The news broke yesterday and a friend asked me, had I heard? My reply:

A’course

In fact just about two weeks back I had the opportunity to tell Chris Onstad that The Great Outdoor Fight is one of my dessert island books so perhaps one dude or even none in a million wants that collection as much as me

This is not to brag

Two things should be mentioned here: I was speaking of the announcement (over AV Club way) of Oni Press‘s forthcoming comprehensive reprint of Achewood. And while I think I got the intent across in my paraphrase, I really should have said Oh necessarily instead of A’course. In my defense, I was on a train at the time.

Achewood has defeated attempts to reprint it in the past. There are the floppy collections of strips that Chris Onstad put out, nine volumes (IIRC) covering up to 10 May 2007¹, long since out of print. Dark Horse wisely started with the greatest run of comic strips in history, The Great Outdoor Fight, before looping back to the beginning of the strip with two additional volumes (covering up to the end of October 2002) before just stopping.

To be fair, Achewood is an acquired taste, and shifting to the start after seeing Onstad at the height of his power would be like starting the comprehensive Peanuts reprints around 1965 for one really great plot arc, then jumping back to 1950. It’s still Peanuts, and Schulz was always Schulz, but it’s also clearly nascent.

But now there’s an additional decade of pent-up demand, and a near-universal recognition of Onstad’s place in American Letters. And it’s going to be edited by Christopher Butcher, late of Viz, and founder of TCAF. There is literally nobody I would rather have in the editorial seat for this project.

The first volume of Achewood: The Complete Canon will release just before SDCC (14 July, to be exact), and will cover strips from October 2001 to June 2004 (no end date announced, but the last strip of the month is Ray going Goth so let’s hope it’s all of June).

That’s more than 600+, which Oni Press has confirmed to me will be in chronological order². No word yet on trim size, or how many volumes the series will take. Assuming they’re all that size, we should get The Fight (and the rest of 2006 — The Badass Games! The Transfer Station! Airwolf! Magic underpants! Mexican Magical Realism! Mister Band! — there’s possibly not a better calendar year of any webcomic, ever) in the second volume, and I’d anticipate five or six books in all.

It’s time to clear some space on the bookshelf.

Reached for comment on the awesomeness of his editing gig, Chevalier Butcher replied:

I’m definitely not afraid of the cops right now

Which would make him Mr Cornelius Bear, which is frankly perfect.

Updates on Achewood: The Complete Canon are available by sign-up at Oni’s site. You can be damn sure we’ll share whatever we at Fleen learn.

Spam of the day:

SCOOBY-DOO! AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD FIRST DATES ANNOUNCED; TICKETS FOR THE LIVE STAGE SPECTACULAR ON SALE NOVEMBER 15TH

As I had occasion to say just yesterday (albeit in reference to something else), Scooby Doo doesn’t count unless Frank Welker is voicing Fred. That fact is non-negotiable.

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¹ Volume X would therefore start on a Fuck You Friday, as it turns out.

² The 2nd and 3rd Dark Horse volumes had the earliest strips, the ones before the introduction of Ray, Pat, and Roast Beef, at the back of the book.

We return again to the 2019 Quai des Bulles festival of bandes dessinées and Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin; today he’s bringing us a report of a meetup featuring Imbattable colorist Laurence Croix.

The meetup took place Saturday at 10 AM at the Saint Malo library. Questions, unless otherwise noted, were asked by Sarah Bresson, from the Saint Malo library. Unfortunately, while I was able to take photos, they were systematically plagued with coloration artifacts, making them unfit for publication given the subject matter. [Editor’s note: No worries, FSFPL, I gotcha covered.]

The meetup began by an introduction of Laurence Croix: she has been coloring comics for 20 years, and her work on Imbattable is featured in the exhibition on the series, but she has worked for varied targets, all the way from youth magazines to all kinds of traditional comics publishers, working on series such as Blake et Mortimer but also more realistic universes.

Thanks as always to FSFCPL for his work bringing us the goings-on at this year’s Saint Malo festival. We look forward to hearing what QdB 2020 is like.

Spam of the day:

Soila Kopp wrote:
Hi there! I’m Dan, Managing Director of [remainder of crap deleted]

Decide on who you are before you show up trying to get me to click on your phishing links..

