Submitted Press Releases – December 2013

Welcome to the experimental, Monthly Press Release post! I don’t promise that all submitted press releases will be posted on these, but we’ll see how this will go. For now, we’ll be playing around with assorted press releases, including book releases.


Comic of the Week: Oh Joy, Sex Toy! by Erika Moen

Clearly not safe for work, and not so much a comic that is like any other. This is a sort of review comic… for sex toys. We should have expected this come from no one else. Erika manages to bring her own journal style of cartooning, with her passion for sexual content, into one incredibly informative comic.


Send the WCBN your Press Releases!

While there are many ways to contribute to the WCBN and its shows, including submitting your own original article, one can also submit promotional information via Press Releases. While I would encourage everyone to read the entire FAQs page first, I’ll give a quick overview on what we are looking at.


Webcomic Beacon Review: Vindibudd: Superhero in Training by A. S. Williams

Let’s look at a strip comic again. With this Webcomicv Review Trial Run, I’ve been mostly submitted story-based comics. So! Let’s take a look at Vindibudd: Superhero in Training, or… possibly “The Adventures of Vindibudd: Superhero in Training”. For the sake of breathing, Let’s just call it “Vindibudd”.


Two Cents in 60 Seconds now available on WCBN

For those that didn’t know what it was, Two Cents in 60 Seconds was a 60 second webcomic review podcast that ran for the majority of 2007. You could consider this a sorta of “proto” Webcomic Beacon podcast.


Webcomic Beacon Review: Domain Tnemrot by David Herbert and Tatiana Lepikhina

The comic’s name is “Domain Tnemrot”, but “tnemrot” is… I had to double check to see if it was an error. It doesn’t really look like a word, let alone I have no idea how to pronounce it. Which is a huge issue, in regards to someone remembering a name or url, which is “tnemrot.com”. (Fortunately, the website has a FAQ page explaining that it is pronounced “Nem-rot. The first T is silent.”).


Webcomic Beacon Review: Jikoshia by Emily R. Gillis

Ok! Now this is a better way to use URLs for a comic, while also branding oneself. Actually… I think this was a website I had looked at once for a Webcomic Website review. I’m not sure how much advice I needed to give, but I do kinda remember how it used to look. It still has a nice logo melded with a menu bar.


WebcomicZ Looking for Assistance or New Partner(z).

For those that don’t know, WebcomicZ had become a property of Fesworks, LLC and combined with The Webcast Beacon Network. I am now see if others may have a better, investing idea for the website, and would like to work on, or partner, to make it better.


Marcus N. Almand – Fellow Creative and Friend

Dear friend and fellow creative, Nicholas “Marcus” Almand, has lost the fight to cancer this past week. People may remember Marcus from his original, independant comic Razor Kid; the First Issue comic book review series; Unique Tales contributing writer, among other projects in the works.


Welcome the Latest WCBN Affiliate: The One Word, Go! Show!

Please welcome the newest addition to the Webcast Beacon Network family, The One Word, Go! Show! The One Word, Go! Show is a comedy podcast where each week, they take a listener submitted word , and use it to jump-start a conversation.


Contract Artwork Guidelines by Eric Kimball

One of the biggest problems you will have is people asking you for free work. Never agree to work without a firm commitment to being paid for that work. Wasting your time on non-paying work will burn you out and negatively affect your productivity.


Webcomic Reviews (TRIAL RUN) – **Submissions Closed, for now**

DON’T SEND ANYTHING YET! Please read first! — I decided to go ahead and just do a trial run of webcomic reviews, since people have been submitted webcomics for review (even though we have not been doing reviews for years). Sorry. JUST WEBCOMICS right now.


Comic of the Week: Paranatural by Zack Morrison

Paranatural by writers Zack Morrison Comic of the Week picked by: @fesworks One of the most colorful comics I’ve seen online. This is a story about just how absurd a world of magic is, to a kid that has just had the veiled pulled away for him. Because if we just discovered world of spirits, ghosts, and […]


Comic of the Week: Shotgun Shuffle by Chris Rusche

Quinn is just trying to find a good roommate, and Ellie is just trying to find a room. Yes, it’s a sort of “roomies” comics, with loads of relationship drama. Everyone has some sort of baggage, though what many “roomie” type comics lack, are expressive, individual characters. This comic’s got ’em.


2013 CONvergence Panel – Creating a World

Recorded live at CONvergence 2013. You may have a great idea for some characters for a new comic or novel, but what good are they without a world to exist in? Save yourself some of the headache of continuity by planning some things ahead. Panelists: Lou Anders, Dana Baird, Adam Stemple, Tania Richter, Fes Works, Marty Farley.


2013 CONvergence Panel – Creating a Character

Recorded live at CONvergence 2013, a panel that Fes Works, along with S. D. Hintz, Nicholas Beeson, Tania Richter, and Matthew Davis put together for an interesting discussion on creating a character.


The “No Excuses. Draw.” Challenge

The 24 Hour / 24 Week No Excuses, Draw challenge will officially start on August 11th, 2013! This challenge is to help people get off their lazy fingers and DRAW EVERY DAY! This is a challenge against one’s self.


Crowdfunding Picks for the Week of August 28th, 2013

Kickstarters this week: The Choosatron: Interactive Fiction Arcade Machine; The System: Comics Will Be Published Until Morale Improves; Clique Refresh; Spacetrawler Book Three; YU+ME Complete Series Omnibus; The Hues: a Post-Apocalyptic Magical Kickstarter!


