Comic Book Resources

Slash Print | Following the digital evolution

iPhone applications | Apple has rejected an iPhone application called "Bobble Rep" featuring artwork by MAD Magazine artist Tom Richmond. The application is a database of the members of the U.S. Congress, and includes names, contact information and caricatures of each of them drawn by Richmond. Each image also serves as a virtual "bobblehead" when the phone is shaken.

Apple's rejection letter said "it contains content that ridicules public figures," which they said violates their iPhone Developer Program License Agreement.

"This is the very reason that Apple as a company should be taken to task over its ludicrous and inconsistent app approval policies," Richmond writes. "Clearly this app does not 'ridicule public figures' and is violating nothing, but Apple has decided the world must be protected from the insidious subversiveness this would force upon the public and the brutal, heinous ridicule that my cruel, cruel caricatures would subject these politicians to."

Daryl Cagle, who is waiting to hear back from Apple on a political cartoon application, offers commentary. Richmond says the producers of the application are looking at other options, including other platforms.

Digital comics | Over at Boing Boing, Douglas Rushkoff talks a little bit more about the alternate reality game and online graphic novel he's doing for Smoking Gun Interactive.

Webcomics | Shannon Wheeler of Too Much Coffee Man fame is considering joining the ACT-I-VATE crew with a new strip, and he needs a name for it. Speaking of ACT-I-VATE, be sure to check out Dean Haspiel's new strip, A-Okay Cool.

Straight for the art | Monster Mashups

Monster Mashups

Dean Haspiel points us to Monster Mashups, a collaboration between Tim Hall and Jen Ferguson "depicting the lesser known aspects of some of the most notorious creatures in the Western lexicon of horror." Haspiel says:

Tim Hall (writer) and Jen Ferguson (artist) began collaborating late in the summer of 2009, when Tim became aware of Jen’s peculiar art and vice-versa: a working friendship was born. Tim Hall had begun “Uplift the Positivicals,” a new “comic without comics” (somewhat like Hazel Motes’ “Church of Christ Without Christ” in Flannery O’Connor’s novel “Wise Blood”) on Act-i-vate.com, a webcomix collective founded by mutual friend and artist Dean Haspiel. Tim asked Jen to illustrate some of his most demented passages, which turned out to be the perfect assignment for the artist, who years earlier had nearly been booted out of an illustration program at Pratt and sworn off anything that involved “assignments.” Tim’s first request of Jen is that she draw a plushie’s fantasy: a Paddington Bear bed with mechanical arms. After this intriguing first request, stranger ones followed.

Digital Interface: The Ron Perazza Interview

Later this month, Zuda Comics will celebrate its second anniversary as DC's webcomics imprint. One of the people responsible for the success is Ron Perazza, Vice President of Creative Services.

Welcome Ron.

For starters, take a moment to tell our readers who you are.

Sure. I'm the Vice President of Creative Services for DC Comics - which doesn't really do much to describe what I do every day. In a nutshell, I'm responsible for what can very, very loosely be described as "other." Ha! It includes everything from custom publishing (like posters for the American Library Association or LEGO's Bionicle Comics), creative for promotions and tie-ins based on DC Comics characters (like the BATMAN BEGINS DVD menu, the SUPERMAN RETURNS/PEPSI webcomic or the SMALLVILLE animated "content wraps") and creation of marketing materials such as convention graphics, house ads or PREVIEWS. I also oversee DC Online, which includes all of our websites, of course, but also things like the audio/video & podcasts and I'm very involved with DC Comics' talent search, which we do at conventions. On top of all of that, I run Zuda Comics - DC Comics' webcomics imprint. It's kind of never the same day twice.

For those who haven't heard about Zuda Comics, what it is all about?

Zuda Comics is DC Comics' webcomic imprint. Basically we're publishing comics online and then later, once there's enough material available, collecting them as graphic novels for traditional print distribution. We take open submissions - anyone can send us their ideas and samples - but we select what we're going to publish in kind of a unique way. On the one hand we have a traditional editorially driven selection process where the Zuda Editors (Kwanza, Nika and I) simply read, review and select what we think would be good for the site. However, in addition to that we have a competition where we put the submissions online and let the users decide. The resulting catalog is a pretty interesting mix of genre and style but I think it's been very effective so far.

