Couple a’ weeks there without good network & browsing time means that some items slipped through the internet cracks (and you do not want to know what kind of horrors collect between the internet’s sofa cushions). Stories that are being reported late:

• The Toronto Comics Art Festival is on this week/weekend. It’s free on Saturday & Sunday during the day, it’s got loads of cool people (including some names you may recognize from the world o’ webcomics) gonna be there. Seriously, TCAF is like MoCCA-North, and it’s organized by a seriously cool guy from a seriously cool store.
• Latest Wizard interview with a webcomicker: Meredith Gran.
• Ryan Sohmer let me know a week ago that the Looking For Group trailer that debuted in San Diego is now available widely.
• One thing that’s not woefully late: Midnight Macabre returns in full UHF glory.

And lastly,

• Aaaahh! EYES! Dammit, Otter, we talked about this.

I didn’t know Mike Wieringo and I wasn’t overly familiar with his work, but people that I know and trust thought the world of him. With deepest respect to his friends and family, Fleen offers condolences for your loss. Reports are that Wieringo suffered chest pains and that emergency responders didn’t make it to him in time. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a volunteer EMT, and I know better than most people that response time = life. There’s no way of knowing what may have been different if Wieringo had gotten quicker care, but if you liked Wieringo’s work please take the very few hours required to get certified in CPR.

Let’s only talk about good things today, okay?

• HB Comic Blog is back; thanks to Michael Kinyon for the heads-up.
• Comic with which I was not previously familiar that looks good: Paul Spencer’s Make With The Funny.
• Webcomics via graphic novels: until September 30th, each person who joins The Ambrosia Publishing Network community will receive a free digital copy of the horror-action graphic novel Smuggling Spirits: Book One by Ben Fisher, Mike Henderson, and Adam Markiewicz (serializing online now, print publication coming soon). Think The Untouchables meets Land of the Dead. Sign up and specify the format you want (PDF or CBZ) in an email to Ambrosia publisher Wesley Green.
• Still shy on entries for the Win Scott McCloud’s Shirt Contest, so get yours in if you want a shot. And speaking of McCloud, we at Fleen hope that he and family stay safe and dry in the face of Flossie.

Although I don’t show up in any of the photos from the Zudaparty, I was there. I drank deep of the proffered beer and had one large and damn good margarita. I met with Ron Perazza (Director of Creative Services at DC), saw the tool, asked some questions. I still have more questions than answers.

The sample Zudasite itself is very slick — it had very intuitive controls for navigating comics, perhaps made somewhat easier by the dictate of a 4:3 aspect ratio. All in all, IBM has provided a very nice human interface for the reader of Zudacomics (although we’ll have to see how well it performs when the broadband gets a bit chokey). But the obvious work and emphasis placed on the interface may be indicative of Perazza and his colleagues focusing too much on surface issues.

I asked if the 4:3 ratio wouldn’t limit creators who might prefer to work in different ways; by way of example, I pointed out how Penny Arcade usually runs a straight 3-panel strip, but when the gag (or in the rare case of filthy continuity, the story) demands, any shape can be put to use.

Perazza answered by discussing topic matter, not the flexibility of presentation. The toolset is uniform, not the content, he said. He continued that Zuda’s not interested in “recruiting” Penny Arcade or other established strips — they want to build up unknowns. Great, I said, but I’m not talking about content — everybody already reading webcomics is aware that they can follow any genre or story type. What about the fact that a creator may want to stretch outside the 4:3 box just this once (or maybe from this point onwards) because it suits the comic better?

That prompted Perazza to talk about the virtue of the 4:3 box — it makes for a uniform interface, regardless of which comic occupies the space. Still not what I was asking, and he conceded that the box restriction would make print easier.

This brought us to the heart of the matter — Zuda provides print and publishing services to creators. But what’s the value added there? There’s plenty of tools and hosting available for new creators; when it’s time for print, there’s companies that exist for that purpose and a deep well of already-done-that creators to ask for guidance. Perazza countered that not everybody would have the patience or desire to do things in addition to creating comics, and that by Zuda taking up those tasks creators can concentrate on the comics. It’s not for everyone, but exactly right for some people is how he summed it up.

What Zuda wants to do, Perazza said, was to bring the audience to deserving creators. This raises a crucial question — there’s a finite number of people that have computers and network sufficient to make following webcomics practical. This is the potential population that Zuda has to draw from; what fraction of that population that doesn’t already read webcomics can Zuda entice to pick up the habit? Those that already read webcomics would find deserving creators without Zuda’s intervention, so who is the new audience that Zuda can bring?

