I spent Sunday at the Brooklyn Book Festival running around from panel to panel, trying to catch all the wonderful, talented people reading and talking about their books. I missed most of the comics panels, but I did make sure to make it to the Act-I-Vate collective panel.

Dean Haspiel and the rest of the crew have created a smorgasbord of comics with every imaginable option available on the web, in a pretty simple, readable format. Their most significant contribution has probably been proving that giving away comics for free on the Web doesn’t prevent print sales. Jeff Newelt, “Minister of Hype,” noted “We learned a lot of our marketing from crack dealers–give ‘em that first bit for free.”

Comics creators are rather different from other media consumers–I don’t know if people who download free music also buy an album, or people who read free journalism on the Web buy the print paper, etc. Still, the model has worked for Act-I-Vate–none of them are getting rich off the site, but they are drawing attention, getting print deals for books that start on the Web, and most of all, spreading the gospel of comics, whether it’s pulling in new creators or convincing new readers to check out this awesome free webcomic.

Molly Crabapple called it “The coolest way to learn comics,” and it was pointed out that webcomics are international–they can be accessed from anywhere one has Internet access. They’re portable, you can pick them up where you left off very easily, and of course, they’re free.

It’s not a business model that is going to make creators rich anytime soon, but the Act-I-Vators seem to be happy with what they’ve created, both the website and more importantly, the cameraderie–the “collective” part of the equation. Comics as real community and as outreach–I like it.

I took a little twitter poll today (you’re following us, right? If not, click on that link and follow us. Go on, we’ll wait), asking what people wanted to see more. Well, to prove that we’ll actually listen when we ask for these kinds of suggestions, here’s our first article born directly via comments on Twitter.

Let’s Be Friends Again is a webcomic about, well, I’ve read through their entire archive, and to give you an accurate list, the rest of this post would just be topics. Let’s just say if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve had a conversation not unlike Curt and Chris’s that they so generously share with the world here. It’s also a safe bet that if you read any one, 10, or 90 of their comics, you’ll be laughing out loud repeatedly.

Be warned, much of this is NSFW (EDIT: As readers have pointed out, your milage may vary on the label “NSFW.” Just know, it includes lots of swearing and the occasional bloody mess) content. Like this MKvsDCU sendup from last December, for example. The mixture of slice-of-life conversations, one-off topic strips, and some really solid comedic writing and art make this a great example of what webcomics can and should be. This is a continuation of the kind of storytelling comic strips in newspapers used to have, aged for readers who used to read them and are now adults. It’s webcomics for, frankly, people who are most likely to actually read webcomics. It doesn’t try to be too high brow, but is still intelligent, it doesn’t try to hard to be funny, but it makes you laugh.

This was one of the best suggestions I’ve ever received of a new webcomic to read. It now has a permanent place in my bookmarks, and I highly recommend you all go check it out as well.

Most of you probably know Dean Haspiel from his high-profile collaborations with Harvey Pekar and Jonathan Ames. But he’s also one of the leaders in the webcomix movement, with the ACT-I-VATE collective, Next-Door Neighbor for Smith, and work for the New York Times.

Haspiel took some time to answer my questions about comics for the Web, and I personally recommend his webcomix to anyone–they’re equal parts swagger and romance, sci-fi and mythology. Enjoy!

Blog@: Which webcomics do you write/draw/edit/have some affiliation with?

Dean Haspiel: I created, write and draw:

BILLY DOGMA in IMMORTAL [Act-i-vate]
BILLY DOGMA in FEAR, MY DEAR [Act-i-vate]
Dean Haspiel’s STREET CODE [Zuda]
SNOW DOPE [NY Times.com]

If that wasn’t enough, I created and edit:
NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR anthology [SMITH Magazine]

And, last Fall I was asked by the merry folks at Marvel to write and draw:

Frankenstein’s Monster vs. Werewolf By Night in “Another Bad Night” [Marvel.com]

Blog@ Can you tell me about the differences with making comics for the web? Formatting, artistic choices, story length, panels per page, etc.

