Today is going much better, thanks for asking; let’s jump right into it, yes? We’ve got some news to catch up on.

• Over the weekend, Ursula Vernon (and longtime readers will recall that I loves me some Digger) tweeted something that jumped out at me:
  

  So hey, a whole bunch of artists (me included!) are headed to Botswana and we want to make a travel journal about it! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1729864809/expanding-horizons-artists-journey-to-africa

  She’d mentioned in passing the upcoming photo safari¹ in a LiveJournal post, but the fact that she’s going with other artists, and that they want to bring the experience back, is terrific news. The Kickstarter to fund the production of the journal (note that the trip is paid for; you aren’t contributing for somebody to take a vacation, but to see what they experienced) has already funded out, so now it’s just a matter of how nice a travelogue you want, and how nice it gets (stretch goals have already lengthened the book by 10 pages and will likely add a signed bookplate).

  I hadn’t heard of the other contributors to the project (looking at the avatars of the campaign backers, this appears to be primarily attracting people of the anthro persuasion), but looking through the campaign page, there’s some damn nice artwork there. If you hear the word furry and have a negative reaction, get over it — a travelogue is about living the experiences of another, and anybody can have those experiences (but damn few can do a good job of sharing them).

• Kris Straub’s been relatively quiet on the comics front, what with having a new small human being at home to care for, and getting Broodhollow’s latest story arc ready for print. What? It’s ready?
  

  Now the story continues in the second book of the series, Angleworm. Zane has settled into everyday life in Broodhollow, but is plagued by unsettling nightmares. When a tragedy strikes the town in the dead of winter, Zane is left wondering how far he’s willing to go to end his nightmares once and for all …

  Broodhollow is one of the most engrossing, engaging, unsettling webcomics out there, and the first collection was a handsome, dense bundle of story which is crying out for a companion volume on your shelf. The fact that it’s crying out is a little disturbing, but so far it hasn’t shown any actual malice, so I suppose it’s safe to get the second book. Maybe? Look, if your bookshelf starts weeping blood or promising you rewards for setting fires you can reconsider, but otherwise this is a must-have. Unsurprisingly, Broodhollow Book 2: Angleworm has reached nearly 200% of goal since it launched yesterday, so once again your only decision is which reward package you want.

• There are webcomickers that work hard, and there are webcomickers that work fast, but for my money if you want to combine the two, you have to look to Lars Brown. Just last May he was running the Kickstarter campaign for the second collection of his comic, Penultimate Quest. In July, he was gracious enough to gift me a copy of the first book² at SDCC.

  Since then, PQvol2 has printed and fulfilled (last custom rewards went out in September), and he’s continued making the comic, which means that PQvol3 (the end of the story) is funding now for delivery in July (he’s gotta finish up the story, after all). Three volumes covering three years of comics in such a short time? A dissection of the endless dungeon crawl trope, mixed with explorations of religion, philosophy, and Moroccan food? As sure a thing for delivery on the promised date as you can find in webcomics these days? Yes, yes, and yes. Brown’s looking for a very modest US$4500, and is about 70% of the way with three weeks to go; let’s make this happen.

• Not quite a Kickstart, but worth mentioning: Christopher Baldwin’s made a lot of webcomics, from the acclaimed Bruno and the justly-beloved Little Dee to the sci-fi humor/pathos projects of Spacetrawler and One Way³, Yontengu (writing only), and the just-launched and still-plot-establishing Anna Galactic. This is not about any of those comics; it’s about how Baldwin will be making them:
  

  So, I have a lot to announce!

  I’m about to embark on an indefinitely long journey, moving from place to place every month, around the country, making a portable storage unit out of my car, and using airbnb.com for all my stays.

  (graphic version here)

  Baldwin’s going to be supporting his peripatetic (Estradaian, almost) approach to comics in a variety of ways: there’s an Indiegogo campaign with art rewards and his Patreon, but also various ways to buy his wares, two of which have expiration dates:

  Little Dee Originals won’t be on sale for however long I’m on the road (your last day, February 25). So, if you want to purchase any of the archive strips, and help support the launching of my journeying, it might be a while before they’re available again.

  Little Dee b&w collections! As you may know, I have completed the full-color Little Dee graphic novel (totally new story!) for Penguin/Dial books. It is due out this summer, at which point (according to contract) the Little Dee b&w collections, which you know and love, will have to be made unavailable. So, make sure to make purchases before this summer. And what better time than now, to help launch my travels

  I have a number of Little Dee originals and have long been of the opinion that they are criminally underpriced; as for the collections, I can’t imagine my bookshelf without them. If you’ve ever thought about purchasing either of these things, get in now while the getting’s good. Also, let’s see what an unsettled existence does to Baldwin’s creativity; I suspect it will be getting a significant jolt.

• Final bit, and it’s not about ways for you to spend money; KC Green’s adaptation of Pinocchio — which is simply delightful — hit the quarter-done mark on Friday. Yesterday a schedule change was announced:
  

  Hey there friends. Pinocchio is a weird big story, and while I want to finish it just to prove something to myself, I don’t want to continue doing it right now. I need to work on something more in line with how I’m feeling. So I’ll come back to Pinocchio when I can. I’ll post whole chapters when they’re done, but it’s no longer going to be on a scheduled update.

  I am entirely in favor of this; a comic that’s being done just for the sake of doing it isn’t going to be as good as one that’s being done because the creator is really feeling it. Furthermore, Pinocchio is a weird big story (I’d never read the original, and the pacing is distinctly different from stories written in more modern times) and I’ve frequently gone back a dozen or more updates to see how scenes are playing out; seeing whole chapters at a time is going to be a better reading experience, I suspect. The RSS feed is here in case you’re worried about missing chapters when they go up. And as always, I can’t wait to see what Green does next, because the dude just keeps getting better.

Spam of the day:

Anyway if you come from the China or Finland, there are going to be certain native assortment of this awesome cue sport.

I’m not sure that this spam was actually trying to suck me into any purchase or action; I think it honestly wanted me to know about the history and brilliance of billiards. Odd.

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¹ Safari operators have adopted the notion of a goal being to see “big five” game animals: lions, elephants, rhinos, cape buffalo, and leopards. I’d have thought giraffes and zebras would be in there too, or maybe some kind of bouncy antelopes, but the original list involved those animals considered most challenging (read: dangerous) to hunt on foot.

I believe that Ursula Vernon will not give a great goddamn about seeing any of those mammals, as long as she can add ten or twenty birds to her Life List. According to reliable witnesses, when Vernon sees a bird while engaged in ordinary activity like, say, driving a car, she becomes monomaniacally focused to the point that others, say, passengers in said car, have noted AAAAAHHHHH! You’ll kill us all!

² From a Kickstarter that ran for two weeks in March of 2013, and was fulfilled in April. Man’s a machine.

³ Both finished, and judging from some of the comments here at Fleen, not liked as much. I liked ’em just fine.