By Tom Spurgeon
* I'm not at the point where I can say with some confidence that this story or that story is the top digital comics story of the week, but I know for sure that few stories have as pleasurable a routine outcome as the cartoonist Kyle Baker making a bunch of his work available on-line for free, with I think the idea being that you eventually pay for a copy. He's a massively compelling cartoonist in a lot of ways, and one that doesn't seem particularly matched up with his natural audience yet. Sounds weird, I know.
* this site has run links to it before now, but it's worth a reminder that Dan O'Neill is posting comics to Facebook. Every so often I get an e-mail from someone going, "Um... did you realize this was going on?"* not comics: here's word of a new on-line collaborative alphabet-related project. Several cartoonists seem to participate in those.
* the Marvel MAX line is now at comiXology, I guess exclusively. The Marvel MAX line is I think the mature Marvel line, which means mini-series about Nick Fury and/or The Punisher that I'm told I should be buying and never do. Certainly a digital publishing program makes that far easier. How digital settles in as a way to curate perennials should be fascinating to see.
* at his far superior avenue for discussing these kinds of things, Gary Tyrrell breaks down numbers on a digital version of the print comic Skullkickers. As much as that comic book's creator has been vocal about the financials for that print effort, I thought some might want to know about the other part of that comic's publishing life.
* I assume this image is from something planned to be published on-line by Warren Ellis and Jason Howard. If not... well, they're promoting it on-line or something. I liked that Freakangels thing Ellis did, the model of it in particular -- free serialized content driving to pay trades and merchandise. Comics is better when Ellis is tinkering around in its garage.
* finally, it's worth noting that a new Double Barrel is out. That is an experiment and a bunch of comics that could use more attention. And it's now DRM-free, according to an announcement made this week. I sort of thought everything already was, but I guess not. Anyway, Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon are both fun cartoonists well-suited to the kind of full-bore comics making these massive on-line issues require.
