Since we last took a look at regular webcomics news:

• Order of the Stick released comic #500 (extra length, as is traditional in these situations), then followed up quickly with #501.
• Steve Troop‘s back in the saddle for the latest revival of Melonpool; this time around, there’s a definite story with beginning/middle/end, and he’s not committing to more than that … but he’s having fun and we get free comics, so what’s not to love?
• I am sore afraid of the final panel of today’s Ugly Hill — I can’t make those three streams of ejectamenta square with my knowledge of anatomy, but presumably new father Paul Southworth knows these things. So scared.
• The hell? Has Gunnerkrigg Court always been at Graphic Smash and I just never noticed before today? That’s what I get for paying too much attention to the comic, and not enough to the newsposts.
• There’s a very interesting interview with Joey Manley and one of his new investment partners, Alan Gershenfeld, over at CBR; toss Gershenfeld’s name into Google and tell me you don’t go Hmmmm. Anyway, there’s some interesting between-the-lines readings to be gleaned from what Manley and Gershenfeld have been willing to say on the record; we at Fleen have our own interview questions before the gentlemen behind the megamerger, and we’ll bring you those answers as soon as we can.

Editor’s note: As reported yesterday, three members of Blank Label Comics have struck out into the wilds of Webcomicstan to try to make their fortunes away from the group. Their goal: a new association, Halfpixel, which beckons to them like an oasis in the desert. Will these three plucky upstarts succeed? We asked Brad Guigar, Kris Straub, and Dave Kellett just what the deal was, and how it fit in with Scott Kurtz‘s continuing plans for global domination.

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This week, I completely fell for Tom Humberstone’s Vented Spleen site. I’d originally been referred by a friend who knows my taste to his recent post for 24 Hour Comics Day, the aptly-titled Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Crohn’s Disease. It’s a straightforward autobio account about the creator’s diagnosis and about living with Crohn’s, what it means for his life, and thinking through some of those issues in a public forum. I think my friend sent the link along for a few reasons, not the least of which is that every year I talk a good game about doing a 24 Hour Comic and yet I never quite sit down and do it. It’s less a lack of stick-with-it-ness (I did finish NaNoWriMo the year I signed up, plus, y’know, there was that grad school grudge match thing) and more just poor scheduling on my part (I had tickets to see They Might Be Giants…and the guy sitting one row in front of me was wearing a Republicans for Voldemort t-shirt).

What hooked me was that Everything You Never Wanted… is not only autobiographic work by a man about corporeality, but the images are also reminiscent of two of my favorite artists (one being Seth, the other Craig Thompson) in terms of some of the lettering and the use of color as well as some of the line work. Years ago, I scrambled to find a text much along these lines to include in an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory course I taught at the University of Delaware. While the work I chose (it was Fight Club…) worked well, I would have loved to have had more of a range. Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Crohn’s Disease would have fit spectacularly. It’s very compelling.

Humberstone’s been writing, drawing, and publishing for about three years; he’s based in London and his work does have a range; the 24 Hour Comic has quite a different feel to it than some of his other work, including How To Date A Girl In 10 Days. The latter’s a lovely little story, but when you click the link be careful to note the order of the pages since they were posted in sections. Organizatiuonally, it’s tough to read since you’ve got to remember to start at what looks like the end and kind of read backwards. It’s a complicated process, but it’s totally worth the work.

And, of course, we should note: they’re originally minicomics which have been scanned and made available online. In most cases I prefer print, since images don’t always come up as crisp on a computer screen and in Humberstone’s case much of the artwork’s fine lines and precise lettering don’t translate ideally to the screen. Still, being that he’s in London, getting actual copies of the print works is unfortunately cost-prohibitive. And here’s where this issue links to my recent posts about webcomics: it’s an online version of a print comic created by someone who does regularly update a website with his varied work. There are some fabulous sketchbook images as well as illustration work ranging from promo posters to EP covers for bands. It’s work I wouldn’t have seen without the website. So that’s tempered some of my thinking about webcomics and print; perhaps next week I’ll go looking for something toward the other end of the spectrum.

