Mission:Impossible Mobile Comic in Development

Mobile comic creator and Singapore-based marketing and brand development company Omnitoons has announced that they are co-developing “Manga-styled” mobile comics that will be based on Paramount Pictures’ films, in partnership with Paramount Digital Entertainment.

The new mobile comics will be the first time that Paramount Digital Entertainment will release a series of mobile comics based on movies from its library. The first series to launch is a mobile comic based on the recently-released Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging – the teen romance film based on the best-selling series of books by British author Louise Rennison which follows the eccentric and irresistible Georgia Nicolson as she overcomes the trauma of being a teenager.

Comics are also being developed based on the Paramount Pictures’ films Eagle Eye and Mission: Impossible.

Omnitoons say the he comics will be available in three different formats including single-panel comics, four screens per comic strips and short stories with more than 20 screens in each episode.

Currently, these comics are made available through MMS and J2ME formats in the United States, Australia, Europe and India. The mobile comics will be made available by download through key carriers and major content distributors worldwide.

“Omnitoons, is a specialized mobile comic developer with talented artists based in Singapore and we are thrilled to partner with them to translate these movies into mobile comics,” says Pradeep Mittur, Vice President, Mobile Entertainment, Asia Pacific.

“Being able to collaborate with Paramount Digital Entertainment, is a great testament to our vision of providing quality and addictive pop culture content," said said Karen New, CEO of Omnitoons.

"By adapting movies to the mobile comics format, we believe fans will be able to extend their entertainment experience at their own pace, with the privacy of their phone,”

“Omnitoons aims to continue our pursuit of bridging the mobile and movie industries by creating even more comics based on popular film titles through innovative and cost-efficient techniques.”

With Marvel's stated interest in the form, the recent launch of iverse comics, ROK Comics continuing development and the growing interest in mobile comics beyond Japan and China, where the form is already hugely popular, it seems mobile comics are beginning to build up steam and will be yet another form of "comics evolution" reflecting the Ninth Art's continued ability to adapt to find new audiences beyond print.

More Comics on iphone

Owners of Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices have been downloading millions of games, utilities, books, and tools from Apple's recently launched iTunes App Store. Now, starting later this year millions of iPhone/iPod Touch owners will have the opportunity to download digital comics from established industry professionals and studios, as well as new and rising comic book stars through iVerse Media.

Comics are of course already available on mobile phones via servcies such as ROK Comics, but this is the first service delivering specifically to iphone. While the sales of iphones are still miniscule compared with other handsets, the hype for the Apple device has been enormous and the Apps Store has been a huge success both for Apple and software creators alike.

"We have developed an extremely simple iPhone Application that allows us to display comics that have been specifically formatted for the iPhone/iPod Touch." said iVerse Media owner Michael Murphey. "What we're doing is creating new comics, and adapting existing comics into a format that makes reading comic books an enjoyable and eas experience on these devices. There's no "zooming" or "pinching" required. All you have to do is flick your finger."

Comics adapted using the iVerse Media software will be available in the iTunes App Store for as little as $.99. Some titles will be released free of charge.

"Creators and Studios will be able to set the final prices on their titles, but we're expecting most standard length titles to be around $.99, and we're encouraging creators to give away the first issues of their titles to allow new readers who may not be familiar with comics, but are iPhone/iPod Touch owners, to give comics on the devices a try."

"With Digital Comics on the iPhone/iPod Touch we have access to a world wide audience, no printing costs or print run minimums, and it doesn't take 3 months to get the title from in the catalog to on sale in a store. Each title will be featured as its own application in the App Store, and will be backed up onto the readers desktop or notebook computer each time they sync their device."

iVerse Media says it is currently discussing comic adaptions and new creations from a variety of industry professionals and studios, and is accepting submissions from new creators. Details on submission requirements can be found at: www.iversecomics.com/submissions/

Earlier this month, PJ Holden and Al Ewing announced the launch of their own iphone-friendly comic, Murderdrome, also intended to be released via the Apps Store, but in his latest Lying in the Gutters column Rich Johnston reports the project's violent content has run foul of "community standards", even though equally violent movies are also available from the service.

The pair are not alone in suffering problems over e-comics censorship: creator Brian Kirsten has reported having similar problems with PDF Comic publisher Wowio, now owned by Platinum Studios.

The iVerse submission guidelines make no mention of restrictions on content and indicate all rights will remain with the creators.

