Couple of quick notes for you before we get to the main discussion today. One, I’m on Pacific Time this week (and with intermittent internet access), so expect less-timely-than-usual postings. Two, congrats to webcomicky types Darryl Cunningham and John Allison for their nominations in the British Comics Awards (for Best Book and Best Comic, respectively), to be presented in a month’s time at Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds. Also thanks to the BCAs for pointing me towards Josceline Fenton, nominated for Best Comic for Hemlock, a webcomic with which I was not previously familiar. Fenton is also nominated as Emerging Talent for broader body of work, which is going to bear some examination in the very near future.

Okay: George (it is the general policy of this blog to refer to people by their full names on first reference, and to prefer family name thereafter, with first name used to make thing read well, but really — “George” is the only way to name this fine gentleman).

He doesn’t make himself the center of attention, but he’s a significant guy in the world of web/indy comics. When he’s not scouting for talent and finding people for projects at Oni, he’s the behind-the-scenes make-things-happen guy in the Benign Kingdom, and may understand Kickstarter better than Kickstarter does (I believe he may have been involved in more campaigns than anybody else on the planet at this point). But apart from the day job, the Kingdom appears to be his major avenue for world domination right now, so that’s what we talked about. With the second B9 collection getting ready to ship, I wanted to find out what the future directions for the Kingdom might be.

First of all, I have to change the terminology I’ve been using, because “B9.5” isn’t going to cut it much longer; it worked when there was an original book, then a second book, but plans are for two more artbook collections every year (Spring and Fall), so I’d be running out of decimals pretty quickly. Like the Fall 2012 collection, these new books will be:

• collections of four artists
• by invitation (please, no unsolicited submissions)
• ongoing for the forseeable future

That last one is pretty important — the original four creators (Ota/Green/Dreistadt/Dahm) won’t be returning until 2014, which means that the intervening 18-24 months are already planned out and the respective details are already being worked out¹. George wouldn’t spill as to who the contributors to the 2013 books would be “until pen’s on paper”, but he was quite interested in knowing who I would want to see included. I dropped some names² on him, carefully looking for tells that I’d guessed correctly, but he gave away nothing.

More than just having a beautiful book of your best/favorite work, being in one of the biannual collections means that a creator is now “part of the Kingdom”, with the ability to do other projects that strike your fancy; the Kingdom means having a structure to arrange for the logistics of production and fulfillment, as well as serving as a guarantee of quality. As the number of projects from the Kingdom increases, expect to see an ever-wider audience that was not familiar with the creators in question³ to dominate the purchasing, based on a string of previous projects, each successful and full of positive feedback from backers.

These projects can be solo or in combination with other creators (George allowed that there will be an Exquisite Beast/Capture Creatures tandem project), and I can think of a few other projects that I’d love to see — I’ve mentioned more than once that Aaron Diaz should do an artbook of dinosaurs, and I all but begged Anthony Clark over the weekend to revive his collaboration with Emmy Cicierega, Laserpony Studios. Heck, while casually talking with Evan Dahm and Frank Gibson, we accidentally came up with an idea for a Kingdom book that would be awesome and unique and I’m not sure I should talk too much about it.

So there you are — the Kingdom is an ongoing concern, it will continue to expand as makes sense, it’s got a plan for convention appearances, and a store is on the way. The foundations are solid, in part because nothing (not even more Big Gay Ice Cream than you could eat in a lifetime) can distract George when he has a goal in mind. Also, never forget that he has the power to end the world, so let’s all make sure that he meets those goals — it’s safer for all concerned.

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¹ One of the key things to realize about George: the man pays attention and has a plan at all times. The first B9 collection shipped a month early, and the only reason the second isn’t going out early is that a quality issue made the first printing unacceptable, causing a delay to merely “at the time we promised”. George is ready to go to press the day the Kickstarter ends, because he’s planned for submissions and layout before he announces the project.

