Everybody’s on the way back from San Diego, or back and recovering, trying to get their work out the door tomorrow. I’ll point out the mini update from the weekend, and few things I found today to be of interest:

• John Allison notes that today marks eight years of being his own boss. For those of you that require visual cues, that means that everything since Sipowicz showed up has been John working not for The Man, but for himself. Polite golf claps, everybody.
• A few words of wisdom from Evan Dahm on the state of webcomicdom:
  

  Comics as a whole are in the process now of gaining that legitimacy, and it’s because of the people doing good work in that medium, more than any other reason. Superficial aspects like deciding to call them “graphic novels” instead of “comics” don’t help. Good work helps.

  Webcomics are … in some ways becoming the new “indie” comics, and replacing the niche filled by minicomics and zines, bit by bit. Because it is effectively free and easy to put this stuff online, it will naturally have a lower signal-to-noise ratio than print comics, and a lower percentage of good stuff — and I hope it is always that way.

  If you are making or aspire to make a webcomic, take your work seriously, be engaged in it, and believe in it. Do good work, and be consistently critical of it so you will keep improving. You have your reasons for choosing this particular means of distribution, so own it: don’t think of it as a shortcut or an excuse to do anything less than the best you can. [emphasis mine]

  I’m intrigued by the bit in bold, because I can read it several ways:

  1. Dahm likes the free-wheeling, anything-goes nature of indie comics and hopes it’s never lost
  2. Dahm figures the lower quality work is a side-effect of a constant influx of new creators, forcing established talents to keep upping their game
  3. Dahm thinks it’s easier to compete for scarce dollars when the competition isn’t very good; there are others that believe in this interpretation

  Since Dahm’s conclusion is for there to be more good webcomics, I’m leaning towards interpretation #2 for the bolded bit, but still — they all have their appeal, and it’s hard to argue with any position that says I should have more high-quality comics to read for free. So everybody get on that making more good webcomics for me, ‘kay?

• Out of the violence that a terrorist¹ perpetrated in Oslo, one reader found comfort in a webcomic. No joke or snark here — well done, Mike and Jerry.

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¹ Per the definition used by the State Department I learned in my days studying national security: Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. Feel free to also refer to the perpetrator as a psychotic, murdering goddamn disgrace to humanity, but I will not name him and provide the notoriety and platform that he apparently craves.

The AV Club hit the Webcomics Pavilion at San Diego Comic Con and eavesdropped on a Phil Foglio portfolio critique.

I’ve watched Foglio do these at close distances, and it’s pretty much as Todd VanDerWerff describes, with one minor edit: Foglio always asks the aspiring artist if they really want a critique, because he will give them good and bad, honestly, and are they sure? I’ve seen people accept his critiques with varying degrees of grace, but I haven’t ever seen anybody get offended thanks to that preamble.

Just don’t ask Brad Guigar to do portfolio review. Seriously, don’t.

Let’s get some announcements out there before all the air conditioning overloads the power grid, takes down power and communications, and eastern half of the country devolves into barbarism and anarchy. If I don’t survive until Monday, it’s been a blast, and thanks to all my readers.

• There’s emails that get immediate attention when they cross my virtual desk — and given all that he’s done for capital-w Webcomics with ComicPress, Tyler Martin is fairly high up the Pay Attention list. In addition to designing the dominant webcomics WordPress plug-in and his own webcomicking (sadly over, it seems), Martin has done design and infrastructure work for more webcomicky sites than you can shake the proverbial stick at, and he wanted to share some news about one of those:
  

  Skywriter Media and Entertainment Group, and Roddenberry Entertainment are joining forces to develop an animated kids’ comedy series, Gene’s Journal, based on the hilarious webcomic created by Trevor Roth and illustrated by cartoonist David Reddick. Gene’s Journal is the untold, true story behind the adolescent years of Gene Roddenberry. It was during these years that Gene was continuously abducted by aliens for the extraterrestrial purpose of studying human beings –- all of his experiences recorded faithfully in his boyhood journal.

