Oh, Last Week With John Oliver, you find the best things to spend money on and you’re sending them on tour to the Cartoon Art Museum in January and I need to find some way to see them in person. It’s not on the website yet so let me quote the press release liberally:

The Cartoon Art Museum is pleased to announce that it will host a public exhibition of The Last Week Tonight Masterpiece Gallery in January thanks to the generous patronage of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. The Last Week Tonight Masterpiece Gallery will complete its national tour in San Francisco at the Cartoon Art Museum as part of John Oliver’s effort to showcase his unique art collection and to highlight museums that have been impacted by the global pandemic. The Cartoon Art Museum has been awarded a $10,000 donation from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver to facilitate the exhibition, and the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank will receive a $10,000 matching donation.

The three works featured in the Masterpiece Gallery include a painting of talk show host Wendy Williams preparing to eat a lamb chop; a still life of ties painted by Judy Kudlow, wife of Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow, and Stay Up Late, a painting by Pennsylvania-based artist Brian Swords, which depicts two anthropomorphized rats engaged in an act that inspired Oliver to proclaim the piece “high-quality rat erotica.” [emphasis original]

In non-rat erotica news:

• The Quai des Bulles Festival will be in St Malo, France between 29 October (that would be Friday, the day after tomorrow) and 1 November (that would be Monday). If my rudimentary (at best) French is to be believed, it’s the 40th iteration of QdB, which is a nicely auspicious round number. Folks like Pénélope Bagieu will have public meetups, and creators such as John Allison, Cy, Pascal Jousselin, and Rodolphe — all mentioned on this page, some more than others — are expected to be in attendance.
• For those on the correct side of the Atlantic, but perhaps not the correct side of the Channel, Thought Bubble will be held in the Harrowgate Convention Centre in Yorkshire a mere two weeks later; the likes of Cecil Castelluci, Sarah Graley, Ron Wimberly, John Allison, and Marc Ellerby will be guesting, and exhibitors will include Avery Hill Publishing, Doug Wilson, Tiny Wizards, and Widdershins — also variously mentioned on this page.

It’s a weird time for comics shows, and the spread-out festival type appears to have a better shot at keeping guests and attendees safe than the massive nerd herds of the super shows, but all the same — get your shots, keep your distance, and wear a mask. Reports from the shows as practicality and time allow.

Spam of the day:

This is because it’ s shown that if these lethal toxins accumulate in your body they can ATTACK the pancreas and liver…making it virtually impossible to regulate your blood sugar…

Please peddle your bullshit to somebody who does not know that the purpose of the liver is to remove toxins from the body, and that very little can damage it apart from prolonged alcohol abuse or certain mycotoxins you get from eating the wrong mushrooms. Milk, coffee, orange juice, and black tea do not come from the wrong mushrooms.

Readers may recall that about a month ago we checked in on Doug Wilson — animator, comicker, and about to be Kickstarter — and his now-completed story, Jack Astro. I told you at that time that the campaign to print Jack Astro would go up in two days and to check it out. Some of you might have had some difficulty doing so, as Wilson explained to me:

I actually had to delay the kickstarter because of [reason]. Apologies for any confusion.

The Jack Astro Kickstart actually went up this past Monday, but the delay hasn’t hurt things — it funded in about six hours and is presently sitting around 250% of goal. Even better, to make up for the confusion, Wilson sent along an exclusive one-page comic he drew to promote the book (you can see it up top, or embiggen by clicking that last link), as well as a three-page section and process art.

Everybody thank Doug, and if you like what you see, you’ve got another 26 days to get in on the campaign.

Jack Astro: pages 136, 137, and 138.

Initial thumbnail. Pencils of the same pages.

Spam of the day:

Groß wrote: Reparaturklebeband. Ducttape. Breite: 50 mm. Dicke: 165 µ. Trägermaterial: Gewebeband. Klebstoff: HOT-Melt. Rot, weiss, schwarz € 0,40/Rolle.

I’m a little scared that I can make out at least three quarters of that. Don’t really need your red, white, or black 50m rolls of duct tape, though. Thanks?

Hey there. Want to find something cool to read in the not necessarily immediate future, but pretty soon nonetheless? Something in the sci-fi comics domain, mayhap? Then read on ’cause that’s what we’re talking about today.

• Word came back in November that one of Jim Zub’s creator-owned tales would be making the leap from comiXology¹ to print, and now we have a release date. Stone Star Vol 1: Fight Or Flight (discussed previously) comes out from Dark Horse a week from tomorrow at your preferred comic shop, with words by Zub, pictures by Max Dunbar, covers by Espen Grundetjern is US$19.99, and absolutely worth a read.
• You’ll have to wait a while to read it on paper, but Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett launched the Kickstart for the Act III² print collection of Drive, and you absolutely want in on this one. Yes, the price point for a physical book (US$55) is steep, but the previous volumes have been hefty, beautiful hardcovers jam-packed with extras. Sure, you could get the softcover for US$35, but you’d miss out on the dustcover, the ribbon bookmark, the endpapers, the spot UV … which technically the hardcover doesn’t have yet on account of they’re stretch goals, as are the various Tales From The Drive stories³ that have released since the Act 3 book came out, but history suggests that they’ll be unlocked as that’s what happened with the prior two books.

