Well, it seems that in the change of the list of comics on the sidebar, Count Your Sheep has disappeared. But I would like to bring your attention Count Your Sheep and particularly today’s comic.

Adis! (as he always signs his name) manages to always give a childish view point to every subject. I find it really admirable – taking the subject of why applause gives someone that warm fuzzy feeling and turning it into an insight that I certainly wouldn’t have realized from my adult-trained mind.

Kudos, Adis, for writing Katie and Laurie as children with heart and really see the world in childish ways. There aren’t many out there who have the skill to write at the level of childhood.

Well, the call has been answered. Yesterday I bowed my head to the great intarwub, and prayed that she would deliver unto me Irish web comics. The great intarwub is kind, and did verily answer my prayer.

Ahem. Anyway. Needless to say, I was quite excited to get my grubby little browser all over Press Start To Play. Northern Irish comics get bonus points from me simply for being Northern Irish, but PSTP gets super mega bonus points for being a Northern Irish comic that isn’t about all the typical crap that goes on over here and ultra uber platinum plated points for making me laugh out loud.

Okay. So it’s another gaming comic. I know we have lots of those, but can there really be too much of a good thing? Press Start To Play reminds me a lot of VG Cats with a hint of Penny Arcade, which nobody can even remotely consider a bad thing. The humor is also subtly less American. I find it hard to put my finger on it, since I’m from here and I consume so much American media, sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference. If you like gaming comics then there’s really nothing for it, you’re going to have to read PSTP, but when you do, remember these handy tips:

1. Northern Irish people do not say “Feck�? the way they do on Father Ted. We are much cooler.
2. “Crisps�? are what Americans call “Chips�?.
3. “A-levels�? are what you get when you finish high school. I have 3 and a half.
4. The staff in the Game in Belfast actually do this.

This page wrote about what might (or might not) be the ultimate triumph of no-hassle micropayments; we promised at that time to keep an eye on the service, and so we’re briefly revisiting IndieKarma today.

When last we left the intrepid entrepenuers of e-commerce, there were a total of 227 sites and 540 users signed up over the course of about a week (and the number was changing rapidly due to the press they received). As of this writing, the numbers stand at 335 sites and 818 users. In the interests of testing, I took out an account and got my free dollar; presently, my balance sits at a dollar still, as I haven’t come across any sites that use IndieKarma yet. One of the things that company principal Brad Patterson was looking at for IKv2.0 was a listing of member sites, but it’s not there yet. Also not yet implemented is the ability to configure contribution amount/interval on a per-site basis; in fact, the only things that appear to be configurable at this moment are password and balances (see who got your pennies, or add more via PayPal).

So we’re pretty much where we were a month ago — without the new features, uptake is going to be slow. On the other hand, it is still just beta (whatever that means), and there are several hundred sites out there that are willing to take a flyer on the concept … it’s just a matter of finding them. On the other-other hand, the IndieKarma crew have a large incentive to get those features and site lists to us, since they’ll make money only if they facilitate transfer of funds (and nothing on the first dollar of the first 5000 users). All of which brings us back to the chicken-and-egg situation that is the chief barrier to the service.

Given the potential that IndieKarma has, we’ll keep coming back to see how it progresses, but for now we’ve got to give the service an incomplete. And as we all recall from school, you gotta get that incomplete finished up by the next semester, or it does bad things to your average.

I love huffing up some Natalie Dee. This web comic is comprised of what I love about a comic: it’s original, the art is vibrant and clean, and it never ceases to amaze me.

I enjoy Natalie Dee so much because I love it when artists, or people in general, don’t give two shits about what other people think. Her humor can be crude and offensive, and at other times blunt and to the point. Insert joke here.

This comic is one of the things that got me through being stuck in a horribly oppressive college where I certainly did not fit in.  Plus, it was hilarious when I gave out her special brand of valentines to my professors and friends.

 I think readers should check her comic out because it is a fun, quick read that will keep you coming back for more. Basically, Natalie Dee is the balls.

It was on a friend’s advice that I checked out The Book of Bob because she told me, and I quote, “You’re going to love the pants off this comic.”

When I checked it out I couldn’t exactly figure out what part of it I was suppose to be head over heels for. It seems a little bit funny and the art is nice on the eyes, but I just didn’t feel swept off my feet by it. I seem to be in the minority though, because this comic gets nothing but positive comments from its readers who are just blown away by it. It sort of has a Perry Bible Fellowship or ThingPart feel to it, but I don’t know. It’s like the time when Pulp Fiction first came out and all my friends were crazy about it and I was the only naysayer who thought it was overrated. Maybe the truth is I’m just not cool enough.

The greatness that is Bob is over my head, I suppose. But the website design is superfun and I anticipate Bob’s following to continue growing. It’s just that kind of comic.

Okay, so we’ve already established that the twenty webcomics I read on a weekly basis do not constitute a good statistical sample. And I’ve talked about update schedules – both when to update and what happens when they’re not met. I guess this is the next in the continuing series of me talking about the methodology of webcomics and the readers who are creators weighing in. Really, I’m just feeling my way around in the dark.

