Despite the unprecedented outbreak of summer, production has not slowed in the E-merl comic factories. Freshly unleashed on the public is my new game/comic hybrid, Icarus Needs. Folks may remember the game’s protagonist, Icarus Creeps from his appearance in a couple of previous tales here at E-merl. For those interested in getting some further insight into the ideas behind the game, I’ve popped up a pdf copy of the Game Comics talk I gave last month at the Joint International Graphic Novel and Bande Dessinées Conference in Glasgow.

Staying in the world of comics theory I’ve also recently had the good fortune to see the publication of my first two academic papers on digital comics. Digital Comics: New Tools and Tropes can be found in Studies In Comics (Volume 4, Issue 1) while my hypercomic history From Comic To Hypercomic is in Cultural Excavation and Formal Expression in the Graphic Novel. Should any of my fellow comics scholars happen to be reading, I’ll also give a quick plug for the new journal on digital comics that I’m going to be editing. Writing Visual Culture: Digital Comics will be out in early 2014 and I’ll be taking submissions for papers up until 18th August. For full details, check out the full call on the TVAD blog.