Due to the closing of Smartgroups, the WCCA planning commitee has been forced to do a little last minute scramble to create their own, original voting system for this year. So, unfortunately, the actual nomination mechanism won't be in place until next Monday (January 8th). However this is a perfect opportunity for everyone to take the time to familiarize themselves with the categories and procedures. By taking this time to research and plan your nomination suggestions, you'll help us all by making the best choices possible to create the best results possible.

Always thought you knew everything that happened this year in the news? Webcomics in Print is testing your brain with its first annual Big Bad Webcomic Quiz. With 50 questions spanning the entire year's news, events and even a few trivia questions, do you think you can figure out the answers in time? You've only got until New Years Day before the answers are revealled... Good Luck!

We used to do a comparison of early to more recent editions of longer running webcomics called First and Last. Here's a thread for noting some webcomics that improved this year - art is easier to spot, but it could be art and/or writing.

I'll start it off with Home On the Strange which started off pretty funny, but has improved its ability to blend story and funny. The art has also gotten better if you compare today's strip with the first strip back in January of this year.

HEADLINES

• Both the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun covers the charity Childs Play started by the Penny Arcade duo. I just checked the site and they may clear $900,000 in donations by the end of this year. Wow. That's an amazingly good thing.
• Tim Buckley posted a couple of videos showing the entire process of him creating Christmas art for his webcomic Ctrl-Alt-Del (as Buckley says the action is "sped up 600%"). Man I really want a Cintiq...

JUSTIFY MY HYPE

• Image Comics' Nightly News #1 is online for free.

INTERVIEWS

• Newsarama interviews T Campbell and Amy Mebberson about Divalicious their new comic book for Tokyopop. (link from Journalista!)
• An interview with Stephen Pastis, creator of Pearls Before Swine: lawyer, cartoonist, Renaisance Man!
  

REVIEWS

• A review of Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese at Monsters and Critics. (link from Journalista!)
  

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

• Here's an effort to link up cross-overs between webcomics in a sort of "one-world" kind of way.
  
• Wax Intellectual talks about comedy in comics.
  
• Ask Slave Labor Graphics publisher Dan Vado questions about the comics biz.
• Kris Straub explains how to submit your own version of Time Friends.

HEADLINES

• Entertainment Weekly posts its "best of" graphic novels for 2006.
  
• An interview with Alison Bechdel who received a high honor in the December 17 issue of Time magazine: her graphic memoir Fun Home was named the best book of 2006.

DEAD TREES

• John Allison shows how he reworked some strips from Scary Go Round for inclusion in the next book collection.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

• Ambrosia Digicomics founder Wesley Green wrote a couple of posts on digital distribution of comics earlier this month: the first one covers file formats and the second one covers making the file available on the internets.
• Kris Straub ponders the path of politeness on the intertubes.
• Drawn! flags the latest interwebs meme: redoing the redesign of the Archie characters.
• Drawn! also has a link to Chris Butcher's interesting review of the covers to various editions of Jeff Smith's Bone series.
• National Politboro Public Radio interviews Stupendous Stan Lee.
• Fi-Sci science fiction website is running webcomics - apply for it here if you're interested. They are already posting GAAK there.

MILESTONES

Chris Baldwin is ending Bruno. This was a truly groundbreaking effort, one of the most comprehensive, mature works published in webcomics. The title character is a complex, fully-realized character that captures a great deal of the angst and concerns of life.

...I am going to be ending Bruno soon. I have just completed the final scripts, and although I may adjust them, or add additional strips, the current scheduled final strip is February 12th.

Over the last couple of years I have mulled over this idea (of ending Bruno) a million times, and on June 18, 2006 I finally decided to end it. At that point I plotted out the ending, although it has morphed and extended itself several times. I didn't announce it sooner because I couldn't bear to admit it to you all, let alone myself (I feel physical nausea right now as I write this). I also wanted to be able to back out if I changed my mind.

But I have now written the final sequences, and despite misgivings and sadness, I have never changed my mind that it was the right decision.

