Honestly, though — it’s fascinating. There’s a tweakability to to, but it’s working with so many variables that the likelihood of every coming up with a simple, reproducible formula to ensure maximum response/value is very, very low. I imagine it will help if you’re a good chess player and like managing your city outputs in Civilization¹. In the meantime, how about some things that are entirely not related to fundraising?

• Let’s start with another theme that I was repeating for a good long while — how awesome Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol. Having taken a number of recognitions and honors (including those of YALSA, CYBILS, Kirkus, and the prestigious “Fleenie”), Brosgol’s story is a nominee for a Bram Stoker Award by the Horror Writers Association in the category of Graphic Novel².
• From Ryan Estrada’s Google+ stream and/or Tumblr, evidence of the popularity of webcomics in Korea:
  

  I was in a Love Hotel. The super fancy kind, with an in-room hot tub overlooking the ocean, and a private theater. When I turned on the home theater, there were three options. Movies, TV, and webcomics.

  Porn was not even among the first set of options. That was several clicks through the menu. That means that a large enough group of people will come to this place, look at all their options, and say “Baby, let’s snuggle up in bed and read some webcomics on the big screen.”

  I think I speak for everybody when I say that I’m both proud and a little scared that webcomics are easier to obtain than porn in a setting that is deliberately designed to promote sexytimes. Also, I want to thank the operators of that love hotel, in that they’ve provided a wonderful excuse for anybody caught there with the wrong person: Baby, we were just catching up on webcomics!³

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¹ Where meeting your goal in plenty of time is like discovering Railroad and Flight while your opponents are still fielding armies of longbowmen and knights.

² Where her competition are the likes of Mike Mignola and Alan Freakin’ Moore.

³ If that ever happens to anybody, I solemnly promise that I will get Brad Guigar to illustrate it and send the original to the offending party.

Sorry for the late posting; been doing a lot of thinking in opposite directions today.

On the one hand, I heard a throwaway piece on the local cut of Morning Edition yesterday¹ about how 50 New York City taxis are going to be part of a pilot program where they get rid of the adutainment-heavy “Taxi TV” screens in the backseat in favor of iPads with Square credit card readers — the same one every webcomicker and thon² dog uses at conventions to take payments — so that you can play games or engage in commerce while hauling from the airport to Midtown.

A custom system was almost certainly considered that would do about the same thing, but off-the-shelf is easier and robust enough that it became the preferable solution. Look for Square to move from “ubiquitous” to “it’s weird if you don’t have one” sometime this con season.

On the other hand, I want to draw your attention to Jon Rosenberg’s Kickstarter to print color volume four of the sadly-hiatused Goats. Blah, blah, halfway there before he wrote it up on his site, blah, blah, 100% funding³ in less than 18 hours, standard stuff. No, what I wanted to mention was something that caught my attention about six hours ago, when Rosenberg’s total:contributors ratio was running an astonishing US$91.09.

By contrast, Rich Burlew’s just-concluded blowout finished at a ratio of US$83.33, and the Double Fine record destroyer sits (with, admittedly, 20 days to go) at US$33.16. What makes Burlew and Rosenberg’s readers more likely to drop the big bucks?

Better question: why is Rosenberg’s ratio (as of this writing) down to US$79.24? I believe it’s because of high-value rewards Burlew had more than two dozen different tiers above his average donation, and Rosenberg has approximately 2/3 of his tiers above the average (which is a moving target, so take it with a grain of salt). More to the point, all of Rosenberg’s high-ticket items are limited-availability, and the ones with the biggest take-ups aren’t the ones marked ___ of 500 remaining or even ___ of 100 remaining, they’re the ones marked 0 of 3 or 6 of 10.

I think that scarcity prompts a True Fan (who’s already primed by a lack of Goats lo these 18+ months) to think, I’d better jump on this now or I’ll miss out entirely, even if that’s more than I wanted to spend. Rich Stevens saw a similar effect in some of his extremely limited (typically to of 3 or of 6) Lego creation rewards, which have prompted him to dole out very few re-stocks of those rewards, which were promptly snapped up.

