The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad! UPDATED!

Here we go again! This one's a big update with four pages culminating in a big reveal to close the first chapter. So strap on your reading glasses folks, this one's got a lot to say! Click on the banner above to go to the latest update or choose from one of the links below:

The latest update can be found here: http://act-i-vate.com/56-1-26.comic

To read last week's update, go here: http://act-i-vate.com/56-1-22.comic

To start all over from the top, go here: http://act-i-vate.com/56.comic

Thanks for reading folks see you at the next update!

The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad! UPDATED!

"The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!" has been updated and this week's a doozy! This is the first of two weeks of earth shattering reveals that will make your knees knock and your hearts skip a beat. Or something like that…okay, here we go!

For this week's explosive update, click here!

To catch up on last week's update, click here!

To do the time warp and read the whole thing from the very beginning, click here!

Thanks for reading! See you in a week! Joe

The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad! UPDATED!

"The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!" is updated and from now on will be following a weekly update schedule! To celebrate the big news, I've changed things up a little and included a full color Sunday edition of Ultra-lad! These little gems are going to be thrown in here and there to augment the reading experience of the main comic narrative. Make no mistake, they are part of the larger story and are thematically linked to the events in the main narrative but are simply fun stylistic diversions to cut the morbidity. So without any further yada yada from me, here's the latest from "The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!"

To have a little lead-in, try reading from the previous update.

Want to start all over? You can do that by clicking here.

See you in a week!

The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad! UPDATED!

My webcomic over at Act-i-vate.com, The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!, has been updated with five new pages. Delight at the glorious faux vintage superheroics!

Click here for the first page of the latest update.

Would you like to read a lead-in to the latest update as a refresher? Try this.

Want to read it all over from the very beginning? God bless your kind soul, here it is!

The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad currently updates bi-weekly on Mondays. That may soon change to a weekly schedule so stay tooned to Act-i-vate.com or check back here to find out about any schedule changes. At the very latest, I'll have more pages for you on Sept 15th.

LA Times' Hero Complex Interview!

LA Times Intern, TJ Kosinski and I spoke about Ultra-lad! and Act-i-vate while in San Diego. To see the whole piece at La Times' Hero Complex blog, click here. Below is an excerpt of the story (with minor edits for accuracy):

ACT-I-VATE IS MAKING DYNAMIC WEBCOMICS!

T.J. Kosinski, one of our talented interns this summer here at The Times, wandered around Comic-Con International a few weeks ago and interviewed some of his favorite comics creators. Here is his third guest post.

Like the undergound comix scene in those roiling days of the 1960s, the burgeoning online comics sector is a wide-open frontier now making up its own rules and picking its leading voices. I'd say one of the strongest players at the moment is Act-I-Vate, the webcomics collective with about 30 creators on its roster. It's both smart showcase and wild laboratory, providing consistently updated (and thoroughly interesting) comics to readers across the Web for free.

Two of the member creators are Joe Infurnari and Molly Crabapple. Infurnari is a writer and artist who values the benefits of creating comics strictly for the Web: “Going digital is great to get yourself to a wide audience. If I write something, [someone] can place a link to it on MySpace and it gets 60,000 hits. That sort of exposure can’t be done by handing out postcards or just talking to people.”

Infurnari is working on his latest webcomic, "The Transmigration of ULTRA-Lad!" It's a reverse-Shazam sort of story in which an old man transforms into a [superpowered toddler]. The aesthetic of the webcomic is great. The story is told on "pages" that have the browning, battered edges of a vintage comic book (one that was not stored in a Mylar bag) and the art is a shadowy valentine to super-hero artists such as Mac Raboy and Wally Wood. Infurnari also has The Process, which had been nominated for an Eisner Award.

One interesting dimension of Infurnari’s The Process is how tailored it feels to the Web. The website that hosts the comic is meticulous; even the table of contents is intricate. Infurnari took this approach seeking “an interactive experience.” He explained that “with the Web, I can control how the audience absorbs material. The whole thing is an immersive design. My goal is to teleport the viewer into the world of the story.”

Readers should check out The Process, not only for the tremendously detailed artwork, but for Infurnari’s surreal narrative. It’s self-described as “a journey and exploration through a personal ‘pleroma,’ an imaginary landscape populated by strange, wondrous creatures and archetypal characters." The Eisner nomination for Best Digital Comic speaks to the ability of Infurnari to relay his strange inner visions to a wide audience.

Thanks for this, TJ! Great work!

The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad! UPDATED!

Over at the Act-i-vate site, my webcomic, "The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!" has now been updated with another two pages. This one's a two page spread with the individual pages available starting here and the full image here. Enjoy. See you in two weeks with another whack o' pages!

Act-i-vate: PC Magazine's Top Ten Unsung Webcomics

PC magazine has posted a piece about the top ten webcomics most deserving of more recognition and the whole Act-i-vate collective was included! Eric Griffith had this to say:

Is it fair to include an entire collective of comics? When you can't pick just one, I think so. ACT-I-VATE now numbers 42 stories, written and drawn by a number of independent comic book creators, including names like Molly Crabapple, Dean Haspiel, and Dan Goldman. The stories range from a treatise on super-heroics (The Transmigration of ULTRA-Lad!), to psychedelic romance ( Kelly), to the silent film pastiche (Vulcan & Vishnu), and other oddities. If there's a downside, it's that the artists aren't always on a timetable, so many of the best stories have yet to reach a resolution. (Art from Adrew Dimitt's Drockleberry.)

To read the entire article click here.

San Diego Comic-con 2008: A Brief Summary

So right off the top, I didn't win the Eisner, folks. The award for Best Digital Comic went to Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon. I'm totally fine with this because, as many have already told me, it's still an honor to have been nominated. It sure has been a great ride since the nominations were announced and I am pleased with how well things have developed.

San Diego Comic-con 2008 was largely about networking for me. I met a ton of people and had a great time socializing and taking in the sights. One major highlight would have to be meeting Shannon Wheeler of Too Much Coffee Man fame. Shannon joined "The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!" group on Facebook and when I passed by his booth, I thought it would be nice to give him a postcard and thank him for his support. Little did I know how well we would hit it off! Shannon was so generous in offering his advice and assistance with publishers. Thanks to him, I will be pursuing other avenues I might not have otherwise considered. He even gave me a free Too Much Coffee Man T-shirt! WOW! This is but one of many great experiences this weekend.

While visiting my good friend, Scott Shaw!, I met Hugh Brown. It turns out that Hugh Brown was the art director for Rhino Records' brilliant box set, "Weird Tales of the Ramones". We spent some time talking about the many cool comics contained within this package before he told me about another project. Hugh is compiling a book of spoofs of famous paintings, sculptures and photographs united by their inclusion of a chainsaw! I was so glad to have pointed him to a Neil Jenney painting titled, "Sawn and Saw". Who knows, maybe I have helped with this fun book idea in some way? Wouldn't that be cool!?

I'd also like to thank some other friends who I was able to see again: Chris, Elizabeth and Oscar Wisnia, Chip Mosher and the Boom! gang, Scott Shaw!, Captain Asskick and Ducky, Gina Gagliano, Randy, Cory, James and Joe and the rest of the Oni crew, Scott Chantler, Brian Hurtt, Jeff Lemire, Johnny Ryan, Dan Bigelow, Cecil Castelluci, Matt Silady, Antony Johnston, and Christopher Mitten. Thanks everybody!