It appears that not all hotel wifi infrastructures are equal, nor all areas of the city of Las Vegas¹ equally covered by cellular data services; while in town to attend/cover the NCS Reuben weekend, it appears I will be able to communicate with the outside world only via voice or by connecting my computer to a wire like some caveman. This may delay my being able to talk about the winner of the first NCS division award for a webcomic (to refresh: Matthew Inman, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, and Jon Rosenberg are the nominees) as I have a disturbingly early flight on Sunday morning. I’ll do what I can, because I love each and every one of you.

After a particularly unsatisfying flight² that put me in a mood midway between grumptastic and grumplicious, I was pleased to find myself in the late afternoon by the pool, talking with Dave Kellett³ (well known to readers of this page) and Chris Sparks, whom I had not met before, and who has been spearheading the Team Cul de Sac project. He had a copy of the book with him which he allowed me to peruse. This sparked several realizations:

1. There are a lot of big names in this book; a lot a lot
2. The drawings and paintings contributed are uniformly terrific
3. The best one in the book isn’t by who you think

A lot of attention has been paid (and rightly so) to the fact that the reclusive Bill Watterson contributed an absolutely marvelous painting of Petey Otterloop, which you have likely seen already (if not, it’s up above). But the image that stopped me in my tracks, that made me take a deep breath and check the sidebar to see who painted Alice with a magic wand in front of a night sky full of stars?

Danielle Corsetto.

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find an image of Danielle’s work anywhere to share with you, so you’ll just have to buy the book and check it out for yourself. Alternately, it appears that it’ll be up for auction (along with the rest of the contributions) in two days, and hopefully the auction site will not get a photo up during the auction, because then you’ll see how wonderful it is and bid against me. You bastards.

The other thing that my conversation with Dave and Chris made me realize is, in hoping to get a weekend away from EMT activity and people in distress and such, I’ve flown a few thousand miles to hang out in a room that will be dominated by elderly cartoonists. Attention old syndicated dudes: please do not make me glove up this weekend, thank you.

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¹ One thing I will never get used to in Las Vegas: unpacking your suitcase full of clothes which were packed in a place with a reasonable humidity, which when pulled out in the dry desert air feel damp. Ick.

² Which, when I think of it, was infinitely easier than the trip my ancestors made on their way from Germany to western Pennsylvania, then on to the untamed wilderness of Kansas not that damn long ago. So on the one hand I feel bad for being so upset about being jerked around by an airline, but on the other hand, they managed to jerk around me and their own employees, who were just non-informed about the situation as I was.

United, you are not a good airline, and the people that worked for Continental prior to your merger are chafing under your cruel yoke. Let them work as they once did and you will find your customers much happier which should be a win for all concerned, assuming you are not total sociopaths.

Also, and I did not think it was possible to say this, but after spending more than 120 minutes total on hold with you over the past 18 hours or so, I have come to hate Gershwin. I used to love Rhapsody in Blue, United, but now it is ruined for all time.

³ Who makes the most disturbingly adorable faces when taking photos to text to his daughter just before bedtime. It occurs to me that she will never know a time when you couldn’t say goodnight to Daddy by sticking out your tongue and crossing your eyes and sending that to his iPhone. I think we’ve got a societal safety valve right there.

I’d also love to recount the discussion we had about Drive over dinner, but that would mostly involve me listing out questions I had for Dave and Dave saying, That’s a goooood question. Can’t tell you yet. a whole lot. Read Drive, so that you may share in my misery of anticipation.

Those of you on the Pacific end of North America — at least those in the temperate rainforest zone¹ — might consider dropping into the inaugural Vancouver Comic Arts Festival next weekend in the lovely Yaletown section of Vancouver, BC. More specifically, here: 181 Roundhouse Mews (which between you and me sounds like a random collection of words and not an actual address), from 10:00am-5:00pm on Saturday and 10:00am-6:00pm on Sunday. I’d be there except I’ll be in Las Vegas. Dang.

Let’s congratulate VanCAF on doing a few things right, shall we?

1. The date, times, and location are right at the top of every single page of the website.
2. The actual convention-convention is just the culmination of a series of readings, panels, and workshops featuring local cartoonists, with a goal of involving the entire city.
3. In keeping with the community involvement/outreach/integration mission, it’s free to attend, and exhibitors are being charged what I would call an entirely nominal rate of $75 (Canadian, naturally).
4. They’ve got an impressive lineup of guests, including the Van-local Cloudscape Collective, Joey & Emily, Camilla D’Errico, Doc Hastings, the Jeph ‘n’ Sam blood feud, and David Malki ! (this week, the ! stands for Aaaahhhh, I’m covered in poison ivy!).

