Last month I attended the first ever New England Webcomics Weekend (NEWW). It was pretty fun. It was billed as the first comic convention (in the U.S anyway) that was all webcomic artists – nobody who works mainly or solely in the print realm. Given how popular webcomics have gotten this decade, it’s surprising that there hasn’t been an event like this before. What’s been interesting to me, in fact, is the way that webcomics have had a presence at various kinds of fan conventions. They’ve been at comic conventions, sci-fi cons, anime cons, and even some computer/software cons. They seem to appeal to a wider audience that comic books typically have reaching perhaps the kind of audience that newspaper comic strips have in the past (of course, as the newspaper industry seems to be dying a slow death, those strips’ audience is shrinking). Now a critical mass has been reached or passed, and webcomics fandom itself may spawn multiple gatherings (there’s already talk of doing something similar in the Pacific Northwest).
Check out the NEWW site to see who was there (it’s a long list). Don’t bother checking out the forum on the site – it was overrun by spammers just after the event happened.
I volunteered to videotape a few of the panels. Below are links to the stuff I recorded – 2 panels and the webcomics awards ceremony. Each video is broken into parts because of YouTube’s time limits. My apologies for the lighting in some cases – I had no control over it.
Panel: Print vs. Web vs. a Bear
Panel: Creative Partner Newlywed Game
Webcomics Awards Ceremony
Let me mention another online comic. Dicebox is a comic I’ve been reading for just over 5 years now, and it is a planned long-format story (it’s just about 25% of the way finished currently); you could call it an online graphic novel. As to genre, it might best be called anthropological science fiction. It follows 2 main characters, Molly and Griffen, who move from planet to planet in search of work but with seemingly no overarching plan for their lives. There are certainly interesting aspects to the worlds they find themselves on, as well as interesting technologies, but this comic is all about character development and interactions. 5+ year in the reader is still finding out stuff about the characters all the time, and the creator, Jenn Manley-Lee, is great at writing her characters, dialogue, and situations.
What I really love about Dicebox, though, is the art. It’s beautifully toned, as though it were painted. In fact, while she pencils the comic by hand, the coloring is all done in Photoshop.
This past December, she announced that she wouldn’t be updating for a few weeks, but offered that the first dozen or so people who e-mailed her could get custom watercolor
images of characters from the comic for a mere $15. I jumped at the chance, and actually got in under the wire.
I asked simply for Griffen wearing the long coat that can be seen on the comic’s front page and in the first chapter. The painting I got is below (click image for a high-res version):
I particularly like the flower petals.
This is a quiz I found via Kevin’s blog. The result is interesting, since I’ve never read the book.
You’re The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!
by C.S. Lewis
You were just looking for some decent clothes when everything changed
quite dramatically. For the better or for the worse, it is still hard to tell. Now it
seems like winter will never end and you feel cursed. Soon there will be an epic
struggle between two forces in your life and you are very concerned about a betrayal
that could turn the balance. If this makes it sound like you’re re-enacting Christian
theological events, that may or may not be coincidence. When in doubt, put your trust
in zoo animals.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
I’ve updated several pages on my website over the last few days, which included adding links to some webcomics that I hadn’t linked to before. I’ve also added links to these in the blog sidebar (over there on the left and scroll down a bit), but I thought it would be good to give them some explicit recommendations in an entry.
First up, I’ve had Shaenon Garrity’s comic Narbonic listed on my comics recommendation page for quite a while, but haven’t had her in the sidebar. She has several strips that she’s done online, som in collaboration with others. This seems like a good time to list her, as she has a new strip that started 2 weeks ago, called Skin Horse. I’d give a description of the strip here, but it’s a bit hard to categorize as yet. There’s certainly a sci-fi element, and it’s humorous like all her work, and this one is rather surreal so far as well.
