Here’s some more that are coming out in the next few weeks, that you may get in your orders and enjoy.

• We at Fleen have, I believe, been in the tank for John Allison since small times, as the saying goes. He has nary an idea that isn’t going to be amusing as hell, ranging from droll wordplay to flat-out hilarity and back again, frequently on the same page. For much of the past couple of years, he’s let loose with his wilder instincts for absolutely unrestrained stories via Steeple (both in print and in the online continuation).

  Furthermore, throughout his long history of Tackleverse comic-making, he’s found individual characters around whom others accrete and orbit, by which manner all manner of stories may be hung: Shelley Winters, Esther de Groot, Charlotte Grote; by complete coincidence, each of these has been my favorite character of his in turn, often trading the role back and forth and one or another is given pride of place.

  Of late, he’s collided La Grote and The Ginger Ninja with Steeple in Author Unknown and it is a marvel, but come August we’ll get the second Steeple trade, collecting the The Silvery Moon and Secret Sentai story arcs. Mayhap if we’re good, we’ll soon get a third collection, with Christmas With Clovis and the currently-running Author Unknown.

• A little closer to the present day, which is to say the 22nd of June, we’ll see not one but two new releases from :01 Books, which always makes for a good day. The first is from Mike Holmes (at press time, his site appeared to be down, so here’s his Twitter), who’s been making excellent comics with other folks for about forever, but now gets to stretch his legs and show us his solo work.

  My Own World is about being a kid, about not feeling in control, about finding a place where you can be in control, but maybe lacking the meaning of the (so-called?) Real World. It sounds like an up-aged version of Vera Brosgol’s Memory Jars, which should allow for some amazing storytelling and visuals. Introducing a middle grade reader to the concept of there being things that you can’t control and that’s not a tragedy is going to be a tightrope to walk, but I’ve got complete confidence that Holmes will be able to navigate it.

  And perhaps taking a similar tack to My Own World, Nidhi Chanani will be following up her superlative Pashmina with Jukebox, a time travel story about music, searching for meaning (and also your parents), and how life changes (or maybe doesn’t) from decade to decade.

  Readers may recall that my chief complaint with Pashmina was that it deserved about 50 more pages to really delve into the magical-realist conceit, and it looks like Chanani will get that here; time traveling via magic jukebox to the eras of beloved songs offers at least as much room for exploration as finding the history of your family through a shared article of clothing.

  Plus, a) the world needs more books centering brown girls, and b) Chanani has a love of vinyl that impressed former college DJ me, so I think there’s going to be a lot of factual and emotional authenticity for readers to dig into here. Plus, her work is always just so joybringing, even when tinged with fear or melancholy — there’s a natural exuberance to her characters that works really well in the long form.

Steeple: The Silvery Moon releases 4 August to comic shops and two weeks later to bookstores. My Own World and Jukebox both release 22 June to bookstores. The former is highly recommended based on previously-released web content, and the latter pair based on the prior work of the creators. They’re gonna be good, folks.

Spam of the day:

Hi, Would you like a free article for your websit? I’d like to put something together that offers advice to prospective entrepreneurs who’ve experienced past financial setbacks on how they can get their dream business up and running.

My websit is just fine without your fake-ass motivational bullshit. If you knew how to be an awesome entrepreneur, you’d be doing that instead of trying to convince people you know how to do that.

It’s just coming too fast at us. Here’s what we’ve got:

• TCAF and VanCAF are, for now, not cancelled or postponed; they’re a bit further out than other events and we may have a better idea in a few weeks what the finally-got-their-ass-in-gear actions being taken now have accomplished. From the combined statement:
  

  The health and the well-being of everyone involved is our paramount concern. We are closely monitoring updates from Centres of Disease Control, Emergency Management Agencies, the Public Health Agency of Canada, local health agencies, and other official sources for the latest risk assessment. At the time of writing (March 11, 2020), public health officials in Canada have assessed that the risk of COVID-19 transmission remains low, and they have specifically not requested that events be cancelled. We encourage individuals to seek direct updates from public health officials going forward. Regular updates from the Public Health Agency of Canada are being posted on their official website.

