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Maybe it is different for Americans, but it really isn't possible (from my point of view) for VHS to go the way of 8-track tapes. To my memory, in my life (and I can remember the '70s) I've seen one 8-track player and zero 8-track tapes. In terms of liveliness, even Beta is a hyperactive ferret on a sugar high* compared to 8-track.

* This metaphor was brought to you by Sluggy Freelance. Remember - a metaphor is a simile that's grown up.

"As in "even more upset with ourselves for not catching it?""

As in (e. g.) "we have only ourselves to blame." Apple simply cannot pretend they did not know the risks (they advertise their knowledge of the risk in 30 s televsion spots all the time), so it's way beyond too late to try to shift blame (even in part) back to Microsoft.

Consider.

But Riff's not on http://www.penny-arcade.com/, he's on Sluggy Freelance http://www.sluggy.com/!

Know what a swedish lightsaber sounds like?

Björnnnn!

"The inflatable time machine is ready to go!"

Linux seems neat. Conventions like Penguincon support it. Those in the "Know" know it's better. Still, other OS's dominate. Until someone finally argues their point with the undeniable logic of guns and explosives (because guns and explosives trum everything. Duh). Now it's an OS battle in the street and Linux has a penguin's chance in Hell of surviving.

Until YOU arrive on the scene. Sure, you'd rather have the OS wars conducted peacefully via Blogs, one user at a time. But someone just took a shot at you from the iPod-controlled building across the street. And that nice bald guy in suspenders just handed you a loaded missile launcher. Screw logic. This thang is ON!

Taken from the Sluggy Freelance Grand Auto Theft Shirt

As for Rouge Sqaudron, it was definitely a Rouge.

"If you were a REAL pirate, you wouldn't fear a caaaarse because you were born 'first.' You would instead fear a caaaarse becase you were born faaaarst!"

http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=050224

Oh, you said stakes. I though you said steaks! My fault!

Don't feel bad. Muffin the Vampire Baker made the same mistake.

Did anyone else think of this first? http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=051103 STEEEEEEVE!

Swallow that funky music.

I'm reminded of the Sluggy Freelance iSophagus ideas...

What the fuck are you talking about, and what crack was the moderator on that modded you "interesting"?

This "vortex" is a perfectly straightforward prediction of a now 100-year-old theory in physics (holding up quite well for all that), and is so freaking small it required an entirely dedicated, highly-sophisticated a fairly long time satellite to detect; it doesn't get much smaller than that.

Whatever MIS-TEER-IOUS thing it is you're thinking of, you're wrong.

Well, if there's something wrong, it's best to not be caught without your Visual Guide to Surviving Timeless Space.

but 'grammer' isn't spelling. Grammar, on the other hand, is spelled correctly. :) Hmm, this reminds me of something. http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=051102

The shop-vacs may be the instrument of death, and the toasters will be the distraction, but the Vroombas will be the psychotic masterminds behind the uprising.

Well Played Mr Venn, Well played.

http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=050820

Somehow, I think your story may have come from here:
http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=000813
Cheers!

thanks to Sluggy Freelance-the iSophagus!

http://store.sluggy.com/detailed-isoph.html

Bah. Forget the iPod Flea, give me the iPodling any day of the week!

Why is it that Penny Arcade gets all the attention around here? There are tons of good comics out there with a geeky slant - I'm a big fan of Sluggy Freelance, for example, which just in recent months has had plots/subplots about X-com, the I-Pod, PSP, cloning, and (perhaps more "dorky" than "geeky") Harry Potter.

Paper is better for long sessions, but computer screens are fine for checking the daily strips. That said, I've at various times sat and read the entire archives to Sluggy Freelance, User Friendly (when it was still funny), Queen of Wands, and Something Positive. Of course, none of them was more than a year old at the time I read through them -- I can't imagine trying to read eight(?) years of Sluggy online. Hooray for the books!

One comic that's got an interesting hybrid model is Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio. It started out as a regular comic book, but the realities of the small-press world forced it to be (a) quarterly and (b) often months late. They'd been collecting issues as hardcovers and trade paperbacks already (I think 4 comics per book), and in June they shifted their publishing scheme around. They've dropped the individual issues entirely, focusing on the books instead... but they publish a new page online for free, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So you can read it a page every few days, or buy the next book every few months. I was skeptical when they first announced the change, but it seems to be working great so far.

Oooh, a bunch of white buildings

Mis-teer-ious!

-Adam

The I-Podling?
http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=050622

Your link is broken. It should be http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=050622. (And, of course, iSophagus is the first thing I thought of too.)

Well, with it being that small, its only a matter of time untill... iSophagus http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=050622/

There was a whole story and shirt about swallowing an MP3 player, and now you can!

There was a whole story and shirt about swallowing an MP3 player, and now you can!

You'll get it stuck in your iSophagus.

Well, you think that is tough, think about the person who receives telemarketing calls.

We can receive calls from all 50 states.

Do you have any idea how long it takes to hunt down and kill slowly and painfully people from all over the country?

