Happy Returns Of The Day
This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: We discover who has a gigantic and deep-seated fury at the world.
- Here’s the thing about webcomics — as a wide-ranging method of distribution featuring every possible type of story and creator, whoever you are, you’re going to be rubbing somebody the wrong way. The best-known creators attract the greatest scrutiny, naturally, because a wider audience also gives you a greater chance to be exposed to somebody who just isn’t going to like you. Nobody is universally liked¹.
Except Anthony Clark.
His strips delight everybody; he’s the go-to colorist in webcomics; in person he is the sort of person that makes you think to yourself How can one guy be so damn likeable?² A friend of mine who reads webcomics but is mostly what you’d call a webcomics civilian expressed once that any day that started with a new comic from Clark was automatically a good day. And let us not forget the greatest expression of back-and-forth jam comics to ever exist, the Anthony Clark-Emmy Cicierega collaborations known as Laserpony Studios.
And as of today, Clark’s been doing his Beartato comics for ten years. Beartato, Reginald, Harrison, Gary, and the other agents of whimsy came into public at the same time as The Great Outdoor Fight was running — they could not be any different, but they are just as enduring and delightful to read. Happy Anniversary, Anthony. Your comics are good and you should feel good.
- Via the twitterfeed of John Kovalic comes the news that the the John Locher award (for student editorial cartooning) is now open to webcomics and graphic novelists. Any full-time students between the ages of 17 and 25, you have until 15 April to get in your application, and since opportunities for editorial cartooning are thin on the ground, may I suggest you also drop a line to Matt Bors in anticipation of The Nib’s revival later this year?
- A correction and an additional bit of info from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, as regards our mention of Boulet yesterday:
A quick dispatch to let you know that Soaring Penguin Press is, shall we say, incentivizing preorders of the first volume of Boulet’s “Notes” by offering his 24-hour comic the Gaeneviad to the first people who preorder.
Speaking of which, I’m afraid the ten volumes of Notes are not really “and counting”, as Boulet announced some time ago he would keep doing notes but no longer collect them on paper after volume 10 (sorry, I can’t find the reference at the moment).
Well, that’s both terrific and disappointing new, respectively. For those who didn’t see it, Gaeneviad is online here, and like his earlier 24 hour comic, Darkness, it’s a delight. Not really a surprise, really, since everything he does is a delight.
Spam of the day:
Look what I found growing in your stomach!
What the hell are you doing in my stomach? Get out of there!
_______________
¹ If you’re thinking of Ryan North as an exception, I have it on good authority that some find him to be disturbingly tall, unrepentantly Canadian, and a setter of bad examples to our youth with respect to holes.
² There is a speculation that Clark being so likeable could theoretically make him unlikeable to a certain sort of deeply insecure and damaged person, but to date the existence of such people remains unproven. It’s possible that CERN would have to get involved to find anyone of such a sour disposition.
[…] it turns out my reference for [the end of Notes on paper](http://fleen.com/archives/2016/02/17/happy-returns-of-the-day/) was outdated, as more recently Boulet indicated that « [Volume 9 was a “pentimento” […]
By Fleen: The Elcoertnic Swiss Army Knife For This Topic » Things To Look Forward To On The Far Side Of The Weekend on 02.19.16 3:00 pm
The above comments are owned by whoever posted them. The staff of Fleen are not responsible for them in any way.