Pardon me, I appear to have something in my eye.

• Is it a good day to see what’s happening at the intersection of comics and booze? Always! Kristen Siebecker (certified sommelier and originating showrunner of MoCCA Fest) has a curated food & wine tasting in the Village on 23 March, a new video channel, and a podcast exploring wine from A to Z. Pay attention to her and you’ll drink better.
• Speaking of MoCCA, it’s run by the Society of Illustrators, who would like you to know that they are teaming up with SPX to put together a museum retrospective of alt-weekly comics, running now through 2 May at the SoI building. From Jules Feiffer to Lynda Barry to Matt Groening to Alison Bechdel (along with latter-day alt-weekly comics creators like Ellen Forney, Keith Knight, Jen Sorensen, and more), the exhibit kicks off with a reception tonight, at 6:00pm, at 128th East between Lexington and Park. They’re suggesting a US$15 donation at the door, but these deals usually include snacks and drinks, so that’s all right.
• Speaking of collaborations (again) and New York (again), you might recall that Brooklyn webcomickers Meredith Gran and Mike Holmes announced their engagement at the start of the year. Some of you may also recall that weddings can be stupid expensive, so like all artists faced with expenses, Mer and Mike are putting stuff on sale — from Bravest Warriors and Marceline and Octopus Pie pages at ridiculously low prices to limited commissions by Holmes, now’s the chance to get some nifty art and help two of the best people ever join themselves together with a kick-ass party.
• I love technology. For those wondering where the printed copies of Evan Dahm’s Oz adaptation are, they’re on a boat. This boat, which you can track in real time. It appears to be (as of this writing) passing Crete at 18 knots, heading to the Straits of Gibraltar and thence across the Atlantic to New York. Which means two bits of good fortune:
  1. It didn’t head from China across the Pacific to the West Coast, straight into the remnants of a crippling dockworkers strike that would keep it backed up for weeks
  2. It made it past the pirate-infested waters of the Indian Ocean, such that the books will arrive on these shores instead of in some marauder’s den in Mogadishu

  Figure another week to ten days at sea, then clearing customs, then shipping — soon. Very, very soon.

• It appears that much of the weather that affected such a wide swathe of the Eastern Time zone¹ did not — for once — hit Boston, and so PAX East is underway with transport hitches only occurring at origins, rather than preventing everybody from arriving in the host city. Watch out for yetis hidden in the massive piles of snow left over from the dozen major storms this season, and let’s hope a blizzard doesn’t descend between now and Monday.

  Oh, and as I’ve admonished the attendees of PAX East since I was there during the Boston colleges and universities norovirus outbreak of 2010, Wash yer damn hands unless you want to get the poop disease.

Spam of the day:

Going time for the furnishings shop in Gloucester example, you can furniture-for-sale-in-Gloucester and furniture-for-sale-in-Cheltenham pages, that can then help with a nearby looks for your products.

Are Gloucester and Cheltenham near Tackleford? The less than total amount of sense in that spam makes suspect proximity to a weirdness center.

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¹ Reminder: set your clocks ahead an hour tomorrow night.

This is going to be brief, and there will likely be no posting tomorrow, as I am on final approach to something I’ve been looking forward to for some months now. Tomorrow evening, I’ll be officiating at the wedding of friends, because I am totally a member of the clergy in a completely actual religion and the state of New Jersey (in its wisdom) does not judge the validity of ordinations¹.

So a lot of the time between now and then is being spent going over stuff in my head, so I don’t screw things up; thus, two quick callbacks and I’ll go back to prepping my homily and making sure my vestments are crisply pressed and in order. Also, for reasons that I can’t go into right now, I have to buy a pineapple².

• Firstly, there are more installments of the Becky and Phil discussion at Benign Kingdom. Lo, gaze upon Part Three and also upon Part Four, and feel the stirrings of blessedness within you.
• Secondly, a reminder that Kristen Siebecker’s August wine class is coming up next week and given that it’s the last week of summer vacation before everybody comes back to town, there’s plenty of room. You get 10% off with the discount code EMAIL10, but overdrink not wine nor strong drink thou, lest the inside of your skull smite thee the next day.

