Our Canadian friends (aka the Politest Conquerors) took care of Thanksgiving six weeks ago, on a Monday, and then got back to work. We from Down South will eat ourselves into a coma and take off Friday. What difference could one day’s productivity make?

• Answer #1: You could get to meet Mister The Frog, like Kate Beaton did. All those who are blind envious may now raise their hands or flippers or whatever. Me, I’m not, because me ‘n’ Kermit, we hang out all the time. In fact, here he is just chillin’ with my dog. Yep, totally not incredibly envious after watching the full-length interview (presumably, a full interview with Beaton will be posted soon).
• Answer #2: You could get to write the comic book adaptation of Adventure Time as Ryan North is apparently doing now. Again, not blind envious that North chose to share the news first with Comics Alliance on account of the fact that I am, to date, the sole comics-related sort-of journalist who’s been given the full scoop on the secret code embedded into his Dinosaur Comics books. Yep, no problems here.

  Additionally, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that one of the artists on the Adventure Time comic will be Braden Lamb, artist of the unfortunately-hiatused Kitty Hawk, which I hell of enjoyed back when it was still updating. I think Finn and Jake (and dare I hope, Fionna and Cake?) are in good hands.

• Anniversary time! As far as I know, Randy Milholland is not Canadian¹ despite his thorough documentation of Canada’s most dangerous wildlife. He has, on the other hand, been at this webcomics game for a long time, having passed the ten year mark and who knows how many comics²this past weekend.

  It’s been a long time since he lobbed an abortion joke in his very first strip, but nobody can say that Milholland wasn’t in it for the long haul. Per the blogposting on today’s update, as early as the first appearance of Choo-Choo Bear, scarcely a month into Something*Positive’s run, he was planning out what to do with the pudding cat in Year Five.

  Also, nobody can dispute that Milholland is the master of finding ways to let characters (even the most unlikeable) be complete people, none of them entirely perfect (ha!) or despicable, and allowing them to mature and change in organic, realistic ways. For all the grumptacular facade he puts up, he, more than any other webcomics creator³, understands the possibilities of redemption and wanting to grow as a person, no matter how hard it is at times (or how easy it is to put up barriers and walls).

  Even given all the bluster and dickery and awfulness that Milholland’s cast unleashes on each other, they all aspire on some level to be better. The name of the strip may have been intended as awful and cynical and ironic, but it’s become something that one can read and find legitimately optimistic. Bravo, and happy stripaversary, beardy-man.

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¹ One could argue that, being a Texan, Milholland is genetically predisposed towards the opposite of Canadianess. However, I can state from personal experience that he doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold of Texaness either, so perhaps he’s got some recessive Canadian genes.

² I could count the number of updates on his various archive pages, but aside from the question as to whether or not to count his side projects like New Gold Dream or Midnight Macabre, there’s a hell of a lot of them and thus I’m not going to. Deal.

³ Possible exception: Tatsuya Ishida.