² In no particular order (and keeping in mind that the goal of B9 is to provide a channel for creators to do artbooks separate from their usual work, so creators already working in an artbook mode like Scott C don’t really need the Kingdom): Carly Monardo, Dylan Meconis, Ursula Vernon, Erika Moen, Vera Brosgol, Emily Carroll, Karl Kerschl, Cameron Stewart, and man oh man I’d kill to see a book of Randy Milholland’s watercolors. I have no idea who on that list would have the time/inclination, but there you go — more than enough people for 2013 and beyond.

³ This is already occurring. The first B9 collection had about 20% of the backers come from Kickstarter itself rather than from the established audiences of the creators; for the second collection, it was over 60% from people searching out KS projects to back.

Didn’t spend a whole lot of time at NYCC yesterday for the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me-noon-til-nine-pm Preview Day, just long enough to touch base with the Benign Kingdom table (the new B9.5 hardcovers are absolutely gorgeous, as are the TKT hardcovers — I’m going to have some very welcome packages arrive at the Fleenplex in the coming weeks), say howdy to Zach Weiner (he’s selling disposable monocles!), pick up a copy of the new book from Matthew Inman (I unfortunately didn’t have time to discuss the purchase of the future Tesla Museum grounds at anything resembling full length), bump fists with the Most Handsome Man In Comics, and have two slightly longer conversations. Saturday will be hanging with creators day. As to those conversations:

• So, yep, you may have already seen the announcement that Chris Hastings, Anthony Clark, and Cardboard Cutout Ryan North made yesterday on behalf of ShiftyLook: they’ll be doing an ongoing webcomic based on Galaga, of all things. The problem being, Galaga doesn’t really lend itself to a story so much.

  Enter Ryan North, Human Giant (that picture up top? the cardboard cutout is life sized¹). He’s constructed a storyline around two teenage girls (who Chris Hastings tells me he was very glad he got to design not as your typical comics version of “teenage girls”, namely, “undiscovered Playmates” … they will be actual person-type girls) who manage to take salvaged bits of alien tech (which look an awful lot like giant pixels) and build spaceships in their backyard to defend the Earth.

  The launch date for the new comic is officially (and cheerfully, may I note) described as The Future!, so keep your eyes on this page for further information. In the meantime I’m going to go out on a limb and say that three established, talented creators with a history of tearing it up when working together are going to deliver a great series. I’m also going to go out on a separate limb and add how thrilled I am about all the creators whose work I love that are getting work on different properties, expanding their name recognition, and establishing themselves as talent beyond their core audiences.

  I love Dr McNinja as much as any man alive (and maybe more than most), but some day Hastings will have told the last story he wants to tell about the good doctor and his friendly staff, and I want him to have an income when that day comes. A diverse set of projects (such as ShiftyLook and all the Adventure Time spinoffs²) and a reputation for meeting deadlines make that future day all the brighter.

• Speaking of diversity of projects, Kel McDonald found me yesterday to drop some news. On the heels of Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales hitting general availability, she’s making plans for the next anthology. Okay, sequel to a popular item, no big deal, but McDonald is looking at doing something new — the next CF&FT abandons the familiar ground of Grimm, Andersen, et. al., and will have as its theme African stories, which have never gotten a wide purchase in our popular culture.

  Even better, McDonald reports that in addition to returning creators from volume 1, she’s got a commitment from Dylan Meconis (who knows her way around a fairy tale or two). If that weren’t ambition enough for you, the plans are to take a continental approach and have each subsequent volume focus on a different tectonic landmass (volume 3 will most likely tackle Asia). Taking things to their logical conclusion, Kel and I brainstormed an approach for an Antarctic story³.

  If you want to take a shot at inclusion, you’ve got time to put together your best work — McDonald is allowing a solid year before the stories are due, and the Kickstarter to pay for book production will go up in October of 2013. Naturally, she’ll be working on plenty of other things in the meantime, but we’ll just have to wait until she’s ready to announce ’em.

