Thankfully, when all seems bleak, a hero appears to save the day!

I am speaking, of course, of Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, who dropped me an email chock-full of info about this year’s Angoulême Festival. Take it away, FSFCPL!

He included a footnote! That, my friends, is how you get your stuff published here. And also, I must learn more about this Professeur Moustache. Oh, yes, I must.

Spam of the day:

TRUMP: How Americans like you can make money online ($7,197/month)

That is an oddly specific number, but I have no problem believing that he makes a mere seven grand a month (or $86,364 annually). That guy ain’t no billionaire. When he dies and the companies have to be split, his kids are gonna owe into their fourth or fifth reincarnations (most of which, judging by their current behavior, will be as poo bugs).

Things in these (for the moment) United States are getting weird, I wrote to a friend presently traveling overseas, and not the good kind of weird. The least qualified person imaginable for the job of Most Powerful Person In The World appears to be getting more and more unhinged, and we’re possibly less than a week from his hiding under the covers in his special blankey with only people that tell him he’s great allowed in the room.

Traditionally, that stage worked out great for the madder Roman emperors.

I’m thrilled to see that particularly the webcomics community has come together to support those who are, by definition, the most vulnerable in our society: refugees that the regime thought they could beat up on for quickie points among its base; immigrants, some living here for decades, cruelly and intentionally equated with enemies of the state¹; and everybody else caught up in the capricious, arbitrary enforcement actions at our borders².

For those who needed a break from the weekend new, the situation was explained nicely by Sarah Glidden, and since Saturday we’ve seen members of our community at protests and standing witness in airports, and more than a few that are (or have been) trading art for donations to organizations like CAIR and the ACLU.

The responses have been overwhelming; to cite a single case, Rosemary Valero-O’Connell (whom you may recall is the new favorite artist of we at Fleen) announced yesterday that she’d give original drawings in exchange for US$20+ donations to organizations defending others. Today she had to put a pause on the offer because in a day, her fans have donated more than US$3000 and time has become a limiting factor.

Others that have made offers, some still open, some finished (for now) include:

• Noelle Stevenson, offering rare commissions (to be repeated in future).
• Box Brown, offering up wrestling drawings until they because neo-Impressionist.
• Matt Lubchansky, now drawing 40 Twitter avatars.
• Ursula Vernon, selling out of her art design pendants (iconic/tribal rabbits) in record time, in support of the International Rescue Committee.
• Jason Shiga doing original drawings of his “hero” Jimmy Yee for US$50+ to the ACLU; as of this writing that one’s still going on.
• David McGuire, Jon Rosenberg, and GOP Teens are all offering chunks of sales for varying times … McGuire’s giving 100% of profits until Tuesday to the ACLU and Cair; Rosenberg’s updated his classic Republicans For Voldemort design with US$1 per going to ACLU, and GOPTeens giving all store proceeds to ACLU until further notice.

That’s just what I remembered reading at some point in the past 48 hours and could find quickly; there’s plenty more out there. And if you doubt that you could have that kind of impact, a hack web pseudojournalist matched $US7800 earlier this month and that guy’s terrible. The collective effort is tremendous — the numbers can’t keep up, but it appears that the ACLU’s average annual online funding was exceeded by a factor of four times in 48 hours this weekend.

We made that happen. You made that happen. And on Fred Korematsu’s birthday, no less.

Fight’s not over, not by a long shot; but in all honesty, I feel more hopeful today than I have for some time. A voice is building across the country and it is saying No. You will not drag us back decades. You will not prey upon the vulnerable. The words we founded our nation on apply to all of us, not just those that have always been privileged. We have distance to go, yes we do, but today the road seems a little gentler and the way a little easier because we are sharing the burden.

One final thought, and I have never been more sure of anything in my life: everybody working together to make this a fairer, kinder, better country and world?

Mr Rogers would have been proud of you.

Also, T-Rex has invented a religion based on dogs and that’s almost as good as Mr Rogers.

