Vive L’alliance de la bande dessinée. Or more precisely, somebody please tell me where the very talented writers from Comics Alliance [link may not work much longer] end up, since their site (the only comics site I read regularly) got axed by parent company AOL. I really liked CA, I liked the writers, I liked their approach which appreciated comics in all its varied forms (not to mention the respect they gave to webcomics — do a search there for as long as the site is live on “Nedroid” say, or “Jess Fink”). They reveled in the most batshit insane¹ of comics, thought deeply about how comics tell their stories, poked fun at the comics they couldn’t stop reading and always somehow found happiness in a shared legacy of the world’s greatest heroes (and Aquaman).

The fact that those last three links lead to pieces written by the same guy should tell you something. I have no doubt that none of the CA staffers and stringers will have much trouble landing in their next writing gigs (and boy do I hope that they take the Eisner Award that they’re nominated for this year); in the meantime, if you haven’t already, maybe toss a thank you towards the staff of CA as they disperse (hopefully to coalesce together again — like Voltron, they are mightier together than in their constituent parts). And if it won’t get you fired, they’ve already received the ultimate accolade in a pop culture-saturated world: an angry tirade about their fate from a noted friend of comics [NSFW on account of naughty subtitles and oh yeah — Hitler].

Nevertheless, there is always good news to be found, and little is more regarded as good news in these parts than a new project from Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson, this time a book launch party for the Capture Creatures collection. Those with long memories may recall that Capture Creatures launched at the beginning of 2012, with a goal of finishing the 151 painting series, a gallery show, and a book collection in the same year.

Along the way, other things intruded², and the completion of Capture Creatures pushed back to 2013. Good news: the painting are apparently done, since the gallery show will launch in LA on 1 June. And with the completion of the paintings comes the comprehensive book (including the creatures we haven’t seen on the site yet), details of which I am solemnly assured are nearly upon us. We at Fleen will bring you the details as soon as we can, and in the meantime, dibs on whichever creature might be based on the greyhound, if such a thing exists.

_______________
¹ So to speak.

² Dreistadt did more than 300 (!) paintings last year, so I think we can cut her some slack.

You can tell how well a particular comics awards program meets the standard of “credibility” or “legitimacy” by how closely it matches my ballot. Okay, kidding, but face it — that’s how we all think; if we agree with the winners then it’s good and if we disagree then we can’t believe what idiots the jury/voters/whoever are. By this (admittedly solipsistic) standard, the 2013 Stumptown Comic Arts Awards were pretty damn good. Let’s take a rundown, shall we?

Of the eleven categories, it appears that eight come from the webcomicky world; granted, one of those is for Best Webcomic, which is pretty much guaranteed to represent our weird little community, so maybe it’s really closer to seven out of ten. A’course, Best Webcomic went to Evan Dahm for Vattu which was my choice, so yay.

The big winner of the night was undoubtedly Spike, taking Best Anthology for Smut Peddler (with a few dozen fellow contributors) and Best Small Press for Poorcraft (with Diana Nock). Carla Speed McNeil has been running Finder as a webcomic for a while now, and the reissue of Talisman saw her recognized as Best Cartoonist and Best Leterer.

Kory Bing’s Skin Deep (specifically the chapter entitled Exchanges¹) led to gongs for Best Colorist and Best New Talent². The Reader’s Choice Award went to EK Weaver for The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal.

If all that weren’t cool enough, the design of the awards themselves is pretty neat: a plaque with a little big-eyed monster-critter, as seen in photos shared by Ms Bing, Mr Dahm, and Ms Spike. It’s a fun touch³, one that says You don’t need to take this too seriously, let’s all just have fun now, which is exactly how we should approach comics.

Fleen congratulates all the winners, and all the voters for having such good taste (defined, of course, as liking the same things that we at Fleen like). Now if only somebody could talk to the [insert name of your least favorite award for anything here] voters, then we’d be set.

_______________
¹ On the web, Exchanges dates from 2009, but it’s recently made it to print.

² In another case of laboring long before finally breaking out as a “new” talent, Bing’s Skin Deep has been updating since late 2006.

