Understand that it was more than 30 years since I’d read A Wrinkle In Time when Hope Larson¹ announced that Madeleine L’Engle’s literary executors had asked her to adapt the classic book into a graphic novel. I couldn’t imagine a better mix of talents two and a half years ago, and now that I’ve got my hands on a copy², I am more impressed than ever.

Given that the original Newbery Medal-winning book is fifty years old, and given the entirely valid assumption that anybody that loves comics will likely have read AWIT, this review is not going to follow the usual approaches — plot and story will be freely discussed, no spoiler warnings will be given, and one may safely conclude that AWIT:TGN will fall squarely in the Required Reading category upon its release in October. What we will be talking about is how Larson adapted the source material into a unique offering.

I’m not sure about you, but I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so … let’s say nonplussed as by the first two Harry Potter movies. It was clear to me that the marching orders that Chris Columbus had been given boiled down to Make it as familiar as possible so the kids can follow along, don’t change a thing, and for God’s sake, don’t screw this up and we’ll all be employed for the next decade. The very literalness of the transition from page to screen, the almost complete absence of any real artistic changes meant that the films could bring nothing new beyond the visual design and the quality of the acting.³

By contrast, a little bit after Prisoner of Azkaban came out, I found myself (over beers after the close of day one of that year’s MoCCA Festival) holding the opinion that Warner Bros should just give the rest of the series to Alfonso Cuarón, because that movie cast off the literalism and showed a determination to be its own story. This wasn’t a movie that relied solely on what JK Rowling had written on the page to define the entirety of its world, it filled in between the words to create a dynamic, living, breathing, feels-real sense of place. Instead of viewers being told Only what’s on the page needs to be shown, the message was Here’s what one person’s imagination found in the story, which might not be what your imagination found, but isn’t it cool to think that your imagination can be a participant in the story?

I don’t want to stretch the analogy too far and say that a too-slavish transliteration is to a proper adaptation what the relationship between the hyperconformist world of Camazotz is to the bursting-with-creativity Murry household, but maybe I do. Particularly given the way that comics (as McCloud taught us) actively involve the reader as a co-conspirator in the story, a skillful determination of where to deviate from the source is an absolute necessity for AWIT:TGN to be a worthy addition to the Murry-O’Keefe stories. Fortunately, that’s what it is.

Larson follows the story closely enough that long-buried details of story came rushing back to me, but added nuances that wouldn’t have worked in the original. For example, the anachronistically formal way that many of the characters have of speaking (particularly Charles Wallace, but even the straightforward Calvin is capable of dropping lines like By what countries is Peru bounded?) serves to place the story in a timeless time instead of tying it explicitly to a particular year or decade. Along those lines, I will wager that it was a deliberate choice on Larson’s part to not show cars, phones, or other physical objects that would lead the reader to a too-specific determination of when the story takes place — it takes place in its own time and returns five minutes before it left.

Working with a palette of only black, white, and blue in various combinations (an overall blue wash for flashback, oppressive black for Camazotz), Larson is able in the space of a panel to convey mood and emotion more effectively than pages of adjectives could accomplish. Her character designs don’t look like the characters in my head (or yours either), but they do look like the characters themselves. Meg and Calvin reveal on the page how they feel about themselves — Meg’s shoulders and stance become stronger when she realizes that it’s not possible for others to repair things for her, Calvin’s ears get slightly larger and he becomes gawkier and less guarded when he finds kindred spirits in the Murry kitchen.

Most impressively to me, her renderings of Charles Wallace are subtle and powerful: the slightest change in the tilt of the head, curve of the mouth, or shape of the eyes are sufficient to change him from bemused and friendly to starkly malevolent. For a certain period of time, while their moral framework is still undeveloped, children that can walk and talk and act on their own are just this side of sociopaths, their entire world defined only in terms of themselves. When given over to IT, Larson’s Charles Wallace conveys that cruelty and utter lack of empathy; he is the very embodiment of selfishness and need to see the world conform exactly to his wishes, and it’s chillingly effective.

