Two quick items for you today, and it’s not like any of you aren’t suffering from pie coma anyway.

• Thanks to a couple of classes on optical engineering back in my college days, I know a bit about the additive nature of color, but I never really understood how artists see it; enter a nice primer on color (or colour, if you prefer) theory from the artist’s perspective, which I found nicely informative and I hope you do, too.
• Weirdly, Brad Guigar does not entirely depend on punnery for humor (or humour, if you prefer), which was demonstrated when he did a stand-up comedy set back in the springtime. For anybody that got to listen to the recording¹, Guigar’s brad-up comedic stylings are very old school — he’d have killed in the Catskills if only his name were “Shecky”.

  In any event, Brad’s heading back to the microphone and bare stage, and you can check him out yourself if you’re in Philadelphia on Sunday, 9 December. The Bradster will hit the stage of the Helium Comedy Club² at 7:30pm, and please remember to tip your waitress.

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¹ Or watch the video, here.

² Try the veal.

I have an entirely rhetorical question for you, and by “you”, I mean “you individually and in particular”, not some more abstract “you”: Do you like it when language is bent into patterns that delight and entertain? Because I have something that you will want to see: an 80,000 word book written by master languagebender Ryan North re-envisioning Hamlet as a choosable-path adventure, which has (predictably) surpassed its Kickstarter goal in about three hours.

I should pause here a moment to issue a disclaimer — Ryan asked me proofread a near-final version of To Be Or Not To Be: A Choice-Filled Adventure By Ryan North And Also William Shakespeare Too, which I gladly did, and so I’ve had the opportunity to read through the entire thing.

I also played through every single story node for both Ophelia (who kicks ass and does not resemble the inertial doormat that Shakespeare portrayed) and Hamlet’s dad, King Hamlet Sr (who dies on the first page and must play as a ghost and that is awesome). I did not play through every story node for Hamlet because I have always felt that Hamlet is a CHUMP and I do not traffic in CHUMPS but I’ve read enough of his story paths to see that North does manage to DECHUMPIFY him in some of the paths so that’s good.

True to form, Ryan North has put together an amazing Kickstarter campaign (including what may be the definitive Kickstarter video which is itself choosable-path) featuring awesome backer rewards, including visualizations of the story structure which is a thing of mathematical beauty and intricate, interwoven geometries. Speaking of interwoven geometries, should you read your way through TBONTB:ACFABRNAAWST, keep a chessboard handy; no spoilers, but let’s just say that I would have died fewer embarrassing deaths had I not been trying to keep a chess game straight in my head.

Speaking of those embarrassing deaths, 30 of them are illustrated by the finest creators in webcomics today, and further funds raised only increase the number of illustrations until all 110 deaths get pictures. The full set of illustrations happens at US$50,000 and given that Ryan is already north¹ of US$25,000 about four hours into this thing, that’s a certainty. The only question is how long it takes to get to US$70,000 and the audiobook, and to US$100,000 and the sequel, which I hope concerns Ophelia branching out from boring pre-Renaissance Denmark into other times and places and maybe wrestling dinosaurs.

Guys, I am excited for this project to come to fruition and I’ve already read it so it contains no more surprises for me, but every one of you (yes, you) that reads TBONTB:ACFABRNAAWST has delightful hours of delight in front of you, so get in on this while you can and thank Ryan North for the herculean labors of the past year, secretly and carefully bending language into its most perfect form.

Oh, and for those of you wavering, the early adopters have got your back — every US$5000 raised above the initial US$20,000 goal reveals another story page and a choice, to be decided by backer voting. Thanks to Update #1 voting, it appears that we will get to read the book’s acknowledgments, which SPOILER ALERT could lead to a page where YOU GET TO BE RYAN NORTH.

If you are awesome enough to support TBONTB:ACFABRNAAWST click here. If you are so CHUMPY to make Hamlet himself look like somebody who is NOT A CHUMP AT ALL, I don’t know, maybe go look at pictures of cats on the internet? I mean, that’s nice and all, and your CHUMPNESS doesn’t make you a bad person or anything. Just … let’s not talk about this possible choice anymore and we are still friends.

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¹ Ha, ha.