Takeaway — it’s not just the dollar value (and not undervaluing your work), it’s also making the audience think the equivalent of This is a limited-edition, con-exclusive variant which they fear they’ll have to buy on eBay after at tremendously jacked-up prices. Watch Rosenberg’s campaign closely; I suspect that ratio is going to edge back up with just a little careful expectation-prodding.

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¹ WNYC represent.

² It’s growing on me.

³ About 30 minutes ago.

How many? How about the announcement that Jim Zub will be translating old videogame IP into new webcomics will have to be disposed of here in the intro, because there’s just that much stuff to talk about. Or that fact that Tom Siddell just dropped the mother of all surprise twists¹ on us after 1002 updates? Naturally, this means the rest of the week will likely be dead. Ah well, thems the breaks in the exciting world of hack webcomics pseudojournalism.

Let’s start with new follow-ups of recent stories:

• John Allison’s soft-launched subscription drive (referenced here) has, in its first week, attracted some US$6000 in support, with a majority of the activity in the middle ranges. Looks like my suggestion that the Silver tier of support was appropriate was more accurate than I thought.
• As we saw yesterday, Rich Burlew is up over US$1,000,000 on Kickstarter², but today Dave Kellett reminded us that my flip characterization of temporary millionaire should more correctly have been theoretical millionaire:
  

  So, to review: Burlew will pay ~10% in Kickstarter/CC fees, and >40% in Federal/State tax. Same thing happened to Stripped. A huge downer.

  Burlew did write an update noting that he’d not calculated all of the costs for the drive correctly and noting the adjustment of certain calculations eleven days ago, and also noted an estimated cost of US$200,000 just on postage to mail out all of the merch (at a time, it should be noted, when he was sitting at about half the monetary total he’s at now, so drag that number upward).

  Moral of the story: anybody expecting that Burlew has joined the financial elites as a result of this campaign, he hasn’t. The general operating fund he’s establishing out of any residual overage doesn’t alter the fact that Kickstarter is, essentially, a per-project funding mechanism that works on a pre-orders model³.

• Announced just about a month ago, Penny Arcade’s foray into daily editorial reportage on the videogame industry launched in the wee small hours of the morning as The Penny Arcade Report. And talk about launching with a bang, as PAR editor Ben Kuchera both interviews Valve honcho Gabe Newell and tours the Valve offices.

  To be perfectly honest, this probably won’t be part of my daily content trawl, but I imagine I’ll be poking my head in from time to time because it isn’t really possible to keep up on the breadth of popular culture without some passing knowledge of videogaming (and much as the AV Club keeps me up to date on nearly all aspects of popular culture, their VG coverage is mostly limited to reviews rather than trends and analysis).

On to new items:

• Darryl Cunningham, comics creator/champion of the reality-based approach to life, has an advanced copy in hand of something I think you’re going to want to see: the print version of his non-psychiatric comics⁴, Science Tales. With any luck, that means the rest of us will have an opportunity to get our own (non-advanced) copies in the near future.
• You know who in the world of webcomics I like and — more to the point — feel I understand on a near-genetic level, because our shared weltanschauung⁵ is based on not just one, but two voluntary tribal affiliations⁶? Angela “Jam” Melick. Despite the name of her autobio comic, she wastes no talent, as no fewer than three major things are coming together right now for her:
  1. Her recent talk at the Vancouver Public Library on comics writing is now up on YouTube
  2. Her second book, Welcome to the Real World⁷ is perhaps three weeks away from dropping
  3. She’s jumping from a large company to a small one (employee #3), which is a scary and exhilarating time in the life of any young geek⁸
• She kicked the ass of first of these three things, and the two that are yet to/about to occur are going to get theirs kicked as well. And joining her in some of that ass-kickery will be fellow British Columbian and webcomicker Sam Logan, who has his own career shift to consider:
  

  For those who don’t know, aside from drawing Sam and Fuzzy comics for a living, I have also spent the last 8 years designing and illustrating a pair of children’s science magazines called KNOW and YES Mag. Well, I’m sad to say that a few days back, we received word from the company that owns the magazines that they were shutting them both down and letting us all go. Like, immediately.