The readership of traditional comics (which would be the cohort that Zuda could most easily access) is small and rapidly shrinking … assuming they could be converted en masse to webcomics (and keep in mind, that would be spread across the entire spectrum of webcomics), would that even provide a noticeable blip in the overall readership?

Perazza answered, We’re not entirely sure what the audience we’re going to be drawing from is. Honest answer good, being this close to launch without that aspect of the plan locked down not so good. Continuing, Perazza said that his big goal for Zuda is transparency — instead of the initially-promised October date, he’s pushing DC’s legal department to have the standard creator contract online and visible by the end of this month. At that time we’ll all have a better idea how much it will cost creators to get the toolset and publishing services, and we’ll be in a better position to judge if the benefits are justified (pre-emptive disclaimer: I’ll be reading those contracts closely, but I Am Not A Lawyer).

I’ll leave you with the weirdest thought that’s occurred to me in the two weeks since my talk with Perazza: if Zuda meets its goal of bringing a new set of readers to the medium, those that benefit most may be those who don’t sign on the dotted line. Think about it — if Zudacomics accomplishes everything it wants and you sign the contract as a creator:

• you get publisher services
• plus audience
• but you must share ownership and/or monetary interest

and you’re happy with that equation, great. But when (not if) those new readers start straying outside the Zudayard into the wider neighborhood, then the pool of all possible readers for webcomics has grown (and for Zudacomics to be long-term viable, it’s grown by quite a bit). If you’re an independent creator who’s already making webcomics your job:

• you’ve got publishing and/or merchandise worked out
• plus you get new readers that you can convert to purchasers of your fine wares
• and you don’t have to give up ownership interest or monetary value

then who’s the real winner? In one of the ironies that make life worth living, the biggest beneficiary of Zudacomics could turn out to be Scott Kurtz.

In entirely other news, temporary shirt with dinopixels!

No time, almost no network, so we’ll be borrowing a line from the foreword to Starslip Crisis Volume 1 that I should have mentioned yesterday.

• Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne and the Golden Trilobyte is Phil and Kaja Foglio’s latest. Check it. It’s got mad science, loopy fun, tragic loss, Jägermonsters and the big reveal about The Other. Everybody is more than they were except Bangalore Dupree, who remains a simple, happy, bloodthirsty maniac. If you buy lots of them, I’m sure it will in some way facilitate the Foglios getting onto a better host so you can get your 3x/week fix more easily.
• The Adventures of Dr McNinja No. 1-3 is Chris Hasting and Kent Archer’s latest. Check it. Ninjas, lumberjacks, gorillas, raptors, high-fives, a pissed-off clone of Ben Franklin, and the Power of Moustachery. How could you not love this? The cover is a perfect recreation of an old comic and it just gets better from there. Get it before the inevitable big-screen adaptation leads to Happy Meals and McNinja burgers.
• 62% More Awesome, The Third Sheldon Collection is Dave Kellett’s latest. Check it. It’s got lizards and space and hairy backs and kneeling before Zod and squee and Crotchley Labs helping us all to defeat the Communist Menace via the power of coffee cup lids. It’s not available at the Sheldon store yet, but look for ’em after the fabulous book-premiere party on the 19th in Beverly Hills. Seriously, all other webcomics artists? Find out how Kellett manages to get sponsored parties at incredible hotels with free booze thrown for him and do it too. Seriously.

Sometimes I plan out what I want to write about in a certain week. For example, in coming weeks, I hope to become a little more critical and maybe a little less Rah! Rah! Comics!, since that’s something I haven’t really done before. I’m thinking also a bit about why I don’t want to do webcomics myself, but how much I think I’m getting inspired by some of them (particularly the ones which use color in such interesting ways; see last week’s column) in the offline work I produce.

Partially I want as ever to parse through why I like what I like, since it seems still to be all over the map. What I’m starting to find tricky is finding new work to check out. Part of my goal here is to search out some of the webcomics which aren’t as well known. Sometimes that comes from folks emailing in (I get the promo emails as well), and though I usually leave the reviews to Gary I thought I’d jump on one in particular this week.

Wes Molebash, who creates a webcomic called You’ll Have That emailed in, first with a promo blurb and then followed it with something that piqued my interest: a print book. Like this isn’t gonna catch my eye: The You’ll Have That one-shot should be in comic stores tomorrow. But in case your comic shop didn’t order it, you can buy it right now ! Once you guys get your hands on the one-shot, please let me know what you think of it! I’d love to have some feedback on the “floppy” issue of the book compared to the trades.

