This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: No strip, leading to the mother of all pregnant pauses.

And with it, the possibility of friggin’ snow. Let’s just do this while we still have the illusion of an approaching spring.

• From Nilah Magruder, an eagle-eyed catch of a chance for webcomickers to get some notice in the broader pop culture:
  

  Hey webcomic creators send your webcomics to @RichcBarrett so he can review them for Mental Floss.

  In reference to a plea from the comics writer for Mental Floss:

  I wish more people would send me links to the cool webcomics they make so I can write about them. I’ve gotten bad about finding them myself.

  Webcomic creators just don’t do as much PR as they should I guess.

  I’m getting lots of great responses about this. Lots of webcomics to check out. Keep them coming.

  Tweeted last night that I wish webcomic creators would promote their comics to me so I can write about them. Woke up to a deluge of links.

  I used to be good at seeking out webcomics myself but it gets hard finding time as I’m getting tons of other types of comics sent my way.

  Webcomics are such a deep and varied world of comics. It’s hard even for me, much less a casual reader, to know where to even look.

  Thanks for kickstarting the response, Ms Magruder! You can see her next weekend at WonderCon in LA, Artists Alley table G-26.

• Speaking of Kickstarting, two new webcomics fundraisers went up earlier to today: Tony Breed is looking to fund the first collection of Muddler’s Beat (it’s so good you guys) with the assistance of the fine folks at Make That Thing, and Brad Guigar is funding the ninth Evil, Inc collection (if my math is correct, he’ll have another three to go before he hits the recent reboot, so keep room clear on your shelves).

  They’re both just into the low tens of backers and about 10% to the their respective goals, but please note that Breed is only granting himself a two week window to fundraise, so there’s a bit more urgency there. Put ’em over the top, won’t you?

Spam of the day:

Implant-Settlement

Are you saying I’ve got one of those alien implants? Cause I sure don’t have any other kind.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history:

Ramses.

Luther.

Smuckles.

He does not have time for your mush, and will hush you if need be. This strip, and particularly the last line, has stayed with me more than any other part of the Achewood canon, and possibly more than any other comic I’ve ever read¹. It doesn’t get much better than this.

• You may have seen the announcement that the Harvey Awards are now open for nominations, with comics professionals being asked to suggest up to five nominees per category, as is the way of their people. Melanie Gillman stole a place in my heart with a wonderful suggestion for those of you in position to nominate:
  

  If you’re a comics pro, a good thing you can do today is nominate webcomics in categories other than just webcomics: http://www.harveyawards.org/2016-nomination-ballot/ …

  We almost never talk about how often webcomics artists are also top-notch writers & letterers & inkers & colorists, but we SHOULD.

  Too right. You can’t tell me that Tom Siddell or Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett isn’t putting together a story as good as any in print, or that Boulet or Minna Sundberg isn’t cranking out art that is the equal of anybody else’s. The idea that webcomics should have a singular award based on distribution method is antiquated, and will only go away as creators make their way into the non-segregated categories. It’s been happening — slowly, in fits and starts — over the past few years, and it never hurts to make it a conscious thought in circumstances like these. Some day it won’t require conscious thought at all.

• Pivoting to less happy thoughts, Ryan Pequin² shared the news the other night that his cousin is seriously ill and wishes to visit her grandmother. Fortunately, she lives in Canada, where healthcare is not viewed as something to be earned³, but even making care something other than financially ruinous doesn’t remove all challenges.

  So Ryan’s cousin Megan would like to introduce her sons to the great-grandmother they’ve never met; given the circumstances, it’s not hard to imagine it will also be the last chance for both women to say goodbye to each other. As Kate Beaton (who is the kind of person I want to be when I grow up) observed, we all need a little help, sometimes, for the important things . There’s a crowdfunding campaign, and it represents a very real way to make a significant difference in multiple lives.

• Still on the serious topics, but one with a bit of hope. Jackie Wohlenhaus does a long-running webcomic about the employees of a media megastore called Between Failures that I don’t believe I’ve mentioned here on the page before, but which I catch up on in a binge about once a year or so. Short version (and this is not the topic for today so I’m not going to expand on this thought): the strip reminds me of a cross between Archie and Real Genius.