If that weren’t enough to entice you, a whole stack of web/indy creators have been intrigued enough to count themselves as exhibitors, including (but not limited to) Ed Brisson, Barry Deutsch, Becky and Frank², Tyson Hesse, Steve LeCouillard, Jenn Manley Lee, Dylan Meconis, Angela Melick, Emily Partridge, Ryan Pequin, Doug Savage, Katie and Steve Shanahan, and Anise Shaw. And those were just the names that I recognized on a fast scan.

At last check, VanCAF may still have been a few volunteers shy of optimal staffing, so cut them a little slack if there’s an occasional hiccup — it is a first-time show, and hot on the heels of several established festivals; with a bit of careful nurturing, it could become the Pacific Northwest equivalent to TCAF. In any event, drop by, tell your favorite creator I said hi³, and let us know how it went. Given the talent on deck, I have a feeling the answer to that will be Pretty awesome, Gary. Pretty awesome.

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¹ As opposed to the desert zone, the winemaking zone, the glacier zone, or the murderous drug cartel zone.

² And oh boy, are Becky and Frank working on some amazingly cool stuff right now, which can hopefully be shared in the coming months.

³ If that favorite creator is Angela Melick, throw her a snappy right-hand rule salute.

They’re back, and with more broken spines strong characterization per panel than any other comic strip or book, Susan B Assthony, Georgia O’Queefe, and Queen Elizatits are kicking every head, fighting every evildoer, and wearing all the sunglasses. I honestly spent 20 minutes trying to decide which excerpt from The Strong Female Characters: Action Punch Role Model Strength Bomb to post, because the entire thing is inspiring. Ultimately the decision was made because Poop Yogurt is inherently funny. For those few of you that aren’t familiar with the SFCs, you can begin your education in the eradication of sexism here.

Events! Things are happening in and around the New York branch of webcomickry in the immediate future!

• As previously noted, the Teen Boat!¹ book launch takes place on an actual boat tomorrow night, 11 May 2012, at 7:00pm. The venue is the Waterfront Barge Museum at Pier 25 in Manhattan (on the scenic Hudson River, a couple of blocks below Canal). On the off chance that you’re in the neighborhood and don’t like teens, boats, or books, it looks like the pier has mini-golf, so that’s all right. Look for creators John Green & Dave Roman to be signing, sketching, and singing sea chanties all night long. Rumor has it that Raina Telgemeier will be there, and while she would never want to take anything away from Dave & John’s night, if you happened to tell her how awesome you thought SMILE was or how much you’re looking forward to DRAMA, I bet she’d say thank you.
• Same webcomics-time, same webcomics-city, but a different borough: Scott C opens his solo show, Tender Times, at Cotton Candy Machine in Brooklyn. For those of you that can’t make it to 235 1st Street (roughly at the meeting point of Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, and Boerum Hill, and mere steps from the Union Street subway stop on the D/N/R lines), Cotton Candy Machine will be having a pre-sale of Mr C’s art in their store from 3:00 to 5:00pm. For those of you than can make it, these gallery openings traditionally feature fun times and booze.

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¹ Once again, our safety warning: Teen Boat!, the lighthearted, all-ages comic/graphic novel does not, repeat, NOT have anything to do with the most obvious web address that one might assume referred to said boat. If you try to browse to teenboat.com [no link], you will come across something particularly NSFW, and on the off chance it’s safe for your work, please shower thoroughly and get on a regimen of industrial antibiotics before coming within ten meters of me. Thank you. Especially don’t do an image search on “teen boat”. You’re welcome.

I can always tell how good a convention/festival I don’t attend is doing by how sparse the updates in my Twitterfeed are during show hours. And boy howdy, by that measure, TCAF ’12 was the greatest show ever, because I didn’t see anything while it was running.

If you want to know how the show went (consensus: Best show ever), check out the #tcaf hashtag over the past few days, or let the participants get home and put up the inevitable, glowing con reports.

One feature of the show is the annual presentation of the Doug Wright Awards, which honor the best in Canadian (English language) cartooning, and which are mercifully brief, featuring a total of three (3) categories: Best Book (self explanatory), Doug Wright Spotlight Award (for emerging talent), and The Pigskin Peters Award (for avant-garde or nontraditional work).