  There’s a lot more there in the usual corporate-PR speak, but that’s the gist of it; many congrats to Roth and Reddick. Oddly enough, I’ve been thinking about Roddenberry quite a lot this week, probably because of the recent episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson‘s podcast, where he spoke at length with Nichelle Nichols, which naturally meant that Roddenberry came up.

  Complex guy, ol’ Gene, had some cheesy ideas and some incredibly important ones. It’s a good listen, as is the second half of the interview with Ms Nicholls about her years of effort as a booster of NASA and the space program. Coming in the same week that Atlantis touched down and brought our current manned spaceflight program to an end (without an immediate successor), it’s inspiring and a little depressing at the same time.

• Not only are their people whose emails are automatically a priority, there are people whose actions are. Maybe the absolute top of the list is Scott Kurtz, who I find to endlessly fascinating: willing to take risks, to experiment with his business model in public, to get into more online arguments than is probably good for him (but where he’s also often making the best points, at least when everybody’s willing to step back and let their emotional responses cool off a bit). I enormously respect that he’s not afraid to offer up his mea culpas in public, and that he’s made a concerted effort to grow beyond his hothead tendencies.

  So when he announced today that he’s breaking one of the major taboos of webcomics, I paid attention. Specifically, he’s taking sponsorship dollars for in-strip content. Not ads, not side-strips that aren’t part of the “real” PvP, but honest-to-Hawking paid product placement. This can be done, very carefully, without coming off as a giant shill (in his announcement, Kurtz mentioned Mad Men as the exemplar of this¹), in part because:

  The PvP gang has played Dungeons and Dragons, gone to see every Star Wars film, quote Trek non-stop and choose Coke over Pepsi. I’m already doing it, I’m just not getting paid for it.

  That’s the key part there — Kurtz has spent a dozen years establishing the — for lack of a better term — credibility of his fictional characters; the longtime and casual reader both can easily discern the products and services that the characters use because it comes from who they are. At least a third of Brent Sienna’s character development comes from his Apple cultishness.

  If Kurtz can find sponsors that aren’t afraid to let him play with their brand (including making fun of them if it serves the story arc), sponsors that would make sense for his characters to interact with, then I can see this working. In the hands of a creator more … mercenary is the word I keep coming back to … this could turn very bad, very quickly.

  Kurtz, on the other hand, has a certain reservoir of trust built up in his audience: trust that he cares about the characters and story, that making the strip as good as possible comes first and foremost, that if it doesn’t work out in a way that betters the strip he’ll abandon the experiment.

  The announcement came today as the story arc that’s been running this week finally mentioned the sponsor by name — had Kurtz not done so, my guess is that he’d easily be halfway through the quarter-long sponsorship before people started to suspect there was a financial interest. I think that this is going to make Kurtz’s ad guys work harder than they ever have before, and it’s not clear to me that every quarter will have sponsorships that meet Kurtz’s criteria² lined up as the previous one expires.

  We’re going to see people trying this that don’t do it well, and any success that Kurtz has may not be repeatable. But as always, the dude is interesting.

• For those of in San Diego this weekend, you can see Kurtz on two panels, as well as others of interest to webcomics types:

  On Saturday, Kaja & Phil Foglio talk steampunk (room 23ABC, 10am); Kurtz talks digital disruptions with Mark Waid (room 8, 2:30pm); the Halfpixel Gang record Webcomics Weekly live (room 25ABC, 5pm), and then Mike & Jerry have the PA Q&A in the same room (6pm).

  On Sunday, Los Bros Nicholle talk Axe Cop (room 6DE, 10am); Keenspot get Keen (room 4, 3pm).

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¹ Although I think a better example might be a Mexican telenovela that’s set at an ad agency, and as a major plot thread is developing an ad campaign for Ford. The punchline being, the in-show ad campaign is actually being used by Ford in Mexico (or, more precisely, the ad campaign used by Ford in Mexico has been back-fitted into the show to create the fiction that’s where it was created).

