This is not your typical Monday. Shall we count the ways?

• Perhaps the largest news to hit the geekosphere today (I watched the first season of Twin Peaks before thoroughly losing interest, so today’s news of a return isn’t really grabbing me) would be the word of Ryan North’s next project: he’ll be writing an ongoing Squirrel Girl series for Marvel with an inspired choice for artist in the person of Erica Henderson.

  This ranks high in terms of superhero comics I didn’t know I wanted but I totally do, possibly matched only by the thought of Brad Guigar getting a crack at Plastic Man/Ambush Bug teamup or Chris Hastings getting to write an all-ages, lighthearted Spider Man.¹ I love this, despite the well-documented fact that I despise squirrels. Hate ’em. And yet I am ready to give money to Marvel come January (despite my reluctance to give any more money than is strictly necessary to the Disney corporation) because I know this is going to rule so hard.

• So I noticed ‘tother day that Shaenon Garrity and Jeffrey Wells have launched the requisite Kickstarter campaign for their next print collection — their fifth — which is going to make the “S” section of my bookshelf even more crowded than it already is, what with it already hosting Sandman, Starman, Strangers in Paradise, The Spirit, Sheldon, Schlock Mercenary, Starslip, Spacetrawler, and Scary Go Round. Rearrangements will be a necessity, as Skin Horse is one of my genuine daily delights, with the honest laughs cranked up to eleven pert-near every day that I read.

  Unsurprisingly (Garrity and Wells have an extremely loyal following, one that likely exceeds the usual 10% will buy stuff rule of thumb), the campaign has already nearly doubled its (extremely modest) US$6000 goal, and now I need only wait until May or so in order to have said book in my hands. What really caught my attention, though, was something rather clever that was done for this campaign, something that I don’t see done often enough. There was no chance of me missing this Kickstart, because some few hours after it launched, I (along with all backers of Skin Horse volume 4) was sent an email noting that hey, you bought the fourth book in a series, so you’d probably dig the fifth, right? Exactly right.

  Granted, it’s not every project or every creator that can do this kind of carryover marketing, but if you’re producing a sries on a regular schedule, you’d be foolish not to leverage that opted-in mailing list you’ve already got. It doesn’t hurt that Garrity and Wells offer one of the best bargains in webcomics — a sketched & signed physical book, for US$25 (shipping included).

• Speaking of books, my wife had a copy of Randall Munroe’s New York Times bestselling What If? waiting for me after my escape from the city of Chicago (which was more that mildly affected a full week after that disgruntled jerk that tried to burn down the air traffic control center). I am thoroughly enjoying it, and more than a little disturbed how often the people in the addressed situations end up confronted by rapidly-expanding clouds of superheated plasma.
• It is simultaneously the wedding anniversary of two of the most wonderful people ever and the birthday of one of the classiest, most excellent fellows on the planet. I’ll go further: the wedding of Jeffrey and Holly Rowland was the best wedding ever (and I include my own in that statement), and Ananth Panagariya’s continued existence provokes a dilemma in me: I can’t decide if I would rather be Ananth Panagariya, or perhaps one of his roommates, because then I would get to spend every day with Ananth Panagariya. Happy Everything to the excellent lady and dudes.
• Two weeks, two Dresden Codak updates (which I believe all would acknowledge is a land speed record for Aaron Diaz), and the possibility exists of not only sustaining that schedule, but perhaps even increasing it to three pages a month. Diaz is threatening to attempt weekly but acknowledges that such a schedule would possibly break the laws of physics, so on behalf of a frightened world that likes the laws of physics² as they are, please don’t feel the need to fly so close to the sun, Aaron.
• Coincidence? Red Robot shows us how to deal constructively with oppressors and barely four hour later the US Supreme Court declines to hear seven challenges to marriage equality, meaning that five more states have been brought into the fold of modern civilization³. Thirty states down, twenty to go, and as of today more than half the population of the United States can marry whoever the hell they want. So yeah, probably coincidence, but if Stevens wanted to do similarly-themed comics on the eves of other judicial decisions, it couldn’t hurt.

Spam of the day:

You are so cool! I don’t believe I have read a single thing like that before. So good to discover someone with unique thoughts on this subject.

Seriously.. many thanks for starting this up. This site is one thing that is needed on the web, someone with a bit of originality!

Any other day, I would have given this comment no credence viz authenticity, but today I’m in a good mood. Thank you for your good wishes, anonymous commenter who included a link that no way in hell will I ever click on. Much ‘ppreciated.

_______________
¹ Oh please, oh please.

² And thus the universe.

³ No doubt kicking and screaming in some quarters. Darn.