This year, surprising upwards of two people, Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant took the Best Book award, bookending her 2009 win for Best Emerging Talent¹. Given the (frankly, inexplicable) absence of Hark! A Vagrant from the Eisners, that leaves the Shuster, the Harvey, and the Ignatz as potential future wins, in addition to the many, many accolades it has received outside the comics-specific community. As always, the praise is well-deserved.

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¹ Which appears to be the former name of the Doug Wright Spotlight Award, but the DWA website isn’t clear on this.

Time prevented me from talking with other creators extensively, but even brief conversations are fun.

• For example, Box Brown’s been working much of the past six months on Retrofit Comics, which is now down to a familiar process. The back catalog is pretty much sold out, and the project will run its course as planned; Brown may or may not keep the “Retrofit Comics” name for future projects.

  The project most consuming his time would be his comics biography of André Roussimoff, professional giant and haver of posses. Brown has gone so far as to communicate with Mr The Giant’s brother¹, and expects to work the rest of the year on what may well be the definitive biography of André. Oh, yes, and he’s also doing webcomics again, you know, in his free time.

• Magnolia Porter, meanwhile, is splitting her time, with the first project being the ongoing Monster Pulse, which mixes a quirky visual style with lots of heart². Speaking of visual style, I finally figured up what it is that makes Guuzy so appealing, despite that fact that he may be the most dangerous of the monsters, what with being an acid-filled stomach monster and all. It’s the way that his forelegs are so much shorter than his hindlegs, giving him the same posture as a dog that’s got a tail wagging high and a head down low and eyes that say Play, play, play time to play!

  That same instinct for creating appeal in non-human characters carries over to the human characters as well; Bina and the other players we’ve met all act like whole, real people; their anger, their exhaustion, their bewilderment and denial all come from an organic place and make you want to know them more.

  It’s something that Porter has had a lot of practice with, what with years of Bobwhite under her belt — Marlene, Ivy, and Cleo lived and breathed and influenced each other, and shortly their story will be collected into print. That would be the other thing that Porter is working on, and I can only believe that Bobwhite will read beautifully as a continuous story. Personally, I’m holding out for a bonus story that reveals more of the main cast’s feelings for Ben Bailey.

• Shifting gears for a moment, all those books will surely require some Kickstarting, which put me in mind of a conversation that took place on the Armory steps. It started with some catching-up with Rick Marshall³, and we were by chance joined by a passing Johanna Draper Carlson and Heidi MacDonald. Kickstarter discussion about sweet spots, Smut Peddler’s ultimate total (I’m putting it in the range of US$55-60K), and Shaenon Garrity’s clever use of unlocked rewards on the Skin Horse 3 campaign.

  I tried laying out some of my (very early) analysis and desire for a Grand Unified Theory of Kickstarter, but so far my attention has been on the numbers and not the words to describe it. I should have just waited a few days more and I could have pointed them towards yesterday’s Penny Arcade, because (as usual) Jerry’s words do the trick:

  You’ve seen Stretch Goals before, if you’ve ever watched one of these things succeed: mechanisms to maintain funding momentum after success, with whispered promises of more…. Goodies you can add a la carte, independent of your pledge level. They’ve essentially developed an RPG, where your money is the XP. [emphasis added]

  There it is, maybe the key element I’ve been grasping for. Kickstarter reward design isn’t just a min-max problem for the creator, it’s one for the supporter as well. We’ve established that you need an audience that’s crying out for whatever you’re offering, and you have to give them a compelling reason to back you. Those things are still true.

  But now, shift the perspective: instead of trying to manage the money you take in, you should be setting up a structure where your backers will seek on their own to maximize the money they can possibly contribute. There’s a weird mixture of industrial-grade psychology and probability math at the heart of it, which is to say — it’s a game. Don’t try to play it yourself, try to make the most appealing set of rules.

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¹ Or at least attempt to; a letter has been written to an address in France that reportedly once belonged to the surviving Mr Roussimoff. He hopes for a reply, but acknowledges the odds are long.

² I’m so, so sorry.

³ Will, and Holly.

And through all my discussion of Aaron Diaz yesterday, I never mentioned the suit; it’s beautiful, it fits him perfectly, it classes up the immediate environment. His tablemates, Yuka Ota and Ananth Panagariya, were not to be outdone — they had their own black three-pieces, and resulting in a localized dapperness singularity and made my midweight fleece jacket seek a means of exit from the vicinity, so great was its shame. To distract from my suitless disgrace, I had to ask Panagariya about everything he and Ota are working on. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot.