  So, what am I going to do? Well, I’m going to what I’ve always said I’d do if this happened… go full-time cartoonist and focus entirely on my own stuff. [emphasis original]

  Anybody that reads Sam and Fuzzy regularly will probably suspect, as do I, that in a few years Logan will regard this involuntary⁹ change as one of the best things that ever happened to him, possibly even matching the day he first tasted Rice Krispies¹⁰.

• Finally (!), may I recommend to your attention this digression on creativity by David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc) on the nature of creativity? I believe I may, with a special emphasis on these bits:
  

  Recently I made something. I thought some people might enjoy it. I posted it on the web. One of the comments I received was, “You have way too much spare time.”

  This is one of the worst things you can say to someone who shares their creativity. For starters, it’s wrong. It’s not merely wrong, it’s incredibly, blatantly wrong. It’s so wrong that it breaks the wrongness barrier, emerges into another universe, and is wrong there also. I wish I had too much spare time! Then I might actually achieve half the stuff I have ideas for and want to do. Creative people never have enough spare time.

  Thankfully, criticism does little to deter people who really want to make stuff for their own sake. Again, I have no solid statistics, but my experience makes me suspect that most creative people fall into this category. They make stuff not for the recognition, but because it’s in their nature to make stuff. They can’t not make stuff. They go around with their heads full of ideas, lamenting the fact that they don’t have nearly enough spare time to make all the cool things they can imagine. [emphasis original]

  I usually call out Morgan-Mar’s longer thoughts because they explore a piece of science or physics in a way I find particularly compelling, but I (to my detriment) forget sometimes that he also has a strong philosophical streak. Despite destroying the universes that one time, his drive to create takes my breath away. Bravo, sir.

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¹ I refer, naturally, to the fact that in a place so full of technology as The Court, Jones continues to use a Motorola RAZR. So very 2002, Jones.

² As of this writing, US$1.094 million, with 20 hours to go; he’s also posted a target for how much has to be raised to actually receive a million dollars (however temporarily) after the Kickstarter/Amazon cuts and assuming a 5% rejected credit cards rate: US$1.14million. At present growth rates, he’ll hit that in about six hours.

³ And rather handily, too, seeing as how PayPal rules basically prohibit that model.

⁴ Which already had their own print collection, Psychiatric Tales.

⁵ Look it up.

⁶ Webcomics and engineering, a select confraternity also inhabited by Kean Soo; if we ever touch the rings worn on the small fingers of our working hands, we gain absolutely nothing because engineers don’t friggin’ need superpowers to get shit done, we do it because it needs doing and that need is like crack to us.

⁷ My thoughts on her first book, We Are The Engineers, may be found here.

⁸ I did a couple years as employee #8 at a small tech firm, which is slightly less jarring as there’s more people to learn from before you have to fly on your own.

⁹ In the sense that its timing was imposed rather than chosen.

¹⁰ No kidding, dude eats Rice Krispies every day of his life. Also, I believe this is the first time that I’ve broken into double-digit footnotes.

It seems we’ve hit the season of accomplishments.

• About six weeks back I was doing a mini-crawl through the Gunnerkrigg Court archives and noticed that the current strip appeared to be the 983rd one in Tom Siddell’s exploration of consciousness, myth, technology, friendship, plus bozos, jerks, numbnuts, doofs and jabronis¹.

