December 30th, a day that will go down in the history as the day with no new mainstream comic books. Some had laid down their arms in surrender, sad that they would miss out on new comics for two weeks. Others, however, have used this as an opportunity to rally the troops and take new ground. Indy Comic Book Week is a call to action those creators who have independent comic books that could have them ready for sale when it came time. Learn more about the people behind this movement and how you can get involved in the revolution.

Image Copyright Indy Comic Book Week

A local comic book chain in Portland, Oregon is offering a great opportunity for indy comic creators. Things From Another World, TFAW for short, is offering up their stores as a location for Indy Comic Book Week. All you need to do is head over to the TFAW submission site and check out the details. The basic deal is that they will give you 50% of cover price and they need the comics to them (if you are accepted) by December 28th. Submissions need to be into them by December 16th, so get to work!

Fans, creators, and publishers all over are gearing up for Indy Comic Book Week, coming on December 30th. December 30th is a day that is living in comic book infamy as the day no new comic will ship. Diamond announced earlier that it would not be sending comics that day due to the holiday schedule as UPS could not get the comics there in time with the way that Christmas and New Years fell this year. That means two weeks of no new comics for the everyday fan. What some are calling a travesty others are calling an opportunity. Enter Indy Comic Book Week.

Indy Comic Book Week is touting itself as, "...not only an event, but also a call to action." They are looking for indy comic book creators to fill the void that mainstream comics are leaving. The challenge is basic, go to your local comic book shops under the banner of Indy Comic Book Week and tell them you will offer new comic books for them to sell. Its a great innovative idea, and many creators and stores are running with it. To participate, check out the site and blog of Indy Comic Book Week. Then head to your local comic shop and set the ground work to get your own comics sold for this week. It's a win win for comic shops, comic fans, and indy creators all over.

I saw a new comic book art site that went live this last Thanksgiving. Sketch Maven is a place to share, sell, buy, and look at comic book art. Created by Michael Todasco, a board member of the Cartoon Art Museum, Michael says, "As a gathering place for collectors of original comic art, Sketch Maven is truly unique. Created by collectors for collectors, our site is dedicated solely to one-of-a-kind, hand-drawn original comic book art."

The site is in its beta stage, and already looks very good. It has a sleek design and looks ready to go. I spent some time perusing the various listings and was impressed with the video tutorials showing how to get started. There is some helpful widgets on the site, such as a top ten searches and most popular sections, but the site isn't without its growing pains. I didn't see an easy way to see all the listings on the site and the Browse categories didn't seem to have any sense of order automatically applied to them. Another thing that bugged me was that I couldn't click the back button on my browser (using Chrome) to go back to a searched section. I had to reload the page and start the process over again.

Michael seems to be putting his money...er art, where his mouth is. Right now there are over 250 pieces of comic book art on the site, all of it appearing to be from Michael's collection. Take a look and you can already find some sweet deals there on a wide array of comic characters. Take a peek and see if this is something you could see yourself using to buy and sell comic book art.