The webcomics blog about webcomics

Family

There’s something about the depths of winter, the short days, that makes us seek out family; for some it’s a matter of travel, for some the journey is longer. For nearly all of us, it’s where our strength and hope reside.

  • Longtime readers of this page may recall that Brian Warmoth¹ and Rick Marshall² were a couple of guys that Megan Fox Tits Wolverine magazine put on the webomics beat back when they still had a magazine and weren’t busy screwing up their business of comics conventions with penny-ante grifting. Instead, MFTW just criminally underpaid a bunch of writers (of whom Warmoth and Marshall were the most prolific) to build up the magazine’s web presence and then fired them unceremoniously, taking down their stories in the process.

    Both Marshall and Warmoth landed on their feet, though, and have done well for themselves in the intervening years. In Warmoth’s case, very well as of this weekend, as he and his wife, Julia, welcomed their first child into the world — an act of profound optimism in the best of times — at their home in the Bay Area.

    Brian’s one of the sweetest, most genuine guys you’ll ever meet, and the rarest of things in the digital media age: a damned skilled editor who can bring out the best words from his writers, while building up audiences in niche media. I’ve seen the photos and while they aren’t mine to share (nor are the specific details), take it from me that Young Master Warmoth is adorable, and will undoubtedly grow to make his parents proud. Fleen congratulates the newly-expanded family, and wishes them all the best (along with a few uninterrupted nights of sleep).

  • But when anybody in webcomics mentions the word family, it’s pretty likely that one idea springs to mind: Kate Beaton is visiting her parents, and at least some of her sisters will be there with their families, and the Best Comics Ever will come about as a result. And that’s pretty much what happened from yesterday, as Beaton made her way to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia from her writerly stomping grounds in Newfoundland. There’s Mom, and Da, and Agnes, of course. Everybody loves Agnes.

    And then Kate shared something more; it was low key and undramatic, as befits the folk of Cape Breton who (one would believe from Beaton’s comics) hate more than anything else the possibility of Making A Fuss. Kate’s sister Becky warned her to be ready, and she reached up and removed her hair. It’s not hair, you realize, it’s a wig and she’s bald underneath. She’s chemo bald and that means … oh, no.

    Here’s the thing — we don’t know Becky; Kate has been extraordinarily generous in sharing her life, and all the Beatons have been willing to be part of that sharing. I can’t imagine that Kate would have done that without Becky’s express permission and it feels real even though we don’t know them because Kate’s always made them feel like they’re right there, we can touch them they’re so close.

    And I don’t know you, Becky Beaton, or Kate’s other sisters, or her parents, or Agnes, or any of the extended clan in Cape Breton³, but I wish I did. I want you to know that everybody that reads Kate’s comics (especially the silly, ordinary family comics) considers every Beaton to be The Best. Love and strength to you, and your family, and laughter too, because that’s pretty much what all the comics since have been about. When there’s laughter in the Beaton household, there’s no room for Fuss.


Spam of the day:

Why Your Soreness is Caused by “Dry Joints”

Are you talking about the solder thing, because that would be the best spam logic leap ever.

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¹ Shown here, right.

² Will, and Holly, shown here, center right in khaki.

³ Well, except for her relative Jeff Smith.

From The Fleen Paris Desk

The inestimable Pierre Lebeaupin was good enough to leave an extensive comment on yesterday’s post on the dumbassery surrounding this year’s Grand Prix d’Angoulême. It was too good to be potentially overlooked, so I’ve copied it here. Please enjoy this bonus post for today.


A message from the Fleen French correspondent …

  • The FIBD published a communiqué telling that they are going to “without removing any name, reintroduce names of female creators in the list of nominees” (via everyone in France including mainstream media; Robot 6 post. Take it for what it’s worth, especially the communiqué is still quite on the defensive in this correspondent’s humble opinion.
  • Analysis from Isabelle Bauthian, via Boulet’s twitter; my translation:

    I had an inkling for a detailed article on this absurd lack of any female creator name on the list of nominations for the FIBD Grand Prize, but I am swamped with work, which is probably a good thing as it will avoid me a few blood tension spikes. So, we’ll make it short:

    • No one is asking for strict parity (about 12% female creators in the field. We’re not completely dumb), nor even quotas.
    • Yes, there is a good choice of influent female creators in the generation of some of the nominees (even just in manga, seriously …).
    • No, you don’t just have to “wait for society to change”. Society has already changed and the leading bodies in many domains do not correspond to it, that’s the very issue.
    • I do no condemn men unconscious of their “privileges”. We all are to some extent, or have been. But I find it fundamental that people can make their biases known to them.
    • To raise awareness the presence of discriminations and consciously correct them is not “favoritism”. Favoritism is what created them in the first place.
    • The decision from Riad Sattouf [correspondent note: first creator, and probably only one at that time, to have withdrawn in protest] forces respect (possibly even admiration), but I can’t help but witness that “feminist men” are considered classy, but “feminist women” are considered damn nuisances.
    • YES, this selection is also 100% white and Asian [correspondent note: and this argument doesn’t even stand if we consider Riad Sattouf, precisely, who is half mid-eastern, this is even the whole basis of “l’arabe du futur”]. I don’t know the percentage of black authors in comics [correspondent note: originally put as “bd”] (it seems to me very low in France-Belgique but I could be wrong) [correspondent note: it might even be illegal to make such statistics anyway], nor, among them, which ones have gained enough influence to earn a Grand Prize, but the fact is the FIDB is barely starting the earn its “I” [correspondent note: stands for “International”] and it should put a light on ALL comics [correspondent note: originally put as “bande dessinnée”].

      Let me remind you that, as late as last year, people would bemoan the presence of manga creators in the selection. If African author collectives have ideas to improve this situation, I am certain that a bunch of female creators will support them, individually or through their collective. But here, right now, this is not the case, so thanks for wanting to save the world but let us start with helping those who are struggling against an issue rather than tell them to shut up because they are not the only ones with a problem, thank you very much.

    • Yes, creators have other issues, starting with an iniquitous reform of their retirement pension system and, especially and more complex, their increasingly lowering revenues. The good news is that talking about the lack of women in the selection does not prevent from tackling those. The bad news is, if we stop talking about the lack of women, it will start becoming apparent that the bulk of your actions for “authors in general” just amount to complaining on Facebook.

      So don’t blame us for multiplying the struggles. Rather thank us for putting a veil on your passivity (And if I’m wrong concerning you, let me remind you that the SNAC is recruiting, hey, friends. Punchy, coordinated and exhaustive actions are not set up in 15 days between 10 voluntary suckers).

    And on that, allow me to take my leave, I’m going to go ahead and improve the percentage of “women’s books” to be published in 2016.

Now from the correspondent analysis:

  • Gotta concur on the somewhat parochial aspect of the FIDB, in particular your correspondent was not particularly aware of the general importance of EW as compared to, say, Megan Fox Tits Wolverine [Editor’s note: how we at Fleen refer to that onetime exemplar of comics news, Wizard magazine], so he wouldn’t be particularly surprised if the head of FIBD wasn’t either. Not an excuse, but not a scandal either.
  • Double checked his comments on Le Monde and Télérama, and yes, he did actually say that in the original French. His comments about Tintin and Pilote are disingenuous, in particular, given that the most late breaking of the nominees broke out in the 90s, while both Tintin and Pilote went under in the 80s.
  • Raina Telgemeier (haven’t checked the other female creators you mentioned) may indeed however be of a later generation than any of the nominees; it’s indeed not about creators “running around today” (except, as Télérama mentioned, for Zep in 2004 …). Takahashi-san however would certainly qualify by that measure.

A Wonderful, Awful Idea

I believe that I mentioned recently that David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™etc and semi-pro Mr Bean impersonator) very kindly offered me my choice of original strips from Planet of Hats and how I chose the ur-“Planet Of” episode of old-school Trek: Patterns Of Force, aka Planet Of The Nazis. Well, my friends, that strip successfully wended its way from distant ‘Straya to deepest New Jersey, and I have learned a few things:

  • Morgan-Mar works at a fairly standard size — the four-row, twelve-panel strip took up two sheets of drawing paper, approximately letter/A4 size.
  • Morgan-Mar does not screw around when it comes to protecting art — the two sheets of art paper were sandwiched in two sheets of plain paper, which in turn were sandwiched in what appears to be the carefully-excised cardstock-and-vinyl covers of a three-ring binder, which package was bound up by five strips of duct tape. The end times could come and that artwork would have survived all the vagaries of Armageddon.
  • I’ll share a visual once the original strip runs so as not to steal Morgan-Mar’s thunder; today’s update at Planet of Hats is Return to Tomorrow, which means Patterns of Force is next. However, Morgan-Mar also announced today that he’s skipping next week as he’ll be on vacation, so it’ll be another week.

