That would be International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, naturally. Why is 23 April International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day? Because Internet Jesus said so¹, that’s why, which immediately prompted multiple people to ask him to repurpose his free-to-free, nearly 900 page complete webcomic (Freakangels, which is so damn good I bought it on paper) into PDF for their convenience. When Charlie Brown wails to the heavens wondering if anybody can tell him what IPSTD is all about, paraphrase the Gospel of Luke to be all about entitlement.

By contrast, when somebody gives me something from the world of webcomickry entirely free, I’m going to be grateful, especially when it means easy content. For instance, Darren J Gendron, (or “Dern”, for short) went and did all the hard work in tracking down the latest scraper and dropped it all in my lap, here to share with you. “Quite Comical”² had a site and everything when I looked in yesterday, but now appears to be a parked page with no real content.

Before it disappeared, though, it featured a link whereby creators whose content was scraped could fill out a form to request to Please, sir, could I opt out? and the coder would deign to consider it. I also found a reference over the weekend to Quite Comical being part of a coding competition, the second rule of which was not to infringe on anybody’s rights.

I can’t make this stuff up, folks. But, as I mentioned, the Quite Comical page is well and truly content-free, so we can infer that the creators have abandoned this latest, clumsy attempt at asking forgiveness rather than permission. It’s also an inference that David Willis is unimpressed by the “But I let you opt out, eventually!” argument, enough so that he was still annoyed this morning. Once again, for anybody that’s considering a comic-harvesting app:

• Linking directly to creator’s images and stealing their bandwidth: not okay
• Stripping their comics from their RSS feeds and removing accompanying blogposts or ads: not okay
• Stripping their comics from their sites and removing accompanying blogposts or ads: not okay
• Assuming they want to be part of your business venture: not okay
• Deciding unilaterally what copyright privileges creators are entitled to: astonishingly, stupendously not okay

Continuing in the vein of doing things for my benefit: Jennie Breeden has helpfully mapped out a bunch of webcomics people and where to find them at next weekend’s Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo, which is helpfully found here. Using that as the landmark for the show floor, there are a bunch of additional webcomics folks that will be found on the wide-open prairie, including (but not limited to) the Blind Ferret crew (booths 925/1025), Angela Melick³ (boothing with Danielle Corsetto at 1125), a healthy contingent from TopatoCo (Kate Beaton, Christopher Hastings, Jeph Jacques, and David Malki !, all at booth 922), Scott C (table K05), Andy Runton (table K09), and Jim Zub (at the very futuristic-sounding table X17).

On Breeden’s map, stand at the Sam & Fuzzy table and look to the top of the screen, you’ll see TopatoCo; likewise, stand at the Girls With Slingshots table and look Due Up, and you’ll be staring at Blind Ferret. For those that want to see how it all arranges itself on the convention center floor, the official map is here [PDF].

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¹ IPSTD actually has an origin independent of Mr Ellis, but he’s the one that could kick me in the head so hard I fly across the room and explode, so I’m going to cite him as the reason I’m an adherent and hope he doesn’t kick me. I hate exploding.

² In accordance with long-standing blog policy, people that piss me off will get talked about, but no links. In this case, it doesn’t matter, as the paragraph above should make clear.

³ If you see Jam, throw her a right-hand rule for me.

My brain’s all over the place today. It started when I saw that my alma mater had announced one of the modern world’s greatest engineers, Dean Kamen, as commencement speaker. It’s hard to imagine a better match, and the video¹ of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s president making the announcement was clever and funny. A few hours later, an announcement was made that the same man (who had shepherded the Rose-Hulman back from a couple of directionless years) had collapsed and died.

I never met President Matt Branam, but he did impressive things in the various stages of his career and had an open-door, first-name basis with the student body. I have no doubt he was as indispensable to the current students of Rose-Hulman as President Sam Hulbert was when I studied there. My best wishes to President Branam’s family and friends.

