Unfortunately, it wasn’t a webcomic exactly. But look at these freakin’ cool socks! I like Exploding Dog, I really like Diesel Sweeties, and before you guys jump all over me with this Dumbrella rah-rah-rah stuff again, let me clarify a few things that I think are particularly nifty here.

To start: socks! What webcomic has ever done socks before? We’ve established that I’m a sucker for good merchandising and funky products. I also do believe that folks should support the artists and creators who make stuff that you like, especially if it’s free content. Especially if we’re talking about holiday gifts. I really like the idea of gift subscriptions or original art as gifts, or some clever twist on a functional item.

Something about that just seems cool to me in a few ways; buying art is always nifty, and supporting an artist while you’re doing it is even cooler, I think. Particularly if that artist is someone who offers free webcomics all year round. For example, I like not having to pay to read Diesel Sweeties; I don’t spend a lot of time reading each strip, but it’s always the first I click when I go to read webcomics. It’s where I start. I’m totally excited that James Kolchalka opened his site, because I never did subscribe even though I really like his work.

It’s even cooler, at least for me, when those items are also functional. I have enough books. I even have enough t-shirts; I went from having one webcomic-related shirt to probably six or seven at this point. While I don’t think I could get away with wearing t-shirts at my day job, I’m fairly certain the Red Robot socks are going to be a hit. It’s clever merchandising (and advertising) with a catchy image from a cool company of which I was already a fan. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any product online when I saw it, thought, Whoa! That’s wicked cool and I gotta have it… and then went right to the ordering.

That, to me, speaks to the product’s uniqueness. I think of it the same way that folks (I include myself here) email links to interesting things online, or particularly good webcomics, or cool, goofy products. I think these socks (there’s more than one version, by the way), speak to that. I also think they’re going to be an insanely hot seller, because they’re doing something different, something outside of the standard webcomics merchandising model, and I think that’s worth noting.

… but I see that Krishna Sadasivam and his lovely wife Aarti are now the parents of their first child, a daughter. Bob Weiner is reporting at ComixTalk that the baby girl is named Sonia (and I’m guessing he would know), and that Krisha is wisely taking a month hiatus from both Uncubed and PC Weenies.

We at Fleen congratulate the new parents, and wish them the best of luck as they embark on the glorious adventure that his parenthood. And for the rest of you webcomickers out there — stop foolin’ around so damn much until I can keep up with all your replicants. This is what? Webcomicskid #37 of the year? You’re making everybody else look bad.

Edit to add: Sorry, but I had to lock comments on this post as we’re getting innundated by porn spam. Apparently there’s a Spanish porn starlet named “Sonia Baby”, so those two words in the story plus references to “Weiner” means it’s easier to just lock this one down. Anybody wanting to well-wish Krishna & family should try ComixTalk, which apparently has better filters than we do.

Thing about webcomics is, you can change how you do things. For instance, if you’re indy comics superstar/webcomicker/musician/creative powerhouse James Kochalka, and American Elf is a long-term subscription site with locked archives, you aren’t forced to keep to that model forever.

Especially given that since about 42 minutes ago, American Elf is no longer a subscription site with locked archives. This is a huge shift for Kochalka, so let’s quote him verbatim on it:

We’ve redesigned American Elf. One big important change is that the archives for American Elf the daily diary comic strip are now completely free. However, there’s still plenty of reason to subscribe. Subscribers will be getting tons of great bonus content, including Bonus Elf. (Some days I draw more than one diary strip, on those days the extra will appear in the Bonus Elfs section, for subscribers only.)

But that’s not all, no way. The new version of AmericanElf is called the American Elf Supersite for a reason. There’s gonna be lots more to it than just the American Elf strip itself. There’s the mp3 section filled with songs completely unavailable on my James Kochalka Superstar CDs. I’ve also got the first major Fancy Froglin comic up, with much much more Fancy to come. I’m going to start uploading my son Eli’s crazy monster drawings. Then I’ll probably start serializing a bunch of my old comics, like Deadbear Circus Detective, or maybe early issues of James Kochalka Superstar, or maybe some new series, or maybe all the various short pieces I did for anthologies over the years, or maybe the comics I drew when I was a little kid. Really, the possibilities are mind boggling.

What sort of bonus content are you subscribers most interested in seeing?

Personally, I’m happiest about the Fancy Froglin news, largely because I’m never going to forget the day at MoCCA a couple years ago when a recent purchaser of the CBLDF Fancy Froglin shirt got Kochalka to draw the genitals back in. Awesome.

Genitals aside, this is an opportunity for all and sundry to go do a nice deep crawl through the AES archives, to fall deeply in love with Kochalka’s work, and to reward him for this gift of free entertainment. Other creators have seen their readerships and incomes go up by opening their archives, and it’s up to you to make sure that Kochalka meets with similar fortune.

New son, new business model, new bonus content — I have a feeling that Kochalka is going to look at the end part of 2007 with some fondness.

Hey kids, it’s almost December 8th, and that means it’s time for this year’s Pretend To Be A Time Traveller Day, as dreamt up by Latin heartthrob Aaron Diaz.

Much like the zombie walks that pop up from time to time (although like all right-thinking individuals, I loathe the undead), the idea here is to engage in a bit of public theater, acting slightly anachronistic in your dress and choice of words. If you want the easy route, pretend to be from the past:

… dress in period clothing (preferably Victorian era) and stagger around amazed at everything. Since the culture’s set in place already, you have more of a template to work off of. Some pointers:

• Airplanes are terrifying. Also, carry on conversations with televisions for a while.
• Discover and become obsessed with one trivial aspect of technology, like automatic grocery doors. Stay there for hours playing with it.
• Be generally terrified of people who are dressed immodestly compared to your era. Tattoos and shorts on women are especially scary.

