I've lauded the iconography of the word balloon here before, but letterer Nate Piekos recently came up with this lexicon of comic book lettering and ballooning. I expect a lot of it will just be verbalizing what you already know from having read comics for years, and have intuitively understood, but I bet there's something new there for most people.
I've lauded the iconography of the word balloon here before, but letterer Nate Piekos recently came up with this lexicon of comic book lettering and ballooning. I expect a lot of it will just be verbalizing what you already know from having read comics for years, and have intuitively understood, but I bet there's something new there for most people.
Still flaunting my inner geek here at home when nobody's watching...
I was looking a TreeHugger.com, a site "dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream." One of their headlines today reported on the death of the man who created the modern brick oven in an effort to take "bread away from the big corporate bakers and made small businesses more competitive, able to deliver a better, fresher product."
Knowing full-well what web site I was on, the image that still came to mind before clicking on the link was...
Why? Because the man who died was named Alan Scott.
I really do wonder about the crap floating around in my head some days.
I was looking a TreeHugger.com, a site "dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream." One of their headlines today reported on the death of the man who created the modern brick oven in an effort to take "bread away from the big corporate bakers and made small businesses more competitive, able to deliver a better, fresher product."
Knowing full-well what web site I was on, the image that still came to mind before clicking on the link was...
Why? Because the man who died was named Alan Scott.
I really do wonder about the crap floating around in my head some days.
Just thought I'd take a few moments to note some cool comic-related blogs that have started kind of recently in case you haven't seen them yet...
Funny Book Fanatic -- Dave Olbrich is probably best known in comic circles for having founded Malibu Comics, and had a helping hand in Image, Gorilla and Bravura. His blog doesn't touch on current issues much, but he's providing some wonderful behind-the-scenes stories from his early days in the comic industry.
Hooray for Wally Wood -- Not surprisingly, a blog devoted to the life and work of Wallace Wood. I've been reading a biography of the man lately, and I've always thought his art was gorgeous. Worth swinging by just for the art.
Lagrange Points -- The blog of comic creator/publisher Jim Ottaviani. He's one of the few guys doing non-fiction graphic novels these days, and he's doing a damn fine job at them. The man knows a thing of two about science and story-telling!
Gurr Illustration -- That said, Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr recently release Darwin: A Graphic Bipgraphy. Which I learned about through Simon's blog.
Funny Book Fanatic -- Dave Olbrich is probably best known in comic circles for having founded Malibu Comics, and had a helping hand in Image, Gorilla and Bravura. His blog doesn't touch on current issues much, but he's providing some wonderful behind-the-scenes stories from his early days in the comic industry.
Hooray for Wally Wood -- Not surprisingly, a blog devoted to the life and work of Wallace Wood. I've been reading a biography of the man lately, and I've always thought his art was gorgeous. Worth swinging by just for the art.
Lagrange Points -- The blog of comic creator/publisher Jim Ottaviani. He's one of the few guys doing non-fiction graphic novels these days, and he's doing a damn fine job at them. The man knows a thing of two about science and story-telling!
Gurr Illustration -- That said, Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr recently release Darwin: A Graphic Bipgraphy. Which I learned about through Simon's blog.
You know, it's sometimes actually easier for me to do the Photoshop work on these mash-ups than it is to come up with an intelligent and well-written blog post. (I've been meaning to do something for my annual Black History Month acknowledgment, but my brain has been on the fritz the past couple days from work overload.)
Anyway, I've switched the dialogue between today's "Get Fuzzy" and "Maintaining."
Anyway, I've switched the dialogue between today's "Get Fuzzy" and "Maintaining."
In lieu of my usual clever/insightful/brilliant/pithy blog posts, I've just tried swapping the text from today's "Mother Goose & Grimm" and "La Cucaracha"...
Real content to resume when I've got a moment to come up for air.
Real content to resume when I've got a moment to come up for air.
