#223 Electronic Comics

Comics are increasingly read as bits and bytes, on PCs and handheld devices.

Blank creators Brothers of the Silence are publishing the comic in Flash on their site, and as image files on Facebook and several other sites. “Brothers” Ian LeWinter and Don Richmond talk about creating the comic and promoting it via social media sites.

Dale Wilson of DWAP Productions, making his second appearance on this podcast, discusses the ways his company is getting its traditional paper product out in handheld device formats.

Remember “Yon Kuma”? Tim and Mulele reviewed it a year ago. It’s now called “Bear Beater Bunyan,” and it’s an iPhone app. Artist Jorge Munoz talks about the path he and writer Josh Hechinger followed in making the comic available for handhelds.

“Bear Beater Bunyan” is just one of many comics available from Robotcomics.net. Robot Comics Deputy Director Dave Baxter fills us in on the state of the growing comics market for handhelds and how Robot does what it does.

Finally, Tim and Mulele review some of Robot’s output.

#222 Canadian Web Comics

Tim and Mulele review two Web comics that have little in common besides the nationality of their creators! Amya, a recently-started, manga- an fantasy-influenced comic; and Hark, a Vagrant, featuring contemporary, humorous takes on historical events.

Then Mulele critiques Tim’s recent artwork, and discussion of how to draw facial expressions ensues (view full post to see pictures below).

Continue reading #222 Canadian Web Comics

#221 Johnny Cash: We See a Brightness

Though Asterios Polyp made the point that comics and (written) music are similar, doing a comic about music is not such an easy task. But Reinhard Kleist beautifully presents the music, and life, of a country music legend in Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, recently released in English. How does it compare with the Cash biopic Walk the Line? Tim and Paul review.

#220 Guamics!

If you think the area where you live is too isolated and lacks a comics scene, consider the Pacific island of Guam: Fewer than 200,000 people, only about half of whom use the Internet. Few comics outlets, and a small selection. And even ordering online can be problematic. Tim visited Guam recently and spoke with Carlo Cariño (creator of Its a Big Island) and Roland Miranda, political cartoonist for the Pacific Daily News (see his work here and here). They discussed their creative work and the difficulties of being an island-based artist.

#219 Asterios Polyp

Reviews of Asterios Polyp blanket the Internet; why need we pile on? Well, for starters, to counteract all the reviewers who think that giving a story synoposis = explaining what the book’s about. That approach falls far short with Polyp, so Tim and Kumar are here to explain what they feel David Mazzucchelli’s masterwork graphic novel is really about!

Stumptown annotations of Polyp

#218 The ups and downs of downloading

Is having your work illegally downloaded the worst thing that can happen to a comics artist? If you work for a major, perhaps not, but every download can have a noticeable effect when you’re trying to make a living drawing comics that are less widely purchased. One such freelancer, Jake Ekiss of Dallas, Texas, joins Tim and Mulele to talk about the prevalence of comics downloading and the feeling among many struggling comics artists that their time and effort are undervalued. What about those downloaders who later buy? What about those who download because they can’t afford the product?

#217 Comics scripts analyzed

A recent Comics Reporter article by Ng Suat Tong on “Writing, Collaboration, and Superheroes” (and a rebuttal to it from Chris Allen Online) got us to thinking: Do modern writers give sufficient instruction to artists? How much of what you see on the page came from the writer, and how much from the artist? Are some artists not carrying out the writer’s suggestions, and is that because the artist had a better idea, because the writer’s instructions were impractical, or because the artist is simply, um, not that good?

To explore these questions, Kumar, Mulele, and Tim chose four scripts from the Comicbook Script Archive site, and read them alongside the finished comics that resulted from them: Punisher Max #39, by Garth Ennis and Leandro Fernandez; Y: the Last Man #18, by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra; Daredevil 28, by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev; and (the ringer of the lot) Batman: the Killing Joke, by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. Here’s the resulting discussion!

#216 Comics on the move: a discussion of animation

Animation has always drawn on comics as a source of material. But what is involved in adapting a comic to animation? Our resident animation expert Patrik W joins Tim to talk about the special considerations of animation character design, as well as storyboarding and more.

Preston Blair’s classic “Advanced Animation”

Blog of Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi

#215 Gestalt rises from Down Under

Australia is not world-renowned for its comics scene. But Perth-based Gestalt Comics is trying to change that. Co-founders Wolf Bylsma and Skye Ogden talk to Tim about the Aussie comics scene and what Gestalt is doing to try to develop it.

#214 We get interviewed!

Tim and Mulele are joined by Mike Kloran, a Deconstructing Comics listener and artist based in northern Japan. Creating educational comics is discussed, and Mike interviews Tim and Mulele. Also, what are Mike’s thoughts on this podcast itself?
Then Tim and Mulele discuss two books by Ken Dahl, “Welcome to the Dahl House” and “Monsters”.