Spam of the day:

Whenever you get bored along with your writing, think about every one of the rewards of your graduate education.

Because I was stupid enough to attempt studies in two entirely unrelated fields (Electrical Engineering and History, because apparently I hated joy in my life), my graduate education’s “rewards” involved wrangling two advisors that neither spoke each other’s language, nor had much regard for each other’s fields. I can, however, talk endlessly about how independent systems on different technical standards (think power grid or local telephone exchanges) evolved and found ways to become interconnected wholes, and also how fights between standards get settled (i.e.: AC vs DC, VHS vs Betamax, BluRay vs HD DVD). In modern times, the answer is almost always Whichever one doesn’t forbid porn.

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¹ Those that wish to debate whether or not I can perform my ministerial duties while being an atheist and also Jon Rosenberg is in possession of my soul may do so in the comments.

² That’s not code for anything, I have to buy an actual pineapple.

Did I use that title before? I feel like I may have but also don’t feel like checking. There are things happening in comics that, oddly, do not involve the imminent San Diego Comic Con.

• If you read my review of the print collection Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell and thought Dang, I’ve got to get me that book!, I’ve got good news for you. Creators Sophie Goldstein and Jenn Jordan are having a book launch This Saturday, 19 July, at the highly-regarded Bergen Street Comics in Darwin’s own borough of Brooklyn. To add to the fun, they’re teaming up with fellow creator Jon Chad, who will be celebrating the launch of The Bad-ventures of Bobo Sadsack from Adhouse Books. The celebratin’ and launchin’ starts at 7:00pm, is free to attend, will have plenty of books for purchase and signing, and (based on past events at Bergen Street) may even feature snacks and drinks.
• Speaking of drinks, there’s a new educated booze-up session from winemistress Kristen Siebecker for those that will be in New York City rather than San Diego, but it’s waitlisted. Lucky for you she’s got a second one coming up a month later, with an emphasis on organic and biodynamic wines that will complement the paleo diet. As usual, Siebecker has provided us with a discount code — EMAIL10 — for 10% off the costs of the class(es).
• August is going to be celebratory at Portland’s own Excalibur Books & Comics, which will be celebrating 40 years in the funnybooks biz. There’s a sidewalk sale the weekend of 1 August, signings — featuring a slate of local comics talent, including about half of Periscope Studio, as well as webcomics types Mike Russell and Bill Mudron (who collaborated on the anniversary poster) — on Wednesdays the 6th, 13th, and 20th, a party on the 27th complete with cake, and a 50% off sale the weekend of the 29th. Lots of events, so lots can change in the meantime; check the link above for latest updates.
• The Harvey Awards ballot for 2014 has been announced, and there are some names of note on it. Webcomics and webcomics-adjacent nominees include Steve Wands (Adventure Time) and Britt Wilson (Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake), both up for Best Letterer, Ryan North (Adventure Time) and Jim Zub (Skullkickers) for the Special Award for Humo[u]r in Comics, and Adventure Time for Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers. In the actual category for Best Online Comics Work you’ve got Mike Norton (Battlepug, which took the Eisner in 2012), Laura Innes (The Dreamer — also nominated in this category last year), Tom Siddell (Gunnerkrigg Court), Yale Stewart (JL8), and Scott Kurtz, Steve Hamaker, and Brian Hurtt (Table Titans).

  Also I should probably mention that serial reprobate (and thus webcomicky enough) Chip Zdarsky got tabbed for Most Promising New Talent for Sex Criminals, which also was nominated as Best New Series. Votes (from comics industry professionals) are due by 18 August, and the awards will be given out at Baltimore Comic-Con on Saturday, 6 September.

• Okay, I lied — one bit about San Diego Comic Con. Pat Race of Alaska Robotics likes running, and he’d like some company, so the somethingth annual SDCC Completely Unofficial Fun 5K will be taking place at some point during the con. Tentatively, the plan is to start at 10:00am on Saturday morning on the bay side of the convention center, but if people want to finish (and shower) before the show opens, it may be started earlier. Check in with AKRobotics at booth 1134 to confirm time and location.

Spam of the day:

Punctuation simple plus are different. An example is usually”Manner” Regarding”Chanel, The brand are advised to get in line along side appears, And observe after a continual coupled every side of the back pack.

