Guys, all my free time has been spent getting caught up on work from my two weeks away from work, so I’ve only found a little bit of news to share with you. The mad geniuses at Make That Thing have teamed up with the madder geniuses at A Softer World to Kickstart the fourth ASW collection, Let’s Do Something Wrong. Said campaign went up yesterday just late enough to not include it in my Kickstarter musings, it’s halfway to goal, and somewhere a bird-decorated photographer and a chess-playing maniac sit confident in the knowledge that they’ll get to make this book.

Miscellaneous things I noticed in conjunction with this campaign:

• It is spare, almost spartan, in the reward structures, and the lack of announced stretch goals: you can get a PDF version of the new book, the new book in softcover or hardcover, in some combination of new plus prior books, and two tightly limited “experiential” rewards — Joey and Emily include you in the strip; Joey and Emily do a commentary track for your favorite movie. MTT knows how much it would suck to fall behind on delivering product, especially given recent high-attention KS flameouts, and so is limiting the campaign to what they can absolutely deliver on time. Bravo.
• Today’s ASW is strip #999, so this is a perfect time to announce a print collection.
• Going back to MTT for just a moment, I noticed that since their soft launch in/around the Machine of Death Game, this is the sixth project they’ve been involved with (the MoD Game, the Dresden Codak collection, the Surviving The World calendars) or directly owned as project creator (the Boxer Hockey frogs, the Sam & Fuzzy omnibus¹). Six projects in six months is pretty impressive, and with a total funding of nearly US$1.3 million, I can’t wait to see what they can do when they’re fully ramped up.

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¹ Technically, that one’s by Make That Thing of Vancouver, BC instead of Make That Thing of Easthampton, MA. It’s the same people. Also, I saw the blanks for the S&F omni at San Diego; Sam Logan was getting a bicep workout just lifting the damn things. They’re huge.

So there was a fairly big project implosion on Kickstarter last week, a guy that may have fundamentally misrepresented what the money would be used for, spent it all over about thirteen months and then told his backers they are outtalucko with respect to the rewards but that they will all get paid back, no really. This has led some to conclude that Kickstarter is fundamentally broken because people don’t exercise enough due diligence when backing projects. I both agree and disagree with this premise.

I don’t think that Kickstarter is fundamentally broken (at least not yet — its use as a second-order financial instrument is something I’m still wary of), and I think that people don’t exercise enough due diligence, at least in some communities of Kickstarter. I’ve written before about the reasonably dismal record of people campaigning to fund dead-tree comics who have no experience (writing, drawing, publishing) and figure that a promise that the story will be so awesome you guys is enough to magically produce thousands of dollars — and that comics people generally don’t buy it¹. Conversely, I’ve learned that the boardgame sector of Kickstarter is (anecdotally, at least) willing to take flyers on new, unproved talent, perhaps because importing Eurogames is so bloody expensive, getting burned for US$20 or US$25 every third or fourth campaign may still get you more product for your expenditure than you would see otherwise.

It’s possible for experienced creators with a history of making stuff to get bogged down making things and thus to see expected shipping dates slip in the face of massive production demands (especially when unexpected circumstances come into play). Frequent updates and progress reports can help soothe those situations, but I’ve heard that Mr Guy from the first ‘graf was making lots of updates that weren’t entirely truthful about the progress being made, so trust is a key factor. Creators with a history of not screwing up (or even better, limiting their projects to what they know they can deliver) and creators with relationships with proven fulfillment services ought to be just fine. Kickstarter’s only broken if its function was to facilitate doomed projects.

• Speaking of Kickstarts, one launched just yesterday for Ross Nover’s first collection of The System (with the obligatory less-than-24-hours funding success, helped by a modest US$3000 goal), and one is about to end as Maki Naro’s Sufficently Remarkable approaches its final two days. The traditional last-few-days bump is looking a little muted for Naro’s campaign, so now’s the time to get in on that if you were gonna. Me, I’m just glad that he cleared the US$30K threshold for the official Pineapple Maki Drink Contest which I am entering so hard. I made up a batch of falernum last night just to ensure I’d have enough for my drunkological experiments, and I stand ready to sacrifice pineapples to the cause. Viva!
• Hat tip to boing boing for noting that four months after he dropped some magic on us, Randall Munroe’s slow-playing comic, Time, has finally wrapped up with some 3000+ frames. You can view the whole thing in various speeds at Geekwagon. The word epic is frequently overused, but it seems appropriate in this case. Countdown to Monroe’s next uncredibly seriously large project starts … now.

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¹ Seriously, I saw a pitch once for a guy that had never produced anything comicky in his life, wanted twelve grand, and you didn’t even get a print copy of the comic — a whole 20 pages worth! — until US$35 in pledge. I think he raised a total of seven bucks, on account of it was a screamingly obvious Bad Deal.

That is, the first day back to work following an awesome vacation (thanks again, Portland!) kind of sucks. I’m buried beneath a pile of things that showed up while I was gone with an absolute deadline of three days ago, and my only refuge is webcomics.

