Probeersel

That's right! You will be assimilated!

The incredibly complete comics-site (with the pretty damn famous Comiclopedia) Lambiek.nl now added an article about Comics and the Web . Good for them (and about damn time) I would say. What really kinda irks me though is that, as the Netherlands' first INTERNATIONAL, SELF-FUNDED, web comics COMMUNITY, we didn't even get a pixel's worth of attention. We're getting plenty of love elsewhere on the web, especially where fellow 'new generation' web comic artists are concerned, and nobody feels above wanting their link on our site, or their personal information in the "What's so special about today"-section, judging from the amounts of emails we received from people who wanted to be added there, or requests to be reviewed, but to actually recognize us for the initiative we have started, that seems to be above anyone who decides to write something 'serious' about comics on the web. Well, cudos to them, I say. Why on earth would you want to writ...

I've been digging through Reinder Dijkhuis (best known from ModernTales webcomic 'Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan' )'s reasonably new blog and he writes a few interesting things here and there. He's putting together a museum exhibit on webcomics (I can't completely agree with his picks since they reveal mainly a focus on 'established pros' and fairly little on new-and-upcoming-talent, the latter of which are actually lately pulling in the much larger visitors' numbers as it seems - like Reasons Why We Rule, Monkey Business, the PC Weenies, etc., but it's still an interesting subject and I'm definately considering visiting the exhibit - unless I read wrong and it's over already) amongst other things. But here's something that REALLY caught my eye: a small post about a database for WebComics crossovers ! Now, as many of the loyal Probeersel.com fans know, there's been plenty of crossovers between RWWR.com, The Grim DotCom, God.Inc, hell, Pen...

The Dutch site Stripster.nl features weekly editions showcasing various comics. They occasionally have a theme week, which usually makes for interesting collections of comics and artists to sort of come together. Right now their Music edition just went online, and guess what ? It features some of my work *proud glow* well, of course you're supposed to send in your work if you want it to be in that edition and as far as I know nobody's ever really been refused, but still. I'm in there - it's a nice historical and styles crossection, too: one edition of Finish The Story And Colour The Pictures (I think I did those in, what, 1994 originally and then the computer versions in 1998 or so ?), several Worst Case Scenarios (since I decided on a 'music' theme week myself there once, resulting in 7 music-related episodes) and of course The Grim DotCom, where Jim Morrisson has made his spectacular return to life, this time in comic form, aiding and assisting the staff of d...

It definately pays off to keep an eye on the Stripliefhebbers forum, I just discovered once again. Jeroen Mirck pointed out that there will be a national Media Day organised on the 18th of May (location as yet unknown) which is intended to sort of 'bridge the gap' between editors, journalists, columnists on one side, and the audience on the other, through open debates, discussions, introductions, etc. So why does that interest a bunch of web comic artists ? Because Jeroen sent them a suggestion that news paper comic artists should also form a panel that day - which I agree with, as anyone who knows me well enough would expect I should, since I know how important a role in aiding communication comics can play.. and so do most papers and magazines who have known this for over a century now - for additional discussions. He then proceeded to ask, on the beforementioned forum, if any of the artists posting there were interested, including the online initiatives . A cynical person ...

Every once in a while you get one of those great, hole-in-the-market, genious ideas. I just had one. It's loosely based on some ideas other comics had. I'll mention them first. For several years now, the brilliant online strip Slow Wave has worked with a relatively genius concept: get people to send in their weirdest dreams, and Jesse Reklaw will draw them. Yes, I sent in my own at one time, and was quite happy with the end result. He's done a nice job so far, his comic's often discussed, and its popularity is very high, resulting in the situation where you submit your dream and the waiting list is so long it could take a year or more before he gets round to yours. In any case, the success story there is: the readers get to participate. And the comic, essentially, writes itself. Now, the Dutch daily newspaper comic strip S1ngle has a Saturday special feature: you can go to the site and basically 'ask' one of the characters out on a date. Each Saturday someo...

Thank you, my master. Now go clean you room otherwise it's to bed with no dinner. And I mean it!

I fixed the stupid template 'bug' with the left-aligning images by introducing tables. I'll save you guys the stupid details but now it's possible to just blog little text without the image on the left messing up the page. You may bow before me now.

Just thought I'd make an appearance. w00t! Hopefully I'll have something of some substance to say in the future. Laters

I guess I'll kick off with a bit of news, then. I finally received the November issue of De Brug, an IT-bulletin published on the Haagse Hogeschool by colleagues of mine (from my paying job) who all dutifully are finishing the education I dropped out of. They asked me to do a comic for that issue, which I did for free (to keep a bit of my integrity) as long as I could put the site's URL in it. You can see the result on Probeersel.com. It was a wretched thing to write/draw because they had THEMES. Basically, initially they wanted The Grim DotCom . Because it's an issue about enterprising young people who start their own business - I recommended using one of those comics because they're already on the subject, after all. So they wanted one, but black-and-white. Fine by me. Then they wanted it in Dutch. Ok, also doable. They then proceeded to request if the 'dark guy' could be 'taken out somehow' because it was a bit 'weird' for their mainstream p...

Change the bloody colors for God's sake! No really! I'm serious! Gnnnnnnnnnnnn!

Alright. A whole new blog, just for us Probeersel people. This will keep you up to date on everything that's going on with the site and related stuff. I'm going to try to get more people authorised to publish on this. Should be an interesting experience. For now, I've invited Greg but I wasn't sure how to do it. We'll start figuring out how this works first, THEN we'll invite some other people to join in on the fun if they want to, and who knows, this just might end up to be a pretty nifty place to revisit. For now it's going to be a little testing playground so feel free to ignore it for the time being. René out.