All of which leads to one inevitable conclusion: Morgan-Mar will be away next week and I now know his home address. The opportunities for mischief boggle the mind!

I think the best would be if I broke into his house and photographed myself covered in all his LEGO bricks, American Beauty style. The fact that he also knows my home address doesn’t really bother me since the only thing here to photograph himself covered with is one very lazy greyhound.

While I’m making my way Down Under on my errand of chaos, here’s what everybody else in webcomics will be doing:

  • Approximately half of them will be going to TCAF, where the fun at the Toronto Reference Library starts on Saturday, but where comic-related events are already happening around town. The other half of webcomics will be there next year; they have to alternate because the TRL can only contain so many awesome folks at once.
  • Brad Guigar¹, it’s been previously established, will be spending the weekend at his home-town Megan Fox Tits Wolverine show, where he hope that people will not be confused by the proximity of his booth and that of Mr Burt Reynolds. Brad’s prepared a little guide to help you keep them straight.
  • Those few who won’t be at TCAF this year, planning on being at TCAF next year, or trying to tell the difference between one of the sexiest men in American history and Burt Reynolds will be checking out some numbers: there are Kickstarts for Oh Joy Sex Toy and A Softer World to consider², both of which are well on their way to meeting or exceeding the previous (successful) Kickstarts for each creator team, respectively.

    A final bit of math: what are the odds that Erika Moen & Matthew Nolan could get Emily Horne & Joey Comeau to do one last ASW next year as an OJST guest comic? That would be the very, very best, but I put it at maybe one in seven. Or, for the ultimate guest strip, make sure there’s some LEGO models in the photos, and whatever kind of sexy business is happening in the main field of vision? Over to the side is laughing Brad Guigar, approving of the hijinks all you wacky kids are getting up to. I’ll put that at one in several million, but I can dream, can’t I?


Spam of the day:

Personalised Hollywood Walk Of Fame Star comes already framed.

Unless it comes with an original horned Grinch on the back side, I ain’t interested.

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¹ Rebel, loner, heartbreaker.

² They each funded out in less than a day and meet the criteria for Fleen Funding Formula predictions (>= 200 backers in that first 24 hours), so let’s call it US$84K to US$126K for OJST and US$136K to US$204K for ASW.

While Waiting For The Storms To Break

Because if the wine can cool down Indian food, it's a cool enough thought for me today, that's why.

It’s been a miserable couple of days, weather-wise, here in the vast New Jersey hinterlands — heat and humidity more expected in July than May, and my house’s HVAC is having issues. Bleah. If the predictions hold true, we’re in for a couple of days of rain, which ought to break the temperatures if not the humidity, and hopefully climate control will be re-established inside before it gets nasty again; in the meantime, just me and the dog, hangin’ around, being too warm for comfort. Let’s think cool thoughts.

  • They always say that you shouldn’t drink booze when you’re over-hot, because it’ll dehydrate you and make you more miserable in the long term; I’m fully prepared to say that “they” can suck it. And while they’re sucking it, those of you in New York City can look forward to the latest attempt by Kristen Siebecker¹ to teach you uncultured heathens dear, dear friends to appreciate wine.

    This iteration of Popping Your Cork will be on 12 June at 6:15pm in Midtown, where she’ll be pairing wines from the Finger Lakes with food from India. Because Kristen appreciates comics and loves us, she’s given us a coupon code for 10% off the cost of the evening: use EMAIL10 at checkout and save a couple of bucks. And just a thought, anybody that went to a couple of these and did a comic about their learning journey? That would be legit fascinating and I would pay to read it.

  • That’s not even considering the fact that Philadelphia Comic Con² hits next weekend, and HeroesCon the weekend after that. Anybody with a moment to catch their breath before San Diego, raise your hand and also I hate you.

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¹ Original showrunner of MoCCA Fest, back in the Puck Building before fires and such.

² Also known as “The Con Formerly Known as Megan Fox Tits Wolverine World”, or hell let’s just call it .

Burying Webcomics And Also Praising Them

Warning: we’re starting today with a link to 2000-odd words that you should read in its entirety, so make sure you set a little time aside. To help make up for it, I’ll try to be brief.

