ROK Comics creator Mike Colbert has just been interviewed by Comic Brew, revealing his new plans for Crazy Mary and other projects.
Talking about why he writes comics, Mike says it all comes down to "a pathological need to get this stuff out of my head!"
"Seriously," he continues, "There's a rush that you feel when you got a story coming out through a keyboard and that you are nailing it. There seems to be a channeling thing, you're not creating it it's coming through you. Some stories need to be written and you are the device for it to break into this world.
"Mary is a case like that. She has set me straight when there are things I want her to do and she doesn't want to, it's weird. I don't write Crazy Mary everyday, but there is hardly a day where I don't think about her or find myself grabbing bits of life to put in a CM story."
ROK Comics cartoonist David Reddick is working on a new online strip for the official website of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Roddenberry.com, which is run by the Great Bird of the Galaxy's family.
The new strip follows hot on the heels of the (hopefully temporary) closure of the official Star Trek web site, which featured David's comic strip "The Trek Life", which also appears in the official Star Trek Magazine. (The official Star Trek web site has ceased the creation of new material but its message boards are still active).
The new strip will focus on exploits of a young Gene Roddenberry, dramatized and probably even fictionalized in a way that is probably best fit for the late Star Trek creator who died in 1991. Roddenberry himself was known as someone who would beef up stories from his younger years, or outright create tall tales of different aspects of his life, which always made good listening for those he would tell the stories to.
New to ROK Comics this month is Night Owl, just one of several heroes from US independent publisher Wham Bang Comics - the humorous creation of an imaginative teenager, with help from his father.
Night Owl, a 12-year-old superhero from Texas, holds the mantle of "Earth Shaman," the most powerful mage on the planet, and is charged with protecting the balance of the universe. A daunting task for a youngster!
Secretly Zack Finley, a seventh grader from Fort Worth, Texas, Night Owl is the child of divorce who spends weekends with his father and the rest of the time with his mother. He inherited his power -- derived from earth energy, the life force of the planet -- from his grandfather, Mack Finley, after the elder shaman was murdered.
Night Owl is still trying to full understand and utilize his powers. He knows he can fly, has super strength and limited invulnerability. He occasionally has prophecy dreams that come true, and he can use the staff left him by his grandfather to commune with the universe. His power animal, Grandfather Owl, is a constant ally in his fight against injustice.
Night Owl is an advocate for human rights and the rights of crime victims. He lives a lonely life, as he must keep his identity secret from even his mother, fearing that her life would be in danger if she knew who he was. (Plus, she'd be so worried for his safety she'd make him stop!)
Night Owl is written by 13-year-old Jake Tinsley (pictured) with help from his father, veteran journalist Ben Tinsley. Art is by rising manga star Jason Dube and colours are by Kristoffer Condes.
Publisher Ben Tinsley formed Wham Bang Comics, based in both Galveston, Texas and Las Vegas, Nevada, to showcase the adventures of Night Owl. Along the way, other writers climbed on board and Wham Bang's first comic, Two-Fisted Adventures, ended up as a 52-page anthology comic, available via their main online site: www.myspace.com/whambangcomics.
A new report by British media and telecommunications watchdog Ofcom reveals the use of mobile service like text messages and pictures messages are increasing fast worldwide.
China is tops for text messaging and India is the mobile leader according to the report, but Britain has the highest take-up of digital television.
Mobile phone users in China sent 429 billion text messages in 2006 (an equivalent of 967 per user, more than any other country), while India added more mobile subscribers in the year than Britain had in total, as the two countries joined Brazil and Russia in driving growth in the sector.
The report also found that accessing the internet from a mobile phone is growing in popularity. In Japan, where over half of mobile phones use a 3G network, mobile users are three times more likely to send an email from their mobiles as they are a text message. However, Europeans send more text messages with 75 per cent of mobile phone users in the UK, France, Germany and Italy sending SMS messages regularly.
The number of mobile-only households has also risen. In Italy, 38 per cent of households are mobile only, compared to around 13 per cent in the UK and 10 per cent in Germany. By the end of 2006 there were, for the first time in the UK, more households with a mobile connection than a landline.
James Thickett, Ofcom's Director of Research, discusses the International Communications Report in the video below and explains how the UK is digitally connected.
