Yeah, still working on my latest Kickstarter thing; there’s 38 separate projects I’m including in this one, so it’s taking a while. So let me point you at some brief items of interest.

• Firstly, I want to show two ways you can purchase the first collection¹ of A Girl And Her Fed (by K. Brooke “Otter” Spangler) in PDF form: 1, 2. One may note that both copies of Rise Up Swearing contain the full content of the print book, minus the bonus art on the get-Otter-to-sketch-this-page page, because hey, no pages. They are in all ways identical, except for the price.

  One of these versions is identified as To Own (for US$5.00), and one as To Give To A Friend (for US$2.50). Naturally, there’s no way for Otter to tell whether the copy is for you or for somebody else, you’re on the honor system here. I actually think this is a great way to get an established member of your audience to help spread the world-of-mouth to people that may like a comic, by making it easier for them to do so. It’s a PDF, so the production costs are already sunk from the print version; getting half the usual price is better than none, when pretty much by definition it’s going to somebody that never would have bought it in first place due to not knowing about it; in the case that new somebody likes it, they may well become a paying customer in the future. I’d be surprised if I didn’t see this model adopted by other creators.

• Attention, residents of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and surrounding areas: Andy Runton² is coming to see you next week. On Saturday, 16 June, Runton will be at the ToonSeum³ at 1:00pm for a demonstration and signing. No special charge for the event, but there is the regular admission fee to the ToonSeum which is only five bucks if you’re 13 or older and one single dollar for children 6 and over. That’s as good as free, and Andy captivates kids as well as anybody this side of Patrick McDonnell. Grab yer kid, grab yer Owly books, and go meet a humble, talented guy who will most definitely put a smile on your face.
• Attention, residents of Boulder, Colorado and surrounding areas: Chris Yates isn’t coming to see you, on account of he lives there. But he will be dropping by FACTORY|Made creative lab/design incubator to teach a workshop of wooden puzzle making. The fun starts on Sunday, 17 June from 12:00 noon to 6:00pm; tools and materials provided, just bring your imagination and a willingness to get all swoopy and curvy with a scroll-saw. I imagine room will be limited so that participants aren’t sitting around all afternoon waiting for their turn, so advanced registration is recommended; call FACTORY|Made at 303 927 0802 and please note the US$60 registration fee. If you’re uncertain as to whether or not Yates makes stuff that’s up your alley, check out his work here (where, I hear through the grapevine, he’s having a sale).

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¹ Disclaimer: I wrote the foreword for this book, but I don’t get anything out of pimping it here, other than a sense of satisfaction that a work I really like might find another reader or two.

² Who, yeah, technically doesn’t do a webcomic but Owly is great and it’s in the spirit of independent owners and it’s my blog so shut up.

³ Who, yeah, aren’t devoted to webcomics either, but they do a lot of good exhibits and events and they got the funk.

It appears that not all hotel wifi infrastructures are equal, nor all areas of the city of Las Vegas¹ equally covered by cellular data services; while in town to attend/cover the NCS Reuben weekend, it appears I will be able to communicate with the outside world only via voice or by connecting my computer to a wire like some caveman. This may delay my being able to talk about the winner of the first NCS division award for a webcomic (to refresh: Matthew Inman, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, and Jon Rosenberg are the nominees) as I have a disturbingly early flight on Sunday morning. I’ll do what I can, because I love each and every one of you.

After a particularly unsatisfying flight² that put me in a mood midway between grumptastic and grumplicious, I was pleased to find myself in the late afternoon by the pool, talking with Dave Kellett³ (well known to readers of this page) and Chris Sparks, whom I had not met before, and who has been spearheading the Team Cul de Sac project. He had a copy of the book with him which he allowed me to peruse. This sparked several realizations:

1. There are a lot of big names in this book; a lot a lot
2. The drawings and paintings contributed are uniformly terrific
3. The best one in the book isn’t by who you think

A lot of attention has been paid (and rightly so) to the fact that the reclusive Bill Watterson contributed an absolutely marvelous painting of Petey Otterloop, which you have likely seen already (if not, it’s up above). But the image that stopped me in my tracks, that made me take a deep breath and check the sidebar to see who painted Alice with a magic wand in front of a night sky full of stars?

