Mostly photos this time ’round, and that will wrap up our discussion of MoCCA for the year. Before we get to the pics, profound apologies to both Tyler Page and Ryan Sias.

Page put together the best take-aways to promote a webcomic I’ve ever seen: a brochure for the fictional college that is the story setting, and student IDs for the main characters. Great idea, wonderful execution, couldn’t get a decent photo of them.

I had only about two minutes to talk with Sias, which was not nearly enough time to discuss Silent Kimbly, his work as an animator, and being a Ryan. As soon as we at Fleen have the opportunity to talk with him further, we’ll be sure to share with you.

In the meantime, please enjoy visuals of Ian Jones-Quartey’s ‘frohawk, T-Rex in all his majesty (Ladies, please! One at a time!), the free-est and fun-est eagle in the world, Ryan North gettin’ down, and webcomicdom’s fiercest thug mug. Andy Runton is about to learn to his detriment that you do not screw with Kean Soo. Lastly, this man is more of a ninja that you will ever be. In fact, he is such a master of disguise that he doesn’t even look like that.

So I’ve been getting into 5ideways a little today. I haven’t got the chance to really get into it yet, but there’s a lot going on in this comic that I find to be awesome.

Firstly, though this is hardly exclusive to 5ideways, I like that it’s unapologetically a fantasy comic. Sometimes it bothers me a little when comics start off with a relatively firm grounding in reality and then the next thing you know there’s an interdimensional war or some such.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I also especially like the incidental use of sound and animation in this comic. I am fully of the opinion that we need to see more of this sort of thing in web comics. That said, it needs to be handled with care. Like the afore-mentioned interdimensional wars, these things are fine in context and, providing creators don’t rely too heavily on them, or turn them into a gimmick, then there’s no reason the occasional sound effect or animated panel couldn’t spruce up an already good comic.

Some creators might worry that using sound and movement will hurt their comic’s transition to the printed page. It has to be said though, that if a comic is incomprehensible without the sound or the movement then the creator is probably relying on them too heavily. Also, this is the internet. It’s about time we started seeing more types of comics than the ones we’ve seen in comic stores and news papers our whole lives.

Speaking of secrets, I’m going to share one of mine. It’ll probably cause some bristling, though that is not my intention this time. I’ve got a religious mean streak. I love comics and stories and artwork that play around with well known religious themes and mix things up enough to cause serious discomfort in those around me. It’s a guilty pleasure. There, now you know.

Today’s Thingpart’s dark humor made me giggle delightedly. The same part of me that secretly plans for the inevitable zombie attack and plays Betrayal at the House on the Hill as if it were a guide to life finds no end to the literary enjoyment in the devil and his endless pursuit for human souls.

Joe Sayers torments the children in his comic in the most exciting ways. It reminds me of the print comic Arsenic Lullaby or the RPG Little Fears. I believe there’s a little bit of twisted in everyone.

MoCCA final notes and photos to come in a separate post, so let’s get back to the wider world of webcomics. Lotta stuff going on, kids.

In the Back From Hiatus Department, please enjoy both Help Desk and the song stylings of Eric Snark.

Little Dee has begun reruns to acclimate the comics.com readers with its general awesomeness. I must confess, I have a touch of trepidation about a) the now-to-be-locked archives; and b) the two-week delay in strips showing up at Chris Baldwin’s site. Yes, I could just view them at comics.com, but that site is a) slow as shit; b) allergic to my browser; and c) full of pop-ups when accessed with IE, which I hate using. But it’s still Little Dee, so I’ll be there every day because I’m that adorable girl’s bitch.

The WCCA nominations are out, and there are some tough categories this year. Achewood vs. Scary Go Round vs. Perry Bible Fellowship? Copper vs. A Lesson Is Learned vs. Applegeeks? We talked about their process earlier in the year, but a question has occurred to me just now as I’m typing this. I want to know — even more than the size of the electorate on these things, about which I’m curious — “Outstanding Comedic Comic”? Isn’t that a tad redundant? Mark Mekkes, if you’re reading this, fill us on on the decision to use that wording.

Speaking of Scary Go Round, the SGR Idol results continue to stream in; I’ve particularly enjoyed runners-up #1 (it takes some serious art chops to have as wide a range as Tyler Martin has) and #4, which features a totally awesome badger omnibus, and nicely captures the speech patterns of Tackleford’s goblins.

And in one of those occurrences that may be most accurately described as ‘explosive’, Narbonic is abandoning the subscription model, and its full archives are opening up. Given that we’re talking about what’s likely the most successful sbuscription-locked strip on Modern Tales (and possibly the most successful subscription-locked strip, period), does this mean that that particular business model is officially dead? Comments from Colonel Joey here, and your thoughts welcome.

Finally, in response to reader requests, we’re in the process of tagging articles (there are a lot of them) with searchable labels, and will be making those visible in (hopefully) the near future.

We all have secrets. Some are worse, twisted, and weirder than others. Some are just embarassing or ridiculous. That is why I love secrets. Diesel Sweeties touches on the topic of secrets in today’s comic. I enjoyed Clango’s secret, which was “I wet the bed, but not in the way you’d think.”

After thinking about what secrets I hold, I’ve decided to share one with you today. I have a Star Wars tattoo on my right leg. It’s the Rebel Alliance insignia from the original trilogy. That’s right, I’m a nerd.

David Hellman has never been bought a burger by this page. This oversight will have to be corrected in the future.

