The webcomics blog about webcomics

Submitted [Almost] Without Comment

I believe that I am well on record that Raina Telgemeier is the most important person working in comics today, and if the industry wants to really grow they should be watching everything she does and emulating it. I thought she’d reached a pinnacle when she had three books on the New York Times Bestseller List, then specifically the top three slots on the list¹.

Pfft, old news.

As her publisher, Scholastic, noted via tweet earlier today, Telgemeier has added the first of the reissued-in-color Baby-Sitters Club books to the list, meaning she now owns the top four positions all by her lonesome².

I am through being astonished, and will no longer be surprised at anything Telgemeier manages to pull off.

If I remember a-right, the BSC books are being re-released at six month intervals, which should mean that we’re never more than half a year from something new with Raina’s name on the cover between now and her next original graphic novel in 2017. Could the entire four-book BSC stay on the list along with the other three? To be (inevitably) joined by that next OGN? Could we actually see between five and eight Raina Telgemeier titles hogging the NYTBSL, to the point where — in order to maintain any relevance — it’s repurposed as a list of the best selling paperback graphic novels specifically not by Raina Telgemeier? No bets, my friends, no bets.

Fleen congratulates Telgemeier and reminds an industry that lurches spasmodically from line-wide-crossover-that-changes-everything to line-wide-crossover-that-re-changes-everything: this woman is single-handedly eating your lunch, half of your dinner, and is in the process of repossessing your coffee machine and all the good snacks. Adapt or die.


Reminder: Next week is my internet hiatus. I’ll be back online and posting again on the 18th.

Spam of the day:

Yes! Finally something about Michael Kors.

Weirdly, although I have mentioned His Orangeness several times over Fleen’s history, including once within the past two weeks, this particular spam was left on a post that didn’t mention Kors at all. Feel free to insert a paraphrase of Kirk telling Khan that he keeps … missing … the target.

¹ Since then, the order has been shifting back and forth, but Smile, Drama, and Sisters have been holding strong.

² Rest of the list? Cece Bell (El Deafo), Victoria Jamieson (Roller Girl), G Willow Wilson (the second Ms Marvel collection), and Jillian Tamaki (Supermutant Magic Academy), all aimed squarely at girls. Only two books could be said to be “traditional” comics — the fourth Saga collection and a resurgence of the nearly 30 year old Dark Knight Returns, probably because they just announced Miller would be doing a second sequel. Figure it won’t be off the list in a week.

It’s Always Thursdays When A Bunch Of Unconnected Things Pop Up

Might as well not fight it.

  • The top thing in webcomics, naturally, would be the unexpected reappearance of A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible’s David Hellmand and Dale Beran, this time at The Nib. A Slime To Remember is the first that we’ve seen from Beran & Hellmann (working together, that is) in 18 months or so, their third comic this decade, and the 44th overall collaborative exploration of the odder corners of their respective imaginations. It’s a good ‘un, and according to The Nib editor Matt Bors, It’s probably safe to say we’ll work together again, which hopefully means a shorter wait for the next installment.
  • How about a pair of reminders of looming deadlines? Today is the final day to apply to TopatoCon, so if you want to have the most fun it is mathematically possible to have¹ this September, now’s the time to get in while you can.

    In a similar vein (albeit on the far side of the North American continent), we’re also down to the last day for artists to apply to be part of the Alaska Robotics 2015-2016 gallery exhibition season in beautiful and scenic (I mean that sincerely, it’s breathtaking) Juneau, Alaska. Quit procrastinating and get your applications in!

  • I just realized that both of those application deadlines have pretty much been open for a month. Know what else has been going on for a month that probably none of you noticed?

    And that marks one month of not having any men in my comics on my site. I guess one or two might come back. http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive/3805

    The last time we saw an actual dude in Diesel Sweeties (not counting Roger and John Stamos, who are above petty concepts like human gender) was 27 March, with Indie Rock Pete being … well, being himself. And as we all know, one appearance by Peter Gaylord Weiner is enough to suck all respect and liking for dudes out of the room, even after two consecutive days of the best dude.

    Thanks to best dude R Stevens for showing us that entertainment that features men as often as most entertainments feature women isn’t strange and off-putting (or at least, no more so than normal).

