Relatively quiet weekend, relatively busy Monday. Let’s do this.

• Oh my, that blew up further than I thought it would; the last four days of Smut Peddler 2014 were in the top six days of the full campaign, and the final total just cleared US$185K, for creator bonuses of a staggering $US1700. Well done Spike, and everybody that loves the porns. Which, based upon the previous SP collection and the Sleep of Reason collection, leads us to the conclusion that porn is 2.8599 times as popular as horror.
• Speaking of Kickstarts, the latest book from Johnny Wander creators Yuko Ota and Ananth Panagariya¹ has just gone up, meaning you’ve got a chance to get a copy of Cuttings in a handsome hardcover, or an even-handsomer limited-edition hardcover. It would appear that this collection also includes perhaps my favorite Ota/Panagariya collaboration: PONY COP. Everybody jump on this so I can get PONY COP in a handsome hardcover book, please. As of this writing, Cuttings is just shy of 40% of the way to goal, which is just shy of 60% too little. Step it up, people. Do it for the children.
• TCAF, one of the best shows on the comics show calendar, runs this weekend in a now certified crack-smokin’-mayor-free Toronto. Today, the full programming slate was released, with multiple tracks of goodness packing the two days. There’s a full track for children (Kean Soo! Jeff Smith! Dave Roman! Ben Hatke! Raina Telgemeier!² Kazu Kibuishi! And many more!), a Canadian reading series (Tony Cliff! Karl Kerschl!Jillian & Mariko Tamaki! And more!), round tables and interviews and profiles (Lynn Johnston! Chip Zdarsky! Jeet Heer! Box Brown! Spike! Katie Shanahan! Rachel Duke! Mike Maihack! Noelle Stevenson! Kate Leth! Tom Spurgeon! Heidi Macdonald! Kate Beaton! Meredith Gran! KC Green! Tom McHenry! Jess Fink! Faith Erin Hicks! Becky Cloonan! Cameron Stewart! Becky Dreistadt! Ryan North!), and, of course, George.

  If you think I’m linking to anybody other than the mononymic George, you’re crazy.

• Not to do with Kickstarts, Cuttings, cats, or comics arts festivals, and possibly my even mentioning it could spiral out of control and cause the creator in question to ‘splode, but what the heck: Randy Milholland has heard the plaintive cries of his many fans and lo he has smiled upon us. There are finally — even now, unto the seventh generation we have waited — concrete plans for the first Something*Positive collection.

  It is a long way off, and will involve a lot of work on Milholland’s part, which means that everybody that’s ever wanted a copy had better be prepared to step the crap up and make a purchase³ when the time comes.

  And there was much rejoicing.

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¹ Who were apparently cats all this time. Who knew?

² Speaking of Telgemeier, she’s just reached an astonishing 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list for Smile. Wowzers.

³ I am speaking here directly to the many, many people that have bitched to Randy over the years that because he did a donation drive to quit his day job and draw the strip a decade ago that they are entitled to as much free entertainment as they see fit to demand from him. Without fail, these people are never in Milholland’s records as actually having donated, but they have a massive sense of entitlement anyway. Time to quit the passive-aggressive games and prepare to finally drop some cash, fakers.

Two things for you in the meantime:

1. A wide-ranging set of opinions from [web]comics creators on the Great comiXology App-Shift of Fourteen, from Ron Perazza’s Comic Book Think Tank; I was surprised by how wide-ranging, even within the span of one creator’s opinion. For example, John Allison is approaching the issue from at least three different perspective simultaneously:
   

   Viewed from any angle, ComiXology/Amazon should give people pause.

   The 30% pay-to-play on in-app purchases within the Apple store’s walled garden is obscene. Comixology Submit’s creator deal was an equitable 50/50 split – after a corporate giant took a vast cut. This inevitably pushed prices up.

   A rump of entitled ComiXology users complaining that their method of reading comics just got *slightly less incredibly efficient* is laughable. One assumes that getting off one’s ass is still not part of the new way to buy titles through ComiXology.