• Let’s start with some Big Round Numbers! Anybody that’s read this page for any amount of time should know by now that I loves me some A Girl And Her Fed by the inestimably awesome K Brooke “Otter” Spangler. Today, Ms Spangler hits the Big Round Number of 1000 strips, on Saturday she announced the general availability of her first pulp¹ e-book spinoff from AGAHF, The Russians Came Knocking², and yesterday was her birthday. Everybody feel good for Otter!
• Know who else has a Big Round Number today? Jeph Jacques, one of the literal giants³ of our weird little medium has hit 2500 updates at Questionable Content. Oh, and you know who went to college with Jeph Jacques? K Brooke “Otter” Spangler, that’s who. Small world.
• I mentioned to you last week that Christopher Baldwin’s Spacetrawler — which is barreling towards a conclusion that we knew from the first would be tragic — is presently Kickstarting its third (and final) print collection. What I want to mention to you today is that Baldwin is a clever, clever man. As the story is reaching its end, as we are waiting for the gut-punch that we know could happen at any time, Baldwin gives us a tease of today’s strip and directs us to the Kickstarter page to get the rest of it.

  I expect that the strip link will not show the redirect forever (once the campaign’s done, there’ll be no need), and this isn’t something that just anybody could get away with (Baldwin has not messed with his audience before so they aren’t feeling messed with, and it’s a serial story with a lot of stickiness so they will click through to Kickstarter), so it’s copied up top so you can see what being just a little bit — the right little bit — of evil looks like.

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¹ That is, action/adventure with the sexytimes left in. Regular AGAHF fans will recognize plenty of sexytimes have been implied, but the written word’s inclusion of such allows for both more and less detail at the same time. Look, Otter’s a damn smart writer who has a damn good handle on these characters, and she’s funny as all hell. Go buy the e-book.

² Starring Josh; if you don’t know Josh, he’s awesome, a total man-whore, and awesome some more. Also, the references to squirrels as vermin that must be exterminated make Otter my best friend ever.

³ Seriously, he and Ryan North could totally dress up for Halloween as one of the big fights from Pacific Rim; I’ll leave it to you to determine which should be the ravening monster from another dimension and which one of them has little dudes all up inside.

One of the things that I now recall speaking with Christopher Butcher about on Friday night over copious drinks was the forthcoming plan for a dual book launch for Ryan North (and Wm Shakespeare, and you)’s new book, To Be or Not To Be, and also This Is How You Die, edited by Ryan North, Matt Bennardo and David Malki !.

My recall was prompted by the good Mr North, who announced that the then-nebulous details are now solid: The Beguiling, the world-class comic store managed by Butcher, will host the Choose Your Own Launch Party this coming Monday, 29 July, from 7:00pm to 10:00pm in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Two venues, side by side, will host the two books, and you can choose which is more worthy by your presence and participation.

On the North side of the party, you can engage in choose-your-own live readings from the book and Shakespeare rap battles! On the Malki ! side¹, you can get a completely accurate prediction of how you will die and play a game which is absolutely, positively, legally not Pictionary with MoD cards.

Kickstarts!

• We have one that’s been teased for a while from the intrepid Amy T Falcone to launch her new comic, Clique Refresh, and which — in the way of Strip Search alumni — funded out almost immediately. It’s a new trend being seen in Kickstarter, pre-funding webcomics and their content for a period of time (typically a year), and hopefully seeing content at the end of that time in print.

  I think that this leap of faith approach to webcomics can work where the creator is a known quantity with work you can see, looking to make a change in project (always a risky prospect, one that may lose you audience). In this way, it’s in contrast from a stack of failed dead-tree-floppy comics that tried to Kickstart completely unknown creators with no body of work to judge by.

  Hopefully, the latter won’t try to emulate people like Abby Howard, Maki Naro, and Ms T Falcone, because while I may (have) backed people that have given me comics and want to shift to other comics, I will likely never back somebody that promises that their very first comic will be super awesome you guys even though I’ve never written one before and I haven’t found an artist yet, trust me.

• On the more traditional approach to Kickstarting — here’s a production of something physical from material already produced — allow me to point you to Christopher Baldwin’s third (and final, sniff) volume of Spacetrawler (getting a head start on the finishing up of the strip, which is rapidly approaching), and Tom Dell’Aringa’s comprehensive omnibus, collecting the full five year run of his comic in a reworked, single-story format. If you’re going to back just one surprisingly deep comedic sci-fi webcomic collection that takes place in space, you’re screwed Bunky, because there’s two here that deserve your attention.

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¹ You have no idea how badly I want there to be a hip-hop rivalry between “northside” and “malki!side”.

See, the thing is, I’m on vacation in a city populated almost entirely with excellent food (much of it in carts), beer, public transport, and awesome people, and I am not online all day as I have things to do that involve interacting with excellent food (much of it in carts), beer, public transport, and awesome people. Between my phone and the basic netbook I have with me, some browsing and webcomic¹ and such, but I am likely horribly behind. I trust that you will adapt in some manner.