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¹ Jacobs is the creator of Blake et Mortimer.
[Editor’s note: Speaking of Blake et Mortimer, I took the photo at the top of this post while on vacation in Brussels in August of 1999. Seeing their sixth adventure cover three stories high on the side of a building near our guesthouse made me realize both how deep the the Franco-Belgian comics tradition is, but also how thoroughly my kind of place Brussels is.]

² A Lucky Luke book by Morris and Goscinny.

³ Roughly the equivalent of a specialized BTech.
[Editor’s note: Thanks to K-pop, it is impossible to search for BTS.]

Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin continues his report from Quai des Bulles 2019, with a report from the meetup featuring Imbattable creator Pascal Jousselin, interviewed by Arnaud Wassmer. Please enjoy his summary, which is more descriptive than transcriptive, because sheesh you people have no idea how hard it is to transcribe people in real time.

Also, please note the distinction between Imbattable, the BD in question and Imbattable, the character therein.

The meetup took place Friday at 1:30 PM. Fun fact: the event started a bit late, and while waiting for it to start my neighbor, a child who was no more than ten, asked me what I was doing, and I genuinely explained my role as accredited media, with my setup and how it allowed me to pseudojournalize: an iPhone on a table tripod to take photos, and an iPad on a stand with a keyboard to take notes. I may have omitted the pseudo part. I was able to finish my explanations, and the event started shortly thereafter.

The meetup began by an introduction of Imbattable, the only genuine comic book superhero.

Thanks to FSFCPL, especially for getting so many photos in one interview. It’s not easy!

Spam of the day:

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I am living in terrible fear that mustured is supposed to be mustard, meaning somebody out there is making condiment porn and nope, nope, nope.

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¹ Imbattable’s sidekick, whose name is a phonetic spelling of 2D.

² With the gag here being that Alfred is told in the last panel to be working on a book about two brothers mourning their father.

³ In this wider photo we can see Jousselin is wearing the same outfit as his character.

⁴ With Wassmer showing the public what they consist of in the books; I will not be spoiling them here.

Editor’s note: Please enjoy the first part of Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin’s con report from the 2019 Saint Malo Comics Festival. Take ‘er away, FSFCPL!

It would be an exaggeration to say that Saint Malo is lovely at the end of October, but the weather was pretty agreeable, as it has tended to be for my previous visits. For instance, while there was rain, most of it happened outside opening hours: when this happens, it makes the inside of the tents, where signings take place, rather noisy. This was the ideal backdrop for a new edition of Quai des Bulles and for me to cover it, and I was able to cover a broad cross-section of interests for sharing with Fleen readers.

• The first discovery of note was the redone Palais du Grand Large, the convention center in which most of the activities take place (exhibitions, meetups, concerts, etc). The most notable change was the improved entrance and atrium, resolving some of the overflow at the entrance, but most significant was, as I learned, the fact that Quai des Bulles was the first event to take place in the redone center, and that they had only been able to access it one week earlier.

  This was simultaneously testament to the significance of the festival that renovations were scheduled so the festival would be able to benefit from them, and a sign of the willingness of the festival to field test the improved infrastructure. While there was some unfinished business (for instance, I saw a sticker on a wall reading Reprise peinture, i.e. “Paint to be redone”), the festival activities did not seem to suffer from it and the center was fully functional (restrooms, in particular, withstood the load gracefully).

• Friday already had fantastic programming with a meetup with Pascal Jousselin, interviewed by Arnaud Wassmer, to talk about his creation Imbattable but also his career. You may remember Jousselin from previous coverage, and this time I was able to transcribe the talk and take photos since it took place in the Amphithéâtre Maupertuis; I expect that to take its own post. Many children were in attendance, as Friday tends to be children’s day (we were in a school holiday break).
• In between two events I was able to look at the exhibition they called indie americans, centered on small press creators. I must admit the only names I recognized were Derf Backderf (who was on site, though I was not able to attend the meetup) and Liz Prince, and there was no one associated with webcomics, but this shows a willingness from the festival to look outside the beaten path for talents and phenomenons to showcase.
• In the signing area, my first visit was to the Ulule booth, featuring Maliki, Laurel, and Yatuu, the heavyweights of French online self-publishing: they total more than 50,000 books_cce preorders from their Ulule campaigns between them. Furthermore, such a concentration can only happen in Brittany, as Laurel has expressed she would only sign there (which has been the case so far), such a location is also preferred by Maliki, as they also live in Brittany, and logistics favor it, as they now have three young children and six cats between them three (Maliki and Laurel have been known to watch each other’s children and cats when only one of them signs, but that can’t be the case here). It was also the first time in many years that Souillon (Malikis representative for such events) would booth in a traditional French comics festival (he often signs at Angoulême, but hosted by a bookshop).