Briefly, then, as my heart’s not entirely in it:

• MoCCA Festival returns to the Lexington Armory next weekend, with lots of webcomics people exhibiting and/or panelling.
• I think a lot of us think that Cucumber Quest was one of the most impressive webcomic debuts of the past year, and not creator Gigi DG is ready to print up the first two chapters. Requisite Kickstarter over here, off to a damn good start².
• Scott Kurtz is back from the Far Antipodes and dropping some opinion about Mark Waid’s announcement of a new webcomics-model³ portal called Thrillbent. Kurtz thinks that the entry of a big-name print-comics-books creator like Waid into webcomics offers the possibility of a threat to existing webcomickers if other big names follow. I’m not so sure; Kurtz follows print comics much closer than a lot of us, I suspect — I recognize Waid’s name from Kingdom Come, but couldn’t have told you what else he’d worked on in the past ten years — and may be overestimating the degree to which big name may act as a disruptor.

  The key question is, if they start making money/careers out of the webcomics model, are they doing so by cannibalizing the existing spend-on-webcomics audience, or will they be bringing along those that already follow them. To tie it to the last item, how many people that are itching to buy Cucumber Quest in print are eager to give Waid money for his webcomics offerings and vice versa? Right now, I suspect (but hard data from which to draw proper conclusions is years off) there will be some intermingling and peeling-off of audience members, but that for the most part the Venn Diagram of Mr Waid and Ms DG’s readers will hell of look like an eight. There will likely be a few especially broad-minded readers (and I think that Kurtz will be one) sitting in that narrow overlap in the middle. Ask me again in 2017 what’s going to happen in 2014.

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¹ Since pulled.

² As of this writing, more than 100% of goal in the first few hours, and a month to go.

³ That is, give away content on the front end, monetize on the back end.

Sorry, no unifying theme today, just a bunch of stuff I found to be neat.

• First and foremost, congratulations to Dante Shepherd of Surviving The World, his lovely wife theSwede, and new infant daughter Cannonball. Expect a brief interruption in lecture, meaning the last of Shepherd’s lessons (until guest lecturers take up the slack) will be this fetus-themed installment with one heck of a disturbing facial expression.
• As has become somewhat traditional in recent years among those that do comics in webform as well as print, Dave Kellett has opted to make it easy for Eisner voters to sample the material for which he is nominated in the category of Best Humor Publication. So if you’ve got network, and 24MB of drive space, and a PDF reader (please for the love of Glob, not Adobe Acrobat), point yourself over to here and grab a copy of Coffee: It’s What’s For Dinner.

  Those with long memories may recall that Kellett’s previous themed collection, Literature: Unsuccessfully Competing Against TV Since 1953, was nominated in the same category last year, but Coffee is sure to succeed where Literature sadly fell short. This is because Coffee has a secret wow factor, in the form of commentary by me mixed in with the Great Coffee Cup Lid Challenge of Aught-Seven. For truly as it is written, if Fleen be with you, who can stand against you?¹

• Machine of Death 2 details? Yes, please! David Malki ! shares with us all today the titles of the stories contained in MoD 2 (title pending), along with a smattering of the creators that will be doing chapter art and comic strips. There’s even statistics, because if there’s one thing that MoD makes me think of almost as much as the stories, it’s the data². In all, writers in 46 different countries submitted stories², overwhelmingly from the US and Canada.

  Put another way, it’s 1958 stories from 1705 different writers, along with 151 art portfolio submissions from twelve countries. Some of the stories won’t fit in the book, but the Mod Squad have plans for them, never fear. Most interesting to me — even more interesting that the fact that apparently Rebecca Black⁴ has a story in the new collection — is the fact that seven creators (counting Malki ! and fellow editors Ryan North & Matthew Bennardo) are returning from Volume One, so if you liked the first one, this bodes well for you.

• New from TopatoCo, five (count ’em, five) books are slated for Spring release, including new collections of A Softer World, Three Panel Soul, Dinosaur Comics⁵. MS Paint Adeventures⁶, and muthascratchin’ Three. Word. Phrase. My guess is that these will be debuting at TCAF (mostly because last week they announced that they’re debuting at TCAF), possibly along with the must-have con season accessory, delivered in a chariot fit for the gods themselves.

