For those of you in the Portland area, Comics Month (as declared by Mayor Hunky) is in full swing, and that means it’s nearly time for the Stumptown Comics Fest to get under way. The exhibitor list may now be cross referenced against a map, and there’s only a few zillion webcomickers gonna be there.

• Among the attendees (“Guest”, if you wanna be pedantic, presumably “of Honor”) will be Hope Larson, whom some of you may be able to see at the West Coast iteration of Drink and Draw Like a Lady (with props to Dylan Meconis for local organization and Hurricane Erika for the poster — if you see Erika, ask her to do a shot in honor of me pre-ordering her book).
• While there, you might want to congratulate Larson for her latest news. As surely all have heard by now, she’ll be adapting Madeleine L’Engle’s classic of YA SF, A Wrinkle in Time as a graphic novel. This is terrific news, as I can’t imagine anybody less talented than Larson able to tackle a book that’s so widely read, so intensely beloved, and which contains concepts and characters that are so difficult to visualize, forcing every reader to come up with mental images that are surely unlike anybody else’s.

  Handled poorly, everybody that picks up the book would protest That’s not what travelling through a tesseract/Mrs Which/IT looks like!, but I have every expectation that Larson will rise to the challenge and produce something her own, yet recognizably familiar to all and sundry.

  Still doubting? Consider that every work that Larson has done has somehow been stronger than the previous. If, a few months ago, I thought that Larson had reached a peak of visual storytelling with Mercury, I previously thought the same of Chiggers, and Gray Horses, and Salamander Dream. True, adaptation is a different kind of beast, but I’m hopeful.

• Speaking of Mercury, might it be possible that one of you creative types could ensure that it’s properly considered for a Harvey Award? Nominations (from anybody who writes, draws, inks, letters, colors, designs, edits, or otherwise makes comics) remain open until the 23rd of April, so hop to it. While I’m on the topic, any number of people over there to the right are also probably deserving of your nomination.
• Finally, this: having previously been made into an opera, Dinosaur Comics (which sometimes gets no love from the arbiters of taste) has now crossed over into the ultimate of musical expressions: a marching band routine via the justly-famed¹ (and slightly deranged) Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band.

_______________
¹ It wasn’t me; I was still in high school and can’t even play the trombone.

So there are hints in the aether, here and there, that the Webcomics Town Hall at C2E2 didn’t go entirely well (although the information I’ve been able to gather is at times contradictory). I wasn’t there, and haven’t seen a specific writeup on the issue; given the talent promised in the session listing, it should have been a case of point ’em at the question and stay out of their way = surefire success, but apparently not? If anybody who was in the audience would care to comment, please do so.

• Success or failure of the panel aside, C2E2 appears to have been sufficiently lucrative for many to come back next year — although apparently there’s a confusion about whether or not the pricing of webcomics pavilion tables for next year because the sign-up sheet didn’t have a specific tickbox for that option. Reports are that the pavilion option does exist, although this far in advance, the specific layout of the space may not be known. If you were thinking about exhibiting there next year, a careful inquiry may be of benefit to you.
• Also of note from C2E2: Carla Speed McNeil (who, like the Foglios before her, took her critical-darling print comic to the web, and took an Eisner for Best Webcomic in 2009 as a result), looks to be getting back into a fresh release schedule for her collections, having partnered up with Dark Horse.

  Lots of reporting of the announcement, but let’s go with Brigid Alverson’s writeup for Robot 6. This is awesome news, as I have already bought all the Finder volumes in print, and wish to give Ms McNeil money for the story that has only appeared (thus far) online. Hooray for me.

• In news from the far (i.e.: the “no-fly zone”) side of the Atlantic, professional bastard and Internet Jesus Warren Ellis has declared it Webcomics Week, with the opportunity to pimp your webcomic to all and sundry:
  

  You do a webcomic? Tell me about it here. Not more than one or two images, please, or else the thread takes forever to load. Don’t forget the bloody link.

  Relax. There are only 8000 members of Whitechapel reading, plus god knows how many drop-ins who aren’t registered members.

  Let’s get a sense of who’s around and who’s doing what. Create me a big list.

  And tell your friends.

  NOTE: this is not for people to list their favourite webcomics. We’ve done that before. Boring.

