San Diego Comic Con programming continues its release, with Friday’s panels and things now up for your perusal. As always, the schedule may change over the next couple of weeks, so verify the schedule before sitting in line for 37 hours.

Friday Programming
Gender in Comics
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 4
Some very smart people on this panel, whose writings on the Venn diagram of gender and comics I enjoy a great deal, including Janelle Asselin, Andy Khouri, Jennifer de Guzman, and Laura Hudson.

Comics Arts Conference Session #5: Rescued by Batman: Finding Hope in Something Terrible
10:30am — 11:30am, Room 26AB
Dean Trippe talking about his experience with sexual abuse and how Batman saved him. My third must-attend of the show.

Origins of the Comic Strip: The Untold Story of Artists and Anarchy, 1895-1915
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 29A
Could be an interesting companion to the screening of STRIPPED later today.

Walking the Line: An Investigation into Alternative vs. Mainstream Comics and Beyond
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 28DE
Kazu Kibuishi and Gene Luen Yang will be part of the panel, moderated by the always-great Calvin Reid. But here’s the weird part:

Words and Pictures
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 9
Got that? Same time as the panel immediately above. Moderated by Lev Grossman of TIME magazine, it’s a murderer’s row of modern masters of graphic storytelling: Michael Cho, Faith Erin Hicks, Lucy Knisley, Jen Wang, and Gene Luen Yang¹.

Comic Book Entrepreneurs: The Business of Comics
6:00pm — 7:00pm, Room 9
Bunch of business types, but also Noelle Stevenson of Nimona and Lumberjanes.

STRIPPED
6:10pm — 7:40pm, offsite
Well, half offiste; STRIPPED will be screening as part of the Comic Con International Independent Film Festival, which takes place at the Marriott next door to the convention center, in Hall 2. It’s still part of SDCC so you do need to be badged, it’s just not in the convention center. With another film starting immediately after, it doesn’t look like there’ll be time for a Q&A with filmmakers Freddave Kellett-Schroeder, but they’ll be at booth 1228 all show, so drop by there to pick up a copy or ask ’em about focal length or whatever.

Okay, that’s it for now; as a quick note, I’ll be on Pacific Time next week, so look for updates to occur later than they normally do. Yep, work sends me to the Left Coast just before I have to fly there for the convention like three days after I get home. I am not going to know what damn time zone it is for weeks.

Spam of the day:

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Let me Google that for you.

_______________
¹ Is Gene Yang able to be in two places at the same time? It might explain how he has the time to turn out so many graphic novels without seeming to rush or skimp on any of them.

San Diego Comic Con programming started to drop today, with Thursday’s slate now available for your perusal. As usual, I’m listing out things that caught my eye; your mileage may vary.

Thursday Programming
Graphic Novel Programming at Your Library
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 23ABC
If you’ve been wanting to get your work into libraries, this is probably a good place to trawl for librarians.

Legends of TV Land
find it yourself
This is just to point out that Betty White now counts as valid topic for SDCC panel time. Look, I get it, she’s a treasure, but we’ve really jumped the sharknado on this one¹.

Under the Dome: Panel and Exclusive Sneak Preview
11:15am — 12:00pm, Ballroom 20
I am including this solely to make Jon Rosenberg’s head explode.

Welcome To Night Vale
12:00pm — 1:00pm, offsite
TopatoCo will be presenting a panel at the Geek and Sundry Lounge on 4th Ave in the Gaslamp, covering the secret history of one weird little town. As it’s offsite, no SDCC badge is needed.

Gene Luen Yang in Conversation with Scott McCloud
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 28DE
This is the first must-attend of the show for me. I’ve never met Yang, but I owe him many profuse thanks for his body of work.

NASA’s Next Giant Leap
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 6A
Okay, I’m not sure why Seth Green is moderating this one, but any panel with Buzz Frickn’ Aldrin and Bobak Frickin’ Ferdowsi² on it gets my attention. They may have undersized the room for this panel.

The Sergio & Mark Show
3:30pm — 4:30pm, Room 8
The two most consistently amusing people in comics.

