AXE COP - podcast Interview with Ethan Nicolle

Sarcastic Voyage podcast #51 features a great guest spot by Axe Cop's Ethan Nicolle, the artist and big brother responsible for turning play time with his little brother into an overnight sensation Web Comic with a real, dedicated, and rapidly growing following.

It's a neat conversation with a truly talented artist who caught on to a brilliant idea from the mind of a pretty awesome but not so atypical 5 year old boy, and really made something great out of it. The joy of Axe Cop is the serious presentation of absurd and frenetic stories and ideas. When you read it, you really get the feel of the thought processes that go on in little kids heads.

It's a very funny webcomic, and the website also features Ask Axe Cop, which takes questions from readers and turns each answer into a page of comics. It's well worth giving a look if you haven't already.

Sarcastic Voyage podcast, which I have mentioned recently in regard to Michael Kupperman's guest spot in episode 49, is available on ITunes, and through their website. It's well worth listening to. Of note, in addition to the comic creators that have recently been on as guests, is episode 50, a fun romp presented as a sort of 'Behind the Podcast'. It's a good time, go listen!

No such thing as a Wednesday without comics

In an attempt to make Disappointment Wednesday a little less so, I went the webcomics route. There is a ton of really great stuff out there for free just waiting to be read, and even still I don't tend to read enough of it. I read a large number of items on Zuda, and have a handful of others that I frequent, but still I don't even touch a fraction of even the most well known and regarded comics on the web. I went the easy route and started at ACT-I-VATE.

ACT-I-VATE is a webcomics collective that was started by Dean Haspiel in 2006. It provides a place for talented, hand picked creators to host their comics and serialized graphic novels. There is a great lot of great and recognizable talent there. There are dozens of offerings, and previously I have only read one or two. Not sure why, but then I am never sure what keeps me from reading good stuff that everyone else is smart enough to read when it's new.

Here's What I read there:

Adventures of Maxy J. Millionaire - Paul Maybury - This was a Zuda contest entry at one point. I loved it there, and I love it here. Especially wonderful is the last page where Maxy confronts Paul about the book that he's supposed to do about Maxy. Maxy J. is a stuffed toy who loves chicken nuggets and writing checks. He leaves his girl after she has grown up and put him through the indignity of having sex with someone in his bed. It's sort of cute and sweet and sad. Maxy is naive and self centered and a bit delusional. It's a really good character. I love Maybury's art, and would love to see this go someplace.

Beanbots - Kevin Kobasic - I may use the word sweet alot in this post. Beanbots focuses on a Dad and his two daughters (I am a father of two daughters, so it really resonates, but it is good regardless of that) The art is sort of soft focus and cute, but in a way that drives home the whole raising girls thing. If you have girls, or know them, or were one, or are one, you know that especially when they are little they can be a cross between the cutest thing you have ever encountered and a Tasmanian devil, or sometimes the actual devil. They can undo anything you are secure in, and make you love more than you thought was possible. This is a very funny strip, but there is a reality to it that is just perfect. One of my favorite strips has the Dad taking care of the two girls and walking with them in public. They have angel halos and he has a superman cape. By the end of the strip both of them are bawling and he has an ass for a head(hopefully you follow that link to see the whole thing).

Flowing Wells - Andrew Dimitt - This is another comic that was in a Zuda competition once. 8 screens and the sort of storytelling that this is didn't translate well into the Zuda model. That is a sort of Weakness in the Zuda concept, but it certainly isn't damning in my opinion to Zuda or this strange but excellent comic. Flowing wells is almost entirely narrative so far. The art is really great, and very clean. I am seriously a big fan of this. I don't fully get it, but the concept as I understand it is very cool. It is something that really needed space to grow and develop, and given that, draws you in well. As I understand it, Flowing Wells is like if the Sims took place on an actual planet and everything was actually built upon the planet and the sims that were created there suffered under various mods that caused all sort of problems, including giving them free will. When we join the story there are very few 'people' left there.

