This is a week later than I expected the story to break, but that’s life. Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge grim survivor contestant Michael Payne happens to be a member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, which give out this little thing called the Nebula Award that you may have heard of. Payne is, in particular, a member of the jury for the Andre Norton for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, given out annually by the SFWA for the best YA SF/fantasy novel of the year. In addition to the open nominations voting process, the collective members of the jury can add up to three titles to the nominations list, and:

[T]his year I asked Amulet Books to send around copies of Barry Deutsch‘s Hereville ’cause it’s been one of my favorite comics since he started posting it at Girlamatic all those years ago. After reading all the books submitted to us, the jury agreed on two titles to add to the Norton ballot, and one of them was indeed Hereville.

Hereville‘s not on Girlamatic anymore, but you can still find the original 57 page story online. Consensus is that this is the first time a graphic story has been nominated for a Norton (and perhaps the second time for any of the Nebula categories), but I’m more interested in the fact that this appears to be the first Nebula (which is a rather respected literary award) nomination for what’s ultimately a webcomic.

This page has opined in the past about the declining difference in meaning between “webcomics” and “just comics”, and Deutsch’s work underscores this, I think. The Nebulas don’t have a separate category for comics, much less webcomics — Hereville is being judged the peer of works in different presentations and forms, and we’ll see more of this in the future. Not because [web]comics are getting better (although certainly some of them are, and some of them are crap, and some in past were masterworks that were overlooked), but just because more people (like Payne) in the future will have had experience of them, and not think it odd to say, Hey, we should consider this, it’s really good.

It’s not about agendas or secret campaigns or undue influence, it’s about familiarity. We may have turned a corner, this funny little subniche of a popular-yet-marginalized artform, and it’s possibly one of those corners you don’t turn back from. Like it or not, the best of [web]comics is going to have a seat at more tables in the future.

I blame Carla Speed McNeil¹; having compulsively read and re-read Finder: Voice since I picked it up Thursday afternoon, I’ve been drawn into a re-reading of the previous eight Finder trades. The first half of Sin-Eater volume 1 is a little rough on the artwork, but it settles down rapidly and damn! There’s so many story-hooks that reference later elements and this is just going to demand late-night re-reads until I’ve re-absorbed it all. I’d be really mad if these weren’t such good comics. If you’re not reading Finder (in print, online, wherever), it better be because you’re waiting for the omnibus editions.

• I have discovered a flaw in the voting mechanism of Jon Rosenberg’s Scenes From A Multiverse: with five fan-favorites in a showdown, how can anybody in good conscience choose between Sciencemaster Adler and Cornelius Snarlington, Business Deer? Well, I guess about a thousand of you did, since Adler beat Snarlington pretty handily in the champions poll, but I have equal regard for both of them. No matter who won, disappointment was sure to follow. Minions, I command you to make Cornelius Snarlington cosplay accoutrements for the coming con season so that I may not miss that be-antlered sociopath overmuch. Also, buy Rosenberg a drink when you see him ’cause damn, he’s doing funny work.
• From the Twitters came some unanticipated news from Sylvan Migdal:
  

  Book proof back from the printer!

  That would be the proof copy of the second Curvy collected edition, which somehow slipped past my radars and surprised me with its imminent existence. For those not familiar, Migdal’s earlier works are all utterly charming, possessing of a loose, cartoony style capable of great expressiveness, and frequently making use of artificial restraints (like the limitations of color palette on Ascent, for example) to great effect.

  Curvy is just like those earlier comics, with the added bonus of gettin’ it on in every possible combination. Whoo yeah, reverse mermaid! Uh, that would be a mermaid with the fish-parts up top and the lady-parts down below, duh. Also potentially of interest — I’ve never met Migdal, but I met and had a terrific conversation with his mom once at MoCCA Fest. Anyway, get reading on Volume 1 (it’s only ten bucks), so you’re all caught up for Volume 2 at this year’s iteration of MoCCA.

