Rich Stevens is actually doing it:

Someone actually pledged $666 to dare me to break vegetarian and eat a pound of bacon. Daniel Valentine, you amazing dark wizard of death. I am going to survive this and evolve new mutant powers in the process! Perhaps this will be the radioactive spider that eventually teaches me about responsibility.

Speaking of Valentines, Daniel and otherwise …

• You know who is every lady’s dream valentine? Brad Guigar, but that’s too bad because he’s only got eyes for his wife, sons, and cartooning¹. Today he celebrates twelve years of juggling those competing demands on his time in a manner so deft that he cartooning gets stronger, the wisdom he shares gets wiser, and the husband-and-father routine becomes more natural and rewarding².
• Know what else is associated with Valentine’s Day besides Brad Guigar? Yes, yes, we know, “horny werewolves”, thank you Internet Jesus. I was just gonna say “sexy times”, and use that to point out that the long-awaited Smut Peddler collection (with a submission period of more than a year, recently closed) is nearly completion. Posted today: the cover, by the too-talented-to-be-believed Emily Carroll. Prepare to read this with somebody you love (or at least really, really like).
• For your consideration: not quite a tip jar, not quite an obligation, more an expression of appreciation for those that don’t like to buy stuff. John Allison has introduced a subscription model for Bad Machinëry that is entirely optional, and for which you, the subscriber receive nothing in particular above and beyond the sense of satisfaction you get for supporting an artist. I was recently asked what the proper way to read a webcomic was (the original intent was RSS or go to the page), but my reply was:
  

  Mentally track how many pages you read, buy $1 of merch for every 10 pages.

  If you don’t like stuff cluttering your home, here’s your alternative; by my calculation, Mr Allison gives you about 250 pages per year, making the Silver level of subscription about right.

• One should note that asking for money for doing a comic (whether in the form of donations, a tip jar, fund drives, and the like) attracts a range of opinions, from support to criticism. Also found in the world of comics and no consensus opinion: motion comics. For those of us of a certain age, motion comics (no matter how well done, and often they aren’t well done) will always invoke the super-cheap Marvel animated show of the ’60s, where panels were slid on the screen with entirely static characters and a voice track overlaid (seriously; they made the animated Star Trek look like a Pixar production).

  That being said, I freely admit my own youthful experiences color my impressions of motion comics. Done well, it might add something to the original that I never realized was lacking. And if anybody is going to do it well, it’s probably Rob Balder, who is launching a project to motion comic-ize Book One of Erfworld. I have affection for Erfworld, in a way that I didn’t for Iron Man or Hulk when I was three or four years old. Technology has progressed by leaps and bounds, as has the judgment of what constitutes proficient voice acting. Hell, the US$24,000 that Balder has set as his goal may well exceed the budget that Marvel was working with back in ’66. So despite my misgivings (again, born entirely of my past experiences), I’m very curious to see how this could turn out.

_______________
¹ A lesser man would have a mistress, but Brad’s not lesser in any sense of the word. Ladies.

² I don’t have empirical, observed evidence for that like for the other two things but come on — dude’s obviously got love for his family seeping from every pore. Every moment he’s cartooning, he’s champing³ at the bit to get back to his family.

³ You’re welcome, Brad.