Underwire - Jennifer Hayden - This is perhaps my favorite. These pieces are absolutely from a woman's perspective, but they are less gender specific than they are just true to life, easily identifiable pieces of on the human experience. The art is absolutely perfect. It is personal and accessible and expressive. I have linked to my favorite panel of my favorite story. Visit the link then start at the beginning of the story. Each chapter is a 12 to 18 panel strip that comes off as a short story or vignette. They all work for me and give us looks at real and different every day sorts of occurrences elevated to art. I highly recommend this. The panel I have linked to is a situation that my wife and I definitely experienced ourselves with our oldest. We pointed out the moment things changed as well. Hayden is working on a graphic novel - "The Story of My Tits" which is scheduled for 2011 from Top Shelf, according to her website . It is definitely on my list as something I need to get when it comes out.

For the final webcomic I read, I looked no further than someone I follow on twitter, and whose blog I regularly visit - Keven Church - I have only read a few entries of his webcomic The Rack, but it is definitely something I want to read. Today I chose to Read the 'limited series' spin off of the Rack-

Lydia: A comic strip about corporate culture. - There was no issue with understanding and enjoying this, despite my limited experience with The Rack. It was very funny, very well drawn, and extremely well written. It wasn't Dilbert, and it wasn't The Office, it was yet again unique, despite covering an angle on a set up that has been done a good bit. This takes it from a slightly different direction than we have seen it before, and works. Lydia went from working in a comic shop to working in a corporate environment where it was immediately clear that management was flaky and imbalanced, but not immediately clear what the job was that she was hired to do. Good clever stuff, go read it now.

Andy Bellinger's Bottle of Awesome (and Raising Hell)

Bottle of Awesome is a new Zuda Instant Winner that premiered today. The art is pretty amazing, but that should be no surprise to anyone familiar with Bellinger's work. At the moment there are only two pages up, but it looks like it will be pretty cool, the premise seems promising, and it will be updating regularly from this point on. Here is the synopsis from Zuda:

This is a story about a boy named Billy Butterman, a loser, a putz - what have you, just trying to get through grade nine. High school is a total nightmare. All the cool guys pick on him, chicks don't dig him and everyone at the school calls him "Butterpants," because he had bladder control problems till he was twelve. That is, till the day he finds a hobo in an alley. Billy notices the bum has a full bottle that he’s not drinking from and the bum tells him it is because the bottle is full of awesome and that a a sip will make him awesome as well. He warns the boy that a person can get too awesome, but will Billy heed his words?

What I imagine we will get from this series, although much different in subject matter, is the same sort of terrific art, humor, and characterization that Bellinger has proven himself to be particularly good at in his fantastic zombie apocalypse meets dysfunctional relationship webcomic Raising Hell (not for kids) at Transmission X
Raising Hell focuses on Aries & Kitty, a can't live together, can't live apart sort of couple, always on the verge of making out or beating the crap out of each other. In addition to those two, we also get a nice cast of equally interesting and well defined supporting characters. The story starts on Halloween, and we get a good long setup of the sort of folks we will be spending time with before we are plunged into gore-filled chaos and humor.

It's really good stuff, the writing and art/layout/color, are all just perfect. It moves fast and really makes it hard to pull yourself away from it.


I recommend both of these, and as always, if you aren't already making the most of Zuda and the great free comics you can get there, you really should be. I know I say it a lot, but I also say 'get free comics at your local library!' I don't get anything from Zuda but the comics I read there, I just know that there are some very good creators and and some exceptional comics there. Remember to view the comics in full screen mode for best effect!

Zuda - May Competition

Toughest month ever. There are 3-5 entries that I swear would be winners in any other month but this one. Get yourself to zuda now. Read, Enjoy, Vote. You owe it to yourself.

Here are the competing entries for May (Alpha order)


As is evident from just the small ad icons, This month has absolutely fantastic art, and wildly varied styles and genres. There are no entries that I felt were awful, no premises that I thought were flat out awful, etc. Some of these aren't developed in a way that gets you hooked completely in eight pages, and that is the first criteria by which I thinned the field for my vote.

That was the easy part. After reading and re-reading, I finally thinned the field to my personal favorite three. For me that's Sides, Freak City, and Clandestino. Each of these is great, and certainly deserves to go on. I hope they all continue somewhere, as I would love to keep reading them (among other entries as well). I finally based my vote on what I thought was the most unique when viewed against past Zuda winners. In that regard, for me, Clandestino is the one I would like to see win the contest for this month. That was not at all my initial thought when I read it. It was in the running, but didn't move to the front for me before I had read everything a few times and started to work out what made a winner for me.

