It’s a sad day in comic land folks. Zuda Comics, DC’s answer to closed open submission policies, and American Idol for Indy comics is officially closing. After more than two years of contests, cheers and tears Ron Perazza of Zuda made the announcement on Zuda’s blog. They did announce that they will be moving some of what Zuda had to offer through their new Digital Initiative, on digital distribution networks like Comixology, and Sony’s Playstation Network. Stay tuned to see what DC does next!

So with out further a due, I would like to announce the opening of the Premier Comic Submission Contest, hosted by your friends at Fabler Comics!

Yes that’s right we are giving away, to grand prize winners, prizes for 3 finalists! The 3rd place prize is a Sony PS3 Bundle! The 2nd place prize is a Wacom Intuos4 XL! Last but definitely not least, the 1st place Grand Prize is a Wacom Cinque 21UX!

Sponsored and supported by Fabler Comics, Zensoft Studios, and Artfox, you have the chance to Win these prizes! Oh and there’s more. If you team up with two more of your talented friends, they can also win the prizes if your comic is selected as a prize winner! How do you enter? It’s simple!

1. If your not already signed up with an account on The Fabler, go http://thefabler.com/signup! Then come back for the rest of the details.
2. Create an original work comic of at least 24 pages + the Cover. If you want to submit more, be our guest!
3. Submit your comic (up to 3 submission!!!) in web format on thefabler.com between June 15th, 2010, and September 15th, 2010.
4. Tell EVERYONE of your comic! Get them to vote and rate your comic! Tell your friends, family, friendly competition, professors, neighbors, 2nd cousins twice removed, etc! The more people you tell the better chance you have at winning one of these great prizes!

Oh yes and there’s more. All 3 finalist prize winners will have their comics immortalized on thefabler.com in a special web trophy case as winners of the Premier Comic Submission Contest. For more information and official rules of the contest head over to the contest page!

So get your win on and submit your comic now! May the best storytellers win!

The competition was fierce! Thanks to our friends at Mob4Hire, and Lift Interactive. We were nervous. Well, I was anyway, but The Fabler took home the gold, or crystal, or glass, or…Whatever it’s made of (hopefully diamond!) we are so thankful for the appreciation!

A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS goes out to all the other Media Fresh winners of this years awards.

We want to thank Digital Alberta for supporting the first annual Media Fresh Awards. I also want to thank Rene Smid, the Executive Director of Digital Alberta, for planning, and putting on the awards. She did a bang up job of leading the charge and gathering all the resources necessary to put on a great gala!

Also on the list is Sarah Blue, for anchoring a video interview we did prior to the awards ceremony. Oh, and Sarah if you’re reading this, thanks for not wearing your heals during the interview. Though I would have been happy just to stand a chair over the green x on the floor.

I wanted to personally thank all those who have been involved with the project.

First of all I want to thank my friend Mike Tighe and the team at Medium Rare. Without their help in kicking off the website, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

I also want to thank our lead developer, Devlin Dunsmore, flash developer, Kevin Caddell, and weekly reporter Kevin De Vlaming. Thanks to my business partner, Michael Magee. Also to my family and cousin Jack. Your support and guidance has helped us get this far.

Last but not least the BIGGEST THANKS goes out to you, our fans, artists, writers, creators, readers, comic fans, and LARP’ers.

Those of you that missed the party we thought this little shot expresses our excitement, gratitude, and hope that this is the first of many accomplishments for The Fabler.

Once again we thank everyone for a great year and value your recognition and support. Remember, We really do love Comics as much as LARP’ers love Tinfoil, if not way more in fact.

Check out the entire line up here: http://sequential.spiltink.org/?p=4044

Also featuring great work by Salgood Sam, and Howard Wong!

Thanks once again to our friends at Sequential!

This year was quite the success for The Fabler! We had managed to go through more than 1300 copies of our Calgary Comic Expo exclusive preview of The Sundry Seven. So now that the word is out be sure to check back to the site for more updates and the official launch!

This year Zensoft Studios was kind enough to sponsor some Sony Playstation 3 prize packs for our comic expo draw. We want to thank all those that stopped by our little abode to meet Jay Korim, the artist of The Sundry Seven, grab their free issue and speak with the creators of thefabler.com and all of its happenings.

So without further ado we present the following winners to the our prize draw.

I find it interesting as a recent headline in Edge Game Industry News stated that a recent survey claimed approximately 3% of all PS3’s in circulation have been won in competitions! Be proud that our three lucky winners made it into the headlines!

