From Andrew Rothery (who you may remember from here) approximately 20 minutes ago:

After fifteen years, one week, and a day, Michael Payne has chosen to bring his webcomic Daily Grind to a close. A special farewell update went up on Monday, and The Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge is officially over as of Tuesday, March 10th. Andrew Rothery, whose strip TRU-Life Adventures happens to turn nineteen on Thursday, March 12th, is the winner.

Cue the Robert Downey Jr. video clips.

A moment of silence, if you will, for the last of the valiant competitors. Ave.

Update to add: Just saw that Payne commented to this effect two days ago, making Fleen officially the breaking source of this news. Go, us.

I got an email t’other day, one that I can’t say I ever expected to receive. It’s worth quoting in full:

This coming Friday, February 28th, marks fifteen years of the venerable Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge. Michael H. Payne’s Daily Grind and my own TRU-Life Adventures are still updating every weekday. Thought it might make a nice bullet point for you, maybe down in Spam of the Day.

That from Andrew Rothery, and therein, friends, lies a tale. If you’re new around here, you may not recall the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge, a thing so old that its website has long since lapsed and been staked out by domain squatters¹. A thing so old that our first, offhand mention was in 2007, when it was assumed anybody reading this page would just know what we meant. Since that was a long damn time ago, let us recap:

In February of 2005, the denizens of a message board decided to see who could maintain a Mon-Fri daily webcomic schedule longest. There were rules: No posting of sketches, two panels minimum (but you could do a single-panel update every ten strips), your update must go up by midnight PST, and if your hosting went down you had to post somewhere by deadline and let people know where to find it. The contest would start 28 Feb 2005, it cost US$20 to buy in, and the last person standing got the pot, which amounted to US$112 (next to last would get the money raised from site ads, last thought to be about US$135).

There were names that you’d recognize in there: Natasha Allegri, Jennie Breeden, Tom McHenry, Scott Kurtz, John Campbell², Phil McAndrew. People that were prominent webcomickers and then weren’t and then were again: Steve Troop, Greg Dean, DJ Coffman. Ed Brisson, who is writing at half the comic book publishers, was one of the referees. Ali Graham does media marketing now; Dean Trippe teaches kids how to make comics.

By the time this blog started, half the field had been eliminated; heck, even Chris Crosby, who is presently on year twenty one of Superosity, was out by November of 2005. Seven remained at the five year mark; there were only three remaining at the end of 2014 (among them the very sexy Brad Guigar³) and only two on the 10th anniversary (Guigar ran three days worth of single panels close out the old year and ring in the new).

And there they have sat for the past five years: Payne and Rothery, here on the last day of Year Fifteen, ready for the first day of Year Sixteen tomorrow, continuing on out os a sense of pride and sheer cussedness. At this pint, I imagine it’ll be one of the two claiming the big purse and the estate of the other getting the small purse. Or, alternately, they both decide to celebrate having reached the milestone by getting blind drunk tonight, and both accidentally sleep through updating tomorrow, leading to a dual disqualification; after all, you can’t spell irony without Iron.

Spam of the day:

This coming Friday, February 28th, marks fifteen years of the venerable Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge. Michael H. Payne’s Daily Grind and my own TRU-Life Adventures are still updating every weekday. Thought it might make a nice bullet point for you, maybe down in Spam of the Day.

We aim to please.

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¹ The oldest instance of which was April of last year with an asking price of US$1888. Today’s asking price has gone up to US$94,888 which seems a tad unrealistic.

² That’s a sad story, one of bad choices and brain chemistry gone wrong.

³ At the start of the IMDGC, you’d have been hard pressed to find a stronger advocate of regularity in posting schedule than Guigar. Take a listen to him on ComicLab these days, it’s the furthest thing from a priority for him. Time changes us all.

Alliteration, too. Let’s jump in.

• I first started reading Jennie Breeden’s non-Satanic, non-porn autobio strip, The Devil’s Panties, way the hell in the past. Maybe 2002? 2003? I’d been a reader for years before she tipped me off to A Girl And Her Fed¹, and that was 2006 so somewhere in there. I’ve followed a post-college career, time working in a comic shop², dating, pirates, breakups, marriage, family, a cross-country move, kilt-blowing, and now pregnancy and imminent childbirth (the real life corresponding event being some two years in the past by now).

  Although she exited the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge after about two years (and let’s not forget that the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge site itself is no longer operational, but that the last two contestants continue on, 14.5 years on from the start), she’s been putting strips up like clockwork since.

  As of today, for eighteen damn years:

  Guys… guys, my comic is 18 today. It needs to move out or start paying rent.

