So, guess who came to work and left his laptop in the hotel room?

To be exceedingly fair to myself — more than I deserve, honestly — the latest security patches pushed by IT make it a very slow process to shut down. I started the shutdown, did some other things waiting for it to complete (can’t put a running laptop in the laptop bag, it’ll melt) and spaced on competing that key task. I’m not going to be able to post properly today — two fingered typing on a phone sucks for long texts — or at least not until far later. Mea culpable, I’ll try not to be so incredibly stupid tomorrow.

It was a slow day in webcomickry (and honestly, appears to still be), but that’s not to say that there’s nothing of import going on. I’m not one to follow YouTube stars, but there’s no denying that they can be an enormous force for good and ill¹, creativity and crazy.

And it looks like they’re unionizing.

Hank Green — who I gather is huge on the Tubes (as teh kidz might say), but I really only know him as the brother of YA author John Green — made an announcement on Twitter about a … I’m going to call it a manifesto-cum-call to action over on Medium:

There is no system for protecting creators, many of whom have no experience in any industry, let along the notoriously cut-throat entertainment industry. I’m ten years into this and I kinda can’t believe that there’s still no centralized organization representing creators.
So I’m creating one.

The Internet Creators Guild is positioning itself as part PR shop, part lobbying force, part informational clearinghouse, part mediation service, part I’m not sure what, since the stated goals are hard to argue with, but also kind of nebulous:

Here are some things we want the ICG to do

1. Help the press talk intelligently about online video.
2. Share stories and strategies from professional creators that will be available only to members.
3. Increase transparency about what creators do and don’t receive from MCNs, advertisers, agencies, and managers.
4. Act as a bridge between creators and platforms and advise platforms on how to best serve creators.
5. Help to clarify the role of new products and developments in the world of internet creation.
6. Share useful information on everything from dealing with stalkers to understanding your audience.
7. Advise conferences and events (including VidCon) on how to create great conversations about internet creation.
8. Foster diversity in online video content, including but not limited to language, age, race, gender, and economic opportunity.
9. Provide case studies of successful strategies for community building and monetization.
10. Provide and explain sample contracts for sponsors, managers, MCNs, merchandise, and agencies.
11. Unify the voice of online creators to create change.

Here are some things the ICG WILL NOT DO

1. The ICG can’t get into the game of picking and choosing what kind of content is or is not good for the world. That must be left up to individuals to decide because otherwise the ICG will become the internet morality police, which sounds like an awful job.
2. Riling up angry mobs. The ICG is committed to working with all stakeholders. The ICG will amplify voices and it will take positions, but it will always strive to understand the complexity of these issues, explain them to members, and work with other stakeholders to move forward.
3. Tech support. Not sure what’s wrong with Premiere? Your upload is taking forever? YouTube is down? That’s not our thing.

It’s not on the list, but I bet there’s a newsletter.

Green’s up front about the ICG being focused on video creators since that’s where he and his advisory board have experience (there’s people listed as board members, but apart from Green I couldn’t tell you who any of them are), but leaves the door open other people who make their living on the internet to join. It sounds like the sort of conversation that webcomics had about a decade ago, where the consensus was there really wasn’t anything for a bigger organization to do. Then again, I don’t recall any webcomickers willing to pony up US$50,000 in seed capital and hire an executive director. That part aside, it seems like a bigger-scope version of Webcomics Dot Com, down to the US$5/month membership fee.

And I can’t help making the parallel between ICG and WDC, because I’m not sure what an organization of this type will actually be able to accomplish, beyond the we’re a resource for people trying this and also there’s some discounts from vendors approach that Brad Guigar² has taken with WDC. I have a feeling it’s very similar to ideals that, say, the National Cartoonists Society started with, but which these days is best known for giving out some pretty spiffy awards at a pretty nifty drink-up. Given the video-creator-heavy nature of the governing body, I hope that the ICG does better making members from outside the founding cadre (webcomickers? bloggers? Esty crafters? indy authors? you can call almost anybody an internet creator³) feel welcome than some NCS oldtimers have done with dames and coloreds and those webcomics kids.

