Tuesday, March 30, 2004
yesterday i had a really bad day. my mom was angry at me because i didn't finish my dinner. she: eat your potatoes! i: no! my dad: both of you, go to bed! - and this time in seperate bedrooms! so you understand, it wasn't fun. a consolation: april 1st RexRex starts! |
Monday, March 29, 2004
That's right! You will be assimilated! |
Well, cudos to them, I say. Why on earth would you want to write about a group of promising young artists, from all kinds of backgrounds, nationalities, ages and interests, working in all kinds of different styles, humour, etcetera ? Where you have computer-generated comics, manga, european-style, american style, cartoons, taboos being broken, new styles explored, no censorship, just freedom to do your thing freely and for free, where artists work together, and where attention going to one artist means the entire site and all artists on it get the attention as well ? Where you have a robot wars contender, an opera-singer, a much-travelling CGI artist, two web developers, a journalist and a founder of another comics community thrown together in a mix ? A site that's been in controversy with religious people, with voting lists, a community which continuously welcomes new talent but tries to keep quality high, despite the fact that NOT A SINGLE VISITOR has to pay a single dime for access to the artwork, a site that doesn't require banners or any other kind of degrading, lame web-financing plot, that doesn't ask for your paypal contributions, that in fact gives stuff away for free, even T-shirts in limited editions designed by the artists themselves, accompanied with original drawings from them ? A site that keeps growing and growing in fanbase and attention, and whose members always willingly contribute to any initiative from others ? A site that gets referenced in forum-debates about online publishing (as an example of where it works), a site whose comics sometimes get referenced on science-, philosophy- or even psychology-debating forums and sites, a site that offers free, self-refreshing comics on your site - alright, so ModernTales does some of these things, too, and so does Keenspot, but doesn't that make us an interesting third party to discuss ? I mean, we've had plenty of applicants to publish on our site who clearly stated we were their second choice after Keenspot. No, of course not. Probeersel.com is best left ignored. It'll go away. Just ignore it. Well, don't count on it. And ignore us for as long as you want. Because in the end, you won't be able to get around us anymore, and we'll seem all the bigger a hit for it. Even if we've already been building at our success for two years now. So here's to anyone who doesn't think there's a story to tell about our site: *MOONS YOU* |
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Just a thought. |
Friday, March 26, 2004
In any case, it might bring a new gulf of curious people to our Probeersel site over the next week, which is always a good thing. So I thought I'd blog it in case you guys were interested... |
Thursday, March 25, 2004
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 might ask now, what on earth would an online initiative like Probeersel.com have to add to a national Media Day ? Well um - first of all, isn't the Internet a medium ? Most people pay a lot more attention to the web these days to get their information and news than to magazines and newspapers, since it delivers news faster (more directly I should say), you get various sources which most of the times are free, on your screen with just a few clicks of your mouse or a simple search query, and in fact recent looks into the way news travels shows that blogs and the likes are usually way ahead of 'traditional' news sources when it komes to news. And yes, I think that, as far-fetched as it may look at first glance, web comics are therefore also interesting to throw into this mix. Judging just from the visitor numbers a few comics sites I know (including ours) are getting, many people are getting their comics 'fix' through the web - and a lot of news sites are, just like in their paper variants, using comics to draw back audience who'll then also pay attention to their news (and, of course, their ad banners..) So what do I think should be discussed if we ARE gonna go ? Well, I'd imagine that's more up to the audience, but I would expect such matters as how web comic artists deal with deadlines (where applicable, censorship (if any), connection to their audience, interactivity with the audience, which medium they personally prefer, etc. in a nice contrast to the newspaper comic artists, could be interesting to discuss. In any case, even if our partaking in all this isn't appreciated, I still think I might go. It will likely be a pretty interesting day to see how it all turns out regardless of wether comics and webcomics are welcome in the mix. I've already discussed it with Greg and he's interested it seems - I think Joep and Troy should make a good addition to our presence because of their completely different interests and professional backgrounds, and besides, all four of us are involved in media quite heavily besides our Probeersel work. And I can think of a few other web comic artists in our fair Netherlands who might have an interesting thing or two to add. Time to dust off the old address book. |
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 someone who's submitted their information MAY actually find himself in the strip, on a date with the character of his choice. It's a great gimmick, and once again, it increases popularity through interaction, and even though it doesn't quite write itself, you've got a nice base to work from. It got me thinking. And here's what I'm considering starting to do: You can send in your information about yourself - picture, name, personal info, anything you consider relevant, and also make sure to let someone close to you know about this. Then, when you die, that person can notify me and I will let you have a guest appearance in The Grim DotCom. You will be immortalised in a great, increasingly popular webcomic, and best yet, through interaction and with a readily-provided base for the episode, it'll make my work easier and the comic more popular. This idea's gonna be a hit. I just know it. And after all, most people who archieve fame only do so posthumously, so why not do so in my comic ? Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to brood on some other great ideas now. |
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
And I mean it! |
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Monday, March 22, 2004
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 publication. Little reconstruction of that phone call: Me: "Dark guy ?" Other end of the line: "Yeah, the one with the hood 'n all." Me: "The grim reaper ?" Other end of the line: "Yes. That one. Can you take him out ?" Me: "Let me get this straight. You want The Grim DotCom, without the grim reaper ?" Other end of the line: "Yeah. Can you do that ?" Me: "The Grim DotCom without the grim reaper ?" Other end of the line: "Yes. That's what I asked." Me: "I'm sorry. I CAN'T DO THAT." We negotiated a compromise. As I kind of feared (I was crammed with work for Probeersel.com at the time - well, when aren't I ?) the smartest thing to do was just draw a whole new comic. So they sent me some themes they would discuss in this issue - and lemme assure you, these were BAD THEMES. At least when you're me. I really couldn't work with it. But I sat down, and sort of drew it in reverse. I figured out how the rhythm of the joke should go, I then threw in general dialogue roughs, polished them into little jokes, decided I was gonna use two Probeersel characters for it since they worked best (I'd be damned if I came up with an ENTIRELY NEW CONCEPT for that) and then wrote the page from start to punchline. I then proceeded to walk around discontently for two days because the punchline just plain SUCKED. I know the techniques of how to work this way (basic copywriting skills, after all) but it didn't feel right. I normally start out with the joke and then create the page around it, not vice versa. It felt wrong. Until my roommate (you may remember him from One Year In Satan's Purrrgatory) came up with a few ideas that got the big grey mass in my head running in a different direction. The end result is okish. I still look at it like the wretched thing it is. But people seemed and seem to like it, so to hell with it. Who needs integrity anyway ? So I send it in nicely on time, they publish the mag, and I was supposed to get a copy. That was November. It's March now. And only after calling around for about the fourth time (and this time contacting someone else who was involved in the creation of this mag) did I get a copy. And it doesn't look half bad. I still say this page sucks. It's nice exposure for Probeersel.com though - 300 issues were printed and spread amongst enterprising, ambitious young people. And subsequently they were lured to a site where idealist volunteers spend most of their waking hours creating comics to waste their time with. We're destroying the system from within. Let's keep it up. In any case, this issue of De Brug goes into my nicely growing pile of proof of Probeersel.com exposure. More, more - as long as I don't have to whore myself out for ANOTHER issue of this wretched bad idea. |
Change the bloody colors for God's sake! No really! I'm serious! Gnnnnnnnnnnnn! |
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. |