Tarquin Engine?

There’s been plenty of arguments within the comic industry of late debating the merits of online publishing vs. traditional print/syndication. We live in a brave new world of publishing opportunities and avenues are open to independent creators wishing to deliver content to audiences in ways that traditional means have not been able to provide so far. We are at a crossroads in our history when the disappearance of comic strips from the pages of newspapers (much less the newspapers, themselves) seems extremely possible, if not outright imminent. The web boasts opportunities unheard of for comics creators of all walks of life, while the features section of our local newspaper looks more and more like an elephant’s graveyard full of tired beasts waiting to expire. Creators like Scott Kurtz, Kazu Kibuishi, Michael Jantze, Scott McCloud and Dave Kellett have all found relative success online. While Johnny Hart, Bil Keane, and Mort Walker limp off to some unmarked grave.

In searching for ways to establish myself, and put my work “out there”, I have dabbled in some non-traditional techniques and started to take advantage of “advancements” within the digital realm.

One of these is lulu.com. An online, print-on-demand service, lulu.com is cut-rate, easy to use, and convenient. Want to publish a book, but don’t want the risks of a burdensome print run to self-distribute or pay for? How about if you could professionally print and bind a run of ten in order to shop around at a convention or pass out as a promotional to test market interest? lulu.com is the place! Look here for a copy of Hot Lunch:Psychedelic Transubstantiation our “print-on-demand” offering, also a perfect, last minute gift idea for you harried and hurried, holiday shoppers.

For those less atavistically inclined- pure digital content can be delivered using a flash template known as the Tarquin Engine. You control the design, content and layout, and the Tarquin Engine tackles the rest. Economical, and easy to use, even those people ignorant of Flash can use this template effectively. Here is the same “Hot Lunch” tale, done up as an interactive “hyper-comic”. Just click Start.

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