Seriously, I marveled at each of these things.

• For starters, can I give some props¹ to Danielle Corsetto? Every 200 strips, like friggin’ clockwork, she cranks out a book. Unlike most print comics, “waiting for the trade” doesn’t involve kicking around for half a year or more before the book becomes available — strip number that’s a multiple of 200 goes up, 10 or so weeks later the book’s solicited². Not only that, but the magic $20 price point is preserved, despite the fact that this book (volume 6, for those of you keeping score) is full color, where previous volumes were black & white.

  Operators are standing by (or would be, if the internet hadn’t destroyed all those operator jobs) to take your orders now. For future reference, this ups my current “must buy” list to … nine items from eight creators. Stop creating things, guys.

• Speaking of black and white becoming color: years ago, before the gag became played out, Greg Dean wondered if making a comic would be a cool thing to do. Twelve years, one marriage, and one offspring later he has his answer: yeah, pretty much. Long time for the internet, twelve years. Long damn time.
• The Machine of Deathiversary may have passed a few weeks back, but the official celebration for MoD turning a year old will take place the day after tomorrow with a blowout party in Los Angeles; with the acceptances for MoD2³ having gone out recently, the MoD Squad are undoubtedly breathing a sigh of relief that that particular enormous job is behind them (nearly 2000 submissions and literally millions of words had to be combed through).

  As an extra incentive for those unsure if an evening of uplifting frolic and cavortment are what you had in mind for Thursday, consider this: in addition to fun, in addition to a magic show, there will be fabulous prizes which you could possibly win … if you bring a nonperishable unit of food for the MoD Food Drive. Just … if your MoD card reads ANAPHYLAXIS, maybe you don’t bring a jar of peanut butter?

• Last thoughts: Shelly Winters, absent from public view for more than two years, is not only back in a new adventure, she’s brought along my favorite almost-teen adventure-having schoolgirl, Charlotte. The next eight weeks are going to be magic.

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¹ That’s what you kids say these days, right?

² The pedantic amongst you may note that this collection’s last strip was produced in July. However, note that Corsetto was involved in a store & hosting migration and site redesign in August, which explains the uncharacteristic delay.

³ Electric Deathaloo.

Note to all the robocallers that have plagued me this election season: I have kept a mental running tally of how many times each of you has bothered me. Whoever has the fewest Annoyed Gary tickmarks gets my vote.

• Things to have: Zach Weinersmith and Howard “Evil Twin” Tayler both moved outside the usual print/t-shirt/book collection merch axis, with announcements of an iDevice app and a Kickstarting board game, respectively. Particularly impressive is the boardgame, which is sitting at just under 50% of goal around 14 hours into the campaign, despite what I would have pegged as an unusual and potentially hampering reward structure¹. I’ll have to rework my personal model of what works for Kickstarting².

  Since we’re talking about iStore iApps for iDevices, I mentioned back in May about a gent named Steven Mausch who was building a webcomics reading app in the iPad that didn’t scrape or steal content from creators. Mausch writes to let us know that the app, ComicsPanel, is now available for your consideration. Somebody with a fondleslab let us know how you like it.

• Places to go: Are you on a continent? Then you can see The PhD Movie without leaving that arbitrary geographical unit. Seven continents of screenings, kids, from Minnesota to McMurdo³ and all points between. If you’re specifically in North America, even more specifically in Toronto, the most dangerous man in webcomics is having a stealth reading of surprise material tomorrow night. Details available for those that have Facebook.
• Things to see: Magnolia Porter⁴, as previously noted, is drawing 50 Achewood characters in 50 days, and just dropped #s 48 and 49: Ramses Luther Smuckles and Cartilage Head. These have been really, really great, and it’s going to be a pleasure to see who the 50th will be, tinged with the sadness that we don’t get any more of these. If we all die tonight because of the close-shave chunk of rock heading for us, not knowing who #50 is might be the biggest disappointment of the fall of civilization.

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¹ Approximately 75% of pledgers have opted for the 2nd tier reward, which includes a copy of the finished game at the $55 level (the first tier gets you nothing but good feelings, for a minimum of $1, so we’re really talking about the first reward tier). The thing is, most of the higher tiers predominantly distinguish themselves from the $55 tier by adding in more copies of the boardgame.

