Readers will hopefully recall that one of the things that distinguishes Fleen from all other webcomics blogs of long standing is that we have a dedicated European reporting desk. He’s back with news of what’s going on upon the Atlantic’s eastern shores.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Let us catch up.

• Earlier this month, public French TV had a special report on Fric News (Fric being slang for money), in which¹ the reporters checked in with the crowdfunding platforms where a conspiracy-peddling documentary about Covid was able to get funding.

  While Ulule was apologetic, Tipeee was much less so, and that has led some YouTubers to reconsider their use of Tipeee, often moving (or encouraging their patrons to move) to uTip) instead. Webcartoonists have tended to follow YouTubers’ footsteps when joining Tipeee, will they do the same here? We’ll see.

• Speaking of Tipeee, Maliki’s translation of their comic on the matter certainly took some time, but still progressed faster than French justice. Did you note that background joke consisting of a Bisous du Panama (from Panama, with love) postcard? That was referring to Jacques Glénat, founder of the Glénat publishing house, more specifically his name appearing in the then recently revealed Panama Papers.

  Earlier this month, Jacques Glénat pled guilty to charges of tax evasion, and was sentenced to 18 months, fully suspended, as well as a 200,000€ fine, which is on top of seized 470,000€ assets. Boulet only commented: The wonderful world of publishing, episode 94493922.

• Speaking of Boulet, let us follow up on previous coverage): Natalie Nourigat let us know during the summer that she’d be moving to Paris in the end! We at the Fleen French news desk are proud to be in the same country as she now is, and look forward to seeing what she will come up with next and to seeing her more regularly in local conventions.
• Meanwhile, other French national treasure Kéké let us know he’d be going the other way: to Los Angeles to work in animation! Congratulations are in order; my only suggestion would be for him to read Natalie Nourigat’s guide on the matter of course, but also Comme Convenu …
• Finally, Team Maliki recently revealed why their (usual) summer hiatus was extending way beyond the end of August (which was less usual): they have a few projects going, including a big one. The mother is obviously going well, as after the fact she was proud to reveal she had received the vaccine while knowingly pregnant, at a time when recommendations were still in the air. Congratulations to the mother, to the other parent, to eldest Tiko, and to little Tanooki (my own term for them, since they don’t even have a pseudonym yet).

Stay tuned: normally our next report from France will cover Boulet’s first crowdfunding campaign.

As always, we at Fleen thank FSFCPL for his reportage. It’s always welcome and it’s good to get an idea of what’s happening beyond your own corner of the world. As a reminder, you can find all of his previous contributions here.

Spam of the day:

You do need a large number of affiliates to make things work. I was lucky to sign up 3 friends who put in USD$10,000 each and depending from their trade volume, I made an extra USD$1000 to $5000 per month PASSIVELY.

Aside from the redundancy of typing both USD and the $, you are literally describing a pyramid scheme. Go peddle your desperation somewhere else, when your digital god comes crashing down I will have no sympathy for you.

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¹ Among other coverage: the same report also had a segment about the Gateway Pundit and its monetization through Google ads, and I’m sure it’s sheer coincidence that Google demonetized that site mere days before that report aired.

[Editor’s note: I never before realized that when reading quickly, it’s very easy to see demonized in place of demonetized. Seems indicative of something but hell if I know what.]

Some bad DNS took the site down at the end of the week. We’re back, though, and thank you as always for joining us.

• Remote SPX took place over the weekend, and that means that the Ignatz Awards were handed out on Saturday night. The coveted bricks are surely winging their way towards the winners, who include Lee Lai for Stone Fruit (Outstanding Artist, Outstanding Graphic Novel), Glaeolia 2 (Best Anthology), Abby Howard for The Crossroads At Midnight (Outstanding Collection), Ashanti Fortson for Leaf Lace (Outstanding Comic),

  [inhale]

  Casey Nowak for Bodyseed (Outstanding Minicomic), Michael Deforge for Birds Of Maine (Outstanding Online Comic), Ex.Mag (Outstanding Series), Freddy Carasco for Personal Companion in Ex.Mag #1 (Outstanding Story), and Pa-Luis (Promising New Talent). Fleen congratulates all the winners, and we sincerely hope that they find a way to send the chocolate fountain on tour to all of you.