Next, I had heard about Questionable Content for a while, but just started reading it about 4 months ago. It took about a month to get through the 1000 strips. Jeph Jacques (pronounced ‘jacks’) is the writer/artist, and he lives in Easthampton, an adjacent town to me. The strip is sort of romantic-comedy-slice-of-life-indie-music-fan type stuff, if that makes any sense.  It also seems to take place in a world just a little different from our own, as there exist little sentient robots known as AnthroPCs. The strip has well-written characters and is often really funny. The strip also spawns various T-shirt designs, which Jeph sells on the site.
Last, but not least, is Templar, Arizona.  Spike is the name of the artist, and she is wildly hilarious. This strips cracks me up to no end much of the time. The setting of the strip is a fictional city in a sort of alternate history Arizona. The rest of that world might resemble ours, but not so much Templar. This is another comic with excellent characters, whose personalities contrast with each other greatly, but where details of the city and backgrounds are very important as well (so don’t just pay attention to the people). I actually discovered Spike a few years ago when she had a different strip running on Girlamatic, and have been following Templar almost since it began. Besides her wonderful writing, I love her art style – lots of heavy lines and subtle sepia tones over grayscale.
Another quiz, again discovered on Matt’s blog (and I like his result better than mine). My post title refers, of course, to this movie (hmm, which is actually from ’79 – oh, well).
Your Score: Ray Stantz
168 Heart, 154 Genius, 128 Cool, 156 Excitability
Dr. Raymond Stantz – (Dan Aykroyd)
Ghostbusters (1984)
You are Ray Stantz! The heart of the Ghostbusters. You’re well-meaning, smart, and you have a childlike sense of wonder about the world. You might get taken advantage of, every once in a while, but it’s okay… You’re doing your part to help save the world.
“Gozer the Gozerian… good evening. As a duly designated representative of the City, County and State of New York, I order you to cease any and all supernatural activity and return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension.”
Other scientific possibilities:
Gary Wallace
Wyatt Donnelly
Peter Venkman
Jordan Cochran
Egon Spengler
Doc Brown
Newton Crosby
Paul Stephens
Ben Crandall
Wayne Szalinkski
Winston Zeddemore
Ben Jabituya
Lazlo Hollyfeld
Ray Stantz
Buckaroo Banzai
Chris Knight
I scored as a non-dyke, though. I find it interesting that my main result is the one man in the bunch (maybe gender is that significant!).
 |
Which Dyke to Watch Out For Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com |
You scored as Stuart You are Stuart, partner and co-parent with bi-dyke Sparrow. You believe that values need to be backed up with action, which can make you a bit impulsive at times. Make sure to budget time and money in order to afford the winter-length utili-kilts and Air America Radio shirts you’ve had your eyes on.
| Stuart |
|
70% |
| Toni |
|
65% |
| Lois |
|
50% |
| Mo |
|
40% |
| Sparrow |
|
35% |
| Clarice |
|
35% |
| Sydney |
|
25% |
|
I received an e-mail the other day of news about They Might Be Giants, including this link to a video for the song “Shadow Government”, which is on their new album. A pretty neat video, IMHO.
The animation style in the TMBG piece reminded me of a video that I saw a few years back at a film festival in Cincinnati. That would be this video, by the band Bad Religion (to date, it’s the only song of theirs I’m familiar with).
Another online quiz, this one to determine how nerdy one is, and in what ways. I didn’t score as highly as I thought I would.
One neat thing I liked about this quiz is that it has more than 2 options for answering the gender question. 
I find it hard to improve on that headline.
It sounds like the plot of a goofy comedy movie from the ’60′s, but it is apparently true.
The story can be found here.
I especially love the part about nobody noticing.
Courtesy of my friend Kevin’s blog, I discovered the site of a board game about the war on terror. In fact, it’s called War on Terror, the Boardgame, in which you either fight terror, or support it, or both.
No, I’m not making this up.
To some people (who are not me), this may at first seem like it is in poor taste. Reading further on the site will reveal that it’s just as much a political statement as an entertaining product. I heartily agree with the statement they’re making, plus the game actually looks like a lot of fun (the illustrations are great, but the EVIL balaclava is really the clincher).
The game is unfortunately kind of pricey, but perhaps it will go on my birthday list.
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