Last month, I alerted you to a webcomic marketing idea which could result in your getting a cameo in The Sergeant and Professor Skeary Winslow. Coincidentally, David O'Connell came up with a pretty similar idea at about the same time. BUT David's got another clever twist on the idea.
Instead of appearing in his regular webcomic, Tozo, the Public Servant (which is brilliant, by the way!) O'Connell's plans are to put fans in the print version of his comic by adding extra story pages to the party currently going on in the storyline. Full details of how to get yourself into the Tozo comic are here.
I was pretty keen on the original idea, but I have to give the nod to O'Connell on this one. First off, the basic idea of putting real fans into your comic is great because it makes a connection between the creator and regular readers, and it also provides some additional incentive for newcomers to start reading as well. But the angle that O'Connell is working is extra smart for two reasons: 1) it's a built-in bonus feature for the pamphlet comic, giving some additional reason for people to purchase it over reading the web version, and 2) it gives even more reason for people who appear in it to purchase the pamphlet version. Heck, I'm tempted to order multiple copies to send to relatives!
I noted some time back that O'Connell seemed to have a good head for marketing, and this shows he's still putting his grey matter towards more than just the story itself. Man, he'd be downright dangerous if Tozo was more of a lowest-common-denominator comic instead of being well-made!
Instead of appearing in his regular webcomic, Tozo, the Public Servant (which is brilliant, by the way!) O'Connell's plans are to put fans in the print version of his comic by adding extra story pages to the party currently going on in the storyline. Full details of how to get yourself into the Tozo comic are here.
I was pretty keen on the original idea, but I have to give the nod to O'Connell on this one. First off, the basic idea of putting real fans into your comic is great because it makes a connection between the creator and regular readers, and it also provides some additional incentive for newcomers to start reading as well. But the angle that O'Connell is working is extra smart for two reasons: 1) it's a built-in bonus feature for the pamphlet comic, giving some additional reason for people to purchase it over reading the web version, and 2) it gives even more reason for people who appear in it to purchase the pamphlet version. Heck, I'm tempted to order multiple copies to send to relatives!
I noted some time back that O'Connell seemed to have a good head for marketing, and this shows he's still putting his grey matter towards more than just the story itself. Man, he'd be downright dangerous if Tozo was more of a lowest-common-denominator comic instead of being well-made!
Chris Crosby recently tweeted that Plantinum/Wowio still owes him money from the second quarter of 2008. Plantinum President and COO Brian Altounian responded by saying that they're still "working on it... It's got to come from investors since revenue dollars are still low. Investors don't like old debt."
So what he's saying is that he can't pay off Chris and however many other creators he owes because he's screwed up enough that potential investors think he's a bad risk, and potential advertisers think his products aren't worth advertising in, and his potential customers aren't buying his stuff.
I'll add to the equation that reporting from Alexa, Technorati, and Google all point to a general decreased interest in Wowio...
(Note that Google's chart, by the way, has to change scale in mid-2008 because numbers had dropped so significantly.)
I don't know how much money is owed to all the creators by Plantinum/Wowio but at this point I'm pretty sure they're not going to get paid. Keep in mind that Plantinum's staff has been working on minimum wage since last October as it is. Frankly, I can't understand how they're able to remain in business if they can't pay their employees beyond minimum wage and they can't pay off their debts and they don't have any money coming in.
So what he's saying is that he can't pay off Chris and however many other creators he owes because he's screwed up enough that potential investors think he's a bad risk, and potential advertisers think his products aren't worth advertising in, and his potential customers aren't buying his stuff.
I'll add to the equation that reporting from Alexa, Technorati, and Google all point to a general decreased interest in Wowio...
(Note that Google's chart, by the way, has to change scale in mid-2008 because numbers had dropped so significantly.)
I don't know how much money is owed to all the creators by Plantinum/Wowio but at this point I'm pretty sure they're not going to get paid. Keep in mind that Plantinum's staff has been working on minimum wage since last October as it is. Frankly, I can't understand how they're able to remain in business if they can't pay their employees beyond minimum wage and they can't pay off their debts and they don't have any money coming in.