  Making a mental note to scan the archive picker a bit more closely over the ensuing month, it appears that the pages are, in fact, numbered sequentially. That means that today marks the 1000th update of Gunnerkrigg Court, which as we all know is the hallmark of quality in the struggle against a sea of schmendricks and crumbums. One should also note that this most recent ninnyhammer-heavy story is going to look great when volume 4 hits the shelves; so that you’re all caught up by then, mayhap you ought to pick up the earlier books?

• Likewise, if my math (and a helpful note from Bill Barnes) may be trusted, tomorrow would appear to be the tenth anniversary of Unshelved, which began its long march to dominance of the library science departments of the world on 16 February, 2002. They were younger then, Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum, a little freer, a little more lighthearted perhaps.

  But in the passing of their youth they have gained wisdom, the sort that only comes from hitting the ALA convention floor and having a crowd of librarians threaten to tear their clothes from their bodies so as to absorb some of their mighty essence. If this makes Ambaum and Barnes sound like a sort of thinner and less musical Tenacious D, well, there are merits to the analogy. Unlikely superstars within a specific milieu, varying degrees of bald and middle-aged, but still able to pull down the groupies like nobody’s business?

  Yeah, okay, I ain’t buying the groupie thing either², but the Unshelved Crüe remain the epitome of niche appeal, which makes for a pretty comfortable environment when an underserved cohort decides you’re their #1 favorite entertainment provider. Congrats to Ambaum and Barnes for not only having one of the long-term successful webcomics, but also one of the long-term successful webcomics partnerships. If the library thing ever grows old, they could take what they learned from dealing with each other for a decade and hit the marriage counseling circuit.

• Okay, it’s not a power of ten, but how about 200 comics over at All New Issues, with an extra-special Jamie Noguchi guest strip? You don’t need to know anything about the fictional comic book character of Lobster Boy, or the various relationships and infatuations (requited and not) in the strip to get the message of today’s strip. It’s all there in the last panel.

Some other quick numbers, with thanks to the Harpers Index:

• Likelihood that Rich Burlew will clear $US800,000 and 10,000 backers in the five days left to his Kickstarter project: 100%.
• Likelihood that the George Rohac conspiracy (okay, okay, “Benign Kingdom”) will hit US$50,000 and 1000 backers in the nine remaining days of their Kickstarter project: 100%
• Likelihood that Rich Stevens will have to take a road trip to deliver a Pac-Man arcade machine to Wil Wheaton in the twenty two days remaining in his Kickstarter project: 100%
• Further likelihood that somebody will make Rich eat at least one more pound of bacon (that would be the second) and/or force him to do a month of strips on a Windows machine instead of his beloved Mac and/or give up coffee for a month: 2/3^{3, 4}

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¹ Especially jabronis.

² It’s not like they got Brad Guigar in the band.

³ Unlike the other Kickstarter items noted, which are based on uplifting possibilities of joy and happiness, this one has only the potential for schadenfreude. Shame on you person(s) that make it happen, and bless you at the same time.

⁴ That “3” is a footnote, not a mathematical exponent. Likewise, so that I can avoid an infinite series of footnotes explaining that yes, the previous footnote was also a footnote, the “4” is a footnote and not an exponent.

Rich Stevens is actually doing it:

Someone actually pledged $666 to dare me to break vegetarian and eat a pound of bacon. Daniel Valentine, you amazing dark wizard of death. I am going to survive this and evolve new mutant powers in the process! Perhaps this will be the radioactive spider that eventually teaches me about responsibility.