• Jorge Cham has been busy with TV work for a good while now, but every once in a while he drops some new PhD Comics on us, and that’s why RSS will never die. I get to see the new strips and you probably didn’t know they were even coming out! The latest is a really great explainer of how the SARS-CoV-2 virus works. Cham’s always great when he talks to people that are really, really deep into a thing and want to share everything they know.

  Thus, discussion about spike proteins, about maybe why the delta variant is so much more infectious, about the importance of basic research — by the time you figure out what the very important crisis topic is, it’s too late because you needed a body of experts with 20 years experience and you can’t spin that up overnight¹ — and the importance of truthful information getting out ahead of the bullshit. Cham’s always been a skilled public communicator of science and technology, and he’s doing good service here.

  Oh, and he has a book coming out, too. Frequently Asked Questions About The Universe will be, well, a discussion of questions on the cosmic scale, and a new team-up with Daniel Whiteson, his collaborator on We Have No Idea. Remember what I said about Cham being great at sci-com? Order FAQATU before it drops on 2 November.

Spam of the day:

I have dirt on you.
Now I know everything.
The price of my silence is 0.21 BTC,
transfer them to me by August 26 to this bitcoin wallet
bc1qw220sye4cxya05ahpuw9lwfu7acwql660h73tq
otherwise I’ll tell everyone.
And then you will feel very bad.

Firstly, congrats on coming up with a spam what slightly reminds me of plums and iceboxes, good job.

Secondly, looks like I blew your deadline by like three and a half weeks so I guess everybody knows my deal by now.

Thirdly, it would be a shame if people started to mess with that crypto wallet. Real shame.

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¹ Of all the myriad ways that Donald Trump fucked up the response to the pandemic, thinking that he could just hire a bunch of MD/PhDs and virologists and they’d be on the job next Monday was possibly the most egregiously stupid. This is your reminder that my thoughts on the coronavirus remain in effect.

Year after year, the most unique slate of comics awards nominees, the ones that you wouldn’t have ever heard of otherwise, is found at SPX and the Ignatzen. Small Press Expo will be virtual again this year, but that won’t keep the festival and the jury from finding the best work of the past year for attendees to vote on and award the coveted bricks. And it appears that the creators of one of the most-nominated works of the year won’t be allowed to receive the brick(s) if they win.

There’s anthologies by prisoners, plural, in the Outstanding Anthology category: A Queer Prisoner’s Anthology IV (edited by Casper Cendre) and Confined Before Covid: A Pandemic Anthology By LGBTQ Prisoners. The former is also nominated for Outstanding Series.

Other nominations that caught my eye include Ashanti Fortson for Leaf Lace and Lee Lai for Stone Fruit in Outstanding Artist, Abby Howard’s superlative The Crossroads At Midnight for Outstanding Collection (seriously, go follow that link for my thoughts on the book, it’s great), Maddi Gonzale’s Rhapsodie for Outstanding Comic (along with Leaf Lace again), Sloane Leong’s A Map To The Sun for Outstanding Graphic Novel (along with Stone Fruit again), and Whit Taylor’s Montana Diary for Outstanding Minicomic.

What these nominations have in common, what the Ignatz nominations have in common every year, is that there’s not weak work. Some of it may not be to your taste or mine, but it’s all clearly the work of people who spend a hell of a lot of time and effort thinking about how to make the best comics possible.

Nowhere is that more true that in Outstanding Online Comic, where it’s hard to find two nominees that look anything like each other. There’s Leaf Lace again, along with Michael DeForge’s very stylistic Birds Of Maine, Susannah Lohr’s very moody and spooky Shadows Become You, Alex Robinson’s absurdist joke stretched to the breaking point which only makes it more brilliant Mr Boop, and Shing Yin Khor’s meditation on identity, I Do Not Want To Write Today. They are united only by the fact that they appear online first, and that’s great.

Speaking of great, Khor has another of their very thoughtful, extremely beautiful comics up at Catapult today: Why I Love Airports. It’s entirely of a piece with all their other Catapult contributions, which is to say you’ll learn something about Khor and yourself after you’ve finished reading it obsessively for the third or fourth time. Even money it’ll be a nominee in the 2022 Ignatz Awards.

