George WebberArtist - Cartoonist - Illustrator

5FINITY HIGH FIVE AWARD 

Well I just about pooped my pants last night when I got the email telling me I had won a place in the 5FINITY Second Annual High Five Awards as "Most Original Artist" !

I don't win many Awards, mostly due to not trying out for awards or contest, so winning an award based on Fan & Dealer choice without knowing I was even up for it, is PRETTY FREAKIN' AWESOME

Thanks to everyone voted and thanks to all the hot babes I had to draw to get this award and thanks to all the little people (muchkins, smurfs, wee folks, etc) I crushed along the way to get here.

 From 5FINITY:

"As voted on by a core group of dealers and fans:

Favorite Artist (Body of Work) :  Mark Bloodworth

Runner-ups : Benjamin Glendenning, Patrick Finch, Axebone, Danielle Soloud

Favorite Artist (Specific Release) :  Dean Yeagle (Manga Mandy)

Most Collectible Artist :  Katie Cook

Most Original Artist : George Webber

100% Effort Every Time Award : Benjamin Glendenning

Each winner will receive a cool award and recognition in an ad in an upcoming Non-Sport Update magazine.

Thank you to all of the wonderful artists we are blessed to work with here at 5FINITY! Here's to a great 2012! "

SO TAKE THAT 2011 !

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  It's FIXED !

Just spent the better part of the night fixing the NoCashComics Store Pages.

So now you can buy my books, prints and art (as soon as I post more items). All of my books are up though, so you can get a copy of my latest book Pirate Fairies of the 8th Sea while you can!

Pirate Fairies sold like hotcakes at WonderCon and I'm only printing a limited number of them before I start working on issue 2 !

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The "New" Wonder Woman

I put the word "New" in qoutes as I question just how "New" the New Wonder Woman really is.

I have yet to read the latest issue of Wonder Woman, but the things people are saying about sure don't  make me want to run out and buy it.

As for Jim Lee's Wonder Woman costume design, I gotta say it's anything BUT new, hell BeDazzle the WW logo on the back and it's a flash back to the 70's or 80's, geez Jim, why not toss in a sweat band and baggy leggings, she could look like Olivia Newton singing "Let's Get Physical" .

Then I guess someone had the bright idea of rewriting the origins of Wonder Woman.

Rewriting the origins of  hyper established characters like say Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and a few others, is akin to rewriting World history because you don't like the way things are going currently in the World.

I mean, will the World change just because you rewrote it's history to not include the Nazi's?  No, WW2 would still be a part of history, like it or not, it still happened.

Will the World suddenly be a better place just cause someone erased the "N" word or a dozen other nasty slurs from all written text? No, but it would be nice if it was that easy.

I think we all know that Wonder Woman's costume and or her origin isn't the problem, it's a lack of writing something really original for a character that's been around a long, long time. I'll be the first to admit it can't be easy  to come up with something that's fresh, that's why the killed Superman, broke Batman's back, shot Captain America, sooner or later you start running out of ideas and you need to try something crazy.

Anyway, it's not Wonder Woman's first change of "look" and it won't be the last I'm sure, but let's just hope Wonder Woman kept the receipt for that outfit and gets back to normal soon.

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Hooters Girl Picket Line

Unfair Wage Practices in California

OK, I saw this article in the New York Times on Hooters getting sued for unfair wage practices in California and well, I just couldn't help but whip up a quick cartoon.

I mean, wouldn't this be like the most fun picket line EVER!

Now mind you I like having lunch at Hooters now and then, and I'm making a little joke about Hooters Girls in picket lines, but I'm in full support the girls.

See, my mom was a waitress for more years than one would or could imagine someone working as a waitress.

So I believe a good wait staff has as much to do with the success of a restaurant as the food does.

So for a company to cheat the wait staff either by cheating on their wages or shorting their tips is just wrong.

As an artist I maybe dirt poor, but I try to leave a tip when a waitress or waiter is good and I'd like to think at the end of the day they get it.

Final Note:

Ok, so I reused some of my prior art of The Dame to speed up the process and get this done ... sue me.

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A Fatal Error in Judgment

Clearly I made a fatal error in judgment; sadly I knew it when I did it too.

As some of you know my new book "Crime, Passion and Murder" features the male lead (Mook the detective) on the cover and the female lead (The Dame) in the background.