Since I don’t know anything about the vlogger community, I don’t know how the announcement is being greeted (but given that it’s YouTube, I’ll wager there’s at least ten angry videos posted about how it’s a conspiracy/plot to steal viewers/way to keep me from the success I deserve goddammit), and heck, I don’t know if there are conditions in that community that would make this endeavour especially necessary, but I can’t help but feel that Green’s looking at a vast pool of creators, a small percentage of whom can be said to be financially secure, and trying to bring them all to the same level — an aspiration that’s probably at odds with both Sturgeon’s Law and basic economics.

I’m giving the ICG a 50-50 chance of making it to the end of year three, just because any new entrepreneurial project faces those odds. But if the likes of Ryan Sohmer or whatever Robert Khoo’s next thing join up? Then the sky’s the limit.

Spam of the day:

Join the Hustle, Build Some Muscle

If that’s not a Crossfit pitch, it should be.

______________
¹ Don’t forget the three most terrifying words in English: YouTube comments section.

² Obligatory disclaimer: he’s dreamy.

³ If the majority of your business is creating content, you can be a member. is how it’s worded in the launch announcement.

For the three of you that hadn’t heard, Robert Khoo¹ resigned from the presidency of Penny Arcade yesterday; from other reports, it appears to be effective 15 July. I seem to recall that he’s part of the trustee structure for Child’s Play, and that he holds at 10% ownership stake in Penny Arcade Industries; no word yet on whether those have changed. Fleen contacted Khoo for and interview which he politely declined.

It has been some time since I sat in a Vegas buffet after the Reuben Awards and asked Robert what he was going to do when all the challenges of Penny Arcade were solved and he was just grinding in repetition — tropical beach with fruity drinks? High speed motorsports? A line of vanity soups?

I don’t know, he said. Probably catch up with all the games I don’t have time to play now. My suspicion is that we will learn what he’s up to next exactly when he feels like letting us know; that guy always knows how to play three moves ahead of the rest of us. If I had to make a guess, I’d say he’s got plans to run a venture capital-style business serving the games industry as a whole … either that, or secret volcano lair and demands made of the Security Council.

In other news:

• We at Fleen are big fans of Vera Brosgol, since the old Return To Sender days [NB: only access that site via Wayback Machine, not directly], through Anya’s Ghost, one of our favorite books ever. She’s just had her next three books announced (scroll down, and it is me or does Publishers Weekly use subheads that sound eerily like Hollywood press?) through :01 Books and their sister imprint, Roaring Brook Press.

  Roaring Brook will be up first, with Leave Me Alone!, a picture book about a grandmother’s search for a little quiet, due out on 13 September; a second picture book will follow (presently untitled and no release date). :01 gets their shot with Be Prepared, a middle-grade graphic novel about summer camp, based on Brosgol’s own experiences; again, no release date as yet. I’m going to go out on a limb and pre-announce that these will be terrific.

• Speaking of :01 sister imprints: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux will be publishing Compass South, the eagerly-awaited next graphic novel from Hope Larson (words) and Rebecca Mock (pictures) in about, oh, two weeks. The invaluable Oliver Sava at The AV Club has a six-page preview and brief overview today. Go look at it, it’s very pretty and I’m already hooked on the story.

Spam of the day:

Asian Women Online — Am I Your Dream Love?

That’s refreshingly straightforward for spam, but still ain’t clicking.

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¹ Robert is.

Well, this is where I was going to quote from the initial announcement from Spike Trotman about how Iron Circus Comics has started a series of announcements regarding its releases through 2018 or so. Was, because the filter here at work has decided that http://ironcircuscomics.tumblr.com/ (which in turn redirects to poorcraft.com is blocked:

due to potential malicious activity or other security reasons.
Phishing, malicious, spyware sites are compromised or unsafe websites that may trick you into revealing personal or financial information (e.g. username, passwords, credit card information, PIN numbers, etc.).
These unsafe websites may install software to your computer often without consent to damage your system or use your computer to attack others.
The website may also contain other malicious threats (e.g. viruses, trojans, worms, spyware) as part of the malware ecosystem.
Additional information about website blocking at [redacted] can be found here (Authentication required).

Your request was categorized by Blue Coat Web Filter as ‘Pornography’.