  That’s not what’s important right now; the topic for today is a situation that Wohlenhaus has found himself in (and he’s not the only member of the creative community that’s been in this circumstance), where he’s become an inpromptu acute-care counselor for members of his audience in moments of crisis:

  I need to talk about this. — I’ve talked more readers out of suicide than I care to talk about. I don’t… https://tmblr.co/ZmToTx23Rwwcz

  When creators have mentioned to me that they’re in this position, I always think how unfair it is — to be put on the spot by a stranger, with the implication (sometimes the outright stated fact) that if you don’t find a way to say exactly the right thing they will harm themselves. It’s one thing to do it with those that you know, it’s another when you’re trained for it and it’s your duty (and trust me, even then it sucks), but however much you’ve made an effort to reach out to your audience, to build up a community? It’s still a stranger.

  I’ve seen the emails that creators have gotten after they’ve decided to get help because of this example in that strip — those are great. But to reach out to somebody and say Because of your creative work I feel you’re the only one I can unburden myself to is deeply, deeply troubling. On the one hand, people in pain need help; this is uncontroversial. On the other hand, to burden somebody not trained or equipped to help, and who must bear the burden of guilt if they can’t help? That’s not something we should ask people to take on.

  I really need to know if other creators go through this, so I’m taking this blog post and setting it adrift on tumblr like a message in a bottle. Just message me with a story, or reblog, or whatever. I just really need to hear what other people do in these situations. You don’t need to draw comic, it can be anything, writing, music, just whatever you do that makes people reach out to you when they’re at their lowest point. For some reason I really need to know that I’m not the only person who goes through this with people.

  I’m not at liberty to name names, Jackie, but yes. Other creators go through this. Because you say in your posting that you know that you’ve failed to prevent readers from harming themselves, let me take this opportunity to ensure that you don’t become pulled down into your own sense of failure over that. It’s admirable that you do try to help others — to muddle through as you put it — but your first obligation is always to take care of yourself. There’s a reason why they tell you on airplanes to secure your own mask before assisting others. So if being the object of readers in crisis is wearing on you, please get help.

  As for everybody else — people who are hurting, and those that know people who are hurting, and those who are approached by people who are hurting — there are resources you should know about. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), with hearing-impaired help at 800-799-4889 (for TTY users) or this link (for interactive chat). Crisistextline.org also operates an MMS service; you just text START to 741-741. Those in other countries, check the International Association of Suicide Prevention and Befrienders.org.

  You don’t need to do it alone — on either side of the needing help conversation.

Spam of the day:

2015 TAX RELIEF

Well! I was going to chuck this in the trash considering I’ve already done my taxes, but I see you have a little emoji that says BANK and also a megacephalic lady in stripper heels who I presume is meant to be my personal banker, so I’m sold!

_______________
¹ Possible contenders: Don’t ask, don’t ask, no possible good will come of asking (which I say to myself on a regular basis, along with the occasional Oh, blood and shale), and Has a name! Name-Is-Ed! (which is seriously making me tear up here at work), both of which are from Ursula Vernon’s incomparable Digger.

² At this point I can’t be the only one thinking that our sole hope for salvation from Donald Trump and Trumpketeers is President Bird.

³ Can’t work because of your illness? Try not to be so unworthy in your next life.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: No strip. At 62 Achewood Court, Cornelius Bear snores gently; he will awaken with a slight crick in his neck, but half an hour of moderate calisthenics with a medicine ball will set him right before he sits down to a breakfast of broiled kippers and proper tea. He is, above all, a gentleman.

And that’s where I leave you for the day, because I’m in the weeds. We’ll be back tomorrow.

Spam of the day:

I want you to f@ck me senseless! Chat me up

I’m going to overlook your uses of the commercial-at for a u instead of the more appropriate a because there’s something more disturbing here: your opening line starts with Adieu, which makes me suspect you are a French Bizarro. Definitely ain’t want to swap DNA with any Bizarros.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: The Ides of March portend violence upon Caesar, and also we are introduced to the sub-Saharan comb-over. Also, we finally hear from The Latino Health Crisis, and are cruelly kept from returning Ramses Luther Smuckles.