• Established creators and Studios wishing to contact iVerse about adapting existing comics, or creating new titles can do so at www.iversecomics.com/contact-us/

Murderdrome Comes to the iphone

Top British comic creators Al Ewing and PJ Holden have developed an iphone version of their new comics project Murderdrome. Find out more by watching the video below or visiting their blog.

While comics on phones are not a new idea -- ROK Comics has been bring the work of creators such as Keith Page, Rodrigo Ricci, Ian Gibson, David Fletcher and others as a WAP-based subscription service for over a year - because Murderdrome is on an iphone everyone has of course started wetting themselves about it...

Let's hope they get some good coverage. Generally, despite the huge number of web comics out there these days, I find very few comics news sites or magazines still seem to be ignoring the huge numbers of digital comics readers, noted in this piece in Publishing Week.

Online Comic Creator Tools

I posted this list of Online Comic Creator Tools on the ROK Comics Creator Forum some time ago, but I think it may well be of interest to folks here...

I've been having a dig around on the Internet and had a look at a lot of the other creator tools out there. I was wondering if anyone had tried any of these and if so, what they thought of them? (This list also features on the main downthtubes site).

Please note: this list does not include links to web comic "portal" sites like ComicSpace or Web Comics Nation (although ROK Comics could also be considered one of those).

Comic Creator Tools
Comics creator tools comprise software and online tools for the purpose of creating cartoons or comic strips, either for print or online or mobile phone publication.
Several companies have developed creator tools, while some online companies and TV channels use them as "value added" services to enhance their web sites. Many online services employ Flash to but some use Scalable Vector Graphics.

Desktop Comic Creator Software

Comic Book Creator
Link: www.mycomicbookcreator.com
Windows Software
Comic Book Creator 2.0 is a toolkit for self-publishing, whether you're making photo comics or classic comics from your scanned artwork or video game screenshots. The company has created various editions themed to TokyoPop, Marvel and other characters.
"Comic Book Creator has become the software of choice for Social Network and user generated content creation and personal media syndication, according to Planetwide Media, publisher and developer of this creative software. Comic Book Creator is a media creation tool that allows you to easily create your own stories utilizing digital photos, music, sound effects, videos and animation. Your creations can printed in book form or published at your own blog or at www.HyperComics.com. The retail version is available for $49.99 US.
Video gamers are encouraged to create a professional-looking, high-quality comic book to immortalize an important battle scene or dramatic encounter within their game play. Comic Book Creator lets gamers add in text bubbles to their digital screenshots, as well as classic comic book features like powerful action-word graphics that emphasize their game play.
To create a comic, you need to select from one of the 500 unique layout and design templates, drop in your captured digital images and insert text bubbles, icons, captions and clipart to bring to life whatever story you can imagine. Comic Book Creator will work with any JPEG, BMP, or GIF digital image and will allow users to share their masterpiece with friends.
Various 'skins' have been created in partnership with gaming companies and publishers such as Marvel.

Comic Life
Link: plasq.com/comiclife

An award-winning bit of Mac software that lets you create astounding comics, beautiful picture albums, how-tos... and more. The easy-to-use interface integrates seamlessly with your photo collection or iSight. Drag in your pictures, captions, Lettering text ('ka-blam!') and speech balloons and your work is done!

Doozla
Link: http://plasq.com/

Doozla is the easy-to-use drawing application for children - it is what your kids have always wanted. It's the creation of plasq, who also make Comic Life.

Online Comic Creators

Most of these are flash-based, like ROK Comics

• The Beano
UK publisher DC Thomson's flagship humour weekly provides the tools to create comics based on Beano characters. This is a nicely designed comic creator -- probably one of the best from the comics that provide one -- although lettering is a bit fiddly - you choose whole words to add to balloons rather than add your own lettering. Everthing including lettering, is treated as an object, which means you can rotate, scale all items etc. Like many online creators from commercial companies, there's no option to save - just print out your comic.

• Blue Peter
A comic maker from the BBC. The Blue Peter engine is accompanied by a talk through from presenter Gethin, and you have to create the strip from the ground up, designing characters (if you want) then you can create a simple three frame strip which prints out on A4. There's no option to save it and the interface uses the same format as the Beano's, clicking and dragging key words to the stage. The stage is a bit small but it's quite a nice design and works quite well.

• Boy's Life
This utilises the same style of moving and deleting objects as the Kabam! site (see below) - you click the command (eg Move) first, then the object or character you want to alter. There's no facility to save just print, but this service on the US Boy Scout site does let you click and view the three frame strip as one frame, so you can see how it's shaping up and how each panel looks compared with the others.