• Side note: while on the floor, I was approached by a very nice young lady (and I’m very sorry, I didn’t get your name, I suck) in a Big Gay Ice Cream (try the Salty Pimp, it’s amazing) t-shirt who wanted to let me know when the Big Damn Homestuck Photo Ops would be. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it to them (I’m not at the show today, and on Saturday it’ll conflict with the B9 panel), but I did promise to help spread the word.

  If you want to witness the power of what Andrew Hussie has unleashed, it’ll be at 4:13pm today and Saturday, on the second floor, around the corner from the coat check. Look for the candy corn horns and watch their numbers swell until you realize that you’re really glad that Hussie has decided to use his powers for good and not evil.

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¹ Don’t believe me? Check out Ryan at stately TopatoCo Manor from last weekend. In fact, check out all the photos from the Greatest Wedding Ever, which are to be found here. My favorites, in no particular order:

• MC Frontalot Not Really Contemplating A Bust Of MC Frontalot
• Massachusetts Gothic With Teens
• The Last Supper (2012)
• Meredith Has Had Enough Of This Cutesy Shit I Don’t Care If We Were Roommates Carly I Mean Come On

² Speaking of Adventure Time, the not-yet-released AT videogame exists on a pair of handhelds at the ShiftyLook booth. Look for the giant Finn & Jake and find the table below their butts.

³ This is the story that the penguins tell: In the first days the Great Sky Penguin made a vast land of snow and ice, with lots of fish and leopard seals waaaaay the heck over there, and decreed we should walk back and forth from the nesting grounds. And that’s why we’re in this long line while our spouses are sitting on the eggs. The End.

Yesterday’s post was bigger than one would normally expect, particularly for a Wednesday when it is scientifically proven that nothing of interest ever happens, and yet there we were. Lost in the shuffle were some things which were (and are) worth mentioning.

• The Joey Comeau-penned, Mike Holmes-drawed Bravest Warriors comic has been upgraded from miniseries to ongoing, and that Fionna and Cake will get their own miniseries come January. Per Comeau’s twitterfeed, BW#1 will be available at NYCC (which kicked off for VIP/pro/press day a couple hours ago), and per everybody and their dog, F&C#1 will feature an alternate cover by Becky Dreistadt. Good times, my friends.
• If you look up the words “noble failure” in the dictionary, you’ll be flipping back and forth a lot because there’s probably like 700 pages between the N pages and the F pages, but let’s pretend for a moment they’d be together.

  Anyway, look ’em up, and down around reference number five or six (out of thirty-seven) there could be a mention of Zuda [no link exists¹], which did some things right (looking for new talent not already working with major comics publishers, an uncharacteristic amount of transparency for a major comics publisher), some things wrong (contests and contracts), and some things inconceivably (formatting requirements and oh lump, that interface).

  While I had some definite opinions on the entire Zudaenterprise, I remain steadfast in my stance that they popularized some damn good comics, and the people that worked there were true in their aims. This is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.²

  We recently noted some of what onetime Zudaeditor Kwanza Johnson has been up to, and this week brings news of onetime head of DC Creative Services Ron Perazza (if memory serves, he stayed on after the shutdown of Zuda, but left DC a while later in the wake of a corporate restructuring about two years back) and what he’s been up to. Namely, a new site in partnership with Daniel Govar (a one-time Zuda contributor), Comic Book Think Tank. The statement of purpose is pretty promising:

  This site is the creative playground of Ron Perazza and Daniel Govar – comic book professionals with years of experience in a wide variety of creative and techincal areas. It’s a place where we can explore what comics are (or can be) and where we can share the results of those experiments with any and all who are interested.

  I’m particularly interested to see what kinds of results Perazza and Govar might produce and encourage everybody with an interest in comics to keep an eye on their experiments. For now, the centerpiece of the site is a self-contained story, Relaunch, with others yet to come. Seems like a half-dozen or so of these stories (30 clicks to finish, but some of that results in overlays on the current page, so web page count <> printed page count) might make an nice anthology? We shall see.

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¹ Zudarest in Zudapeace.

² Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, Scene 1. By the way, do you like SHAKESPEARE? And perhaps do you like things that are FUNNY and/or AWESOME, and relate to webcomics? Watch this page in the next few weeks, because my friend, will we ever have a treat in store for you.

As comics creators make their way towards New York City, questions of identity, oddly enough, are what present themselves to me today.

• To start, readers of this page are probably familiar with Box Brown, Xeric-winning comicker and publisher of Retrofit Comics. He did a terrific series inspired by death (with a side of eschatology) called Everything Dies (no link details coming if you’ll bear with me), which until today was linked over there to the right. However, it seems that sometime in the past (exact timeframe unknown), the domain lapsed. So far, no big. Then somebody else bought it. Happens all the time.

  Then earlier today my RSS feed pointed me to a series of new posts at Everything Dies by Box Brown and they were a series of incredibly convoluted, nigh-nonsensical Qs & As about comics¹. A quick check with Brown confirmed that the site was no longer under his control and my computing-risk paranoia jumped into high gear — there weren’t any obvious means of making money from link farming on the new ED by BB page, which sent me into a full, careful exam of my computer for malware².

  Meanwhile, the site sits there, outside of Brown’s control but with his name still in the title, pumping out invitations to all his former RSS subscribers, trading (either intentionally or accidentally) on his good name to pull in people for whatever purpose.

  So let’s make this one a teachable moment: you have a project that’s wrapped, or moving to another identity, or just doesn’t need its own domain any longer? Don’t just let it fade … take down the site with a lot of notice. Let your readers know that it’ll be closing shop on a given date³, that after that point in time any references to that domain have nothing to do with you. Send out RSS notifications, make it as obvious as possible, and when the time comes, turn out the lights and lock the door on your terms. A domain name ain’t worth but a few bucks a year, but your name is all you’ve got to build your brand on.

Other things that people are putting their names on:

• Really? People are still having this discussion? [credit to Sean Kleefeld, who was the first person I saw to point out the stupid] In case you didn’t follow that first link, it’s Pearls Before Swine (which I like) creator Stephan Pastis (whom I’ve met very briefly and liked) talking about lots of things, but including this:
  

  “Now, to make it, you have to go that web route. Many of those guys, from Penny Arcade to Cyanide and Happiness to The Perry Bible Fellowship — which are all excellent — claim to make a living, but how do you know? I can tell you that even if someone does a strip and it’s fairly popular online, the money is not online. I question a lot of claims about the money being made, and the question remains that if things continue to go that route for newspapers, and you have to make money online, how do you do it?”

  Jesus. Tapdancing. Christ.

  Okay, in the altogether vain hope of putting this damn thing to bed, here’s what I’m going to do. Tomorrow, or this weekend, or sometime during the run of NYCC, I’m going to seek out Matthew Inman (whom I’ve met briefly, and liked quite a lot), who has a new book out, and I’m going to ask him if he’d be willing to release an approximate copies-sold total for that book for, say, the three months of quarter 4, 2012. Then come January we’ll run that number here, and Pastis can compare it to the first three months of whichever Pearls collection he likes.

  And then maybe we’ll all finally come to the conclusion that no, the money isn’t online, it’s in the merchandise and the collections, and the same damn thing has always been true for syndicated strips. One last time for those at the back: Sparky or Jim or whichever megasuccess you wish to discuss did not become richer than God off of syndicate checks. The money came from getting the people who read the strip (and essentially paid nothing for it) to buy other stuff with characters on it⁴.

• Speaking of Sparky Schulz, opinions of the opinionators vary, but there seems to be consensus that a Peanuts movie is a bad idea. If we can all agree on that fundamental point, I’ma suggest that we not get in each other’s faces about the consistency or purity or whatever of opinions, but also that we not make a thing about this project between now and whenever it might see fruition. I plan to put it out of my mind and not give it either the money or attention that would feed it.

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¹ At some point, they may have been written in English. I think that a mechanical translator was used to shift them to at least one other language, then back to English, then copy-edited by somebody that took English in school about fifteen years back and hasn’t spoken it since. Bizarrely confounding word choices and sentence construction that I initially mistook for a Dadaist artistic statement by Brown.