• Ryan North has now shared what it was like to win an Eisner Award², but I don’t believe he has shown you what that Eisner Award looks like. Wonder no more, it’s right up there at the top of the page. You can click it for embiggening.
• Zach Weinersmith announced (or perhaps “launched”) his latest Cool Thing during the rush of SDCC — in collaboration with the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, Weinersmith has an e-book of 128 (2^7) nerd insults, with illustrations lovingly supplied by the inimitable Jess Fink. Weinersmith mentioned to me in San Diego that they really wanted to do 2^8 disses, but that they couldn’t come up with a full 256. Anyway, you can get up in the grill of smart people for as little as one dollar.
• Kris (Straub) and Scott (Kurtz) have, as previously mentioned, done up a Mappy series of animated shorts for ShiftyLook, the first of which is now online. It’s difficult to watch with the resources I have at hand, but it’s definitely got the feel of Blamimations³, so that’s all right.

Below the cut, the best remaining cosplay photos from the con: Toki and Murderface, a Plants vs Zombie zombie, and Attack on Titan trainee Sasha “Potato Girl” Brause.

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Okay, okay, I’d meant to get this post up yesterday, but as much of the day was taken up with Airport Fun Times, and I am also on vacation this week (my hotel in Portland is conveniently close to something called Voodoo Donuts, which seems to always have a line outside), you’ll get what you get and you’ll like it.

Fortunately, I think that you’ll like this one a good deal.

The STRIPPED (check out the snazzy new website!) panel went up in an inconvenient location (the literally far corner of the San Diego Convention Center) at an inconvenient time (7:00pm, against the Masquerade, big media parties, and need for food after the major day on the show floor), and still managed to — as they say in Hollywood — kill¹.

Sitting at the front table were co-directors and hivemind Freddave Kellett-Schroeder, editor Ben Waters, and associate producer Jen Troy². Messers Kellet-Schroeder did most of the talking and retain their uncanny ability to both finish each others sentences and interrupt each other for maximum comedic effect; those kids need to take their schtick on the road. In response to an enquiry from the Kellett half of the directorial team, a show of hands indicated that the majority of the audience had been backers of the film’s two Kickstarter campaigns, so they’ve been following along through the four year process of making the movie. More precisely, the interview process started four years ago, Waters and Troy began their work two years ago, and but for a few remaining clearances, the movie’s essentially done.

Without further delay, the first clip was shown. In essence, it’s the first six or seven minutes of the film, about 80% of which had previously been released to Kickstarter backers as a sneak peek. Various unattributed creator voices³ talk about what comic strips mean to them over a scene of a father and daughter reading the Sunday comics together at breakfast⁴. The titles are interspersed with a scene of a comic being drawn (fans will recognize Kellett’s art style), with more clips of creators (with names this time) talking about what comics mean to them, their favorite strips (Peanuts, Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, Foxtrot, Nancy, and Pogo got called out), along with reminiscences of reading the comics page on the floor as an earliest memory of childhood. It sets the stage for a movie that’s a love letter to comics beautifully.

However, that wasn’t always the tone of the movie. In a process that could conceivably stretch to a half-decade, a movie’s narrative has the potential to change⁵; in their first assemblage of footage, Schroeder-Kellett were convinced that what they had in their hands was a disaster movie: comics were endangered, they had to get the interviews done and the movie released quickly before they went away. The second clip they showed had been the original opening to the movie which focused on the theme of comics and newspapers failing⁶. It was a doom-filled two or three minutes that closed on a Bill Watterson quote⁷ about daily comics disappearing.

Following test screenings with filmmakers that they trusted, Kellett-Schroeder came to the conclusion that the opening was radically out of step with what the rest of the movie was about; in the years since they’d started gathering interviews, they’d found hope and certainty that although comic strips are changing, they are also broadening and diversifying and thriving in ways that weren’t obvious at the start of the process. Although it was time-consuming and expensive, that mean the film had to change and it certainly seems better for that correction. As Kellett put it, With a documentary, you’re writing a story with other peoples’ words, and that means making mistakes and learning as you work.

The third clip was the proverbial money shot; in the year since the first clips of STRIPPED were shown at SDCC 2012, Watterson’s involvement grew from answering questions via email to answering questions in an audio interview⁸, which are spread throughout the film as relevant underscores to points being made. In the section titled The Golden Age of Comics, we get to see what the lifestyle of the rich and famous cartoonist of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s was like: newsreel interview clips, sitting on the couch next to Johnny Carson, popular movies built jet-set rich cartoonists, Jim Davis doing a commercial for American Express, Mel Lazarus guest-starring as himself on Murder She Wrote⁹ — there were decades where those making newspaper comic strips (especially serial adventure strips) were millionaires and billionaires. The first Watterson audio clip — the first time he’s allowed himself to be recorded! — closes out the section. There was a hush in the room that lasted two beats past the fade-out, then the applause erupted.