• Doctor Who
The official BBC Doctor Who web site offers a moderated comic maker enabling users to create comic strips based on Doctor Who using monsters and characters from the TV drama. It's over complicated and the flash is very slow to load, and moderation takes at least three days. Not very impressed.

• Captain Underpants
Found on the Scholastic Canada web site. It's a very simple comic maker providing fixed phrases and a limited number of characters, props etc to choose from, and not clever enough to realize you've missed out a frame when you create a story.

• Comic Sketch
This SVG-based comic creator enables to you create freehand comics and turn them into a strip. The creators are working on a new comic strip editor (beta at ) for Comics Sketch (that will also be the next core of their calligraphic widget InputDraw). The builders say the main goal of the new version is to empower artists to be able to create real professional comics on the site and allow them to reuse parts/characters/objects of their comics in new ones. It will be SVG standard at its core, aiming for a subset of SVG that is close to the one supported by Firefox or Safari.. or even better and less buggier. This new version is being developed using ActionScript and Flex.

• Comiqs.com
A new website that allows people to create comic strips based on their own photos. The Flex based editor allows users to easily add captions and text to photos that they upload. It is also possible to link it to your Flickr account. There's also a community based around these comic strips - with lists of top rated and top viewed comic strips that have been created.
You can dive straight in and create a comic based on the photos already uploaded or add your own, without having to sign up. The interface is still in beta and is not instinctive and a bit fiddly, in my view, but there's some interesting implementation of "Web 2.0" themes.

• Disney's Comic Creator
You need to be a member Disney's Club Blast to use this tool.

• Garfield Comic Creator
Surprisngly, this is also hidden away on the National Heart and Lung Institute web site (well, I say hidden, but it's actually got a better search position than the official Garfield web site location!). It's exactly the same engine as the Scouts and the Kabam! Disease control comic maker - print only with no option to save.

• Gnomz
Multi-lingual comic tool requiring sign up before you can create comics based on pixel art designs. The service appears to have some 85.000 members and has been running since at least 2005.

• ITV's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
Flash-based comics creator using celebrity images and scenery from the ITV reality show. The design is similar to the service offered by ROK Comics, who built the tools in 2007 for the show's sixth series as part of a number of mobile promotions. You can either view the completed strip in full or have it delivered to your mobile. There is a charge for mobile delivery.

• Kabam! Comic Creator
Part of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is a bit limited but one nice touch is limiting the number of words per balloon, so it can't get too big - also, lettering is automatically centred within the balloon. This avoids the problem of over large balloons some comic creators have where the text is embedded into the balloon object, like ROK Comics.

• Kerpoof

An animation and comic creator inspired, it seems, by the imagery of Escher. It's Flash based and the menus are completely visual which was a little confusing. If you register you can save your designs and do other things with them.
The makes say that with Kerpoof you can make artwork (even if you aren't good at drawing!), make an animated movie, earn Koins which you will soon be able to spend in The Kerpoof Store (not sure how this works yet), make a printed card, t-shirt, or mug and comment on other creator's work

• Make Beliefs Comic
Simple web site utilising comic characters and props to create three panel strips. The creation of Bill Zimmerman with art by Tom Bloom.

• Myths and Legends Story Creator
Resource for schools utilising imagery based on British myths and legends.

• Patent PlaceVery slick Flash site based on Patent's Place the everyday story of Biotech folk.

• Read • Write • Think
ReadWriteThink is a partnership between the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the Verizon Foundation.
The Comic Creator is designed to be used in a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on). The organizers focus on the key elements of comic strips by allowing students to choose backgrounds, characters, and props, as well as to compose related dialogue. This tool can be used by students from kindergarten through high school, for purposes ranging from learning to write dialogue to an in-depth study of a formerly neglected genre. Once you have finished your comic you can print it out.

• ROK Comics
(I'm guessing you've heard of this one!) This service lets users upload their own comic frames and photographs to make comic strips and provides speech ballons special effects and a number of characters and 'props' with which to create comic strips. Professionally-published strips earn revenue share but users can also publish strips for free and have access to embed code which can be inserted in web sites and some blog services. Sign up is required before you create a comic and the professional service is moderated.

• Strip Creator
Stripcreator is a website that allows users to create and save their own comic strips. It officially went in January 2001. The site is donor supported: donors get to use more features than casual visitors. Registration is required. Comics can be read on the site or in the site's Read My Damn Comics forum (http://www.stripcreator.com/forums/listthreads.php?forum=14), where the regulars are most receptive to people who are polite and funny.
Stripcreator works best in Internet Explorer 6. It also works in Firefox, though there are some glitches. "I've heard that it works in Opera and Safari as well," says creator Brad, "which would just be luck."