Which, okay, I could see that if I’d linked to Iron Circus itself (which is not blocked), where you get the Smut Peddler books for sale and even samples. Or heck, I could see it if the link stayed on Tumblr, which is itself a cesspit at times. But no, Poorcraft, which is one of the most useful things ever, is blocked by Blue Coat, who I noticed over the weekend is being bought by Symantec¹. So anyway, check that announcement out, Spike’ll be making them weekly, just don’t ask me to report on the specifics during the day.

In other news:

• What may be the very last A Softer World ever dropped earlier today; as co-creator Joey Comeau pointed out, there have been a few ASW strips up in recent weeks as side effect of the successful Kickstart to print the strip-spanning best of collection, Anatomy of Melancholy, and these have now concluded. As co-creator Emily Horne pointed out, if you missed the Kickstart, you can now order a copy from Breadpig.
• My Evil Twin passed a Big Damn Strippiversary yesterday; when Schlock Mercenary launched on 12 June 2000 it was a far simpler strip (in scope and visuals), Tayler was still slaving for The Man, and two of his kids didn’t exist yet (nor did Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Tumblr, or the George W Bush administration). A kid born on that day would today be eligible for a driver’s license in most states², and Tayler himself can now claim to have updated 5846 days in a row without fail.

  Today he’s got a thriving business, a dozen books (with more on the way) and a damn Hugo award.; not bad for a kid of twelve birthdays from the wide open space of the west, armed with nothing but imagination, a drawing tablet, and gumption.

Spam of the day:

Finally, Give Your Woman What She Wants
Is it time to grow your confidence even more?

Curiously, only one of those two spams was for a questionably-sourced “male enhancement supplement”; the second is actually for discount breast enhancement surgery, which is not a series of words I ever wanted to see placed together.

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¹ Weirdly, the internet filter is no longer blocking He Is A Good Boy which it has in the past. I mean, that was annoying when it did, but I could at least see the logic in blocking material like Crange Is Horny. Still not going to try to check out Oh Joy, Sex Toy, though; just the ads on that site could get me hauled down to HR.

² My own home state of New Jersey wisely makes the little menaces wait until 17 when they’re hopefully one year less stupid.

Okay, that’s got nothing to do with anything today, other than I’ve always liked that page and hey — reee-markable.

• First thing: EK Weaver has gotten a lot of notice over the years for The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, especially over the last year or so since it was published in omnibus form via Iron Circus and Kickstarter. I mean, hey, Eisner nom and all that. But today she’s back with something that’s much briefer, much rougher, and maybe much more important than TJ and Amal, being the first exploration I’ve seen in comics about the toll that finishing a creative project can take:
  

  A personal, messy comic about depression + the fallout from finishing a major creative project: http://tjandamal.com/other/depressioncomic.png …

  It’s not pretty, it’s not polished, and it’s terribly, terribly valuable every time a creator that fights against the brain-lies depression shines a light on that struggle. And even when there isn’t the additional burden of mental illness, it’s worth remembering that creation is an act of great effort under any circumstances. To pass something out of your imagination into the wider world (particularly something with an extended, serialized existence) and then to see it end? Put another way, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Gary Larson or Bill Watterson — to name just two — have withdrawn from public life (even if their works wrapped on their own terms), or that Charles Schulz couldn’t live without creating Peanuts.

  I think I’m probably in danger of conflating my two points here — that creation is effortful and ending it stressful, and that stress can exacerbate existing mental conditions. Schulz would absolutely be diagnosed as depressive today, but I am making no implications of such a condition in Watterson or Larson. To bring it back to my original point, Weaver’s letting us in on an important set of ideas, and there’s a third one there as well: that creation is itself sustaining as well as straining. Give it a read and have a bit more empathy the next time your favorite creator’s a bit late with updates, yeah?