² It’s based around on providing unique and progressively more desirable rewards for more money, but this one opted for a quantity approach (mostly — mixed in with the additional copies are additional game contents that would otherwise not be available or available much later to the general public, so it’s really about quantity and time).

³ Which seems to be the place in Antarctica for webcomickry.

⁴ She kicks mens asses, and she votes.

Because sometimes things sneak up on you.

• It passed without me noticing¹, but a week ago was the one year anniversary of Machine of Death Day, when readers of anthologized, speculative fiction banded together and accidentally pissed off Glenn Beck. MoD2 edges ever closer to completion, and an official celebration of a year of Deathy Goodness will take place on November 17th in Hollllywood².
• Breaking earlier than I expected³, news from Ryan Sohmer about a project he’s been working on. Sohmer’s pretty well known for his strip where the POV character is the living embodiment of what 14 year old dudes think they’ll become if they douse themselves in enough AXE products. Also his other strip where the breakout character is a sociopathic, gleeful bringer of death and destruction and general antisocial tendencies. Basically, his main oeuvre doesn’t scream “family friendly”.

  But if you read his forum posts, and awful lot of them are about how awesome it feels to be a dad to his toddler son. So although it looks like a bit of a disconnect on the surface, it maybe isn’t a surprise that he’s been working on a kids-and-grownups-too picture book called The Bear, which is about small moments in the lives of first-time fathers and their sons.

  It’s touching. It’s sincere. It’s adorable. I know — even with that last paragraph to prepare you, these words don’t immediately associate themselves with your preconceptions re: “Ryan Sohmer”. I’m lucky — I had a bit longer to digest the thoughts, as I got hints as to its existence (although, tantalizingly, no details) last month at NYCC in conversation with Sohmer’s creative partners on The Bear, Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson.

  I said it was adorable, didn’t I? Nobody does adorable (without being cloying) like Becky, and given the gorgeous look of the pages available for preview, I understand (and retroactively don’t mind so much) the relative dearth of TKT and Tigerbuttah updates of late. The Bear will be released next year; start planning which father-and-son pair you’re going to give it to now.

• It’s been eight years, just about exactly, since Child’s Play was born. In 2003 we all felt awesome that an improvised, thrown-together effort raised US$250,000 in only a little more than six weeks to benefit a children’s hospital in Seattle. In 2011, the ninth iteration of Child’s Play launched (thanks to it’s year-round activity and some major sponsorships) on Day One with US$450,000 in donations already counted and a network of more than 70 hospitals worldwide.

  Every year has seen an increase in receipts over the year prior, with only the Great Meltdown of 2008 even able to slow down the year-on-year growth. At the end of 2010, less than US$1500 separated the total donation from the US$9 million dollar mark, and it’s a rock-solid certainty that the US$10 million mark will be obliterated this year.

  New website. New goals. New events. New person hired pretty much solely to run the damn thing year round. Same purpose. Go, give.

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¹ Bad hack webcomics pseudojournalist! No tasty biscuits for you!

² Like Bullwinkle J Moose always said, you have to pronounce it “Like it’s got three or four Ls.”

³ But then again, he has a habit of surprising me.

NYCC was a low-key, short-duration affair for me this year; other commitments kept me from being there the full weekend, but hey — anytime I can spend shooting the breeze with Brad Guigar about ladies and their disturbing cosplay¹, that’s a good time².

