Harry here.... Lizzybeth's column here came in a bit weird... I would have gone through replacing all the apostrophes, but I'm currently in studio working on "The Show" and have very little time... here ya go...
Im going to do something a little bit different this week, and talk about some online comics. The fun thing about online comics is how easily and quickly available they are to the reader. Depending on how graphics-intensive they are (and some arent very), trying a new online comic is as easy as reading this site. Most of them are much more regular than paper comics - some are updated weekly, even daily! - and theres a large variety to try out. And theyre free, too!
For now, anyway. As it has been with the music industry, people in the comics industry are still trying to figure out how they can make money off of this. And the creators, some of them amateurs and professional hopefuls looking to break into the business, are finding that its not as easy to pull in an audience, and an income, as they might have thought. Its hard to make a living off the internet, as thousands of dot-com entrepeneurs have discovered. Even though online comics cuts out the production and distribution costs, artists who havent broken into print comicdom have the problem of trying to attract more readers while maintaining a site with enough bandwidth to accompany them. If youre trying to make a living off online comics, turning a profit can be difficult. Many sell self-published print editions and other merchendise off their websites. Some of them have found other venues for their work (like the alternative weeklies) through their online exposure.
Scott McCloud, author of UNDERSTANDING COMICS and REINVENTING COMICS, offers his suggestion for future online comics in his latest "I Cant Stop Thinking" columns here (CLICK) and here (CLICK). He suggests that tiny downloading fees, as little as a few cents, going directly to the artist would be enough to more than cover costs and make a profit.
Not everyone is a fan of this idea, or of McCloud (see Penny Arcade, CLICK for a response by a struggling strip author).
Meanwhile, other enterprising individuals are creating comics domains, where for a subscription fee you can enter and access a variety of exclusive online comics. COOL BEANS WORLD, out of the UK-based animations studio Cool Beans Productions, was launched just a month ago , currently boasting seven comics with titles like DARK FRANKENSTEIN, KINGDOM OF THE WICKED, and MARTIAL LAW. The creators behind these comics are fairly big names, including Clive Barker and Christ Clairemont. The art and animations are fairly complex, which makes for an attractive page but a difficult download if your computer is a piece of crap like mine. You can view the comics as a temporary file or save them on your hard-drive to read later, and back issues are also available. The subscriptions start at $2.95 for four weeks, then $16.95 for six months and $29.95 for a year.How are the comics? They look good, at any rate, with high-quality graphics. Story-wise, its hard to tell at this point, since th! eyre all very new, but none of them knocked my socks off. Still, with the promise of future titles and a reasonable subscription price (assuming the comics will continue to be regularly updated, which is a risk for this sort of thing), its worth checking out. Is this the future of comics? Possibly, but I doubt it. Many if not most current comics fans are collectors at heart, and with no tangible product many just wont find the experience satisfying. Now, if enough talented creators are brought in, comic readers could follow their favorites. Id pay for access to an Alex Ross painted story, for instance. But will it attract non-comics fans, the way some of the free strips and comics have done? The site is tailored to the current comics reader, who may be the person least likely to want to pay to read their comics on a screen. It will be interesting to see how COOL BEANS WORLD and other experiments like it will fare.
There are some free comics domains, such as The Comic (CLICK), home to Deux Ex Machina, a full-length comic book with 2 issues so far and about 40 pages to explore. Now, this book I might buy in a store, if I saw it. The story is a bit confusing, but the art is terrific (and gets better as it goes along). There are also sample pages from three other comic books, all of which look interesting.
Here are some other Comics and Serials to check out. Theres a wide variety here, and if you take a look at a couple of them youll see a couple directions that online comic art can go into. Some are chopped up into pages like a regular comic, some scroll up and down or side to side, some have click-scrolls up/down and left/right. Some of them are just like regular comics, and some are using the possibilities of the internet to make them better.
Scott McCloud ( CLICK) has numerous online projects archived on his website, including a Zot! superhero series. (Those of you who missed his Zot! series when it was in print, check this out when you get the chance. McCloud doesnt just talk about comics, he writes them. Good ones.)
PIERCINGS (CLICK). It takes awhile to load, since its all contained on one very long page. Great art. And, I must say, after reading this one, ow. Ow ow ow.
MAGIC INKWELL THEATER (CLICK ). The pieces at this site are very interesting to look at because theyre not just comic book art scanned into a computer, this is computer art, mixing drawings, photographs, blending characters into page backgrounds, and other creative ideas.
TEDDY (CLICK) This is one long story, which takes awhile to get through. Its easy to navigate and strangely engrossing, combining a story in text and a story in cartoon form to great effect.