• I swear this list wasn’t posted when I wrote about Martz, Mutch and LeCouilliard winning Xeric Grants. But there it is — the November list, for your consideration; Fleen congratulates all the laureates, and reminds everybody else that the next application deadline is 31 March.

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¹ I also blame Ms McNeil for the disturbing dream I had last night; for those of you familiar with Finder, I have three words for you:

IZZAT FOR MEEEEE?

Those of you not familiar, too bad.

It seems a couple of you are taking an offhand, tongue-in-cheek bit o’ snark with more seriousness than it deserved; either that, or somebody’s off their meds. On this page I claimed that, much like the Fox Network had become a hardcore sex channel, Achewood had transformed itself into a subscription-only site, and Howard Tayler was being paid by Jerry Holkins to artistically satisfy the latter’s giraffe-neck fetish. Let me assure that that here at Fleen, our goal is only the truth, but there will be obvious exaggerations from time to time. Don’t make me hafta break out the SarcMark, people.

• In the far Antipodes, a project that has been mentioned in bits and pieces over the past few weeks is finally complete; I speak, naturally of the grand mural that Becky Dreistadt has been making for the fine folks at Gameplanet in Auckland, NZ. Consisting of 46 individual canvasses, arranged in the form of the classic Space Invader, the mural as a whole recounts the history of videogames and the most iconic characters to spring from the world of pixels. As is to be expected from Dreistadt’s work, there is more concentrated awesome than one may shake a stick at.
• Jamie Smart, the mad genius behind all of the comics at Fumboo, has launched another one on the grown-ups side of the site. Smart does this all the time, of course, but Corporate Skull is a bit different:
  

  I haven’t done this kind of thing before, planned a comic so big it contains actual story-arcs and plots. Normally what i do is whimsical and immediate, mainly because my own concentration is so poor I can’t drag a story past a handful of pages. But in the last few years I’ve become a lot more fascinated with actual storytelling, and have been quietly working on a few different projects to construct some tall tales. Corporate Skull is the first to see light.

  See this was intended to be a big comic. 600 pages. And it’s all been worked out – i know what i want to happen, how it all turns out, what appears where (y’know, almost as if i knew what i was doing). I’ve never spent so long working on something BEFORE actually drawing it, in this case it’s been two years of filling up notebooks with the plans.

  That’s a lot of prep, and you can see the first ten pages of Corporate Skull at its own site; it’s off to a really good start, but the site’s a bit slow right now so maybe space yourselves out over the next couple of days?

• From Michael Kinyon, webcomics überfan, news that Karen “Kez” Howard, masters student at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, is taking part in the Goin’ Bald for Bucks fundraiser this year. Her pledge page can be found here, and it lies within your power to absolutely destroy her fundraising goal. Go. Pledge.

Edit to add: Link to Kez’s pledge page corrected.

Hey, they can’t all have 350 words on the horrors of dental work.

• We have, in the past, discussed the work of Michael Jonathan on this page, with respect to his identity/brand design, to his mini comics, and his main work. It’s the latter that’s of interest today, as you should know that Eros, Inc. (which, despite this being the internet and that implies, is entirely SFW) is back from hiatus. It’s been a half-year or so, but this actually makes for a pretty good jumping-on point for new readers — ’tis the start of a new season, and Jonathan is ladling on the content to bring readers up to speed. Want to convince me that there’s enough comics to be worth my while? Doing updates that are the equivalent of 2½ – 3 pages is a pretty good place to start.

  I’m also gonna say that the art is a little more … assured is the right word, I think. Confident. Visually clean, no wobble or hesitation evident, like somebody’s been spending those six months away from regular updates drawing, drawing, drawing. Welcome back, Mr Jonathan, can’t wait to see what you’ve got in store for us.