Here’s a little background on the comic; I find his info page weirdly charming. (I like it when webcomics folks have a little information about the genesis of the comic and all that behind-the-scenes stuff). The strip itself is kind of disarming, in that it’s got all the gender stuff I think is kind of interesting, and the geekery, and the weird fusion of the two. Even though the style reminds me of some other strips I’ve read, I’m still enjoying it. It isn’t visually super-unique, but the interaction of the two characters is fairly entertaining even when the strip kind of defaults to the main premise (it’s about a couple).

I don’t have the print version, though it looks interesting. I’m still reading through the archives and the way they’re set up it’s hard to tell how much there is in the archives, material-wise, at a glance. I suspect there’s a lot, and it’s going to be one of those comics I read through in a few sittings rather than all at once. Still, points for diligence: if it wasn’t for all the promo emails, I wouldn’t have clicked the link.

So, keep ’em coming. I could use some reading suggestions.

One of the greatest things about webcomics is the fact that at any time that the whim strikes you (even in your underwear), you can go dig through the archives and remind yourself why you love a strip. New installments show up on whatever schedule, but you can read the whole thing en masse as much as you like. But sometimes, even the online archives don’t quite deliver; sometimes, the ease of just flipping through a book is the only way to go. This is especially true of heavily plot-driven strips, and we have some examples with us today.

At their heart, Starslip Crisis and Wapsi Square are mysteries — in the one case, whether or not the universes survive the reality-bending nature of the Starslip Drive, and in the other whether or not we’ll all survive the reset of an ancient calendar machine (side note: the reset of the universe in 2012 when the Mayan calendar runs out is a surprisingly popular theme in webcomics these days). All the character development and plot evolution that sat in the back of your mind become much more clear and powerful when there are up to a half-dozen strips open before your eyes, with no loading delay or scrolling.

In Starslip Crisis Volume 1, the small clues that indicate that not all is well in the future world of art criticism become more apparent; the relatively short story arcs become much more clearly linked to the central theme, even when (as in the overloaded with future potential “Chronomantic” arc) it’s not immediately apparent where the tie-in sits. Cleverly, Kris Straub has borrowed a page from popular syndicated comics, having released relatively thin collections of about nine months of strips, then aggregating those (and more!) in an extra-thick omnibus collection; this allows for Straub to make books frequently available, and to squeeze completists like me for an extra $15 as I re-buy those same comics in the omnibus. Straub! I shake my fist in impotent rage at you, thus!

Paul Taylor’s second self-published Wapsi Square collection, The Demons In My Back Pocket, shows off his distinctive character design (and occasional forays into infinite canvas) with a gloriously-large trim size (an earlier Keenspot-published collection has a small trim size and doesn’t serve Taylor’s art nearly as well). The Wapsi story has been slowly revealed in little hints here and there, with the character-driven arcs interleaved with the mystery-driven arcs — watching the evolution of both occur in fast-forward gives one respect for Taylor’s dicipline in being able to plan out and develop the story over such an extended fashion.

By contrast, it’s mostly not necessary to read Scary Go Round in big chunks in order to see all the subtleties since the many story arcs (38 to date, sadly not all reprinted) tend to be self-contained. Every once in a while there will be a call-back to an earlier plot point, but John Allison’s tendency is to not revist in such a fashion for months or even years. Regardless of continuity carryover, it’s wonderful to just sit and wallow in Allison’s lush, beautiful art for the year’s worth of comics in Great Aches.

By contrast, the, uh, Big F*ck-Off Book of Panties (or, The Devil’s Panties, Volume 1) doesn’t have a plot, or characters to develop in that it’s a collection of a half-decade’s worth of journal comics. Naturally, journal comics are all fictionalized to some degree or other (here most notably in the condensation of a series of creator Jennie Breeden’s roommates into one character named “Beth”), but it’s the mostly-true story of a girl and her stompy boots.

Reading the 280+ pages provides an interesting progression as Cartoon Jennie (described by Breeden as angrier, more violent, and generally a wish-fulfilment version of herself) slowly sheds her more cartoony aspects and Real Jennie is revealed. Given that the strips cover a period of time starting in Breeden’s college days, this strikes the reader as particularly authentic — after all, doesn’t college seem like a larger-than-life time in your memory? Doesn’t the process of growing up feel like a gradual shedding of personas and weird characters on your periphery as you settle into a committed relationship, career, home, and the rest?

So everybody that enjoys good autobiography (with games and puzzles in the back!) should grab a copy of TDPV1 (and good news for those of you in New York: Midtown Comics had copies on the shelf 5 days ago; if your shop doesn’t have it, the Diamond order code is APR073942). And as a final side note, Breeden has pointed out on her site that a printing error resulted in three pages being omitted; they can be seen here.