² From the announcement:

• The product would have to be something I believed in.
• The product had to be something I would comment on in PvP anyway.
• The client would have to be forward thinking, and geek savvy, and be able to poke fun at themselves.
• The client would have to understand that the inclusion of their company into the strip would have to serve the greater story or humor.

Collectively, and individually, regardless of our history and (former) close friendship, I now hate you. We’re in a vicious heat wave in the Greater New York Mediasphere, with overnight lows above your San Diego daytime highs. It’s presently around 35 C (that would be 95 degrees for those of you using non-metric units) out there, with a heat index of 39 (102). Tomorrow the actual temperature is due to hit 38 (100) with a heat index of 43½ (110) friggin’ degrees.

And, as can be seen in the above photo, exclusively at Fleen, the exhibitors in San Diego (at least at the Dumbrella booth, #1335 on the floor) react to weather whose name is not a killing word by demanding that their tasty snacks and beverages be even colder. Such luxury! Cold drinks. So … cold. Okay, look, I take it all back, I love all you guys, just let me have one cold drink and I will be your best friend forever.

• As long as we’re all friends again, let me refer you to the booth listing/floor map for webcomics types, and point out that webcomicky panels today include the Rosenberg/Bell/Gran/Yates Q&A (12:30, Room 4) and the Cameron Stewart spotlight session (4:30, Room 4). For those of you planning ahead, tomorrow is light on webcomics, but there’s lots of other things to see just as the show ramps up to maximum crazy.
• Following up on an earlier, non-SDCC story, the We Love Webcomics show at San Francisco’s Double Punch Gallery is about two weeks away, and it’s getting bigger. John Allison has been added as a contributor, meaning that the awesomeness of the displayed works just increased by 17%. It’s scientific.
• Breaking news: Did you know that there was a new Perry Bible Fellowship that went up like ten days ago? I didn’t? I’d thought that Nick Gurewitch was putting most of his efforts into Trails of Tarnation and other video projects. I didn’t notice Gurewitch listed for any panels at San Diego this year (last year’s was a hoot), but expectations were never a real limiting factor for him, so I’d say keep your eyes open. He might be standing right behind you¹.

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¹ On a side note, way to drop today’s Drive on us when I’m not in San Diego to grill you on the broader implications re: the plot, Dave. Oh, and thanks in general — I was just starting to like the Fillopods a whole bunch and now the psychotic emperor is gonna have to murder them all. Meanie.

Even though I won’t be there for Preview Night, which kicks off in a few hours; even though time zones mean you’ll hear probably everything I do sooner than I can write it up, there’s still lots to talk about.

• For starters, Frank ‘n’ Becky are doing a for-real Little Golden Book! It won’t be out until next year, but this is the perfect followup to their LGB homage last year. Not only that, but if you go by their booth, you can see the sculpt for their first (forthcoming) vinyl figure, and maybe tell me what it is! And you can pick up the art book collected volume of Becky’s video game mural.
• Jim Zub would like you to know that the twelfth issue of his very funny sword-and-asskickery comic book, Skullkickers, will feature stories written by some of webcomics finest. Or at least Zach Weiner and My Evil Twin. In all seriousness (which really isn’t appropriate for Skullkickers, but whatever), the book is very funny, the five issue story arcs are just long enough to develop a plot without bogging down or losing the possibility of new readers, and taking a one-issue break after the arc to let creative friends play in your sandbox is a terrific idea. Make sure to pick it up (issue #9 is due in a few weeks, so look for this one in November or so.
• From funny comic to PZ Meyer-linked meme to handsome print in four days. Tony Piro hit one of those lightning-in-a-bottle moments since last Friday.
• Re: Today’s Sinfest; no reason, I just thought it was adorable.

