Even when Patreon isn’t dropping news, they’ve cast a long shadow over webcomics for the past week (the last time I spent so many days on a single topic, it was the Great Todd Goldman Lawsuitapalooza of Aught-Seven). I’ll leave you to find the public posts of creators asking (begging?) for clarification from Jack Conte, Sam Yarn, et alia, which shouldn’t be too hard — just chuck a rock at your favorite social media platform and you’ll find some.

Instead, let me take a suggestion from Faithful Reader Robonun and point out that maybe not everybody has seen the good news: Randy Milholland — the absolute sweetest guy you could ever hope to meet — is gonna be a dad in the immediate future. On the one hand, that kid is going to have the coolest, most humane (but simultaneously profane) father possible. On the other hand, it’s Randy, so garbage people are out in force.

I don’t know what it is about him that makes terrible, terrible people of almost every self-identified, persecuted subgroup decide momentarily that Milholland is one of them, then discover that it was all projection on their part, then decide it’s an act of vile betrayal and determine he is the enemy of all that is good.

In this case, militant childfree types (who were already pissed that he brought kids into the strip, without making it clear that this is surely going to ruin the lives of anybody adjacent to the little carpet apes) have greeted the news that Milholland and his wife are expecting with all the grace and tact of a caffeine-crazed MRA/MAGA/GamerGate/incel/anime superfan/brony type¹ being told that somebody doesn’t like that thing they like.

Honestly, Randy does nothing to encourage terrible, terrible people, but they seek him out. I suppose we should be grateful, in that he draws all the detritus to himself, sparing the rest of us from their attention. He’s a human crap umbrella.

So assuming that you, by reading this page, are a rational person², and also assuming that you are able to recognize that other people do not have the desire to be exactly like you are and this does not invalidate their right to exist, and further assuming you get the laugh-chuckles from Milholland’s work, consider dropping him a note of congratulations, and encouraging him (as we at Fleen do) to take all the time he needs in this period of immense adjustment to a new mode of life. The comics are free, he owes us nothing, and we owe him at the least thanks.

Oh, and all four issues of his excellent superhero comic³, Super Stupor are now available for digital download. If you read these and don’t feel like Punchline is the greatest hero character of the 21st century, you and I will never understand each other. Just, uh, maybe don’t leave the comic around for any kids if you don’t want them to know about Mind’s Eye and his truth fucking power.

What? I said they were excellent, not that they were all-ages.

Spam of the day:

4 FreeViagara tablets with each order

Oh yeah? What if I’m ordering … I dunno, something very specific to kids? Whatever makes you sound horrible because man, you’re sounding sketchy as hell.

_______________
¹ Do I repeat myself? Very well, I repeat myself.

² Also? Very, very attractive.

³ It legitimately is my favorite cape comic except maybe Robinson’s Starman, Nextwave, Patton Oswalt’s Welcome To The Working Week, and issue 10 of All Star Superman.