I have a lot more webcomics that update on Mondays than I do any other day of the week. Some comics only update then. It may make sense, to use the week for planning, and the weekend to sit down and draw. But then there are the daily comics that update every weekday.

I love reading Patches because it updates on the funny days of the week that no one else seems to like: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And it gives me something absurd to read while I do. (Wednesday is definitely a well-used update day. Forgive my generalities.) I really like that Loserz, when it’s sticking to its update schedule, has a full color Sunday comic.

So, what are the best days of the week? Is it important to plan update schedules so that they leave time to make each comic? What about the daily comics? This is what I ponder as a non-creator and observant person.

So it’s finally starting to feel like summer here in Belfast City. This is the time of year where it’s easier to be proud of being Irish, because the local ecosystem is no longer punishing you by dropping vast amounts of water on your head, as it does for the other nine months of the year.

With that in mind, I put on my Googling hat and went in search of an Irish web comic. My first find was Don and Doll, which appears to be very much defunct, as it’s Blogspot page redirects to a fat ugly 404. A little more sniffing around brought me to House Of Worms. It’s another one of those MMORPG screen shot comics, but the author has gone to some effort to make the comic look like well, a comic. It’s a technique anyone who has ever opened up Photoshop will recognize, but in some panels it works surprisingly well.

Right now, it’s kind of hard to tell what the comic is going to be about, but then again it’s only four pages old. Another problem is that it’s a little difficult to read the first comic, which is a bit of a turn off, but the clarity of text improves immediately afterwards. It has potential, but as I’m not a WoW player, I doubt I’ll be back to check for updates anytime soon.

Well, this little trip into my electronic cultural heritage was interesting, if a little disappointing. If anyone out there knows of any more Irish comics on-line I’d love to read them, otherwise I’ll have to go back to reading British comics.

Well I figured that today would be a good day to bring up Bad Shape by Wiz Rollins. When I’m down and out I navigate myself to this comic for some raunchy, gangsta humor. I think that any comic about two thug-like geometry shapes is worth my while.

It stars a circle named Blue, and a rather thin rectangle that goes my the moniker SlimKillah. This site is basically gag-a-day, with a few plot-lines interwoven through out the strip. A couple examples are when Kitt from Knight Rider attempts to have his way with Slim, and when Blue attempts to go back to work to pay off student loans.

The one thing that bugged me about this comic that there seems to be no archive, which can be frustrating at times. Other than that, there are some interesting extras including Slim’s own MySpace account, and a Bad Jams page where you can listen to Blue and Slim’s very own grooves.

If you’re into foul-mouthed shapes and stress titties, I suggest stopping by Bad Shape. If not, then shame on you. Not really, I just felt like saying that.

This page has written before on the topic of luxury in storytelling, about how you just have to slow down the plot to put something neat in. There’s a long tradition of splash panels on Sundays (during the last half of Calvin and Hobbes, the Sunday panels were practically all splash, and Will Eisner‘s The Spirit did full-page splashes so beautiful, they’ll make you cry) and at the start of comic book issues.

In webcomics, with no issues, and no restrictive panels (no, we aren’t going into the ‘infinite canvas’ arguments today), chapter breaks provide the same opportunity. All of this is just by way of drawing (ha, ha!) your attention to Ursula Vernon’s latest splash page for Digger. Her daily work is so gorgeously heavy-black that it’s easy to forget that she’s got some serious color chops, too. And besides, what better subjects for a splash page than a troll and a vampire squash? Okay, maybe the rat with wings, that was cool.

And, since we’re on the subject, Digger’s voluminous archives are temporarily free (since Vernon is up for an Eisner Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition), so this is an excellent time to pick up the tale of the intrepid wombat. Now, how’s about print volume 2?

I found Melaines Choles first, though I don’t remember where. It was when I was working on my own comic art project and I was frustrated and very tired of dealing with plot lines and plot holes and plot filler and characters who made me crazy. I found it the day I was ready to tell comics to go to hell and go back to writing freelance journalism all the time instead. Melaines Choles, a configuration of people and stories and plots that may or may not go anywhere but have a very central emotion that I cannot describe or exactly replicate, was found just in time to stop my vain attempt to change directions with my art. It was just the random, uncomfortable and deliriously inappropriate comic I needed at the time.

I didn’t read Nathan Castle’s other comics at the Nude Rollerdisco of Comics until much later when Melaines Choles stopped being updated as often. I liked Great and Small, especially the art but also the writing. There is this natural impression in Castle’s writing that suggests he’s telling these stories as anecdotes very late into a party when most people have gone home and everyone has come down off their social high to enjoy conversation and gossip passed off in scholarly tones. I never feel like I’m reading his stuff so much as being told while I listen, beguiled.

I could never get into Squid Gidion, but I still read Seamonster. It has the same strange underlying emotion that Great and Small and Melanies Choles offers, but with a linear storyline and reoccuring characters. Seamonster is so voyueristic.

Castle’s stuff still gets me through writer’s block.