Oh my, so much has happened since I went to Comics Camp. The obvious is that TCAF happens this weekend and everybody will be there ‘cept me, but let’s not ignore other things going on:

• Erika Moen & Matt Nolan are Kickstarting the latest OJST collection (number four!), hit goal about 12 hours in, and are well on their way to rewarding their guest artists beyond their original contracts. At US$50K, each guest artist will receive a shipping box’s worth of free OJSTv4 copies (to sell or otherwise dispose of); at US$65K, their page rates get retroactively bumped by $20/page. Since, as in prior volumes, about a third of the book is guest artists, that’s a pretty significant chunk of wealth-sharing for Moen & Nolan.
• Hope Larson moved cross country (from LA to North Carolina), turned in a book (she’s got one a year on deck for the next few years), and restarted Solo. Busy lady. BTW, I didn’t get Larson’s Compass South / Knife’s Edge collaborator Rebecca Mock to give me any juicy details on the latter book, due out in about six weeks time, despite us being cabinmates at Camp. Journalistic laziness or respect for spoilers? You decide.
• The Eisner nominations are out, Sonny Liew appears to be nominated in every possible category for The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, and there are now two categories for the comics that appear courtesy of the nets and lasers and electrons: Best Webcomic and Best Digital Comic. The confusion of the Eisner organization with respect to webcomics appears to be as deep as ever, as I couldn’t tell you what qualifies a work in one category or the other¹, and there’s a distinct lack of recognition of ongoing strip-type work that forms the bulk of webcomics. Nevertheless, there’s some good candidates there:
  Best Webcomic
  • Bird Boy, by Anne Szabla
  • Deja Brew, by Taneka Stotts and Sara DuVall
  • Jaeger, by Ibrahim Moustafa
  • The Middle Age, by Steve Conley
  • On Beauty, by Christina Tran
  Best Digital Comic
  • Bandette, by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover
  • Edison Rex, by Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver
  • Helm, by Jehanzeb Hasan and Mauricio Caballero
  • On a Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden
  • Universe!, by Albert Monteys

  And there’s lots of your traditional webcomickers in other categories: Raina Telgemeier for Ghosts in Best Publication for Kids (ages 9-12); John Allison, for Bad Machinery Volume 5, Chip Zdarsky/Ryan North/Erica Henderson/Derek Charm for Jughead, and Ryan North/Erica Henderson for The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl in Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17); Zdarsky/North/Henderson/Charm for Jughead and Lisa Hanawalt for Hot Dog Taste Test in Best Humor Publication; Box Brown for Tetris in Best Reality-Based Work, Jason Shiga for Demon in Best Graphic Album — Reprint; and Brown and Tetris for Best Writer/Artist. Best of luck to all the nominees.

• Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett has added DRIVE: Act One to his store, now available in handsome hardcover and slightly less handsome softcover. Honestly, if you’re gonna get this book, spring for the hardcover (because it’s friggin’ gorgeous) unless your name is Mario from Lisboa, Portugal, on account of Mario won hisself the extra copy I had in the Drive Giveaway Spectacular.

  International shipping on this beast (more than 1.25 kg!) is somewhat less than purchase price, and while I may restrict future giveaways to the US only, I’m glad Mario is going to get to enjoy this tome. Unless Customs steals it, because did I mention it’s friggin’ gorgeous? Pretty sure I did. Send us a photo when you get your book sometime between next week and never, Mario!

Return Of The Son Of Spam of the day:

File Your Tax Return for Free

I’ll note that this particular spam (and likely scam) was received the day after taxes were due. Way to be proactive, spammers!

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¹ The latter appears to allow for longer form stories, where the former appears to be for single-shot (but sometimes lengthy) presentations. For example, Bandette and On A Sunbeam (fiction stories) are digital, but On Beauty (which is more reportage/editorial in nature) is webcomic.