Danielle Corsetto.

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find an image of Danielle’s work anywhere to share with you, so you’ll just have to buy the book and check it out for yourself. Alternately, it appears that it’ll be up for auction (along with the rest of the contributions) in two days, and hopefully the auction site will not get a photo up during the auction, because then you’ll see how wonderful it is and bid against me. You bastards.

The other thing that my conversation with Dave and Chris made me realize is, in hoping to get a weekend away from EMT activity and people in distress and such, I’ve flown a few thousand miles to hang out in a room that will be dominated by elderly cartoonists. Attention old syndicated dudes: please do not make me glove up this weekend, thank you.

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¹ One thing I will never get used to in Las Vegas: unpacking your suitcase full of clothes which were packed in a place with a reasonable humidity, which when pulled out in the dry desert air feel damp. Ick.

² Which, when I think of it, was infinitely easier than the trip my ancestors made on their way from Germany to western Pennsylvania, then on to the untamed wilderness of Kansas not that damn long ago. So on the one hand I feel bad for being so upset about being jerked around by an airline, but on the other hand, they managed to jerk around me and their own employees, who were just non-informed about the situation as I was.

United, you are not a good airline, and the people that worked for Continental prior to your merger are chafing under your cruel yoke. Let them work as they once did and you will find your customers much happier which should be a win for all concerned, assuming you are not total sociopaths.

Also, and I did not think it was possible to say this, but after spending more than 120 minutes total on hold with you over the past 18 hours or so, I have come to hate Gershwin. I used to love Rhapsody in Blue, United, but now it is ruined for all time.

³ Who makes the most disturbingly adorable faces when taking photos to text to his daughter just before bedtime. It occurs to me that she will never know a time when you couldn’t say goodnight to Daddy by sticking out your tongue and crossing your eyes and sending that to his iPhone. I think we’ve got a societal safety valve right there.

I’d also love to recount the discussion we had about Drive over dinner, but that would mostly involve me listing out questions I had for Dave and Dave saying, That’s a goooood question. Can’t tell you yet. a whole lot. Read Drive, so that you may share in my misery of anticipation.

How about an open question: which webcomic should be the next one to get Munchkinified now that Penny Arcade is getting the Steve Jackson treatment? The most obvious candidates are already incorporated: Axe Cop is a full game and Skullkickers is a fifteen card supplement (as is Penny Arcade). Me, I’m holding out for the Moustache Fighting League supplement¹.

Naturally, one wonders exactly how long it will be before gamers bash together some rules to cross-breed the PA Munchkin set with the existing PA card games-slash-expansion, or the forthcoming Paint The Line game². I’m guessing somewhere between twelve and eighteen hours.

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¹ Holy dog, are those strips really more than seven years old?

² In lieu of the audio tracks by Kris Straub for Paint The Line 2 (which appear to no longer exist), please accept this unboxing video of the Paint The Line card game.

Understand that I’m trying to get to the point that I can do a review that’s worth something before I get on a plane on Thursday and fly to Las Vegas for the NCS weekend o’ debauchery entirely wholesome fun. It’s stressful trying to get all my work done prior, but on the flipside, how many opportunities will I ever have to wear a tuxedo in Vegas? I’m considering realxing my long-held policy of being good at math long enough to sit down at a blackjack or baccarat table for one hand¹ because I will never come closer to being James Bond in my life.

In the meantime, here are two things that may be of interest to you.

• On the one hand, it’s likely that World+Dog has already told you that John Allison will be taking Bad Machinëry to Oni Press:
  

  Starting in early 2013, Oni Press will begin collecting John Allison’s popular webcomic Bad Machinery into a series of books. Allison began Bad Machinery in 2009 as an extension of his online strip Scary Go Round. This will be the first time any of the material has seen print.