Larson’s interpretations and adaptations work as well as they do, naturally, because of the strength of the story that they’re built on; she knows when not to change the source material — it’s not possible to improve on defining dialogue like Well, a line or Tesser, sir! — and by recognizing where to keep and where to change, she’s built something that is recognizably L’Engle’s, but simultaneously all her own and easily the equal of the original. But as Meg Murry would angrily remind IT, Like and equal are two entirely different things.

Madeleine L’Engle found ways to tell a story that was about the uncertainties of now (and not-now, and every time), to make concepts like Good and Evil both starkly delineated and subtle, to delight children and piss off those who don’t want children exposed to “the wrong ideas”. Hope Larson found ways to make that story resonate in a new medium for a new generation of readers. In another fifty years, some new practitioner of some new artform will find a way to adapt AWIT for yet another generation. The story belongs to all times, and if you haven’t read it in far too long, you have the perfect amount of time to leisurely reacquaint yourself. Because from October forward, it won’t be possible to fully know A Winkle In Time without also knowing A Wrinkle In Time: The Graphic Novel.
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¹ Let me repeat for the benefit of those who only know Ms Larson because of her husband and figure she’s only known because of him, knock that shit off right now.

² As always, my most sincere thanks to Gina Gagliano at :01 Books; L’Engle’s longtime publisher Farrar Strauss and Giroux, their imprint Margaret Ferguson Books, and :01 are all part of the Macmillan family of publishers, thus Gina was able to get me a review copy.

³ The best thing about those first two movies — and this is not meant as a slight — was the casting. The choices of child actors that were (luckily) able to grow into the roles, and of the greats of British film (particularly Alan Rickman) were their enduring contributions.

Oh, cool my wife said as she was bringing in the mail and saw a package with the characteristic look of having come from overseas, where she has friends of long standing. Then her face fell and she said, Never mind, it’s for you.

And so it came to be that unlooked-for, I received from Belgium a copy of the latest print collection by Beardfluff creator Rembrand Le Compte¹, most recently mentioned on this page a little more than a year ago. Le Compte’s art is more assured, and while Beardfluff retains a healthy number of random-topic strips (if fewer journal-style entries starring the creator and a sentient beard), in the Spring of last year, Le Compte started a series of linked stories under the heading Fire & Stone.

The weird, beautiful, show-don’t-tell stories deal with birds (some seemingly ordinary, one definitely a phoenix), golems powered by heat of firebirds, cranes, weasels, a great war in the distant past, and a dark inversion of life’s energy. It drops you immediately into the story, leaves questions unanswered, and it a thoroughly satisfying tale; Le Compte played with the story for most of a year (between May 2011 and April 2012), updating multiple pages in a go, and interspersing with random ephemera until the narrative called him again. It’s a good, affecting story, and it’s a shame that the Ignatz nominees are already announced, because Fire & Stone is right up their alley.

• Also on the book front, Ryan North² today wraps his comprehensive reading of Steven Spielberg Presents: Back To The Future: A Robert Zemeckis Film: The Novel by George Gipe based on a screenplay by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale and has decided that it’s too much for one Tumblr. Thus, B^F: The Novelization Of The Feature Film, the e-book, is now available for purchase as North explores just how … very not good a quick-turnaround novelization based on an in-revision script for a movie that’s not out yet can be. Of special note would be the stellar reviews that North is receiving already, particularly this one:
  

  I wrote this book and I think it’s pretty great! It has a lot of jokes and is a fun thing to read with your eyes. Good work, Ryan! Best friends forever, Ryan!!

  Could anything be as wonderful as being best friends forever with Ryan? Only one man knows.

• Does anybody know if Red Bull comes in forties? Because if it does and you have one handy, you might want to pour it out for Ryan Sohmer, who is going Cold Red Bull Turkey due to concerns that mainlining the stuff like he does might actually kill him. Sohmer’s had a relationship with the go go juice that predates the birth of his son, and possibly he has known and loved the ‘Bull since before meeting his wife, so we are talking about the death of a deep and meaningful friendship here. On the other hand, not having to worry about his heart leaping out of his chest cavity must surely be its own reward, so best of luck to Mr Sohmer as he enters this new, brave, and much sleepier stage of his life.