How to Kickstart Your Dream Like a Pro
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Room 25ABC
Spike, Ryan North, David Malki !, Zach Weinersmith, Aaron Diaz, and George Rohac are, inexplicably, not on this panel (indeed, half of them won’t be at the show). However, I’ll give a dollar to each one of them that attends the panel to kibitz from the floor.

Understanding Stories: The Making of a Graphic Novel
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Room 7AB
McCloud again; hopefully includes previews of The Sculptor.

Cartoon Hangover: Bee and PuppyCat and Friends
5:30pm — 6:30pm, Room 6A
Natasha Allegri, Becky & Frank, Madeleine Flores, Allyn Rachel and Kent Osborne (voices of Bee and Deckard), and others. Second must-attend of the show for me.

Indie Comics Marketing & PR 101
6:30pm — 7:30pm, Room 8
Panelists from comiXology, BOOM!, and Fantagraphics. Could be some very worthwhile info at this one.

Spam of the day:

As explained NASA’s Glenn Research Center, the biggest market of gravity is “the average location with the weight from the object.

This spam may actually tie with this one:

how much is 100 grams in tablespoons

… in terms of fundamentally misunderstanding how basic concepts like mass, volume, and gravity work. Going to ask me how much time twelve parsecs is next?

_______________
¹ Sharknado 2, naturally, has its own panel on Thursday because of course it does.

² Who, let’s be clear, oversaw the most audacious landing in space exploration history before his 33rd birthday. Respect, my brother engineer.

The sun set on one Jim Zub project today, as the reboot of Makeshift Miracle (story, as always, by Zub, with redone art by Shun Hong Chan) reached its conclusion today. Now that the entire story is there, I hope that Zub will put the original back up, so we can compare the two versions, page by page. Zub may not like his original (and ten years less-assured) artwork for Makeshift Miracle, but I thought it had some real charm. An authentic this is coming from a singular POV and it different from other stories character, if you will.

Regardless, this is the Hardest Working Man In Comics, so he can’t wrap up a project (even one where most of the lifting was already done) without having new ones to take up every moment of his waking life. In addition to Skullkickers rampaging towards its fifth-arc conclusion¹, and Samurai Jack has been extended again², and nobody³ can find an issue of Figment #2, Zub will be launching another creator-owned series next month.

Here’s the deal: Zub has become a damn hot writer (for more different publishers than I can count) on all kinds of different stories (fantasy humor; all ages; character studies; licensed characters) and achieved some pretty broad name recognition over the past couple of years. He got there because he’s been working his ass off for the past decade, and honing his craft every. single. day.

Not everything he writes is to my liking⁴, but he has become a writer for whom it is always appropriate to give the benefit of the doubt. I will read at least issue #1 of anything Zub writes, and so far I’ve got about an 80% conversion rate to being an ongoing reader of whatever comes after #1. I didn’t need to be told that Wayward is getting compared to Buffy to make a mental note to put it on my pull list; the magic words were Written by Jim Zub.

I’m mentioning this because even though Zub’s got the magic touch, it’s possible to get caught short. Marvel is scrambling to take Figment back to press because the demand was far greater than retailers figured (cf: I can’t find a copy), and I have a feeling the same thing could happen to Wayward. If you like good comics, if you’re willing to bet the cost of one moderately fancy drink at Starbucks that it’ll be worth your while, now is the time to tell your local comic shop. New titles rarely get generously ordered (cf: once more, Figment), and the more demand that’s seen now, in advance of release, the greater chance we have of a) all getting a copy; b) Image sees the value in a creator-owned title, the economics of which are fraught with risk and fear.

I don’t ask y’all for much, and this is really for your benefit as much as it is for one of the most frighteningly-skilled writers in comics today. Check the previews and read what people who’ve seen advance copies have to say. Decide whether your money is better spent on yet another renumbering or line-wide crossover that will change everything (until next month) or something new. Then tell your local shop, I need a copy of Wayward when it launches. Do it for the children.

