May 24th: Zan Christiensen posts a great article about possible censorship concerns against gay-centric graphic novels at Apple’s App Store, for the iPad and iPhone.
http://prismcomics.org/display.php?id=1858

June 13th: The New York Times covers the case of ULYSSES SEEN, a graphic novel adaptation of Joyce’s Ulysses that had non-sexual nudity edited out after demands by the appstore people. Rage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/technology/14ulysses.html

June 14th, 1:40am: I post a link to Zan’s article at Prism, add a little bit of commentary and additional thinking, call for comment. I feel bad for being behind the times…

June 14th, 10:40am: Tech blog Gizmodo picks up on the story of ULYSSES SEEN and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST censorship.
http://gizmodo.com/5562802/the-latest-examples-of-apples-stupid-editorial-censorship

June 14th, 12:30pm: Awesome Gay Blog JoeMyGod publishes a story on the same issue, based on a reader tip.
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/06/apple-censors-gay-graphic-novels-but.html

June 14th, 4pm: Gizmodo updates that Apple has apparently reversed its decision and has asked the creators of both ULYSSES SEEN and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST to resubmit the unedited works for approval.

While it shouldn’t have taken a public, multi-site shaming to get Apple’s act together, I’m quite pleased that both sets of creators will get their work to be presented in the format they’d originally intended, and hopefully get a nice little sales boost from all of the attention. I’m glad that whatever small part I played in bringing the story to people’s attention helped resolve the situation, and kudos again to Zan for writing a great article and highlighting an obvious injustice. I hope the Yaoi Press people aren’t similarly left behind…

Which brings us to another issue, as mentioned by my friend Andrew Wheeler this morning:

@Wheeler: Given Apple’s censorship, shouldn’t intelligent liberals adamantly reject it as a publishing platform? Where’d our ethics go? I refer in part to the censorship of comic adaptations of Wilde http://tinyurl.com/37j3q3b and Joyce http://nyti.ms/9HzgFE

Too racy for Apple? Apparently so... The Importance of Being Ernest, by Tom Bouden.

While I was on my little hiatus, one of the things I did make a point to read was Zan Christiensen’s excellent and lengthy essay on the difficulties that queer creators and queer-themed comics works have had getting accepted into Apple’s iPad app store. I recommend that you go and read it for yourself over at The Prism Comics website, a thriving c0mmunity for queer comics and comics-fans.

In case you don’t make it over there I’ll sum it up for you: There’s a very definite class-system at work in the app-store, and it’s looking very much like queer comics are at the bottom of the heap. The panel to the right there, from Tom Bouden’s adaptation of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest (featuring, naturally, an all-male cast!), was considered too sexy for an 18+ app, and is one of 6 or 7 panels in the book that got it denied from the app-store, all similarly tame (a bare bum, an embrace).

There are lots of examples, plenty of pictures to show just how ‘edgy’ the banned material is (not very much at all), and plenty of the standard Apple denials and non-denials (The Sports Illustrated quote is particularly telling).

The pragmatist in me believes that this isn’t a free speech issue, that this is simply a business making business decisions for itself that I don’t happen to like. But if gay-themed material is being held to a different standard than straight material, particularly if it’s systematic, then it’s both unfair discrimination and quite happily illegal (in most of the world anyway). Looking at the situation, I’d be inclined to start leaning towards the latter. I don’t know why a business would set themselves up as a censor, but if they’re going to, they better start being more transparent and accountable… or it’ll only be a matter of time before they find themselves in a great deal of legal trouble.

Edit: As a brief aside, I would love to hear from publishers if the approval process is the same (or easier) when it comes to getting your comic/graphic novel published through iBooks (Apple’s online bookstore) as getting a stand-alone app published…

- Chris

Dork Volume 2: Circling the Drain

I really like Evan Dorkin.

Dorkin is the creator of the endeering enduring characters Milk & Cheese, perhaps the work he’s best known for. But Dorkin’s had a fairly long and varied career, starting out as a cartoonist in the late 80s/early 90s doing short comics and gag strips for a variety of magazines before his one-man anthology comics DORK and MILK & CHEESE (from SLG Publishing) became comic-shop mainstays throughout the nineties and early ‘aughts. He’s been doing a ton of animation work for the past few years, he’ll put out a new issue of his humour stuff every year or two, and he’s currently writing the upcoming BEASTS OF BURDEN mini-series (with Jill Thompson painting) for Dark Horse. There’s a ton of work out there, check it out.

I actually first encountered Dorkin’s work in Marvel’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures comic book series, which he wrote and drew, featuring the further adventures of the two dudes whose two movies I greatly enjoyed. I didn’t really follow “creators” at that point in my comics career, but I thought that series was hilarious and bought every issue. Years later I discovered Dorkin’s Milk & Cheese and Dork through the vagaries of the direct market distribution system, and I loved the hell out of them right off the bat. All the same manic cartooning energy of the Bill & Ted stuff, but blown up into transgressive subjects like The Murder Family, The Devil Puppet, and those two murderous dairy products.

He also created “FUN”.

Dork Volume 1: Who's Laughing Now?

The “FUN” pages (which ran in Dork) consisted of oten-vicious 3 Panel gag strips that made you feel bad for chuckling, packed 7 to a page to create 21 panels of the funniest stuff in comics. I know, I know, it’s the internet now and the whole www is chock-full of transgressive, violent, sexual comics, and some of them are even funny, but Dorkin was doing that stuff back when the internet generation was playing with their Transformers. What I’m saying is, you should pick up Evan Dorkin’s work: It’s great and I’m gonna prove it to you.

