Zuda

Zuda is DC’s online comic book competition for aspiring graphic novel talent. Zuda has been around since late 2007 and every month since 10 stories compete for your votes.

The contract for the winners is 1 year of online publishing and $250 per screen, plus royalties on printed materials. The rate for winning entries appears more than fair. If you look at Zuda as a small independent publisher and a screen as half a printed page, then the page rate is on the higher end of the scale.

The page size should be obvious for online comics. Zuda is 4:3 which works for your computer and can be stacked in pairs for print. Unless viewing the pages at full screen the images can appear pixelated and the copy can be hard to read.

The format means that story must dominate over long dramatic action sequences and beautiful splash pages. As a competitor you only have 8 screens to make your case that this is going to be an interesting comic worth checking out each week. Winning entries publish weekly or bi-weekly depending on what is agreed upon. It can be annoying to see 4 or 5 screens of an amazingly illustrated action sequence and then 2 pages of story that doesn’t move the plot anywhere. Looking at you Deadly.

Goldilock from Zuda

The August competition has just finished up. Goldilock by Adam Lucas takes first place and the contract. Earth is unlivable and we have taken to space in search of new world we can call home. Now we have found the incredibly pink planet Goldilock. After an encounter with alien doves, roll call, and the possibility of sentient life the story’s over

The art is nice and I really enjoy that opening screen. There is a very tactile mood that is conveyed in those first panels. Beyond that I don’t get any sense of future direction to this story that might interest me.

Maybe if a trio of angry space bears show up I might change my mind. I would like to see this become a space horror plot. The dark terror that awaits would be a perfect contrast to this brightly colored fairy tale. Who would see that coming?

My personal favorite was Zamir by Pablo Zych. Great style and texture to the art but suffered the same problem as Goldilock, you don’t get a feeling that this story is going to be anything unique or surprising. For now we wait for the next batch of Zuda offerings.