³ Possibly not as fun as the brick that forms the Ignatz Award, but with less chance of being seized by security prior to your flight home.

It’s very nearly the weekend, so let’s keep this brief and then we can all go out and enjoy it. ‘Sides, half of webcomics is¹ either at or in transit to one show or another right about now so it’s kinda quiet.

• Quiet except for the promise of sexytimes, as Hurricane Erika has finally launched a new, ongoing, weekly webcomic: Oh Joy, Sex Toy [PNSFYWBWDIK²]. While the focus of OJST would seem to be on the exploration and review of sex toys, Moen makes it clear in the first installment (and on her twitterfeed) that if it makes happyparts happy, it’s fair game.

  As readers of this page have no doubt divined by this point, I think that Erika Moen does some of the best comic out there: fearless, honest, beautiful to look at, and they always teach me something³. I am more eager than ever for the forthcoming projects that she’s mentioned, including a graphic novel about a woman whose sketchbook comes to life, and a second that’s focused on sex education for teens (who in many cases don’t get honest information in school). She also has the rare ability to make truly terrifying things appear almost cute; not cuddly, mind you, but definitely cute.

• On the other side of the cute scale, the inimitable Gigi DG launched her Cucumber Quest Book One Kickstart just about a year ago, and it was a runaway success. Since then she’s been part of the absolutely gorgeous Benign Kingdom Spring 2013 collection, and today she launched the campaign for Cucumber Quest book 2. At current trends, she’ll hit goal around the twelve hour mark, and will go far, far beyond the US$12,000 she’s seeking. Ms DG’s work is wonderful in nearly every way, so if you like wonderful things by all means check it out.

________________
¹ Are? “Webcomics” is plural, but I’m using it to represent a singular community, and the “half of” is a single subunit. If only somebody knew singular/plural rules like your Ryans North know about the compound plural.

² Possibly Not Safe For Your Work But What Do I Know?

³ Ranging from what it’s like in her head (and goodness, has it really been more than three years since DAR wrapped) to the notion that Juggalos are more than just their clownish exteriors. I was pretty ingrained with my anti-juggalism, so kudos to Moen and her co-creator Jeff Parker for knocking some awareness into me.

Five Fs worth of alliteration? Might be a personal record. Also, Fleen personnel upgraded WordPress and plug-ins in response to the current exploit going around, so let us know if anything is behaving oddly.

• I’m assuming you’ve seen this first piece already, but just in case: a scammer or scammers unknown are lifting Kickstarter campaigns wholesale (straight down to text and video) and reproducing them on IndieGoGo so as to rake in money by piggybacking on legitimate campaigns. Kudos to Chris Sims at Comics Alliance for the full story¹, which has grown by at least one more attempt in the time since his story went up.

Conventions! Half of [web]comics is traveling to one show or another. If you’re in transit and prepping up your exhibit or alley space, :01 Books has some handy tabling tips that even veteran pros could stand to give a quick-once over. So where can you see these people? Depends on where you go (and names are in no particular order, and likely to be missing names that really should be there).

• Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon typically shoots for an indy-/smaller press feel, though there are plenty of big names coming to town. Webcomickers and similar types you may see there will include Bill Mudron, Boulet, Spike (no doubt with copies of the Too Hot For Gumroad Smut Peddler in hand), Diana Nock, Dylan Meconis, Emi Lenox, “Hurricane” Erika Moen (debuting her new, weekly webcomic tomorrow!), Evan Dahm, Faith Erin Hicks, Hope Larson (with her brand new Who Is AC?), James Kochalka, Jenn Manley Lee, Kel McDonald, Kory Bing, Mac Schubert, Matt Bors, Phil Foglio, Rembrand Le Compte, and the suspiciously named Tyrell Cannon, who has a comic called “Gary” what the hell, people.
• Meanwhile, the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo in Calgary, Alberta will see a somewhat more mainstream crowd, but has proven to be a lucrative show in the past for webbish types like the Blind Ferret crew, Sam Logan, Joel Watson, Danielle Corsetto, Jennie Breeden, a TopatoCo contingent (including Jeph Jacques, KC Green, and Meredith Gran), Alina Pete, and Jim Zub.
• Finally, C2E2 in Chicago, Illinois hasn’t really gained traction with the webcomics crowd (one indicator: Spike apparently opted to incur flight, shipping, and hotel costs for Stumptown rather than stay home in Chicago for this weekend), but you’ll still find Ramón Pérez, Chris Giarusso, the Cyanide & Happiness clade, Ed Brisson, Mike Isenberg, Oliver Mertz, and Daniel Lapham, Katie Cook, and BOOM! Studios (although it appears none of the creators from their Adventure Time or Regular Show projects).