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¹ Don’t answer that.

² Some of you will find it sad that I mean that literally and sincerely — the numbers and behind-the-scenes accounts that Malki !, et. al., have shared with the process of producing MoD material is beyond value.

³ Malki ! claimed 44 countries, but I counted 46. Or 47, if you count Antarctica, which isn’t on the list but totally should be.

⁴ Apparently, she knows all about death.

⁵ Continuing the secret book-title code that I totally know because Ryan told me.

⁶ Specifically, Homestuck, volume 2, which many said couldn’t possible be translated to book form without violating the laws of space and time.

According to that unimpeachable source, Brad Guigar is 43 years old today. In honor of the Bradmastide season, we will feature an interview with Brad tomorrow, provided I can figure out how to work the digression about the Great Unmedicated Bipolar Pumpkin into thing without it looking like we’re both a pair of loonballs and/or drunk. No promises. In the meantime, how about some other happenings from around our corner of comics?

• The Hugo Award nominations hit over the weekend, with an odd shift in the universe of sci-fi awardsdom; that faint silence you hear is the lack of a nomination for the fine folks at Studio Foglio, whose work on Girl Genius has literally owned the Best Graphic Story category in all the prior years of its existence. The Foglios graciously decline nominations this year, leading to the following slate:
  • Digger, by Ursula Vernon
  • Fables Vol 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham
  • Locke & Key Volume 4, Keys to the Kingdom written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez
  • Schlock Mercenary: Force Multiplication written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton
  • The Unwritten (Volume 4): Leviathan written by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross

  Two webcomics, three comic book collections; let’s address Schlock Mercenary first. There was an … unfortunate comment left at The Beat¹ that decried Howard Tayler’s inclusion on the list and stated he was only nominated because he was “whoring” (that’s a quote) his audience to get nominations. Leaving aside the rather obvious flaw in the logic², one should note that Tayler did ask his audience to support a number of eligible works by other creators. Of the works Tayler was advocating for, he was involved in two and not involved in five, and one of the two he worked on got nominated³. If he’s whoring, he’s the least effective whore ever.

  Not content to impugn the quality of Mr Tayler’s work, the commenter went on to idly speculate that Ursula Vernon engaged in similar, whorey practices. Leaving aside the well-documented fact that I loves me some Digger, ten seconds with Google would show that while Ms Vernon has spent the (roughly) one year since Digger wrapped writing frequently about her garden, interesting birds, amphibians gettin’ on in her garden, oversized turkeys (both free-ranging out by the back fence and in the roaster for Thanksgiving), mulch, mulch, and more mulch, and spoofs of Regency romance novels complete with ninjas, not once did she ask for consideration in any awards.

  Look. We all have our favorites. We all think our taste is impeccable. We all love what we love⁴. But before you accuse a creator (of whom you are barely aware) in a manner that is unseemly at best and incredibly dickish at worst, perhaps just a smidgen of due diligence? Awesome.

• Rounding out the nominations in Best Fan Artist, we find that Randall Munroe is again recognized. It’s a weird category, but as long as Randall keeps cranking out things that make me think like today’s update, I don’t have any problems with him being nominated for everything up to and including Science Cartoon Pope⁵.
• Not related to the Hugo Awards, but within the realms of engineering: Angela Melick is having a launch party for her second book in Downtown Vancouver on Saturday, 14 April. It’s in a bar, which can only mean fun times. And the very next day, Jorge Cham’s The PhD Movie goes on sale, with a newly announced five percent of profits going to support Endeavor College Prep in East Los Angeles. Proof positive that engineers are the best people? Possibly.

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¹ I’m not calling out the commenter by name; while his words were rash and unwarranted, I’m more interested in taking the behavior to task than the person.