  We encourage creators to make the best choices for themselves, and weigh the pros and cons of any actions. If exhibitors at either show wish to cancel their participation, they may do so and receive a refund of table fees. We only ask that exhibitors please contact the appropriate email address (info@vancaf.com or registration@torontocomics.com) as soon as possible to allow us to open up space on our waitlist. If you are exhibiting but unsure of your travel arrangements, please plan accordingly and book flexible travel options that will allow you to cancel or postpone with minimal financial penalty.

  Closing mass gatherings that are happening now and for the next few weeks is the best we can do, and to quote an epidemiologist I saw online today, now is the absolute most uncertain time about what’s going to happen next; a month ago or a month from now, the effects of current actions would have been/will be much more predictable. One day at a time, folks.

• You know what you don’t need to venture out into the world to get? Webcomics. Gene Luen Yang has had to 86 his book tour for Dragon Hoops (proper review coming soon), so he’s doing one virtually on The Grams. Here’s the talk about the coach that inspired him to make the book, here’s a book trailer, here’s Yang learning the history of basketball, and the latest is about athletes, superheros, and writing for DC. The two most recent have reader questions, and Yang wants you not only to submit your own questions, but also tell him what cosplay to draw you in. He’s a rad guy.
• More webcomics! John Allison may be on pause from the Tackleverse at the moment (at least until the Charlotte Grote miniseries hits comic shops next week), but he’s doing an epilogue to his last comic series — the very, very good Steeple — online for the next bit. If you didn’t read Steeple, a) what’s wrong with you, and 2) it’s the story of Billie, a young priest who finds herself in a remote seaside town where the local Satanists are only the fourth or fifth biggest challenge to her faith. It’s really good. You can get the extra comics that will run in the back of the collected trade (out in May) starting here, and a successor series, The Silvery Moon, will run here through summer. MWF updates, first four up now.
• For those new to the working away from all humans deal, Beth Barnett is doing a diary comic on social distancing, which is the term you want to search for on her Twitterfeed. If you enjoy it (you will), drop her some thanks, compare notes on lifting, or (if you’re brave and have time) inquire as to her feelings on the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Oh, and visit her store! Good stuff there.

Spam of the day:

Your Card has been temporarily suspended.

Call me suspicious, but I kiiiinda doubt that American Express would be emailing me from @wecome.xjez.com. Also, if you’re going to copy the text from an actual AmEx email that says Your account information is included above to help you recognize this as a customer care e-mail from American Express, you maybe might want to include something that looks like account information? Even just a name and a fake first-and-last digits card number? Oh, and you might want to get rid of the boilerplate text that says We kindly ask you not to reply to this e-mail but instead contact us via Customer Care. You really suck at this.

There are few people that crank out comics to the same degree as Rich Stevens; based on the very simple counter method he uses to name his strips, there are 940 strips in the current iteration of DS, and an even 4000 before the site redesign. That 940th strip is a little unusual, though, since it’s from yesterday and no new 941st has appeared yet. Stevens has certainly taken a step back from M-F to M-W-F updates when he’s under crunch time and/or vacation¹, but he generally lets us know what’s up.

Then again, considering what’s up, I’m inclined to give him a pass:

i want to name her “baby yoda” but i think i’m going to get outvoted

she’s six months old. rescued out of a hoarder situation. very sweet. other doggy has to learn to be with her, but we’re optimistic. this might be her first blanket. name pending.

Olive AKA Doctor Olivia AKA Princess Tapenade

thunder was anxious at first, but right now they are both mangling balls in sight of each other. thunder actually PLAYED WITH HER in the snow!

Thunder has never successfully made a dog friend to play with before today. This is a Cyber Monday MIRACLE.