As if the warmest, most generous¹ journal comic weren’t enough, the pair are a quarter of the way through production on Lucky Penny, their project from Oni, overseen by the ubiquitous George Rohac². That means that 200 page have to be done in time for all the production work to be completed to enable an 2013 release. A year, a book, lots of people work to that schedule.

Except that more is already in the works — Johnny Wander book 3 is due this fall (with a goal of a book a year), and a fuller version of Girl With The Skeleton Hand. Other projects, too; Panagariya wants to make sure that in addition to JW, there’s a book a year, and in his copious free time, he’s getting back into the narrative webcomics game. No name of either comic or artistic partner to share with you yet, but he’s got story planned to the extent that he knows it will take a “television season” approach: 25 to 50 pages per episode, six episodes to the season, keep those writing skills sharp.

It’ll be a stretch, naturally, to work with an artist other that Ota, especially when their skills are so complementary. Yuko noted that while Ananth tends to focus on character, she centers on story structure, making the combination stronger than what either could accomplish on their own. Turns out that Jeph Jacques was right — they really are like Voltron.

Naturally, while Panagariya is collaborating with others, Ota has plenty to keep her busy. Her trade-off sketching with Evan Dahm via the Exquisite Beast is just the most public of these. Dahm, by the way, indicated that the Beast has no planned endpoint — it will just keep evolving³ for as long as they have fun with it. Likely there will be a book at some point, which would make a nice shelf companion to the (as yet hypothetical) Diaz Dinosaur Compendium mentioned yesterday.

Dahm, meanwhile, continues with the largest, most sprawling story he’s ever tackled. At more than 270 pages long, Vattu is perhaps one fifth of the way through the story he wants to tell. And consider: even once he’s done — in five years, or maybe seven — he will have chronicled only a few discrete years distantly separated in the 5000+ year history of Overside. Every odd species, every writing system, every story he’s told so far fits into a few temporal niches on (mostly) one continent.

The scope and scale of this particular Overside story also means that the one-volume editions we’ve seen of Rice Boy and Order of Tales are probably not practical to attempt with Vattu. The complete story would be more than twice the size of the OoT one-volume. Instead, Dahm plans on releasing a series of impressively thick reprint volumes, 300 – 400 pages each, in both paperback and deluxe hardcover presentations.

In keeping with his prior releases, he’s experimenting with wordless cover designs, with an eye towards releasing the first volume of Vattu in early 2013. Rumors that MoCCA staff are arranging with Armory personnel to reinforce the floor in anticipation of Dahm’s expanded catalog at next year’s art festival could not be confirmed at press time.

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¹ Not to mention true-to-life; for those wondering, the Punishment Shirt is real.

² For somebody not at the show, Rohac loomed large in numerous conversations; I must have words with him, long words about the direction of independent comics and the direction that he seems to be steering them in.

³ Which at this point has evolved through every ecological niche and environmental habitat and keeps on cranking. I have a feeling that eventually it will have evolved through more forms than an actual biological entity could manage in the entire lifespan of the universe.

I can’t reveal that.

Aaron Diaz is full of ideas, and it pains him when he can’t share with you an idea that’s not ready for inclusion in Dresden Codak. Concrete plans about books, sure; dinosaurs, he’s all over that conversation. But questions regarding the nature of science/speculative fiction that might reveal where he’s going with his current story arc, Dark Science? That’s where he draws the line. So let’s focus on what he will discuss.

Firstly, there is a Dresden Codak book in the works, which he hopes will be out for Christmas¹. So far, so good, people do books of their webcomics literally every week. But this book is from the man that puts minute detail into single “pages” that keep scrolling on and on, and that requires space. When I first met Diaz, he was musing about putting together a book for Hob, and I speculated it might require a size approaching that of a coffee table book. We chuckled.

Yeah, so the new book might have to be trimmed down by 15% or so, but right now he’s looking at a 17×23 inch treatment. In color. Hardcover. Covering from the first introduction of Kim (presumably this story) and every subsequent story prior to Dark Science (he didn’t say if the guest week that immediately preceded DS would be included), including all of Hob. I remarked the only book he could work on that would require more space would be a collection of Moebius tribute art, which caused an eye twinkle and a terse, “Don’t tempt me.”²

It is worth noting that while having this conversation, his exhibitor’s wristband was configured in a möbius strip, which he incessantly traced with his fingers. That prompted a discussion of spatial mathematics, which led to a discussion of the philosophy of science, and how he believes he’s on a unique track with Dark Science.