I’ve thought for years now that of all of the “traditional” indy comics guys in the biz (or even out of the biz I guess…), Evan Dorkin was maybe the best-positioned to take advantage of that gleaming spire of promise, the internet. He’s got hundreds and hundreds of strips, gag illustrations, short stories, and general hilarious muck-raking mayhem already done. The net is desparate for content and he’s got tons of it… and he’s all mine, so back the fuck off.

Starting today and until we run out, I’m very pleased to announce that comics212.net is going to be running one of Mr. Evan Dorkin’s FUN comic strips every weekday, Monday to Friday, for your viewing pleasure. I was happy to be able to put this together with Evan, because despite the fact he’s an Eisner-award winning humour cartoonist with a ton of comics and animation credits under his belt, he maybe hasn’t gotten his due these past few years. Anything I can do to send more eyeballs his way is a very good thing as far as I’m concerned, and for my part the blog will get updated every day for a year…! Everyone wins, hopefully.

A couple things before we’re done here:

1) I’m doing this entirely with Evan Dorkin’s permission.
2) This is going to run for more-or-less a year, barring incident, and even then this will only equal about 40 pages out of the more than 300 pages of material that you can find in Evan Dorkin’s Dork Volume 1: Who’s Laughing Now?, Dork Volume 2: Circiling The Drain, and Fun with Milk & Cheese trade paperback collections, so this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pick them up.
3) For more Evan Dorkin, you can check out Evan Dorkin & Sarah Dyer’s HOUSE OF FUN, Evan Dorkin’s always entertaining and acerbic LiveJournal, and SLG Publishing–Fine Publishers of DORK, MILK & CHEESE, and more.
4) I know I have timeliness issues; I’m saying daily cuz I mean daily but fingers crossed. If you gotta send hate-mail if I miss a day, go right ahead.

So! Thanks to Evan Dorkin for allowing this to happen, for Sarah Dyer for the majority of the strip scans, and to you for reading the site. And now as The Devil Puppet said in Dork #5…

- Christopher

Anyway, if you want to see what went down in 2008, the list is below. Thanks again to all of the great artists, writers, authors, and organizations we were fortunate enough to work with last year… and this year. 2009 is already off to a pretty solid start, if I do say so!

–

Author Events at The Beguiling, 2008

Cecil Castellucci (Janes In Love), The Beguiling, January 30th
Scott Hepburn (Star Wars: VECTOR), The Beguiling, January 30th

Kean Soo (Jellaby Volume 1), Keep Toronto Reading, February 5th
Kazu Kibuishi (Amulet Volume 1), Keep Toronto Reading, February 5th
In Association with Toronto Public Library 

Kean Soo (Jellaby Volume 1), The Beguiling, February 6th
Kazu Kibuishi (Amulet Volume 1), The Beguiling, February 6th

Michel Rabagilati (Paul Goes Fishing), Lillian H. Smith Library, March 15th

R.G. Taylor (Growing Up With Comics), Industry Night, March 26th
Ron Kasman (Growing Up With Comics), Industry Night, March 26th
Mark Innes (Comic Eye), Industry Night, March 26th

Jillian Tamaki Art Show, The Beguiling, April 14th-May 30th

Free Comic Book Day For Kids! @ Palmerston Library, May 3rd
Featuring: Michael Cho (Max Finder Mysteries), Steven Manale (You Crack Me Up!), Brian McLachlan (Owl Magazine), and Jeremy Tankard (Grumpy Bird).
Presented in association with Toronto Public Library, Scholastic Books, and Owlkids. Image shown below, featuring Jeremy Tankard.

Free Comic Book Day at The Beguiling, May 3rd
Featuring J. Korim (Penciler, Atomic Robo FCBD Edition), Jessie Lam (Colorist, Neozoic), Tyrone McCarthy (Creator, Corduroy High), Alana McCarthy (Illustrator), Tara Talan (Galaxion), Willow Dawson (Violet Miranda), Nick Mandaag (Artist and self-publisher), Chip Zdarsky (Monster Cops).

Stuart Immonen, The Beguiling, May 28th

Luminato Arts Festival, June 8th
Featuring Spain Rodriguez (Che: A Graphic Biography), Dan Goldman (Shooting War), and Bernice Eisenstein (I Was A Child Of Holocaust Survivors). 
Presented in association with Luminato. 

Blake Bell (Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko), Lillian H. Smith Library, June 18th

Jason (Low Moon, Pocket Full of Rain), The Beguiling, June 10th 

Ray Fawkes (Apocalipstix), Revival Bar, August 6th
Cameron Stewart (Apocalipstix), Revival Bar, August 6th

The Doug Wright Awards, August 10th
Official Bookseller

Russel Lissau (The Batman Strikes!), The Beguiling, August 29th

Matthew Forsythe (Ojingogo), The Beguiling, September 27th
Pat Shechuk (Pohadky), The Beguiling, September 27th
Marek Colek (Pohadky), The Beguiling, September 27th

The Word On The Street, Graphic Novel Tent Official Sponsor, September 28th
Featuring: D.J. Steinberg, Steve Manale, Brian McLachlan, Jim Zubkavich, Matt Moylan, Jeremy Tankard, Matt Hammill, Steve Murray, Mariko Tamaki, Ray Fawkes, Cameron Stewart, Jim Munroe, Ramon Perez, Ray Fenwick, Susan Hughes, Willow Dawson, Pat Shewchuck, Marek Colek, Matt Forsythe, Andy Bellanger, Joey Comeau, Emily Horne, Matt Forsythe, Ryan North, Kate Beaton, Ramon Perez.