The irony of that quote being about punctuation is giving me a stroke.

Before we get to some things that are happening in the various places, one piece of catching-up: remember what I said about big items yesterday? I missed one: Anthony Clark has a new sketchbook up for sale that clocks in at nearly 400 pages. It’s pay-what-you want, with a minimum that’s less than a dollar per hundred pages, available at Gumroad and/or Sellfy.

• The Society of Illustrators may have finished up with the actual festival aspects of this year’s MoCCA Fest, but that doesn’t mean that all MoCCA-related activities have ceased until next spring. One may recall that SoI instituted an awards program for work appearing at MoCCA Fest, and the winners are the subject of an exhibit that opened in the Society’s second floor gallery last night and runs through the 24th. Along with the exhibit, two other things are happening:
  

  All materials chosen in the jury’s initial survey will be acquired by Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library for the MoCCA Arts Festival collection, to be expanded annually.

  A Happy Hour and Celebration will take place in the third floor Hall of Fame Dining Room on May 21st beginning at 5pm. A $5 cover charge will go towards the Society of Illustrators Student Scholarship Fund.

• Oh, and if you’re in New York City on 15 May, there’s a lecture/reception/signing for Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s This One Summer. Short review (of a copy graciously sent to my by Gina Gagliano at :01 Books): it’s a story that hurts in a real, tangible, maybe-necessary-maybe-not way. I suspect that if I’d been an almost-teen girl at any point in my life, it would ache and resonate even more. Getting to the truths below the surface of the One Summer in question is like having to peel away a bandage and finally let the healing of the wound below finish up.
• Tangentially related, I don’t know if anybody ever looks at the member’s bulletin board section of the SoI website, but you know what I noticed there today? Job listings. Anybody want to head up the Sequential Arts department at SCAD? They’re looking. Brad Guigar, this is your chance to not just teach arts entrepreneurship, but to remake an entire generation of comics kids in your own image. Your boisterous, eternally-laughing image.
• There’s other stuff going on this month in other cities, but let’s just make today about New York and call it good. Original MoCCA showrunner Kristen Siebecker once again breaks out the booze and education for the latest iteration of Popping Your Cork. This time it’s Thursday, 29 May at 6:30pm in Chelsea for a look at wines from around the US. It’s twenty five bucks to register, but because you are reading this page and Kristen likes us, she’s given us a discount code good for 15% off the tuition; just type in FRIEND10 when checking out, and enjoy the fruit of the vine.

All LA-casual rumpled clothing and smiling faces. I’d buy life insurance from them if they were selling door-to-door. They being the notorious film/comic hivemind Freddave Kellett-Schroeder; they’re on the move, in these final weeks of moving STRIPPED towards a 1 April iTunes launch, and now towards a fancy-pants Hollywood premiere event:

Tickets now avail for the @strippedfilm premiere! We’re giving away 10 Watterson posters that night! http://strippedfilm.bpt.me

The skinny: Wednesday, 26 March, at the Cinearama Dome Theatre on the fabled Sunset Boulevard, from 7:00pm until they throw you out, for the low, low price US$20 (plus service fees). Be sure to dress up, there will be celebrities there, along with Messers Kellett-Schroeder. Wish I could be there, tell the paparazzi I said hi.

• Rebecca Clements has been absent from comics for a bit, something about getting a “graduate degree” in “something important that matters to the world”¹, but she’s got a new Kinokofry today, featuring everybody’s favorite blue globby dude … IN SPACE. Go, Space Engineers!
• Kristen Siebecker’s ongoing class series on How To Not Suck At Wine (not the official title) rolls on, with the next session devoted to the most elegant (and sneakily alcoholic) of boozes: champagne and other sparkling wines. Fun starts for those 21 & up at West Elm in Chelsea, on 20 March from 6:30pm. Ten percent off the cost of class if you use the super-secret discount code EMAIL10.
• Scott Kurtz has done a lot of comics, but it seems like the one with the most heart in it (if we don’t count Wedlock, but that’s lost to the ages) is Table Titans. The first year’s story arc concluded recently, which means that it’s time for the print collection, and since preorders are passé, the requisite Kickstarter launched today.