  In short, this was not a sight to miss, and throughout the weekend I saw all three sign books while their respective partners would handle merch, transactions, etc. (or at least two of them; the partners team tended to rotate). In particular, Souillon’s line was packed for all three days, from opening to closing; at no point was I able get a clean shot of the booth.

• Saturday began with a meetup with Laurence Croix, listed in the programming as Imbattable’s colorist, but the talk went way beyond that small part of her activities to cover what it means to color a comic book, so it was transcribed, as well, and will be its own post. In particular, while Laurence Croix does not draw, a number of female French webcartoonists, such as Thorn or Maëla Cosson, make a living by coloring published books, so it is interesting to see their place in the publishing flow.
• Later in the day, I was able to visit the Lapin booth, their first at Saint-Malo in three years. Not that I had a particular need to see them, for instance I saw most of them for Lyon BD, but it was good to catch up with the creators and the books that had become available in the meantime, which allowed me to get ahead with some of my Christmas shopping.
• On Sunday I was able to take some time to attend a fairy tale performance, with Olivier Supiot drawing live. This time it was a number of short tales in quick sequence, and the experience was just as enjoyable as the last time; it’s fair to say the festival does not merely keep children occupied with cheap entertainment.
• Immediately after that I attended a meetup with Mark Waid where he introduced his new project at Humanoids, Ignited. While his process, including for these books, is firmly rooted in mainstream US comics traditions (he mentioned making them superpower-based so as to avoid stories perceived as boring, and when asked about the lead time he confirmed he was able and willing to adapt to current events with a lead time between writing and floppy publication of three months) such that his work is not necessarily what we are most focused on at Fleen, I appreciated his willingness to create bridges between US and French-speaking audiences (he mentioned the books, at least the TPBs, publishing simultaneously) and the process by which he tackles these difficult subjects, for instance he mentioned making sure he was paired with a non-white co-writer, and consulting shooting survivors early in the writing process.
• I was able to chat with creators Charlie Genmor and Holly Rectum, who you may remember from my Lyon BD report, since each of them was now published by Delcourt, and we were able to chat about their non-binary coming-out zine and Charlies delightful LGBTI+ mermaids: besides the Delcourt signing they also had their own booth under the Bande de Déchets (Garbage Gang) collective where they were able to sell prints of their mermaids, so of course I bought one.
• Finally, I was able to experience an unreleased story of Imbattable that was designed specifically for the location, the building La Grande Passerelle, with the panels, and sometimes just the characters, being printed at macro size and being plastered on the walls, but also the ground, and many other situations such as on the side of a parked car (purposefully put there, of course). In the end you had to go outside and make a full rotation around the building to be able to follow the story, which as a result would be hard to publish elsewhere, though photos can be shared.

  At the same location Imbattable was the subject of its own exhibition, though it was cleverly used as a way to illustrate comics concepts; and they took it very far, as the concepts included comic bubble shapes or lettering effects. Régis Thomas put in effort to make the exhibition follow a narrative of how a story is created, from conception to colored page through intermediate stages such as layouts, inking, etc, going as far as to imagine the kind of script that would be created for a page if it had been necessary to hand it off between the writing and drawing steps (in practice, Jousselin does not need to formalize in such a way given he both writes and draws).

  The last part, centered on coloring, shows not only the usual coloring work but also how colorist Croix had to get involved in the magic of comics: her work had to be tightly coordinated with the plot in a story in tome 2 that involves color-based powers; I won’t say more. The examples are well-chosen, resulting in a very didactic exhibition where I managed to learn a thing or two, so kudos for Régis Thomas for setting it up.¹

As always, we at Fleen are grateful for the contributions of our BD desk and the comprehensive reporting it offers. Many thanks to FSFCPL for this, and the additional reports in the coming days.