² I didn’t find any, but I don’t run my rig with garden-variety settings, most especially with respect to my almost total non-acceptance of Java, Flash, Javascript, plugins, and everything else that provides a vector for those with bad intent.

³ A nice demonstration of this was recently provided by Secretary of Geek Affairs Wil Wheaton, who revived Wil Wheaton Dot Net after years of an “in-exile” site hosted on another domain. He fixed up the one named after him, and he let people know about the move in advance.

⁴ Okay, I have to paraphrase here, since it was related by Dave Kellett during his Stripped panel at San Diego this year, and while there’s video, it’s for Kickstarter backers only and thus I can’t link you to it in good conscience. It involved Kellett and his filming partner Fred Schroeder arriving at Jim Davis’s PAWS, Inc. HQ and being shown a room, possibly 3000 square feet, filled floor to ceiling with Garfield merch. Dave asked if that was everything Garfield-related ever made, and Davis replied, “Oh, no — that’s just for this year.”

Also in that same panel: a clip from the movie explaining exactly how you make money online which is a discussion that’s been had a million bloody times.

While we all know that New York Comic Con opens later this week (Thursday for VIPs, pros, etc., Friday for everybody), and we at Fleen have mentioned some of the programming taking place, there will also be a variety of creators appearing and times and in places on the floor that you may wish to note.

• First up, Scott C, who has a pair of panels, will be spending much of his time on the floor around publishers Titan (booth 832) and/or Insight (booth 1882), with signings on Friday and Saturday. Full details at Mr C’s website. Also moderating a panel on Friday evening, and sliding between Artist Alley (far north) and the ShiftyLook booth (far south, and more about them in just a bit): Jim Zub, the hardest-working man in comics. Seriously, if James Brown worked half as hard as Zub, he’d still be on stage despite having died in 2006.
• No panels, but Meredith Gran will be tabling with First Law of Mad Science creators Mike Isenberg and Oliver Mertz (booth 2276); Gran won’t be at the show until Friday, but when she does, she will have (among other wares) copies of this week’s new issue of Marceline and the Scream Queens. Algebraic!
• Easiest for people who aren’t going to NYCC to catch up with will be the parade of creators and announcements at the ShiftyLook Arcade O’ Fun (booth 3374), since they’re livestreaming much of the weekend. If you want to catch Anthony Clark, Christopher Hastings, and Cardboard Cutout Ryan North’s big announcement, that will be Thursday at 5:00pm. Given that it’s with ShiftyLook, and with ShiftyLook does old Japanese videogame properties, you can probably guess at the outlines of the project, but let me share this bit: It’s a major property, with maybe the highest name recognition of anything that SL has done so far.

  Considering the amazing job that North has been doing writing the Adventure Time comics, and given what an unstoppable lineart/coloring team Hastings and Clark form, I’m predicting that you will be pleased when the announcement drops. If that weren’t enough, Clark, Hastings, and CC North will have various signings, meet/greets, and interviews throughout the weekend, as well as an appearance with Gran at SVA (students/alumni only).

• Know where else Clark will be? Over with his Benign Kingdom (booth 166) compatriots, which may include at various times Yuko Ota & Ananth Panagariya, Aaron Diaz¹, KC Green, Becky Dreistadt & Frank Gibson, Evan Dahm, and if fortune smiles on us all, George. Rumor has it that copies of B9.5 may be present for your obtaining.
• Side note: KC Green, as previously mentioned, will also be spending time in Artist Alley with Kel McDonald (table J8). And hey, you know what else Green and McDonald have shared recently? Contributions in the Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales anthology, which is now available for purchase by non-Kickstarter backers. Know what else is also now available for purchase by non-Kickstarter backers? The Spike-curated Smut Peddler, featuring quality it-on-getting as lovingly depicted by the cream (so to speak) of the crop of webcomickers.
• Speaking of independently-created books that are getting a lot of good notices, know where McDonald, Spike, and other creators just might want to invest one copy of their books and about five bucks in shipping? How about the home base of a well-respected bunch of media junkies:
  