• Do you know what Kickstarter is? Of course we all do!
  And do you know what Retrofit Comics is? The Box Brown-run imprint has been putting out comics by a murderer’s row of independent and alternative creators for several years now, stretching back to their first endeavours in 2011.

  Time for a new campaign. The first was a series of 17 floppy comics; now they’re looking to put out six new comics and graphic novels with stretch goals for another six. The first tranche of creators includes Leela Corman, Alabaster Pizzo, Kaeleigh Forsyth, James Kochalka, Paloma Dawkins, Eleanor Davis, and Luke Howard; stretchers include Mari Naomi, Karine Bernadou, Anya Davidson, Tyler Landry, and Sophie Yanow. The goal is a bit steep — US$35,000 — but look at what you’re getting: a US$36 pledge gets you six comics, ranging from 32 to 100 pages. US$65 will get you all twelve (assuming they fund out) and overfunding will pay the creators more. In fact, that’s why the goal jumped more than three times from the US$9K campaign of 2011: so that the artists could be paid up front.

  Yeah, it’s a fairly high goal, with a fairly ambitious timetable, but this is not a first-timer that’s never built anything before; the creators being published are seasoned pros with many comics behind them, and the the publisher has been around for five years and more than 40 titles produced. It’s as close to a sure thing as you’re going to see. There’s three weeks to go and they’re presently just under 30% of the way to goal. Time to decide which creators you really love and to pick up some of their work.

• And as long as we’re talking about Kickstarter, there’s one that’s about to launch for a project that some people have been waiting for for up to a dozen years. I speak, naturally, of the Irregular Webcomic reprint project coming from David Morgan-Mar and Make That Thing. There’s a video and everything, and once Morgan-Mar has all the last-minute fiddly bits worked out (not to mention once his brain defogs from his recent trip from his native Sydney to the US and Japan), we can expect to see the campaign launch. Sources¹ indicate this will likely be within the next fortnight. Start your drooling anticipation … now.

Spam of the day:

Linked In

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

No.

______________
¹ That would be the email that Morgan-Mar sent me.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: We meet The Man With The Blood On His Hands for the first time.

Is this mathematically the best time to write a blogpost? I think it is! And math is intrinsically linked with science, so let’s get all sciency up in here.

• Item! Comicker/science demystifier Maris Wicks is currently (ha, ha) aboard the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s research vessel Atlantis in the mid-Atlantic ocean. She’s there to help facilitate the dissemination of information of a multi-week voyage to study the phenomenon of rocks on the sea floor that make popping sounds all on their own. They’re a mystery and not easily found, but mere days after setting out and making their way to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, success! Popping rocks were found!

  In all seriousness, this is a great use of comics to convey complex ideas (ocean science, geology, climatology, probably a few more -ologies), as has been shown by Wicks’s own previous and current work, but also by Dante Shepherd’s engineering concepts comics. Keep an eye on Wicks, the R/V Atlantis, the Alvin, and all who sail upon/in them; they’re going to be learning some neat stuff and then sharing so we can learn it too.

• Item! Comicker/science demystifier/filmmaker Jorge Cham is out on tour this week, with visits to CMU and Pitt tonight (How To Survive Grad School), FSU tomorrow (talk, signing, and screening of The PhD Movie 2), and William & Mary on Thursday (The Power Of Procrastination). Details at the respective pages, go tell him I said hi.
• Item! Webcomics power couple Jaya Saxena and Matt Lubchansky are going to have a formal launch for the book version of their world-famous Dad Magazine, with back-to-back events in New York City:
  

  DO YOU WANT TO COME TO A DAD MAGAZINE RELEASE PARTY yes you do they’re on April 26 @astoriabookshop and April 27 at @HousingWorksBks

  The Astoria Bookshop event will run 7:00pm to 8:00pm, and the Housingworks Books event the next night starts at 7:00pm but (intriguingly) has no end time indicated. Could be the party goes on forever.