Superfans may wish to note that it is probably just possible to hit all three shows this weekend. This is not a request or a recommendation, just an observation.

_______________
¹ Also for FunkyWatch, which allows me to keep a weather eye on the most miserablist strips in history without having to read them myself. I think that falls clearly into the category of taking one for the team.

It started innocently enough, with Paul Southworth musing on Twitter about a movie trailer, like you do:

Why does the old man say “I can make you mortal” in the Wolverine trailer? Wolverine isn’t immortal. He can/will die eventually, right?

If you detonated a warhead in his colon or waited 5,000 years, I feel like Wolverine would probably be dead.

Wolverine healing himself together after being torn in half? Awesome. Reassembling himself from scattered atoms? We have crossed a line.

‘Nother day, ‘nother set of opinions on comics, but then somebody¹ had to go and blow it all straight to Hades. See, the only two things I really remember from high school biology class (which I never did very well with) are genetics (it’s got math! and something resembling certainty!) and the paramecium (the “white mice” of single-cell life). Certain species of paramecia would, if cut in two, completely regenerate into two whole little critters; the parallels were obvious:

If you tear him in half, do you end up with two Wolverines?

As was the cost of such speculation:

@fleenguy You, my friend, have just written the next 7 months of Wolverine. Congratulations!

So, yeah, sorry about that. Marvel’s gonna have to come up with some new adjective to pre-pend to the many, many Wolverine comics and it’s all my fault. On the bright side, maybe Jim Zub can borrow whatever that new adjective might be, seeing as how Zub loves him some adjectives.

Yeah, okay, you got me — while the above exchange did take place spontaneously, I’m really just bringing it up because it’s a good reason to talk about the enlightening Mr Zub again, especially as he’s recently written the first installment of a multi-part series on effective communication as part of his ongoing habit of sharing the hard-learned lessons in a decade of making indy comics. The paragraph I keep coming back to is:

This may seem like an odd topic for a tutorial but, believe me, it’s just as important as anything else I’ve covered so far. The quality of your communication and how you’re perceived as a communicator has a direct correlation to how you’re treated as a professional.

Boy-howdy, I’m glad that Zub said it², because there are people in the [web]comics world that desperately need this lesson.³ Guys, if you are your brand, how you communicate “you” is important; your personality, your POV, your humor can all help to build that brand. But if you’re building something with its own identity, something professional, you have to switch those parts of “you” off that don’t convey professional in your public pronouncements.

You may get great mileage out of lolspeak or edgy humor, but as soon as the conversation shifts from you-personally to you-the-person-that-is-negotiating-contracts-proposals-and-money, you need to be somebody else. Somebody entirely professional, probably a bit boring, and relentlessly correct in your spelling and syntax.

Even if you can pull off the trick of shifting voice, anybody that looks you up and finds the other voice on the same venue (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, whatever) is going to suffer from some degree of cognitive whiplash, with the likeliest outcome being that the people that want to see “regular you” don’t notice the difference but the people that need to see “professional you” don’t get the impression you’re trying to make. Consider it the work equivalent of accidentally sending naughty pics to your Mom.

If you’ve ever found it useful to have different email addresses for personal use versus business use, it’s probably time to make the same decision for your social media interactions. Just remember which account you’re logged into, okay? I know what a pain it is to find one social media client that you can be comfortable with, but if you need that division of message, you’d be better off finding different clients for different accounts to lessen the chances of spillover.