   Amazon’s ownership of ComiXology will have an immediate hammer-down on prices, just like every other sector they’ve been involved in. Amazon’s near-monopoly has sucked a greater part of the life, and money, out of working in books, music, film.

   For the last 20 or so years, comic books have cost more than they were worth. Now get ready for them to cost much less than they’re worth. Get ready to lose your local comic shop, like you lost your local record store and your local bookshop.

2. I picked up the first print volume of Cleopatra in Space by Mike Maihack, and it’s wonderful. Best part: it says “Book One” right on the cover, and in the back it says Cleo will be back in Book Two! Worst part: Book Two won’t be until April, 2015. Boooo, I want more Cleo now.

Okay, time to go get Freedom Fondled. Be good, see you on Monday.

I’ve been thinking about something that might be more suited to coverage tomorrow, but work-related travel may make that impractical. It might be even more appropriate to Monday morning, but regular work means that the majority of my embloggenation happens at lunchtime, and that’ll be too late. So it’s today, Thursday, one of the lesser days of the week, where we discuss it. Feel free to check how my thoughts actually pan out in a couple of days.

Smut Peddler 2014 is currently sitting (as I write this) at US$136,624 on a goal of US$20,000; the FFF predicted a finish of US$133-266K, so yay it’ll land within my excessively wide margin of error.

The question now is, as we enter the last 100 hours or so, will an end-campaign bounce take place? SP2012 had a mid-campaign spike and no real uptick at the end; SP2014 has followed the usual long tail, and may need a final, exciting stretch goal to prompt a sudden spike in funding.

Here’s the other thing I’m very much wondering about — lots of web-type people note that their traffic is highest on Monday, lowest on the weekend; SP2014 finishes just before noon EDT on Monday. Will the relatively low weekend internet browsing levels work against a final spurt? Will the fact that it finishes on a Monday mean that people happen across one last-minute link and get impulsive? It would be very tough to put an effective control on Kickstarter project analyses for launch day and wrap day, but I have a feeling that launching on a Monday (to catch high traffic) and finishing on a Tuesday or Wednesday (to catch high traffic for the this is your last chance reminders) would possibly be most effective. Ask me when we’ve got another 1000 or so webcomics campaigns we can dig through for data. In any event, come Monday (so to speak) we’ll be able to quantify exactly how much people like porn.

Speaking of Kickstarts, click here. Did you spontaneously exclaim Oh man, I love Baman Piderman? No? Then take an hour of your life and watch the shorts because honestly, the only people that don’t spontaneously exclaim are those that are watching Bamanm Piderman for the first time. For about three and a half years, starting about five years ago, Baman Piderman has been a labor of love, and in order to bring it to a satisfying conclusion, creators Lindsay and Alex Small-Butera are looking for a quite modest sum of money (US$50,000) to make five episodes, each running probably about five minutes. In an actual animation studio, that US$50K wouldn’t cover craft services¹ for a week.

But still! Fifty thousand dollars is a lot! Consider, though: US$10K/episode or US$2K/minute gives a budget of US$33.33 per second of animation, or about two bucks for each of 15 frames per second. Are you willing to draw a couple-ten thousand very precisely designed pictures for two bucks a pop? How long would it take you to draw each of those, and would it be worth your time? Fifty grand is a bargain, and it appears that many of you agree, as the Small-Buteras² are sitting at about 90% of goal one day in (and the FFF is giving a final funding of around US$115-330K) with 29 days to go.

Seriously. Check out the shorts. You’ll love ’em.

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¹ Which under the rules of studio accounting would also incorporate the executive hookers ‘n’ blow line item.

² Or possibly Smalls-Butera.

It has long been an unstated policy of this blog that certain things will always get a mention; some may argue that the list of qualifying items constantly changes to prevent people from gaming the system, and that I’m merely trying to make a system of whim and caprice sound all official. Fine. But right now I am stating that I will always highlight Erika Moen laughing like a supervillain. Always.