• Show announcement for those of you that will be in New York City at some point during the spring, and what with MoCCA Fest happening in the spring, I imagine a fair portion of you will be. And it’s MoCCA that we’re referencing, as they bring a new show dedicated to Will Eisner and the inspiration he drew from his hometown of New York. Will Eisner’s New York: From the Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel runs 1 March to 30 June, and it’s curated by possibly the two most knowledgeable people possible: Denis Kitchen and Danny Fingeroth. MoCCA is open Tuesday through Sunday (although closed right now for installation of this show), noon to 5:00pm, with a suggested donation of five bucks.

One of the very best things that’s come about from talking about web/indy comics and their creators is getting on :01 Books reviewers list. Almost embarrassingly often, one of their new offerings (my preference list skews heavily towards YA and/or graphic novels) shows up in the mail, and then I get to read the likes of Walker Bean, Koko Be Good, or Dawn Land, and that makes my day (often, my week).

And before I even get to open the book, I get to revel in yet another gorgeous book design, because :01’s secret weapon is Colleen AF Venable. Even if Ms Venable isn’t doing her webcomic anymore, she’s expending a lot of creative muscle on the embosses, debosses, glosses, foils, and shiny mirror finishes (case in point: the advance copy of Astronaut Academy — née Astronaut Elementary — I got last week) that appear on her covers. Where careless use of such features just makes things look cheap (cf: the entire “speculator boom” of 1990s comic books), Venable uses each carefully, adding maximum interest without overwhelming the essential purpose of the cover, which is to be appealing and intriguing.

Because good design is something that deserves attention, please spend a little of yours on this new interview with Collen AF Venable by That Cover Girl, complete with sneak previews of forthcoming projects. If you aren’t salivating to get your hands on those Feynman and Anya’s Ghost covers, there’s something wrong with you.

• I’m going to confess that I understand almost none of this next item, but then again, I don’t know squat about Photoshop. John Allison worked himself up a way to greatly reduce the time necessary to get from pencils to ready-to-colo[u]r lineart. And because he’s a nice guy, he’s sharing his technique with you over at his blog. Might I echo his very polite suggestion that if this saves you time, a brief shopping trip could be in order by way of saying Thank You?
• Gallery time! Those that follow this page may be aware that some of the most whimsical webcomickry being produced comes from (at least, from the reference point of myself, in the upper-right corner of the US) the literal Far Side of the World. Namely, Frank Gibson & Becky Dreistadt’s Tiny Kitten Teeth, from New Zealand, and the various projects of Rebecca Clements (easily accessible at KinokoFry), from Australia. Now they are teaming up for great comics (and possibly great justice), along with illustrators Melanie Matthews and Erin Hunting, for a show at the Owl & Pussycat Gallery in suburban Melbourne.

  The O&P webpage isn’t providing details yet, but Gibson informs us that the show goes up on 19 February (that’s a Saturday) at 6pm, and runs until the 22nd. Those of you not dropping everything to fly Down Under for the show, expect to see more of Dreistadt & Gibson in North America in the future, as Gibson has finally been given permission to Have Freedom; with access to the major studios now much easier, look for Dreistadt to be a major fixture in animation in the immediate future.

• A new theory of mythogenesis for you to consider.
• And finally, because he knows why: Howard Tayler.

From their call for nominees back in the autumn to the declaration of winners, the Webcomics List Awards have moved at a brisk clip (certainly, far faster than their predecessor, the Web Cartoonist Choice Awards). The 2010 iteration (that would be the second one) of the WCL has released the results of their jury’s deliberation for your edification and enlightenment.

Although the utility of any such awards remains a matter of some disagreement, it’s pretty hard to entirely discount a process where the only multiple-winner was The Abominable Charles Christopher. Also, for the record, I believe that the incidence of Ted Rall and Scott Kurtz essentially agreeing in the comment thread at The Daily Cartoonist about these awards is what doomed us to this eternal winter. Thanks a lot, Scott and Ted.

Anyhoo, I couldn’t find a text list of the winners at the WCLA site, but Brigid Alverson kindly put one together so that’s all right. For future reference, anybody that announces stuff in pictorial form only? That only delays you getting your news out as everybody waits for somebody else to transcribe your essential information. One of these days we’ll all be lazy at the same time and then nobody will spread the news. The ability to copy/paste is critical to getting your information out — Protip!