  Which isn’t quite true, as I have here in front of me a copy of A Feral Flag Will Fly, which is a “limited edition sampler” collecting The Case of the Team Spirit and The Case of The Good Boy². However, AFFWF does not resemble Allison’s previous books (cf: here and other offerings in the Scary Go Round oeuvre), which are digest sized objects of solidity and glorious color.

  It’s good to know that Lottie (my fav’rite character from Tackleford since Dark Esther stole my heart and my goodness has it really been five and a half years since the trip to Wales?), Shauna, Sonny, Linton, Jack, and Mildred will be seen as they were meant to be seen (not to mention that punchlines like this will make much more sense). Everybody feel good for a) John Allison, b) Oni Press, and c) me, because I will get to give money to a) and b).

• I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Dante Shepherd has given over Surviving the World to one of his favorite bands this week, in honor of their new album dropping today. That band would be Hallelujah the Hills, the album would be No One Knows What Happens Next, and they’ve announced an experiment in participatory art-making today that sounds terrific.

  It works like this: make up any rhythm and melody you like for the phrase — You can escape your fate but it’s not considered polite — in any form you like. Do it a cappella, get together some friends and get all barbershop on it, whip up an orchestral arrangement complete with theremin and expladophone, get a friend to beatbox behind you, anything.

  Now record it, and send it to Ryan from HTH, who will take all the submissions and make it into a song. Furthermore, everybody that gets a song snippet in by 1 June will be entered in a drawing for the complete HTH catalog on CD. Personally, I can’t wait to see what kind of music will result from the pieces that Ryan (it looks like Ryan’s family name is Walsh, but like all good collections of artistic types, HTH has more than one Ryan.

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¹ Which will most likely be lost to the house. See? Good at math.

² Along with the aptly-named The Short Preamble.

At least half. Look, it’s got books in it, okay?

For instance, there’s a comic book that’s been making the twitterrounds with its Kickstarter the thing is, Tomorrow Jones looks like it’s got an interesting story hook, as Joey Softerworld pointed out:

The “updates” section on this comic kick-starter have some thoughtful posts about the depiction of women in the comic.

The section in question:

I was faced with the decision of how her universe was going to work. Would everyone, or at least most characters, also be less sexualized? I ultimately decided it would serve the story better if Tomorrow were unique amongst the heroes and heroines in her world. Her mother wears a revealing costume, most female heroes will. But Tomorrow doesn’t. Tomorrow is bucking tradition and trying to do things her own way. She will face pressure to conform and act like everyone else. That is going to be an active conflict in the series, but more so, it makes Tomorrow unique in her own story as well.

So, a strong (literally) female character that’s not a Strong Female Character — very laudable. But Tomorrow Jones is less than a week from closing, and (as of this writing) only at 31% of its (very modest) goal. It’s doing better than in March, when an extremely similar pitch closed unsuccessfully, and with less funding than the current attempt.

I can’t repeat this enough times — no matter how enticing the project sounds, unless it fulfills a need that nobody knew they needed before (there are numerous examples in the Design section of Kickstarter), the most clear indication of a successful fund-raise is going to be the built-in audience and credibility of the creator based on past work.

Brian Daniel seems like a perfectly capable creator, but for somebody to plunk down money on a perfectly capable creator that they don’t know, there needs to be more than a few art samples, a decent story description, and ten bucks burning a hole in their pocket. I’ll go so far as to say that the convenience that Kickstarter offers probably works against Mr Daniel here, as many, many people would fork over that ten bucks for a mini comic or sketch book of developmental work at a show, following a quick flip through something physical.

The end effect of operating at a distance from the creator, one that doesn’t have an existing audience, a pent-up demand, or a positive word of mouth from people who’ve actually seen the book (or all three), is that many perfectly worthy projects are going to be non-starters¹.

The only thing that might help an unknown in this situation is the recommendation of a trusted authority; for instance, I’ll wager a lot of people that haven’t heard of Ryan Pequin’s Three Word Phrase would be willing to splash out for his new book because it carries the TopatoCo Seal of Approval². And that’s where we have the classic Catch-22: Daniel needs the money to finish the book so the has something to show you that will convince you (or convince me to convince you) to fund the book, which doesn’t exist yet. I hope he raises the money because I suspect Tomorrow Jones would be a decent comic book. If my suspicion is enough to convince you, the Kickstarter page is thataway.

