You gotta hand it to Ryan North, the guy know how to play the long game. Today’s Dinosaur Comics installment (which would be number 3000) continues a gag from DC #2000, which in turn continues a gag from DC #1000. Look for the next mention of Kangaroo Kicking Kraziness™ in let’s see, 1000 strips divided by three strips a week is 333 weeks or six years and 146 days or let’s call it … Wednesday, June 29th, 2022 (or Year 6, SixthMonth, NinthDay of the GTC¹).

• Speaking of long games, will this page ever tire of talking about Raina Telegemeier and the revolution in comics that she sparked starting with Smile and continuing to the present day?

  Nope! Telgemeier is responsible for shaking up the industry, shaking up the demographics of who reads comics, who will be making them in the future, and given that she started pulling in fans with her Baby Sitters Club adaptations ten years back, shaking up who (in the near future) will be raising their kids as the next generation of comics readers.

  Although the big capes comics companies tend to ignore the lessons that Telgemeier and her contemporaries offer at their peril, in each passing year there’s a greater appreciation for the changes they (and particularly, she) have brought about. The discussion to that end at The AV Club today is especially on point because a full half of the participants aren’t tremendous fans of Smile, but all recognize it for the watershed moment that it is.

  As usual, the invaluable Oliver Sava makes the best points, but the entire group knows the score: comics is an industry that needs new readers to live, and right now it’s imprints like Graphix and :01 that are leading the way. Anybody that doesn’t get on board is dooming themselves to obscurity. Read the whole thing, set it to the side, and read it again.

• Speaking of book publishers and comics, I’m adding Knopf Doubleday to the SDCC exhibitor map from yesterday; I missed them initially as they’re away from the publishers row in the 1100-1200 aisles, but with offerings like The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Sonny Liew and The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage by Sydney Padua, it would be criminal not to point you towards Booth 1520.
• Finally, speaking of nothing in particular other than a damn good story, Christopher Baldwin announced today that come September and the conclusion of his current sci-fi story, Anna Galactic, he’ll be returning to the first of his sci-fi stories for more Spacetrawler:
  

  Yup! That’s right. All new adventures of the comic, Spacetrawler will begin in September.

  Anna Galactic ends sometime in August/September, and then I’ll switch over to Spacetrawler. There will likely be some overlap, and my best guess is that Spacetrawler will begin the first week of September.

  And helping bring about this is the generous support of many of you through Patreon! Please, follow that link and help out in bringing back all the awesomeness. Also, my weekly Patreon blog will include Spacetrawler development drawings and blather! You can unlock it to read it by helping out too, by contributing over on my Patreon page.

  Speaking for myself, Spacetrawler’s Dmitri may be my favorite of all of Baldwin’s characters, ever; he maintains a carefully-cultivated air of hedonistic amorality, but he’s the most altruistic schemer that Earth’s ever produced. I hope the revival is all about Dmitri as a truly benevolent philosopher king who pretends to be a dictator while actually spreading freedom, because I think he could actually pull off all the contradictions inherent in that job description. Of course, the booze helps!²

Spam of the day:

worked out well for me

Good to hear! Feel free to tell me all about it from way over there.

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¹ Glorious Trumpalo Calendar.

² From approximately his fifth speaking appearance in strip #21, Dmitry was never without a drink in hand unless in a sealed space suit in hard vacuum. For reference, that’s 120+ appearances over nearly 400 strips, which I guess counts for one hell of a running gag. Theme complete!