Let’s make this fast!

• New England Webcomics Weekend: you’re loving it too much! To get a handle on attendees (and no doubt to keep on the happy side of building owners, fire officials, etc.), registration is now required. It’s free and fun!
• Followup on one story, first reference on another: Paul Taylor‘s Monica statue: the manufacturer will be doing one run based on pre-orders. Once they’re filled, that’s it, no long-term on-demand ordering, so if you want one, order now. In a similar vein, Studio Foglio have announced pre-orders on Girl Genius book 8 with original sketch bookplate tipped in. You get to choose what character, but once the books come in, this offer is null and void. Go get ’em if you want ’em.
• STAPLE, which we have shamefully neglected to mention previously, runs tomorrow in Austin “Lil’ Massachusetts”, Texas. Enjoy the webcomicky goodness of Chris Onstad, Mitch Clem, Josh Lesnick, Danielle Corsetto, Dean Trippe, and more.

Superosity, now ten years old, retains every last bit of it mind-messing powers. Add to that the fact that it takes a killer blizzard to keep Superosity from updating, and you see what an achievement we’re talking about. Fleen congratulates Chris Crosby on his incredible act of longevity.

We at Fleen have written about Scott Campbell before — he of the awesome Igloo Head & Tree Head stories in the various Flight anthologies, the cover of MC Frontalot’s latest CD, and the hundreds of comics over at Double Fine. Honestly, we at Fleen can’t get enough of him.

And those of you in the greater LA area will have an opportunity to check out even more of Campbell’s work this weekend, as his solo show, HOME SLICE, comes to Gallery Nucleus:

HOME SLICE is a cleverly conjured concept of cutaway homes which allows all of us the opportunity to peer into the everyday lives of the numerous charismatic characters which inhabit Scott C.’s world.

Scott C. illustrates the internal workings of Rocket House, Whale House, and Cloud House among others offering his largest original works to date.

This exhibit will be unparalleled in nature with over 25 new works, a contest giveaway, an exclusive print release, installation work as well as puppets (yes, puppets!) handsomely crafted by the talented gang over at the Annie award-winning Screen Novelties.

The opening reception is this Saturday, March 7, from 7 pm to 11 pm local time. As is the custom at such events, Campbell will be there to meet and greet, and there will be refreshments. HOME SLICE runs through March 23rd.

Hey, have you been following the new series at Lore Sjöberg’s Bad Gods? Today’s installment of Forumville features rotating text in the first panel; so far, I’ve seen seven different setups, and it has an odd effect on the rhythm of the joke. I keep imagining that Splat returns time and time again to the conversation between At and Pipe and is disappointed every time.

Interestingly, it’s all a giant Easter Egg. On the Bad Gods site, there’s no notice of the changing text — if you didn’t happen to reload the page, you’d miss it entirely. Contacted for comment, Sjöberg told us that the text is selected randomly from a pool of:

[r]ight at this moment, thirty. [A new one is selected] every three minutes. I’m going to do another twenty over the course of today, and probably leave it at that for a total of fifty.

There goes my productive time today.

In less frustrating news, as long-time readers of this page will be aware, the road to webcomics success runs through me — not unlike how the road to the White House runs through Letterman. Thus, given my vast powers¹, I declare today to be Kate Beaton Day in Webcomicstan. Check out some of her Conversations With My Younger Self strips, which have been remastered and posted in cleaned up form.

Then be sure to closely study her entirely true presentation of Darwin’s travails to get his theories accepted at the lastest Dark Horse Presents at MySpace. There’s also pieces there by some guys named Malki ! and Onstad; they look pretty okay.

Oooh! Oooh! Wild speculation! Dark Horse publishes Wondermark and Achewood books! Could a sufficiently big response to Beaton’s two pager prompt them in that direction with her? Tell all your friends about The Origin of Man now, because I want to do more than just send Beaton my undying affection for her work. I want to give her American cash money in exchange for a physical artifact that she can sketch in, and so should you.

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¹ A complete catalog of said powers would be revealed as nearly identical to those possessed by Wonderboy and Young Nastyman.

Quickly, Robin! To the Linkmobile!

• New weekly comic at Modern Tales, and MT editor Shaenon Garrity does her customary interview with the creator, Aaron Neathery over at TalkAboutComics.
• Speaking of TalkAboutComics, Eric Millikin points us all towards Interface: The Journal of Education, Community and Values out of Pacific University Oregon, where Maria Walters overviews our lil’ world to formal academia. Corduroy jackets with patches on the elbows optional.
• ‘Member way back when I thought the TV Tropes list of long-running webcomics was fairly complete? You people keep proving me wrong; this is good, as it will hopefully make for a more comprehensive resource.
• Matt Boyd talks to American Born Chineseauthor Gene Yang. Awesome stuff, particularly the bit in the middle about Cousin Chin-Kee and finding your tribe.
• Speaking of awesome stuff, Paul Taylor‘s getting close to the final sculpt proof of his Monica collector’s statue. Those interested, pre-orders have been met and production moves forward.
• Need to congratulate/console somebody on their beard? David Malki ! will give ’em a phone call for free.
• Planet Karen photoshop files safe! Also, fourth anniversary of the strip! Double hooray!
• Finally, for those who don’t follow Ursula Vernon‘s LiveJournal, the people in today’s episode of The Devil’s Panties are Ms Vernon, her sweetie-pie Kevin, Panties creator Jennie Breeden, and K. Brooke “Otter” Spangler. We’ve heard Vernon’s take on this trip, and her gentleman’s, now it’s time for words + pictures. Pull up a seat and grab some popcorn, kiddies … this is gonna be good.

Back hurting, but driveway clear. Short one today.

• I don’t remember what directed me to TV Tropes on Saturday, but it chewed up half my damn weekend; you know how it is with wikis. Having grown beyond its original, televisual scope, TVT has a complete section on webcomics. And along with a proper respect for notability, TVT has a list (that looks fairly definitive) on long-running webcomics. I recommend it to you as a final settling on the question raised last July regarding How many webcomics have hit x strips? While there are probably webcomics that should be listed on the low end (1000+ strips) that aren’t, I don’t believe that any are missing on the 2000+ criteria.
• Speaking of Archive Panics and Binges, there have been two independent recommendations sent to me regarding Out There in the past week, and seeing as how today’s a Snow Day, and I’m weak, I can now definitively state that considering the strip’s about an excessively-drinking narcissist, it’s oddly similar to early Doonesbury (say, circa ’72 to ’75. Sometimes it’s the character design (especially the eyes), and sometimes it’s the rhythm of the strip’s dialogue. Either way, nice job at channelling compulsive “next strip” clicks from RC Monroe.
• Speaking of Out There, it’s among the webcomickry name-checked in the latest podcast from Cubertainment (thanks to alert reader “Dave” for the heads-up). The centerpiece of the podcast (which is nearly 90 minutes long) is an interview with Shane Johnson of My Life In A Cube. Dang it, Dave, I didn’t need another archive binge today.
• And finally, speaking of catching up, I missed Tom Mason’s interview with Larry Latham last week, but it’s never too late to read it. Enjoy.