Despite the fact that I’ll never tell him to his face, I consider Chris Sims to be one of my better friends, and was glad to hear that he had a new comic coming out through Flashbackuniverse.com. Unfortunately, they seem to have decided to use just the .cbr format for their offerings, which means that there’s too many steps between me and reading the comic.
Let’s say I heard about this Christmas comic Sims has done and want to enjoy it. To do this, I have to visit the Flashback Universe downloads page, where a link to download the comic is at the top of a long list of other comics set in the same world. I’m given the option to preview the story or download the file.
The links explaining what a CBR viewer is, how to display the comics, and explaining the file type are all fine and good, but people want content, not explanations from the internet, especially when it comes to entertainment. Heck, Zuda’s viewer is awkward as all get-out, but it takes just a click to get started with a comic, and when you’re trying to get people engaged with the content that you’re offering them, you want to remove any and all barriers between them and the product, especially if you’re offering it for free.
Here’s three things I would do if I were going to have Chris Sims write a comic story for me that I wanted as many people as possible to read:
Give the comic its own page on the site that people can link to without saying “Go to the Downloads page, scroll down a bit, then click on the download button.” Make sure to include buttons that allow people to submit and vote for the comic on sites like Digg, and include a form that lets people share the link via email. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to spread the word for you, especially with a time-sensitive piece like a holiday comics story.
I’d still offer .cbr downloadables as an option for people who are familiar with the format, but to make it easier for the vast majority of readers, I’d put the entire thing online as .jpgs and use either a web gallery (which Chris is doing on Action Age stories) or a content management system to display the pages in an easy-to-follow format.
Having a more popular product is a problem most publishers I would want, I think, and if I were interested in making a little cash to cover my increased server costs that the former two items would incur, I’d include Google or Project Wonderful ads that are displayed above or below each new page.
I can see why Jim Shelly has chosen the method he’s using now: it’s easier on him to package the comics, but what’s easier on the publisher/producer/etc usually makes it more difficult for the consumer/reader/fan.
Edited To Add: Flashback does offer a serialized webcomic on the site: Mr Crimson, which gets a new page every week. While I prefer the larger-dose-per-installment formula, it’s a way to get people back to the site on a regular basis.
There’s a new 6-page installment of my serialized graphic novel with Mike Dake up at Waimeacomic.com. If two weeks means your brain’s a little rusty or you want to make sure I’m not contradicting your fanfic, Part 1 of When Matty Met Saffron is available for your perusal.
I can see why the stories in Legion Of Superheroes: The More Things Change are revered by a lot of DC Comics fans in my age group, as they’re sort of emblematic of the company’s take on superhero teams circa 1986: a great deal of time is spent with Levitz having the team sitting around being bitchy at each other, dealing with the beaucratic grinding that passed as “drama,” or doing things that seem very exciting to a 14-year-old with no experience of the opposite sex. (Shrinking Violet put her hand down Sun Boy’s shirt! There’s a chilly silence between two members that fooled around a few issues ago! OMG!) Still, there’s a ineffable charm to the too-serious-to-be-taken-seriously issues collected here and I’m glad that DC’s making some sort of effort to put more Legion stories into print, even if I’m one of the relative few buying the paperbacks.
The first collection of Marvel’s new Guardians of the Galaxy series is more of the Marvel Comics version of science-fiction that I enjoyed well enough with both of the Annihilation series, written by the same team of Abnett and Lanning. This isn’t great, certainly, more Space: Above And Beyond than Battlestar Galactica, but again, there’s a sort of goofy zip that makes it a perfectly good use of your leisure time. (That said, it certainly didn’t need a “Premiere Hardcover,” but Marvel must be making enough additional bank off those editions versus the paperbacks that they’ve been following the model for a few years now.)