  Will you review my CD / book / movie / video game / poetry / pottery?
  Maybe. Probably not. But maybe. Please bear in mind that we’re presented with an enormous amount of material every day, so it’s simply impossible to respond to every item that crosses our desks, much less review it. Items for review consideration can be sent to The A.V. Club at our Chicago office (The Onion, 212 W. Superior St., Suite 200, Chicago, IL, 60654), but we absolutely cannot guarantee that anything you send us will be covered.

  They get a lot of stuff, but I imagine they get fewer comics than DVD screeners and music, so if you think you’re good enough to get noticed by the big leagues, take a shot. And what the hell: I don’t guarantee that anything sent to me will be covered either, and many, many more people read The AV Club² than read my little corner of the internets, and people still send me stuff.

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¹ Site note: Diaz will no longer be referred to on this page as The Latin Art-Throb; rather, he will now on first reference be annotated as Tolkien Scholar Par Excellence.

² Many, many more.

For those that follow this page to an unhealthy degree (hi, Mom), there was no post on Friday due to traveling, but today is two different holidays in the US and Canada and I’m totally allowed to take off from writing but I am here making up Friday because I love you people.

The reason I was traveling on Friday was to attend a wedding, but that doesn’t do it sufficient justice. Much like how Sherlock Holmes would only refer to Irene Adler as the woman, there is every evidence that this should be forever known as the wedding. In fact, you can all stop getting married now, as there is no chance that you will have more than one of these things at your wedding, much less all of them:

• A karaoke party featuring Kate Beaton and Carly Monardo channelling a murderously angry Cathy berating Heathcliff via the medium of Kate Bush.
• A service officiated by Holly Black, with a meditation on the meaning of marriage as provided by Wikipedia¹.
• More LEGO^® brand building block miniature figure dudes and ladies than you can shake a stick at; I got the world’s angriest mail carrier.
• The Beer of the Gods; that’s its actual name.
• Toasts to the happy couple offered by Stan Lee who looked an awful lot like both Chris Hastings and David Malki !; he invented the comical books and also getting married.
• Bilingual good wishes sent by the Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada, delivered via accredited ambassadors Beaton, Butcher, and North².
• An actual ice cream truck, turning an entire cohort of grown-ass people³ into little kids clamoring for Choco Tacos (it’s like a taco but made out of a Klondike bar) and Shrek bars (it’s like Shrek’s head but made out of cold Shrek’s head).
• Wangs, fire, and possibly wangs on fire.
• A brunch where a celebrated artist pelted a teen with handfulls (hand-fulls? handsfull?) of mini marshmallows and also a new cocktail was invented⁴.

These are things that happened, and they will not happen again; it was an organic, spontaneous, joyous celebration that will never be equaled. Holly, Jeffrey, you win at getting married, so said we all.

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¹ Citation needed.

² Long live the Queen/Livre le Québec libre.

³ As opposed to grown ass-people.

⁴ Agent Paperklip and I accidentally made something delicious. As this happened hard on the heels of a conversation about Tumblr, we named this concoction The Apple Privilege:

Okay, here’s the deal. The Javits Center is a nightmare, thanks to a bunch of things, not the least being ongoing construction.

Last year, the work zone pretty much bisected the show floor, consuming perhaps 20% of all potential booth space, leaving about 60% of the floor space on the south side of the divide and the remainder on the north side. This year, the work has shifted south, with perhaps a quarter of the floor space south of the work area and 75% to the north, so if you knew your way around the floor last time, you don’t now.

Secondly, the numbering has reversed: last year, the booth numbers increased as you went northwards (matching the street-numbering pattern of Manhattan), but this year the high numbers are downtown and the low numbers up.