Comic of the Week: Kiwi Blitz by Mary Cagle

Kiwi Blitz is set in a world where people fight in mecha-animal battle competitions, and androids are somewhat common. Amongst this is Steffi, a mecha combatant that decides to take up vigilantism one day. And she’s just a kid!


Comic of the Week: Yellow Peril by Jamie Noguchi

This is a comic I should have picked up MUCH earlier than I had. It’s a black and white comic, with what I think may be ink wash and pencils for contrast. I have not read the whole archive, but I’ve been enjoying and reading it ever since I started.


Jenny Everywhere Day 2013 – Get Those Submissions In!

Well it’s August and that means it’s time to get serious about this year’s Jenny Everywhere Day event! The event is August 13th which is a Monday. This will be the forth year of the event. In 2009 we had 9 submissions, 2010 saw 14, and 2011 had 19 submissions. If early feedback is any indication we’re on track for another great year.


2013 CONvergence Panel – Poe’s Potables

After the success of 2012’s “Cocktails with Cthulhu,” the panelists will return with an in-depth look at booze in the life and work of Edgar Allen Poe. Panelists: Pat Harrigan, Tim Uren, Melissa Kaercher, Jerry Belich, Dawn Krosnowski


Comic of the Week: Endtown by Aaron Neathery

Something that a Webcomic Beacon guest continued to highly praise, so I had to check it out. This is another comic set in a post-apocalyptic setting. The landscape of the earth and it’s plant an animal population has been drastically changed… literally.


Comic of the Week: Grrl Power by David Barrack

Ah yes. Well toned and endowed super-heroines. This comic makes no excuse for the visual display of busty and muscled super women (well, there’s muscular, tight-shirted men in here too). Though the real star of the show is the “less than conventional” girl, Sydney.


WeSeWriMo: Join the 7th annual Web Serial Writing Month!

For the seventh straight year, the EpiGuide Webfiction and Web Entertainment Community is hosting a month-long writing marathon, starting on August 1 and running through August 31, where creators of original, regularly-produced web-only entertainment are challenged to write as they’ve never written before.


Comic of the Week: Not a Villain by Aneeka Richins

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic time… though we effectively see none of this, because the world’s survivors primarily gather online to… basically live life. We do get hints here and there about what people do offline, and how they survive.


Now Accepting User Submitted Articles

We are going to open up the floor for user submitted content. Article posts in particular. This will be a trial and experiment moving forward. We will be looking for original article submissions for tutorials, guides, event/convention reports, interviews, and editorials… perhaps other things as well.


Comic of the Week: Simply Sarah by Sarah Skye

I’m not typically one for slice of life style comics, or anything that deals with relationships or drama, but the art helped pulled me in for a closer look. I ended up reading back to a truth or dare party.


Crowdfunding Picks for the Week of June 9, 2013

Let’s try something a little different here on The Webcast Beacon Network. Let’s take a look at a few crowdfunding projects going on, to give you a heads up on, a direct you to some projects we have an eye on.


Site News: Registered User Purge… SORRY!

I apologize in advance if you got caught in the deletion (People with names, posts, or avatars were likely spared), but I had to do the purge to get rid of a huge number of spam accounts, and for website security and stability.


Accepting Webfiction for Readings on Webfiction World!

If you have your own writings that you’d like to offer up for readings, you may submit the first chapter or two of an on-going, or completed, story; as well as one-off stand-alone works. We are looking at things that would take 15-25 minutes to read, which is about 3000-5000 words.


Welcome New Affiliate of The WCBN, EpiGuide’s EpiCast!

EpiGuide is the webfiction, weblit, webserial… online fiction writing community that brought you WeSeWriMo. With their podcast, EpiCast, they discuss many degrees of writtings found online, with a predisposition to webfiction.

So please welcome WCBN’s first new affiliate under the new website: EpiGuide’s EpiCast!


Website Design Upgrade!

New look (coming VERY soon, if not here already)! So be patient with us during the change over. We’ll be working on bugs, broken links, and tightening the layout.

Let us know if anything is broke!


So, What is Happening to The Webcomic Beacon?

The Webcomic Beacon is winding down and is going to be ending its core programming. What does that mean for the site? What does it mean for our listeners? What can you do to help?


Webcomic Blind Date 2013 Results!

We got 25 people signed up for the Webcomic Blind Date 2013! However, not everyone has handed their comics in. We will add them as they do come in.


Sign up for the Webcomic Blind Date 2013!

Admission ended for 2013! UPDATE: See the official 2013 dating roster! Valentine’s Day is coming up, and we would like to revitalize the “Blind Date” project that Xavier Xerexes (of ComixTalk) had originally created. The way that Webcomic Blind Date will work, is that people will email us (at webcomicbeacon@gmail.com) as either a comic WRITER, a comic ARTIST, or as […]


Interview with Alan Evans of Rival Angels

Rival Angels is about four girls trying to make it in professional wrestling and find that surviving their battles with each as room-mates is a completely different matter.


Business Advice for Comic Creators by D. J. Coffman

It’s totally fine to just draw comics for you or as a hobby, but when you want to do this for a living, be a commercial cartoonist and be successful then you need to start thinking with a business mind instead of just a creative one.


The Webcast Beacon Network is COMING SOON!

The Webcast Beacon Network originally started as The Webcomic Beacon Podcast in 2007. In 2010, The Tropecast and Webcomic Beacon Newscast were added to the programming…..


The Webcomic Beacon crew on The Geek Life

An impromptu Skype messaging with Melissa Kaercher (aka “Chebutykin”), turned into an invitation to a podcast recording! So check out Episode 58 of The Geek Life as Mark and Fes talk about webcomics and go off tangent!