Per an email I received yesterday, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is doing a children’s programming track at Big Apple Comic Con (which is going on as you read this), by partnering with the con’s sponsors, MFTW¹ Entertainment. You may insert your own joke about MFTW Entertainment producing anything that child-appropriate here.

• The big Chris Yates secret project list that we hinted at yesterday is now live, and we at Fleen can now reveal exclusively, from a conversation that took place over beers in San Diego, that one of these projects is TRUE. That’s right, the yak that’s going to star in ЖYPMblH HEXeP is named “Batukhan”. Scoop!
• Speaking of secrets revealed, this was all secret yesterday if you don’t follow Kris Straub‘s twitterfeed, but there is now an Ichor Falls book available for purchase, just in time for Halloween. Those with weak constitutions are warned that this books is likely very scarifying, and should approach it with caution. Also, please stay the hell away from that particular corner of West Virginia, no matter how polite the realtor seems.
• You guys have seen Kickstarter, right? Got a project you want to run, but you need funding, so people can pledge to you, and if you don’t get enough nobody pays up anything? Think Grameen Bank for the first world. Friend of Fleen (and sporting bet nemesis) Goron McAlpin‘s using it for a Multiplex book, and he’s now being joined from the webcomics world by Templar, AZ creator Spike as she seeks to revive a project on Modern Livin’ On The Cheap:
  

  Poorcraft is a project I’ve been thinking about for years. No one gets into comics for the money (no one with a clue, anyway), so I got an involuntary crash course in the discipline after I left school. I’ve learned a lot about poorcraft since then, most of it the hard way.

  Over time, I’ve noticed people who read comics are often people who want to make comics. But aspiring creative types are pretty easily discouraged by the specter of the “starving artist.” It doesn’t have to be that way! And not enough people realize that.

  So, I want to make a book. A comic book, naturally. Full color cover, black and white interior, 100-120 pages, with a $10.00 cover price. And at least 75% of that book would be comics. Comics about housing, food, entertainment, education, travel/transportation, health care, and employment, and doing all those things on a dime.

  Diana and myself have a six-month schedule from a successful Kickstart to publishing. Production-wise, the book is already outlined and ready for scripting. The $6,000 I’m asking for would go towards paying Diana [Nock, the illustrator] a fair price for her work, and publishing costs.

  As of this writing, Poorcraft has 71 backers worth nearly $1200 of pledges, a little more than 12 hours into the three-month fundraising window. Oh, and McAlpin will be on Fanboy Radio’s The Indie Show this Sunday, on a Kickstarter-themed broadcast.

• Euro-folks! Talented creators from Transmission-X are going to be stomping around your fair continent, and now there’s tour dates up for Ramón Pérez, Cameron Stewart, and Karl Kerschl (this might explain why Stewart’s Sin Titulo is hiatusing just as we’re hitting big developments, dang).

  Anyhoo, the tour swings through Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, and England, with at least three festival appearances. Quick hint for the happy travellers: one of my all-time top-five comic shops is near the canalfront in Ghent. Bigger, more comprehensive selection of English-language comics than most shops in the US, and then all the bande dessinée. Oh, it was glorious. Speaking of which, block out an afternoon for the CBBD in Brussels, and check out all the public comics art in the city (my favorite: a reproduction of a Blake et Mortimer cover on the entire side of a building.

_______________
¹ Megan Fox Tits Wolverine, of course.

I might be the only one, but I miss the discontinued theme song to The Sound of Young America, a radio show about things that are awesome, hosted by America’s Radio Sweetheart, Jesse Thorn.

Readers with a good memory will recall that we have spoken about Mr Thorn previously on this page, and that he’s generally the best interviewer in the radio business right now. I can think of no demographic crying out for lengthy interviews with hip-hop artists less than that of public radio listeners, yet that’s exactly who Jesse provides them for — and interviews with comedians, writers, and the odd (sometimes very odd) webcomicker or two. He keeps a statistically older/whiter-than-the-median audience listening to people they don’t have a pre-existing interest in because he’s that damn good.

And now, Thorn and his general awesomporium have a new storefront provided by TopatoCo. When we spoke with Holly Post, VP of TopatoCo a while back, there was an unused bit from that interview where she mentioned (all offhand-like) that there were people that create stuff on the internet that’s not webcomickers that they might find to be a good fit. At the time, I figured she was talking about, say, Brandon Bird, but now I see that they were thinking bigger. Congratulations to all involved.

