In that the world is still in the parallel grips of coronavirus and stupidity, the greatest concentration of the latter coming from the Oval Office and also certain Senate offices. Last week setting Twitter (and every other form of social media) to the side was a sanity saver, but I’m back and suffering to bring you the webcomics deets, so I hope you appreciate it, you magnificent bastards.

• Item! Longtime Fleen fave A Girl And Her Fed wrapped up Act 2 of the decade-plus story on Friday, and today marks the start of Act 3, featuring a time jump (12 years) and a new artist. Ale Presser takes over from creator KB Spangler, who will stay on writing duties. Presser’s also recently defended her dissertation (on webcomics!) and given birth, so this is an exciting time for all involved. Still to be determined is if our current pandemic times end up in the backstory of Spangler’s near-future exploration of civil rights, information, and power.
• Item! SPX opened the table lottery today, under the theory that we’ll be able to move around again by September. This reminds me — the Hotel Rodeo for SDCC (typically late April) is going to be an act of supreme optimism. If you feel like rolling the SPX dice, lottery closes on 3 April.
• Item! Gene Yang took his virtual book tour for Dragon Hoops to the radio. Okay, he would have done that anyway, but check out the interview with NPR’s Petra Mayer (a friend of comics if ever there was one).
• Item! The list of new entertainment to consume via computer while staying the hell home continues to grow. Today, please enjoy Emily Carroll’s short comic, Beneath The Dead Oak Tree, free for download thanks to ShortBox (and certainly with Ms Carroll’s blessing) at Gumroad. If that’s not enough, Strong Bad has some earworms for you about staying safe and distant and uninfected.
• Item! Mandatory shutdowns have hit the heart of Webcomickia, with Topato Potato’s personal armor of poison judged insufficient by the government of Massachusetts to keep the package wranglers safe. Your orders will be sent once it’s safe to do so, and any new orders you want to send in will keep both TopatoCo and the many individual creators they enable solvent in these trying times. Naturally, if you want to change or cancel anything, they will do their best to accommodate. In the meantime, please consider the digital offerings that Topato, Sheriff Pony, Jeffrey, Talahassee, Paperklip, Lucid John, Weedmaster P, and the rest of the crowd would be happy to see sold to you.
• Item! Finally, Abby Howard is a creator that we at Fleen really, really like. And she’s launching a Kickstarter to make a plush version of her real-life kitty, Spoons. Spoons (The Cat) The Plush will capture that wide-eyed — possibly high as balls — feline’s countenance, including the possibility of getting a 100% certified haunted version of the plush.

  There’s also catsonas for you, humansonas for your cat (she will draw your cat like the cats from Cats; no word how she feels about the #buttholecut), and Polaroid photos of the real Spoons. Campaign runs through 22 April and with any luck production will fall in behind the worst of the pandemic shutdowns, slowdowns, and cooldowns. It’s a perfectly-timed opportunity for you to support a creator now, as so many other opportunities are impacted by the novel coronavirus. Do it for Spoons.

Spam of the day:

Scientists: Tinnitus Has Nothing To Do With Your Ears

Oh, really? So that’s why pressure changes when my ears are clogged have always caused ringing, with clear complaints on my part going back to the age of seven? And that’s why flying pretty much guarantees at least 24 hours of ringing that reaches distraction levels? Nothing to do with my ears at all. Right.