I opened up my email yesterday and received this unsolicited gem:

…I was just looking over some old Fleen articles about Zuda’s contracts and I just cannot freaking get over it.

Did you know that, with a 1% cover price share and assuming the books are equal in cost, a Zuda book would have to sell 10,000 copies to make the creator what I would selling 100 copies of Templar? And that’s assuming there are no penalties in the payout for deep discount/damaged/give-away books, and the payout isn’t be split in half between a writer and an artist or something.

Jeez, man. JEEZ.

Ah, Spike, it’s clear-headed, straight-to-the-point logic like this that makes me want to high-five you across a convention table ’till bystanders think we’re the coolest people in the universe (upon re-reading this sentence, I realize that the casual internet reader may be determined to find some innuendo there — get your minds out of the gutter, people). The other reason is the gag referenced up top — click the link to see more, then click the next strip if you think you can handle Reagan in all her glory.

Just to be clear, I checked with Spike that she was okay with me sharing her quick microeconomic analysis with all of you. She replied in the affirmative and added:

I can move 100-plus copies of TAZ at a good con (MoCCA, SPX, SDCC).

So there you have it — the raw worth of the Zudadeal in real terms, from somebody who’s doing webcomics every day.

Speaking of self-publishing, got a bit of delayed gratification on deck for you, courtesy of Steve Troop:

In June 1996, the first issue of a four-part limited series, introduced the world to Mayberry Melonpool and the crew of the spaceship, The Steel Duck.

In July 1996, the comic book market crashed, cancelling hundreds of titles—including the remaining three issues of The Melonpool Chronicles. Though finished, they sat on a shelf gathering dust…

You can fill in the blanks: Troop launched Melonpool online, and twelve years on the trade paperback is finally being released. Copies go up on the ComixPress site next month, but Steve tells me he has like ten copies that can be shipped in time Christmas to most areas if you order now. Email Troop at melonpool2000, which is an address belonging to the .com that paid the yodeller to go Ya-HOOOO-oooo! in their commercials. Seriously, you’ve waited twelve years, it’s just not reasonable to wait any longer — especially considering that Troop’s got talent on the book the likes of Linda “Castle Waiting” Medley and Doug “Too much cool stuff to list” TenNapel.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Brian “Box” Brown, who has just been awarded a Xeric grant. To quote from their webpage, the Xeric grant is awarded by the Xeric Foundation, which:

[A]ssists comic book creators with some of the costs in self-publishing their work. It is not the Foundation’s intention to fully support an artist/writer through the entire process of self-publishing, but rather to encourage creators to experience the learning process involved in working towards such a goal.

Brown tells me that the grant is the outcome of some longer stories (6 to 10 pages) that he started doing for Top Shelf 2.0 earlier this year; after a while, he’s got 50 or 60 pages, and an application in with the Xeric Foundation. If all goes well, this will lead to the publication of a 96 page book of stories, Love is a Peculiar Type of Thing in the Spring of 2009. Most impressive about this: Brown tells me he only applied for the grant three months ago — that’s a fast turnaround.

In other news, creators looking for an alternative to ADSDAQ got another option today, courtesy of Joey Manley, Kentucky Colonel:

Today, ComicSpace LLC announced that it has launched Webcomics World, an advertising network for webcomics and
comics bloggers.

Be sure to check out the cartoonified Manley in the pitch to advertisers; even if this venture were to flame out by close of business today (and to be perfectly clear, that ain’t happening), the entire endeavour would be worthwhile just for producing that smiling mascot. He’s so cute!

In any event, list of associated clients available for your perusal, and with this launch, the new Comic Space is starting the baby steps towards Aduz. Now we find out how the targeted advertising game works in a bum economy — and the good news is if it works now, it’s got nowhere to go but up.

Ah, December, you look an awful lot like April sometimes. April, some of you may recall, is when both the first Gunnerkrigg Court and second Devil’s Panties books were due; publisher Archaia Studio Press (in conversation with me) revised that to “before San Diego”, and has since been bogged down in financial difficulties. But Jennie Breeden tells us that DP2 now has a release date, which gives one home that GC may see release at the same time. Not willing to leave her books in the hands of others, Breeden has announced pre-orders for DP3 — order it through your friendly local comic shop.