  Where’s the science? I hear you ask. Shut up, that’s where. Just go and enjoy yourself.

Spam of the day:

Talcum Powder Lawsuit ATTENTION: Ovarian Cancer Patients. Did You Use Talcum Powder?

It might just be impossible for me to have ovarian cancer, and it might just be impossible for people with ovarian cancer to not have used talcum powder since basically everybody has at some point. Might as well ask ATTENTION: Ovarian Cancer Patients. Did You Breathe Air?

I mean, unless you’re implying that they put the talcum powder directly on the ovaries which would not be the dumbest illness/injury thing I’ve heard since becoming an EMT.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: Two cats have taken their time going to the snack tent to retrieve some brandy of the gets-the-job-done variety. We’ll pick up with them when they get back.

I think that what I like best about the small-to-medium sized comics shows is the fact that they actually feature comics. So it’s with that in mind that I brin gyou news from three such festival-type shows that you’ll be paying attention to in the coming weeks and months, and one prize that draws from the same creator cohort.

• First up, MoCCA Fest has announced its slate of programming for the 2-3 April show in Manhattan; as was the case last year, panels and programs will be offsite, but included in the cost of your US$5 ticket. Highlights include a Sonny Liew Spotlight (12:30pm on Saturday), Cece Bell on El Deafo (2:00pm Saturday), Making Comics for Younger Readers (with Noelle Stevenson and others; 12:30pm on Sunday), and a Rebecca Sugar Q+A (2:00pm on Sunday). Best of all? The meeting rooms are actually named Helvetica and Garamond.
• Nextly, TCAF has announced four more featured guests, who you’ll find the weekend of 14-15 May. If it seems like three is a small number, consider:
  • They were specifically invited to appeal to kids
  • There were already Kids Guests announced like Kate Beaton and Faith Erin Hicks
  • This brings the total of confirmed guests to more than two dozen
  • They are superstars Alex A (Super Agent Jon Le Bon), Kazu Kibuishi (Amulet), Dana Simpson (Phoebe And Her Unicorn), and Raina Telgemeier (the entire damn comics industry; Sunday only)
• The second half of the SPX exhibitor list — the part decided by lottery — is starting to fill in, as news is being shared around the Twittersphere about who got in and who didn’t. The list will be fluid for some time, with table payments not due for another month, and then backfills taking place between now and the weekend of 17–18 September. Please note that the Exhibitors link at the SPX site is still showing the 2015 lineup, but expect that to change in the next couple of weeks.
• The Center for Cartoon Studies and Slate have announced the shortlists for their annual Cartoonist Studio Prizes. As in past years, there are ten nominees from the world of print comics, and ten from webcomics. As in past years, there are single-shot stories and ongoing series — length, genre, topic, style, audience age, and all the other qualifiers that usual divide nominees into many categories have no place here, only the strength of the work. As in past years, one nominee from each list will be recognized (announcement due on 6 April), and get both bragging rights and — uniquely for comics prizes — a thousand damn dollars.

  Pretty much everything that I saw on the lists that I recognized I nodded Yeah, that makes sense, and I don’t see any particularly weak or surprising nominations. It’s worth noting that D&Q and Fantagraphics dominate the print category, and that three of the webcomics nominees were commissioned by Matt Bors for The Nib before it shuttered its doors halfway through the year, or for its short-lived followup, The Response; I’ve no doubt that if Bors had a full 12 months in 2015 to play with, we’d see more on the list.

Spam of the day:

Check out the profiles of over 30,000 Russian babes. Make these Russian girls fall for your charm.

Okay, nothing special there, we’ve seen this particular flavor of spam before. What propels it into the realm of genius is the name of the alleged sender, Olga. Olga Contrabasist. That is sheer goddamn poetry.

Heck, I’m in a good mood, let’s do another one!