Spam of the day:

Moskinator is a portable, solar insect zapper that removes troublesome insects in a quick, effective and hygienic manner.

You say it’s solar, but later on you say it’s USB powered. Are you implying that the Sun is compliant with USB-C? Neat trick if true.

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¹ I also learned on the occasion of the festival that Imbattable had been translated in English and published on Comixology [Editor’s note: The translated title is Invincible.], but I cannot recommend that edition: besides the general issue of DRM-laden digital books such that you may lose access to your copy without you being able to do anything about it, there is the fact Comixology can only emulate, at best, the additional printing pass applied to book 1 (with words instead to point at the phenomenon), and more seriously some of the creative choices, such as some precisely highlighted in the exhibition as part of lettering, have not been reproduced in the English-language version.

This is all the more problematic when the choices not carried over are remarked upon by the characters! (It’s complicated. Let’s just say that, in Imbattable, the fourth wall may be closer to you than it appears.)

So Chris Onstad has been doing a series of drawing of a pair of cats on a motorcycle since last Tuesday. I just happened to refresh my Twitter tab at the right time and see the first one go up for sale. It’s going to look great next to my previous Onstad original, an oil pastel portrait of Ramses Luther Smuckles. When I kick it, my heirs and assigns are going to get some awesome art.

• The news coming out of Chile hasn’t gotten the same attention as that from Hong Kong, but it’s just as important; if you need a primer, The Nib has you covered. One side story that I came across today is that these latest protests against unfettered capitalism¹ are not a brand new phenomenon, but one of a recurring series. And at each of them from 2010 to 2017, there was a hero, who got his own biographical webcomic by Portland-based cartoonist Liz Yerby, which has lately made its way to the protestors in Chile.

  Good Dog. And thank you to every comics artist that is using the medium to do this kind of nonfiction reporting, no matter how narrow the subject.

• On a lighter note, Ngozi Ukazu is spending a bit of time before the last Check, Please! collection releases in April reminding us about the depth of worldbuilding she put into her gay college hockey bros story. For years, Ukazu tweeted in-character observations, in something approaching real story time — events that happened at the start of the academic year would go up in September, and so forth.

  She’d lock the account to avoid spoilers as she dove into each year’s story arc, leaving them inaccessible to fans for large chunks of time. A good hunk of the first Check, Please! collection from :01 Books was made up of tweets and other ephemera from the two years of story time covered.

  And now she’s out with a collection of tweets and other ephemera:

  Now, for the first time, I’m collecting Bitty’s best TWEETS. (!!!) And I’m doing this in a book I call THE CHIRPBOOK.

  And on top of collecting Bitty’s Tweets, The Chirpbook will contain new selfies, never-before-seen pictures from Jack Zimmermann’s camera roll, brand new comics, and secret tweets from Bitty’s senior year. (So, SPOILERS!) All of these features and more will be in The Chirpbook, the perfect catalog to round out your Check, Please! Collection.

  It’s a simple campaign: book (hardcover and soft), stickers, miniprints. It’s full of spoilers and so it won’t release until April, concurrent with the aforementioned second :01 collection and the end of the comic itself. The crowdfund is creeping up on the 50% mark of the US$26,000 goal, and while I don’t think this will hit the crazy heights of Ukazu’s previous book collections (after all, it’s not the main story and there aren’t any crazy-high dollar pledge tiers), her legion of fans will most definitely be all over this.

  Oh, and I’ll be making note of this WRT Kickstarts for the next while at least: The Chirpbook carries the logo of the Kickstarter Union. I hope to see this become the rule rather than noteworthy.

Spam of the day:

Hello, I’m 6 years old, I’m shooting and editing a video myself, please rate my new video, thanks !!!

Got to say, the English language proficiency of the alleged six year old is much better than that of the presumed adults that send most of the spam I get. Also, you’re lying.

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¹ There’s basically no regulatory constraints on what corporations can do, and the government is almost wholly beholden to business. The Heritage Foundation regards it as the freest economy in South America and number seven in the world. This is on the basis of business freedom and property rights (ie: no regulatory regime), noting that there is room for improvement in labor freedom (ie: labor has too much). This is all the legacy of the murderous (but economically free!) Pinochet regime, put into place by a CIA-backed coup in 1973.