Street Fighter Tribute Launch, The Beguiling, September 28th
Featuring nearly two-dozen different comics creators including Cameron Stewart, Bobby Chiu, Kei Acedera, Scott Hepburn, Alex Milne, Arthur Dela Cruz, Eric Kim, Alvin Lee, Omar Dogan, Joe Ng, Christine Choi, Eric Vedder, Joe Vriens, Matt Moylan, Jim Zubkavich, Saejin Oh, and many more.

Lynda Barry (What It Is!), IFOA/Writing The Unthinkable, October 23rd-26th
Chip Kidd (Bat-Manga), IFOA, October 25th-26th

Shaun Tan (The Arrival), The Beguiling, October 28th

Chris Onstad (Achewood, The Great Outdoor Fight), The Beguiling, November 4th

Igort (Baobab, Ignatz Line), The Beguiling, November 15th
David B. (Epileptic, Nocturnal Emissions), The Beguiling, November 15th

Maurice Vellekoop (Pin-Ups), Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, November 25th

Dave Lapp (Drop-In), The Beguiling, December 3rd

Kramers Ergot World Tour, The Beguiling, December 11th
Featuring Sammy Harkham, Seth, Shary Boyle, Souther Salazar, Kevin Huizenga, John Pham

Faith Erin Hicks (The War At Ellsmere), The Beguiling, December 17th

–

So, yeah. Come to Toronto. We are doing awesome things here, we’d love for you to be a part of it.

- Chris

So a few months ago when Achewood creator Chris Onstad came to Toronto, I had the pleasure of a sharing a meal with Mr. Onstad and Dinosaur Comics creator Ryan North. They discussed important, world-altering subjects about the future of the internet, and I, for my part, asked “Hey what’s up with Charlie Smuckles? Didn’t he go back in time with Molly’s family after the wedding?”

I’m usually pretty good about not being a nerd around comics people I admire, but Onstad is a bit mythical at the best of times, and he’s the creator of characters that I occasionally forget aren’t real. So yeah, I nerded out, and the reward for my nerditry was a casual brush-off. “He’s fine. I’m sure I’ll get to it,” or something similar, before he returned to his discussion with Mr. North about whether to invest their vast web-fortunes, or instead keep them in their current gold-krugerrand form.

Now, months later, the terrifying story behind a petulant 14 year old caught in the past is being rolled out at Achewood, as we all witness the power of the toilet, nacho chip, and brassiere. Oh, and 1800s freestyle puritan rap.

It’s quite good, I suggest moseying over and reading it. And if you’ve never read Achewood before, you’ve got no real excuse. The whole thing is up online and there’s even a print-version out now, with another on the way soonish.

- Christopher

Bonus: Since Spurgeon likes it when I describe the comics industry using Achewood as a metaphor: In the comic strip above Charlie Smuckles is webcomics and the puritans are every print cartoonist in a Daily Cartoonist comments thread ever, especially Wiley. Only the commenters at the Daily Cartoonist don’t have the excuse of being literally hundreds of years in the past, only metaphorically and only 30-40 years, but that’s why this is a metaphor. And a surprisingly apt one.

The webcomic Unshelved is about life working in a library. It’s a huge hit online and in the library market, though relatively unknown in comic book stores. Well they’ve got this neat little feature called Unshelved Book Club (I believe it runs every Sunday), where they invite cartoonists to contribute guest comic strips in the form of book recommendations. Kind of like a book club!

The newest entry into the series? First Second Editor In Chief Mark Siegel recommends the hell out of Scott Pilgrim. 

I’m friends (or at least friendly) with all of the people involved in this strip, which makes the whole thing just that much more amazing… and from what I remember I think Gina told me that at least the first part of this strip Actually Happened. Hehe.

 Go check it out, it’s pretty darned neat. And browse the archives while you’re there.

- Chris

Q: Do you think it’s possible that there could be more work in the future where the artist could sit and draw for two years, and release the entire story… [?]

Oliveros: I think the periodical approach is a good thing. In order for comics to be released in book form, where an author would take two or three or five years to complete this novel, the medium would have to attain this sort of popularity you have in general fiction…

Which is, you know, ha-ha, things are graphic novels now, and even with the popularity of the medium as compared to 10 years ago, very few people are getting those $50,000 advances. But the thing is, Oliveros wasn’t wrong. Like Eric says, it underscores a lot of the issues facing the market today:

1. Particularly with first- or second-time authors, the majority of graphic novels are being ordered by all retail outlets entirely blind, because serialization offered months and months of “previews” of the material to readers before it was in graphic novel format.

2. There are a ton of graphic novels being produced, and even if you read only stuff that’s, you know, good, I feel like that’s still 10+ graphic novels a month at this point. It’s very difficult for any work to stand out, let alone rise-above. It’s why you see people (like myself) getting behind books in such a strong way. STREET ANGEL or SCOTT PILGRIM or MONSTER or whatever really are solid books, but with 300+ graphic novel releases a month, you kind of have to keep banging the drum to make people aware of them before they get entirely buried—and those are three genre comics with mass-market appeal!

3. And that’s before we get to all the crap that’s being released. Unnecessary collections of superhero periodicals. Awful, awful fucking movie pitches masquerading as ‘graphic novels’ to give them an undeserved legitimacy. Self-involved, self-indulgent, pseudo-literary garbage. Vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanity projects. The merely mediocre.