Spam of the day:

Gtyrrell Notice N15499

Yeah, no, I don’t believe that FedEx is in the secure electronic message delivery business, so I ain’t clicking on that link. But, wait, what’s that say?

From: Nerys

OMG, is that you, Major Kira? Did you bring the Reliant back via the Orb of Time? Are you the time travelers here to fix the timeline? Hooray!

_______________
¹ I read yesterday of an Iranian-American permanent resident held at the border; his citizenship ceremony was (hopefully still is) scheduled for two weeks from now.

² I read today of a scientist, a Danish citizen by birth, who’s been barred from the US because he performs archeological digs in Iraq. Clearly, a threat to our way of life.

Know who will always make my day better? Yuko¹ & Ananth², that’s who. Johnny Wander may focus on stories other than autobio for now, but everything those crazy kids touch is great. And last night, they announced a project in keeping with the Kickstarter Make 100 manifesto that I must point you towards.

Presenting the Tarot Riso Printset, a collection of three tarot deck images (if I make them out correctly, Strength, Death, and Temperance) by Ota, done via risograph for that old-school look combined with modern digital convenience and cost efficiency.

Ota’s been creating tarot images in her jewelry designs for a while, and those who want a nice big version of her graphic design (bigger is better than the pendant sizes because you can enjoy it at length without staring at somebody’s chest like a creeper) now have the perfect vehicle to satisfy their itch for pretty things.

As of this writing, 35 of the 100 limited rewards have been claimed. Designs are done, paper’s bought, risograph time arranged. Campaign ends in ten days and the check clears, the spend an afternoon making prints and signing, then the shipping can begin. Quick, no fuss, and backers get an extremely limited-edition set of art prints that will never exist outside this edition of 100.

Oh, and ten minutes ago I got a package from TopatoCo — my copies of Girls With Slingshots, books 9 and 10. If you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do. Try to not let the world burn down while I’m busy.

Spam of the day:

gary.tyrrell, Interested in low in come housing?

Am I? Who isn’t? We’ll all be living there when the economy tanks!

______________
¹ Ota.

² Hirsh.

Well, this is some bullshit right here; from literary agent Charlie Olsen:

Graphic novels can no longer be @nytimes bestsellers as of February 5th. No explanation for change, I think we deserve one. Please RT!

Olsen was commenting on the edition of the New York Times Best Seller List that isn’t publicly available yet, as he gets early access. Here’s what it looks like today, dated 29 January 2017. Olsen indicated that there’s no presence for graphic novels, manga, and a slew of YA/genre fiction from the 5th forward.

I poked around the the NYTBSL site and found an email, and wrote to ask what the hell. Specifically, I wrote:

My name’s Gary Tyrrell. I write about webcomics and independent comics. One of the things I’ve followed closely and written about frequently has been the NYTBSL for graphic novels.

I hear today that the Times is discontinuing the lists for graphic novels and manga. Is this actually true?

And if so, will the books be treated as regular books in the appropriate category (MARCH, to name one, in nonfiction; Raina Telgemeier’s work in fiction or nonfiction as appropriate)?

If not, what is the rationale to decide that such a vibrant part of American publishing is no longer worthy of inclusion?

I got an autoreply that led me to believe I wouldn’t get a substantive response, but this morning there was an actual reply which reads as follows:

Hi, Gary –

Your query was forwarded to me. [Note: I’m not naming the person that wrote to me; she caught the question but undoubtedly is not responsible for the decision.]

It is true. Beginning February 5, The New York Times will eliminate a number of print but mostly online-only bestseller lists. In recent years, we introduced a number of new lists as an experiment, many of which are being discontinued.

We will continue to cover all genres of books in our news coverage (in print and online). The change allows us to devote more space and resources to our coverage beyond the bestseller lists.

Our major lists will remain, including: Top 15 Hardcover Fiction, Top 15 Hardcover Nonfiction, Top 15 Combined Print and E Fiction, Top 15 Combined Print and E Nonfiction, Top 10 Children’s Hardcover Picture Books, Top 10 Children’s Middle Grade Hardcover Chapter Books, Top 10 Children’s Young Adult Hardcover Chapter Books and Top 10 Children’s Series. Several more including Paperback Trade Fiction, Paperback Nonfiction, Business, Sports, Science and Advice Miscellaneous will remain online.