• Strip Generator
Hailing from Slovenia, this surely set the benchmark for Flash-based comic creator tools and is now on a 1.3 model. The creators of Strip Generator created a simple to use flash based application utilising online charcaters, props and balloons. The service has gone through several upgrades, and has been used in some very successful projects, like for BAR TV reality show and for using it for political online cartoon creation for a US newspaper.
Stripgenerator is free of charge project created to embrace the internet blogging and strip creation culture, helping the people with no drawing abilities to express their opinions via strips.

• Telltale: Sam and Max Comic Creator
Now you can give everyone's favourite canine shamus and hyperkinetic rabbity-thing the power of speech from the comfort of your own home or office. It's easy! Just drag the panels you want into the empty strip. Then type funny things in the speech bubbles. (If you leave a bubble empty, it will disappear when you submit your comic.) Site claims copyright on all strips created.

• ToonDo
ToonDoo offers more robust features with a twist of social networking sites similar to myspace or friendster. It offers a huge range of cartoon stock graphics and emotion icons for you to add with your photos or you can just use the characters to make up your own. You can get yor comics reviewed by other members, embed the cartoons on your website, and even add the toons to your favourite bookmarks sites.
ToonDoo offers nearly 400 characters, props and backgrounds and the ability to create one, two or three-panel comic strips. You can also customize characters, props and speech bubbles and upload pictures and photographs, then share, mail, recommend and bookmark your comic strips.
The editor interface does not have the ability to tune digital photos and apply filters. Registration is required to use the comic creator which is Flash based.

• Toonlet
Another relatively new service. Rather than focus on photos like comiqs for example, toonlet puts the focus on character creation, and features a powerful avatar tool so you can make characters that look authentically hand-drawn. Tour at: http://www.toonlet.com/tour. They're looking for creators to contribute "art packs" based on downloadable templates.

• TOXIC
UK publisher TOXIC has a "Monster Maker" that is part of its online comics suite for members of the TOXIC club. While not strictly a comic tool the elements are certainly comics-inspired.

Mama, We're All Connected Now...

Good news for online comic creators comes via research from KenRadio.com (registration required) that nearly a quarter of the world's population – roughly 1.4 billion people – will use the Internet on a regular basis in 2008.

This number is expected to surpass 1.9 billion unique users, or 30% of the world's population, in 2012,, which means that the Internet will have added its second billion users over a span of about eight years, a testament to both its universal appeal and its availability.

By the end of 2008, the research suggests, the Internet will be more deeply integrated into the fabric of many users' personal and professional lives, enabling them to work, play, and socialize anytime from anywhere. These trends will accelerate as the number of mobile users continues to soar and the Internet becomes truly ubiquitous.

The PC is still currently the dominant means of gaining access to the Internet,, but only in certain countires. In many third world countries people access the web via their mobiles and the number of mobile devices accessing the Internet is now expected to surpass the number of online PCs by 2012.

So waht are all these millions of surfers doing online? Once on the Internet, it's expected users will continue to spend time on Web 1.0 activities like searching, shopping, and sending email. But Web 2.0 activities, such as watching user-generated videos (Youtube, MetaCafe), streaming media / VOD (Hulu, ABC.com), posting blogs (Blogger, Typepad), and participating in social networks such as Facebook and Myspace are quickly capturing the attention and time online of more and more Internet users.

The latter will create new opportunities and challenges for online businesses and advertisers. But it's all good news for webcomic and mobile comic creators!

Japan's Mobile Comic Frenzy

Mobile comics seem to be growing in popularity worldwide, bouyed by better screen resolutions and the growing number of comic creators experimenting with the form. Further growth in the market might come from the increasing sales success for mobile comics (ketai) in Japan, a country which has already successfully exported manga print comics worldwide.

Reuters reported today that the Japanese love of mobile comics - which is already huge - could grow further with the arrival of Apple's iphone next month. Analysts claim the device's touch-screen will make it easier and more appealing to read comics on handsets.

With the number of mobile phone subscribers close to 108 million, or 85 percent of Japan's population, carriers there are already finding e-mail, music downloads and web surfing hugely popular, and are looking for new opportunities to make money in a highly competitive market - and that includes comics.

Mobile Comics led the size of the Japanese mobile publication market to double in the last business year to 22 billion yen ($204 million), according to Internet and media research firm Impress R&D, almost three times bigger than the e-publication market for PCs.

