The cool folks over at Nightgig Studios are including part one of our three part drive-by on webcomics at the Alternative Press Expo in the Gigcast this week.

Hi there,

This week in Smithson:

Lunchtime with Gemma is always an experience. How many sentences can she speak before she puts her foot in her mouth? Also, the return of a character that we haven't seen in some time.

Kind of interesting: WikiWorld is a webcomic hosted on Wikipedia about Wikipedia entries.

IV Comics is another group with a pretty impressive roster of comics. I picked Brink by Keryn Everett to check out because the art looked fantastic (my first impression was of a blurry version of Makeshift Miracle, but that's not exactly accurate). Brink does have great art with very effective use of color. I don't like the translucent speech bubbles it uses myself but it works well enough here (Brink might consider as an alternative using the pop-up speech bubble trick employed by the webcomic Sam & Max). Story-wise it's about a couple of young people who are in some kind of test program and are either (i) crazy, (ii) gifted or (iii) both. Or maybe none of the above. It seems intentionally unclear what it's all about at times. But in a good way - this one is well worth checking out.

Phil Foglio posted earlier this week that his wife Kaja Foglio was hospitalized this past Saturday after suffering an attack related to Chrohn’s disease. Kaja is the co-writer with Phil of their popular comic series Girl Genius. Phil stated that they will continue to post Girl Genius (although he warned that Kaja is the technical expert of the two so that updates online will depend on Kaja's ability to "walk me through everything on the phone at this point."

Yesterday Phil posted that Kaja had improved enough to come home from the hospital. Comixpedia wishes a speedy recovery to Kaja and notes that Phil also invited folks to send Kaja get-well cards care of Studio Foglio to 2400 NW 80th St. #129 Seattle, WA 98117-4449 USA.

Over at Talkaboutcomics Lynn Lau interviews Rachael Moore, creator of the treasure-hunt fantasy Unicorn Campaign. I've been reading Unicorn Campaign and I like its fresh spin on some basic fantasy genre ideas. The basic premise is that the first live unicorn in a long time has been spotted and all kinds of people come out to see it and capture it (for various motives).

David Morgan-Mar's always funny webcomic Irregular Webcomic! turns it sights on Wikipedia.

xkcd creator Randall Munroe speaks at MIT and the rocket scientists-in-training go wild!

Well, not the current queen. But, making her first appearance in Where the Buffalo Rome this week is Boadicea, queen of the Iceni and well-known typing error.

You can meet her in the latest instalment to have been salvaged from my mis-spent school-days and dusted down for the web at Broken Voice Comics. Be nice, though. She is royalty, remember!