Publishers Weekly has an article on webcomics with all the usual suspects covered.

Mention Web comics and you'll most likely get a blank stare. Although there are probably thousands of comics on the Web—and more going up every day—they remain esoteric to the mainstream comics world, let alone to the book publishing world. However, for their growing legion of fans—who number in the millions—Web comics are the wired world's answer to Garfield and Dilbert. But even as their popularity grows, questions remain. Will print collections of the best known Web comics cross over to the book audience? And can print comics find a wider audience on the Web?

Joey Manley's Webhead column lists the Top 5 Reasons Webcomics are Better than Comic Books. He also links to Ghastly. Cool!

File 49 by Sara Turner is over today. Read it from the start!

Also, Haunted Pixel Studios has started taking preorders for The Asylumantics: The First Four Years. A fan reference, the title features everything there is to know about the strip including detailed bios, maps and more. Preorder before the release in January and save 20% off the cover price!

And our entire December issue is up - you can find a full list of the articles from the 2006: Year in Review Issue here.

For me, the most significant event of the year was Finder going to the web (http://www.lightspeedpress.com/). For a critically acclaimed, self-published print comic to decide that web serialization was more economical that continuing to print old-fashioned issues is really significant. I'm curious to see how it works out in the long run, and if other print creators do the same thing. Also interesting is the new Sam & Max comic (http://www.telltalegames.com/comics/samnmax/) on indie game publisher Telltale games' site. What's really interesting is that both of these comics were intended from the get go as advertising for something else.

As much as I respect Scott McCloud, I don't think micropayments was ever a viable economic model for web comics. I think that as time goes by, and web comics become more recognized by the world at large (which is inevitable*), we will come to see free content as the norm, and economically successful comics be become so by selling merchandise - print collections, t-shirts, original art, whatever. Web comics could also be used as creative advertising for other web sites - for instance, even if Telltale never gets to finish the new Sam & Max game that Lucasfilm axed, the comic will still bring people to their site, people who might, in turn, wind up hunting around it and buying one of their games. The fact is, that comics are excellent advertising, because they are fun, and people will actually seek good ones out.

*This doesn't mean that individual creators will necessarily do better, simply because it's so easy to make a web comic. Now, I think this is a great thing, I love to see people expressing themselves. But with so many comics, it becomes hard for the casual reader to separate the wheat from the chaff, and really good comics that deserve to be wildly successful can go unnoticed for a long time. I think the key to success in this environment is longevity, but that's another rant.

The second and last week of our December issue is up. Check out:

the second edition of our People in Webcomics List;

a new column from Eric Burns;

the very last Modern Humor Authority from Kristofer Straub;

an interview with Nicholas Gurewitch, creator of Perry Bible Fellowship; and

a review of Beaver & Steve, the winner of the WCCA Newcomer of the Year award.