It would be much easier if we only received calls from within our own state. Much less time and expense for travel.

http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=031014

Kind of like the iSophagus?

iPodling. See here.

Assuming the rabbit actually was Bun-bun, I doubt it would have much trouble defending itself from anyone.

And, P2P aside, if it were that easy, it would already have been done.

Web comics, like Sluggy Freelance for example, seem to make their authors a decent living based entirely off of merchandising and compilations of free on-line content. So, the question isn't whether money can be made on this kind of open model, just whether it's enough to support movie production as opposed to say comics.

Basically, this new model requires producers to accept a (possibly) lower gross income per viewer in order to achieve distribution costs of almost nothing.

Of course, as you imply, 10,000 dedicated viewers is nothing for TV and movies. But just because this particular show didn't drum up more interest in this one instance doesn't mean the model is a failure. It just means there aren't enough people willing to both bother finding BitTorrents and cross the infringement boundary to make it worth while. An officially sponsored torrent link and open distribution model would likely do a whole lot better.

Hmm... speaking of merchandise, I think I'm giong to go buy that iSophagus shirt I've been eye-balling right now.

Im just waiting for apples latest invetntion... iSophagus http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=050622

That'll go well with the new iSophagus.

That's why I said "otherwise rightfully". It's like a two-person project at school where one person does 90% of the work and both get 50% of the credit. The understanding before the project starts is that they'll share credit equally, but the one who put more effort into the final result ends up feeling kind of bitter.

Keenspot makes money off of advertisement (and maybe other things, but I only know of the advertising part), but they need good webcomics to lure advertisers.

All I meant by that comment is that I recall that some of the webcartoonists have felt like the guy doing 90% of the work.

Beyond that, I wholly concede your point.

And the "ideally" comment was more a shot at people who start webcomics only because they've seen the success that a few have attained and want to achieve the same success. It happens a lot, and the general concensus amongst webcartoonists (based on various rants I've read and webcomic panels I've attended) seems to be that if you're doing it solely for the fame, you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

I usually fall on the side of "love of your craft," but I can certainly appreciate the other side too.

I've really got no problem with a webcartoonist who runs his webcomic like a business, because art supplies, bandwidth and hosting do cost a lot of money. And if you're making a living off of your strip it costs that much more.

A few artists who live off of their webcomics:

Penny Arcade
Sluggy Freelance
MegaTokyo
8-Bit Theatre
Player vs Player
Schlock Mercenary
Something Positive
Ctrl-Alt-Delete

And those are just some of the ones that I read and can remember.

• Sluggy
• Ubersoft
• Absurd Notions (notorious for irregular updates, but well worth it if you can tolerate that.)
• Ozy and Millie
• Irregular Web Comic

Delicious Ironing!

If I'm reading your site right, you have all of twenty-one comics online.

Compare the twenty-first Sluggy Freelance with the most recent one (note the current Saturday is another artist), or the the twenty-first Penny Arcade with the latest one.

You've barely begun. You've barely begun to refine your style, you've barely begun to find your voice... and you're in direct competition with the comics I just listed, along with a lot of others.

If you're honestly offended that the world isn't beating a path to your door after 21 comics, either get out, or stop caring about your audience numbers, right now. It doesn't work that way. Comics are an opportunity to fame and some modest fortune, but it is hardly a guarantee.

Everybody starts out slow. Frankly and honestly, having seen your site, I'm in no hurry to go back. Your comics aren't that good yet, and your drawing style needs some refinement; right now you're giving me that "ouch, that looks like it hurts" feeling on a lot of your humans as their arms bend in wierd ways and their proportions are off; everything is off model. But... like I said, everybody starts out slow. Sluggy freelance is horribly off-model by the modern standards and the Penny Arcade comic almost seems to be two completely different people than the modern main characters, with only their clothing to indicate continuity. This should be both an encouragement and a challenge.

If the fact that you're going to need to put years into this before seeing any kind of payoff bothers you, you need to quit now and try something else. If this doesn't bother you, ideally because it is something you want to do anyhow, then keep going. If you simply reject this criticism, or it really ruins your day, comic drawing probably isn't for you, either.

One last thing: This needn't be your last comic ever; this can be a "practice" series and nobody need ever know. If you get a better idea, drop this one and start a new one. In particular, I'm not sure you've got the humor chops to pull off single-shot jokes; those are probably the hardest comics to create, and even the masters like Larson did an awful lot of repeating themselves and got in a rut pretty quickly. Consider a more, although perhaps not entirely, character-based comic, with one-shot jokes as you come up with them.

Give yourself 5 years, which seems to be how long it really takes to get going with comics, with continued improvement up to around the 10 year mark where you level off. (This closely parallels the development of any skill; programming works almost identically to this.) Re-assess your progress honestly. I for one would most likely be forced to rationally concede at about year two that I'm not going to make it; only you can decide where you stand.

