Tagged: Web

Demons Speak Directly To You!

The choices are many and the product is great this week on the comics and DVD shelves, from clever trade paperback collections to classy hard covers and some nifty DVDs – it’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas – and ComicMix Radio previews it all, just in time for your holiday hinting!

Plus:

• Now that you’ve seen Demons Of Sherwood – FREE right here on ComicMix – get the inside story from creators Bo Hampton and Robert Tinnell on where it came from and where it’s going!

• Batman gets another sales boost from Ras Al Ghul

• Can you guess what the Top Ten Most Searched-For TV shows are on the web? Would you believe Heroes isn’t one of them?

Do What The Lady says – Press The Button!

A Whale of an Anniversary

  • News
  • November 12, 2007

Today marks the anniversary of the first governmentally exploded whale. Yes, you read right: whale explosion.

37 years ago today, in an effort to dispose of a rotting carcass, the Oregon Highway Division set out to blow up a dead sperm whale with a half ton of dynamite.  The resulting explosion sent blubber flying and totaled a car a quarter of a mile away. The incident was made famous in 1990 when columnist Dave Barry wrote about it with graphic hilarity, and the news footage of the disposal has since gone on to become the fifth most watched video on the Internet, according to the BBC.

And if you’re wondering why "governmentally" exploded was the necessary modifier, it’s because whales have been known to spontaneously blow up by themselves. Recently in Taiwan a dead sperm whale beat its transporters to the punch during a postmortem move when the gas inside its decomposing body built up enough for it to, well, you know what. If you thought your job sucked, just think of the janitor who was responsible for that clean up. Oddly enough, whales are not the only self-explosive animals; maybe just the funniest.

To no one’s surprise, there’s a web site devoted to this at theexplodingwhale.com. What is surprising is that there’s currently a one man show running in Chicago about it. Countdown: The Story of the Exploding Whale runs Wednesday nights at 8pm from October 10th through November 28th at the Apollo Theater, 2540 N Lincoln Avenue. Bring the kiddies.

Strongbad teaches you to make webcomics

  • News
  • October 9, 2007

strongbadwebcomics-1848644It’s not enough that Strongbad can type with boxing gloves on, apparently he can draw too. Or cut and paste, like so many others do. But we do admire his closing argument: Why can’t you just make a comic? Everyone knows that putting "web" in front of words just makes them crappier…

GLENN HAUMAN: How to create your own webcomic!

  • News
  • September 4, 2007

yourownwebcomic-7193174People have been speculating that we here at ComicMix were going to start up with a webcomic any day now, but we had a secret shame — we didn’t actually know how to create 21st century cutting edge webcomics that all the kids read today. But thanks to Ridiculopathy (with a hat tip to Dirk Deppey) we finally know how to do it!

Rule #1 – Don’t draw anything. Illustration is hard work and a time-consuming skill to acquire. Thanks to modern technology, most notably the copy & paste feature found on most modern computers, it is now completely unnecessary. Grab a random image from Google Image Search and add some speech bubbles. Don’t even draw the speech bubbles- just search "speech bubble" on your pal Google Image Search.

Easy enough. Who needs real artists and letterers anyway? They’re always late, and just make you tired and grouchy.

Rule #2 – Don’t write actual jokes. Other than the mistake of spending time drawing a comic, the second most common mistake newcomers make is writing one. Some people waste hours wracking their brains for a funny premise or clever line, but it’s utterly pointless and only exposes you to the danger of your readers just not finding your jokes funny. Instead, start from a very specific audience (most often based on a fandom, fundamentalist religion, or bizarre sexual practice) and tell them what they want to hear in four-panel format.

Hey, we can skip over getting writers too? Hot damn! Brian, we just dropped our burn rate down to, like, nothing! We can put it all back into T&A — er, sorry, T&E. Travel and Entertainment. Really. Honest.

Rule #3 – Don’t be gracious. A great way to generate buzz for your web comic is by picking a fight with another web comic, preferably someone with a more established site so that the inevitable "look at what this moron just said" links on his forum will boost your server stats. Again, you can’t and probably shouldn’t write jokes about them, so just barf up a few panels about calling your target names and making them cry.

This keeps getting better and better! Hey, um — who do we want to pick on today? Scott Kurtz? No, we’ll see him this weekend. Warren Ellis? He’s not crossing the Atlantic for a year, but his fans are scary. Wait — Bendis! He’s under an exclusive contract, he wouldn’t be able to write for us anyway, so we don’t have to suck up to him. Hey, Bendis! Get a toupee!

