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.

That’s what the cool kids call “Toronto”. It’s true, I have cool kids right here and they all say that.¹ Anyway, for those of you in the Greater Toronto Exurb, Meredith Gran would like you to know something:

I’m going to be in Toronto THIS WEEK doing a signing, and you ought to come by! I will be signing for my Adventure Time: Marceline & the Scream Queens series, though I will have a few Octopus Pie books to sign as well. And my awesome partner in guestitude is Dinosaur Comics/Adventure Time writer Ryan North²! Oh my glob!

So if you’re in Toronto on Wednesday the 25th (that would be the day after tomorrow), you want to be at Little Island Comics (the kids-comics spinoff of world-class comics shop The Beguiling), from 1:00 to 3:00pm. That’s not much time to see two people, so if I were you, I’d ris-vip at the Facebook event page. Tell Ryan and Mer I said, “Hi.” If I were going, I’d give Ryan the penny of T-Rex I got out of a penny squisher at the American Museum of Natural History (dinosaurs are on the fourth floor).

It seems that pert-near every time a major comics- or genre-type award decides to add a category for internet offerings, Girl Genius is going to get recognized³. This time it’s the Comics Buyers Guide, who have had a fan-driven award for three decades, and have just instituted a category for Favorite Webcomic. Per Girl Genius co-creator Phil Foglio:

All of the awards were nominated and voted upon by the readers of the Comics Buyers’ Guide, a venerable resource for the comics buying public that has been around since Christ was a carpenter. This year, the CBG grudgingly acknowledged that the internet, “while obviously a fad, is an extremely tenacious one, like that Poké–manga stuff.” and added the Webcomic category for the first time.

Despite the life–changing effects of winning this award, the Foglios have vowed to remain as humble and impoverished as they were yesterday, and would like to thank everyone who voted for them, and fully expect their assorted publishers to immediately take out lavish ads trumpeting this, their latest accomplishment. Yeah, that would be nice.

So that’s all right in the world of webcomics then. Enjoy your Monday.
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¹ Also they tell me that they are swingin’ on the flippity-flop.

² Paragon of Giantly Virtue, Nexus of All … aw, heck, you know by now.

³ Exception: Jon Rosenberg’s Scenes From A Multiverse taking the first-ever NCS division award for online comics.

Hey. Still alive, not entirely thrilled by that fact, but it’s awesome to be back with my wife and dog. Let’s wrap up San Diego for the year, yeah?

• I started going through my semi-transcription notes for the Kickstarter panel, and I don’t think I’m going to do a full write-up; this is not a reflection on the panel, but really more on the audience, and the disconnect between them.

  Jimmy Palmiotti and Batton Lash are doing Kickstarters right (having 95% of the work done before asking for money, plowing extra money back into the product to give the donors maximum value for their support, finishing fulfillment on one campaign before considering starting the next); Vijaya Iyer stressed the need to treat Kickstarter the same as any other source of funding (SBA loan, angel capital) and have a business plan in place before trying to secure funding; Cindy Au, Director of Community for Kickstarter, brought valuable stats to the table.

  But the audience, the questions, predominately focused in on the checklist approach: Tell me exactly what steps I need to follow to be successful like you. There wasn’t a recognition that there is no single recipe for success, that campaigns have to be tailored to your existing audience and existing work, that Kickstarter is not a magical money machine that will fund your dreams.

  Jimmy¹ tried to repeatedly make the point that Kickstarter is merely an enabling mechanism, that it won’t make the comic happen, that you have to make it, that your reputation is what will bring people to the campaign, and it’s your good name that is on the line for making good on what you promised, that none of this is risk-free, but I never got the feeling that those essential truths were getting absorbed.

  Then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised — when Jimmy took the measure of the crowd, about 95% of the approximately 150 people in the room indicated that they want to do a Kickstarter campaign, and exactly three (3) indicated that they already had done so. Bless ’em, those creators with stars in their eyes, what they heard was:

  Blah blah funded successfully. Blah blah blah $US7 million to comics projects over the lifespan of Kickstarter. Blah blah blah Ginger. Blah blah Rich Burlew got US$1.2million blah blah². Blah blah most popular pledge is US$25, the average dollar amount is US$75, and the average project looks to raise US$6-10,000, so about 80 people can get you to success. Blah blah blah, staff picks.

  So there you go — 400+ words on how I’m not going to talk about a panel. I need help.