And just maybe, if Wayward hits big and Figment continues to grow and Samurai Jack becomes an ongoing, and skulls continue to be kicked … maybe Zub will let himself take a day off.

Nahhhhh.

Spam of the day:

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¹ And I can’t find the recently-released #28 anywhere, dammit.

² Remember, it was originally going to be a five-issue miniseries; it’s now going to at least issue #20.

³ Including me, again dammit. I’m not even entirely sure which nostalgic Disney property it’s based on, I’m buying this because Zub got me hooked and I want to see where it goes.

⁴ But that goes for all of the comics creators I follow, with the exceptions of Jeff Smith, Terry Moore, and Raina Telgemeier. Everything they write I love.

Well, it’s just about two weeks out from Preview Night and (as of this writing) we don’t have a definitive programming schedule for San Diego Comic Con 2014; despite this, there are hints leaking out here and there, such as Dean Trippe’s Something Terrible panel on Friday morning. But what we do have is an exhibitor list for the main floor, Small Press, and Artists Alley areas, which we at Fleen have broken down for your convenience.

Surprising nobody, the SDCC exhibit floor [PDF] remains unreasonably huge; good news, though — if you’ve been before, webcomickers and similar folks are mostly where you’ve found them in prior years. Please note that all the information given is what I could confirm at press time, and as more information becomes available I will update or correct this page.

On The Right Side
Let’s start over to the right side of the map, which is the side of the building away from the stadium parking lot where so much offsite stuff will be found. It looks like this:

The Webcomics, Small Press, and Independent Press Pavilions are all reasonably accessible from the “B” lobby. Let’s break ’em down.

The Sexy Lagoon
Centered roughly on booth #1332, you’ll find a majority of the webcomickers who will be at the show within about a 1.5 aisle radius; some are slightly outside the orange area, but not too far.

Notes:

• Gene Luen Yang and Lucy Knisley will both be at the :01 Books booth during the show.
• Blank Label is the increasingly-disused name for Willis, Spike, and whoever’s sharing space this year.
• Dumbrella will include Andy Bell, Meredith Gran, Rich Stevens, Chris Yates, and me.
• Congrats to Matt Inman on finally getting a booth of his own. Watch out for Blerch cosplayers in the aisles.
• Danielle Corsetto’s cross-country roadtrip will land at the TopatoCo booth on Saturday and Sunday from 1:00pm to 4:00pm only.

Small Press Is The Best Press
Right by the Webcomics section is Small Press. Here you should find:

From the Small Press section, you’re close by:

Notes:

• Gallery Nucleus/Bolt City will feature Kazu Kibuishi, and no doubt other arty types when they aren’t hanging out at Mondo down in booth 805.
• No confirmation yet on which webcomickers will be at the BOOM! booth when, but I’d expect a pretty strong rotation.

Now head back toward the “B” Lobby into the Independent Press area and you’ll find Unshelved in Booth 2300. Head towards entrance B2 in particular and you’ll be right next to Axe Cop at Booth 1603.

Going back to that larger map of the northern half of the exhibit hall. Wedged in between the Marvel and Image megabooths you’ll find Keenspot in Booth 2635.

Down South
Two last places to mention, if you trek down to the southern (that’s the end closer to the Happiest Place On Earth¹) end of the hall:

Waaay down there, past all the art materials and vinyl toys and Copic markers, you’ll find Udon Entertainment (home of such worthies as Christopher Butcher and Jim Zub at Booth 4529); and The Hero Initiative at Booth 5003. One may also find Mr Zub in Artists Alley, table GG-06, or variously at the Dark Horse, IDW, Image, or Marvel booths; look for the Canadian-shaped blur and that will be him.

Offsite
I don’t have a specific place to direct you like last year’s ShiftyLook (RIP) Arcade featuring Andrew Hussie, but I’m guessing that neither the Gaslamp Hilton terrace nor the massive parking lots within a kilometer of the convention center will be empty. I’ll add info to this page as I become aware of it. I’ll also update any info I get on people that are going to SDCC, but not necessarily boothing on their own.