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¹ A man after my own heart.

² Exemplar of All That Is Most Worthy And Awesome (Great White North Quadrant) and Tallest One-Third of the Collective Nexus of All Webcomics Realities.

Item One: At this point, the w00tstock phenomenon has grown to the point that any number of geekly types can attract other geekly types to join them on a stage and just generally be as entertaining as heck. In expanding their usual PAX “Just being us” session to a PAX-adjacent two-night stand, Kris and Scott (or possibly “Scott and Kris”, take your pick) are joining the new tradition. In three years, look for all of nerddom to join together in one mega-variety-show that puts Jerry Lewis’s telethon extravaganzas¹ to shame, curated by the ever-present Dammit Liz.

Confidential to everybody attending the show: rumor has it slipping Scott and Kris a six-pack makes the show even hilariouser.

Item Two: I made sure to keep myself out of the very minor controversy launched by the inexplicably angry sell your boots editorial by Dan Nadel in The Comics Journal’s blog a few weeks back. If one is going to decide that Kickstarter is emblematic of all that is wrong with comics, the Box Brown-edited Garo tribute seemed like an odd target. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the dominant reaction appeared to be Seriously, this is what you get upset about? Case in point, Evan Dahm took it upon himself to express the obvious:

People are still thinking kickstarter is fundamentally some charity operation. we are not taking donations, we are taking preorders.

I don’t understand the confusion about this. you are just allowing some of the people who want the book to buy it in advance.

It is not a magic bullet; it’s a convenient platform to allow promotion and preorders. that is all it is to me.

But there’s not lack of smart people on the internets², and a very thoughtful piece on a potential drawback to Kickstarter-only books appeared this afternoon from Gina Gagliano³ of :01 Books which you should check out:

The thing I see on Kickstarter that I am confused by is the only-published-through-Kickstarter graphic novel.

Sometimes there pops up a project on Kickstarter where an author’s like, ‘okay, I’m publishing an original graphic novel, it’s 200 pages long and it will take me two more years to complete after this point and you should all support it!’ And sometimes I’m like, ‘huh, that looks like something that we wouldn’t publish at all because the zombies are exploding whilst having sex,’ and sometimes I’m like, ‘huh, we didn’t get this charming and interesting project in our submissions inbox.’

The format of Kickstarter seems to heavily weight the promotion and availability of the book to the front end, rather than the back end — something I find problematic for these books that people say, ‘we’ll have this done in two years — or a year — or even eight months.’ Because what happens when your book is available — and then a school in Kansas wants to use it in their class and needs 40 copies . . . and then the New York Public Library system wants to carry it and needs 80 copies . . . and then BoingBoing reviews it and a few hundred people want to order the book?

There’s considerably more in the full posting, which should give a certain type of creator (namely, those already capable of doing top-notch work) some things to think about. And if you’re not that creator today, I sincerely hope that it’s your desire to be that creator someday, and to look at questions you’ll need to consider down the line instead of keeping your mindset static.

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¹ And I have no doubt that such a nerdapalooza could raise enormous charitable dollars, perhaps in support of Child’s Play.

² All casual evidence to the contrary.

³ Who supplies me with review copies of the best stuff, you guys she is seriously awesome.

If you were lucky enough to hang around the Dumbrella booth at San Diego Comic Con last month, scrollsaw-wielding madman Chris Yates might have shown you something very interesting indeed — a prerelease version of the new Baffler! for iPad app, which released today. Developer Twenty Sided Planet’s been at work for a year on this, and having played with it some, I can say it was time well spent. The grab-a-piece-and-spin-it-around functionality is crisp and smooth, and the timer counting up how long it takes you to solve a puzzle is maddening in its insistence at ticking along at a rate of one second per second.