Speaking of Valentines, Daniel and otherwise …

• You know who is every lady’s dream valentine? Brad Guigar, but that’s too bad because he’s only got eyes for his wife, sons, and cartooning¹. Today he celebrates twelve years of juggling those competing demands on his time in a manner so deft that he cartooning gets stronger, the wisdom he shares gets wiser, and the husband-and-father routine becomes more natural and rewarding².
• Know what else is associated with Valentine’s Day besides Brad Guigar? Yes, yes, we know, “horny werewolves”, thank you Internet Jesus. I was just gonna say “sexy times”, and use that to point out that the long-awaited Smut Peddler collection (with a submission period of more than a year, recently closed) is nearly completion. Posted today: the cover, by the too-talented-to-be-believed Emily Carroll. Prepare to read this with somebody you love (or at least really, really like).
• For your consideration: not quite a tip jar, not quite an obligation, more an expression of appreciation for those that don’t like to buy stuff. John Allison has introduced a subscription model for Bad Machinëry that is entirely optional, and for which you, the subscriber receive nothing in particular above and beyond the sense of satisfaction you get for supporting an artist. I was recently asked what the proper way to read a webcomic was (the original intent was RSS or go to the page), but my reply was:
  

  Mentally track how many pages you read, buy $1 of merch for every 10 pages.

  If you don’t like stuff cluttering your home, here’s your alternative; by my calculation, Mr Allison gives you about 250 pages per year, making the Silver level of subscription about right.

• One should note that asking for money for doing a comic (whether in the form of donations, a tip jar, fund drives, and the like) attracts a range of opinions, from support to criticism. Also found in the world of comics and no consensus opinion: motion comics. For those of us of a certain age, motion comics (no matter how well done, and often they aren’t well done) will always invoke the super-cheap Marvel animated show of the ’60s, where panels were slid on the screen with entirely static characters and a voice track overlaid (seriously; they made the animated Star Trek look like a Pixar production).

  That being said, I freely admit my own youthful experiences color my impressions of motion comics. Done well, it might add something to the original that I never realized was lacking. And if anybody is going to do it well, it’s probably Rob Balder, who is launching a project to motion comic-ize Book One of Erfworld. I have affection for Erfworld, in a way that I didn’t for Iron Man or Hulk when I was three or four years old. Technology has progressed by leaps and bounds, as has the judgment of what constitutes proficient voice acting. Hell, the US$24,000 that Balder has set as his goal may well exceed the budget that Marvel was working with back in ’66. So despite my misgivings (again, born entirely of my past experiences), I’m very curious to see how this could turn out.

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¹ A lesser man would have a mistress, but Brad’s not lesser in any sense of the word. Ladies.

² I don’t have empirical, observed evidence for that like for the other two things but come on — dude’s obviously got love for his family seeping from every pore. Every moment he’s cartooning, he’s champing³ at the bit to get back to his family.

³ You’re welcome, Brad.

A little (simulated) murder, and little (definitely non-simulated) mind-gaming, a little (clandestine) blowing town for some far-off destination (I’m betting on Vegas and/or Tijuana); it must be the 3000^th extravaganza. It started with Maura hatching a fairly evil plan involving Pale Suzie, Suzie’s horrible cat (who has a history of violence), and a faked death. Naturally, mayhem become Red Robot, who just wants to join in the fun. Repercussions will inevitably follow, but for now let’s just enjoy that evil grin in panel #5.

If we’re being completely honest, the very sexy Richard Stevens III has actually done more than 3500 installments of Diesel Sweeties, once you count the year and a half he ran as a syndicated strip in newspapers, all while bouncing from crazed idea to even more crazed idea. It’s a hell of an accomplishment, and one that would break lesser mortals, or at least anybody that didn’t regard the phenomenon of sleep with a mixture of pity and contempt. Congratulations on the fairly arbitrary Big Round Number, Rich. Now get back to work baking tomorrow’s cookie.

• On the far end of the webcomics long runner count: Reptilis Rex, which launches today with an archive of a week’s worth of strips¹. As previously noted, Reptilis Rex claims to be the work of one “William Tallman”, which is an admitted pseudonym. Now obviously this is a fiction, and the strip is not produced by a lizard man from the center of the hollow earth, chupacabra, sasquatch or any other type of cryptid. We can reveal, as the result of an extensive investigation, that “William Tallman” is actually an established webcomicker, lying low from the potential wrath of angry corporate interests.