Bill¹⁰ has been very nice, Kellett said, very generous, and that theme recurred; each of the interviewed creators came in for effusive thanks and praise. More than once, Kellett said, somebody they were talking to extended the scheduled interview by an hour or more because they were so invested in the discussion. Kellett pointed out that not only did this add to the amount of transcribing Troy had to do, she also has had to obtain clearance on 627 different comic strips that are visually identifiable in the film. She seemed okay with that.

• The Q&A section opened on the obvious question: How did you get Bill Watterson? His name was at the top of the wish list of must-have interviews (because who hasn’t been moved by Calvin and Hobbes?), but it was accepted that there was no way they’d get him. But in talking to so many other cartoonists, people that Watterson is in contact with and respects, word filtered back to him that these two guys are legit and worth talking to, and if you aren’t a part of this, it’ll be a little lacking. Because of that, Watterson reached out (!) and said he wanted to be a part of it. He spoke over the phone for 40 – 45 minutes in total, and later a recorder was sent to him to ensure the highest possible audio quality for his answers.
• The one clunker of a question came next. A gentleman stood up and asked Can I play devil’s advocate and
  (Kellett: No. Next question.)

  ask, haven’t comic strips gone the way of jazz? Nobody makes movies from comic strips anymore, adventure strips are dead, compared to graphic novels, do they matter? Do people still care?

  Kellett again: Thank you for that, I’m going to go kill myself now. But then he pointed out that comic strips are nowhere near the point of, say, opera, which only survives because of state sponsorship and whose heydey as a popular art is centuries past. There’s an amazing renaissance flourishing, but it’s not concentrated. We will never again see the billionaire cartoonist, but there is so much more good work.

  Schroeder: Art Speigelman said No popular art ever dies, it either becomes “Art” like jazz, or it finds another way. There’s just so much more out there vying for your attention, but you won’t see the huge popularity like in the ’40s when daily entertainment consisted of just comics and radio.

  Kellett: And there are more comics creators making a living than 30 years ago, and comics speak to more people than they used to. If you were a black woman or gay boy in the ’40s, what comics spoke to you?

• Briefer questions: Asked if there were transcripts of the interviews (Troy nodded furiously), it was said that the dream outcome would be a coffee table book that we would not have to publish. Asked when the movie can be seen and how, the process of determining distribution and timing is in active exploration now. Asked if Garry Trudeau was in the movie, it turned out that there were three or four people they really wanted but who didn’t want to participate: Trudeau hates to do interviews, Berke Breathed very kindly declined, Scott Adams deferred on account of his vocal dystonia, Gary Larson and Art Spiegelman also opted not to participate. But as filmmakers, they are thrilled by the 70, 80, 90 interviews that they did get.
• Second best laugh of the night: If the future is on the internet, did you interview any webcomics guys?
  Kellett: We did not. I’m not very familiar with that world. (In actuality, webcomics become increasingly prominent in the second half of the film, and dominate the last third.)
• Noting that Kellett and Schroeder are interested in releasing the full videos (possibly as a series of DVD extras, or 99 cents per on iTunes, or whatever), one questioner wanted to know if they would release the full Watterson audio interview. The consensus was that they would have to ask if he was comfortable with that, and it would probably depend on how he felt about the final film. They speculated that he would be amenable to his interview appearing in print, and amenable to appearing in a book, at least.
• Asked what interview most shocking, Kellett told the story of meeting Jim Davis at PAWS headquarters, the three-building complex rising out of a cornfield in Indiana after following a dirt road, with sunbeams perfectly illuminating the scene and imagined heavenly choir going aahhh-AAAHHH! and realizing That’s where Garfield lives! I’m sorry, what was the question? Clarifying that the question was about shocking opinions, they decided on Stephan Pastis, noting that in the film he and Kellett argue and it got heated. I think it made the documentary better, we wanted the film not to be about our viewpoint, we wanted him in there. He was great.

  Schroder: At first we thought web/print would be hardcore in their community, but they’re all cartoonists.

  Troy: Every interview was amazing, everybody has their own take on creativity, but Patrick McDonnell was my favorite. I was transcribing and he talked about how creating the strip he’ll go into a Zen state and I realized I wasn’t typing any more.

  Waters: A lot of people were watching their language a little bit, but the Penny Arcade guys not so much. They’re very frank, maybe brash, nobody else really talks like that in the movie. Everybody is very nice.

  Kellett: We all fell in love with Cathy Guisewite. Younger unmarried me wants to date younger unmarried Cathy Guisewite. Please nobody send this to my wife.

With time closing in, they showed the clip from last year focusing on how webcomics make their money (it’s done as an 8-bit videogame starting with CARTOONIST NEEDS FOOD BADLY and ending with a boss fight for audience) and took two last questions.