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Talking Comics with Tim: Tim Hall

Excerpt from current Uplift the Postivicals

I almost renamed the feature Talking Text-Comics with Tim for this week's interview with Tim Hall, but I thought better of it. Hall's project, Uplift the Postivicals, is ambitious, oddly engaging and unlike anything else that ACT-I-VATE has featured over the years. Hall's ACT-I-VATE bio covers everything you need to know before jumping into the actual interview: "Multimedia writer and journalist Tim Hall has been a champion of indie and DIY comics since 1995, when he first began publishing such future stars as Dean Haspiel, Josh Neufeld, Nick Bertozzi, and Sam Henderson (and many others) as part of the New York Hangover newspaper. His stories have since been put into comics form by Rami Efal, Josh Simmons, Michel Fiffe, and as part of Nick Bertozzi's award-winning Rubber Necker series. He is excited to take his writing to a new level at ACT-I-VATE with 'Uplift The Positivicals,' a freeform column of stories rendered as text images. His most recent novel, FULL OF IT: The Birth, Death, and Life of an Underground Newspaper was called a 'Best of 2008' by literary journal decomP and features wicked cool cover art by ACT-I-VATE co-founder Dean Haspiel. Tim lives in a small town in northern Illinois with his wife and son." My thanks to Hall for the interview.

Tim O'Shea: Uplift the Positivicals is described as "Text-based comics, fontasies, soul sutras and shredded prose, rendered in bold, binary alphabetics." I'm not sure where to start with that engaging mouthful, so I'll be
selective in my curiosity--what do you mean when you use the term "fontasies"?

Tim Hall: To be honest, I wrote that description before I had written a single column, so I really screwed myself, didn't I? First I had to map out my narrative territory and get people used to my style and hopefully into the characters. I'm now in the process of incorporating concrete poetry, typographic elements, visual writing and the like into UTP. The challenge for me is to tell a story using words in different ways, without relying on design per se. That's a long-winded way of saying that if I ever figure out what a fontasy is I'll be sure to let you know!

O'Shea: For this story, how did you go about selecting this font in particular?

Hall: I was looking for something bold and condensed that wasn't too overbearing. My primary goal was to make UTP readable on iPhones, while still packing enough info on each panel for desktop readers. I'm leaning more toward the portable devices, and actually just made the template slightly more widescreen.

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ACT-I-VATE goes to the movies

The ACT-I-VATE Experience

Seth Kushner and Carlos Molina have put together a documentary on the webcomics site ACT-I-VATE, which will debut at the Baltimore Comic-Con in October. According to Kushner's blog, the film will include interviews with many of the site's creators, making movie stars out of Thomas Baehr, Nick Bertozzi, Pedro Carmago, Mike Cavallaro, Kevin Colden, Nikki Cooke, Molly Crabapple, Mike Dawson, Jim Dougan, Ulises Farinas, Michel Fiffe, Simon Fraser, Maurice Fontenot, Dan Goldman, Tim Hamilton, Dean Haspiel, Jennifer Hayden, Joe Infurnari, Jason Little, Josh Neufeld, Leland Purvis, Kat Roberts, Ryan Roman, Nathan Schreiber & Jeff Newelt.

The film will also be shown at KingCon in Brooklyn this November.

Talking Comics with Tim: Molly Crabapple

Scarlett Takes Manhattan

Molly Crabapple is a successful entrepreneur (as the founder of the Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School) and storyteller. After a recent book tour to support her new Fugu Press book, Scarlett Takes Manhattan, she indulged me in a quick email interview. Her graphic novel is described (on the book's back cover) as "A young woman orphaned in tragic circumstances (by a pair of copulating circus elephants) rises to become the foremost burlesque performer of her era: Scarlett O'Herring."

Tim O'Shea: How did the book land at Fugu Press?

Molly Crabapple: Years ago, I did a catalog cover for a company owned by Christophe (big cheese at Fugu). When he decided to found a comics publishing company, he asked if I had any ideas for graphic novels. The rest, history…

O'Shea: You clearly love to explore the art of sexuality through your work. In those terms, what was the most enjoyable or challenging scene to convey in Scarlett Takes Manhattan?