  Go to it. And if you like this service (previously irregular, but which now promises to be monthly), do thank the Bearded One by looking over his wares, why don’t you? Mr Ellis has had a clever idea going for a while now — each week, a new t-shirt design goes up for sale for that week only, then disappearing from view forever. Until now, when all the previous weekly tees are making a one-week only return engagement. Want to be a Science Gangster, Space Bastard, or person without a functioning liver? Now’s your chance.

I met Dorothy Gambrell briefly at last weekend’s MoCCA Art Fest, and one thing that I meant to do but neglected to, was to compliment her on her talent in bringing data to the fore. Whether its musical analytics, demographic and sociological breakdowns, or philosophical digressions, she presents it clearly and intuitively enough to give Edward Tufte cardiac palpitations of excitement.

Now she’s turned that analytic eye inwards. One of the recurring themes in webcomics has been But what about the money? Without hard data, the analyses done by every navel gazer in the community (not excluding a certain hack pseduo-journalist have fallen woefully short of statistical rigor. We just don’t have enough, or accurate enough, data from creators to draw any conclusions about things like traffic, audience size, and earnings potential. And honestly, when sharing even a bit of (what can rightly be seen as proprietary) financial information brings down the scoffing attacks, why would any creator bother to share such information?

Because it makes a really kick-ass graph, maybe? Gambrell’s put herself out in the open, for the sake of honesty and art. The fact that it’s (wholly unsurprisingly) visually appealing is merely icing on the cake. Thanks for letting us see some of what it takes to create, Ms Gambrell.

Speaking of seeing what lies beneath, you might want to check out the latest Blamimation from Messers Kurtz & Straub. The linking structure for this one was brainstormed on stage at PAX East, and a mere nineteen days later — BAM. On the web, ready for your consumption and subsequent laugh-chuckles.

I’ve long held that just handing a microphone to Scott Kurtz and giving him a stage to speak from is pretty much a guarantee of a laughter until it hurts, and much like Voltron, he only gets stronger when he combines with Straub. Hopefully, when the DVD of PAX East 2010 comes out, a good portion of this panel will be on it, because comparing between the process and the final product is entirely fascinating.

Task after task getting its ass kicked by me, and actually a little reluctant to take a break and talk to y’all; nothing personal, I’m just on fire today.

• So C2E2 kicks off tomorrow, and those of you in the greater Chicagoland area ought to drop by — Reed Exhibitions have put together a webcomics area on the show floor, and as this is the first iteration of this particular show, we want to thank them by making sure that particular location is crowded as all get-out. On this map, you’d be looking at the top center region, in the 860/960 block, up near the Tattoo Pavillion, then head left for the next couple of table blocks, and that’s all webcomics.

  Only thing I’m not sure about on this diagram is where the entrances are, but I think they’re both at the bottom and the right sides of the diagram. Before you get too attached to that corner, be sure to check out Artist Alley and booth 625, Haven Distributors, who’ll have some creators in their “Indy Island” (look for the palm trees!); AA is along the left-hand wall, and 625 is about as close to the center of the hall as you can get.

• While you’re out there in Chicago, be sure to drop in on David Malki !TopatoCo booth and ask him about The Devastator (it helps if you read that in the voice of the late Jan Gabriel). Lasst week, Geoffrey Golden kickstarted the project (currently sitting about 52% funded):
  

  [A] brand-new book series, jam-stuffed with original satire and comics. Coming at you quarterly, it’s 48 full-color pages of awesome, created by upcoming and renowned writers and artists. Each book will wrestle a different pop-culture theme- Book #1 is all about cartoons!

  The reason you should ask Mr Malki ! is that he’s part of Book #1 (with a history of Inspector Gadget’s origins in the Victorian era), along with such luminaries as James Urbaniak (on voice acting for fun & profit) and R. Sikoryak (on Greek myth/the newspaper comics page). We’re seeing a lot more fairly high-profile comics … undertakings? projects? … getting spearheaded by people outside the comics industry, motivated solely by their love of the form.

  It’s an encouraging trend, particularly if it proves to be a meeting ground for independent creators and creatives from other industries. Golden? Writer and producer, with a foot in TV & videogame industries. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that TV & videogame money is something that webcomics should be aspiring towards; I am saying the broader our little creative niche networks itself, the better for all involved. I’ll give you an example of my thinking: Matt Groening loved funny comics as a kid, didn’t see any on the shelves, created his own imprint, and doesn’t care if it makes money, so long as he gets funnybooks each month.