Sony PS3 Prizepack
120 GB Sony Playstation 3
Little Big Planet PS3 Game
Our Winners Are:
Kyle MacDonald
James LePage
Kenny Tsang

Sony PSN Prizepack
$50 PSN Network Card
Our Winners Are:
Brent Pope
Tim Dorscher
Hansen Wong

PS3 Batman Prizepack
Batman: Arkham Asylum, PS3 Game
Our Winners Are:
Marko Bozinouski
Branden Joyce

Congratulations to all of our lucky winners!!!

See you all at next years Expo!

I’d like to thank you all for your support, feedback, and contributions to helping us grow our little space on the interwebs! The winners will be announced at the Gala hosted at Mount Royal University in Calgary on April 30th, 2010. Cross your fingers and wish us luck!

Yesterday a tad ahead of schedule we migrated our little corner of the interwebs from our old servers to our new servers. There are now so many of you who have become our fans we simply needed more power. This should be a more permanent home for us now and we hope to continue providing you with quality content for you, our loyal readership.

Also we now have a new RSS Feed URL. We are now being syndicated via Feedburner. Please feel free to update your feed URL’s to the following: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheFabler.

What’s next for the blog? Well we are also working hard on some new weekly content which will be announced soon. So keep your hats on, don’t get your panties in a knot, and remember, there is much, much, more in store for you from The Fabler Team!

PS. If you have suggestions or would like to see neat and interesting things that we are not yet providing, your more than welcome to tell us about it on our feedback form! We love mail and want to hear from you!

~Bruno @ The Fabler

It’s been a few months since we launched TheFabler v1.5 and admittedly so, we’re never going to get it right the first time every time. That’s where you come in!

First I would like to thank all those who have helped us with your feedback, submissions, and participation. Your opinions, thoughts and ideas are firepower to our cause! To summarize some of what we’ve heard so far…

– I registered for the site but have not received my activation email.
– Comics can be created by more than one person.
– The Flash Viewer is slow and doesn’t always work properly.
– I don’t understand what TheFabler.com is when I first visit the site.
– Updating comic submissions is clunky.
– I’d like to submit more than just 10 pages of a comic.

We’ve heard you and are continuing to listen to you. Between now until the end of December, we are working on fixing some of the above mentioned based on your feedback as well as committed to completing our 2009 roadmap goals. So over the course of the coming weeks, expect updates to the site with some radical changes! With your help we can continue to improve on the existing features of the site as well as add new features that will benefit you.

2009 Roadmap:
We had quite a bit planned this year for The Fabler, and we’re coming near the end of this years plan. Our goal was to create the core features of the site that would help establish an online community where comics can continue to thrive in their traditional form and in emerging digital mediums. To quickly establish who our “community” is, it’s you! You the comic creators (writers, artists, small press, etc.), you the fans (readers, collectors, reviewers, etc.), and you the retailers (grassroots stores, franchises, etc.). These major components include:

1. A Free social platform that comic creators can showcase their work to the rest of the world in an easy to use environment.
2. Simplified, cost effective self-publishing solution (print on demand & digital direct to market distribution) for creators with traditional format comic products.
3. Retailer Network where creator owned properties can have an opportunity for shelf space, and retailers can manage these products from a single source.

2010 Roadmap:
1. TheFabler.com will launch our very own weekly regularly updated comic.
Q. What does this mean?
A. Founders of Thefabler.com have come up with our own stories to tell and we’d like to share them with you. We’ve been working hard on a story that we think everyone can enjoy which will consist of 2 pages updated each week.

2. More Blog content!
Q. What does this mean?
A. New columns, more interviews, reviews, how to’s and more!

3. Fabler Publishing Inc. will open it’s doors with a submission program.
Q. What does this mean?
A. It’s apparent that we love comics. The building of a sophisticated custom social website to support them should be evidence enough. We also value the resulting creativity in this powerful visual storytelling medium. We are prepared to explore this creativity with you in support of creator controlled properties. We want to hear about your ideas. Submission program details and guidelines will be announced in early 2010.

4. TheFabler.com will launch a global localization and distribution campaign.
Q. What does this mean?
A. To put it bluntly, North America isn’t the only landmass with comic creativity on the planet. We’ve had interest and requests from creators, retailers and fans alike in other countries to support their cause as well. In 2010 we will start localization efforts to enable Thefabler.com to be multi-country friendly!

The roadmaps that we’ve outlined is a 40,000ft view of what’s in store. We’ll be making more detailed announcements each month on what’s in store for TheFabler! In summary, we’re dedicated to creating an online environment where comics, and the imaginations they can inspire can continue to thrive. Oh, and don’t forget, We really do love comics as much as ______________________________________________.