Crabapple: I actually loved the scene where Scarlett is working as a dock prostitute and is able to avoid an unpleasant client with the help of a watermelon. Sadly, a watermelon was worth more than a blowjob in 1884.

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IDW previews the ACT-I-VATE Primer

Loviathan by Mike Cavallaro

ACT-I-VATE and IDW have now officially announced the ACT-I-VATE Primer I mentioned back in May, and have even posted a 17-page preview that features a page from each of the stories.

The ACT-I-VATE Primer is an anthology of stories by creators from the webcomics site, including Joe Infurnari, Roger Langridge, Mike Dawson, Nick Bertozzi, Tim Hamilton, Dean Haspiel, Simon Fraser, Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt, Mike Cavallaro, Pedro Camargo, Jim Dougan and Hyeondo Park, Ulises Farinas, Michel Fiffe, Maurice Fontenot, Jennifer Hayden and Leland Purvis.. The collection is due in October and will include a foreword by Warren Ellis.

Slash Print | Following the digital evolution

The Crooked Man

Webcomics | Corinna Bechko, one of the co-creators of The Crooked Man, says that she and artist Gabriel Hardman are working to turn their Zuda submission into a graphic novel. They placed fifth in the July 2008 Zuda competition. (Thanks David!)

Webcomics | Warren Pleece's Montague Terrace has started running on the ACTIVATE website. You can also find all the pages at his blog. In other ACTIVATE news, the site also now includes a column by Tim Hall.

Twitter | T Campbell is twittering his thoughts on Crisis on Infinite Earths as he rereads the decades-old crossover series. "Praise, critique, and lots of snark ahead." [Via The Beat]

e-Devices | The full audio of the South by Southwest interactive panel "Comics on Handhelds: Taking Webcomics Mobile" is now online. The panel features Dan Goldman, Rich Stevens, Douglas Edwards, Molly Crabapple, Dave Bort and Rantz Hoseley "in a let's-sketch-out-solutions talk for transitioning webcomics to a variety of new petri dishes," Goldman said.

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ACT-I-VATE Primer due this fall

ACT-I-VATE Primer

I seem to remember reading something about a potential anthology of work from the webcomics collective ACT-I-VATE, but I don't think I've seen a formal announcement yet -- unless an Amazon.com listing is considered an announcement.

In any event, it looks like IDW is putting out the ACT-I-VATE Primer in the fall. The book is due Oct. 29, and the site lists the contributors as Dean Haspiel, Nick Bertozzi, Michael Cavallaro, Mike Dawson, Simon Fraser, Michel Fiffe, Tim Hamilton, Ulises Farinas, Leland Purvis, Joe Infurnari, Roger Langridge, Molly Crabapple, John Leavitt, Pedro Camargo and Jim Dougan.

Haspiel, it appears, will have a new Billy Dogma story in it (which is, I bet, where we'll see this), while Langridge says he's doing a "Mugwhump" story set before the current strip started. According to Amazon, all the material will be new: "The ACT-I-VATE PRIMER is a PRINT EXCLUSIVE anthology by many of the Act-I-Vate creators none of the material in this book will appear on the Act-I-Vate website for at least one year from publication date."

Talking Comics with Tim: Nick Bertozzi

Iraq War Stories

A few weeks back when I heard about Iraq War Stories, Nick Bertozzi's project with his School of Visual Arts Comic Book Storytelling Workshop students, I wanted to immediately interview him. Here's the advance write-up that caught my attention: "I’ve been teaching cartooning at The School of Visual Arts for a while now and this past year I asked the students in my Comic Book Storytelling Workshop to adapt stories that take place in Iraq during the War. Most of the students found stories from bloggers on the web, a few adapted stories told to them by friends, and one student, himself a veteran of the Iraq War, wrote and drew a story based on his own experience.

My good friend Dean Haspiel was wise enough to suggest that we put the stories up on the internet for all to see at the internet comics site that I’m part of, ACT-I-VATE.com.

The purpose of this anthology is not to wave a flag for or against the war—though some of the stories certainly have a political bent—instead, I asked the students to give me stories that would give the reader a sense of how the War has affected individuals, both American and Iraqi."

