We’ve got some leakage of webcomics into other info-spheres today — and some curious overlaps between them.

First up, Jeff Rowland noticed that Cracked (formerly a magazine competing with the much-better Mad, now dot-com humor venue) has declared:

Are there a lot of terrible webcomics in the world? Sure. But, finding the good ones is well worth the effort.

Their list of The 8 Funniest Webcomics is a usual-suspects roundup (and let’s just acknowledge that everybody’s going to have both But they forgot! and I can’t believe they included! moments) that starts with Dinosaur Comics and ascends to the lofty heights of Achewood.

Secondly, the redoubtable Mister R points me to a Reddit poll that lists out Reddit’s favorite webcomics (ordered by “hot”ness here, and by vote totals here).

Now here’s the curious part: Notice who’s staring at you from the top of the Cracked story pages (and scores #3 in their tally)? Dr McNinja. And what comic is at the top of the Reddit “hot” poll (which apparently denotes degree of controversy), and also 20th out of 87 on the vote-totals list? Dr McNinja.

And who is moderating a new webcomics podcast, spawned from the unholy depths of the webcomics discussion threads at Something Awful? Chris Hastings, creator of Dr McNinja. Clearly, Hastings has gotten to Them (you know who I’m talking about) and revealed the existence of embarassing photos or something, since he’s all over the place these last couple of days. Suspicious of his wicked motives, I asked Hastings what the deal with the new podcast was:

I think what I’m trying to do with this podcast is make it like panel discussions at conventions, but without the convention. I’m looking forward to when we have a few episodes in the can, so we get the feel of the show smoothed out a bit, and I can start bringing back old guests to make different mixes of creators.

Likely story, Chris Hastings of Dr McNinja! Whatever your game is, I’m gonna find out, so you just be careful.

Slow news day. Slow, slow, slow, slooooow. So, here’s a few items to tide you over until Thursday (which is statistically proven to be the most newsworthy day of the week):

• Jack Carter (he of the monkey-themed webcomics reviews) has seen a burst in activity of late. New reviews, an interview, and an obligatory post about Britney are waiting for you.
• Latest discovery: Naivety Incarnate by Sergio Torres; art reminds me a little of Amelia Rules! (always a good thing), and the tone is more melancholy about growing up than just about anything I can put my finger on right now. That, and it features the eternal promise of Super Mario Bros. 2, always a little out of reach. Come to think of it, that’s pretty melancholy, too.
• Don’t forget, webcomics invade the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art tomorrow night, 7pm; Fleen will be reporting live from the gala, and we hope to see you there.

Disclaimer: In addition to rocking today’s New York Daily News, Meredith Gran designed the Fleen masthead.

Okay, now this is clever — with his ad manager in the midst of a move and space for a tall banner on his front page, Randy Milholland has been expanding his Something Positive story depth by going back yet another generation. So that’s mainline S*P in the modern day, Midnight Macabre in the time of their parents, and now the grandparents get their say (along with the original Davan) in 1937.

And this isn’t just a case of do it in black and white and it’s automatically old-timey; Milholland’s set dressing, costumes, and overall tone all do a great job of conveying the rural south in the days of the Great Depression. It’s great stuff, even if the vertical layout makes it entirely unsuitable for top-of-blogpost honors.

Following up an earlier story, Chris MacNeil reported an encouraging upsurge in readership after our mention of Rooby Moon last week. So encouraging, in fact, that he’s decided to go weekly with his full-page artwork. Let’s repeat the important bits there so you don’t miss ’em:

• Gorgeous full-page art
• Weekly

Won’t you repay his kindness by becoming a regular reader?

Speaking of gorgeous full-page art (alas, one-shot): Gene Ha indulges his love for Scary Go Round. There is so much right with that image that I don’t know where to start.

And finally — your friend and mine, Scott McCloud, continues to pile up the awards for Making Comics; this time, it’s the Quills Award, which is a collaboration between NBC and Reed Business Information (publisher of Variety, Publishers Weekly, about 80 other magazines, and through their Reed Exhibitions arm, producers of New York Comic Con and BookExpo America).

Anyway, it’s described as an industry-qualified “consumers choice” awards program, which I think means that actual book industry types decide the categories and nominees, and we all vote on it. Making Comics won in the category of Graphic Novel (scroll down here to see the competition), and is now eligible for Book of the Year, which you can help him achieve by voting here.

Xaviar Xerexes at Comixpedia ComixTalk has, as was previously planned, shifted management of the comics encyclopedia known as Comixpedia to Josh Roberts of OnlineComics.net and ComicSpace.com. To avoid confusion, the X-Man’s discussion site is now going by its new name.

Round numbers: Unshelved #2000 is available for your viewing pleasure. Let the hurrahs commence!

Dammit, Jennie, cease being an idea factory (although this one is brilliant — Devil’s Panties-brand hand sanitizer for con season).

