Skip to main content

Penny Arcade

5 Questions: Who Is Your Core Audience?

Submitted by Sam Costello on August 23, 2010 - 08:45

For a webcomic to be successful, it has to connect to a core audience. The core audience is the comic's natural readership, a defined group, the people who buy merchandise and recommend the comic to their friends. Core audiences are broad descriptions, of course (any single person in the group won't exactly fit the description), but they're useful in understanding a comic and its readers. For instance, Penny Arcade appeals to folks who enjoy video games (among other things). Hark! A Vagrant readers are educated, and have an interest in history and irreverent sense of humor. Understanding this helps determine what kind of content and merchandise may be well received by those comics' audiences.

Comix Talk for Friday, April 30, 2010

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 30, 2010 - 09:41

ComixTALK Man by Stephen McCranie

Stephen McCranie created a bit of ComixTalk fan art, thanks Stephen!  Be sure to check out his comic Mal and Chad a really well drawn comic.

Congrats to the Penny Arcade duo for being included in Time's Top 100 list this year.  Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins are a true American dream story -- doing what they love and creating success with it.

BleedingCool.com reports that the Atlantic Centre For The Arts in Florida is offering a  residency as Associate Artist for a comic book creator in October, under master artists THB creator Paul Pope, Blankets author Craig Thompson or manga creator Svetlana Chmakova. Wow, for almost any aspiring comics creator this seems like taking a PhD course.

MILESTONES: Brat-halla reaches 400 comics.  Congratulations to Jeffery Stevenson & Seth Damoose (and colorist Anthony Lee)!

EVENTS: Noel Curry wants to make May 14th Dialogue Free Comics Day.  It's a good point - which is to remind everyone of the important visual aspect of comics.

FROM THE MAILBAG:  Al Schroeder writes: After two years and ten zillion cameos and interdimensional tomfoolery, the group webcomic CROSSOVERLORD, featuring superheroes from seven different webcomics, reaches the climax of its storyline.  After this, only four or five more strips to go!

Comix Talk for Monday, March 29, 2010

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 29, 2010 - 09:36

So here's a good question worth a think. Salon just let Reuben Bolling know it's canceling it's contract for Tom The Dancing Bug (which apparently means This Modern World is the last comic at Salon?)  Tom the Dancing Bug is a smart, funny comic and the question now is -- what's the business plan for Bolling going forward?  Seriously, if there's one cartoonist who I would volunteer time to help brainstorm and execute a new business model for, he'd be on the short list. 

Penny Arcade - Penny Arcade Expo: Hope PAX East was awesome.  I'll jealously read the reports trickling in today as attendees tell their tales of brushing against the PA crew and breaking into spontaneous nerdcore beatboxing in the hallways.  In honor of the recent PAX East here's a link to Geekosystem's Top 10 Most Obscure PA characters.

Also, the Penny Arcade crew announced they would not be making a third installment in their videogames series but you can still read Macgasm's refresher review of the first two episodes of On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness here.

OTHER CONVENTIONS: In other con news, I'm still trying to make sure my schedule allows me to attend, but it looks like Rob Balder of Erfworld will definitely be there.  Where? At Intervention of course. And don't forget the Comics Events calendar for dates for comic conventions and other events. 

Milestones: Gordon McAlpin finished Book Four of his Multiplex webcomic.  This comic has gotten better and better -- McAlpin does the character-driven material as well as the movie-driven stuff.

REVIEWS: El Santo reviews Evan Dahm's Rice Boy - it's another example of why El Santo is one of the best reviewers in comics right now.  (My review of Rice Boy is here.)

INTERVIEWS: Sequential Tart has an interview with Rene Engstrom, creator of the completed webcomic Anders Loves Maria.

Opinion: I'd rather have Tatsuya Ishida on the editorial pages than most working editorial cartoonists.  Ishida is at least as opinionated as 3/4 of them and his art runs laps (MULTIPLE FREAKIN' LAPS) over all of them. 

iWEBCOMICS: Johana Draper Carlson talks about Alex de Campi’s Valentine comic, particularly the effort de Campi's making to bring it to multiple platforms simultaneously.

AROUND THE BLOGS: Last week, Howard Tayler had a great post on ideas and their value in the world - worth reading still.  And Tom Spurgeon lists the webcomics suggested by readers of his site, The Comics Reporter.  Not a bad list...

THE MAILBAG: Jason Whitley wrote to alert us to the return of Sea Urchins, which apparently used to be a newspaper-only comic (there's a book collection of these available here).  The comic is by Whitley and Scott Eckelaert, but so far there's not much in the way of comics up on the website.

NOT WEBCOMICS: I've still only read one Scott Pilgrim book, but the trailer for the movie looks like great fun.  

Comix Talk for Thursday, March 4, 2010

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 4, 2010 - 10:49

Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins

INTERVIEWS: Time's Techland Blog is the next step on the Penny Arcade book tour.  Sean Collins interviews Nick Gurewitch about some short comics he did for Marvel.  Marvel?  Yeah Marvel!  He has Hulk and Wolverine comics in an upcoming  book.  CrunchGear interviews Drew and Natalie Dee of Toothpaste for Dinner fame.  And David Harper interviews Brock Heasley, co-creator of Monsterplex, the most recent winner of the Zuda contest.  Heasley's other webcomic is the superheroes in a retirement home comedy -- Super Fogeys.  (h/t to Paperless Comics which does a far most exhaustive job than I of tracking down webcomic-related interviews and reviews around the web)

REVIEW: Christopher Irving at GraphicNYC gives Raina Telgemeier's Smile a great review.

