I just wanted to drop a note and wish Karen of Planet Karen a happy one year (webcomic) Anniversary. It's a great slice of life / diary comic and I look forward to more comics in the years to come.

This week in Smithson:

Can Chuck and Micki lose their pursuers in the forest? 23 Skidoo has magic on their side ...

There's an interview with me, the Marvelous Patric, over at the ComicBloc all about my strip, Freaks N Squeeks, which is now less than 100 days away from its 1000th strip.

COMIXPEDIA

I want to throw out a thanks to current (and very recent) sponsors of Comixpedia including the movie The Abandoned and the webcomics Zortic, I See You and O''deer. We have three slots available right now on the side bar - cheap! - click here to get more details and order.

INTERVIEWS

• McKenzee and Ursula Vernon got "namechecked" by the Indy Weekly in an article on the North Carolina comics scene. It's a well-done article.
• An interview with Traci Spencer, creator of the the fantasy/adventure comic Compass published on Girl-A-Matic.
• An interview with the Marvelous Patric at ComicBloc.
• Thomas Nickel writes that he interviewed David Lloyd of V for Vendetta and Kickback-fame about his first very own graphic novel Kickback. The interview can be found here.
• Belated link - but Brigid has a good interview up at Digital Strips with Wendy Pini, the creator of Elfquest, who announced at the New York Comicon, that in conjunction with publisher Go! Comi, Pini would be creating a three-volume, full color manga, The Masque of the Red Death, based on the Edgar Allen Poe story of the same name. The comic will be published first as a webcomic before collection in print volumes.
• Digital Strips also has an interview up with Gabe Strine, the creator of Brinkerhoff.

TOOLS

• A new version of Balloonist is out - the Balloonist software creates cartoon speech bubbles. Some of the new features in version 2.0 are: Curved Stems, Ruffle Harmonics, Better Line Break Control, Zoom Control, and well more (click for details). I've never used this software but I've seen it and the creators seemed to have spent much of the effort behind the new version in responding to current users requests.
  

EVENTS

• The date for 24 Hour Comics Day 2007 is Saturday, October 20th. If you're interested in being or recruiting a host for this event you can get more details here on what hosts are required to agree to.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE

• I've been meaning to plug the wonderful (relatively) new comic Voids by Shayna Marchese. Today, she posted a Flickr series of photos on how she creates the comic - that's as good a hook as any!
• The juggernaut that is Richard Stevens III rolls on. He recently discovered a quote of his showing up in Google's quote-a-nator thingee. (more details on the Diesel Sweeties site below the comic) Also is it just me or does the mohawked character in the recent web-DS storyline look a lot like Comixpress proprietor Logan DeAngelis?
• Frank Frisina, the writer of the poker-themed webcomic Life's A Bluff emailed me that artist Brandon Carr has returned to working on the project.
• Kris Straub's new/old parody (meta-parody?) gamer comic Insert Cartridge isn't bad. It's just not that cutting as parody really. On the other hand a couple of the jokes, despite Kris' insistence that he's trying to mimic the mediocrity of many comics in the genre, are pretty funny. (UPDATE: I didn't mean and I doubt Kris meant to say that the entire gamer comic genre is mediocre. More that there are many mediocre comics in that genre that are merely aping the tropes of it)

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

• The Joystiq blog names Fanboys Online as its webcomic of the week.
  
• Dani Draws has a list of 101 projects an artist can take on between assignments. A lot of them would make good exercises to kickstart creative juices if you're feeling uninspired.

26th annual I-CON, featuring webcomics creators Jon Rosenberg (Goats), Jeff Rowland (WIGU/Overcompensating), Steven Cloud (BOASAS), Rob Balder (PartiallyClips/Erfworld). Rob Balder is also Filk Guest of Honor.

Hi folks.

I couple of days ago, I had the great opportunity to sit down with David Lloyd of V for Vendetta and Kickback-fame and talk about his first very own graphic novel kickback.

The interview can be found here:

http://www.g-wie-gorilla.de/content/view/321/18/

So I’ve got valid excuses. We all do. Hence, naturally, quitting the comic has crossed my mind.

More than once.

Every so often I'll stumble upon a comic and I wouldn't know what to make of it...but damn (I would say to myself), that's pretty cool! Lost is one of them. Sysli uses photographs to construct this stream of consciousness style "webcomic" and it turned out quite wonderfully.