• Speaking of eyeballs, I got some great news from Magnolia Porter about Monster Pulse. “Speaking of” because I led off by telling her how much I’ve enjoyed the current chapter (The Eyeball Kid), and how well she’s nailed the character of the eponymous Kid — he comes across all strong, ruthless, doing whatever he must to survive, but show him a plate of chicken nuggets and he’s just a kid again. Perfect. The good news was that Monster Pulse will run for the next couple of years — no end in sight, which means I get to enjoy this one for a good long time.
• Similarly, Evan Dahm let me know that the nearly 200 pages of Vattu posted so far are the tip of the iceberg — we’re still getting setup, the story has so many place to go, and will be both “the largest story [Dahm] has ever told” and require “more than 1000 pages”. Hopefully, we’ll get printed versions along the way, because I’m not sure if I could wait another 800 pages (at three a week, or more than five years) to give him money in exchange for this story. Especially since he was kind enough to give me a copy of the Vattu: The First Day mini, which I would point you to in his store, only it’s not there. Look, just give the guy money, okay?
• Speaking of talking with creative types and ongoing stories, Jim Zubkavich seemed to get a lot of attention (and well deserved) for various Skullkickers developments, but I was happy to talk to him about Makeshift Miracle. Interesting development — book 1 of the remastered series will pretty much follow the story of the original webcomic/print collection, but after that he sees the story will diverge. Look for an interview with the esteemed Mr Zub in the coming weeks.
• Most interesting talk I had of the weekend was probably with Jon Brence, Ogeeku cofounder and SMBC Theater regular. Zach Weiner was there, too, but he had a nasty case of biological colonization going on and his voice was just terrible and I didn’t want to stress it. Anywho, Brence was able to give me some good news about the forthcoming sci-fi web series — new equipment has been obtained, shooting planned out, and principal photography will complete pretty quickly. There’s going to be a lost of post-production though; this project will feature lots and lots of CGI, the better to find new and interesting ways to destroy James Ashby in space³. Speaking of, James’s new video series with Marque Williams on cheap eating? Check it out if you haven’t yet.
• I was able to have nice long talks with my friends from Dumbrella, which is actually good and bad. Good for me, bad that long talks means that there weren’t people interrupting to engage in fan interactions and commerce, due to the vagaries of floor layout. Dumbrella were given space against the back wall, behind a major Marvel comics installation, which provided a near-perpetual knot of people that were difficult to break through. Dedicated fans found their way back, but casual floor-walkers probably looked at the congestion and went the other way. One person who was able to break through the knot was Cory Doctorow, but I’m told that he wasn’t wearing the goggles and cape. Booo.
• Things learned: Meredith Gran is working on a project with Frank ‘n’ Becky that is going to make many of you go Oooo! Chris Yates continues to make a name for himself in the world of handmade wooden puzzle aficionados, who appear to develop intense loyalties to the few skilled individuals that can do what he does. Jon Rosenberg’s twin sons (Team Babies) have beaten all conceivable odds and turned out adorable; nevertheless, children are expensive (what with wanting to be fed and clothed and all), so do Jon a favor and buy some of his stuff.
• Purchases that I was lucky enough to make: The Anime Club, Amazing Everything, O No Sashimi (except mine is red).
• Finally, I didn’t get to track down or talk to Ramón Pérez but that’s okay, because soon Kukuburi will be back, so very, very back.

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¹ Specifically, one young lady that didn’t seem to be dressed as anything particular at all (or at least, we didn’t pick up the reference), but whose eyes were completely black. Pupil, iris, sclera, the whole thing, inky black. “Nice contacts,” I told her. “What contacts?” she replied. “I’ll rephrase,” I countered, “If those aren’t contact lenses, I’m calling an ambulance for you, because whatever could be causing that couldn’t possibly be good.” She laughed and didn’t die, so I guess that’s okay.

² Yes, yes, I know. We’re wild, self-destructive party animals. Tell the cops to bring the riot squad, there’s no controlling me ‘n’ Brad. Mostly Brad.

³ I suggested spaghettification in a black hole, but I’ll settle for explosive decompression.

As you all know, the first rule of the internet is Never read the comments. Ever. Seriously. But to every rule there is an exception, and for me that’s The AV Club, whose commenters are astonishingly sarcastic and amazingly inventive with their hate when they dislike something. There’s pretty much never a thread where everybody is in agreement; to date it has only happened under two circumstances:

• On the reviews of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a poster purporting to be Jonathan Frakes tells stories about his time on the set, practical jokes, binge drinking, and sexin’ up every woman he lays eyes on; it is universally agreed that Frakes is hilarious.
• The comment thread of the Kate Beaton interview is, as of this writing, nearly 100% people sharing links to their favorite strips and agreeing how great she is.

Oh, did you not know that Kate Beaton got interview by The AV Club? She totally did.