• As has been established on this page, Homestar*Runner is a webcomic, just one that updates rather infrequently. But happily for all who love awesome things, one of the occasions upon which you can count on H*R to update is Hallowed Ween, and this year’s spooooky story and costume fest is now available at YouTube, hooray!
• I mean, it’s also up at the H*R site, and the trailer is worth watching, too if you’re willing to brave an unpleasant terror or two. I speak, naturally, of the fact that the H*R site relies (as did much of early to mid Webcomickstan) upon the worst technology ever constructed by putatively human hands, Adobe Flash.

  Flash!¹ The security nightmare of a million breached websites and stupid, designed-in vulnerabilities. Flash, which sucked up power and which browsers have been trying to quietly ignore for years now. Flash, which we’ve all done without for so very, very long. Flash, which at long last is getting what it deserves, which is to sink even further into obscurity:

  “Google Search will stop supporting Flash later this year,” said Dong-Hwi Lee, a Google engineering manager, in a blog post. “In Web pages that contain Flash content, Google Search will ignore the Flash content. Google Search will stop indexing standalone SWF files.”

  Lee says most websites and users won’t notice anything right away, and that’s because Flash no longer does much to help sites rank higher in the Google Search algorithm. But web publishers who still rely on Flash should be looking at other technologies if they want Google Search traffic.

  In an email clarifying the web giant’s position, a spokesperson said indexed Flash content will not be removed immediately from search results, though it will disappear as the index is updated over time. Pages that include Flash files will themselves continue to be indexed, though the Flash components will be omitted.

  Which brings up an interesting dilemma — there’s lots of old websites (including webcomics) that have gone by the wayside, but which live forever in our hearts and also the mighty repository known as the Internet Archive. What will happen to those archived pages when Flash no longer exists, when browsers escalate from merely ignoring it to actively suppressing it? How much will be beyond our reach? Some day, chunks of the culture may exist only for those that visit an appropriate museum or painstakingly maintain obsolete technology.

  And it won’t end with Flash. What happens when JavaScript is superceded, or some future standard of HTML or CSS finally declares it’s no longer maintaining compatibility with the versions we use now? If you’ve got comics that rely on a formerly standard (or at least widespread) architecture that’s falling from favor, you need to decide how to translate them to a form that will survive. We’re in the midst of a rolling Digital Dark Age, frantically creating new while losing the ability to read the old, and I don’t think a Digital Renaissance will be upon us without some damn good translation tools.

• That last section was kind of a bummer, so let’s end on an up note: today is the last day of Inktober, and while there was so very much that was so very good², I am going to point you to one that is near to my heart. I made Cat Farris’s acquaintance at #ComicsCamp this year, where we quickly began to nerd out about the noblest dogs to stride the Earth, greyhounds. Cat and her husband Ron Chan are members of Portland’s Helioscope Studio and parents to frequent studio mascot Sally the greyhound.

  I think you see where I’m going with this: a month’s worth of #LifeWithSallyDog #Inktober drawings. Some are silly and cartoony, some are serious (or at least as serious as you get with a greyhound), all of them capture the innate joy these fuzzy lumps exude on those occasions when they deign to be awake. Browse them all, and try not to smile wider at each one; you won’t be able to.

Okay, time to go camp the front door for Trick or Treaters. Have a good one, everybody!

Spam of the day:

New hot project galleries, daily updates http://milfpornteen.[redacted].com/?tatum

Stop just throwing words together, spammers. Words having meanings! MILF and teen are opposites. Are you going to try to entice me with barely legal MILFs next?

Oh crap, you totally are. We live in Hell.

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¹ Ah-ahhhhh!

² I mean, did you see graphic novelist Bruce McCorkindale’s arthouse movies by Muppets theme? It’s amazing.

Oh, but it is drear out there today, but I’ve had conversations about literature and art, and there are nifty things a-borning that I’m happy to share with you.

