Story Studios, LLC  announces, beginning January 5th 2009, http://johnnysaturn.com will be providing Johnny Saturn content six days a week, Monday through Saturday with new original storylines for Johnny Saturn three times a week.   The CEO, Scott Story of Story Studios, LLC proclaims 2009 as the “Year of Johnny Saturn!”

Story Studios, LLC announces several new events and features, a bi-monthly contest on http://johnnysaturn.com, as a way of thanking their long time and new fans.  Serialized prose stories, in continuity of the Johnny Saturn canon and continuous releases of new available content which include new wallpapers, art and technical articles for the art industry.

Tuesdays and Thursdays every week, a new feature will be available called “Inside the Book,” which shows rare glimpses into Scott Story’s personal sketchbooks to see the design and development of Johnny Saturn along with artist commentary!

According to series artist and co-writer Scott Story, “2008 was the year that we got serious about creating a whole Johnny Saturn ‘experience’ for our fans on the internet and, in 2009, Benita and I are bringing it to the next level.  We are putting up more comics, more stories, and more features than ever before, and we have cool events planned all throughout the year!  We can think of no better way to thank our fans for voting for us in the 2008 Webcomic Reader’s Choice Awards.”

Story Studios LLC, founded in 2005, is committed to creating and publishing top-quality and innovative fiction, including prose and sequential art.  Story Studios, LLC has published seven issues of Johnny Saturn, a pinup gallery, and the graphic novel “Johnny Saturn: Synns of the Father.”

I suspect it's going to be a lousy time for ads in the near term.  Less money spent on them; less readers clicking on them (on the idea everyone is spending less).

I saw a decent thread on various ad systems over at webcomics.com -- I'm really curious about how January shakes out for creators running ads.  I'm currently using Joey Manley's new advertising platform - Webcomics World - but it's too soon to provide any feedback on it yet.  Previously I used a combination of Blog Ads, Project Wonderful and Google Ads.  Google ads have never worked for me, PW has always been a small amount (but consistent) and Blog Ads used to be pretty good but declined severely over 2008.

NOTE: I grabbed this link from the webcomics.com thread - Tony Piro wrote up an overview of many ad networks - a little out of date but still, a pretty useful overview.  One other new network you might also investigate is from Six Apart (they own typepad and moveable type) - I have not used it but did consider it last year.

Does anyone want to do some cover art for ComixTalk for January (like this month)?  Email me at xerexes AT gmail DOT com.

INTERVIEWS

Newsarama has an interview with Raina Telgemeier who is working on a graphic novel version of her webcomic-in-progress Smile.  Raina and her husband Dave Roman are two of the nicest (and talentest) folks in comics. (h/t Journalista!)

The Washington Post has an interview with Tom Rickard, the creator of the comic strip Brewster Rockit.  I didn't realize this started back in 2004, it is a better than average strip in terms of what's in the Post's comic pages.

Achewood creator Chris Onstad visits the Googleplex - click for a video of an interview with him there for Google's Authors At Lunch series.  (h/t Journalista!)

Following up on FLEEN's mention of the NPR story on Penny Arcade, a commenter lists several other webcomic stories NPR has covered: Achewood, Sluggy Freelance, Erfworld, Questionable Content, Megatokyo, Cyanide & Happiness.

TOOLS

Brian Fies, the creator of the web/comic Mom's Cancer has REALLY good advice on dpi requirements (72, 300, 600, 1200, etc) when scanning. (h/t Journalista!)

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

In their weekly podcast, the Halfpixel crew talks about 2008 and looks ahead to 2009.

Scott Kurtz announced some changes to his other webcomic Ding! -- he took back the art chores from Paul Southworth and is now soliciting stories from players of the game World Of Warcraft to tell in the comic.  I think the format change is interesting, but I'll miss Southworth's take on the art.