• The first resulted in the biggest laugh of the night when asked how they handled their inner fanboy while interviewing heroes. Kellett responded, Sometimes we didn’t. Fred and I were flying to Canada to interview Lynn Johnston, it’s like four connections and on the first leg of our flight we got the email from Watterson. Literally the whole flight we were GIVE ME THE IPHONE AGAIN, LOOK WHAT HE SAID HERE FRED, HE MADE A STAR WARS JOKE!!¹¹ Schroeder: Dave did that.
• Given the instruction to make the last question a good one, a young man stood and said he didn’t have a question, he wanted to thank the panel on behalf of every eight year old kid that’s ever loved comics, thanks for grabbing that passion, and being able to share that with everybody; his voice was cracking and it was pretty obvious what the comics have meant to him. Kellett was visibly affected by the honest emotion, and reiterated that the film couldn’t have been possible without the help of everybody they spoke to, but also the people that have been supporting the idea of STRIPPED from Day One. The ovation was enthusiastically and genuine, and if it had appeared in a movie you might have felt it too contrived to be real. Fade to black.

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¹ To paraphrase noted filmmaker Mr The Frog, It’s gonna be boffo, Lenny! Totally socko!

² Big ups to Troy, who had the good grace to speak slowly and use ordinary words, a boon for those of us (me) transcribing in the audience; I attribute this to the fact that it was her job to log the film — that is, sit through all 300+ hours of interviews and transcribe the entire damn thing. Respect.

³ I believe that I recognized Lynn Johnston, Greg Evans, Jim Davis, Cathy Guisewite, and Jerry Holkins in that vocal montage but again — no names shown. Yes, I am a tremendous nerd.

⁴ The breakfast scene was beautifully art-directed, and I say that without a trace of irony or sarcasm. First time I saw the five second pan across the table, past the coffee and juice and toasted bagel smeared with fresh creamery butter, I got hungry. Well done, Mr Schroeder.

⁵ And, in the case of documentaries, I’d argue has an obligation to do so in a lot of cases; if you come into a documentary with the conclusions predetermined, you aren’t showing how things are.

⁶ Literally, it started on a cold open on Gregg Evans being asked about the state of newspaper comics, getting a pained expression on his face, and letting out a ragged sigh.

⁷ Which I believe was from his famed speech at Ohio State’s Festival of Cartoon Art in 1989. Watterson has always been not just a genius-level maker of comics, but a scholar and observer who has few equals, and foresight about where they’re going that’s nearly unparalleled. We’ll be hearing more from him in this piece.

⁸ I confirmed with Schroeder later that the audio portions were not in person, so it’s no use trying to kidnap one of them to divulge where Watterson lives.

⁹ What is this theme with cartoonists and murder?

¹⁰ Not Mr Watterson, I note. Of all the people in the world to be on a first-name basis with!

¹¹ For full effect, you have to imagine Kellett’s voice Dopplering up in the all-caps part.

Yesterday was the day that I discovered that porn starlet Tera Patrick (who is apparently a cousin by marriage to a guy I ride EMS with) is signing on the show floor. Go Team Central Jersey.

• Speaking of porn, Smut Peddler impressario Spike confirmed for me that there will be a new edition of the sexytime comics anthology next year, possibly in the spring, maybe in the summer. After that, it looks like alternating porn and not-porn anthologies, with the next not-porn project in 2015, probably on the theme of fantasy, and much like The Sleep of Reason will be restricted to no cliches: TSoR said no vampires, no werewolves, no zombies, and Untitled Fantasy Anthology will say no elves, no dwarves, no Tolkien analogs. In a decade or so of alternating anthologies, we should be able to finally quantify how much people like porn compared to other entertainments.
• Speaking of forthcoming print projects, I got to speak to Evan Dahm about his first Vattu collection, The Name and the Mark; Dahm’s happy to report that the book is at the printers, and well on the way to release in October. In fact, he’ll have a limited number of books to debut at SPX alongside his Midnight Monsters collaboration with Yuko Ota, The Exquisite Beast. SPX is a good book-buying crowd, and having debuts ought to drive a lot of commerce for Dahm, so that’s all right.
• Speaking of Yuko, she and Ananth Panagariya got a nice mention at the Adventure Time Comics panel, seeing as how their Candy Capers miniseries launched last week; BOOM! editor Shannon Watters gave us a some advance details of the next couple of issues, as Peppermint Butler pairs up characters as the new heroes of the Candy Kingdom in Finn & Jake’s absence. The next issue will feature Tree Trunks and Marceline as partners, and the issue after that will partner up Lumpy Space Princess (!) and Lemongrab (!!).

  The bulk of the panel was a discussion of the creative process of Braden Lamb, Shellie Paroline, Ryan North, and Meredith Gran, their approaches to all-ages comics, and their best jobs at doing the voices in live readings. North, Paroline, and Lamb were of course fresh off their Eisner win, so it’s no surprise that in a room that allowed 500, there were few empty seats, and the audience was predominantly there for the current panel, not squatting in the room for some later panel; the wealth of cosplay (especially on younger kids) was proof of this.