I’m just like ranting here, but yeah. It’s really, really hard for a graphic novelist to lock themselves up for a year or two, with little-to-no feedback and an ever-dwindling advance, and crank out a book. Back in the old days, the serialization of Louis Riel or Berlin or Optic Nerve provided feedback, interaction, and occasionally periodic injections of cash, all of which made it just a little bit easier to be a graphic novelist. Er, comic book artist. Cartoonist? Illustrator? What did people call themselves in 1996? I was still in highschool.

ANyway, it’s one of the things that I really like about the web, that a smart cartoonist can figure out a way to serialize their work (or even just produce it for the web), making money along the way, and then releasing collections (“graphic novels”) and enter a different market. I think the web is big enough for more comics… It was one of the things I wanted to get into a little bit more on the panel Tuesday, but that wasn’t really the place for it. I also really, really think that the current web-model doesn’t suit every creator.

But I think that, getting back to the point, a more consistent presence in the public eye before a graphic novel release is a very good, important thing. And if we’re really going to let the pamphlet-format comic die, then we need _something_ to take it’s place, and I don’t think we’ve seen it yet.  I am happy to be proven wrong though. If the future of periodical comics is out there, please send a link my way.

- Christopher

KTR: Graphically Speaking. (L to R) Christopher Butcher, Kate Beaton, Willow Dawson, Emily Horne, Ryan North, and Brian McLachlan

Last night was our event Graphically Speaking: Webcomics, as part of Toronto’s Keep Toronto Reading month! We had a great turnout, well over 100 people (and I only knew like 10 of them!) including journalist Matthew Braga from Blog.T.O., who just put up a short article on the event:

“While the evening was a superb way to learn more about the burgeoning community of webcomics, both in Toronto and on the web, it won’t be the only chance for fans to interact with some of their favourite online authors and artists. Both the Toronto Public Library and The Beguiling will also be hosting the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) this May, where most of Tuesday’s panelists should be in attendance.” –  BlogT.O.

A superb evening AND a TCAF plug. Hoo-ray!

- Christopher

THE GREAT OUTDOOR FIGHT SIGNING!
Feat. Chris Onstad, creator of Achewood
@ The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008. 7pm
FREE

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=30518973349

The Beguiling will be welcoming Chris Onstad, creator of the online comic strip Achewood (http://achewood.com), to his exclusive Toronto tour stop in support of his new book The Great Outdoor Fight.
–

More at: http://www.beguiling.com/2008/09/announce-achewood-creator-chris-onstad.html

- Chris

Dan Clowes wrapped up his run on The New York Times’ Funny Pages this week, with his 20 page story Mister Wonderful. It has a really surprising tone compared to some of his other work, and I thought the ending had a real humanity to it that I have to admit, I found surprising. Can a Dan Clowes strip have a happy ending? Depends on what your definition of “happy” is I suppose, but if you’ve somehow missed every single strip to date, you can check them all out at http://www.nytimes.com/ref/magazine/funnypages.html.

- Chris

You should all go to http://www.achewood.com and spend as much money on his stuff as you can.

- Chris

Enter: Chip Zdarsky. If there’s one thing that Internet Provocateur Chip Zdarsky loves, it’s an opening. A moist, warm opening. He got his opening today, in a ‘guest strip’. If you’ve read Chipper’s stuff before you might have the barest inkling of what you’re in for, but even still, prepare to be… amazed!

- Christopher

And there are pictures!

The Sunday before the signing, Toronto was buried under a pretty impressive snowfall. In the window that’s an original painting from Jeff Lemire’s Tales From Essex County: Ghost Stories. I was a bit worried about the roads and the parking for our out-of-town guests, but everyone ended up arriving safe and sound.

The signing was really well attended, with maybe 40 people filing through over the course of 2 hours or so. Here Faith inscribes a copy of her book for a fan, and Svetlana checks out the newest volume of her work.

Svetlana signs and sketches for a young dude who loves The Dramacon.

So much talent sits at this table…

After the signing, we invited Svetlana and Faith out for a bite to eat and a meet-and-greet with some local Toronto creators and friends. Svetlana got Shanghaied on the way in and ended up doing a 30 minute interview for a documentary on comics airing on The Independent Film Channel next year, so we had to start drinking without her. Here we see one of Faith’s very tired friends, Faith Erin Hicks, Eric Kim (Love As A Foreign Language), and Beguiling employee Derek.

Svetlana finally made her entrance, still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Several martinis later the gang gets together for a group shot before heading home. In addition to our previous photos are Ray Fawkes (Apocalipstix, Mnemovore), Jim Zubkavich (Makeshift Miracle), Kayla from The Beguiling, and Svet’s friend K.

Thanks again to the totally-awesome Svetlana Chmakova and Faith Erin Hicks for doing a signing at the store! We had a great time, sold a ton of books, and made it very difficult for folks to do their Christmas shopping for a few hours, which is kind of hilarious. You can check out another report on the signing at Jason Truong’s Blog.

You can buy Dramacon Vol 1-3 and Zombies Calling from The Beguiling’s website, as well as better book and comic stores everywhere, and check out Faith’s Homepage and Svetlana’s Homepage, as well as the Slave Labor Graphics and Tokyopop websites.

- Christopher

Today though, I found out that the first Zuda creator to be pissed-off and disillusioned came to light… at the launch party. Yeah, that’s right. Apparently J. Longo, creator of ‘This American Strife’ had his strip edited, and then had a page omitted, without his being told by the ‘higher-ups’ at the company. He found out when he noticed his comics playing on the TV screens at the launch party. From an entry by Mr. Longo entitled “non disclosure diss-agreement“:

“Now, in Zudas tiniest defense, when I orginally pitched the J & Jesus screens for ‘This American Strife,’ I was told to modify certain things to make it kosher enough to have it public. However, I changed these ‘questionables‘ and re-drew every panel in accordance to their requests. But to have weeks go by and then release ‘This American Strife’ with such a crucial, non-disclosed edit is lame.” - J. Longo, Creator of This American Strife for Zuda.com

How long did it take for the other shoe to drop? 24 hours. At least it took most of the Tokyopop crew a full year to become disillusioned with their terrible contracts.

