Many things today:

• The Hugo Award nominations are out and as expected, Schlock Mercenary (by Howard Tayler, aka my evil twin) and Girl Genius (by Phil and Kaja Foglio aka the most charming people in the world) both have print collections up for Best Graphic Story. It’s worth noting that Tayler is also nominated in the Best Related Work catgory for Writing Excuses, a podcast that he produces with Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells.

  Rounding out the webcomics-related activity, Randall Munroe has been nominated as Best Fan Artist, which seems an odd fit, but it’s apparently been a category with a history of odd fits so that’s all right. Those with memberships (excepting the “Child” category) to the World Science Fiction Convention (this year in the form of Renovation in Reno Nevada) are entitled to vote on the winners, to be presented in August. Fleen congratulates the webcomicky nominees.

• Blank Label gets a little larger today as Gordon McAlpin (aka my sporting bet nemesis) brings Multiplex into the fold. In terms of visual style, storytelling style, and update schedule, this seems like a nice, complementary fit for BLC’s current members, Kel McDonald, Spike, and David Willis. Welcome aboard, Gordon.
• I see on my regularly-consulted 2011 edition of the Wondermark calendar that today marks the 8th birthday of Wondermark. One wonders if such an odd confluence of inputs — Victorian era woodcut art, David Malki !’s persistently clever wordplay (with the occasional foray into sac ants for variety), and a sense of go-for-broke creativity — could have been predicted to persist for so long and to have birthed opportunities for so many side projects. Curiously, no mention of this milestone appears on the Wondermark site, presumably because Malki ! is too busy putting together the last elements of tomorrow’s Machine of Death Live Stage Spectacular.
• We’re down to less than three hours until the second set of Chris Yates original webcomics-series Baffler! puzzles go on sale. This week’s haul includes an adorable kitty by Becky Dreistadt, ninjas by Sam Logan, and entirely SFW Chester by Jess Fink, a leapin’ McPedro by Danielle Corsetto, a typically bulgy-eyed pug by Dave Kellett, a pixel T-Rex by Ryan North, and an all-business Sheriff Pony by Jeff Rowland, all of which may be seen here. My favorite part? The cactus-shaped piece (a Yates trademark) in the McPedro puzzle. They go on sale today at 4:00pm Mountain Time (UTC-6) at the Baffler! store.
• Pre-orders are up for Zach Weiner’s first SMBC collection, Save Yourself, Mammal!. Given more than 2000 strips in the SMBC archive and this being the first collection of said strips, it’s of necessity taking a best-of approach. Which means that you’ll find no eh, it was okay strips included just because they fell in the same week as a couple of real rib-ticklers (the non-continuity aspects of SMBC make this fairly easy to do).

  As previously noted, 100% of the profits from SY,M will go to Donors Choose to fund classrooms across the US and help support the development of the next generation of tech nerds; what I didn’t see mention of before is that the book is being released under a Creative Commons license (specifically, Noncommercial 3.0 Unported), and that given the books have to be ready for the launch party in just under two weeks, your pre-ordered copy should ship starting a mere two weeks from today. All hail Weiner and the mad geniuses behind breadpig, because they know how to get things done.

Logistical note: work will, for the next couple of days, take me to the premises of a large financial institution that shall remain nameless¹ and which will provide me no net access aside from what I eke out on my phone. Minimal, severely delayed, or entirely absent updates are anticipated, and we at Fleen thank you in advance for your patience.

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¹ But the name rhymes with scold man; snacks, which sounds like notes that could be expanded into a pretty interesting update in a story-oriented comic, possibly Skin Horse.