According to some highly-regarded scholars of the intersection of music and popular culture (by which I mean, whoever wrote the first entry that came up after my hasty Google search), David Lee Roth once said that the reason most music critics love Elvis Costello is because most music critics look like Elvis Costello. (For those […]
Happy Valentine’s Day (sorta) from the Undies:
- College Humor offers holiday cards.
- Diesel Sweeties, too, has cards aplenty.
- Despair has BitterSweets Candies and a heart-shaped card that you can personalize with one or three hearts.
- JibJab has tons of themed Sendables waiting for you to make them your own.
- Perhaps sensing all of the above, Indexed commented on the (possibly rampant, at least among the Undies) anti-Valentine’s sentiment.
Enjoy.
Micropersuasion.com’s Steve Rubel recently described the revolution underway as (i.) content production and distribution explodes and (ii.) creators bypass intermediaries to go direct. Providing an apt metaphor, he called for Digital Curators to help audiences discover, experience, and understand the best “finds” within this ever-increasing flow of content.
Nice call, Steve. Thank you.
We help audiences (all of us) find, follow, and enjoy the best work from the emerging class of self-sustaining Internet-based artists, aka the Undependents or Undies, who are telling amazing stories within podcasts, video, webcomics, machinima, animation, etc.
As curators, we feature these programs:
- Undependent.com, which focuses on success stories, trends, insights, and practical advice.
- The Undependent Del.icio.us feed, compiling excellent reference material and news;
- The Undependent Twitter feed, a quick spotlight on great new content, merch, and news;
- The Undependent Universe, our living museum showcasing the best Undies. (Thanks, Netvibes).
The Undependent Universe’s Collection continues to grow. It currently includes the following, in no particular order (visit the site for links):
- Webcomics: The Perry Bible Fellowship; Girl Genius; PvP; Starslip Crisis; Sheldon; Evil, Inc.; Piled Higher and Deeper; Wondermark; Unshelved; Dinosaur Comics; xkcd; A Softer World; Cat and Girl; Dresden Codak; AppleGeeks; Ctrl+Alt+Del; User Friendly; White Ninja Comics; and Octopus Pie.
- The Drumbrella Exhibit: Boy on a Stick and Slither; explodingdog; The Creatures in My Head; Diesel Sweeties; Overcompensating; Scary Go Round; Goats; Wigu; as well as RSS feeds from the creators;
- The Achewood Exhibit: featuring all character blogs;
- Videos/shows: Funny or Die; College Humor; The Onion; Heavy.com.
- Others: Penny Arcade; Rooster Teeth Productions; Angry Alien Productions; JibJab; Despair, Inc.; Ask A Ninja; Smosh; Homestar Runner; Those Lil’ Rabbits; Tiki Bar TV; Engrish.com.
- How To’s and News: Fleen; Webcomics Weekly; Comixtalk; Cold Hard Flash; NewTeeVee; Halfpixel; Web TV Wire; Thinking Machinima; Digital Strips.
- Rotating special exhibits highlighting great stuff, and much more!
We hope our programs help you enjoy the Undies more easily and regularly. We live in such an exciting time, eh? Creative expression flourishes, and newly empowered creators keep inventing more ways to delight their fans.
Thanks again, Steve, for your great post and ongoing work. And thanks, too, to all the Undies and especially all the fans who support them. Without you, this revolution doesn’t happen.

I recently highlighted Despair’s BitterSweets relaunch. In their typically super-creative fashion, they have amplified this product and taken it to a completely new level. Fans can now share their own expressions of dejection, dysfunction, and Despair.
At iheart.despair.com, you can:
- make your own custom, candy-heart image with anything you would like to say (in two lines of six characters each);
- email that image to friends;
- buy a custom, heart-shaped greeting card with your image on the front and your own text on the inside; and
- even load your card into a BitterSweets candy tin, into which it fits just perfectly.
In addition, since this product is completely integrated with their store, you can purchase these items in the same order as a t-shirt, mug, and custom calendar.
This is some seriously cool stuff. Share the love.

Time Magazine’s Lev Grossman calls webcomic Achewood (which is, perhaps, the best comic strip in American history) the best graphic novel of the year, noting “(i)t’s not a graphic novel in every, or maybe any, traditional sense, since its primary venue is the Web, but Achewood is so profoundly genius it would be a crime to put it anywhere but on this list, and at the top of it.” (more…)