• As has been established on this page, Homestar*Runner is a webcomic, just one that updates rather infrequently. But happily for all who love awesome things, one of the occasions upon which you can count on H*R to update is Hallowed Ween, and this year’s spooooky story and costume fest is now available at YouTube, hooray!
• I mean, it’s also up at the H*R site, and the trailer is worth watching, too if you’re willing to brave an unpleasant terror or two. I speak, naturally, of the fact that the H*R site relies (as did much of early to mid Webcomickstan) upon the worst technology ever constructed by putatively human hands, Adobe Flash.

  Flash!¹ The security nightmare of a million breached websites and stupid, designed-in vulnerabilities. Flash, which sucked up power and which browsers have been trying to quietly ignore for years now. Flash, which we’ve all done without for so very, very long. Flash, which at long last is getting what it deserves, which is to sink even further into obscurity:

  “Google Search will stop supporting Flash later this year,” said Dong-Hwi Lee, a Google engineering manager, in a blog post. “In Web pages that contain Flash content, Google Search will ignore the Flash content. Google Search will stop indexing standalone SWF files.”

  Lee says most websites and users won’t notice anything right away, and that’s because Flash no longer does much to help sites rank higher in the Google Search algorithm. But web publishers who still rely on Flash should be looking at other technologies if they want Google Search traffic.

  In an email clarifying the web giant’s position, a spokesperson said indexed Flash content will not be removed immediately from search results, though it will disappear as the index is updated over time. Pages that include Flash files will themselves continue to be indexed, though the Flash components will be omitted.

  Which brings up an interesting dilemma — there’s lots of old websites (including webcomics) that have gone by the wayside, but which live forever in our hearts and also the mighty repository known as the Internet Archive. What will happen to those archived pages when Flash no longer exists, when browsers escalate from merely ignoring it to actively suppressing it? How much will be beyond our reach? Some day, chunks of the culture may exist only for those that visit an appropriate museum or painstakingly maintain obsolete technology.

  And it won’t end with Flash. What happens when JavaScript is superceded, or some future standard of HTML or CSS finally declares it’s no longer maintaining compatibility with the versions we use now? If you’ve got comics that rely on a formerly standard (or at least widespread) architecture that’s falling from favor, you need to decide how to translate them to a form that will survive. We’re in the midst of a rolling Digital Dark Age, frantically creating new while losing the ability to read the old, and I don’t think a Digital Renaissance will be upon us without some damn good translation tools.

• That last section was kind of a bummer, so let’s end on an up note: today is the last day of Inktober, and while there was so very much that was so very good², I am going to point you to one that is near to my heart. I made Cat Farris’s acquaintance at #ComicsCamp this year, where we quickly began to nerd out about the noblest dogs to stride the Earth, greyhounds. Cat and her husband Ron Chan are members of Portland’s Helioscope Studio and parents to frequent studio mascot Sally the greyhound.

  I think you see where I’m going with this: a month’s worth of #LifeWithSallyDog #Inktober drawings. Some are silly and cartoony, some are serious (or at least as serious as you get with a greyhound), all of them capture the innate joy these fuzzy lumps exude on those occasions when they deign to be awake. Browse them all, and try not to smile wider at each one; you won’t be able to.

Okay, time to go camp the front door for Trick or Treaters. Have a good one, everybody!

Spam of the day:

New hot project galleries, daily updates http://milfpornteen.[redacted].com/?tatum

Stop just throwing words together, spammers. Words having meanings! MILF and teen are opposites. Are you going to try to entice me with barely legal MILFs next?

Oh crap, you totally are. We live in Hell.

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¹ Ah-ahhhhh!

² I mean, did you see graphic novelist Bruce McCorkindale’s arthouse movies by Muppets theme? It’s amazing.

It was eight weeks back that we saw the ending of Giant Days, regular comic series, with the graduation of Esther and Daisy (Susan’s medical training continuing), the culmination of a friendship that started three academic years prior (and wedged in between other Tackleford stories for us). We knew there would be one for go-round for the three best friends, and today it’s available in the comics shops.

Giant Days: As Time Goes By is a return to the loopy, laws-of-physics-need-not-apply rules that held in the original miniseries, and even into the start of the regular series¹. We’ve had a lot of the uncontrolled happenstance that comes about from small things — bad housemates, illicit chinchillas, the death of a parent, falling in love, fear of change — and it’s only fair to come full circle and remember when these characters weren’t quite so grounded². We’ve seen hints of it as the regular series wrapped up (particularly as Daisy finished her archeology degree and began to learn the most important thing about being an archeologist — avoiding curses), and now it’s time to have one last explosion of the fantastical as the ladies settle into their lives.