  The start was understated, and today’s strip takes approximately zero time to acknowledge the strip’s birthday. That’s just the way it is with daily autobio — no time to gloat, tomorrow’s strip is due. Happy Strippiversary, Jennie, Obby, Devil Girl, Angel Girl, Pretty Pretty Princess, and Small Child To Be Named Later.

• Hey, whatcha doing tomorrow? If you’re around Boston, you could be seeing science-comics types in conversation at Porter Square Books in Cambridge:
  

  We interrupt these Inktober posts with an important announcement: I’ll be doing another awesome Science Comics event with @toonyballoony @Zackules and @jasonviola at @PorterSqBooks this Wednesday October 9th 7 PM!!

  That from Maris Wicks, who’s done books on coral reefs and the human body, and paired up with Jim Ottaviani for books on women on the leading edge of primate research, and women on the leading edge of space exploration (the latter coming in February). Oh, and she’s also done nature cartoons from the middle of the sea, the edge of a frozen continent, and the heart of the city.

  Alex Graudins illustrated a book about Reginald Barkley and also the human brain, and an upcoming book on the Great Chicago Fire (due next June). Zack Giallongo and Jason Viola teamed up to teach us about polar bears, and Viola has also chosen a manatee and an amoeba as stars of other comics. They’re all there because of their association with the :01 Books Science Comics line, which remains an excellent way to spend your time and money. The talk starts at 7:00pm, next to the Porter Square stop on the MTA.

• Finally, the latest from Kickstarter United, ways that you can help their efforts to make Kickstarter see the sense of recognizing the union:
  

  Make your opinion heard:

  • email Kickstarter’s senior leadership:
  • kickstarter-sot[at]kickstarterunited.org
  • post your support using #RecognizeKSRU
  • post a picture showing your solidarity and tag @ksr_united
  • download a version of our logo to use as your icon on Kickstarter, Twitter, and anywhere else
  • back projects that show solidarity with Kickstarter United
  • have another idea? get in touch!

  Show solidarity on your project page:

  • add #RecognizeKSRU to your project title or subtitle
  • include a note of solidarity at the top of your campaign text
  • download a solidarity badge to add to your project image
  • post a project update to rally your backers

  For reference? While both logos are nice and eye-catching if somebody is looking at your Kickstarter profile page, the white one is easier to read if it’s showing as an avatar, say on a comments page³. Just sayin’.

Spam of the day:

Senior Discounts|The Complete List Of Senior Citizen Discounts nice senior

I am, despite my desire for you durn kids to stay off my lawn, not yet a senior citizen. And I can assure you that when I become one, I will not be a nice senior.

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¹ When I did the foreword for the first AGAHF collection, I mentioned coming to the comic via Ms Breeden, and Otter gave me crap about pimping another comic in her book. So we’re square now, right?

² Oxford, which is a very good shop that I make sure to visit whenever I’m in Atlanta.

³ Oh, and while it’s nothing to do with webcomics, please look at that project page for ceratopsian action figures and pledge up the total to somewhere around US$450K in the next week, please. It has to hit that funding level to unlock the full-size Triceratops horridus (stretch goal #20). I have the sub-adult trike figure pledged, along with a Zunicertaops christopheri (each of which is approximately the size of my BONE Stupid Rat Creature, if you disregard the tail), but I need that full size critter (approximately the size of Kingdok, again neglecting the tail) if at all possible. Thank you.

Blast, meet past. From the mailbag:

Even though the Crown Commission website went offline late last year, and the domain expired in early February, the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge continues. Tuesday, February 28th, 2017 marked the 12th anniversary of this round of madness.

For the record, there are still two people in it: Michael H. “Daily Grind” Payne and Andrew “TRU-Life Adventures” Rothery.

That courtesy of Rothery himself, in a note misleadingly titled Minor webcomic milestone; for those too young to remember, once upon a time (before this page even launched), a whole damn bunch of webcomcikers — some of whom have become pretty damn famous — each kicked in US$20 in a bet to see who could update daily the longest without missing an update¹.

Almost immediately, people started dropping out; by the end of year one half the field was gone². After three years, three out of four competitors were done, and half of those were absent by the start of year five.

The ten year anniversary saw but two remaining (Brad Guigar’s update patterns changed around New Year’s Day 2015, making him the last competitor to finish out of the money), and so we stay to this day. Either Payne or Rothery will win this thing one day, taking home US$1120 (and eternal bragging rights); the other will take home the funds raised by advertising, last noted to be US$135 (and also the ignominy of being First Loser).