Signs of a Fatal Heart-Attack

I’ma go out on a limb here — 10 year veteran EMT and all, you pick these things up — and say the most distinguishing sign of a heart attack that is not merely damaging but fatal, would be the part where you’re dead.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: There were three, then there were two, and Rudy Cava had some dark shit in his past. All hail the pissed man with goals.

Longtime Friend o’ Fleen and shadowy mystery man Eben Burgoon has been on a bit of a tear recently; we mentioned that he put up a Kickstart for the latest volume of his kill-’em-all comic series, The B-Squad, unfortunately the same day as the Cyanide & Happiness folks put up their megasuccessful card game’s campaign¹. But now that the oxygen is coming back into the room, we can see that B-Squad Volume 2 is a bit shy of goal (that is to say, 45% with nine days to go), and direct people to check it out. Burgoon was kind enough to send a copy of Volume 1 over to the Fleenplex and it’s a hoot. A hoot and a half, even, with cruel twists of fate dictated by literal throws of the die².

Burgoon’s been here before — closing days, goal looking iffy — and he’s always regrouped, replanned, and readjusted to reality, and it’s made him a better creator. He’s also too smart to have just one creative venture define him. Which is why he’s now got a signature beer:

The beer itself is a blonde ale brewed with Sacramento wildflower honey. BEE-SQUAD! SEE! It is all connected!

It’s brewed with California grown barley and blend of 2 hops. It’s a slight twist on their previous blonde ale, but to me it sounds ridiculously & dangerously drinkable at 7.0% alcohol and I certainly intend to leave many an expended pint full bee-hind! [emphasis original; puns unfortunate]

Why has no other webcomic had a signature booze before? Those of you in Sacramento on Saturday the 19th of March (coincidentally the end date for the Kickstarter) will have a chance to ask Burgoon, label designer Sean Sutter, and the brewmasters of New Helvetia Brewing Company in person, as they’ll be having a combination end-of-Kickstarter launch-of-beer party from 3:00pm to 8:00pm. Fun goes down at New Helvetia, 1730 Broadway in Sacto, and fun it will be if the book funds out.

If not, it’ll be a hell of a fun wake, and Burgoon will get up Monday to find the next way to bring his creations to life. Adaptability + booze is pretty much what indie and webcomics are all about.

Spam of the day:

LEGAL NOTICE: You may be entitled to settlement from implantable-mesh

Fun fact: my wife has worked in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries for pretty much her entire career, and so I know that implantable meshes are commonly used for breast augmentation. I haven’t ever had either of those, so I suspect that the authors of this spam may not, contrary to their claims, have actually tailored the message to my unique situation.

_______________
¹ Joking Hazard by name, and I use the term megasuccessful in a precise sense, as it closed earlier today having raised 3.246 US megadollars, or roughly double the midpoint of what the FFFmk2 predicted. Well done, lads.

² There’s a double meaning there; the character whose number comes up on the die will die. If one of them perishes in some kind of industrial die-cutting machine, it’ll become a triple meaning.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: Ray is tired from his rampage and shivering from the cold and loneliness. Some nights are longer than others.

Hell, no! So why should the Cartoon Art Museum stop doing cool things just because The Man says they don’t have a gallery space anymore? Become the ruling body, dude!¹ Or at least check out what CAM has coming up in the next few weeks.

• Next weekend, CAM will be heading down to the South Bay and the inaugural Silicon Valley Comic Con in San Jose. Curator Andrew Farago will be interviewing Norm Felchle (he works on Spider-Man, Mick Gray (Batman and Robin, Alex Sheikman (Moonstruck), and Ryan Sook (Hawkman and a stack of Buffy titles) in a panel discussion, 10:00am on Saturday the 19th.
• A week later, they’ll be at WonderCon at the LA Convention Center; this time it’ll be Program Coordinator Nina Kester doing panel duties with Comedy in Comics, on Sunday the 27th from 11:30am. Guests will include Kyle Baker (Plastic Man, Why I Hate Saturn, The Cowboy Wally Show, and many more), Ming Doyle (DC Bombshells), Francesco Francavilla (Afterlife With Archie), Agnes Garbowska (My Little Pony), Joe Quinones (Howard the Duck, having to put up with Chip Zdarsky), and Raina Telgemeier².
• June 18th and 19th will see the third annual Queer Comics Expo at the SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco, which will also serve as a fundraiser for CAM. In fact, they’re looking for people that want to be part of the fun, with applications for QCE programming, volunteers, and exhibitors open through 31 March. Table rates range from US$15 to US$50 (half or whole, one day or both) and exhibitors can get the application details via qcexpo.tumblr.com/exhibitors.

