It’s hot. And not in the good way, either. Think cool thoughts, chum, and here’s some webcomickry to help distract you from the fact that small dogs are spontaneously bursting into flame out on the sidewalk.

• Latin heartthrob Aaron Diaz tweeted up a storm of artistic advice last night; I’m not any kind of artist, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge the helpfulness, but these looked pretty good. Highlights included:
  Don’t overuse 1-point perspective. The most “common” or natural perspective is normally 2-point.

  Actually remembered some more essentials (bear with me): In digital painting, don’t use two base tones for faces/skin. It’s too small. You need warmer tones for tips of nose & ears, as blood vessels are closer to the surface. The paler the skin, the starker the redness.

  Good comics (imo) shouldn’t mimic photographs because a comic panel has to capture several moments. We have to exaggerate poses to convey it. This is why (generally but not always) photo comics come off as really stiff. They’re little slices that don’t convey action.

  If your characters are interacting with their environment in a panel, always render the environment first. This helps avoid “body floating.”

  I think it’s important to have the right balance of self-hatred (knowing everything you draw sucks) and ego (knowing you can get better). Estimate 87% self-hatred.

  There was lots more, and fortunately Diaz has semi-promised a more permanent archive of advice after next Dresden Codak update goes live (which should be this week).

• Jeff Zugale (creator of the most awesome painting ever) was also in wisdom mode, with advice to the working artist on the all-important topic of getting paid:
  Simple rule, artists: NEVER, EVER EVER work for anyone who can’t or won’t pay you upon completion, or within 30 days of it by contract. Exceptions to the simple rule: known good clients, work brought in by your agent, charitable contributions, and work you do for yourself.

  Also, artists: beware agreeing to “total fee” for the work up front. You leave yourself open to endless changes for which you won’t get paid.

  Real clients agree to pro payment terms without trouble. If their budget is small, they tell you, and you can offer simpler work, or pass.

• Back to comicking after a two-month hiatus: Max Huffman (no longer 15 years old, thank you very much), creator of Mocktopus, having successfully crowd-funded his new drawin’ computer. The laugh-chuckles resume here.
• Is it just me, or would a Pinkwater-scribed webcomic be just about average on the weirdness scale in our weird little medium? In any event, newspapers in 1989/1990 couldn’t handle what he was dishing out, but Shaenon Garrity is willing to share what we all missed out on.

I’m celebrating the end of both Order of Tales (two chapters, consisting of 81 full pages) and The Anime Club (part 5, 22 images, each with upwards of a dozen panels) with comprehensive re-readings of both epics.

Carly Monardo’s Web-Comics Auction for the Gulf Coast has gone live, with the first batch of six offerings now biddable. Each day until Friday, another five to seven pieces will go up, with the auctions running for ten days. Prices start at $5.00 (US) plus shipping, and people seem not to have noticed the auction is live yet, because there’s a Becky Dreistadt original gouache painting that’s presently going for six bucks. That won’t last long, but still — incredible bargains to be had in service to a good cause. By the end of the week, there will be 28 different auctions to browse, so scrape up all the spare cash you can and good luck to all the bidders.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have about a thousand pages of webcomics to re-read.

Let’s get this thing done — I gots grillin’ to do this weekend.

• Something I saw on Twitter last night that you might have missed:
  

  oops, I missed a few months when I transferred to the new site. I hit 3k two comics ago. Ah well, I’ll do a big strip for the 4,000th toon.

  Which, if my count is correct, would make this the 3000th update of The Devil’s Panties, complete with color. The list of webcomics long runners at the 3000 threshold appears to now number 12, and in a few weeks will hit 13. Well done Jennie Breeden, and (in three weeks) Dave Kellett.

• We’ve mentioned a number of the Meredith Gran Octotour dates here, and we’ve missed mentioning a few. What looks to be one of the larger signings will kick off on Tuesday, 7 July at Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn. The fun starts at 7:00pm, and Gran will be joined by R Stevens, Jon Rosenberg, and Chris Hastings signing their own offerings, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see other webcomics luminaries drop in to say howdy. This is my local stop on Gran’s tour, and dammit, I can’t make it. Tuesday is EMS night, and if we get no calls I am gonna be pissed. Hear that, citizens? Get seriously sick and/or injured to justify my absence from this event.
• Blast from the past: it’s got to be five years now since Scotty Arsenault’s Commander Kitty went on a temporary hiatus that became pretty permanent. Yesterday I got an email from Arsenault informing me that the hiatus was over, and CK is back. There was a lot of goofy fun in those strips way back when, and the reboot seems to be just as enjoyable. Whether you ever read about the intrepid spacefaring felines before or not, take a moment to check out the all-new Commander Kitty.

Best wishes to the entire Canadian contingent of webcomicdom — it seems that every other person I know in this crazy community is/was/will be Canadian one way or another. Happy Canada Day to them all, and to you non-Canadians as well. In the heart of hearts, we’re all Canadian.

• News broke in the past few hours that Zudacomics has folded, effective now-ish; Zuda ended its competition format about two months back, and it looks like the new submission format won’t take place, at least not under the established name. From Ron Perazza’s blog post:
  

  It is the new DC Co-Publishers’ plan to expand submissions beyond just Zuda Comics and the Online group into a larger, more comprehensive system that covers all of DC Comics’ wide variety of needs, skills and interests. Jim and Dan are very excited about bringing in and developing new talent so look for more information about that from them as plans develop.

  As for the site, from here on out, Zuda Comics will be folded into DC Comics’ exciting, new Digital Publishing initiative. Expect more Zuda series to be released through the DC Comics and comiXology Apps, the Sony PSP and on both the comiXology website and, eventually, the main DC Comics website as well. You’ll be able to read all of your digital editions and manage your entire library in one place, whether DCU, Vertigo, WildStorm or Zuda. The goal there is convergence of technology and convergence of editorial.

  Not an unforseeable action to take, but I have to admit to a certain amount of … trepidation about that last sentence: The goal there is convergence of technology and convergence of editorial. While I haven’t seen anything announced regarding Zudastaff being shown the Zudadoor, I’ve worked for big corporations long enough to pick up on euphemism in public announcements, and right now convergence of editorial sounds a hell of a lot like Bob has decided to pursue other interests.

  It’s no secret that I thought that the competition model of Zuda wasn’t the best thing that [web]comics could develop, but everybody I’ve met associated with Zuda has been an absolutely stellar, professional, admirable person. Here’s hoping that in the condensation of the the imprint into regular ol’ DC, the individuals find their way to stable, rewarding work quickly.

• Speaking of uncertainty, something I saw yesterday may be of interest to those of you that process credit card transactions — starting today, small merchants are compelled to participate in a data-security initiative:
  

  From 1 July small and medium enterprises using electronic point of sale terminals and e-commerce systems need to reach basic compliance with an entry-level version of the standard or face higher merchant fees or, in extreme cases such as in the aftermath of security breaches, the withdrawal of merchant statuses.
  …
  Requirements include a mandate to build a secure network and protect cardholder data. Compliance is achieved by self-assessment for mom and pop shops processing less than 20,000 e-commerce transactions a year and compulsory external audits for e-commerce heavyweights.

  Those of you using Google Checkout or PayPal, it would appear the onus is on them, as they would be the actual payment processors. Creators with their own swipecard merchant accounts (hello, Square users) might think that 20 000 transactions a year is a lot (more than 50 transactions a day, after all), but they could add up quickly. If you’ve reached the point of establishing your own merchant account, make sure you read the fine print.