• This page stands second to none in its admiration of Tillie Walden’s work, as well as consideration of the fact that she must at some point take a breath before diving into her next head-down, year-long creative endeavour. You can’t work like you’re 23 forever, after all. And while I will always greet the announcement of a story from Walden, I’m also pleased to see that her next announced release will not be narrative in form, but an act of almost pure illustration:
  

  It may be a year away but multiple award-winning artist Tillie Walden’s next project from mind-body-spirit publisher Liminal 11 is one that will no doubt be eagerly anticipated for the next twelve months by her ever growing fanbase. Walden’s Cosmic Slumber Tarot is described by Liminal 11 as “a unique exploration that will undoubtedly bring tarot to a whole new audience. At once, both gloriously universal and deeply personal.”

  Did I say non-narrative? I meant in the sense of named characters and dialogue and plot; anybody that’s been following Walden’s twitterfeed for Inktober can tell you that her illustrated pages tell stories of their own, your imagination supplying all the necessary details. Walden will be sharing the work as it’s made over the next however long online, so follow her if you aren’t already.

• Hey, you know who is the best friend to individual creators in comics is? Scott McCloud. His superpower is he forgets no one, no matter how long it’s been since he saw you last, or how long it takes you to complete a work because little things like life insist on being attended to. It’s because of McCloud’s twitternouncement this morning that I now know that Dirk Tiede is celebrating two damn decades of Paradigm Shift¹ with a Kickstarting.

  Quick recap: Tiede started Paradigm shift in 1999, hopped to the Modern Tales (RIP) platform in 2002, self-published three books by 2010 and launched part four of story, which wrapped up last year. That fourth part was published as single issue minicomics, five of them, and they will be collected along with the first three parts of the story in a comprehensive, two-volume collection:

  Volume One will collect the original books, Part One: Equilibrium, Part Two: Agitation, and Part Three: Emergence into one beautiful new collection with 340+ pages of artwork, footnotes and bonus material, including 22 new colorized pages.
  Volume Two will collect the latest storyline, Part Four: Flight into a brand new graphic novel edition with 250+ pages, including 10 new colorized pages and footnotes.

  Those two volumes are available for US$25 each, or US$50 for the pair, along with other, fancier support tiers. Campaign runs until the day before [American] Thanksgiving, and is more than half way to its (exceedingly modest) goal of US$5000. This one’s a reward for everybody that’s stuck with a story like an old friend, and for everybody who’d like to see what it’s like to hold onto the act of creation for the long term. Check ‘er out.

• Finally, today is book launch day for Zach Weinersmith and Bryan Caplan’s policy paper with word balloons, Open Borders. Weinersmith first mentioned it as a thing back during the book tour for Soonish, with a formal announcement and release date coming back in the spring.

  This book has taken a lot of Weinersmith’s time for a while now, but the thing about him is, he’s basically unable to spend much time working on only one daily comic strip, raising two small humans, and reading more than anybody you know²; he’s constitutionally got to have a much bigger project to work on at the same time. For a while there, he was doing all his dad-and-SMBC work, and working on Open Borders, and creating a civic-education comic with his political scientist brother.

  Before that, it was Soonish. Mixed in with all that, BAH! Fest, on at least three continents. Before that, Augie And The Green Knight with Boulet. Before that, SMBC Theatre shorts and a feature-length movie. Before that, a handful of other comics.

  My point is, with Weinersmith now merely responsible for the not-dying of two children, supporting his wife’s academic career, and producing comics on the daily, he’s going to get that itch again at some point, which means take the opportunity to grab Open Borders now because it’s just a matter of time before we have to run to catch up to him on the next thing. Or at the very least, check out the video interview with the two of them over at Heidi’s place.

Spam of the day:

A breakthrough study has shown that this “odd” vegetable reverses diabetes at the source. Can you guess which one it is? a) Horned Melon b) Kohlrabi c) Jicama

Well gosh, a) is a fruit, b) isn’t odd, it’s genetically identical to a half-dozen of the most commonly eaten veg that exist (thanks, Brassica oleracea), so I’m guessing jicama? But why hedge your bets? I bet you could do an awesome slaw out of all three and never have to click your malware-infested clickbait site to clarify the fake fact you’re dangling at me.

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¹ Near as I can tell, the first mention of him here at Fleen was in February 2008 on the occasion of picking up the first volume of PS.

