Fret for the Day

Nick Miller has added a few new "Frets for the Day" to ROK Comics. This is a pay-To-View strip but you can view the first two panels...



Fret for the Day is one of the latest strips to be selected for inclusion on ROK's comics service in China (Ups and Downs and Moon Queen are just two of the others), in partnership with China Mobile. Will over 400 million people soon be fretting?

Crazy Mary hits US stores

Digital Webbing Presents has released Trinity, the first print collection of Crazy Mary short stories, in the United States, stories which are also available worldwide for mobile users via ROK Comics thanks to the enthusiastic support of the character's creator, Mike Colbert.

Trinity collect the first three shorts that have appeared over the last few years in Digital Webbing Presents.

• Trail of Tears features haunting art by critically acclaimed illustrator JK Woodward and "was the story that started it all," says Mike. "Mary uses her special sight to track down a kidnapped girl".

• In Coffee and Dream, also drawn by Woodward, Mary gets a message from one of her "Special Three", as Mike calls the 'ghosts' that haunt the bounty hunter, telling her "everyone in the coffee shop she's in is about to die, unless she can figure out how to save them."

• Chase features art by Federico Zumel. Following a lead from the coffee shop encounter; Mary finds herself on the wrong end of a high speed/high altitude car chase.

The cover for the collection is by JK Woodward and the book also features a cover gallery of alternate and special edition covers.

The comic is available through smarter comic book stores and can also be ordered on-line through www.digitalwebbing.com and by contacting Michael Colbert at logos728@yahoo.com

And of course, if you want Crazy Mary everywhere you go Mike reminds us "you can get these stories and more for your cell phone through www.rokcomics.com!" (Trail of Tears and Coffee and Dream are available in mobile format now and the strip is one of the first creator-owned strips to have been selected by ROK's partners in China and Pakistan for inclusion on the customised ROK Comics sites for those countries).

Thanks for the plug, Mike - we're more than happy to reciprocate by plugging the book!

Now I know some creators are strange.

Happy Birthday, SMS!

It's 15 years since the first commercial text was sent over the Vodafone network by Airwide Solutions engineer Neil Papworth.

That first message, which read "Merry Christmas," was sent by Neil Papworth, an engineer at Airwide Solutions, via the Vodafone network to a colleague at the mobile operator who was enjoying the festivities of a staff Christmas party.

IT Pro reports Papworth sent the text on 3 December using a PC terminal and traditional keyboard, while the recipient, Vodafone's Richard Jarvis, received the message using an Orbitel 901 handset.

"I can remember the event, being there, typing [the message] in and getting confirmation that it had got through. But I wasn't the chosen one or anything like that. Eventually the time came when we had to take the system down to Vodafone to plug it in and get it working on the live network. Because I'd been working on the interface stuff it made sense for me to go down and do it," Papworth said.

"I'm still a texter today although I don't need to use it too much at work."

Today, more than one billion text messages are sent each week, according to the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

• Read more on this over on the IT Pro web site

Alves on Zuda

ROK Comics creator Josh Alves, who writes and draws Tastes Like Chicken, recently submitted a new strip, Araknid Kid, to DC Comics new online imprint Zuda (a webcomic competition where users vote their favourites on to becoming actual series). We're pleased to report it made it into December's Zuda competition!

"I'm stoked to have it be part of the first "user" submitted contest," says Josh. "Check it out at www.zudacomics.com and if you deem it worthy, vote for it!"