  Now, imagine if one or two of Bongo’s key people were to brush up against some of webcomics finest and start talking shop … there’s potential there, waiting to be explored. Anyway, if you see Malki !, ask him his take on The Devastator, and let’s see what Book #1 looks like in a few months.

Okay, who’s up for something absolutely friggin’ beautiful today? The first Abominable Charles Christopher book is up for pre-order, leading to a few thoughts in no particular order:

• Dang, that’s pretty
• Via Kerschl’s twitter, a peek at the gatefold from the back of the book
• Rassa-frassin’ exchange rate parity — I remember when pricing in Canadian dollars meant a significantly smaller number in ‘Merican bucks
• Along those lines, PayPal apparently believes that today’s exchange rate is approximately 2.5% less favorable than it actually is; if you feel like trying to time your purchase to daily fluctuations (or would rather let your credit card company take the skim instead of PayPal), there’s an option that allows we Staties to charge the purchase in Canadian

In other news …

• Robert Tracy is a busy dude. Over at Webcomics Community, there’s what might be the first attempt to determine from an actual survey whether or not shaking hands at a con is a vector for disease. Given the lack of reported outbreaks from PAX East (thanks to the semi-official no-handshake policy) despite an outbreak of poop disease, and given some anecdotal reports that some who attended last weekend’s MoCCA Art Fest (which had no such prohibition) are feeling under-the-weather heading into this weekend’s C2E2, the answer can’t come soon enough.

  Then on top of that, Tracy posted a big-damn-interview with Chris Crosby yesterday — lot of stuff there, worth reading through to understand one of the long runners of webcomics.

• Another guy doing a lot of good for the community? Frumph (or Philip M. Hofer if you’re his mom). Spontaneous tributes to his skills flow like water, and he’s just done a rebuild of Shortpacked! that shows exactly how powerful the WordPress/ComicPress combo is. What made me really want to point out his work, though, is my recent experience loading that very feature-rich Shortpacked homepage on my phone — fast, clean, acting pretty much like on my desktop. I just figured it was time for a little Frumph-love (most places, you gotta pay extra for the Frumph-love).
• Recognition achieved: Todd Allen has been inducted into the Mystery Writers of America for his webcomic, Division and Rush:
  

  Oh, don’t be so shocked. It’s not like I’m the first. Tim Broderick’s not just a member, he’s VP of the Mid-West chapter and he’s best known for his Odd Jobs webcomic. You can even get the collected print edition of Odd Jobs at the Chicago Public Library. (I did.) I also somehow doubt that Dick Tracy, Ms. Tree or Road to Perdition were held against Max Allan Collins, even if Collins was already an accomplished novelist prior to his comics work.

  Moral of the story: times are changing and definitions of professional credentials are changing. The Mystery Writers of America accept that professional writing is professional writing, be it prose, a movie/television script or a comic strip. And it’s an affirming thing to be recognized by your higher profile peers and be told “yes, you’re a professional just like us.”

• Finally, and only peripherally related to webcomics, this from the mailbag … JG Brin attempts the impossible:
  

  [A]bout a week or so ago, you linked to David Morgan-Mar’s post where he gave his views on the board game Monopoly. Well, I’ve waited for nigh on a half-fortnight for someone in the webcomics world to provide a rebuttal, but to no avail. I fear the responsibility has landed on me. While I don’t feel worthy, I’ve nevertheless taken a shot at it, in the hopes of defending the virtue of my favorite board game.

From my reading, Brin likes those aspects of Monopoly that most (right-thinking) people loathe about the “game”, but let it never be said that we at Fleen won’t give full time to contrary views. Monopoly-haters, meet your principled opposition.

To start, a few things missed in yesterday’s post: I got a copy of the minicomic pre-release pre-view of Tracy White‘s How I Made It To Eighteen, and it looks like powerful stuff. Speaking of power, R Stevens was rocking a beta-test iPhone dongle that allowed him to swipe credit cards, have customers sign on the screen with a finger, and optionally supply an email address so that a receipt could be sent. Wow. Also, I missed getting back to a gentleman that had an interesting-looking self-published comic book done entirely from typography, and (because I’m an idiot) didn’t get his name. If you’re he, drop me a line.