You may have noticed that the Blank Label Comics Brady Bunch grid is a little short today — six headshots instead of the usual nine, and three names missing from the sidebar. Aside from completely messing up my usual morning webcomics trawl routine (hit the BLC site, and start reading comics in a criss-cross pattern, starting from the lower right), this means that Kris Straub, Brad Guigar, and Dave Kellett have left the webcomics supergroup to try their hand at solo projects under a different band name. Or something. Wherever the metaphor is going, there’s no hard feelings and no Yoko Ono in this breakup.

Where they’re going is under the Straub/Scott Kurtz studio label of Halfpixel. Rather than a defined collective with shared responsibilities, Halfpixel will be giving the four creators a common identity for things like promotion and con appearances, but allow them to pursue their comics endeavours in a more independent fashion.

Plans for the shift have been in the works since before SPX, where one would not have known that any kind of breakup was imminent by the way that all the Blank Labellers carried themselves. Commenting on the change, Howard Tayler said this morning:

Think of this as ‘fission,’ like the nuclear kind. Counting Scott Kurtz’s advisory position there were ten of us at Blank Label pouring energy in several different directions. This split focuses that energy in some exciting new ways. Readers should expect to see big things from both Halfpixel and Blank Label Comics in the weeks and months to come.

Indeed, during a late-night rumble between Blank Label and Playground Ghosts, this reporter personally witnessed David Malki ! aim a vicious swing with a baseball bat at the back of Brad Guigar’s head. David Willis, heedless of his own safety, hurled himself between the bat and Guigar, dramatically shouting “NOOOOOO” in slow motion, despite knowing that their creator’s relationship was mere weeks from dissolution. Clearly, friendship means more to these gentlemen than mere business association.¹

Despite the fact that I got scooped by Xaviar Xerexes, there will be an interview with the four Halfpixelites tomorrow.

Updated to add: Received after press time was the following comment from David Willis:

Hey, look, they just had a thing about how I refused to wear pants, y’know? And then one day I freeball it, and PAM!, they’re “starting
a new collective.” Well, joke’s on them. Now I can lounge around pantsless without those shifty eyes. This is a new golden age.

Pants nazis. Every single one of them.

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¹ Obligatory disclaimer: In truth, David Malki ! did not assault Brad Guigar with a baseball bat. It was actually a cricket bat. The Willis quote, however, is real.

Whew — what with interview and blockbuster announcements, we at Fleen have neglected some of the happenings in our corner of the interwebs. For example: Zudacomics Zudalaunched yesterday, with a couple of Zudahiccups that seem to be worked out now.

Others have commented on how the initial batch of contestants seem to predominantly be creators with a history of working with DC, which may be coincidence, or it may be people that don’t have a problem with the Zudacontract’s terms because they’re used to them.

That being said, there’s some very good work there, and you ought to check it out, but be prepared to hate the interface. It’s not that I object to Flash per se, but holy mother of all that’s good and pure that’s a slow load. If you’re not on broadband, forget it.

Lightning round!

• Want to see a guy lose 10 years in five photos? Check out Beardvember 2007!
• Warehouse sale!
• Webcomic goin’ animated!
• So … shiny! Scroll down for Halloween caliente.

One of the many things I like about Joey Manley is that he answers his email promptly. He dropped a fairly big announcement yesterday afternoon, I happened to catch wind of it in the first half-hour or so and send him some questions, and twelve minutes later I’ve got the answers. That’s the sort of thing that makes webcomics journo-hackery easy.

For those who haven’t seen it, The Colonel announced the upcoming merger of the Modern Tales family of various webcomics sites and the ComicSpace/Onlinecomics.net empire:

Today, Josh Roberts (owner of ComicSpace and Onlinecomics.net) and I are excited to announce that we have signed a Letter of Intent to merge our businesses into one corporate entity. We will be working with E-Line Ventures … to secure the necessary funding and support for us to effectively merge and run the combined business.

