(There may or may not be an update on Monday, depending on how much grilling needs to be done; my guess is: A Lot.)

• Speaking of weekends, start making your plans for the first one of November, because New England Webcomics Weekend just announced its first tranche of guests, including transoceanic visitors Becky Dreistadt & Frank Gibson and John Allison, as well as transcontinental visitors Aaron Diaz and Erika Moen, ‘long with various out-of-staters MechaYukoAndAnanth, Chris Hallbeck, Danielle Corsetto, David McGuire, Evan Dahm, and Meghan Murphy. Also, some guy who lives upstairs. Many more will be added, and it’s going to be crazy-awesome.
• I’ve been emailing back and forth with Colin Ferguson of Snakehead Games (makers of Star Pirates) for a little while now — as you may recall, Starpirates did a lot of its advertising with various webcomic creators, and Ferguson has had the community on his mind. To that end, Snakehead are offering some recognition to the community, along with fabulous prizes:
  

  We worked with the owners of the coolest online comics to have their communities play in our games. And they did. So we’re throwing a thank you back to the creators of the comics AND their communities. So we already have a first round vote to get 20 webcomics that our community liked. Now we’re going to ask for a round of feedback on their best strip. Best meaning the most “Online Game-y” or “SciFi”. Of course, we’re doing it with a twist.

  What’s up for Grabs?

  1) Cash prize of $1000

  2) $1000 in free advertising on Project Wonderful : www.projectwonderful.com is the way that most comics monetize…and a way we’ve found works for advertising the games!

  Current standings in the polls show a statistically-insignificant difference bewtween Girl Genius, Legostar Galactica, and Schlock Mercenary in the top position, with everybody else a pretty healthy margin behind, so it’s pretty likely one of those three will win a chunk of advertising credit. For the cash prize there’s a pick-a-name-from-the-hat mechanism, so one lucky webcomicker from the list could be having a really good 4th of July cookout beer fund. Good luck to all the contestants.

• It’s been a bit more than three years since I first came across Tracy White’s Traced, and now she’s got a book out; thanks to Gina Gagliano (who sets me up with all the best :01 Books and Roaring Brook Press releases), I have a copy of How I Made It to Eighteen and all I can say is Whew.

  We say things casually — I’m so depressed or I’m going crazy — without any real understanding of what mental illnesses are truly like for those that suffer from them. Whatever the cause (too many drugs, chemical imbalances, bad parenting, childhood trauma, or any one of a million others), the resolutions aren’t easy, and require support from a society that isn’t comfortable acknowledging that such conditions exist. To change the patterns of a lifetime and be taught new ones has to be among the most difficult undertakings a person can be forced into, and White shows just what that process was like for one person.

  Like her webcomic, How I Made It to Eighteen is “guaranteed 95% true”, and it’s a spare, gut-wrenching look at what happens when mental health finally gives way after too long a period of too many stresses, all at the ripe age of seventeen years. Although the names have been changed, White (or “Stacy Black”) doesn’t shy away from the harsh parts of her story — nobody comes through this tale with their hands entirely clean, from the distant and perfectionist mother to the asshole controlling boyfriend to friends that did less than they could, but especially Black herself.

  It’s a remarkable achievement, well served by the very minimalist art and brief text — the largest blocks of words are in the form of responses by Stacy’s friends, answering questions about their friendship, her situation, and how they saw or didn’t see it developing; we learn about Stacy in dribs and drabs from others, while she tells us very little about herself. The reader is forced to fill in a lot of details between the panels and words, trying to make sense of the story with not quite enough input; as Stacy Black progresses towards understanding herself, we progress along with her, and are left relieved that she (and we) made it through the experience. How I Made It to Eighteen demands multiple readings, and will stand as one of the most striking memoirs of mental illness and recovery ever written.