CLEARLY this was a mistake on my part.

On DeviantArt.com for example the cover art for the book only has a hand full of "Favorites" while the promo Ad "The Dame in Jail" (second image) has dozens of "Favorites".

Not that getting "Favorites" is such a big deal but...

The same was true at WonderCon, hardly anyone looked at the book, but looked at all my other books and the same was true of book sales.

While my older books sold fairly well, while "Crime, Passion and Murder" only sold a few copies.

I find this disturbing mostly because I think "Crime, Passion and Murder" is written far better than my older books and it even was reviewed better than my older books (Read Review of Crime, Passion and Murder).

So what was the "Fatal Error"?

I clearly should have put the female character (The Dame) with large heaving undulating breast on the cover as it seems that be it male or female viewer, that's what gets the attention. ("The Dame in Jail" available in the NoCashComics Girls Postcard Set) 

So from now on all my covers will be "Boobs", no faces, no titles, just huge massive silly boobs... possible dozens of them.

These facts seem so true that the ONLY book that I've EVER SOLD OUT OF  (Killer Babes) didn't even have a story, just a book of sketches of women in states of undress (third image).

So while I don't like reprinting books (lack of money) I guess I don't have an option.

Meanwhile...

I've done Pre-Registration for FanimeCon in San Jose -  May 28 -31.

I'm not sure when they'll let me know if I have a table or not.

Maybe I'll just park out front and sell books out of the back of my car … couple nights in jail, free meals, what the heck, right?

Hope to see you there

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iPad, the future of publishing & Digital Comics

Ok, first off I don’t claim to be an “expert” on these subjects, but I do have some views, thoughts and opinions. Plus I’ve seen and read a fair amount of discussion, hype and downright propaganda about the wonders the iPad will bring us.

The first thing I’d like to touch on is what I see as the Pros and Cons of the iPad as it may reveal a few places Apple dropped the ball in my opinion, then I’ll get into some thought on how iPad may or may not change the publishing world including us comics people.

PROS:

1. The Screen, let’s face it, like the iPhone the screen is the biggest feature of this new device, it’s a good size, clean bright and we know how well the touch screen works.

2. Light Weight, nobody wants to tote around a heavy tablet.

3. Long Battery Life, supposedly it’ll run up to ten hours depending on what you’re using it for.

4. Loads of cool Apps in the iTunes store currently and you can be sure there will be more with this new device in mind.

5. Wireless and 3G Features, ya’ gotta be able to surf and tweet while at Starbucks right?

CONS:

1. Price, $ 499 for the entry model with only a 16 gig drive and it might not have wireless? Or $ 900 for upper end models for a bigger drive and wireless and 3G

2. The need to pay for monthly 3G service ($360 a year aprox) and if you have 3G on your iPhone too that’s a total of about $ 720 a year.

3. 3G tends to have a download cap (5 gig), go over and you pay a lot more.

4. No GPS ? really? You’re kidding right, like I don’t have need for GPS and Google Maps?

5. Bluetooth? Haven’t heard for sure if Bluetooth will be supported or not.

6. No USB Port, ok you can carry around a little doggle gizmo to hook up USB, but do you really want to carry yet another item?

7. No Camera, and no video camera either, unless I can port my iPhone into my iPad and have direct control over the phone’s camera and video then not having a camera sucks. But then having to a carry a cable to port the phone to the pad would suck too.

8. Touch Screen is nice but … I’d like the option of using a stylist too. iPhone’s in Asia have this option, why not here?

9. Only runs one App at a time, no multitasking here.

10. Can’t run off the shelf software, sure Apps will get bigger and better but you’ll be a slave to Apple’s approval and profit machine.

11. Still no FLASH support, how many web sites and web Ad companies use Flash? A million, two million, ten million?

12. No built in Kickstand to stand it upright for demos movie watching and other stuff.

13. It’s not a phone too? Why not? Why do I have to carry two devices instead of just one?

* Update, less that 24 hours after writing this article I've read rumors that Version 2 of the iPad may have not only a Camera, but maybe Video Phone capabilities as well. Visions of Star Trek devices come to mind.

I’m sure I could think of more Cons, but Apple didn’t claim the iPad was a “do it all device” or did they? … They did say it’s a revolutionary step forward. I don’t know, I guess while the iPad seems cool on the surface I expected a lot more. At the moment I think I’d rather spend the money on a decent Tablet Laptop with a Stylist.

