Sneaky, sneaky. Fake Shortpacked! update to cover the real one, so that a very important question could be asked. With such planning (and sneakiness) could the answer be in doubt? Everybody feel good for David and Maggie.

• So no Onstad interview, thanks to the whole economy crashing and burning again. Wall Street is in flames, brokers have been sighted with ties around their heads forming a primitive, Lord of the Flies-style society, but I want a voice to go with the picture, dammit. Next week sometime, still on NPR.
• Speaking of cartoon cats, there’s a new maquette of Scratch Fury, Destroyer of Worlds coming from PVP. It’s made by the same people that did the Applegeeks EVE figure, which I can tell you is one hell of a nice piece of work. Production is going to be limited to those that pre-order, so you won’t be able to pick one a’ these up at the con table next year.
• Speaking of resinous cirtters, SLÜG figures now available from Chris Yates at Reprographics. Group effort this time: Yates designed and paints them, but they were sculpted and cast by Nikki I Don’t Know If She Gets An Exclamation Or Not, But She Did Marry The Dreamcrusher Rice. Some of the SLÜGs exist in editions of as many as five, some are one-offs, and there’s only 35 made at this time.
• Conventions coming up, neither of which I can make it to, dammit. Next weekend the nerd hordes descend on Baltimore, including the only East Coast appearance of all four HTMW authors (they’re gonna make me cart that damn thing to hell and breakfast to get all four signatures, aren’t they?). As an added bonus, Nexus of All Creative Comiclike Endeavours Shaenon Garrity informs us of a contest to win tickets to the Harvey Awards, to be presented at BCC. How cool is this show? The one time I attended, I wound up sitting next to Neil Gaiman. Just saying.

  The following weekend, the just as nerdy but less cosplay-inclined hordes descend on Bethesda for SPX. I’m super-bummed about not being able to go to that one, as I hear that the ever-fascinating Kate Beaton will be venturing Down South to attend along with Emily Horne of A Softer World; Kate and Emily remain at the top of my list of creators I have yet to meet in person.

• Finally, let’s break out today’s anniversary announcement, and note that Chasing the Sunset hits the big 5-0-0 today.

Okay, time to go renew my driver’s license. Pray for Mojo.

And what do I find in my Inbox? Our very first guest strip, featuring our Masthead Guy. That’s right, it’s time for another Estradarama, which today features the following comics as of press time, in no particular order:

• Wigu, Overcompensating, Scary Go Round, Anders Loves Maria, Shortpacked!
• Wapsi Square, Girly, Dresden Codak, Sketchies, Astronaut Elementary
• Skin Horse, Aslan, 8 Bit Theatre, Joe Loves Crappy Movies, PC Weenies
• Dueling Analogs, Lifemeter, Bunny, Guest Strip Project (appropriately enough), You’ll Have That
• Templar AZ, a special bonus Wonderella, Alma Mater, Dreamland Chronicles, Bellen
• Theater Hopper, and Sam and Fuzzy (bonus strip, scroll down to read), ComixTalk (blog), Real Life, Patches
• Unshelved
  Updated to add those updating after press time, or just missed the first time around; again, no particular order: Alien Loves Predator, Angry Bee With A Gun, Silent Kimbly, Butterfly
• Cow and Buffalo, Kawaii Not, Pictures for Sad Children, Project: Rooftop, Joe and Monkey
• Ihooky, Dominic Deegan, Dorkboy, Cyanide and Happiness, Count Your Sheep
• Digital Unrest, 2P Start, VG Cats (apparently, created for last year’s Estradarama, but not run until yesterday!), Todd and Penguin, Taking Up Space
• Ninja Bunny, Horribleville, Left Handed Toons
  Updated to add: all additions past this point derived from Estrada’s hourly update (see here); everything above here discovered by Fleen and its readers
  Prometheus, Chairs For All Occasions
• Hilarity Comics, Robot Comix, We The Robots, River City Mechanical, Aki’s Comics Review (from the Lunchbox Funnies main page)
• Muffin Time, Sir Reginald (no address other than Estrada’s page), Able and Baker, extra Life’s a Bluff, extra Livin’ on Poker Road
• LOLBees

Please note that some of those may shift from their present linked addresses in the future. If last year was anything to go on, those 31 39 43 46 52 60 62 65 strips (plus two blogs, plus the empty strip, plus the comic book) are a bare fraction of what will make itself known by end of business today. But then there’s the mysterious 1/100 in the signature of all the strips. Could Estrada be attempting 100 guest strips in a single day?