In other news:

• Called it. Six days ago I predicted that the Smut Peddler 2014 Kickstarter would clear US$100,000, provide US$1000 bonuses for creators and eclipse the totals of the 2012 edition. As of this writing, the totals of SP2014 are sitting at US$117K (or 588% of goal); the thousand-dollar bonuses were achieved at US$115K, and by any measure I’d say that the first book’s take of US$83K is well and truly eclipsed, having been exceeded by nearly 50%. Oh, and there’s still twelve days to go. Time for the traditional end-campaign uptick to kick in.

  I didn’t calculate the FFF at project launch, but going by the standard formula it appears that the very strong start (some US$30,000 in the first day) results in a high target: somewhere in the US$133 — 266K range, which seems entirely plausible. The real question is, can those creator bonuses hit fifteen hundred apiece (at US$165K)? At this point, I’m giving it a 50/50 chance.

• TCAF alert: depending on the presence of ocean monsters and the cooperation of Customs, there may be two more debut books for those swarming TopatoCo’s table in Toronto:
  

  Ok! Questionable Content Vol. 4 and Three Panel Soul Vol. 2 are now both on boats winding their way across the kraken-strewn Pacific Ocean.

  As we all know, squid love them some comics, and there exists a precedent for boats carrying webomics-related materiel to have to turn back. Here’s hoping the briny deep doesn’t decide to get greedy.

So the 2014 Eisner Award nominations are out, and there are some things worth mentioning on the list. Things that jumped out at me in no particular order:

• Matt Inman’s nomination for Best Digital/Webcomic is less significant than his nomination for Best Short Story. As near as I can tell, this is the first time that an online offering has gone head-to-head with print offerings within a category.
• That said, it should have been two online offerings, as it is entirely inexplicable to me that Dean Trippe’s Something Terrible should have been a shoo-in; for that matter, its complete absence from any category is the most baffling thing about this year’s nominations.
• :01 Books continues to have the best hits-to-misses ratio in the industry, garnering four nominations on fewer than two dozen releases in 2013; they dominate Best Publication for Teens (13-17) with three of the six nominations¹.
• The requirements for Best Digital/Webcomic continue to keep much of the best creators locked out, with the emphasis on longform works only:
  

  For the Best Digital Comic category, works must be longform—that is, comparable to comic books or graphic novels in storytelling or length. Webcomics similar to daily newspaper strips, for example, would not be eligible. Digital comics should have a unique URL, be part of a webcomics site, or otherwise stand alone (not be part of a blog, for instance).

  Which is why I’m surprised that Inman was included here; it doesn’t feel of a piece with the other nominees.

• I’m in favor of any awards list that permit Chip Zdarsky to be … well, Chip Zdarsky.
• Names that jumped out at me: Becky Cloonan, Faith Erin Hicks, Jeff Smith, Brian Fies, the late Kim Thompson, Fraction/DeConnick, Terry Moore, Steve Hamaker², Carla Speed McNeil.
• Seriously, nothing for Something Terrible?

In other news:

• Eric Colossal’s Rutabaga has been picked up by Amulet Books:
  

  I am currently coloring the ENTIRE BOOK and I think it’s going to look really amazing! Above is a sample of what the coloring might look like.

  I’m super excited and can’t wait for everyone to see it!

  The first book is due out in March next year, with a second to follow. Everybody be happy for Eric!

• The Cyanide & Happiness crüe have been picked up by Boom’s creator-owned division, Boom!Box, where one may also find Midas Flesh (by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline & Braden Lamb) and the just-launched (and wonderful) Lumberjanes (Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters and Brooke Allen).

  The rapid expansion of Boom!Box from zero to third announced property in — what, four months? — makes me think that they must be doing something very right. I’d love to get a good look at their creator-owned contract.

  The C&H collection, Punching Zoo, will drop in July, presumably just in time for SDCC.

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¹ Although I’d say that Boxers & Saints have as much to offer adults as teens.

² I’m guessing that Jenny Robb, 2014 Eisners judge, curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, and Hamaker’s wife, recused herself from some catgories.

Where to start, where to start? Let’s grab a random story and … go!