• So last night I heard the Sound of Young America interview with Dave Foley and Calvin McDingly, and now this morning Sinfest continues the Kids in the Hall vibe. Good times.
• Speaking of good times, it occurs to me that within the DC comics milieu, both batdickery and superdickery are accepted terms. Leave it to Wonderella to trump every dick move ever pulled by Bats and Supes put together. That right there is a graduate-level dick move, and why Justin Pierce understands the innate ridiculousness of the superhero genre — all it takes is one self-centered superhero jerk to destroy all that’s good in life in the most cruel and hilarious way possible.

A: AppleGeeks vol1 is up for preorders via Dark Horse (although please note that release is not scheduled until May 2009). The book covers the first two years of the strip (ranging from here to approximately here), plus a new bonus story.

A: Alien Loves Predator has made a fairly consistent return from hiatus, and the latest entry in the ongoing story of the wacky roomies is as loving a tribute to New York City as ever Bernie Hou has produced. ALP has always had a spot in our hearts here at Fleen, being one of the first strips we talked about way back at launch. Welcome back, Abe and Preston.

A: Amy Chilton, from the cover of the forthcoming seventh Scary Go Round book, shows the softcore pornmeisters at American Apparel how it’s done.

I’d be willing to be that if I went back through the three years of Fleen postings and looked at all the days that absolutely nuthin was happening in webcomics, the majority of them would be Thursdays.

But here’s an item of some interest: while the MoCCA website lists the 2009 Art Fest dates (6 and 7 June), it says that registration and venue are “coming soon”. But Raina Telgemeier (whom all and sundry should both love and trust) is reporting today that the 2009 MoCCA show will be shifting from the Puck Building to the 69th Regiment Armory, which is no stranger to art shows.

No idea what the space inside is like, although I believe it’s probably got more room than the Puck Building. If you’ve not exhibited at MoCCA before (or have been unable to get space), keep your eye on the MoCCA website … I’d guess they’ll be able to accomodate more people this year. And while the Armory isn’t in SoHo, 26th & Lex isn’t a bad neighborhood for cool stuff at all. See you there in six months or so.

By the way, you know that every MoCCA inevitably leads to webcomickers in search of karaoke, right? And in case you hadn’t seen it, Dr McNinja creative team members Chris Hastings and Carly Monardo apparently get to sing karaoke with their buddy Bill Murray. Lucky little so-and-sos.

Just about one year after producing the final word on helpless women in superhero comics, Randy Milholland tops himself with the definitive comment on how creators and audiences interact. Check out the looks of shock, horror, and sadness in that silent catgirl panel when told that they, the consumers of free entertainment, don’t own it. Okay, countdown to the debate on authorial intent begins … now!

• Consensus among the former ADSDAQ-running webcomic creators I’ve spoken to is that it’s not just webcomics, it’s the ad network circling the wagons and cutting back clients blindly in these uncertain economic times. Seems to me that a dictat like “no comics” would block high-value advertisers from some highly valuable demographics, but as I don’t run an ad network, I’m not aware of the full decision-making process that’s going on. If anybody from ADSDAQ would care to contact us with their side of the story, we’d love to hear from you.
• Along the same lines, there was an interesting comment in our previous ADSDAQ story regarding hidden keywords in the site code for The Book of Biff. Biff creator Chris Hallbeck was unaware of the situation and was upset to find hidden spam links in his site, the result of a WordPress hacking. Lesson to be drawn from all of this: the ComicPress template is great, but the underlying WordPress structure isn’t bulletproof and there are bad people out there. Make sure you’re patched up, and take a look through your source code every once in a while for stray references to boner pills.
• New webcomicker meme: draw yourself with Zac Efron! So far, I enjoy Nedroid’s take on Efron the best, because he’s dreamy. Nedriod, I mean; to be honest, I’m not sure who Zac Efron is. I also suspect I’m happier that way.