The people you don’t talk to at Comic Con were pretty interesting.

• I always drop by the First Aid room each year multiple times to offer props to the medics on con duty; I have in the past seen them wheel somebody in the midst of an atypical cardiac rhythm from the floor, and am constantly amazed that they don’t deal with more serious emergencies on a daily basis. Like emergency medical personnel anywhere, their shifts are a combination of bad coffee, lots of waiting around, and endless paperwork for the most minor of boo-boos, mixed with a fervent hope that something, anything will happen, tinged with an event more fervent hope that it doesn’t involve the longboard or the LifePak.
• The door wardens were polite, reserved, and — as one confided in me — not supposed to talk to the press. I did have a great exchange with one on Sunday afternoon when he put out a hand to stop me and exclaimed:
  

  Dude, that is a righteous moustache.

  Swear to dog, that happened. I asked him how old he was and he said 18; then I got to tell him that when he was born, my moustache was already eight years old.

• The cops that try to run crowds across Harbor Drive can’t stop what they’re doing to talk, but in five second snippets while passing by, I found them to be uniformly serious about keeping everybody alive, but a brief, How you doing today? always got a smile and cheerful response. I’m sure that they are the only people that want to see the Harbor Drive side of the convention center redesigned to move people on foot safely more than I do³.
• The costumed booth ambassadrixes that I spoke to were uniformly friend-of (or friend-of-a-friend-of) creators or somebody associated with the booths they were working. I’m sure that somewhere there were clusters of young ladies in hazardous shoes and (not much) matching clothing handing out flyers that were obtained via some kind of agency, but for the most part there was a personal connection to whichever comic, publisher, or media wanted to utilize the “booth babe” strategy. They also seemed glad to have an eye-to-eye conversation that didn’t end in a request for photos.
• I heard from three different restaurant serving staffers at three different places that Comic Con is when the Gaslamp crowd is “extra normal”. Apparently, the usual denizens of the entertainment district are club kids, scenesters, and self-proclaimed beautiful people, but when you peel back the battle armor from a booth full of Klingons, they’re mostly low-maintenance and not interested in provoking drama like they’re trying out for a reality show. I had expected the non-stop super-rush and crowds and chaos and trying to put together a table for 17 would put front-of-house staff off of Con Week, but they honestly seemed to enjoy it.

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¹ Although it is blog policy to refer to persons by their last names on second reference (with occasional forays into given names for contrast), the dude is just a “Jimmy” through and through. It would be physically impossible to refer to him as “Mister” under any circumstances

² Those two blahs were mentally translated as That means I’m a shoo-in to succeed because I’m not drawing stick figures, and completely skipped the second half of Au’s sentence, … and that was entirely because of the community he’d built up.

³ Okay, this would be hella expensive, but tell me this wouldn’t work:

1. Drop the roadway, trolley, and train tracks underground for the entirely length of the convention center, like a reverse viaduct. To keep the grade reasonable, you’ll probably have the start the descent a good 500 meters from either end, so I’m not saying it’s going to be easy.
2. Get rid of the chokepoint steps down from the elevated roadway that the shuttle buses use, and make the entire frontage of the convention center steps leading down to the former grade of Harbor Drive, which …
3. Is now an open plaza clear over to the Gaslamp. You could drain the entire building over the plaza and into the Gaslamp in about two minutes, completely avoiding the knots of people on the elevated roadway, backed up on the steps, in the crosswalks, and channeled in a too-tight bolus to the roadways by the Gaslamp arch.

Yeah, I know, I said not to expect anything today, but I’ve got a few minutes to kill before dinner, so I get to tell you (as if you needed me to) that :01 Books are stellar people. I had the pleasure of meeting :01’s editor, Mark Siegel, and telling him what a great job he’s doing; he deflected all praise towards his staff, and was kind enough to gift me with advance copies of the new Zita the Spacegirl and his own Sailor Twain. It is now pretty much certain that I will not be getting any sleep on tomorrow’s flight home.

At some point, I still have to tell you about the Kickstarter panel that took place yesterday, various plans involving various creators that still need some fact-checking, and I want to write up some conversations I have with people that make Comic-Con happen, but don’t usually get any notice — door monitors, cops on crossing duty, booth babes, waitresses in the Gaslamp, convention center medics. I found them to be uniformly gracious, polite, and entirely appreciative of a crowd that might try that patience of the best of us. Watch for those in the next couple of days.