• Readers of this page may recall that I stand second to nobody in my admiration of Minna Sundberg’s Stand Still, Stay Silent, and may also recall that immediately after discovering and devouring SSSS, I also archive-binged on Sundberg’s earlier story, A Red Tail’s Dream¹. Before SSSS launched, Sundberg had a very successful crowdfunding campaign to print ARTD, and the books left over from fulfillment are now up for grabs:
  

  First, without further ado, here’s the link to the simple little store that I opened (at Storenvy) for those of you who simply want to grab a copy right naoow: Linkity-link go here!

  I’ll keep the store open for two weeks, which means I’ll close it before the month is over and go back to Finland and start shipping out the orders.

  Okay, first, I have to start rearranging my bookshelves to make room for this, because it looks gorgeous on screen, and I imagine even better on paper. Second, I hope that Sundberg can find a way to keep it in print in future, because I’d hate to think that somebody discovering her work next month would get frozen out. If you’re interested, now’s the time to buy.

  Third, somebody with a distribution business on this side of the Atlantic, please contact Sundberg and get a bulk purchase in place, because international shipping on one copy (unsigned, un-arted) puts the price on the book at ninety dollars. Granted, it’s a great big huge hardcover, and there’s only a $15 differential between people getting the book within Finland/everywhere else, but I can’t help but wonder what US media mail rates would be.

• Homestuck! Canon! From different creators! Let’s just let Andrew Hussie explain this one himself:
  

  A young reader stands in a webcomic.
  April 13, 2014 by Andrew Hussie

  A brand new webcomic, to be exact. One that has launched on the 5th anniversary of Homestuck’s first page. If the thirteenth of April holds a magical place in your heart, then chances are, you are on pins and needles waiting for me to post the end of the story. It will still be quite some time before that happens. I’ve had too much else going on to be able to attack the remaining content with the ferocity that has been characteristic of my update schedule over the years. It is nothing short of The Greatest Tragedy that a beloved story is held hostage to the ability of a single artist to continue creating it. Which brings us to the website called Paradox Space, and the chapter it will represent in Homestuck’s extended life cycle.

  Those who like HS are extremely fond of the characters, yet those characters are trapped – “stuck” if you will – inside a very particular narrative, which itself has been at the mercy of my ability to produce it. So when I think about the future of Homestuck, I envision projects which liberate the things people love about it from the story itself, and most importantly, from my intensive personal effort.

  So this website is the first major step in that direction. Here is the idea:

  Paradox Space will feature many short comic stories involving literally any characters and settings from Homestuck. Any point in canon could be visited and elaborated on, whether it’s backstory, some scenes that were skipped over or alluded to, funny hypothetical scenarios which have nothing to do with canon events, or exploring things that could have happened in canon through the “doomed timeline” mechanic that is a defining trait of Homestuck’s multiverse-continuum known as “paradox space”. There is a WHOLE LOT of fun stuff we can do here; and we will!

  The idea is also to get a lot of different artists and writers involved. It’s going to be a major team effort. Occasionally I will write some comic scripts, particularly at the onset to help get this off the ground. But I’d like that to be the exception rather than the rule. I think it will be exciting to see how a talented pool of creators can work within the HS universe, and what they will bring to these characters.

  Never let it be said that Hussie doesn’t know how to keep his fans coming back for more.

  It’s a true group effort, too with Rachel Rocklin and Kory Bing listed as the managing editors, and updates scheduled daily (today was skipped so that yesterday’s anniversary launch could happen; next update is tomorrow). That sound you just heard was a thousand Homestucks polishing up their fanfic and desperately trying to find an established creator to partner with them.

• Now this sounds like a lot of fun:
  

  April 26! We’re live-tweeting @strippedfilm: Everyone hits “play” @ 7PM PST/10PM EST for Q&A, behind-the-scenes stories & more #strippedfilm

  Time to clear my schedule for the 26th.

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¹ No big, just 556 pages in both English and Finnish, which Sundberg created as a practice run to sharpen her skills before launching SSSS. Like you do.

