Laugh Tracks

Free Eisner Awards App for iPhone and iPod Touch!

Uclick has announced the release of a free Eisner Awards app for iPhone and iPod Touch. The app gives a brief background of the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards and their namesake, legendary comics creator Will Eisner, as well as information and images of each of the nominated works in the 26 award categories.

The app will update to note the winners shortly after they are announced at a special ceremony at the San Diego Comic Con on July 24.

To download the free Eisner Awards app for your iPhone or iPod Touch, click here or on the image below (launches iTunes).

Uclick Brings Free Comic Book Day to the iPhone!

For the first time ever, Uclick is celebrating Free Comic Book Day by making several of our iPhone apps free for a limited time. (Click here to read the official press release.)

What does this have to do with GoComics? A few of your favorite GoComics titles are part of the promotion!

Look for apps featuring GoComics favorites The Argyle Sweater, Basic Instructions and Pibgorn, as well as comic book apps starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters and many more. All will be available for free on the App Store starting Friday afternoon and ending Saturday night at 11:59pm PST.

 Click here or on the image below to open up the Uclick page in iTunes.

Nickelodeon Mag Comics Awards Winners: Garfield, Calvin and Bone!

The most famous feline on the comics page was the big winner in the first ever Nickelodeon Magazine Comics Awards. The award for Favorite Comic Strip went to Garfield, by Jim Davis, which beat out finalists Calvin and Hobbes, FoxTrot, Peanuts and Mutts.

Take heart, Calvin fans: While he missed out on the Favorite Comic Strip award, Calvin didn't go home empty-handed, winning the Best Hair in Comics award. (Not bad for a kid who's been enjoying retirement for more than a decade.)

And lastly, Jeff Smith's Bone won the award for Favorite Fantasy Graphic Novel. The entire Bone series, originally published in black and white from 1991-2004, was reprinted in color by Scholastic Books' graphic novel imprint, Graphix. The first nine issues of the color series have also been re-released in a series of comic apps produced by Uclick for iPhone and iPod touch.

Read the story from Universal Press Syndicate here.

CBR covers iPhone Comics from Uclick

Comic Book Resources has posted an article on the Uclick panel at New York Comic Con last weekend. The panel, which covered our rapidly growing line of comic apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch, included Uclick Creative Director Peter Maresca, President and CEO Douglas Edwards, VP of Product Management Jeff Webber, Comics Producer Shena Wolf and Comicraft President and comics creator Richard Starkings (Starkings' Elephantmen #1 is one of the most recent comics apps to join the Uclick iPhone lineup).

The Uclick lineup for iPhone and iPod Touch includes apps featuring archived collections from hit GoComics titles such as Pibgorn, Basic Instructions and We the Robots, as well as the new Uclick GoComics Web app, which allows users to read recent installments of all of their favorite GoComics strips, panels and editorial cartoons. We also have a large collection of comic books, graphic novels and manga specially formatted for panel-to-panel presentation on the multi-touch screens of the Apple devices.

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, be sure to check out the entire Uclick lineup - go to Uclick.com on the built-in Safari browser, or visit the App Store on iTunes.

Uclick in the New York Times

The last few months have been filled with dire news of layoffs and economic difficulties within the newspaper industry, so the New York Times wonders in this article (which ran in the Sunday print edition ) what happens to comic strips when their traditional distribution channel is struggling to stay afloat. The answer: digital distribution. Douglas Edwards, Uclick CEO, is interviewed and Uclick is spotlighted, particularly for the GoComics.com comics portal and our recent comics launches on the iPhone. Click here to read the article.

Pibgorn (and more) on the iPhone and iPod Touch!

Brooke McEldowney's Pibgorn is now available on the iPhone and iPod Touch! In recent weeks, we've released three installments of "Mozart and the Demon Lover," a time-swap storyline in which Pibgorn and Geoff trade places in time with Wolfgang Amadeaus Mozart and Anna Gottleib. While the legendary composer and star soprano find themsleves sequestered in the future under the watchful eye of the god-like Thorax, Geoff works frantically in the 18th century to keep the timestream intact by "composing" Mozart's late works from memory - all while knowing that the date of the real Mozart's death is quickly approaching...

Pibgorn joins Scott Meyer's hit webcomic Basic Instructions and a plethora of comic book titles - including Tales of the TMNT, GODLAND and more - Uclick has recently launched on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Search "Uclick" on the App Store (from your iPhone or iTunes) to browse the entire collection of comic book and comic strip titles currently available.

(Click on the image below to launch iTunes)

Publishers Weekly Covers Digital Comics

Publishers Weekly has just posted an excellent piece on the rise of digital comics, and GoComics is featured throughout:

With initiatives either launching or under way at nearly every major comic book, manga house and traditional book publisher, digital comics are on the verge of becoming an important part of how the medium is marketed and sold, and suddenly nobody wants to get left behind.

“It's changed from people saying someday we need to do this to saying we need to do this now,” says Jeff Webber, v-p of product development at uclick, a mobile entertainment company that distributes comics content on cell phones.

Besides reading your favorite comic strips on mobile, GoComics also offers the GoComics mobile comic book reader, featuring a wide range of comic book and manga titles from major publishers including TOKYOPOP, Image, Virgin Comics, Devil's Due, IDW and more. As mentioned in the article, GoComics is also breaking new ground by offering IDW's Presidential Material comic biographies of Barack Obama and John McCain on mobile phones on October 8th, the same day they are released in print.