Since the festival is virtual again this year and physical ballots cannot be handed to Saturday attendees, they will be emailed tomorrow to everybody on the SPX email list. If you aren’t a subscriber to the email list, you can request a ballot here. Voting runs until 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, 12 September, with the awards presented via streaming on Saturday, 18 September, at 8:00pm EDT. Good luck to all the nominees.

Spam of the day:

A new and Revolution bra helping improve posture and relieve back pain.

Y’all really don’t get me, do you?

Mea culpa, y’all. The thing that is consuming my time is … hopefully limited in duration. I’d much rather be here for real, and not banging out sporadic quick updates but it’s what I can do for now.

Speaking of, good news for people that follow webcomics:

• Ryan North has announced a new book! He’s describing as the spiritual successor to How To Invent Everything, which is sounding good already. Check it:
  

  HOW TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain has:
  [splode emoj] real-life comic book schemes
  [test tube emoji] with actual science and technology
  [Earth emoji] across 9 viable world domination plots

  It drops Mar 15 2022: preorder now!
  https://bit.ly/RyanNorthBooks

  In a just world, I would have been discussing this work in progress with North at Comics Camp for the past two Aprils, but it is not a just world and I am learning of it the same as you. Those who know North also know there’s isn’t a malicious bone in his body and he is not actually a villain of any kind such as never-captured hijacker DB Cooper, so know that this book is entirely the product of his fertile imagination and not actually any kind of evil plot that you should be worried about. And the illustrations by everybody’s pal, Carly Monardo, should not be interpreted as giving away secret hints as to his nefarious plans. Not even a little.

• The National Cartoonists Society has announced their division awards for webcomics (long and short form), and there’s some familiar names there. As a reminder, I’m part of the committee that produces a voting ballot for the NCS, but the process is such that even I didn’t know the nominees until the public announcement¹, which you can read for yourself.

  The nominees for Online Comic — Long Form are Tom Parkinson-Morgan for Kill Six Billion Demons, Ariel Ries for Witchy, and Tom Siddell for Gunnerkrigg Court.

  The nominees for Online Comic – -Short Form are Mia Nie for Lone Shadow, Rosemary Mosco for Bird And Moon, and Nick Seluck for Heart And Brain.

  There’s not a weak nominee in the bunch and though I may have preferences, I’ll never tell. Fleen wishes good luck to all the nominees, and watch for the winners to be named at the (virtual) 75th Reuben Awards, 15 and 16 October, at NCSFest.com

Spam of the day:

Magic Pants

Unless you are talking about Icelandic necropants, not interested.

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¹ Which I gotta get somebody over there to tell me when they go up because I could have been talking about this weeks ago.

It’s Holemas, everybody, the most Ryan Northest day of the year, when we commemorate that time he got stuck in a hole so bad that it made the international news¹. The traditional Holemas Eve celebration calls for donuts (which have holes), generous slices of Swiss cheese (because holes) perched atop toasts of whole grain bread (which … aw, you get it), and plenty of beer, champagne, soda, or other carbonated beverages — because what are bubbles but mobile holes in a liquid medium?

Nothing. They’re nothing. Which is sort of what a hole is too, if you think about it.

Today is the sixth anniversary of North getting stuck in the hole; I’m not sure if that makes it the fifth or sixth Holemas, and I fear that in the future doctrinal arguments will call a schism among the faithful. Perhaps North can settle it for us and thus prevent bloodshed.

In the meantime, let us all celebrate the descent of North (and Chompsky) into the stygian depths of a hole, and the triumphant rise of North (and Chompsky) back the world above, the better to redeem us all. Don’t look at me that way; actual religions have been founded on stupider premises than a very funny, cool, tall, smart, handsome Canadian guy (and Chompsky) got stuck in a skate park bowl on a drizzly day until Twitter crowdsourced a text-adventure game solution. I for one welcome North’s lessons, that we may all find out way out of our respective holes, be they metaphorical or actual, Chompsky bless.

Spam of the day:
Can you believe that not one spam today mentions holes²? Disappointing.