John Allison is awash with successes — he sold out of his books and paintings, and wound up selling ideas (What if there were ferret record producers? What if the mighty American bald eagle was just a working Joe with a briefcase?) at the bargain price of $2.00 each. With little stock (and no voice) left after Day 1, he posted a sign apologizing for his lack of witty repartee, which somebody promptly bought. New full-color sketches drawn on the spot were snapped up continuously on Day 2. Even his ScaryGoRound Idol contest was a massive success, resulting in 92 entries of such high quality that instead of showing five days worth, he had to expand to seven (so be sure to check out the entries from Saturday and Sunday).

You get the feeling that Jeph Jacques kind of just wanted to draw comics, and never imagined he’d end up running a small business/ cottage industry. Like many creators, Jacques reports the business end of things (order fulfillment, looking for publishers, figuring out where PayPal dropped orders) to be significantly less fun than drawin’, so if you’re a college student that feels like making well over minimum wage, and you aren’t going to flake out on showing up for work today just because you’ve got a hangover, the man’s got t-shirts that need shipping. Also, he said some significantly nice things about this page and our new writers, and really felt bad about your dropped order, Sommer.

Kean Soo is counting days — days until Flight 3 comes out (look for it at San Diego), days until he delivers pages to his publisher. Hyperion will be publishing two Jellaby books, with the pages that have appeared online so far forming the initial chapters of the ongoing story. Noting that Hyperion is a Disney company, there is also the possibility of Jellaby stories appearing in Disney Adventures, which has previously run such creator-owned works as Jeff Smith’s Bone.

And, for those of you wanting to know what the absolute must-see part of the show was, no less an authority than The Toronto Man-Mountain declared it to be these guys. Now you know.

Finally, if you ever wondered what to buy r stevens for his birthday, the answer is: noodles and ice. Trust me on this one.

So I was reading through some comics yesterday when I couldn’t help but notice the Keenspot news box featuring Candi, shaking it like she means it. I couldn’t help myself but to click and suddenly 6 hours of my life are gone and my Algebra homework remains untouched.

I hadn’t read Candi before, but a vacation in her archives proved to be a comic I could read regularly without shame. Don’t let the beginning art fool you though, the evolution of artwork not only becomes uniquely Starline’s, but the characters themselves crawl out from behind generic art work once the details start showing up. The early work is painfully cut and paste with only a few changes to represent eye movements and the like. If there is any of that happening in the last six months, I couldn’t tell. I love these characters; they could have been any one of my friends nine years ago when I first started college. Sometimes they remind me of my friends now.

There’s plenty of rump shaking in this comic. Sometimes it touches edgy material and sometimes it explores it with the naivety of the characters. I’m especially proud of the character development. There are characters in this comic I really can’t stand because I know people who are like them. Girls like Laura make me crazy and Candi’s blindness to her boyfriend Alex’s personality grates me like no other pet peeve.

So glad the news box was there for me yesterday. It always knows just how to distract me.

I’m back from A-Kon and still in one piece, which is a true convention miracle. I know anime isn’t truly related to web comics, but I went there in high hopes of finding potential web comic artists. After a lengthy search through the artist tables, and dodging costumed fan after costumed fan, I found him.

 I found the one web comic artist at that convention. His name is Daniel Fu, and is the artist for a new comic, titled The Retriever. I decided to check his comic out, since he drove all the way from Austin in hopes that some one would give his comic a little recognition.

The comic itself is written, drawn, and formatted like a typical comic book. It is in black and white, with full-color covers. The first issue is titled The Retriever: Daddy Issues. The style is a mix of crime-noir and kung -fu, which the artist so cleverly calls “noir-fu.”

What I really enjoy about the comic so far is the set-up for the upcoming storyline, which leads me to believe that there will be some serious kung-fu action in the future pages. Plus, I try to support anyone who is sacrificing time and money to do something they truly belive in. Good luck Daniel, I hope all your web-comic dreams come true.

Venus Envy has a very clever name.

It is, of course, referring to Freud’s theory of penis envy and the 20th century, European idea that young girls envied the power of the penis and went to lengths to castrate their fathers. Victorians loved to whisper about such scandelous things. Now it’s a debunked theory, in that it only applied to 20th century, European child development.

Venus Envy is a clever title because Venus in greek mythology is a symbol of feminity, and in astrology charts is represented by the biological symbol for female. And the main character in Venus Envy, Zoey, is a Male to Female Transgender operation canidate, seeking that beauty that previously wasn’t part of her life.

Okay, so that sounds a little cheesy. But in truth, Venus Envy has a cast of compelling characters — Zoë and Larson, specifically — who are struggling with their identity, including the history good or bad that got them there. The updates are sporadic, but the art style is consistant, and Erin struggles with some serious issues. I’ll leave you with her disclaimer, I think it sums up the mission of the comic pretty well:

Venus Envy is Rated WEB-14 and probably isn’t suitable for younger viewers or those who find the following things offensive: Homosexuality, Bisexuality, Transsexuality, Jews, Slapstick, Mixed-Religion Marriages, Women in the Workplace, Women in Pants, Plot, Girls’ Soccer, or Chickens teaching Hard Science.

Just a quickie from me today, as the pressures of being a micro-budget movie producer have thoroughly frazzled my brain. First off, Apologies to Sommer,  Mr Casares and you, the reader, for reviewing Chili’s World, even though we already had. Maybe it doesn’t hurt to have a few different opinions on any given comic here at Fleen. Maybe I’m just an idiot.

Secondly, I’d like to say a fond farewell to Dr Fun (although knowing my luck, one of the other writers already did and I missed it somehow) for providing us with over a decade of entertainment. I was never a devoted fan, and was only aware of the comic’s existence through the occasional link from Blues News, but what I read was always amusing. Mostly it got me thinking, also after the demise of Megagamerz, how many more of our long running web comics are going to start winding up? I guess that’s why we at Fleen are going to do our best to bring as many good new ones to your attention as possible.

Not tonight though, the sun is starting to come up…