George Panella is busy.

Between creating ToykoHigh (on Modern Tales) and other webcomics, Panella somehow managed to launch WirePop, a subscription website dedicated to publishing manga-style webcomics. Panella has actually been quite active in webcomics for some time now with his Razor Studio website, where he offered the RazorNav automation script and started the RazorComics link exchange for webcomics.

We caught up with Panella to talk about WirePop, ToykoHigh and what else he's juggling in 2004.

If you're paying for webcomics, you need to know if it's worth your hard-earned cash. Last year, we reviewed Modern Tales and Keenspot Premium. We now take a look at the two newest kids on the webcomics block, PV Comics and WirePop.

The plot has been done, the art style bears little to set it apart from manga of the late eighties, and the characters are relatively simple.

The "but" coming up after a sentence like that is almost tangible:

Buuuuuuuuuuut…

Sean Boyle's Darkbolt is likable, make no mistake. It's likable for showing the value of hard work and practice, practice, practice. It's likable for the plots you can almost always sense ahead of time, the characters whose reactions are obvious. You don't go to a ball game to be surprised; you go to support the show you love and to watch everything play out, one way or another. This webcomic is very much that ball game.

Syndicates, groups, hubs, and collectives.

Despite the fact that few of them ever meet face to face, webcomickers seem to crave community and camaradie. To this end, some webcomickers seek out like-minded creators, and form groups. Some of these groups are meant to do little more than offer comfort and a sense of community, while others are meant to expand reader bases, and occasionally even make money.

This feature takes offers a snapshot of some of the perks and drawbacks of collectives, and then offers a list of these joined creative masses in the event that you've just been itching to be assimilated by someone... anyone.

With Return of the King still gallivanting in theaters, everyone knows J. R. R. Tolkien these days (except, evidently, my spell check). So it won't be big news to bring up why it was that the good professor wrote the books in the first place. He wrote a story that he himself wanted to read but had been unable to find.

Tolkien was not a writer of fiction by deliberation, but stumbled into it.

I have had the (unfortunately not unique) opportunity to learn something of the art of flame from the hands of some of the masters. These experiences have given me a bit of insight into the strategy and tactics of how to skillfully conduct a conflict by using flames.

Persons interested in taking up the art of flaming people may have a career open to them as a politician or lawyer, or in any other profession which requires a supple spine and no morals.

I am over two weeks late writing this article. There are a lot of reasons why -- for one thing, it's hard to think of something clever to say about the world of webcomics immediately after writing a six page paper about the Emperor Alexis Comnenus I of Constantinople -- other examples include extremely urgent tea drinking, needing to listen intently to the same three tracks of the opera Carmen 14 times through because I can never hit the bloody flat at the end of the aria and I need to know it by Saturday, and wanting to avoid the incessant teasing of my housemates when I use my voice recognition program.

You may remember that Comixpedia called for questions for Sam Brown late last year. Well, Sam recently came through with the answers. The slightly eccentric but wildly popular creative force behind explodingdog.com has been marvelling the Internet droves with his art, and producing his work through a very interesting relationship with his audience – readers submit titles, and he draws pictures to fit them.

The Story of Syndie-rella

Once upon a time... there lived an unhappy young webcomic. It was unhappy, because its webhost mommy was dead, and its daddy domain had decided to marry a giant stepPanda in her stead. When she moved in, the widower Panda brought along stepchildish ambitions, and neither liked the webcomic one bit.

If given psychic powers to predict the future, most of us would pick the winning lottery numbers and retire early. The title character of Dominic Deegan, Oracle for Hire, opens up a fortune telling business in a small town where he pays the bills by answering the annoying and downright inane questions of the local populace. Throw in plenty of bad puns, bungling thieves, arrogant knights, an assistant with an inferiority complex, and a smart aleck cat, and you have the makings of a genuinely funny online comic strip.