Today is the the day that The Boy becomes The Man. Everybody feel good for Esther, having realized her dream of three years. Everybody feel bad for Erin, who will not have her loads of brainy, ginger babies. And everybody be nice to the next Cocker Spaniel you see, because the poor stupid dears deserve our pity.

Gregory pointed us Wordbeasts in the direction of the 9/11 report comic recently, and let me just say this: What the crap? As Greg put it in his email to us;

The idea that someone’s reaction to such a significant document is to (a) put it in comic form and (b) put the comic form on the web, strikes me as being a very positive point about webcomics as a medium.  

I think I agree, in theory. The only problem is that the 9/11 comic well, sucks. The writing sucks. The art is serivcable at best. The wooden dialog and expressionless faces remind me of a Chick tract. Already the good folks over at Wonkette are making fun of it and I think that that is the only way people are going to hear about, from people who are laughing at it. Unfortunately that isn’t going to do the status of web comics as a credible medium any good.

Dear God in heaven, I thought that the Spongmonkeys were the most disturbing thing I’d ever see on the internets.

Then Jon “deliberate shitter” Rosenberg introduced an insane broccoli-man in Goats today. As it turns out, Brock (for that is the name of the aforementioned IB-M) is actually the creation of a one Mister R Stevens III, Esq., who is usually less batshit insane in his creations.

Persons of a weak constitution are urged not to click on the above links, and to avoid all future contact with broccoli, just to be safe.

Let me be the first to give a big “Shit yes!” to the return of Oasis in Sluggy Freelance. I know a lot of people dip in and out of Sluggy since it gets so convoluted at times, but if you never enjoyed an Oasis storyline then you probably shouldn’t even bother reading this comic in the first place.

Anyway, she’s back! Check it out!

‘Bout six months back or so, we told you about Owen Dunne’s retooling of You Damn Kid to contain four separate projects: the aforementioned (and optioned) YDK, backup strip The Beevnicks, secondary backup strip Nippleshine Manor, and emergency redundant tertiary backup strip My New Mommy.

Nippleshine wrapped a few months later, and after a bit of a delay, the epilogue of My New Mommy went live ‘tother day. Much like the earlier Nippleshine, Mommy made a pretty sudden exit, story-wise, and — given the generally raucous approach that Dunne brings to his strips — both ended on an oddly melancholy note. We at Fleen hope that Dunne is well, and if he’s looking a little blue, somebody please give him a hug.

Yes. Yes we are. Jeffery has been good enough to expose to us the secret never before seen ending to Snakes On A Plane! Personally, I never saw it coming – but then again, I haven’t seen the movie yet so for all I know Jeffery has drawn the true ending and completely ruined the film for me. If this is the case, I hope Jeph and Christi continue to abuse everyone he knows and loves.

Have you ever noticed when watching a television show that cameras can only focus on the foreground or the background? And for the camera to focus on what’s down a road, for example, the person looking down the road has to go fuzzy? (I always notice this particular technique in Star Trek: Next Generation episodes.)

I bring this up because over at Friendly Hostility Sandra’s “camera focus” was on Colin, sleeping on the floor, and the guy who got the couch (Arath, I believe) was out of focus, because they were above Colin.

Genius!

Maybe I’m only impressed because I wouldn’t have throught of it. I certainly couldn’t have pulled it off if I had thought about it.

That’s why I blog about webcomics, instead of making one. I’ll just keep admiring other people’s artwork.

I apologize readers, for such infrequent updates. But between my computer crashing and temperamental internet connections, the battle of updating has been a trying one. But here I am ready to update with webcomics a’plenty.

The recent debacle between DJ Coffman of Yirmumah and Girl-O-Matic has all but quieted down with this interesting comic posted at DJ’s site. Tell us how you really feel, DJ.

I honestly don’t give two shits about this little internet spat, but I do find it interesting on the high-school level of gossip and backstabbing chats in cafeterias. It’s fun for me, and certainly entertaining for all the readers of their respective web comics. The saying goes that there is no bad publicity, and in this case I’m sure it holds true.

There has been a run of guest comics over at Overcompensating, since Jeff is off rubbing elbows and other things with the Hollywood types. The one I enjoyed most was Jeph Jaques cameo at OC, which involved WeedMaster P. actually working.

There isn’t too much to say for today, except this is one of the funniest strips I’ve read in quite a while.

From the Department of Corrections: Per Campbell’s response, this post has been edited to reflect the correct title of the book; Fleen regrets the error.

Editor’s note: Hoo boy, could this one devolve quickly. I’ve spent a month now very carefully reading and re-reading, very carefully making and cross-checking notes, very carefully writing what you’re about to read. As we discuss the book, please bear in mind that we’re not going to argue opinion on this one; whether or not Campbell is correct is for others to fight over. We will be looking at only whether or not Campbell has effectively made and advanced his points.

The redoubtable T Campbell began The A History of Webcomics as a series of articles over at Comixpedia, later expanding it into a book via Antarctic Press. This book is for me: I’ve been into webcomics since nearly the beginning, I have a lengthy “regular reading” list, I know a lot of the people who make ’em, and I know their history.

And it still turns out that this book really only comes together if you live in Campbell’s brain. Allow me to explain.
(more…)

After having what was probably intended as a joke land with a thud in this Comixpedia thread, DJ Coffman (who ironically drew the picture you see right up there) got into a sizeable flame-fight. We’ve seen this sort of thing before (and I’m not speaking solely in reference to Coffman here): pissed off people breed ever-higher levels of off-pissedness, which in this case Coffman felt compelled to continue in Lea Hernandez’s blog after the Comixpedia thread got locked. Coffman reports that the target of his original comment, Girlamatic editor Lisa Jonte, followed up with contact to Coffman’s to-be-publisher, Platinum Studios, bringing a real-world component to the Internet Drama. Just life in the modern age, right?

Maybe. Over at his site, Coffman has written a fairly lengthy apology for his behavior earlier in the week. It’s somewhat qualified in places (especially in the first paragraph, where Coffman says that he respects some [emphasis original] of the people in this little contretemps), but on the whole I think it reads as sincere, and hopefully he’s reached out to both Lisa Jonte and Lea Hernandez to personally express his remorse for (let’s be honest here) being a gigantic ass. With any luck, Coffman will think a bit more before hitting the “submit” button next time, which might even become habit for all of us who write things for public consumption.

As long as we’re wishing, I’d like a pony and a plastic rocket. But seriously, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a mea culpa from a flamewar instigator, and while Drama helps to fill the column-inches, we at Fleen welcome this tenuous return to civility.