  Consider: “William Tallman” anagrams to “Anal Am Will Milt”, which stands for “Anal [collector, I] Am Will[is, fan of] Milt[on Bradley]”; as everybody knows, Milton Bradley is a subsidiary of Hasbro, who make the Transformers line of toys. Thus, “William Tallman” is clearly David Willis, well-known Transformers shill enthusiast, who is fearful of offending those who make his addiction possible and thus hides his new, non-Transformers-related project² behind a fake name. OPEN YOUR EYES AND SWIM IN THE TRUTH.

• In the middle of the webcomics duration scale: Gastrophobia, which has a totally-handy catch-up strip for those of you that haven’t kept current on the previous two “seasons” of the comic. If you want more to help you catch up on the story twists, Season One (cleverly paralleling the twelve labors of Herakles) is available from creator David McGuire’s store, and Season Two will join it shortly, providing the fundraising is successful over the next month or so. If you like ponies, you should really scroll down to the bottom of the list of supporter gifts because there’s one there that’s totally just for you.

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¹ A M-W-F strip, this puts RR’s archive at a total of three.

² His third simultaneous strip, the second with no relation to Transformers, which constitutes an unconscionable reduction in Transformers content in the eyes of his Cybertronian masters. Life thus imitates webcomics, as in the completely true diary comics of Jeffrey Rowland, whose corporate boss must spend an inordinate amount of time ensuring that one little boy continues to believe in him and buy his toys. Truths within truths — David Willis is a thinly-disguised Wigu Tinkle.

So, Rich Burlew crossed the threshold for the #5 all-time Kickstarter fundraising total sometime overnight. Then somewhere around 9:30am (GMT-5) today, he lost it again, because coming out of nowhere is the campaign for Double Fine‘s next videogame, which set the record for 24 hours of fundraising and highest number of backers and is, as of this writing, literally adding backers and dollars faster than I can refresh the project page.

If you have to fall behind on a landmark achievement, at least there’s no shame when these guys are in the game; at present rates of growth, somewhat less than 48 hours will be necessary for Double Fine to become the all-time highest fundraising total on Kickstarter, and it keeps picking up steam⁰. As I write this sentence, they’re over US$868,000¹, having added at a rate of more than US$60,000 per hour since I started paying close attention a couple hours ago.

And, since as we all know Double Fine are slightly associated with Scott C, it’s all in the webcomics family.

Did I mention that Burlew’s campaign is (again, as I write this) over 1000% funding? Or that Rich Stevens had cleared 400% of goal in 24 hours? These are exciting times for creator-owned (in the case of Burlew and Stevens) and boutique/creator-driven (in the case of Double Fine) works; in case you were unconvinced on that point, allow me to direct your attention to this story.

Short form:

You can make all the arguments you want about Well, he didn’t have to sign a work-for-hire contract and Nobody forced him. Fine. Out of your system? Explain to me what benefit Marvel receives from enjoining Friedrich from stating a true fact. Explain to me how the Marvel/Disney corporate legal team could have possibly spent less than US$17K, and how spending more money than you receive can serve any purpose other than to punish Freidrich for having the temerity to say Hey, this deal is pretty lopsided, out of simple human decency and a sense of fairness would you re-negotiate?.

Where would Friedrich be if he owned Ghost Rider? What kind of hellish poverty will Burlew, Stevens, and the entire crew of Double Fine be much more likely to avoid simply because they’re not beholden to a publisher³ that demanded complete ownership of the things in their heads? How entirely malevolent does an entire segment of the publishing industry have to be that Rich Stevens has a brighter future by giving away⁴ something he owns than Friedrich and countless others have had by cashing checks for things they should have, but didn’t?

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⁰ So to speak.

¹ Probably hit US$900,000 by the time I’m ready to post.

² Money he doesn’t have; cf: destitute.

