NPR discovers a tempest in the "Arts & Leisure" section in this report about the political bias of newspaper comics. According to the piece, the syndicates are looking for conservative strips to balance out the likes of Doonesbury and Boondocks, which are, obviously, unabashedly liberal. Apparently, Mallard Fillmore can't hold the line alone. If there are any artists out there who nod along when Bill O'Reilly brays, this is your chance.

College Roomies From Hell! creator Maritza Campos is suffering from the beginning stage of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and is trying to raise money to buy a drawing tablet to change her online drawing habits so she can minimize the repetitive motions involved in coloring her comic.

In addition to switching to a tablet, Maritza is reducing her output to lessen the stress on her hand. Instead of seven days a week of color comics, she's switching to five (Mon - Fri).

If you do want to help, a minimum of $5.00 is requested so Paypal fees don't significantly devalue the donation.

Slow Wave is an illustrated dream diary in webcomic form. The creator, Jesse Reklaw, makes strips based on reader-submitted dreams, which can be funny or banal. Usually, they're more than just a little strange.

Slow Wave goes on my very short list of "community-driven" comics that includes exploding dog, Tiny Sepuku and Pathetic Geek Stories.

Is "community" still a Web buzz word, or has the clock run out on those 15 minutes?

Chris Watkins, Editor-in-Chief of BorderWalker wrote in to let us know that
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BorderWalker, featuring online fantasy-adventure comics since 2000, is proud to announce the grand opening of its online comic shop: The BW Store at www.BorderWalker.com/BWStore. We're holding a big sci-fi DVD & fantasy comic giveaway contest to celebrate the event, and the deadline for entries is drawing close: July 31st!

The BW Store features comics, prints & posters in ink and paper form (as well as upcoming plans to sell downloadable digital comics) from its webcomic creators. The store currently contains our first issue of the BorderWalker Anthology, featuring fantasy stories from Chris Watkins and Jack Pendleton, a mini-comic version of Chris Watkins's 24-Hour Comic "Odori Park," and Jack Pendleton's 300-page Redbeard: Bounty Hunter short story anthology "Ten Tales of Shadria," plus other comic and fantasy goods.

Our celebratory raffle contest will present the winner with a huge prize package, featuring a pair of DVDs--Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury and the original Riddick film Pitch Black--and several other Riddick prizes (all courtesy of Universal and their PR folks at Electric Artists). Plus, we're throwing in a copy of the brand new BorderWaker Anthology comic, fresh off the press, and a Zombie Research Institute poster!

All you have to do for a shot at winning is visit our new BW Store at www.BorderWalker.com/BWStore and fill in the raffle form! Entries will be accepted through the end of July, and the winner will be announced in the beginning of August.

If you have any questions or comments about the BW Store or our Grand Opening Contest, please contact us via email at BWStore@BorderWalker.com.

An article at Silver Bullet Comics announced that Komikwerks is adding Stan Lee's Sunday Comics to their lineup. It is published as a subscription model, with a cost of $4.95 per month, $49.95 for a full year.

James Kochalka is interviewed in the current edition of The Onion AV Club. He talks about his current projects and goes into detail about American Elf, his comic web diary.

James Kochalka, Superstar indeed!

In a roundtable discussion moderated by Park Cooper, Mike W. Barr (writer, Sorcerer of Fortune), Steve Bryant (artist, Athena Voltaire) and Barb Lien (writer, Gun Street Girl) talk webcomics, storytelling craft and more at Comicon.com's forum, The Pulse.

Wired has a story called The Incredible Shrinking Comic about the trend towards putting comics onto cell phones for viewing. While this story is generally positive note the following paragraphs oh knwledgeable and sage 24 Hour Pixel People reader and wonder aloud why someone should pay 2 dollars a month for tiny comics on a celll phone when it is still unclear how many people will pay 2 dollars a month to read comics on a full size monitor.

Later this summer, an aggregation site called GoComics will expand to include offerings of strips like Doonesbury and La Cucaracha, all available to mobile-phone users willing to shell out $2 or $3 a month for access.

GoComics, which works with a number of comic-strip distributors and hopes to strike deals with comic-book makers like DC and Marvel, reports making 1 million sales in 2003. Nearly two-thirds of the customers are women, perhaps because they like the ability to personalize greetings, said co-managing director Chris Pizey.

Ultimately, GoComics hopes to convince cell-phone users to pay to see about 150 comic strips, many of which are now offered on the Internet for free. It's been a challenge to "reteach or retrain" Web users to pay for content, said Pizey, who also works in the online side of the comics business.

Pulse has a roundtable interview entitled THE WORLD of WEBS - Lien, Bryant, & Barr Talkin' Webcomics.
Mike W. Barr is the veteran of the three with acclaimed work such as Camelot 3000. He is curently writing Sorcerer of fortune published on Modern Tales sister site Graphic Smash.
Barb Lien-Cooper writes Gun street girl, also on Graphic Smash.
Steve Bryant is one of the artist on Athena Voltaire, published on Modern Tales.

The roundtable is an interesting read, even though the title is somewhat misleading as it has very little to do with webcomic in particular.

When Scott McCloud tries to explain Understanding Comics to people, he invariably gets asked if it is a "how-to" book because the overview "[a] comic book about comics that explains the inner workings of the medium and examines many aspects of visual communication along the way" may not resonate with too many people not already interested in the inner workings of comics.

Since the release of his first book, McCloud has kept busy in the lecture circuit, with seminars and workshops on comics & technology and the art of comics storytelling. These visual lectures have culminated in a new book, Making Comics, his answer to the "how-to" manual for creating comics.