Where to start, where to start? With the announcement of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s new book, Seconds? Or with pictures of Kate Beaton’s D&Q offering, which is either enjoyed by very small people or is a giant book? Or perhaps about the hot, new game that’s sweeping SDCC, courtesy of Marshall Willenholly? Or heck, why not the book trailer for Amulet 4, due this fall from Kazu Kibuishi?

• Okay, how about here — a couple of weeks ago, Chris Sims (professional Batmanologist and surprisingly astute analyst of pressing issues in comics) wrote a piece about how DC and Marvel should adopt aspects of webcomics. In reaction, a bunch of creators talked about what they’d pitch to the Big Two for ongoing, daily, fun-chuckles. Webcomickers invited to the party included Brad “The PUNisher” Guigar, Curt Franklin, Justin Pierce¹, Lucy Knisley, Shaenon Garrity, and the if-he-stops-comicking-he-dies Ryan Estrada². Each of these pitches that doesn’t happen is a wasted opportunity on par with Lois Lane, Girl Reporter.
• A couple of days ago, David Malki ! was “kind” enough to share an earworm with the world on Twitter (DO NOT CLICK HERE if you don’t want it to be stuck in your brain all day), so now I’m going to return the favor. David, check out what Kris Straub is doing in the current Starslip storyline. Now you have the Dick Wolf cash register sound³ in your head and can’t get rid of it! Ha ha, my evil plan worked!
• Last notes. Readers of this page may recall the name Øyvind Thorsby, who does webcomics that are funny, make creative use of space (click through the next dozen or so strips), and are (to be kind) populated with enormous heads. Thorsby dropped me a note that I wanted to share:
  

  Remember me? My latest comic is The Accidental Space Spy. It’s reached 100 strips. First strip here.

  Not remember somebody with maybe the metal-est name this side of Toki Wartooth? Heaven forfend! Anyhoo, the “space” in The Accidental Space Spy refers to the “outer variety with galaxies and aliens and things”, not the “let’s get creative with all the dimensions and mess with the readers heads” type (again, funny, make follow the link and click through to the end of the chapter). Thorsby’s line is thicker, smoother, and more assured, and the heads have settled on a size that’s less “disturbing” and more “quirky”. I’m going to enjoy catching up with this one.

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¹ Just give him Wonder Woman and let him write it like Wonderella; can’t be worse than most of what WW’s been subjected to for most of 70 years.

² Much like sharks must keep swimming in order to breathe.

³ Credit for that term must go to Richard Belzer. Also, be glad I gave you a link that doesn’t repeat the sound a bunch of times — after a half-dozen or so, a certain hypnotic insanity is known to occur in up to 19% of the population.

You get more weird PR in the run-up to a major show — just now I received some promising something called ShatnerPalooza¹ to be taking place at San Diego Comic Con, which has me still shaking my head in mute amazement. Meanwhile, nearly everybody I know in webcomics is in a flying metal tube heading to SoCal (or at least trying to). We’ll just watch the Twitterstorm and Google-plusery happen at a remove, you and I, and pretend that we were there with the cool people.

In the meantime, please enjoy the following seminews:

• What with travelling most of Friday and all, I’m assuming that everybody’s seen the notification that the Xeric Foundation is essentially wrapping up its program of grants to get indy comics printed? Because webcomics, that’s why:
  

  The advent of essentially free web publishing has forever altered the way aspiring comic book creators can get their work out into the public eye. With this in mind, I have decided that it makes sense that the Xeric Foundation will no longer provide grants to self-publishing comic book creators, and instead devote all of its available grants funds to charitable organizations.

  There will still be one last grant-making cycle, though — to let everybody put together their best work, the usual November review will be skipped, making May 2012 the last-ever chance to apply for a Xeric grant. If you wanted bragging rights, now’s the time to get the proposal whipped into shape.