Best of all, consider what you get — fifteen Chris Yates original puzzles, the digital versions scanned from actual physical puzzles, the prices of which would range from the dozens of American Cash Dollars to multiple hundreds. To obtain fifteen Baffler! originals would be out of the reach of all but the most devoted (and wealthy) collector, but Yates and Twenty Sided Planet are letting you have this for a measly three bucks (with future expansion packs undoubtedly at a similar pricepoint). Take a look at the launch video (there’s some nice quick shots of multi-level Baffler!s around the 1:10 mark) and then we can all sit here and wait to see how long it takes Apple to make The Baffler! for iPad an official demo app in their stores. ‘Cause man, this thing is addictive.

• With the country going all excited for Bobak Ferdowsi¹, would this be a good time to point out that Jorge Cham’s new video series, Ph.Detours, talked to him last week? Yes, yes it would. Ferdowsi’s about halfway through the video (with mohawk but without coloration), but the real stars of the show are JPL program engineer Chaz Morantz and the full-size Curiosity test model.

  As long as we’re talking PhD Comics, we should also mention that their Two Minute Thesis Contest is up to the voting stage — grad students give a brief pitch about what they’re working on, you can listen in and get smarter in your spare time, and the thesis with the most votes will be the first to be illustrated for a new web series, along with other fabulous prizes.

  Me, I’m leaning towards Rescue Times Need[ed] By Fire Services At The Critical Structure Fire by Thomas Lindemann, Rescue Engineering, Cologne University of Applied Sciences because come on — how many other candidates have to do their research inside burning buildings?

• Called it: Khoo putting together Strip Search entry guidelines based on Penny Arcade hiring practice.
• Okay, we all knew that B9.5 was going to crush its goal, we just didn’t know the final number. As it turns out, the final number was slightly over US$140,000, meaning that the Benign Kingdom project as a whole has taken in just over 200 grand. On behalf of everybody that pledged early and kept seeing new stuff added to our rewards packages, I’d like to thank the incredible upsurge in backers that brought in more than US$50K in the last six days of the campaign. Seriously, you just don’t see the curve of the projected total go up all that often on Kickstarts. Now the only question is what the Benign Ones do to top this.

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¹ I’ve mentioned previously that despite my childhood daydreams, I know I never could make it as an astronaut, but if I had been born 20 or 25 years earlier, I would have fought like hell to earn a chair in NASA mission control, so indulge me as I take a moment to recognize that not only has Bobak Ferdowsi got great hair and style out the wazoo, he’s a Flight Director.

Less than ten years out of college, and he’s calling the shots for all the flight controllers in that mission control center. That’s how it works when you’ve got the headsets on — a year or two out of school you’re saving an Apollo mission from an unnecessary abort, and if you stick with it by the time you’re 30 you’re very possibly sitting in Gene Kranz’s chair.

Think I exaggerate? John Aaron (EECOM) and Steve Bales (GUIDO) were twenty four years old when they called (respectively) “SCE to Aux”, and “We’re Go on that program alarm”. Every single person that’s ever plugged into a flight controller’s loop and called, “Go, Flight” is a goddamn hero and if you don’t know their names and stories, shame on you.

Honestly, some of my favorite times in comics involve seeing what creators I follow already come up with as their next project. No matter how much I like the current work, seeing what they come up with to distinguish the new from the old usually involves a real stretch of the creative muscles — your Chex vs Starslip, Sheldon vs Drive, Ugly Hill vs Not Invented Here, Goats vs Scenes From A Multiverse, Bobwhite vs Monster Pulse, Captain Stupendous vs Snowflakes, Little Dee vs Spacetrawler, Kilroy and Tina vs Wonderella.

To that list, we can now add You’ll Have That/Max vs Max creator Wes Molebash, who launches Insert Image today. It looks to be more story/plot oriented rather than based around what could broadly be called “relationships” (which formed the core of his earlier work), but it’s still recognizably Molebash — the character designs are unmistakably his¹, church (as both an institution and a setting) appears to be a prominent element, there’s (even with just one strip) a sense of fundamental decency about the characters. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one; I think that Molebash may have found a vehicle that matches his voice even better than his earlier comics.