  It’s over 20% of goal in the first few hours, and by this time tomorrow we’ll be able to come up with a predicted total for the 30-day campaign by applying the Fleen Funding Factor to Kicktraq’s prediction. But honestly, we can absolutely say this one is going to hit goal, so the only question is if there are any stretch goals not yet announced that will make the book more fancy. I’m betting that there are.

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¹ Urban Planning, to be specific.

PS: Aaaaaahhhhh!!

Holy crap, this thing is big — physically imposing, heavy enough to be a cause of death if rapidly applied to the base of the skull, and it even smells imposing. Thank you Mr Malki !, this will keep me busy roughly forever. So busy, in fact, that everybody else today gets quick updates instead of long writeups.

• The latest wine-learnin’ class from Kristen Siebecker¹, spoken of in the beforetimes, is upon us², with an emphasis on winter-friendly wines at 7:00pm on Thursday, 30 January, at West Elm in Chelsea. As is her custom, Siebecker has extended a discount to those using the code EMAIL10.
• Herr Doktor Professor Dante Shepherd is about to celebrate a Big Round Number at Surviving The World, and we at Fleen would like to wish him a hearty congratulations a day in advance. Tonight he may be partying like it’s strip #1999, but tomorrow he erupts into the rarefied company of those that have achieved 2000 strips. If my math is correct, he will be one of a literal handful³ of PhD-holding webcomickers to achieve such a feat⁴.
• Dave Kellett put up a future plan for himself today, and what jumped out at me was item #6:
  

  6.) MYSTERY PROJECT: In about 2-4 years, when things calm down a bit, I’m also going start on a new “mystery” project. I can’t say much about it, other than to say… it’ll channel a very different side of my creativity, it’ll take me about a year to complete, and that it’ll be super fun to do.

  It caught my eye because the last time Kellett put up future plan for himself, not quite four years ago, item #4 jumped out at me:

  4.) MYSTERY PROJECT: In addition to Sheldon and Drive, I should mention that I’ve started up a third project that I’m very excited about, but which I can’t really talk about yet. I know, I know…it’s sounds very third-grade of me to bring up a project that I can’t talk about. But here’s what I can say: I’m very excited about it, it’s my first collaborative piece since the “How to Make Webcomics” book, it both is and is not comics-related, and I think it’ll be right up your alley, when it comes time to announce it. More than that, I can’t say. But good things are a-comin’.

  That mystery project turned out to be STRIPPED, which is now so close I can taste it. One can only speculate what this mystery project will be, only we already know that it’s not a film as he took care of those possibilities in item #5. Damn, Dave, you ain’t got to conquer every creative medium known to the species.

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¹ Whose name would apparently translate as they becker from the original German. Names aside, Kristen pretty much put together the first MoCCA Festival, laying the groundwork for all that has occurred since.

² And by us I mean those of us who are within easy travel of Manhattan, and of legal drinking age, and have a desire to up their wine game.

³ This would be a cartoon-style three-fingers-plus-thumb hand.

⁴ Also, while Jorge Cham has on the order of 1700 strips, he’s also got a feature-length movie, so I’m counting him. Deal with it.

There are things afoot, mostly tangential to webcomics qua webcomics, but possibly of interest to people that read this page on a regular basis. A page which, I have been recently informed, shares a name with a number of other things also called Fleen.

Looking at primacy, it appears that the McSweeney’s reference dates to early 2001, the sci-fi epic to 2008, and the tessellation tool to earlier this year. While this page in its current form began in December 2005, the name was chosen merely because fleen.com was still owned by Jon Rosenberg, it being used for the Fairly Large Electronic Entertainment Network as far back as 1999 as a portal for some webcomics creators that you may have heard of. Given those dates, it appears that this is the true scion of the Famous Original¹ Fleen and you should accept no substitutes.

• Tangential To Webcomics (Performance Division): The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco remains a friend to comics of all sorts including webcomics, not least because curator Andrew Farago does webcomics himself. Farago and his fellow staffers are responsible for one of the busier events calendars in the Bay Area, with lots of skilled and well-regarded creators dropping by to say hi. As part of their regular Third Thursday late-night hours, CAM will be hosting the preview night of The Videogame Monologues prior to performances in San Francisco and New York.