"Until now, users had been extensively using mobile phones for email," Shinko Securities analyst Tomohiko Okugawa told Reuters. "Now that's shifting to games and comics ... This is the area that's going to be very interesting."

"The importance of content has been growing," agreed Toshitake Amamiya, general manager of telecom KDDI's content and media division. "It's crucial to pursue what we can do in this market where each adult always carries around a mobile phone and uses it as a life tool."

But mobile comics on mobile aren’t just proving popular in Japan. Putting on my hat as Managing Editor of comics-on-mobile service ROK Comics, we've found that translations of strips first published on ROK Comics for China have proven very popular in recent months.

While selling comics on mobile to traditional comics readers is, surprisingly, a hard sell - it's hard to beat the beauty and versatility of the printed comic page either online or on mobile - we are finding that mobile comics are a new, wider audience. Comics fans who have always read newspaper cartoons but never set foot in a comic shop may prove the key to making mobile comics a success.

Webcomics creators argue a hardcore fan set of a couple of thousand readers is enough to turn a profit online (largely through sales of strip-related merchandise such as collections, t-shirts etc.) so the potential revenues are strong. What we’re finding is that mobile comics are popular even in countries where there is no traditional print-based or web comic industry, and mobile reaches far more people than even web comic creators reach via PC delivery.

ROK Comics provides both a platform for licensed comic content including Andy Capp, Roy of the Rovers and Garth, and the tools for independent comic creators to upload their own comics, promoting their characters on mobile using a comic creator tool which also enable web blog and web site publication. The sale of downloads and WAP page views are credited to creators' accounts, with profits on sales shared equally between ROK and the creator.

Delivering comics on mobile in the West is achievable - we’ve been doing that for over a year - but creators and publishers do need to take on board the creative challenges imposed by small screen delivery and be aware it's still early days for the form outside countries like Japan where mobile comics have been around for quite some time.

• More about creating comics for mobile on the ROK Comics web site

Charlotte Corday: The Hampstead Horror

Here are the first two 'chapters' of a new Charlotte Corday story, The Hampstead Horror, created by Commando, New Eagle and Spaceship Away artist Keith Page specifically for ROK Comics, the mobile comics publisher. (Read more about the project here).

Charlotte returns in a new feature-length adventure battling an alien menace in 1950's London. Ably assisted by Sergeant Maxfield and a selection of North London gangsters and Teddy Boys, Charlotte manages to save the Capital. The ethereal and mysterious Dennis the Donkey lends a hand too, while the British Secret Service proves to be worryingly inept...

Written by screenwriter Stephen Walsh, Charlotte Corday of the Surete: London Calling is set in London in the early 1950s will also be a full length graphic novel, with a few surprises.

You can view all the comics on ROK Comics on your mobile by subscribing to our WAP service for a small monthly fee - $4 in the US, £3 in the UK, other countries also served.

Simply visit this page on the ROK Comics site and choose the subscribe option. When you receive a WAP push message to your mobile, connect to the site using that link using your browser, bookmark it -- and you'll be subscribed to ROK Comics Mobile for the next month.

Yes, it's really that simple. Please note, the link ROK Comics send you is exclusive to your phone, so don't lose it!

ROK Drops Crumb Into China

ROK Comics has announced that several top comic creators are having their work translated for distribution in China as part of the company’s ongoing development -- with over 30,000 downloads delivered in one weekend.

Crumb, created by top cartoonist David Fletcher whose cartoons are published in over 30 newspapers worldwide including New Zealand’s top-selling TV Guide (which has some 800,000 readers a week), the New Zealand Herald and the Australian Daily. The strip is now available in Chinese and through the whole ROK Comics mobile and online distribution network.

As previously mentioned here, David has developed his new strip, Crumb especially for mobile, which centres on the antics of an ever-hungry blackbird.

“Comics for mobiles seems to me to be the future for cartoon strips and comics,” David says of ROK Comics. “Readers can now choose which comics they want to read and not be told by an editor which comics they can read.

“I love the fact that the mobile cartoon strip is no longer restricted to the usual number of three or four panel, which allows the cartoonist far more freedom to express his idea. Comics for mobiles has come as a breath of fresh air for the comics industry.”

“Several comics artists have started to create comics for mobile format and David’s at the forefront of a whole new way of reaching his audience,” says John Freeman, Managing Editor of ROK Comics. “We think mobile comics have huge potential to reach a worldwide audience who may never see the print editions of some of the comics we’re publishing, which offers creators huge potential in promoting their work.