• Second thing: fifty-two weeks makes a year, so it appears from the latest New York Times Best Seller List that Raina Telgemeier’s Smile has now spent the equivalent of four full years on the list¹, along with a total of 149 weeks for Drama, 90 weeks for Sisters (out of 94 weeks since release!), 54 weeks for Kristy’s Great Idea (I missed it’s one-year anniversary, sorry), and 14 for Claudia and Mean Janine. Yep, only five spots out of ten so the cumulative total of 515 weeks is artificially low, but don’t worry — Ghosts is already racking up the advance praise and we’ll see the others back soon enough.
• Third thing: book day! Two review copies from the wonderful Gina Gagliano at :01 Books² — the fifth in the Last Man series and the second in Gene Yang & Mike Holmes’s Secret Coders series — and the second volume of Vattu from Evan Dahm (soon to be added to Dahm’s TopatoCo store).

Spam of the day:

Free Gold IRA offer

I’m sure Ira’s a nice guy and all, but I don’t want him gold-plated, thanks.

______________
¹ 208 weeks out of the 332 since publication on 1 February 2010.

² Who, I see, added a new editorial assistant yesterday, increasing the staff by 25% because a remarkably small staff produces all those great books. By the way, want to feel old? Kiara Valdez, the new addition, was asked the first comic she can remember reading and replied I vaguely remember reading the 1st volume of Scott Pilgrim at the library when I was in 5th grade. I was in my mid thirties.

Something’s going on with WordPress where I lose connection to the back end and editing functions, but the front end continues to show the site. And then it comes back without doing anything! So let’s be quick about this, and I hope you will appreciate how much work went into this one.

See, I owe Amazon an apology, as I was complaining t’other day about my copy of Romeo And/Or Juliet not being here on day of release, and now I’ve got it. Thanks, Amazon! It’s wacky and wonderful, and features many, many terrific artists and story ending illustrations. Author Ryan North’s sense of both complete absurdism and Shakespearean drama are intact, as he takes us through multiple plots, multiple story styles (I’m presently following along a noir pastische), and pulls in multiple plays for inspiration (said pastiche stars Rosalind from As You Like It, and there are short versions of Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and even Midsummer’s play-in-a-play, Pyramus and Thisbe). There’s time travel, giant robots, sex-having, sweet fights, record-setting one-rep weightlifting, a cookie recipe, and even a nod to Back To The Future¹.

Sadly, the best thing we saw in To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Adventure — where those illustrations were full page with the minor text associated with the story ending (usually grisly death) — is modified somewhat; the illos are mostly 1/3 page in size, with a continuous stream of text-illustration-next story point. As a result, RAOJ doesn’t have page numbers, it has passage numbers — a passage being a node in the story, ranging from a line or two to more than a page. Additionally, instead of the full-color glossy illustrations from TBONTBTITA, the papr stock is matte and the pictures are all combinations of black, white, and red. The changes do make the book less of a bicep-building than TBONTBTITA, though … that was one seriously heavy book.

But despite all of the good points, Romeo And/Or Juliet has one stunning flaw, one shared with To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Adventure, namely: the index of artists in the back of the book contains only an alphabetical listing, not a listing by passage (or page, in the earlier book) number. So when I came across a stunningly beautiful (or funny, or disturbing … ) illustration in my read-through, I’d sometimes recognize the artist by style, but more often not. Then I had to scan the index, looking for the passage (or page) number, to find it who it was.

Well, no more! Ryan North, I am calling you out for having a defective book, and furthermore I am doing something about it. Specifically, I have painstakingly transcribed the passage numbers and artist names and compiled them into a table (below the cut) that you may print and stick in your copy of RAOJ. I trust Mr North will prevail on his publishers to include information in future printings; with a clear typeface, you might be able to fit it on a promotional bookmark, but at the least you could “tip in” some pages in this and future North/Shakespeare collaborations.

It’s a minor thing, though — don’t let the lack of reverse-lookup prevent you from picking up Romeo And Or Juliet; it’s a brilliant job from a brilliant writer and nearly 100 brilliant artists. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to decide what to do in this game of rock-paper-scissors I seem to have found myself in.

Spam of the day:

Identity Issue PP-658-119-347

I believe that you are the PayPal Review Department exactly as much as I believe the South Asian-accented man who called himself Steve Martin on the phone yesterday really was calling from the Treasury Department².