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¹ I have seen a self-penned biography of North that includes that line. It will never fail to delight me.

² Probably some of the porn spams do, but they’re actually giving me a break for the past week or so.

And you know what? That’s probably for the best. I want to see and be up in the faces of and hug the shit out of all my comics friends¹ but I am entirely cool on the idea of cramming into a sea of humanity to be able to do it. It’s going to take a while to get to the point where I’d want to be in any mass gathering, and that’s not taking into account the fact that we, as a society, have apparently decided to surrender to a godsdamned plague that we were beginning to control because the smallest actions to protect ourselves and others are too much to expect from a freedom-loving people.

I hate those people. They have been trying to get me killed for the past year and a half. I have to treat them when they call 911 and I dearly wish they had decided that the way to show us all that COVID was fake would be to tattoo DNR and I REFUSE ALL TREATMENT on their foreheads.

Where was I? Oh yes, conventions.

So late summer is one of the cooler smallish conventions on the yearly calendar, and although they’re held in New York City, which is requiring proof of vaccination for indoor activities, they’ve decided the responsible thing to do is to punt again this year² and stay virtual. I speak, naturally, of Flame Con, which focuses on queer comics, creators, and readers. Flame Con will take place this weekend, Saturday, 21 August to Sunday, 22 August, from noon to 5:00pm EDT.

As editor extraordinaire (and occasional official Voice Of Popeye) Tea Fougner reminds us, programming is now publicly available:

We’ve got a great lineup of panels on activism and fan involvement in activism, some fun podcasts and performances, screenings of queer entertainment, awesome conversations about gaming communities, and panels from people creating queer content in the comics and SFF world!

Also noting that while virtual FC is free to visit, you can buy tickets to get stuff while simultaneously keeping Flame Con financially viable to conduct in person next year. Zoom backgrounds, stickers, pins, show badges, and more are up for grabs. If you’ve been to FC in the past or want to go in the future, now’s the time to give them a little love.

And for the sake of whatever you find holy, get the damn shot.

Spam of the day:

Our Medical-Grade Toenail Clippers is the safest and especially recommended for those with troubles with winding nails, hard nails, two nails, nail cracks, deep nails, thickened nails etc..

What.

_______________
¹ Who are smart, wonderful people and definitely vaccinated.

² Quoting from the homepage:

While some states are beginning to reopen and expanding public capacities, this does not change the fact that COVID-19 is still a part of our lives. Flame Con has always aimed to be an inclusive and safe space for all. We wouldn’t be living up to that commitment, if we did not carefully consider how the pandemic has impacted our community — especially the most marginalized amongst us. Our first priority is ensuring your safety and well being.

So, we look forward to seeing you online this summer and in-person at Flame Con in August 2022!

They are absolutely correct.

And, as much as it pains me to say it, it looks like Jerry was right. Not that Ryan Estrada can’t win an Eisner, mind you, just that he didn’t this time around and when your competition in the category is Adrian Tomine, that’s not such a hard loss¹.

If you want to watch the ceremony, it’s here, and if you want to just read down the list of winners, you can find that here.

Surprisingly absolutely zero people, Gene Luen Yang was the big winner, taking two Eisners for the collected edition of Superman Smashes The Klan (Best Publication For Kids (Ages 9-12), Best Adaptation From Another Medium), and one for Dragon Hoops (Best Publication For Teens (Ages 13-17)). Dragon Hoops was also nominated for Best Writer/Artist and Best Reality Based Work but you know what? Dude’s mantelpiece was crowded before last Friday night, no need to bounce the rubble.

Other web/indy comics folk that came away with spinny globes include Ben Passmore for Sports Is Hell (Best Single Issue), Jillian Tamaki for Our Little Kitchen (Best Publication for Early Readers (Up To Age 8)), Derf Backderf for Kent State: Four Dead In Ohio (Best Reality Based Work), Simon Hanselmann for Seeds And Stems (Best Graphic Album — Reprint) and also Crisis Zone (Best Webcomic).

Congratulations to all the winners, and if Fleen faves like Ryan North, Ngozi Ukazu, and Lily Williams didn’t come up winners, you just have to look at who they were competing against (Yang, Yang, and Yang, respectively).