Confidential to Mr Personality: My cash offer for that Super Stupor original stands. You know where to find me.

Dammit, I suck. The news of the new Webcomic Idol entirely slipped by me:

This years winner of the Webcomic Idol contest is Simulated Comic Product, congratulations and welcome to Bomb Shelter Comics.

As for Shi Long Pang, you left all of our judges very impressed. From the way the comic is executed, to your ability to incorporate constructive criticism into your strips so quickly. You put up one heck of a fight.

But at least I won’t miss a second milestone. Ladies and gentlemens, we’re coming up on 1000 updates of The Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge. From Grinder Mike Payne

[The Challenge] began February 28, 2005 with 56 contestants. On December 26, 2008, the nine of us remaining in the hunt for the prize money will hit our 1,000th update.

This means different things to different creators–I mean, Brad Guigar, Andrew Rothery and Ryan Smith were doing their comics before the contest started, and Guigar and Smith ended those comics during the contest only to start up new ones without missing a day. Edward J. Grug III has done many different stories as his daily entries and is now the regular artist for T Campbell’s Sketchies, while I’ve been posting two pages a day in my continuing storyline and am therefore approaching 2,000 pages of comics!

Holy Crap. Seriously, what more needs to be said?

Mike Krahulik, on you don’t really want to know — I should also probably look into the legal ramifications of posting underage pastry porn.

• Speaking of Penny Arcade, I was perusing the Comic Shop News (that free newsletter deal at your friendly local comic shop) holiday gift guide when a particular line jumped out at me:
  

  … there is a whole genre of comic strip that is located online, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find collections at your local comic shop. … Penny Arcade is another popular book that Image as picked up … [emphasis mine]

  Egregious misuse of the word “genre” aside, this surprised me, as I’d heard nothing about PA moving to Image. In fact, it surprised PA business tycoon Robert Khoo when I wrote to ask him about it, so we safely conclude that CSN got the story wrong, especially given current product announcements.

• Speaking of holidays and Penny Arcade (or at least their annual Child’s Play initiative), the Webcomic Holiday Postcard Fundraiser returns this year with a half-dozen creators and all proceeds to Child’s Play (which has by now all but surely passed $750,000 in a down economy).
• Speaking of big dollar figures, The Great ADSDAQ Purge of Aught-Eight continues apace, with scarce a webcomicker left standing. Reports would now seem to indicate that the phenomenon isn’t limited to webcomics, which maybe just means that ADSDAQ is in a general retrenchment and cutting affiliates based on snap judgements (Comic strip? Gone! Blog — nothing that catches my eye in two seconds? Gone!).

  This does hold out the possibility that once cooler heads prevail, some of the now-dead accounts may be reinstated (Oh, wait, that webcomic actually provided out advertisers with a mountain of click-throughs, we should get them back.), but in the meantime the very clumsy way that it was handled by ADSDAQ has surely left some feeling of having been burned by The Man.

  It also is presumed at this time that ADSDAQ will pay all monies owed for the ads that they did deliver to their now-cancelled accounts. Should we at Fleen hear that webcomickers aren’t getting paid for all their eyeballs up to cancellation, we will be sure to let you know.

• Finally, speaking of corporations behaving in a less-than-sterling manner, Jess Fink once again can’t catch a break. I am this close to sending you, my loyal minions, to burn down the malls and salt the earth where once they stood so that the likes of Forever 21 never rise up again. In the meantime, you know what to do (remember, it’s Forever 21 that needs feel your wrath this time, not Hot Topic).

Sometimes you find yourself pondering the big imponderables. For instance:

• Is It Funny Today? launched on Monday courtesy of a couple a college guys. Webcomic gets registered, people vote on the latest installment being funny or not … I dunno, just doesn’t seem that compelling to me. I don’t need to know if one of my webcomics is found worthy of laugh-chuckles by 47% of site users for me to enjoy it. At some level, it reminds me of some game show or reality show or something, where the reward isn’t for actually knowing something, but for guessing how many other people think the same way.

