Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic con, Comics, gay, lgbt, queer, san diego, sdcc

Bizarre Queer Webcomix At San Diego Comic Con

Published Sun, 28 Jul 2013 18:00:49 -0500

Louis Falcetti writes;

The panel for Bizarre? Queer? Perfect: Taming The Wild Webcomics Frontier, was an inspiring, interesting experience, featuring an assortment of those modern day Emersonian artists, webcomic creators, putting their love and time into the internet void because they have to create and they have to share. The moderator, Nina Kester, is one of the talented folks behind Tapastic, a world of webcomics named after that (apparently) delightful Spanish food, tapas. "Tapastic" which I was unfamiliar with before the panel is a lot like comixology except free, they take care of their own distribution and are also available via mobile app as well as the regular site. Speaking as someone who has never given webcomics their due (I'm sorry! I've been a paper comics junkie for many a year) Tapastic has certainly helped explode my comics worldview and now I find myself reposting their work on facebook constantly. Among the folks on the panel, from around the wide world of the web (do you see what I did there? Is 2013 too late to make jokes that play off of writing out "www"?) Kane Lynch, Beth Dean, Alex Woolfson, Shaenon Garrity (who's name I so butchered in my notes that I'm stunned that I get anything right, ever)(seriously there was a "z" in there and her first name was broken up into like, 3 names), Tara Madison Avery, and Dylan Edwards (who I had written down as "Dave Edmunds", young cub reporters at home, this is why you're going to want to take lots of notes as well as audio record the events you're covering).

The panel started off with each of the creators introducing themselves and talking a little about themselves and their work. Their work spans genre as well as labels, with artists offering up their own unique visions of comicdom through humor, action, adventure, scifi or really any grab bag of genres that one could throw together, but under the queer lens, ensuring voices and visions that really haven't been heard or acknowledged on the broader stage (until now)(living in the future is great).

Nina Kester, began the discussion asking the creators what pushed them into webcomics as opposed to the traditional form of paper publishing. Alex Woolfson responded first saying, "For me, it's a question of control…a question of expression. I wanted to tell the stories I wanted to tell and I didn't want to ask anybody's permission to do that. And I was pretty sure nobody was going to give me permission to do that." Woolfson then went on to talk at length about his own experiences reaching his audience and his successes on Kickstarter. He also dropped some serious science about the realities of making a "fortune" on Kickstarter, giving audience members a somewhat surprising breakdown of how quickly the costs accrue and what a creator is left with at the end. "Nobody will tell you that you can't do a webcomic" Tara Madison Avery added. This sentiment was echoed by all, citing the freedom and the low cost as primary motivations behind approaching comic creating via the 'net. Dylan Edwards spoke about the frustrations dealing with gay newspapers who (besides for closing and disappearing) would have spatial limitations on comics saying "We already publish Dykes to Watch Out For"." but on the web there's no spatial limitations.

Kester then proceeded to ask the artists about their first experiences venturing online, Kane Lynch answered first talking about not really knowing anything about the online comics world and just doing it ("just doing it" btw would be the overwhelming answer/response from nearly any panelist to nearly any audience member/moderator about the hows, whys and whats involved in making comics, regardless of print, web, glow in the dark diorama, anything). Kester pushed Lynch a little to talk about his early work, including photo comics which Kester seemed to like more than Lynch. Kane remarked that "Photo comics are intrinsically kitschy." (Obviously Kane isn't familiar with Seth Kushner). Beth Dean talked about the pressures of providing content, how even a simple challenge that she gave herself to finish a comic a week suddenly became challenging, and how regularly producing work was the hardest part for her. Alex Woolfson talked coming in "with a big buffer" because "life happens", "showing up every week and being very consistent with that." as ways to get around feeling the pressure to constantly create. Woolfson had a buffer of 50 pages of Artifice when he started publishing. Woolfson also recommended "Project Wonderful" in getting your name out there. Avery added that she finds it important to ensure that each of her strips contains a "meaningful chunk" rather than just a panel or two to advance a plot in a story.

A lot of Kester's questions seemed to be the same question just reworded, the question (the eternal question) of "How to get going and keep going?" Given the time allotted the panel and the number of panelists I think that it was a fine way to steer the discussion. As someone who knows little to nothing (well, a little more after this panel, natch) about Webcomics, I was very interested in the process and the creative nuts and bolts as it were. Overall there wasn't too too much of that being talked about, but as for offering insights into the realities of webcomic development, especially for those in the queer community the panel was a complete success.

You owe it to yourself to follow the links and check out the creators, and check out Tapastic as well to see their unique voices in action. And if you like what they're doing, this is your chance to start doing what you're doing and do it. You might have to think of it like a job and struggle to find your pace and your voice (as the panel members said throughout the panel) but judging from the quality of the works assembled and the smiling of the panelists it would certainly seem to be worth it. No one said it would be easy, but all of them agree that it's worth it.

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