Click here to read the Publishers Weekly article. Click here to check out the GoComics mobile comic book reader.

PreTeena coming back? A message from Allison Barrows!

PreTeena fans - In case you missed it, creator Allison Barrows recently posted this excellent bit of news after reading your comments on the PreTeena Signs Off entry:

To all of you, I'm humbled. Your kind words leave me choked up - again - at what I was deeply reluctant to do. Rama and Laurel, I ended the strip without a "goodbye" to fans because it's not over yet: traditional newspaper syndication is at an end (we all know the future of print: RIP), but I'm currently working on a series of graphic novels with a new publisher. PreTeena went to ComicCon a little over a week ago and was enthusiastically received by major book stores who are excited about stocking and promoting PreTeena in its new form.

I "ended" the strip without ending it: I always imagined Teena and Gordo together, but now we have a little window into their future. The books will give me an opportunity to "grow" them.

Please keep your eyes open: You'll be hearing from and seeing Teena, Stick, Jeri, Johnson, Gordo, Goose and the rest soon!

With gratitude,
Allison

Post-SDCC Wrap

San Diego Comic-Con International 2008 has wrapped, and it was another fantastic convention for GoComics. We had all kinds of fun, whether it was demonstrating comics on mobile phones in our partner booths, giving away free kajeet phones from our own booth, or just walking the floor and meeting fans. To those who stopped by our booth, we enjoyed meeting you and we thank you for your support!

We hosted our 4th mobile comics panel, and once again we came away with a great feeling of excitement over the future of comics on mobile phones. Thanks to all of those who attended the panel and especially to those who contributed to the discussion.

SDCC was also an opportunity to hang out with our partners, folks whose work you've seen or will soon see on the GoComics mobile comic book reader. Among them, comics legend Stan Lee, whose all-new Stripperella comic book series is being developed exclusively for mobile release through GoComics. Below, Lee shares a photo-op with uclick/GoComics CEO Doug Edwards (left) and Vice President of Product Development Jeff Webber (right).

Just in case you weren't able to attend SDCC, here's a photo of the GoComics booth so you can feel like you were there. Pictured are GoComics Producer Shena Wolf and Creative Director Pete Maresca. You may recognize Pete's name from his gigantic, Eisner award-winning labor of love, Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays. The just-released (and slightly more massive) follow-up, Little Nemo in Slumberland: Many More Splendid Sundays, is on display just behind Pete's elbow. Both tomes are available through Sunday Press Books.

Hey, check out this Flickr photo series from TMNT25. Plenty of Comic-Con action featuring the TMNT Street Team. The Turtles are, of course, big stars on the GoComics mobile comic book reader. And look! Who's that, riding around the Gaslamp in a TMNT-themed pedicab? Once again it's Pete Maresca, maker of giant Winsor McCay books. This time he's accompanied by GoComics' Mobile Product Development Manager Harold Sipe, author of the hit Image Comics series Screamland!

One last photo, this time from the Image Comics booth, where Screamland scribe Harold Sipe and artist Hector Casanova signed copies of everyone's favorite tale of washed-up Hollywood monster-flick stars who band together for one last hurrah on the silver screen. All right, I'll stop plugging Screamland now. Wait - did I mention Screamland will be available in a trade paperback collection on Oct. 29 at fine comic retailers near you? Okay, now I'm done.

From Doug, Jeff, Shena, Pete, Harold and the rest of the GoComics team, thanks again to all of the GoComics fans who made it out to this year's San Diego Comic-Con. We hope to see you all again next year!

Presidential Material: The Comic-Biographies of John McCain and Barack Obama

In the tradition of great biography comics from years past (Pope John Paul II, St. Francis of Assisi), IDW presents the comic-biographies of Barack Obama and John McCain, the two candidates facing off in November’s historic Presidential contest!

These comics tell the story of each candidate in a way they’ve never been depicted before. And when these books hit the retail shelves in October, they’ll be making history as the first comic books in the U.S. to be released simultaneously in print and on mobile phones! That’s right – on October 8th, you can purchase these special edition Presidential Material comic biographies in print and in full downloadable versions for your mobile phone powered by the GoComics mobile comic book reader.

Written and illustrated by a talented quartet of comic book veterans, each of these 2008 Presidential candidate comic-biographies features a special cover by superstar artist J. Scott Campbell!

Download the Presidential Materials comic-biographies on your mobile phone at m.gocomics.com, or visit www.gocomics.com/comicbooks and enter your phone number to get started. And don't forget to check out the other hit IDW titles available on the GoComics mobile comic book reader!

Presidential Material: Barack Obama—SPOTLIGHT Jeff Mariotte (w) • Tom Morgan (a) • J. Scott Campbell (c) This year’s presidential primary season was historic for many reasons, and Barack Obama’s rise from humble beginnings to his place on the November ballot makes for an extraordinary tale! FC • 32 pages	Presidential Material: John McCain—SPOTLIGHT Andy Helfer (w) • Stephen Thompson (a) • J. Scott Campbell (c) John McCain is a true American hero, and his tale, taking him from the hells of Viet Nam to becoming the Republican nominee for President is a story well worth telling. FC • 32 pages