² For real, guy reads 25 – 30 books a month, and I’m not exaggerating.

What.

WHAT.

WHAT.

No spam of the day, but I do believe that the Events tag applies.

Readers of any regularity will immediately recognize that we at Fleen have been somewhat … let’s say somewhere between skeptical and disappointed at some of the policy directions that Patreon has taken. That is to say, we think that the original mission of providing a tool to allow distributed funding of creative types has been co-opted by the Silicon Valley venture fund types that want their M-F’in big payout, because that’s what SVvf types do. Which is not to deny the fact that Patreon has been life-changing for many creators, just that they need to decide on what and who their users are, and how they want to interact with them and friggin’ stick with it.

But sometimes, radical new approaches are good:

Today, I’m launching a new thing. It’s called Super Patron: A Creator Arts Endowment Fuck Yeah. It’s an arts endowment for creators. The first grant is for $50,000. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can apply at http://superpatron.org. Fuck yeah. @superpatronfyea

That from Jack Conte (the non-evil Jack of SV media companies), one of the founders of Patreon. Conte’s not a SVvf type, he came up as a working musician, half of Pomplamoose, who basically invented Patreon because he needed it himself. And now he’s got some creative folk together (including Danielle Corsetto) to help him pick a creator to get a monthly-stipend grant to make making stuff easier. Aside from Conte being the CEO of Patreon, there’s no association between it and Super Patron; it’s a 501c(3) nonprofit.

I like this idea; it’s similar to one that Andy McMillan (the Irish half of The Andys¹) tried to put together a couple years back². The difference being, I suppose, the capital you can bring immediately to your effort as CEO of Patreon vs a community-minded event organizer who moves from project to project. Regardless, Super Patron is probably something you should look at applying to. The odds are better than the lottery, and it doesn’t cost two bucks to enter.

When you’re done clicking over to try to get a chunk of that sweet, sweet grant money, there’s another website you should be clicking on, and this one will cost you some money — but no more than you can afford. The case of the Indie Comics Eleven continues to drag out, despite the fact that only three defendants remain attached to the bullshit lawsuit by a terrible person. As Hazel Newlevant tweeted today, they, Whit Taylor, and Morgan Pielli are down to less than US$3000 in their legal defense fund, and their lawyer costs about US$5000 per ten hours of work.

This, of course, was the entire purpose of the suit — the plaintiff³, suffering a case of butthurt in the first degree, brought an action whose only possible outcome is to be as expensive and time-consuming as possible to those he regards as his enemies, which also serves to prevent anybody in the future from crossing him lest they also end up bankrupted. If you thinks this bullshit lawsuit is, in fact, bullshit, consider contributing anything you can afford, and also call your representatives and Senators and tell them it’s well past time for there to be a federal anti-SLAPP statute.

Spam of the day:

How to choose your sexy Russian wife?

This sounds disturbingly like a buyer’s guide, which is just icky.

_______________
¹ Who, ironically enough, were tasked by Kickstarter with engineering a Patreon killer, but couldn’t make the math work sustainably.

² Disclaimer: I committed to making a significant cash contribution to McMillan’s foundation, should it ever launch. Signed a piece of paper and everything.

³ He doesn’t get named on my page, fuck that guy.

• Sasha Bassett is a PhD student at Portland State¹ specializing in gender, organizations, and pop culture. Know where you’re seeing a lot of intersection of those three things these days? Comics, which just happens to be a focus of Bassett’s interests. We’re bringing it all up today because of a recent tweet by Bassett on a study of who works in comics, and what their status as workers (for hire) vs creators (with ownership interest in their work) might be, along with a fun fact or two.

  Obviously, there’s a hell of a lot of detail behind those four graphics and the very top-level summary, which Bassett is happy to share with you. If you’re interested in the people reading comics as opposed to those making them, Bassett’s got you covered there, too (although the data are from 2016, as opposed to 2019 for the creator study). All in all, the rates of creators either neither owning what they work on or getting any kind of royalty explains Bassett’s use of the #UnionizeComics hashtag, which has some good info. Check it out, creators.