Edit: J. Longo has responded to this article in my comments section, and over at his blog. I encourage you to check it out.
- Christopher

So I’ve gone through the contracts to the best of my ability, and looked at all of the stuff that’s been written about them–both publically and privately–and I’m kind of at a loss what to say here. Most importantly, it’s a contract that I would never personally sign, I’ll say that much at least. But I don’t really know what else I can say to communicate that this… really isn’t very good… without coming off like a nut, or a ‘hater’, or whatever.

“[The] thing that jumps out at me is that if you’re still up in the air about whether this company’s offers matches your own standards in terms of basic rights and obligations, you may be better off thinking about things in greater detail — and discussing it with that lawyer — than reading about it. There’s not likely to be easy consensus anywhere you look. Further, creators rights issues in comics are a close second to retail issues in comics when it comes to inspiring demented rhetoric. Discussion gets strident and defensive really, really quickly. You’re going to run into everything from angry jeremiads about big companies being unable to [not] screw anyone with whom they come into contact to exhortations that it’s okay to subject yourself to a crappy deal because you can always think up new stuff (after all, Jerry Siegel co-created Superman and Doris Evans), or, as it’s usually put, if you can’t think of more than one idea, you have no business being a creator. Stuff like that. So be careful.”
- Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter.

I don’t particularly want to get into the middle of another ‘thing’ about this, but… yeah. I don’t understand why someone who is smart and talented enough to create an idea from whole cloth, an idea that will be decreed as ‘good’ by both a large publisher AND the public at large, and not have the faith in it to see it through, wait for the ‘big money’ that could be down the line. It’s nice to be paid a page-rate for your work and all, but that $14,000 salary cap ($1000 purchase price plus 52 weeks @ $250/strip) seems to be pretty limiting, in terms of the potential revenue that could be generated off of a successful webcomic. It’s not bad money I guess, but here’s the thing… It’s less than the money you would make doing a half-page of comics art at DC or Veritgo even, and it also involves selling off the intellectual property for your work for an unlimited amount of time (seriously, at $500 a year, Time Warner could quite easily afford to pay you that fuck-off money forever). The idea that you should fully own what you fully create? It’s a good one, and one that I feel should be taken seriously. I also personally feel that every time someone takes a very bad deal like this, it makes it that much easier for publishers to OFFER very bad deals.

The one thing that everyone agrees with, even Zuda, is get a lawyer to look at the contract before you sign it. Hell, before you submit anything. The deal–to me–has a very “Siegel and Shuster 2.0″ kind of a vibe, where those fellas sold the idea for Superman for a weekly paycheck and a pat-on-the-back. Except this time I don’t see the industry rallying around you to be properly credited for the work, whether you “own the Copyright” (but not the Trademark or have any real power) or not.

Would you sell off Superman for $14,000?

- Christopher

ITEM! So this Zuda thing, it’s just another way for a multinational corporation to separate you from your Intellectual Property without them paying you what that’s worth. Right? I mean, I’m not missing something? Other than the always-entertaining arguments that a) I can do whatever I want and you don’t know better than me, grandpa! or b) I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING AND I CAN ALWAYS COME UP WITH NEW IDEAS EVEN AFTER I GIVE THESE ONES AWAY. and my favourite c) You’re A Douche. I mean, sure, submit to the will of AOL/Time-Warner if you want to, I guess, but it’s not like the road to webcomics stardom is particularly hidden, or difficult to travel, or without lots of clear guideposts along the way.

ITEM! Speaking of the road to webcomics stardom, a bunch of my friends and associates here in Toronto launched their own webcomics community a few weeks ago. One of their members, Cameron Stewart, finally got around to asking why I hadn’t mentioned that yet on the blog, which is fair, because I really should have as soon as they launched. Honestly, it’s because when I got the “WE’VE LAUNCHED” e-mail the site wasn’t ready yet… Nothing updated, some broken code, all that stuff. I figured I’d wait until they told me to talk about it. I’m every PR-man-or-woman’s dream! So let me introduce TRANSMISSION-X.

“Enjoy new comics every week with Ragni on Mondays and Karl Kerschl’s The Abominable Charles Christopher on Wednesdays, followed by Andy B’s Raising Hell on Fridays, along with Scott Hepburn’s The Port and Cameron Stewart’s Sin Titulo Rounding out the weekend on Saturdays and Sundays respectively.”

I can see why Cameron poked me today, the site’s looking great and all of the currently-updating features have at least a couple of pages ready to read, if not significantly more. Everything there is looking sharp, and, dare I say it? Commercial. I know that commerciality is the enemy of art and all that, but there’s no feeling reading the site that any of these guys–or these comics–aren’t ready for prime time. Let that be today’s lesson: Professional quality comics on the web don’t need to involve AOL/Time-Warner.

Oh, and as I’ve already mentioned a couple of ways in which I’m biased regarding this issue, I’ll add one more to the pile: The next two comics in the TRANSMISSION-X stable are going to launch at The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, August 18th and 19th. Get ready for Arthur Dela Cruz’s KISSING CHAOS and Ramon Perez’ KUKUBURI too. Yay TCAF! Yay Toronto cartoonists!