  • Shaenon Garrity, Funk and Tiki Queen of All She Surveys, looks back a dozen years to the early days of Colonel Joey’s involvement in webcomics, marking the recent passing-on of the Modern Tales family. It’s really nice remembrance from one who was there¹, and startling in the realization how many of the people that Manley gathered around himself a dozen years ago have gone on to be influential and successful. Give it a read and maybe nod in the general direction of Kentucky, as we may never know how much that nudge given by Manley contributed to those creators staying in the game.
  • It’s been going on three years since Brad Guigar³ ran a workshop on webcomickin’ at New York Comic Con 2010 (partnered up with the redoubtable Scott Kurtz), to overwhelmingly positive reviews. I’d been wondering why Guigar hadn’t offered such a bootcamp (as he termed it, and can I say that the mental image of Guigar in a Smokey The Bear hat screaming at rookie webcomickers to drop and give him a punchline is awesome) again, when lo and behold he announced another one, coinciding with the first full day of Philadelphia Comic Con:

    Brad will present a lecture on the art and commerce of webcomics and then take their class through a collegiate-level critique of their work.

    Cost of attendance is $29.99 for Webcomics.com members who would like their work critiqued.(Members of Webcomics.com are eligible for a special discount.)

    Be prepared to take and offer frank, constructive criticism. Each participant will receive a printed packet with tips, advice and comments directed specifically on how they can improve their work. Everyone is welcomed to attend the panel and join the discussion, but only Bootcamp participants will have their work discussed specifically.

    Philadelphia Comic Con (formerly known as Megan Fox Tits Wolverine World Philly) will take place Thursday 30 May – Sunday 2 June at the Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA; the Webcomics Bootcamp will take place from 5:00-6:30pm on Friday, 31 May, room TBA.

  • Next weekend is going to be a busy one for [web]comickers, at least for those between the 45° and 59° northerly latitudes. From the southwest to the northeast, there will be events going down in Portland, Calgary, and Stockholm, any one of which may fill you with delight and wonder at the comics arts, but only one of which will feature Rene Engström, who tweets:

    I’ll be speaking at a panel on webcomics at Stockholm’s International Comic Festival on Saturday the 27th of April between 4 and 5 pm at Bibliotek Plattan!

    The Bibliotek Plattan, or Plattan Library, is part of the Kulturhuset complex at the Sergels Torg, which is the most central public square in the city. Judging from the site plan [PDF], you’ll want to head to the basement once you get there. Tell Rene I said hi, and see if you can get her to show you a sneak peek of The Venerable Leaf.

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¹ I’ve long since grown accustomed to consuming Garrity’s writing in four-panel chunks, and it always surprises me how wonderfully she writes when she’s not constrained by the limit of a few dozen words. It shouldn’t not with all the forgotten manga she’s so lovingly described², or her contribution to the Machine of Death [MP3] anthology.

² She is entirely responsible for me devouring (ha, ha) the 26-volume run of Yakitate!! Japan, the insane fight manga to end all insane fight manga, where by “fight” one should read “competitive bread baking”.

³ He’s dreamy.

Former MFTW Honcho Revealed As Tremendous Jerk, Film At Eleven

Soooo … Gareb Shamus, who led the ever-contracting Megan Fox Tits Wolverine¹ empire, did two notable things last week:

  1. He abruptly quit, effective immediately, on 1 December
  2. On his way out the door, or possibly before leaving, or maybe after (the timing isn’t clear), he tried to get a webcomicker fired from his day job

Let’s examine that second item a little more closely, shall we? From today’s update of The Gutters, written by Ryan Sohmer and drawn by a rotating cast of artists:

Should you find yourself the subject matter of a Gutters page, and take offense to it, don’t go after my artists. Should you be so offended that you attempt to get someone fired from their day job, don’t be a coward.

Come after me.

My e-mail is Sohmer@blindferret.com, I will gladly provide you with my contact information, as well as that of our legal department.

I take sole responsibility for every comic and news post on this site.

Don’t you dare go after one of my artists.

Now let’s look at The Gutters #222 from last Monday, as drawn by Sohmer’s partner-in-crime² Lar DeSouza; the topic of this particular update is, by a peculiar coincidence, one Mister Gareb Shamus. Thing is, last Monday, #222 had originally been posted with art by another creator (since Sohmer implies strongly that said art was pulled at the artist’s request, I’ll forbear naming him at this time).