NEWS & VIEWS

Wesley Green writes that Ambrosia Digicomics, his webcomics and blog hosting service, is almost done. Green must also have caught my post on journalist independence earlier this month as he writes:

There’s been a little news bite going around regarding a conflict of interest in regards to myself owning both Ambrosia Digicomics and Independent Propaganda. Honestly, I don’t foresee a conflict of interest ever happening. It’s not like I’m going to ask the reviewers who contribute to the IP site to just review web comics on this site, or anything along those lines. Hopefully making this public will put any slight rumblings to rest.

My original post was a general question (not an accusation) and it's been useful to me (even if boring to all of you!) to hear the range of answers provided.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE

• Diesel Sweeties: Calamitous Cranial Clonk for Clango?

REVIEWS

• Derik Badman reviews Carla McNeil's Finder, Vol. 8.
• Eric Lindberg reviews Digger by Ursula Vernon.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

• Fleen links to Liz Greenfield's write-up (pictures included) of her appearance at the Birmingham Comics Show. Danielle Corsetto and Ali Graham were there too.
  
• The Daily Cartoonist wraps up the year in newspaper comic strips.
• Comic Book Bin interviews Rosena Fung who draws the Soap Box for her college paper. (Link via Journalista!)
  
• Jennifer Contino interviews John Lustig who creates the wacky romance comic parody, Last Kiss.
  

Wow - I'm exhausted. Grey skies and a little rain for the day after Christmas. Hope you all have had a happy winter solstice season so far.

NEWS & VIEWS

• On the heels of Comicne.ws comes Plugg.us which is another digg-clone for comics. There's nothing wrong with comics-focused versions of more popular social networking tools, in fact it's great that this stuff is emerging. But the trick to success with these comic clones is whether or not they garner a critical mass of users (which is the same key to success for the original versions of any social networking site). Comicne.ws came pre-sold to CBR's significant audience, ComicSpace came pre-populated with OnlineComics large directory of webcomics. I'll wait and see with Plugg.us as it doesn't seem to have any similar affiliations to jumpstart it.
  
• Joey Manley has been using Alexa to show trends of various webcomics hosting services (here and more recently here). It's a bit tangential to interest in tracking individual webcomics' audience numbers but nevertheless interesting to see how other hosting services match up to the somewhat entrenched coke and pepsi of the market.
• Writer Caleb Monroe has set up a page intended to be a guide for beginning comic creators.

INTERVIEWS

• Wizard interviews John Allison, creator of Scary Go Round.
• The WordBalloon podcast has an interview with Steven Bryant, creator of Athena Voltaire.

REVIEW

• The Digital Strips podcast has a review of Butterfly by Dean Trippe.

MILESTONES

• Minimalist Stick Figure Theater reaches number 600.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE

• I can't tell whether Chris Crosby's Sore Thumbs spin-off project, Cecania's Private Party is a webcomic or a porn site. Time will tell I guess...
• Aeire and Chris Daily are teaming up for a new webcomic project debuting sometime next year. Check out a few preliminary sketches here.

NOT WEBCOMICS

• Art Room is an online drawing tool and gallery from the Saatchi Gallery. Holy high-low culture collision Batman!

As promised, the Daily Cartoonist has a short interview with Ted Rall about his role in luring Rich Stevens to the dark side newspaper syndication.

Zombie Hockey makes me feel good...

Anyone else turning a holiday tradition inside-out, upside down?

Women's Work is a brand-new website for a brand-new collective of women who work in and around the visual and literary industries.

• Leigh Dragoon
• Shaenon Garrity
• Rachel Hartman
• Lea Hernandez
• Lisa Jonté
• Karen Krajenbrink
• Layla Lawlor
• Karen Luk
• Carla Speed McNeil
• Rachel Nabors
• Leia Weathington
• Stevie Wilson
  

We are creators and storytellers. We’ve banded together and built ourselves a fort in our internet back yard and we invite you to come see. We have a database in which all creative types might take part, and a forum in which anyone might join the conversation.

Art before housework. In a hundred years, no one's going to care how clean your floors were.