Other things:

• Oh sweet merciful dog, yes: the beginning of a crowdsourced topic index of Webcomics Weekly episodes. Can’t wait to rediscover exactly where Brad Guigar’s rant on “champing at the bit” was. For reference, the good part of Laugh Track starts at about five minutes and goes until Scott promises to burn down our technology-based society.
• Danielle Corsetto gave you a gift today — feeling under the weather and not wanting to half-ass a pivotal point in her current storyline, she elected to use a guest strip that was previously submitted during an open call; it’s quite good, but that’s not the gift I was referring to. The gift is Corsetto dropped all her other banked guest strips on you at once. One hundred and ten of them to be precise, in an act of generosity and optimism on account of she hasn’t left herself any to offset future sick-times. That sound you hear is productivity plummeting across the world.
• There’s a new Recipe Comix update over at Saveur; this time, Jennifer Weber drops some potato dumplings on you. This looks to be the simplest way to fancy up potatoes since Anthony Clark’s potato wedges which for the record are crazy delicious.
• Advanced notice: Great Showdowns, book, October, forward by Neil Patrick Harris. Hell, yes.

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¹ Not to mention the fact that the reward structure for Tomorrow Jones goes up to US$150 without actually including a copy of the comic. Ten bucks gets you a signed physical copy of Poorcraft, fifteen for a copy of Daisy Kutter, and US$20 for Sad Pictures for Children, each of which are actual book books in the hundreds of pages. The Kickstarter free money machine never existed except in myth, and you aren’t getting that free money now.

² Oddly enough for a company that regularly deals with the Better Business Burro, there are no comics documenting the existence of a Seal of Approval up in TopatoCo World Domination Headquarters, and I for one think that’s a damn shame.

They’re back, and with more broken spines strong characterization per panel than any other comic strip or book, Susan B Assthony, Georgia O’Queefe, and Queen Elizatits are kicking every head, fighting every evildoer, and wearing all the sunglasses. I honestly spent 20 minutes trying to decide which excerpt from The Strong Female Characters: Action Punch Role Model Strength Bomb to post, because the entire thing is inspiring. Ultimately the decision was made because Poop Yogurt is inherently funny. For those few of you that aren’t familiar with the SFCs, you can begin your education in the eradication of sexism here.

Events! Things are happening in and around the New York branch of webcomickry in the immediate future!

• As previously noted, the Teen Boat!¹ book launch takes place on an actual boat tomorrow night, 11 May 2012, at 7:00pm. The venue is the Waterfront Barge Museum at Pier 25 in Manhattan (on the scenic Hudson River, a couple of blocks below Canal). On the off chance that you’re in the neighborhood and don’t like teens, boats, or books, it looks like the pier has mini-golf, so that’s all right. Look for creators John Green & Dave Roman to be signing, sketching, and singing sea chanties all night long. Rumor has it that Raina Telgemeier will be there, and while she would never want to take anything away from Dave & John’s night, if you happened to tell her how awesome you thought SMILE was or how much you’re looking forward to DRAMA, I bet she’d say thank you.
• Same webcomics-time, same webcomics-city, but a different borough: Scott C opens his solo show, Tender Times, at Cotton Candy Machine in Brooklyn. For those of you that can’t make it to 235 1st Street (roughly at the meeting point of Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, and Boerum Hill, and mere steps from the Union Street subway stop on the D/N/R lines), Cotton Candy Machine will be having a pre-sale of Mr C’s art in their store from 3:00 to 5:00pm. For those of you than can make it, these gallery openings traditionally feature fun times and booze.