I can think off the top of my head about a couple museums that do less than this in a year, much less in a couple of months while also juggling a major capital fundraising campaign/real estate search. They’re good folks over at CAM, and you ought to take one of these opportunities to go see ’em. Drop a couple bucks in the donation jar while you’re there.

Spam of the day:

Look 20-Years Younger: Celebrity Method Revealed

Man, I already look 10 years younger than I actually am (and the entire insurance industry apparently thinks I qualify for Medicare, which event won’t happen until the 2030s); if your miracle goop makes me look another 20 years younger, I’m never going to get a drink again.

_______________
¹ I appear to have mixed my metaphors somewhat.

² Do I really have to tell you what she does? Read literally any week of postings here and you’ll come across her.

This dayin Great Outdoor Fight history: The presence of tick-pimps, boilbacks, and yard-sleepers quite frankly raises as many questions as they answer. Such as, how many were made into cowboy sauce? I’m going to guess 250-300.

• We’re getting down to the end times here — from issue #1 in September of 2010 to issue #100¹ in August of last year, to the final wind-down of the rerun as a webcomic, Jim Zub’s Skullkickers is reaching a milestone. For the first time, it’s going to be complete for all new readers; a significant portion of his audience never picked up the dead-tree floppies, and only knows Skullkickers as a webcomic; for the first time, it’s going to be there as a complete story, with no new updated on the next Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

  It’s the comic where he really made his bones and his reputation as a journeyman that can write anything for anybody, 1000 pages a year. It’s the comic that launched a series of tutorials on creator-owned comics, whether the economics of such, tricks for promotion, pitching, you name it. In a lot of ways, it’s always going to be the Zubbiest comic of his career¹ other works since have incorporated some of the madcap insanity of Baldy and Shorty (okay, Rex and Rolf), and have tried to do as ambitious things with the nature of stories, but only here did all of it come together.

  I’m just saying, Wayward and Thunderbolts and Samurai Jack and Makeshift Miracle and Baldur’s Gate and Pathfinder and Batman and Figment and all of the others? Excellent writing, in every genre for every possible audience, but they lack something essential. They have far less mayhem, far fewer crotch-kicks, and as a result are thus only partially Zubby. Zubbish? Zublike? Whatever the adjectival form of Zub is, less of that. He set out to tell as big a story as he could², with as much fun as possible along the way, and he succeeded admirably. It’s a Zub world, and we’re lucky to be living in it.

• One really cool thing about Skullkickers was how Zub treated the character of Kusia, the elven assassin. She wasn’t just the major female character, but just generally a more competent and likable character than the putative leads. In a testosterone-fueled genre (six of them, actually), she was the rational touchstone, and she got to argue that just because the eternal archetypes of adventure are male shouldn’t mean that there’s no place for women protagonists. Then she dragged the eternal archetypes into something resembling gender parity and it was cool.

  I’m thinking about this, because it’s rare for male cartoonists to actively seek out reasons to have female protagonists³ but female cartoonists aren’t so blind to the ability of women characters to anchor a story. It’s not even so much that women cartoonists create women characters at the expense of men — it’s that they know that including a mix of both reflect the real world, even when nearly every form of entertainment and social interaction results in dudes thinking women are overrepresented and dominating a story when they hit a ratio of about 1 in 4.

