Leigh Walton talks comics and maybe other arts.
The advance copies of Alex Robinson’s Too Cool to be Forgotten have arrived from the printer, and boy do they look good!
If you’re going to MoCCA this weekend, don’t fail to pick one up from him/us. Well, not me, as I’ll still be here in Portland. But the Top Shelf table!
Anyway, check out that design job by (Eisner nominee) Matt Kindt.
This is what I get for Googling “Killed by my EYES! My cursed, mutant, energy-blasting EYES!”
The “Swarthmore Warders of Imaginative Literature” of 1986 present: “The Rocky Horror Mutant Show.”
Highlights:
Scott: The X-Men make a wonderful team, Jean
So why can't I just say what I mean, Jean?
I think that you're pretty keen, Jean.
If I weren't such a coward I'd scream, Jean,
(aside) I love you.
(aloud) I'm less confident than I seem, Jean.
My courage just runs out of steam, Jean.
You're all that I ever could dream, Jean.
I'm trying so hard to come clean, Jean,
And tell you.
[...]
Jean: I really like the way that you fought, Scott,
If it weren’t for you I’d have been caught, Scott.
But Magneto’s plans came to naught, Scott.
Now Warren’s asked me to lunch–but
Hey, Scott! why not?
Come eat too!
And then:
Jean: It's astounding--
I'm still breathing!
I thought I'd lost it all.
I feel it in me,
The power's growing--
I've got to keep control.
I remember
I was dying--
I knew it was the end.
Then it hit me
The power came flooding--
I'll be an X-Man again!
I'll be an X-Man again!
I just rose from the dead
To a new incarnation.
Now I'm a god
Of my own creation.
Marvel Girl is gone,
But the Phoenix power lives on.
I'll be an X-Man again!
I'll be an X-Man again!
And of course:
Dark Phoenix: I used to be so frail
Wan and pale. (--bleah!)
I'd only been Marvel Girl before.
Galactus: You mean she's--?
(Watcher nods.)
Galactus: Oh SHIT!
Dark Phoenix: But now the Phoenix power
Just grows by the hour,
Now it desires to soar...and devour.
I already know
Just where to go,
I've tasted blood but I need more.
Watcher: More, more, more!
Dark Phoenix: I don't need assistence,
Just some real subsistance,
I think perhaps I'll eat
That star, for instance!
Fear, oh fear, oh fear, oh fear me!
Don't dare to come near me!
I am no longer your Jeannie--
I am incarnate power!
Friday, May 16, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TOP SHELF 2.0 GOES LIVE!
American indie-comics publisher Top Shelf Productions launches today its new free digital comics initiative, playfully titled Top Shelf 2.0. Updated 5 days a week, the new program will showcase a huge variety of talent both old and new, introducing creators to new fans — and fans to new creators — with a constant stream of new stories.
Updates to the site, posted every weekday, will take many forms, ranging from one-page gags to short stories to chapters in an ongoing series. With each day’s new story, co-editors Brett Warnock and Leigh Walton will unveil another piece in a rolling assortment of previously featured artists and new debuts. As a special bonus for the site’s launch, the initial offering features ten stories by twelve creators, demonstrating the vast diversity of comics and cartoonists involved. According to the editors’ welcome message, “that’s just the tip of the iceberg!”
Among those currently or soon to be featured on Top Shelf 2.0 are:
With its unique one-story-per-day format, Top Shelf 2.0 is a hybrid between a webcomics portal’s stable of ongoing strips and a print anthology’s stand-alone short stories. As Walton puts it, “We’re somewhere in between Keenspot and MOME.
Similarly, Walton’s web-savvy youth, combined with Warnock’s decade of experience editing the Eisner- and Harvey-Award-nominated anthology Top Shelf, makes for a killer curatorial combo.
Of course, the new program is no replacement for Top Shelf’s primary business: the print publication of critically-acclaimed and popularly treasured graphic novels. “People will never stop wanting books,” says Walton, “especially when the books are as lovingly crafted as ours (and those of other alt-comix publishers). Rather, Top Shelf 2.0 is like a little online spin-off of the big Top Shelf brand, like MTV2 or BBC Two. To a certain extent, we see Top Shelf 2.0 as a laboratory for new ideas and new creators — any webcomic that gets an outstanding response will naturally suggest that we consider it for print publication, but in the meantime we’re happy to give these creators and fans an opportunity to discover each other. Throughout the process, I should add, creators fully own their work — it’s an experiment for them as well as for us. We’re all excited to see where it goes!”
Top Shelf 2.0 is live at http://www.topshelfcomix.com/ts2.0 and updates Monday through Friday.
http://www.topshelfcomix.com/ts2.0
http://www.topshelfcomix.com/ts2.0
http://www.topshelfcomix.com/ts2.0
HOW AMAZING IS THIS?!?
