6/1: A Few Items of News

Welcome to a new week and a new month, everyone. Let's kick June off with a few items of webcomic news.

First: This past Friday, Luke Surl wrapped up his guest artist month, which has featured comics written by Luke and drawn by other cartoonists. The guest artist month showcases a variety of cartooning styles, including some instances of particularly good cartoon artwork and entertaining comics about Superman. For tasty humor in a variety of art styles, you may begin reading with the first comic in the series.

Second: Gunnerkrigg Court similarly completed a change of pace from its usual art on Friday, with its short comic story "City Face." A story about a lovestruck pigeon only tangentially related to the world of Gunnerkrigg Court, City Face features several funny moments and a hilarious ongoing commentary about the "casting," "filming," and "production" of the comic. Throw in a twist ending, and you've got yourself a thoroughly amusing diversion. I especially liked the pigeons' style of speech.

Road Crew, the comic about those underappreciated behind-the-scenes workers who make the rock-and-roll happen, has recently started up a new storyline, "The Legend of the Golden Kick Drum Mic." Protagonist Jim Soundman, having died and gone to heaven, must return to the land of the living, undertake three trials, and find the legendary kick-drum mic in order to become "King of the Crews." It looks to be an entertaining story for music enthusiasts, drawn in Road Crew's appropriately funky art style. I'd also like to remind readers that Road Crew is intended for mature audiences.

Which brings us to our final item of news: the website Family Webcomics. A useful tool for parents and anyone concerned about the content of online comics, Family Webcomics gives comic listings, content ratings, and detailed information on the content of each listed comic. Additionally, it features several comics suitable for all ages under the FWC banner. Webcomics run the gamut in terms of content, so I'm glad to see a resource like this.

Well, the big news in webcomics this week is that everyone and his webcomicking mother is at San Diego Comic Con. This means that the Penny Arcade guys are drawing comics on a series of hotel bedside notepads, Greg Dean is pulling what must be a parody of Shirt Guy Dom days, and David Willis is drawing comics in which I initially mistake Maggie for Amber. And comics in which he tries to enslave his fans. You only think I'm kidding.

Is Tatsuya Ishida of Sinfest at Comic-Con? I have no idea; the man is shrouded in mystery. But what I do know is, Sinfest this week began with a pun so bad it borders on blasphemy! And from there it took the gag and ran with it. I'm not going to give it away, but let's just say it involves Jesus Christ doing athletic warm-up exercises in preparation for saving mankind from their sins.

Fearless Cartoon Illustrator Brandon Bolt is most certainly at Comic-Con--but in an unofficial capacity, certainly not with a booth or anything. But! Before departing for the Con, he left us with Adventures in Being Made Fun of By Your Roommates starring the hapless and undateable Beans Mulroney. It's on the short side by Nobody Scores standards, but of course this means it is only twelve panels long. The great thing about Nobody Scores comics is that they have the space to develop a truly disastrous narrative.

In other news, this strip from Gunnerkrigg Court
[BEGIN SPOILERS!]hints at a possibility that fills my soul with elation: magic robots. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I love robots, and the only way I could possibly love them any more is if they were magic-powered. You can blame Final Fantasy VI for this. [END SPOILERS] Wow. That big white space makes it look like I just gave away Reynardine's secret origin or something. I assure you, it's nothing so momentous as that.

In Starslip Crisis this week, Vanderbeam begins his curatorship aboard the Sai Kan and meets the staff. Embarrassingly, of course.

That's this week's news from me--so now let's have some news from you. Have you seen any noteworthy webcomic strips this week, related to Comic-Con or otherwise? Dan Echt, are you hangin' around? Wanna give us the latest on Questionable Content? Readers, let us hear from you.

And now, let's wrap things up with a...

BAD DECISION DINOSAUR SIGHTING: Bad Decision Dinosaur last spotted on a park bench talking to a cowboy.