Thirdly, NYCC has never gotten around to arranging a webcomics or indy-creators zone; to be fair, it doesn’t draw the mass of established creators the way that San Diego (home of the original Sexy Lagoon) does, so it’s would be difficult to do on that basis. On the other hand, to see people of interest to readers of this page will require traversing the entire floor, from literally a back corner on the south side to literally a back corner on the north side.

Fourthly, the Artist Alley is, for all intents and purposes, in another building. See the white bit that’s attached to the Javits Center in the picture up above? That’s the North Pavilion, and that’s where Artists Alley is, a full block north of the far-north wall of the main center. So what we are saying is, break out the comfortable shoes if you want to see webcomickers and their natural allies.

Here is the main floor:

The top of the map is WEST.

Now you’ll notice that there are four highlighted areas: the extreme southwest corner, just to the right of the construction zone (that big grey blob) a somewhat sizeable oval, and the extreme northwest corner. Here’s what you’ll find in those spots:

• Waaaay southwest at booth 3374: ShiftyLook, with a stack of licensed webcomics, a freeplay arcade, Anthony Clark, Chris Hastings, and Cardboard Ryan North.
• By the construction zone at booth 2153: Brad Guigar, who continues a tradition of being in close proximity of the pass-through tunnels skirting construction.
• In the big blob in the middle, roughly aisles 900 – 1200: Oni Press (booth 1221), :01 Books (booth 1214), The Oatmeal (booth 1061), SMBC (booth 1023), Blind Ferret (booth 950), and Cyanide & Happiness (booth 944).
• Waaaay northwest at booth 166: Benign Kingdom, presumably including creators from both B9 and B9.5.

Now if you exit the main show floor to the bottom of the map shown, go down one floor, and head north, you’ll come to the tunnel to Artists Alley, where you’ll find the likes of Chris Giarrusso (table C10), Kel McDonald & KC Green (table J8), Bill ‘n’ Gene (table W1), Jim Zub (table W11¹), and Ramón Pérez (table X8).

Granted, a lot of this could have been avoided had the long-running construction wrapped up sooner, but you have to wonder if maybe there are some table-holders that possibly don’t meet the definition of “comics” even at its most inclusive, and perhaps might have been bumped to allow everybody to be in one building? I’m lookin’ at you, Baconery (booth 3237). Yes, I get it, you’re a delicious meme but you aren’t goddamned comics.

Let’s finish this on a positive note: Sin Titulo is racing to a conclusion and is so close you can taste it. Read it now.

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¹ Should Zub wish to talk business with his ShiftyLook associates, it’s literally going to be a half-mile walk to do so.

You get to do that when you’re an unpaid internet opinion-monger, you know. Even though nobody has to actually honor the Day in question, I have a feeling that you’ll be willing to do so in this case¹ because the books in question are very cool.

Today is the release date for both Hope Larson’s A Wrinkle in Time (The Graphic Novel) and Mark Siegel’s Sailor Twain (or, The Mermaid in the Hudson), both of which have earned your attention and time. But Gary, I hear you cry, I am of but limited means and cannot afford to obtain both books for myself, what should I do? Look, you can sell plasma² like twice a week, just read them both and thank me later.

• Speaking of Hope Larson, her husband has done some comics that a few people have read, and he’s done a really smart interview with Andrew Hussie about Homestuck, the Homestuck Kickstarter³, and all the odd interactions that constitute “fandom”. Highly recommended.
• Speaking of crowdfunding campaigns, Matthew Inman declared his favorite part of the recently-concluded Operation: Let’s Build A Goddamn Tesla Museum to be a bit of mathematical elegance. If you feel like talking about things that are divisible by three with Inman, you’ll be able to ask him in person at New York Comic Con next week.
• Speaking of NYCC, the rundown on when you can find Messers Clark, Hastings, and PseudoNorth at the ShiftyLook booth has been posted, along with the fact that the “booth” is actually a freeplay arcade. If it’s anything like the arcade that ShiftyLook put together for a party at SDCC, it will be awesome.

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¹ Or “these cases”, as the case may be.

² Or do experimental drug testing, or sell organs. Whatever.

