Friday, August 21, 2009
Complete O&M
Dana Simpson just released The Complete Ozy and Millie in a two book set! This is fantastic news for those of us who adored the series, which is to say "all sane human beings". My only dilemma is this - do I get the paperback, which satisfies my much-worn sense of frugality, or the hardcover, which satisfies my fanboy jubilation? (Not that it's much of a dilemma, the answer is obvious.)
Friday, May 8, 2009
Webcomics Corner 5/8/09
Webcomics Corner is a column that publishes weekly in The Racquette, SUNY Potsdam's school paper. Unfortunately it does not go live on their website, so I am archiving it here.
Well, folks, it's the last Webcomics Corner of the semester. We've had so little time together, but I know I've enjoyed it, and I'll be back in the fall with more suggestions for you. Since we're going to be apart for a while, I thought maybe you'd like something to read over the summer. So this week, we're going to talk about "Irregular Webcomic!" by Dr. David Morgan-Mar.
"Irregular Webcomic!" is considered part of a much smaller subset of webcomics known as a "photo comic". The name is very much self-explanatory. Dr. Morgan-Mar cannot draw, but decided not to let that stop him, and as a result the strip is painstakingly created with Legos, miniatures and a camera.
There are over 15 separate story lines in the comic, most of them based off parodies of such franchises as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Harry Potter, Star Wars and so forth. Many of the settings are technically the in-character aspect of role-playing games, leaving the door wide open for the occasional meta-humor featuring the omnipotent Game Master character, played by Dr. Morgan-Mar himself. Crossovers are frequent - as the website points out, there are 120 possible combinations, 51 of which have been done so far.
Dr. Morgan-Mar himself is an intriguing figure, with a physics-related Ph.D. from the University of Sydney. (I say "physics-related" because the actual explanation is so far over my head I can barely make it out with a telescope.) He has taught physics and astronomy at a college level, developed several programming languages just as a joke, written multiple books, and is adamant that "Irregular Webomic!" is just for fun.
This last is especially noteworthy. The list of webcomics that has run over 2,000 strips is short. The list of those that ran those strips daily, without missing an update for over ten years, borders on the non-existent. To the best of my knowledge, the number of strips on that list who have not in any way attempted to monetize their site is one: "Irregular Webcomic!" Don't mistake me as implying any sort of shame in trying to make money from your comic, because that's how most comic artists eat. It's part of the business. So it's intriguing, to say the least, that Dr. Morgan-Mar is so set on keeping his hobby just a hobby.
I don't have room to say all the good things I want to, and there's more than enough in the archives to keep you busy all summer anyway. Don't be afraid to start from the beginning. You can find it all at http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/
Oh, and be sure to enjoy the hobbit puns.
Well, folks, it's the last Webcomics Corner of the semester. We've had so little time together, but I know I've enjoyed it, and I'll be back in the fall with more suggestions for you. Since we're going to be apart for a while, I thought maybe you'd like something to read over the summer. So this week, we're going to talk about "Irregular Webcomic!" by Dr. David Morgan-Mar.
"Irregular Webcomic!" is considered part of a much smaller subset of webcomics known as a "photo comic". The name is very much self-explanatory. Dr. Morgan-Mar cannot draw, but decided not to let that stop him, and as a result the strip is painstakingly created with Legos, miniatures and a camera.
There are over 15 separate story lines in the comic, most of them based off parodies of such franchises as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Harry Potter, Star Wars and so forth. Many of the settings are technically the in-character aspect of role-playing games, leaving the door wide open for the occasional meta-humor featuring the omnipotent Game Master character, played by Dr. Morgan-Mar himself. Crossovers are frequent - as the website points out, there are 120 possible combinations, 51 of which have been done so far.
Dr. Morgan-Mar himself is an intriguing figure, with a physics-related Ph.D. from the University of Sydney. (I say "physics-related" because the actual explanation is so far over my head I can barely make it out with a telescope.) He has taught physics and astronomy at a college level, developed several programming languages just as a joke, written multiple books, and is adamant that "Irregular Webomic!" is just for fun.
