Hey, how are you? I’m doing okay, just trying to keep up with everything that’s going on these days, and a couple things jumped out. Unsurprisingly, they’re at two of the focal points for the study of comics in this country, and I doubt you’ll find either of them surprising. They’re taking somewhat opposing tacks on the whole downslope of the pandemic (if downslope it be — get your vaccine and then stay the hell home until a lot more people have their vaccine, too), and I’ll let you decide which is closer to the right of it.

• In the great heartland, you’ve got the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State (pardon me, the Ohio State), who have a whole slate of virtual events going on right now. The one that caught my eye features Mari Naomi (they of the queer, disabled, and of color cartoonist databases), to be featured in conversation with the Billy’s Associate Curator, Caitlin McGurk, as part of the ongoing efforts of Art+Feminism to close the information gap around gender, feminism, and the arts.

  The program will run 22 March from 2:00pm to 3:00pm on Zoom, and requires advanced registration. Naomi’s appearance is part of Art+Feminism’s 2021 Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, the Billy’s contribution to which will take place on 24 March from noon to 4:00pm (all times EDT). The live Zoom session again requires pre-registration. Both sessions allow for accommodations (like like captioning or interpretation), but you have to email libevents, which can be found at the Ohio State University, which is a dot-edu; for best results, email at least a week before the event.

  Oh, and if you happen to actually be in Columbus, Ohio, we’ve previously noted that the Billy is open for extremely limited visits — essentially, getting into the library (weekdays only) or museum (weekends only) is by appointment only, and will remain so for the duration.

• By contrast, this past weekend our friends at the Cartoon Art Musuem in San Francisco have reopened to the public, albeit with some controls:
  

  The Cartoon Art Museum will be open every Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 5pm starting immediately, with plans to build toward our full six-days-a-week schedule in 2021 in full compliance with the safety guidelines established by the city of San Francisco and the State of California.

  Masks or face coverings are mandatory for all visitors, who will be required to maintain social distance from other parties visiting the museum. Occupancy will be limited to 25% capacity for the safety of our visitors and staff.

  That from the email they sent to me; the full safety plan is here and includes capacity controls (no more than 33 folks on the premises, including staff), spaced entry (10 minutes between groups and no more than 11 people in any gallery), closure of interactive features, and reduced contact in the store¹. Oh, yes, and mandatory masking and distancing requirements because you’d be surprised how many people need to be told.

  Given that San Francisco is a hub for travel, given that we haven’t really gotten transmission rates down anywhere in the country yet, given that people are idiots, I’d personally have held off for another month or two before making this decision², but I’m not the one looking at the income statements and determining what keeps CAM as a going concern, so I’m not going to second-guess them.

  I’m also not going to be hanging out inside anyplace longer than it takes me to gather a to-go order anytime soon, and absolutely not going anywhere where people aren’t masked³ even though I’m a full month past shot #2 at this point. Rushing back to no controls is what’s going to give us Wave Number Three, and I won’t have any of those folks on my conscience.

Okay, that’s it for today. Just … stay home for a little longer, keep masking and distancing and washing your hands. If we’d done that a year ago (and demanded meaningful quarantine for arriving travellers), we’d be New Zealand by now.

Spam of the day:

Rapid Covid-19 Test Kits – Buy-Rapid-Tests

Oh yes, I am entirely going to trust my life to something sold by a sketchy parasitoid like you, “Graham”. Die in the most ironic manner possible, and in your last moments realize that it was your own hubris that brought about your demise.

_______________
¹ Okay, you know how serious I take all of this, but they might be going a little overboard on this part. Stock handled in the store won’t be re-shelved for 24 hours, if you bring your own bag you can’t put it on the counter, thorough surface cleanings, and suchlike. We’ve known for a good while now that fomites aren’t a significant risk with COVID, but you know what? Not my museum and if you’re going to let people in, they’re erring on the side of caution.

² And if you’re going to be open two days a week, I’d probably have made it one weekend day, one midweek day, with a thorough airing-out in between. Aerosol concentration is the name of the game.

³ So basically, Texas.

It is today, roughly, 350 days since New Jersey went into lockdown. Today is, roughly, the 366th day of March, 2020, the Fimbulmarch, which will run for another two years and then end in Ragnarökövid. As far as unending tedium and hiding in the house venturing out in the killer environment only in times of great need to obtain sustenance goes, it could be worse. I mean, there’s lots to binge on streaming at least.