  • Future happenings 1: Brad Guigar (cartooning force of nature and real-life sexy dad²) will be doing four panels at the upcoming Wizard World Philadelphia — one each day, Thursday through Sunday of next week — on webcomics and podcasting (the latter with his two sons, falling on Sunday, which is traditionally the family-friendly at most comics shows).
  • Future happenings 2: Jorge Cham is into the tail end of production of his second PhD feature film with the release of the trailer. The last movie screened in more than 500 locations, on all seven continents³, so keep your eye on the film’s page for announcements as to where Cham will be bringing the sequel.

Spam of the day:

Coming out of your box can be frightening.

This piece of life advice came from a site purporting to sell Michael Kors, the most orange man this side of John Boehner. Tell you what — I’ll come out of my box when you get Kors to lay off the self-tanner.

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¹ And, I suspect, several times that it is legal to have.

² [Mostly] Ladies [and a certain percentage of gentlemen], control yourselves. He’s taken.

³ Is this a good enough reason to wrangle yourself a year-long appointment on the staff of an Antarctic research facility to increase the odds that you’ll be near a screening?

Yes. Yes, it is.

Last Weekend In September

As promised, I spoke to Holly Rowland, fancy lady and TopatoCo Vice President of Kicking Your Ass about the upcoming TopatoCon. The following is not an interview with precise quotes, but reflects the conversation we had.

On why she wants to run a con:

In part, it comes from the fact that it’s been nearly five years since New England Webcomics Weekend was last held; in part, it comes from going to a bunch of different conventions and making an internal wishlist of all the things you want to see in one place. Sometimes that’s a balancing act: you don’t want to be on panels, but you don’t want an absence of programming; you don’t want just comics, but you don’t want a huge pop-culture extravaganza either.

TopatoCo’s creators are at the center of a Venn diagram of a bunch of different things — comics, music, podcasting, books, comedy, film making, game design — and it’s a good time to find a show that embraces all of those things, along with the sense of camaraderie you get from something like MaxFunCon.

On how that fits in with the curated exhibitor selection:

Rowland and her fellow showrunners (Sara McHenry of Make That Thing and Rich Stevens of … everything, really) want to keep the feel of the show consistent; curating means that they can balance the number of comics artists with those that create streaming content, or podcast, or make music. Finding a messload of creators that do multiples of those things (I’m definitely thinking that Kris Straub should get in contact with Rowland) would be the dream.

On why now, instead of last year or next year?

Verbatim answer: Because my business coach yelled at me. She was talking about her big dream, what kind of show she’d like to see, and he kept saying Go. Go do that. Don’t wait, it’ll make you happy.

On the size and scope of the show:

In part due to the available space in part to keep the first year¹ from getting out of hand, there will be a limit of 70 exhibitors and 2000 tickets sold. But those limits will allow for some interesting choices — for example, there won’t just be a tabletop gaming area, there will be a tabletop gaming area where you play with the game’s designers and there will be table service that will bring you beer and chicken fingers.

I’ve never used a standout color for text on this blog in going on ten year but I had to; with that single decision, Rowland has invented a model that every other show will try to emulate because goddamn is that brilliant.

On when we get logistic details:

Exhibitor applications will be opened up on Monday, 23 March, and run for a month. When the curation process is done, the exhibitors will be announced along with venue details. However, we can share that TopatoCon will be held in a hotel with conference center capabilities, and two nearby hotels are also going to have room blocks available.

The first day of the event (Friday, 25 September) will be out-of-hotel, with various community-type events while setup is wrangled. Saturday and Sunday will each be $20/day; the organizers have opted against weekend passes, as they want to give as many people as possible the ability to attend. Too often shows have seen multiday passes go to somebody that only uses it part of the time, so this approach is designed to make people think about when they’ll actually be there. To help make it easier to attend, passes will be transferable.

On big names attending:

Nothing to share yet, but she’s got big dreams. Oh yes, she does.

Fleen thanks Ms Rowland for taking the time to answer our questions, and for continuing to kick asses.


Spam of the day:

michael kors online shopping outlet

Michael Kors is a bitchy, ambulatory tangerine². Put him in room with John Boehner (ugggh) and Guy Fieri (the human cheese-fry) and you will have all the most unfortunate personal-style decisions ever made in one place.

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¹ With the plan that TopatoCon will become an annual event, assuming nothing disastrous happens.