It all comes down, as all inciting incidents do, to Esther. She’s a year out from university, on the cusp of who she will be, and conflicted about how much that person will be her, and how much the diametric opposite. There are, as in the first mini, evil posh girls that must be defeated. True to form, Daisy believes in better natures, Susan in removing organs from those who offend her, McGraw in the avoidance of conflict, and Ed Gemmell in seeking a path with the least potential for bloody vengeance.

I was going to say it ends on a cliffhanger, but that’s not right because this is the Proverbial It; there will be no follow on to see how the decisions made turn out (or even what some of those decisions are). It ends, full stop, and while life goes on for those we’ve followed, we aren’t privy to their lives any longer.

For those that have read it, John Allison hast posted a set of annotations and explanations at the Bobbins site, immediately below Ryan and Shelley in the long-ago times, a decade or more of story time before³ what we see in print today. It’s one big spoiler, so don’t click through until you’re ready.

And when you’ve read the issue, and when you’ve read the commentary track, take a moment to thank Allison, artists Lissa Tremain and Max Sarin, inker Liz Fleming, colorist Whitney Cogar, and letterer Jim Campbell. Allison will have more stories to tell, the others will tell their own and collaborate with writers, but any time that you find two or more of them coming back together on a project, it’ll be special; this was a creative team that hit on all cylinders and made something that got better, month after month, for most of five years. These are comics that will hold up and be just as good any time you go back to revisit them in the decades ahead.

Or, as I plan to, this weekend. It’s only about … I’m going to ballpark it at about 1300 pages, a section of my bookshelf that will never be retired.

Spam of the day:

The 3 Deadly “Small Shop” Mistakes (and how to avoid them!)

Woodworking spam today, in honor of Graham McGraw. He’s had a hard time this year, and correcting bad carpentry practice will surely lift his spirits.

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¹ Lest we forget the introduction of one of the most important supporting characters, McGraw, was accomplished by the exploitation of Esther’s drama field, where things just happen around her to the benefit of maximum chaos.

² Yes, I just described Esther, Daisy, and Susan as grounded, a word properly applied to McGraw, Ed Gemmell, and Nina.

³ Time in and around the Tackleverse never was much more than a series of suggestions, after all. The last Bad Machinery story would have taken place a good five years past As Time Goes By and my goodness, that was finished more than two and a half years ago.

Oh, but it is drear out there today, but I’ve had conversations about literature and art, and there are nifty things a-borning that I’m happy to share with you.

• This page stands second to none in its admiration of Tillie Walden’s work, as well as consideration of the fact that she must at some point take a breath before diving into her next head-down, year-long creative endeavour. You can’t work like you’re 23 forever, after all. And while I will always greet the announcement of a story from Walden, I’m also pleased to see that her next announced release will not be narrative in form, but an act of almost pure illustration:
  

  It may be a year away but multiple award-winning artist Tillie Walden’s next project from mind-body-spirit publisher Liminal 11 is one that will no doubt be eagerly anticipated for the next twelve months by her ever growing fanbase. Walden’s Cosmic Slumber Tarot is described by Liminal 11 as “a unique exploration that will undoubtedly bring tarot to a whole new audience. At once, both gloriously universal and deeply personal.”

  Did I say non-narrative? I meant in the sense of named characters and dialogue and plot; anybody that’s been following Walden’s twitterfeed for Inktober can tell you that her illustrated pages tell stories of their own, your imagination supplying all the necessary details. Walden will be sharing the work as it’s made over the next however long online, so follow her if you aren’t already.

• Hey, you know who is the best friend to individual creators in comics is? Scott McCloud. His superpower is he forgets no one, no matter how long it’s been since he saw you last, or how long it takes you to complete a work because little things like life insist on being attended to. It’s because of McCloud’s twitternouncement this morning that I now know that Dirk Tiede is celebrating two damn decades of Paradigm Shift¹ with a Kickstarting.

  Quick recap: Tiede started Paradigm shift in 1999, hopped to the Modern Tales (RIP) platform in 2002, self-published three books by 2010 and launched part four of story, which wrapped up last year. That fourth part was published as single issue minicomics, five of them, and they will be collected along with the first three parts of the story in a comprehensive, two-volume collection:

  Volume One will collect the original books, Part One: Equilibrium, Part Two: Agitation, and Part Three: Emergence into one beautiful new collection with 340+ pages of artwork, footnotes and bonus material, including 22 new colorized pages.
  Volume Two will collect the latest storyline, Part Four: Flight into a brand new graphic novel edition with 250+ pages, including 10 new colorized pages and footnotes.