David’s commitment to Crumb, updated regularly, meant the title was an ideal choice for translation and re-publication in China and initial reaction has been excellent.

Other strips ROK Comics are offering to partners in China include Michael Colbert's Crazy Mary, Look and Learn's Robin Hood, Anomaly by Kennedy Rose and Team Sputnik's Fret for the Day.

ROK Comics Creator Interviews Online

Several interviews with creators of UK-based comics to mobile service ROK Comics, have been posted on the downthetubes.net main site. The questions were compiled by David Hailwood.

• Artist Josh Alves
Josh Alves is a Graphic Designer/Cartoonist/Stand-up Comedian residing in the very green and mostly cold state of Maine, who's been adapting his one frame Tastes Like Chicken cartoons into three frame ROK Comics for mobile. His work has appeared on DC Comics Zuda service and in many other places, with plenty more projects in the way...

• Michael Colbert
11/3/08: Los Angeles-based features and comics author Michael (Mike) Colbert is the creator of the critically-acclaimed SF comic Crazy Mary, one of several strips not only appearing on ROK Comcs but also being translated into Chinese for ROK Comics China.

• Artist Paul Harrison-Davies
9/3/08: Paul is a modest but accomplished comics artist popular in British indie circles, whose work has been published in the Mammoth Book of Best New Manga. His upcoming strip for Accent Press' Robots anthology, "MY Robot!" has been adapted into a ROK Comic series.

• Artist Rich Diesslin
Rich Diesslin is the creator and cartoonist of the KNOTS or Not (or KNOTS) scouting cartoons and a cartoonist for the London's Times Cartoons. He is the author and cartoonist of The Cartoon Gospel of John and The Cartoon Ten Commandments.

• Artist David Fletcher
11/3/08: New Zealand cartoonist David Fletcher claims that for the last twenty years he's been pretending to work from home as a comic strip, drawing a daily strip called The Politician and several weekly strips including The TV Kids which appears in the TV Guide. His cartoons are syndicated to Europe, Britain, Africa, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.
People still keep asking him when is he going to get a proper job...

• Artist Mychailo Kazybrid
8/3/08: Mychailo draws The Do Do Man for ROK Comics, but his career began way back in 1975...

• Artist John Maybury
John Maybury, editor of the Comic Creators Guild annuals, is one of a small number of comics artist utilising ROK Comics for its 'mature readers' strand, reformatting his cult indie character Space Babe for mobile. John describes The Erotic Adventures of Space Babe 113 as "a naughty SF comedy". Too right...

• Publisher Ben Tinsley
Publisher of Wham Bang Comics and president of WBC Entertainment, a journalist with nearly 20 years of experience. Tinsley writes for, edits and publishes the comics in his small line.

• Artist Dave Windett
Dave Windett has been with ROK Comics since its initial testing, providing character designs for the Creator Tool and working on other ROK projects. He has worked for a huge range of publishers during his varied career and is one of the few British artists to have drawn for Bongo's Simpsons Comics.

• Writer John Freeman
Managing Editor of ROK Comics and writer of The Really Heavy Greatcoat and Ex Astris.

New ways to order comics?

With 2000AD going digital (see information on our new comics page), here's another interesting use of new technology.

MocoNews reports UK tabloid Sun has rolled out a quick response (QR) mobile barcode service that it hopes will enrich print ads by giving readers a quick way to access mobile web sites and their content.

Readers must first download the QR reader from software firm i-nigma on to their phones (some 150 handsets are supported), though some of the latest Nokia handsets have it pre-installed. (That's a plus, as I know from experience that the vast majority of web users don't like to download additional software to make a web site work, and I expect this will be even more the case for mobile, with their still limited memory capacity).

Once they have the reader on their phone, the service enables readers to send a photo of the QR code found in its paper in a print ad to launch them directly into its mobile sites where readers can download content such as videos, film trailers, and music.

There are of course other applications beyond providing connections to the mobile web: imagine taking this one stage further than downloading electronic content and being able to take a photo of an image, send it off and voila, you've just ordered a comic or magazine, the cost charged to your phone bill (the price of an item may admittedly might be higher than buying it in the shop, but I suspect publishers will set the prices to encourage usage at first). Fulfillment is a doddle: no filling in addresses as the seller simply uses the billing address for the mobile.

NMA.co.uk reports that News International, the Sun’s owner, is watching the take-up of the service closely, and may roll it out across all of its titles (which include The Times) if it proves successful. For its launch yesterday, the tabloid splashed the service across an eight-page pull-out supplement.