The new webcomic by David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc) launched today, and it shows great promise. Lagies and jenglefenz, I give you Planet of Hats, a week-by-week recap of Star Trek episodes! One can only hope that Morgan-Mar sticks with the strip after the original 79 episodes, so we can get TNG episodes like Planet of the Joggers.

• It’s been pretty common knowledge for a while that ReedPOP, the folks behind New York Comic Con and C2E2, partners of the various PAXes, and a bunch of other shows, have been planning a second show for New York City, one that actually focuses directly on comics rather than all the extraneous bits that often seem to be crowding the comics parts out of ostensible comic cons.

  But for the life of me, it’s only been in the past couple of days that I’ve really seen much about Special Edition NYC; an actual comics-centered show would be welcome, the North Pavilion of the Javits Center is a sizeable but reasonable space, and it could provide a high-traffic alternative for east coast webcomickers. This is one to watch.

• Kickstarts! On the one hand, the Doug Wright Awards — honoring the best in Canadian cartooning, with honors that are exceedingly well-curated and do not bog down into dozens of overly-specific categories — could use your help holding the annual awards ceremony (in conjunction with TCAF) this May. At present, they’re about 25% of the way to their (very modest) CDN$6150 goal.
• On the other hand, David “It’s!” Wills, creator of the Walky- and Dumbiverses, is (as of this writing) about 14 hours in and 96% of the way to funding the third Dumbing of Age collection. Willis-related Kickstarts are always interesting for the overfunding rewards that include extra comics for everybody.
• On the other other hand, I just thought I’d mention the fact that Smut Peddler 2014 is now over US$80,000, which means an extra US$650 per creator/creator team. Only 25 days to go, which means it’ll almost certainly touch US$100K, eclipsing Smut Peddler 2012, and providing creator bonuses over a thousand dollars. Hooray for porn!

On Friday I was wondering if the new center aisle configuration would work at MoCCA Fest and it turns out, it sure did. You walked up the stairs and into the hall, jogged around the Society of Illustrators table (perhaps taking the time to marvel the surprisingly short line for Fiona Staples) and there you had it in front of you — an aisle designed purely for travel, with access to nearly the entire show floor. It was brilliant, as long as you didn’t get caught up in any of the mooring lines for Charlie Brown.

Speaking of, Charlie Brown was not the best thing above eye-level in the hall — it was the navigational signs that were found at each end of each rank of tables, which made getting around the show trivially simple one you realized one little thing: the booth numbers on each signpost represented both sides of a fabric divider line. I’m pretty sure that one small change to the signs (maybe a horizontal variation on the u-turn symbol) and they’ll be perfect.

One could argue that the signs weren’t even really needed in a venue as small as the 69th Regiment Armory, but you know what? Nobody’s ever done signposting this well before, in a large venue or a small one, and maybe now we’ll see more shows taking up the idea. Yeah, it’ll take some detail-oriented planning, but dang was it a nice touch.

Speaking of detail-oriented planning, I want to recognize Neil Dvorak of Easy Pieces Comic for putting together the best table design I’ve ever seen. Nothing about the look-and-feel of table C8 existed but that it provided the impression that you were in Dvorak’s world now, and everything beyond his immediate proximity was the noise of the outside world and wouldn’t you rather be here where it’s nice and civilized?

It worked on me, and I was happy to pick up a packet of his individual, brief, conceptually linked comics and associated ephemera, which have left me with the impression of a documentary work looking at an askew world of bizarre happenings, corporation/cults, and one man’s search for sense in it all. If Welcome to Night Vale was crossed with a ’50s-era social hygiene film and existed in craft paper envelopes, it would look like Easy Pieces.