Some of what he said is pretty obvious: it’s about a third done (the last update fairly screams “end of first act reveal”). It’s in tribute to Metropolis. Ayn Rand is in for some mockery in Act II (which he described as “intense”) and Act III (“surreal”). The key concept of Dark Science hasn’t been revealed yet, but as far as he can tell, it’s not an idea that’s been done before in SF:

It’s not a “go here, get this, bring it back, fix the problem” kind of story. Hob was about having different points of view with respect to the unknown, Dark Science is about science, the philosophy of science, what it’s for.

That’s when I asked him if he was using “science” as a verb and not a noun, and that brings us back to his inability to reveal things up there at the top. Between now and us learning what he can’t reveal at this time, we’ve got four or five years, a hardcover (at least one), and a lot of days besotted by the newest discoveries in maniraptor locomotion and neck structures. The world comes rushing at Diaz, and comics are how he does science to it. Pretty, pretty science.

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¹ Perhaps noting his update schedule, Diaz did not specify Christmas of which year.

² I continued to tempt him; while deep in a conversation about how coelurosaurs invaded every ecological niche, I remarked how I’d love to see him do a book containing the likes of the enormous Charles R Knight murals of dinosaurs that have been mainstays at natural history museums for half a century.

Knight worked from the best paleontological information of his times, and Diaz would certainly work from the state of today’s art, meaning feathers everywhere. “I want to see your take on pterosaurs,” I said. He got that twinkle again and muttered, “Ooooh. I could … you’re giving me an idea.”

The thing about Frank Gibson and Becky Dreistadt¹ is that they are living proof that all you need to be super-successful in any creative field is reasonably talented, a little lucky, and a completely insane, work longer and harder than anybody else and eat their friggin’ lunch machine. Like Becky does. She paints nonstop, moving from project to project, dropping beauty via gouache and watercolor the way other people accidentally drop a gum wrapper out of their jacket pocked while fumbling for their keys.

Much of this you will never get to see. Some of it, shortly, nobody will ever get to see again, and that is a goddamn shame². And if a few things come together in the offices where such things are decided, Dreistadt will be doing more of it than she ever has before, with a higher profile than ever before. And even if none of that comes to anything, she and Gibson have enough projects confirmed and in-progress to make anybody this side of a meth freak on a coke bender wonder where the requisite energy to do all the work might come from.

And the infuriating thing about them is, they are so damned cheerful about the whole thing.

They’ve got their new hardcover collection of Tiny Kitten Teeth to finish up, naturally (since it will undoubtedly see the influence of the rapidly-approaching mythical status George Rohac, it will no doubt look as gorgeous as the Benign Kingdom hardcover, and — Gibson tells me — three or so times thicker). There’s the Capture Creatures gallery show and book to do this year, as well as finishing up Ryan Sohmer’s The Bear, and whatever else people may pay them to do. At this point, the only limit on them is time.

Speaking of B9, three of the four creator teams were at MoCCA (all except KC Green), and I got to express to Becky/Frank, Yuko/Ananth, and Evan Dahm how beautiful their work is. They spoke seemingly with one voice about what happens next with B9 (or at least I didn’t write down which of them told me): the Kingdom was not a one-shot, there will be future releases in sets of four, perhaps new hardcovers even. Then there was this from the original solicitation:

If this goes well, it could be the foundation of a much bigger project in the future: Benign Kingdom could print more books, and maybe involve other artists! Thank you very much for your support!

At this point, I say that the runaway success of B9.1 pretty much ensures that other artists will be brought into the fold. I sense that Mr Rohac has plans where all of this might go, plans that he and I must needs discuss, because I have often commented on the need for webcomics to have a shadowy genius providing specialty genius-type services in a financially self-sustaining fashion, and I have a suspicion we might be looking at the seed of such now.
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¹ The hive mind that is the artist/writer combo is nearly always referred to as “Becky and Frank”, so I decided that just this once I’m puttin’ Frank first. Also, the majority of the time I have news from the Tiny Kitten Teeth duo, it comes from Frank, since he is like me an inveterate talker.

² You may have heard about the Adventure Time gallery show which is going on in Austin, Texas about now. Follow that link, and check out the photos . See the murals, with the squarish Finn and Jake and the all-swoops-and-curves Fionna and Cake, and the Rainicorn that meanders along the walls? Better get your ass down to Austin and see ’em in person, because when the show’s over, they’re getting painted over.