_______________
¹ Or at least North’s obsession with the novelization of the movie.

² I called him to point out he is very bad at being a thief and he hung up on me. So I called back and got him again and continued my spiel. After five further discussions (sample statement from me: I can do this all day), he apparently decided he had to take a break and a woman picked up in his place. She said I was very rude and not to call their scam operation again or I would be in trouble. That was fun.

(more…)

Let’s check in with our friends at the (somewhat vagabond) Cartoon Art Museum, since the lack of a permanent exhibition space doesn’t slow them down. Three things from them about the next while that you may be interested in.

• This Saturday, 11 June, their Cartoonist In Residence¹ will be Ajuan Mance: artist, English professor, destroyer of stereotypes, and actual person that most sounds like the head of a great House from Game of Thrones². The residency will be at FLAX art & design store’s location in the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, from 11:00am to 2:00pm; details may be found here. And after her public residency event, Mance will be headed over to Comix Experience on Divisidero Street from 4:00pm to 7:00pm to continue the conversation. Both events are free and open to the public.
• Next Saturday (18 June) and Sunday (19 June), the Queer Comics Expo will be running at the SOMArts Cultural Center from 11:00am to 5:00pm, and they’re partnering with the Cartoon Arts Museum for some unique ticket packages. Purchases at the VIP levels (Unicorn: US$65; Double Rainbow: US$101) will include admission for the weekend for two or up to four people, respectively, and include a one-year CAM membership (single or family, respectively).

  There’s also a unique (at least, I’ve never seen it before) Pay It Forward ticket that for US$10 allows you to fund a weekend ticket that will be passed to a Bay Area LGBTQ nonprofit so people who otherwise couldn’t go get to attend. Finally, all proceeds will benefit CAM, so Bay Areans take a look at this one, yes?

• By partnering with the American Bookbinders Museum, CAM will be offering its traditional summer Cartooning Boot Camp: four sessions (two hours per day, Monday through Friday) will cover a specific topic, for a small group (up to 15 campers) of 10-15 year olds (those younger or older will not be admitted. The four sessions will be:
  • Character Design with Ellis Kim, 27 June to 1 July
  • Storytelling with Matt Harding, 11 to 15 July
  • Book Making with Ellis Kim, 25 to 29 July
  • Game Creation with Matt Harding, 1 to 5 August; note that this is related to board games

  Materials are included in the US$135 fee (but naturally, students may bring their own sketchbooks and supplies if they wish), and CAM members get a US$35 discount. Registration and detailed descriptions at the links above.

Spam of the day:

Sneakier Gtyrrell cPurchasegTabuOnliner ;) unpublished

I’m reminded about that line in Blazing Saddles about authentic frontier gibberish.

______________
¹ Yes, yes, the residence is borrowed space, but that’s what these things are called.

² Seriously, that is a great name one that’s going to stick in my head. I’ve encountered maybe three people with names that have reached out and demanded my attention to that degree in my adult life.

Books! Is there anything as good in life as a book? The shelves behind me with a literally ton of paper on them say probably not¹. There are three books I want to talk about today.

• As you should know, Ben Hatke is one heck of an illustrator and comics creator, responsible for such wonderful tales as Little Robot and the Zita The Spacegirl trilogy. His latest book, Nobody Likes A Goblin (an ARC of which was sent to me by the invaluable Gina Gagliano at :01 Books) releases today, and it’s a must-get.

  It’s more rambunctious than Little Robot (although the naming conventions are somewhat similar; the titular goblin is just named Goblin; his best friend is Skeleton), less swashbuckling (or plot-driven) than Zita, and most resembles Julia’s House For Lost Creatures in that it’s meant to be read in a single bedtime, has a simple story, and a powerful pair of messages.

  Firstly, friendship is wonderful. Secondly, don’t believe all the stories that you’ve heard about the Heroic Adventurers that blunder their way through dungeons, terrorizing the likes of Goblin (and his neighbor, Troll), who’ve done nobody any harm. Just because you’re different and people hate you on sight doesn’t mean that you’re bad, or that they’re in any way right. The Adventurers² may have taken all his stuff, the farmers and innkeepers and elves may be chasing him on general principals, but not everybody is subject to their prejudices.

