As many of you know, the Flight series of comics anthologies has been an inspiration to me over the past few years. On his blog recently, editor Kazu Kibuishi announced that the series will wrap up in the next couple of years with Flight 8. He goes on to say that the purpose of the anthology was really to act as a launching pad for him and several of his friends fresh out of school, and that the group’s focus will now be to create their own graphic novels now that they’ve all made names for themselves. So, mission accomplished. The series has served its purpose, Flight will end, but it will be exciting for me to see what they all do next. I’m just sad I never got my chance to participate in one of the Flight anthologies. I always thought my work fit right in.

Kazu did tell me that he has plans to continue the Flight Explorer series, the all-ages variant of Flight, which will now be called simply “Explorer” and will forgo the  sometimes more mature and darker content of its parent anthology. My kids love Explorer, and I’m anxious to see what new stories find their way to that series. Some of my favorites have wound up there so far – Kazu’s Copper, and Jake Parker’s Missile Mouse. Both of these have books out, so I guess that’s sort of what Kazu was alluding to – Flight and Explorer have indeed been a career boost to the artists lucky enough to have been a part of them.

Meanwhile, for those of you who crave more excellent anthology sweetness, check out Birdsong/Songbird. Looks like a new generation of talented artists is making a name for themselves. As for WishTales – Tom and I had a secret dream for the past couple of years to put together an anthology that could take its place alongside Flight, and we were planning to develop it under the WishTales banner. But seeing some of these really fantastic anthologies, Birdsong and Out of Picture most notable among them, I am forced to admit that the space is getting crowded with some really flashy product. So flashy, in fact, that I think we’d better leave the flashy anthology creation up to those talented folks, while Tom and I focus on creating more stories for the WishTales products you already know and love.

But those anthologies sure are good news for readers; it’s like a graphic novel candy store!

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!

We are excited to announce that ex-Disney artist Eddie Pittman is joining WishTales. We will be adding Eddie’s excellent all-ages graphic novel “Red’s Planet” to our roster.

For those of you who don’t know, Eddie began his animation career with Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, where he worked on such films as Mulan, Tarzan, Fantasia 2000, The Emperor’s New Groove and Lilo & Stitch. He currently resides in Orlando Florida where he provides a variety of services including storyboard and illustration work.

His graphic novel Pittman’s “Red’s Planet” is the story of Red, a 10-year old girl who after running away from her foster home is mistakenly kidnapped by aliens. She soon finds herself across the galaxy and marooned on a deserted planet with an eclectic group of castaways who are much worse than her foster family. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really owe it to yourself to see it. The art is gorgeous, the writing is excellent, and the whole property has charm for days.

Stay tuned to this space for more news about Eddie and Red’s Planet!

A very interesting article today in Newsweek by Andrew Zolli. Titled “The Future Won’t be Free” he argues that the first decade of the internet will ultimately be seen as an aberration where information was free. I find it very interesting how he talks about vaporous business models based on free and how the new wave of devices are finding ways to charge for content that is free on the internet.

One example he gives is that to read a newspaper on his Kindle he pays for it, versus browsing it for free on the internet. We pay for apps on the iPhone (at least, the really good ones) and the iPad is coming along too. Businesses are finding that they cannot stay in business by giving it all away, eventually they have to make money and advertising isn’t cutting it.

I worked at a big “new media” company myself in the heady days of the dot-com boom and I remember those speeches, I remember the rush to throw things up at any cost. The author is correct in that we’ve built the expectation that content is free over the last decade. Is he also correct that these new devices will pave the way to reverse that trend?

Well I’m sure content producers hope so. It could be a good thing for those of us who love to make comics but struggle to find a proper business model. Many have wondered if the iPad is a path that can be taken to finally get paid for our work. Only time will tell.

It’s interesting that philosophies like this fly in the face of “freemium” and other such ideas. Can they co-exist? I can’t imagine that even success on these new devices can turn around deeply ingrained expectations regarding web content. But again, only time will tell.

Read the article here.

Here are the buttons I’ll be taking to the SPACE con in April… The four on the left are 1″, and the one on the right is 1.5″

I didn’t have the original art handy for the two on the right, so that’s an old picture. The buttons are all the same 1″ round size.

Peter Robins in The Guardian today talks about the latest publishing trend – books without dustcovers… because what is their point anyway?

People do such clever things with books. Japanese Art Director MASASHI KAWAMURA produced this very clever flipbook that, rather than producing animation, produces a virtual rainbow in your hand.