This last is especially noteworthy. The list of webcomics that has run over 2,000 strips is short. The list of those that ran those strips daily, without missing an update for over ten years, borders on the non-existent. To the best of my knowledge, the number of strips on that list who have not in any way attempted to monetize their site is one: "Irregular Webcomic!" Don't mistake me as implying any sort of shame in trying to make money from your comic, because that's how most comic artists eat. It's part of the business. So it's intriguing, to say the least, that Dr. Morgan-Mar is so set on keeping his hobby just a hobby.
I don't have room to say all the good things I want to, and there's more than enough in the archives to keep you busy all summer anyway. Don't be afraid to start from the beginning. You can find it all at http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/
Oh, and be sure to enjoy the hobbit puns.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Webcomics Corner 5/1/09
Webcomics Corner is a column that publishes weekly in The Racquette, SUNY Potsdam's school paper. Unfortunately it does not go live on their website, so I am archiving it here.
Welcome back to Webcomics Corner, folks - this week we're going to talk about a fairly popular strip called "Unshelved". Best known as being a comic by librarians and about librarians, the strip takes place in the public library of a small town known as Mallville, and features a small cast of regular and easily recognizable characters.
Though the archives go back to February 2002, and the story since that time is more-or-less coherent, the content of the strip tends to be light enough that one can jump in at any time. Readers who like a little background on their characters can check out the Unshelved Primer, which will fill you in on Mallville's goings-on over the past seven years; or the truly obsessive readers can dive right in.
"Unshelved" is known not just for being a great strip, but also for the community outreach to which the authors seem quite devoted. Even the name of the strip was selected by a reader vote after the original ("Overdue") had to be changed over a copyright issue. For the past several years they have also run a contest known as 'Pimp My Bookcart', prompting libraries throughout the country to trick out their existing book carts in a variety of interesting ways - the winning entries are, of course, viewable on the website.
Another popular feature of the strip is the Sunday Book Club entries. Each week a new book is reviewed in an excellent full-color format, often provided by guest artists, featuring their own cast of characters. The "Unshelved" authors welcome submissions from authors in need of publicity, including small print and self-published books, giving much-needed exposure to other members of the webcomics community.
It is also worth noting that the print compilations are high quality, and make excellent gifts for the librarians in your life - though as I discovered with my girlfriend's mother last Christmas, most of them already read the strip.
Check it out at http://www.unshelved.com/
Welcome back to Webcomics Corner, folks - this week we're going to talk about a fairly popular strip called "Unshelved". Best known as being a comic by librarians and about librarians, the strip takes place in the public library of a small town known as Mallville, and features a small cast of regular and easily recognizable characters.
Though the archives go back to February 2002, and the story since that time is more-or-less coherent, the content of the strip tends to be light enough that one can jump in at any time. Readers who like a little background on their characters can check out the Unshelved Primer, which will fill you in on Mallville's goings-on over the past seven years; or the truly obsessive readers can dive right in.
"Unshelved" is known not just for being a great strip, but also for the community outreach to which the authors seem quite devoted. Even the name of the strip was selected by a reader vote after the original ("Overdue") had to be changed over a copyright issue. For the past several years they have also run a contest known as 'Pimp My Bookcart', prompting libraries throughout the country to trick out their existing book carts in a variety of interesting ways - the winning entries are, of course, viewable on the website.
Another popular feature of the strip is the Sunday Book Club entries. Each week a new book is reviewed in an excellent full-color format, often provided by guest artists, featuring their own cast of characters. The "Unshelved" authors welcome submissions from authors in need of publicity, including small print and self-published books, giving much-needed exposure to other members of the webcomics community.
It is also worth noting that the print compilations are high quality, and make excellent gifts for the librarians in your life - though as I discovered with my girlfriend's mother last Christmas, most of them already read the strip.
Check it out at http://www.unshelved.com/
Webcomics Corner 4/24/09
Webcomics Corner is a column that publishes weekly in The Racquette, SUNY Potsdam's school paper. Unfortunately it does not go live on their website, so I am archiving it here for the moment.
Welcome to what will hopefully be a regular column reviewing webcomics for your reading pleasure. I can't promise I'll always have good comics to talk about, but in general I'll try to stick to recommendations.