Rich Burlew continues to heal his sliced-up thumb as fast as willpower allows¹, but both new comics and progress on the many, many projects related to his Kickstarter² remain fairly well stalled at the moment. But a simmering secret project (that didn’t require direct involvement to the same degree as other items) has come to fruition that ought to satisfy the most die-hard Order of the Stick fans: the first in-scale tabletop game miniature, eventually to become a full line. Roy Greenhilt comes unpainted, with multiple eyebrow options, and is as near a perfect projection into three dimensions of Burlew’s stick-figure style as could ever be expected. No word yet on who the second figure will be, but personally I’m hoping for a sexy, shoeless god of war.

• Missed in the superstorm: the recently-announced, Spike-led horror anthology did indeed open up for submissions as scheduled and is accepting story proposals for another sixteen days. Note that you don’t have to have a comic done by then, just get your story pitch in — the actual submission isn’t due until May. In case you’re wondering if The Sleep of Reason is a cool enough project for you to get involved in, check out the murderers row of already-confirmed participants and wonder how it could possibly get any better³.
• How about something a bit more hopeful, but still with enough darkness to keep it from being all weak tea? The New York International Children’s Film Festival announced the return of their annual Studio Ghibli retrospective for five full weeks starting 16 November and running until 20 December. Week one’s schedule is already posted, featuring screenings (in new 35mm prints, both dubbed and subbed) of Nausicaä, Laputa, Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away. If you’ve never seen these films on the big screen, you’re missing out; if you’ve never seen these films, period, what the hell is wrong with you?
• If we move further away from the darkness to where there is only sunny optimism and gentle humo[u]r, I’m pleased to note that I received my copies (one to keep, one to give to the next first-time parent I know) of The Bear in yesterday’s mail, and dang if it isn’t beautiful. I’m not sure how much direction Ryan Sohmer gave to Becky Dreistadt in the choice of animals and staging each of the little vignettes he wrote but if he’s smart (and Sohmer is very smart) he got out of her way and let her imagination run wild. Because dang, have I mentioned what you get when Becky’s imagination runs wild?

  In any event, it’s a gorgeous book, and I am encouraged by rumo[u]rs I hear that there will be a The Bear 2, as that means more animal paintings from Dreistadt, and if there’s one thing that a nation (and world) badly divided by petty dislikes and prejudices needs, it’s more of her animal paintings. You literally cannot maintain a bad mood looking at these. The only downside to a second volume? Sohmer and Dreistadt had to sign nearly 4000 copies of The Bear; I’m figuring a second book could easily double that, leading one or both to possibly have an arm fall off and nobody wants that. Just in case, the magic word is Xam! Really.

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¹ Which is roughly the same speed if willpower is taken out of the equation. Honestly, thinking at a sliced tendon doesn’t do much at all.

² Of which, to be fair, several were clearly labeled at the time of the Kickstart as This will get done some considerable time in the future after the easier things to fulfill to the most people are done.

³ Answer: if Terry Moore decided to get involved somehow; seriously, Rachel Rising disturbs me on a deep, existential level every damn month.

No new big surprises or aftereffects from the superstorm, gas rationing got lifted this morning, trains are almost back to their usual, semi-fictional schedule, and last night’s Adventure Time season premiere was amazing. Feelin’ good!

• I have been neglectful of pointing out that Thought Bubble is running this week in Leeds, with the emphasis on this coming weekend, 17-18 November. Guests of webcomicky note include Kate Beaton, John Allison¹, Becky Dreistadt & Frank Gibson, Scott C, Darryl Cunningham, Paul Duffield, Cameron Stewart, and Huw Davis will be there also, but he may be a bit tired on Sunday as he’s running a 10K race that morning. Maybe bring him a smoothie or something?

  There will be book debuts (including from Marc Ellerby, and the European debut of Tiny Kitten Teeth), panels (including a discussion on digital comics: Bury Theatre, Royal Armouries, 1:40pm – 2:30pm, with Dreistadt, Gibson, Beaton, C, Duffield, and Simon Fraser), and the annual British Comics Awards (Bury Theatre, Royal Armouries, 6:00pm – 7:00pm). Any/all [web]comics fans in the middle part of England are encouraged to drop by and say “hi”.