  Watters also let us know that there will be another Adventure Time graphic novel penned by Danielle Corsetto and drawn by Zach Sterling; the theme of the series is pretty quickly becoming princesses go on adventures, as the new book will feature LSP facing trials (maybe) and tribulations (possibly) and saving the world (probably not). But hey — one of the messages of Adventure Time is that we can all be more than we appear initially, even spoiled princesses from Lumpy Space.

  In the main Adventure Time comics, the next issue will wrap up the current story arc (it features Jake stuck in a dream existence with a stretchy-powers Finn!), and the one after that will be a Princess Bubblegum-centered story. Peebles stories often feature her need to control and manage everything (from her kingdom to the fundamental forces of physics) and how her messing with Things That Should Not Be Messed With have consequences, but they aren’t usually taken past the end of the episode.

  Prubs is a genius, but she also pretty damn irresponsible with her mad science and her creations are idiotically dangerous as often as they’re helpful. In this new story, PB goes off the rails and actually has to deal with one of these things that she’s responsible for rather than foisting it off on Finn and Jake.

  The Q&A section had time for ten questions, and the first was from a boy maybe ten years old that wanted to know if Ryan knew about a webcomic called Homestuck and does he use it for inspiration?, particularly because of one Homestuck-referencing quote that North snuck into a recent issue. He was apparently unaware that Ryan and Andrew Hussie are credit card bros, and Ryan told the young gentleman that Everything I write is Homestuck fan-fiction. The seriousness of the exchange was honestly charming, as was the number of kids in the audience that had brought binders full of their Adventure Time-themed drawings, eager to show them to the comics creators.

  After the session I got a chance to chat with Braden Lamb, where we immediately fell to talking about Kitty Hawk, his long-hiatused adventure webcomic project with Vincent LaBate. On the one hand, Lamb would love to get back to Kitty Hawk, on the other other, BOOM! projects keep him busy to the point that an ongoing webcomic isn’t practical. A complete story might be a possiblity, but with the releases of stories like Delilah Dirk and Lady Sabre, the market may be a bit crowded, even for a story that predated the others.

  We also spoke about the challenges that Lamb and Paroline had producing the Choose Your Own Adventure Time issue that North penned a while back, making the choices easy for kids to follow, but not so obvious that you could cheat your way to the desired outcome; it probably helped a lot that North has some experience writing such stories, but the best contributor to the success of that issue was probably Lamb’s choice to do some color-coding. Future artists/writers of such stories, take note.

• Speaking of Andrew Hussie, I saw the initial start of the ShiftyLook panel referenced yesterday, and I owe the SDCC showrunners an apology. I very much doubted that the maximum capacity of 170 in room 28DE would be sufficient for the presumed crowd o’ Homestucks that would descend upon Hussie like unto a tsunami, and it turned out that they fit just fine; there was a minimal line outside the room prior to the panel, but a pretty healthy population of fantrolls were already in there for the prior panel¹.

  The panel discussed the Zach Weinersmith²/Dave Shabet collaboration (interactive DigDug), the previously-announced Andrew Hussie-penned MMO (NAMCO High, available pre-holiday, 2015), and the Kris Straub/Scott Kurtz Mappy series (first episode goes live tomorrow).

• Speaking of room 28DE, it would later host the STRIPPED panel, which managed to fill the room despite being scheduled at the late hour of 7:00pm, against large media screenings, ramp-up to industry parties, and pre-Masquerade prep. I have nearly 1500 words of notes that need to be whipped into shape, so let’s put that off for another post. But speaking of STRIPPED, yesterday I learned that co-director Fred Schroeder’s agent is from my town, despite his currently agenting in the nearly polar opposite of LA. Go Team Central Jersey.

Below the cut, the best cosplay photos of the day: Simon Petrikov and Hello Randy.

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Morning has come way too damn early at San Diego thanks mostly to the people that decided hosting an overpowered audio system in an unenclosed place and letting the sound rip until one in the damn morning was a nifty-neato way to promote whatever their brand is. I get it, Friday night is an acceptable party night and everybody at the event seemed to be enjoying the crap out of themselves; hell, I was enjoying the crap out of myself at the ShiftyLook party¹ until the old man sleepies caught up with me.

The difference being, a bit after eleven, the ShiftyLook party bosses and hotel staff conferred, some of the louder game cabinets were turned off, groups talking were discreetly asked to be mindful of the hotel’s guests, and the sound system was playing ambient electronic music at a considerate volume.

Meanwhile, between Island and J, 7th and 8th, an audio monitoring app on my phone tells me that sound levels with the windows closed were peaking at 70db and with the window open, 85db². For reference, 70db is defined as EPA-identified maximum to protect against hearing loss and other disruptive effects from noise, such as sleep disturbance, stress, learning detriment, etc. and 85 db as Hearing damage (over long-term exposure, need not be continuous). No kidding, a fire engine running full lights and sirens shortly after the speakers were turned off was not as audible as DJ ScrewYouPayingGuests, and of course was not sitting in one place cranking up the bass³.

