Our December issue begins! A great cover from Tom Siddell, creator of Gunnerkrigg Court kicked it off and now we have Al Schroeder's interview with Tom as well as a second interview with Tyson Smith, creator of Pirate and Alien.

SITE NOTES

Thanks to the uber-talented Tyler Martin (Wally & Osborne) for updating some of the graphics on the Comixpedia website. If you want to find out more about Tyler's graphic design-jujitsu check out Mind Faucet, his design website. (I also made our forums look more "forum-y". Don't forget every user can add an avatar to their account by going to their "my account" page and clicking on "edit" - scroll down for the section to add a "picture" to your account.)

MILESTONES

• Shaenon Garrity's Narbonic is just about over. The last strip will run on December 31, 2006. Garrity reveals some new information on the future of Narbonic in this post. I can't stress enough that Narbonic is one of the best comedy-adventure stories I've read in any medium. It's right up there with the early Sluggy Freelance years as a soon-to-be cannonized classic of this era of webcomics.
• The webcomic Blue Sky celebrates its first year anniversary.

EVENTS

• Don't forget this week's Monkey Day Webcomics Marathon.
  
• Diesel Sweeties is holding a Secret Satan contest.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

• David Malki (Wondermark) is holding three auctions to benefit Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play charity. (link from Kris Straub)
• A round-up of recent webcomics in print at Webcomics In Print including books from Jesus and Mo, Silent Kimbly, and Little Gamers among others.
• Tom Brazelton (Theater Hopper) will be webcasting a podcast talkcast tonight. Listeners can call in and talk to Tom live. The show is at 10:00 CST tonight (you need the TalkShoe application and a copy of Skype). My free marketing advice of the day: Tom, Joe and Gordon should get together and do a regular movie/comics webshow - that could be huge. (They should also have me on as a regular guest - since I get around to seeing everything about 5 years after it comes out I can provide up-to-the-minute reviews for parents with young children and other culturally-handicapped individuals.)

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NEWSPAPERS, PART XXXII

Another newspaper axes some long-running, but creatively exhausted comics from its page, and gets some reader complaints (just a tip to newspapers - if you want to gauge your target market try conducting scientifically valid surveys instead of of relying on letters from old man Withers). Omigawd - 375 reader complaints! In reaction, the North Carolina paper wrote "The News & Observer has done some pretty controversial things in the past year -- its coverage of the Jim Black scandal and the Duke lacrosse case, eliminating most stock tables -- but perhaps none more traumatizing than this: Last week, The N&O replaced four comic strips." And how about this "You think readers care about war in Iraq or midterm elections? Try taking away "Cathy." Lovely. To me, this little snippet all at once summarizes the morbid stupidity of the newspaper business, the state of journalism and the decline of newspaper comics.