One Hour Comix

I've written about Colin White here before. He's a comic artist and illustrator out of Canada, and he's got a great style and ease of line-work that belies how sharp his gesture work is: all around, a great talent. Like most comic artists aspiring to make a living, he found that he was, in fact, doing very little actual comics in lieu of paying work, something I can relate to. So, over the past few months, he developed a project called One Hour Comix, in which he devotes one hour each day to his craft. Now, the idea, dedication, and goals behind it alone could be lauded; but Colin has actually managed, with just one hour a day, to actually make compelling work, which is all the more impressive. It's very bizarre, stream-of-consciousness type of content: feuding, AK-47-wielding, broom-riding deities, masturbating bunnies, sun-eating turtles: all at once he manages to create a surrealistic yet very personal comicscape on which he scribbles his life. It's really, really cool.

Then, the other week, expectedly, I showed up in the strip, in the form of a talking mouse: Colin and I often debate the nature of art and the artist's role over IM, and in keeping with his personal nature of the work, my comments in his Flickr gallery metastasized themselves into a character. It's turned into a running gag/experiment (read through the rest). Besides the flattering nature of putting me in there, I like the unexplored territory this trods: it's audience-aided content, with the creator responding to the audience in ways that wasn't possible before. It's all very web 2.0 wonderfulness, and in response, the least I thought I could do was respond with my own contribution. I'm not exactly sure where this is headed, but I like it, it's exciting...and, Hey! I'm doing comics again!

Clickwheel relaunch

As some of you may remember, I'm part of an online webcomic and mobile comic group, Clickwheel, that hosts some of my comics (about 2/3s of 365, the first few episodes of The Basic Virus, as well as a few comic-casts). A while ago I stopped uploading for a few reasons, namely, that I got a lot of web traffic but little restitution, it had poor marketing, and that process of and design of reading comics was unintuitive, and frankly, kinda lame. I'm happy to report, however, that in subsequent 6 months of furlough, it was bought by 2000 AD and that it is trying to reinvent itself as a destination again, an effort which I heartily applaud.

Part of their effort is (gasp! shock!) actually commissioning exclusive content for Clickwheel. The above panel is part of the second chapter of Colin White's fantastic series "Comics on Small Screens", an experiment of his in which he tries to tell stories by pushing the envelope of how many panels a screen can handle before it stops making sense. Loyal readers of this blog may remember that Colin and I were both invited to South Korea to talk about mobile comics, but Colin couldn't make it: nevertheless, I consider him my (somewhat more talented) brother-in-arms when it comes to trying drum up support and discussion about possibilities of mobile comics. I'm also totally flattered to report I make an unexpected cameo in his new series. Thanks, Colin. Go get it!

My main issue with CW, and one unfortunately that still hasn't been addressed, is
the actual physical process of getting the comics on your phone or iPod. It's tough to be in the tech biz these days: things move so damn fast, what used to be a project about comics on iPods (hence the name, "Clickwheel", already outmoded) has now necessarily turned into a project about comics on iPhones and iTouches. The duct-tape and bubblegum patch that was first initially proposed - just providing customers with JPGs they can download and put onto their mobile device - is unfortunately still around, and feels as caveman as ever. However, I have been assured that a CW reader app is in the works, and with iPhones now having not only wifi capability but WAP push, one has to assume that a smoother process - like just subscribing to your favorite comic and having it show up on your phone every day, a la RSS - is right around the corner. One has to assume. Fingers crossed.

Nevertheless, check out what CW has to offer anyway: its definitely light years ahead of what most other big slow stupid media companies are doing with content, it's cool, it's now more community oriented, and it's run by really nice guys. I'll go back to uploading new work too, and maybe develop something for them: the potential for instant comics to you wherever you are is just too great.

In the spirit of the season

I kvetch a lot about my desire to see more of my work in print and all that, but in the grand scheme of things, I have a lot of things to be really grateful for. One thing that I've been especially grateful for is the beauty of "The Inter-web", and that it's allowed me to come in contact and make friends with a whole host of people that share my sensibilty. I'll try and post more about these folks in the coming weeks; one of these people is Colin White.

I've been wanted to blog on Colin for a while, because I consider link love on this blog to be one of the sincerest forms of flattery, and I really admire what Colin does. Not only does he have a great eye for presenting specific pieces of scenes that set a tone (admittedly the type of stuff I tried to do in 365), but he's also got a simplicity of line that I wish I could capture: he doesn't obsess over tiny details, and his gesture-like work is as strong and evocative as some of the most manically detailed stuff I've seen.

He can do introspective stuff, experimental stuff, and just good gag strips, too. He's a great talent. He also produces so much, so well, so quickly , he kinda pisses me off. Oh well.

Look for something Colin and I will be collaborating on some time this next year. Yeah!