Day One at NYCC report (micro edition, since I was only there for a little while):

That willingness to buy has been on my mind a lot since last night, as I wound up making it to Jorge Cham‘s Rutgers/UMDNJ screening/talk just as the final applause in the room was breaking and a rather small percentage of the audience drifted out. The larger portion surged forward, commerce on the their minds.

Due to some travel difficulties, Cham had arrived immediately prior to the event and hadn’t had time to get organized for post-Q&A sales and signing, so I jumped in to help. I have worked some pretty significant rushes on the register at some damn busy booths during really big-ass¹ comics shows, and I’ve never seen the monetary turnover that I experienced last night. Three sdizeable cartons of books, plus more stock that Cham brought with him in luggage, were gone in about 35 minutes. As the last person in the purchase line shifted to the signing line, there were five books left on the table.

By the time the signing line had worked down, people waiting for friends in that line had bought four of them.

Let me reiterate: there was one book left on the table when we packed up to go eat. As a veteran of years of bookstore experience (high school, college, grad school), I can tell you authoritatively that is the Platonic Ideal of selling, even better than having no books left — because now you’re absolutely certain that nobody who wanted to make a purchase left without the opportunity to do so.

I can also tell you authoritatively that every one of those purchasers will be passing around their copies to friends who couldn’t be there; those that couldn’t afford as many books as they wanted will be hitting up Cham’s store as soon as the next stipend check clears. Come springtime, they’ll be back for the DVD of the movie they just saw.

Cham does a lot of these trips (okay, the movie part is new, but he’s been doing the speaking engagement thing for years now); The Power of Procrastination is the name of the lecture he delivers to these audiences, and I imagine he’s pretty much got it down to a science² by now. But I think he should start working on a new boilerplate presentation.

Every business school in the country, every organization, meeting, and conference of marketers (all of whom should be able to afford a speaking fee at least as generous as that of a graduate student association), should have him come lecture on The Power of Niches. The percentage of the general population that does the even higher education thing is small — about 10% if you include those that hold Master’s and Doctoral degrees. Conventional wisdom would dictate that you want a potential audience that’s closer to the 100% end of the spectrum, but Cham’s purposely limited those that will have an interest in his work to barely double digits.

Within that population, though, Cham’s got the game entirely to himself. Instead of competing with other creators for the coveted 1000 True Fans (the ones that will actually buy stuff), where you pretty much have to be a particular reader’s #1 or #2 favorite, Cham has selected an audience where he’s #1 — nobody else is creating for the audience (which only gets you to “default #1” status), and he speaks to them from an authentic place. They aren’t comics fans — they were surprised that I had come by because webcomics as a general concept isn’t in their experience; they read one comic religiously, and it’s the one that speaks to them.

I heard variations on Every week, there’s something in your strip that’s exactly what I’ve experienced a couple dozen times at that signing table — that’s not something that you can fake. You can’t decide, I’m going to go after the underserved ______ niche and they will automatically flock to me, because that niche will peg you as a fake immediately. That’s the lesson that those B-school students and marketers need to learn, that the niche is important, but the legitimacy of the experience is more so. And hey, having a second niche to yourself can’t hurt, can it?

Many thanks to the organizers of the evening for feeding me, and for a fascinating conversation about cells that have little feet to move around with, how antibiotics get proteins to punch bacteria in their little faces until they leak out their insides and die, linguistic variations in Indonesia and Malaysia, what a monster Jenny McCarthy is, and which genes turn fruit flies gay³. It was great.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some nerds to visit.

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¹ And we’re talking metric big asses here, which are 2.54 Imperial big asses.

² Pardon the pun.

³ Really. Hot dude-on-dude Drosophilia action.

Not going to lie to you, there’s few better ways for a hack webcomics pseudojournalist to start the day than with a link from The Spurge. Although it doesn’t hurt that as soon as I’m done with work I get to spend some time with my peeps¹ at NYCC, then I’m meeting Jorge Cham after the screening of PhD: The Movie at UMDNJ tonight². The things I do on work nights for you people.