  See, hanging out on the loot cart of the Adventurers is a young woman that doesn’t look thrilled to be there, and when Goblin finds friends to defend him, she grabs Skeleton’s sword (he used to be a mighty warrior, you see) and helps run the Adventurers (and farmers, innkeepers, and elves) off, returning to the dungeon with her new friends. I found her fascinating, and the lack of any narration or explanation about her motivations means there’s plenty of room for young readers to make up her story.

  And when they do make up her story, they’ll have a chance to share it with Hatke on his book tour, touching down today in Richmond (Virginia), with additional appearances in Takoma Park (that would be Maryland), Ann Arbor (Michigan, naturally), Orlando (the ALA conference, not the theme parks), and San Diego Comic Con. Dates, addresses, and times at the link.

• Speaking of book tours, Lucy Bellwood is on one right now, for Baggywrinkles, her autobio-slash-tall ships primer that she Kickstarted last summer. Bellwood’s East Coast tour goes for another two weeks or so, touching down in Boston, Washington, DC, New York City, and Ann Arbor. Unfortunately, we’ve already missed her Portland (the Maine version) and Mystic (Connecticut) stops, but can I point out how awesome that most of her stops will be at nautical-themed locations?

  Boston’s stop is at the USS Constitution Museum, the New York stop at South Street Seaport Museum, and both Portland and Mystic are basically living paeans to the nautical life. By the way, the Ann Arbor stop will be at the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival on 18 and 19 June, which will be the same time that Hatke will be there. Goblins and Boats, in the same place at the same time!

• As previously noted, Romeo And/Or Juliet by Ryan North releases today (with a launch party starting in a few hours in Toronto). I’ve had that book on pre-order since the second of November and today Amazon says oh yeah, they suppose they’ll drop it in the mail and I’ll get it someday and not on release day that is the deal we had Amazon.

  Ahem.

  Anyway, I’m assured by people who have actually gotten their pre-orders that it’s brilliant and I hope to confirm that fact at some point.

• Finally, I’d like to note that I’m seeing people on the SoshMeed share the fact that Something Terrible (book by Dean Trippe, for the last six months or so published by Spike Trotman and Iron Circus Comics) is showing up in their mailboxes. Good news, can’t wait to get my copy.

Spam of the day:

Miracle Bamboo Bra Wants To Hear From You!

This prompts so many questions, I don’t know where to start.

______________
¹ Okay, probably dogs are better than books, but let’s not lose the thread.

² Your standard party of Wizard, Dwarf, Elvish Swordmaiden, and skulky looking Rogue.

Perhaps you saw the posting earlier today, the 400th update at Hark! A Vagrant, which consisted of an announcement of Kate Beaton’s next children’s book — King Baby, which I will buy multiple copies of day-of-release — and a long apologetic note about the lack of frequency of updates at H!AV and the likely continued paucity of same:

Hark! is always in the back of my head when I’m working on anything else, and I find myself wracked with guilt for not keeping the updates coming, I have one foot here and one foot there. This push and pull, I have to accept, makes anything I’m working on suffer. And I’ve been trying to figure out a solution to this! Something better than slow work all around. Because if I’m honest, I’m scared that if I leave this site alone too long, I’ll lose something very precious to me.

You.

I’ve worked a long time to bring you here, and you’ve been good to come here and read my comics and support my work. I feel that we have built a relationship, my readers and I, it’s very important to me, and I never want to put it in peril. So what to do? [emphasis original]

I do not accept this apology. Mostly because Kate Beaton has nothing to apologize for. The amount of pure research she must do to bring us the figures from history that we’ve never heard of¹ (and should have!) is mind-boggling. Okay, sure, sometimes it’s relatively quick (and usually from a place of ire) to come up ridiculousness for our amusement, but most of the time she’s got to dig deep to understand her subject before she can mine those beautiful, shining specks of humo[u]r from what is often extremely serious source material.