• Chris Yates has schemes, which apparently he might share some hint of tomorrow. We at Fleen have heard some reports of what could be Very Big News, and are just waiting for confirmation; will Yates, in fact, tell us about how he’s getting ready to make ***-*** ****** ******* for a major, international ****** *******? Watch his strip and this space for updates.
• Gunerkrigg Court‘s first book got really delayed as its publisher had cash-flow problems; now that those are sorted, we can look for volume 2 next month. To celebrate, creator Tom Siddell is talking with CBR about the forthcoming volume.
• For the past week or so, Joey Manley has been holding forth on how to make it in the world of webcomics, but today’s musing on the topic is the one you need to read — it’s why it’s flat-out impossible for you to achieve success in webcomickry:
  

  Have you given up yet? Good. Because if I was able to talk you out of it so easily, with one stupid blog post, then you didn’t have what it takes. Not everybody gets to make a living at webcomics, because not everybody is talented enough and determined enough to do so. And guess what? That’s just fine. You’re better off where you are. Making a living at webcomics is hard, it’s unlikely, it’s the most impossible thing you could ever decide to do for a living, and in order to stand a chance you have to want it so badly that you’re willing to push through anything, anybody, any time, push beyond human reason and common sense, and then push a little harder, even, than that, if you’re going to really commit yourself to the grueling effort that is required to succeed at webcomics (or at any art, but maybe especially webcomics).

  Hint: Don’t stop reading until you reach the end.

First, a little visual Wow. For everybody that’s ever asked, “Why webcomics? What can they do that’s so special?”, Rich Stevens has your answer hangin’, boy.¹

• Next, a little financial Wow[io], with news that WOWIO payments for Q2 of 2008 are going out. Chris Crosby informs me that a sizeable sum has been presented via check (edit to correct: actually, it was a wire transfer; Fleen regrets the error) to settle back payments owed in full, plus a little extra for interest. The optimist in me is thrilled for creators finally getting paid what they’re due. The realist in me hopes the next Great Thing doesn’t leave them hanging for more than a year. The cynic in me is astonished that previous securities filings hinting that payments would never come were overly pessimistic. And none of them would never dream of suggesting that checks be deposited quickly.
• Charitable Wow up next: Nick Nitro emailed to tell me about his cousin, Amie Morgan, founder of Amie’s Angels:
  

  Relay for Life team. Created by Amie Morgan when she found out she had been diagnosed with cancer, Amie’s Angels has helped raised more than $75k for the American Cancel Society’s Madison County [Ohio] Relay for Life, upon many other activities such as volunteering at the Arthur James Cancer Hospital assisting other head and neck cancer patients.

  Ms Morgan died after five years of fighting bone cancer this summer; at Mid-Ohio Con few weeks ago, Mr Nitro got a buncha creators to do up a piece of jam art to benefit Amie’s Angels as they continue to raise funds to kick cancer’s ass. No reserve, and three days left to go. Let’s bid this one up, shall we?

• Ubiquitous Wow: Jenny Everywhere caption contest coming down to the home stretch. Did we mention this before? If we didn’t we should have, since the very idea of an open source cartoon character is just so neat. I first encountered Ms Everywhere in the pages of a now-discontinued offering of Graphic Smash variously known as Flick, Kokonino, The Chaos Prince, The Crossover Thingie, etc; elements of it can still be found here. She’s literally everywhere, though, and you may use her in your own webcomic if you so wish, as long as you include the following text:
  

  The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

  Go to it.

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¹ ‘Long wit a two-week supply of IGNINT McNUGGET, de breakfast o’ champiums!

Character art by Scott Kurtz, background art, voices, Blamimation by Kris Straub, inspiration by David Mamet. Welcome to the Harvey Awards, ladles and jenglemints. For a list of Kurtz’s intro gags, see Webcomics.com; I myself will now only refer to that magazine as Megan Fox Tits Wolverine.

• Super Art Fight 5 meets the The Brady Bunch: GO!
• Alternative Press Expo: this weekend, mess o’ webcomickers, including what I believe is the first show with Topatoco‘s new artists on a signing schedule approach. No promises, but this may mean that some famously grumpy webcomickers are less so. Yeah, I know, empty words. Have hope.
• Interviews! Julia Wertz talks with a university-affiliated, independent creator-focused literary review, and Randall Munroe talks books with Comics Alliance (which really has become the best all-around comics info and snark to be found on the webs today).

Let’s get you updated, Lightning Round style!