And if you recall Estradarama 2007, you’ll remember that Ryan Estrada used the occasion to also launch the Cartoon Commune. This year, he announces the availability of a full comic book, written with John Baird of the Create a Comic Project, Create a Comic Project Presents: Climate Change. The 34 page book is available now through Lulu for the low, low price of $6.00 (or $0.50 for a download). Oh, and he drew a strip for the CCP, too.

Okay, you know the drill — let me know what I missed in the comments, I’ll add ’em to the bullets above in groups of five, and we’ll do it all again next year. We all know I’ve missed a zillion strips, but I can’t spend all day hunting them down.

In completely unrelated news: non-Estrada shake-it-up strip at Octopie, and a good, old-fashioned bidding war for an original strip. Neat.

Updated to add: As several people have pointed out, Ryan Estrada has called the total at 70, but discovered he only had 69, so he did an extra strip of Aki Alliance to bring it up to 70, then VG Cats ran its strip from last year, so we’re going to call it 70 + a comic book as the official total. Which means that as of this writing, we’re still about 17 sightings short — get cracking, people!

Back to college season is in full swing in the States, which is when a webcomicker’s thoughts turn to new (and returning readers). Along those lines, a mess of webcomickers appear to be linking the snot out of stuff today — pretty much you can pick a a comic over there to the right, and then follow the trails of recommendations.

Some names keep recurring, like Gastro~Phobia, but I found the most interesting (ie: never would have found them on my own) links over at Indigo Kelleigh’s Ellie Connelly. And the link from Rich Stevens to Kinokofry is the most dangerous — one click and I realized I can’t go there until I have three hours with no other demands on my time. College kids, your homework for this weekend is to grab a link, start exploring, then get good and lost. Allow me to help get you started: One Swoop Fell.

Updated to add: Looks like Gunnerkrigg Court took a few too many high-value links; since the main site is presently down, look to the mirror at Modern Tales for your fix.

• DAMMIT JEPH I TOLD YOU — NO PICTURES.
• PAX kicks off today, and have you seen the pictures of the cake done by Scott Kurtz‘s brother, Brian? What is it with the Dallas/Ft Worth area and insane-talented cakers? I have a colleague who does stuff like this in her spare time and she lives in Dallas. Also, I am very scared to ask this, but I have to: what does Gabe taste like?
• Friend o’ Fleen Rick Marshall has landed at Viacom, where he’ll be an editor for their MTV Splash Page (comics, movies, and that side of the pop culture coin). Okay, cool, he’ll be eating, but there’s better news — he’ll be continuing his series of webcomicker interviews, this time on the pages of his personal blog, so nobody can ever take them away from us again. Everybody feel good for Rick!
• Mr T in the pages of The Beat on waiting for WOWIO to cough up monies owed. For the record, have any WOWIO creators gotten paid for Q2 yet? I ask because we’re 2/3 of the way through Q3 and I haven’t heard of anybody getting paid since Platinum took over the checkbook.

Apparently, purveyors of drive-by malware (served up to a porn-lovin’ public) are into webcomics.

At least, it’s the case that one such set of lowlifes is piggy-backing on Paul Southworth‘s strip-within-a-strip, SasqWatch 2813: A Trunk Deadfall Adventure. See, if you punch the phrase “trunk deadfall” into Google thusly, you find said lowlifes sitting at position #3 for matches on that somewhat statistically unlikely phrase. Actually, if you up the search to “a trunk deadfall adventure”, the #1 match pops up warnings in Opera pertaining to the infectious waste spewing from that dark corner of the internet, so for God’s sake don’t click it.

Now since Southworth is trying to do something family-friendly (and may want to do more with Trunk in the future), I say it’s time to take direct action here. While Google’s algorithms remain a closely guarded secret, it’s generally known that links are key. So if you’ve been enjoying A Trunk Deadfall Adventure, and you have a website, you can help. Some links to the start of the SasqWatch 2813 storyline under those names ought to push the creepy porn malware guys into the hinterlands of Google matches. Do it for the children.

• In non-cryptid-porn matters, Ursula Vernon‘s got an art reception tomorrow at the Jordan Hall Arts Center in Cary, NC. Come by from 6 to 8pm local time, as I’m told there will be cheese. Yum.
• SPX! Who’s going this year? Third year in the new venue, and while it’s a bit away from the downtown eating-and-drinking scene, the hotel and meeting space are much better than they were.
• Dammit, pre-orders are supposed to be helpful: reports are now out indicating that The Great Outdoor Fight is showing up in some comic shops on the east coast already, and Amazon’s telling me now I won’t get it until next week? Okay, it was apparently moved up from September release but still — the wait is killing me. Even Onstad’s ongoing sandwich duel in the pages of The New Yorker (well, the web pages, at least) is barely enough to placate me. Six more days, six more days, six more days….