________________
¹ Hi.

² And said it better than I ever could have.

³ No names, so you can assume I’m talking about the person sitting next to you.

What to do when your e-book publisher decides to drop comics of an adult nature, including your very popular anthology that is surely bringing in a considerable amount of money? Sale on the physical copy, naturally. Let’s let Smut Peddler editor Spike tell the story:

Hey folks FYI: Gumroad has temporarily dropped adult content. But Smut Peddler will be available on Comixology, starting in May!

I’ve been working with Comixology for a while to get my stuff on there, and it’s scheduled to go live in a couple of weeks. EXCITED.

SALE: Smut Peddler is ALL GUMMED UP! Until April 30th, physical copies of this fabulous anthology are 33% OFF!

That was where it stood 30 minutes ago (as of the time of writing this paragraph): unfortunate occurrence, making the best of it, resilience of the artist, etc. Then I noticed that Bleeding Cool was reporting on this situation, and their report (more precisely, a link from their report) made this situation seem a bit more … tawdry.

Not because of the porn (especially tastefully done porn, predominantly from the ladies), and not because Gumroad pulled Smut Peddler (taking credit cards means that they have to adhere to policies put forth by the card companies and payment processors, a situation that has tripped up more than one previous purveyor of porntastic provisions). See, the Bleeding Cool piece talked with a guy who had his gay-themed e-book pulled by Gumroad, and he asked why, if he’s being pulled, is Smut Peddler allowed to be on the service?

More precisely, he asked three times, by name, in all caps, via an open posting on Facebook.

All of which leads me to a dilemma. We at Fleen are not in favor of rewarding people who behave poorly with links or attention. Yet we also realize that you shouldn’t necessarily take my interpretation of this situation at face value, and you should have the opportunity to judge for yourself, which is less likely to happen if you have to go searching all over the hell’s half-acre that is the internet to find what I’m talking about.

So here’s what I’ve done: Ive screenshotted the posting that the person in question made to Facebook (seen above), and removed his name. This is for two reasons:

1. If I’m being unduly harsh, the creator in question doesn’t deserve to have his name unduly linked with critical rhetoric.
2. If, on the other hand, my gut feeling on this is correct and the creator in question is engaging in behavior somewhere between a hissy fit and sour grapes¹, he doesn’t deserve the publicity that even a critical assessment would bring him.

In any event: Smut Peddler’s on sale for 33% off until the end of the month.

Let’s talk about things that are more unambiguously positive, ‘kay?

• The Jeff Rowland’s Flickr account has a new video up showing some of the activity around the in-renovations future home of TopatoCo. At one point in the video (18 seconds, to be precise), Rowland approaches a road roller, leading to the possibility that joyrides may take place at some point in the future. There is no part of this that could possibly end unawesomely.
• There are several webcomics “review” sites that are little more than exercises in drive-by vandalism, delighting in the negative for the sheer nihilistic joy of it². So I am overjoyed to see a new webcomics review site pop up that is dedicated to the prospect of sharing what the author finds to be good rather than tearing down what’s subjectively bad.³ Ladies and gentlemen, may I commend to you Robynne Blume’s Webcomics Worth Wreading, which opens with a discussion of Reptilis Rex by William Tallman.
• Strip Search Elimination #5 spoilers ahoy. Hold up here if you haven’t seen it yet.

  All good? ‘Kay, let’s start off by saying that was the best visit to Artdome we’ve had yet, and I was sorry to think that either Amy or Maki would be going home because we really are past the point of obviously weak competitors; anybody in the house could win it at this point. Also they both interacted with each other and the Creators in a way that was more lively and unguarded than we’ve seen before. Also-also, Jerry drank a comic⁴, which is not a sentence I ever thought I would type.

  Now what I find to be the curious thing at this point is where the show goes from here. When I spoke to Robert Khoo and Erika Sadsad about the show before it debuted, Khoo said that while there will be no way to tell the entire story of what happened in the mansion, there was a natural narrative that emerged during filming.