So that was my big discovery of the show. Along the way I was lucky enough to talk with some terrific creators about what they’re doing; this list includes (but is not limited to):

• Noelle Stevenson had a stack of the debut issue of Lumberjanes, in advance of the official launch this week. It’s great book.
• Tom Siddell came all the way to America and had a continuous stream of people bringing his (very large, very heavy, thus he didn’t bring any himself to sell) books to be signed, and to purchase his minis and artwork. If you missed out on your chance to see him, he’s got a meet-up tomorrow night in Manhattan. You’ll know it’s him because he looks exactly like his avatar.
• Magnolia Porter’s Sugar Crash mini is funny and heartfelt, and perfectly in keeping with her work on Monster Pulse. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Porter writes early teens better than anybody else in webcomics, because they reflect the fact that growing up isn’t a matter of age, it’s a matter of practice.

  Her characters try, and they fail more than they succeed, and sometimes they’re stupid and sometimes they’re mean (and they know that they shouldn’t be and don’t want to be, and yet it still happens) and slowly they become somebody new. Siddell and John Allison and damn good, but Porter is the best. The only thing that would make Monster Pulse better at what it’s trying to do would be an easily-found link to her store on the main page.

• Evan Dahm is approaching the end of Book 2 material for Vattu, but his next project will more likely be his illustrated Wizard of Oz project. Scott C has a new book releasing in a few months, Hug Machine; it’ll be his first children’s book as both writer and artist, and it looks terrific. David McGuire is approaching the point in the story when he can give us a new Gastrophobia collection.
• Box Brown has now signed his first copy of Andre The Giant: Life and Legend, mine to be precise. He’s starting to the feel the excitement in the run-up to release in a month, and expressed his appreciation for his editor at :01 Books — It was a big help to have somebody that doesn’t know wrestling to point out what would be confusing to ordinary people.
• Speaking of :01 Books, Gina Gagliano expressed the excitement that everybody is feeling over Scott McCloud’s next book, due out sometime next year. I bumped into Colleen Venable on the floor and thanked her for being my favorite book designer¹ and she very kindly gifted me a copy of the last book in her Guinea Pig: Pet Shop Private Eye series because she is awesome.
• Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell’s print version is in the process of being manufactured, which is the only reason I didn’t buy a copy from Sophie Goldstein; I did get the chance to talk to her about how unsettling I found her contribution to The Sleep of Reason. Seriously creepy, people.
• Ben Costa and Phil McAndrew were kind enough to sign books of theirs that I brought with me (as did Siddell; Dahm, Stevenson, and C signed their illustrations in my copy of To Be Or Not To Be — three down, a zillion to go).
• Jaya Saxena, Matt Lubchansky, and Maki Naro seemed to be having more fun than anybody else on the floor. There’s a lack of awkwardness and effort that I observed in them talking with people who both sought them out and those who casually wandered by; even those in the convention grind for a decade may not have mastered that skill, or find that it requires considerable effort. Somehow, they’ve managed to become comics creators (that most solitary of endeavours) without losing the trappings of sociability; this must be stopped before they accidentally destroy comics.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that I ran into Brigid Alverson and Johanna Draper Carlson — two of my favorite people on the ink-stained wretch side of things — outside the Armory and we took some pictures together. After that, I completely missed seeing them again on the floor. Oddly enough, I’ve never met up with either Brigid or Johanna by intention; we always just seem to bump into each other, which is part of how I know it’s going to be a good show. Ladies, it’s always a pleasure.

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¹ Of all the things I never thought I’d have a “favorite” of, but dang if her work for :01 Books doesn’t grab me and make me want to read inside.

There are so many things that made people anxious with waiting, I barely know where to start.

• For years — years! — we have been without a new Octopus Pie collection. My copy of Listen at Home with Octopus Pie has been thumbed through many times, There Are No Stars in Brooklyn may fall apart if I flip through any longer, and my copies of the self-published first three books must now be handled with museum gloves to not disturb the treasures within¹. And now! New book!
  

  The long-awaited Octopus Pie: Dead Forever is the first new book of OP material since 2011!