Rule #4 —

Oh, who cares at this point? We’re ready! We know everything! Time to start up a web comics publishing empire!

I wonder if we can have a press release ready in time for Baltimore….

(more…)

BIG BROADCAST talks with Roy Thomas!

roy-6265082He calls himself the "Super Adaptoid" of comics and we can easily say he’s done it all – from Sgt. Fury to the Justice Society and from Millie The Model to Conan. How did a school teacher from Missouri end up writing so much comics history for the last four decades? Roy Thomas tells The Big ComicMix Broadcast all about it in an exclusive interview!

Meanwhile we’re covering more title changes at DC, MTV’S VIdeo Music Awards get remixed and we rundown of a bunch of new stuff on the web to look at if you get bored over your three-day weekend.

You have the day off, so PRESS THE BUTTON and let’s party down!

Today South Park, tomorrow the world!

  • News
  • August 29, 2007

south_park-4747322Via Cynopsis: South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker entered into a heavy-duty contract with Comedy Central to create South Park Digital Studios. The facility, located inside of the show’s Culver City studio, will serve as a home for all digital extensions of the South Park franchise as well as an incubator for new animated projects. Comedy Central gets a first-look option at anything they come up with.

The deal also includes a three-year contract extension that will carry South Park through its 15th season and gives Matt and Trey an unprecedented 50/50 split in ad revenues generated across the web, video games and mobile platforms, in addition to undisclosed millions in upfront cash.

And to think they were going to quit after the 65th episode.

LA Times claims comic book funk

  • News
  • July 17, 2007

In an op-ed piece in today’s Los Angeles Times, Tim Cavanaugh traces the disconnect between comic book’s influence on mass media and comic book’s actual sales.  He starts out on this up-beat note:  "Dying media don’t come much dying-er than monthly comic books."

He goes on to decry the "cloying, creepy, did-I-accidentally-enter-a-porn-shop vibe" of many comic book stores, and the cautiousness of most publishers.  He talks to Tom Spurgeon and Peter Bagge.

Like so many others, Cavanauagh suggests that the web may be the solution.  Stay tuned.

Kesel and the Jets

nationaltriumph-5484738In the category of "familiar names in not so familiar places," editor Barbara Randall Kesel (late of CrossGen, Dark Horse and DC) has a new gig — overseeing a comic entitled The National Triumph League, which will be cowritten by New York Jets fullback Darian Barnes.

The Jets’ official site is already publicizing this venture, including an interview with Barnes where he discusses the comic (about 4:50 into the video) and mentions their nascent web home. 

A bit more from the book’s colorist, Jason Embury: "The National Triumph League is the story of super powered teams, battling to capture villains in a competitive environment for points, and deals with the real life issues concerning the pressure and notoriety of being a professional athlete and life in the public eye.  A fun new twist on standard superhero fare."  Barnes is cowriting the book with Josh Goldfond, and the art will be by Jim Muniz, with coloring by Embury and lettering by Jason Hanley.

Barnes notes that the book is still looking for a publisher, but one assumes that a professional NFL player won’t have any trouble funding this kind of enterprise.

System of a down

Even if you have a pretty new computer these days, you might be out of luck when it comes to new diversions.

A brand-new web-only science fiction series called Sanctuary has debuted, and I couldn’t even get the preview to play on my new Macbook without it freezing and reloading four times in two minutes.  And that’s with the most updated version of Flash.

And Blizzard has just announced StarCraft II — which also freezes up the machine when we try to play the trailer.

Heck, I can’t even grab any artwork to show you, it’s all Flash and fancy stuff.  If you think your machine can take it, you now have the links.

Have I mentioned there are tons of computer users (like my mom) still on dial-up?

The Big ComicMix Broadcast watches the tube

The Big ComicMix Broadcast slides into the weekend with a wrap up of the big week of TV News, the scoop on a few new variant covers to hunt down, more things to watch on the web and the return of two popular indy comics. Plus we sit down with former DC superstar DAN MISHKIN and get the story on a new line of young reader books done by some very familiar comic pros.

And if that wasn’t enough, The Big ComicMix Broadcast digs up – Tony Danza! All you have to do is (all together now) PRESS THE BUTTON!

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