So since it’s gonna be a busy evening of webcomickry (also hopefully booze), let’s point you at a few things and call it good:

• Softcover Abominable Charles Christopher! 50 sketch editions available! Pre-order now for mid-November shipping! The economical alternative to the sold-out hardcover which is probably only available at usurious prices on eBay!
• Know whose projects always catch my eye? Larry ‘mckenzee’ Holderfield, because anybody that could pull off a mixture of the Eddas and Cthulhu in woodcuts or “an exploration of the recent travails of Nepal and the Nepalese royal family, depicted as furries” deserves your attention. Listen up, peoples:
  

  I have declared February 11th, the most 42nd Day of the Year, to be Robotmas, in honor of the original BBC airing of R.U.R., the very first televised science fiction program ever, on February 11, 1938. It being the 42nd day of the year is a coincidence, I’m sure.

  There is a website in the offing and I’m hoping to entice my webcomicky friends to play along.

  ROBOTMAS: Celebrate Accordingly!

  If there’s one thing we at Fleen do, it’s engage in various actions accordingly.

• Hot on the heels of his various reboots of DC properties, Aaron Diaz³ has found himself on the other end of the creative exercise: DC (the comics company) have proposed a reboot of DC (Diaz’s Dresden Codak). I particularly love their carefully-considered descriptions of the female characters:
  

  Kim’s just coming out of her shell, so she’s not quite as strongly dressed as the other ladies here, but she’ll come around.

  Alina’s usually dressed like her twin brother Dmitri, but because of her stripper past (a new backstory we’ve added) she’s more confident in herself and dresses like a strong female supporting character should.

  Since she’s probably a D-cup, Vonnie’s the strongest female character Dresden Codak has to begin with.

  If there’s one thing that the world needs, it’s more strong female characters, so here’s hoping that Diaz takes the offered redesigns to heart and incorporates the new Kim, Alina, and Vonnie into his current storyline.

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¹ Is that a thing you kids still say? I’m not implying that I will be spending time with delicious sugar-coated marshmallow treats that can be made to fight to the death in a household microwave.

² Although listed as being at/for the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey, the Q&A appears to be hosted by the Rutgers Graduate Student Association. This is because the UMDNJ Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences is affiliated with the Rutgers Graduate School via the Joint Molecular Biosciences Graduate Student Association. Aren’t you glad you asked about Garden State educational politics? In any event, 6:00pm tonight, multipurpose room at the Busch Campus Center in Piscataway.

³ The Latin Art- … oh, hell, you know the gag by now.

First, a quick update to our ongoing Who’s Gonna Be At NYCC discussion: Scott C will be at (and have copies of his new book, Amazing Everything for sale via) the Insight Editions booth, #1939. He’ll also have signings/appearances at the Simon & Schuster (#2612) and :01 Books (1730) booths at various times on Saturday, in support of Zombie in Love (S&S) and Nursery Rhyme Comics (:01), respectively. Schedule here, and speaking of Nursery Rhyme Comics, the fine folks at :01 (hi, Gina!) sent me a review copy yesterday and I can’t stop smiling when I look at it. Guys, I need to find a small child available for short-term leasing so I can read these nursery rhymes and thus mold the intellectual development of a small person.

• Once upon a time, there was a man named George Plimpton; he engaged in many acts of experiential reportage, inspired at least one videogame, and was celebrated in song. Oh, yeah, and a great literary journal that he founded had a chat with Kate Beaton, continuing her metaphorical Sherman’s March to the sea of popular consciousness¹. Also, it is entirely likely that this marks the first time that the words alcoholic dickbags ever appeared in the The Paris Review.
• Also from across the Ocean Sea³, Internet Jesus has some words on digital comics (cf: yesterday, this page), webcomics (cf: every day, this page), and some critical points of distinction between them. It’s worth reading the entire thing, but some of his most salient points are made not in the text, but as captions inside images, which I will reproduce here as an amuse-bouche for your electronic media palate:
  • Why people like digital comics: you can charge for them, and they look pretty on an iPad.
  • Why people like webcomics: they’re free.
  • Webcomics are broadcast.
  • (This is the point at which this whole entry just got the hell away from me and became an extended fugue state ramble about the shape of comics and, God, I don’t know, a dozen other things. Abandon hope all ye who read on. It’s not going to get better.) (Seriously.)