Spam of the day:

I came across your site fleen.com and was wondering if you’d be interested in us promoting your blog posts / articles, over Twitter? If you aren’t interested, don’t reply, just throw this in the bin :-)

Done. That was easy.

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¹ And what the heck — they made up and are buds now.

Hey folks, a quick note before we get started. Something’s come up in my life that is going to be taking a lot of mental cycles for a while. I’m going to likely be a bit less verbose than normal until it gets worked out. Nothing bad, just … big. Thanks for your understanding.

• Comic-Con@Home, as Comic-Con@Home is kicking off, and also the annual Cartoon Art Museum fundraiser sketchathon. Hit the link to check out participating artists and decide who you want to get a sketch from. Funds benefit CAM.
• Via Ryan Estrada’s twitterfeed, news that Cartoon Crossroads Columbus is searching for a new executive director, a job admirably filled on an interim basis by Jerzy Drozd, who had to deal with the twin challenges of picking up from Tom Spurgeon’s untimely death, and a worldwide pandemic. Drozd did all that could be expected in those circumstances and more, and now a new, permanent ED will take over. Could be you; if it is, do The Spurge proud.

Spam of the day:

Dive into the ocean and your swimshorts suddenly change color! These swimshorts ara AMAZING!

The ocean? You mean where fish poop? No thank you.

Well here we are, about three weeks into July, and San Diego Comic Con is again not happening in person. Given what was known back in the spring when CCI organizers needed to make a call, it was the right decision. Given what is happening now with more contagious variants of COVID spreading like wildfire among the unvaccinated¹, it’s a damn good thing they made the decision that they made. So it’s online for SDCC again, with a full list of participating exhibitors (whatever that means; it wasn’t too clearly defined last year) releasing on Thursday, to coincide with the first full day of programming.

Speaking of, let’s look at what’s coming to a video stream near you. Like last year, these panels appear to have been entirely pre-recorded and will premiere at the date/time given (all times PDT). Also, I’ll note that thing appear bit sparser than last year², in that a slate of in-person programming was well in development by the time lockdowns started; looks like they just started with less this year.

Thursday

Teaching And Learning With Comics
3:00pm — 4:00pm
Not just another panel on the educational potential of comics, but a panel on the educational potential of comics featuring Kelly Sue Deconnick and Matt Fraction, which ought to be real good. Joining them in the discussion will be Peter Carlson (Green Dot Public Schools), Susan Kirtley (Portland State University), and Antero Garcia (Stanford University).

Friday
ComiXology Presents The 33rd Annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards
7:00pm–9:00pm
Last year, as I recall, it was just about an hour start to finish on the prerecorded announcement of winners. Certainly nobody’s agitating for a return to four-plus hour marathons, but two hours seems like it could allow things to breathe a little better. Phil Lamarr returns for hosting duties, along with Sergio Aragonés presenting this year’s Hall of Fame inductees.

Saturday

Launching Your First Kickstarter
11:00am — noon
Seems like something called almost exactly this is on deck every year, and weirdly it never features the same folks twice. This one gets props for including Kickstarter’s director of comics outreach, Oriana Leckert, and some prominent cartoonists who’ve used Kickstarter of late: Tina Horn, Eric Powell, Afua Richardson, and the irreplaceable Jeff Smith, along with the director of brand, editorial (not 100% sure what that means) for Skybound Entertainment, Arune Singh.

Keenspot Turns 21! Ninjas & Robots–Junior High Horrors–The D Ward Spotlight
1:00pm — 2:00pm
This is how you know it’s a weird year. Keenspot always gets programmed late in the day on Sunday, almost at the very end of SDCC, but this year they’re in the middle of Saturday. Weird. Anyway, it’s still Keenspot, probably not going to look very different from the previous 20 iterations.

First You March—Then You Run-Celebrating Congressman John Lewis’ Legacy
4:00pm — 5:00pm
It’s been a year since we lost John Lewis, and six years since he cosplayed as his younger self and led a march of young folks at the San Diego Convention Center; you can’t get a costume more authentic than the same damn coat you wore when you were nearly beaten to death on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday for the audacity of wanting to vote.