Obviously, no-one is obligated to put that much thought and effort into their vote, but taking it seriously is part of what makes it fun for me.

Remember kids... Comics on Zuda are best viewed in full screen mode. If you have the skills to reach the website, you have the skills to enjoy Zuda.

Bengo and Pug

A while back I posted one of my sort of usual Zuda related posts. I got a response asking me if I considered reading other webcomics in addition to Zuda offerings. In response to that, I did a 'Webcomics that aren't zuda' post, and plan to do more of those.

The person that responded to my post, and really got me thinking about the vast range of webcomics, and my relative tunnel vision with regard to it, was Bengo, of Bengo & Pug, a Husband and wife team that seems to live and breathe webcomics.

I immediately read Scratchin Post and Li'l Nyet, Webcomics the couple produces, and sought out to learn a bit more about them, and then... true to form... got distracted by some other things, and decided there were a few other posts I needed to make before doing a post specifically about those strips. I have revisited this a few times, and I really think that links are going to be our friend in this case.

Scratchin PostLi'l Nyet:
I sincerely enjoy both of these comics a great deal. I appreciate them more after continued reading, but it is easy to appreciate them immediately on at least some level. Read either one long enough, and you will involuntarily be speaking with a Russian accent in no time. The character design and the art are perfect comic strip fare. The art is clean, the colors are bright, and the characters are simple but distinctive. Expressions are rendered nicely. It's good stuff.

The writing is well done, and smart. It is very possible that at any moment, a statement is being made. It's also possible that just a joke is being made. These aren't heavy strips on the surface, but they are not without substance. Li'l Nyet takes place in Soviet Russia, but it has a feel that is very much in keeping with strips like Dilbert on some level. Li'l Nyet is, In my opinion, a spiritual cousin to Catbert or even Dogbert from that strip. Scratchin Post is filled with a nice variety of main and supporting characters, but the obvious stars are The Grimyko sisters, Katrinka and Natasha (Russian Blue cats) and Trixie Schwartz (a Labrador). Go here to read more about the characters.

One really nice thing about the setup of Scratchin Post, is that there are cohesive storylines to it. These arcs have their own link buttons on the main page so you can go to a specific storyline if you want to. I am sure there are other webcomics that do this, but I haven't encountered them yet. It's a feature I find kind of useful. It also speaks to the fact that there even ARE multi-strip storylines, which is nice as well.

I love comics and comics people. I love people who take the thing they love and really commit themselves to it. These folks really seem like that. In addition to the previously mentioned webcomics, Between them they run The Floating Lightbulb, which exists to cover 'Webcomics as an evolving art and serious profession', and Psychadelic Treehouse, a Webcomics resource site. Some or all of these are facing impending renovations to make them better in all ways, but they are certainly all worth looking at.

When I was trying to figure out exactly what to say, I saw this Interview posted on The Webcomic Overlook from December of 2008 in their 'Who Are You' feature. I had never seen that site before (as I have not really been seeking out webcomics reporting and sites, but it also looks pretty good. Comics can be as much of a journey as you want it to be. I only recently (last year) dipped my toes into looking at mini comics and the like, and now, thanks to Bengo, I am a bit more resolved to pay attention to webcomics. It never hurts to make people aware of something you think they might be missing out on. Sometimes it takes a degree of advocacy to get people to take notice of things that are awesome. Nice job folks, keep up the good work!

Webcomics that aren't Zuda

Not too long ago I was given an opportunity to think about why I only seem to post about Zuda when it comes to comics on the web. The point was made very nicely, and gently, but it did make me think about it. There is something to the structure, and the one stop shopping model of Zuda that makes it easier for me to dive into than trying to find webcomics out there in the wine dark sea of the Internet, and then remembering to go back.

This doesn't mean that I have never read other comics online. There are a handful that I have enjoyed reading on a continued basis in the past. Before I start trying to detail my more recent reads, I figured I could do this post to cover my old favorites.