Readers will be notified that individual lists will no longer be compiled and updated by The New York Times on the relevant article pages.

Okay, props for all that info, but this is some straight-up nonsense right here. As I noted, comics are a dynamic and rapidly expanding part of American publishing; shall we note that Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts launched with an intial printing of half a friggin’ million copies? Show me one book on the surviving lists that has as large a print run and is still present 18 weeks later. Show me one book on the surviving lists that is as (justly) celebrated as MARCH.

Most importantly, show me one way for readers of books — not lit-er-uh-chooor, but goddamned books — that will see their favorites getting the attention and promotion and word-of-mouth that would result from being recognized on the BSL. The Times is selling out people that wait eagerly and devour a book over and over until the next one comes along, because you know what? Most YA and Middle Grade books aren’t hardcovers.

But at least they can focus on people that get the Book Of The Season and skim it so they can drop bon mots at the best parties. And the argument about having more room to discuss things by reducing lists is a complete crock since most of the dropped lists (including GN/manga) only appeared online where there’s no lack of space.

Well, let this bear witness, then — until whoever did make this decision removes the LitCrit stick from their ass, on the last week that the Times deigned to look at comics, Raina had five books listed on the Paperback Graphic Books list:

• Ghosts (#1, 18 weeks)
• Drama (#2, 179 weeks)
• Smile (#3 240 weeks)
• Sisters (#8, 117 weeks)
• The Baby-Sitters Club: Kristy’s Great Idea (#10, 77 weeks)

Pretty sure that she had at least one book on the list every damn week that the list existed, with her four original works totaling five hundred and fifty-four weeks, or a bit more than ten and a half cumulative years. But no, nothing to see here.

Jackasses.

Spam of the day:

Here’s your chance to get a month of Dollar Shave Club for only $1

Know how I know you’re a scam? Because the whole deal of DSC is it’s only a dollar a month, so your special offer is pointless. Also the emails I get from the actual DSC (I’m a customer) don’t end up in my spam folder because they don’t have a return address from the Keeling Islands with their 600 inhabitants.

You bet, all Art is political. And because sometimes the awful comes too fast and we all feel like Randall Munroe‘s nameless protagonist du jour, a roundup of recent (and some old but prescient) Art:

• Nazis. Hate ’em.

  

• But for reals, those reveling in their power over others? It has a way to coming back on you¹.

  

• Trying to ban Science is like Wile E. Coyote casually strolling off a cliff; gravity works whether you believe it or not².

  

• But no matter how much the forces of stupidity try to drag us backwards, heroes will resist. Some have Smokey The Bear hats.

  

Be good. Force those who aren’t to be better. Take care of each other. Hold the line³.

Spam of the day:

Gratify yourself and grant images to examine all statements.

I think they want me to allow images in the email, but that gratify yourself wording it very creepy, especially considering that they’re (ostensibly) hawking home repair warranties.

______________
¹ Or pursuing the absence of rules because it makes you feel important; Uncle Randy had your number nearly 15 years ago.

² Munroe put it more succinctly a decade ago.

³ Or, as Internet Jesus once wrote:

This is the line.

HUGE WALKING MONSTER-THINGS WITH DEATH-RAY FACES! What are you waiting for, boys and girls? This is what we do!

No lie, that statement of purpose always makes me tear up a little.

There’s nothing in Art that’s not political, pretty much by definition. Art shows us what life is like, or what it could/should be like, and how we got to where we are and how we get to where we could/should be are all things that must be decided across the entirety of a population. I bring up this thought because of something that came out of the imperial mouthpiece on Coruscant:

People “don’t want their kids looking at a cartoon with a bunch of lesbian mothers.” — Kellyanne Conway

Oh, it is on now. Because as I happened to be talking with Christopher Hastings about on Friday night, what Rebecca Sugar, Ian Jones-Quartey¹, and the rest of the Steven Crewniverse have accomplished is nothing less than a story about how to be a better, more rounded, more empathetic person. It’s precisely what people should want their kids looking at, even if they don’t realize Steven’s moms are genderless magic space rocks and not lesbians, come on.

