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May 2008

April 2008

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May 10, 2008 Blog Entry
Midnight Ramblings

Joanna Priesley's PrimoPix
Portland filmmaker Joanna Priesley has produced, directed, and animated 19 award winning films about subjects dear to her heart: relationships, abstraction, plants, magic, menopause and prison. Bill Plympton named her "The queen of independent animation."

She's had retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Center for Contemporary Art (Warsaw, Poland), American Cinematheque (Los Angeles, CA) and the Stuttgart Animation Festival (Stuttgart, Germany) and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film Institute, the MacDowell Colony, Fundación Valparaíso and Creative Capital. Director Gus Van Sant called her, "One of the most interesting and adept personal animators and filmmakers. I have enjoyed her work for years and been amazed at how she gets into her own thoughts onto the screen in a very elegant and focused way."

Priestley teaches animation workshops worldwide, was founding president of ASIFA Northwest and has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts since 1992. Her films are available on DVD from Primopix or Microcinema International.

Her latest work, Streetcar Named Perspire is a thrill-filled roller coaster ride through the mood swings, brain fog, pimples, rage and confusion of one of life's big transitions. Computer animation drawn with Flash Pro 8.

Steiner Starts Blogging
Indie cartoonist Steve Steiner has started a new blog loaded with his comics. It includes finished work, sketches, and previews of material in development. Steve is best known for his zine, Nobody Can Eat 50 Eggs. Check out his new blog (he posts often).

Raised By Squirrels #12
The new issue of Raised By Squirrels, which begins a new story arc, is now available for download in PDF format. When last we left Rose and Tyler, they planned to turn the fiasco at Reginald's to their advantage. But how will it stand up to opposition?

The Bat Segundo Show
Former radio DJ, Bat Segundo interviews contemporary authors and artists on his show. Among his recent guests are director/animator Bill Plympton, who talks about his latest movie Idiots and Angels (Show #190). All of these great shows are available for download in MP3 format.

Imaginary Civilizations
Peter Hamlin has created a beautiful animation for the Imaginary Civilizations show at the Pony Club Gallery in Portland. Check out his website to view it.

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May 3, 2008 Blog Entry
Midnight Ramblings

Free Comic Book Day
May 3rd is Free Comic Book Day and the celebration is happening on the ground and in cyberspace. Tom Heintjes at Hogan's Alley is offering to send a free copy of his excellent small press cartooning magazine to anyone who emails a request on May 3rd.

Josh Blair is offering a free PDF file of his Candy or Medicine mini comic on his website beginning today.

30% Off Mini Comics Sale
Rick Bradford is running a 30% Off Sale at his Poopsheet Shop's eBay store. The sale runs through the end of May. You can see the original and sale prices here

Fan-Atic Press
Small press publishers Cosmic Moustache Comics and Fan-Atic press have teamed up for The Cosmic Norseman versus Morgana X #1. This new comic by Clint Basinger and Allen Freeman is available from the Fan-Atic Shop. For an interview with Allen Freeman conducted by Karen O'Brien for The Comic Buyer's Guide, check out their podcasts here.

Midnight Times
The e-zine Midnight Times provides stories for fans of weird fiction to read online or print out from PDF files. The Spring 2008 issue's theme is vampires.

New Links
So many new links were added to the Links page this week, that I won't try to highlight them all here. Suffice to say it's somewhere between 50 and 100 news ones. However, in the category of free PDF files, but sure to note the addition of Age of Aces Pulp Fiction and String #1 & 2.

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April 26, 2008 Blog Entry
Squidoo Pages Traffic Report

Some time ago I started a few pages on Squidoo. To me, Squidoo is like a commercial Wikipedia. Individuals control the content of their page(s), on any subject of their expertise, and any revenue generated is shared by the author and Squidoo. (Squidoo offers quite a few revenue options.)

I decided to start a few pages related to small press comics, reasoning that Squidoo's large site would generate more traffic and higher search engine results than MF.com could. I figured I'd try it for about six months and see what happened. The pages are collections of links to small press comics Creators, Reviews, and online Shops.

I updated the pages regularly during the initial six months and then stopped. During this time the page traffic was: Creators-306 visits, Reviews-338 visits, and Shops-58 visits. The revenue was $7 (which is below the payout threshold). Clickthoughs to MF.com average 2 or 3 per month for all of the pages combined. Today, MF.com ranks much higher than the Squidoo pages in Google search results. The same searches made using Yahoo are split about 50/50.

