ACT-I-VATE at Politics & Prose

By Eden Miller

I would say, at this point, just about everyone online is reading webcomics in one form or another. Maybe not all of us are dedicated followers (I’d fall into this category) but we’ll visit a link to an XKCD strip or spend an hour playing catch-up at Megatokyo (am I dating myself? Do the kids still read Megatokyo?). Still, mostly, there are so many webcomics out there, all over the place, it’s hard to know what’s going to go be good and where to start.

Luckily, to solve this problem, we have a site like ACT-I-VATE.

Founded by Dean Haspiel (who needs no introduction to comic book fans, but for the rest of you, he’s probably best known for his work with Harvey Pekar) in 2006, ACT-I-VATE provides a broad range of webcomics. Do you like superheroes? Sci-fi adventures? Romantic manga-inspired tales? You’ll find all of that here.

Haspiel and fellow ACT-I-VATE creators Jim Dougan, Joe Infurnari, and Simon Fraser appeared Saturday night at Washington, D.C.’s Politics & Prose to discuss their work and ACT-I-VATE.

Haspiel said he conceived ACT-I-VATE after noticing that when he’d post works-in-progress to his LiveJournal account, he’d get feedback quickly. Sometimes — usually — it was from friends, but other times, fans would reply. It made the cartooning process less lonely — there was no more drawing alone for months and then waiting for a book to be published to see what people thought.

He saw that other creators he knew were experiencing the same thing and figured they could all be promoting each other. Even now, creators are hand-picked by members of the collective (they don’t take submissions, but they said they get them anyway) but also said that they notice the people who are doing good work.

Everyone talked about the advantages of being involved with ACT-I-VATE. While the site is non-commercial — no one is making money from it — it gives easy way to display their work. That was something that’s important to Fraser, who is primarily a creator for British anthology series 2000 AD. He said he travels quite a bit and likes having a site he can point people to when they ask him what he does.

Creative control was also a big part of the appeal of ACT-I-VATE for these creators. Unlike working for Marvel or DC, they have complete oversight on their own works and could tell the kind of stories that they wanted. Haspiel said that was an important part of it — he wants people to do the one thing they haven’t been able to yet.

It also allowed creators to find new people that they wanted to work with. Washington, D.C.-based Dougan is just a writer of comics, so he has to find artists to draw his work. His comic “Sam & Lilah” is drawn by Hyeondo Park, who’s from Dallas. You see, the Internet really does bring us all together.

Since this event was in a bookstore, the purpose of it was to talk about The ACT-I-VATE Primer, published by IDW Publishing. While Haspiel said he knew that there were plenty of people who just wanted to read webcomics, there were also people who still loved having books and he wanted to reach those people. The book features all new stories by ACT-I-VATE creators, so it’s good for new and old fans alike.

After their presentation, the creators read from their comics, aided by Dougan’s wife, Rachel. This was incredibly entertaining. Unlike most presentations/signings by authors, comic book creators have a little bit more trouble reading from their work. This was fun, though, with everyone playfully stumbling over their parts (Rachel said she hadn’t practiced — not even her husband’s comic, which was really cute) and Fraser providing various accents for characters. Haspiel even had the audience provide sound effects for his comic. It was pretty silly, certainly, but something I think more comic creators need to do.

So if you have an hour or two to waste, check out ACT-I-VATE. If books are more your speed, buy The ACT-I-VATE Primer. Either way, you’ll be reading some great comics.

[The ACT-I-VATE Primer cover image courtesy of ACT-I-VATE.]