Thom Revor and Alex Heberling with News Researcher Eric Kimball bring you this week’s edition of The Webcomic Beacon Newscast! Read all the news of the past week below. Some news not discussed in part, or at all, on the show.

Break Promo: The Geek Life Podcast

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Top Stories

Comic (and Webcomic) artist Al Rio commits suicide
Original Source: Bleeding Cool

Two Kickstarter webcomic projects surpassing their targeted goals
Links to Kickstarter projects for Order of the Stick and Benign Kingdom (Riceboy, Tiny Kitten Teeth, Gun Show, and Johnny Wander).
Original Source: Kickstarter – Additionally: Comics Alliance – Kickstarter

Also, via Fleen:
“Rich Burlew has now exceed the previous highest-funded comics project on Kickstarter by nearly 150%, and is rapidly closing in on a quarter of a million friggin’ dollars after less than ten days. I’m putting the over/under at US$325,000, and the supporter tally at an even 5000 pledges. Of course, if the pledges get a second wind, we’ll see numbers that may take years to be equalled.”

The OOFT Kickstarter is now approaching half a million dollars.  This has entered wholly hell territory.  More on this at the Order of the Stick home page:

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Buzz

Kate Beaton… Retires? No, not really.
Kate Beaton’s success opens up many opportunities for her. Hark! to take a back seat.
Found via: The Webcomic Overlook – Original Source: Kate Beaton

Achewood’ Creator Chris Onstad Becomes the Food Critic For the Portland Mercury
Found via: Comics Alliance – Original Source: Comics Alliance

Terry Moore on why he’s going digital
Print comics’ Terry Moore explains his reasoning for publishing his works digitally after an encounter at the local comic shop.
Original Source: Robot 6

Garfield Goes Digital
Original Source: Graphic Novels & Manga

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Business

On The Kicking Of Skulls And Other Pleasantries
Excerpt: “In our first week at Keenspot we had more unique IP visits (i.e.: new readers) than all three printings of Skullkickers #1 combined.”
Found via:  CBR – Robot 6 – Original Source:  Fleen

Free Mars signs with Ape entertainment
Found via: Comix Talk – Original Source: Digital Spy

Long ‘SPAWN’ dispute settled Neil Gaiman says case is good for creators, ‘incredibly good’ for copyright
Neil Gaiman wins half-rights to a few Spawn characters and comic books wrote for Todd McFarlane.

“Now the statute of limitations — three years — begins with the discovery of the violation. … ,” Gaiman says, “You can’t secretly file copyright on someone else’s things.”

Found via: @AllComicShow – Original Source: Washington Post – Ruling

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Education

Women done well in superhero comics
Found via: Robot 6 – Original Source: This Is What Women In Superhero Comics Should Be

Deviant Art Tutorials

Manga Page Setup – by airibbon

Coptic Skin – by ricko-chett

Tails – by aqua999

Colored Pencils – by anikasgubim

Figure Shot part 1, part 2, part 3– by NikiCorny

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Tech

Pinterest the new hot social media
Original Source: GiGaOM

Neil Young: “Piracy is the new radio”
Original Source: GiGaOM

Twitter inches to the censorship darkside
Original Source: GiGaOM

Entertainment profits have risen with the Internet
Original Source: GiGaOM

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Tidbits

Batman is better in webcomics
Original Source: io9

Beyond ACTA: next secret copyright agreement negotiated this week—in Hollywood
Possible requirements mentioned: requiring an individual license for each playback buffer used on a cpu.
Found via: Boing Boing – Original Source:  ars technica

Sequential Story told in T-shirts
Original Source: Bleeding Cool

TMNT Fan comics released as book promo
Original Source: Comics Alliance

Dark Horse comics collects Battlepug
Battlepug webcomic to collected in print editin through Dark Horse
Found via:  Comics Alliance –  Original Source: Dark Horse

Kickstarter funded novel makes NY Times best seller list
Found via: Bleeding Cool – Original Source: The Observer

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