Recently found: Krishna Sadasivam‘s semi-journal comic, Uncubed. He brings you through the troubles and travails of his first 35 years pretty quickly, from simple things like his name (having grown up in the early center of Indian migration to the US and having lots of New Jersey-born classmates from kindergarten on named Sunit, Posha, and Devendra, I feel K-Dog’s frustration), to the more recent events like spawning yet another webcomic kid in 2007 … seriously, people it’s been done. Don’t make me declare a moratorium. Although stylistically, I really dig the Darwyn Cooke-esque character model Krishna’s using for his wife; they say that pregnant women glow and it really comes through here.

And finally: Free Achewood tats in Portland for the month of September! So after you drop by Stumptown, you still have time to get the trip immortalized with an image of Emeril someplace embarassing.

Dave Kellett is apparently threatening promising a new direction for Sheldon: all-Disraeli, all the time. I, for one, welcome our new 19th Century Prime Minister. Wooe!

So Agnes is like Peanuts, and Prickly City is like Calvin and Hobbes in this guy’s Weltanschauung, but Diesel Sweeties is crap? Oooo-kay.

Let’s cleanse our paletes after that unpleasantness, shall we? Chris MacNeil wrote to tell me about his more than 10-years-in-the-making strip, Rooby Moon, which has been archive-ported to the internet, and has new strips being drawn. Check out the newest strip (#134, for those of you playing at home): it’s gloriously full-page, like Krazy Kat mixed with Little Nemo.

Actually, the full page strips are a new thing for MacNeil, but I’m really loving all those panels. It’s like Rudolph Dirks-era Katzenjammer Kids (avoid the modern version as if your sanity depends on it). Anyway, MacNeil is creating these strips the size of a full newspaper broadsheet — pen and ink on 19″ x 24″ Bristol board! — before photographing and coloring digitally.

If the revolution ever occurs and we ditch the teeny-weeny EyeStrain-O-Vision™ that plagues modern newspaper comics, I want Rooby Moon in my paper. The only downside is that size means that Rooby Moon updates only sporadically; if you visit MacNeil’s site and encourage him (maybe pick up a copy of his regular-size strips), maybe we’ll get it more frequently.

Quick things:

• Mailed by several people: yes, yes, I get it — moustaches.
• Also via several people (but credit Lem as first, most appreciating the importance, and having an awesome comic): Amazon has decided to take on Lulu in a no-holds-barred stab at print-on-demand supremacy. It could give webcomics creators access to Amazon’s store, but it’ll cost you. I haven’t had time to go through the terms and conditions with a fine-tooth comb, so right now let’s just call this there’s a new player in the game and we’ll figure out the implications as we go along.
• Wizard. Brian Warmoth. Kit Roebuck of Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life. Interview.
• See, it’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and it’s gonna fall on his head, so it’s all about gravity! Shut up, I thought it was hilarious.

Slow news days, so time for the mailbag and linky goodness. Please enjoy.

• As noted elsewhere, the MoCCA website has been updated to include more details of the forthcoming webomics exhibit (including a more comprehensive list of show participants). God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, Fleen will be reporting from the gala opening next Thursday.
• For those of you following the Machine of Death project (first reported here, updated here), dream-crushers Bennardo, North, and Malki ! wish you to know:
  

  Due to our strict anti-spam policy, you will not get any future emails from us unless you specifically opt-in to our dedicated mailing list. You can either sign up for the new list right this second (which we highly encourage!) or subscribe to our RSS feed. Both will get you the latest machineofdeath.net updates sent to you automatically.

  Unless you subscribe to the mailing list or the feed, you will not receive any further notifications and updates from us. So please do! Because we’d hate for the book to come out and you to forget to check the site and miss it.

• In answer to the question that shows up regularly in our mailbox, “How do I get my new webcomic noticed?”, let me point you to a clever means to do so:
  

  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
  CONTACT: Evan Nichols
  Email: pr-minion@AskDrEldritch.com

  WEBCOMIC ARTIST POSTS 300TH COMIC WITHOUT EVER BEING INTERVIEWED

  PORTLAND, ORE. – September 3, 2007. Portland photo-comic artist Evan Nichols has posted 300 episodes of Ask Dr. Eldritch without ever being interviewed about his work. Despite launching the comic on Labor Day weekend in 2005, its creator has yet to answer questions from a reporter, blogger or webcomics commentator. “When I started, I asked myself if the world needed yet another webcomic about an ex-vampire-killer turned advice columnist who lives in a spooky Pacific Northwest mansion with a troll in the basement, and the answer was a resounding ‘Yes,’� Nichols could have told a journalist, if he’d been asked.

  This streak was almost broken in May of 2006, when the commentary site Fleen.com mentioned “Ask Dr. Eldritch.� “My webcomic is a spin-off from my weekly humorous advice column of the same name, which addresses the problems faced by evil villains, superheroes, mythical creatures and ordinary people stuck in extraordinary circumstances,� Nichols might have replied to an inquiry, but none happened at the time.