QR codes have proven highly popular in Japan since their introduction in 2002, where they have allowed people to download content as dense as mobile novels (and, I expect, mobile comics). Almost every Japanese phone ships with a built-in barcode reader that can decode both QR Codes and standard barcodes you find on retail items.

The potential cost savings in terms of advertising are enormous: publishers could run ads with a number of simple images for subscription deals for their entire stable of titles, enabling them to promote many more titles or products in a smaller space - a poster? a beermat? - than they could through traditional advertising.

This system could surely combine an electronic download with a real world item very easily. It will be interesting to see how this develops...

More comics from Lizz Lunney

Cartoonist Lizz Lunney, whose 'Burger Love' strip was shortlisted for the 2007 ROK Comics Humour Competition, has two new comics on sale via her web site (www.lizzlizz.com)

Waiting For Sushi is a 32 page A6 comic with colour cover containing lots of mini cartoons with characters such as Hairy Midget Elf, Leaning Rabbit, Burger Love and The Boy with Living Ears!

"This first edition of this comic is now sold out," says Lizz, "but a second edition is now available. " This new version features three new cartoons - Melon Boy!, Fat Pigeon and Smelly Pigeon! and What to do if your Hair is on Fire!

Party Animals is a black and white 16-page mini comic featuring exciting little cartoons and ew characters such as My Mate Primate, Disco Rabbit and Troy the Talking Chair! This comic comes with a free random badge.

Hailing from Birmingham in the UK, Lizz studied Animation at a University "in a little town in the middle of nowhere.

"I soon discovered animators spend too many hours alone in the dark drawing the same picture slightly different millions of times with very little reward (except insanity) and so I developed an interest making fake taxidermy squirrels and puppet animation which is much more fun," she says. "Since then I have concentrated on cartooning again,

Her next comic will be Zine Arcade which she sells us which again features her characters, Smelly Pigeon and Fat Pigeon.

To buy either comic visit: lizzlizz.com/store5/agora.cgi

$10,000 Mobile Comic Winner Announced

ROK Comics has announced the winner of its first $10,000 humour competition as cartoonist Steve English, for an episode of his ongoing series "Madd Science".

Runners up in the competition, which ran on ROK Comics this summer and attracted hundreds of entries, were David Hailwood and Toshiro de Smeyter for and episode of their strip "Drink Like a Fish" and Paul Eldridge, who used the ROK Comics Creator Tool to produce a strip entitled "The Secret of Stonehenge".

Steve won the $10,000 overall prize while the runners up will receive 12 month subscription to ROK Comics.

After two rounds of short listing, thirty cartoons were considered by external judge Alan Digby, editor of the best selling British weekly comic The Beano, published by DC Thomson.

"The standard was very high, and the different approaches to a inherently restricted art form, such as the 'three picture' strip cartoon, were refreshing," commented Alan.

"I wouldn't be surprised if one of the contributors who made the shortlist managed to make a breakthrough into the world of cartooning - and it might not necessarily be the most obvious entrant who does."

As the Managing Editor of the ROK service, I have to say I've been hugely impressed by thethe huge range of entries we had to the competition, especially given this is a fairly new medium for comics. There was much umming and ahing in the office to get down to a shortlist.

Commenting on his win, Steve English (right) said: "It's fantastic. The last time I entered a cartoon competition I only won a pizza!”

"It's nice to know that when you're staring at a blank page and banging your head against a wall waiting for an idea to drop out, sometimes something lands in your lap that makes others laugh too.”

"I'm torn between cashing in the cheque and framing it as proof that I made the editor of the Beano smile... No I'm not – a framed bank receipt will do the job just fine."

Shortlisted were Ian Alexander, Josh Alves, Vicente Aviles, Mike Carey, Paul O' Connell, Rich Diesslin, Mike Flanagan (Adult Themes, filtered), Lizz Lunney, Jack Noel, Howard Priestley, David Reddick, Kennedy Rose (Adult Themes, filtered), Paul Stapleton, Super Massive Studios and Dave Windett.

ROK Comics will be running more competitions in future.

More Moon Queen for ROK Comics

ROK Comics creator Chris Reynolds is working on a new Moon Queen strip that will appear on the comics-to-mobile project. Titled "Moon Queen in Las Vegas: The Moon Queen's Greatest Tragedy", we'll let you know when it launches.

Chris is the author of the seminal graphic novel Mauretania first published by Penguin Books, and his Adventures From Mauretania (available from lulu.com) was voted as one of the best comics of 2006 in the Comics Journal.