Like so many others that have entertained us for free, we have no claim on Beaton’s time or attention. Particularly not when she talks about what’s taking up her time and attention:

[T]he main thing is the graphic novel, which is a memoir of my time in the oil sands, years ago. You may have seen the sketch that launched it, Ducks. Or the few comics on this site that are memoir-ish that don’t really fit with the rest of the things on here and I should probably get rid of. It’s a very different story from anything in Hark! A Vagrant, and a different mind set to work on. And I need to give that mindset some time and concentration in order to do a good job. So, I’m going to do that. [emphasis original]

Beaton’s time in the oil sands is something I want to read; it will be the confluence of so many different stories — toxic masculinity and toxic industries being just the two most obvious — that will be told by her in a way that nobody else can tell them. I want to read longform Beaton more than anything else, and if that means she feels bad about not producing more shortform laugh-chuckles, then I feel it’s us that should be apologizing to her.

For anybody that’s ever place a sense of obligation on her for anybody that has acted on that entitlement, I unreservedly apologize. And keep in mind that I once said that I would be willing to trade all comics, everywhere, for all time for more of Beaton’s “momics”, but that’s me wanting what I want for my own selfish reasons.

Really, what I want — what we should all want — is for Beaton to follow her muse and show us what it looks like when she stretches into another kind of storytelling. Whenever she feels the need to put together more Hark! strips, that’s awesome. If we ever get another story of Princess Pinecone and Pony, that would be wonderful. And if I never get another comic from Beaton that looks like what she’s done before, that will be best of all because she’ll be doing what she wants to do.

Thank you, Kate Beaton — for all the comics you’ve given us, for all the comics you will give us, for all the things that aren’t comics that you have kicking around in your head. You look at lives just a little bit differently than the rest of us do, and for us to get to share that is an act of profound generosity. Find what works for you, we’ll be waiting when you’re ready to tell us what’s next.

Plus, come on, King Baby. Look at that little guy. He’s gonna be great.

I other news, I can assure Ryan North from personal experience that it is completely normal to be nervous the first time you solemnize a marriage, but it’s also the best feeling in the world. Glad to have you with us.

Spam of the day:

Save on Coffee at Your Favorite Place!

Paging Richard Stevens, Richard Stevens pick up the mocha courtesy phone.

______________
¹ I count myself as reasonably well-read in the history of several nations — although I am hopelessly turned around on Chinese dynasties, have a sketchy (at best) sense of sub-Saharan history, and essentially no good sense of Southeast Asian or pre-Columbian South American history at all — and she still manages to surprise me four updates out of seven. Most recently: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs.

Have I mentioned recently how much we at Fleen owe to Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin? Aside from the fact that his English is far better than my French will ever be¹, he delivers delicious context and followup on stories of interest. Today, we call back to his recent dispatch regarding Maliki, and how her webcomicking is shifting. Take it away, FSFCPL!

Team Maliki announced yesterday they would be switching away from the traditional publishing model in favor of a more direct relationship with their readers, and opened a Tipee page. That, in itself, is not a first: other French-speaking webcomics have Tipeee pages as well; but that is not all:

[Quick editor’s note: Tipeee appears to be positioning itself as the European equivalent of Patreon, with an initial emphasis on French creators. Right now, a majority of creators listed appear to be French, scrolling down the home page brings up lots of text in French, and the About page contains links to legal guidance about crowdfunding in France.

But you can get the site rendered in English, French, Spanish, or German (it appears to autodetect location and default to an appropriate language — the site came up in English initially for me, and you can change it with a pop-up list in the lower-right corner of each page; there aren’t separate links for different languages), so as long as you can settle up in Euros, it looks to be happy to deal with you. However, the Terms and Conditions don’t seem to want to present in English … even with the rest of the page in English, the legal boilerplate was in French (or Spanish or German, on request).]

• in the long run, future editions of Maliki books (e.g. for the most recent strips on the site) will be self-published, as indicated in the F.A.Q. on the Tipee page (books already in the pipeline with their current editors will be published by these editors, but that’s it).
• Maliki is probably the French-speaking webcomic whose books have the second most retail presence (behind Bouletcorp).

[Me again: Surprising absolutely nobody, Boulet is absolument friggin’ énorme in the French comics market.]

So at this scale, this is unprecedented as far as I can tell, at least in the French-speaking world. The announcement (posted, of course, in comic form French-only as I write this, sorry) is long but well worth reading, in which Maliki explains the role of each middleman in the publishing chain, and why, without specifically indicting any of them, she feels the system is engaged in a surproduction bubble, in which she does not see any future for her.