Reports now indicate that Steven Cloud is not dead, repeat, not dead, although circumstances dictated that Team Best Intentions Tea & Travel abandon their beloved Nissa Micra 150 miles into Mongolia, so close to Ulan Bator they could practically smell it. Okay, so close in this case means covering the remaining distance took two days in a bus with progressively more people crammed in it (possibly the proverbial Mike-Charlie-Foxtrot). Nevertheless, they made it bodily intact to the finish line to whoop it up with other teams, despite both skilled and unskilled police/border guards trying to take them for all they were worth, and some being compelled to grow some truly terrifying beards.

Our latest communiqués place Cloudy well on his way home …

I’m chilling in Seoul at the airport. Free internet stations. That’s class.

… thus making it unlikely that we at Fleen will need to run the epitaph that was pre-arranged in the unfortunate circumstances of Mr Cloud’s passing:

Steven Cloud, killed by Gypsies, in accordance with prophecy.

Onward:

• Oh my Dawkins, it looks like they’re actually doing it.
• Work conspired against Kate Beaton running more of her hourly comics, but she more than made up for it by embedding an infectious little piece of music in her LJ post. I must seek out these “Golden Dogs” for further study, seeing as how I can’t stop playing their song. Please stop hogging all the cool bands, Canada.
• Tom Brazelton continues to make progress toward the cost of restoring his trashed hard drive (amazingly, he appears to have irretrievably lost only one MP3 and one Photoshop temp file). How are you coming along with your backup/archive plans?
• Finally, from John Baird, more writeups of webcomickry at the recently-concluded Otakon, from himself, and from Erin Ptah.

Let’s hope that settles that. In other delayed-by-slow-ass-network happenings:

• Looking for a completely unique gift for a loved one? Want to star in a comic strip of your own? Chris Baldwin has you covered: the solicitation has gone out for stories of how your day went, to be made into a comic. You supply $100 and a script with four scenes from the day; Baldwin changes the names (to protect the innocent) and sends you the original artwork. Your day may show up in print in future, which has the potential to be a really damn interesting collection.
• If you aren’t reading Anders Loves Maria, why the hell aren’t you? This strip has been hitting on all cylinders pretty much since day one, and lately, Rene Engström’s work has been so good that it hurts to realize that I will never create anything this compulsively readable.
• Con Watch! Greg Carter wants you to know the deal with Otakon and webcomickers:
  

  Otakon next weekend has filled up the first two Artists Alley table sections with webcomickers. It’s not officially “Webcomic Island”, but it has all the appearances of one. Here’s the interactive AA map if mouse over a table, you can see who it belongs to. Check out pods A & B when you first enter the AA.

  Kudos to Otakon for the clustering of webcomics, and that interactive map is pretty cool.

• Finally, check out PC Magazine’s online edition, which has a new feature on the 10 Best Unsung Webcomics. Although I’m not sure why they call these unsung, since we’ve sung about most of ’em pretty repeatedly.

Sitting on a signal from two hotels over, so this is gonna be fast.

• Strip within a strip alert: Over at Ugly Hill, semi-frustrated artist Peter’s webcomic “SasqWatch 2813” (about chupacabras and sasquatches in a post-apocalyptic world) is running. This comic-within-a-comic model spawned an actual webcomic once, when MegaGAMERZ sprung fully-formed from the pages of Goats like unto Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Squid Bats ahoy!
• Emergency McCloud sighting: you’ve already missed yesterday’s talk at The Learning Annex, but you can catch the talk & signing at the Tribeca Barnes & Noble, and tomorrow’s talk at the Brooklyn Central Library. Both events are at 7pm.
• Launching today: F Chords by webcomickin’ machine Kris Straub (seriously, if James Brown weren’t dead, he’d be seriously challenged by Straub for Hardest Working Man Alive). Anyway, because Straub is a class operation, there’s already a small archive built up to the story of session musicians doing commercial jingles. I can think of no situation that affords more opportunities to mine humor from existential despair.
• Finally, mark your calendars for the latest Dave Kellett book launch party: you can get sketches, free booze, and bask in the glow of superhappyfuntime on Sunday at 7pm in Beverly Hills. Enjoy a book totally about the most malfunction-prone dog in America. If anybody wants to split gas with me, we can go see if Dave brings his own little weirdo to the event.