Dogs are the best. That is all.

• I had already started writing this post when the news broke; ordinarily, this would have been the top story, but I was too lazy to shift Rich’s dog down here to the unnumbered list zone, so I’ll make it up by using this one for the picture up top. New John Allison comic series, y’all! Paired up with Max Sarin again! The return of Charlotte Grote:
  

  In March 2020, Boom! Studios debuts Wicked Things, a limited series starring teen detective Charlotte “Lottie” Grote, now an adult navigating a twisty new crime plot.

  That from the inestimable Oliver Sava at The AV Club, along with an interview with Allison and Sarin, which I advise you to place directly into your veins at the first available opportunity. When Allison, et al, wrapped Giant Days, there was a possibility that some day he would revisit Tackleford and its denizens, but I hadn’t expected it quite so soon, nor to feature my favorite character of his.

  And, lest we forget, Giant Days started as a six-issue miniseries, expanded to twelve, and then to more than 50; Wicked Things is described as a six issue limited series, and while I will absolutely demand nothing, I can’t help but notice the parallels. Lottie was last seen in June of 2018², her last year at Griswalds Grammar School destroyed by Mildred’s meddling in Things That Should Not Be Meddled With. Now she’s 19, university in her sights, and off to further mysteries. I am 100% here for it, and encourage you all to join me on what is sure to be a wild ride.

• Longterm readers of this page may recall that despite the rise of webcomics portals, we at Fleen are strong proponents of having your own website that you control. You never know when a site you don’t control will decided that every damn image in the universe is porn, pooch up its terms of service, or break everything. Every. thing:
  

  the smackjeeves update has landed. everyone please go to https://smackjeeves.com/discover/detail?titleNo=147115&articleNo=255 and laugh hysterically

  Note that as of this writing, that article is showing an error; presumably, they’ve yanked it down because of issues such as:

  no button for “first” or “most recent” page. html stripped from page captions. no comic title at the top of the page. soulless design. no redirect to the new site from its original smackjeeves url. no easy link to the “about” section, which is crammed in a corner. hideous archive

  just uses the comic cover for every page in the archive rather than a thumb of the page itself. literally no way to link outside of smackjeeves. literally nothing on the author bio other than your name and a link to your comic.

  no mass editing of pages :) all previous page captions changed to comments rather than captions :)

  figured out what happened to the page captions – if you had written it in the “author comment” section, it became a regular comment. if you had added alt text to the page, that is now the page caption. also captions are now max 400 characters

  max width for pages seems to now be 690px

  new page captions also wont allow for new lines

  Y I K E S. Let this serve as your periodic reminder that nobody will ever care about your stuff more than you care about your stuff, and that the best thing you can go is — I love this — do yourself a small favour if you can and host your comic like it’s 2006 again THEN cut it up and mirror it elsewhere.

  And hey, not for nothing, but 2006 is probably a bit early. Pretend it’s 2012, that’s still before Google Reader was unceremoniously killed and we slipped into the worst timeline.

Spam of the day:

We buy homes 4 Cash

First, stay the hell away from my home, you freak. Second, Gmail assured me that this message was in Japanese, and when I translated, heck if cheesy clipart of a home and a stack of money being offered up in open palms didn’t appear. Weird.

_______________
¹ I’m not sure he distinguishes between the two states.

² The final Bad Machinery story, Wen-Tack/The Great Unboxing, is only found at Wayback Machine; Allison hasn’t included it on his main site.

Busy weekend.