Spam of the day:

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_______________
¹ Tijuana.

New — in some cases long-awaited — things popping up all over the damn place today.

• Ever want a Scott C painting of your very own? I’ve got a couple and they’re great, but they aren’t necessarily in everybody’s price range. The valiant Mr C heard your cries of despair, though, and has a solution:
  

  THE GREAT, GREAT SHOWDOWNS HUNT

  DAY 1

  Here’s what’s happening: I will post a little painting from a popular little film once every day this week leading up to the Revenge of the Great Showdowns exhibition on Friday, July 11th at Gallery 1988. These paintings shall be placed into envelopes and hidden somewhere at the location in which that scene happened.

  The first person to find this painting shall keep this painting as a gift from me to you! I only ask that you post a picture of the found painting in your possession, so I can congratulate you in front of the world. Tweet it or whatever you like. #GreatGreatShowdownsHunt

  Today’s painting appears to be of the cast of Reservoir Dogs, and it’s been placed in proximity to the diner from the early scene where they discussed tipping. Get on that, LA people! Presumably the others between now and Friday will also be in LA, but maybe he’s arranged for one to be left somewhere in suburban New Jersey. Please?

• From the twitter machine yesterday
  

  Baby arrived 8:14 this morning. Seven pounds, four ounces, 19 1/2″ long. Enjoying family bonding time at the hospital right now.

  That would be the sprog of Shaenon Garrity and Andrew Farago, born to webcomics royalty. There’s only so much you can say in 140 characters, so we at Fleen will presume that mother, child, and father are all doing well, and hope that all settle into their new routines easily. Child, you are going to have an amazing life, with parents that not only love the crap out of you, but also draw great pictures for your amusement and have a appreciation of nerdy things second to none.

  Listen to them well, learn their lessons, and you may someday inherit your mother’s crown as one of the three Nexuses of All Webcomics Reality and Radness Queen of the East Bay and Adjoining Metropolitan Areas. Welcome, little one; we’ll try to make the world worthy of you.

• Little baby children are all adorable, and a good thing too, or the stories of what they’re like at two years old would have led to a lot more of them being raised by wolves¹. Nightmares at that age, the lot of ’em. Not that nightmares don’t have their appeal from a storytelling perspective, which is why I’m equally curious and (given the imagery coming out of Broodhollow these says) trepidatious about Kris Straub’s newest project:
  

  What if there was a company that could go into your dreams and kill your nightmares? EXTERMINITE is a mind-bending 5-part graphic novel from Len Peralta, Mikey Neumann, and Kris Straub that will scare you out of your own pants, hilariously.

  Okay, sure, the blurb there claims that Exterminite will also have the hands of Len Peralta and Mikey Neumann, but when you start talking about nightmares, really disturbing nightmares, my mind goes straight to Straub. Hopefully the ha, ha aspects of this one will outweigh the Well great, you can just rock me to sleep tonight, Kris aspects.

  May Straub find this project a means to deal with his well-known fear of ghosts, because he’s just way too nice a guy to spend his days spooked by the things that aren’t quite there. Besides, he’s expecting his own first child soon, and as I understand it worrying about everything dangerous your infant can do to her/himself leaves little time to worry about ghosts.

• New book cover/recently rediscovered Art Deco masterpiece courtesy of Justin Pierce; Wonderella may be taking a little break while the third collection of her nonadventures is being put together, but if we get beautiful renditions like this (love the juniper, barley, and hops, very apropos) I’d call that a fair trade. Kickstarter information to come soon.

Spam of the day:

Depending which type, gas powered or electric, make certain you hands are dry before plugging it in to operate. You can buy this dryer at Sears, Home Depot and select Loews locations.

And remember, you have to keep the lint screen clear or you’ll burn down your house.

_______________
¹ Or perhaps moles; I can never keep those two straight.

We need rituals in our lives; for example, on the 4th of July, my rituals include the reading of the Declaration of Independence on Morning Edition, a viewing of 1776, and a reflection on what it means to be a part of this marvelous, contentious mess we call America. Each ideal we fall short of, each step backwards has (at least so far, and I hope will continue to) pushed us to try be better.