Once, sitting around with various Dumbrellites, I revealed that my dream was for them to be so successful that some day, they could obtain an island booth in San Diego, roll out Astro-Turf®, erect a white picket fence around the perimeter, and spend five days in rocking chairs yelling You kids stay the hell off my lawn.

Starting today, a small part of that dream is coming true. Yeppers, it’s Connecticon kickin’ off today, with more webcomickers than you can shake a stick at, including Jeff Rowland and Aaron Diaz lounging on lawn furniture at the Topatoco booth. Coming less than a week after San Diego isn’t the best timing for a con, but they sure do like webcomics (even if they did leave Brooke Spangler off their list).

For future reference, I would also accept webcomickers lounging around a car on blocks. That would be awesome.

It’s Guest Strip Season:

• Paul Taylor’s running this year’s Waspi Square Guest Week a mite early, taking some well-deserved family time the week of 11 August. Not to worry, he’s got plenty of talent lined up to keep you amused.
• Similarly, the end-of-story Dr McGuestravaganza kicks off today at Dr McNinja.
• And over at The Guest Strip Project, it’s the August Donateathon — 31 days, 31 guest strips. Who says there’s no holidays in August?

Fast stuff to fill out the week:

• Shaenon Garrity‘s writing a book on CLAMP!
• Alien Loves Predator, going the way of all cool New York neighborhoods, to be demolished to make way for Starbucks and cookie boutiques!
• Xaviar Xerexes handing out beta codes to the new version of Buzzcomix.net; email him if you want in on the beta!
• And via David Malki !‘s sharp eyes (and how ’bout that color in Wondermark today, huh?), news that Garfield Minus Garfield is getting a book deal, with the approval and cooperation of Jim Davis.

  Now let’s see if the Garfield Randomizer, Silent Garfield, or Malki !’s own Comic Strip Doctor essays on Garfield get similar attention in future instead of the syndicate C&Ds they got in the past.

Finally, I was gonna write about how Ted Rall has gone all cranky-pants again about this newfangled In-tar-net thingy, but I decided not to. I’ve become convinced that he’s purposefully stirring up controversy to drive traffic to his (oh, irony!) website. Cynical of me, no? So no more Rall until he does more than repeat the same let’s-turn-back-time arguments he’s been making about “online” and “free” since forever.

In our hands, by various nefarious means, is this insider’s view of life on the convention floor. Fleen hopes that future historians find it useful.

The account was signed =j=. Fleen thanks this anonymous witness to the carnage, and wants “j” to know that whatever fate may have befallen him or her, posterity will remember the sacrifice of all who braved maelstrom.

In other news, unstoppable reportage machine Rick Marshall has a series of photo collections up at ComicMix, along with his full writeup, and the latest webcomicker interview, with the aforementioned Toronto Man-Mountain. Enjoy!

____________________
¹ The account contained the following footnote:

For all the hassles of commuting into the big, bad city for work, there are some things that will just make your day start off right. The heat and humidity broke yesterday, it’s perfect summer weather, the train was almost empty, and just below the windows of my building is Bryant Park. In the summer, Good Morning America hosts a series of mini-concerts, which normally means that the immediate vicinity is overrun with a crowd of people there to see pop tartlets (the Hillary Duff show two years back must’ve attracted 5000 tween girls and 200 creepy middle aged guys).

But today a small, very polite crowd sang along with Feist. And if that don’t get you hummin’ as you walk past the park into work, pretty much nothing will. Let’s see how long it lasts.

• Sighted on the con floor in San Diego — Meredith Gran’s Octobook 2. Rumors abound of a Super Stupor book, which would include the greatest boots-to-the-head that the cape genre ever got. Someday, I will own those originals. Oh yes, I will.
• Following up on the evolving Wowio/Platinum story, we at Fleen received word from a current Wowio client who wishes to remain anonymous at this time ([s]he awaits one final payout under the current contract and doesn’t wish to jeopardize it):
  

  I have a whole lot of anecdotal evidence that says creators are not happy with the new Wowio deal.

  Other than DJ Coffman, I know of several publishers, including myself, that are displeased with the new deal and are saying “no dice”. Several others have yet to decide, but aren’t happy. One guy I know faxed his in right away because he had to. Another guy I know is taking a chance and sticking with them, but he’s lost a bunch of his subcontracts.

  I hear that San Diego will produce PDF-related announcements that will be very favorable to Wowio expatriates.

Intriguing. Once again, if you’ve had dealings with Wowio and have feelings about the new contract, we at Fleen wish to hear from you.