Good as Lily artist Jesse Hamm earned his bandannaed self a fan for life when he revealed — after a weekend spent sitting across from us sketching — what he’d been working on.
Check it:
Left to right, that’s intern Sam Alden, former intern Carlos Hernandez Fisher, cartoonist Tim Sievert, publisher Brett Warnock, and publicity ninja Leigh Walton.
Makes me want to get a haircut, but he totally nailed us all! Thanks, Jesse!
Charles in charge.
Originally uploaded by slieber234
Well, that was a fantastic weekend for your humble correspondent — shown here at the feet of industry wise men Charles Brownstein and (off screen) Larry Marder. Thanks to Steve Lieber for the photo. for Not much time to recover (and bask in the glory of Sunday night’s karaoke tour de force, featuring Carolyn Main and a duet between myself and Tim Sievert), as there’s piles of exciting work to be done ahead.
Including — hey, what’s this exciting announcement?
More photos:
Note to self: for future shows, schedule time in the mornings to, like, shower and stuff.
Just look at that guest list! This might be the best Stumptown yet.
Douglas Rushkoff and Scott McCloud are both great thinkers and I’d love to have been in New York this morning listening to the panel discussion between them.
But when Heidi MacDonald posted these pictures of the two of them:
I found myself unable to think of anything but:
Achewood (The Best Comic on the Internet) just announced The Achewood Donation and Patronage Program, making Chris Onstad the latest webcartoonist to shift into a more explicit system of distributed patronage. The best other example I know of is Danielle Corsetto of Girls With Slingshots, who moved to full-time cartooning purely on the basis of a successful online donation drive. Onstad has, for some years now, been supporting the Achewood family purely through merchandise sales (the traditional model for full-time webcartooning is a combination of merchandise and advertising… do we call this the Khoo model?), but apparently he’s decided to take it to another level. Maybe money was getting tight. Considering that the internet is chock-full of people who would cut off their thumbs to keep Achewood in their lives — and I’m no exception — it sounds like a pretty good idea.
Appropriately enough, the original alt text for this 2002 strip was “Roast Beef tshirts available NOW. Contact with ORDERS.”
It’s also really interesting that this move takes place just as the news breaks about Dark Horse’s publication of an Achewood collection. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but there it is. Just coincidence, I guess.
~ ~ ~
There’s been a lot of discussion about digital arts economics lately — primarily focused on the music business, since it’s the most visible example of an industry flailing around in search of a new business model. Everybody wants digital music, lots of people are ready to admit that artists need to be paid, and quite a few bright people are looking at serious strategies for making that happen.
As both of those articles insist, a key factor to this new model is creating a personal connection, so that fans are able to trust that their money is going to the right place. What’s happening is that the per-unit cost of a piece of art is being eliminated — not just becoming zero, it’s ceasing to even be a concept. Instead, fans are being asked to pay for the whole experience of receiving stuff from an artist. But in order for that to work, it needs to be a sustained, thriving experience rather than a cut-and-dry transaction. To draw upon a bit of anthropological theory, it’s the transition between a market economy (in which the item is a commodity, i.e. its value is completely irrespective of its source) and a gift economy (in which a large amount of the item’s value derives from the relationship in which the exchange takes place). Seth Goodin wants to give lots of money to his favorite musician, Ricky Lee Jones — he admits he’s already spent a fortune acquiring every recording she’s ever made — but he wants to hear from her in exchange. If you want a less touchy-feely example: I joined Netflix, and my estimation of the value of an individual DVD immediately plummeted. But I was (and am) extremely happy to pay Netflix a monthly fee for the ability to have the world of film at my fingertips, see all the movies I’d always wanted to see, discover great obscure works, interact with my friends’ movie tastes, and generally be a member of the Netflix community. If they were to launch a new feature where filmmakers contact me (respectfully and tastefully) based on my previous viewing habits and request funding for new projects using a portion of my Netflix subscriber fee, I’d be happy to do it.
An interesting question (and rather pertinent to my situation!): what happens to the middlemen? What new directions can, say, a publisher be exploring, so that they can continue to follow their mission of helping creators and fans reach each other, and continue to make a living? Considering that artists are often too busy creating to handle editing/production/marketing/distribution/programming/accounting, I don’t think there’s any chance of us becoming obsolete. Also, Top Shelf artists in particular tend to have a shared sensibility that fans respond to loyally (at the very least, they’re unified by the fact that Chris and Brett like them, so so there’s naturally a lot of crossover appeal). There will always be a need for ancillary staff to handle the things that artists aren’t good at or don’t have time for, and there will always be a need for trusted voices that help readers sift through the overwhelming amount of culture available to them. But I suspect that both of those roles will continue to change as the digital economy continues to grow.
We live in interesting times!
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