Of course, Congressman Lewis’s March trilogy is a masterpiece and though he has left us, he and his collaborators were well into the creation of the sequel: Run, which starts the story of Lewis’s quest for elected office. Author (and onetime Lewis legislative aide) Andrew Aydin and co-illustrator L Fury will be joined by Lewis’s nephew, LA County firefighter Anthony Dixon, moderated by professor Qiana Whitted.

Given everything that’s going on in the country today, this is probably the most important panel of the weekend. Tune in, and then call every elected official that depends on your vote and demand that they spend as much time and effort as necessary to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Sunday

Comics Made Me Who I Am Today: Kids Graphic Novelists and Their Influences
11:00am — noon
Ooooh, there’s some good folks on this one: Nidhi Chanani (whose newest graphic novel, Jukebox, will be getting a review here soon), Jerry Craft, Betsy Peterschmidt, Dana Simpson, and Judd Winick (Hilo) in discussion with Cartoon Art museum curator Andrew Farago. Bet there’s a lot of happiness in this one.

The Adventure Zone And Bubble: Podcasts To Comics
noon — 1:00pm
Yeah, yeah, McElroys, got it. Bubble was a wickedly smart podcast, and the bits of the graphic novel adaptation I’ve seen — with art by the stellar Tony Cliff — hint at a really good adaptation. Not a straight copy but telling the story in the way best suited to a different medium. Cliff will be there along with Bubble creator Jordan Morris and adapter Sarah Morgan; from the TAZ side you’ve got Travis and Griffin McElroy and illustrator Carey Pietsch (it’s been a delight watching her grow on the series), and they’re all wrangled by Alison Wilgus, who edited both projects and thus maybe knows more about adapting podcasts to graphic novels than anybody else.

Comic-Con@Home is listed as running 23-25 July, and that’s when they have pretty full days of programming, but there’s actually panels as early as Wednesday the 21st. See the programming page for more info.

Spam of the day:

We have a surprise for Netflix Customers You’re on our List You have been selected to participate Response Needed Notice: Wholesale Survey Offer expiring soon! You have been selected to get an exclusive reward! To qualify for this special offer , simply complete our 30-second marketing survey about your shopping experiences.

I don’t have a Netflix account and there’s no way in hell I’m clicking your thing.

_______________
¹ Making up something like 99% of the current infections, and closer to 99.6% of serious illness/hospitalizations. I was almost used to taking patients to the ED and not seeing signs about which rooms were subject to special isolation precautions, and now they’re popping up again — and I’m in a state with a pretty high rate of total population vaccinated, an even higher rate of 12-and-up vaccinated, and pushing 90% of seniors vaccinated. We’re not taking in the very elderly for COVID any more; it’s people in their 30s and 40s who are otherwise healthy. Get your godsdamned shots, people.

² Want to know how I know it’s a different process? The long-runnning and much beloved Best & Worst Manga panel is missing! Maybe somebody decided it just doesn’t work without a live audience of howler monkeys with opinions (it totally works without them).

The world is slowly returning to in-person experiences; granted, the word world is doing some heavy lifting there, as COVID-19 decides to create new waves in various parts of the world. Some have not yet had the chance to vaccinate, and others steadfastly refuse to do so, which is an idiocy I will never understand. As long as I live, that will never make any godsdamned sense.

But in places where it’s safe¹, comics fans are again gathering. Or, in the case of Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, bandes dessinées fans. Here, then, is his report from this year’s Lyon BD festival.

As ever, we at Fleen thank FSFCPL for his endeavours on behalf of our readers. He’s a good dude.

Spam of the day:

Mining farm for Chia coin

Unless the farming results in a coin base upon which grows actual Chiapet style chia, not interested.

_______________
¹ And, tragically, many places where it is not — looking at you, Missouri. When you’re done with your little muh freedom temper tantrum and your healthcare professionals are so traumatized at how you chose to abuse them that they leave and never return, I am going to be hard pressed to have sympathy. On behalf of my colleagues, fuck you.

² I believe that FSFCPL is here using gross in the English sense of disgusting rather than the French sense of large, although honestly it works either way. — Ed.