ITEM! Uh, speaking of The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, heh, uh, I’ve been doing a lot of work on that. It’s getting to be the exciting time, and we’ve been adding guests to the show left-right-and-centre. A great mix of locals and international guests, guys and gals, print comics, web-comix, and self-published work. Since the last time I mentioned it, check out some of the folks we’ve added:

From The Internet: Danielle “Girls With Slingshots” Corsetto, Chris “Dr. McNinja” Hastings, Jason “BlogTO” Kieffer, and Roxanne “Torontoist.com” Bielskis.
From Toronto: Clayton Hamner, Dave Lapp, Peter Thompson, Steve Wilson, and Tara Tallan.
From Art-Comix: Kevin Huizenga, Brian Chippendale, Frank Santoro, James Sturm, and Matthew Thurber.
From “The Mainstream”: Mike Huddleston and Adrian Alphona.
Publishers and Speakers too!: Peter (Little Nemo: So Many Splendid Sundays) Maresca, Dan (PictureBox) Nadel, and Jason (Shonen Jump, MANGA: THE COMPLETE GUIDE) Thompson.

I’m pretty excited about all of this, I think it’s gonna be a great show (but then you’ve heard me mention that already), and there are more… many more… plans on the way. You should book some plane tickets.

- Chris

I don’t know who I was ‘discussing’ this with the other day, but thank you Achewood for clarifying the argument so thoroughly.

- Chris

An Appreciation of Questionable Content

Do you know what I did Saturday? If you do, that’s actually a little creepy. But I’ll tell you anyway: I read all 900+ pages of the webcomic Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques, freely available online at http://questionablecontent.net/. It’s a four-panel “gag” comic with a heavy daily continuity, making the each strip essential for hardcore fans, but making the comic as a whole fairly accessible for folks just jumping in, espescially if they ‘get’ that days’ joke.

I’m bad at webcomics, only reading (with a few small exceptions) the strips that my friends do. Luckily, I’m friends with R. Stevens of Diesel Sweeties, Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics, and Ramon and Rob over at Butternut Squash, so I’ve got most of the best and most popular webcomics covered. But every once in a while, I’ll be introduced to like, Jeffrey Rowland (of WIGU and OVERCOMPENSATING), or Jonathan Rosenberg (of GOATS) or my dear sweet Dr. McNinja Chris hastings, and I’ll be all “Oh, you do a webcomic? Really? I’ve never heard of it…” and make a total asshole of myself.

So at the Paradise show a few weekends back when I picked up a bunch of the shirts from QC, I figured that maybe I could avoid making an ass of myself IN FUTURE by… you know… reading the comics. Plus I think Mal told me that I should at one point. Anyway, it’s all a very good idea, and a time-consuming one, but what better use for 7 hours could I possibly have had?

Right off the bat: If I didn’t have a vested interest in finishing this series, I would have given up in both anger and frustration about half way through. The sexual politics of the first few hundred strips are, to put it bluntly, completely fucked up, and so aggressively wrong-headed that I actually considered stopping at strip 400 to write this post with a WHAT DO PEOPLE SEE IN THIS? HOW IS EVERYONE NOT KILLING THEMSELVES? sort of a vibe going on, which probably wouldn’t have been the best or most productive review. Thankfully at strip 500 the author decides that enough is enough and that a beloved lead character really oughtta stop emotionally and physically abusing the rest of the cast, and does, and that character has been working to redeem themselves ever since. Since this thread of emotional and physical abuse is kind-of the emotional core of the entire comic and the springboard for much of the plot, that it is so completely fucked up will likely turn off… many? Most? of the people I would normally send over to read it, if I didn’t specifically qualify the early strips with: Don’t worry, it’ll turn out okay in the end. The horrible attitudes towards sex and intimacy disappear about half way through, and from then on the strip really blossoms into something excellent. So, yeah. Either start at strip #500, or just grit your teeth like I did.

The strip is excellent though. Even through the occasionally torturous first half, there’s a humour, levity, and real heart to the series. Questionable Content is about a group of young adults in their early-to-mid 20s, working crappy jobs and hanging out and commenting on popular culture. Relationship-oriented drama and humour, through a Pitchfork Media sort of lense (but ironically). It’s a sitcomic… kind of like a gritty, lo-fi Friends with concessions to genuine whimsy and innovation vis-a-vis the occasional talking robot, magical creature, and wrong-headed superhero. Man, if ragging on the sexual politics didn’t piss people off, comparing this to Friends probably will… But seriously, millions of people watched Friends, what’s the big deal? It was a popular show that made you laugh once! Admit it!

(Look! They’ve even got a couch!)

Anyway… As I was mentioning I did really enjoy my experience, and have made visiting the site to see the newest strips part of my daily routine as of Monday morning. I guess what I really liked about it, especially reading it all at once, is seeing where the author’s eye tends to land, and seeing how the strip is shaped because of it. The afformentioned popular culture references usually take the form of band and music genre references, and it’s interesting to me because from 2003-2007, the time that the strip has been running, the authors musical interests have taken a similar path to my own musical interests and experiences. Music has a huge role in the strip, with characters being defined by the music they listen to, their romantic compatibility presaged by their musical compatibility. Sayeth the character Marten in regards to a potential relationship: ”Man I hope that doesn’t become an issue with Dora. What if she can’t stand my musical taste? I mean, I know she likes the Flaming Lips, but we don’t really have a lot in common musically.” It’s just one of the many moments where music defines the various characters and situations, and it really works to give the strip a cohesion that a lot of comics lack.