DH: There’s isn’t that much difference between preparing a comic for print and a comic for the Internet. In fact, all the webcomix I make are prepared with a print destination in mind. However, format and presentation between print and web is slightly different. For instance, I paced my two BILLY DOGMA stories, “Immortal,” and the sequel, “Fear, My Dear,” for the ACT-I-VATE website differently than I imagine the final print version to be. Those stories were presented online as one panel revelations per click. An assembly of panels made up weekly installments until the story was completed and seamless. A print version will most likely show four panels per page, changing the original reading experience, and the colors will be presented in the more limiting CMYK rather than RGB, which allows for a larger palette online. (more…)

I know we promised you webcomics earlier this month, but you’ll have to forgive us. Webcomics creators are largely doing a lot of work they aren’t getting paid for, so they’re all pretty busy.

Josh Neufeld, the creator of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, took on a subject near and dear to my heart. I went to college in New Orleans, and though I left before Hurricane Katrina hit, I still consider New Orleans a huge part of me and my life. I appreciate someone taking on the stories of diverse New Orleans voices and presenting them in a new, creative and compelling manner. In addition to the comic, which will be published in print form soon as well, there are audio and video podcasts on the site and plenty of other supplemental materials, showcasing the possibilities for comics on the Web. Please check out A.D.–it gets my sincerest endorsement.

Josh took a few minutes to give me some answers about A.D. and about webcomics in general, so please, read on!

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As part of Blog@’s look at webcomics, may I direct your attention to Voids? Written and drawn by Shayna Marchese, Voids follows twentysomething Sara at the moment her life begins to tailspin into a very odd direction. Within the space of a week, she finds herself without any of the steady, constant things she’d moored herself to… and in scrambling to pick up the pieces, she finds herself surrounded by new people, with old connections and grudges. As Sara gets to know the situation better, it slowly unfolds before the readers’ eyes as well. Shayna Marchese tells us a little more:

Without giving too much away, what is Voids about?

SM: It’s really like most stories: It’s about friendship, relationships, not knowing what you’re doing with your life. The main character is sort of drifting along; she has no real job, no real home, no very strong ties to anyone. The characters are all in some way lost and look to different things try and feel less so. Frances needs to be in a relationship, Andrew drinks, Nika goes through men in order to feel in charge of something. The story is meandering in a way that hopefully will let readers “know” the characters by the end.

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Welcome to Quick Questions, the spiritual cousin of The Big Question that I used to do for ShotgunReviews.com (before Matt Brady purchased my soul for beer money and a stack of pogs).  We’re pleased to have as our first guest David Gallaher.  You may know David from his many and varied gigs, including writing projects for Moonstone, Harris (including Vampirella Magazine), and more.  As of late, he’s been working on High Moon, which he co-created with artist Steve Ellis, at Zuda Comics; a trade collection is expected in October.   So then, quick questions with David . . .

Blog@Newsarama: What cemented your interest in comics as a whole?

David Gallaher: The first film my parents took me to see was the 1978 Superman film. While all of the other kids were overdosing on Star Wars, I was overdose on Superman. A couple of years later, my family got a television, which introduced me to the likes of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Superfriends, Incredible Hulk, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Shazam, and The Greatest American Hero. My fascination for comics and the heroic grew out of that. When I was 14 or so, I started collecting comics on a regular basis with books like Speedball, West Coast Avengers, The Flash, and Captain America. Ten years after that, I started interning and later freelancing for Marvel Interactive, working on digital comics. 
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Switched has picked up on the story that the New York Times reported (and Caleb linked) a week ago: the death spiral of the print newspaper spells trouble for cartoonists.

Last month, I attended a lecture by Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism about the future of journalism. As in the linked essay, he pointed out that people are not turning away from news–that the top newspapers have more readers now than they ever did. Those readers just happen to be online.

One of the things Rosenstiel talked about was the “decoupling” of news and advertising. Why would you buy an ad to sell cars in the New York Times for a ton of money when you can advertise on a website about cars, where more of your audience will be interested in your product?

Targeted advertising is the wave of the future with ads. And news is suddenly driven by targeted searches, Google news finder, and Twitter feeds.

We’re seeing the decoupling of comic strips from news in much the same way. As the articles pointed out, comic strips are moving to the Web, to their own sites, and to different sources of funding.

Though we’d love to see a world where all artists were able to do exactly what they want for the love of it, the practical fact is that we’ve all got to eat. As the media deals with the shift to the Internet, one of the biggest questions is how to survive as an artist–or a journalist–when the Web has everyone expecting content to be free all the time.

We at Blog@ are going to bring you a bunch of stories about webcomics this month, and we hope to be able to help answer some of these questions.