• First seen via the twitterfeed of Internet Jesus: news of a webcomic from one of the world’s best writers of speculative fiction:
  

  The incredible China Miéville has given us permission to post his entire web comic “London Intrusion” http://ow.ly/3PKjL

  Duly note that the tweet was originally from the Twitter account of Mulholland Books (an imprint of Little, Brown, dealing in suspense), and that Ellis was one of many retweeters. Also duly note that since the link in question is only sporadically available, presumably due to over-access issues. Loss of access to the posting could be for any one of a number of issues, but let’s face facts — when Warren Ellis points you at a link, you click it or risk his displeasure, and this would be a completely logical reason for an inadvertent DOS.

  In any event, Miéville’s webcomic (previously run in small daily installments) is now available in complete form for the first time at Mulholland’s website, and boy is it purty. Might want to give ’em a few hours for the demand to taper off or the website to get beefed up a bit.

• Also calling back to last autumn, Mike Russell (and various others of Portland, Oregon’s kartoonin’ kommunity) have paid another visit to the Portland Opera for the purposes of portraying a performance in words and pictures. Last time it was (if memory serves) Rigoletto and this time it’s Turandot. I had a professor¹ (also my advisor, as luck would have it) back in my college days that would digress during lectures (various classes in electrical engineering) about opera, his love thereof, and the plots contained therein. As a result, I know to this day, more than 20 years hence, that Turandot concerns a Heartless Princess, the Price of Love for whom is most likely Death, and the eventual Melting of Her Heart, but not before Needless Death².

  Russell is much more detailed that I, and his pictures really bring across the tragedy of certain moments. As with prior PDX Opera comics adaptations, this one was live-sketched during dress rehearsal, and presented with minimal reworking, given that the performance was Monday night. If you’re a fan of culture (or just want to be able to fake it plausibly), or if you’re a fan of blood ‘n’ guts in your high-brow entertainments, give ‘er a good reading. And if you’re not, give ‘er a good reading anyway, and maybe you’ll find out you’re more of a fan than you thought.

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¹ Doctor Henry Winton, as capable a teacher as ever I’ve seen. Yes, he really did kind of look like Papa Smurf, and yes, his office really looked like that. In fact, I’m pretty sure my senior network synthesis design projects is in that stack behind his head.

² To be fair, there are basically only two plots in all of classical opera; the other one is the high-born young man who falls in love with the low-born young woman (or vice versa), thus producing a pair of Doomed Lovers. Family Disapproval, Madness, and/or Death soon follow.

Remarkably, some modern opera will follow these basic plots as well — the love duet between Pat Nixon and Mao Zedong from Nixon In China? Breathtaking in its majesty, heartbreaking in its sexy earnestness³.

³ Okay, you caught me — Nixon In China is a real opera, but I lied about Pat Nixon and Mao being lovers. It’s actually Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

No, not news that the Killer Ice Storm of Aught-Eleven (that construction doesn’t really work any more, does it?) is over/done with/bypassing me; I’m still going to die in a wintry tomb tonight or tomorrow.

No, the Finally! refers to something I’ve been waiting on since last July, when Hurricane Erika told me about her post-DAR! projects. The first of them, the “dick and fart joke murder mystery” is now live, and going by the name Bucko, with words by Periscope Studio-mate and Marvel (Agents of Atlas, notably) and indy comic book (Underground with Steve Lieber) scribe Jeff Parker. It’s off to a rousing, triple-sized start, with future installments promised Tuesdays and Fridays, and this teaser on the plot yet to come:

Poor Rich “Bucko” Richardson just wants to finally get a job and maybe have another opportunity to talk to that one cute girl he met at that party.

A chance case of alcohol-fueled diarrhea at his job interview leaves him desperately running for the bathroom where he discovers a brutally murdered body.