And, this being the nominal first week of the neverending month, there’s some [web]comics events you might want to keep an eye on.

• Know who’s awesome? Gale Galligan, who had one of the biggest how do I follow that opening act? high-wire travails ever, taking over the Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel adaptations from Raina Telgemeier and all¹. She’s working on her own original graphic novel now, as well as another project that finished around March 240th that was a little bit more important, all of which are wonderful. She’s also been to Bunny Island and survived.

  Know who else is awesome? Ngozi Ukazu, who had a very big couple of years before and during the Inifinte March, what with the release of the :01 Books collected editions of Check, Please!, which are just delightful². She’s been working on her next project, as well as dropping some primo cartoons into The New Yorker and the Tweet Machine.

  Know what’s particularly awesome? Galligan and Ukazu are both serious about promoting the interests and skills of younger cartoonist, those who will someday be their peers. Galligan’s been mentoring since the Before Times, and the pair of them joined forces to promote transparency into page rates. And they’re teaming up again to offer two free workshops on comic making:

  COMICS WORKSHOPS!
  Howdy! @robochai and I are offering two workshops covering fundamentals for comic making. Workshops are free, but space is limited. Apply by 3/5!
  forms.gle/Xaqc6zjTWjuSv9…

  That link will take you to the Google Form to sign up; the two workshops are on Perspective (Saturday, 20 March at noon EST) and Coloring (Satruday, 27 March at noon EST), with connection info presumably sent to registrants.

• For those looking for happenings between now and Sunday, let this be your reminder that the first week of March is Read AGraphic Novel Week/Will Eisner Week; the ongoing pandemic means there’s less in-person going on than prior years, but that hasn’t stopped the Cartoon Art Museum from organizing a graphic novel read-athon as fundraiser (helping to offset the loss of income from the whole no visitors in lockdown thing). You can sign up via the CAM 99 Pledges page, to support those reading, or to add your eyeballs to the -athon’s effort.

Okay, that’s what’s going on now. We’ll try to keep an eye on what’s happening — and what’s not — in The March That Never Ends. Case in point: it was announced today that WonderCon will be online-only (26/27 March) and San Diego Comic-Con is delaying again until July 2022, with a supplemental 3-day in-person event in November (all details pending as of now).

It’s actually an open question how much society might be back to accessible by summer, but kudos to the showrunners for injecting a little certainty instead of delaying decisions. It’s not a fun decision, but it’s probably the only right one at this time.

Spam of the day:

Elon Musk says he’s a supporter of bitcoin and thinks it will get ‘broad acceptance’ in finance & Bitcoin Rally Takes Crypto Market Value to New Record

Since Tesla announced it had bought a position in Bitcoin on 8 February, their stock has declined by 16.8%, and Bitcoin is down 2.4% (or, more impressively, down 23.1% since their high eight days ago). Your entire contention that I should give you money to put into their two financial vehicles is … misguided.

_______________
¹ In turn, handing the series over to Gabriela Epstein, and now to Chan Chau.

² Reminder: the fourth self-published book is coming, sometime before the end of Evermarch.

We are deep in the winter doldrums. Wait, can you get doldrums in winter? Not talking about the mood, there’s an actual historical term that I think is season-specific? Lemme check …

Huh, what do you know? It’s geographic, not temporal, and derived from nautical lore. I bet if I’d paid better attention to some past conversation with Lucy Bellwood, I would have known that. Anyhoo, let’s pull you out of the doldrums with some upcoming [web]comics stuff and events.

• Hey, do you like saving money? Sure, we all do! And do you like porn? Like I need to ask. Now you can save money while grabbing yourself some promo erotica from the fine smut merchants at Iron Circus:
  

  Holy heck, Valentine’s Day is on its way! Let’s celebrate!
  All erotica, in all formats (hardcover, softcover, and ebook), is now 25% off in the Iron Circus shop! C’mon and grab yourself something nice! [emphasis original]

  That’s until February 14, naturally. Have some fun by yourself, with your favorite other person, or maybe the group of folks that you find enticing and exciting. It’s all good.

• The uncertainties of COVID will still be here when you’ve had, uh, sufficient time with all that smut, and we’re still a long ways from having in-person comics events. Not to worry, though, as the Cartoon Art Museum will be bringing you a free streaming event on 18 February (that would be Thursday of next week):
  

  The Cartoon Art Museum and Netflix present animation legend Glen Keane (Oscar-winning director of Dear Basketball) in conversation with director Robert Kondo (The Dam Keeper, Tonko House) as they discuss Keane’s storied animation career and his latest feature film, the Netflix/Pearl Studio production Over The Moon. This discussion will be followed by a brief Q&A session with our live audience.