  The following week, as part of an ongoing exhibition, CAM will host a reception for the graphic novel adaptation of The Thrilling Adventure Hour. TVM kicks off at 5:00pm on Thursday, 18 September, with a suggested donation of US$5. TAH’s fancy reception is a ticketed event (with prices starting at US$75, mostly tax-deductible), taking place Saturday, 21 September at 7:00pm, with snacks and drinks provided.

• Tangential To Webcomics (Booze Division): September in New York City is where you want to be if you like combining comics and sophisticated adult-type beverages. The Society of Illustrators has long known how to do a reception/happy hour right, and they’ll host one on Wednesday, 25 September at 5:00pm as part of their currently-running exhibition of Peter Kuper’s work in their dedicated MoCCA Galllery.

  Also, Kristen Siebecker (inaugural showrunner of the MoCCA Festival) continues her wine-demystification classes, with two special ladies-only workout-and-wine events next Wednesday, 11 September at 6:30pm and 7:15pm at Uplift Studios in Manhattan. Exercising off the alcohol before you drink it is the definition of guilt-free, right? For those that prefer to not moderate their sins, her regular class will be on Wednesday, 2 October at the West Elm Market in Brooklyn. This class will examine the classic pairing of wine and cheese and starts at 6:30pm.Each of Siebecker’s sessions costs US$45, but you can get a 10% discount on the wine-and-cheese class if you use the code EMAIL10.

• Tangential To Webcomics (Instrumental Metal Division): Jeph Jacques made goal on his Deathmøle album Kickstarter in mere hours about three weeks ago; since then his crowdfunding total has been on a steady upward crawl and it crossed the US$100,000 mark about an hour ago. The Fleen Funding Model says to use the predicted total from Kicktraq at the 24-36 hour mark as a base figure, and it’s highly likely that the final total will fall somewhere between one-sixth and one-third that value.

  For Jacques, that base figure was US$400,000, giving an expected total in the range of US$67K to US$134K. Permanence is solidly in that range already, and it’s just a matter of how high the usual last-few-days frenzy³ carries him; it’s pretty unusual for a webcomic-related project to fall below the 3.0 ratio², but if anybody can do it, it’s Jacques’s fans.

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¹ See also: Famous Original Ray’s.

² Remember, lower ratios are good.em

³ Stretch goals will help, as Jacques has already drawn light porn, and now has to produce a 20 page comic for backers. One smart stretch goal in the US$120K slot and he’ll have money thrown at him from now until the campaign end next Tuesday.

It’s the little touches that you notice, the ones that say I’m paying attention, like turning a piece of wall art into an impromptu superhero in a classy, understated way. Well done, San Diego.

• For those of you in (or coming to) San Diego, you now have one more thing that you should include in your to-do list: on Friday morning at the Hachette booth (#1116, around the corner from Webcomics Central), there will be a This Is How You Die signing, with eight of the writers and artists from the book in one place for your convenience. Additionally, there will be another eight contributors on the show floor at various places and times, a checklist of which David Malki ! has helpfully provided for you. One possible correction to that checklist: it has Braden Lamb at booth #2734 and he may in fact be at booth #2235 due to the previously-mentioned Great Booth Swap of Aught-Thirteen. I’ll check around today and get back to you on that.
• Speaking of booth #2743, Scott C will be there, and you may want to ask him about something cool coming in October. The only thing that could make a second volume of Great Showdowns better is if it included the amazing Pacific Rim Showdown from yesterday, but an October release date means these books are already in the printing pipeline. Oh well, guess that means that there will have to be a third collection in a year or so. Darn.
• Finally, those of you looking past the end of SDCC and who will be in New York in a couple of weeks, and are sick of the extremely hot summer already, Kristen Siebecker has announced her latest learn to drink the good stuff class, this time on the topic of pairing wine with warm-weather foods. You get booze, you get snacks, you get a convenient new location at the West Elm Market in DUMBO, Brooklyn, you get 10% off the class with the code EMAIL10, and 15% discount in the market after the class. August 7th, 6:30pm, at 50 Washington Street in Brooklyn.