² Namely, that if Tayler were capable of whoring himself so effectively, I’m sure his wife would prefer he use his whorish powers to bring in some money for things like groceries and mortgage payments, rather than a small statue of a rocket. It’s a very nice small statue of a rocket, but I’m pretty sure the local Food o Rama would prefer cash.

³ He also shares a nomination (along with Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Jordan Sanderson) for the Writing Excuses podcast in the Best Related Work category, but did not advocate for it as far as I can find in a cursory search.

⁴ C.f.: previous graf, where I loves me some Digger.

⁵ Rest of the nominees in no particular order: Aaron Diaz, Zach Weiner, Dante Shepherd, Tony Piro, David Morgan-Mar, and Darryl Cunningham. Honorable mention to Jon Rosenberg for Cartoon Neil DeGrasse Tyson With A Jetpack.

So the Eisner nominees got announced the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the work that was recognized, along with unpleasantly surprised to see some of what was omitted. In other words, a completely typical year. Let’s start with the nominees for Best Digital Comic, which we will recall are:

[O]pen to any new, professionally produced long-form original comics work posted online in 2011. Webcomics must have a unique domain name or be part of a larger comics community to be considered. The work must be online-exclusive for a significant period prior to being collected in print form.

That would be represented this year by:

• Bahrain by Josh Neufeld
• Battlepug by Mike Norton
• Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff
• Outfoxed by Dylan Meconis
• Sarah and the Seed by Ryan Andrews

They are, respectively, a piece of comics journalism (16 pages), a serialized fantasy story (ongoing), a serialized adventure story (wrapped at 118 pages, second story forthcoming), a fairy tale from the POV of the participants (22 pages), and a macabre story reminiscent of Momotaro (5 infinite canvas installments, equivalent to approximately 100 pages). Bahrain is the only one new to me.

The nominees provide a nice glimpse into both the the strength and the weakness of the category — there’s an incredible variety of work, but it’s just as hard to decide what the requirement of “long-form” means. Serialized ongoing story? Check. Done-in-one? Check. Seemingly anything that’s not a continuity-light gag strip or single panels would qualify, but there’s still a conceptual difficulty in seeing works that are five to ten times longer than others in the same category. Still, if I have my questions about things that might have been nominated (top of my list: anything Emily Carroll did in 2011), it’s entirely down to preference; there’s nothing on this slate to be embarrassed about.

Speaking of missing, I understand that the nominations are mostly drawn from submissions sent in by the creators themselves (or their publishers), but I’m wondering about some things that were left out. While the submission policies don’t explicitly say that the judges can include overlooked works that weren’t submitted, I have to believe that such discretion wouldn’t be frowned upon either¹. All this to say, no nomination for Hark! A Vagrant for either Best Humor Publication or Best Graphic Album — Reprint? Kate Beaton was everywhere in 2011 (and deservedly so), inarguably one of the two or three biggest stories in comics², and likely the one that reached the most people outside our rather insular community. Her absence is baffling.

That being said, having been on the inside of an awards process this year — and having taken some lumps for it — I can say with certainty that I have much more sympathy for Jackie Estrada and the Eisner committee than at any prior point in my life. It’s an imperfect set of nominations, because no process for choosing and no people involved in that process can be perfect. I trust that everybody involved did the best they could with honest intentions. Nor could I be annoyed with any nominations list that includes the likes of Dave Kellett (for Best Humor Publication), Colleen AF Venable (Best Publication for Kids (ages 8–12)), or Vera Brosgol³ (Best Publication for Young Adults (Ages 12-17)). Congratulations and good luck to all the nominees.

• In other news, Brad Guigar has taken an idea and run it in a new direction. Rich Stevens messed around with releasing a month or so of Diesel Sweeties strips as an e-book (mostly to play around with iBooks Author), which Guigar is also doing right now with Evil, Inc., but with a twist. Brad’s download lets you see into the future. The entire month of April’s storyline (and please recall that today is only the sixth day of April) is packaged up and can be yours for a buck and a half.

