OG’s BLOG

Another day, another review of Moon Town. This one’s at Coyote Trax’s webcomic critique, and is not quite as stellar as the others the strip has received to this point. Not sure about the pedigree of the reviewer, or what he looks for in webcomics, but he takes issue with several features of Moon Town. Makes for interesting reading.

There’s a very positive review of Moon Town at Tall Tale Features. If you’re not familiar with TTF, it’s a collective of extremely talented big time cartoonists. Their positive take on my little comic is very humbling! Thanks, guys!

All right. Moon Town book #1 is off to the printer. In a few days, they’ll be sending me some proofs, and if everything looks good, they’ll print ‘em up and send ‘em to me, where I can begin selling them to you. If all goes well, delivery is scheduled for FEB 25.

UPDATE: 2/5/10 – Got the proofs back. Unfortunately they were way too dark. I’m lightening them up, will resubmit, and let’s try this again. Stay tuned.

There’s a real nice review of Moon Town over at The Webcomic Builder. It’s fun when people “get” what you’re trying to do.

Looks like there are some good resources there, too, for aspiring webcomics folks. If you are so inclined, I would pop over, and see what they’re all about.

I’m pleased to announce that Moon Town has been nominated in the category of Best New Webcomic 2009 over at The Webcomic List. (NOTE: the site has been very slow and/or not loading today. I guess they’re getting a lot of traffic because of the nomination announcements).

Thanks to the nominating committee, and as they say, it’s good just to be nominated.

After much secrecy and sneaking around, I’m excited today to announce Wishtales Publishing Studio! What is Wishtales you ask? This pretty well sums it up:

Once upon a time, the path for an aspiring artist/creator was clear: Get an agent. Get a publisher. Get that comic of yours syndicated. Go for the Big Time.

We are all awakening to a publishing reality that looks very different. That path may be changing. It may have completely gone away.

Agents are swamped with wannabes. Big publishers are too large and too conservative to take chances on anything. And syndicates make an increasingly small living by keeping the newspaper comics section exactly as it is today. Basically, the publishing structure exists to say “NO”.” NO” to new ideas. “NO” to new creatives. “NO” to anything that looks like a chance, anything that hasn’t been tried before, anything that isn’t a sequel or a sequel to a sequel to a spinoff.

In short, we didn’t want to start a publishing company; They made us do it. We’re putting our money where out mouths are. If no one wanted to take a chance on us, OK. We’ll do it. If no one wanted to let us choose non-standard formats for our books, OK. We’ll do it. We’re taking a chance on us, and if it works out, who knows? Maybe one day we’ll take a chance on you. Somebody has to do it.

- Tom Dell’Aringa and Steve Ogden

Yes, this is a joint venture between me and my good buddy Tom Dell’Aringa. We’re tired of trying to play corporate games and trying to fit into a mold that is constricting and limiting. We’re going to forge our own path. The first step along that path is Tom’s Marooned book, Out of Orbit, which will be a Wishtales imprint. We’re just getting started, but there’s some interested posts over there already. We’re looking forward to publishing a Moon Town book as well, and we’ve got lots more ideas cooking in the pot. So head over to Wishtales and take a look, and let us know what you think!

Moon Town came out of October with a solid nomination for Best New Webcomic. Please go by the Webcomic Planet website and vote – my little sci-fi strip actually has a good chance of winning!

Thank you, and I’ll keep you posted!

I had an interesting conversation with Paul Caggegi a couple of weeks ago where we talked for about an hour. He in Australia and me in the US, we straddled the International Date Line and gabbed on… A little writing stuff, a little Moon Town stuff, life, the universe and everything. He’s released the conversation as a podcast episode for his excellent Process Diary.

Those of you who speak in Français will be delighted to find a new version of Moon Town lovingly translated into French by my buddies at Oghme Comics. And if you haven’t been by Oghme, you don’t know what you’re missing. Great art and great writing in “CucuC, Little Brute of the Iron Age” and “Cu Chulainn”. You owe it to yourself to go read it in either French or English.

The latest edition of the Steve Ogden Braincast is up online. In this episode, I talk about creating and writing characters, starting with Simon Tripline, tracing his evolution back to the dark days of Moon Town the Parody and Superhero Superpilot Ace Tripwire..