Which was pretty parallel to what I was thinking as I read the print collection of Darwin Carmichael Is Going To Hell (a review copy of which was kindly gifted to me by creators Jenn Jordan and Sophie Goldstein).

Darwin’s world is a Brooklyn where the melting pot didn’t stop with people in the human sense — gods, angels, demons, fantastic beings of all sorts have joined in the great migrations from their homelands because when the old ways stop working for you, what else are you going to do? No more labyrinth to inhabit? Patrick the minotaur is the super of Darwin’s building. Maybe the worshippers forget to provide you milk on holy days? Ganesh works at the diner down the corner. Spent the last 2000 years buddying it up with the great and notable? Skittle the manticore knows who needs a friend in life, and he latched onto Darwin early. Angels become stoners (mostly to kill time), muses latch onto conceptual artists (but I’m betting that Koons and Hirst never met one), and atheists have it tough in a world where actual gods live down the street, but they still try.

And it’s that thought that you have to still try that sits at the heart of the story. Darwin¹ was momentarily careless once, years ago, and he accidentally harmed the just-reincarnated Dalai Lama. Look, these things just happen, like the thunderstorm last night knocked a piece of my neighbor’s roof off and it hit my wife’s car. We live in a world where you deal with that by exchanging insurance information; Darwin lives a world where that completely non-intentional act has earned him a karmic debt so deep, a lifetime of good deeds won’t make up for it. Whether it’s just or not, he will suffer eternally.

So it’s understandable that he’s a bit mopey, especially considering his best friend is blessed by fortune (she inherited an immense amount of karma from her parents and so life just works out for her), his sidekick is perpetually innocent, his roommate is a complete douchebag, and the karma police arrest him regularly. But he’s trying.

The angels that won’t move out of his living room want him to pick up a soul, only the guy wants to live past his suicide attempt and Darwin takes him to the hospital; the guy lives, but the angels inform him that he disobyed the word of God, and God hates that. The Dalai Lama comes to New York and Darwin goes to apologize, but DL’s security goons (enormous monks in saffron robes with radio watches and earpieces) rough him up. Unicorns stab the hell out his butt as they race get to a virgin². He meets a young woman (made of snow) that falls for him and promptly melts from his warmth. Nothing quite works out for him no matter how hard he tries.

So when the forces of destruction (all of them, from all the religions) try to bring about the Apocalypse with Darwin as its harbinger (just after finding a girlfriend he really clicks with, naturally), you’d think he’d be willing to say screw it and bring about the end of all things. But he’s trying.

Darwin Carmichael Is Going To Hell is a complete story; there’s a beginning, and callbacks to the bits before the beginning, and the characters squabble and make up and love each other, and in the end we are well and truly caught up in learning if just trying is enough. Goldstein and Jordan have put a complex and subtle message behind a lightweight and deeply silly facade³; it’s variously cheery, melancholy, bright, dark, full of characters that you want to hang with and sometimes want to smack, and always deeply, deeply human. Darwin’s struggle against his fate is a fascinating story; squeeze into the handbasket and take the ride along with him.

Spam of the day:

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Wow, I’ve heard the RIAA compared to the Mafia before, but Camorra is a deep cut. Kudos.

______________
¹ And let me just note that that is the perfect name for a character that desperately wishes for a world with a little more clockwork operation and fewer supernatural realities.

² And coincidentally, we discover that unicorns are way creepy about their attraction to virgins (Check out the maidenhead on her! Man, I bet that hymen is like steel!), and will smack-talk the crap out of each other’s owners (I bet my owner’s had waaaay less temptation than her. Pssht, your girl? She’s like the wet slut double penetration queen of virgins.). Quite frankly, they’re all kind of dicks, especially the one that’s inspired by Kate Beaton’s fat pony, who is the chosen steed of the Whore of Babylon.

³ Especially when Patrick hits on a mermaid at a party, and ends up drunkenly sleeping with her sister. He was hoping for the hot redhead with enormous breasts, and wound up with the reverse mermaid: fish on top, human on the bottom. He will never be permitted to live that one down.

