Let’s get the crowdfunding items out of the way first, shall we?

• Surprising absolutely nobody, Matthew Inman crushed his BearLove Good, Cancer Bad goal by a factor of eleven¹. All that remains now is for him to take the photo (presumably at the bank, because I wouldn’t want to carry around the price of a house in cash without multiple armed guards); with any luck, the bills will be small enough that they add up to a really big pile of money that Inman can roll around in. That will be one awesome photo.
• Surprising absolutely even more nobodies, Zach Weinersmith is up over 250% of his fundraising goal for Trial of the Clone in the first 36 hours or so. To celebrate, he’s released the first couple of paragraphs of TotC as a public update, which features this beautiful summation of life’s fundamental meaning:
  

  The first emotion you feel in your life is disappointment. Interestingly, it’ll also be your last emotion, and about 80% of the emotions in between.

  Spoiler alert: assuming that Weinersmith is talking about the protagonist of TotC and not you personally, that 80% estimate may be on the low side.

• Surprising, if mathematically possible, negative anybody, running a crowdfunding campaign is not an exact science, and careful planning is a must. Ed Brisson recently wrapped an IndieGoGo campaign for Murder Book 3, and he’s got some lessons to share with you, should you be inclined to learn. Pay special attention to the final accounting of funds about 2/3 of the way down the page:
  

  Of that $2311, here are the expenses:

  • Fees (PayPal, IndieGoGo): $172.39
  • Printing: $1361.92
  • Shipping & Shipping Supplies: $620
  • Money to Artists: $811
  • Total: -$654.31

  Yes. Negative $654.31. [emphasis original]

  If that didn’t catch your interest, you are not paying enough attention to have a crowdfunding campaign.

• Noted at The AV Club in their review of last night’s episode of Adventure Time:
  

  If you did not pick up last week’s Adventure Time #5, you missed one of the best comics of the entire year². Not only do you get a story where BMO pits Finn versus Jake for a cupcake, but there’s an amazingly trippy Paul Pope story in which our duo goes on an adventure through the consciousness of a comic book creator. And Marceline And The Scream Queens comes out next month!

  Well done Ryan North, and pre-emptively well done, Meredith Gran. Speaking of MatSQ, Ms Gran wants you to know:

  oh hell yeah, @badmachinery is doing some Marceline covers! featuring a first look at the Scream Queens: http://boompen.tumblr.com/post/25886238899/hey-dudes-its-shannon-with-freakin-exciting

  For those that don’t know, @badmachinery would be webcomicker extraordinaire and gentleman, John Allison; and more than just a guest cover, he’s doing variant covers for all six issues, which would surely be snatched up at your local comic shop as soon as they hit. This has led to something I haven’t seen a comics publisher do previously³: rather than have violence break out, the Allison covers will be available by subscription only. Single issue here, set of six here.

• Finally, as a combo platter of something I noticed on twitter, and later via comment from the man himself, Ryan Estrada is in fact dropping more comics on us:
  

  Oh, hey how about ONE MORE EARLY MORNING SECRET? http://twitpic.com/a0o9vv #nowwithoscarnominee

  That would be a second shared-setting story anthology, featuring creators justly renowned far and wide. Guys, I’m having to add a sentence so I can link everybody, and I’m pretty sure I missed some. He’s even got the freakin’ Comics Curmudgeon in there!

  And to clarify yesterday’s post, I should have said that I suspected the image of The Kind You Don’t Take Home To Mother meant a full-length treatment of that story, not just a print version of the existing story, which is pretty much what Estrada told us.

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¹ Okay, I may have predicted a factor of twelve and a half, but close enough.

² This is not hyperbole; the done-in-one story was exquisite, easily the best that Ryan North (Nexus of All Webcomics And Also Print Comics Realities, Canadian Directorate) has done so far, and had me snerking out loud during my train ride home from work.

³ By which, I don’t mean, “offer a variant cover for more money than the usual”; there are comics publishers that seemingly make rent money each month by doing nothing but that. What I meant was, in my limited experience (having never worked for a comics publisher, distributor, or retailer), the variant-covers-at-markup normally seem to be pitched to the stores, sometimes requiring the shop to order a specific (large) number of copies in order to be able to also obtain the variant. By contrast, this is pitched to the actual readers.