So now that we’ve looked at the device itself, let’s look at how the iPad will or won’t change how we read (and maybe pay for) books, newspapers and maybe even comics.

I think most people have seen that print publishing world has been suffering losses in advertizing and newsstand sales revenue over the last few years and given the amount of information and news one can get for free online it shouldn’t be a surprise print papers are suffering. Newspapers and magazines alike need to look to revamp their concept of what publishing is and how they earn their revenue stream from it.

How this will be done at this point is anyone’s guess, some ideas have been the ability to add video to articles, link to secondary articles, custom or personalized news feeds, even designing your own digital news delivery into your on digital news paper. Another idea of course is paid subscriptions, but again with so much free information do you want to pay for a news subscription on top of say your monthly 3G bill?

Then there’s books … ok the iPad as a book reader just might be pretty cool, but maybe I’m too lazy or maybe I’m too busy I don’t know which it is, but I don’t read as much as some people. In fact I’ve found I enjoy audio books in some cases as I can work and improve my puny mind with a book at the same time.

But one problem is you can’t really search within an audio book like you can in most text based digital books and many instructional books require images to get certain points and ideas across. Maybe a good text reader that could read the book to me would work out for me .. but is this something that exists?

I know I’d love to have all the art and art instruction books I have in digital form, the space it would save me would be huge and the information would be much more handy anywhere I go.

I also think the way digital books are written would need to change, or maybe I just haven’t seen a digital book the way I envision they could be as of yet (I admit I haven’t seen too many).

I think the perfect digital book would be text you can read, search through, follow links within or out to other things, have static images that can be clicked to play animations or video, have some Podcast in it and of course have a text reader to read it to you.

Now digital comics I do know something about, I seen all sorts of them. I’ve seen digital comics that where little more that scanned or digitally created pages on CD, I seen early Flash based comics that made use of timed text balloons that would appear and disappear as it moved from panel to panel, some had voices and limited animation and of course there’s several types of “web comics”.

The latest incarnation seems to be “Motion Comics” which are type of videos containing comic book style panels with some limited animations, not unlike the older Flash type but generally pretty cool.

There’s also a new breed of digital comic reader app moves you panel to panel as you click or touch the screen, fairly simple, but a fun way to read a comic.

With all of these types of digital comics showing up the question has been asked, will printed retail comics and comic shops start running into the same problems of low sales like the magazine and newspaper publishers have?

While there’s no question the iPod changed the way many people buy music, I don’t think the iPad (or any other reader) will have that kind of impact on comics, at least not right away. That said; let me give you an example or two why I don’t think Digital Comics will replace print comics anytime soon.

Example One:

For a moment let’s say that one of the most expensive and collectable comics in the World .. Superman #1 .. had been created only as a digital comic for the iPad. Some fifty or sixty years later would the digital Superman #1 achieve the kind of value that the print version has?

I have to wonder how it could, printed comics fade, get lost, damaged or destroyed until there’s only a few rare copies left. A digital comic’s copies might get corrupted or deleted, but fresh pristine copies are always available, so how can it increase in value?

So I have to conclude that comic book collectors will want printed comics as for the moment there isn’t really a way for a digital comic to become rare and thus of value.

Example Two:

You’re at a comic book convention and of course you’ve got tons of your favorite comics on your iPad. So there you are meeting all your favorite artists … so how do they sign those digital comics for you? Do they sign your iPad?, is your iPad collectable now?, can you sell it for a profit ten years later?

Example Three:

Everyone’s given up on printing comics, everything is digital and you’re at the comic book convention again. This time you ask your favorite artist for a convention sketch, he says sure but he only does digital work, no paper, no pens, no ink, just digital.

So does he do an original sketch in some App on your iPad?, Does he do the sketch on his laptop and email it to your iPad? Does the sketch he just did for you have and cash value? Can it be sold? Will the artist sell more copies of it later? Does a purely digital piece of art have any value beyond what you paid for it?

A piece of artwork has the most value when it’s the only one and cannot be reproduced in its original form. So unless you can keep the one and only copy of a piece of digital art on ONLY your iPad or whatever forever you’ll end up making a copy of it sooner or later and by doing so take the chance of decreasing its value.