Steven Universe. Adventure Time. We Bare Bears. Ghosts. Goldie Vance. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. And lots more comics and cartoons and graphic novels, with what in common? They’re fairly dripping with empathy; they go out of their way for their protagonists to find ways to try to understand whoever is in opposition to them², and when it comes to fighting? It’s a last resort, one done out of obligation rather than joy³. This is exactly what anybody should want their kids looking at, learning, becoming. Or as Saladin Ahmed put it:

this is true. a bunch is not enough. my kids deserve nothing less than a *battalion* of cartoon lesbian mothers.

Well said. Oh, and a reminder that the next Steven Bomb hits next week; let’s all watch it and do our best to live up to its ideals.

Spam of the day:

gary.tyrrell Your Eyeshadow gift is waiting!

I doubt that, but bonus points for the “keeping your eye on the ball” pun.

_______________
¹ Yes, yes, Ian’s no longer working on the show; he was all over the development of SU and he’s a pretty damn complete walking embodiment of the show’s best instincts so I’m listing him.

² Then again, sometimes you gotta punch a Nazi. There’s no saving or understanding the corrupted, only protecting the rest of the world.

³ And in Steven’s case, when realizing that there is a form of death involved, and that even imprisonment is damaging to foes? Traumatic fear about becoming a bad person. But I bet even Steven would be pretty okay with punching a Nazi.

So some things have happened since Friday afternoon; for example, Christopher Hastings wrapped up The Adventures of Dr McNinja without the customary end-of-chapter Final Thoughts. I suspect that this is because there is no Dr McNinja any longer, only Dr Patrick Goodrich, and so nobody to give said Final Thoughts. Not to worry, Hastings’s wife, Carly Monardo, brought a Final Thoughts cake to the wrap party Friday night, and somebody else brought Dr McNinja cookies! They were delicious.

• In other news, a slew of awards for youth literature were announced this morning in conjunction with the big ALA convention going on, and surprising absolutely nobody, March, Book 3 is going to have to find some more room on the cover for more stickers indicating more laurels. Unless I missed anything, March is now the recipient of the Excellence In Nonfiction for Young Adults award, the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Author winner, and the Sibert Medal¹.

  Not to be left out, the Alex Awards recognized Ryan North’s Romeo And/Or Juliet, and Vera Brosgol took at friggin’ Caldecott Honor (again, basically the runner-up to the actual winner, but it’s only the most prestigious award for picture books) for Leave Me Alone! Webcomickers are in some seriously good company this awards season. Can’t wait to see what the NCS, Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz awards bring.

• How about a moment for just a terrific comic? No huge event, no big conclusion, just an example of excellence on an ordinary day. Boulet is kind of the autobio equivalent of Stan Sakai; the work he turns out is uniformly excellent, comic after comic, to the point that you can lose sight of what an accomplished creator he is. Just as writers on comic books must get tired of writing every month Sakai was amazing, again, do you really need me to mention it, any random update at Bouletcorp is going to be beautiful, funny, insightful, or a combination of all three.

  Thus, last Thursday’s update, which is now making the rounds in English. While we haven’t all dodged that particular bullet, I think we can all appreciate just how horrible it might have been; I’m not even on Facebook and I’m sweating over here. Anyway, on a day marked by excellence all around, a tip of the hat to Boulet for making art that grabbed us all by the panic gland.

Spam of the day:

URGENT Message Regarding Your Outstanding Debt

Oh, no! You mean the US$78 I’ve got on my credit cards this month? I’d best sign my house over to you to manage my debt immediately!

______________
¹ As a side note, the Sibert Honor books — basically, the runners-up — mostly dealt with themes of governmental oppression in some form or another.