It’s been obvious to me, and to anybody else paying attention, that my websites are too ambitious, and have grown much too quickly, for one person to manage properly. As some of you know, I’ve spent the better part of two years looking for the right partners to help me step my efforts up….

A few months ago, Josh and I were corresponding on a technical issue, and our conversation sort of veered into this territory. Turned out he was in the same position I was in — and had turned down a lot of the same offers I had turned down, for the same reasons. Josh’s skillsets are quite different from mine, but his goals and plans are very, very similar. Each of us fills a gap in the other’s area of expertise. After brainstorming for a while, we realized that we would make a great team, that each of us would be stronger with the other at his side, and we decided, way back then, to merge our businesses — but only if we could find investors, and get the funding to build out the kind of stable business infrastructure we’ve both been lacking.

Naturally, this raises some questions (some of which Manley can’t answer at the present time — damn you, SEC-mandated blackout periods!), and once the various no-talk periods expire, I’ve been promised an interview with Manley, Roberts, and various other personages in the new company. For now, we can report that:

• While the timeline is still being finalized, the business merger will take place first, and the technical merger will follow. Says Manley, The various sites will be run as a “network” until the dev team has had time to finish the new, superdeluxe website. Look for the new site to launch 3–5 months down the road.
• Manley and Roberts will be co-CEOs.
• On the goals for the merged ComicSpace, Manley informs us that [W]e’ll have the budgetary resources to hire programmers and designers who operate at a much higher technical and artistic plane than I personally could have ever reached by my lonesome. That’s where the majority of our investment capital is going — the vast, vast, vast majority of it.
• Manley describes Roberts as a genius when it comes to creating simple but elegant online software: he’s quite the usability guru, he’s an amazing collaborator, a coder extraordinaire, and just a fantastic guy. Anybody would be lucky to have him as a partner, and I wasn’t the only person begging him to work with me, by a long shot.

More information to follow when it can be made publicly available. In any event, it’s safe to say that this merger and capital infusion could be the biggest thing to hit the business of webcomics in 2007 and well into 2008.

Editor’s note: As we discussed last week, we have an interview with Dresden Codak creator Aaron Diaz; he discusses his decision to quit his job and become a full-time webcomicker, merchandise, and what it’s like leaping into the unknown. And we would be remiss not to note that in celebration of his impending lifestyle change, Diaz is running six days of guest strips starting today, and a brand-new episode of Dresden Codak on Sunday.

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Dresden Codak update! Sort of! Latin heart-throb Aaron Diaz has announced that he’s quittin’ the day job and will be devoting this time to Dresden Codak as a career:

If you folks keep buying shirts and prints, I’ll be able to put up a comic every week!

Dresden Codak every week? Buy the damn shirts! Diaz has kindly agreed to an interview about this shift in his priorities, which we should have for you early next week. One topic of discussion is sure to be the viability of this change, since he notes that success in making a living from the comic is not guarranteed:

If not, then I will literally die!

Keep in mind, this is not a fearful-of-death kind of guy; this is a man who engages in Pretend To Be A Time Traveller From The Future performances in the deep southern section of the US, running the risk of having the crap kicked out of him. Don’t let Aaron Diaz die or we can’t be friends anymore.

From the Things that make you go “Huh” desk: Scott Kurtz pointed me towards an interesting tidbit in the announcement that Zuda has its first Instant Winner™ (sounds like a scratch-off lottery ticket, doesn’t it?) … except that said winner was invited to pitch the project before Zuda was announced. The work looks gorgeous and I’m looking forward to it, but still — huh.

In other news, Fleen congratulates Jeph Jacques on 1000 installments, which today features sweaty naked old people because he hates you. And Joe Chiappetta may like his phone a little too much:

For three days in a row this week, the new Silly Daddy comics posted on my site were created totally on a Pocket PC Phone.