So here is the deal: I want to know who sponsored this act of disregard for everybody not on the guest list, so I can be sure to never, ever give them money in the future, and I will pay an reward in the amount of one dollar American Cash Money to whoever can tell me whose party this was.

There were cars set up in a way that suggested they were on display, and what appeared to be pages from The Walking Dead were being projected onto the side of a nearby building. Oh, and at least two patrol cars from San Diego’s Finest (number 6-955 and 6-266) were on the scene, hopefully with industrial-grade ear protection (but certainly not doing anything to enforce local nuisance ordinance). Go forth, my minions, return with the information I seek, and help me in my quest for vengeance.

• Speaking of the ShiftyLook party (which was excellent, by the by, allowing me the opportunity to talk with the likes of Sam Logan, Jim Zub, Stacy King, Kris Straub, Christopher Hastings, Evan Dahm, the aforementioned Chris Butcher, and others), I had the opportunity to talk briefly with George Rohac of What Pumpkin where we tried to figure out what the heck the session booking team was thinking.

  As mentioned earlier, the ShiftyLook panel will be kicking off later today (2:00pm to be precise) in a not-overly-large room (28DE), and will feature Zach Weinersmith, Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub (any one of whom could fill the room just with his own readers, much less those that are coming to hear the ShiftyLook plans) and Andrew Hussie in his only panel appearance. I want to go by 28DE, find the little plaque that indicates the maximum number of persons allowed in the room, and then take a picture of the Homestucks lined up outside the entrance and receding into the far distance.

  It’s not as if the SDCC staff don’t have some warning about the Trollstorm that’s about to hit them; last year I watched the Homestuck Parade that occurred when they relented and finally granted TopatoCo a section of the autograph area for Hussie’s signings (which they had requested and been told wouldn’t be necessary) after the first session turned into a seven-aisle backup that snarled traffic on the show floor for a ten-aisle radius.

  After TopatoCo Supreme Presidente Jeffrey Rowland brought the news to the lined up Homestucks that they would have to relocate to meet their Lord and God, he led a line of fans that took more than ten minutes to pass by in reasonably clear booth traffic. Every single one of those people will be wanting to see this panel. This is gonna be awesome.

• Speaking of panels to see today, the Adventure Time panel will be at 3:30 in Room 8, and the STRIPPED panel at 7:00pm in 28DE.
• Speaking of commerce being driven, Friday on the show floor was weird. Everybody I spoke to had a different impression of how the day went — it was busy from start to finish, or it was quiet, or it had bursts; the show floor was crowded at all times, or it was preternaturally empty; sales were strong, or they were okay, or they were terrible compared to last year. In my past experience, these are the sorts of things that usually evolve a consensus, but literally every booth I stopped by to talk to creators had a different view on how the commercial end of Friday went.

  My personal impression is that the number of sales events that I could see from my vantage point in Webcomics Central was less than on Thursday (which is consistent with the personal experience I had of Square through much of Friday — instead of being nigh-unusable from load as it was for most of Thursday, Friday was very hit-or-miss; a card swipe might result in a communications failure in ten seconds, and the customer might see approval after a minute and a half of waiting). Considering that Friday is traditionally neck-and-neck with Saturday for the top day, saleswise, here’s hoping that today is a monster in terms of merchant activity.

• Hope Larson dropped by at the start of Friday and I was privileged to tell her how much I enjoyed her film short, Bitter Orange; she in turn was kind enough to pull out an iPad and share her next film project, a music video for Dan The Automator featuring Mary Elizabeth Winstead. I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s say the following:
  • It is beautifully shot in black and white and every moment had near-perfect visual composition
  • The storyline is hilarious
  • It required Larson to figure out where one could obtain prosethetic eyes, which is probably not a conversation you ever anticipate yourself having until it actually occurs

  The video’s in the hands of the label and they’ll hopefully be releasing it soon because dang, this needs to be seen by everybody.

• Speaking of Larson, she was one of the winners at last night’s Eisner Awards, and we at Fleen are thrilled for her, even as we’re sad that Meredith Gran was one of those that Larson beat. The two actually agree that should either of them prevail, the other would start a fight, so if you heard any rumors of flipped and/or jumped tables, punched thrown, or security having to separate combatants, they are undoubtedly true.

  In addition to Larson’s win for Best Publication For Teens (A Wrinkle In Time), let’s also congratulate Ryan North, Shellie Paroline and Braden Lamb for Best Publication For Kids (Adventure Time), Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover for Best Digital Comic (Bandette), Tom Spurgeon for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism (The Comics Reporter), all of the other winners, and the parents, who worked so hard to make the costumes.