• Item! Brigid Alverson turns her attention towards webcomics news & info blogging, and I can tell you right now that she’s going to do this much, much better than we at Fleen do. She’s a terrific, well-informed writer, and I urge you all to check her out daily. Just remember to come back when you’re done, ‘kay?
• Item! MoCCA Fest 2010 dates and table availability announced. Back to the Armory, but earlier in the year, so hopefully people won’t be dropping in the aisles from fever & ague. Exhibitor tables are $410 for a full table and $260 for a half until 31 December, with discounts for MoCCA members (hint: membership’s about $35). Prices go up on New Year’s Day, and registrations will be accepted on a first come, first served basis beginning 21 October by fax, mail and in-person (applications on the website). The fax option may help alleviate the problem last year when people from around the country got shut out by locals walking in their applications.

  But here’s my question, because I’m not a creator and have never taken a table anywhere — is that a really high table cost for the size and duration of the show? It seems like it to me. Given all the problems that last year’s show had, I’m guessing that MoCCA has one, maybe two years at most to turn things around and get a really good show together before they start seeing exhibitors abandoning in droves. MoCCA has always been one of my favorite shows of the year, so here’s hoping that they get it really right next April.

• Item! By all accounts, Scott Kurtz killed as the MC of the Harveys. Along the same lines, a very nice, heartfelt, gracious post by Kurtz up today about his re-evaluation of Zuda and his feelings about it. Well done, sir (now I retire to my blogger’s desk and gather up the gold-plated instruments with which to twirl my moustache in a self-satisfied manner).
• Item! Randall Munroe, via sales of xkcd: volume 0, and tickets to his brief book tour, has raised enough money to build a school in Laos. Holy crap.

Let’s all enjoy the remaining time we have before the pissed-off planetoid decides to wreak horrific vengeance on us all.

• If you’re going to die in an apocalyptic satellite brouhaha (I guess Galactus gets the snack-size leftovers), may as well go out laughing, drunk and or fighting. And lucky for you, all three can be accomplished simultaneously at Super Art Fight 5 tonight in Baltimore:
  

  Using one of the most star-studded lineups ever, Super Art Fight 5 will have some of the biggest names in webcomics taking to the stage for battle.

  The first bout on the card is the Tag Team Challenge, which pits Jamie Baldwin and Danielle Corsetto against Kelsey Wailes and Bryan Prindiville. Baldwin and Wailes are both past winners of past battles, with both ranking in the top 3 of potential challengers for the title. Prindiville is fighting for a chance to become part of the official roster, while Corsetto is taking part in her first-ever fight.

  The second match of the night is The War To Settle The Score, pitting Nick “Ghostfreehood” Borkowicz against Lar deSouza. The two started their grudge in Connecticut, with deSouza winning a tag-team challenge with a healthy dose of trash talking. Borkowicz, one of the founders of Super Art Fight, wasn’t pleased with the loss, and is out to settle the feud in Baltimore.

  The main event is the Super Art Fight Championship, where defending champion Michael Bracco puts his belt on the line against Chris Impink (yes, we have a belt). Bracco is looking to be the first belt-holder to ever defend his title in Super Art Fight history. Impink is the career underdog of Super Art Fight, and could pull the upset.

  During the matches, commentary will be provided by the Super Art Fight hosts, Marty Day and Ross Nover, with musical accompaniment by the official DJ of Super Art Fight, DJ Sheephead.

  So that’s at Metro Gallery in Baltimore (1700 North Charles Street), $10 a head, doors open at 8pm, mayhem starts at 9:00. Survivors of the bloobath (and lunar revenge) may be found the next day at Baltimore Comic-Con.

• You know what? Seeing as how the moon will kill us all in the immediate future, I’m going to share something with you. Received recently was the first piece of Fleen fanart, from Krishna Sadasivam. When death rains from the skies and the living envy the dead, this image will make me smile as I face the end of all things — my humble website inspired an artist to take the time to create an image in which I slightly resemble Sergio Aragonés. Also, I once had a t-shirt made about my moustache. That’ll do, hack webcomics pseduo-journalist. That’ll do.

So let’s get this particular iteration of the Interpocalypse kickin’.

• Seems like a lot of comics are finding their way to mobile devices these days — Howard Tayler, in his recent Fleen interview, talked about an iPhone app for his stuff; I’m getting hit with regular press releases about somebody named “Tyrese” who’s created a comic about an asskicking vigilante who takes no guff (man, where do these original concepts come from) that resembles his creator to a startling degree and is now releasing it via iTunes as a — gahhh — motion comic (insert Clutch Cargo joke here). You got your LOLBOTS, you got your Clickwheel, and now it appears you will have your Erf:

  Erfworld: The Battle for Gobwin Knob is soon coming to mobiles in a partnership with Robot Comics.