  I’ve seen webcomics collections hit print with a few strips at the end still to run online, but I can’t recall such an example of sneak peak access before. Approximately 24 hours after announcing the deal, Guigar found the response strong enough that he’ll be repeating in May, and hints at further developments. For those wondering what he would do with all that extra time, Kicking his buffer in the ass appears to have been at the top of the list.

• Jeph Jacques is heading to the entirely classy environs of Yale University on Thursday, 12 April, for a Master’s Tea, which (as noted previously) is a Big Damn Deal. Not noted in print previously — but believe me I noted the crap hell out of it privately — Yale does a really terrible job of providing any public information about said Teas. We’re six days out and the only schedule I can find only goes up to the 10th. There are many colleges at Yale, and this tea might not be held at Pierson, or maybe it will?

  Basically if you want to go, I’d advise hanging around the Pioneer Valley on Thursday morning until you see a large man with tats and piercings and a Great Pyrenees headed south towards New Haven, and follow him.

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¹ The guidelines do say that the judges could add, modify, or delete entire categories (and it’s my understanding that happened this year), which to me is a much broader power than merely including additional works for consideration.

² NB: not just comic books.

³ I told you Anya’s Ghost was the best comics of the year. Also, disclaimer: stuff that I wrote appears in Kellett’s book.

Firstly, those of you in Seattle for ECCC who will be around on Sunday might be interested in this:

Pitch The Pros At TopatoCo
Room 2AB, 1pm
TopatoCo is the world’s fifth-largest artist-direct indie merch emporium, as well as the publisher of many of your favorite (or soon-to-be-favorite) books, T-shirts, and other nonsense. Do you have the next great TopatoCo product idea, comic series, or get-rich-quick scheme? Holly Post and a panel of TopatoCo artists will listen, nod attentively, then discuss and refine your idea until every shred of viability is squeezed from it like the juice from an orange. Come share any ideas that you want to kill.

Man, that sounds hilarious. I suspect one of those pros might be Ryan North¹, in which case you can ask him what it feels like to be the first webcomics creator to have some of his work make it to the edge of space.

It seems that the University of Cambridge has a group of undergraduates who like to send things into near-orbit. Balloons, rockets, little things like that, with an ultimate goal of achieving orbit for under £1,000. To put that in perspective, the first payload to hit orbit cost a measurable percentage of a superpower’s GDP, and modern “low cost” orbital delivery systems cost in the vicinity of US$8 million a pop. This is not a small thing that the Cambridge University Spaceflight society is attempting. With such grandiose goals in mind, who better to be their passenger than the most grandiose dinosaur known to modern society: T-Rex.

The Squishable iteration of Mr Rex (judging from the images, it appears to actually be a Wee Rex) was lofted to some 27 kilometers altitude, or some 16.8 miles², aboard CUSF’s NOVA 21 balloon launch. Ryan North himself is just about two meters, a bit more if he’s standing on his skateboard. You guys, this Wee Rex traveled a vertical distance equivalent to more than 13,500 Ryan Norths.

T-Rex slipped the surly bonds of earth here at 1:30pm GMT two days ago; by the halfway point of the video (actually time-lapse photography), almost all ground visibility is lost, and the sky quickly shifts to the deep blue-black that is characteristic of staring through atmosphere and into space. There’s some tumbling (presumably starting when the lofting balloon burst) as he makes his way back down, coming finally to rest on his side. The lesson in all of this, of course, is twofold:

1. T-Rex rules every continent and the sky above them
2. All distance measurements should now be expressed in terms of Ryans North

And with that, enjoy the hell out of the weekend.

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¹ The Toronto Man-Mountain.

² For comparison: Mount Everest is some 8.8 km tall, and the Burj Khalifa about 0.890 km.

12:04:14 EDT (approx), I submitted my hotel request for San Diego Comic Con. Last time I was in the wrangle¹, it took me until about 12:06:30, which resulted in absolutely zero communications from the hotel reservation service for more than 72 hours past the promised response window, and no offer of a room for a full week (by which point you’re basically not in the same time zone as the convention center). I’m told that the system was better last year, here’s hoping that it’s better still this year.