As any fan of the medium knows, a vast number of webcomics are story- and character-driven, requiring that you read large quantities of backstory, or at least Cliff Notes. I'm going to try to ease us in to this with a strip that doesn't have that problem: "Basic Instructions," by Scott Meyer. As the name implies, this strip provides instructions on how to perform basic actions, in a cynical style not unlike the "Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbooks" that were all the rage a few years ago.
Topics published so far range from 'How to Share a Horrifying Experience' to 'How to Call a Relative' to 'How to Avenge Your Brother's Death', and Mr. Meyer never fails to bring the funny. Each of the four panels is usually a joke in and of itself, so the overall punch line feels like icing on the cake.
The strip updates frequently, usually Sunday and Wednesday, with occasional bonus content, and provides an RSS feed for true connoisseurs of web content. If you're bored - or trying very hard to put off writing a paper - the archives go back to July 2006, and I can tell you from experience that plowing straight through them is just as fun as reading a few at a time.
As an aside, it is worth noting that the strip's logo, possibly one of the funniest I've encountered yet, was recently used for a flight suit patch by the Alaskan Command (ALCOM) and Joint Task Force - Alaska (JTF-AK). I think it safe to say that very few comics can claim such distinction.
Check out the logo, and the strips, at http://basicinstructions.net/
Welcome to what will hopefully be a regular column reviewing webcomics for your reading pleasure. I can't promise I'll always have good comics to talk about, but in general I'll try to stick to recommendations.
As any fan of the medium knows, a vast number of webcomics are story- and character-driven, requiring that you read large quantities of backstory, or at least Cliff Notes. I'm going to try to ease us in to this with a strip that doesn't have that problem: "Basic Instructions," by Scott Meyer. As the name implies, this strip provides instructions on how to perform basic actions, in a cynical style not unlike the "Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbooks" that were all the rage a few years ago.
Topics published so far range from 'How to Share a Horrifying Experience' to 'How to Call a Relative' to 'How to Avenge Your Brother's Death', and Mr. Meyer never fails to bring the funny. Each of the four panels is usually a joke in and of itself, so the overall punch line feels like icing on the cake.
The strip updates frequently, usually Sunday and Wednesday, with occasional bonus content, and provides an RSS feed for true connoisseurs of web content. If you're bored - or trying very hard to put off writing a paper - the archives go back to July 2006, and I can tell you from experience that plowing straight through them is just as fun as reading a few at a time.
As an aside, it is worth noting that the strip's logo, possibly one of the funniest I've encountered yet, was recently used for a flight suit patch by the Alaskan Command (ALCOM) and Joint Task Force - Alaska (JTF-AK). I think it safe to say that very few comics can claim such distinction.
Check out the logo, and the strips, at http://basicinstructions.net/
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
what an ass
Awww, poor Wiley Miller. Still sad that you're running out of newspapers while those little snot webcomic artists are making a decent living from keeping their merchandising money?PS: Your content is also free ... stupid.
Monday, March 30, 2009
LICD <3 RBHJ
Least I Could Do strikes again! That can't possibly be anyone but Roland Burton Hedley Jr. This is shaping up to be a week (or more) of cameos from other strips - if they're planning to troll print comics for the whole of it, I foresee a lawsuit or two in the future. (I'm not claiming said lawsuits will be justified, but that doesn't mean they won't happen.)
Saturday, March 28, 2009
no reading list
I've decided to nix the reading list. It hasn't been updated in ages, and figuring out what changes to make - to say nothing of when they should be dated - is the kind of project that just isn't worth the time. So if you know of a comic that I should read, and I haven't mentioned it previously, let me know. Seriously, please let me know - I'm always looking for new things to read.
late to the party: digger
So ... Digger.
I'm tempted to give my usual "Why didn't anyone tell me?!" rant, but in this case people did. Hell, Websnark mentioned it clear back in '04. At the time, though, I was too poor for subscription services, and over the years I just never got around to signing up for them. In retrospect I wonder if this was the correct choice, but it seems like there's always new comics to read that I don't have to pay for, so why not fund those with donations and/or merchandise orders when I can, and not sweat it?
