Slowly, slowly I am finding myself drawn back into [web]comics, the discourse around them, and the having of Opinions. A’course, it’s pretty easy to find the will to write when Matt Bors drops you a line.

Readers of this page will know that we at Fleen hold The Nib — edited by Bors, with assistance from Eleri Harris and Mattie Lubchansky — in high regard. It’s a deeply thoughtful, skillfully-curated collection of the best editorial, nonfiction, and journalistic comics from around the world, and they pay.

For some time now, longer pieces from The Nib that were up for reruns have been redirecting to Tinyview, a situation that I noticed but which in my pandemic-induced torpor I did not investigate too closely; today, though, Bors dropped me a helpful explainer which I am more than happy to share with you, as it has as its ultimate goal paying comics creators:

For a few years I have been doing some work with Tinyview, a comics app that runs exclusive comics from an array of creators like Gemma Correll, Sarah Graley, and Brian Gordon.

We’re in the middle of a campaign to raise $25,000 in monthly subscription fees that will allow the site to reach sustainability and offer more comics. (All creators are paid pretty good rates.) The campaign is all on-platform with subscribers, not a Kickstarter or anything, and the goal is fairly straightforward: become sustainable through reader support and build from there.

Those looking for more details can find them here but the gist is the campaign runs until 14 February, as of this writing has raised US$15,519 of the goal, and when Bors says that creators are paid pretty good rates, keep in mind that he’s spent most of a decade now trying to find ways to pay creators like it’s still the heyday of magazine cartooning and folks can make a living at it.

And speaking of doing one’s best to put money into the pockets of creators — new Iron Circus anthology, yo:

Hey, Hey, gang! Spike here, letting y’all in early on:

Failure to Launch: A Tour of Ill-Fated Futures!

This anthology’s been in the works for months, and the line-up and stories are both ALL-STAR! Whether it’s a tale of our attempts to un-extinct an ibex, centrifugally assisted birth, or one deadline-blowing apocalypse after another, these stories are beautifully illustrated, expertly written, and unbelievably fun. [emphasis original]

That from an email that landed in my inbox right about launch time.

The sharp-eyed reader will note that this one is not being Kickstarted, as Spike — famous early user and vocal promoter of Kickstarter — broke with them last year over their inexplicable¹ decision to go blockchain²; uh, we probably should have covered that here but … 2022, man. Anyway, Spike’s been having success cutting out the middle layer and just running IC’s crowdfunding through Backerkit directly, and the usual profit-share is in effect: for every US$5000 over goal, the page rate goes up by US$5. Shifting away from Kickstarter makes it tough to apply the Fleen Funding Formula, Mark II as it relies upon Kickstarter data via Kicktraq, but things launched at noon EST and as of not quite five hours later, Failure To Launch is sitting somewhere north of US$15,000 of a US$20,000 goal.

I think they’re gonna make it to goal in the month remaining before deadline.

Oh, and if you backed it in the first hour? Free domestic/reduced rate international shipping. That’s damn clever, Spike, and just as other publishers have copied the share-the-wealth-with-creators approach you pioneered, I think we’ll see them give backers a similar break in the future.

And just so we’re clear — I’m not promising daily updates or anything. This is gonna take a while. But slowly, slowly, I think things are going to shake loose around here.

Spam of the day:
You know what? I haven’t included a Spam of the day since the end of January 2022, if you don’t count a post from two months later that was all spam. Partly this was because the subjects of the few posts since then didn’t deserve to have spam share the page with them, partly because I got out of the habit.

As near as I can tell, the first Spam of the day ran on 30 May, 2014. That’s about half of the blog’s lifespan. I think it did its job and can rest now.

_______________
¹ Literally. They promised numerous explanations and never came close to coherency.

² We at Fleen are still trying to decide what to do personally about Kickstarter’s idiocy. There is literally no reason to involve the blockchain in anything, but at the same time it’s pretty much impossible to tell how much of that math-challenged bullshit is actually in Kickstarter’s infrastructure. For now, at least, if creators choose to use Kickstarter and that’s the only way to support them on a project, we will do so … but if Kickstarter actually implements this crap? Sorry, creators. Find another way for me to give you money.