Um, all those of you that were doing setup at/traveling to Seattle for Emerald City, hope you aren’t attending SDCC in a van down by the Tijuana border. But even if you do end up in a van, you have an opportunity that I don’t, namely to see what looks like the most topic-random and potentially wacky panel of the year. From Friend o’ Fleen Frank Gibson:

We are doing a panel with Bryan Lee O’Malley, it’s an Oni panel which has a late night talkshow theme, there is a cooking segment. Our lives can be somewhat surreal at the best of times. 7pm, Room 2AB on Friday! [emphasis mine]

Looking forward to seeing you for MoCCA! HOORAY!!!

It’s possible that last sentence was meant only for me, but Frank’s a friendly guy; I’m sure he’s looking forward to seeing you at MoCCA as well. Also, here is where I have to confess that I’ll be missing Sunday at MoCCA because I’ll be at a brunch featuring the musical and drink stylings of Dale DeGroff. Look, I love comics and all, but Dale DeGroff will have booze. Booze what I need.

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¹ Which, to be fair, was 2010, the first year utilizing the present system.

I gotta say, the spam comments that get submitted to Fleen are ever more amusing; I particularly liked this one:

This is in actuality a terrific webpage. written in a very vivid, using the grammar very well, give us to add a lot of fun. This is steering to be the best. Thank you .¹

This is the pledge that we at Fleen make to you: we will write in a very vivid and use the grammar very well so we may give you to add a lot of fun. It’s what every hack webcomics pseudojournalist aspires to do/be.

• Okay! EmCity! Know who’s going? Everybody and their dog — except for me, it seems — will be in transit sometime in the next 24 – 36 hours towards Seattle. A list is included for your convenience below, but for the moment I’d like to focus on one particular element of World + Dog, Mr Brad Guigar², on account of when he travels tomorrow towards the upper-left corner of the country, he’ll be doing so as a man who has rid himself of the shackles of The Man:
  

  Last month, the company announced layoffs, and … was offering a generous buyout to employees who would take a voluntary layoff, and I was accepted as one of those candidates. My last day is today. [emphasis mine]

  I’ve found more than once that people thought that Guigar was already a full-time drain on society webcartoonist, but the fact is that he’s been working for nigh on a decade and a half in the newspaper biz in Philadelphia. Every in-house graphic to explain why we’re eating more beets? Chances are Brad did it.

  Practical upshot: juggling multiple comic strips and editing Webcomics Dot Com all took place in the interstitial time between work, family, and sleep, making Guigar one muthascratchin’ master ninja at time management. One shudders to think what he might accomplish with another eight hours each day.

  Brad’s agreed to an interview about what the transition is like, which we’ll do sometime after this weekend’s con and he’s gotten into the new routine. My one piece of advice for everybody is, If you ever found yourself in Brad Guigar’s way, now’s the time to be somewhere else.

• Off To See The Wizard
  On the main floor, you’ll find Alaska Robotics (booth 216);
  Blank Label with special guest Magnolia Porter (booth 210); Blind Ferret (booth 306); Dylan Meconis and Hurricane Erika (booth 223), next to their Periscope Studiomates (booth 222); Girls With Slingshots and Something*Positive (booth 309); The Mighty, Mighty Halfpixel (booth 102); Hijinks Ensue, Multiplex, and Wasted Talent (booth 307); KaBOOM!, publishers of Adventure Time by Ryan North (booth 402); SMBC (booth 206); Studio Foglio (booth 110); The Oatmeal (booth 705); The First Great and Bountiful TopatoCo Empire, including appearances by Aaron Diaz, Anthony Clark, Ethan & Malachai Nicolle, Chris Hastings, Chris Yates, David Malki !, Jeph Jacques, Jhonen Vasquez, Meredith Gran, Ryan North, Sam Logan, BeckyAndFrank, Tyson Hesse, and Wes & Tony (booths 202 & 203); and Unshelved (booth 206).
• And Your Little Dog, Too!
  Meanwhile, over in Artists Alley, you may find Ben Costa (table P18); David Maguire (table P04); Ed Brisson (table F10); Jim Zub (table C11); Mary Cagle (table H07); and YukoAndAnanth (table A22).

