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.

One of my favorite things to do is to match up readers with folks whose work might otherwise go unnoticed. I mean, sure, I loves me some Charles Christopher out of all proportion, but not all comics worth my attention (and yours!) come from Karl Kerschl¹. Let’s take a look at a couple of them.

• Payton Francis does comics out of the Twin Cities; a big part of her work is fantasy, and the other big part of it is featuring as many adorable LGBT+ characters as possible. Help Wanted is a modern story, and Wola (Francis does art; words by EC Ibes) has plenty of modern signifiers (industrial shipping, folding aluminum chairs) but simultaneously a mythic set of trappings; they’ve both got a bunch of heart.

  Oh, and Wola is presently Kickstarting its first print collection, which has already surpassed goal and thus is a sure thing at this point. Come for the enticing art, stay for the friendshipping, as the first five chapters — more than 200 pages — get printed in full color for only US$25². And, once you read the book, you can pick up with Chapter Six, which started at the beginning of June. As of this writing the campaign runs for another 69 hours (nice), so hop on over and give it a look while you’ve got the chance.

• I’m pretty sure that’s the first time we’ve mentioned Francis on this page — an oversight, surely, especially given her very assured and very varied character designs — but we’ve mentioned Eben Burgoon a buncha times. Although the wrapping up of Eben07 forever ago robbed this page of one of its favorite running gags, Burgoon has done bunches of stuff since then. Most recently, Tiny Wizards — 10cm tall magic dudes working in a remote truck stop’s food service. It’s been around for a couple of years and Kickstarted a collection, which is now available for all.

  Tiny Wizards #1 — Lord Of The Onion Rings is going to run you US$14, consists of 64 pages of full-page painting, and is very likely the first book ever to be mentioned on this page with a suggested age rating of — quoting here — 10 and under. Indulge your inner child and give it a look.

Spam of the day:

RE: TRACKING NUMBER N° CS476903738

You think your DHL tracking number click here bullshit should featuring a bunch of my non-existent Disney+ subscription is suspended click here bullshit graphics? I think y’all might be a bit confused.

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¹ To whom I profusely apologize, as I just realized that I have missed — by more than six months — the 10th anniversary of the greatest single comic strip in history: Squirrel-Chew.

² The amount of comics and the print quality you get for an extremely reasonably price is one of my favorite things about the current Golden Age of comics we’re living in.

I think we could use a little chill these days; what with the world’s single most gleefully vindictive ignoramus in charge of our country’s response to an incipient pandemic, chill sounds like a good idea.

• Few people that I’ve met are on a more even keel, less perturbable than Scott C; very nearly all of his art conveys a feeling of just take a deep breath for a moment, no need to get all excited, even when the topic is the most spectacular of spectacles. Mr C’s been working on several projects for a while now, we haven’t seen as many Great Showdowns as in the past, and fans are hungering for another collection.

  So Gallery 1988 (which, along with Nucleus, is the place for modern takes on pop culture) is have a weeks-long celebration of Scott C:

  With the HIGHLY anticipated return of the Great Showdowns exhibit from @scottlava opening on March 6th, we’re excited to share the calendar of events for the show. It’s action-packed and unlike anything we’ve done before. Get ready for the true Showdowns experience!!!

  Events include an opening reception on the 6th from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, complete with a mystery Showdowns trivia contest, a Scott C painting for the trivia winner (livepainted on the 7th at 1:00pm), limited edition toy and print releases, a daily scavenger hunt, a drawing party with pizza, and a closing party. Whew! See the graphic up top for all the stuff going on, and keep an eye on the exhibitions page at the G1988 site for details.

• Know who else just surfs through a sometimes turbulent world on a wave of comics, sometimes from one far corner of the globe¹ to another? Eben Burgoon. He was the inspiration of one of our earliest running gags here at Fleen, he holds down the fort of comics-making and evangelism in the Sacramento Sector, and he makes a habit of not only keeping me up with his goings-on, but also those of current and former collaborators. To that end, I received an email:
  

  D.Bethel — the illustrator and co-creator of Eben07 — has been making his opus of a webcomic in Long John. It’s a western-genre comic that focuses on a revenge story about a gunslinger left to die in just his long-johns by his former gang.