Sunday purchases: None, but given the two books noted above.

Okay, look. It’s been a long day, a long week, and you got a mountain of text off of me yesterday morning, and you’ll get more on Tuesday. Monday evening, if Monday’s flight is particularly boring. Let’s do both of us a favor and keep this brief.

• Saturday we heard that Dave Kellett and Dylan Meconis both lost out in their respective Eisner categories, booo.
• Saturday I spent a fair bit of time talking with the always-smart Vijaya Iyer about the business of media in general and Kickstarter in particular. More on that later.
• Saturday I happened to run into Raina Telgemeier at random on the floor, and she was kind enough to give me an advanced review copy of her latest graphic novel, the hotly-anticipated DRAMA. Understand, I’m primed and ready to read DRAMA, given how much I’ve loved Raina’s previous work, but each time I’ve talked with Scott McCloud, he’s let me know how this book is, quote, A game-changer. I suspect that as soon as I read it, I am going to be getting downright evangelical about DRAMA.
• Saturday Scott & Kris announced their new Blamimation-style treatment of Mappy¹ for ShiftyLook. Rich Stevens announced that he’ll be running print versions of Diesel Sweeties material via Oni Press, as well as other projects as a writer.

Saturday purchases: RASL volume 4, given an ARC of DRAMA.

In the panel rooms today: Keenspot at 2:00, Axe Cop at 3:00.

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¹ The mouse police.

One is never really prepared for the truly weird moments at SDCC; case in point: being introduced to the very nice lady that bought a Chris Yates original Baffler!, and recognizing the signature on the credit card receipt: Lynn Johnston. Weirder: having her tell me that she bought her son (presumably the one that “Michael” is based on) one of Yates’s POOP signs last year. Weirder still: she did her best to convince other people in line to purchase POOP signs (or, from another angle, dOOd). She was lovely and it was a delight.

Also odd: the Penny-Arcade booth staff all had those brainwave-reading catgirl ears that respond to emotions. At his panel later, Robert Khoo would don a pair and react to Scott Kurtz’s mad experiments¹.

That panel (and additional details on the Dave Kellett/Stripped panel are extensive and appear below the cut.

Friday purchases: Kris Straub’s Starslip Companion².

In the panel rooms today: Penny Arcade at 2:30, the Kickstarter panel most worth going to because Vijaya Iyer is on this one.

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¹ Sample: Okay, I’m going to put an image of me in your head and we’re going to watch the ears. Me pooping. It’s a hard poop. The ears indicated interest, then deflated in existential horror.

² A book so white and understated/tasteful in its presentation, when photographed against a white background, it threatens to merge into the fabric of reality itself.

(more…)

That big Stripped announcement?

Bill. Watterson.

Okay, let’s be clear, Watterson is not breaking his decades-long habit of no interviews, but he has provided an extensive, thoughtful set of answers to questions via email, making his most public pronouncement on comics in forever.

There was an impromptu parade across the show floor a little before noon, as Jeff Rowland did the strangest thing of his life at Comic-Con this week today, snaking 200+ Homestuck fans from the TopatoCo booth to the autograph alley, which has sufficient space for an Andrew Hussie signing. The 400 copies of each of the Homestuck print collections are expected to sell out before Saturday is done.

The thing about reading comics to an audience is that it’s fundamentally an unnecessary act — the words are right there on the screen. But when the reading is by Kate Beaton, the voices add that extra something that ramps the humor up to previously unattainable levels. Head over to her archive, look up the terms nemesis or vikings or Wonder Woman, and know that as funny as it is in your head, it is somehow funnier to hear Kate read them in a capacity room of 329 people, all laughing together at the absurdity.

The remainder of Beaton’s presentation was quick personal history in photos and anecdotes, followed by Q&A. Rather than try to keep up a transcript (which doesn’t give the feel of the back-and-forth as it occurred), here were some key points:

• Research into history and literature is a matter of looking at something or reading about a time or a place, trying to look at it through fresh eyes (and a modern POV), then finding humor in the truth.
• When not drawing, Beaton reads a lot; a lot a lot. Lately, she’s into horror novels, which is what motivated Fat Pony and the ghost.
• The very popular autobio comics don’t really work on the main Hark! A Vagrant site, as they’re tonally very different. She’s trying to build a home for them and is in the midst of figuring it out.
• The Strong Female Characters are just awful people, which makes them fun to write because they’re terrible people. All they know is what Hollywood-type characters know, which is how to kick ass and have your ass out. In comics and movies, those kinds of characters are everywhere, but they were less an explicit critical commentary and more a case of Beaton, Meredith Gran, and Carly Monardo trying to make each other laugh.
• Her process is very simple: draw in sketchbook for a while, light pencil on a grid on Bristol board, then go over that with ink. The one actual quote in this piece:
  

  I really have the most basic process for doing comics. The less steps, the more genuine the line, the more genuine the faces are.

