I first met Matt Lubchansky at NYCC a couple years ago via the kind introduction of one Jon Rosenberg¹ and have followed the various comics that he produces since. Much as I like the laugh-chuckles of Please Listen To Me, I find that his collaborations are even better and he’s got a doozy of a collaboration with Mallory Ortberg today. I wasn’t familiar with The Toast, where said collaboration is running today, so thanks to Hey Pais’s Sara McHenry for the pointer.

With that buildup concluded, please go check out Tips For Improving Street Harassment because it’s really smart, really funny, and makes you wistfully sigh If only.

• To be honest, I don’t check in on Lubchansky as often as I should; something about the number of hours in the day. Likewise, I also don’t check in on the many, many comics projects of John Troutman as often as I should, but this time I think we can attribute it to the sheer amount of output, given that he’s working at least two and a half comics presently and (if I have my sums correct) has done at least a half dozen others in the past.

  That and a half comic would be Lit Brick, which updates “whenever”; it’s out of this comic about literature that Troutman has spun a story of Carol, twin sister of Jesus². Or rather, is looking to spin that story, provided it gets Kickstarted; as mentioned in part one of our Tavis Maiden interview, pre-funding webcomics is becoming a thing, although you’d be hard pressed to find a creator with a longer track record than Troutman.

• Speaking of Kickstarts, it appears to be doll season in the crowdfunding corners of comicdom. On the cute and cuddly side, you’ve got Jennie Breeden looking to plushify her Devil Girl alter-ego. Right now she’s funded plus a bit with most of a month to go but if the campaign hits a 200% funding level, it will unlock a matching Angel Girl plush; this means that you can act out your own crises of conscience with little Jennies acting as your personal shoulder devil/angel.
• On the holy crap is that gorgeous side, longtime creator Jill Thompson is looking to translate her Scary Godmother character (star of comics, books, and the occasional animated special) into a fully-articulated fashion doll. You know how sometimes things that are clearly toys have labels that state This is totally not a toy it’s an adult collectible not intended for kids because it is soooo adult really because it’s got small parts that could cause choking?

  Yeah, this isn’t that, this damn well is an exemplar of dollmakers craft, the sort that requires US$40,000 steel molds, custom textiles, custom accessory fabrication, and suchlike. But whoo boy, is it pretty. It’s an ambitious project, one that will require US$150,000 to come to fruition; about a third of the way through the funding period, it’s about 35% funded, so that’s good so far. It’s definitely not a general-audience, impulse-click kind of thing, so signal-boosting is probably not going to make a huge difference.

  But one thing might: check out Thompson’s profile on Kickstarter; unlike a lot of people who come to crowdfunding for the first time when they are looking for cash Thompson backed fifty projects before launching her first. Anybody wondering is she was high-balling her project requirements or trying for an easy payday, her history of backing creative projects in others would suggest otherwise.

• I can’t finish this post without some connection to Jim Zub³, so let me cast your memory back to last month when Mr Zub was kind enough to talk to me about current and future projects and in particular how he called out his Skullkickers collaborator Edwin Huang for some praise. Huang’s work has been getting widely noticed and he’s getting to be in demand, so what better time to put out an art book focusing on his style and character designs?

  The Rogues Gallery is up at Kickstarter and the fact that it’s cleared goal means that it’s functionally up for pre-order at this point; going higher on the total funds will mean improvements like more guest artists and fancy gloss on the cover, so if you like Huang’s work, now’s the time to make the book better. And seriously, 100+ page full-color hardcover art book for as little as US$25? Bargain of the year.

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¹ Who, as a reminder, owns my soul and keeps it in his wallet. Not my first choice of soul repository, not when there are nice temperature- and humidity-controlled boxes for valuables available, maybe resting on a nice mantelpiece, but I guess that’s the lesson here. You sells your soul for a dollar, you takes your chances that it’ll get sat and/or farted on daily.

² Yep, that Jesus; this particular comic chosen because What’s up, Lamb of Hosts? will never not be hilarious to me.

³ I, uh, may have signed a document to that effect.