  Señor Jesus was wrong on one point — his thoughts may have come from a fugue state, but they are not a ramble, and no hope need be abandoned. There’s quite a lot of Ellis-style cut through the bullshit and say what everybody else is too polite to say about what webcomics are good for, about how digital (paywalled small chunks of story) may or may not do, and where we may see either or both progressing in the future. Read it carefully, set it aside for a year or so, and read it carefully again to see what the passage of time has brought; I’m betting he’s more right than wrong.

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  ¹ At this rate of progress, Beaton will soon infiltrate the culture to the point that the collective neurons used to track things like Snooki and Kardashians will be reduced to scorched earth, the better to be rebuilt to a new and more useful purpose.²

  ² Don’t look at me like that; we both know perfectly well that grey matter is better used to track the delightful exploits of fat ponies and cookie-eating Napoleon than any current inhabitant of People or US Weekly.

  ³ Alternate views of Columbus and his legacy may be found on the internet.

Firstly, following up on the list of webcomicky types to attend NYCC, I missed some. From the comment thread:

You could also add 3 of the 4 Webcomic Alliance members will also be present, Booth P5 & P6.

As well, one may find Jim Zub & Edwin Huang at booth T6; I’m sure Z-man hears plenty about how awesome Skullkickers is, so maybe somebody asks him about Makeshift Miracle? Fleen regrets the oversight, and invites further corrections on people we may have missed.

Does this count as a second followup, or a followup squared? Back in April, Mia Wiesner (of the University of Applied Sciences in Liepzig) wrote to ask for your opinions and attitudes towards digital comics. In June, she shared her preliminary results with us, and yesterday she updated us with final numbers. Let’s get statistical! Or, since there’s a lot of info here, let’s get summarized!

Fleen thanks Ms Wiesner for sharing her numbers.

So things have been happening since yesterday which suggest connections in my brain. The most obvious, of course, is the untimely (if not unforseeable) death of Steve Jobs, given that much of webcomics as we know it wouldn’t exist if not for the products that Jobs shepherded through Apple. I think the best bit written about him was from Scott McCloud, not just because of its brevity¹, but because I think he captured more of the complexity of the man and less of the myth that Steve strode alone upon the face of computing and made it all by dint of his sole effort:

The story of Steve Jobs and Apple is more complicated than most news outlets would lead you to believe, and there were plenty of great minds that led to the original Mac and that contributed to all that followed.

But anyone who thinks that Jobs’ contributions to society can somehow be reduced to “marketing” or “fashion” betrays a complete ignorance of the power and importance of great design.

Great design can and does change the world. Poor design can and does ruin lives.

To Steve Jobs, and to everyone trying every day to put their own dent in the universe, thank you.

Visual memorialists today include Randall Munroe, Krishna Sadasivam, and Rich Stevens, who knocked it out of the muthascratching park.

Speaking of Stevens, I mentioned the other day that it doesn’t do to ignore him, and his new venture) has shown us why. I’ve written before about how quickly the man can go from idea to execution to done with that, what’s next?, exhibiting that fast, ruthless edge that the small innovator must have to compete against the entrenched corporate behemoth. With the launch of its first offering (or “experiment”, as it’s termed), Lab-Mo-Tory Industries has signaled their approach — get an idea, execute, you either get one or you don’t, and move on to the next thing next month. With the people that Stevens has found to assist in his mad plans², I think they’ll achieve the odd poetry of fast, cheap, out of control pretty easily.

Speaking of poetry, I see that a well-beloved Swedish poet was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. It might be a while before another Swede is loved enough at home and abroad, with a deep enough body of work, to take the prize again. It might also be a significantly long time before a comics creator is seen as contributing to the field of “Literature”, but it might just be that those two events are contemporaneous at some Nobel ceremony some decades from now. If so, my money’s on Rene Engström and Rasmus Gran, or at least one of their students. Yes, students — following up on the CUNY class taught by Aaron Diaz³ in early summer, Engström and Gran will be teaching a class on webomics at Malmö University this term. Can’t wait to see what kind of cartoon art they create.