Should you come across either in the days and months to come, be sure to congratulate them, and understand that at this point neither will give up for any reason short of death. Fleen congratulates both Rothery and Payne, and assures you that whatever else you manage in life, this longevity in webcomicking will be in the first paragraph of your respective obituaries.

Spam of the day:

CONTROVERSIAL REJECTION-PROOF TRICK FOR SEDUCING WOMEN
Women need to feel in control. So when they lack that feeling, they get NERVOUS. And that is exactly why they want this technique BANNED.

Okay, a) Your shitty MRA cheat code is not a free pass into the pants of ladies. To quote the indispensable Randy Milholland, no one owes you access to their body. And II) Your shitty MRA cheat code is not something that can be banned, exactly how stupid do you think the people you’re trying to sell this crap to are? Oh, wait, I think I just answered my own question.

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¹ There were rules to determine what counted as an update, and what to do in case of site outage, and how many days could be missed based on your strip’s schedule.

² Including, in a shocker, cartooning machine Chris Crosby.

I mean, I was going to title this We Stand On Guard, but that would refer to all of our Great Northern Neighbor, not just their premiere city. Anyway, stuff about Toronto coming up. The Toronto Comics Art Festival — TCAF, for those in the know — is coming up in about eight weeks time and I will continue my unfortunate streak of missing one of the great shows. This year it’s because I have a niece getting married the same weekend, and comics be damned, I love her more. But if you’re going, you can see some neat stuff.

• On the official end of things, TCAF showrunner Chris Butcher recently announced a new partnership for TCAF that sounds intriguing:
  

  The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is proud to announce a brand new partnership with the Lakes International Comic Arts Festival (LICAF)! They are bringing a who’s-who group of the UK’s finest cartoonists to TCAF 2015, including Featured Guest Hunt Emerson!

  While TCAF has gone all over the world to promote and proselytize to folks about the amazing work being done by Canadian cartoonists (at events like the Kaigai Manga Festa in Japan, or the Angoulême Festival in France), this is the first time we are engaging in an honest-to-goodness cultural exchange. This year, LICAF are bringing seven fantastic cartoonists from the United Kingdom, with TCAF bringing our own cavalcade of Canadian creators to LICAF in October!

  TCAF have been instrumental in setting the pattern of public space-based, free, comics festivals, to the point that the CAF suffix tells you you’re looking at a show that’s probably worth your time¹. To see a formal partnership (possibly the first of many) just reinforces the value of TCAF and the likelihood of more good, local shows around the world. Well done Mr Butcher and the organizers of LICAF.

• While you’re at TCAF, you might pick up a copy of an anthology where the unifying theme — you might even say the central character — is the city of Toronto itself. The first Toronto Comics Anthology released last year, with a dozen stories about the city from some reasonably unheralded creators (the only one that I recognized was Christopher Bird of Al’Rashad, who wrote five pieces, some of which can be seen here and here). The new volume will launch at TCAF, with twenty new stories; several titles have already caught my eye, including Welcome to Turdberg and The Toronto Patty Wars of 1985. If you’re going to TCAF, pick it up and tell me if I’m misplaced in my interest (I’m not).
• Via Heidi Mac at The Beat, news of this year’s Cartoonist Studio Prize nominees, presented by Slate and The Center for Cartoon Studies. As noted in prior years (this is the third), the CSP is unique in that it’s got two categories — one for graphic novels, one for webcomics — and that’s all. Winners in each category get US$1000, and there’s an intriguing blend of familiar and new works on both sides of the aisle.

  Part of what I like best about the shortlist is the variety of work on the webcomics side; there’s everything from the weekly Oh Joy, Sex Toy to investigative cartooning to shortform personal experience to the obligatory Emily Carroll. Special congrats to Jillian Tamaki for being nominated in both categories for This One Summer and SuperMutant Magic Academy. Winners will be announced on 6 April.

• Man, I went and had dinner with Brad Guigar last night and I didn’t notice that he’d been recently bounced from the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge, now going on for ten freakin’ years? I suck. Also, apropos of nothing, that author’s pic of Guigar on the DGIC page is terrible. He’s much more handsome than that, as anybody who actually tore their eyes away from the photo up top can attest. Somebody get on that².

Spam of the day:
Seu fotógrafo privado irá acompanhá-lo em sua próxima turnê.
Yeah, no. This is one of those deals where the “private photographer” ends up selling everything to one of those revenge porn sites. I ain’t falling for that again.

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¹ For now at least; if it becomes as widespread and genericized as “Comic[-]Con”, it may not mean much.

² Get on supplying a new pic to the Daily Grind thing, not get on Brad. Jeez, people, get your minds out of the gutter.