You had one about the White Rose youth movement against Hitler, one about surviving Nagasaki, one about being Japanese Americans being interned during World War II, and one about … um, giant squid. Squid are cool.

So here we are; my plan for the day is to play the video above on repeat and to give away some money¹. I’m posting in advance of making the donations so that you can see where the cash is going, and I will update with receipt images later.
[Editor’s note: updated; see the links in the last table.]

The Fleen Fight For Fungible Futures Fund saw donations in support of 12 organizations for a total of US$6409. The totals received were:

I hate to see anybody getting less than US$200, so I rounded everything up to that minimum:

And heck, I pledged up to US$10,000 and I have a fetish for round numbers, so let’s round things up again:

The Six-F thanks (in no particular order) Magnolia Porter, Mary Roth, Auilix, Bree, Matt Kuhns, Lia Herriott, Sean Kleefeld, Dave Kellett, Roo Khan, Red Wombat Studio, Mark V, Pierre Lebeaupin, Stephanie, Frank Gibson, Pamela and Kurt Mosiejczuk, CK, JB, and additional donors that wished to remain anonymous.

It’s not enough, but it’s a start. Take care, stay safe, help each other.

Spam of the day:

gary.tyrrell Get Your Trump Coin While You Still Can!

I might believe your attempt to get me to spend waaay too much money on an ugly-ass limited edition Trump Commemorative Coin that makes a great gift for family, friends, and co-workers if not for the fact that the very next email from the same spammers contained the subject line

SURVIVE THE COMING FINANCIAL CRISIS!

Well, that and the fact that any family, friends, or co-workers I gave one of those coins to would punch me in the face and rightly so.

_______________
¹ Also, I have to take a dog poop sample to the vet, which seems somehow appropriate to where we are as a society now.

We live, damn it all, at a time of great transition; things are ending and other … things … are starting. As it turns out, such is occurring in Webomicstan as well.

• It’s been a long time coming, more than eleven and a half years since we first met Dr McNinja, as written & pencilled by Christopher Hastings and inked by Kent Archer. In the decade-plus since, color duties have been assumed by (briefly) Carly Monardo and Anthony Clark, and Doc has been written/drawn by everybody from Benito Cereno & Les McClane to Kate Beaton to Becky & Frank.

  A good 18 months back, Hastings warned us that Dr McNinja would be ending sooner rather than later; he warned us as well that there were no guarantees which characters would survive (spoiler warning, it’s all bad guys that died; it looked like Gordito might but he got better and thankfully Gary The Barber appeared to never be in danger).

  Since the announcement, Hastings has only increased his comic book writing, having graduated from miniseries (various humor-tinged 3- or 4-issue runs at Marvel) to ongoing (Adventure Time, and being the originating writer/person most responsible for shaping Gwenpool). He’s got lots of irons in lots of fires, and when things finish up — as is imminent — it will be with the knowledge that damn, this was completely a thing¹.

  You done good, Doc (both docs, Hastings and McNinja). The world will be a bit less radical and insanely fun next week, but you’ve taken us on a hell of a ride in the meantime. Thank you.

• Announced today: the imminent start of an administration that has no truck with capital-s Science will not stop Zach Weinersmith from promoting a love of knowledge and critical thought. Namely, the latest iteration of BAH!Fest will take place at the hallowed Kresge Auditorium on the campus of MIT. The call for submissions is now open, and this show will have an open theme — any bad ad-hoc hypothesis, on any topic, is fair game.

  The most exciting part? The keynote will be delivered by Marc Abrahams, co-founder and editor of the Annals of Improbable Research and founder of the Ig Nobel Prize. It’s probably fair to say that there’s no inspiration for BAH!Fest that Abrahams hasn’t had a hand in², so this is very exciting … there’s pretty much a straight line from the seminal A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown (Seim, 1956) to BAH!Fest, so if you’re anywhere near MIT on 23 April 2017, 7:00pm-ish³, tell Zach & the rest they’re doing great things.