In other news, it’s comics week at The AV Club, and the aforementioned Chris Onstad interview is up, along with James Kochalka talkin’ music.

Much like the swallows that return each year to Capistrano, Flight has returned to lovers of [web]comics with its latest edition (that would be #4 for those of you playing along at home). Each year Flight bumps up its page count, giving the creators within ever more room to stretch their creative legs and giving the readers ever more fabulous work to read.

In a marked departure from earlier volumes (especially the first), F4 has largely abandoned its eponymous theme, and seems to be focusing less on slipping the surly bonds of gravity in favor of a more dream-like approach to the stories. Sometimes the connections to dreaming are fairly literal:

• Clio Chang tells a charming story of what happens to fairy tales backstage, waiting for bedtime
• Ryan Estrada has a whimsical exploration of what happens to a novice meditator whose spirit guide is a jerk
• Dave Roman brings an autobiographical tale of his life-long insomnia

More frequently, the dreams are metaphorical:

• Vera Brosgol’s hilarious falling-in-love story, where a dream girl’s one tragic flaw restores the peace between battling brothers
• Ovi Nedelcu‘s piece — with character designs occupying the precise midpoint in my brain between The Dover Boys, Ralph Phillips and Edward Gorey — in a loopy, funny, carefree story about a boy and his dream ride
• Bannister and Joel Carroll (with Corentin Jaffré on colors) contribute a story where a boy’s medium-grade hair-raising adventure takes a sudden turn into bad dream territory
• Kazu Kibuishi‘s rather melancholy story about deferring your dreams to stay in the place where you belong; this has been a recurring theme in his Flight contributions, and it underscores an interesting tension between finding yourself and doing what’s expected of you

Other standout stories include Scott Campbell‘s tale of Igloo Head and his (?) friend Tree Head, in a land of odd personages with odd heads (which includes the single funniest line of the book — Dude! You’re losing all of your guys!), and Lark Pien‘s story of a lonely girl and a selfish son of a bitch (with colors so soft and unlike the bold statements she made in American Born Chinese).

For me, though, the best story was Fábio Moon‘s Cortina, which takes a perfect moment captures it — holding tight and refusing to let go through — deft narration and stunningly beautiful art. Moon’s contribution is one of the briefest in the book, but in six short pages he demonstrates why he (and twin brother Gabriel Bá) have rapidly become Brazil’s greatest cultural exports, having neatly displaced cachaça, international football stars, and supermodels.

The only down notes in the collection for me were the absence of personal favorites Johane Matte and Kean Soo, but judging from the endpaper that may be resolved in Spring 2008 with the debut of Flight Explorer.

Bottom line: Flight 4 is, typically for the series, one of the best [web]comics releases of the year. Get it.

In other news today, Wes Molebash has a righteous amount of excitement built up, seein’ as how the You’ll Have That one-shot is featured in this month’s Wizard Magazine (#191) in the Indie Buzz section of the Secret Stash:

It’s not often that webcomics make a successful transition from online to the printed page, so it speaks volumes that this heavenly little bastard has become one of the favored comics around the Wizard offices. Spotlighting the hilarious life of newlyweds Andy and Katie, this one-shot collects the best of 2006’s online strips by Wes Molebash, with a brand-new cover from Scott Kurtz (PvP) so easily accessible for new readers it may as well be the first issue. With a precise vision of male geek life and the hotties who love us, YHT will have you cracking up and wondering how Molebash snuck a camera into your life.

Could it be that our friends at the online version of Wizard (who are fond of webcomics) are spreading the gospel to their dead-tree brethren? The YHT one-shot goes on sale tomorrow at comics shops everywhere, or now-ish at the Viper online store.

And Fleen Fave Dave Kellett can be seen in today’s blog post cavorting with college hotties. Tough job you got there, Dave-o.

When you meet a webcomicker at a con, there’s always some degree of pitch involved. Sometimes it’s smooth banter, designed to garner your attention and get you involved in conversation. Sometimes it’s a degree of surprise and gratitude for your trouble at dropping by in the first place. And sometimes, you’re caught in a metaphorical headlock of enthusiasm.

Case in point: Corey Marie Parkhill, is a compact force of nature in a hoodie. Before you know it, your hands are full of literature, your head is spinning as rapidly as all the projects she’s got in play, you’re converted into a committed reader, and you have the vague feeling that, somehow, you owe the Mob a favor. Seriously, webcomics scientists need to find a way to extract the purified essence of this woman and bottle it, and the obscurity issues of the medium would be gone forever.