  Those two volumes are available for US$25 each, or US$50 for the pair, along with other, fancier support tiers. Campaign runs until the day before [American] Thanksgiving, and is more than half way to its (exceedingly modest) goal of US$5000. This one’s a reward for everybody that’s stuck with a story like an old friend, and for everybody who’d like to see what it’s like to hold onto the act of creation for the long term. Check ‘er out.

• Finally, today is book launch day for Zach Weinersmith and Bryan Caplan’s policy paper with word balloons, Open Borders. Weinersmith first mentioned it as a thing back during the book tour for Soonish, with a formal announcement and release date coming back in the spring.

  This book has taken a lot of Weinersmith’s time for a while now, but the thing about him is, he’s basically unable to spend much time working on only one daily comic strip, raising two small humans, and reading more than anybody you know²; he’s constitutionally got to have a much bigger project to work on at the same time. For a while there, he was doing all his dad-and-SMBC work, and working on Open Borders, and creating a civic-education comic with his political scientist brother.

  Before that, it was Soonish. Mixed in with all that, BAH! Fest, on at least three continents. Before that, Augie And The Green Knight with Boulet. Before that, SMBC Theatre shorts and a feature-length movie. Before that, a handful of other comics.

  My point is, with Weinersmith now merely responsible for the not-dying of two children, supporting his wife’s academic career, and producing comics on the daily, he’s going to get that itch again at some point, which means take the opportunity to grab Open Borders now because it’s just a matter of time before we have to run to catch up to him on the next thing. Or at the very least, check out the video interview with the two of them over at Heidi’s place.

Spam of the day:

A breakthrough study has shown that this “odd” vegetable reverses diabetes at the source. Can you guess which one it is? a) Horned Melon b) Kohlrabi c) Jicama

Well gosh, a) is a fruit, b) isn’t odd, it’s genetically identical to a half-dozen of the most commonly eaten veg that exist (thanks, Brassica oleracea), so I’m guessing jicama? But why hedge your bets? I bet you could do an awesome slaw out of all three and never have to click your malware-infested clickbait site to clarify the fake fact you’re dangling at me.

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¹ Near as I can tell, the first mention of him here at Fleen was in February 2008 on the occasion of picking up the first volume of PS.

² For real, guy reads 25 – 30 books a month, and I’m not exaggerating.

On a Monday, no less! Maybe it has to do with the mood elevation that comes from watching Screamy Orange Grandpa realize that he’s being booed by an entire sports stadium, over and over. There will be an explosion of tweetarrhea to punish us all later, I’m certain, but for now all is just a little bit better. Let’s keep that positive feeling going.

There’s just something about webcomics that causes some folks to end up with closely-matching birthdays: Ryan North and John Allison, Dylan Meconis and Katie Lane¹, Jeffrey and Holly Rowland, Jon Rosenberg and some hack webcomics pseudojournalist. And yes, I know the math about cohort sizes and likelihood that two people in the same group will have the same birthday², but let us just admit that it’s neat.

Today, we get to wish Happy Birthdays³ to two more stellar creators, who have produced some of my favorite books in the past couple of years.

On the one hand: Molly Knox Ostertag, creator of the Witch Boy series (the concluding entry in which is due next week) and How The Best Hunter In The Village Met Her Death, artist on Strong Female Protagonist and Shattered Warrior, and soon to be traumatizer of children.

On the other hand: Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, creator of stellar shorter works (a collection of which was just Kickstarted and will be shipping soon), artist on Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, multiple brick-haver, and owner of dangerous earrings.

They are both celebrating their respective births today, and I am so, so glad that we all get to live in a time when their work is widely available and justly lauded. Their comics are so different from what so many people would have you believe are real comics, and the current Golden Age we are seeing in comics at present is in no small part due to the efforts of them and their contemporaries. They are rad ladies and I can’t wait to see what they have produced in their 20s, but into their 30s and 40s and beyond. They’re both only going to get better. Happy Birthday, Rosemary and Molly!

One more thing, since we’re in a good mood: Alison Wilgus announced the official book launch event for her most recent graphic novel (Chronin volume 2: The Sword In Your Hand, a review of which I need to compose after giving it another read or three; it’s heady stuff, and stays with you) today, and maybe you get to attend:

NEXT THURSDAY is the official book debut event for Chronin Volume 2, hosted by the amazing @KinokuniyaUSA store here in NYC! I’ll do a quick presentation about my process, sign books, and generally be VERY happy to have all of Chronin out in the world!
https://usa.kinokuniya.com/event-calendar …

I’m going to do my best to attend, both because I love the book and wish to help Wilgus celebrate, and because it’s been too long since I’ve been to Kinokuniya in Midtown (I used to work about two blocks from there, and haven’t been in since I developed my fountain pen habit). So with any luck I’ll see you at 6th Ave between 40th and 41st — across from Bryant Park — at 6:00pm on 7 November, with my copy of Chronin in hand. In the meantime, everybody feel good for Alison, not only for this book release, but for the great editing job she’s been doing on the Adventure Zone graphic novels.

Spam of the day:

This is an impeccably, motley invitation to join me in Seventh-Heaven; to RITE zzzillions! of overdude books for the lengthNbreadth of eternity, emphasize’n in whatever God has ‘aujourd d’hui’: the Psycadelic VitSee, the Protagonist of the Exponential Universe, exploring the concept of the endless, bombastic now in His validation of
the G O O G L e P L E X I A N T H…

…

…

What.

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¹ Light-ning Law-yer!!

² By the time you’ve got 23 people in a group, the chances of two of them having the same birthday is already greater than 50%. Besides Jon, I knew one guy in high school with my birthday and since I started in EMS two other people that joined my agency had my same birthday, and one more not only lived in the house I lived in when I was 5, but sleeps in my old bedroom. COINCIDENCE??

Yes. Coincidence.

³ Happys Birthday? Happy Birthsday?

What.

WHAT.

WHAT.

No spam of the day, but I do believe that the Events tag applies.

Readers of any regularity will immediately recognize that we at Fleen have been somewhat … let’s say somewhere between skeptical and disappointed at some of the policy directions that Patreon has taken. That is to say, we think that the original mission of providing a tool to allow distributed funding of creative types has been co-opted by the Silicon Valley venture fund types that want their M-F’in big payout, because that’s what SVvf types do. Which is not to deny the fact that Patreon has been life-changing for many creators, just that they need to decide on what and who their users are, and how they want to interact with them and friggin’ stick with it.

But sometimes, radical new approaches are good:

Today, I’m launching a new thing. It’s called Super Patron: A Creator Arts Endowment Fuck Yeah. It’s an arts endowment for creators. The first grant is for $50,000. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can apply at http://superpatron.org. Fuck yeah. @superpatronfyea

That from Jack Conte (the non-evil Jack of SV media companies), one of the founders of Patreon. Conte’s not a SVvf type, he came up as a working musician, half of Pomplamoose, who basically invented Patreon because he needed it himself. And now he’s got some creative folk together (including Danielle Corsetto) to help him pick a creator to get a monthly-stipend grant to make making stuff easier. Aside from Conte being the CEO of Patreon, there’s no association between it and Super Patron; it’s a 501c(3) nonprofit.

I like this idea; it’s similar to one that Andy McMillan (the Irish half of The Andys¹) tried to put together a couple years back². The difference being, I suppose, the capital you can bring immediately to your effort as CEO of Patreon vs a community-minded event organizer who moves from project to project. Regardless, Super Patron is probably something you should look at applying to. The odds are better than the lottery, and it doesn’t cost two bucks to enter.

When you’re done clicking over to try to get a chunk of that sweet, sweet grant money, there’s another website you should be clicking on, and this one will cost you some money — but no more than you can afford. The case of the Indie Comics Eleven continues to drag out, despite the fact that only three defendants remain attached to the bullshit lawsuit by a terrible person. As Hazel Newlevant tweeted today, they, Whit Taylor, and Morgan Pielli are down to less than US$3000 in their legal defense fund, and their lawyer costs about US$5000 per ten hours of work.

This, of course, was the entire purpose of the suit — the plaintiff³, suffering a case of butthurt in the first degree, brought an action whose only possible outcome is to be as expensive and time-consuming as possible to those he regards as his enemies, which also serves to prevent anybody in the future from crossing him lest they also end up bankrupted. If you thinks this bullshit lawsuit is, in fact, bullshit, consider contributing anything you can afford, and also call your representatives and Senators and tell them it’s well past time for there to be a federal anti-SLAPP statute.

Spam of the day:

How to choose your sexy Russian wife?

This sounds disturbingly like a buyer’s guide, which is just icky.

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¹ Who, ironically enough, were tasked by Kickstarter with engineering a Patreon killer, but couldn’t make the math work sustainably.

² Disclaimer: I committed to making a significant cash contribution to McMillan’s foundation, should it ever launch. Signed a piece of paper and everything.

³ He doesn’t get named on my page, fuck that guy.

I mean, Jesus H Christ in a chicken basket, bullshit is happening faster than the news can keep up with it. Surely there’s something to look upon, ye mighty, and not despair?

As it turns out, yes.

• Item! You may recall that yesterday I talked about the forthcoming ALA GNCRT recommended graphic novels for adults list, and wondered how much a spot on that list might goose sales figures. I dropped some emails to publishers to see if anybody wanted to venture a guess on the record, and nobody did, but I did get one off-the-record response, speculating that being named to a spot on [a] list like that would probably be good for 5k sales.

  I’m taking that to be immediate sales of the book in question; once library patrons get their hands on it (and a book is assumed to hold up to ~ 60 circulations at a library before needing replacement), I’ll bet that some number of them will be interested in other works by the same creator, causing a knock-on effect. Bottom line: keep an eye on this, and find people willing to nominate your work.

• Item! You may recall that Nancy is the best thing on the newspaper comics page, that Olivia Jaimes has been affirmatively identified as a webcomicker, and that Sluggo Is Lit. It’s also been known that a number of potential cartoonists were auditioned for the Nancy gig, and that one of the was the inestimable Shaenon Garrity, Tiki Queen of the Greater Bay Area And Surrounds, and Nexus Of All Webcomics Realities.

  What wasn’t known before now is what Garrity’s audition material looked like:

  Found some notes from when I was trying out for the job of drawing Nancy, a thing that happened. The border doodles (except for Mustache Nancy) are by [Cartoon Art Museum curator and Garrity’s husband] @andrewfarago.

  Garrity’s ideas are amazing, including a storyline suggestion of Sluggo getting kidnapped by evil doppelgangers of the main cast, involving the Order Of The Three Rocks. Three rocks, you will recall, being one of the hallmarks of Ernie Bushmiller’s run on Nancy, in that it’s the exact minimum number of rocks he could get away with drawing to convey the idea of some rocks. Not a rock, or two rocks, but some nonspecific number of rocks. I love this with all my heart, and hope that someday the syndicate opens up Nancy to a fanfic collection, and Garrity gives this the treatment it deserves (even though it could be argued that Jaimes mined the Three Rocks — so to speak — for comedic effect already).

• Item! Okay, this started in the world-burning-down category, but ended up okay. Amazon Web Services had a bit of a wobbly period for a goodly chunk of hours there, making it impossible for people to reach their AWS resources thanks to a DDOS attack. The problem being, lots of people rely on AWS for hosting, allowing for scalable responses to whatever demand your site may experience. This includes webcomics, and while I didn’t see a lot of impact on my morning trawl, there were missing images at PvP until midmorning my time.

  The resources in question pulled from s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com, which my browser was telling me was unavailable for a considerable amount of time past when Jeff Bezos declared everything was working again. Curiously, other images pulling from the same Amazon bucket were getting through without any problems, which just goes to show that in any mass outage, somebody is going to be the last one reconnected.

  My whole point being, yes there’s value in making an enormous, successful, reputable platform a partner for your critical services. But there’s just as much value in recognizing that putting too much infrastructure in one proverbial basket is a bad idea. I’ve long said that if Bezos ever wanted to go full supervillain, he’d just have to get on the giant viewscreens at the UN and tell the Security Council that he would be activating the self-destruct on all the AWS servers¹ in 48 hours unless they gave him US$1 trillion and the Chaos Emeralds.

  You can’t control that Amazon is the proverbial 363kg gorilla, but you can have a backup plan. Take it from the database administrator — have multiple backup plans, and test them with dry runs before the next wobbly. You’ll thank me later.

Spam of the day:

Eula O’Donovan wrote:

Eula? EULA? As in End User License Agreement? Fuck on outta here with that shit.

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¹ Alternately, releasing everybody’s browsing history.

• Sasha Bassett is a PhD student at Portland State¹ specializing in gender, organizations, and pop culture. Know where you’re seeing a lot of intersection of those three things these days? Comics, which just happens to be a focus of Bassett’s interests. We’re bringing it all up today because of a recent tweet by Bassett on a study of who works in comics, and what their status as workers (for hire) vs creators (with ownership interest in their work) might be, along with a fun fact or two.

  Obviously, there’s a hell of a lot of detail behind those four graphics and the very top-level summary, which Bassett is happy to share with you. If you’re interested in the people reading comics as opposed to those making them, Bassett’s got you covered there, too (although the data are from 2016, as opposed to 2019 for the creator study). All in all, the rates of creators either neither owning what they work on or getting any kind of royalty explains Bassett’s use of the #UnionizeComics hashtag, which has some good info. Check it out, creators.

• Speaking of the need for unionization, which is to say, speaking of Kickstarter (and lots of you are, cf: The Very Sexy Brad Guigar and Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett on same), you’re starting to see projects launch with explicit acknowledgement re: the Kickstarter Union and taking their lead. Case in point, Evil Twin Howard Tayler, who couched the use of KS for his next Schlock Mercenary print project in terms of following the KU’s recommendation that creators not boycott at this time.

  And, since he launched said project earlier today, I’ll note that he has the same sentiment on the project page:

  We are aware of Kickstarter’s position with regard to unionization. We support the unionizers at Kickstarter United, and agree with them: boycotting Kickstarter will hurt all the wrong people. Please follow those links for complete statements, and the latest information.

  Tayler hedges a little, in that he doesn’t explicitly say that if the KU organizers call for a boycott during the campaign, that he’ll take it down (something I’m starting to see). Based on what he’s said publicly, I believe he would, but I also wouldn’t blame anybody that only held off starting new projects once a boycott got called rather than canceling existing ones. Tayler’s been in business long enough that I suspect he suspects what I suspect — that any action called by KU wouldn’t come until closer to a vote, most likely afterwards if Kickstarter slow-walked recognition or challenged results. But we’ll see. Now go and pledge so the guy can stop hitting F5 on his browser every coupla minutes.

• Finally, we have mentioned here at Fleen the fact that the ALA introduced a round table (their name for a working group that studies policy options and makes recommendations) for graphic novels and comics, which is one of the marks of legitimacy in the world of libraries². Via Heidi Mac’s joint, I see that the GNCRT is undertaking its first public-facing project. We’re a bit late on this — the ALA announced it four days ago, and the news made its ways into the comics press since then, and earlier today I noticed The Beat’s discussion:
  

  The group just announced the formation of a committee to oversee a Best Graphic Novels for Adults Reading List, which will launch in 2021.

  The inaugural list will highlight the best graphic novels for adults published in late 2019 and throughout 2020. According to a press release, the goal is to increase awareness of the medium, raise up diverse voices, and aid library staff in developing graphic novel collections.

  On the one hand, I’d note that there’s nobody checking IDs and keeping those over the age of 18 from reading YA or even Middle Grade comics. On the other hand, I get it — sometimes, you just want a protagonist that’s no longer in the throes of (pre-)puberty confusion. The committee will look at all graphic novels published from 1 Sept 2019 through the end of 2020, and release their list at ALA’s midwinter convention in early 2021; the committee will meet throughout the year to consider works as they’re released, and presumably they’ll move to a calendar-year eligibility schedule in future.

  Now here’s the part you should pay attention to:

  Nominations can be made by all members of the public, including committee members and ALA members though an online form that will be available in January 2020 on the GNCRT website.[emphasis mine]

  The wording of the press release made it seem like we, members of the public, could also participate in the committee, but a close reading indicates it will be made up of members of GNCRT, meaning ALA members. Ah, well — I will have to content myself with making nominations through the form once it opens up. Oh, and creators? Check this out:

  Publishers are welcome to submit copies of titles to the committee for review, though they are not eligible to nominate their own titles for consideration.

  I’m sure you can find a loyal reader of your stuff to put your title into nomination, and if you send a couple copies along so that it’s easier for the committee members to actually read your work? Librarians use these lists to develop their collections. There are an estimated 116,687 libraries in the United States, which should be motivation enough for you to keep an eye on this program.

  Oh, and in case you didn’t think to pay attention to the YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens (which has been going on for 15 years now), maybe you should get on that. I’m not sure anybody’s got an accurate metric on how many extra copies you should print of a title that makes the ALA lists (Spike, maybe? I’ll ask and get back to you), but I’d submit it’s the sort of problem you want to have.

Spam of the day:

Your account is listed as the recovery email for [redacted]

Nice try, lowlife. You almost made that email look like a legit security notification, but for two things: 1) the email company in question doesn’t ask me to click on links like you did, and b) you apparently think that an email address will use itself as the recovery address if something goes wrong. That doesn’t make sense! That requires more imagination than Perfect Ron Sipes talking about stumps.

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¹ Also an adjunct instructor at Williamette University, and if there’s one cohort whose general overwork and poverty exceeds that of grad students, it’s adjuncts. Respect.

² Given how important librarians have been to the adoption of graphic novels and comics over the past decade or so, I’m a little surprised it took until last year.

Hey, some stuff happened since I saw you last, we should talk about that.

• The Ringo Awards took place at Baltimore Comic Con over the weekend, and there were some winners with relations to webcomics. We don’t talk about the Ringos a lot here at Fleen, they’ve got an odd jury+fan voting component that can lead to some … let us say mass responses to the ballot box.

  Am I going to say that comics on Webtoons or Tapas are unworthy of inclusion when considering for awards nominations? Heck, no. But do I believe that a single creator that posts only on those platforms and has work that is … let us say Tumblresque in nature should be considered as the best of the best in comics? Let us say, one last time, that such folks were perhaps over-represented in the ballot.

  All those sayings being said, the Best Comic Strip Or Panel went, as is right and proper, to onetime webcomicker Olivia Jaimes for Nancy, and Best Webcomic went to The Nib, who apart from the whole losing their financial backing thing are having a very good year. A full list of nominees and winners has yet to be posted at the Ringo site¹, but The Spurge has you covered.

• I may have noted, on some several occasions how the New York Times appeared to be bending over backwards to not acknowledge the crucial place that Raina Telgemeier occupies in modern literature, and the culture at large. Today, they seem to be extending an olive branch, devoting a significant chunk of interactive space in their books reportage to Raina, and Guts, and her creative process.

  How Raina Telgemeier Faces Her Fear by Alexandra Alter, with production by Aliza Aufrichtig and Erica Ackerberg, is part interview, part behind-the-scenes look, and all stuffed with goodness for anybody that wants to see what the steps involved in creating a page of comics looks like. Just be sure to take your time scrolling; on my copy of Firefox, once a page went from thumbnails to pencils to inks to color, it didn’t go back. You can re-experience the transforms by refreshing the page.

• And looking forward, Maris Wicks would like you to know that the New England Free Lecture Series continues this Thursday, 24 October, at 7:00pm, with a discussion of using comics for sci-comm presented by … Maris Wicks! From the NEA website:
  

  Registration is requested for all programs, which start at 7 p.m. in the Aquarium’s Simons IMAX® Theatre unless otherwise noted. Programs last approximately one hour. Most lectures are recorded and available for viewing on the lecture series archive page.

  Also on that page, the fact that there’s a cash bar from the time the doors open at 6:00pm until the start of the talk. You can register here, then make your way to 1 Central Wharf in Boston on Thursday. If you get there early, NEA’s a great aquarium that you should absolutely spend some time perusing. They got squid!

Spam of the day:

Hello! If you’re reading this then you’re living proof that advertising through contact forms works! We can send your ad message to people via their feedback form on their website.

You are sending me your crap through my contact form, and you expect me to immediately turn around and give you money so you can pester other people? No. Die alone and unmourned, you parasite.

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¹ This is a proud tradition; I can’t think of a single comics award program that updates their own damn website in less than a week after handing out the awards. Get with it, peoples!

Okay, it’s not a book, or at least not yet — it’s about 75 pages in a square-bound format, part 1 of 3, that will undoubtedly be collected into a 200+ page proper book in the future. Doesn’t matter, we’re talking about it today.

And for once, I’m not sure that a spoiler warning is necessary, as Superman Smashes The Klan (words by Gene Luen Yang, art by Gurihiru, letters by Janice Chiang) is an adaptation of a radio serial that’s nearly 75 years old at this point. Heck, you can listen to the whole thing right now if you want to, and even the basic outline is well-known Superman lore. I’m pretty sure we’re past the statute of limitations on spoilers.

So: family moves from the Chinatown section of Metropolis to a white section, adults object to Dr Lee’s new position as a bacteriologist in the health department, kid objects to son Tommy’s success as a pitcher on the neighborhood baseball team, Klansmen burn crosses, plan tar-and-featherings, Superman saves the day. It’s what Yang adds to this well-known story that makes it stand out.

Firstly, he introduces a new POV character — Roberta, Tommy’s younger sister, who is upset and fearful about leaving the familiar environs of Chinatown, and who must overcome her fear to help Superman save her brother and everybody else threatened by white supremacist CHUDs. Tommy’s mother/Dr Lee’s wife is also given more to do, still more comfortable in Cantonese and using Chinese names, a more reluctant immigrant that her aggressively assimilated husband. He introduces a story arc that involves Superman’s first exposure to kryptonite¹ and allows him to reflect on his own immigrant experience and doubts about his own place in American society.

But the most important thing? The small, almost fleeting racism that the Lees face in passing. It’s easy to see the evil in the hearts of the robe-sporting klansmen, but what of everyday, ordinary people that wouldn’t consider themselves to be racist?

• Dr Jennings, one of Dr Lee’s colleagues, at a housewarming attributes all of Lee’s success to luck, mocks Mrs Lee’s English ability, and assures that the pie he brought is apple, not dog².
• A cop on duty in front of the Lee’s home, insisting to Roberta: This city is very, very safe, especially for people like you. Metropolis goes out of its way for you, giving you houses and jobs and promotions you don’t even have to earn.
• Dr Lee attempting to chase off three black men that stop to put of the fire, afraid that attracting more attention will make it worse: You! Nobody asked you to come here! We don’t want any more trouble! Get out of here!, prompting one of the men to exclaim: They don’t want us around, not even when their house is on fire!

  One of the three is Metropolis PD inspector Henderson who has to bring it back into perspective: They got a burning cross on their lawn, don’t they? For tonight, at least, they are us. Even if they don’t want to admit it.

• But the one that really sticks? Tommy, recounting to his new friends that he wasn’t scared: Then they lit that fire! But believe me, these wontons don’t fry up that easy!

