Serving Coffee Ain’t Like Dusting Crops
© No Reason Comics Written by Jeff Moss and Drawn by Dan Simon
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Serving Coffee Ain’t Like Dusting Crops

So as I am oft to do when bored, I went to the Mall the other day and wandered around. Some might say that’s a waste of time, but I like it. I enjoy people watching and the Mall’s a good place to do that while enjoying the grease of an A&W Uncle Burger.

I visited a few of my favourite haunts, before finding myself in the mall’s pet store. I had been there previously with our new part-time employee at the shop @Sarah_noella because she has been bugging me to buy a pet mouse for the shop (I nave no idea why she wants one, but she’s all about the mice). At any rate though, it wasn’t the rodents that caught my eye.

Over by the aquariums, there was a stack of plastic containers much like you would get Sour Cream in, but clear. Contained within each one of these small plastic lagoons, were some of the most brightly coloured little fish I’ve ever seen. What struck me even more was, as I mentioned, they were kept separate from one another in their own little containers.

Sarah, who has pet shop experience, explained to me that they were Betta Fish, which for those of you not in the know, are commonly referred to as The Siamese Fighting Fish.

Instantly, I knew I had to have one.

I bought a nice little bowl (with room to add a small skull later), some food, a couple of rocks, and now I have some company at the shop. The best part about Bettas is that they require little to no care, which means I have very little chance of accidentally killing it. A few pellets of food a day and fresh water a couple times a week, and he’s all set.

So if you happen to come by the shop, be sure and say hello to Beta-mus Prime. He doesn’t say much, but he’s pretty cool nonetheless. I’m thinking of taking him for sushi later in the week. I figure since he’s a Fighting Fish, he wont object to the demise of other fish.


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Twitter Storm @dalezak

So, yesterday there was a bit of a stir in the webcomics community.

An iPhone app developer, Dale Zak created an iPhone application called ‘Web Comics’. When all is said and done, it was essentially just a pool of pre-programmed RSS feeds that pulled in a 100 of the programmers favorite comics. No Reason was one of them.

By the time I was made aware of it, it had been changed to free, and then removed. I wasn’t mad. I actually wasn’t even mad until I realized a lot of other people were mad. Then I got mad. Then I realized it was kind of silly to be mad. Because I wasn’t sure why I was mad, and then realized I was stoked. That he thought No Reason was in the top 100 webcomics that people would want to read was a real honour for me! A benchmark, if you will. With giants out there like Least I Could Do, AmazingSuperPowers, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny Arcade and so many more, it was really kind of a boost to be included with them.

I get why he did it – and to be honest, I think it’s a good idea. I also get why a lot of creators were mad. This post (is long) does a good job of breaking down both sides of it, and the legalities surrounding the whole debacle, so I’m not really going to get into it. Yes, the rub was that some guy getting people to pay him for content we were producing for free – but it was for his time and effort in creating the application. Yes, using our brands to push his app infringes on our copyrights, yadda yadda yadda.

The bottom line is, something like this could be a boon to webcomics. If people could access all of their favorites in one place, and in turn drive more traffic to their sites, and I’d love to be a part of it. The idea behind it is great – but the execution is what needs work. If it were to resurface, and I do hope it does, it would need to cover a few basic things to ensure that the app doesn’t infringe on individual creators rights.

  • There would need to be some assurance that any comic’s content that is drawn into the app would count toward statistics tracking. Because most of these sites rely on advertising, hits and people coming to their site, it’s important that those statistics are counted.
  • Creators would have to opt-in, and be able to opt-out. While this will make things less usable for those purchasing the application, creators need to have a certain amount of control over where their content is going. Some don’t care, some do – but there needs to be a way for them to be able to say so. That being said, if they opt in, and provision can be made in the terms and agreements so that the app developer can let users know which comics are available through the application
  • The app would need a few features – one a limit to how many comics are viewable from one source at a time, (like control over the RSS), a way to implement advertising from the creators (be it from their own ads, or from whatever ad service they employ), and a link back to the site to drive traffic.
  • Revenue share – I don’t know how it would work, but if the developer is going to charge for the app, then I think a provision for the profits of it should be directed towards comic creators in some way. This would make the app unprofitable, I’m sure – but it would probably be the only way to make everyone happy.

That’s all I can think of right now, but I’m sure people will have other suggestions. While it would make the app infinitely more complicated to develop, I think those considerations and few others might make webcomic creators a little more open to the application. And make no mistake – it’s going to happen eventually. People want this kind of thing. It’s not the first time someone has done it, and it won’t be the last. I encourage other webcomic artists to have an open and frank discussion with Dale Zak about his application, and start working out the details of how to make it better, as opposed to having their fans twitter-bully him.

As an aside – right or wrong, that response was AMAZING.

To everyone who rushed to our defense, thank you. We creators appreciate your support, your fandom, your attention. He’s apologized now, and there are discussions going on around the net about it, hopefully something good will come out of it.

Yours Truly,

Dan “Jamie_G” Simon


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