Every art conservator that puts an Old Masters painting through X-rays and MRIs trying to look under the layers of paint and see what’s underneath ought to be descending on the world’s art galleries and carefully disassembling every piece of drywall they can find, because there are friggin’ masterpieces under all that Behr matte white hi-cover and the thought of it makes me want to drink until I can’t cry anymore.

Nearly halfway through, and my first read on the Skin Horse 3 Kickstart is largely holding true — nearly 60% of all pledgers are holding at the $20 level, which remains the quantum unit of money. In another month after the campaign closes (and perhaps just after NCS weekend¹, where I may have a chance to talk to Shaenon Garrity about it) I’ll be very interested to look at the final distribution, particularly given the inclusion of one item that I’d previously disregarded in Kickstarter analyses: the unlocked reward. My Grand Unified Kickstarter Theory is moving ever-further away from completion.

Oh, and in the interests of complete disclosure, I am quoted² on the Kickstarter page, but I’ve had no communication with the creators of Skin Horse and my thoughts here have not been influenced by any offers or promises. Although I am very glad to see that Ms Garrity has chosen an appropriate funding level for giving away original art; in the past (if my memory serves me correctly), originals have been thrown in at purchase points as low as US$50 which is just crazypants.

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¹ Did I mention that the NCS have graciously offered me the opportunity to attend their get-together so I can see who actually wins the first division award for webcomickry? They did, and for the same cost as members, which was quite kind. Gonna be an expensive weekend (not to mention that it’s Las Vegas), but it’s something I figure I ought to do once.

² At least I think I am — those words sound like something I’d write, but this Gary Tyrell fellow that’s quoted spells his last name wrong.

With no Axe Cop on TV-type announcements today, all is quiet in advance of what strikes me as a fairly unprecedented situation: there are three separate, established, legitimate conventions happening this weekend, at opposite corners of the continent: Calgary Comics and Entertainment Expo, MoCCA Festival, and Stumptown Comics Fest

While the overlap between Calgary¹ and the other two² is theoretically small, there’s a significant draw to the great northern prairies of webcomics talent, many of whom were seen in Manhattan or Portland in other years. There was talk when the Stumptown/MoCCA date conflict was discovered about which way the small creators would go³, but I don’t think the Canadian Factor was recognized at the time. I doubt any one of the shows will be damaged, but it’ll be interesting to see if any of the creators continue to opt away from one or more of the contenders in the future even if they occur at different times.

Meanwhile, if you’re heading to Calgary (or the following weekend to Toronto for TCAF) to see the TopatoCo Vendatorium, please be aware:

A note to TCAF/CALGARY friends, due to Problems we won’t be bringing SHIRTS to either show. We will however have Special Coupon Codes.

Very diplomatically put, but if I had to guess, I’d say that Problems is code for Customs screwed us.

Having traveled to other countries for work on occasion, I can tell you there’s a special stab of fear that hits when you realize that the customs/immigration/whatever official in front of you has that gleam in the eye that subtly communicates one thought at you: I don’t care whatever national policy and/or international treaties might say … in this lane, I am the merciless god of your existence, and I am feeling smitey today. No matter how often you may have sailed through border bureaucracy in the past, today is going to be different, and there’s nothing you can do but smile and nod and say thank you to the person who is casually ruining your day⁴.

Regardless of the reason (and I am going merely on supposition here), it appears that Commerce and Trade will still take place, and you will be able to get your wares, be they present physically or not. And hey — not having to unpack all that stock and pack up the remainder at the end of the show has to be somewhat positive? Yeah, okay, I’m sure the TopatoCo folks would rather have the actual shirts, but lemons and lemonade. If you see them at either show, give them all my best.

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¹ Calgary is taking the “and Entertainment” aspect seriously, what with booking all manner of TV and movie personages, including all the regular cast members of Star Trek: The Next Generation for Cochrane’s sake.

² Both MoCCA and Stumptown focus on smaller, creator-owned/indy-type comics.

³ Reminiscent of the great East Side/West Side webcomics battles of the early Naughts.

⁴ To the many Canadian border personnel I have interacted with in the past: all but one of you have been wonderful. The other one? I prefer to think she was having a bad breakup that day. In any event, the Big Scary Event I had at Customs was in February 1991 on my return from Canada, and I’ve done work gigs for Customs Canada, so we’re cool.