Having mentioned this year’s iteration of the Wondermark Calendar last week, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a new twist that David Malki ! is introducing for 2012. Namely, custom holidays.

“Custom” might actually be too strong a word; it’s not like every purchaser is going to get their own combination of unique holidays on the calendar cards. But he is soliciting for suggestions of new holidays to be enshrined for the next twelvemonth:

[Suggested holidays] should:

• Be short
• Be funny
• Include a brief explanation that I’ll archive here on the site for people to consult throughout the year.

EXAMPLE:

January 5, Poop-on-Cats-Day. This is when everybody gets back at their cats by holding them down and pooping on them. Traditionally followed by January 6, Wash-Your-Cats-Day, and January 7, Hospital Day.

Suggestions from the field include, as of this writing,

July 20: The Feast of St. Owens. In honour of Richard Owens, coiner of the term ‘Dinosaur’, every young child is encouraged to carry a small replica of a Dinosaur with them at all times. The feast is concluded in the traditional manner of Owens himself –- scooping out your enemy’s spine and keeping it in a jar in your office.

June 12: Death by Tentacles Day. In memoriam of all the intrepid sailors, airship captains, sailboats and Japanese anime girls viciously violated and slain by oversized octupi, mutant cuttlefish and alien cephalopod-like creatures.

Also, nice try person who suggested 30 July as Defenestration Day, but if you’re going to use it to commemorate the date of the First Defenestration of Prague¹, what about the Second Defenestration of Prague², which took place on 23 May? Or even the One-and-a-Halfth on 24 September³? I suggest a compromise, equidistant between the Spring and Autumn Defenestrations, which would be 24 July; this has the added bonus of likely falling during San Diego Comic Con most years, allowing a mechanism to thin the crowds a bit for at least one day.

• New Johnny Wander book! Volume 2 is now available for your ordering pleasure, although to make delivery before Christmas exponentially more likely, personalizations will not be offered at this time. Buy a copy and bring it to the Yuko half of Yuko-and-Ananth at a con! Or wait until January! In the interests of full disclosure, one must note that a certain hack webcomics pseudojournalist was asked to provide a back cover blurb and did so.
• Tangentially webcomics: anybody out there reading Drops of God? Is it just me, or does plucky heroine Miyabi Shinohara somewhat resemble an all-grown-up Kat Donlan? And is this just an excuse for me to mention that holy crap, Gunnerkrigg Court has been killing it this week? Yes, yes it is.
• Continuing through much of this morning, Jim Zubkavich has been relating the story on Twitter of a Russian comics pirate that emailed him to ask if it would be possible to get unlettered copies of the Skullkickers art, so that he (the pirate) could translate them into Russian and release them to sharing sites more easily.

  I’ll wait while you digest that.

  A back and forth with Cameron Stewart and Indigo Kelleigh ensued on the merits of cooperating with this situation. There’s no Russian-language version of Skullkickers, nor plans to make one; there’s no legal means for this guy to obtain the comics in Russian; they’re already torrented and that will continue regardless of what Zub decides.

  On the other hand, this may create an easement or set a precedent for bad situations down the line. Honestly, just go follow the whole thread because it’s fascinating, and a conversation that is likely to come up more frequently in the future. And then take a look at Chip Zdarsky’s proposed solution:

  @Zubkavich @cameronmstewart I would fly to Russia and shoot him a lot and say “permission granted.”

  And with that, have a good weekend.

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¹ 1419 CE, precipitating the Hussite Wars.

² 1618 CE, precipitating the Thirty Years’ War.

³ 1483 CE, not precipitating any particular war.