Now it’s up to Bucko to solve this case! And just maybe get that threesome after all…

I’m sold. Parker’s got a wry sense of humor, and nobody draws dick-and-fart jokes better/more adorably cringeworthy than Moen. Jump in now while the jumpin’s good.

• Speaking of Icy Doom, let’s turn to Our Friend To The North for a moment or two. First of all, the big news teasered yesterday from TCAF has released, and c’est une whopper — making her first North American appearance will be Natsume Ono, internationally acclaimed creator of manga. Yeah, there are plenty of internationally acclaimed creators of manga, but Ono’s work is very much in the independent mold of TCAF and its other guests — lots of different visual styles, wide variety of subjects, and many stories that take place in non-Japanese settings.

  Full details at the announcement page, and am I the only one that thinks festival organizer Christopher Butcher might have still more surprises up his sleeve? I mean, it would be ungracious to expect more, but I have suspicions that there will be more Big Announcements.

• Staying north of the 49th parallel for the moment, the Joe Shuster Awards announced their 2011 nominees and I’m betting you can guess the ones of interest to this page already. Webcomickers Cameron Stewart and Jim Zubkavitch got nominated in the categories of Outstanding Comic Book Artist / Dessinateur Exceptionnel de Bandes Dessinées and Outstanding Comic Book Writer(s) / Écrivain(s) Exceptionnel de Bandes Dessinées, respectively (for work that includes Batman [Stewart] and Skullkickers [Zub]).

  The nominations for Outstanding Web Comics Creator(s) /Créateur(s) Exceptionnel de Bandes Dessinées Web are, as is usual with the Shusters, the best slate of names to appear attached to a major award, and include Attila Adorjany, Kate Beaton, Emily Carroll, Karl Kerschl, Drazen Kozjan, Simon Roy/Simon Roy and Ed Brisson, Salgood Sam, and Connor Willumsen. There’s an enormous variety of works there, with different formats, approaches to comics, lengths, story treatments, everything. Though we may all have our favorites, any of the nominees would be a worthy winner. The Joe Shuster Awards will be presented 18 June in conjunction with the 2011 Calgary Comics Expo.

• Finally, dragging our way back southwards, specifically to that section of Manhattan I can see from the office windows — happy first anniversary to the all-independent incarnation of The Beat. Heidi MacDonald gives webcomics the attention they deserve (both good and bad, in their proper measure), and has nothing but love for all forms of this, our beloved comics medium. Next time you see her at a show, give her a damn big high-five.

I like my brother-in-law the meteorologist a lot, but when his forecast emails contain lines like that one, I kind of wish for sweet, sweet ignorance. Given the possibility of power outages due to icing of power lines starting this time tomorrow, and going for as much as 48 hours past that, please forgive me in advance if I miss an update or six in that time frame. In the meantime, webcomics.

• Dammit, Andy, I’m not sure what’s worse — the fact that you have Series 2 Android figures on the way to siphon off my money:
  

  Will get a little Android S2 preview up tomorrow, too much other stuff to do tonight!

  … or the fact that you’re making me wait to see what the money-sink looks like. I don’t want to give into Completist Mania, and I don’t want to not see the toys that I’m trying to resist purchasing. No part of that last sentence made any sense.

• Show news: Big announcement pending from TCAF, very hush-hush for the moment, but showrunner Christopher Butcher doesn’t mess around. If he says it’s exciting, it’s exciting. Keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow’s announcement. And following up on the earlier announcement that Intervention attendee registration is open, today comes the news that Artists Alley/vendor applications are now available.
• Until the news of the aforementioned Killer Ice Storm reached me, this was going to be the header image for today’s posting, if for no other reason that to be able to use the phrase sac weevils. Though Digger may be close to finishing for good, as long as Ursula Vernon cranks out art from the depths of her subconscious, I’ll remain a happy guy.

That would be trying to catch up everything at work the day after a snow day. Which is why I’m terribly behind on my reading (again), and will be dipping into the mailbag so as not to post nothing. If the Fimbulvetr continues, those of you with press releases will have a much better chance than usual to get them run.