  Up until now, I’d been expecting that narrative to be Amy’s, from her initial presentation as the one person playing the game part of the competition, to her meeting and befriending of Erika Moen, aka my fucking hero. Sadly, that story’s come to an end⁵, which got me to wondering what else might be the new narrative if it’s not Amy’s Journey. Possibilities include:

  • Dr Strangeabby or: How Mike Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Tangent
  • Monica’s Story, brought to you by Depends
  • Katie Will Kill All Who Challenge Her And Eat Whatever She Kills
  • Lexxy: Third Time’s The Charm!
  • Maki, Tavis, Beardlove by Elizabeth Gilbert
  • Erika Just Wins Everything Because We At Fleen Have Been Team Hurricane Since Day Minus 218

  Your best guesses as to where the heck the story goes from here in the comments, please.

________________
¹ If anybody knows a short, pithy expression that means If I can’t have something I’ll make sure others can’t either, I’ll be happy to use it. For now we’ll make do with “sour grapes”.

² No links, but if you want to know why such things still exist, my best guess is found in the extended digression on the nature of criticism by Anton Ego at the end of Ratatouille:

We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.

³ Honestly, if it’s that bad, let it alone and it’ll go away on its own. Or just repeat to yourself Okay, I don’t like it but that doesn’t mean other people aren’t allowed to.

⁴ And he just … kept … drinking.

⁵ At least within the context of the show, but Ms T Falcone has skillfully parlayed her time on the show into more attention and eyeballs on her comic than she could reasonably expected to have had otherwise. A lot of people are going to be following her career closely from here on out.

Warning: we’re starting today with a link to 2000-odd words that you should read in its entirety, so make sure you set a little time aside. To help make up for it, I’ll try to be brief.

• Shaenon Garrity, Funk and Tiki Queen of All She Surveys, looks back a dozen years to the early days of Colonel Joey’s involvement in webcomics, marking the recent passing-on of the Modern Tales family. It’s really nice remembrance from one who was there¹, and startling in the realization how many of the people that Manley gathered around himself a dozen years ago have gone on to be influential and successful. Give it a read and maybe nod in the general direction of Kentucky, as we may never know how much that nudge given by Manley contributed to those creators staying in the game.
• It’s been going on three years since Brad Guigar³ ran a workshop on webcomickin’ at New York Comic Con 2010 (partnered up with the redoubtable Scott Kurtz), to overwhelmingly positive reviews. I’d been wondering why Guigar hadn’t offered such a bootcamp (as he termed it, and can I say that the mental image of Guigar in a Smokey The Bear hat screaming at rookie webcomickers to drop and give him a punchline is awesome) again, when lo and behold he announced another one, coinciding with the first full day of Philadelphia Comic Con:
  

  Brad will present a lecture on the art and commerce of webcomics and then take their class through a collegiate-level critique of their work.

  Cost of attendance is $29.99 for Webcomics.com members who would like their work critiqued.(Members of Webcomics.com are eligible for a special discount.)

  Be prepared to take and offer frank, constructive criticism. Each participant will receive a printed packet with tips, advice and comments directed specifically on how they can improve their work. Everyone is welcomed to attend the panel and join the discussion, but only Bootcamp participants will have their work discussed specifically.

  Philadelphia Comic Con (formerly known as Megan Fox Tits Wolverine World Philly) will take place Thursday 30 May – Sunday 2 June at the Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA; the Webcomics Bootcamp will take place from 5:00-6:30pm on Friday, 31 May, room TBA.

• Next weekend is going to be a busy one for [web]comickers, at least for those between the 45° and 59° northerly latitudes. From the southwest to the northeast, there will be events going down in Portland, Calgary, and Stockholm, any one of which may fill you with delight and wonder at the comics arts, but only one of which will feature Rene Engström, who tweets:
  

  I’ll be speaking at a panel on webcomics at Stockholm’s International Comic Festival on Saturday the 27th of April between 4 and 5 pm at Bibliotek Plattan!

  The Bibliotek Plattan, or Plattan Library, is part of the Kulturhuset complex at the Sergels Torg, which is the most central public square in the city. Judging from the site plan [PDF], you’ll want to head to the basement once you get there. Tell Rene I said hi, and see if you can get her to show you a sneak peek of The Venerable Leaf.