Below the cut, the best cosplay photo of the day: Hench 4 Lyfe.
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I held off writing this yesterday, hoping that it would be a temporary situation, but by new it’s pretty clear that Square is stumbling in the Convention Center. Wednesday night was a dream, transactions flying through, credit cards approved, signatures captured in the blink of an eye. The beginning of the day Thursday was likewise smooth and unremarkable, but after a few hours transactions took longer to approve, then gave way to connection failures.

While the various Wis and Fis and Gs are chugging along at sometimes widely different speeds, connectivity is not the actual problem. I am writing this post on the same WiFi signal that is showing connectivity issues with Square, but which is browsing at a practical (if slightly pokey) rate.

Reports from vendors across the floor are similar: random pockets of decent responses from Square interspersed with an approval time measured in whole minutes. Performance did get better towards the end of the day on Thursday, but it wasn’t obvious if it was due to sales tapering off or Sqaure adding transactional capacity. Given that the slowdowns kicked in earlier today than yesterday morning, it seems the former is more likely.

Here’s hoping that Square’s capacity problems (it is a very common sight on the floor: phones and tablets with the ubiquitous white dongle) doesn’t impact the sales of creators. SDCC is just one weekend in one city, but there is a disproportionately large ratio of total merchants:Square users right here and they deserve not to be let down by technology on their most important sales weekend of the year.

TIHYD autograph count: 17 total (picked up Rhiannon Kelly, Rebecca Black, Carly Monardo, Lissa Tremain, John Chernega, Bill Chernega, Tony Cliff, Claire Hummel, and Ryan North and David Malki ! each signed a second time).

The City of San Diego must rotate which of its fire stations respond to emergency calls; Engine 4 has been dispatched a half-dozen times or more since I left the convention center at the end of Thursday’s show hours (a significant amount of this period coincided with when I was trying to sleep), a situation that I don’t recall occurring in the previous days. Let’s do this.

One of the things that gets lost in Comic Con is interaction at the personal scale; even when the crush of the day is done and you aren’t surrounded by thousands of attendees, the desire to catch up with every friend, don’t waste a minute of time, where can twelve people get dinner together is strong. I got away from that tendency at several points during the day, taking the opportunity to talk to just one person:

• Aaron Diaz was giddy about Dresden Codak’s current storyline, Dark Science, approaching the halfway point, and about changes coming in the story structure, and about how things will get interesting (read: blow up). When Diaz is enthusiastic, it’s contagious.
• Kris Straub was contemplative about boothing alone (the missing Penny Arcade and PvP have merged booths into a joint satellite booth with t-shirt vendor We Love Fine, leaving Straub solo), and desirous of figuring out exactly when the lulls would come on the floor which means you can run to the bathroom. He remains incredibly humbled and grateful for the ongoing success of the Broodhollow Kickstarter, which is proceeding apace.
• Ryan North was willing to confess that his contribution to This Is How You Die was essentially a gender-swapped Ryan/Joey [Comeau fanfic, with a healthy dose of the history of Henrietta Lack and the most literary use of the phrase dick move in history. He’s also been gifted with copies of his own head (seeing as how it’s open source and all), including a test strip of different sizes, the smallest of which would fit on a chessboard and you guys we need to get Joey’s head scanned and make a chess set of Joey heads and Ryan heads and then have Grandmasters contend with that set forever.
• Andy Runton just because he is the nicest guy in the world. Seriously.
• Randy Milholland and I spent hours on a wide-ranging conversation that centered on the past fifty or so years of comics; I have a broad but shallow knowledge of a lot of comics, having heard that a particular character, title, or story arc exists and knowing its basic outline; Randy’s actually read all of those and will kick your ass in any showdown of comics trivia knowledge. It was perhaps a tactical error to have dinner with just one person and hope for a quiet night after a day of talking and wear/tear on my throat because when that one person is Randy, you end up talking more than if you were shouting to be heard in a loud bar with ten other people, and you like it. It was perhaps the most purely comics experience I’ve ever had at Comic Con.
• Vijaya Iyer, the publisher of Cartoon Books, you may recall spent some of last year’s SDCC going through the webcomics section, asking how things work. Her husband, Jeff Smith, has spent decades as a dead-tree publisher but now they’ll be making the leap to the give-it-away-sell-stuff-on-the-back-end model with Tüki Save The Humans on November first. Honestly, if this isn’t a monster runaway success, it’s because we let Smith and Iyer down; we know the he’s going to turn out an outstanding comic, so let’s not let this experiment fail. It will help determine the particulars of Smith’s career for the near- to middle-term, and he’s earned our attention and consideration many times over.

I didn’t make it to any panels, but today I expect to see the Jim Zub panel on pitching creator-owned comics, which unfortunately starts at the same time (11:00am) as the This Is How You Die autograph session, so I’ll likely be a little late. By the way the TIHYD autograph count now stands at seven total, having added Ryan North, David Malki !, Becky Dreistadt, Aaron Diaz, Tyson Hesse, and Kris Straub).

Below the cut, the best cosplay photo of the day: Dr Venture and Pete White.

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