(Note to people offended about the percieved negativity in this message: Committing to a comic is a serious undertaking... despite what they may have told you in school, which strives to be a Happy Fun Place, not everybody can do everything, and encouraging somebody to do something they shouldn't, which results in a major waste of time (the only non-replenishable resource we have) is evil, not nice. I don't give a flying fuck about "nice", I care about good, and being good here requires some feedback to the poster that isn't all ooshy-gooshy and nice. If he can power through this, then maybe he has what it takes, and he can gain strength from this. If this is enough to de-rail him, that is a strong net good. Don't mindlessly encourage, you think you're being nice but you're really being evil.)

If I'm reading your site right, you have all of twenty-one comics online.

Compare the twenty-first Sluggy Freelance with the most recent one (note the current Saturday is another artist), or the the twenty-first Penny Arcade with the latest one.

You've barely begun. You've barely begun to refine your style, you've barely begun to find your voice... and you're in direct competition with the comics I just listed, along with a lot of others.

If you're honestly offended that the world isn't beating a path to your door after 21 comics, either get out, or stop caring about your audience numbers, right now. It doesn't work that way. Comics are an opportunity to fame and some modest fortune, but it is hardly a guarantee.

Everybody starts out slow. Frankly and honestly, having seen your site, I'm in no hurry to go back. Your comics aren't that good yet, and your drawing style needs some refinement; right now you're giving me that "ouch, that looks like it hurts" feeling on a lot of your humans as their arms bend in wierd ways and their proportions are off; everything is off model. But... like I said, everybody starts out slow. Sluggy freelance is horribly off-model by the modern standards and the Penny Arcade comic almost seems to be two completely different people than the modern main characters, with only their clothing to indicate continuity. This should be both an encouragement and a challenge.

If the fact that you're going to need to put years into this before seeing any kind of payoff bothers you, you need to quit now and try something else. If this doesn't bother you, ideally because it is something you want to do anyhow, then keep going. If you simply reject this criticism, or it really ruins your day, comic drawing probably isn't for you, either.

One last thing: This needn't be your last comic ever; this can be a "practice" series and nobody need ever know. If you get a better idea, drop this one and start a new one. In particular, I'm not sure you've got the humor chops to pull off single-shot jokes; those are probably the hardest comics to create, and even the masters like Larson did an awful lot of repeating themselves and got in a rut pretty quickly. Consider a more, although perhaps not entirely, character-based comic, with one-shot jokes as you come up with them.

Give yourself 5 years, which seems to be how long it really takes to get going with comics, with continued improvement up to around the 10 year mark where you level off. (This closely parallels the development of any skill; programming works almost identically to this.) Re-assess your progress honestly. I for one would most likely be forced to rationally concede at about year two that I'm not going to make it; only you can decide where you stand.

(Note to people offended about the percieved negativity in this message: Committing to a comic is a serious undertaking... despite what they may have told you in school, which strives to be a Happy Fun Place, not everybody can do everything, and encouraging somebody to do something they shouldn't, which results in a major waste of time (the only non-replenishable resource we have) is evil, not nice. I don't give a flying fuck about "nice", I care about good, and being good here requires some feedback to the poster that isn't all ooshy-gooshy and nice. If he can power through this, then maybe he has what it takes, and he can gain strength from this. If this is enough to de-rail him, that is a strong net good. Don't mindlessly encourage, you think you're being nice but you're really being evil.)

You could have gone for mycowsoft.com. Double the safety! Got Milk?

The Bloody Bun!

Eeh well that's enough snarling for me for today. How about a plug to Pete's Grand Theft Auto: Linux Tee Shirt? Isn't that the coolest thing you've ever seen? You KNOW you want one! (No I'm not affiliated with them, I just think it's the coolest thing I've ever seen and I want one.)

Sure, you'd rather have the OS wars conducted peacefully via Blogs, one user at a time. But someone just took a shot at you from the iPod-controlled building across the street. And that nice bald guy in suspenders just handed you a loaded missile launcher. Screw logic. This thang is ON!

Yeah... some comics "cheat" every so often. For example, Sluggy Freelance almost never misses an issue; however, as an example, they recently took a few days off by making comics via using X-com screenshots and putting dialog bubbles on the characters instead of drawing comics. Sometimes, too, they'll have a guest artist (sometimes a deliberately poor one for comic effect) take over strip for a week or so.

Is this Holiday Wars you make mention of a legitimate storyline? If so, where is it available? Or is this comment a result of an inability to detect sarcasm?

The original poster was referring to the webcomic Sluggy Freelance. The comic features a homicidal rabbit named Bun-bun who, among other things, has had a longstanding feud with Santa Claus. Claus spent about three weeks dead during a storyline from about a year ago.

The bread says TOAAAAAST.

No, no, no. What we need, is is Bun-Bun. Ka-Click baby!

Schlock mercenary
Sluggy Freelance
Megatokyo
PvP online
8-bit theater
Red vs. Blue

A lot of content is produced that way. Some of it even good one. Just beacause it's not video doesn't mean it doesn't count.

And let's face it, most of us would rather read a comic with a pile of crap fighting psycho-bears than see some bald guy parading in front of a camerafor half an hour, no matter what he actually did.