[And again: From what I can tell with my terrible French, Maliki is making the same point that Howard Tayler did way back when this was a little baby blog:

Imagine you’ve got a book on sale at Borders for $10 — pretty sweet, right? Hang on a minute, because you aren’t going to get $10 a copy. Here’s how it breaks down:

• The store sells it for $10, keeps $4, and pays $6 to the distributor
• The distributor keeps $3, and pays $3 to the publisher
• The publisher keeps $1, pays $1 to the printer, and $1 to the author
• You’re the author

You can tell that story’s ancient, because Borders went out of business five years ago. Also, bonus points to Maliki for labeling her local financial institution Kiss Kiss Bank Bank. Correction: What I thought was a clever joke turns out to be a French Kickstarter-alike; FSFCPL does not let mistakes like these sneak by.]

That may not seem like a big deal to webcomic authors in the English world, who have walked that path before, and that’s true, to an extent. But that does not make it any less of a jump in the unknown for Team Maliki because of the differences in French-speaking comics readership. You thought the US public sneered at artists wanting to get paid for their work (After all, you are only doing what you like!)? That attitude is, unfortunately, even more widespread in France.

Moreover, French webcomic authors, and other comic authors who could have published on the web but did not need to because of the following, have had much less trouble getting published than webcomic authors did in the US, both for scale (much less trouble distributing to France, Wallonia and French-speaking Switzerland than to the whole of the U.S., so publishers are less risk-averse) and for cultural reasons; so most webcomic authors who publish books are published in mainstream publishers, with a few in indie publishers who get decent distribution. Self-publishing is almost unheard of. As a result, the support infrastructure outside of comic publishers is still in the early stages, though some of it exists, notably (as mentioned) that used by independent video producers (aka “Youtubers”).

[Last one: It’s interesting to note that the front page of Tipeee (in English at least) contains the elevator pitch, You create videos? Get tips from your community.]

So while other French comic authors may not follow right away, I get the feeling this is only the start of a bigger movement. At the very least, this seems to be going well for Team Maliki, as about 24 hours after the announcement as I write this readers have already collectively pledged 7273 €/month (minus 8% Tipeee fees), which appears to be the second-highest total overall on Tipeee. Will it stay high enough in the long run to sustain two authors and their cats (Maliki, being a paper creature, needs little in the way of sustenance)? We will see.

As of this writing (approximately 50 hours after the announcement), Team Maliki is up to €8577 per month², which minus the 8% Tipeee fee and using today’s exchange rates comes to US$8949 and 40 cents or more than US$107K per year (prior to any taxes, naturally). Not bad.

While there’s both both an early-adopter advantage and an existing-audience advantage for Team Maliki, a prominent success could popularize the idea of crowdfunding for independent creators in France. If nothing else, the eventual adoption of the model should be much faster than it was in the US, given that the tools to support it now exist instead of having to be built.

Fleen thanks Pierre Lebeaupin once again for his attention and insight.

Spam of the day:

We are interested on placing our tags on your website, they will fire a pop when a visitor performs a click on your website (You’ll get revenue stream from this). We pay $2 per 1000 visitors depends to geo and traffic quality. We also have a good referral program and various payment options.

Even without the weaselspeak in there that lets you decide to pay less when you declare my readers are not the desired geo and traffic quality, no. Over my dead body.

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¹ The high point of my francophone experience was managing to exchange a voucher for a pair of rail passes valid for a specific 10 day period, without lapsing into English, at the Francaise seulement window of the main Brussels train station (the line was shortest).

Less than 12 hours later, I managed to mangle a reply to a simple question to the extent that I started in French, slipped into Japanese, and I’m pretty sure mixed in some Klingon. To be fair, some of the consonants in Dutch get kinda spitty and sound pretty Klingon.

² The one higher pledge amount I could find is for a YouTube series that gets €8707 per episode, which appears to happen every three to four months. By that token, Maliki is the highest grossing Tipeee-ee in terms of actual disbursements. In terms of comics only, Maliki is at least an order of magnitude above the next-highest earner.