The anthology series will release its second installment this Sunday.

Tim O'Shea: The anthology series will feature 13 stories ultimately--selected from the Comic Book Storytelling Workshop, how many students in total submitted stories?

Nick Bertozzi: I'm waiting to hear back from two more students who are making very slight tweaks to their comics, so there may be 15 comics when we're all done.

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Slash Print | Following the digital evolution

Vs.

Webcomics | Writing for Publisher's Weekly Comic Week, Ada Price profiles Smith Magazine and its various webcomics, which include Shooting War, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge and Next-Door Neighbor.

Webcomics | NYC Graphic profiles Eisner nominee Joe Infurnari, creator of The Transmigration of Ultra-lad and the Next-Door Neighbor story "Vs." Joe's also annotating "Vs." over at Act-i-vate.

Digital comics + e-Devices | Straight.com has a good overview of comics being made available on mobile phones. The writer, whose credits I didn't see anywhere on the page, spoke with reps from iVerse, Arcana Comics and Golden Age Collectibles, a Vancouver-based retailer.

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Talking Comics with Tim: Warren & Gary Pleece

Montague Terrace

Warren and Gary Pleece have always been brothers, but at one time, they were also creative collaborators--back in the 1980s and 1990s with Velocity.  This past Friday marked a resumption of their collaboration to a certain extent, when Warren launched the new webcomic, Montague Terrace,  at ACT-I-VATE.  The new project (which Gary will be involved in as his schedule permits) is summed up as "Unsuccessful megalomaniacs, brain frazzled ex-pop stars, Special Ops pensioners, haunted children, writers, fighters, nervous magicians and magic bunnies. 1930s detectives, fake pet psychics, hounded inventors, randy postmen, landlocked seamen, diabolical architects and secret societies. And all under one roof..." Warren and Gary made me feel like a pop culture idiot--considering the wealth of topics they referenced in this email interview.  But I was overjoyed to enter territory I knew, when Gary mentioned the Monkees' 1968 film, Head. Tears nearly welled up in my eyes when he mentioned it (for the love of God, this  film [with the likes of "Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Teri Garr ... Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa and Sonny Liston"] cries out either for the Criterion folks or the gang at Cinematic Titanic...). My thanks to Warren and Gary for a fine time.

Tim O'Shea: The last time the two of you collaborated was in the late 1980s/early 1990s--what sparked the decision for you two to collaborate again?

Warren Pleece: Montague Terrace actually showcased in the last edition of Velocity, no. 6 way back in '96 as a place we could develop countless characters, stories and interlink them into some grand scheme. As was usually the case, the ideas were there, but the means and time to carry it off was another matter. I got more work for DC, Gary did his thing, we both started families etc. and like so many other ideas the whole thing became relegated to the cardboard boxes of our minds and Velocity 6 became the last edition we did.

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Talking Comics with Tim: Mike Dawson

Mike Dawson's Freddie & Me ranked on many Best of 2008 lists. It looks like he's trying to capitalize on his elevated creative profile--given that the upcoming Previews (out on January 28) will include Dawson's upcoming work for AdHouse, Ace-Face: The Mod with the Metal Arms ("a collection of stories . . .  featuring everybody’s favorite well-dressed crime fighter, doling out super-powered justice with his bionic limbs, and handling crisis’s at home as a husband and father.")

Ace-Face: The Mod with the Metal Arms

In addition to discussing Ace-Face, we delve into Freddie & Me. But that's not all, as starting February 17, Dawson is returning to ACT-I-VATE with Jack and Max Escape From the End of Time, a webcomic spinning out of the Ace-Face universe. My thanks to Alex Robinson for facilitating this email interview as well as Dawson for his time and thoughts.

Ace-Face

Tim O'Shea: How much of the Ace-Face book consists of flashbacks to his childhood and how much of is it "present day" adventures?

Mike Dawson: The stories take place in a variety of different times over the course of Ace-Face’s career. A good chunk of the stories happen in close-to present day, but there are a number of flashbacks. We see his origin as a little kid with gigantic metal arms in the 1940’s and 50’s, a little bit of his mod hey-day in the 1960’s, and some of his latter-day adventures as well.

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