For the rest of the week, expect postings throughout the day, as often as I can make them happen.

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.

• The shows will be nonstop from here out to at least the end of the summer. Consider:
  • Phoenix Comicon is already underway, with a healthy representation of webcomickers (and a very helpful webcomics category on the guest list)
  • MCM London starts tomorrow for those of you on the British side of the Atlantic and a stack of comics types in attendance (helpful map from Robin Hoelzemann of Curia Regis here)
  • VanCAF runs Saturday and Sunday, with the cream of the PNW crop making their way across the border, with a cluster of TopatoCo-affiliated creators, some Cloudscapers, a pair of superbros, and many, many more (it looks to be the webcomickiest of the three shows going on this weekend)

  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 .

A little behind the times on some things, pretty up to date on others.

• Just a reminder that Lucy Knisley’s Relish will be in stores next week, and that it got the Fleen Seal of Approval and you should totally pick it up. As an appetizer, why not check out Knisley’s collaboration with Erin Meister at Saveur’s Recipe Comix?
• Time for a periodic reminder that you New York area types can drag your silly comic-obsessed asses into adult sophistication with the help of a little wine education, courtesy of Kristen Siebecker¹ and her recurring Popping Your Cork series. The Spring PYC will be Wednesday, 10 April (for all you people maybe hanging around after MoCCA?) at Simple Studios in Midtown. Previous classes have sold out so hurry — and use the code FRIEND10 for a 10% discount.
• One of the hallmarks of Kickstarter is that you can’t solicit for charity, which makes sense — you don’t want to get into a dispute where you wonder if money raised under the pretenses of going (wholly or partially) to charity doesn’t. So Machine of Death impressario David Malki ! didn’t come close to mentioning that he wanted to devote some of the proceeds of the MoD game to the literacy and writing charity, 826LA. From the MoD project update page:
  

  MYSTERY STRETCH GOALS:
  Continue reading this post on the Machine of Death blog!

  And from there, the news that the MoD Squad planned to donate one dollar per game (both physical and PDF) ordered to 826LA, for a total of 10,938 games which rounds up nicely to US$11,000. This was enabled by clearing the US$382,600 level. And as a further act of being an stellar person, Malki ! announced that by clearing 8260 backers, MoD books and games will be donated to 826LA for sale in their shop to support their programs. As if that weren’t enough, there will be 826LA-exclusive MoD game content for purchases of MoD stuff via the 826LA online store starting in June.

  Given that the Machine of Death game is about creative and collaborative storytelling, I can’t think of a better place for their largesse to go — 826LA (and its affiliated programs around the country) may well be responsible for finding the next great storyteller, one that wouldn’t have been nurtured without 826’s help.

  Malki ! also did a vlog interview with Matthew Lesko². I suspect that although the interview was very well managed by Malki ! and conveyed his philosophy of Kickstarting very well, the wrong message may be taken by a percentage of the people that watch it. Lesko’s spent so much time hawking the idea that there is free money out there for the having, and here this guy wound up with half a million dollars, that the people most receptive to Lesko’s message will only hear that number and apply it to the message he’s so well known for.

  This is not an unknown situation in crowdfunding, and while those that watch the video because they know Malki !, or MoD, or Kickstarter in general will likely be more resistant to the siren call of Free! Money!, I sincerely hope that he (Malki !) has put in place good filters on his email, as he’s most likely going to be getting a substantial number of people wanting to know how they can get half a million dollars, too³.

• Oh, and one more thing: new Nicholas Gurewitch cartoon at Boing Boing! Great gag, terrific visual, and Mass Casualty Incident classes will be using that last panel to illustrate what a cluster MCIs can become.

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¹ Sommelier, wife of a comics guy of some note, and original showrunner of MoCCA Fest, the latest iteration of which is approaching rapidly.

² Full disclaimer: I have encountered Lesko twice in person at random — once on the streets of Bethesda, MD and once in New York’s Penn Station. He looked really annoyed at life both times and kinda elbowed me in the ribs semi-accidentally on his way through a tight slalom of people.

³ We at Fleen haven’t done a comprehensive survey, but this is most likely the new contender for the longest, most convoluted sentence in the blog’s history. Yay?