³ Can publishers be useful? Absolutely — take a look at TopatoCo, which does not demand total ownership of properties it publishes, because Jeff and Holly realize that is entirely out of proportion to the risk they assume in capital and effort to bring things to print. This is because they are decent human beings.

⁴ From the second update to his Kickstarter:

I am definitely going to be able to do my collections and offer them as DRM-free, payment-optional downloads.

I was going to be posting about an amazing comic that Kate Beaton posted yesterday, but it’s been temporarily pulled; it dealt with a death in the small town she’s from, and because it’s in the form of a “comic”, there was concern that some might feel she was making light of the situation. It was as fine a meditation on loss that I’ve ever seen in words-and-pictures, and hopefully it will be back to where you can see it soon. When that time comes, you will most likely be able to find it here.

Instead, let’s talk about Rich Stevens and his latest mad-comics project: a comprehensive, 3000-strip collection of Diesel Sweeties as an e-book, which he announced about 15 minutes ago, and which has already seen the addition of the most disturbing Kickstarter promotion I’ve ever heard of:

(And you better believe I will be adding weird rewards to amuse myself. Only $666 to make me break veg. and eat 1lb. bacon on camera.)

No, wait he’s added one since then:

Blame @jefflowrey for the fact that I just added a KS reward where I give up coffee for a month for $10,000.

Damn you, former Fleen contributer Jeff Lowrey! Why do you want to make Rich commit suicide? But apart from the amusing rewards offered¹, I wanted to draw your attention to this because Rich Gets It, where “It” is the issue of Digital Right Management and locked formats and suchlike:

I care about credit and copyright, and love the idea of selling ebooks, but as long as I am able to work on Diesel Sweeties, I would like payment to be optional. That’s the model which has supported me as my main job since 2003, through boom and recession. That’s the model this comic was designed for and where it’s going to stay.

Those of you who support this project will have free download as well as physical thumb drive options available. You’ll also be ensuring I can afford to make a really thorough ebook and both sell it and offer it as a free download.

I hope you’ll also store this collection and share it with your friends. Remix it for devices that don’t exist, buy a decommissioned missile silo and Apocalypse-proof it, print it out and ask me to sign a twenty-pound stack of paper when you see me at a convention. Once you get a copy, it’s yours. The only copy protection I need is the fact that tomorrow’s comic doesn’t exist yet and my brain’s the only place that bakes that cookie. I only ask that you respect the Creative Commons license and do not use them commercially without permission. [boldface original, large text my emphasis]

That entire last paragraph is pure genius, and that large bit? That’s what I want to beat into the brain of every IP lawyer that buys and bribes Disney an extension to copyright every time it looks like Mickey Mouse might enter the public domain. It’s what I want to tattoo on the inside of Christopher Dodd’s eyelids, so he realizes that creativity doesn’t have to fear piracy if it’s nimble and active instead of trying to hide from the changes in the world.

I may not have the spare cash to get ten copies of Rich’s e-book on thumb drives delivered in person and he makes me coffee², but you can damn well bet that I’m supporting this³. It’s not just an insane pixel-wrangling exercise (that’s Rich’s idea of a fun evening, anyway), it’s a manifesto for the future in 8-bit blocks of color. Get on board, or get out of his way.

By the way, as of this writing, the campaign has been live for one hour and twelve minutes, and Rich has exceeded his $US3000 goal by US$203 already. Keep it going, nerds!

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¹ Particularly check out the US$128, US$256, US$512, US$1024, and US$1701 levels. Update: the US$1701 reward is already claimed. I suspect Ryan North, Dylan Meconis, Jess Fink, or Ferocious J may have been involved.

² US$2600; I don’t drink coffee anyway. But me and Rich are still friends.

³ Possibly at the US$69 level; does “Principal Tyrrell” count as a fictional character?

Lots of call-backs today.

