Well, things went well at the big convention this past weekend. I met lots of people, made a few connections and I believe I have started to plant some seeds for future endeavors. There’s nothing to report as yet but I’ll keep you up to date as things develop.

One of the highlights for me was the only panel that I attended, the Act-i-vate Webcomics Panel. In it, members of the Act-i-vate collective talked about the genesis of the group and how working online has changed the way comics are being created and delivered to their audience. It was great to see some of webcomics’ finest talking about the medium in an insightful way; in many ways crystallizing my amorphous thoughts and feelings. All in all it was a very inspirational panel and I left feeling energized and proud to be a part of this webcomics movement.

Some of the key points that really resonated with me revolved around the discussion of monetizing free online content. Many creators cited examples of publishing and selling books through esteemed publishers of content still available online for free! How great is that!? It was also interesting to hear Paul Maybury talk about reworking past pages (something that I am guilty of). In my mind it’s an example of how this malleable medium of the internet allows for artists to let their work develop organically while presenting it to its audience. Comicbooks are static but online comics evolve. Of course, this idea is central to the Process so it’s easy to see why I was so jazzed that other webcomics creators are exploiting the medium in much the same way. Speaking of jazz, Dean Haspiel talked about how, for his strips, he doesn’t necessarily know how they are going to end! Fluidity and openness to improvisation like this are keys to creativity. More and more, these webcomickers are capitalizing on the advantages of the internet to simultaneously deliver content and keep it alive and evolving.

It’s also helped them evolve as creators; propelling their art and storytelling to new levels. They maintain regular schedules of updates that force them to constantly focus and push their stories from week to week. This sort of comics pressure-cooker has so many benefits to an artist. As the old addage says, ‘Practice makes perfect.’ But that’s not all! They actively comment and critique each other’s work as soon as it’s live. Their responses alongside readers’ feedback is almost like opening your studio to the world and having the world tell you what works and what doesn’t! For these reasons, there’s little question in my mind why Act-i-vate is the internet’s premier webcomics collective. Click the link to see what I mean.

Now from the sublime to the mundane, the other piece of news is that I have updated the way comments are handled on the blog. You can now reply to specific comments and receive emails when somebody replies to yours. This is going to be really good for creating the discussions that I hope to have happen here. Lastly, you’ll notice a link to email each post/page. Clicking this will allow you to send content to anyone’s email address. So please take advantage of these new features and participate in this content.