Webcomics

by Serhend Sirkecioglu

-- Is this a potentially workable pay model for web comics?! OK, personally for me, Zombies officially went passe the moment Robert Kirkman appeared on The View, but that’s not deterring people from overdoing it. This web comic, I’ll let it slide 'cause it did more with the tired formula. Zombies Eat Republicans uses a scrolling format but where The First Word stops, ZER takes it further by incorporating sound and music (although looping, which can become annoying) and having the panels slide into place instead of being a static layout, making the read much more active. The comic employs a dragging command to move the story along; though the arrow keys are available, I suggest the mouse or touch for more control.

If you haven't checked out the Study Group webcomic site, you are missing some great stuff, which we hope to be spotlighting in more depth very soonish, but for now, here's The Blonde Woman – Part 1 – by Aidan Koch, an abstract, mysterious opus that many art comics readers have been buzzing about.

The Croatian superteam of writer Darko Macan and artist Igor Kordey have collaborated on several comics for Marvel and elsewhere (SOLDIER X), but to our knowledge, TEXAS KID, MY BRO is their first creator-owned webcomic/thingie. And it's incredible.

How on earth have we somehow never noticed Jillian Tamaki's webcomic SuperMutant Magic Academy? It's a bit of a dark look at the mutant/magic academy genre. You know, Ronald Searle for the Hunger Games generation. She's made a mini-comic with added strips, but it's already sold out. She assures us more is coming. More had better be.

Cursing the basketball gods because your bracket is broken? Searching for a tournament bracket which better suits your knowledge base? We present a multitude of 2012 non-sports tournaments, from popular culture, food, and corporate America!

ShiftyLook, the Namco/Bandai webcomics portal devoted to re-presenting old and revamped games as webcomics, has announced two more properties: ALIEN CONFIDENTIAL and ROCKET FOX, both of which are being developed as games for smartphones and tablets.

Okay, now it's video games that are using comics to revive their dormant properties; only, fittingly, they're using webcomics, because those are two great tastes that go great together. Clever. Namco/Bandai has launched ShiftyLook with SKY KID, by Jim Zub and Jeffrey “Chamba” Cruz, via UDON, and XEVIOUS by Mike Costa and Mike Norton via Cryptozoic Entertainment, with a third title imminent, as shown by a big empty spot on the website. Both are old '80s console games long unseen.

by Serhend Sirkecioglu -- Web comics have at least 3-4 formats, the reader (page-page), the slideshow (panel to panel), the vertical scroll and the horizontal scroll (which could be just be called the scroll and is panoptic). Personally I like the intuitive feel of the scroll over the reader; which feels more like post production 3D; and the slide show, which is just a slide show. I recently came across this comic called The First Word from Electric Sheep Comix which uses CGI models…in a way where I don’t cringe as much, but put the scroll to good use. 

Troy Brownfield writes to tell us of his new webcomic SPARKSHOOTER, which debuts next Wednesday. In the mean time he's been running a series of teasers, and passed one along to The Beat. Brownfield writes and Sarah Vaughn draws the series.

Webcomics collective Act-i-vate is celebrating its sixth year with a bunch of new comics and returning old favorites, including new work by Daryl Cunningham and Igor Kordey. If you've forgotten how impressive Hyeondo Park is or how funny John Kerschbaum is, it might be good to take a look again.

Artist Tommie Kelly sent us a link to his webcomic Ouija: A Panelplay, which uses what he calls "PanelPlay" which is basically clicking for the next panel, along with some subtle, appropriate animation effects. The story is nothing great, but it is a nice demo. I know panel-click advance comics have been around for a while, so in the comments, throw up some links to other recent Future Comics of note.

Well, that went faster than I was expecting. At 2:50 PM PST, the Order of the Stick Reprint Drive is over the $1M mark.