• New Wigu! Times two! Jeff Rowland has apparently found a moment’s free time in between the wedding and the immense holiday rush of new things to drop comics on us! Add in a new Overcompensating on the same day and it’s like Christmas came early for me.
• Hey, know what I haven’t mentioned for a while? Recipe Comix, courtesy of Saveur magazine, which had been a bit spare on the ground, but have of late resumed an approximately biweekly schedule. I bring this up as a twitter exchange yesterday allowed me to point Mike Russell towards Helen Rosner, who handles submissions for Recipe Comix in between getting to enjoy fabulous meals that she then tweets about for the sole purpose of making me hungry.

  Ahem. That is to say, if you have a connection to food (and don’t we all, particularly in this harvest/holiday timeframe) and make comics, you might want to drop a line to Ms Rosner and see if your idea would work for Recipe Comix. Guys, let’s come up with so many pitches that RC has to run weekly — that is the definition of a win for creators (you get paid), a win for Saveur (content to share) and a win for me (new food experiences to check out). Get cracking.

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¹ Speaking of John Allison, a Tumblrpost of his from this morning caught my eye and made me snort out loud. A certain percentage of my readership may well have attended the same college I did, and if they did so in a nearly 30 year span from about 1972 to about 2000, then the name “Thad Smith” evokes not muscle-bound beach hunks, but rather a lanky professor of political science who just may be the greatest teacher to ever push chalk.

From teaching students how to read Pentagon black budgets to breaking Kris Kristofferson’s collarbone in a rugby match during his own undergrad days, Thad (as he insisted on being called) was never less than a font of fascinating information who was careful to never let on what his opinions were as he forced his classes to defend their own. Hell, in four years the only political opinion I ever got him to ‘fess up to was an almost visceral dislike of Ed Meese, who is somehow still alive and as soon as I’m done writing this sentence will go back to being forgotten as he so richly deserves.

So yeah, that was pretty funny.

So I have this deal with Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson: when I back their Kickstarters and qualify for a Becky painting, I tell her Do mine last. I know you’ll get to it when you can, clear out everybody else’s before mine. I know that she’ll always have literally a couple hundred paintings to complete, and I have long suspected that not having the pressure to get all! those! paintings! done as quickly as possible means that I’ll get something worth the wait.

Case in point — tiki greyhounds, which I received yesterday and caused me and my wife to squeal with such delight that our own greyhound was startled. It is honestly the most happy-making art I’ve ever seen in my life and I wanted to share it with you all.

• Speaking of Kickstarters, one started a few hours ago and is (as of this writing) approaching the 82% funding level with most of 21 days still to go. I speak, naturally of Johnny Wander Book 3² by Yuko Ota and Ananth Panagariya, and I applaud them for a couple of things:
  • The book is basically done; we’ve seen things like Yuko’s design work for the cover over the past month, and Ananth has put together many, many books; the campaign is basically to manage pre-orders, not to support the creators while they make the book.
  • And also to put an earlier book back in print; while there are still copies of JW volume 1 to be had, one of the things you need to do as an independent publisher is make sure you keep enough inventory on hand for the next _____ months of selling.
  • Panagariya and Ota are doing something I’ve been wanting to see for a while — they’re compressing the time for the campaign down to just three weeks. I’ve often wondered if longer campaign times allow interest to wane, and if a shorter one would create a sense of urgency because you need to do it now or miss out. I don’t think anybody would actually be crazy enough to put up a Kickstarter for the 72 hours I once suggested as an experiment, but I’m betting that the right project with the right audience could make a killing on a one- or two-week campaign. After all, in the time it’s taken me to write the last three paragraphs, the campaign has cleared 87.6%, and will likely be at goal by the time I’m done writing.

  Anyway, JW volume 3, it’s wonderful stuff (almost as wonderful as tiki greyhounds), go get in on that while the getting’s good.

• I followed a link over the weekend (sorry, can’t recall who posted it, but I suspect it was probably Colleen Doran) to a law blog with a focus on marketing and technology, where I discovered something that does not yet appear to be entirely settled case law: can an offhand comment in an email suffice to create/change contracts? Even to the extent of giving up copyrights? The particular case cited by the author, Eric Goldman, seems to indicate not, but there appear to have been other cases that decide in the other direction. Goldman says he hasn’t yet decided to implement a standard disclaimer on his emails, but thinks that it might be a good idea. For those of you who like boilerplate:
  

  Nothing in this email is intended as an offer and the author disclaims any intention to make an offer or create an enforceable agreement through any email messages. Any agreement with the author of this email must be in a signed paper document!