________________
¹ I’ve long since grown accustomed to consuming Garrity’s writing in four-panel chunks, and it always surprises me how wonderfully she writes when she’s not constrained by the limit of a few dozen words. It shouldn’t not with all the forgotten manga she’s so lovingly described², or her contribution to the Machine of Death [MP3] anthology.

² She is entirely responsible for me devouring (ha, ha) the 26-volume run of Yakitate!! Japan, the insane fight manga to end all insane fight manga, where by “fight” one should read “competitive bread baking”.

³ He’s dreamy.

But even here there must be some encouraging news, yes? Yes.

• Encouraging News The First: Lucy Knisley’s latest book, the absolutely stellar Relish, has made the New York Times graphic novel bestseller list, debuting at #8. For reference, that puts Knisley above Batman¹.
• Encouraging News The Second: Sometimes I’m shocked about what I look back and find that I haven’t written about on this page — particularly when I’m convinced that I did at some point. For example, PostScript, by brothers Graham and Neal Moogk-Soulis, which deals with what happens to fairy tales after the happily ever after part². Five years they’ve been at this, and I haven’t mentioned them until now? Bad hack webcomics pseudojournalist!

  Anyways, Los Bros Moogk-Soulis are celebrating with a site redesign and a fifth print collection, and debuting it next weekend at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. Oh, and comics; many, many fine comics. Should you see Neal and Graham on the wide prairie next weekend, give ’em a big high-five and strongly consider picking up their books; there’s some good stuff in there.

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling better now. Let’s hope that all the crap that’s been foisted on us this week sees fit to stay there as we move forward together.

_______________
¹ Also the still-there-after-56-weeks Smile by Raina Telgemeier, hanging in at #10. I’m not sure that book will ever fall off the list.

² Not that happily ever after is how fairy tales always end; my favorite is the Polish ending that I recently learned about, where the storyteller states … and I was there too, and we drank mead and wine.

We at Fleen have long been impressed by the Doug Wright Awards for excellence in English-language Canadian cartooning — the list of categories is mercifully short¹, the nominees are traditionally very strong, and the ceremony is held in conjunction with one of the best shows of the year, TCAF.

To that list, one may now add the fact that this year’s awards program will be hosted by Scott Thompson, best known from roles such as Best Friend of the Time Gate Operator, Tomin the drunk alien ambassador, Pleakley’s Mother, Dusty Gozongas, and various roles on some obscure sketch comedy show in the ’80s.

Thompson actually does have a comics connection, having co-written a graphic novel relating the alternate-world-barbarian-fantasy adventures of the most staid businessman in history, Danny Husk. I foresee an amusing evening full of uplifting frolic and cavortment.

Sticking with Canada in general, and Toronto in particular, word dropped from Ryan North yesterday that the webcomics domination of Cartoon Network-related programming continues apace:

Breehn is doing a Bravest Warriors AMA! He lets drop that @achewood and I are each writing an episode :o

The “Breehn” referenced would be Breehn Burns, the writer/director to whom Bravest Warriors (and Adventure Time) creator Pen Ward entrusted the adventures of the emotion-laden space teens. The remainder of North’s tweet referenced a question posed to Burns if he needed help on writing duties, prompting the reply:

This year we’ve brought several writers to the show, so I’m writing about half the scripts with my co-writer Jason Johnson, and for the rest I’m supervising new writers. Among them are Ryan North who does the [Adventure Time] comics, and Chris Onstad who writes the best web comic in existence, Achewood.

So far as I know, animated shorts is a new area of creative endeavour for both North and Onstad². North, naturally, has a feel for Wardian absurdism, what with the Adventure Time comics being one of the breakout successes of the past year, and he and Onstad have deep reserves of skill in making language dance in their comics³. Usually this is the sort of thing that I would view with cautious optimism, but screw that — this is gonna be great.

_______________
¹ To be precise: three. Namely, Best Book, Best Emerging Talent, and the Pigskin Peters Award (for experimental or transgressive work).

