Webcomics, like most other narrative forms, rely upon interaction and conflict to drive their plots. Fight with your roommate, go out with friends, have dinner with your significant other, argue with a waiter, meet a new boyfriend’s buddies, have lunch with your ex’s new ex, or stave off an alien invasion and save the planet. These everyday occurrences provide a launching point to tell a story, develop a character, or make a point.

When we talk about relationships everyone’s first thought is usually the boyfriend or girlfriend type of attachment. But that’s far too limiting. There are an infinite number of relationship types out there and romantic ones are merely a subset. Family ties, friendships, professional or co-workers relationships, and housemate situations are some of the more common (and most often presented), but every day we interact with all sorts of people in all sorts of ways.

As we roll out the final week of this issue it's a good time to say thanks to the many folks who have worked hard to create this magazine and website called Comixpedia.

Why now?

Well besides the fact that the September 2004 issue is the 20th installment of Comixpedia, Frank "Damonk" Cormier is turning over the editorial reins of Comixpedia magazine to Xaviar Xerexes (See, I'm already writing in the third person - this EiC thing is going to go to my head!) and in many ways this marks the end of the first chapter for Comixpedia. It is also the beginning of a second act for Comixpedia, o­ne where I fully intend to bring new voices and new features to this project to continue to make it a worthwhile resource for the webcomics community as well as a great read every month.

The jaded webcomics consumer is well familiar with the idea: a creator takes extant intellectual property, then makes it her own.

Sandra Fuhr has been delighting readers, first with the romance webstrip that just happens to be gay, Boy Meets Boy, and has since gone on to another strip, Friendly Hostility, both ironic, urbane, touching, and utterly engrossing.

Recently Frank "Damonk " Cormier caught up with Fuhr online. Additional work for this interview was done by Al Schroeder.

Steven L. Cloud is the creator of Boy On A Stick and Slither (also referred to as "BOASAS"). Dan Carroll talked with Cloud about a boy on a stick, a snake and absurd/silly/philosophical/religious/political satire webcomics.

Feeding Snarky on Language and Art

All written language is visual communication. This seemingly innocuous -- even obvious -- statement mystifies many who hear it. "I know from language," they say. "It’s verbal. It’s communicative. It’s certainly not visual." Of course, unless someone’s reading the sentences aloud to them, there’s noting verbal about the written word. It’s all ideograms in patterns we’re trained to recognize and manipulate.

And for the cartoonist -- or any sequential artist, really -- the number of ideograms they have to work with approaches the infinite. It’s what’s heartbreaking about "talking heads" comics, even when they’re great -- yes, you can make your point or direct your story or tell your joke with the twenty-six letters of the standard English alphabet, with your figures standing, cut and pasted into four panels, barely showing dynamic motion or range. You can even be brilliant at it (two of my favorite webcomics in that vein are Her (Girl vs. Pig) and Lore Brand Comics). But as dry and witty and pleasant as these comics are, they do not take advantage of the richness of linguistic possibility in cartoon art.

Obviously, when considering "Romance and the Relationship" in webcomics, I'm drawn to those folks who do take such advantage, both in the traditional, glorious palette cartoons enjoy, and in the ways that webcomics break free from the traditional. And that focuses me, in entirely different ways, on Queen of Wands and No Stereotypes.

Come Together

Which would you rather go see, a one-man band or an orchestra? Is a four-piece band just perfect? Was The Who so loud because they were overcompensating for only having three instruments? Is bigger really better? Or do too many cooks spoil the broth? (Should I throw in some more metaphors or get right to the, uh, meat of the matter?)

The point: Most online comics are done by just one person.

On a bustling Friday night at the mall recently, I wandered into the Barnes and Noble to see what was new.

My wife and I set a small allowance aside for ourselves, for fun non-necessities we want to purchase now and then. Not surprisingly, most of mine gets spent on comics and graphic novels. I have a fairly set pattern when I go to one of these massive bookstores, and I was following it to a tee that night despite never having been in to that particular store location. First, I perused the magazine racks, checking out all of the latest Hollywood gossip, video game reviews, incredible toys I wished they would have been making when I was a kid, and of course, the new issue of Wired. From there, I scanned the bargain book tables on my way over to where they keep the computer books. I then proceeded to swear a lot about how expensive all the programming books I wanted were. Once I was done there, my next destination was the science fiction racks, where I would of course find the graphic novels and... manga?

Since February 2001, fans of complicated and intertwining relationships have been reading the adventures of an ensemble cast originally in a strip called Coolville and recently reincarnated as a strip called Intershadows. Defying easy categorization and cliche, its characters often take off into their own metaphorical inner landscape. On top of that, the author herself is having a relationship with another webcomic creator, Justin Pierce of Killroy and Tina. Kathleen Jacques recently gave us this interview about Intershadows and getting into the heads of her characters."

Audrey, the main character in Benjamin Rivers' Empty Words is a Registered Practicing Nurse in a long-term care facility. She is a new employee, and has just experienced her first on-the-job death, an aspect of the job that she finds difficult to deal with. In fact, she's having trouble dealing with her job period, with what she sees as the warehousing of old people until they die -- so much so that it is starting to affect her relationships with friends and family.