Know where there’s a sense of fundamental decency that’s a full 180° from Molebash’s midwest? Brooklyn. Not that Meredith Gran’s cast of characters aren’t decent enough people, they’re just the living embodiments of “It’s complicated”.

Which, the more I think about it, is probably why she was the perfect choice to write/draw Marceline and the Scream Queens, because the residents of the Land of Ooo aren’t as simple as their very handy labels would make them seem at first blush. The Candy Kingdom isn’t all sweetness and light; Marceline’s not letting her Nightosphere origins decide what kind of person she should be, and Princess Bubblegum sometimes has to do some not-very-nice things. Gran knows how to write characters with obvious surfaces and deeper contradictions.

So it’s pretty cool that just in time for MatSQ#2 to hit the stands this week, there’s a very nice review of MatSQ#1 at The AV Club today:

Gran has a firm handle on both characters’ voices, and in signature Adventure Time fashion, crafts a story that is rooted in a realistic situation and then amplified by the fantastic setting. Marceline’s popularity intimidates Bubblegum, prompting the cruel words that cause Marceline to doubt her creativity.

The two are ultimately united through art, as the Scream Queens put on an epic show that completely changes Bubblegum’s point of view. Over four silent pages, Gran dramatically captures all the energy and theatricality of Marceline’s show, aided by Lisa Moore’s vibrant color palette of complimentary reds and purples.

Damn straight.

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¹ I always thought Molebash’s designs sat about midway between Ryan Estrada and Mike Krahulik, and [img] carries on that aesthetic pretty strongly.

Not saying they’re completely out of the blue, but still.

• Very much a Huh moment: I’m not entirely sure what the read-between-the-lines part of the announcement means, but I’m pretty sure the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art just said it’s ceasing to exist:
  

  The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) and the Society of Illustrators have announced plans for MoCCA to transfer its assets to the Society, creating a single cultural institution supporting and celebrating illustration, comics, and animation.

  The Society will continue and expand MoCCA’s mission in a number of ways: staging MoCCA Fest in its current location, dedicating a gallery in the Society building to MoCCA’s Permanent Collection, continuing MoCCA programming, and curating a special exhibition of works from MoCCA’s Permanent Collection in their Hall of Fame Gallery […]. There will be extensive arts programming around both of these exhibits, including lectures, workshops, film and music series. Current MoCCA memberships will be honored at the Society of Illustrators.

  So, that’s something more than a de-accession of artifacts, or construction of an institution-within-an-institution. Does somebody with access to legal filings know where to look for a corporate dissolution? Because that’s what this sounds like:

  Commenting on the transfer of MoCCA’s assets, including its permanent art collection and the MoCCA Fest name, Society Executive Director Anelle Miller observed, “The Society of Illustrators has a long, proud history of promoting the art and appreciation of all genres of illustration. We are honored to be able to spearhead the expansion and growth of the incredible foundation that MoCCA has created over the past ten years.”

  More on this as it develops.

• Maybe not so much Huh as Hmmm: As of this moment, an artboook anthology is on the verge of becoming the third most-funded comics project in Kickstarter history, which position it will hold for approximately a week until Penny Arcade takes the number two slot, and then another week or so before CreatureBox takes number four.

  Still, Top Five status is nothing to sneeze at, and taking two separate projects into the Top Twenty in the space of six months (with a combined take somewhere northward of US$165,000) makes George Rohac the Kickstarter Guru of 2012, I’m thinking.

• Less Huh and more Hooray: Congratulations to Emily Nagoksi and Rich Stevens, who totally changed their respective Facebook relationship statuses, with cake. I can’t express how happy I am for them. And dang is that an impressive cake.

Guys, an EMS call at zero-dark-thirty¹ has left me wiped and unable to form complex thoughts. Please enjoy these largely factual informational transferences.