  You can catch the convo starting at 4:00pm PST, free thanks to Netflix’s sponsorship, but you will have to register in advance — see the Zoom event page to do that.

• And a week later, (that would be Thursday, 25 February), CXC and The Billy are bringing you another free streaming event, this one at 6:00pm EST. MS Harkness (Desperate Pleasures, Tinderella) will be talking about creating autobio comics:
  

  This presentation will focus on how MS Harkness adapts and structures real life moments and memories, including difficult histories, into her work. This presentation may contain discussion of sensitive topics that are not appropriate for all ages.

  This event is presented in conjunction with the exhibit Ladies First: A Century Of Women’s Innovations in Comics and Cartoon Art, currently on display at The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

  This is a free live webinar that will also be simulcast on CXC’s YouTube ) and Twitch channels. You can register via the CXC Zoom site.

Spam of the day:

I’m inviting you to take up my free sales letter template. As a thank you for taking up my invitation I will give you a completely free no strings attached fill in the blanks professional sales letter template. Just go to [nope].com now.

I think I got your fill in the blanks sales letter template already, Jay. You sent it to me with the blanks filled in.

Yeah, hi, typing this around trying to get to my appointment for a COVID vaccine. Sorry it if goes up late (not sorry)

• Fans of BACK have been watching KC Green and Anthony Clark’s weird, oddly heartfelt drama about an undead cowgirl, an innocent druid, and the end of the world, barreling towards a conclusion, and then at the end of December a hiatus was announced — Give us a couple of weeks to get the end of the story all lined up, they said, we really want to stick the landing. Given that a weekly update is typically two or more pages full of creative mayhem, Clark and Green are entitled to as much time as they need to get it all set. But how long before BACK was back?

  As of yesterday’s update, we have an answer:

  BACK
  THE EPILOGUE
  will begin Feb 17th 2021
  regular updates will
  occur until it’s over.
  Every Wednesday

  Hooray!

• In case you were wondering, TCAF has announced that 2021 will be virtual, but being freed of a physical time/place, they’ve expanded out to a full week of programming. Want in? The time to apply is until 3 March, and you can do so here, but note:
  

  TCAF’s new exhibition website is being made in partnership with Canzine (the festival of zines) and the Toronto Hand Eye Society. Zinesters and indie video game creators will be among the 600 virtual exhibitors in May!

  Applicants will have the choice to apply for TCAF, Canzine OR Comics x Games. Accepted exhibitors will have a customizable online shop page where they can upload up to 5 items for sale. After TCAF, exhibitors will send all sold items to a warehouse, where orders will be bundled and shipped off to shoppers. This process is to help save exhibitors and visitors excess transaction and shipping fees. Options will be available to see additional products.

  That sounds an awful lot like what I was wondering if SDCC would do for its exhibitors last year. Interesting that the free festival managed to pull it off and not the massive nonprofit corporation.

• Hey, remember when it looked like the UK VAT was going to screw over absolutely everybody selling low value items into Great Britain and Northern Ireland? As a guy who has customers in the UK, Brad Guigar¹ looked into the situation and found out that Her Majesty’s tax folks have set a fairly high bar for the outside-the-UK vendors to clear before they become responsible for collecting.

  Unless you’re selling more than £85,000 per year to UK customers, you don’t have to make the arrangements (the privilege for registering to collect and remit VAT was reported to be £1000+ per year, so whew, lucky break). Your customers will have to pay VAT at a 20% rate for goods up to £135, but it’s not on you to manage what they do. Full details behind the paywall at Webcomics Dot Com.

Spam of the day:
Yeah, nah, my arm’s starting to hurt already. Time to hydrate and take it easy, tomorrow’s maybe gonna be rough.

_______________
¹ He is a sexy, sexy man. Total DILF material.

There were originally going to be more words in today’s post, but I’ve had to clear snow twice so far — 40 cm and counting of snowfall will do that — and will likely have to do so twice more again before it’s done. So you get some pointers and the assurance that I had many clever words on deck in my brain that just won’t come out now.