  Burgoon undersells the premise a bit, but he’s absolutely right that Bethel has constructed a slow-burn story that reveals itself in a deliberate manner, much like a classic ’60s splatter Western. And Burgoon himself is collaborating with Dean Beattie on Tiny Wizards, about french-fry sized wizards doing their wizardly battles as they struggle to survive in a sea of fast food joints in a road-side truck stop in the middle of nowhere.

  Remember what I said about mundane magic in a regular world yesterday? Magic hidden in the most ridiculous way from plain sight is also a great premise, and I’ll be interested to see how it turns out. In the meantime, I’ve seen a sampler that Burgoon sent along, and Beattie is channeling Skottie Young’s work on I Hate Fairyland; your enjoyment will depend on the answer to one question², which if you opt for the affirmative, you should definitely check out the Kicker³.

Spam of the day:

Military Source Exposes Shocking TRUTH About Coronavirus And The “1 Thing” You Must Do Before It’s TOO LATE

Hey. Emergency medicine/public health source here. The “1 Thing” is wash your godsdamned hands, stay out of public if you feel sick, and vote for somebody that will implement labor law/healthcare systems that allow people to go to the doctor and stay home from work when they’re sick. Everything else is bullshit.

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¹ This mixed metaphor is here only to annoy flat earthers.

² Do I feel that tiny, pink, derptacular unicorns should sport visible buttholes?

³ Which is a bit more than 50% of the way to goal, with 16 days to go.

Know who we haven’t heard from in a while? Eben Burgoon. Longtime readers may recall that through the first half of Fleen’s history, we frequently noted happenings in Burgoon’s spy spoof, Eben07, in an appropriately purple prose. Then Burgoon and his compatriots moved onto B-Squad and he even gave me beer themed to his webcomic.

Burgoon’s been doing workshops and Maker Faires from Northern California (his normal stomping grounds) to as far away as Vilnius, Lithuania (no, really), the breadth of which made me wonder if he’d really gotten all that spycraft and secret mission tendency out of his system. Apparently not; Burgoon’s partnering with Starburns Industries to bring B-Squad back:

Starburns Industries Press sets its eyes on remastering an independent series, B-Squad, from indie darling author Eben Burgoon and a rotating roster illustrators and artists that change issue to issue.

B-Squad shares the ridiculous and dangerous missions of an expendable team of misfit mercenaries ranging from pop-culture riffs to cut from whole cloth oddballs. The bargain-bin commandos tackle leftover assignments of other more respected mercenary groups. SBI Press’s run begins with a remaster of the series debut Conspiracy in Cambodia, originally independently published in 2013, written by Burgoon and illustrated by Lauren Monardo.

In the spirit of a Saturday morning cartoon block, each B-Squad book serves as home for brand new tangential comics like [B-Squad illustrator Michael] Calero’s Monster Safari” and Burgoon’s newest creation about six-inch tall wizards trapped in the fast-food culture of a remote truck stop titled Tiny Wizards.

The remastered books are rounded out with activities, puzzles, and bonus content in homage to dentist office staples like Highlights magazine and ZooBooks.

No word as to whether or not the remastered B-Squad will feature Goofus and/or Gallant. You (where you is taken to mean folks in/around the Sacramento, California area) can ask him at the next workshop he’ll be running, on three Tuesdays in February (12th, 19th, 26th), at the Crocker Art Museum.

Spam of the day:

Account Name : ANDREW FARRINGTON
Account Number : [redacted]
IMPORTANT – YOUR PAYMENT CARD IS NEARING ITS EXPIRY DATE

Weird, why would you send something for Andrew Farrington to me? Then again, this might not be spam, but the latest in a long line of Other Garies Tyrrell sending their emails my way. Usually that’s easy to clear up, but I’ve had to resort to using the British tech press to shame Ryanair over their persistent screwups. Fun!