• I have been slack about keeping you up to date with the Recipe Comix series at Saveur magazine, for which I apologize. Go check out the most appetizing food + words + pictures this side of Get Jiro!, courtesy of Lucy Knisley (a food-oriented excerpt of a longer travelogue) and Marnie Galloway (a love letter to menudo).
• Book release party for Skin Horse volume 3 in about three weeks time. Join Shaenon Garrity² and her mom for cupcakes, wine³, and assorted craziness. Saturday, 25 August at Borderlands Books in San Francisco, until either the books or the booze runs out.
• In case you missed it: Meredith Gran’s Marceline and the Scream Queens #1 sold out and went to a second printing prior to release. Well done, Mer.
• TCAF 2013 applications are now open; given that this is:
  • A curated show that
  • Has a great deal of demand for tables and
  • Limited space

  … there are priorities as to who gets a table. Don’t just fill out an application and figure you’ll get in, make a case for why you should be there. As showrunner Christopher Butcher puts it:

  Are you an artist? Do you have a professional bio? If not: you are killing me.

  I feel like an artist Bio should be written like a piece of reporting, essentially.

  Lead with the most important/current information, in one bite-sized chunk. Then order most-to-least important facts following.

  And, in response to one creator that couldn’t manage that:

  If you’re not proud enough of your comic to muster 5 sentences about it and your work on it, why are you making a comic? [no link, no need to call out the person Butcher was talking to]

• Finally, congrats to Jeph Jacques on nine got-damn years of Questionable Content. We’re a long way from strip #1 and he’s got every reason to be proud of what he’s accomplished. Everybody feel good for Jeph.

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¹ Actually 00:33, to be precise; took ’til nearly 02:00 to get back to bed.

² Funk Queen of All Lands Touched By The Northeastern Pacific Ocean, and one third of the Nexus of All Webcomics Realities Triumvirate.

³ Most likely from a box, given Garrity’s margin notes regarding her mom. Also, I’m guessing that being the mom of a Funk Queen make you one badass mother.

For those of you outside the eastern seaboard of the United States, I-95 is a roadway with one purpose: to break people and their will to live. Some 450km of it lie between me and home.¹ Fun! Let’s keep this brief.

• On t-shirtery and the design thereof, received wisdom shared with you by the very generous John Allison.
• On achieving 867% of funding the goal for Trial of the Clone, and soliciting input for the next Zach Weinersmith-penned interactive story, which comes down to the eternal question: Good or Evil?
• On the possibility that Aaron Diaz² just volunteered Danielle Corsetto, Anthony Clark, and Emmy Cicierega to publicly engage in The Hammer Dance, less than US$11000 need be raised over the course of ten more days. If they do this, you can be sure that Diaz’s parachute pants will be tweed and tailored to perfection by Duchess of Portland.
• On those last two Kickstarters, note the relative generosity of updates: 20 days, 8 updates for a project that’s still fundraising, and 17 updates over one month (with progress-o-meter graphs!) for one that’s wrapped up, but not yet delivered the goods. These are good practices — frequently let everybody know what is happening with their money. It is incumbent on fundraisers to keep that line of communication open once things close, and there are those that do exactly that and they are to be commended.

  Others … not so much. Eighteen updates from launch to goal? Good. Ten weeks after goal before breaking radio silence? Not so good, Fat Cat Gameworks; nobody expected that you’d have product to ship the next day, but they need to hear that you aren’t just sitting around trying to figure out what to do next. If nothing else, figure out loud.

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¹ That sound you just heard was Ms K. Brooke “Otter” Spangler, warming up to sing my funeral dirge, because she knows what kind of Destroyer Bitch-Goddess I-95 is … she knows and would rather see me dead than suffer its embrace.

² The Latin Art-Throb.

I’m in the midst of an archive binge of Homestuck and it’s taking up a lot of time and mental cycles. I’m not even a year into this story¹ and my mind is reeling from the sheer volume of how much work Andrew Hussie has done so very, very quickly. By the time I’m done, I’ll most likely have to go back and start the damn thing over again, as I’ll be trying to keep track of 5000+ pages of art and 300,000+ words, which would be the equivalent of 1.5 Crimes and Punishment or Mobys Dick.

