Anybody else finding Gmail acting weird stuff on Opera today? Odd bits of formatting & display that go away in the Basic HTML mode? I don’t think it’s just me because it’s happening on multiple computers, and sudden mysterious behavioral changes have happened before. Anyway, webcomics:

• The Stumptown Trophy Awards for 2009 (does anybody call them “The Stumpies”? If not, they should) have been announced, and it looks like a big day for Templar, AZ creator Spike. She picked up the Outstanding Art, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Webcomic awards. I’ll also note that Ellie Connelly creator Indigo Kelleigh was recognized for his outstanding work creating the Stumptown Comic Fest edit to re-add accidentally deleted clause: and Oustanding Design winner Jeffrey Ellis for Historyonics, a Vancouver webcomicker anthology, which kind of cements the idea that Indy Comics and Webcomics are pretty much the same thing. Time for a new word to describe the genre, rather than the distribution channel? Answers on a postcard.
• Holy crap KC Green is putting up a sketchbook for auction which is (as of this writing) only fetching $61. If you’re familiar with Green’s webcomics work, you know he’s got an incredibly fluid, organic quality to his linework, but that’s absolutely squat compared to seeing his actual ink-on-paper. Right now this moment, this sketchbook is the bargain of the year. Next week just before the auction closes and it’s going for many hundreds of dollars? Still the bargain of the year.

There’s other stuff I wanted to talk about, but Gmail’s straight-up bitchassedness (that has quickly become one of my favorite words) means my story-ideas emails are inconvient right now. Hopefully, Google will stop futzing with the code and it’ll magically get better again.

Updated to add (and clarify the link trail): Heidi MacDonald has been pointing towards Van Jensen, who read Platinum’s annual report so you don’t have to, but go ahead and read it anyway. My favorite part was this little gem (bottom of pg 10, spilling over to pg 11):

We believe that the success of WOWIO is dependent on a number of factors, including the ability of the Company to sustain an aggressive marketing campaign to attract readers, a multi-pronged effort in business development to attract corporate sponsors, and an outreach program to attract more publishers. These efforts require an infusion of capital until the revenues can make the endeavor self-sustaining. Due to a number of factors that include 1) a global economic pull-back, impacting all industries, including the online advertising market, and 2) an inherited liability to pay WOWIO publishers royalties for the quarter immediately preceding the Company’s acquisition and subsequent inability to pay off such obligation, the Company faced unforeseen factors that required a cessation of marketing, promotional, and sales activity for WOWIO. The Company kept WOWIO in a maintenance mode with the intention of re-charging the efforts in 2009. [emphasis mine]

That bolded bit? I’m not a securities lawyer, but I think that’s legalese for Webcomics content creators, you are never getting paid what WOWIO owes you.

Listed under “Risk Factors”, I noticed (pg 22):

IF WE DO NOT MAINTAIN THE CONTINUED SERVICE OF OUR EXECUTIVE OFFICERS, OUR BUSINESS OPERATIONS MAY BE AFFECTED.

Our success is substantially dependent on the performance of our executive officers and key employees. Given our early stage of development, we are dependent on our ability to retain and motivate high quality personnel. Although we believe we will be able to engage qualified personnel for such purposes, an inability to do so could materially adversely affect our ability to market, sell, and enhance our products. The loss of one or more of our key employees or our inability to hire and retain other qualified employees, including but not limited to development staff, business development staff, digital publishing staff and corporate office support staff, could have a material adverse effect on our business. [emphasis original]

No comment. And I’ll leave note 2 on pg 53 as an exercise for the reader.