People coming to NYCC have a little too much cool stuff for sale. Jeff Rowland is rumored to have brought 15 plush Joannas (and I heard tell of a cheerleader outfit that she likes to wear), Paul Southworth is unveiling the first Ugly Hill t-shirt (it’s a secret design that you can only get in person), Jon Rosenberg has that swanky Science Is Satan Spelled Backwards shirt on pre-order, but all that pales in comparison to the coolest new piece of webcomics merch.

Jennie Breeden continues her quest to drag webcomics into new product categories; having brought us the kilts/leafblower calendar and the playing cards, she now adds a picture puzzle. 500 pieces, full color, detailed art, and a punchline (plus boobies). Add that to her ongoing Devil’s Panties comic book, which is up to issue #9 in the direct market where it’s common wisdom that:

1. humorous,
2. black and white,
3. independently published,
4. non-superhero comic books
5. by/about women

don’t sell. But she’s releasing regularly & on schedule, while massive corporations can’t get their marquee books out the door without months-long delays. Breeden is doing something really cool, and I’m going to do my best to talk with her about it this weekend.

Webcomics will be making themselves known at various conventions in the near time frame. For instance, you gots the New York Comic Con (now with added breathing room!) starting this Friday. Things kick off in the morning for members “of the trade” only (which means that webcomics panel we wrote about last week? You can’t go.) and open to the public at 4:00pm. Multiple members of Dumbrella will be in evidence, as will selected members of Blank Label, a wandering-about Chris Hastings, and the nomadic Jennie Breeden. Anybody that travels for work, think you got it bad? Check out Breeden’s convention schedule.

I’m assuming at this point that NYCC has approved my press pass, since I’m getting a mountain of come-ons from publicists to come see their stuff at the show, but work will keep me from the webcomics panels; see Mr T’s blog for a writeup that he’s promised us. Anyway, look for me perhaps Friday afternoon, and most of Saturday, and be sure to check out R Stevens on the Syndication panel (which, mysteriously, he’s not listed as being a part of) on Sunday afternoon.

Other cons coming up include No Such Convention (at Vassar) the following weekend, with RK Milholland and Jeph Jacques, and The UK Web and Mini Comix Thing in London on March 17th. The latter will feature John Allison, Chris Hastings (assuming they let a ninja on a plane), Dave Roman & Raina Telgemeier, Tom Siddell, Mr Madsen, James Turner, Liz Greenfield, Lem, and others that I’m totally missing. It’s the most webcomicsariffic show this side of MoCCA, and you know what? I’m going to be in London, and with most of a Saturday to kill before making my way to Heathrow.

One week beforehand. Dammit! Well, try to have a nice Thing without me.

So it seems that the First Great Webcomics Wikipurge of Aught-Seven (hmmm, is this web-based video non-notable?) is back on again; Howard Tayler first raised the alarm on behalf of his BLC-mate Brad Guigar and others on Monday. By yesterday, strips were restored, then later yesterday more deletionists hopped on the bandwagon. So Byzantine is the logic behind this dustup that Tayler appears to be on the verge of a frothing, white-hot rage (please note that Tayler is about the most polite guy I’ve ever met outside of Canada, so frothing, white-hot rage needs to be read as in comparison to his normal, placid state).

As of last night, it was claimed that at least the Evil, Inc. article was back again “for good”, but as of this writing (7 February, approximately 16:42 GMT), it ain’t showin’ up for me, and I’ve got a clear cache so the problem’s not on my end. In any event, it appears that there’s only one way to fix this:

1. Invite the various Wikieditors to San Diego Comic Con 2007 under false pretenses
2. Direct them to section of floor bounded by booths 1129, 1137, 1329, and 1337
3. Profit! We rumble, Broadway-style; dibs on the baseball bat

On that happy note, we at Fleen would like to thank Sam Logan for the floor map, which does indeed show this year’s Sexy Lagoon; Logan sends along the following color key:

• Pink: Dayfree
• Orange: PA
• Yellow: Blank Label
• Green: Keenspot (naturally)
• Light Blue: Dumbrella
• Reg. Blue: Rooster Teeth Productions (ie: Red vs. Blue)
• Dark Blue: Del Ray/Random House
• Maroon: Phil Foglio

Not sure who that is in the gray; hope they like awesome, ’cause it’s gonna be in high concentrations in this part of the floor. But Logan wonders politely in his email (and I agree), When will SDCC expand the space offered for webcomics? That’s a lot of creators (from at least four countries, by my count) with a lot of fans crammed into a small space; next year may require a larger zone be set aside to avoid crushing crowds.

