Waffle

Of course, it was inevitable that the book made by the girls in the studio next door to mine would offend some bigot. King & King, a modern fairytale about a prince who isn't attracted to princesses contains nothing that a six-year-old can't understand, but there is always someone waiting to get offended at those yucky dirty homosexuals.

Cory Doctorow shares his thoughts on E-books in a long, rambling text that deserves to be read in its entirety.

One of the great things about doing this exhibit is that I get to rediscover and re-appraise.

While looking for Holeboy a pioneering webcomic that other webcomics histories have so far neglected to mention, I was delighted to find that not only was it still online, but that the artist's other, regular strip, CultuRe Trap had returned in a new format. CultuRe Trap was what made me discover Christian Cosas's work in the early 1990s, that strange time when people complained about a webcomics glut because there were dozens of them to choose from. I even interviewed him for a magazine I was editing at the time.
True to form, Christian has only produced a few new comics, but it's still fun to see how the characters and style have evolved. And it's interesting for me to see how he's done his entire site in Moveable Type.
Christian should probably have been mentioned among those who went "above and beyond" in my earlier museum-related blog entries, because I asked him to submit material from Holeboy for the columns, but forgot to tell him two weeks later that I'd got enough material from other contributors. At the time, he was still looking for his original files from way back when. So to compensate for this unintentional snub, go and take a look at Holeboy, one of the first webcomics to explore the possibilities of the screen.

When someone suggested I include Ozy and Millie as part of the "Kids" section of the exhibit, my initial reaction was "nah". I'd read it a bit before, and didn't think it was all that hot, and something in one of artist D.C. Simpson's opinion pieces just rubbed me up the wrong way. I don't remember what it was he said, or even on which subject, but I did remember thinking he was a bit of a closed-minded stick-in-the-mud for saying it. I try to avoid people like that. So imagine my surprise when I went to give it another look, to find that not only was it a lot, really a lot, better than I remembered (I must have had a bad day when I read it the first time), but also that in his newer opinion pieces he showed a much greater maturity of opinion than I remembered from back then. I am now reading those pieces in reverse-chronological order, so I'll eventually rediscover that old article. I'll probably find that I was a bit of a closed-minded stick-in-the-mud for reacting like that in the first place.

A request came in from the Comics Museum's graphic designer. She needs a symbol representing webcomics for a placard in the museum. Since she asked two days ago, I've been unable to think of any. Does such a thing exist or will I have to use some of my copious spare time and brainpower to create one?

Update: I thought I had found what I was looking for in Scott McCloud's symbol for Digital Comics (See Page 200 of Reinventing Comics) but the graphics people need something with more of a human touch in it. Hmmmm.

For Modern Tales subscribers only, I've got some more sketches up in the Book of All Things. These show my layouts for pages from October/November, 2003, when my approach to layout changed a little bit.

There'll be some more sketches later this week. I hope that eventually I'll be able to have what I originally had in mind for the Book of All Things, which was a more or less complete overview of the preliminary work for the Rite of Serfdom storyline, without interruptions.

(I'm afraid the link goes to a whole archive chapter rather than only the new sketches. You will see some sketches you've seen before. Can't be helped, because this is the only way the archives can retain some consistency.)

Via Carson Fire:

Keenspot has announced its revenues for 2003. Money quotes (quite literally):

"Our 2003 gross of $188,475 is an 81.2% jump over 2002's $103,976 in revenues," said Chris Crosby, Keenspot Co-CEO "These numbers certainly aren't spectacular in comparison to major traditional print publishers, but they show that webcomics are a thriving, growing industry that could be a major force in the future of entertainment."

Chris is right about it not being spectacular in comparison to major traditional print publishers. Indeed it's worrying that after 4 years, the company still isn't making a living for absolutely anyone involved. Nevertheless, with 4 years of learning everything the hard way under their belts, the Keen people now have something to build upon. The latest batch of promotions is proof of that. Skirting Danger which I blogged about earlier, got 17,000 visitors and 208,000 pageviews on its first day at Keenspot. Sore Thumbs also posted very high visitor numbers on its premiere day. (Their Extreme Tracker says 21,534.) Those are numbers that I'm sure many a Modern Tales cartoonist would murder for.

Keenspot knows its target audience, raises the quality bar for new comics a little bit with every new wave of acquisitions, and uses the popularity of the comics already present to drive the marketing machinery for new comics. Unless the web advertising market tanks again (always a real possibility) they could well double their takings again. And that means even more cartoonists get a Four! Figure! Check! every quarter.

I was once again convinced of this statement when I saw Cory McAbee's movie "the American Astronaut" today. It was such a Cap'n-esque experience. It was not about the story, which was downright silly. It was an ode to film, to images. The lighting, the shots, the acting... The movie spoke of such a love of film. There was song and dance, comradery, a heroic male lead, a great soundtrack. I got really, really pissed off when people in a row behind me jabbered during the movie, laughed in all the wrong places... I had a feeling they had absolutely no idea that this was the work of an artist, this was a movie made with love (and absolutely no budget!) It's a sci-fi movie where there are hardly any special-effects. There was even a scene where you could see the microphone so obviously that it had to be deliberate. I wanted to stand up and shout: "shut your effin' faces! this is a work of art!" (I think this also had to do with the fact it reminded me so much of what I try to do with my webcomic Cap'n.) I didn't ofcourse, and was baffled at the end of the movie when they talked to eachother of what a great movie it was...
Anyway, go see it, rent it, whatever, if you don't feel the need for things to make sense, just be as a creator thinks they should be...

This comic was made for the Bries Anthology Wind, published in 1999. I think it was later re-published online in the now defunct Webzine Cartoozine, in color, but I can't find the files.

If you are one of those who think the victory by the Spanish Socialist Party in last Sunday's elections is some sort of capitulation to the terrorists, read these two posts at Harry's Place for a much needed antidote, and follow the links from there.

Cowards
It hardly needs to be pointed out how offensive and patronising such views are, coming just days after over ten million Spaniards took to the streets in those moving silent protests against terrorist attacks which killed 200 of their compatriots.
and
Best of the blogs on Spain
So, yes, 11-M influenced the vote, but not because we are overcome by fear, or because we think that we can avert further attacks, but because we will only put up with so much lying and manipulation, and especially not when it is the dead and their families that are being heartlessly and shamelessly manipulated. (quoted from another blog cited in that article)
I've set these links to open in a new window and disallowed comments for this post here because there is much better and more well-informed discussion going on in those other blogs already than the subject could ever generate here.

Yay! I'm happy to announce that my pet project with Adam Cuerden is going to be featured on GraphicSmash! Dangerous and Fluffy: the Sheep of Doom. Quite astonishing if you consider the fact that we only got together march 1st. Since then plans for a joint venture rapidly evolved and due to fortunate timing, we're turning pro. Pretty weird considering my webcomics Cap'n and Belle never got that much attention.
Happy Camper

Oh! Thank you Reinder, for introducing us