Could it possibly be too early to congratulate Ryan North and Jenn Klug on their upcoming (this weekend) nuptials? No, it could not possibly. In fact, Ryan is such a large man, I suspect that each year will require several days of congratulations on either side of the actual date to adequately express ones appreciation of said marriage. Happy first night of RyanAndJennyMas, everybody.

Also, there will be rad Dinosaur Comics guest strips for a while, such as the above standout by John Allison.

• Breaking news! David Malki ! and Dave Kellett, in accordance with ancient Dave Law (and that community service thing they got slapped with) are raising money for 826 Valencia‘s Los Angeles chapter, 826LA. They are doing so by competing in a spelling bee that allows teams to cheat based on how much money they raise. I’ll let Mr Malki ! explain:
  

  [I]t takes place August 14 in Santa Monica, CA. Keith, Dave Kellett and I are on a team called “The Sweaty Hams,” because we are all men and, well, sometimes things happen. We’re somewhat late-comers to the fundraising game, so we are trying to raise pledges to buy “cheats” so we can be competitive in the event!

  Cheats include passing on a difficult word, buying immunity after spelling a word wrong, swapping places with another team member, and other non-officially-endorsed-by-the-American-Spelling-Association deviousnesses. (See how I used a word that’s probably not in their official lexicon?) We only get cheats — and thus, a fighting chance against the other teams with loads of cheats — if we raise money! 826LA is a volunteer-based organization that helps kids in a number of remarkable and wonderful ways. Will you please help our team with a donation?

  The event is less than two weeks away and thanks to rudderless team leadership we are entering the fundraising race way at the back of the pack. PLEASE DO NOT LET US FAIL IN THIS

  AS WE DO MOST EVERYTHING ELSE [emphasis original]

  Guys, I’m going to be honest here. Neither David nor Dave is necessarily “down” enough with your arbitrary “rules” to spell words “correctly” and if they bomb at this competition it will look bad for webcomics as a whole. They are going to need all the help they can get to keep from embarrassing you personally; even getting a simple one-letter hint costs a hundred smackers, and something tells me they’re going to rely on the Invent-A-Word ploy ($1500 each) a lot. A couple bucks now could save a lot of heartache later.

• New Octopus Pie after Meredith Gran’s book-tour hiatus, and even better — there will be more every Monday-Wednesday-Friday! Also, her studiomate (and Latin Heartthrob) Aaron Diaz has the results of the Dresden Codak Reenactment Contest, meaning it’s been a hell of a productive time at Dunning-Kreger Solutions, Ltd.

I’ve largely completed my SDCC acquired media binge. Selected two-sentence reviews follow:

• Flight 7: Prepare to have your mind blown as Michel Gagné’s Rex folds back on itself recursively, with captions connecting to the next part of the story, found in Flight 2. The rest is simply wonderful, with Kazu Kibuishi adhering most closely to the now largely-forgotten theme suggested by the series title.
• Family Man: Dylan Meconis is very, very good with the art, very, very complete with the footnotes, and very, very evil to leave us on the cliffhanger she did. Give her your attention and money.
• SMBC Theater Goes To Hell: This DVD collection of sketches goes out of its way to convince me that Zach Weiner and James Ashby are the rudest, foulest, and generally worst people in the world, and succeeds. So I guess that’s good for them?
• Koko Be Good Not actually obtained in San Diego because Gina Gagliano assured me a complimentary review copy would be waiting for me at home and it was. Jen Wang’s story of finding out that what you think you want isn’t always what you really want has been haunting me, and is easily the best thing I’ve read since Tracy White’s How I Made It To Eighteen; highest recommendation, obtain on day-of-release if you enjoy things that are awesome.

Edit to clarify: the SMBC Theater DVD was given to me by the creators, and to add previously-missed links.