So the new WCCA nominations have hit, and one may notice a few changes over years past:

1. Per Mark Mekkes’s report a month or so back, the genre categories remain, but fourth-tier categories for next year are up for nomination.
2. The voting round will continue until 11 February, with winners announced on 19 February; this is not only a compressed schedule compared to last year (with nine full weeks between preliminary nominations and final winners), it’s much earlier in the year. Recall that last year, the awards weren’t announced until more than halfway through the year, which probably lessened their impact a great deal.

All that being said, what’s an award without some Whaaa moments? I mean, seriously, Best Adapted Screenplay? Similarly, some headscratchers at the WCCAs:

• I thought it slightly odd that A Lesson Is Learned … is nominated for Outstanding Layout despite being officially on hiatus for fully a third of the year and having released a total of seven comics in 2006 (and none after May). But they are very good comics, it is a very nice layout, and the question of Should there be a minimum amount of work in the year to qualify for nomination? has been asked before.
• I like the redesign of PvP that Thin Slice did; since the site took a nomination for Outstanding Website Design, I hope that Scott Kurtz will share it with them if he wins.
• There’s always going to be differences of opinion; for example, I probably would have put Gunnerkrigg Court up for Outstanding Science Fiction Comic, instead of Outstanding Fantasy Comic as it was. Even Scott Kurtz seems to wonder if PvP is really a gaming comic (which would be a prerequisite to being Outstanding Gaming Comic). And in a crowded field of seven (!) entries, Outstanding Single Panel Comic inexplicably omits xkcd; if only for his tireless efforts to keep us warned as to the continuing threat of velociraptors, Randall Munroe deserved a nod.

But if these are the biggest things I can bitch about (and they are, pretty much), then the WCCA committee did a pretty good job. It’s especially gratifying to note that the nominees for Outstanding Comic represent a wide variety of artistic and storytelling styles. If you’re not familiar with Girl Genius, Gunnerkrigg Court, Narbonic, Perry Bible Fellowship, Scary Go Round, and Templar Arizona, now’s the time to get started.

For all those not present for The Proposal, the webcomics place to be this past weekend was at the SURPRISE! 30th birthday party in the studio/apartment space of one Mr Richard Stevens III. Apparently, there was other stuff for Stevens to celebrate this week as well.

There was fun and merriment; there was a coconut, drained of its life-giving milk by means of a power drill; there was a good-tempered small dog on floor cleanup duty; and there were hotdogs. Sadly, no HoDoLo (2-point-oh), but there was hotdog stew, a hotdog roller, and a birthday cake shaped like a hotdog.

There was a Wii, which meant there were Miis, and sketch battle, and dessert. Some ate enthusiastically (some suspiciously so), some with trepidation, and one was overheard to express some reluctance with regard to the spitty cake.

In the end, Stevens was rendered utterly speechless and befuddled that a bunch of jerks/friends could lie to him so convincingly. Thanks go to Crif Dogs (for the provender), Mer Gran (for organizing the damn thing), and to the plotters and conspirators: Jon Rosenberg, Phillip Karlsson, Jeff Rowland, Andy Bell, John Allison, Steven Cloud, Chris Hastings, and Tallahassee Econolodge (who made the cake). Also in attendance: Jeph Jacques, MC Frontalot, and a random hack journo.

Best of all: Rich Stevens will never, ever, believe anything that any of us has to say to him, ever again. Sweet.