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¹ Once again, our safety warning: Teen Boat!, the lighthearted, all-ages comic/graphic novel does not, repeat, NOT have anything to do with the most obvious web address that one might assume referred to said boat. If you try to browse to teenboat.com [no link], you will come across something particularly NSFW, and on the off chance it’s safe for your work, please shower thoroughly and get on a regimen of industrial antibiotics before coming within ten meters of me. Thank you. Especially don’t do an image search on “teen boat”. You’re welcome.

How about some revisits to things from the deeps of time? Or at least 2004.

• See, 2004 is when Kazu Kibuishi did a little comic miniseries called Daisy Kutter, which ran four issues and was collected in a nice book and immediately went out of print. It’s got an Old West + mecha sensibility, a palette and overall design that are similar to the much-heralded Tale of Sand, and even a primer on Texas Hold ‘Em before poker was on everybody’s minds and half of the basic cable lineup. It is, in short, beautiful, and all but unobtainable, except at usurious prices.

  Kibuishi is about to ruin the day of those hawking used copies for nearly forty bucks, because Daisy Kutter is, briefly, returning via Kickstarter, with an almost haiku-like reward structure¹. Four reward tiers, all of which get you the book, at price points that dominate in the low- to mid-range, with one pie-in-the-sky reward featuring original art from Kibuishi. Once the Kickstart runs its course, the books will be available briefly in the physical market, then once more it’ll be hard to find.

  The only reason I haven’t plunked down money for this one already is I have to check my bookshelves and home and verify that my copy is still there. It’s possibly that I lent it to somebody but if so I probably never got it back because who would want to part with comics this good? Only crazy people, that’s who.

• Speaking of Tale of Sand (from a lost screenplay by Jim Henson, may his pointy felt collar always be green), the adaptation by Ramón Peréz² is up for a slew of awards this season, including multiple Eisners and Cartoonist / Créateur at the just-announced Joe Shuster Awards. The Shusters, celebrating comics from the Great Northern and Bountiful Canadian Empire, have always had a wide-ranging slate of nominees, putting superhero work against indy creators if it makes sense to do so.

  Please note as well the variety and breadth of topics and formats in the Webcomics Creator / Créateur de Bandes Dessinées Web category, where I’m rooting for Emily Carroll, rightly recognized for her multiple outstanding comics stories last year. The award ceremony will be held in September at Comiccon de Montréal / Montreal Comic-Con.

• Finally, seemingly everybody in webcomics and their dog is getting in on a 30th anniversary tribute to Dig Dug being put together by NAMCO IP aftermarket conversion shop ShiftyLook. And by “everybody”, I mean including (and possibly more because dang that list of names is lengthy): Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik, Scott Kurtz, David Malki !, Matt Melvin, Randy Milholland, Krishna Sadasivam, Kris Straub, Zach Weiner, the nearly-omnipresent Jim Zub and, of course, Ryan North³.

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¹ Short, but entirely complete in its aims.

² Whose whimsical, wonderful Kukuburi is much missed, but you can’t blame a guy for taking paying jobs first.

³ After all, that was Ryan’s dog, and they kind of come as a package deal.

I can always tell how good a convention/festival I don’t attend is doing by how sparse the updates in my Twitterfeed are during show hours. And boy howdy, by that measure, TCAF ’12 was the greatest show ever, because I didn’t see anything while it was running.

If you want to know how the show went (consensus: Best show ever), check out the #tcaf hashtag over the past few days, or let the participants get home and put up the inevitable, glowing con reports.

One feature of the show is the annual presentation of the Doug Wright Awards, which honor the best in Canadian (English language) cartooning, and which are mercifully brief, featuring a total of three (3) categories: Best Book (self explanatory), Doug Wright Spotlight Award (for emerging talent), and The Pigskin Peters Award (for avant-garde or nontraditional work).

This year, surprising upwards of two people, Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant took the Best Book award, bookending her 2009 win for Best Emerging Talent¹. Given the (frankly, inexplicable) absence of Hark! A Vagrant from the Eisners, that leaves the Shuster, the Harvey, and the Ignatz as potential future wins, in addition to the many, many accolades it has received outside the comics-specific community. As always, the praise is well-deserved.