But the real payoff is in seeing the characters that are introduced and ‘don’t make it’. What if everyone decided that they didn’t like Joey after the first season, and they made Mark and Carol permanent cast members instead? Wouldn’t that be weird? Heh. I love seeing the author’s process and development on the page (and just an aside here: the art undergoes a fairly substantial upgrade from start-to-finish as well, with the most recent strips looking fairly slick and cartoony, and the early strips… Well, there’s a charm to them for sure, but…) and seeing the realisation that the uptight coffee barista wasn’t going to work out, or that the first iteration of a character was a bit… shallow… and needed to be overhauled. It’s great. Author Jeph Jaques even manages to do that rare thing in almost any kind of long-form serialised comics: have the characters grow and change, and have it feel natural. The plot develops out of the characters’ attitudes and behaviour, it’s what good storytelling in this genre of comics is all about.

Actually, one of the things I was going back and forth on with this series was the constant external thought process of all the characters. I can’t tell if I find it refreshing or annoying. No one seems to have an inner monologue, or a thought that doesn’t go unspoken. It might be why I found the early going so difficult as well, because the behaviour of some of the characters was really aggrivating, but hearing their constant justifications for that behaviour was just waaaay too much. It does work really well for the humour though, and even seeing characters fumble through social interaction and dating is fun when they can’t stop babbling to themselves. But if one more character utters “I have issues!” unselfconciously… I dunno. It will probably spark The Rapture or something. Not the band The Rapture either, but the Jimmy Swaggart Rapture. The Charleton Heston Rapture. (Both of those would be good band names).

Anyhow, if you’re looking for another enjoyable, subtantial comic strip to add to your webcomics browsing, I can definitely recommend Questionable Content. Even their shirts are very good. I mean, She Blinded Me With Library Science? That’s gold, Jerry, gold! Wait, that’s a Seinfeld reference, not a Friends reference. So much for my strong closing remark. Ah well.

Sorry.

- Christopher

LA MUSE is great! The thing that I really like is that it takes the promise of something like THE ULTIMATES and follows it through to its natural conclusion, unconcerned about ‘continuity’ or ‘trademarks’ or… whatever. You never know what’s going to happen from week to week, how the myriad of plot points will be resolved… or when… It’s really just a hell of a fun read, and (particularly thanks to the weekly reminder e-mail I get…) I’ve been checking it out every Monday morning for months now, which is more regular than most of the rest of my life.

Anyway, the series has gone on hiatus for the next month, and is instead starting over from the beginning, releasing 10-15 pages a week for your reading pleasure. The first installment of the “Summer Re-Runs” are up now, at http://www.bigheadpress.com/lamuse?page=69. If you want something good…and free… to read, you could do a hell of a lot worse. Go check it out!

- Christopher

He’s come up with seven… well, he probably wouldn’t call them “rules” but let’s say seven pieces of advice for folks that want to produce webcomics (or any kind of art). They’re good rules, in my humble opinion, and at the link he actually backs them up with examples and… you know, stuff. Sorry, my head’s not in the game today, but the info at the link is really good. Go check it out.

“You’re here for the audience. People should be able to count on your being there for them when you say you’re going to be there. Life is annoying, uncertain and full of problems. Comic strips exist to give comfort, make people think and generally help them get through their day/week/geological epoch.

“Stick to your schedule and do your best. Your audience will quietly appreciate you and help you out when you need it. If you work out some personal issues and make yourself feel better for creating something, all the better.”

- Richard Stevens

- Chris
 

Comics Festival Covers. Left by Darwyn Cooke. Right by Bryan Lee O’Malley. 

Hey there folks! We just put the finishing touches on the line-up and layout for our contribution to Free Comic Book Day, Comics Festival 2007! I’m so excited that I just wanted to share it with all of you, and give you a sneak peak at some of the material in the book.

All of these creators have contributed BRAND! NEW! comic stories and comic strips to the book, that will only be available in Comics Festival! Also! This book features 16 pages of full colour material! It’s gonna be awesome!

So, here’s the line-up:

Flip Covers by Bryan Lee O’Malley and Darwyn Cooke

J. Bone, “Jett Vector”
Michael Cho, Brian McLachlan, and Darwyn Cooke, “True Romance”
Darwyn Cooke, “The Alex”
Rob Coughler and Ramon Perez, “Butternutsquash”
Ray Fawkes and Cameron Stewart, “The Apocalipstix”
Eric Kim, “Battle Academy”
Hope Larson, “S is for Salamander, S is for Snow”
Steve Manale, “Superslackers”
John Martz, “The Time Machine”
Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam, “Therefore Repent!”
Ryan North, “Dinosaur Comics!”
Bryan Lee O’Malley, “The Wonderful World of Kim Pine” & “Scott Pilgrim”
Steve Rolston, “Good For Nothing”
Howie Shia, “The Century of Love”
Kean Soo, “Jellaby”
R. Stevens, “Diesel Sweeties”
Zach Worton, “George Washington Carmack”
Doug Wright, “Nipper”
Chip Zdarsky, “Monster Cops”
Jim Zubkavich, “The Makeshift Miracle”

COMICS FESTIVAL 2007! will be available at great comic stores everywhere on Saturday, May 5th, 2007: Free Comic Book Day. If you want copies for you and all of your non-comics-reading friends, make sure to ask your local comic distributor to see if they’ll be carrying copies of the book. Let them know that the order code is:

FEB070041 - COMICS FESTIVAL 2007 FCBD ED – FREE!

For more information, visit http://freecomicbookday.com/, and look for the official Comics Festival 2007 website soon.