• Item! Friend to words-with-pictures everywhere and curator of the Cartoon Art Museum Andrew Farago (aka Prince Consort to the Radness Queen of the Greater Bay Area) would like very much for you to come to an event next month:
  

  San Francisco, CA: The Cartoon Art Museum welcomes celebrated cartoonists Aaron Renier and Jason Shiga on Thursday, February 17, 2011 as Renier celebrates the release of his new book, The Unsinkable Walker Bean, published by First Second Books and Shiga presents his innovative graphic novel Meanwhile, published by Abrams ComicArts. Please join Renier and Shiga at 7:00pm for a discussion of their latest books, followed by a signing in the museum’s bookstore. Copies of The Unsinkable Walker Bean and Meanwhile will be available for purchase onsite. Please call 415.227.8666, ext. 310 to reserve a copy. The suggested donation for this event is $5.

  If you didn’t read Meanwhile, go find a copy and leaf through it — it’s a pick-your-path comic so complex that new computer software had to be constructed from base theory in order to track all of the story paths. And Walker Bean was one of the standout books that First Second sent me last year, one that I’d recommend to reader that’s … let’s say eight and up. Fabulous stuff.

• Item! Back in the Spring, when snow seemed far away, we spoke a bit about Flash interface comics (also about David Malki !‘s Big Paper conspiracy theory), and as such brought up Red Light Properties. Creator Dan Goldman has been hard at work, seeing as how he’s about to crank out his 250th update in just over a year; given that he has to construct interactive features into each update, that’s quite a accomplishment. If you haven’t read the story of a Miami real estate office run by a hallcinogen-boosted shaman, his broker ex-wife, and the“previously-haunted” homes that they flip, maybe you should.
• Item! Speaking of Mr Malki !, everybody should read this. Doesn’t matter if you’re working on a webcomic, or any kind of creative endeavour. Just read it.
• Item! Spy talk, cryptic remark, offhand reference to Eben07 by Eben Burgoon. Clancyesque, overblown description of clandestine meeting. Fake intelligence report on the wrap-up of the second chapter of the on-going series Operation: 3-Ring Bound. Mission instructions that Burgoon is expected to lie low for a two month hiatus to build up a buffer of comics and to obtain all possible information on his work in the meantime, perhaps by listening to the Full Disclosure podcast.

  Tip that known associate Lauren Monardo of Brainfood Comics (which succeeded with its Kickstart, woo!) is providing the variant cover to the new Eben07 book, now available for pre-order. Cut-off sentence evoking danger and disaster. Honestly, it all reads a bit like a semi-drunken pastiche of the far superior work of Department Head Rawlings¹.

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¹ REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS, EYES ONLY
Have planted rumor that previous leaked intelligence reports regarding subject: Burgoon were only meant as attempts at humor. Believe that this version of events will take root and become dominant. Continue operations as normal and initiate protocol omega.

Sure, these news items are reported elsewhere, but sometimes you just get pulled in by the particular flavor that Heidi Mac puts on a story. Thus, we’ll be referencing The Beat‘s versions today.

• By now, I imagine that everybody and their dog has heard of the demise of Megan Fox Tits Wolverine magazine; actually, my dog (above) was napping pretty hard yesterday, so maybe she hasn’t. And since the mighty has fallen, I suppose we’ll break with the Fleen Style Guide and refer to MFTW by its former name, Wizard. Having studiously ignored the ever-descending fortunes of said magazine, a thought occurred to me yesterday in the aftermath of the implosion.

  Let’s be clear — I am not qualified to comment on the legalities of securities transactions, and I am not saying that anything I’m about to comment on was less than perfectly legal. But a paper transaction that effectively allows one company to cease to exist while an almost identical company (run by the same people) suddenly begins to exist, but allowing a clean break from the old company? We’ve seen it before in comics, which you may cross-reference under the names WOWIO/Platinum, and Dreamwave/Dream Engine to name two. These situations strike me as extraordinarily distasteful.