The Araknid Kid, who communicates in picto-speak, battles evildoers with his web-shooting trapeze bar and his ability to stick to walls. The Kid was a minor character in Alves’ old series Zeek and Dent and 25-earold Alves, who publishes Out to Lunch on Rok Comics, has been preparing Araknid Kid since DC first announced Zuda, a user-generated Web site.
The winner of each monthly competition earns a contract to produce 52 more weekly installments of their Web-comic.
Alves, who works at the Bangor Daily News as a graphic arts technician, is running seventh in the early voting.
He realizes that such a national platform can help him in terms of exposure."It means a lot," Alves told the paper. "I hope to continue the series whether I win or not. I might approach other publishers if I don’t win. I’m likening this to American Idol. You don’t need to win to benefit from it."
Read more...
Nick Miller has added a few new "Frets for the Day" to ROK Comics.
Fret for the Day is one of the latest strips to be selected for inclusion on ROK's comics service in China (Ups and Downs and Moon Queen are just two of the others), in partnership with China Mobile. Will over 400 million people soon be fretting?
Read more...
Digital Webbing Presents has released Trinity, the first print collection of Crazy Mary short stories, in the United States, stories which are also available worldwide for mobile users via ROK Comics thanks to the enthusiastic support of the character's creator, Mike Colbert.
Trinity collect the first three shorts that have appeared over the last few years in Digital Webbing Presents.
• Trail of Tears features haunting art by critically acclaimed illustrator JK Woodward and "was the story that started it all," says Mike. "Mary uses her special sight to track down a kidnapped girl".
• In Coffee and Dream, also drawn by Woodward, Mary gets a message from one of her "Special Three", as Mike calls the 'ghosts' that haunt the bounty hunter, telling her "everyone in the coffee shop she's in is about to die, unless she can figure out how to save them."
• Chase features art by Federico Zumel. Following a lead from the coffee shop encounter; Mary finds herself on the wrong end of a high speed/high altitude car chase.
The cover for the collection is by JK Woodward and the book also features a cover gallery of alternate and special edition covers.
The comic is available through smarter comic book stores and can also be ordered on-line through www.digitalwebbing.com and by contacting Michael Colbert at logos728@yahoo.com
And of course, if you want Crazy Mary everywhere you go Mike reminds us "you can get these stories and more for your cell phone through www.rokcomics.com!" (Trail of Tears and Coffee and Dream are available in mobile format now and the strip is one of the first creator-owned strips to have been selected by ROK's partners in China and Pakistan for inclusion on the customised ROK Comics sites for those countries).
It's 15 years since the first commercial text was sent over the Vodafone network by Airwide Solutions engineer Neil Papworth.
That first message, which read "Merry Christmas," was sent by Neil Papworth, an engineer at Airwide Solutions, via the Vodafone network to a colleague at the mobile operator who was enjoying the festivities of a staff Christmas party.
IT Pro reports Papworth sent the text on 3 December using a PC terminal and traditional keyboard, while the recipient, Vodafone's Richard Jarvis, received the message using an Orbitel 901 handset.
"I can remember the event, being there, typing [the message] in and getting confirmation that it had got through. But I wasn't the chosen one or anything like that. Eventually the time came when we had to take the system down to Vodafone to plug it in and get it working on the live network. Because I'd been working on the interface stuff it made sense for me to go down and do it," Papworth said.
"I'm still a texter today although I don't need to use it too much at work."
ROK Comics creator Josh Alves, who writes and draws Tastes Like Chicken, recently submitted a new strip, Araknid Kid, to DC Comics new online imprint Zuda (a webcomic competition where users vote their favourites on to becoming actual series). We're pleased to report it made it into December's Zuda competition!
"I'm stoked to have it be part of the first "user" submitted contest," says Josh. "Check it out at www.zudacomics.com and if you deem it worthy, vote for it!"
This blog features news about mobile comics, published by companies such as iVerse, uClick, Cickwheel, ROK Comics and others, including digital publishers such as myEBook.com.
News stories and independently-created mobile comics is always welcome.
This blog is where you will find all our latest news items.
The site downthetubes.net, which began publishing in 1999, is edited by John Freeman whose credits include editor of Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, Star Wars Magazine, and Marvel UK titles such as Overkill, Death's Head II, Warheads and others.
ROK Comics creator Mike Colbert has just been interviewed by Comic Brew, revealing his new plans for Crazy Mary and other projects.