• Know what else is an overwhelming amount of comics? Ryan Estrada’s The Whole Story project, where four days remain to name your own price to obtain all those tasty, weird comics.²
• Know what else is an overwhelming amount of extremely important and well-written words? Colleen Doran’s Very Bad Publishers essays. Every once in a while she takes the time to point people that may not have seen the full saga, and is doing so now, which is the perfect time for me to mention it again. If you haven’t ever read about Very Bad Publishers, then take a couple hours and do so.
• Unexpected surprise of the day: This page has made much of Randy Milholland’s ability to write believable characters that behave in realistic ways, and to change their personal habits oh-so-slowly and organically. Nobody in the Something*Positive cast started out as damaged as Mike Dowden, but he’s come a long way. Today, he’s still not finding life entirely going his way, but at least he has a new haircut, one that doesn’t make him look like a sociopath that lives in his mom’s basement. As longtime readers may recall, he stopped being a sociopath sometime around Halloween 2004, and moved out of his mom’s basement prior to becoming a father in 2006. And, uh, damn I’ve been reading this comic a long time.

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¹ Homestuck began on 13 April, 2009 and I’ve made it as far as Rose: Knit the scarf. Ride the ogre., which ran on 11 March, 2010. It’s partway into Act 4, and I’m guessing about a quarter of the way through the story as written so far.

² As reported earlier, Estrada started with price tiers in his pay-what-you-want scheme, but later opened it up entirely to reader’s choice. Literally any amount will get you all those comics.

Not sure if these are thorough enough to qualify as “followups”, but what’s terminology between friends?

• Yesterday we mentioned that Meredith Gran and Ryan North will be doing a joint Adventure Time/Marceline signing at Little Island Comics in Toronto tomorrow. But we did not mention that the fun doesn’t stop there! Per Mr North:
  

  TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY JULY 25th, 1-3 pm: Mer and I sign at Little Island Comics in Toronto and there’s an Adventure Time costume contest. And activities!! This one is for kids!

  TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY JULY 25th, 6-6:45 pm: Mer and I do an Adventure Time presentation at The Central and do a Q+A!

  TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY JULY 25th, 7 pm: There is a costume contest for adults that Mer and I judge!

  TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY JULY 25th, 7:15-9 pm: The signing for adults happens at The Beguiling with Meredith and myself!

  The Central, for those wondering, is an emporium of adult happy-time beveragosity, and it is located approximately next door to The Beguiling. Little Island is behind The Beguiling; that is, the backs of the respective stores open on to Honest Ed’s Alley. Honest Ed is of course Ed Mirvish, legendary proprietor of Honest Ed’s Bargain Store, which should be familiar to anybody that’s read Scott Pilgrim. Should anybody find Gran or North in the vicinity crying like a newborn baby at the sheer horror of being alive, please contact the appropriate authorities.

  Also you guys — kids costume contest! That sounds more adorable than should be allowed under Canadian law.¹

• It occurred to me recently that not everybody has obtained the fifth (and final) Starslip collection. If you are of the mind to scoff and note that all of the comics in the book can be obtained online, allow me to disabuse you of that notion, Mr or Ms Scoffs-a-Lot. For you see, the last Starslip comic isn’t. The last, that is. I mean, it’s still a Starslip comic, but it’s not really the last one, because the soon-to-be-generally-available Starslip: The Future Dies Tonight has an epilogue. I do not exaggerate when I say that those few extra panels were worth the price of purchase by themselves, which I will not spoil. I do, however, urge anybody with a fond spot for Starslip in their hearts to obtain the final volume as quickly as it goes on offer, because it really ties the whole strip together.

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¹ Being on the metric system, things in Canada are already up to 2.54 times more adorable than in the United States. They’ve got all those fluffy white seal cubs, after all.