Boy, you sure showed Sohmer and an artist just trying to pick up a little work for hire, Mr Shamus! If your reputation was so very, very poor in the comics industry as to be made fun of previously, how much better it must be now. It’s a good thing we live a in a world where Google doesn’t exist, the original art for #222 can never be found again, you can simply bully DeSouza into being fired by his day job boss³, and the words Streisand Effect don’t have any particular meaning.

On to things with infinitely less jerky behavior.

  • Per the Twitter account of Stripped, news that the end is in sight:

    This week: Final interviews with Guisewite, McDonnell, Feiffer, Munroe, Walker, Beaton ‘n Gran … then it’s full focus on post-production!

    The “Walker” referenced is ambiguous, but I’d guess probably represent cartooning stalwart Mort Walker. One might also note that Kate Beaton and Meredith Gran were already interviewed by Schroeder and Kellett at NEWW last year; of course, these past twelve months have been the Year of Beaton in the comics world, and Gran is doing the best work of her career, so it makes sense to go back for followups.

    Given that one of the challenges of any documentary (at least, one that doesn’t follow a single subject) is how to come up with a storyline to unite all the disparate elements, using one or two creators as representative of the growth and development of webcomics makes perfect sense. Put another way, the future of comics is going to be a lot more creator-owned, niche-topic-oriented, and female-created than it is right now, and Beaton/Gran look an awful lot like that future.

  • Speaking of repeat visits, Saveur Magazine’s Recipe Comix have been revisiting some of their early contributors. Two weeks back, Dorothy Gambrell showed us all how to deal with Thanksgiving Alone (hint: bourbon), and today Carly Monardo brings us her grandmother’s lasagna recipe. My friends, if anybody knows what an amazing lasagna should taste like, I’m gonna guess it’s a lady named Monardo from Staten Island, who named her internet-based art collective after the dish. Dig in.

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¹ Also known as Wizard magazine and Wizard World; cf: here.

² Or possibly “hetero life-partner”, I can never keep it straight.

³ Ryan Sohmer.

Con Season In Full Swing, And I Am Stuck At Home

So, I gotta renew my CPR certification this weekend, do some community events with my EMS crew, or I’d be totally heading to conventions, one or the other, on opposite sides of the continent for my convenience.

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¹ Megan Fox Tits Wolverine, the truth-in-advertising name for the magazine once known as Wizard, whose successor company runs this and a million other “comics” shows.

² Check out last week’s contribution, by Dorothy Gambrell, for chocolate ice cream with chili peppers. Yum.

The Fleenplex Is Almost Tall Enough To See The Grandeur That Is Stately Beat Manor

Sure, these news items are reported elsewhere, but sometimes you just get pulled in by the particular flavor that Heidi Mac puts on a story. Thus, we’ll be referencing The Beat‘s versions today.

  • By now, I imagine that everybody and their dog has heard of the demise of Megan Fox Tits Wolverine magazine; actually, my dog (above) was napping pretty hard yesterday, so maybe she hasn’t. And since the mighty has fallen, I suppose we’ll break with the Fleen Style Guide and refer to MFTW by its former name, Wizard. Having studiously ignored the ever-descending fortunes of said magazine, a thought occurred to me yesterday in the aftermath of the implosion.

    Let’s be clear — I am not qualified to comment on the legalities of securities transactions, and I am not saying that anything I’m about to comment on was less than perfectly legal. But a paper transaction that effectively allows one company to cease to exist while an almost identical company (run by the same people) suddenly begins to exist, but allowing a clean break from the old company? We’ve seen it before in comics, which you may cross-reference under the names WOWIO/Platinum, and Dreamwave/Dream Engine to name two. These situations strike me as extraordinarily distasteful.

    I’ve seen the disappearance and new-name-reappearance of a company from the inside; close to fifteen years ago, I worked for a tech consultancy (about whom I have nothing but good things to say) that one day ceased operations and restarted them. In a bid for investment capital, the founder/principal signed a deal with some money guys who took a previously-unused, publicly traded company that had zero activity, bought the consultancy, and immediately spun it back off via a penny-stock issuance under a name practically identical to the old one. Go back to the story at The Beat and re-read the 2nd and 7th grafs, and the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th comments. Note the parallels.

    Things got real interesting for me at that point. The money guys promptly fired the owner/principal, and in the course of about 10 weeks screwed the remaining employees sideways, then declared the business a failure without paying us everything we were owed¹. This is, hopefully, as close as I’ll ever get to personally experiencing the historical business practices of the comics industry.

