4/23: Week in Review

This week, the Week-in-Review comes early. Blogger Ari Collins has promised me a guest update on Friday reviewing The Walking Dead, but I still wanted to hit you with a handful of news stories I've found interesting throughout the week. Ergo, this Thursday update.

Before anything else, I'd like to plug a fellow blogger and cartoonist, Bengo, who has been kind enough to provide a few links to TWIW. He co-creates two comics, Lil Nyet and The Scratchin' Post, with his wife, and while I may not read these comics regularly, I can't deny that they're drawn quite competently with a quirky sense of humor. It just goes to show that even if a comic isn't entirely to your tastes, you can still recognize whether it's created with effort and talent. Additionally, Bengo regularly updates The Floating Lightbulb, a webcomics blog that's useful and informative for comic creators, readers, and general enthusiasts. If you like this blog, chances are you'll also like Bengo's.

Anyway, on to the news. Tall Tale Radio featured an interview with Superfogeys creator Brock Heasley this week, which I enjoyed listening to. There are some interesting segments in there about the balance between humor and "the dark bits," the role that major events like character death play in plotting your comic, and even a few words about Heasley's other current project, a memoir-in-progress titled "Bullets and M&Ms." Recommended listening, and it makes me look forward to reading more of Superfogeys when I get a chance.

This past Sunday, Dungeon Mastering posted the second part of its collaborative project with Geeks Next Door, in which the GND characters introduce one of their closet-geek friends to the joys of Dungeons and Dragons. This installment features a concise summary of what roleplaying is, but the real humor is in the creators' commentary that accompanies the comic. Should be of interest to fans of table-top RPGs, and I'm a fan of table-top RPGs, so...

At any rate, that's the news for now. I'd planned to also discuss guest strips in this entry, with a few links to comics currently running guest strips and some reflections on the "guest strip" phenomenon in general, but I need to start getting ready for work. Depending on how late I end up working tonight, I may have time to finish that up in a second post, but we'll see.

This is Jackson Ferrell, signing off. I'll check you later.