You bid Dave’s watercolor up to US$520.

And here’s my match:

It is, of course, a luxury to be able to do this; if I’m going to have drop-a-couple-hundo¹ flexibility in life, I promise that I’ll use it for good (an occasionally for awesome).

_______________
¹ I am kicking myself for not rounding it up to US$600, because as we all know, six hundred dollars is class money.

Just a bunch of people I need to toss props to today.

• Zach Weinersmith and Boulet are, as of about 37 minutes ago (as I hit publish on this), responsible for the #1 most-funded children’s book on Kickstarter, and the #4 publishing project of any kind. Also, if you’re me and draw a distinction between publishing and t-shirt¹, one could argue that it’s actually #3. Well done, you scruffy ginger men.
• The redoubtable² Heidi Mac has been one of the mainstays of comics reportage and commentary; it’s probably fair to say that if she hadn’t started The Beat, a whole bunch of other sites never would have launched, or tried so hard to keep up with her example. Having lost the actual go-live date to the mists of history –it was June or July 2004 — she’s decided on 1 July as her official blog birthday, making yesterday the day that The Beat hit the decade mark.

  Speaking as somebody who’s around the eight and half year mark (no to mention the fact that I cover a much narrower swathe of comics, and file a hell of a lot less copy than she does), I can tell you that’s an enormous accomplishment. I’ll let you in on a little secret — any time I actually come across a story before Heidi³, I get a little thrill like I’m not just a part-timer sneaking in some light opinion-mongering over lunchtime. Congrats on the landmark, Heidi, and long may you continue to lay The Beat down on my dilettante ass.

• Congratulations to you bidders that have added another US$100 to the price of the Drive cast/Team Cul de Sac benefit auction since yesterday. Specifically thanks to reader Maarvarq, who tried to bid even higher and ran into some kind of eBay limitation. There’s still some hours to go before this one finishes up, so if you were interested in costing me some money, pile on while you still have time.

Spam of the day:

You … are … my … hero!!! I cant believe something like this exists on the internet! Its so true, so honest, and more than that you dont sound like an idiot! Finally, someone who knows how to talk about a subject without sounding like a kid who didnt get that bike he wanted for Christmas.

Ma’am, thanks for the kind words, but I’m just a simple webcomics pseudo-journalist, doing the best he can in this crazy, mixed-up world. [flexes; crying eagle flies in front of explosions]

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¹ Not to mention the fact that the presence of the most vile creature on the planet — the squirrel — should disqualify the Planet Money (who are otherwise upright citizens of the highest repute) project from existence, much less record-holding status. Friggin’ squirrels.

² So don’t even try to doubt her, because she will re-doubt you right back, Sparky.

³ Also The Spurge, Brigid Alverson, Johanna Draper Carlson, everybody at Comics Alliance, and a half-dozen other heavy-hitters. But mostly Heidi.

Okay, there’s still a day left to cost me and Dave Kellett some money. If it wouldn’t be unethical as hell, I’d bid the damn thing up to somewhere in the US$500+ range. In fact, let’s make this game a little more interesting: I pledged to match the purchase price of this piece up to US$500. If this is what it takes to spur some of you to get in the spirit of things (only full cast of Drive watercolor in existence, people!), I’m going to change the terms of my pledge:

I, Gary Tyrrell, will match the selling price of Dave’s piece as a donation to Team Cul de Sac up to US$1000, and with a minimum of US$500 in any case

You can’t afford to bid on a piece that might cost you multiple hundreds of dollars? Pledge a donation — however small — in the comments. You’ll get a reward beyond measure: official mensch¹ status, as declared by Richard Thompson himself.

• One of the things that I’ve observed with interest over the past few years is the (slow, but growing) adoption of writer’s rooms in webcomics. You could say that there’s an element of it at Cyanide & Happiness where it’s easy to imagine one of the lads bouncing an idea off another of them, but I think primarily it’s individual efforts. Anyplace you get a writer/artist partnership, there’s certainly give-and-take there.

