I’m thrilled to report that a guest strip I did for Danielle Corsetto’s webcomic, Girls With Slingshots, will be featured on her site, girlswithslingshots.com this Friday! Danielle put the call out for webcomic artists to submit guest strips to fill in for her while she’s away on vacation in Germany. Five of those submissions are being featured this week, so check them out!

Danielle’s strip is one of my absolute favorite webcomics on the Internet. I’ve had GWS in my “Favorite Links” since I started JEFBOT, so it’s a huge honor and privilege for me to have my work on her site. Click this link and check her strip out – the art and writing are among the best you’ll find in webcomics.

If you’re a regular JEFBOT reader, you’ll notice a cameo by a character you’re sure to recognize in the guest strip. And if you’re just coming over for the first time from Danielle’s site, welcome! I update with a new strip every Wednesday and you can sign up for my weekly JEFBOT newsletter by emailing me here. 

So kick back, relax and stay a while. And be sure to check back next week for a little celebration and contest when JEFBOT hits strip #50!

Last month I was in New York seeing a friend on Broadway as the title character in the musical, Cry-Baby (now closed, sadly) and the timing of the trip couldn’t have been better, as it just happened to coincide with the MoCCA Art Festival 2008, where I got the opportunity to meet a bunch of cool comic and webcomic luminaries.

After milling about the show floor(s), I ran into the Squid Works booth where Stan Yan(artist half of the hilarious geektastic webcomic, Subculture, creator of The Wang comic/webcomic, and writer of the webcomic Revvelations) was exhibiting his creations. I’d been wanting to meet both Stan and Kevin Freeman (the writer of Subculture) as they had put up a very flattering write up of JEFBOT on their site and I wanted to thank them in person. Although Kevin wasn’t there (I’ll have to thank him another time) Stan and I got a good amount of talking in and he imparted a lot of great info about what I can look forward to when I start hitting the convention circuit in the future. Really cool.

All of his projects have a different look and feel to them so check them all out; there’s sure to be something you’ll like.

Another webcomic writer/artist I talked to was none other than Danielle Corsetto of  Girls With Slingshots fame. Many of you may remember I did a guest strip for her a couple months back (there’s a good chance you’re here now because of that), and I wanted to introduce myself and let her know how cool her fans have been to me and what a boost in traffic I got from doing that strip.

Of course, she was totally cool. She signed and sketched my GWS book, said some kind words about JEFBOT and gave me some terrific advice about the wild world of webcomics, from promoting my site to what to do at conventions as an exhibitor. I came away from our meet feeling totally ready to start promoting JEFBOT on the road.

Girls With Slingshots is one of my favorite webcomics. It’s sort of a younger, hipper, more realistic Sex and the City. Check it out if you haven’t already.

Only a few minutes after I said goodbye to Danielle, I found myself at Alex Robinson’s booth where he was signing copies of his new book, Too Cool To Be Forgotten. Alex is one of the coolest comic book creators I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. He’s very approachable, sincere and talented. I had met him at the San Diego Comic Con a couple years back, where he did a sketch for me in a hardcover of the graphic novel Tricked, which I absolutely loved. This time I bought the hardcovers for Too Cool and Box Office Poison, both of which he sketched in and signed. While he was doing the signings, we had time to talk about comics, webcomics (he noticed me holding the GWS book, which was a great opportunity for me to tell him about my guest strip and JEFBOT), conventions and the comic business. When I left his area he said he looked forward to seeing me in my own JEFBOT booth at a convention, soon. He might tell all budding comic creators that, but I cannot tell you how awesome and powered up that made me feel the rest of the day.

If you like your characters real and your stories complex, pick up any of his graphic novels (Box Office Poison, Tricked, Too Cool to be Forgotten). They’re all good and I can’t recommend them highly enough.

So those were some of the highlights of MoCCA for me, although I saw a bunch of other neat tables and booths, and met a bunch of other cool people there, including director Michel Gondry, who was there selling his comic, We Lost the War But Not the Battle, which he signed and drew a little caricature of me on! I’ll have to scan it and put it up on the site later.

So, lots learned and new acquaintances (and friends!) made, and another step closer to being on the other side of the table. Rad.

Thankfully, I was able to sleep in a bit on Sunday, since the planners of the Webcomics Weekend wisely took into account all the partying going on the night before and didn’t schedule the Eastworks building to open until noon. I was able to wake up, shower, get all my stuff packed and in my car and even sit down to a complimentary breakfast of do-it-yourself waffles before I checked out of my hotel and drove over to Easthampton.

Most of the day was spent walking around, talking to new friends and readers, and basically hitting all the things I wasn’t able to see the day before when most of my day was occupied by the panels. This included visiting rooms which held stuff like the Infinite Canvas Post-It Jam, which was a tongue-in-cheek way of exploring an infinite canvas, the idea that, theoretically, webcomics have no size limit, and can be expanded on in any direction within a browser window. Many, many people took up the challenge and took advantage of the post-its and pens provided, including myself. Neat idea. Adjacent to this room was a gallery of original art done by several top webcartoonists, and I constantly had to stop myself from buying anything (including an original Octopus Pie strip I still want) due to the expense of the art and the difficulty of taking some of the pieces on the plane. I wasn’t able to stay for the closing ceremonies, as I had to get back to the airport to catch my flight back to L.A., but it was a short, relaxing day, and was a nice wrap-up to the weekend as I got to hang a bit with some other webcomic writers and artists again, and did a few more sketches and handed out pins for JEFbot fans.

Now, did the weekend really live up to being the “Woodstock of Webcomics” or, “Webstock” as many have been saying? I suppose time will tell, but being in the middle of all the excitement and energy of the hundreds of creators and fans there, I’d have to say, “Yes.” It really did feel like an important movement was underway and that all of us there were a part of it. And with its success, I can only assume the organizers will be doing another one next year, which I’m sure will be bigger and (perhaps) better, and I know I’ll be back at some point. I can see the NEWW becoming the San Diego Comic Con of webcomics, so I’ll be cherishing memories from this event for a long time. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us will be saying to people in years to come, “I was there, at the very first NEWW. And it was awesome.”

Lastly, I wanted to thank all the JEFbot fans who came to the show and asked for a sketch or pin, or just wanted to talk with me about the strip – beyond all the panels and galleries and pub crawls and peer meetings, you guys really made this weekend for me. It’s the same with the readers who take the time to leave comments or email me: all you guys make doing JEFbot so much more fun and worth all the time and effort it takes to write and draw it. Thanks!

Here’s some of the loot I got at the show. Click on the pictures to check out the websites for these awesome webcomics.