Webcomics

While comics fans were celebrating comics and other delights at New York Comic Con, publishers and fans in Europe were congregating in Frankfurt, Germany,...

Not Comics, but it does shed some light on behavior. While we're rounding up some scientific jargon, GigaOM reports that millennials need Wi-Fi the way previous generations needed fresh air and vitamin C. (Millennials are here defined as 17-29 year-olds.)

The other day comics/tech guru Scott McCloud posted examples of two webcomics using current navigation techniques to give advanced motion and storytelling effects. One, Turbo Defiant Kimecan (top) uses Flash to allow readers to time the appearance of panels and balloons. Never Mind the Bullets (bottom) uses HTML 5 to gives kind of "motion comics-y" floating animation. As McCloud points out, both are just examples, not role models -- Never Mind the Bullets suggested we download IE9, which was an immediate fail. The comments are unkind:

From the Bento Comics site, a little horror story, Elevator by Queenie Chan. The story is downloadable for a variety of e-readers as well.

Artist Jana Christy talks about donating a kidney to her brother in her webcomic, the kidney thing

Zach Hazard fights the man.

Several Pekar Project strips are appearing after the death of Harvey Pekar, including the new Untitled, with art by Rick Parker. Two more strips...

Both of artist Colleen Doran's sites -- A Distant Soil and Colleendoran.com -- have been hacked, she confirmed in a phone call. Luckily, all...

Ed Piskor has posted the first chapter of WIZZYWIG up at his site. This riveting fictionalized story of computer hacking and underground culture has been revamped and improved. It's available in both PDF and CBR formats at the link but we've taken the liberty of excerpting the first three pages to give you a taste. Larger versions available in the link.

MK Reed writes to point us to a new website, SAVE APATHEA! which will be serializing her upcoming First Second graphic novel Americus, which is due out in late 2011. It's described as the story of "Neil Barton, a teenager growing up in Oklahoma, and his fight to keep his favorite fantasy series, The Chronicles of Apathea Ravenchilde, in his public library." Reed (a sometime Beat contributor) writes and Jonathan Hill provides art. The first chapter was previously published in Papercutter #7. News pages will go up Monday-Wednesday-Friday.

Happy anniversary, Shaenon T. Garrity! It was July 31, 2000 that she launched Narbonic, one of the first prominent webcomics by a woman. Since then she's launched several other webcomics, including Skin Horse, won the Lulu of the Year award, worked as an editor and creator in both traditional comics and manga, and become one of the liveliest, most insightful comics commentators on the web. She's a treasure, that's what.

Via PR a story that touches the current comics business on so many levels. In short, Scott Kurtz is taking his print PvP collections of his very popular webcomic PvP and returning to self-publishing via his Toonhound Studios imprint. PVP has been published by Image since 2003, and Image will continue to sell his existing collections. However future print editions of the comic will be sold online. According to the release, Kurtz won't be selling them through Diamond at all, although he'll work directly with retailers who want to carry his books.