  Originally published online under the Creative Commons license, Erfworld is today one of the most popular and heavily trafficked webcomic sites, supported by its own wiki consisting of 5000+ fan-created articles about the Erfworld universe, including a complete single panel annotated archive of the comic that would make a Grant Morrison fan proud.

  Awesome — now I know why the text-only “summer updates” are still going.

  I kid, I kid … the storytelling and world-building that goes on in the “novelization” of Erworld is really quite good. But I want to see the pictures again, dammit.

  Things that made me ask questions — is this the first let’s-get-comics-on-handhelds development group that’s developing for less-widespread devices like Android phones, Nintendo DSi, and Kindle? And is the first development of a complete story (140+ pages) originally formatted for full-screen viewing, to get redone for widely-varying but mostly small screens? At least, that’s what I’m taking from the Robot Comics self-description, ’cause if all they do is shrink down the pages, that’s gotta be one unsatisfying reading experience. As they say, we shall be watching their career with great interest.

• Know what rocks? Anders Loves Maria is back from hiatus (which included a pretty nasty flulike bug colonizing creator Rene Engström). Know what sucks? It’s almost over:
  

  I’m back at work now and ready to give you my full attention, hopefully uninterrupted until the story’s conclusion, some 30 pages or so into the future.

  Okay, let me rephrase that — I am thrilled that Engström is telling the story she wanted to tell, with a definite beginning, middle, and end (and enough flashbacks to spin the heads of the LOST writing staff). I’m not happy that this means that sometime, probably by the end of the year, that I will not have more ALM to look forward to. To have them go on forever, like a soap opera that long outlives its original characters, would be terrible. But to not have Engström’s comics is possibly worse. Here’s hoping that she already knows what the next project will be once ALM wraps (diary comics! diary comics!) and will be ready to launch quickly because Daddy needs his medicine.

• Know what the awesomest part of the recent Dinosaur Comics site redesign is? Blogposts are now tied to comic updates, so I can permalink things like the title of Ryan North’s upcoming ACM address to the folks that made HAL:
  

  So hey what are you doing October 16th-18th 2009? If you’re like me you’re coming to the (free!) ACM Reflections | Projections conference in Urbana, IL! I’m giving a talk! In fact, I’ve got the last talk of the day, entitled “GUYS, LOOKS LIKE IT’S WACKY TIME”, in all caps, just like that. Will it truly be wacky time? Yes, absolutely. You should come!

  Please somebody video this so we can all see what WACKY TIME WITH RYAN looks like. I bet it looks like a kiddie TV show on twenty-eight hours of no sleep!

I’ll repeat myself for those in the back: LEGO David Bowie. Okay, it’s nothing to do with webcomics, but it’s awesome (much like this video clip of students from my alma mater lighting the traditional Homecoming bonfire with a trebuchet). I suppose webcomics are awesome too; let’s see if anything happening matches up (gonna be tough, considering that LEGO Rock Band will also feature a LEGO Iggy Pop).

• Baltimore Comic-Con is coming up this weekend, complete with the Harvey Awards, hosted by webcomicstan’s own Scott Kurtz. Anybody that hasn’t seen Kurtz when he’s got a microphone in his hand and just riffing along — it’s worth the ride.
• Long-time readers of this page may remember the New York Center for Independent Publishing, as they are the very cool people that put on the SPLAT! symposium about 18 months back. Not content to let one discussion of such matters take place, the NYCIP are doing a series of presentations on the theme of Comics History/New York History:
  

  New York Comics as New York History: Tuesday, October 20
  Comics historian Kent Worcester will explore the connection between the city’s familiar streetscapes and the development of the comic book from the 1930s and 1940s to the post 9/11 era – looking at the ways comics history has mirrored the ups and downs of the quintessential American metropolis.

  Cartooning and New York City Politics: Tuesday, November 3rd
  Boss Tweed may have been the most powerful man in the City, but he was still tormented by Thomas Nast’s biting cartoons. Parsons faculty member Bill Kartalopoulos will host a panel exploring the interaction between political cartoons, New York City politicians, and the public.

  New York, the Super-City: Tuesday, March 9th
  New York served as the model for Gotham City, inspired Will Eisner as he created the noirish adventures of The Spirit, and became a recurring character during the 1960s resurgence of Marvel in comics such as Spider-Man and Iron Man. ForeWord Magazine contributing editor Peter Gutiérrez will moderate a talk on the relationship between superheroes and their favorite hometown… and on how comics culture has promoted potent and memorable images of New York to readers worldwide.