  As always, please consult with a trained legal professional if questions of rights or contracts are something you have to deal with, and make sure you don’t give anything away by accident. Giving things away by accident makes tiki greyhounds sad. =(

• Know what makes tiki greyhounds happy? 97% and rising.

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¹ Because nobody will appreciate a good gander at this like The Tiki Queen of the East Bay. Please note that I do not seek to challenge her for tiki collection supremacy, as she has devoted her home to tiki in a way I could never match, and that’s before you consider the contributions by both Sergio Aragones and Stan Sakai.

² Disclaimer: I provided a blurb for JW volume 2, and I happened to see Ota and Panagariya just yesterday. Feel free to read into those whatever you’d like.

Seriously, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Sandy is looking to be pretty damn unpleasant come Monday. Stay safe, all in the way of the storm track.

• Speaking of disasters of one form or another, everybody’s red-haired pal (no, not Jimmy Olsen) Zach Weinersmith dropped some good news on us last night via Twitter:
  

  Presenting, a “Starpocalypse” Teaser, from SMBC Theater, written by James Ashby http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=…

  Warning: shirtless James, who, as previously established, is History’s Greatest Villain, primarily for the whole shirtless thing.

  Anyhoo, a trailer to finally showcase last year’s Kickstarted project that exists in large part to write circumstances where James is blown up in space. But more than just destroying James, Starpocalypse will feature a very balls-intensive FSM, orgasm hats, pointless despair, hot lady aliens or androids or something with purple hair and weird eyes whatever, and big-ass space battles. And hopefully a lot of destroying James.

• Via Chris Hastings:
  

  NEW BOOK NEW BOOK NEW BOOK

  I might be reading too much into this, but it appears that Hastings may have a new book. Release is set just prior to whichever winter solstice-adjacent holiday you prefer, so best pre-order it if you want to make somebody’s Decemberween joyous.

One last thing, if I may be serious for a moment — wherever the storm hits (and despite the fact that I have people that I like a great deal or even love throughout that probability cone, I am wishing as hard as I can that Sandy veers towards any of them instead of me because I am almost as great a villain as James), take care and be aware that you may have to care for yourselves for a while.

In particular, ambulances cannot go out when winds are high, because they are all great big top-heavy boxes on wheels that will roll over until they smash into something if the gusts hit just right. If you’re in the path of high winds, count on EMS response being delayed/suspended during the worst of the storm, and even after there may be significant obstructions. Stay indoors, don’t get hurt, and with any luck we’ll all see each other on Monday.²

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¹ For the record, I chose this title early yesterday after getting my third advance prep briefing for emergency ops in re: Hurricane Sandy. Then Rick Marshall up and uses the same name in tweets and links it to Doctor Who before I can. Damn you, Willenholly, for stepping on my gag! Daaaaaamn yooooooou!

² Except James, unless he puts on a damn shirt.

1500 strips at Girls With Slingshots. Woo!

• Dave Kellett dropped a comment on yesterday’s post disclaiming the words about having to be fired by thousands of readers, thinking perhaps that it was Rich Stevens. I decided to go through my listings for particular words o’ wisdom and match them up with known sources:
  “People die of exposure” — Stevens
  Anything to do with a “liminal state” — Kellett
  On how to make a good webcomic, “Don’t suck; if you do suck, stop sucking as quickly as possible” — either Matt Boyd or Greg Dean, I forget which (but I totally used the quote when moderating a panel at the first NEWW, so if you think that was me, it wasn’t)

  Any others that you would add to the list of Webcomics Wisdom?

• Per the twitterfeed of the fighteningly-talented Kazu Kibuishi, a recommendation for a Kickstarter campaign for you:
  

  @gagnemichel is one of my favorite people on the planet. And this project will be amazing like everything he does. http://kck.st/RiLUEN

  For those of you unused to following the advice of talented people like Kibuishi¹, that project is for a short film based on Michel Gagné’s Rex, which was pretty much guaranteed to be the most charming and adorable part of any of the Flight anthologies. The goal is extremely modest (only US$15,000), and Gagné has been a professional animator for longer than many of you have been alive, so if there’s anybody that knows what a film meeting his vision should cost in terms of time/effort/money, it’s him.