• Dated last week, but announced today: Joey Comeau and Jess Fink, neither of whom should be left unsupervised for obvious reasons, have joined forces. Be afraid, but also be prepared to enjoy the crap out of We Are Become Pals!, words by Joey and pictures by Jess.
• Rhetorical question for the philosophically-minded amongst you — is it blasphemy to merely repeat what a holy book actually says? How about if it’s illustrated … with Lego? The Brick Testament has been getting its first full book together, and pre-orders are open now (from regular vendors, not so much from BT’s own shop). My first piece of advice: get ready to purchase this book. My second piece of advice: given the bankruptcy court review going as I am writing this, you probably don’t want to order from Borders.

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¹ And I quote:

The centerpiece of “SHATNERPALOOZA” will be the World Premiere of The Captains – an Epix Original Documentary produced and directed by William Shatner. In The Captains, he travels the world to connect with each of the actors who have played Captains over the long life of the Star Trek franchise. Shatner recalls his own experiences in the role that made him a star by interviewing Patrick Stewart, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula, Avery Brooks and Chris Pine while interweaving clips from their respective shows and movies.

Shatner. Interviewing. My head just exploded.

Trying to fly out of O’Hare is always a challenge. But for now, let’s see what we’ve got.

• From yesterday’s twitterfeed of one Mr Ryan Q North¹ comes news of a certain milestone:
  

  Today is the 2000th comic at www.qwantz.com! That is a lot of comics with the same pictures !! #iknowright

  As North himself acknowledged in the past, a significant number of those strips are guest outings, but still … 2000 strips that (nearly) all use the same six panels (or variations thereunto) and (pretty much) portray the same scene — house, tiny woman, stomping. Impressive indeed, and the famously modest North² didn’t even make mention of it on his site. Here’s to another 2000.

• Speaking of round numbers, Danielle Corsetto hit 1200 Girls With Slingshots strips today, with an update that’s equal parts D’awwww and Woo-hoo, 200 strips means a new book I can add to my collection (plus the fact that Corsetto turns around books quickly — no waiting years for the trade here, Sparky). And given that the last 200 strips (starting here) have been in color, that means a color book, much to my delight³.
• Speaking of tigers (we were so, pay attention to the footnotes, they’re not just there for my health), Andy Bell should watch out for them on his trip to Southeast Asia; word broke today that Bell will be a featured guest at the Singapore Toy, Games and Comic Con in August. Curiously enough, STGCC appears to be an offshoot of New York Comic Con, which brings a whole new scope and scale to the idea of a satellite show.
• Last thoughts for today, and no names on this one, let’s just call it a cautionary tale. If you’re going to send me a press release, having the only link in the email lead to an online PR site and essentially reiterates and builds on the release, and having neither the email nor the full release contain a link to your webcomic? You’re doing it wrong.

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¹ Nexus of All Webcomics Realities, Northern Division.

² I have a sketchbook contribution that consists of a tiny T-Rex uttering the words I try hard, which I imagine is North’s personal motto.

³ I’m tempted to quote an old Bugs Bunny cartoon: Three cheers and a tiger for me!

Achewood’s home page is delivering up random comics every time I load it. So far today, I’ve seen obnoxious rich entrepreneur Philippe, Roast Beef’s first depression, the beginnings of Mister Band, Ray’s toast at Beef and Molly’s rehearsal dinner, and robot ass in a TV (BOO TO THAT). I’ve set my browser to reload the page every five minutes, meaning every time I click on the tab, there’s a new delight awaiting me.

• Rich Burlew’s overcome the latest unexpected hiatus (which, given Burlew’s ongoing health concerns, is entirely acceptable — if you don’t like it, point your RSS client at the feed and work on having some empathy) to Order of the Stick and is back with a new strip and the stated desire to put out a lengthy string of comics before the next unplanned hiatus. While he hadn’t been able to produce comics, Burlew was able to work up proofs for the next OoTS book, which should be in physical form forthwith. Everybody welcome back Mr Burlew and toss him some continued wishes for continued health, yes?
• Speaking of books, I believe that I mentioned that I picked up Jess Fink‘s Chester 5000 XYV when it hit my local comic shop a few weeks back, right? Now? Well, I did, and it’s adorable. Also, calling back to Fink’s mention that Chester pages were being included in a MoSex show, a reminder:
  

  Hey if you are in NYC this week you can still see art from Chester 5000 at the Museum of Sex dirty comics show!

