Slashdot Mirror

Angels 2200
Wandering Ones
Something Positive
The Devil's Panties
General Protection Fault
Irregular Web Comic
Alien Dice
Wapsi Square
Bruno
Clan of the Cats

There's plenty more at my web comic page.

if they'll read sf, your job is a lot easier... in no small part because you can start them in on transmet. :) and also cerebus, preacher, sandman, the filth, hellblazer, global frequency, the invisibles, v for vendetta... if your reader doesn't want superheroes, but can tolerate weirdness, you're only half a step away.

i'm not so conversant with the more mimetic stuff. strangers in paradise and love and rockets have been mentioned elsewhere; you might manage to slip zero girl in... yeah. i imagine there's plenty of good non-weird manga out there, just because manga IS literature in japan, but i don't know how much makes it to the states that isn't dragonball z or ranma. from hell is weird (and huge), but maybe the people who don't like bowel disruptors can deal with masonic conspiracies, i don't know. sin city. bruno.

i don't think there's much going on in comics that falls within the comfort zone of people who only read from the Literature section (and there's not much going on in interpretive dance that falls within mine; I'm not trying to be snide). but i haven't really looked for that kind of comics, so i'm no authority.

Chris Baldwin spends hours out of his every day laboriously crosshatching Bruno. Does he ask us to pay? No, never. Should he? Well, based on his journal, we could all worry less about his health if he did.

Alex's Restaurant

Bruno (which has been on the web for at least 5 years)

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I was disappointed to see that Bruno wasn't mentioned in the article either. It's like Love & Rockets compared to the X-Men and Superman -- there's nothing else like it, and mainstream newspapers could really use it. In the entire history of comics, has any other strip had the title character decide she was fed up, chain a cinderblock to her ankle, and jump off a bridge? Not that we all don't wish Sally Forth would...

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Here's a few good ones (I'll leave out the obvious links to Sluggy and stuff, and those that I've seen people mention already.):

Nukees
Acid Reflux
Snail Dust
Avalon
Bruno
Waiting For Bob (currently on hiatus)
Clan of the Cats
It's Walky
Irritability

this could be equally described as creativity vs. non-creativity.

anyway, the comment made by one of the artists - "i'm never going to sign away the rights of a character." that's very telling. if one looks at free software as an attempt by individual programmers to maintain control of their work, one wonders what other creative people will want to do with their work when they realise the power of the net for distribution.

mp3 and other compressed music formats actually enable musicians to distribute their work without record companies. it's not perfect yet, something needs to be done to encourage people to pay for the music, the quality needs to be better and we need more bandwidth. however the seeds are there.

online comics also have similar potential. recently chris baldwin, author of bruno decided not to try for syndication of bruno and is trying to earn his keep from bruno directly.

this could be said for a host of artists in a variety of media - even tangible media can be sold over the net.

so what if these guys start drawing up animated shorts, mixing in some sort of slashdot style discussion boards on animation in general and maybe their work in particular. perhaps a forum for other animators to discuss their work, not just a place for consumers of it. i think they'd do rather well. their work would stay theirs, they would decide what to publish. they could sell better quality copies of the animation (or tapes/dvd's of it), shirts, merchandise, etc, as well as banner ads on the site itself.

essentially the web allows for the *possibility* for creative people to build their careers directly with their audience. programmers have been first because we're most familiar with it. but we're not alone.