² Although the proposed Achewood cartoon show has certainly given Onstad experience in adapting to animation, not to mention voice acting.

³ As well as the fact that Ryan North used to live with Joey Comeau, who writes the Bravest Warriors comics! Oh man, how deep does this rabbit hole go?

Silly me, I didn’t get a screen shot of the parking page that greeted readers of Fleen earlier today as the renewal was making its ways around the world. While the fleen.com email service saw no interruptions, for a few hours I was assured that this page would make a perfect address for auto dealers, auto loans, and all your auto needs. Sadly, people that may have wanted to snag the domain weren’t greeted with the sensitive yet handsome dude, the beautiful yet computer-savvy lady, or the couple that for some reason you just want to slap. Sorry ’bout all that.

• Having dipped her foot¹ into the world of e-self-publishing, A Girl And Her Fed creator K Brooke “Otter” Spangler has been noting some distinct similarities between that world and the earlier, what the heck are we trying to accomplish? days of professional webcomicking, and she’s been kind enough to share her observations with you.

  Having also spanned the world of webcomics self-publishing, and actual-publisher publishing, Otter’s buddy (and Fleen Fave) Ursula Vernon² has her own take of the astonishing Webcomics/SelfPub parallels, and likewise holds forth with useful opinion. They are are pair of sharp ladies and to paraphrase Otter, BUY THEIR BOOKS.

• Oh my, yes, please: Jess Fink’s so very delayed, I thought I might never see it released, can it really be true? time-travel self-makeout epic, We Can Fix It, finally has a release date! Of course, we’ve heard this before (more than three years of hearing it before) but this time it’s certain because Fink has the actual books in her hot little hands, meaning she’ll have them for TCAF in a few weeks. For those of you not going to TCAF, you can exchange money for this book in a variety of places, including by pre-ordering from Top Shelf directly. Go do that now.
• Did somebody say most prestigious awards in comics? The Eisners nominations are out, the superheroes are relatively absent, and webcomickers and their natural allies are well represented. How well represented? Enough so that there’s simply too many names to track down all the web addresses and put the links in the text³. Let’s just take them from the top down, shall we?
  Best Single Issue or One-Shot
  The Mire, by Becky Cloonan (self-published)

  Best New Series
  Adventure Time, by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, and Braden Lamb (kaboom!)
  Bandette, by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain)

  Best Publication for Kids (ages 8-12)
  Adventure Time, by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, and Braden Lamb (kaboom!)
  Amulet Book 5: Prince of the Elves, by Kazu Kibuishi (Scholastic)
  Cow Boy: A Boy and His Horse, by Nate Cosby and Chris Eliopoulos (Archaia)

  Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17)
  Adventure Time: Marceline and the Scream Queens, by Meredith Gran (kaboom!)
  A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle, adapted by Hope Larson (FSG)

  Best Humor Publication
  Adventure Time, by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, and Braden Lamb (kaboom!)

  Best Digital Comic
  Ant Comic, by Michael DeForge
  Bandette, by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover
  It Will All Hurt, by Farel Dalrymple
  Our Bloodstained Roof, by Ryan Andrews
  Oyster War, by Ben Towle

  Best Adaptation from Another Medium
  A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle, adapted by Hope Larson (FSG)

  Best Graphic Album —- Reprint
  Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel (First Second)

  Best Penciller/Inker
  Becky Cloonan, Conan the Barbarian (Dark Horse); The Mire (self-published)
  Colleen Coover, Bandette (Monkeybrain)

  Best Coloring
  Colleen Coover, Bandette (Monkeybrain)

  I’m particularly excited to note the presence of Bandette in the Digital Comic category, but also represented in other categories against print comics. And I would be remiss if I didn’t note that Comics Alliance, Robot Six, and The Comics Reporter have all been nominated as Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism, and they are the homes of such webcomics-friendly folks as Chris Sims, Brigid Alverson, and The Spurge. Best of luck to a very strong and deserving field, and let’s hope that we see such good nominations in future years.

________________
¹ Up to about the knees, actually.

² We at Fleen loves us some Digger.

³ On account of the fact I am a lazy, lazy man.