BEE (CLICK) This serial follows a woman, Bee, who works at one of those One-hour photo developing places. She likes to share her freakier photos with her friends. She gets a creepy photo of a dead woman in a bathtub and goes all detective.
WHEN I AM KING (CLICK) Stylized images appearing on a long left-right scroll. The lead character reminds me of Scud the Disposible Assassin, for some reason, only less homicidal. Whatever happened to that title? Anyway, WIAK is a simple strip with nice page design thats very interesting to look at.
LEISURE TOWN (CLICK) Weird and funny. Claymation, photographed, and offering you advice on how to get off your ass and get a job, for instance.
COINTEL (CLICK) Interesting site with creative navigation and strips of various quality. Works better on Netscape.
WRATHBONE AND BITCHULA (CLICK) Seventies/early eighties style. Ronald Regans brain implanted in the body of a wrestler. Scantily clad girls with lisps. Dumb but kinda fun in a retro sort of way.
ARGON ZARK (CLICK) One of the first successful online comics, its been around since 1995 and has a strong following. Its great at integrating animations into the standard comics style.
8-BIT THEATER (CLICK) Primitive, dumb, and funny. Moreso if you've played a certain video game.
COMIC STRIPS
BRUNO (CLICK) Long-running strip following the sarcastic Bruno and her multitude of weird friends and lovers. Its more dramatic than an average comic strip, but frequently very funny. Highly recommended.
PENNY ARCADE (CLICK) This ones for video-game addicts, or recovering video-game addicts (such as myself). Likes to comment on the state of current video games, as in a recent series titled "The Sucking" (my sentiments exactly).
PVP (CLICK) Another gaming type strip thats become very popular.
1/0 (CLICK ) Pronounced one-over-zero. Bizarre, funny strip with strange characters: a rib, an eyeball, a ghost molecule, some atoms, and a lesbian earthworm, and a complete (and often mentioned) lack of a fourth wall. Drawings are primitive, but thats part of the joke. Also highly recommended
JAPANESE BEETLE (CLICK) A comic strip in American Anime style, has both b+w and color installments.
LCD: LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR (CLICK) Adventures of Raven Svoboda, local weather girl. It grows on you.
RED MEAT (CLICK) Runs in many alternative weeklies - heres the online archive.
PENTASMAL (CLICK) Okay, all the characters look the same, but its amusing nonetheless.
Finally, Creators Syndicate (CLICK) hosts a number of strips, some of them familiar and some not. All are updated regularly.
PICK OF THE WEEK
The comic book collection Id like to mention for a recommendation this week is Adrian Tomines SLEEPWALK AND OTHER STORIES. SLEEPWALK collects stories from his series OPTIC NERVE, initially self-published and currently available from Drawn and Quarterly Publications. New issues of OPTIC NERVE seem to be coming out at the rate of one comic a year, and the last issue seen was #7, a full-length story following the lovely Nessa in what Tomine calls a "misanthropic soap opera." SLEEPWALK collects the first four issues of this seminal anthology series, and contains 16 different stories.
Adrian Tomine is one of my favorite short story writers of any medium. Like any good short fiction writer, he knows exactly when a story should end, and that this point will be different for every story. Some of his stories cut off abruptly, and some extend past the central action to a more meditative conclusion. As a comic book creator, Tomine understands that sometimes what you dont see is far more disturbing than what you do. An example of both of these skills is "Pink Frosting," which ends with a businessman about to be curb-stomped by an angry motorist. The story cuts off at the most horrible moment possible an instant before the foot comes down. Your mind fills in the rest, and the image is far more troubling than anything that could have been drawn. This is what a skillful storyteller does, and Tomine does it frequently.
His tales follow a variety of subjects and characters, men and women, old and young, though mostly in a twenty-something range. They follow relationships, but in a detached and unsentimental manner (as with "Long Distance," where a girlfriend coldly reads the phone-sex script provided to her by her boyfriend). They follow conflicts, but often without offering a resolution (as with the mysterious ads in "The Connecting Thread"). They are sometimes very short, capturing a story in a few pages or even just a few panels (as in the memorable 1-page "Drop"). They are slice-of-life comics at their best.
SLEEPWALK is my favorite of the two Tomine collections, the other being 32 STORIES, a collection of stories previous to the OPTIC NERVE run. Both are excellent, and should be available at your local comics shop. If you have any trouble finding either, you can order them directly from Drawn and Quarterly here (CLICK).
Next week I'll be back in the comic store looking at 100 BULLETS, LUCIFER, and other stuff for Mature Readers Only.
Questions, comments, threats, etc, can reach me at Neverwhere333@angelfire.com
Lizzybeth