LEGAL BEAGLE: Long article at CBR on the Incarnate/Bleach copying scandal and the line on plagerism and homage/inspiration in general.  If you're interested in the subject, worth a read.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE Channeling Randy Jackson for a minute: Dude, Rosenburg you just killed it tonight! That thing is hawt!  Seriously - this animated panel of Goats is great fun and doing it as an animated gif is practically like employing medieval age technology by the standards of Internet time.

AROUND DEM BLOGS: Hope Larson reminds you that she is not Bryan Lee O'Malley's secretary.  Alexis Farjado announced that his new Kid Beowulf book The Song of Rowland is off to the printers.

Comix Talk for Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 23, 2010 - 08:33

Well hmm, not a whole shaking this morning I guess.

Interviews: Rick Marshall at MTV Splash Page has a great interview with the guys at Penny Arcade about their new book and a book tour this year.

Conventions: Everyone seems to be writing about the possibility of ComicCon leaving San Diego when its current contract is up - here's the San Diego local newsprint article that kicked off the hype.

BUSINESS?: Sean Kleefeld catches some interesting tweets from Brian Altounian, owner of e-publisher WOWIO including:

Launching MoneyTV campaign for WOWIO today. Part of larger marketing campaign that will put WOWIO on the map just in time to go public.
Feb. 18

Comix Talk for Thursday, February 18, 2010

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 18, 2010 - 11:49

The 11 1/2 Anniversary Edition

Pretty quiet today although check out this stunning creative innovation from the newspaper comic B.C.  Wow!  Now that's how you stay hip and current...

INTERVIEWS: Josh Lesnick, creator of Girly, is interviewed by the INTERNET!

REVIEWS: Johanna Draper Carlson has a review of the new mega-Penny Arcade book, The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade.  For all the reasons she's a bit lukewarm on it, I will probably love it.

CRAFT: Nice little tutorial from Jim Zubkavich on the process for a recent illustration he did.

BUSINESS: The Beat reports that Graphic.ly, "a fairly new but bold player in the digital comics distribution field", has announced the acquisition of iFanboy, the popular comics news and information community.  Graphic.ly is in "private beta" -- anyone using it right now?

Comix Talk for February 1, 2010

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 1, 2010 - 10:33

Child's Play CharityGood morning world. The Cranky Old Gnome blog offers an essay on webcomics called "Critiquing Free Content". (h/t Paperless Comics):

It got me wondering–to what extent can free content like a webcomic be criticized?  How much does the audience have a right to expect from the artist, and when do they cross that line?

iWebcomics: Paperless Comics has more reactions to the iPad announcement last week.

INTERVIEWS: Growly Beast has an interview with Gitte Tang Jensen of B.I.B.L.E. and Forbidden Planet has an interview with Daniel "Merlin" Goodbrey and his collaborator Sean Azzopardi on their comic Necessary Monsters.

VIDEO GAMES, VIDEO GAMES, VIDEO GAMES: Congrats - the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards are honoring Jerry, Mike and Robert of Penny Arcade, Inc. with an  Ambassador Award for their Child's Play Charity work.

AWARDS: SPACE handed out some awards and Ryan Dow won in the webcomics category for Introspective Comics.

REVIEWS: Delos reviews Urban Jungle by David Willborn, "a gag comic which mostly covers cubicle humor but also has geek humor, tech humor, animal humor, pokes fun at comics and talks about issues and culture without being preachy."

JUSTIFY MY HYPE: Sailor Twain or the Mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel. (h/t Scott McCloud); and David Lasky draws the ULTIMATE GRAPHIC NOVEL (in six panels).

Friday News and Weekend Clues

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on October 13, 2006 - 10:27

DEADLINES AND OTHER RIGHT-NOW STUFF

NEWS

  • Kitchen, Lind & Associates have signed up webcomic creator Bryant Paul Johnson (Teaching Baby Paranoia, The Antecedent). Previously this agency had signed up webcomic creators Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing. KL&A provides artist representation and book packaging to its clients. (KLA will have a booth at SPX on October 13th and 14th to promote its upcoming packaged books and is looking to meet with talented creators who are seeking representation.) You know you're at a webcomic news site because the big deal here to me is the signing of creators from the web. The big news to everyone else though will be that KLA has signed Jim Lawson and the estate of Harvey Kurtzman.
  • Barry Deutsch who sold his URL to a "Search Engine Optimization" company - but kept his blog and cartoons there - opens up his blog to discussion of his decision. Reinder has a post with some thoughts on the controversy.

MILESTONES

OPINION

INTERVIEW

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

Potential ShutDowner Inadvertantly Becomes ShutDownee

Submitted by Anonymous on December 10, 2003 - 21:28

Sean Howard's A Modest Destiny webcomic site was shut down temporarily today, in an odd twist of events brought about through Howard's unhappiness with some Penny Arcade forum-goers.

According to the PA site, Howard had written to the PA boys asking (demanding?) them to crack down on PA forum-goers who were using AMD characters as avatars. Included in this letter was the statement that Howard had already "shut down six web comics that were using his art", thus potentially implying that the same could happen to the PA site, if this alleged copyright infringement was not dealt with quickly.