  Look. Campaign went up yesterday with a goal of US$45000 (a high goal, to be sure). As of now, it’s just shy of US$60,000, about US$5000 from stretch goal number 1 (the Gurihiru Tales story), so I’m highly confident the others will unlock. There’s potentially 90 pages of Tales in addition to book upgrades to go, before the campaign ends in a month.

  Storywise, it looks like all the pieces are finally on the board, as LArDK once described Drive as being a three-act story and he’s now upped that to five acts. Oh, and no FFF mk2 predictions on this one, as LArDk has a habit of stealth launching to this Patreonistas, and that throws things off.

• About a month ago, Doug Wilson (about whom we had some discussion back around ’09-’10, and again regarding an unsuccessful Kickstart around ’15, and one mo’ ‘gain in 2017 about a new project, which is immediately relevant) sent along a PDF of his now-completed story, Jack Astro (told you). The story starts as a subversion of the old Heinleinian eleite super-soldier story, and turns into a fairly familiar bumbler-out-of-their-depths story, albeit one that ends a bit abruptly.

  Wilson’s Kickstarting the full story starting Thursday, and while I don’t have any details to give you yet (that whole not yet launched thing), a) it fit the theme today too well not to mention, and b) it’ll certainly be worth your perusal at the end of the week.

Spam of the day:

I am currently running a PR campaign for my client and I would like to request you to share our website [nope!].com on your social media, bookmark it and give us a backlink on your blog fleen.com I will check in a few days’ time and if I do not see a backlink to our site and social signals, I will spam fleen.com with a whole load of toxic link farms that will inevitably drag your site down the rankings.

Just to show you that I am dead serious, please take a look at the backlink profile of this url and note all the spam links being created 24/7. The same destiny awaits your site: [nuh-uh].com

Please do not try to report me or try any monkey business as this will only piss me off and increase the severity of spam going to fleen.com Should you comply, I will reward you with a link on our site.

Thanks in advance. Kind regards

It’s the Kind regards in a blackmail attempt that’s really pissing me off. So, two things:

1. This was sent more than two weeks ago and gosh, I don’t see any drag-down in the search rankings, and 2. Do fuck off. The bitcon-seeking liar threatening to release video of me watching porn, hacked from a webcam that doesn’t exist, was more convincing that this horseshit.

_______________
¹ Occasional reminder that they don’t get links, on account of Amazon’s terms & conditions mean that you don’t actually own any of the comics you purchase from them and screw that noise.

² Which wrapped up just about a week and a half back.

³ The most recent of which, Motherbear, from LArDK assistant Beth Reidmiller, wrapped up just today.

Know what sucks? Getting caught up at work after being sick and letting things slack for a day or two, on top of feeling like I spread my sickness to half my co-workers. Actually, a few of them have probably spread past sicknesses to me, so I guess it all works out in the end. Let’s get caught up together.

• Remember K-9Lives, the short film née webcomic? Got some news on that front from creator Doug Wilson:
  

  K-9Lives: Episode2 has recently been released online to co-inside with the second book collection from the series entitled K-9Lives: Clue Clucks Clan. [Editorial aside: Ooog, not so sure about that title, Doug]

  This second animated episode of the adventures of a dog/cat conjoined odd couple follows the success of the first which played at festivals such as the Marbella International Film Festival where it was awarded runner up for best animation. Douglas will be attending Bristol Small Press Expo in May, and all items are available online through his website.

  [Wilson] is also writing and drawing a graphic novel, The Von Spleen Experiment.

• Mixed media, indeed: Franklin Einspruch travels the country, and does a webcomic about the experience in the form of the poetic, verging on infinite canvas paintings known as The Moon Fell On Me. Oftentimes they’re about the journey (example: the prettiest anybody’s ever made the New Jersey Turnpike at I-70), and oftentimes it’s about food and/or foodstuffs. That was good enough for Public Radio Kitchen (an online space for public radio fans with a food passion, via WBUR in Boston) to have a chat with him on the subject of food and art. Neat stuff.
• I’m assuming at this point, you all know about Anthony Clark, aka Nedroid, right? Colorist of Dr McNinja, creator of Beartato and Reginald, painter of robots and dinosaurs? He also does some awesome collaborations with Emmy Cicierega (usually on LiveJournal under the nom de plume of Laserpony Studios), and it’s Emmy I wanted to point you to. She’s doing awesome retro art of a lady named Doris, and you need to check them out. Doris: prim and proper, and aware of what the haps are. Somebody pay this woman many dollars to keep creating this stuff.

