It’s always a mixed bag, I tells ya.

• Good! 1 November marked one year of Stand Still, Stay Silent, about which I cannot say enough good things. Minna Sundberg has quickly moved into my top rank of personal favorite comics creators, and the fact that she turned out a stunning 208 full-color pages of gripping story in the course of a year¹ which is an incredible achievement for a creator working alone. If you haven’t been reading for the past year, I’d say it’s time for a binge.
• Less Good! We mentioned the Kris Straub/Len Peralta/Mikey Neumann nightmarebuster e-comic series, Exterminite a couple of weeks back. 1 November also marked the day that Neumann shared the data from the first couple of weeks of sales, which were officially Not Very Good At All. While the story of Exterminite (and the story of the making of Exterminite) are far from done, it’s entirely natural for Neumann and his collaborators to have wanted things to do better than
  

  [M]ost likely between 3.5% to 5% of a total recoup of the initial first issue investment. [emphasis original]

  It’s a tough read, but Neumann did self-publishers of comics everywhere a major solid by sharing his experiences (so far) and the changes that will have to be made for the book to not lose a great deal of money. The best we can hope for is — like Jim Zub’s experiences with Skullkickers — the long tail and (and on this point I’m speculating) trade collections will make the book eventually at least a break-even proposition. Good luck, gentlemen, and if you like the sorts of things that those guys do, maybe check out Exterminite either directly through Amazon or via comiXology?

• Mixed Less-Good And Also Some Good! It’s been a bit more than two months since we saw the teen mystery sleuths of Tackleford, what with Bad Machinery being on break for a dip into the SGRverse’s past in the form of Expecting To Fly. It’s been a great story filling in a lot of who Shelley, Tim, and (especially) Ryan are. But still, that notice just above the comic has been making me count down the days:
  

  Bad Machinery is on hiatus until the new year. This is EXPECTING TO FLY! You can read it from the start here.

  Today, sadly, that message is superseded by a blog posting from John Allison:

  I’ve decided to conclude Bad Machinery with the Case Of The Modern Men. It feels like the right time to do it. The characters have outgrown the setting, the premise and the format.

  Oh dear. I love Bad Machinery, out of all expectation of how I thought I would when it replaced Scary Go Round. But if Allison has told the stories that he can tell (eight of them, let’s not forget, each spanning half a year), then that’s all we’re going to get. But in and among this less-good news is the good news:

  There’s definitely more to come from Charlotte, Shauna and the rest of them, but you might not see much of them for a little while. With the third book released in December and five more stories to go, Oni’s beautiful print editions of Bad Machinery should continue unabated. I’m really proud of what they’ve done with my work.

  Thanks to everyone who has supported Bad Machinery. Think of this as a Doctor Who-style regeneration in progress. Your friends will be back.

  Well, that’s all right, then. I might not get my daily fix of Lottie, Shauna, and the rest of Griswald’s Grammar School, but they’ll be there in the world that Allison’s created and can’t help but tell us about. I’ve got room on my bookshelves² for the remaining Bad Machinery collections, and in the meantime there will be Bobbins and other projects. Bad Machinery cases go by the wayside, but the weirdness that is Tackleford will persist.

• Good! We have a date for ComfyCon 3 — the con you attend from home — and it is 21 – 23 November. It appears that Randy Milholland and con spouse Danielle Corsetto are the ringleaders once again, so if you’ve not got any plans for the weekend before [American] Thanksgiving, fire up your browser and get in on all the hanging-out from the comfort of your own home. And speaking of Corsetto, I received her 8th Girls With Slingshots collection today, and it’s wonderful. Thanks to her and all the fine folk at TopatoCo.

Spam of the day:

No matter what the weather, festival-goers need to always pack a few essentials — including macs and wellies, as well as suncream and sunglasses.

Bit late in the year for outdoor festivals, isn’t it?

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¹ Which is just about exactly equal to four pages a week — all the more impressive when you consider that she had to take a couple of breaks of 10 – 14 days to handle order fulfillment on A Red Tail’s Dream books.

² Or more likely, will make room.