Concerned by Chris Livingston is sort of "Life of Brian"-esque story about the videogame Half Life 2. Whereas the game HL2 focuses on the story of Gordon Freeman, Concerned gives us the story of Gordon Frohman who traverses the same territory as the real hero of HL2 but not with the same revolutionary results.

Concerned uses a mod to HL2 that allows the posing of HL2 characters and use of other objects in the HL2 universe and Livingston uses it all to good effect. For the most part this webcomic will only appeal to people who have played Half Life 2 because you need to be familar with the game to laugh at how Concerned goes against the expectations HL2 sets up. Still that's a pretty big potential audience for this, so far, well written webcomic.

This brief essay on webcomics isn't going to tell most of you anything you don't know (although it's not bad either); I posted a link to it because it appears to be written by Daniel Punch, who lists http://www.m6.net as his "home URL". M6.net is a webhost and one could deduce that Punch wrote this essay in order to promote M6.net hosting to webtoonists.

Perhaps a sign that webtoonists are becoming large enough in number to be catered to by the world at large? (And by "catered to by the world at large" I mean "subjected to targeted marketing from businesses".)

Blank Label Comics got slashdotted today. All eyes are now on the Blank Label guys to see if their server stands up to the punishment.

Like it really matters, apparently the quiet and low-key webcomic Road Waffles has begun what is to be a trilogy of wanton destruction and mayhem.

RW3 aims to increase its readership in the hopes of making enough money for the artist, Eight, to comfortably make rent every month and mebbe buy some food too. It's not easy living on $100/month in a tiny basement room but that's what being a starving artist is all about! Refusal to conform and yadda yadda, basically just not wanting to get a job.. and make some comics, I guess. What a rebel.

Check out this comic from Matt Shepherd that presents a new scene from the Empire Strikes Back. Really any true Star Wars fan must read this to get the whole Lucas canon.


"Hello Moff?... Whazzzuuuppp!"

"I was totally pwuhthreening you!"

I have no idea of the inner politics of the the Buzz servers. But I did notice the other thread going off on tangents. So what's everyone's spin on Buzz? We all know they could be a great part of the community, but the site shuts down for so long and so often. The twc's old site used to clunk out all the time but they seem to have made a comeback. Think the same will happen to Buzz or will it just go neglected?

The final comics in the May Day event are up. The "connect the panels" format of this event was a lot of fun - I started late but managed to almost finish my entries on time. Congrats to everyone who submitted comics (and an extra congrats to Neil and G.L. Gillen who finished an entry every week).

A big thanks to all of the artists who submitted the panels: Steve Bryant (Athena Voltaire), Tim Demeter (Reckless Life), Jerzy Drozd and Sara Turner (The Replacements), Faith Erin Hicks (Ice) and Clint Hollingsworth (Wandering Ones); and an extra big thanks to Matt Shepherd who coordinated this shindig and did a lot of work to make it all happen.

The Comics Reporter has a great page up on the Fantastic Four - intended as a resource for general reporters who need to write about the upcoming movie adaptation. Entitled "A Brief Guide to the Fantastic Four On-Line" it provides a brief summary of why the F4 is important in comics, the controversy over its creation and its status today plus links to about every interesting F4 site on the web.

Onezumi.com's latest giveaway contest for a copy of the online Mac/PC game World of Warcraft plus 4 months of free online time will be ending this Tueday May 31st at midnight. You can go to their forum site to see the contest rules and how to enter. Onezumi.com is a webcomic updated 3 times a week, and also hosts art tutorials and a forum site dedicated to helping new artists and web comic creators.

I've been wanting to ask this question somewhere for weeks, after spending the last several hours wandering about this forum I think this just might be the place... anyhow...

Some comics have a very small cast... perhaps three or four characters and the occasional walk-on, others have vast numbers of semi-regular characters, what do people feel are the pros and cons of having small, medium or large casts? Do you feel that a certain number or characters is ideal? If so how many?

Also do you get annoyed when a comic you read suddenly starts following the events in the life of a previously minor character, or even an entirely new character or characters? Does it make an interesting change? If you have done this in a comic you draw/write why did you do it? Do you feel it worked?