As you may have gathered from the title, our common thread today is new work from Matt Lubchansky — cartoonist, associate editor at The Nib, and international bon vivant — who was most recently mentioned on this page in association with their new original graphic novel¹ ’bout two weeks back. As well as being a prolific cartoonist in their own right, Lubchansky is also works with other comickers (web and otherwise) on group efforts and anthologies. Let’s see what’s on deck:

• Firstly, Lubchansky is one of a dozen artists that are pairing up with journalist and podcast host Rose Eveleth (Flash Forward) on a new graphic novel about ways to imagine our future(s). Flash Forward: An Illustrated Guide To Possible (And Not So Possible) Tomorrows will contain a myriad of subjects, each expanded from interviews with experts, about what’s possible and what probably won’t be (which makes it sound similar to Soonish but with more illustrations from more people).

  Along with Eveleth’s words, pictures will be supplied by Lubchansky, Blue Delliquanti², Box Brown, Ben Passmore, Sophie Goldstein, Julia Gfröer, John Jennings, and more. Five more, by my count. Flash Forward releases on 30 March, is nearly 300 pages long, and is available for pre-orders now.

• Just in case you haven’t gotten enough Lubchansky — and honestly, how could you? — they’re going to be doing a panel discussion with the other editors at The Nib this Thursday, 4 February:
  

  Extremely exciting news: I/@kellywritershse get to host some awesome @thenib editors in conversation on Feb. 4 at 6pm ET

  The panel features ~ @MattBors @Lubchansky@WhitTaylorComix and @elerimai ~!

  You can watch live on Youtube.

  That from writer/cartoonist Alli Katz, with additional event details at Facebook. In case you didn’t recognize the other names in the announcement, that was Editor/Publisher Matt Bors, Features Editor Eleri Harris, and Contributing Editor Whit Taylor.

Spam of the day:

TruGreen lawn services We know you take pride in your lawn.

My lawn is a morass of divots thrown up by greyhound zoomies, and is currently buried under knee-deep snow. You’re high if you think pride comes within a half kilometer of this benighted patch of grass.

_______________
¹ Pre-orders still open!

² Who would like you to know that the events in their signature work, O Human Star, start in-story on 2 Feb 2021. Starting tomorrow, Delliquanti will be re-running OHS on their social media pages, one page per day, with commentary. Dive in if you haven’t previously.

Find little bits to center yourself when things feel overwhelming. Got some of them for you today, one of which will explicitly provide coaching to shed those stressors because I’m a giver.

• I’m not even sure when I first read The Perry Bible Fellowship, to be honest. I think it was probably sometime around Skub, with Nicholas Gurewitch’s severely random absurdities mostly lurking in the back of my mind until Weeaboo embedded itself in the lingo — something that not many of us can claim to have done — which was before this blog had even launched. But here we are, 20 years on, and Gurewitch is still cranking out new comics.

  What’s that? You didn’t realize that there were new PBF comics, tied to the 20th anniversary and not linked to/from the archives? Well, well, well, looks like somebody’s adherence to unfairly-disregarded technologies like RSS finally paid off! Because if you were subscribed to the PBF’s RSS feed, then you would have received links to two new comics on Sunday and Monday, both collaborations (with Twistwood and Extra Fabulous, respectively).

  Will there be more? Will the Part 1 bit in the title of that first comic portend more to the story? Maybe! Gurewitch works in mysterious ways, and we would do well to pay attention.

• Hey, are you looking for good comics, and have a few bucks to put towards the purchase of said good comics? And are you the sort of person who is generally patient (say, in waiting for a Kickstarter campaign to complete), but also decisive (on account of a limited number of rewards going quickly will require you to make a commitment quickly)? And, maybe most importantly, do you love doggos?

  Then allow me to point out that Haley Boros is back for the second January in a row with a Kickstarted comic about her three-legged dog Rusty’s fantasy adventures, only this time Rusty is joined by her new good dog, Ginger. Three Legged Tales: The Good Knight is a Make 100 project, with strict limits on the physical rewards, of which a fair number have already been claimed. The campaign launched earlier today and is just over 50% of the way to goal, so there’s still time, but don’t sleep on it. The doggos will never forgive you if you sleep on it.

  Just kidding, of course they’ll forgive you. The doggos love you.

• One of these days when I have an operating time machine, I will of course go back in time to see what the dinosaurs looked like¹, and definitely to check out how awesome the pterosaurs were — I want to see these flying giraffes in action. But after I got back from the Jurassic and Cretaceous, I would definitely stop by springtime, 2013 and let Erika Moen & Matthew Nolan know that their new sex toy review comic would end up, in between reviews of fuck couches and butt toys, as a vehicle for solid mental health information.