    Wizard staffers, as of this writing, don’t seem to have much expectation of severance, although one would hope that they do qualify for unemployment (but that’s a can o’ worms right there, with advanced legal degrees needed to determine what has to be true for somebody to claim unemployment insurance beyond the entirely-logical and therefore almost certainly-insufficient fact of being unemployed).

    Now here’s where it intersects webcomicdom; one of the interesting parts of this story is that Wizard World (the new public company) is keeping its convention business (the last year or so saw it aggressively purchase small- to medium-sized conventions all over North America). If the conventions are what keeps the business going, they’re going to need to stock up on guests. I happen to know that prior to the dissolution of the “old Wizard” and the formation of the “new Wizard”, a number of webcomickers were being aggressively courted to show at various Wizard cons in 2011.

    This is where the bad taste in my mouth (over the securities deals) starts turning into … let’s call it a “heightened situational awareness”. If I were being asked to exhibit at a Wizard show (I haven’t been), and they were offering more than table space (say, flight & hotel) I would want a damn good lawyer to look over the contracts to make sure I wouldn’t be on the hook for anything. After all, in the words of “new Wizard”‘s own press release:

    Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this press release relating to Wizard World’s future plans, expectations, beliefs, intentions and prospects are “forward-looking statements” and are subject to material risks and uncertainties. When used in this press release, the words “will”, “future”, “expect”, “look forward to”, similar expressions and any other statements that are not historical facts are intended to identify those assertions as forward-looking statements. Any such statement may be influenced by a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of Wizard World that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different from those projected, described, expressed or implied in this press release due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur. A detailed discussion of these factors and other risks that affect our business is contained in our SEC filings, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, particularly under the heading “Risk Factors.” Copies of these filings are available online from the SEC or by contacting Joe Favorito at (917) 566-8345 or fatherknickerbocker1@yahoo.com. All information set forth in this press release is current as of January 24, 2011. Wizard World undertakes no duty to update any statement in light of new information or future events. [emphasis mine]

    Yeah, it’s boilerplate. I’m also interpreting it to mean, if “new Wizard” suddenly gets replaced by “new new Wizard”, creditors may have a long slog in front of them to get what is theirs by right. Any lawyers want to chime in on the comments page with a correction or reasons why anybody that does business with “new Wizard” shouldn’t be more cautious than usual? I’d love to hear your take on it.

  • Let’s end on the very good news — again, lots of places to get background on this story, but let’s just stay with The Beat — that James Kochalka has been named the first-ever Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont (or anyplace else, near as I can tell). You’d be hard pressed to find a better CL, and you can be sure that this story will only become more awesome between now and the official investiture? coronation? accolade? Whatever the correct term, Kochalka starts fulfilling the duties of his office on 10 March. Everybody be glad for James!

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¹ From the distance of time and cynicism, I’d say that the money guys had some money that they desperately needed to make disappear, because they all seemed to come out of it smelling like roses. I eventually got a chunk of my outstanding pay by offering to have a chat with the state Attorney General and IRS about whether or not it was legal for the money guys to tell me, as they were handing me my paycheck, that I hadn’t been an employee for the past two weeks, but had actually been an independent contractor and thus only entitled to half my previous salary. Classy.

It’s Quiet

Flickr + Creative Commons + "webcomic" = xkcd cosplay. Of course. Why not?

Thursdays are always the slow news days.

I mean, sure, there’s the open letter that Scott Kurtz wrote to Megan Fox Tits Wolverine magazine’s con-booking guy, that was amusing, but it broke nearly 24 hours ago and everybody’s already seen & discussed it. And actually, the most amusing part there was the number of people that took Kurtz seriously when he described himself as “pioneer” and “tastemaker”; here’s a big hint to everybody: whatever Kurtz says that gets you all het up under the collar (and my grandmother used to say), his tongue is lodged so firmly in-cheek, if you saw it, you’d think that the Alien was gonna leap out of his face.

That still leaves us with not too much going on today, so we’ll have to go with some pre-news (that is, things that aren’t news yet, but will be shortly). For example, Joe Chiappetta has finished drawing his 500th Silly Daddy comic, although we don’t get to see it until Monday. But in the meantime, you can enjoy his Five Reasons You Should Care, which include:

3) Many of these webcomics (74) were created entirely on a mobile phone. Chiappetta is the first cartoonist to pioneer this field of phone-made webcomics, calling it “telephomics.”

