Oy - Celebrating ONE YEAR on the web!

Sunday Funnies Episode #12, download below (right-click and press Save As)

Sunday Funnies Podcast - Episode #12 - Mooses in Memphis

Topics include: the evils of portable devices, the perils of speech recognition, MacGyver, writing styles, tasering squirrels, and whether there are moose in Memphis. Special feature: song by Charly Burleson, “When My Ship Comes In”

Sunday Funny of the Week: FoxTrot for June 13th, 2008 (Bill Amend’s nod to webcomics)
http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2008/07/13/

NEWS
Danny on Sequential Artist’s Pub #4 (for about 5 seconds): http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/20378
Next Sequential Artist’s Pub: 07/25/2008 10:00 PM EST

If you have questions you’d like to hear answered on the show, have comments or want to plug your own comics, please e-mail: oycomics@gmail.com, or, enter your name and phone number below (info is kept private) and leave a voice message for FREE! (note: cell phone minute usage may apply.)

Well, here we are: July 2nd, 2008! One year ago today I officially launched this site after months of research and preparation… not to mention a contractual obligation to my wife! A lot of things have changed, but one thing hasn’t, my determination to make this site something special and provide quality comics content.

I think what’s most amazing to me at this point, is that the original plan was to retool and relaunch my webcomic from 2004-05 titled “BarnRats” (so yeah, technically this is year FOUR if we call that 2+ year gap a “sabbatical”). But then I had other ideas for strip series in my head and I honestly couldn’t choose. And instead of building 5 different sites, I thought it would be a fun experiment to run 5 comics, one per weekday, all from the same site. One series I planned ended up being too ambitious for even a weekly update, so I scrapped it in favor of posting my older work from the original BarnRats run and my other work from the 90’s and early 2000’s, in all its amateur glory in a weekly update I dubbed “Retro Wednesdays”. This all got started with BarnRats still intended to be the flagship title.

Now, one year later, it’s all about Oy! I’ve actually been using Oy in some fashion for the last 15+ years; even going so far as trying to get him syndicated back in 2002. When I added him to theblogComics.com roster, I really had no intention of keeping him around. He was just a long-time buddy coming out of retirement for the ride until one of the other series took over. Instead, his personality seemed to register the best with readers and he waddled his way into the spotlight.

As if subconsciously knowing that Oy was becoming the main event, my enthusiasm for BarnRats, and my brand-new series Zap the Zero, waned fairly quickly and any new updates were canceled earlier this year.

I decided that I needed to distill this site to be Oy-centric, not only for ease of reading through the archive, but also marketing a singular series is a lot easier than explaining the concept of 5 strips on one site (in fact, I’ve already seen my readership jump significantly since I made the transition last month). But there was one anomaly still sailing around, my pirate-themed series The Crow’s Nest. I made The Crow’s Nest to be the epitome of a stereotypical webcomic: simply drawn, starring pirates and eventually ninjas and really simple, gag-a-day jokes.

Instead it became a storyline-driven series with characters that resonated with ME (not sure about everyone else). So I had to figure out what to do, and to borrow a Dilbert comic, now that I had everything centralized for efficiency, I needed to decentralize to create a better workflow….

1) theblogComics.com has become oycomics.com featuring Oy comics, and only Oy comics, in a new DAILY, 7 days per week, 365 days per year format.

2) The newer BarnRats and Zap the Zero archives are now at theblogComics.com - Oldies which will continue to run weekly Retro Wednesday updates for the next few years (yeah, I’ve got a huge pile of old work; the old BarnRats alone will last until next summer).

3) The Crow’s Nest now has its own site over at theblogComics.com - The Crow’s Nest

Beyond just the comics, simply on a whim, I also launched a podcast, “Sunday Funnies“, a show for discussing the comic strip art form, both syndicated and on the web. And thanks to the addition of Todd “togotoons” Dolce and my wife Charly, it has grown into something pretty great. The show just celebrated 11 episodes and 2 interviews with major cartoonists! With plenty more fun on the way!

It’s been a wonderful year of learning and making changes for the better, and I look forward to what this next year has in store now that the dust has settled.

Thank you to everyone who reads my comics, I honestly could not do this without your participation.

See you in the funny (web)pages!

~Danny Burleson - July 2, 2008

Sunday Funnies Episode #11, download below (right-click and press Save As)

Sunday Funnies Podcast - Episode #11

Sunday Funny of the Week: Why, “Bleeker: the Rechargeable Dog“, of course:

-NEWS-

Some sad news, comic creator and Aspen Comics founder Michael Turner died Friday, June 27th after a long battle with cancer; he was 37. Turner is probably best known for the comic book series “Fathom”, his work on the covers of many DC Comics titles and most recently the fantasy comic book series “Soulfire”. For more info about suggested charitable organizations and where to send condolences to his family, please visit aspencomics.com/news

No show next week due to 4th of July weekend.

“Oy” goes daily starting TODAY! Visit oycomics.com for your daily dose of Oy entertainment.

Behind the Lines #7 now available

Interview: We talk with Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog cartoonist, Jonathan Mahood

If you have questions you’d like to hear answered on the show, have comments or want to plug your own comics, please e-mail: oycomics@gmail.com, or, enter your name and phone number below (info is kept private) and leave a voice message for FREE! (note: cell phone minute usage may apply.)