• Holy crap, somebody let Chris Yates have access to an acrylic-cutting laser and he’s produced a transparent Baffler!. Most encouraging thing? That little inscription that notes the photo is “00/100”, presumably a prototype of something I’m going to have to get this holiday season.

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¹ Speaking of Kibuishi, I realize that I have yet to review Amulet 5 and it’s no longer really a timely thing — suffice it to say it is as impressive and engaging as the first four, delving into some serious darkness, and making me wonder if the Big Bad’s Assistant has fallen so far (despite the best intentions at the start) that he cannot be redeemed. We’re only at the halfway point, folks.

There are a few people that I pay close attention to in webcomics for their continued performance over the long haul. For example, Krishna Sadasivam hit fifteen years of making comics for the onlines at the start of the week, with no sign of stopping.

Also down as a long-haul vet, particularly when you recall the years running webcomics in parallel with print, and before that comics in print solely? Phil and Kaja Foglio, especially considering that I was reading Phil’s stuff in nineteen-friggin’-eighty-two, making the more than a dozen years of Girl Genius not even half of a long and storied career. Considering the time that the Foglios also ran the Buck Godot series online (from print, then back again), you’ve got a few thousand pages that have gone online (plus some really sex-positive porn over at Slipshine [NSFW], I’m told), and even more comics that haven’t made it online … you don’t have a career like that without making some good decisions, or at least learning how to not repeat the bad ones too many times.

And the thing about good decisions? Over time, they can change to become “indifferent” or “suboptimal” or “why did I choose to do this, again?”. Case in point, the Foglios have decided that running a store is no longer in their interests, and hooked up with the merch-slingin’ wizards of Starhampton, TopatoCo, just in time to not worry about the holiday rush. The news page and the press release essentially say the same thing; from Professoressa Foglio:

We are very excited to be handing the direct sales of our Airship Entertainment products over to the wonderful people at TopatoCo.com They are all set up to sell you fun things from lots of great webcomics, and we absolutely LOVE the idea of not having to pack orders in our basement any more. Our sales have simply gotten too big for us to handle ourselves, and we really need to concentrate on making more things over shipping more things. So please have a look, and check out all the other great webcomic-related stuff they sell.

And and from her male half:

The creative staff at Studio Foglio have been running a successful business since 1993, but lately the increased volume of sales has become difficult for their small organization to handle. Also, Phil Foglio grouses: “We aren’t getting any younger. The last thing I want is to be shlepping forty-five pound boxes when I’m sixty.” The Foglios believe that TopatoCo will be an excellent solution for dispensing books, especially since it puts them in the company of so many top-notch webcomic creators.

Taking on Studio Foglio’s stock had some unique challenges for TopatoCo. Diamond Comics has been the distributor for Studio Foglio’s brick-and-mortar sales since dinosaurs walked the Earth, and that will not change. Studio Foglio also has rather large initial print runs, which translates to massive stacks of books that need storage when they arrive from the printer. All of this had to be dealt with by TopatoCo’s shipping and warehousing staff, and has been handled with remarkably little bloodshed.

Note to self: still need to pick up Girl Genius volume 11, and can now bundle that with QC book 3 and perhaps Tom Tomorrow’s latest, since he’s part of the TopatoCo Cult Family You Can Never Leave Burgeoning Empire of Minimal Bloodshed now, too.

• Today’s remarkable thing: Jillian Tamaki did a short story called Half Life that has been preying on my mind all day. It’s quiet, contemplative, occasionally creepifying, and ultimately … I’m not sure if “peaceful” or “resigned” is the better word? It’s a damn good comic is what I’m telling you and you need to go read it now.
• Dave Kellett’s talked to me a few times about the difficulty in getting clips for STRIPPED at a reasonable price; the estate of Johnny Carson saw that a few seconds here or there were worth a modest fee, but other, bigger players have been tightening the thumbscrews because they can. Even in what must be a frustrating situation, Kellett is determined to stay on the ethical side of things, which I get the feeling is even more important that the legal side of things.