New Features

Touched Up Design

We cleaned up the look of the site, and added some new colors. Most importantly, the list-style navigation at the bottom of the page is gone, replaced by a new footer bar (with mouse-over tool tips!).

Revamped Flash Comic Viewer

We’ve rebuilt this key part of the site to make it as functional as possible. You can now view comics fullscreen, and use either on screen buttons or keyboard shortcuts to navigate through the spreads. We’ve added facebook and email sharing options too, so now showing off your stuff is as easy as pie.

Featured User Section

Every few weeks we’ll pick a new user to feature, based on submissions and community involvement. A link to your profile will go on the front page, and you’ll get your 15 minutes of internet quasi-fame!

What motivated the update?

The way we see it, the better the site works, the more you’ll use it. Like I said when we first started, this is a place for storytelling to flourish, and where creativity has no limits. So the last thing that should hold you back is the functionality of our website.

With that said – if you have any more great feedback, or need a helping hand, let us know. Enjoy the new site, and go forth and conquer!

Cheers,
Bruno (CM@thefabler.com)

I find it interesting, as I’m diving deeper and deeper into the business; I would like to clarify two very major points. I will say that my friends, Riley Rossmo, of Proof, Jim Zubkavich, of Udon Entertainment, and Salgood Sam, of the Sequential blog (and various other cool works), helped me realize this during my adventures in Calgary, to the east in Toronto, and quite recently in the last few hours as I wake up in Montreal, coffee not quite yet in hand, before I write this.

The first note I want to point out is that in all of this is the point of thefabler.com. We are trying to create a place to both enable and maintain Creator Owned Comics. There seems to be muddy lines in “indie” comics, where print on demand, print quality, poor cartoonist artwork, expressionistic visual storytelling, etc, seem to leave a bad taste in some peoples mouths, and for that matter make it relatively difficult to define. In fact these mediums and outlets aren’t low quality at all. I recently purchased a book in a Montreal store (Planete BD), called, “Drowtales: Moonless Age,” by a team of very skilled fabler’s who come collectively all around the globe. Salgood Sam also did a very good job and pointing my nose to some mainstream comic artists and writers, including himself, that create very awesome black comic self published books such as the very rare, “Revolver.” The guys at Transmission-X have created an opportunity where they can tell their own stories in the midst of their more sanctioned works. These in fact help push the boundaries of visual storytelling and can become opportunities for trade paperbacks you may see in the future. Will most of these see the light of the high volume offset press then to the big screen? Maybe not in the very near future, but they do help fuel the passion for this unique industry by everyone from the upper escalon to the outskirts.

Despite all the flash, dazzle, alternative press, distribution opportunities, blah blah, we may throw your way, our goal is to adhere to your best interests always. I’ll make a point that we’ll do our very best to support and you as creators, small press, fans, and retailers in your path to success. I assure you also that we will probably get it wrong. I say this because it’s important that you, our community knows, that you have a voice and we do, and will continue to listen, to your ideas, suggestions, or even concerns. That’s not to say we can implement the farm, but we will do our very best to remain conscientious of that which we do put in place.

Secondly, there is no secret war between what would be “indie” and mainstream. I want to thank Diamond, Marvel, Red 5, Arcana, and the guy down the street from my house. If you take a hard look at the playing field, you’ll realize that one evidently could not exist without the other. Creator Owned Comics, allow new talent opportunities in the books from mainstream that you may very well read religiously. I’d have to say that one of my favorites so far is “Proof,” by Alex Grecian, and Riley Rossmo. The dedication and passion of these two rising stars is astounding. Marvel closing their open submission policy wasn’t a slap in the face to upcoming talent, but a way of saving costs through economic turmoil, to an industry mechanic that wasn’t functioning as intended. They are right when they say not everyone can be at the top. Otherwise we’d all be there. But don’t give up hope. A friend said to me recently, discover and know what your good at, but let passion drive and define you (okay I interpreted and paraphrased a little. Thanks Jim). To make it to the top takes a complex combination many elements including little luck. Understanding however in your journeys as a cartoonist, a comic artist, a writer, a retailer, an events creator, etc, regardless of your current professional stature, though we can’t all be Scott McCloud’s, Todd McFarlane’s, or Neil Gaimen’s, there is a place for you somewhere in this industry.

As The fabler, we may open a few doors from time to time. Thanks to all you loyal fans that frequent our pages, and for you new guys out there, expect to see some interesting things as even we The Fabler, find our place in this sea of opportunity.