  I am specifically noting today’s Oh Joy, Sex Toy which — superficially, at least — appears to have nothing to do with sex. The Stress-Response cycle isn’t about gettin’ it on, it isn’t about making hot dudes kiss, but it is about the health of your most important sex organ — your brain.

  Moen has been really open about her mental health challenges in the past, but this is more than her typical here is what I’ve gone through maybe you can recognize yourself in it, too; instead, it’s a discussion of here is something that we all go through (because we’re hardwired to do so and that hardwiring isn’t doing us any favors) so here’s how to improve your coping skills, and I urge you to stop whatever you’re doing right now² and go read it.

  Then go pick up a copy of the book it’s synopsized from, Burnout: The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle by Emily (PhD) and Amelia (DMA) Nagoski, available wherever you find books. Disclaimer: I am personally acquainted with Emily Nagoski³ and have always found her to be super smart; unsurprisingly, when teamed up with her twin sister, the pairing is even super smarter. Anyway, to bring it back to comics, drop some thanks to Nolan and Moen for being such generous advocates for mental health, even when it doesn’t seem to have a sexy angle — if you want to get it on, you have to get your head on right first, yeah? Yeah.

Spam of the day:

Message for: fleen.com, Owner/CEO or Marketing Department

Got some bad news for you, buddy. We’re an autonomous collective, or possibly an anarcho-syndicalist commune, consisting of me. I spend a lot of time in meetings arguing with myself over points of procedure.

_______________
¹ I believe that if R Stevens had written that strip today, it would have referenced not just the color of the dinosaurs, but also the feathers, and possibly the chonkiness.

² Uh, readin’ your blog, Gary. Duh.

³ Who just so happens to be romantically euphemistic with R Stevens from two footnotes up. There are no coincidences in life.

For anybody that pays attention to Young Adult and Middle Grade books (and gosh, can you pay attention to [web]comics and not pay attention to YA and MG?), there was a lot of chatter in your social media feeds, as the American Library Association Midwinter meeting is where the awards for the best of media for youth are presented. The most prestigious awards are the Newbery Medal (for most outstanding contribution to children’s literature) and the Caldecott Medal (for the most distinguished American picture book for children), but there are a whole swathe of what are properly termed the Youth Media Awards, including the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature, Sydney Taylor Book Award (for books and teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience) and the American Indian Youth Literature Award (awarded in even-numbered years).

And anybody that reads this page knows that comics have been making deep inroads into the realm of literary awards, and the YMAs are no exception. We’ll start with Michaela Goade’s Caldecott for her work illustrating We Are Water Protectors (words by Carole Lindstrom) — a book that’s already been recognized with the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, is a Kirkus Prize finalist, and was listed as a best book of the year for the New York Public Library, School Library Journal, NPR, and Publishers Weekly¹. It’s been my pleasure to know Goade (how many times do I have to tell you how much Comics Camp enriches lives?) and to become familiar with her work, and I cannot think of a more deserved recognition.

But let us note that other [web]comics folk are all over the YMA categories, and I recognize that I’ve probably missed some here and there — Gene Yang’s absolutely stellar Dragon Hoops is Printz Honor Book², Displacement by Kiku Hughes was an APALA Honor Book³. I also noticed Kent State: Four Dead In Ohio by Derf Backderf as one the recipients of the Alex Awards, which are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults.

I would be remiss not to note that multiple wins by All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team, which is one of five Newbery Honor books, one of three Sibert⁴ Honor books, and a finalist for the YALSA Award For Excellence In Nonfiction. The full list of winners and honorees can be found here [PDF], and you can find the full presentation for replay here [A/V]. Fleen congratulates all the winners, but reserves the right to give Goade the biggest high-five the next time we see her.

In other news of good work:

• Julia Kaye would like you know that her second book, My Life In Transition, a collection of her autobio comics (a sampling of which can be found here) is about to release. It’ll be nearly 200 pages of comics goodness, go for US$14.99, and will be out on 16 February, so get your pre-orders in now, if you please.
• If you read Skin Horse — and if you don’t, why the hell don’t you? — you could tell that the story is building up to a finish. It’s been thirteen years since I recommended you read it from the very first strip, and rarely have I been so correct; but all good things come to an end, and yesterday Shaenon Garrity⁵ and Jeffrey C Wells⁶ made it official that the wrap-up is coming this year.