- Christopher

I saw this linked a few days ago, and have been thinking about it since then. I’m not really a fan of Girl Genius, and admire Foglio’s work in general but haven’t been moved to really… purchase… any of it, so I sort of let this go. The figure that Foglio asserts have stuck with me though.

See, I work at The Beguiling in Toronto, Canada. We’ve long been touted as one of the best shops for supporting ‘independent’ publications like Foglio’s work, and a quick check shows we have Girl Genius trade paperbacks and issues on the racks, a bunch of What’s New With Phil and Dixie, and even a more-or-less complete run of the XXXenophile collections too. Oh, and Buck Godot. So I have mixed feelings about some of the larger implications of the situations in Foglio’s interview, about going to collection-only or giving away entire books for free. Books that I am at least attempting to sell. My retailer instinct, sort of like my Lizard brain, flares up and wants to shout and stomp and threaten… but luckily I can subdue that most of the time.

Phil Foglio is saving $20,000 per year, not printing comic books.

Holy shit. Even if that number is inflated a little, that’s still a lot of money’s worth of time and physical dollars not disappearing into the void, essentially. Because, and let’s face it, we’re not hooking new readers of fuck-all with issue #8 of Girl Genius. It’s all established readership by that point. The financial factor alone is a pretty solid financial incentive for Foglio to keep working and providing salable content, which is what I as a retailer really actually want, rather than what I think I want, which is issues cluttering up my racks and formats competing with one another.

Speaking of which, just in a dollar-for-dollar sort of a way, if I sell exactly as many trades as issues, and as long as the trades are more-or-less the same price as the issues would have been, we’re not losing any money. Maybe we’re only dragging the reclusive Girl Genius customer out of their bedrooms once every 7 or 8 months now instead of 4 times a year, which is unfortunate, but it’s my job as a retailer to give’em a reason to come back for something else (although it wouldn’t hurt if Foglio would send more of his fans out in search of other comic books either…).

But here’s the thing:

Foglio: “Sales through Diamond have gone way up, and I hear from store owners all the time saying that we’re one of their bigger independent sellers.”

He’s… right. Not about being one of our ‘bigger independent sellers’ or anything, not at our store. But about sales being up? Yupperz! In fact, our trade initial orders are up to around 10 copies from 2, and so far we’ve reordered both of the new trades (since the series moved online) to the tune of around 10 copies each. In fact, just yesterday, a dude I’d never seen before came in, asked for the Girl Genius trades, paid his $51 for volumes 4 and 5, and then walked out. Not that I don’t value the conversations I have with my customers, but if our sales were all 3 minutes per $51, I’d most certainly be earning myself a raise. So, yeah, 20 copies of Girl Genius trades a year is not a couple hundred copies of Acme Novelty Library or anything, but it more than earns it’s spot on our shelves.

So, congrats to Phil Foglio on developing a new serialization format that is beneficial to both him as an artist and to us as the middlemen who provide his art to the public.

- Christopher
P.S.: My friend Carla Speed McNeil underwent a similar shift last year, moving her series Finder online and releasing trade paperback collections. To be completely honest, I have no idea at all how that did for us. I’ll look into it. In the meantime though, check out Carla’s Finder series at http://www.lightspeedpress.com/index.php.

One of the nice things about working at The Beguiling is the mini-comics rack. People come in and drop off new comics all the time, and it’s a treat discovering these short little gems. One of my favourites from last year was Torontonian Rosana Fung’s Tomatoes and Other Stories, a collection of short, surprisingly accomplished little stories by a creator I’d never heard of. It turns out Rosana has put that entire issue online at Flicker, for your viewing pleasure. Check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesoapbox/sets/72157594514967876/.

Last year, I kind of used my friend Adi Tantimedh to abuse the New York Comic Con’s security guards. Last week, Adi’s new comic La Muse launched at Big Head Press, and I didn’t mention it… So, I’m batting 0 for 2 here. I did happen to read the first 19 pages of the comic though, and it’s actually pretty great. Adi’s telling a story about two apparently average women who do something special… It’s the kind of humanistic, realistic superhero story that everyone’s complaining doesn’t exist anymore, but here it is on the internet! It’s a big sexy at points too, which if interesting (note: not skanky, but sexy). While the art is a bit… contemporary superhero… for my tastes, it still conveys the action well-enough though, and artist Hugo Petrus doesn’t shy away from drawing the hard stuff and gives the preceedings a real sense of place. All in all, a fantastically solid debut, totally worth checking out. http://www.bigheadpress.com/lamuse?page=1. (As an aside, Adi’s JLA: AGE OF WONDER is a really great little two-issue prestige format Elseworlds that’s worth tracking down. It’s a total shame that it’s not in print.)

My friend Kevin Church and his partner Benjamin Birdie launched a webcomic of their own a few weeks back. It’s called THE RACK and it’s about working at a comic store, and so far it bears no reflection on working at my comic store. Which is lovely, actually, because Heroclix are just Pokemon cards for 40 year olds and I’m glad we don’t stock them. Updated twice per week at http://www.agreeablecomics.com/therack/.

And while I’m on the subject of Webcomics set inside comic stores, I should probably point you to No Pink Ponies. Which is down right now, but which is actually pretty good when it’s up. It doesn’t manage to completely sidestep comic shop / fanboy cliches, but it does have fun with them and the Batman/Superman yaoi page in particular was lots of fun. Also, this is my reminder to myself to add it to the sidebar. http://www.nopinkponies.com/

I thought I had two or three more to mention, but… nope. Maybe I’ll remember later and do a follow-up.

- Christopher