³ Sitting at US$2.07 million and just about 48 hours exactly to go as I’m writing this; final prediction: US$2.3 million +/- US$100K depending on whether or not the end-of-campaign bounce materializes. It usually manifests in the last week of a campaign, but this one has been atypical in so many ways.

Guh, work just threw me for a loop, so this is gonna be quick.

• Okay, I missed an anniversary, but to be fair, so did the creators. Today’s Not Invented Here featured a note from co-creator Bill Barnes noting that NIH is now three years old. A quick click back to the first strip shows it was actually on the 21st of September, making today the 1,102nd dayiversary for Barnes, Paul Southworth, and Jeff Zugale. Congrats, guys, and here’s to 1,102 days more.
• Also missed by a couple of days (only three this time, and fortunately Heidi Mac caught it): the launch of a new webcomic that will be worth your attention. Longtime readers of this page know that I usually don’t make recommendations on brand-new strips, but there are some reasons to vary from that caution, particularly with established creators. And truthfully, it’s hard to be more established than Faith Erin Hicks, especially when the webcomic in question is her next serialize-online-print-when-done project, in conjunction with first-time writer Prudence Shen.

  Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong has 20 pages up already, has set about three different plotlines in motion, and given us a clear insight into the personalities of about six different characters without anything feeling forced or rushed. Daily updates start on Monday, and I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that we all end up liking this at least as much as Friends With Boys¹, on account of :01 Books (who are hosting NCPGW in webcomic form and publishing in book form in May 2013) don’t associate themselves with junk, yo.

• Finally, only a day behind: there’s a new website design up for The Beat, and it’s pretty awesome. Everybody take a look and tell Heidi I sent you.

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¹ And if you didn’t like Friends With Boys, what happened in your past that rendered you incapable of liking good things?

A’course, it’s not really a surprise when the product is shot through with eye-meltingly gorgeous Becky Dreistadt¹ as The Bear just so happens to be. It also doesn’t hurt that the project is driven by comics impresario Ryan Sohmer, who is caught bein’ all sincere in the intro video; heck, that previously-suppressed side of Sohmer was probably worth another US$40-50K of the total.

Anywho, thanks to the support of people buying multiple copies (I know I’ve got holiday gifts for new parents covered for a while), there’s a mountain of bonuses in the pipeline, including prints, wallpapers, greeting cards, bookmarks, dust jackets, Becky signatures (by my count, nearly 3350 books need signing), and a 0.04% chance of walking away with a Dreistadt original. Extra special thanks to everybody that made that last stretch goal possible, as a 0.04% chance of a Dreistadt original is 0.04% more than the number of Dreistadt originals I have presently.

• Sticking with the Blind Ferret family for a moment, Danielle Corsetto gets to so something cool — go back to the ol’ alma mater for official reasons². Specifically, next week she’ll be mounting an alum exhibition at Shepherd University’ Frank Center Gallery from Monday, 1 October to Friday, 2 November, with a kick-off talk on the first day from 5:00 to 6:00pm and a reception³ until 8:00pm. Those of you in/around Shepherdstown, WV (it’s just about where Maryland and the two Virginias meet) should definitely drop by and say howdy.
• Keeping with the themes of both events and higher learning, this weekend (specifically, this Saturday) will see the latest iteration of MICE (or the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) in Cambridge, MA, on the campus of Lesley University in a casual, friendly, first-name-basis funfest. Webcomics and webcomics-adjacent creators like Alexander, Box, Braden & Shelli (who tie things back to Adventure Time, taking us full circle), Chris, Colleen, Dave, Dirk, Jamie, Jason, John, KC, Kevin, Ming, Paige, Ross, Sophie, Stephanie, and Zach will be there, chillin’, and generally being awesome people. Oh, and it’s free, so what are you waiting for?

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¹ Speaking of whom, she’s also half of her usual Becky and Frank pairing in a seven-page backup story in the latest issue of Adventure Time, out today.

² I did that once on a recruiting trip and man, it’s awesome.

³ Read: snacks and booze.