  But I think you could probably trace proper writer’s rooms to the Pacific Northwest where (as often happens) you find Scott Kurtz at the center of experiments in webcomics. The Trenches started as an explicit writerly collaboration between Kurtz and the established duo of Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins; along with the artist changes, the writer’s room reduced to a singular voice: that of Strip Searchmonaut Ty Halley. While he may have withdrawn from one writer’s room, Kurtz was busy building up another as Dylan Meconis² joined him on writing duties on PvP.

  Crucially, I think the fact that Meconis creates comics so very different from Kurtz is a strength of this particular partnership. While Kurtz, Krahulik, and Holkins undoubtedly work well together they have similar strip approaches (gag-oriented, videogame and pop culture focii) and that limits the number of additional viewpoints that can be brought to bear on the final product. One might wish to compare with the writer’s room that was put together for the now-shuttered NAMCO High, featuring a bunch of creators of different ages and backgrounds (although there was a tendency for them to presently live in Brookklyn).

  I’m bringing this up because for anybody that’s considering a writer’s room, finding that balance of different experiences is probably one of the most crucial elements for success, but historically it’s something that’s been elusive. The traditional venue for writer’s rooms has been TV comedy, and much has been written in the past about how those rooms tend to be dominated by white dudes, often from Ivy League colleges, and viciously under-representative of women and minorities.

  And all of that is by way of pointing out a discussion that anybody considering a writing partnership (whether in a room or not) will probably want to listen to: as I write this sentence, WNYC midday host Leonard Lopate is introducing the author of a new book on comedy writing to discuss writer’s rooms at places like SNL, Letterman, and The Onion. You can listen to the interview here, and we can discover together what makes a good writer’s room (or perhaps the discussion follows some other track, but it’ll probably still be enlightening).

• Skin Horse, by Shaenon Garrity and C Jeffrey Wells, is in an odd semi-hiatus right now. Those of you paying attention may have noted that Garrity is (as of this writing), hugely pregnant and not intending to do a daily strip whilst dealing with the immediate aftermath of presenting a small human child to the world³.

  Having wrapped up a storyline on Saturday, she announced that she was done drawing comics for a while on Sunday, and the next storyline (a catch-up-with-peripheral-characters melange, to feature a variety of guest artists) started on Monday. And if my eye does not fool me, Garrity even provided the art for the first vignette herself (or somebody out there has her style down cold), easing us into a summer of random fun, with Wells undoubtedly shifting plot and pacing to best match the fill-in artists.

  And in one of those weird coincidences, today’s strip features an offhand reference to an obscure cryptid known as The Hodag, which by a peculiar corincidence just happens to be one of the critters mentioned in an endnote of Darwin Carmichael Is Going To Hell, to wit:

  In 1893, the Rhinelander Daily News reported the discovery of the corpse of a hideous creature with huge claws and a spiked tail. It’s discoverer, local land surveyor Eugene Shpher, called it the hodag, then claimed to have caught a live one in 1896. Shortly after, he displayed it at the First Oneida County Fair. He stood by the veracity of his claims until the Smithsonian Institution announced it would travel to Wisconsin to inspect the evidence, after which he promptly recanted. This ridiculous hoax is now the official symbol Rhinelander, Wisconsin, which is pretty great.

  The more you know!

• The last time David Malki ! thought up a game, it turned into a half million dollar Kickstarter and a year-plus process of production and fulfillment. This time, he’s just decided to put the damn thing up in a post and let you play without going down the path that leads to things like livestock and international shipping incidents.

Spam of the day:

Today, I went to the beachfront with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back!

Yeah, that’ll happen. My suggestion is that to avoid future trauma to unsuspecting and blameless hermit crabs, you seal your daughter in a barrel, with a small opening to pass in food and water.

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¹ For those of you that didn’t grow up someplace where you got off from school for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, being a mensch is a good thing.

² About whom it is literally impossible to say too many good things.

³ With, it should be noted, the assistance of husband and Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago.