Work thing goin’ on. If I don’t talk to you before then, see you Monday.

I was going to be writing about how our old friend, Christopher Hastings, has picked up a significant writing gig on Quantum & Woody, and how his sense of humor is a natural fit. I mean, look at what he’s done in comic books — a very funny Six Million Dollar Man series, Deadpool and Longshot minis¹, and a character-defining stint on Gwenpool that legitimately played with the nature of comics and fiction in original and hilarious ways. He’s gonna kill on a series that features a caprine superhero pet named Vincent van Goat.

But something happened that’s unfortunately larger, so we aren’t doing any of that. Sorry, you absolutely will not learn from me that the Hastings run on Q&W will start in January, or that he’ll be at the Valiant booth (#1635) at NYCC this Saturday at 3:00pm, or at their panel (room 1A02) at 6:30pm. You won’t learn about his drunken superhero movie discussion podcast, or his new Halloween-themed merch at TopatoCo, or remind you about his weekly, posted-to-Twitter webcomic, a noir detective story starring Wario. Sorry. You’ll just have to go elsewhere to learn about those.

But I suspect that Dr Hastings will forgive me (especially given his own recent statements on the matter), because what we’re discussing instead is the Kickstarter United union effort. Because despite the repeated declarations from Kickstarter’s CEO that he will not voluntarily recognize the union, they haven’t actually asked for voluntary recognition.

Until this afternoon:

Today KSRU officially requested voluntary recognition of our union, and we are waiting to see if it will be granted. We stand firm in our commitment not to call for any boycotts, but we need your help.

Join us in urging leadership to recognize our union! Email, tweet, and post everywhere to express support for KSRU. Activate whatever channels you can to share our message of solidarity: Kickstarter is ready to be united, and senior leadership must grant us voluntary recognition.

Gauntlet thrown, management. Because as C Spike Trotman points out — and she’s pretty much the poster child for making KS work for you in webcomics — Kickstarter didn’t invent crowdfunding, they aren’t the only game in town, and whole communities exist that are fans of creators, not the KS platform.

Which is super important because you know what I’m seeing all over social media? Project creators and backers declaring their support for the union. You know what I’m not seeing? Anybody that claims to be either creator or backer loudly going on about how unions suck and they’ll use Kickstarter even more because screw the union. Now maybe it’s because I curate my feed to eliminate assholes, but I’m not finding anybody in comics taking the anti-union position. Granted that’s just one category out of what, fifteen? But high-profile creators, and people with deep success in the Kickstarter ecosystem are all on the side of KSRU.

For the record, here is what I said:

As a superbacker, and as a blogger that promotes many Kickstarter campaigns, I stand with @ksr_united and urge @kickstarter management to recognize the union.

It’s happening one way or another, or we all find another platform. Want to be a PBC? ACT LIKE IT.

Want to help, particularly if you previously decided to close your account or cancel pledges (which, let’s be clear, the union hasn’t called for³)? Tweet, email, or reach out to anybody you may know in Kickstarter management. Let them know that Kickstarter (the platform) is made up of Kickstarter (the people, all of them), and which of those Kickstarters you’re loyal to.

Spam of the day:

Fingernail Fungus — All the patients who put this incredibly strong spice in their shoes…Cleared their fungal infection for good in as little as a couple of days

Are you suggesting I wear these spice-laden shoes on my hands? On account of that’s where my fingernails are.

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¹ The latter of which featured Reed Richards and Tony Stark having a discussion about how many weddings they’d been to recently that prominently featured Get Lucky at the reception. That’s just such a ludicrously ordinary thing for the two biggest geniuses of the Marvel universe² to be talking about, which is why it was perfect.

² Only if you discount DOOM, which of course only FOOLS would do.

³ Largely, I suspect, because individual statements don’t have the impact of a mass boycott, and because the folks in KSRU aren’t trying to establish their union on the backs of creators.

Pretty much, yeah. Late yesterday I heard an odd flappity sound, and then Bob The Unsettling flopped down on my desk from the shelf where he resided. It’s … well, nothing lasts forever?

The one thing that actually improved as time went on is that the eyes and mouth that were Sharpied on became darker and more defined — pigments which had originally been inscribed over a certain area became more concentrated as everything shrunk. When he was freshly spawned, rubbing your thumb on the balloon’s surface wouldn’t disturb any of the black; reduced to little more than a worm of slightly varying circumference¹, there’s Sharpie all over my hands even though the eyes and mouth are still there.

Not to mention the fact that my actual dog keeps giving him the side-eye, like she’s about to pounce. Not wishing to deal with a long balloon clogging her guts, I’ve deciding it’s time Bob met the great hereafter, also known as the kitchen garbage can. I’m pretty sure it’s what his mutant heart would have wanted.

How about we forget this unpleasantness and take a look at something that I guaran-damn-tee will make you happy?

Get an exclusive first look at Random House Graphic’s debut line-up https://aux.avclub.com/get-an-exclusi … via @TheAVClub

That would be the same Random House Graphic headed up by the irreplaceable Gina Gagliano, who’s been working harder than any random three people for the past year and a half to get to this point. We’ve known since SDCC what the first half dozen or so books would be, but this is the first time we’ll get to see them, and there’s nobody in comics better suited to give us the lowdown than Oliver Sava at The AV Club; even if he’s telling me about something I’ve already read and written about (say, Tillie Walden’s superb Are You Listening?), Sava always finds a way to make me see it with new eyes (say, in his review of Are You Listening?, also out today).

So this is what we know:

Laura Knetzger’s Bug Boys is aimed at the youngest readers, a beginner’s chapter book about two bug besties learning about themselves and the world around them.

Aster And The Accidental Magic, written by Thom Pico with art by Karensac, and Johan Troïanowski’s The Runaway Princess are Random House Graphic’s forays into middle grade fiction, both spotlighting young women with adventurous spirits.

Jessi Zabarsky’s Witchlight explores the growing relationship between a witch and her new friend, which changes as secrets from the past come to light.

Smart work by Gagliano and her colleagues, snagging two already-published books from France, and two self-published, ready-to-republish books from the US, allowing them to ramp up with one book per month in January – April 2020 (Runaway Princess, Bug Boys, Aster, and Witchlight, respectively). It would have taken, minimum, four-five months more to have a completely new book ready to go, assuming she managed to sign a contract for a well-developed pitch from an absolute comics-cranking machine on the day she got the job.

Which, pretty much, is what she did. Lucy Knisley’s Stepping Stones is scheduled for May, which is near land speed record turnaround, considering she finished the pencils at the start of August and a full year is the usual turnaround once the book’s done. RHG is set to continue their 2020 slate of releases with books from Andi Watson, Sophie Escabasse, Reimena Yee, Kaeti Vandorn, Mika Song, Trung Le Nguyen, and Jose Pimienta.

Did you notice? The lineup isn’t exactly crawling with white dudes and good. The future of comics is people who aren’t constrained by its past. McCloud’s prediction re: comics, majority women, 2024 is not coming closer to us at a rate of one second per second, but by leaps and bounds and is probably already here. It’s not happening because Gagliano and her colleagues are making it happen, it’s happening regardless and Gagliano and her colleagues are smart enough to recognize it.

Spam of the day:

Washing method: warm water, gentle hand, natural dry, reusable, long-term use will not be flat deformation.

Almost everything I own that doesn’t run on electricity could be cleaned this way, but I can’t say that it’s true for all of them that long-term use will not be flat deformation.

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¹ And as I watch, it’s equalizing.