  The pre-order period goes until April 15th. If you order during this time, you will be helping to fund the actual printing of the book! Pretty neat.
  Octopus Pie: Dead Forever includes the following chapters from the webcomic:

  … where follows a list of thirteen storylines, from Moving On to Simple Breakfast, including the heart-rending Brownout Biscuit and Octopie Wall Street, which continue to resonate down to the most recent comics. This book could only be better if it included Couch Sitter, the source of Meredith Gran’s most inspired throwaway gag — a cafe with service by handpuppets — but since that was already included in Listen at Home I can’t really complain².

  Dead Forever is now pre-orderable for US$17 signed or US$24 for signed and sketched; shipping is expected in about a month, but Gran will likely have a modest supply to premiere the book at TCAF.

• For months — months! — we have been without a new datapoint in the greatest cultural debate of our times; namely, What is more popular, porn or not-porn? So far, there are two data points, as Smut Peddler 2012 raised US$83,100 in its Kickstarter, where The Sleep of Reason managed US$46,925, making porn 2.17 times as popular as not-porn.

  However! As a data-wrangler of some long practice, I recognize that a population size of two means that our statistical conclusions have a margin of error that is enormous. We need to add more porn and not-porn data before we can have any real confidence in our conclusions. Fortunately, we’re about to get some.

  Behold: Smut Peddler 2014 is now Kickstarting, features the same high totals benefit the creators model as SP2012 and TSOR, and will add to our understanding of this critical question. As per our previous conversations, anthology wrangler par excellence Spike plans to alternate porn and not-porn collections, which means in just another five decades or so, we should know definitively what’s more popular³. Anyhoo, some three hours in SP2014 is 65% funded, which bodes well for the contributors gettin’ a nice bonus check in a couple of months.

• For hours — hours! — earlier today until just a little while ago, Dinosaur Comics had hosting problems and the venerable qwantz.com was down. Society held its breath and somehow came though the dark times, no doubt relieved that a giant among webcomics (by a giant among men) was back in its proper place. Moreso, no doubt, because said giant, Ryan North, had big news to share:
  

  Hey did you see Marvel announced yesterday that I’ll be writing a Young Avengers miniseries for them? I AM EXCITED.

  The only way I see this turning out badly is if North’s now-established comic-book writing skills become so sought-after that he works himself too hard and spirals into a hole of overwork, cocaine brawls, and an untimely death. Otherwise, all good.

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¹ Namely, the hand-applied rendering of sparklebutt.

² Yes I can, every OP collection should include Couch Sitter and holy glob did that story actually start in January 2010 where the crap does time go. I’m old.

³ It’s porn. We all know it’s porn.

Vattu: The Name And The Mark is book one of Evan Dahm’s Vattu, the latest story from Overside, which feels like it’s presently approaching the end of book two.

You guys, in case I haven’t said before — and I know I have — Vattu is so good, and having the book in hand is making me read it all again in one go. The last of this book — the story of how Vattu came to the city and made her way to the streets to live on her own, with the companionship of the War-Man — was some 250 page updates ago, or nearly two years. We hadn’t seen any of the politics of Sahta, or the Surin, or wonderful, wonderful Juni. The mysteries of unweight haven’t been explored yet, nor what feels like the seeds of two revolutions: Vattu’s being violent and freedom-seeking, Juni’s being scientific.

Instead we get the story of Fluters, Those-Marked-in-White, and Vattu’s birth. The petty anger and hatreds of Vanni who became the Priest and sold out Vattu. The dangers of living a nomadic life that is short and a challenge to survive each day. It’s lush and beautiful and Dahm’s ecosystems (rivers and oceans, plants and animals, predators and prey, yes — but just as much empires and colonies and tributaries) retain their organic, evolved, lived-in appeal.

Vattu: The Name And The Mark was produced via a Kickstarter campaign, and as fulfillment of those orders finalizes, I would expect to see two things happening:

1. The book should appear in Dahm’s store and if you don’t have a copy you should buy the hell out of it; you may also perhaps have the opportunity to do so this weekend at Emerald City Comic Con.
2. Before too long, we’ll reach the end of book two, and there will be a new Kickstart to get that collection in our hands.

Personally, I’m ready to give Dahm the money for it right the hell now because damn, this is a marvel and the story only gets better from here.