Sometimes things pop into your head out of nowhere; for example, last night I suddenly and inexplicably found myself wondering, How’s that Iron Man thing going? Time, flies, arrow, banana, etc.

• For those youngsters out there, The Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge is one of the enduring traditions of webcomics; launched nearly a full year before this here blog, it sought to answer the question How long can a webcomic creator go without missing a regular update? Those looking for bragging rights ponied up an entrance fee of US$20, and last creator standing gets the pot, minus contributions to the CBLDF and the HERO Initiative (originally the ACTOR Comic Fund). 56 creators entered (including such longrunners as Jennie Breeden, Chris Cosby, and Scott Kurtz, as well as superstars like Natasha Allegri).

  Three (maybe four; there was a question about 18 months back about a possible disqualification that doesn’t seem to have been resolved) competitors — including Brad Guigar, who doesn’t even look like his official competitor portrait anymore¹ — remain in the running, more than five hundred weeks and 2500 updates² after the start of the competition. I’d ordinarily suggest maybe the remaining three (four?) Iron Men declare a mutual satisfaction and walk away splitting the money, but anybody that’s managed a minimum of five updates a week with no skips for almost ten years (mark your calendars for the week of 9 February, it’s gonna be awesome) isn’t going to take split the pot like gentlemen as an option.

• Never part of the TDGIMC (as near as I can tell), Ryan Estrada nevertheless has reason to contemplate the passage of years today, as it’s his birthday. I note that his latest creative endeavour — Poorcraft: Wish You Were Here — has passed the two-thirds funding mark over on Kickstarter. Maybe we get there by the start of next week, Spike reveals some of the (as yet secret) stretch goals? Yeah, it’s a little shameless, launching a Kickstart the same week two of the principals have birthdays, thus making it easier to prey on your emotions. That’s life in webcomics, and neither Estrada nor Spike are above using every trick at their disposal to make a project succeed. May as well give ’em the five bucks, they’ll wear you down eventually anyway³.

Spam of the day:

Following that, the President and Prime Minister joined the First Lady and Vice President in a St Patrick’s Day Reception at the White House for the one year anniversary of vintage shop Byronesque

I must be tired — I read that as the vintage shop Bronyesque and then I shuddered.

_______________

¹ Brad, update your competitor’s bio picture, please. You’re so much more handsome than you were. Then again, a Google Image Search for “similar pictures” lists a portrait of Jack Kirby as the first match so maybe just keep it? Then again, when you search for “Brad Guigar on GIS, you don’t see that Kirbyesque bit, but you do see pictures like this, to which I can only say Yowza.

² For reference, I wrote about the competitors reaching 200 weeks and 1000 updates in 2008.

³ All hail our new international leaders.

There are certain habits you have to have to keep up with as many webcomics as I keep up with¹ — some things get read when the RSS updates, some you wait for the trade (more often because it’s a story that reads better that way), and some you drop in on from time to time to see what’s going on, since you know they’ll be there for a good long time.

Case in point: Arthur, King of Time and Space by Paul Gadzikowski. Launched with a plan to run daily for 25 years² (which wound up being reduced considerably, but still planned to run from 2004 to 2017, which is a damn healthy run), reaching the 75% mark in the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge³ (having outlasted the likes of Dean Trippe, John Campbell, Scott Kurtz, Greg Dean, Phil McAndrew, Chris Crosby (!), Natasha Allegri, Steve Troop, Tom McHenry, and Jennie Breeden), AKOTAS was just going to always be there.

Except it’s not anymore; thanks to lazugod for the link to Tuesday’s strip:

[transcribed from the comic]

The Monday before Thanksgiving it was announced in this space that the hiatus period that’s been going on would end at the first of the year. Perhaps you didn’t notice that it didn’t actually say anything was going to follow.

[M]y wife and I have been going through a major life transition since, in retrospect, August.

The time and effort of producing a daily webcomic of any quality in one’s off hours effectively constitutes having a second part-time job. I’ve reached a time when I don’t know whether I can do that again; when, unfortunately but importantly, I don’t want to do that again.

But I’m not going to allow AKOTAS to go out on hiatus format cartoons. There’s about a week’s proper cartoons coming to wrap things up.

Life transition is perhaps too kind a term; were I Gadzikowski and his wife I’d be using words like fuck cancer, but it’s evident that they have both far more poise than I would in this situation, undoubtedly a side effect of having far more experience in this situation than I would wish on anybody. Given the choice: a second part-time job, done for free, to entertain strangers on the internet vs help my wife deal with tumors that have metastasized to her lungs and brain?

That is not even a choice. Which is why the last bit of the explanation from Tuesday reveals exactly what a class act Gadzikowski is:

Sorry about the mess. Thanks for reading.