  I just may have to do that. Not enough museums have exhibits built around awesome sexy fun (just don’t try to travel to Canada with a copy of Chester in your bag).

• Speaking of Chester, this may not be the first Chester fan-art, but I think that so far it’s probably the funniest. I know that I mentioned Chris Hallbeck’s Maximumble when it debuted back at the start of the year, but haven’t really since then. It’s pretty much always a hoot and a half, and the flexibility that it affords Hallbeck to do silly one-off gags (without the strictures — such as they are — of Biff) must be considerable, given that Hallbeck’s now doing twice as many comics without skipping a beat.

As you may have heard, the San Diego Comic Convention (which looks like this, for those of you unfamiliar) has released the floor map for this year [PDF], and has done me the service of helpfully marking off the webcomics area in easy-to-find burnt orange. If you’re interested in the sorts of people that this page talks about, chances are that they’ll either be within a 25 meter radius of booth 1332, or in the small press area (helpfully marked off in tasteful lavender). Oh, sure there are a few outliers immediately outside this zone, and a few more further afield, but that’s basically where you want to go.

It looks like there have been some minor changes from last year’s map — TopatoCo (booth 1229) has seemingly switched places with Keenspot (booth 1231), which seems slightly counterintuitive, as it means switching up a double booth for a triple and TopatoCo’s creators were pretty pressed for space last year. Then again, it puts them on the end of a wide transit aisle, meaning that their crowds won’t be creating an IDLH by intermingling with the Cyanide & Happiness (booth 1234) crowds just across the way (seriously, in past years it was possible to stand in the middle of the 1230s aisle, lift up both feet, and remain suspended in air via the sheer crush of bodies).

In any event, by staying in the ORANGE ZONE, you can meet up with the likes of oxymoronic descriptions, unsighted mustelids, gleeful poisoners, funployed funployees straight from the Party Mansion, Scott ‘n’ Kris ‘n’ Brad ‘n’ Dave, The Crosbyrama, the hardest working man in webcomics (plus the guys he works for), unlikely monsters, Uncle Randy’s travelling nightmare show, steampunk that doesn’t make you nervous, and the original murder of douchebags¹.

In the immediate area, you might find northerly robuts (booth 1033), the coolest graphic novel publisher in the country (booth 1323), and a spot to pick up the latest volume of Digger (booth 1236). Slightly further afield, you might come across the possibly last iteration of comics best anthology series (booth 2235), a museum dedicated to the sorts of things you like (booth 1930), the people you can thank for publishing both adorable wordless owls and adorable wordless Victorian porn (booth 1721), the rockstars of library science (booth 2300), and the best two-syllable named webcomics (booth 1714).

With all that wandering around, if you want a concentration of webcomics types again, head back to the LAVENDER ZONE and be prepared for angry flowers (K-16), iron crotches (P-12), handlebar moustachery (M-12), Satanic porn (N-12), Keef (K-15), sleepy puppies (O-14), earth-shattering sibling rivalry (P-02), werewolf cops, and CGI nerdery (Q-13).

It’s extraordinarily likely that I’ve missed somebody, so let me know in the comments and I’ll add in anybody overlooked. In the meantime, programming info has started to go up, and once all four days are posted we’ll bring you the highlights.

Finally, let me implore all the creators out there to take some time during the show to make it down to the high-numbered end of the hall to that you may pay tribute to the people that made you what you are today (booth 5102). Respect.

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¹ Yes, at last it can be told, the collective noun for “webcomickers” is “murder of douchebags”. I’m not certain if it was Jon Rosenberg or Rich Stevens that came up with the term, but it fits and I’m using it.