Skip to content

Posts from the ‘funnybooks’ Category

Aug 8

13 Comments

Don’t let critical insulation become a padded room

Man I love Scott Kurtz. I’m not sure of anyone else who has that unique blend of high quality output I can’t resist – and then the occasional personal post that can just send me screaming around the bend wanting to rant and rage.

His latest blog post snarks Johanna Draper Carlson’s review of “How to Make Webcomics” (which I’ve said before is great and should be step one in any new artists plan for internet domination). Now while Johanna’s review is pretty much glowing Scott took umbrage at Johanna’s wondering why there was nothing in the book to suggest that occasionally criticism from critics or fans was deserved.
Read more

Jul 18

3 Comments

Obligatory Batman Tie-In Story

I was picking up my pull list at my local comic haunt last week (confidential to readership: If you don’t know what a “pull list” is, this story is probably not for you) and ended up in line behind a mother and her young son discussing which comic character he would dress up as for “Super Hero Camp.” “Wolverine!” was his instant, choice. “No, that’s too scary for some of the younger kids – pick someone more friendly.” The boy started scanning action figures lining the wall across from the counter “The Hulk! Hellboy! Lobo!” Each met with a similar complaint. The young gentleman clearly screwed down his thinking cap to give the issue some major thought – and then you could see the lightbulb go off over his head – “The Joker!”.
Mom beamed. “That’s a much better choice!” At this point I came dangerously close to doing a spit-take. May I present a common comic-shop dillema: Should I volunteer an opinion that no one has asked me for? Read more

Jul 14

Plight of the Beer Commercial Husband

beer commercial husband, your plight is that of blindness to her plight. your only explanation you offer when she found you pouring kitty litter into the bathtub is a sheepish grin. you impulse-bought a motorcycle when the two of you were saving for a minivan, and your solution is to get a sidecar and a baby-sized germanic helmet that reads “lunch time” beneath a cartoon drawing of some tits.

Yes this is a little late, what with the theme-park distractions and all, but I felt it was important to publicly acknowledge the post that accompanies this comic over at Chainsawsuit.

Plight of the Beer Commercial Husband is quite possibly the finest thing Kris Straub has ever written.

And that’s saying something.

Jun 24

4 Comments

Please stop e-mailing me about DJ Coffman and “Heroes by Night”

Based, presumably, on the fact I referred to DJ Coffman in this post about why self-publishing isn’t a panacea, and the still wildly popular trio of posts about the TokyoPop pilot (the inciting incident, ensuing brough-ha, and third thing where Zuda gets dragged into the morass) people are seeming to take DJ’s post from yesterday that all is not well in his ongoing efforts to regain his “Hero by Night” rights as some kind of absolute sign from the heavens that I must renounce everything I wrote therein.

So here’s why I’m not going to do that. Read more

Jun 10

3 Comments

Defending Publishers (aka Several reasons self-publishing sucks)

Almost a week ago, D.J. Coffman announced that he’s putting his (really fun) Hero by Night on hiatus due to late payments by Platinum Studios. His post immediately reignited the eternal argument about the importance of creators rights in comics (see, pretty much any post from this site two weeks ago).

And while I agree with much of the sentiment behind the “hooray for self-determination” school of thought on creators rights – it does tend to overlook large areas where the current self/Internet publishing models might really suck for a lot of emerging creators.

Read more

May 29

7 Comments

Zudacomics v. Tokyopop: Round 3!

Round 3: Fight!

Last TokyoPop post for a little while… I promise.

Brigid Alverson posted an interesting question over at her MangaBlog wondering about the compare and contrast between the TokyoPop and Zudacomics contracts.

It’s way to late to do a point by point breakdown – but I did do a scan of the standard Zudacomics rights agreement, and for my money the TokyoPop one is far preferable.
Read more

May 28

10 Comments

The Return of the Curious Case of the TokyoPop Contract

Further to my last post about the TokyoPop pilot program, I’ve swapped a couple of interesting e-mails with “industry insiders” (who I have not asked for permission to quote, so I shan’t name).

It seems like alot of the ire coming up in this specific case can be traced back to the fact that some folks feel TokyoPop has a very bad track record for exploiting new talent.

Read more