Chris also tells us that on 16 November he and Paul Harvey are planning an exhibition, "The Newcastle Stuckists Celebrate the Mauretania" as it will be the Centenary of the maiden voyage of the ship the comic was named after.

"We plan to have paintings and comic artwork by me and Paul," says Chris. More details as we get them.

Stuckism is a radical and controversial art group that was co-founded in 1999 by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish (who left in 2001) along with eleven other artists. The name was derived by Thomson from an insult to Childish from his ex-girlfriend, Brit artist Tracey Emin, who had told him that his art was 'Stuck'.

Stuckists are pro-contemporary figurative painting with ideas and anti-conceptual art, mainly because of its lack of concepts. Stuckists have regularly demonstrated dressed as clowns against the Turner Prize. Several Stuckist Manifestos have been issued. One of them Remodernism inaugurates a renewal of spiritual values for art, culture and society to replace the emptiness of current Postmodernism.

The web site www.stuckism.com, started by Ella Guru, has disseminated these ideas, and in five years Stuckism has grown to an international art movement with over 100 groups round the world. These groups are independent and self-directed.

Pig Brother

It had to be done, apparently.

New Characters for ROK Comics Creator Tool

Been busy last week with ROK Comics - several new faces have joined the beta and behind these scenes there's some revamping going on that looks fantastic.

British creator Dave Windett (Simpsons Comics, Daffy Duck, The Dandy) has created another suite of 'Freefall' characters, objects and scenes for the site's Creator Tool, which lets anyone create comic strips, even if they can't draw!

Dave has designed original characters for a variety of publications in the past and provided illustrations for everything from magazines and websites to mobile phones, games, and even childrens shoes.

At the moment, he's also busy converting some smashing pencil designs by Steve Bright into vector art for me, another suite of Freefall characters for the Creator Tool which should be added to the free service soon.

Dave is also uploading a humour strip The Wacky World of Animals, written by John Gatehouse, to ROK Comics, joining creators as diverse as Vince 'El Profe' Aviles from Puerto Rico, David 'Trek Life' Reddick, Steve 'Madd Science' English, Chris 'Mauretania' Reynolds and several other early adopters.

ROK Comics Launches

I'm very pleased to announce the launch of ROK Comics on Mobile, a new publishing solution enabling comics creators and publishers to syndicate their works to mobile phone users worldwide - and I've been given the task of being its "Managing Editor".

ROK Comics should open up huge worldwide commercial opportunities for all comic creators, artists, writers and publishers, and the service offers a revenue share deal to creators using the service, creators which on launch include Chris "Mauretania" Reynolds, David "Trek Life" Reddick, David Hailwood, Nick Miller, Graeme Neil Reid, indie publisher Broken Voice, with more to be announced in the next few days and weeks. We'll also we'll be publishing/adapting including several comics under license.

The concept behind ROK Comics is a no brainer for me and I've been banging on about it for years, but it's only the relatively recent advent of mobiles capable of displaying graphics well that has spurred the project, plus the worldwide reach ROK has thanks to its wide-ranging partnerships with a large number of telcos around the world.

With access to hundred of millions of handsets through existing Mobile Network Operator Agreements, ROK Comics can deliver digital comics straight to mobile handsets and collect revenue for doing so. Comic readers will be able to download the comics via Pay Per Download or subscription via Multi Media Messaging (MMS).

Creators publishing professionally via ROK Comics will receive 50% of the available revenue on every sale, with full access to sales statistics, viewings and more.

In addition to several licensed comics that will be offered via ROK Comics, publishers can also create Free Samples of strips that can be viewed online and on mobile to promote their print editions, and let fans know about them by e-mail, and provide an "Embed" of a strip, which can be posted on web sites, blog or company site.

In addition, ROK Comics offers "FreeFall Comics" – an advanced Flash-based service enabling anyone to create strips using ready-made characters and backgrounds that can also be delivered to mobile.

There are thousands of comics creators worldwide who publish independently or online, with no way to profit from their hard work. By enabling mobile delivery, syndication of their creations is now instantly possible, and, I hope, generating real revenue.

Have a look and let me know what you think!

More Blair and Bush

Create your own comics

ROK's new comics project, now in beta, is up and running - check out www.rokcomics.com -- and we've had some terrific and positive feedback from a wide variety of comics creators.

Delivery to mobile is still in progress but the embed and free comics creator is working just fine. Here's a couple of samples of strips people have done so far...