Speaking of cartoon art, the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco (which has an appreciation of all things webcomicky) will be holding its annual benefit at Pixar Studios on Saturday, 10 December. Access is a bit pricey ($250 or $500 for Fan and VIP packages, respectively; knock it down by $50 if you’re a CAM member), but you get access to the fabled campus, viewings of pre-production art and screenings hosted by filmmakers. Details, tickets, etc., at the CAM website. If there’s a more focused dedicated group of artists than at Pixar, I’m not sure who it would be, but let’s remember a simple fact: Pixar pretty much was able to make its magic because of the backing and support of a man named Steve Jobs. It all comes back around.

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¹ Let’s face it, Steve Jobs is such a huge idea that you can write pages upon pages and still not come close to adequately describing the man and all that he represented. Brief was definitely the way to go here.

² Rich, have I ever introduced you to Otter? Something tells me you two should talk and make plans for a product launch.

³ The Latin Art-Throb.

Things are about today. Things and signs and portents!

• Did I mention this already? I don’t think that I have. Jamie Noguchi (with a history in webcomics that goes waaaay back) is releasing the first book from his current (and best, in my opinion) project, ¥ellow Peril. Back to the Grind runs from the strip’s launch in February 2010 to early November of that same year (no link: spoilers), including the first eight story arcs. The only downside is that duration cuts off just before the introduction of maybe my favorite YP character, the Asian-American gay action/porn moviestar.

  The good news is that since early November of last year, Noguchi has completed eight more story arcs (and is midway through a ninth, on my favorite athletic activity), so presuming brisk sales on volume 1, he can hopefully get a second volume out to his demanding fans right quick.

• You know which continent doesn’t get enough webcomics love? Well, Antarctica, actually — aside from the occasional T-Rex visit, no joy. But Australia, despite several native–grown talents, Australian visits by creators from places far distant are pretty rare. Sure, Team Foglio, Howard Tayler¹, and a number of vision-impaired mustelids descended on the sunburned country last year, but it’s a rare sort of thing. Now we’ll see a visit Down Under by Scott and Kris (Kris and Scott) to host a program of orchestrally-performed videogame music with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. And, of course, Wil Wheaton. Those wishing to see Oz in April, this is your excuse.
• Very short notice, to make up for the long notice on the Melbourne thing — Ryan North will be infiltrating the United States tomorrow, specifically to drink tea. Ryan’s announcement of the event says it’s at 4:00pm, but Yale seems to think it’s at 8:00pm? It’s probably at one of those two times, maybe! Most likely in the common room of Davenport College! That would appear to be around the corner from where Kate Beaton did the same thing earlier this year, so it appears if you want to have tea at Yale and you’re a webcomicker, it helps to be Canadian².
• Received in the mail yesterday, the pack full of joy pictured up top, courtesy of the Canadianest Viking ever, Rene Engström. There a beautiful Anders Loves Maria print, and some minis, and a lovely watercolor of Engström and her sweetie, Rasmus Gran. It’s the last that really caught my eye, because as anybody that’s read Engström’s diary comics (from which the minis are drawn) or her parallel journal comic with Gran, So Far Apart, can tell you, it’s:
  1. Rene and Rasmus are absolutely, crazily in love/lust with each other
  2. Rene and Rasmus sometimes annoy the ever-loving shit out of each other

  That’s what I love about Engström’s work — the honesty. It’s easy to gloss over the little difficulties in your day, or to make your sweetie (or yourself) look better than circumstances might actually warrant. To show the unvarnished truth, the rough patches that exist in every life and relationship but which most wouldn’t want public? That’s a rare thing. It’s not exhibitionism, it’s purely a dedication to showing things as they are, metaphorical warts and all.

  When Engström asked what topic I’d like for the watercolor (part of a fund drive some time back) I immediately requested a portrait of her and Gran, because I knew she’d put all those emotions, all the positives and negatives into it, that it would be an object not just of artistic skill, but of beauty that could only be achieved by revealing all those layers. And damn, she knocked it out of the park.

  Also, she totally draws my moustache better than anybody else.

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¹ My evil twin.
² Also, to be awesome.