  I can understand his reluctance to pull the trigger on what would be a logical solution, and at this point I’m hoping somebody gives him a winning lottery ticket for a nice investment opportunity. Fleen wishes Kellett all the best and notes that he and Schroeder are doing so well on generating their own footage that we’d be willing to kick in a few extra bucks. Just sayin’.¹

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¹ What I am saying is I would pay money that Kellett could to a major motion picture studio in payment for its “Bein’ a Dick” tax.

Know what? You don’t care about my situation, so let’s point you toward things you might want to buy.

• First up, in line with last week’s predictions, Sin Titulo has wrapped and will be available in a handsome hardcover collected edition from Dark Horse next year.
• Nextly, three short adventures from John Allison, including the recently-concluded THAT, are now available for your obtaining. Plenty of Shelly Winters for those fans of the ginger ninja, and even the story of Dark Esther¹ at university.
• For those of you that want to exhibit at TCAF in the springtime, uh, the deadline for applications passed over the weekend. But don’t get too discouraged, as the new MoCCA, merged into the Society of Illustrators earlier this year, returns with the MoCCA Festival in April, with the application here [PDF].
• If there’s one thing that We at Fleen can be counted on appreciating, it’s comics-related furniture; if you want a sturdy piece of wood to help with the creating of comics rather than the storage of them, Dave Kellett has something fancy to show you.
• Want to make Jon Rosenberg’s daughter hate you? She’s got about a thousand of the cutest bunnies ever hanging around for hug times, and now you can get your own if you want to take a bunny away from an adorable child. You monster.

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¹ My favorite.

Probably no post tomorrow, due to work and travel demands. I know, somehow you’ll muddle through to the weekend.

• Karl Kerschl switches between story threads without warning, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that although it’s been eleven months since we’ve seen Vivol, he is not forgotten. His long flashback to the circus days is done, but even lo these many years later, his dreams are troubling. Conflating his mother and his surrogate cub, the tragic Moon Bear, both lost to him? The melancholy in that final panel of yesterday’s strip is so thick you can touch it. Bravo¹.

  What’s that? You don’t know about Vivol, and Moon Bear, and all the other inhabitants of the forest and surrounding lands? Good thing for you there’s a softcover collection of the first two years of The Abominable Charles Christopher (and others), and a just-announced pre-order for the second volume in hardcover. My advice: spring for the sketch edition, on account of what Kerschl calls a “sketch” would in any other context be called “an amazingly subtle and detailed animal portrait”

• Speaking of Kerschl, how about a reminder of his erstwhile studiomate, now Berlin-resident? It’s been more than five years, what with interruptions for paying work and such, but Cameron Stewart’s Sin Titulo is down to the last few pages of its very moody, atmospheric story of art made (literally, dangerously) alive. The last page should be up any day now, and look for a collection in the near future and trust me, if you’ve never read it, read it from the beginning now that it’s (almost) complete. So much meaning that wasn’t apparent at the beginning is fairly screaming at me now. Highest possible recommendation.
• Quick note on a comment from Morgan Wick regarding NYCC and the Javits Center: there really is no mega-convention center in the New York area, what with the crowded nature of the metroplex and the necessity of building up rather than out. There were plans for a bit there to scrap the Javits and build a new megaplex featuring a convention center, hotels, and casino in Queens, but that presumes that people coming to New York would want to go to what is the bedroom community of the city instead of the business/entertainment district. Also, the South Asian casino magnate that was maybe going to pony up about a billion dollars to kickstart (no relation) the project decided not to, and it would be a decade before something like that could be done.

  The Javits could be made usable, but it will have to expand — that’s not so feasible north or south (due to road infrastructure), or to the east (due to a million buildings and a major north-south artery), so west over the water is the only possibility. There needs to be a lot more support services in the area of the Javits (steps outside the San Diego Convention Center is the Gaslamp District; an equivalent distance from the Javits is the odd deli, a service garage for taxis, and a stable for Central Park carriage horses; in terms of tourist services, it’s a desert until you get to Midtown, most of a mile away), and there needs to be mass transit, which I’m sure they’ll get to sometime after the Second Avenue subway is done. The only approach that can practically improve the insufficiency of the Javits (apart from capping attendance and changing their exhibitor preferences) is, as Wick points out, to have a second show to take some of the demand off. Somebody go do that.

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¹ Now, when can we expect to see Luga again?