More advanced types will want to pretend to be from the future (either u- or dys-topian variations are fine), but be sure to have a skewed idea of what typical modern dress is like. Having a compatriot around to take photos for posting is also good.

Finally, try not to get punched out. Diaz has managed to pull of PtbaTTD in Alabama, so you ought to do fine, just don’t go overboard, ‘kay?

In other news, it’s not on my regular trawl so I missed this one until alert reader Michael Kinyon pointed it out, but Home On The Strange is wrapping up imminently. Fleen congratulates creators Veronica Pare and Ferrett Steinmetz on 300-odd installments, and look forward to jumping in on the next project from the beginning.

Longtime friend Brett “g” Porter just pointed me to the saddest [webcomics] story in the world at Gawker, of all places:

You know how you guys told me to check out Achewood? Well, I did and got my boyfriend totally hooked on it. For Christmas I ordered a signed strip for him. This one.

Right after I ordered it, I found out he has been sleeping with some 23-year-old whore waitress at his restaurant (he just got promoted from sous chef to head chef and it clearly went to both their heads).

I can’t return it because it is signed. I don’t want to give it to him anyway because he is a lying sack of shit and I want him and that skank to die.

Please help me find someone who wants this?

As of right now, the print is up for auction at eBay, has no bids, with an initial asking price of $10 and $6 shipping. As the Gawker story points out, there is something distinctly Achewoodian about this tale, and anybody with an interest in the human condition is urged to make a bid on this very historic piece.

A few announcements for you, some a little late. Enjoy ’em anyways.

• Brinkerhoff, featuring the least fluffy bunnies since Matt Groening’s Life In Hell, recently celebrated strip #501 with a quad-size extravaganza.
• Where do you stand on the Writers Guild strike? Brian Carroll of Instant Classic is doing a series on it at his other webcomic, Genrezvous Point, which starts here.
• Speaking of the strike, I understand it means that Dave Kellett‘s wife is now hanging around the house more. You know what might cheer her up, between long stints on the picket line hurling abuse (and hopefully rotten produce) at plutocrats? Helping Dave pack and ship merchandise that’s presently cluttering his garage.

  By the time you read this, he should be updating his store with the new Sheldon book and the Greatest Bumper Sticker In The World (not to be confused with the Greatest Answering Machine Message In The World).

• And in the “Safe Travels” department, Fleen wishes a fond farewell to Bang Barstal, who has found purpose and peace of a sort, both of which no longer involve him hitting things with a baseball bat. A little Mage, a little Mojo Nixon, a little road novel, a little philosophizin’, and a whole lotta hitting things until they explode finished up today at Graphic Smash, with a final epilogue due on Thursday. May the road rise to meet ya, Bang, and yer whiskey always be smooth.

We had a crash on the backend over the weekend, so if your comments got lost or your email didn’t get a reply, try again.

We understand that among those comments that got eaten was one by Dawn Douglass, founder of MyFridj, replying to our posting of last Friday. We’ve invited her to try again, and invite everybody to check out her response.

Updated to add: My mistake, Dawn Douglass’s comment was eaten by our spam filter, and has been restored. WordPress vagaries mean that it’s now in the middle of the comment thread, which is where it should have been, but which means that comments after it did not see Douglass’s reply.

Hey, guess who just made the jump into webcomickin’ full time? Bill Barnes, the artist/non-librarian half of the library-related Unshelved, that’s who:

So I’ve jumped off the proverbial cliff, and now I’m frantically trying to build a parachute. I’ll be doing programming jobs here and there to make ends meet, but obviously my goal is to spend more time cartooning. To this end I’d be grateful for your support. If you’ve been meaning to buy our books, please take the plunge. If you’ve been eyeing our merchandise as a holiday gift then you’ve got until December 9th to do something about it. And, of course, tell your friends/family/coworkers/customers/readers about our little comic strip. Because starting today, the closer I come to making a living from Unshelved, the more time I can spend on it.

For those of you not in the know (and really, no excuse for that, since it’s right in the first line of Barnes’s posting, if you bothered to follow the link), Barnes’s job was at Microsoft. In leaving the software behemoth, Barnes gives up a lot for the chance to make it as a webtooner. Little things like what is regarded as a very nice campus to work on, and the slim chance that Bill Gates might adopt him and make him his heir. Medium-large things like a regular salary at tech industry levels. Ginormous things like health insurance.

He gets stuff in return though — artistic satisfaction/dream-chasing would be pretty high on the list, I’d imagine. The pride of accomplishing something that so few get to … think about how many people there have been on the planet in the past century or so, then how many have been cartoonists; divide one into the other and the answer is near enough to zero that you may as well try to win the Powerball twice as become a professional strip cartoonist.

And if you’ve ever heard Howard Tayler talk about leaving behind his own tech-industry paycheck to become a fulltime webcomicker, don’t neglect the “give up a job, gain a family” aspect.

We at Fleen salute Bill Barnes, and by the wholly undeserved power we claim, do declare this to be Bill Barnes Day in Greater Webcomicstan, and instruct all and sundry to give him a high-five next time you see him. If you’ve ever bought Unshelved stuff, he might even give you a hug.

Confidential to Gene Ambaum: You’re awesome too, man.