A couple of quick thoughts for you today, as we careen through space on an improbably-small hunk of rock with an impossibly-narrow band of gases that somehow sustain all the life and — by extension — webcomics that we know to exist in the infinite universe. You know … Tuesday.

• One of the smaller-scale, highly regarded comics shows takes place this weekend in Leeds, UK, as Thought Bubble Comic Con participates in the week-long Thought Bubble Festival. There are symposia and screenings in the festival all this week, and the convention itself at Clarence Dock on Saturday and Sunday. Indy- and web-comicky types in attendance will include John Allison, Kate Beaton, Becky Dreistadt & Frank Gibson, Jeffrey Brown, Darryl Cunningham, Meredith Gran, Nicholas Gurewitch (!), Olly Moss, Ethan Nicolle, Ramón Pérez, Tom Siddell, Cameron Stewart, and Maris Wicks, in addition to the British Comics Awards. Tell everybody I said hi.
• For those not able to make it to Leeds this weekend, one might make plans to check out Evan Dahm’s new e-book, Lacunæ. The word lacuna (lacunæ is the plural) refers to a gap, missing section (as in text) or silence (as in music); Dahm’s book refers to the latter definition as it’s a collection of 18 “quiet places”, taken from a series of drawings of remote dwellings on remoter islands.

  He shared some of the drawings on Twitter as he worked on them, and they put me in mind of the further corners of Le Guin’s Earthsea, and that’s some damn good company to be in. It’s two bucks for nearly twenty pages of intricate, mood-setting places, and if I don’t see at least one of them stolen for either an album cover or a mural on the side of a van by this time next year, it’s only because we’re too far from the 1970s¹.

• For the past few years, webcomickers have been molding the next generation(s) of comics artists, as diverse creators have presented workshops and lectures at various colleges or taught full-semester programs. To that number we’re about to add one Bradley² J³ Guigar will be teaching at the Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia. Lots of predecessors for teaching a class, but this is the bit that I think is unique — Guigar won’t be teaching drawing, or story, or joke writing, he’ll be teaching how to make a living in the arts:
  

  In January, I will be teaching a senior-level course on Arts Entrepreneurship … For a long time now, I’ve argued (sometimes loudly on Webcomics Weekly) that art schools need to do a better job of preparing their students for the Real World they’re being thrust into. And that means an overwhelming probability of freelance work and running a small business centered around one’s craft — not the studio jobs and staff positions that were prevalent decades ago.

  Hint for those Hussian students that end up sitting class with Professor Guigar next semester: he’s got a lot of Dad Jokes, he’s not embarrassed to drop them on you, and if you can make him laugh, you’ll get 30 to 90 seconds to check your email or texts before he’ll be able to continue. I encourage you to learn all you can from him (he really is frighteningly smart), and also to keep track of how many laugh breaks you get out of him before graduation; I’m going to place the over/under at 75, but would be thrilled to hear that I underestimated.

  Oh, and if you’re going to try to bribe him, learn how to make a proper whisky sour. Just sayin’.

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¹ Not necessarily the worst place to be too far from.

² Bradford? Bradmark? Bradbourne? Bradburn? Braddock? Bradon? Bradshaw? Bradwell? Brady?

³ It is my firm belief that the “J” doesn’t stand for anything, but is in reference to Bullwinkle J Moose and Rocket J Squirrel. Whatever the truth of the name, he’s dreamy.