Check it out and have a good weekend.

Word went out yesterday: Zuda launches next Tuesday, and the initial lineup has been announced. They’re even doing a launch party in New York if you’re in town; I have a conflict (damn shame, too, since the venue is about four blocks from work), so somebody report on this for me, ‘kay? These things usually have snacks, and the SDCC Zudaparty had pretty good Zudabooze, so it’s totally worth your while.

Speaking of launches, there’s a new Clickwheel player in town, which editor Tim Demeter informs us has a plethora of new features:

• The beaker button will take you to an upload interface (you need to be logged in to use this part) where you can play around with your own files .
• The top hat is the Editor’s Picks, where I have preloaded a selection of Clickwheel material you can view right on the player.
• The “i” is more detailed info on how to work the player.

Please note that the first button Tim mentioned is a beaker, not a Beaker. We’ll report back more on the new player after we get a chance to play with it thoroughly (Demeter has kindly provided us with a test account).

And via Howard Tayler, who has had … issues … with Wikipedia‘s treatment of webcomics in the past: the Wikinews story referenced yesterday is happening here.

First, thanks for all of the interesting comments last week. I’m getting ready to talk webcomics with two folks who will surely have interesting things to say. They’re folks whose work I read both online and off, and have written about here on Fleen, so we’ll see how it goes. Watch for it in a few weeks. In the meantime, keep sending along suggestions. I was deciding what I wanted to write about this week since I’d gone looking for something very hypertexty, very different from some of the works I’ve seen so far.

I actually had a candidate in mind (who will likely be the subject of next week’s column) until I ran across Nobody Scores!, “a little comic about inevitable disaster.” Started about a year and a half ago by Brandon Bolt, the webcomic details the lives of four people living in the same building. One of them, Raoul, lives downstairs from the other three. Mostly he wants them to die; they’re terrible upstairs neighbors and he’s an academic with two doctorates, lots of articles, and a crappy adjunct teaching job.

The three people living upstairs, Sarah, Jane Doe, and Beans, in the words of their creator, “strive and dream in their second-floor apartment and unfortunately elsewhere as well, and see their dreams bear fruit, causing frequent death and millions of dollars of property damage. Exactly the way it is for countless young adults the world over! I think it should be real easy to relate to. Because I’m keeping it true to life.” Sarah’s the ‘responsible’ one of the group (and why the rent gets paid), whereas the other two are a little more slacker-ey. Still, I like them. It’s taking me some time to read through all of the archives, in part because these images are so densely packed with really rich detail that I want to read slowly and savor them. That’s a new experience for me reading webcomics, where it’s usually just, you know, click, click, click.

Bolt’s got an amazing page with explanations and character bios. He’s got colorwork which reminds me of Corey Marie Parkhill’s Scene Language and of Mice Luce’s Fite!, some images which evoke Cathy Leamy’s Geraniums and Bacon, and really cool lettering. I like the way the words look on the screen; all the different elements work together in what I imagine webcomics do best when they’re really well-composed.

Overall, the webcomic surprised me with how sassy and sharp it is. I like the characters even though they’re sometimes kind of mean. The characters are snappy; they snipe at each other, shirk on the rent (well, two of them do), freeload (ditto), try to parallel park (and instead ignite all the cars around them), and other sundry and strange things. Like turn into zombies. Or die.

Narratively, Bolt explains these things away pretty simply: there’s “no continuity in Nobody Scores! Unless specified by a handy sign that says “Part One” or “Part Two.” So when the world gets overrun by wombats or Sara becomes a vampire or Beans dies of consumption, everything goes rewind before the next comic, exposing our beloved cast to more horrible, horrible fates. Imagine Groundhog Day without a victory condition.”

Gotta love it.

Besides, how can you not love a webcomic which namechecks Homicide: Life on the Street? Come on. (Even more slick? Check out the names written on the board behind the characters.)