• Re: Rich Burlew’s Kickstarter, which we are trying mightily to mention only when it hits a significant landmark: how does half a million dollars/900% of goal sound? Burlew has now claimed the #6 all-time spot on Kickstarter¹, has cemented the all-time top creative work, and bested the previous comics Kickstarter by nearly five times over. Oh, and he still has almost two weeks to go. Sheesh.
• I believe that everybody knows that the Ryan North-written Adventure Time comic debuts tomorrow in comic shops everywhere. Did you know that as a result of like five tweets, Mike Krahulik will now be doing a cover for a future issue? And did you know that there will be a launch party for Adventure Time at children’s comics offshoot of The Beguiling, Little Island, on Saturday afternoon? And did you know that at this party, you can do crafts with Ryan North and Steve Wolfhard? It’s true!
• I only remember about three things² from high school French class, but I remember this: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Proof: David Malki ! dug up the SOPA/PIPA/ACTA debate of its day from the 1870s, and damn if a lot of the arguments aren’t familiar. Give it a good read, then resolve to stay ever-vigilant because it’s just a matter of time before the same arguments we just defeated come around again.
• Final thoughts: I think that Kris Straub is not going to a very good climbing gym³. Everybody knows the archer should only be trying to pick off top-ropers.

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¹ Yes, I know that we said he was approaching #5 before, but the threshold for that — some US$486,000 — did not take into account an active Kickstarter campaign, which doesn’t show in a casual inspection of top funding achievements. Burlew knew it, Gendron and I missed it. Slot #5 is now believed to be around US$556,000, which at current rates should be achieved by end of the week. Slot #4 is probably north of US$800,000, which Burlew will only reach if I publicly doubt he will, so I’m doubtin’ away.

² I’m of the opinion that if you know enough of a language to buy food, beer, a room for the night, and a train ticket, you’re functional in that language.

³ Re: “buttocks only”; I have been on gym routes that specified you had to climb with your back to the wall. Damn right I used the larger holds as butt-rests.

Or, “Ow, my back”. Let’s distract ourselves a bit, why don’t we.

• Christopher Baldwin is coming up on the end of Part 2 (of 3) of Spacetrawler, and is looking to hit the ground running on book production. He’s about 12 hours into a Kickstarter campaign that’s about 25% funded, which is good. Baldwin’s pretty aggressive about the campaign, with an unusually large number of donor levels/prize combo platters for such a modest goal (US$7000), and that extends to his campaign’s duration: a mere 21 days.

  Be sure to watch his video all the way through, as he’s got some pretty original thank-you gifts (including a series of postcards from around the galaxy, sent to you each month, written by one of his characters¹). He also pronounces some of those verging-on-unpronouncable-by-humans alien locations² with lots of spitty noises, and that’s always fun.

• It’s been a couple of weeks, so it’s time for me to remind you again about Saveur and their ongoing project of having comics artists provide recipes in comic form. This week’s contribution comes from Gordon McAlpin of Multiplex fame, and it sounds delicious.
• Just a heads-up: Chris Yates has stepped up his game, making his latest multi-layer Bafflers all curvy and organic and water-fally. Very cool.
• Finally, time for my occasional reminder that while it’s not always to the forefront of Sinfest, Tatsuya Ishida’s Criminy and Miss Fuchsia storyline is possibly the most heartfelt thing I read in my daily feeds, and he surpassed all previous Awwwww! moments with yesterday’s update.

  I can’t help but wonder if Baby Blue, the Sisterhood, or Big D is going to bollocks up the moment of simple contentment they’re enjoying right now³ (out of misplaced concern, misunderstanding or bad intent, respectively), but for the moment they’re happy in a way that anybody who’s felt that first flush of love will remember. Hopefully, their Valentine’s Day will be just as happy for them.

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¹ Can’t wait to see what Krep has to say to you.

² Like the Hotel Kppfing.

³ Possibly by hounding the poor escaped soul who remembers story time; I don’t think either Crim or Fyoosh have it in them to be cruel to himm, even accidentally.