Fri Jul 18, 2008 — by Rick Marshall

Webcomic News Roundup: Perry Bible Fellowship and BoaSas Go Global!

What's all this talk about something happening in San Diego?

While preparation for San Diego Comic-Con has been keeping most webcomic creators busy these days, there's still a lot of news popping up that has nothing to do with how many boxes of t-shirts have been shipped to the West Coast. Here are some of the highlights:

Jill-of-all-trades comics journalist Laura Hudson recently conducted a really, really spectacular interview with Perry Bible Fellowship creator Nicholas Gurewitch for Publisher's Weekly. In the interview, Gurewitch reveals some details about a potential BBC project involving PBF:

I'll be adapting a couple of the strips for the pilot, and I just got the news the other day that they wanted to make it longer because they liked the 12-minute treatment I sent. They want to make it a 30-minute pilot. I'm actually working with a British television company, Endemol Entertainment. A number of people there had ordered some prints from me, and apparently someone brought them into the office. It became known amongst them that they really liked the comic, and [making the pilot] was just a decision that came about organically because of that. They all realized they liked the strip, and said, “Why don't we do a show?”

In more international news, Steven L. Cloud has left the country! The Boy on a Stick and Slither creator officially embarked on his globe-trotting "Mongol Rally" charity event this week. Once everything gets underway, Cloud has promised that you'll be able to follow the adventure via Twitter. Be sure to check out my interview with Cloud for his thoughts on the event, and this Google Map showing the route they plan to take.

In less international news, my interview with Jeph Jacques, creator of Questionable Content went up this week. Like a great many webcomic creators, he will be in San Diego next week. Shower him with praise for both his webcomic and his decision to take time out of his busy pre-convention prep to answer my questions.

Boom! Studios recently announced that they'll be posting various series online that were previously available in print, including the Cthulhu Tales, Ninja Tales, and Zombie Tales anthologies (which I enjoyed immensely), as well as Keith Giffen's hilarious superhero comedy series, Hero Squared. there's not much in the way of viewing controls, as the online versions of each series consist of large image files pasted on a page, but all of the titles were pretty decent when they ran in print. They're updating each series with a new page each weekday.

Lots of big finales on the ComicMix front, with two long-running series reaching their conclusions. John Ostrander and Tim Truman's GrimJack: The Manx Cat finished up with issue #33, while Andrew Pepoy's The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck ended with issue #10. If all those endings have got you down, be aware that there's also a new Munden's Bar!

Everyone's been talking about newspaper series FoxTrot's homage to webcomics, but Gary Tyrrell had the foresight to upload the cartoon to Fleen's website so it will be remain available for viewing. It's glorious.

Oh, and did you hear about the Information Architect in Kansas running for State Representative who created an xkcd-style comic about his experience joining the campaign scene?

Finally, the webcomics-savvy ComixTalk crew are looking for a cover artist for their August issue. Here are the details.

Want to go back in time? Check out my "Webcomic News Roundup" Archive!

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