² Which, let’s be honest, is why I loved him on Project Runway; nobody is as creative in their dressing-down of the defiantly egotastic as Kors. But man, he’s got to cut back on the tanner.

Okay, Borrowed A Computer

I wasn’t really going to talk about this new comic strip contest that Amazon’s got going — for one thing, it’s really nothing to do with webcomics. Quick retweet of Meredith Gran‘s dismay that the thing exists at all, and I’d be done.

But then Gordon McAlpin tweeted to me that he felt the terms were actually pretty fair, and I took a good close look at them. You can read our back-and-forth starting here, which is stilted because Twitter isn’t really suited to any kind of in-depth discussion. My reading of McAlpin’s main point is that the contest’s real prize is the syndication contract, which is negotiable (you can read the rules and such for yourself here; pay special attention to section 8).

My main point is: So what? The other contracts are marked prominently with the boilerplate:

____ contract with ____ is not negotiable, and Grand Prize Winner must sign “as is” upon receipt of the executable contract as described in Section 9 below if he/she wishes to enter into the _____ contract being awarded.

In any event, I’m not so certain that the development/syndication contracts are really worth all that much — webcomickers who had been under such contracts have found it to their advantage to get out of them and work on their own. Likewise, I’ll bet that any of the webcomickers that have signed book deals in the past couple years have managed terms a hell of a lot better than what’s on offer here: $5000 against royalties at a rate that’s non-negotiable and non-disclosed.

McAlpin also feels that the stature of the judges means that the winner has accomplished something prestigious even if they don’t choose to agree to the contracts — although I believe that all of the cartoonist judges print their books through contest co-sponsor Andrews & McMeel, and I believe they’re all syndicated through co-sponsor Universal Press Syndicate (they are, after all, one company); as such, those cartoonists have their own obligations to their publisher/syndicate, and judging this contest may be less about their wanting to find very talented new colleagues, and more about living up to their contract terms.

Put another way — with newspapers dying and comics pages shrinking, does any cartoonist that’s established really want to find the amazing new talent that may steal pagespace?

An analogy, if you will: I’m a big fan of Project Runway, but it’s a polite fiction that the show is trying to find the next great fashion designer. They’re interested in finding people that can do work that’s just interesting enough on short time, with little budget, and hopefully some drama. In 20 years, none of the Runway winners will be spoken of as being as important or influential as regular judge Michael Kors (nor is it in his interest for them to!), and I think the same thing will be true of the winners of this contest.

(Side note about that just interesting enough line: the deadline for the contest is less than a month after it was announced, and entrants have to put up 10 dailys, 2 Sundays, and a story hook description in that time — work that’s never appeared anywhere before. Unless you know of cartoonists that have fully-developed strip concepts ready to go, I think we’re going to see a lot of stuff that’s pretty embryonic.)

Naturally, it is given to none of us to see the future, but I honestly think that the winner will get a blip of publicity for a news cycle and then disappear. I hope that I’m wrong and McAlpin is right; I hope that they do find the next great comic strip artist, but I’m confident enough in my pessimism that I’ll bet Gordon McAlpin $20 that at the conclusion of the development period (up to two years) plus another three years for the strip to get settled, that fewer people will have heard of it and read it than, say, the new micro-strip that Rich Stevens launched yesterday.

(Reached for commentary, Stevens noted I have wanted a phone-friendly comic since the 90s, and In retrospect, I think this is the comic Ted [Rall, Stevens’ editor during his syndication foray] should have hired me to do. Subtext that I choose to read: Want to do a comic strip? Go do it.)

Also, acknowledgement must be paid to Brad Guigar, who did a far more thorough analysis of the contest rules than I have. In particular, there’s this tidbit Guigar noticed that speaks to McAlpin’s hope that the ability to not sign gives the winner some leverage:

At the finalist level, you are required to sign the contracts for A-McM and U-Uclick that will go into effect if you’re the Grand Prize winner. … If you don’t sign the contracts at the Finalist level, you can’t progress in the contest.

So I guess you have to pre-waive your ability to not sign in order to be in a position to sign? I completely missed that little turn of logic, but that’s why it’s Brad that will be featured on Fox Business tonight in the 5:00pm (EDT, GMT-4) block, barring any breaking news, and not me. He’s smart and telegenic.