  I’ve seen the disappearance and new-name-reappearance of a company from the inside; close to fifteen years ago, I worked for a tech consultancy (about whom I have nothing but good things to say) that one day ceased operations and restarted them. In a bid for investment capital, the founder/principal signed a deal with some money guys who took a previously-unused, publicly traded company that had zero activity, bought the consultancy, and immediately spun it back off via a penny-stock issuance under a name practically identical to the old one. Go back to the story at The Beat and re-read the 2nd and 7th grafs, and the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th comments. Note the parallels.

  Things got real interesting for me at that point. The money guys promptly fired the owner/principal, and in the course of about 10 weeks screwed the remaining employees sideways, then declared the business a failure without paying us everything we were owed¹. This is, hopefully, as close as I’ll ever get to personally experiencing the historical business practices of the comics industry.

  Wizard staffers, as of this writing, don’t seem to have much expectation of severance, although one would hope that they do qualify for unemployment (but that’s a can o’ worms right there, with advanced legal degrees needed to determine what has to be true for somebody to claim unemployment insurance beyond the entirely-logical and therefore almost certainly-insufficient fact of being unemployed).

  Now here’s where it intersects webcomicdom; one of the interesting parts of this story is that Wizard World (the new public company) is keeping its convention business (the last year or so saw it aggressively purchase small- to medium-sized conventions all over North America). If the conventions are what keeps the business going, they’re going to need to stock up on guests. I happen to know that prior to the dissolution of the “old Wizard” and the formation of the “new Wizard”, a number of webcomickers were being aggressively courted to show at various Wizard cons in 2011.

  This is where the bad taste in my mouth (over the securities deals) starts turning into … let’s call it a “heightened situational awareness”. If I were being asked to exhibit at a Wizard show (I haven’t been), and they were offering more than table space (say, flight & hotel) I would want a damn good lawyer to look over the contracts to make sure I wouldn’t be on the hook for anything. After all, in the words of “new Wizard”‘s own press release:

  Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this press release relating to Wizard World’s future plans, expectations, beliefs, intentions and prospects are “forward-looking statements” and are subject to material risks and uncertainties. When used in this press release, the words “will”, “future”, “expect”, “look forward to”, similar expressions and any other statements that are not historical facts are intended to identify those assertions as forward-looking statements. Any such statement may be influenced by a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of Wizard World that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different from those projected, described, expressed or implied in this press release due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur. A detailed discussion of these factors and other risks that affect our business is contained in our SEC filings, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, particularly under the heading “Risk Factors.” Copies of these filings are available online from the SEC or by contacting Joe Favorito at (917) 566-8345 or fatherknickerbocker1@yahoo.com. All information set forth in this press release is current as of January 24, 2011. Wizard World undertakes no duty to update any statement in light of new information or future events. [emphasis mine]

  Yeah, it’s boilerplate. I’m also interpreting it to mean, if “new Wizard” suddenly gets replaced by “new new Wizard”, creditors may have a long slog in front of them to get what is theirs by right. Any lawyers want to chime in on the comments page with a correction or reasons why anybody that does business with “new Wizard” shouldn’t be more cautious than usual? I’d love to hear your take on it.

• Let’s end on the very good news — again, lots of places to get background on this story, but let’s just stay with The Beat — that James Kochalka has been named the first-ever Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont (or anyplace else, near as I can tell). You’d be hard pressed to find a better CL, and you can be sure that this story will only become more awesome between now and the official investiture? coronation? accolade? Whatever the correct term, Kochalka starts fulfilling the duties of his office on 10 March. Everybody be glad for James!

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¹ From the distance of time and cynicism, I’d say that the money guys had some money that they desperately needed to make disappear, because they all seemed to come out of it smelling like roses. I eventually got a chunk of my outstanding pay by offering to have a chat with the state Attorney General and IRS about whether or not it was legal for the money guys to tell me, as they were handing me my paycheck, that I hadn’t been an employee for the past two weeks, but had actually been an independent contractor and thus only entitled to half my previous salary. Classy.