Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Comics in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett continues his discussion of Webcomics by looking at comics available on phones, plus news out of San Diego.

In my last column about Webcomics I neglected to write much about the other half of the equation, mobile phone comics.  There's already a number of comic books and manga which can be sent (for free) to your mobile phone at the GoComics Website.  It's one I frequent on a regular basis (where else can I read seventy year old Mutt & Jeff  comic strips?), but I've never paid much attention to the Webcomics side of the site. Because, well, I suppose I should just come out and admit I may be one of the last humans in North America who doesn't have a mobile phone.

Sure it's partially due to the expense but there's also indifference (not only am I not an 'early adopter of technologies' I'm usually the guy who actively advises everyone if they wait six months to get the latest hot consumer electronics item they can get it for 50% off the current list price).  Plus there's the fact I have fingers like Vienna Sausages; every time I borrow someone else's phone I invariably punch '8' while trying to hit '0.'

But over at GoComics you can get manga (well, American manga anyway) from Tokypop like Princess Ai, @Large, Dramacon, and Peach Fuzz as well as comics as varied as Halo & Sprocket, Godland, Five Fists of Justice and Truth, Justice and the AmericanWay on your mobile phone.  Also on the site there's a blog report from Comic Con (which will always be 'San Diego' to me) from GoComics producer Shena Wolf on a mobile phone comics panel she attended with Tokyopop Director Jeremy Ross and Richard Starkings, creator of Elephantmen (which is now also available at GoComics).

You've probably already noticed it but the one thing that all of the above titles have in common is they all originally appeared in print.  But that's going to change with the upcoming post-apocalyptic adventure series Thunder Road which GoComics is calling 'the first North American comic book ever produced for a mobile phone debut.'  If you visit the web site you can view a trailer for it.

Now, like I wrote last time, there's undoubtedly an audience, maybe even a substantial one, for Web and mobile phone comics, but I think I'm going to stick to my original conclusion: it doesn't have much to do with us.  As far as I can tell a new, growing audience of comic readers isn't what's shrinking an already dwindling direct sales market.

For quite a while I've been saying if the major publishers want to reach out to new readers with material that won't necessarily appeal to the direct sales market, the Web is the place to go.  And last week Dark Horse made a substantial step in the right direction by partnering up with MySpace to re-launch their legendary anthology (and one of my all-time favorite comics) Dark Horse Presents.  Each new issue with original content is set to premiere on the first week of the month. 

It's a smart idea smartly executed; instead of trying to get new readers to come to the publishers own Website they've gone to MySpace where the people already are.  And the lead feature of the first 'issue,' 'Sugarshock' by Joss Whedon and artist Fabio Moon is sure to get a lot of attention from the mainstream media usual suspects (Entertainment Weekly, etc.) now that Whedon has announced he'll be concentrating on creator owned projects for the foreseeable future.  One thing Whedon has is fans and if only a fraction of them who've been coming into our comic shops for copies of Buffy Season 8 goes to MySpace instead...

And it doesn't hurt that Sugarshock is very, very good.  Its more 'Buffy Meets Josie & the Pussycats in Outer Space' than 'mangaesque' (as ICv2 recently called it), but mostly it's a joyous repudiation of the super-heroic/science fictional paradigm our industry has been mired in for decades.  Plus it's hilarious.

Still, now that Dark horse has built themselves such a pretty little platform I'd love to see them use it (as I've advocated in the past) to give us more from the Italian Bonelli digest-sized line of SF/horror/adventure comics (Dylan Dog, Martin Mystery, etc.).

Not to mention it's been quite a while since we've seen The Mask (and Son of the Mask certainly does not count) or X, or...

Meanwhile Marvel and DC seem content to just sit and wait to see if they're actually going to have to make an effort when it comes to putting their product up on the Web.  Hopefully when they finally get around to making their movie it won't be a matter of too little too late.