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

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Panel: Creative Partner Newlywed Game

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

Webcomics Awards Ceremony

• Part 1
• Part 2

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.

You’re The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

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.

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

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).

One neat thing I liked about this quiz is that it has more than 2 options for answering the gender question.

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.

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.