Okay, it’s not a “report” in the traditional sense, but it surely is the definitive account of webcomics at APE. Kate Beaton once again wins at everything. Also, I very much want one of these thank you.

• In other news, life is getting pretty spookifying, what with Halloween coming up and all (and wouldn’t you know it, I’m on EMT duty that weekend, while all the rest of you will be getting drunk and dressing up like sexy cops, sexy ninjas, and sexy Weedmaster P). To celebrate, Split Lip (the horror webcomic specialists) are releasing a new comic and a new contest.

  The comic, Termites in Your Smile, is the tale of a two-timing law student, the women in his life, and a ghostly, ghastly revenge; the contest involves the giveaway of Split Lip Volume 1 (a sampler of the macabre) to as many as ten lucky winners on Twitter and Facebook.

• Quick followup: K-9Lives, an animated short with webcomic roots did pretty well at the Marbella International Film Festival; let’s let creator Doug Wilson share the news:
  

  K-9Lives was nominated for best animation at Marbella International Film Festival alongside Leonardo by Pixar artist Jim Capobianco, and Body by Zhivko Dimitrov an MA alumni from St Martins College in London.

  That’ll do, little dog-attached-to-a-cat, that’ll do. For more information, see Wilson’s festival diary entries.

• Know who’s always looking out for the community (such as it is)? Xaviar Xerexes. Guy’s gone ahead and created one a’ them resources that everybody into comickry is going to find helpful, a Google Calendar of upcoming comics event-type things; go to the main page at ComixTalk and click on the “Members” tab over to the right.

  Now the thing is, he put the damn thing up, which means that he’s going to become the de facto data entry maintainer guy for this calendar, and that’s gonna suck for him. So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if you want to help keep the calendar up to date (that is, you’re amenable to getting flooded with press releases once word of this thing gets out), are a reliable sort (that is, you won’t flake out after saying you want to help) and are a skilled communicator (that is, you can spell and use proper punctuation on a regular basis), go ahead and drop an email via that contact link over there to the right, and I’ll forward the lot of you onto XX-Man.

For those looking for the Howard Tayler interview that was promised yesterday, it’s coming. In the meantime, consider the following, please.

• Speaking of Tayler, changes o’ plenty over at Blank Label’s homepage in the past few weeks. Over roughly the past ten-twelve days, we saw several comics failing to update daily; Paul Southworth’s Ugly Hill leaving the strip lineup and list of comics at the top of the page but not the “Brady Bunch” thumbnail set; the same for Paul Taylor’s Waspi Square; the addition of a link for new member Dave Reddick’s Legend of Bill but pointing to a not-yet active placeholder on the page; and today, the return of Steve Troop (who, by the way, is one of the creators interviewed in that new Calvin and Hobbes sorta-bio)’s Melonpool.

  We at Fleen are have not yet determined if these are programming issues or membership shakeups, but one might reasonably assume the latter: Southworth, at least, has launched his new strip wil Bill Barnes, which would complicate the act of keeping the strip at BLC because BLC is a different kind of collective; to the best of my knowledge, it’s the only one out there that merges the revenues of its members.

  Other high-profile collectives like Halfpixel or Dumbrella are really just a common brand name (aka A bunch of lowlife emo-candyraver drug-addled web-cartoonists I’m loosely associated with. We have a sort of mutual non-aggression pact.) without intermixed finances from things like ads. We may be seeing BLC transforming itself from a corporatized collective (CoCo?) to just the regular kind. Or it could be bugs in the code — I have not received definitive information from anybody in a position to know, and I imagine we’ll all find out what the deal is soon enough anyway. Lesson to take away: webcomics journalism is hard.

  Also, if you’re going to have a collective, think about your lineup changes carefully and always compare them against the most important yardstick of all — Will this make Gary change his morning browsing habits? If so, it’s a bad change because Gary is a creature of habit and his brain takes a while to wake up.

• 24 Hour Comic Day is coming up this weekend! So far, Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub seem to be setting up a Dallas branch of the effort, with KC Green coming into town to join in on the fun. My guess is that all three of their twitterfeeds are going to hilarious once the sleep deprivation sets in. Who else is planning on tempting the gods of caffeine and madness?
• New Yorkers and those who love them: the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, as part of their regular Thursday-night event series, will have a panel discussion tomorrow evening on The Comics Press, including friend o’ webcomics Heidi MacDonald, along with Aaron McQuade & Evie Nagy and Douglas Wolk. 7:00pm at the museum, $5 general admission, free for members.
• Also starting tomorrow (and running through the weekend), the Marbella International Film Festival (that would be Spain) will include in its screening schedule a short based on Doug Wilson’s webcomic, K-9 Lives. In honor of the screening, I’ve been trawling Wilson’s archive (only about 100 updates) of wordless comics. The navigation’s a bit of a pain (driven by drop-down list, be forewarned), but the wordless story of a dog with a cat attached to its buttocks is more entertaining than anything describable by that story hook has a right to be.