Top Shelf Launches Web Comics Site
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week May 13, 2008 Sign up now!
By Laura Hudson -- Publishers Weekly, 5/12/2008 1:23:00 PM
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| The Bravest Niño by Chris Eliopoulos |
Although Top Shelf has featured webcomics on its website in the past, including Matt Kindt's critically-acclaimed Superspy, the relaunch promises a leap forward in both artistic scope and ambition. “One thing that hurt the momentum of our last webcomic program was a slow, irregular update schedule, so the goal of the new jam is to post early and often,” Walton said. This time around, the site will update every weekday, with content ranging from a full chapter or short story to the occasional one-page gag.
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| Love Puppets by Jessica McLeod and Edward J Grug III |
For Top Shelf, one of the advantages of publishing webcomics is that the online venue allows them to “take much larger risks [on] publishing comics that we may really dig formally, or that have more challenging content, that there may not be a market for in print," says Warnock. "I see webcomics as almost a separate market. Or at least, an ancillary one, in that we don't plan on stopping our release of gold old fashioned books printer with wood pulp, and released to brick and mortar stores."
“The most obvious difference [with webcomics] is color—something that we're still using very sparingly in our print publications, but on the web is completely unlimited,” added Walton. “What excites me the most about working with young artists—those, like me, born after 1980—is that we've grown up with computers, and that affects the comics that we make. Whereas it would have been unthinkable for an "alternative comic artist" of Chester Brown's generation to work in color (for economic reasons), for a lot of these new folks, it's unthinkable to do it any other way.”
Throughout the process, content will remained creator-owned, with artists and writers free to leave at any time. “We see Top Shelf 2.0 as a laboratory for new ideas and new creators,” Walton explained. “Any webcomic that gets an outstanding response will naturally suggest that we consider it for print publication, but in the meantime we're happy to give these creators and fans an opportunity to discover each other.”
