I never thought I'd say this, but Bobby Crosby may be giving his brother Chris Crosby a bit of real competition in the webcomic department. Chris Crosby is the creator of Superosity and the writer behind Sore Thumbs. Bobby Crosby was the creator of the critically-nuked yet oddly popular Pupkin and the Non-Identical Triplet. Much more recently though Bobby Crosby is the writer on the pretty-good poker-themed webcomic +EV. (Read a review of +EV here).

He's also the writer on Last Blood, a vampires and zombies end-of-the-world flick that is being presented in webcomic format with Owen Gieni (artist on Sore Thumbs) handling the art chores. (Yes - flick. Bobby Crosby is proclaiming his plans to film Last Blood this year.) There's enough in the archives now to get a bit of a sense of things and it's growing on me. Gieni is doing a nice job with the art and making use of the comic-book sized layout (in fact Bobby Crosby posted that Last Blood is going to be out in comic book form for this year's Free Comic Book Day). I love his decision to use a limited color pallete so far and he manages to be much more realistic in his approach here than he is with his work on Sore Thumbs.

Last Blood is not a hugely original premise and no characters stand out at all yet (although I kind of suspect who I'm supposed to be rooting for) but I've gotten enough laughs out of +EV to give Bobby Crosby a little benefit of the doubt that the characters will sharpen up and he'll keep things entertaining.

UPDATE: WCCA Ceremony is at 3pm on Saturday!

In Artist's Alley this year:

• Jennie Breeden (The Devil's Panties),
• Gina Biggs (Red String),
• Greg Carter (Abandon)
  
• Christi Johnson (In the Puddle)

More info at the MegaCon website.

My experience with incorporating representation comes from desktop publishing rather than comics, but over the years I have figured out and been taught a few rules of thumb.

Let me state up front here that I'm not telling anyone they have to do any of this. These are my guidelines for myself and for those who are interested in this.

Comixpedia (dot org) is going to need more administrators to shepherd it along if it's going to succeed long-term. We had a debate over a year ago on how to pick administrators at this URL.

One of the phenomenal cosmic powers bestowed upon bloggers by the gods of the internet (including but not limited to the former vice president Al Gore and that poor fat kid with the invisible light saber) is the ability to foist their opinions on unsuspecting victims. This is a power this reader relishes. So today I am going to pimp some comics I think you should be reading: Cosmobear, Havesomehats and Sluggy Freelance.

Finally, after a 2 month long hiatus, Zed Reckoning is back for your viewing pleasure. I've been busy working on another project and fighting to save Hyrule on my nintendo. Ah, the adventures I've had. But it's time to get back to reality. Namely zombies.

Always remember: Valentine's Day is a Christian corruption of a pagan festival involving werewolves, blood and fucking. So wish people a happy HornyWerewolf Day and see what happens.

-Warren Ellis

(I lifted that from Warren's Bad Signal list which may upset him but it's too good not to share with the world). In other Valentines Day news Blind Date II has its first comics posted.

INTERVIEWS

• FLEEN interviewed David Simon, creator of Crimson Dark.
  
• Comic Book Resources interviews Phil Foglio, creator of Girl Genius.

MILESTONES

• Brad Guigar marks seven years of producing a daily comic strip - first with Greystone Inn and more recently with Evil Inc. Guigar also creates two weekly comics: Courting Disaster, and Phables.
• As of today, Arthur, King of Time and Space has gone its first one thousand daily updates without missing one.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

• Penny Arcade's Tycho writes "a guest essay" on fatherhood for Tom Brazelton's Theater Hopper site.
• Webcomics In Print looks at A Cheese Related Mishap by Ray Friesen.
• Fuzzy and OJ are having a caption contest! Submit your own caption, view the ones already there, and rate them!

It's a Valentine's Day miracle!

Hey, do you know what today is? Well, yes, it's St Valentine's Day obviously. But, more than that, today's a big day for the online graphic novel Shades at Broken Voice Comics. It's been a long time coming but today the last page of Chapter 4 is finally posted!

Now, I know what you're asking yourself. Since BVC is showing you so much love, what can you be doing in return? Well, you could nominate Shades in the Favourite Web-Based Comic category of this year's Eagle Awards. It will only take a few minutes and Becky will be really grateful. What? You don't know Becky? Well, if you get that nomination in, I'm pretty sure she can be persuaded to make an appearance in Chapter 5!

Welcome to Blind Date 2 and happy Valentine's Day.

• Leading off is a comic that illustrates the rarely successful "Yawn and reach-around romantic puppet move". This bit of romantic misfortune is written by Euan Mumford, creator of Rooms and drawn by Chris Kirk, creaotor of Sock'd.
  
• Our second comic for Wednesday is from Bryan Prindiville, creator of several webcomics, including Bassets On The Brain, and Tanya Higgins, creator of BetaPwned.

We'll keep posting a couple a day throughout February as the results of this year's Blind Date come in.