I’m probably missing people. Let me know and I’ll steering to be the best.
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¹ Verbatim, naturally. The dude or lady in question very much wanted you to buy shoes.

² He’s dreamy.

I’ve been contacted by a number of people about Scott Kurtz’s comment on yesterday’s NCS nominations story. While I’m touched by the concern, it’s unnecessary. Two of the things I appreciate about Scott are his passion and his complete and utter willingness to let you know where he stands on any issue; it’s not always fun being on the receiving end of those opinions¹, but it’s always instructive. We’ve been over our viewpoints and opinions and I’m happy to announce that I’ve been granted provisional BFF status by Mr Kurtz², subject only to my completing something called “Operation Wigwam Wedgie”, the details of which will be revealed to me at a later date³.

• Speaking of, I’m trusting you saw the mysterious tweets yesterday leading up to the announcement that the first of two guest weeks⁴ at PvP will feature an Axe Cop/LOLBAT team-up⁵. And we all know what’s not on deck for PvP the second week of Kurtz’s absence, so there’s that to look forward to.
• Every year about this time, I note that Canadian comics awards seem to have a much higher ratio of unassailable quality nominees than those in other parts of the world. That’s because every year about this time, the Doug Wright Award nominees are announced, starting the season of comics awards with their bestowal at TCAF in just over a month.

  Anyhoo, the nominations are dominated by Drawn and Quarterly this year, with Kate Beaton up for still more well-deserved recognition for Hark! A Vagrant and Emily Carroll capping off a year where her recognition skyrocketed with a nomination for the Spotlight Award, which recognizes talent deserving of wider recognition (which she surely is).

• For those of you wondering how Rich Stevens was coming along with prepping well over 3500 comics for e-distribution, the answer appears to be, Just fine, thanks:
  

  I hit a bit of a milestone last night– 2,600 comics down, 1,000 to go. The plan to stay on schedule involves being done with this first draft by the end of the week.

  The good news is that somewhere around the 2,000th comic… my wrist evolved like a Pokémon and my carpal tunnel pain seems to have majorly faded. I have no explanation for this phenomenon.

  I always said that Stevens was nigh-indestructible; only a world-wide coffee drought can even slow him down. That, or reeeaaaalllly expensive perfume⁶.

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¹ If I only associated with people that agree with me 100% of the time, my circle of friends would be much smaller.

² I’m sorry, Kris Straub, I didn’t want you to have to find out this way, but what Scott and I share is real.

³ Hints have been dropped that the date in question will be 9 April, which by an amazing coincidence is Brad Guigar’s birthday.

⁴ Necessitated by Mr Kurtz’s travel to the far antipodes with former-BFF Mr Straub and sometimes homebrewer Mr Wheaton, despite the fact that it’s well known that everything in Australia wants to kill you. Everything. Godspeed, gentlemen, and watch out for drop bears.

⁵ Not a dream, hoax, imaginary story, etc.

⁶ ‘Cause it’s got a metal head!

Congrats to Matthew Inman, Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins, and Jon Rosenberg as the first-ever nominees in the Online Comic division of the NCS Awards.

I’m actually kind of limited in how much it would be appropriate for me to say about this topic, since I was involved in the screening process for comics that were then passed to a jury, which determined the three nominees for voting. It’s not possible for committees of this sort to do their work in public so I won’t be talking about any of the discussions we had, except to say that the committee’s unanimous belief was that we should put the best work forward, and when we had doubts as to whether or not a candidate met the (admittedly imperfect) criteria, we passed them along.

With any luck, next year’s award will be better, and the year after that, until the distinction between media is gone and work competes solely on its merits. Like I said back in January, Perfect is the enemy of done, and changes of this magnitude will always happen incrementally. I’m proud to have been part of the first effort to overcome the inertia and get the metaphorical ball rolling.