Anyway, the archives became free ... about a month ago, it looks like. If you have not yet checked this comic out, you need to. I'm not sure I can do it any justice with a summary, but basically it's a comic about a wombat who winds up in the wrong part of the world, becomes something of a pawn in a struggle involving destiny, gods both living and dead, demons, hyenas, trolls, shrews, prophetic slugs, vampiric pumpkins, and ... um. Look, seriously, just go read this, okay? The storyline is compelling, the characters are brilliantly written, and the humor is nothing sort of genius - you won't regret it.
I'm tempted to give my usual "Why didn't anyone tell me?!" rant, but in this case people did. Hell, Websnark mentioned it clear back in '04. At the time, though, I was too poor for subscription services, and over the years I just never got around to signing up for them. In retrospect I wonder if this was the correct choice, but it seems like there's always new comics to read that I don't have to pay for, so why not fund those with donations and/or merchandise orders when I can, and not sweat it?
Anyway, the archives became free ... about a month ago, it looks like. If you have not yet checked this comic out, you need to. I'm not sure I can do it any justice with a summary, but basically it's a comic about a wombat who winds up in the wrong part of the world, becomes something of a pawn in a struggle involving destiny, gods both living and dead, demons, hyenas, trolls, shrews, prophetic slugs, vampiric pumpkins, and ... um. Look, seriously, just go read this, okay? The storyline is compelling, the characters are brilliantly written, and the humor is nothing sort of genius - you won't regret it.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
awesome
You know when there's a plot twist that in retrospect seems incredibly, mind-numbingly, glaringly obvious, and all of a sudden all the little clues - and all the attacks with a clue-by-four - add up and you feel really dumb?
I love those.
TMI just did one, and really well.
(Obviously, starting with today's comic is a spoiler. So start here instead.)
I love those.
TMI just did one, and really well.
(Obviously, starting with today's comic is a spoiler. So start here instead.)
Sunday, March 1, 2009
I don't get it.
So can somebody fill me in on Ten2Midnight? Is it a joke? Performance art? I don't understand what's happening here.
See, it's supposed to be a post-apocalyptic zombie comic. The authors and/or artists - I don't know who is who - keep putting up posts about rewrites and working hard the next page and so forth ... but there's only been three pages posted since 12/26/08. There was a post making excuses for page four back on the 2/5. Page three, on the other hand, was a single panel - five skyscraper tops, a weird looking sun, and a single line of text. Which went live with the wrong line of text and had to be corrected like two days later.
I mean, the site looks fully fleshed out, and the thing got pimped in early project stages by some fairly well known strip (though I can't remember which). So I don't get it - is this being done by comic people and it's my bad for not knowing their names? People with such Whedon-esque cults of personality that fans are drooling at the very promise of content? Or is it some elaborate prank, and they're just seeing how long they can keep this up before readership drops to zero?
If this is a genuine webcomic, by some people with a good idea and no following as of yet, I guess that's cool, and I wish them luck. But I really hope they actually get it together, because right now there's a whole lot of smoke and no fire. I haven't seen this kind of thing since Gone with the Blastwave.
See, it's supposed to be a post-apocalyptic zombie comic. The authors and/or artists - I don't know who is who - keep putting up posts about rewrites and working hard the next page and so forth ... but there's only been three pages posted since 12/26/08. There was a post making excuses for page four back on the 2/5. Page three, on the other hand, was a single panel - five skyscraper tops, a weird looking sun, and a single line of text. Which went live with the wrong line of text and had to be corrected like two days later.
I mean, the site looks fully fleshed out, and the thing got pimped in early project stages by some fairly well known strip (though I can't remember which). So I don't get it - is this being done by comic people and it's my bad for not knowing their names? People with such Whedon-esque cults of personality that fans are drooling at the very promise of content? Or is it some elaborate prank, and they're just seeing how long they can keep this up before readership drops to zero?
If this is a genuine webcomic, by some people with a good idea and no following as of yet, I guess that's cool, and I wish them luck. But I really hope they actually get it together, because right now there's a whole lot of smoke and no fire. I haven't seen this kind of thing since Gone with the Blastwave.
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