  And seeing as how it’s International Women’s Day, The AV Club has done us the favor (as in past years) of pointing out some great women in the comics and cartoon sphere that you may not be familiar with (not to mention names that you should already know — like Fiona Staples, Emily Carroll, Kate Beaton, Jillian Tamaki, Raina Telgemeier, Eleanor Davis, Meredith Gran, Emma Rios, and Noelle Stevenson — who are recapped in the intro). As is happening in a lot of capital-c Comics, women are making the biggest inroads into indie and webcomics because there’s nobody there to tell them they can’t or that there’s no audience for their stuff.

  Read the article; get to know the names. In a couple of years, these ladies will be as dominant as the now-familiar creators in the intro. Don’t believe me? Take note of the fact that DC Comics lost its position as the biggest vendor of graphic novels last year to Scholastic. And Raina Telgemeier by herself was responsible for about 6.5% of all comics sold through bookstores last year. Sisters and Smile are bigger than Batman, and all the women coming up now are going to get to the top by walking past increasingly less-relevant cape comics. Rock on, ladies; you rule.

Spam of the day:

Gorgeous Kitchens – Check it out.

Attention Brett g Porter; it’s not XTC or Zappa or Pynchon, but I believe this is of interest to you.

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¹ The precise moment when he shifted his professional name from Jim Zubkavich to Jim Zub is less important than the debut of Skullkickers #1; that is the moment when he shed his former identity and became who he is.

² With, it should be noted, the likes of Edwin Huang and Misty Coats, without whom the end result would lack a significant amount of Zubness. He has a knack for picking collaborators that get him and bring out all that he envisions in his brainmeats.

³ cf: Zub’s Wayward, where the current group of nominal heroes is 4 women (or at least female monster-type creatures) and 2 men; the major antagonists are one each male and female with a male junior villain. It feels ordinary in the context of his story, but it’s far from common in comics.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: We learn that most esoteric of all knowledge, the maximum recommended period of time that a bird should be in the back of a dude’s car.

A pair of long-time dudes in webcomics have been at their website code lately, and it’s instructive to see what they’ve done.

• On the one hand you’ve got Howard Tayler¹, proprietor of Schlock Mercenary’s spiffy new site, which he set out to make intuitive and easily navigable (just try the arrow keys from any strip). The design is responsive, rearranging elements as I switched from laptop to tablet (both orientations) to phone (ditto).

  Particularly nice was the way that the strip becomes scrollable within a frame on the phone, while the site stays still around it. The design reveals a lot of Tayler’s approach to life; it’s immaculately built², and he credits the engineer that did the coding to his specifications. It makes me think how Tayler started life as a music producer, and parallels the relationship between producer and audio engineer as they come up with the perfect hit.

• Rich Stevens is punk rock, all the way. He’s accomplished much the same thing (the strip is easily readable on every device and orientation), but he’s done all the work himself and while he may not have the most elegant solutions, Diesel Sweeties 3.0³ does everything it needs to do as simply as possible.

  Seriously, take a browse over and open up the HTML source (probably ctrl+u in your browser) and look at the 253 lines of simple HTML that run everything. Count up all the places that the <script> tag doesn’t appear. It took him about three weeks, but as he declared on his podcast, the goal was to be able to update the site anywhere in the world with a text editor and a phone. Im’a say he probably succeeded.

But regardless of which of them is Steely Dan and which is The Clash, they’ve arrived at the same place even if they accomplished their goals by diametrically opposing means. Their websites are adaptable, responsive, reasonably extensible for the foreseeable future, and utterly lacking in comment sections. Getting shit done using the most appropriate tools at their disposal without waiting for an interdepartmental design review working group to focus-test things to within 2.54cm of their lives? That’s the most webcomic thing of all.

Spam of the day:

Great Rates on European Dream Vacations

I thought that said Great Dates on European Dream Vacations and momentarily figured the horny moms in my area were upping their game if they wanted to take me to Europe. This is much less interesting.

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¹ My evil twin.

² I almost said taylered, but I have some pride left.

³ DS 1.0 starts here and runs for 4000 strips; at strip #3000 he shook up the status quo and created a USB drive of all 3000 strips. After #4000 he shook up the status quo (there’s about a six month time jump between the #4000 and today) and relaunched as DS3.0. 2.0 is for suckas.