• There’s a strip and a half that launched today — half because Bad Machinëry is a continuation of John Allison’s Tackleford Stories, albeit with a “three years later” prepended. Who is this young protagonist that we see? And might his older sister be Charlotte Grote? There’s a similarity there, but I’m not sure. Dang, one update and already I’m hooked by the mystery. Anybody that goes to SPX this weekend (alas, I can’t make it), tell Allison I said, “Well done, good sir!” No improvising, use those exact words only.
• The whole launch, natcherly, would be the hinted-at Paul Southworth/Bill Barnes collaboration, Not Invented Here; it’s not a spinoff of Unshelved, but since we’re in Crossover, Ahoy! territory this week, they at least share a reality (and longtime readers of this page will recall the dangers inherent in such situations). Let’s hear what the writer has to say on the subject:
  

  Since Gene Ambaum and I first created Unshelved, a comic strip drawn from Gene’s experiences as a librarian, people have asked me why I didn’t start a comic strip based on my two decades in the software business. After several false starts it’s finally ready.

  This time around I wanted to write, not draw. I was lucky enough to snag one of my favorite cartoonists, Paul Southworth. Paul is one of the most talented and respected artists in the business, and also a really funny and sweet guy.

  Not Invented Here by Bill Barnes and Paul Southworth runs Monday through Thursday every week. I hope you enjoy it as much as you enjoy Unshelved, and I also hope you’ll tell your friends about both strips.

  (Speaking of which, don’t worry: Gene and I will continue to make Unshelved untli the heat-death of the Universe or until it stops supporting us, whichever comes first.)

  So that’s all right then — I get Southworth on strippin’ four days a week, Barnes gets another project to keep him busy (and trust me — this is not a dude you want to have free time if you value your sanity), and the computer programming demographic (and surely, the computer-savvy nerd demo is underserved at the moment) gets another webcomic, and we’re all happy “untli” the inevitable killing spree. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts, kids!

• Speaking of kids enjoying things, by all accounts the immediate vicinity of Columbus, Ohio had its face rocked off on Saturday by the WEXTRAVAGANZA ( ZA Za za za), which is a much better name than that “It’s Wedding!” thing I came up with. Let’s share a little excerpt of the actual wedding ceremony of David Willis and Maggie Weidner:
  

  May this union be blessed, and may the seven seas echo with tales of your love wherever the Jolly Roger flies. Your fleets are now one, and its sails have unfurled. You may both kiss.

  SMOOCH-O-RAMA

  Fellow pirates, scalliwags, rascals, and buccaneers, I am honored to present Admirals David and Maggie Willis as husband and wife. Yo ho ho, me hearties!

  CANNONS FIRE

  Also, there was gun violence in the middle of the rite. Awesome. Congratulations, you crazy pirate-lovin’ wackos!

Sick, people, sick!

• Whoops, there’s mini-Grote … had I been paying closer attention, I might have noticed the characters introduced on Monday and Tuesday in Bad Machinëry are the crime-busting youths of Tackleford; with Shauna and Charlotte now present, it appears that BM has settled into a secondary school story (as much of SGR was in the last couple of years, with Esther and The Boy being so prominent). Anybody know how long university lasts in England — if we’re three years on, maybe the older generation are about done with their schoolin’.
• Got my copy of xkcd volume 0 in the mail yesterday; plenty of randomness in the marginalia — page numbers in various bases, code snippets and clues, puzzles o’ plenty to be solved. Me, I plan on sitting back and letting others crack ’em and post their solutions because I’m a lazy, lazy man (but, in my defense, no less a genius than Chuck Jones noted that it takes a smart person to get away with being lazy). Maybe the most interesting part of xv0 is the lack of the traditional copyright page; in its place is a Creative Commons page, with a Attribution-Noncommerical 3.0 Unported license.
• Curiously enough, this is only one of two books I read last night with such language up front, the other being the first collection of The Glass Urchin by Amy Bogin (who goes by “Ami B.” online), which features an Attribution-Noncommerical-Share Alike 3.0 license. Given that so many webcomickers are releasing strips that appear online for free, I wonder if this will become a trend. Anyhoo, the book debuts at SPX this weekend (thanks for the advance copy, Ami!), which means that I know how the next five strips that will run online will go, because they’re included here. I get to see them and you have to wait, moo ha ha ha.