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¹ Which appears to be the former name of the Doug Wright Spotlight Award, but the DWA website isn’t clear on this.

In the short term, you’ve got this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival, kicking off tomorrow at the Toronto Research Library. In the somewhat longer term, you’ve got Marceline and the Scream Queens, set for monthly release starting in July. The common thread? The supremely talented Meredith Gran, who took time out from drawing Octopus Pie and packing for the trip to TCAF to talk to us about Adventure Time, her own comics, and the importance of having a dog in the house.

Time prevented me from talking with other creators extensively, but even brief conversations are fun.

• For example, Box Brown’s been working much of the past six months on Retrofit Comics, which is now down to a familiar process. The back catalog is pretty much sold out, and the project will run its course as planned; Brown may or may not keep the “Retrofit Comics” name for future projects.

  The project most consuming his time would be his comics biography of André Roussimoff, professional giant and haver of posses. Brown has gone so far as to communicate with Mr The Giant’s brother¹, and expects to work the rest of the year on what may well be the definitive biography of André. Oh, yes, and he’s also doing webcomics again, you know, in his free time.

• Magnolia Porter, meanwhile, is splitting her time, with the first project being the ongoing Monster Pulse, which mixes a quirky visual style with lots of heart². Speaking of visual style, I finally figured up what it is that makes Guuzy so appealing, despite that fact that he may be the most dangerous of the monsters, what with being an acid-filled stomach monster and all. It’s the way that his forelegs are so much shorter than his hindlegs, giving him the same posture as a dog that’s got a tail wagging high and a head down low and eyes that say Play, play, play time to play!

  That same instinct for creating appeal in non-human characters carries over to the human characters as well; Bina and the other players we’ve met all act like whole, real people; their anger, their exhaustion, their bewilderment and denial all come from an organic place and make you want to know them more.

  It’s something that Porter has had a lot of practice with, what with years of Bobwhite under her belt — Marlene, Ivy, and Cleo lived and breathed and influenced each other, and shortly their story will be collected into print. That would be the other thing that Porter is working on, and I can only believe that Bobwhite will read beautifully as a continuous story. Personally, I’m holding out for a bonus story that reveals more of the main cast’s feelings for Ben Bailey.

• Shifting gears for a moment, all those books will surely require some Kickstarting, which put me in mind of a conversation that took place on the Armory steps. It started with some catching-up with Rick Marshall³, and we were by chance joined by a passing Johanna Draper Carlson and Heidi MacDonald. Kickstarter discussion about sweet spots, Smut Peddler’s ultimate total (I’m putting it in the range of US$55-60K), and Shaenon Garrity’s clever use of unlocked rewards on the Skin Horse 3 campaign.

  I tried laying out some of my (very early) analysis and desire for a Grand Unified Theory of Kickstarter, but so far my attention has been on the numbers and not the words to describe it. I should have just waited a few days more and I could have pointed them towards yesterday’s Penny Arcade, because (as usual) Jerry’s words do the trick:

  You’ve seen Stretch Goals before, if you’ve ever watched one of these things succeed: mechanisms to maintain funding momentum after success, with whispered promises of more…. Goodies you can add a la carte, independent of your pledge level. They’ve essentially developed an RPG, where your money is the XP. [emphasis added]

  There it is, maybe the key element I’ve been grasping for. Kickstarter reward design isn’t just a min-max problem for the creator, it’s one for the supporter as well. We’ve established that you need an audience that’s crying out for whatever you’re offering, and you have to give them a compelling reason to back you. Those things are still true.

  But now, shift the perspective: instead of trying to manage the money you take in, you should be setting up a structure where your backers will seek on their own to maximize the money they can possibly contribute. There’s a weird mixture of industrial-grade psychology and probability math at the heart of it, which is to say — it’s a game. Don’t try to play it yourself, try to make the most appealing set of rules.

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¹ Or at least attempt to; a letter has been written to an address in France that reportedly once belonged to the surviving Mr Roussimoff. He hopes for a reply, but acknowledges the odds are long.

² I’m so, so sorry.

³ Will, and Holly.