So what is Parkhill (along with husband Tod, who possesses some truly amazing muttonchops, which could well displace me in the webcomics facial hair meme struggle, but I digress) cookin’ up over at Young American Comics? In addition to the webcomics, you’ve got the various open-invite anthology books (this year’s theme: What’s In The Box?), group projects (Lost Lunches and Crash! Bang! Boom!, submissions open until 1 October), and today we see the launch of the previously-mentioned 52 Comic Challenges — once a week for the next 52 weeks, artists and writers will be invited to meet specific challenges in a collaborative, feedback-rich environment.

Not quite ready to launch, but maybe most interesting from a webcomics perspective: Yesterdave, which is going to be a Choose Your Own Adventure-style comic; Dave’s a time traveller, and as readers vote the story will change. I’m not aware of a medium other than webcomics that could tackle this sort of thing. As much as Brad Guigar may claim (with respect to his Blank Label comrades), The world will be dominated shortly, I think at this point I’d have to give odds to a tiny woman from Richmond.

In other news:

• Shishio writes to let us know of a Talkcast by Something Awful goons/webcomics creators.
• For the moment, at least, Girl Genius and Octopus Pie have mitigated their bandwidth issues (related to being too popular because they’re awesome) … but for how long?
• Latest to take a whack at micropayments: Amazon. Perhaps a key difference from previous attempts — if I’m reading this correctly, Amazon’s offering a code solution instead of creating a company around a service to be provided. More on this when people who are better at programming than me have time to pick it apart.

By the time you read this, Ryan Estrada will be five days into his current big adventure. As you may recall, Estrada announced plans to start a comics commune in Mexico about two months back, and when I met him on the last day of San Diego, those plans were coming to fruition.

“I got turned down for a visa”, he told me, “so tomorrow I’m going to walk across the border as a tourist, which gives me 60 days to figure something out. I’ve heard it’s easier to change your status if you’re already in the country.” Monday morning, he and fellow artist John Campbell did just that, and if you’ve been following his LiveJournal, you know they’ve made it from Tijuana to Chihuahua (I can still never type that word without hearing the pronunciation of Les Nessman).

Estrada’s serious about the art — in addition to posting via WiFi, he’s carrying a portable studio that he built into an oversized piece of luggage, all Q Branch-style. He described lovingly the custom foam cutouts in the case for his laptop and other gear, and was somewhat wistful that he couldn’t go all the way and make the case sleek, brushed aluminum. Given the possibility of theft and having his experiment come crashing down, it’s a rather ordinary piece of luggage.

And he’ll need those supplies, since he has plans to conduct business from wherever he ends up. On 30 August, look for the launch of his custom comics business. And not just any custom comics: a fixed price will get you a custom 24 hour comic, straight from the heart of Mexico.

And because this is Ryan Estrada we’re talking about, there’s never just one piece of amazing news at a time. Starting tomorrow, CNN Headline News will be running Ryan Estrada Expeditions episodes as part of their weekend News To Me program. Tune in and let Mr Estrada know that we all hope he doesn’t get shot up by banditos (riding raptors or otherwise).

Nothing to do with Estrada, but it’s timely (thanks to alert reader Brian for the heads-up) … Warren Ellis is doing a webcomic:

Autumn 2007. On the web. Weekly. Free. freakangels.com.

Curiously, no comments as of this writing. With good reason, it appears.

Confession: I totally pinched that title from Corey Marie Parkhill’s charming, quirky Scene Language, which is about a bunch of folks in a “Midwestern music scene” dealing with band drama, getting older, surprises, tattooed dudes, awkward moments, and a host of other stuff like roommates and spur-of-the-moment haircuts. I ran across this strip (which looks like it’s just about a year old or so? I think it just hit 200 episodes?) through the Harry Potter meme I mentioned a few weeks back, and I’ve spent a lovely recent afternoon reading through the archives.

If you aren’t familiar with Corey Marie, or Young American Comics, you might have a little reading to do after excavating yourself from the rock you’re under. (They’re also about to launch what looks to be like a very cool project.)

Anyway, Scene Language is one of my new favorites. It’s clever, it’s catchy, and I’m totally sucked in. Corey Marie’s color work is amazing (check out some of the way characters are dimly lit when they’re in bars or at shows) and she’s got a way of spinning characters as just familiar enough (hello, Garrett!) they remind you of someone you know without feeling too close to home.

I love it. I totally love it. I’m all overcome all-emo-like and all that for it. But check it out anyway, yeah?