So much good stuff today; it’s kind of unexpected for a Monday.

• Hope Larson is one of the very best people working in comics, when she’s not working in filmmaking, that is¹. Her work always feels honest, the kind of honesty you get between close friends who don’t bother to be polite. Today she released an autobiographical account of her life this century told via cameras and lenses, and it’s sticking with me hard. It’s honest. It’s unvarnished. It’s maybe got more questions than answers. It’s really damn good and you should go check out Reframed right damn now.
• You know who else is one of the very best people working in comics? Meredith Gran². She’s got a comics-writing mojo that can turn from slapstick to introspection in a page or two, without ever feeling unrealistic or unearned. She gets her own characters down to their DNA, and chronicles not just who they are, but who they have been and are in the process of becoming, better than anybody else in the business. She understands how to bring up those depths in other peoples characters, too.

  Having proved herself as both an animator [warning: laugh chuckles ahead] and webcomicker, returned to her alma mater, where she’s teaching the next generation of comics creators. In her spare time she has honed her physical presence to the point that she could probably take Tom Richmond in an arm-wrestling match.

  And she did all of that before today, her 30th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mer. You’re the best.

• Contrary to what a casual reader of this page might think from what’s been written so far, there are also dudes that make comics that I like. I know! Weird! And one of them is Eric “Colossal” Feurstein whose Rutabaga: Adventure Chef, is making the leap to print courtesy of Amulet Books. If you’ve got th bloodberries and Pyka palms and other exotic ingredients, Rutabaga’s recipes are the best. And if all you have are the ordinary bits from the local store, they’re still pretty adaptable. To get the lowdown on the best eats in a world of monsters and magic, pre-order Rutabaga: Adventure Chef Book 1.
• Speaking of books, do you like the porn? Of course you do, porn is the best (mathematically proven here), and now that Smut Peddler series wrangler Spike has gotten her Kickstarter pre-orders shipped³, availability has opened up for the general reading public. US$30, softcover, hundreds of pages and more than US$1600 in bonus payments for each contributor/team? Plunk down your cash here.
• We’re approaching the end of the year, and with it we may expect to see lists of what people considered to be the best of 2014. Amazon (yep, that Amazon) chimed in today with a list of the year’s best comics and graphic novels, where one may note contributions from Matthew Inman, Emily Carroll, Gene Luen Yang, and Box Brown, webcomickers (past/present) all. Nicely done.

Spam of the day:

I think that your page can go viral easily, but you must give it initial boost and i know how to do it, just search in google–mundillo traffic increase

Google-pillow? Am I missing something?

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¹ And if you haven’t seen her short film, Bitter Orange, or her music video for Did We Live Too Fast for Got A Girl, what are you waiting for?

² Disclaimer: I met Ms Gran when she was still an undergrad — holy crap, about a third of her life ago — and she remains a good friend to this day. Also, she designed our masthead image up top there.

³ Which has the added benefit of providing a mini-academy in Kickstarter costs accounting: shipping costs must be factored in, especially international. Those 400 international shipments (barely 7% of the 5700 backers) accounted for a full quarter of the shipping costs.

So much good stuff today; it/a