• Official Goal for Child’s Play 2006 (at launch), in US dollars: $600,000
• Total one week ago: $495,000
• Total as of today, which presumably includes the proceeds from the dinner/auction held two days ago: $760,000
• Days until Christmas: 10
• Degree, expressed as a percentage, to which the offical goal has already been exceeded: 26.67
• Likelihood, expressed as a percentage, of exceeding a total of $800,000 for the year, thus allowing Child’s Play to have reached a total (since 2003) of $2 million: 95
• Likelihood, expressed as a percentage, of exceeding a total of $1,00,000 for the year: 80
• Intrinsic worth of those involved in the conception, organization, and execution of Child’s Play 2006, including all donors, on a scale of 1 to 10: awesome beyond all measure

No offense, Paul, but what’s up with the state of Rhode Island? And Connecticut? Seriously, check out this graphic, which shows the progress of the McCloud 50 States Tour. Now check out the Tour schedule, which finishes its Northeast Sector leg with three dates in Pennsylvania, and nothing in the aforementioned RI or CT (although apparently there is a thing for Delaware later in the Tour — they couldn’t get scheduled before the end of the year). If you know a group, store, company, school, whatever that would be a good sponsor for the Cavalcade O’ Fun, get ’em in gear … there’s still time to get a booking arranged. If not, McCloud’s threatened to do a guerilla event at a Denny’s, and I think we all know that can only end in tears (and a bucket).

In any event, the Tour rolled into NYU last night, with a sellout crowd filling the auditorium; Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, Kyle Baker, Meredith Gran, Chris Hastings, and other [web]comics luminaries were in attendance.

The presentation itself was a highly-entertaining 50 minutes, covering the common thesis of McCloud’s books (that you can write with pictures), the five main areas of the new book (comics is a series of choices: of moment, frame, image, word, and flow), and how he came to the ideas of digital comics that caused such upset in the Reinventing days.

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Monday, 20 November, 7:00 — 9:00 pm
19 West 4th Street, room 101

The event is free, but seating is limited; you can get advance tickets from the reception desk of Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at the Tisch School of the Arts: 721 Broadway, 4th floor.

More info here, see you there.

Two items today that might have the potential to possibly get blown out of proportion and maybe cause just the teensiest bit of consternation. Onwards!

As PJ mentioned down below, Adventures Into Digital Comics is hitting the festival circuit. For a bit of historical context, recall that the last time this film was in the news (or at least the subset of news that concerns itself with webcomics), it caused a shitstorm of epic proportions, with all and sundry holding back nothing in their opinions. Remember, this was teh drama where Scott Kurtz was the calm one, and Scott McCloud got so het up that he later depublished irate verbiage. Calm and good humor returned relatively quickly, luckily.

So now we all have the chance to see the damn thing. When you do, remember to breathe, people.

In other news, last night the National Book Awards were presented in New York, and Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese did not win in the category of Young People’s Literature. That honor went to MT Anderson for The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume One: The Pox Party. We all know that some feel that Yang didn’t belong in such august company (the reaction to which opinion was satisfyingly brutal and swift), but you know what? I’m okay with last night’s outcome.

I haven’t read Octavian Nothing, but I’ve heard good things about it. Unlike Mr Long, I won’t judge a book unworthy without having read it, and it’s my feeling that for Octavian Nothing to have bested American Born Chinese, it must be pretty damn good. As I’ve stated before, my only complaint is that Yang was nominated in the category of Young People’s Literature, as I don’t think that his work is specific to any age group. Regardless, Fleen congratulates Mr Anderson, and continues to hold Mr Yang in the highest of esteem.

Speaking of Mr Yang, he’s on a mini-tour of sorts right now, so if you’re in Sacramento or Nashville, keep your eyes open. And speaking of on tour, the McCloud Family Death March returns to the US this week, with a side trip to Nashville on Sunday (hmmm, wonder who else might be there) and a lecture at NYU on Monday (no details yet, but we’re working on ’em).

Editor’s note: It’s been a little less than three years since Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins announced Child’s Play over at Penny Arcade. What seemed like a nice little ad-hoc plan quickly grew out of all proportion, resulting in an estimated $175,000 of toys and more than $27,000 cash being raised in less than six weeks.

Two years ago, they did it again, raising over $310,000; last year, $590,000. Add ’em up, and you’re looking at nearly $1.2 million. There have been black-tie charity dinners and auctions; large corporations sponsor the effort; one hospital grew to five, and the list has since gone international. Behind all that good is the work of a lot of volunteers, and the coordinating efforts of Kristin Lindsay, who was kind enough to take the time to talk with me, despite having recently produced a small human being using only time and basic household items.

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