Welcome to TopShelf 2.0.

As some of you know, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately figuring out whether or not to like webcomics. It’s a silly question really. Rather like an icecream vendor weighing the merits of the stick versus the sugarcone. Comix are, despite how they’re delivered into the hands of the reader, a unique kind of artform.

The main point, whether in print or on-line, is to get picture stories into the world for people to enjoy. There are some formal differences between these two types of distribution of course, making this an exciting time to work in comix, but the essential reading experience is still there; artists using a unique blend of word and image to tell stories or express feeling.

So just how great is it when one of the best publishers of graphic novels and book edition comics gives us website that serves as a gallery for new and exciting comix talent?

Some of you are probably familiar with Top Shelf as a publisher already. Brett Warnock, Chris Staros and the team at Top Shelf have been bringing us some of the best and most exciting new work in comix for years now and, pound-for-pound, I think they’ve been one of the most vital publishing houses in a troubled print market. Really it should come as no surprise that they’d figure out yet another way to showcase new trends and talent through the web. Under the direction of Leigh Walton, Top Shelf 2.0 has been running since May of 2008 and, with a daily update schedule (yes, webcomic junkies — daily!) there’s about three hundred or more separate stories to read there. How’s that for a webcomix sampler?

It should be noted here that this while the range of comix and the attention to how they’re presented is very carefully handled, this is still a project hosted on Top Shelf’s main bookstore site. Some of the navigation and  design issues are meant to keep a certain integrity with the main site, so some regular webcomics fans might need a moment to ‘adjust their dials.’ but Nate Beaty, web-master at the company, has put together a really versatile viewer that allows for comix of all shapes and sizes. This is something of a theme at Top Shelf, the desire to re-think the possibilities of how comix are packaged, and personally I find it a really exciting part of their method.

“Our books have always been published in a variety of different sizes and formats,” Leigh says, “so it makes sense. It ended up being perfect for stories of all kinds.  Plus it cuts down on the number of hoops that the artists have to jump through — they can just send me a batch of image files.” For people who’ve worked in that nebulous zone between what shape or size comics should be, for people with an audience on the web but the only real chance of income coming from print, well, that’s a whole lot of freedom to choose.

(Here’s a link to the submission guidelines if any of you want to take Leigh up on his offer. Top Shelf has, by the way, distinguished itself in this industry as a serious publisher who always tries to respectfully respond to creator submissions. That’s not always an easy thing to do, and it doesn’t happen right away, but they will give new work a look-see and a sincere response.)

One of the things I find most exciting about this site is Top Shelf’s approach to using 2.0 as a showcase. It’s very much about new talent trying new ideas. Short stories, mood pieces and serialized material mix equally in the catalog. It seems artist don’t have just freedom of format here, but freedom of genre, freedom to experiment with materials and freedom to, just as the publisher does, re-think the package.

“Some [creators] have less experience with digital publication, and they’re using 2.0 to show off their latest work that might be printed up for mini-comics to sell at conventions,” Leigh tells me. “And some folks are just getting started with their comics careers, and we’re happy to channel whatever attention we can toward them and encourage their development.”

The current navigation doesn’t have a comment or feedback section that lets readers interact directly on the site as other webcomic collectives do, but it’s loaded with ways for online readers to connect to the artists. In this way it supports the artists who’ve put work up on the site.

“It’s always been important to us that 2.0 feels like a win-win between us and the creators,” Leigh says, “since we’re using their work to bring people to our site, we also want our site to help them make new fans for their work. In some cases (like Box Brown) they have a regular gig elsewhere on the internet.”

He does. As do many of the other contributors to the site. Out of about a hundred or so creators with comix on 2.0, probably 15-20%, by Leigh’s estimation have something published or in the works at Top Shelf. But many of them, and the rest, are free agents with other projects going on, often with other publishers. Doesn’t matter. Top Shelf 2.0 wants to give you good comix and it wants to give creators of those a comix a place to play. In doing so the site gives it’s contributors a great source of making contact with new fans.

So, who’s on the site? Lots of people. Lots and lots. I thought I’d get around to talking about some of them in particular, but there’s just too damn many. Seriously, take a look at “The Players” section on the 2.0 page and tell me who you’d start with and who you’d leave out? We’ll be dealing with this in some upcoming posts as I encourage some readers and friends here at ULYSSES “SEEN” to submit some reviews of their favorite comix on Top Shelf 2.0. Daily content from over a hundred artist doing whatever they want to do? I figure we’ve got a lot to talk about.

(by the way, any potential reviewers out there are welcome to contact me about comix you like. Most of my time these days is spent reading about James Joyce, so I’m always happy to discuss things like HENRY and PRINCE VALIANT where the subtext is just sooo much easier…)

So we’ll be following 2.0 for awhile on this blog and watching other creators stretch the preconceptions of the webcomic package a bit. What comix here should see print?  How would you package an anthology of such disparate material? Is it about print, do we need print to make this approach successful? What are the formal and ontological differences between web- and print-based comix? How does delivery method change things? Does the industry move toward comix on the web for a trial audience so that we can repackage successful collections in the print market? Where are we going? When will we get there? Will there be a salad bar?

Good and exciting showcases of new talent and new trends create these kind of questions. Top Shelf 2.0 seems to be opening a lot of doors and I, like some of my friends, wonder just what’s going on in there as we peer through the keyhole.