Roundups, retrospectives, reviews, and free advice

December 24, 2009 | Posted by Brigid

I was responsible for this month’s Zudist Colony column at Robot 6, in which interviewed all ten contestants in this month’s Zuda competition. And my Unbound column this week is a look back at the year in webcomics. Enjoy!

Tom Spurgeon and Shaenon Garrity discuss Achewood, one of Shaenon’s picks for most important comic of the decade.

On a slightly shorter time scale, Mike Perridge looks back at the year in Zuda (part 1, part 2, part 3) at mpd57.

At ComixTalk, Xaviar Xerxes asks readers how they keep up with their favorite webcomics. Memo to creators: If you don’t have an RSS feed, you should get one. Pronto. Also, Xaviar welcomes end-of-the-year feedback on ComixTalk.

Christopher Butcher pushes severely back on a Tokyopop poll (which may not have been entirely serious) about what format readers would like to see for online manga.

A bunch of Star Blazers stories are available as a webcomic. (Via Gary Tyrrell, who seems to be all excited about it.)

Also via Gary, the Washington Post is holding their Best Comic of the Decade poll, and Girl Genius is the only non-newspaper comic on the list. Gary shamelessly exhorts his readers to go out and stuff the ballot box, and I’m a little suspicious of the large pro-Zits contingent that appears in the comments to defend their favorite, which was left off the list. But my favorite thing is the note at the bottom of the post: “(Note: This reader poll is unscientific and nonbinding.)” Because if it actually was binding, now that would be a serious thing.

Scott Kurtz will be a guest speaker at this year’s Macworld! The title of his panel is “He Wants To Kill Your Newspaper: An Interview With Webcomics Magnate Scott Kurtz.” (Via Robot 6.)

Evan Miller interviews Becky Cloonan for ANN; Becky is known in manga circles for East Coast Rising but has worked in a number of different styles and is the co-creator, with Hwan Cho, of the webcomic K.G.B.

For your listening pleasure: Svetlana Chmakova (Dramacon, Nightschool) is the guest on the Girlamatic podcast. The latest TGT Webcomics podcast features Barb Jacobs, creator of Xylia Tales, with guest co-host Pam Harrison from House of the Muses. And the new Webcomics Beacon podcast focuses on sci-fi comics with guests Mark Mekkes (Zortic) and Tara Tallan (Galaxion)

At Comics Alliance, Caleb Goellner talks to Max Huffman, the youthful creator of Mocktopus.

Brad Guigar explains how to make the most of your archive, discusses why some creators put their script in the blog, and offers some friendly advice on punctuation at Webcomics.com.

Dean Haspiel’s Street Code is back at Zuda.

DKM Marlink rounds up webcomics that are celebrating the season at Spwug.

Ed Piskor is putting the first two volumes of Wizzywig up for free download.

Robot Comics is offering two free all-ages Christmas downloads for Android mobile phones and tablets.

Reviews

Delos on Blank It Comics (ArtPatient)
RKB on Daemon’s Sphere (Pigs of the Industry)
Jason Sigler and Steve Shinney on Finder’s Keepers (Digital Strips)
Robert A. Howard on Footloose (Tangents Reviews)
RKB on The House Always Wins (Pigs of the Industry)
RKB on Mark Wolfchild (Pigs of the Industry)
RKB on SubSuelo (Pigs of the Industry)
RKB on Villain (Pigs of the Industry)