Top Shelf Comix is launching a new webcomics site this Friday, to be edited by Top Shelf Publisher Brett Warnock and co-editor Leigh Walton. Entitled Top Shelf 2.0, Walton says "it's short, catchy, and it has obvious connotations of digital technology. It just feels like the right time. The scent of change is in the air for every publisher, and we're all trying different ways of reaching people online."
Top Shelf has previously published irregular webcomics on its main site, including Matt Kindt's Superspy, but the new, all-webcomic site will have updates every weekday, according to Walton. They've already lined up a flock of contributors, including David Chelsea, Sean T. Collins, Michael DeForge, Chris Eliopoulos, Jessica McLeod and Edward J. Grug III, Bernie McGovern, and Kagan McLeod, whose Infinite Kung-Fu will first be serialized on the site before Top Shelf publishes it as a book in 2009.
Warnock says of the new venture, "I see webcomics as almost a separate market. Or at least, an ancillary one, in that we don't plan on stopping our release of good old fashioned books printed with wood pulp, and released to brick and mortar stores."
Walton added "one of the most obvious differences is going to be color—something that we're still using very sparingly in our print publications. On the web, it's completely unlimited. What excites me the most about working with young artists… is that they've grown up with computers, and that affects the comics they make. Whereas it would have been unthinkable for an earlier 'alternative comic artist' to work in color, for economic reasons, for a lot of these new folks, it's unthinkable to do it any other way."
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