Things To Look Forward To
Got a calendar handy? You’re going to need it.
- Today If you missed out on any of the Benign Kingdom merch from the various B9 Kickstarts, and you like saving shipping when ordering other webcomics merch, good news! As of now-ish, all the Benign Kingdom books are available via TopatoCo.
- Monday, 24 March Specifically, 9:00am PDT, when registration for what is likely the first webcomics-related athletic event opens up. That would be the Beat The Blerch runs — 10K, half marathon, full marathon — springing from the imagination of Matthew Inman and his paean to running, The Blerch. The runs themselves will feature:
- “I Beat The Blerch in 2014” tech shirt¹ and medal
- Large quantities of birthday cake at every aid station along with Nutella and magical grape beverages
- There may or may not be actual Blerchs in fat-suits chasing you throughout the race
While it’s true that Inman will have a Blerch-themed book coming out about ten days after the run, I don’t believe that promotional concerns are uppermost in his mind. There are certainly ways to promote a book that will require less time and effort over the next six months (not to mention the fact that Inman will be running himself), and the fact that he’s still looking for sponsors tells me this is more of an Inman thing than a thing with an Andrews McMeel budget behind it.
Besides, Inman’s got a history of taking on big, weird, wonderful projects, and organizing a mass of webcomics readers to wheeze their way around forested trails seems a perfect fit with his sensibilities.
Also, this:
We won’t charge you to download your race photos after the event.
I gather that’s a huge annoyance with lots of “serious” race events, and tells me this is more about the fun and hell of it than anything else. Blerches (blerchen? blerchi?) will be beaten in Carnation, Washington on Sunday, 21 September, times TBA. From the information shared so far, I feel confident in declaring that this event promises to be the highlight of the September 2014 timeframe in the Pacific Northwest.
- Saturday & Sunday, 5 & 6 April Specifically, 11:00am to 6:00pm, the annual MoCCA Fest will kick off at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City, for the low, low price of five bucks a day at the door. The show has been through a lot of changes — the overwhelming majority of them positive — in the years since the Society of Illustrators took over MoCCA’s assets and mission, and I expect this year to continue the upward trend.
The exhibitor list is up now and includes the likes of Darryl Ayo, Elena Barbarich, Nick Bertozzi, Box Brown, Scott C, Ben Costa, Evan Dahm, Chris Giarusso, Sophie Goldstein, Dean Haspiel, Matt Lubchansky, Phil McAndrew, Sylvan Migdal, Maki Naro, Magnolia Porter, MK Reed, Jaya Saxena, Tom Siddell, Noelle Stevenson, and many more.
Also many fine publishers of words and pictures, and the goddamn Jack Kirby Museum. Oh, and the usual contingent of creators from various Scandinavian countries will be present, along with educational institutes and a few zillion other awesome people I haven’t mentioned. See you there.
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¹ I don’t believe that is a typo of tee shirt; apparently, active people have things called tech[nical] shirts” which are like tee shirts, but better.
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