So, if you didn’t catch my tweets the other day, NPR devoted nearly ten minutes of airtime on Sunday’s All Things Considered to Youtube darlings Pomplamoose and their do-it-yourself approach to a musical career. Listen especially to this exchange between host Linda Wertheimer and guests Nataly Dawn & Jack Conte, around the 3:40 mark:

WERTHEIMER: So is it totally old fashioned to think of a record label as the best way to become a hit band? My understanding is that ultimately, if you really want to make the big bucks, you’ve got to have the record label. You’ve got to have their distribution, their promotion. That is the way to go still.

Ms. DAWN: There’s no simple answer to the question, I don’t think.

Mr. CONTE: Yeah.

Ms. DAWN: I mean, if you can’t just do it all yourself, then you do need help. If, for example, you’re somebody who writes songs, like Lady Gaga, and you need everything, you know, that’s going to make you Lady Gaga, then you need a big, fat label. But if you’re just a band, I don’t think we’re in an era anymore where you need that sort of major backing.

Mr. CONTE: Yeah, I mean, what does it mean, really, to need a label? I mean, we’re making a living. We’ve got a sustainable business. We’re growing every year as a good business should. We’re happy. We don’t have to do things that we don’t want to do. We don’t have to please people that we don’t want to please. We get to make the music that we love.

Yeah, we’re not on the front page of Rolling Stone magazine, and we’re not getting $10 million checks in the mail, but we don’t need that to have a nice life.

Ms. DAWN: And also, our goal has never been to be a huge hit band. We just started…

Mr. CONTE: We want to make a living doing what we like to do.

Ms. DAWN: Exactly. We’re just making a living.

Wonder why I found that bit interesting? Also of interest was an exchange a bit later on the topic of rights (approximately 6:34):

WERTHEIMER: So what happens if Lady Gaga turns around and says: Wait a minute. Did I sell the rights to that song and just don’t remember it?

Mr. CONTE: Oh no, we make sure that we have all our ducks in a row. We bought mechanical licenses to all of our covers before we put them on iTunes. So it’s all legit and legal.

(Soundbite of laughter)

WERTHEIMER: We were sort of curious about that because I think that would be one of the parts of the process that wouldn’t be so cheap.

Mr. CONTE: Oh, yeah.

Ms. DAWN: Yeah. No…

Mr. CONTE: No, but it’s really easy. You go onto harryfox.com. You click buy mechanical license, and boom. You…

Ms. DAWN: That’s the thing. People think that, like, all of these things have to be done by, like, geniuses from, like, behind huge desks or at the top of skyscrapers, but actually you can just go online and do it yourself.

That put me in mind of Wil Wheaton’s experience getting some of the aforementioned Mr Stevens’s t-shirts on TV:

I got to pick out my T-shirts again, and since I was already wearing an Electric Sheep shirt from Diesel Sweeties, I suggested that the costume department may want to look at Rich’s store for ideas. Just like last time, when I suggested Penny Arcade, I was able to get permission from Rich almost instantly via text message. In the old days, this would have been a complicated, time-consuming, inefficient process involving FAXes, phone calls, and a whole bunch of bullshit. It delights me that it’s as simple now as grabbing my phone, sending a text message, and waiting for a reply.

Nearly twenty-five years ago, I first read William Gibson’s description of a specialized company competing against corporate giants: small, fast, ruthless … all Edge. Now, watching independent artists manage their business, nimble enough to turn on a dime, I think I’m finally seeing in action what Gibson had in mind.

The flip side to that, of course, is that the artists have to conduct themselves in a manner that keeps them fast-reacting (ruthless being a matter of opinion), which is tough to maintain over the long term. That being said, just as proto-mammals found a pretty good living on the scraps that behemoth dinosaurs left behind, there’s a lot of eyeballs and money that entertainment conglomerates just don’t know how (or don’t want to bother) to gather up. That’s your target, creators.

We’ll wrap it there; I’ve got some stuff in the mailbag that I want to get to, but I doubt anybody’s still reading after all those quotes. See you tomorrow.

So the MoCCA Art Fest was held over the weekend, and at the end of it, I think everybody had a collective sigh of relief. The heat and organizational problems that plagued last years show didn’t recur. The crowds moved easily and, from the webcomics folks I spoke to, were eager to snap up stuff. The show was a success, and much fun was had, and I got a bunch of stuff. Let’s recap, shall we?

