Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Zuda : A love story

I figured that it was about time for me to post about Zuda again. I know that I haven given plenty of lip service to Bayou, and I previously devoted a post to Celadore, but that doesn't mean I am done talking about them.

If you really haven't heard of Zuda before, stop right now and follow this link right here

Zuda is the DC comics Webcomics division. It is set up around a monthly contest where everyone can read and rate and vote on a selection of webcomics all 8 screens long. Winners of the monthly contests get the ability to continue offering their strips at Zuda(I assume), and as such, there are an ever increasing number of regularly updating webcomics of all genres and styles. There really is a pretty great variety among the offerings, although themes of horror and fantasy and science fiction are represented perhaps more heavily than others, but within those designations the variety is still pretty great. None of the series I am reading on Zuda remind me even the slightest of any of the others I am reading there, or for the most part anywhere else. The talent that is regularly updating on this site is pretty staggering. I recently voiced a sort of half sincere 'complaint' about webcomics in general, and having to wait for relatively small bites for my personal taste. I am generally a sort of voracious comic reader, and when I start reading something great, i want to read it all, right now. It was pointed out by one of the sites top creators that they actually update at a rate of 4 pages weekly, which is a pretty great rate, actually. That got me to thinking, and I came to a different conclusion than I had previously had.

A particularly nice thing about the site isn't that I can go there and read a single web comic when it is updated and just forget about it until the next update and never look at any other aspect of the site... although you could do that and still get way more than your moneys worth. What is really nice for me is that there is such a wealth of talent there and community as well, that if you go in weekly or biweekly, or whatever, you have this fantastic online serialized anthology, with the ability to post and interact with the creators. There is also a certain joy to a place where there seem to be as many creators paying attention to the community and the comics there, as there are random readers. It really makes it a pretty cool experience that is greater than the some of its parts as they say.

Here's what I am reading these days: (along with how many screens they have up right this second)

The Night Owls
- 101 screens so far of Hilarity and style. This comic strip is reliably funny and beautifully drawn. If you aren't reading it, you should be... Unless you hate funny.
High Moon - Weird Western - 134 pages - Written and drawn as well as anything in print, in my opinion. This series has the supernatural western vibe with compelling characters and great stories. Now in it's third season!
Bayou - Horror fantasy -181 screens so far, and a book due out next quarter!- (in their words) South of the Mason-Dixon Line, lies a strange land of gods and monsters. Born from centuries of slavery, civil war, innocent bloodshed, hate and strife lurks a world parallel to our own. I love everything about this.
Re-evolution - Fantasy, Action - 47 screens - The charismatic leader of the anti Gorrilla resistance is Che-huahua... He wears the little hat and a red cape which may just be his blankie. It's sort of like Planet of the Apes, only with Animals instead of people... sort of. It's great!
Imaginary Boys - Fantasy adventure - 36 screens - Elise Dawn is a young girl on a fantastic journey through the other worlds of the afterlife with the help of her dog Robert. The art is stylish and the character design is pretty fantastic.
Celadore - Fantasy, Comedy, Monster hunters, etc. Absolutely terriffic stuff 60 screens down, and season 2 starts in March!!! Great time to catch up and jump in for the new season.
Dual - Horror - 44 screens, crazy awesome premise, great read.
Road - Science Fiction, Action Adventure - Great art, interesting sort of Warhammer 40k kind of religion and technology thing going on in an extremely cool looking world.
Azure - post apocalyptic underwater sci-fi- Just started it's regular update schedule, looks fantastic so far.
I Rule The Night - Super Hero Horror, 19 screens - Absolutely creepy, but not without a dark humor to it

And this isn't close to being all there is to read there... Be smart... check them out!

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