  “Carousel” in New York: Tuesday, April 20th
  The series closes with a multimedia presentation hosted by R. Sikoryak, Parsons faculty member and author of Masterpiece Comics. This event will feature work and performances from some the of the top comics artists working in New York.

  The series will take place the NYCIP, 20 West 44th in Manhattan (pretty much directly across the street from the famed Algonquin Hotel), starts at 6:30pm, and is yours for the low-low price of $15 at the door ($10 for members, $5 for students). Anybody that’s around NYC on those dates that’s reading this? No better way to spend a couple hours.

Corrections and Clarifications: Yesterday, Fleen quoted Brad Guigar, in reference to Ryan Estrada’s new supervillainesque webcomic, as saying Fools! I will vanquish every one of you puny mortals and lay all your works to waste! Moohahahahahaha! Due to deadline pressures, Mr Guigar’s quote was extrapolated from a pool of likely responses as calculated by the Quote-O-Matic 2000™ we got secondhand from Fox News. When reached for comment at his remote secret lair, Guigar actually said, I really don’t feel as if I own the rights to a villain-themed comic. He then added Mwa-ha-ha and ceased transmission. Fleen regrets the error.

I’m fine, but let’s say that a near miss happened today to someone I know and it’s got me in a mood; if the news about the x0,000 phished Hotmail, etc. accounts weren’t enough to make you reevaluate your approaches to password discipline (mine verges on clinical paranoia), then hey — awesome. You’re the soft target, not me. With that bit of entirely callous disregard for the well-being of my fellow netdwellers out of the way, let’s get some quick news items in.

• Speaking of bad people, Ryan Estrada has launched a new daily webcomic about them; okay, his are more the “costumed bad guys” and less “disaffected programmers working for various ethnic mafias”, but you get the idea. Chillin’ Like Villains launched with a full 24-page story in the archives, and after a one-day chapter splash, kicks in with fresh adventures today. Reached for comment about the new competition in the supervillain-themed webcomics sphere, Brad Guigar bellowed, Fools! I will vanquish every one of you puny mortals and lay all your works to waste! After pausing for breath, Guigar continued, Moohahahahahaha! and fiddled with what appeared to be some kind of nullifier, or possibly a mind-control beam.
• Speaking of insane rantings, Jeff Rowland would have you believe that he is prone to such outbursts; in fact, he is a pretty savvy businessman who’s managed to negotiate his way to a modest (if possibly accidental) empire of internet merchandisery, which he talks about at Comic Alliance:
  

  It’s still the friggin’ wild west out here; if you can get 20,000 people to read your comic about a dog that huffs paint, there is a way to make a living from that.

  Much like our own interview with TopatoCo VP Holly Post, Rowland talks about webcomics giving you slack for being weird, TopatoCo’s growth curve, and their unique corporate culture:

  I got David Malki [!] running promotions and propaganda and that dude is an idea dude to the marrow. Most days I just spin him around on this big board and decide what to do from what thing his feet point at.

  People, I have stood in TopatoCo HQ, and I am fully prepared to believe that Rowland is telling the truth. If you want to make good business decisions, your course is clear — obtain your own David Malki ! and revolve him until gravity tells you what to do.

• Speaking of interviews, Zudaboss Ron Perazza had one with David Gallaher a couple days back at CBR; full disclosure: Gallaher is the creator of High Moon, which was one of the first Zudawinners. The interview is full of interesting stuff, and whatever your views on Zuda, the Zudacontests (I’m decidedly meh on them), the Zudainterface (hell meh), these are some talented guys and it’s worth your time to listen to them. Besides, I can’t be the only person who swooned upon learning that Gallaher has written a graphic novel of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar!.

  What do you mean, you never heard of YT,JD!? It was an awesome radio drama about a fabulous freelance insurance investigator … a freelance insurance investigator with an action-packed expense account! Look, if you live in or around Washington DC, WAMU does this multi-hour block of old radio programs on Sunday nights, and YT, JD! is often in the rotation. It’s cracktastic.

Editor’s note: When last we left our intrepid heroes, Howard Tayler was recounting the things he learned at the Success in Comics seminar the weekend before. Tayler had just spoken about opportunity cost and his experiment in alternate revenue streams for 2009: XDM, an RPG manual and the first non-Schlock material to be published by Tayler. We now rejoin our adventurers as Tayler wonders if he will be asked how the book is doing, when suddenly …

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