• Speaking of the need for unionization, which is to say, speaking of Kickstarter (and lots of you are, cf: The Very Sexy Brad Guigar and Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett on same), you’re starting to see projects launch with explicit acknowledgement re: the Kickstarter Union and taking their lead. Case in point, Evil Twin Howard Tayler, who couched the use of KS for his next Schlock Mercenary print project in terms of following the KU’s recommendation that creators not boycott at this time.

  And, since he launched said project earlier today, I’ll note that he has the same sentiment on the project page:

  We are aware of Kickstarter’s position with regard to unionization. We support the unionizers at Kickstarter United, and agree with them: boycotting Kickstarter will hurt all the wrong people. Please follow those links for complete statements, and the latest information.

  Tayler hedges a little, in that he doesn’t explicitly say that if the KU organizers call for a boycott during the campaign, that he’ll take it down (something I’m starting to see). Based on what he’s said publicly, I believe he would, but I also wouldn’t blame anybody that only held off starting new projects once a boycott got called rather than canceling existing ones. Tayler’s been in business long enough that I suspect he suspects what I suspect — that any action called by KU wouldn’t come until closer to a vote, most likely afterwards if Kickstarter slow-walked recognition or challenged results. But we’ll see. Now go and pledge so the guy can stop hitting F5 on his browser every coupla minutes.

• Finally, we have mentioned here at Fleen the fact that the ALA introduced a round table (their name for a working group that studies policy options and makes recommendations) for graphic novels and comics, which is one of the marks of legitimacy in the world of libraries². Via Heidi Mac’s joint, I see that the GNCRT is undertaking its first public-facing project. We’re a bit late on this — the ALA announced it four days ago, and the news made its ways into the comics press since then, and earlier today I noticed The Beat’s discussion:
  

  The group just announced the formation of a committee to oversee a Best Graphic Novels for Adults Reading List, which will launch in 2021.

  The inaugural list will highlight the best graphic novels for adults published in late 2019 and throughout 2020. According to a press release, the goal is to increase awareness of the medium, raise up diverse voices, and aid library staff in developing graphic novel collections.

  On the one hand, I’d note that there’s nobody checking IDs and keeping those over the age of 18 from reading YA or even Middle Grade comics. On the other hand, I get it — sometimes, you just want a protagonist that’s no longer in the throes of (pre-)puberty confusion. The committee will look at all graphic novels published from 1 Sept 2019 through the end of 2020, and release their list at ALA’s midwinter convention in early 2021; the committee will meet throughout the year to consider works as they’re released, and presumably they’ll move to a calendar-year eligibility schedule in future.

  Now here’s the part you should pay attention to:

  Nominations can be made by all members of the public, including committee members and ALA members though an online form that will be available in January 2020 on the GNCRT website.[emphasis mine]

  The wording of the press release made it seem like we, members of the public, could also participate in the committee, but a close reading indicates it will be made up of members of GNCRT, meaning ALA members. Ah, well — I will have to content myself with making nominations through the form once it opens up. Oh, and creators? Check this out:

  Publishers are welcome to submit copies of titles to the committee for review, though they are not eligible to nominate their own titles for consideration.

  I’m sure you can find a loyal reader of your stuff to put your title into nomination, and if you send a couple copies along so that it’s easier for the committee members to actually read your work? Librarians use these lists to develop their collections. There are an estimated 116,687 libraries in the United States, which should be motivation enough for you to keep an eye on this program.

  Oh, and in case you didn’t think to pay attention to the YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens (which has been going on for 15 years now), maybe you should get on that. I’m not sure anybody’s got an accurate metric on how many extra copies you should print of a title that makes the ALA lists (Spike, maybe? I’ll ask and get back to you), but I’d submit it’s the sort of problem you want to have.

Spam of the day:

Your account is listed as the recovery email for [redacted]

Nice try, lowlife. You almost made that email look like a legit security notification, but for two things: 1) the email company in question doesn’t ask me to click on links like you did, and b) you apparently think that an email address will use itself as the recovery address if something goes wrong. That doesn’t make sense! That requires more imagination than Perfect Ron Sipes talking about stumps.

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¹ Also an adjunct instructor at Williamette University, and if there’s one cohort whose general overwork and poverty exceeds that of grad students, it’s adjuncts. Respect.

² Given how important librarians have been to the adoption of graphic novels and comics over the past decade or so, I’m a little surprised it took until last year.