• For me, one of the big thrills was meeting people that I hadn’t before — Jess Fink, Yuko Ota & Ananth Panagariya, Dorothy Gambrell were awesome to make the acquaintance of (whoo, tortured syntax, but I think you take my meaning), and only after I’d left did I realize that I’d missed meeting Andrew Hussie — dang. I also enjoyed meeting more of the crew from :01 Books, because I think they’re putting out the best line of graphic novels in existence right now — thanks to Gina Gagliano for putting me on their distribution list, and to Colleen AF Venable for designing such good-looking books.
• Speaking of Ms Venable, she’s got her own book out now — Hamster & Cheese, the first of a series of six kids books starring a reluctant guinea pig PI, and illustrated by the mightily talented Stephanie Yue. I learned a lot about snakes from the notes in the back of the book, including the following critical information:
  

  If snakes slowly dissolve their food, does this mean they don’t poop? Nope! Snakes poop. They don’t poop very often. When they do — how can I say this nicely? It’s a bit watery. [emphasis original]

  Not only informative, Hamster & Cheese is likely the best kids book of the show in a particular category; I don’t know if publishers have a fancy words for this, but H&C is laid out more like a short graphic novel than anything — panels, word balloons, the works.

• For traditional kids book (whole-page illustrations, text narrating the events), you’d have to go with the very handsome Golden Books tribute, Tigerbuttah by Beck Dreistadt & Frank Gibson. Full disclosure: I was (am?) a Kickstarter supporter of this book, so assume that I was inclined to like it anway. Fact of the matter is, reading this thing is a kick in the childhood nostalgia gland — pokey little puppies and engines that could start swirling in your brain just holding this thing, and seeing the way that the ink looks on the paper stock would drag anybody back to those first experiences of reading on your very own. This book is a marvel, plain and simple, and anybody in the creative industries with any measurable amount of brain should be driving a dumptruck full of money up to Frank & Becky’s front door.
• Weirdly enough, I got a very similar reaction from reading David McGuire’s The 12 Labours of Gastrophobia, even though it could hardly be more different that Tigerbuttah; I think it’s the smell, actually — the aroma of ink and paper is very reminiscent of the books I had as a kid, and the use of white paper with red and black inks also reminds me of the limited color palettes that were the hallmark of books for so very long.

  More than merely dredging out 35 year old memories, McGuire’s choice of color serves him very well, as it makes the entire book look like it could have been drawn on amphorae. As a bonus, there’s an index in the back so you can see which pages were originally animated online, or where webcomics cameos are to be found. He’s also done the best job I’ve ever seen presenting a back-cover bar code.

• Elsewhere, Aaron Diaz had the haunted look of a man that didn’t get nearly enough food or bathroom breaks, mixed with the happy realization that it was because he was swamped with fans wanting his wares. His 2010 sketchbook offers a good look at his (previously seen on Twitter) inspired-by-Tolkien speed paintings (each featuring dominant colors that really resonate emotionally), and news that Dresden Codak will feature more of the Tokamak twins gladdens my heart.
• Just across the aisle, Hope Larson‘s newly-released Mercury was going great guns, and Box Brown‘s Everything Dies #1 & #2 offered up a primer on a pretty wide range of metaphysical beliefs. Jon Rosenberg had an advanced copy of his forthcoming third volume of Goats, which featured the funniest foreword I’ve ever read, courtesy of Lore Sjöberg.
• To all of this one may add the always-delightful presences of (in no particular order) Chris Yates, Ryan North, Raina Telgemeier & Dave Roman (from whom, we now know, there will not be a second volume of X-Men: Misfits, victim of an expired license), Chris Hastings & Carly Monardo (the latter now in a starring role in the new print from Bernie Hou), R Stevens, Sam Brown, Magnolia Porter, Andy Bell, David Malki !, Scott C, Danielle Corsetto (not showing, just wandering the floor and enjoying herself), Kate Beaton, Jeph Jacques (counting the days until C2E2 is done and he can bring home his new dog), various NERDS, Jeff Rowland (who put together the new Axe Cop store at TopatoCo with his laptop and phone on the ride to New York because we are living in the goddamned future), Jen Babcock (who recently did a talk at The Met pointing out that a form of ancient Egyptian popular art was essentially comics in general and Five Card Nancy in particular) and generally more talent than one can shake a stick at, which is why I’m certain that I’ve forgotten half the names I meant to include here, because I wasn’t writing things down. Mea culpa.