Never apologize to us, Paul. Thanks for letting us read. At whatever point in time it doesn’t impact the well-being of your family and the muse strikes you, we’ll be here to read whatever you might share with us.

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¹ The first being, recognizing that you will never read more than a bare fraction of what’s out there.

² A plan so broad in scope that it’s really only matched by Dave Sim announcing at the very beginning that Cerebus would run for 300 issues, which is exactly what wound up happening. Please note, however, that Sim is batshit insane whereas Gadzikowski seems to offend people about as often as Mr Rogers.

³ Which, by the way, has now been running for 3231 days.

So it’s approximately the Fleeniversary ’round these parts; the official announcement of my entrée into semi-abusive opinion-mongering occurred in the old Goats forums on 22 December 2005, but I’d been banking postings as far back as 5 December, and was really into the daily posting routine (even though nobody was reading yet) around the 15th or so. Which is a long way of saying — today is as close to seven years of what the masthead calls The webcomics blog about webcomics as you’re gonna get.

If I’ve got all my dates right, at this time seven years ago Jon Rosenberg¹ was not yet staring down 40 and had never changed a diaper. Seven years ago, people were somewhat more justified in thinking that Yuko Ota was in her early teens. Seven years ago, Jeff Rowland had proved himself unkillable by mere killer spiders and had started the great and vast TopatoCo Empire, even tangling with weird t-shirt company perverts.

So many of the tools and services we take for granted in webcomics were missing; at that time, there was no Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Kickstarter, Project Wonderful, or :01 Books. Seven years ago, George Rohac had not yet sprung fully formed from the forehead of Zeus.

Return to Sender had only been on hiatus for a year, TCAF had only started to conquer the world, Commissioner James Gordon Hastings had not been whelped, the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge had been going for less than a year, we had only just met Dan McNinja’s moustache, and the Great Outdoor Fight was still a month away from its stealthy beginnings, and further from its legendary majesty.

Rich Stevens was exactly the same, endless and unchanging, save only he is now married and likes dogs.

They say seven years in is when you get tired of things, but I have to say, I still enjoy the heck out all of this, so I hope you’ll join me as I start Year Eight of working out my thoughts on various matters — mostly webcomics, but no promises — where you can hear them. Also, if you happen to be in north/central New Jersey tomorrow, do drop by to see the webcomickers at Wild Pig Comics from noon to 4:00pm, won’t you?

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¹ Who, Svengali-like, planted the seeds in my head and made them bear the desired brainfruit that I should be writing all of this stuff.

Slow, but awesome. We’ll just put a few things here and call it good.

• There were webcartoonists at this weekend’s NCS Reuben Awards, and lo it was good. Dave Kellett, Kate Beaton, and Kris Straub all gave their takes on the evening’s goings-on, with Scott C contributing both semiphotobombery and a killer sketch of Scott Kurtz (seriously, Scott’s drawings of people look more like those people than the people themselves do). For deeper analysis, Straub had some pretty inspiring thoughts; it was terrific to watch all of this happen (at a distance), and it’s thrilling to see that the long Print vs Web cold war has had its Nixon goes to China moment. Things only get better from here.
• Speaking of Kate Beaton (which one cannot do too often), Drawn and Quaterly has released the cover of her next book, due in October. It’s pretty.
• Correction to a post last week — I remarked that there were five contenders left in the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge, which turns out not to be correct. Michael Payne has pointed out that although Mike Stevens is still listed as in the running on the main DGIMC page, in the forums it is confirmed that Stevens fell out of the competition on 19 May. We at Fleen regret the error and congratulate the four remaining competitors: Payne, Andrew Rothery, R Smith, and Brad “Ladies, Please, He’s Taken!” Guigar. One may note at this time that the remaining four could opt to split the prize money and still come out more than ten times ahead of their original $20 buy-in.

I’m gonna make this quick, because it’s a holiday weekend starting. Gonna get me some prime cuts of meat from my favorite restarauteurs, do some damn grilling¹. Don’t expect an update on Monday, I’ll be doing the parade thing with my EMT cohorts.

In the meantime, one tiny little followup for you, one that I’m slightly surprised by. I tossed out an idea for a Machine of Death 2 story, and I’ve gotten feedback that cracks are being taken at it, including from one of the five remaining contestants in the Daily Grind Ironman Challenge. I am very much looking forward to reading anything that y’all come up with, and positively giddy that something developed from my little brainbomb might (probably not, let’s be realistic, there’s a lot of entrants) make it into MoD2.

And with that, I’m outta here. Enjoy the long weekend, everybody!

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¹ Lump charcoal 4 lyfe, yo.