• Her family “gets it” to varying degrees; her sistershave all been to the Calgary Comic Con, and seen it, seen her fanbase, leading to the conclusion You’re famous as a DICK (Beaton: “That doesn’t even make sense”). Her parents don’t read webcomics and don’t really get the humor, be have always encouraged her and primarily worry about things that parents worry about, like Do you have a dental plan?
• Her favorite characters from classic literature to mess with are the ones that are iconic, so it’s not a big risk with people not recognizing it, but which have hidden scenes which are forgotten or don’t make it into the movie and are insane (cf: Wuthering Heights). For instance, in Dracula there’s that scene where John Harker opens the door and Mina is in there sucking blood out of Dracula’s chest and she’s like “Deal with it.” This weird chest blood-sucking, it’s not the sexy babe vampires that you get in the movies, it’s just bananas.

Thursday is always an odd day at SDCC; more people certainly than the frantic few hours of Preview Night, but lots of people still have work and those that are there tend to be four-day attendees who are still deciding about their purchases. The con almost feels like it’s holding its breath.

The sign on the TopatoCo is poignant in its simplicity:

Andrew Hussie will return NOON-ish.

The Tumblr of trolls had swarmed the booth for Thursday’s signing, requiring show personnel to wrangle the line down the main longitudinal corridor, at times as far as the 1000 aisle. By all reports, they did a good job of not letting the line obstruct the aisles, allowing three people at a time up to the booth, and feeding up the line across the footpaths three at a time. Speaking near the close of the show, TopatoCo President and Chief Executive For Life Jeffrey Rowland expressed hope that the showrunners would make space for Hussie’s next signing in the autograph area, where large lines are more easily handled.

For a lot of people (myself included), it’s not clear exactly what emotional core Hussie has tapped into in his fans, but he’s clearly found something that they’ve adopted as their own with a ferocity that defied description. Were he to declare himself divine and demand they form an army of conquest, Hussie’s enemies would be driven before him, and by nightfall he would hear de lamentations of dere weymmin. Pray that he only ever uses his powers for good.

Thursday purchases: Lookouts #1, commission inked drawing of my dog from Mary Cagle, given a copy of Trial of the Clone (which put me through entertaining heartbreak and frustration while casually reading it, THANKS OBAMA WEINERSMITH). Also: the single greatest item ever introduced at Comic-con.

In the panel rooms today: Kate Beaton spotlight panel at 1:30; Adventure Time panel, including Meredith Gran at 2:00; the Guigar, Khoo, and Kurtz show at 5:00; Stripped panel with special revelation and clip screening at 7:00.

At the ShiftyLook party, I inadvertantly discovered the secret of TCAF’s success — at least, that wasn’t what I intended to do when I started the evening. The secret lies with showrunner Christopher Butcher, who has gathered to himself a collection of creators whose work is beyond reproach, and in turn they love and respect him … and then he declares they will all do shots.

Note to self: what Butcher refers to as a “shot” is known in some corners of the world as “a triple”.

Between Christopher and Jim Zub, every guest was well at-ease, liberally boozed up, and had at their disposal a wide variety of both classic and cutting-edge arcade machines. Zombies, ninjas, tanks, ghosts, aliens, whatever needed its ass kicked received its just rewards and the sort of play that only occurs when friends talk shit with each other continued well into the night.

It was a night where Frank Gibson and Dave McElfatrick traded stories about the weirdness of life in LA and the oddities of having Big Deal Famous People as fans. Brigid Alverson and I discussed the state of municipal Emergency Medical Services. Dave Kellett managed to soil an arcade machine, make it forever unclean in the eyes of righteous people². In other words, it was a hell of a party, and in the end we all learned something.

Namely, never accept shots from Chris Butcher without first checking the size of the glassware.
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¹ No wind rushing down the plain, though.

² There was photography involved, and bare stomachs, and thank whatever deity you worship that your eyes were spared the horror. Horror, I tells ya!