In the end, I don't see a compelling reason to continue linking to the Squidoo pages, so I've consolidated the indexes and created a new Links page hosted with the rest of the MF.com site. Please check it out, I think you'll like it. It is literally jam-packed with useful links and I'll continue to add to them in the weeks ahead.

Many artists have several websites. Rather than try to track them all, I've concentrated on their main site, or the one with the most recent activity. (Besides, their main site usually has links to their other, spin-off sites.)

If you know of any sites that should be listed, please send them my way—thanks!

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April 19, 2008 Blog Entry
Small, Pressing News Items

Thoreau at Walden
Longtime maestro of King-Cat, John Porcellino has just completed a new graphic novel (aka thick comic book) about Henry David Thoreau's time at Walden Pond in Massachusetts contemplating man and nature. Published by CCS/Hyperion Books, the hardcover version retails for $16.99 and will be available on April 22. A softcover edition will follow a little further down the road.

Classic Tales
BJ Harrison produces the podcast The Classic Tales, featuring audio books by authors like Joseph Conrad and PG Wodehouse; with more to come. You can listen online or download the MP3 files from his website or via iTunes.

El Vocho
Over the last several months indie favorite Steve Lafler has experimented with a number of different webcomics—Diva Funnies, Cute as a Button, and Dog Boy Daily. Since the work is live on the web, it's given us readers a behind-the-scenes look into a bit of his creative process as he finds the right material for an extended run. He reports this week, he's just completed writing the script for a new graphic novel called El Vocho. He plans to post the story online as he draws the pages. When it's finished, he'll publish the book in print. (El Vocho, by the way, is slang for VW bug.)

Mini Comics Book Club
Charlito and Mr. Phil are hard at work on a new podcast that spun right off the rack recently. The Mini Comics Book Club is a new bi-monthly show dedicated entirely to mini comics. The first episode has been delayed due the additional production work required. It's now tentatively scheduled for release at the end of April. The show features Alec Longstreth and a discussion about the newave comix era with yours truly.

Quibletsware
Edmund Conti and Jim Siergey launched a new collection of Quibletsware this week. Based on their critically acclaimed book of wordplay Quiblets, the collection serves up mugs, magnets, and coasters with delectable Quiblets favorites like "Bedroominating" and "Hat Trick". Shop.

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April 12, 2008 Blog Entry
12:00 News or Midnight Fiction?

Idiots and Angels Premier
Indie animator extraordinaire Bill Plympton, premiers his latest feature Idiots and Angels at the Tribeca Film Festival, April 23-May 4 in New York City. The dark and surreal film features music by Nicole Renaud, Corey Jackson, Tom Waits, Pink Martini, and Moby. Check out the website for video, stills, etc. Plympton's cartoons are entirely hand drawn.

Bizarro Trading Cards
2008 Reuben Award Nominee and Bizarro cartoonist Dan Piararo has announced a new series of 110 Bizarro Trading Cards featuring comics and some unpublished artwork. Sold in individual packs of 7 cards ($3.25), boxes of 24 packs ($72), or cases of 6 or 12 boxes, the cards will be available after April 20th. You can place a pre-order here.

Crime Sites
Powell's Books hosted a program with regional crime fiction writers this week . I had a chance to meet Bill Cameron, author of Lost Dog and Greg Rucka, author of A Gentleman's Game and many other works. The program was sponsored by Friends of Mystery. During the presentation one of the authors, Alan Gold, highlighted a website called CrimeSpace, a social networking site for readers and writers of crime fiction that's hosted on the ning platform.

Mini Comics Book Club
My new best friend Rick (Poopsheet Foundation) Bradford, worked some magic on my other new best friend Charlito (Indie Spinner Rack), for an interview with your humble MF.com host about the early days of mini comics and newave comix. It's scheduled to run as part of a special mini comics podcast available on the Spinner website on April 12.

Main Enterprises
Besides wrapping up production work on The Michael Roden Benefit Portfolio featured on MF.com these past few weeks, the world's most prolific small press publisher, Jim Main has at least 7 other titles in the works: Comic Fan #3, *PPFSZT!#28, Gnome #5, Strange Space Stories #1, Dark Corridor #2, Ack! #1, and Satyr #8. We'll highlight their availability as soon as they're out!