So these are my thoughts on the subjects of iPads, digital media and digital comics at the moment, but only the future will show if I’m right or just a dummy.

Meanwhile the question remains, is the iPad cool, will it ignite digital book sales, can it resurrect the publishing game, can it save the Universe?  I guess my answer is, not yet. While the iPad might be somewhat cool I just don't feel the urge to run right out and buy one. But on the other hand if someone wants to give me one I’ll be happy to experiment with it.

-- gWebber

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One Mans Trash is another Mans Treasure

It's been said that "One Mans Trash is another Mans Treasure", if you think of this at least in part as Recycling it's an even more true statement.

Being an eternally cash poor artist I tend to always have an eye out for things that might be useful to me.

I also have the good fortune to live in a nice building (due to my lovely wife's efforts) where people sometimes seem to have more money than brains when it comes to things they throw out. Plus, in our building besides having the standard every day dumpser most places have, we also have a "Trash Room" for cardboard and other large items.

All these facts come together along with my Pack Rat nature (thanks Mom)  have given me opportunity to "Recycle" some pretty odd and interesting items out of the Trash Room and back into the useful world.

Some of these items I use myself, others I give to people that I know could make use of them the rest go to places like Goodwill. Yes it seems people here are too lazy to take things to Goodwill on their own.

What's really surprizing about most of these items is that most need little or no repair to be useful. And so I've become pretty good at recycling these items for fun and sometimes even profit.

Here's a list of the odd things I've aquired over a period of time.

10 Computers, most worked a few needed minor repair, all are now being used.

2 Sets of Computer Speakers with Bass, they're working great on my computer and TV. 

2 Computer Hard Drives, they were not in a computer but worked just fine.

1 DVD Player, New in the box, still can't figure why it was tossed, works in my bedroom.

1 Wireless Router, anybody need one?

8 Lamps or more, sold most of them.

6 CFL Light Bulbs, given how long they last I'll never have to buy one and they are expensive.

1 Aluminum Folding Hand Cart, nice heavy duty one, very handy, like new.

1 Aluminum Brief Case, make a great case for my markers and pens.

3 Rolling Desk Chairs, worn but working.

1 Large Plastic Storage Box, no cracks, why toss it out?

2 Canvas Shoulder Bags, still have these.

2 Laptop Bags, both now in use by freinds.

1 Mac PowerBook, not working but sold it for $ 50 for parts.

1 Ikea Storage Bench, washed out one small stain it's now in my entry.

1 Jewelry Large Box, needed a little repair.

3 Framed Art Prints, given their size and frames bet the sold for $ 50 to $ 100 new.

6 Small Picture Frames assorted sizes, very handy.

1 Large Art Canvas, need to do a painting on it some day.

1 Elvira cardboard stand up, wasn't even Halloween at the time.

1 Large Stain Glass Dragon Window Ornament, not cracked, like new, Xmas gift for a freind.

6 Glass Vases, no cracks

1 Carved Wood Box with incense

1 Incense oil bottle with sticks still new in the box.

3 Computer Key Boards, all work.

2 Computer Mice, needed minor cleaning.

12 or more 3 Ring Binders, saves me $ 3.00 each easy.

6 Mailing Tubes, take off the address label reuse and save $3.00 each

6 Milk Crate type boxes, still have these, will sell cheap

I know I saved myself a few thousand bucks recycling these items.

Here's a list of items I've seen, but have no space to keep them till I could Recycle them.

6 to 8 TV sets likely working, digital transition everyone bought a flat screen I guess.

8 Microwaves, never tested any, but bet most worked.

3 VCRs, likely worked.

1 Boom Box, just looked too silly to have in the house.

4 Dining Room Chairs, no space for them.

2 Tables, again no space for them.

2 Drawing Tables, needed small repairs, was sad to not be able to grab them, no space.

3 TV stands assorted sizes.

3 Printers, likely old but working.

4 Fax Machines, do people still fax?

1 Zip Drive.

4 Beds, Frames, Head boards, Box Srings, Mattresses, the works.

1 Couch

1 Coffee Maker

1 Electric Powered Scooter (cheap ass Chinese junk or I would have fixed it)

Assorted pots and pans and glassware.

Assorted Clothing either hung up or in bags.

Shoes, most in good shape.

The list just goes on and on and I'm only listing items that I'm sure could be reused.

Oh, well, they work for me.

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