Noses Optional - This started as a senior project, and continued for a good while after that. It was initially co-written and co-drawn by Kristy Bourgeois & Sara-Fred Rickert. Eventually it became a solo endeavor for Kristy. It was a drawn from life sort of fun strip with fun commentary, by nice people. It had forums associated with it that were a nice place to chat. Kristy and her friends were super nice and fun and accommodating when my daughter and I visited their booth in Pittsburgh. Almost everything in it was a recap of something that happened in real life. I know that this sort of strip gets panned sometimes, but it was good and funny. It was drawn well, very cute, and was done by a genuinely nice and talented person.

It is now updated very infrequently, which is a shame. I sure hope Kristy does more of something, as I really like her work. Here are a few examples:

http://nosesoptional.comicgenesis.com/d/20040327.html
http://nosesoptional.comicgenesis.com/d/20040407.html
http://nosesoptional.comicgenesis.com/d/20080710.html

Girls With Slingshots - Danielle Corsetto - Speaking of really talented and nice women who make webcomics... GWS was suggested to me as a good example of a strip that was funny but had running storylines and good characters, etc. It's definitely a strip for adults, but that isn't a negative thing. It is funny and smart and sometimes funny and not smart... It's like... People you may know in your own life. It is not a real life strip, there is a talking cactus named McPedro, for example. The characters are all distinct in design and in personalities. I have seen comics about groups of friends done poorly, and this one is an example of how to do it right. It focuses on drinking a bit much, but other than making you periodically worry for their fictional health and well being. Since there is a great illustrated cast list, I will just link to it. I met Danielle at Heroes in NC last year and thought she was just awesome. I stopped by her booth at SPX and she was very busy and called me sir, which depressed me for a few minutes, until I decided that there was nothing wrong with being polite, and that I actually AM old. Here are some example strips

http://www.daniellecorsetto.com/gwscast.html
http://www.daniellecorsetto.com/archive.php?today=682&comic=83
http://www.daniellecorsetto.com/archive.php?today=682&comic=669
http://www.daniellecorsetto.com/archive.php?today=682&comic=662



I first read Pictures For Sad Children because people smarter and cooler than I am were talking about it. I met John Campbell at SPX last year and happily bought some minis from him. He seemed like a real nice guy, and was fun to chat briefly with. I am not sure if he called me 'sir' or not. I don't love every single strip he does, but I bet you there is someone out there for every strip he does. There is a great deal of humor here, most of it bleak, and it is a perfect example of how well fairly minimalist art can come off when done right. He has a blog that is worth keeping up with, and I will post it's link here too.


http://stereotypist.livejournal.com/
http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/
http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=253
http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=150
http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=86

Zuda's competition for March

I just recently finished reading all of the entries in this month's Zuda Competition. There's some really good stuff as usual. Not all of the entries are to my tastes, but there is a very nice variety of styles and genres represented here, though, and that certainly makes it worth checking out.

The two entries that I personally liked the most this month are:





Neither of these are very high up in the voting, but both stand out to me. The style used for The Dirty Mile is just cool as can be, and it is written really well. The premise as it seems from the 8 pages is similar to a number of things we've seen before, but the execution seems good enough that I don't imagine it will be an issue.

Lani, The Leopard queen is one that unfortunately the 8 pages on their own may not convey enough to fully hook people to what looks like a fantastic synopsis if they don't actually take a moment to read the synopsis. It starts with an abandonment dream sequence, which seems a little risky in a competition like this, as it may not show enough of what you are going to get if you keep reading. What it does show you is an absolutely beautiful illustration style. It has an old feel to it, and a very admirable conscious direction of being an all ages comic. That is part of the creators specific vision for this, based on comments he has made in the feedback

Check out all the offerings, let me know what you are liking there this month. More importanly though, let THEM know what you are liking.

Celadore

Unless you are allergic to awesome, you are going to enjoy this comic. Yes, I have been posting a bit heavy on the Zuda love lately, but I can't help it. For some dumb reason I had resisted actually getting into Zuda for a long time. I had checked out items specifically recommended by one or two people, but never even tried to go beyond that. It was as if someone gave me a giant box of pretty great comics for free and I shrugged and said "why don't you hold on to them for now." Fortunately for me I have gotten past that. In the past month I have read at least four free online comics that are every bit as good as the best titles that I am paying upwards of four bucks for in the store. The scales are off my eyes I guess. I promise that I will expand my focus beyond Zuda and cover any good webcomics I find.