See, Tommy’s the one that makes friends easily. But Tommy’s even further along than his father in trying to prove to the world that he’s just another American, yessiree, and that takes the form of denying who he is.

We’ve seen Tommy before, only then he was called Jin and there were no klansman, just the everyday, low-level racism that acted like background noise to be overcome. Jin (uhhh, spoilers ahead for a different book) denied himself so hard, he became Danny — blonde, all-American, definitely not Chinese and especially not anything like Cousin Chin-Kee. Tommy’s not there yet, but he could be if he doesn’t learn the dark side of the lesson Jin learned: It’s easy to become anything you wish … so long as you’re willing to forfeit your soul.

When I wrote about American Born Chinese, I described Jin’s story as not quite autobiographical, and not quite fictional; it was a good deal less than fictional than I’d realized. Yang’s afterword, about what Superman means to him, tells the story of seventh-grade Gene, and the white kid that refused to high-five him while casually dropping a slur. Yang attempted to transform himself like Jin did, wearing the clothes and adopting the style that he hoped would protect him from the disdain of the broad-shouldered, the hazel-eyed, the athletic.

I do not believe it is coincidence that Yang chooses, in this story, to refer to his classmate as Danny.

There’s a lot for Superman to do in the two forthcoming volumes; there’s a Klan to smash³, kids indoctrinated into the Klan’s ways to deprogram, and a brother and sister to help navigate their way into their new home. Roberta needs to not be afraid of who she is, Tommy needs to not deny who he is.

I suspect that he’ll do that less by means of an inspiring heart-to-heart, and more by example; he needs to figure out what the green crystal was, figure out why he feels strangely affected and is having visions of alien creatures speaking in a different language. At this point in his heroic journey, nobody knows where he came from, and especially the public doesn’t know he’s an alien.

I guarantee that the klansmen regard Superman as one of them; by revealing his own immigrant story, I think a lot of prejudices and self-misconceptions will have to be confronted. And because Yang is the opposite of a trite storyteller, I suspect it won’t be a magically smooth journey for any of the characters involved. Some of those in the robes will stop chanting One race! One color! One religion! and others will start chanting One species! One planet!

And five bucks says Dr Jennings spends the rest of his life snidely talking behind Dr Lee’s back and muttering that Superman’s not a real hero.

Yang knows — and trusts his readers enough to realize — that those small, everyday, background noises require just as much work to disrupt as knocking klansmen’s heads together (work that is ultimately almost as satisfying as the head-knocking; Superman not only would punch a Nazi, he spends the opening pages doing just that).

Superman Smashes The Klan is available in comic shops and bookstores everywhere. It’s full of old-school radio serial-style goodness, and is gorgeous to look at⁴. If you give it to a kid, make sure they read Yang’s essay at the back.

Spam of the day:

Hi, I’m senior Graphic designing & 3D Artist and a professional online marketing Designer. I’m having more than 5 years of experience in this field and have done several projects. These days I’m looking for a new project to work on so that’s why I’m contacting you. I’m sure you would love my portfolio. Here are few projects listed i have worked on

This appears to actually be from the person list in the return address, and it includes a link (that I went to by roundabout means because no way I’m clicking a link in a cold-call email) to a portfolio that actually has some good work. But this is not the way to drum up work. If you want to sell your skills, you have to know who you’re selling to and what they might want.

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¹ Introduced in the radio serial across two stories in 1945 and early 1946, six months prior to Clan Of The Fiery Cross. And since I didn’t mention it, this is the original Superman — black background on the shield, can leap but can’t fly, changes in phone booths (there are phone booths everywhere in 1946), and runs along power lines to get around town so as not to disrupt traffic.

² Roberta thinks Dr Jennings is a creep and he’s sneering like he’ll be back as a more clear-cut villain. I think that he won’t, though. I think he’s there to show that even the well-it’s-not-like-he’s-a-real-racist types are just as poisonous as the ones that wear stupid robes and burn crosses. I thoroughly hate him.

³ It’s right there in the title!

⁴ I mean, it’s Gurihiru. Obviously, their work is heavily tilted to the slightly cartoony, cute/adorable end of the scale, but it’s more than that. Gurihiru’s work is effortless to read.

Each page layout, each character pose (or sense of motion, really, because nobody’s ever stiff or static), each use of color is designed to focus your eye exactly where it needs to be to convey the thoughts and mood of whoever’s on the page, and to move the story in the direction it needs to go. It’s not just that their art is beautiful, it’s that it’s perfectly suited to storytelling.

And hoo boy do the colors pop. Superman’s baby blues have been waiting all this time for their definitive depiction.

Chiang’s lettering is exactly the same sort of effortless, disappearing until it’s time to make itself known. But with 30+ years of experience, that’s to be expected.