Oy - Celebrating ONE YEAR on the web!

I’ve been updating the site over the last couple days: I streamlined and color-coded the RSS subscription options on the sidebar, added link icons to the top navigation and I added an all-new section titled “Subscribe, or, ‘What’s RSS?’”

You can access it via the “What’s RSS?” link at the top of the site. Inside you’ll find an explanation of what RSS is, plus, a rundown of the 5 different RSS options available here at theblogComics.com. Check it out!

Thanks to Wetpaint.com, theblogComics.com now has an official Wiki at: theblogcomics.wetpaint.com (I’m going to try to make the sub-domain “wiki.theblogcomics.com” for easier retention and branding, then forward it to Wetpaint, but we’ll see how that goes.)

What’s a wiki? Well, as usual, thanks to Common Craft, I can explain it in under 4 minutes:

Click To Play

So, theblogComics.com Wiki is a place where anyone can add content related to theblogComics.com, blogging and cartooning! Instead of a boring, static “About” page, the site will be constantly updated by people like you, with the latest info about the comics here and cartooning in general!Common Craft has also made a video specifically related to Wetpaint. It covers some of the basic wiki info from the previous video, but it has some added info specific to using Wetpaint.

clickThrough

Remember, this is a community project, so feel free to jump in today and edit away (Editor’s Note: unintentional rhyme alert!), while staying on topic of course.

Have you ever read a really interesting blog entry and went to save it or share it with others only to find a long list of ways to do so?: “Add to del.icio.us” “Digg This” “Favorite on Technorati”, and so on…

Well now, there’s a simpler way: it’s called, “Share This”, and it has now been installed right here on theblogComics.com. Just click the “Share This” link below and a menu should pop open giving you eight options to socially bookmark the blog post you want to share. I say “should”, because sometimes it sends you to a separate page, which is okay, it’s just not as convenient. The eight options are, del.icio.us, Digg, My Yahoo, StumbleUpon, Google Bookmarks, Technorati, Facebook and Windows Live.

The default setup comes with several more (though, I had to custom add Facebook), but I narrowed it down to those eight for simplicity based on popular use (translation: “If I’d even heard of them”.)

You can also hit the “E-mail” tab for a quick way to eMail someone (note: it’s on the right if it sends you to the separate page.) In fact, if you register here, your eMail address will always be pre-entered if you’re logged in!

So, if you blog with Wordpress and want to offer an easier way for your readers to share your work, try out Share This. And just so you can see how it works, why don’t you use the Share This link below to share this very blog post? Thanks and enjoy!

This morning I had a pleasant surprise: Alan Gardner over at The Daily Cartoonist has summed up the last two years of the site and listed The top 10 commentators. Somehow, I squeaked past Norm Feuti of Retail to rank in at #9!

Now, to shoot for being #8 next year!

 

Taken from http://stereotypist.livejournal.com, this comic easily sums up how I feel sometimes while creating my own comics.

 

I just happened to pick up a newspaper this week to read a real, live comics section for the first time in about two years. Inside was a very strangely drawn Sally Forth which I suggested for Comics Coast to Coast’s “You Got Some ‘Splainin’ To Do” segment, and they actually used it! I also left them a message on the Comics Coast to Coast hot-line, which they unfortunately played on the air, lol, so you can hear how I sound.

In addition to all that, they interviewed Amy Lago, comics editor at the Washington Post Writers Group, which was incredibly awesome to listen to.

So take a listen (theblogComics.com mentions aren’t until the last portion, but I highly recommend listening to the Amy Lago interview regardless if you want to hear my stuff or not):

Comics Coast to Coast - #19 - The Amy Lago Show (also featuring, ME!)

I will be getting up at 12 AM this Saturday, October 20th, to participate in this year’s 24 Hour Comics Day. For more info about 24 Hour Comics Day, check out the official rules at the official site.

The basic gist is I will be attempting to create a 24 page comic book by midnight. That’s it. All day Saturday I will be drawing my butt off. I will be utilizing one of theblogComics titles and creating an extended story. One of the rules is that the story must be written on the day, so no writing ahead of time.

What’s handy though, is the title I’m using is “The Crow’s Nest”, which is an on-the-fly, improvisational comic as it is. I haven’t seen any rules about using or not using existing characters, but I’m doing it anyway. My goal for the day will be to complete 3 comics per page, resulting in 72 Crow’s Nest comics!

Now, what am I going to do with those 72 comics, assuming I complete them? Well, that many comics would take almost a year and half to cycle through on the current weekly schedule! The solution (for now): January will be declared The Crow’s Nest Month, and I will post only Crow’s Nest comics every weekday.

That’s roughly under 25 comics, so that still leaves me with quite a few to fill out the rest of 2008 (as well as the rest of this year.) While those comics are cycling through, I will be working on the other theblogComics.com series on my normal schedule. So, come February, I should have a better lead time than now.

The complete comic book must be sent in to Scott McCloud. He and his helpers pull out the best work and publish an anthology, so you may see my comic in print if they like my stuff.

Also, on Saturday, I hope to blog roughly once every hour about my progress, so if you happen to be able to swing by the site every so often this Saturday, you can see portions of the work in progress. But I may get too busy working and forget, but here’s hoping.

–

I’ve never done anything like this before, but a philosophy I adopted shortly after starting theblogComics.com was, “just jump in and do it”. I started out trying to plan out every detail and would get overwhelmed. But once I started pushing all that aside, stopped making excuses about not having time, etc. and just focused on creating the work, things went better.

I’m not going to go into this with many expectations. I’m just going to have fun and create the comics.

*yawn*

Editor’s Note: I’ve been informed that they won’t be publishing an anthology this year. So, unless I take it to print myself, the comics will be online only.