The webcomics blog about webcomics

Unexpected Pleasures

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Oh my goodness I’m not sure which of these surprises I should share first. Coin flip! Okay!

  • Raina Telgemeier — previously noted on this page (and all other pages that matter) as one of our cartooning national treasures — graphic novelist par excellence and 100-week New York Times bestselling author, must have gotten a thrill this morning on seeing some respect thrown her way by that most establishment of all cultural endeavours, the syndicated comics page.

    Smile got some love from Mark Tatulli¹ Heart of the City strip for today², and given the setup of Heart and her mom arguing about whether graphic novels count as book books, may continue to have its praises sung for the next day or so. I’m guessing that Telgemeier has got to be feeling pretty great right about now.

  • About ten months ago, in the dead of the night, the greatest thing known to mankind up to that time was unleashed on an unsuspecting world. I speak, naturally of Tom McHenry’s Horse Master: The Game of Horse Mastery, which laid bare essential lessons about the nature of life, and horses, and the importance of mastering your horse. I’m proud to say that I joined the ranks of Horse Masters, and I have the bleeding stump of a little finger³ to prove it.

    Literally and without any exaggeration whatsoever, life could not be any better than when one is horse-mastering.

    Until now, at least for those going to TCAF this weekend, for McHenry has been busy:

    In case you missed it last night, this is a thing that exists for TCAF

    3 glow in the dark buttons, a completely unnecessary full-color instruction manual, the whole game on a horse-shaped USB drive.

    All in this stylish #HorseMaster box: pic.twitter.com/8FNsDIzMGV

    Then I wept, for I am not going to TCAF. But then McHenry assuaged my grief4:

    Ordering info for non-TCAF goers will come soon!

    And there was much rejoicing, and the pupae of horses everywhere did swell with quickening tendrils, waiting for the day they could ripen, and escape, and feed.

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¹ Tatulli actually does two strips and while Heart of the City is pretty okay, his silent and subversive Liō may be the most brilliant thing left in syndication.

² That link may go away in the future, so please enjoy the permanently-linked version at the top of this page.

³ Not to mention a drug habit, criminal record, and seared-in memories of too many teeth in a gaping maw to go along with it. These are the prices of ascending to the political and social elite.

4 And coincidentally probably removed the need on my part to physically harm one or more of the friends that would go to TCAF, for a true Horse Master would let nothing stand in his or her way of obtaining this treasure; not family, not friendship, not blood. Oh glob, so much blood.

I wasn’t able to pick one up, but that Horse Master box set looked so, so sweet.

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