Comments Off | Posted: December 19th, 2008 | Filed under:Music, Video
It only took four years working under the Rex The Dog alias (and a decade before that under a series of guises) for British producer Jake Williams to produce an album. If you’re familiar with his remixes for artists like Robyn, The Knife, Depeche Mode, and Goldfrapp, then you know what to expect from The Rex The Dog Show. “I Can See You Can You See Me” was the album’s lead-in single, a pop-flecked piece of techno with a bit of a wink. The album also features new versions of early tracks “Prototype” and “Circulate” along with the aforementioned remix of The Knife and a rerub of “Tony The Beat” by The Sounds.
If the car is remote controlled, why doesn’t one of the pit guys just sit behind the wheel? Why pluck a spotted youth who happens to be gawking at the contraption?
Who identifies someone by the pants they’re wearing? I mean, outside of people in Lee advertisements.
Frankly, I’m appalled at the engineering team behind this vehicle. If the control system in the car couldn’t last ten laps without having trouble, why risk the life of someone…oh, I see what they’re doing; saving their own skins from their shoddy workmanship!
Is this the least enthusiastic race announcer ever? Signs point to yes. “The winner! Some kid. Yawn.”
I’m not homophobic, but isn’t the slow zoom in on Jim’s ass in the final panels with that pedo-tastically charged dialogue a bit much in an ad for “grown-up pants?”
4 Comments | Posted: December 15th, 2008 | Filed under:Music
With London Zoo, Kevin Martin took the the dubstep sound that’s followed drum & bass’s footsteps and disappeared up its own ass at an alarming rage and merged it back with dancehall before giving it an industrial treatment and firing out of a dub cannon. This track, “Poison Dart,” is perfect for late-night writing or performing sci-fi crimes against the system, a slow-grinding, meditative thing with just the right amount of spaciness. Apparently, The Bug have been opening for Nine Inch Nails on their latest tour. I can see precisely why Trent Reznor likes them, and why so many of his fans do not.
1.
Did Dr. Doom put in his eating mouth before inviting the gang over for dinner? Is that what that is?
2.
The candles really should be lit before the guests are seated.
3.
Do you think Doom insists that everyone eat Latverian cuisine, which is known for its similarities to shoe leather dipped in beet juice, or does he bring in a Thomas Keller or Ferran Adrià for the evening?
I actually sat next to Birdie while he drew this strip and I think it’s obvious that there was no small amount of inspiration from my constantly heckling him to work faster and smacking him with a rolled-up copy of the Cover Girl trade.
Sometimes a well-put-together piece of pop music wears its influences on its sleeve, other times it’s outright built from the same records wholesale. With a whopping 35 tracks sliced, trimmed, and crammed into its four-and-a-quarter-minutes length, it’s a testament to Greg Gillis’s skills as a listener as much as his abilities as a producer that “What It’s All About” holds together as well as it does. The man’s seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the last 40 years of radio allows him to see juxtapositions and moments that would elude most people.
I’ve mentioned previously that I think of him as party music and don’t hold the Girl Talk project in the same vaunted “transformative art” position that many people do, but I’ll gladly put this on my top ten tracks list all the same. It’s infectious, celebratory, and most of all, shamelessly pop.
For the curious, here’s a listing of every sample used, according to Wikipedia.
I love how this band, who produced the pleasant-but-forgettable Bright Like Neon Love, decided to kick the sophomore jinx in the ass with their second full length, In Ghost Colors. What stands out for me in Cut Copy’s material is their sincerity; so many of their contemporaries use irony to cover up faults in their songcraft, but Whitford, Hoey, and Scott treat the music just seriously enough to make it clear that they are interested in a career, not one or two singles. There’s hints of New Order (those basslines!) and Depeche Mode (Whitford’s not far away from Gahan on the vocalists-who-know-their-limits charts,) but they’re just that: hints. I love the melodic synth lines and the way the entire song builds to the chorus’s hands-in-the-air moments, a celebration of pop and the dancefloor that doesn’t seem to pander to either.
(Speaking of the dancefloor, there’s a Calvin Harris remix of this song that’s just amazing. It’s available, not properly labeled, on AmazonMP3.)