  That’s besides the fact that not every webcomic is meant to be funny, or to be funny in every episode. The developers appear to be giving this some thought as well with a new “story comic” feature. We’ll see if IIFT? turns into a thing, or is just the proverbial flash in the pan.

• What the hell is up with ADSDAQ? A bunch of webcomics creators use it as a key component of their advertising model, and a bunch of them them are telling me that ADSDAQ has dropped them as clients. Reasons have ranged from “Improper Content” to “Too Many Graphics” (um, they do know what webcomics are, right?) to “Site Under Construction or Broken”.

  I can’t tell if this is a general retrenchment in internet advertising, or if it’s a deliberate attempt to pull back from webcomics accounts — in which case, what’s wrong with saying Sorry, our models say that your site doesn’t produce enough benefit for our advertisers, nothing personal? If you’ve been using ADSDAQ and have been dropped, add a comment with the reason you were given. If there’s logic here, then by Darwin we’ll find it!

• What’s the best webcomics story of the year? This isn’t my year-end roundup — that’ll be in a few weeks, and in a somewhat unusual form. No, I think the most significant thing that’s happened in webcomics this year is an outburst of collegiality and common good that’s been building. There’s a lot of webcomickers that have gone out of their way to talk about their peers and promote their work, to provide a general “Rah, go Team Webcomics!” feel at conventions, and today, there’s an outbreak of everybody and their dog pointing to webcomics merch made by other creators. Seriously, look at the front page of the people who make their living at this, and chances are pretty good they’re linking to what could be considered competitors for your entertainment dollar (start here if you like).

  If not for the fact that DJ and Scott still bring it, I might think I’d fallen into the last reel of It’s A Wonderful Life. And Scott & DJ? Seriously guys — I love your work and like both of you personally, but if either of you didn’t exist the other would have to invent him. Let this be the Christmas that your hearts grow three sizes and you find the strength of ten webcomickers (plus two). Do it for the children.

Amazing how one thought leads to another somtimes.

• After an absence of nearly a year, Maura came back to Clango having lost some weight. Yet today she appears to be back to her old self (which make no mistake, was a horrible, horrible person). While it’s true that Rich Stevens is capricious and lives by whim, he doesn’t call do-over with his characters without a lot more logic than what we’ve seen so far today. I’m thinking evil twin or evil robot. Or evil robot twin.
• Speaking of Rich Stevens, he’s been getting some merch play on TV, along with fellow creators Jon Rosenberg and Ryan North; courtesy of North’s blogpost [no permalink]:
  

  I also wanted to thank everyone who let me know that Dinosaur Comics stuff is showing up in the background of the new season of The IT Crowd! There’s tons of webcomics stuff there if you keep your eyes peeled: I spotted Rich and Jon and myself and that was only in the first five minutes! If you get a chance to watch this show, I really recommend it. Last season’s opening episode (“The Work Outing”) was a perfect 22 minutes of television, I think.

  And Jeph Jacques apparently sighted Stevens’s Bacon is a Vegetable shirt on basic cable last night. This is the year webcomics storms the breaches and topples the dominant vendors of legible clothing from their mall-fattened thrones, my friends.

• Speaking of TV, the Too Art for TV gallery show kicks off tomorrow evening in Brooklyn, featuring Fleen Fave™ Carly Monardo. Alas, life prevents me from attending, so if you’re there, tell Carly I said hi.
• Speaking of people who are cool, do you like things that are fancy and durable? Do you like helping creators and children? Looking for a last-minute Holiday gift? Then check out the stores at Templar, AZ (where Spike has a blowout sale going — Templar vol 1 is going for as little as five bucks!) and Planet Saturday (where Monty & Kelli Stevens Kane are donating a dollar for every book sold to provide health care to uninsured children). Note for non-USA American readers: Here in Freedomonia, uninsured means No health care for you, so suffer you poor bastard. Our system is built this way for reasons of not being stinky communists and this makes us right with God. Just so we’re clear. Depending on your creator’s shipping deadline, you’re running shy on days to get your swag before your holiday of choice, so get crackin’.