  Additional details, such as the comic’s 100% on-time posting record, consistent #1 ranking on PhotoWebComics.com and presentation of an award in the 2007 Web Cartoonists’ Choice Awards, have also gone completely unexplored.

  # # #

  If you’d like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Evan Nichols, please email to pr-minion@AskDrEldritch.com.

  That’s the trifecta right there: originality, some snark, and a properly-formatted press release all in one, which caught my attention and made me want to learn more. Unfortunately, lightning never strikes twice so you don’t bother trying this trick yourself … you’ll have to come up with your own means of fostering attention. Look for Fleen’s in-depth interview with Evan Nichols no later than December, 2012.

• All kinds of wrong (today’s Digger; permanent link requires Graphic Smash subscription).
• And finally, what happens when you combine joblessness, a habit of reading Wigu, a rock band, and fumetti set to music (warning: sound)? The Boneless Children Foundation, a multi-media extravaganza courtesy of David Sophia. In practice, it works exactly as I described it, so if those ideas appeal to you, give ‘er a look/listen.

As some of you know, I have this other life as an academic. As part of that I’m on an email list for announcements and other comics related stuff, and it was through them that I heard about
“Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics.” It’s an exhibit opening at The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) next Thursday (opening reception starts at 7 pm) and running through 14 January of next year. Embarrassingly, I hadn’t heard anything about it until today, but it struck me as somewhat salient after that whole musing on “gateway webcomics” a few weeks back.

I’m cribbing some from the press release, the phrasing of which I find particularly savvy: “Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics” brings comics from the web page to the MoCCA stage. The exhibit explores three aspects of online comics: the unique format and design of webcomics, their appeal to niche audiences, and the transitions between web and print comics. I’m particularly captivated by that last part, even though I’m still thinking about what “niche audiences” means.

What’s also interesting is that the exhibit is curated by Jennifer Babcock, creator of C’est La Vie, which makes a lot of sense: a webcomic artist curating an exhibit about webcomics is going to have a particularly keen understanding of what to highlight and what makes webcomics–especially in this perhaps more traditional context on a museum wall (the last exhibit I saw there was quite well done)–distinct and unique.

Again, from the press release: This exhibit incorporates original artwork, prints of finished art, and digital displays. Featured in the exhibit will be the immensely popular Penny Arcade, PhD, Sluggy Freelance, User Friendly, Diesel Sweeties, Mom’s Cancer, Finder, Supernatural Law, Questionable Content, Something Positive, Scary Go Round, Achewood, Narbonic, Goats, among many others. Of that list there was only one title which was totally new to me, so that’s pretty much the official end of my new-to-webcomics status.

There’s also an exhibit running at the same time for ACT-I-VATE, which “features daily installments of in-progress graphic novels from a group of accomplished cartoonists.” “We’ve discussed a showcase for ACT-I-VATE in the past, and including it as a feature within the webcomics show was the perfect opportunity,” said MoCCA Curator Bill Roundy. “ACT-I-VATE has some fantastic cartoonists, and it has a unique focus on serialized graphic novels.” I had no idea this group existed; in truth, it sounds kind of amazing.

All in all, I think this exhibit is going to be really interesting, even though I’m not going to be able to make it to the opening for a couple of reasons (Rosh Hashanah? Starting a brand-new extra-awesome job?). That said, I’m totally going to see it at some point: I’ve been fortunate enough to see little bits and pieces of some different webcomics as they’re in process, and I’m hoping some of those are part of the exhibit. I’m very interested in the various steps these webcomics take in order to land at the finished product.

One of them in particular which has some particularly cool behind-the-scenes that you don’t see on the screen is Overcompensating , which I’m very much hoping is in the exhibit (even though Topato from WiGU is on the poster). I’ve been getting back into Overcompensating lately, kicked off by a very random recent supermarket parking lot conversation to do with the infamous bumpersticker; two folks parked and got out of their car just as my housemate and I were returning to mine.

“You’re one of those Eastworks folks!” the woman said, excitedly.
“Uh, yeah, I guess. I mean, I used to be,” I said.
“You’ve got the bumper sticker!”

Yes. Yes, I do. So did a random woman I passed last week on I-91, and so did the dude at whom I honked last week who snuck out in traffic in Holyoke in front of my car. Now that I’m looking, I’m kind of seeing these bumper stickers everywhere.

I think I might have to give them out at Halloween…

In case you hadn’t noticed, David Willis is counting down to the 10 year mark of Roomies!-slash-It’s Walky!-slash-Joyce and Walky!-slash-Shortpacked!. The big day will be, oh, in a week or so; drop some congrats to a guy who uses more exclamations than that Wondermark guy.

Okay, it’s not Satanic porn, just the Black & Decker kind: leafblower + kilts.