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Ben McCormick

SPX and Intervention 2010 Report

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on October 4, 2010 - 23:31

SPX 2010Intervention 2010Wow! SPX and Intervention in one long weekend of comics; it took me awhile to recover and get back to writing up lessons learned.  I felt a little stretched trying to cover ground at both conventions --  but it looks like no one will have to do that again as Intervention will almost certainly be on a different weekend in the Fall next year. Ideally, Intervention would be in the summer or spring to really separate it from SPX, but co-creator Oni Hartstein explained that a Spring date for the show would be cost prohibitive.

SPX was more of the same as it has been since the move to the Bethesda Convention Center -- one big room filled with rows and rows of comic creators talking about their comics with books and swag to sell.  The presence of webcomics at the show grows every year -- this year Kate Beaton was the rock star of the show, with lines longer than anyone else had.  Jeph Jacques' table and a whole group of webcomics at one corner of the room were all pretty constantly crowded from what I could tell.  It's kind of a no-brainer when you say it out loud, but if you have a webcomic with a decent to more than decent sized audience, SPX is potentially a really good show.  People are there for the comics and outside of New York, this is one of the best places on the East Coast to see a whole lot of the entire spectrum of comics.

Intervention 2010 Photos

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on September 12, 2010 - 15:35

A few photos from Intervention Con 2010 this weekend in Bethesda, MD.  

Guest Bloggers Week 3

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 23, 2010 - 00:48

Let me repeat my thanks to all of the guest bloggers for posting so many great posts in my absence.  Thanks to last week's bloggers: Alexander Danner, Brian Moore, John Baird and Max Vaehling.  My biggest regret is that I didn't give them all their own week (if you weren't able to check out the last week flip through the archives for a ton of advice on writing, review and links to great comics).  And one more thanks to the week one bloggers: Ben McCormick, and Amanda & Daniel Potter.

For this week we've got a great group of comic creators and instigators.  They'll all be introducing themselves but here's a brief summary:

Steve Troop is the creator of the comedy sci-fi comic Melonpool and the comic CryptoZooey.  He's been making comics for over 10 years now.  He's also made some excellent puppets and they have appeared in several places including a They Might Be Giants video the Kobe and Lebron MVPuppets commercials.

Sam Costello is the prolific writer and creator behind Split Lip the horror webcomic series.

Harknell and Onezumi are a force to be reckoned with!  Onezumi is a webcomic creator and Harknell is a website coding ninja.  Both are very cool folks and longtime supporters of this site as well as their own webcomic community sites.  We're lucky to have a bit of their time as they are gearing up for the first edition of the convention they've created: Intervention which is coming very soon in September.

Guest Bloggers Assemble

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 9, 2010 - 04:04

A big thanks to everyone who volunteered to do some posting while I'm galavanting around this month!  This week we have three guest bloggers:

Daniel Potter is a mild mannered vascular biology researcher by day and a slightly deranged writer at night.  He blames this unlikely combination on the fact that his right and left brain have filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences and are seeing other people.  Due to the quirks of biology both halves remain in Dan’s head where they are frequently heard shouting at each other by his loving wife. Dan resides in Maastricht, the Netherlands with his wife, two cats, and quarreling gray matter.  To ease tensions Dan has created Walking the Lethe, a comic that asks the question: What happens when you ask a demoness to send you to Heaven?

Amanda Potter is the owner and operator of Fallen Kitten Services and the webmaster for Walking the Lethe.  Amanda is an informational professional (yes, a librarian) who has harbored a not-so-secret love for comics in its various forms ever since reading Asterix and Elfquest as a child. After a long period of “serious” education, Amanda’s husband dragged her across the ocean to the Netherlands where she had no excuse not to pursue a business bringing together a love for comics and a passion for online organization.

Tovias (a.k.a. Ben McCormick) began making webcomics in August of 2003 and made every rookie mistake possible. After six years of attempted webcomic starts and stops, he left his job as a systems engineer and now works full-time on his latest comic, Reality Amuck.  He currently lives in Southeastern Virginia with his wife, five kids, two cats, a studio full of comic books and action figures (“THEY’RE NOT DOLLS!”) where he writes and draws webcomics into the wee hours of the night.

Scheduled for the rest of the month are:

August 16th: Brian Moore, Alexander Danner, and Max Vaehling

August 23rd: Steve Troop, and Sam Costello

August 30th: Brandon Carr, and Scott Story

Comix Talk for Monday, August 2, 2010

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 2, 2010 - 08:14

You know what -- a big thanks to Journalista!, The Comics Reporter and Comics Worth Reading for all of the great reporting they do.  Almost every dang morning I find something interesting to read at those sites.  Speaking of which, Tom Spurgeon posted a note this morning from Ted Rall -- Rall is beginning his latest expedition to Afghanistan with fellow cartoonists Matt Bors and Steven L Cloud along for the ride.  Safe Travels!

MILESTONES

HYPE: I'm looking forward to MK Reed's Americus (scheduled for publication by First Second  in Fall of 2011) and excited to hear that it will be serialized online along the way.  The comic is drawn by Jonathan Hill. (h/t CWR!)

MAKING IT

COPYFIGHT:  I'm no expert on the Neil Gaiman-Todd McFarlane litigation but Maggie Thompson's write-up of the latest phase is an interesting practical example of the notion of derivate work.

REVIEW:  Tom Spurgeon reviews Mike Dawson's Troop 142 which Dawson is serializing online here.

INTERVIEW:  Good Comics For Kids blog has an interview with James Kochalka from SDCC (there's a whole bunch of videos from the GCFK blog there too):

Comix Talk for Friday, March 5, 2010

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 5, 2010 - 09:06

Another week gone by already?! 

BUSINESS: Boing Boing links to a study showing that generally an ebook release is correlated with increased print sales.  Hard to do this kind of study with free-all-the-time webcomics but I do think it's high time academics did more work with data on these questions.

DEAD TREES: Robot6 notes that the new graphic novel collection of the webcomic Haunted by Josh Smeaton is now available.

REVIEW: El Santo lowers the one-star boom on Las Lindas.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE: Reality Amuck today tackles Green Email and Spam with funny results.