Additional photos: My “beards & moustaches” sketchbook grows ever closer to full, with a gorgeous addition from Hope Larson; Dave Roman does the world’s first SFW moustache ride; Kimiko Ross discovers new feelings; a T-Rex grows his beard long enough to stroke with his tiny arms; teenage Raina finds something worse than headgear; and Chester 5000 XYV sprouts a new attachment.

I hadn’t mentioned this before, but the final attendance for the inaugural PAX East: 52,900, capped largely by space availability. Given the size differential between the Hynes Convention Center (ignore the little text label, it’s the building on Boylston that has the round structure in the northeast corner) and the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (site of future PAX East iterations), I’m predicting the attendee count will flirt with 100,000 before the current three-year deal with the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority expires.

To put this in perspective, the BCEC in 2008 (the most recent year I could find numbers for, and prior to the economy pitching a wobbly) listed its most economically impactful conventions as having attendances between 3800 and 35,000 attendees (PDF, page 3), from a total attendance of 444,000 – 489,000 (depending on whether you count fiscal years or calendar years; PDF, page 17). Any way you care to crunch those numbers, PAX East has already significantly increased the convention attendance of a major city, and will only do so to a greater degree in the future.

• Other numbers: 4 and 1000. The former is the number of years that Chris Hallbeck’s The Book of Biff has been running as of today, and the latter would be the update number that Mr Eyebrows will hit on Monday.
• Still another number: 7. Or, more precisely, 07, as in Eben07, shadowy master of espionage and general master of tradecraft. Process documents regarding Mr 07’s working methods are rumored to have surfaced, and in a stunning example of hiding in plain sight, will be displayed in a public art event in Sacramento, CA tomorrow.

  The organizers of the public art display claim no knowledge of this occurrence, but we’ve intercepted written documentation that we believe to be credible. Investigate thoroughly, and remember — the safety of the free world depends on … <signal lost>

John Salzi reboots Little Fuzzy, and taps Jeff Zugale for the cover (which may or may not be used in the printed edition). Sure is pretty, though. Speaking as somebody who loves Piper’s work in general, and the Fuzzy books in particular, I dread seeing a reinterpretation, but will approach with an open mind.

Also speaking as somebody who loves Piper’s work in general, and the Fuzzy books in particular, I hope that Fuzzy Nation (even if it’s abominably awful, which given that it’s Scalzi writing, I doubt that it will be) is an enormous success, leading to somebody bringing Piper’s works back into widespread print. My copies of the Paratime stories fell apart years ago, as did my copy of The Cosmic Computer, and Uller Uprising‘s binding isn’t looking too good.

• Speaking of books, you can get a 10% discount on Paul Taylor’s fourth Wapsi Square collection by typing the code SHOWERS in at checkout; this offer remains good through the month of April.
• Eisner nominations are out (you can read ’em either at the site of Heidi Mac or The Spurge), and we have an answer to the perennial question as to what form the works cited for Best Digital Comic will take. This time, it appears that full-page-updates, long-form, ongoing stories (as opposed to a finished piece of a few dozen pages) are in favor, with Fleen Faves The Abominable Charles Christopher and Sin Titulo getting the nod alongside Bayou, The Guns of Shadow Valley, and Power Out. Congrats to nominees Karl Kerschl, Cameron “She’s Not My Sister, Dammit” Stewart, Jeremy Love, David Wachter & James Andrew Clark, and Nathan Schreiber.
• Because every creator everywhere, everywhen needs to read it, that’s why — a story making the blog- and Twitter-rounds about being asked to contribute to a profit-making work “for the exposure”:
  

  The weird thing is, you’re the only one out of about 100 people we’ve contacted who’s made an issue out of this. Not the first to ask about money, but the first to make an issue out of it. I suspect people play along with us because they’re of Mind One, and as for Mind Two, they think the payoff will be in good karma.

  Anybody starts talking like that to you, run.

I actually voiced “Hooray, ship!” when this came in a moment ago. From Phil Foglio:

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary people, periodically test out new slang to see if it should be added to the accepted compendium of the English language. As of today, they are floating, amongst others, the term ‘webcomic’. Exciting enough, but to illustrate everything a webcomic can be, they have foolishly chosen us.

No, really. Not sure how long it will be up, so check it out while you can.