Enough of that general stuff, now for something specific.


Click on this link to go to Celadore.

Celadore is written and illustrated by Caanan , and centers on the kick-butt monster hunter Celadore and her band of extraordinary compatriots. Celadore herself is no slouch, but the 'people' she surrounds herself with are positively supernatural. Jams is a 'Frankenstein-Monster', Wax is a shapeshifter, Ness is the(a?) tooth fairy, and their seems to be no end to the possibilities of other creatures that she may work with or against in her world, which looks an awful lot like this one except for the aforementioned sorts of creatures running around in it.

Right off the bat Celadore is put into a situation that you might think would end her monster hunting duties. Her soul is pulled right out of her body and ends up in the body of a young girl who had been in a coma for three months. This development doesn't slow her down, as her strength and abilities convey to the new body, and she ends up with two new companions in the form of the 'ghost' of the girl whose body she inhabits and that girl's adventure seeking, ninja-loving best friend.

I hesitate to say things like this, because I don't want anyone to think that this is any sort of knock-off. This is a truly fresh and fun comic, written perfectly, and drawn equally as well. To me it is like the best possible marriage of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Kim Possible. For the record, I love both of those to a near unnatural degree. It is different from those two shows in as many ways as it is similar, and I mean that as high praise.

I certainly hope this comic continues to be picked up by Zuda and that we get to see lots of further adventures with the cast of characters we were introduced to in this 'origin story' of sorts. I also would love to see a paper copy some day that I can put on my shelf and flip through without page loads and stuff.

If you follow the link I put in above, and you like the comic, do everyone a favor by registering a free account and submitting feedback about the comics you like. It is one of the ways they decide what to keep supporting on the site.

Zuda, it's the Zima of comics

By that I mean delicious, refreshing and totally hip, of course! Maybe I don't understand the name, maybe I don't fully understand how you know which comics will continue to be updated and for how long, etc., but I DO know that I am getting a lot of enjoyment out of a lot of really great comics thanks to that site

Zuda, as you know is the DC comics web comics arm. They have monthly contests that pit web comic offerings against each other for something... honestly I am not fully clear on how all of this works. I have poked around some, but other than the basic idea that I read things, I rate them, and I give my vote to the one that I think is best, I may be too lazy to figure it out beyond that.

Here is the December contest page

There are a number of good entries here. I won't detail them all, but my favorite two right now are:


I recommend reading all of the offerings, but Angus Frump Kills Christmas is extremely well done and non-stop funny. It is very polished in it's art and in it's humor. I certainly hope we get to see plenty more of it.

A Single Soul looks very promising, and stands out thanks to the pretty incredible pen and ink drawing, as well as what looks to be a sort of mythological horror / action/adventure motif. Given it's nature I will need to see more of it to really know anything about it, but so far it stands out a bit more than the other offerings I liked after 'angus'

If you are looking for other recommendations of top notch comics to read, I would put the following three up against just about anything else I read regularly in terms of quality and entertainment value: High Moon, Night Owls, Bayou.

Zuda

Rest assured, once a train has pulled fully out of the station I will be right there and ready to get on.

Zuda is DC Comics' Webcomics division. I have really only read a few things there in the past, and never previously voted in their competitions or rated comics there, etc. I have been following the comic The Night Owls there, and it is great. The art and writing both are terrific. I also read Paul Maybury's very cute Adventure's of Maxy J. Millionaire, which I liked a lot.

I went back to read more recently, and am going to try to give this thing a spin for a while. There is a competition going on right now, and after having read all of the offerings I have to say that this one is my current favorite:

I am going to admit, that this site has a fairly steep learning curve for someone like me who is slow to embrace new things sometimes. It took me some fiddling around and trial and error, but I mostly got the hang of it.

The voting/rating/commenting aspect of the site is interesting to me. I don't have a great sense of what it really all amounts to, but it is still kind of fun, and for the most part I have seen constructive criticism presented in a fairly civil way. If it gives me a free source of new comics to browse and read at will, I am inclined to like it. Like most things where you have a wide variety of creators, not all of the offerings are great, but some really are. You can rest assured that I will report on what I read there in the future.