… and:

4) The Silly Daddy website is one of the few cartoonist sites wherein all the comics are fully accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. Every webcomic posted has a described narrative that assistive technology software (such as JAWS or ZoomText) can read to the viewer.

Honestly, I don’t think that “telephomics” is going to catch on … it just sounds like you don’t know how to pronounce the word that you meant to say. But the transcription bit? That’s something I think we’re going to see more of in future (lots of comics have some form of transcription available, but often only by shifting over to Oh No Robot or using an on-page search field). Chiappetta does his as a narrative, David Morgan-Mar does his as a transcript, and … that’s about it. Okay, there’s the takeaway for today, kids — just because you can’t see (or can’t see anymore) doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy the webcomics. Keep that in mind for your next site redesign.

Yay, Friday! Friyay?

I actually have my own photo of this mural, but it's from about 10 years ago and printed from a *film negative*. I know! Primitive!

Per an email I received yesterday, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is doing a children’s programming track at Big Apple Comic Con (which is going on as you read this), by partnering with the con’s sponsors, MFTW¹ Entertainment. You may insert your own joke about MFTW Entertainment producing anything that child-appropriate here.

  • The big Chris Yates secret project list that we hinted at yesterday is now live, and we at Fleen can now reveal exclusively, from a conversation that took place over beers in San Diego, that one of these projects is TRUE. That’s right, the yak that’s going to star in ЖYPMblH HEXeP is named “Batukhan”. Scoop!
  • Speaking of secrets revealed, this was all secret yesterday if you don’t follow Kris Straub‘s twitterfeed, but there is now an Ichor Falls book available for purchase, just in time for Halloween. Those with weak constitutions are warned that this books is likely very scarifying, and should approach it with caution. Also, please stay the hell away from that particular corner of West Virginia, no matter how polite the realtor seems.
  • You guys have seen Kickstarter, right? Got a project you want to run, but you need funding, so people can pledge to you, and if you don’t get enough nobody pays up anything? Think Grameen Bank for the first world. Friend of Fleen (and sporting bet nemesis) Goron McAlpin‘s using it for a Multiplex book, and he’s now being joined from the webcomics world by Templar, AZ creator Spike as she seeks to revive a project on Modern Livin’ On The Cheap:

    Poorcraft is a project I’ve been thinking about for years. No one gets into comics for the money (no one with a clue, anyway), so I got an involuntary crash course in the discipline after I left school. I’ve learned a lot about poorcraft since then, most of it the hard way.

    Over time, I’ve noticed people who read comics are often people who want to make comics. But aspiring creative types are pretty easily discouraged by the specter of the “starving artist.” It doesn’t have to be that way! And not enough people realize that.

    So, I want to make a book. A comic book, naturally. Full color cover, black and white interior, 100-120 pages, with a $10.00 cover price. And at least 75% of that book would be comics. Comics about housing, food, entertainment, education, travel/transportation, health care, and employment, and doing all those things on a dime.

    Diana and myself have a six-month schedule from a successful Kickstart to publishing. Production-wise, the book is already outlined and ready for scripting. The $6,000 I’m asking for would go towards paying Diana [Nock, the illustrator] a fair price for her work, and publishing costs.

    As of this writing, Poorcraft has 71 backers worth nearly $1200 of pledges, a little more than 12 hours into the three-month fundraising window. Oh, and McAlpin will be on Fanboy Radio’s The Indie Show this Sunday, on a Kickstarter-themed broadcast.

  • Euro-folks! Talented creators from Transmission-X are going to be stomping around your fair continent, and now there’s tour dates up for Ramón Pérez, Cameron Stewart, and Karl Kerschl (this might explain why Stewart’s Sin Titulo is hiatusing just as we’re hitting big developments, dang).

    Anyhoo, the tour swings through Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, and England, with at least three festival appearances. Quick hint for the happy travellers: one of my all-time top-five comic shops is near the canalfront in Ghent. Bigger, more comprehensive selection of English-language comics than most shops in the US, and then all the bande dessinée. Oh, it was glorious. Speaking of which, block out an afternoon for the CBBD in Brussels, and check out all the public comics art in the city (my favorite: a reproduction of a Blake et Mortimer cover on the entire side of a building.

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¹ Megan Fox Tits Wolverine, of course.