• Speaking of great things, we’re down to the waning hours of the Fleen Fight For Fungible Futures Fund, which will cease its activities at noon EST tomorrow as Barrack Obama leaves the office of President of the United States and glob help us all. The next while is going to be a struggle (genteel for some of us, existential for far too many), so the Six-F will be matching any donations you make from Election Day to Inauguration Day to:

  American Civil Liberties Union
  Brennan Center for Justice
  Campaign Zero
  Electronic Frontier Foundation
  International Rescue Committee
  NAACP Legal Defense Fund
  National Resources Defense Council
  Planned Parenthood
  Pro Publica
  Sacred Stone Camp’s GoFundMe
  Syrian Civil Defense aka The White Helmets
  The Trevor Project

  As of this writing, you have approximately 19 hours to send me (that would be gary) a receipt at the address of this website right here (which is a dot-com). I’ll match it. And as needs require (and I am able) between now and the end of the retrograde nightmare about to break upon us, I’ll repeat this exercise.

Spam of the day:

McDonalds Breakfast wants you to try all day breakfast – Free on us!

Not even if it was McBonalds.

_______________
¹ Reminder: I met Hastings for the first time at an Andy Bell art show, where he was wearing a Great Outdoor Fight t-shirt. I would, by coincidence, be standing next to him at the Great Outdoor Fight signing in Brooklyn, when he and Onstad met. It was an entirely appropriate bookending.

² The other likely inspiration: the Journal of Irreproducible Results (which I was very fond of reading back in college), which Abrahams edited for a time before leaving and founding AIR. Alas, the JIR is not what it once was.

³ It’s doubtful I’ll be able to be there, as I’m applying for the Alaska Robotics Minicon Camp in Juneau that same weekend.

• It’s the start of the year, and that means one of the things to do is look back at the last year. Specifically, the folks behind last year’s Fair Page Rates survey are back with a solicitation to see what rates were like in 2016. The 2016 survey is open to working comics pros and will be very interesting to compare against the results of the 2015 survey. Remember, this is a page rate, so no mistaking per-project bonus structures (as I did) or advances for page rates if you’re submitting data!
• 2016 also saw a lot of references to KC Green’s most famous comic, not least being a response to this year from Green himself. But I think none of them have approached the melancholy of both of Green’s cartoons as a brief browser game by Nick Kaman. It’s actually two months old and I’m not sure how I missed it until now, but I did so I’ma talk about it now.

  Go play This Is Fine (assuming your browser is HTML5 compatible) and harness that feeling of optimism mixed with a horrific situation that can only be dealt with a little at a time. Maybe an extremely localized fine is all any of us can achieve in the near term; it may be a hell of a long time until things are better than This Is Fine. It’s going to be a significant struggle to resist the loss of gains that have been made towards a more equal society. I don’t really have an uplifting conclusion here … it’s going to hurt, but at least we get a head start while the firestarter in chief takes off the weekend after the hard work of being sworn in. I’m betting we can get significantly under his skin in two and a half days.

• In that spirit, here is your daily reminder that I’ve established the Fleen Fight For Fungible Futures Fund and pledged up to US$10,000 towards organizations that will fight to maintain the progress made by marginalized groups as the American Experiment moves (in fits and starts and somewhat haphazardly) towards the ideals promised to We, The People. If you have given any money since Election Day to any of:

  American Civil Liberties Union
  Brennan Center for Justice
  Campaign Zero
  Electronic Frontier Foundation
  International Rescue Committee
  NAACP Legal Defense Fund
  National Resources Defense Council
  Planned Parenthood
  Pro Publica
  Sacred Stone Camp’s GoFundMe
  Syrian Civil Defense aka The White Helmets
  The Trevor Project

  (this includes creators that ran their own directed fundraisers), then get in contact (gary, who blogs at this here website which is a dot com). Let me know how much you gave (receipt images help), which group(s) you gave to, and how you’d like to be acknowledged (full name, part of your name, or anonymous). Stay informed, stay mad, stay in contact with your elected representatives, and stay safe.

Spam of the day:

Es la respuesta de valor

Todas mis respuestas son respuestas de valor.