked the image that you’re seeing. You see the title, and then the picture, and you’re left to make the connection. Dee’s work does something similar when looking through her archives as sometimes the connection between the image and the title is readily apparent, and sometimes the title itself is what makes me laugh, as it provides a new frame through which to view the work, which shifts how I think about what I’m seeing.

That said, in all the times I’ve seen Natalie Dee’s and Sam Brown’s
work appear on this site, there’s always a comment or two asking, either, Are they webcomics? or, what I think might be the real heart of the question, Are they comics?
(more…)

Some upcoming events:

• Andy Bell‘s new show, Hot Curry, debuts tomorrow at Rotofugi in Chicago, with more info here. Anybody that wants to brave the wind & wuthering of Chi-town should check it out.
• Vericon, at the hallowed halls of Hahvahd, will feature a webcomics panel on 27 January with Shaenon Garrity, Jeff Rowland, Rich Stevens, and Paul Southworth. Go pepper ’em with questions, get some photos, gather embarassing stories. If you write it up, you too could be a Fleen Field Reporter!
• Creators! The deadline for being part of the statistical analysis project is 31 January; we’ve got about 30 responses, but we’ll need 100 or more to make it statistically significant. To recap: all raw data (minus site names/identifying details) will be made available, along with statistical methods.

In other news, it looks like the Jeph Jacques/Sam Logan cold war is getting hot again; from the aforementioned Mr Logan:

Jeph may be the Lex Luthor to my Superman (or at least, my Jimmy Olsen), but you can always count on him whenever you need a hilarious guest strip.

Here are some other things about Jeph that you can count on. Jeph Jacques ate all the chocolate out of your neopolitan ice cream. Jeph Jacques stole your lunch money in fourth grade. Jeph Jacques does think you look fat in that dress. And despite how his last name sounds, Jeph Jacques is not French. He just wishes he was.

And from the mailbag:

• Hot off the presses (in the sense that it showed up while I was typing this post) from Friend-o-Fleen Bill Barnes comes this:
  

  Unshelved was asked to do a Read poster for the American Library Association, and it was just released. This is actually a pretty big deal. More info on our blog (there’s also a reminder about our Pimp My Bookcart contest).

  I hope to make another big announcement by end of month. How’s that for a tease?

  Pretty mean with the tease, Bill. Hope the poster catches on with librarians as much as Terry Moore’s iconic image.

• Alert reader “LostRock” writes:
  

  Well, it’s been over six years…and I believe that Josh Mirman’s Stubble has finally ended.

  We at Fleen missed this, but it looks like you’re right. Stubble has gone & joined the ranks of “concluded webcomics”. Now we get to find out if Alexander Danner liked it.

• Reva Sharp informs us:
  

  After a 3-month hiatus, the webcomic Synchronism by me has returned to the web.

  To ring in the new year and the return of the comic, I’m also holding a small contest. The winner will receive an inked drawing of the Synch character of their choice. More details for that can be found on Synch’s news page.

  Hey! Free stuff! Get enterin’, peoples!

• From Krishna Sadasivam:
  

  The PC Weenies site finally gets an updated look, streamlined for easier navigation and such. This is the fifth revamp of the website in over 8 years. Come on over and tell your readers, too. Let the fiesta begin!

  Hey! Free fiesta! Get fiestin’, peoples!

• From a one mister Daniel Turcotte:
  

  I have a daily webcomic at www.loserbros.com. I started on October 13th and have over 50 strips up now. Sundays I put up sketches or other stuff, but still.

  Still, indeed. Interesting, loose, cartoony style at Loser Bros; reminds me a bit of Kyle Baker, and that can’t be bad. Get loserin’, peoples!

• A small request from Wing:
  

  Can you plug my new project so I can have some people testing it?

  The basic idea is that you e-mail me via that site, I give you access to a spreadsheet, and you (and a bunch of other people) go to that spreadsheet and color cells to make pretty pictures. It’s something like a collarborative art effort. Right now I only have 4 people testing it and it ain’t too exciting. So it’d be awesome if you can plug it and so we can have 500 people collarborate and make some sweet spreadsheet art.

  Interesting idea, Wing. Could be like Time Friends, or the late, lamented The Bench. Get collaboratin’, peoples!

• Steve “presumably no relation to T” Campbell wrote:
  

  Hey Fleen, you should check out Toyzville. It is a funny comic done by a friend of mine named Larry Merrill. He is really hitting his stride and more people should be reading it. Plus he is a good guy, and sometimes I write comics for him.

  Noted, Steve. Go check out a guy hittin’ his stride, peoples!

Okay, be honest — how many of you actually read all the way down here? Really? Cool.

Hey, Kids! It’s interview time again!

D.J Coffman‘s been in the news a lot recently, both for good stuff and bad, and he’s always been a willing victim friend of Fleen’s. So when I decided to get back into this crazy little world, at least on a limited basis doing interviews, he’s the first creator I thought to contact.

Yeah.

That’s right.

I’m back. Doing interviews.

Want me to interview you? Just write in and ask.

Meanwhile, here’s what’s up with D.J.

(more…)

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.
(more…)

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.
(more…)