  Ish.

  Maybe.

  It’s flexible.

  Look, the story is gonna go where it’s gonna go, plus Wells has to figure out where to shoehorn my ass into the narrative on account of I splurged for one of the We Write You Into The Comic tiers on their latest book-kicker because I think I knew this might be my last chance. The story has taken wide digressions and loops from its original plans — go back through the archives, hit all the Sunday process strips, and see how many times Garrity and Wells say This started off as something completely different or We just couldn’t work this in so we dropped it over the past baker’s dozen of years — while still remaining true to the vision that was there from the beginning⁷.

  And having tortured the English language to the breaking point in that last sentence, I’ll just remind you — it’s never to late to do an archive trawl and get in on a great story. Join us now, so we can all be weepy together later when it’s done.

Spam of the day:

Hey, I just opened a hydroponic hemp farm here in Miami, Florida. It’s the first of it’s kind of this size. I was wondering if you would be interested in writing an article about our farm to help us or if you offer paid advertisement articles on your website?

Hey, Box? I think this is yours and came to me by accident.

_______________
¹ It’s not hard to imagine that if it were an even-numbered year, We Are Water Keepers may have taken the American Indian Youth Literature Award for the very best writing and illustrations by and about Native Americans and Indigenous peoples of North America. Lindstrom (a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe) and Goade (a member of the Tlingit and Haida peoples of Alaska) drew on their own traditions, and those of the original peoples from across the continent.

² The Michael L Printz Award recognizes the best book written for teens strictly on literary merit; the award went to Everything Sad Is Untrue (a true story), and Dragon Hoops was one of four additional honorees.

³ The sole honoree alongside winner This Light Between Us in the Youth Literature category. I never did get a review of Displacement written as it fell during a personally bad time last year, but it’s a hell of a good account of generational trauma and memory set against the crime perpetrated against Japanese-Americans in World War II.

⁴ Given to the authors(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book published in the United States in English.

⁵ Mistress of Funk and Tiki, and Nexus Of All Webcomics Realities, Greater San Andreas Fault Regional Division.

⁶ A sharp writer in a flat cap who keeps a pretty low profile, actually.

⁷ Makeouts and animals in hats. It’s the highest of high concepts.

This post keeps asking you to submit.

• T’other day, we pointed you at the NCS awards submission process, and we have another one today, but I’m actually of two minds about this one. As we all agree, the Eisner Awards are the most prestigious comics awards in North America, and you should definitely submit your work for consideration, the guidelines to which are found here¹ [PDF].

  On the other hand, the administration of the Eisners was revealed to be deeply, deeply broken, from start to finish, and nobody associated with the Eisners or Comic-Con International (a California nonprofit public benefit corporation) would answer a single damn question about what went wrong, why it went wrong, how long it had been going wrong, or which steps they’re taking to keep it from going wrong in the future. There has been, as near as I can tell, no substantive communication on this matter, and therefore I must conclude no recognition of the legal obligations they have with respect to this data breach.

  With my day job hat on, I cannot in good conscience recommend anybody agree to participate in the Eisner voting process until there’s a metric fuckton more disclosure provided. But hey, voting isn’t for months now, so submit and hopefully they’ll unfuck themselves? I mean, that’s all we can do for now. I’ll keep on the story as I’m able to.

• Let’s bring up the mood a little; something that I can wholeheartedly recommend that you submit work to — although it’s somewhat niche — is the Graphic Medicine Review, which will be making a call for submissions shortly. In this ongoing Plague Year-Plus, damn near everybody has a story about their personal intersection with the medical system and health outcomes, so I expect to see you considering this, people. For more info, contact Matthew Noe or A David Lewis².
• But Gary, I hear you cry, what if I have a great piece of comic work that doesn’t involve COVID and I don’t trust the Eisner process? Good question, and by way of answer may I suggest you look at the Cartoonist Studio Prize, now in its ninth iteration, and renowned for both its blessed simplicity (two categories: print and web, that’s it) as well as its choice to recognize comics greatness with cold, hard cash? This year, in addition to the traditional one thousand US dollars, the winners will also receive a Wacom One tablet.

  As in past years, the CSP is presented by The Center For Cartoon Studies, but it appears that the media partner is shifting from Slate magazine to The Beat.

  Creators may submit no more than one work per category, which must have been released in calendar year 2020, and your deadline for submissions is 15 February. Please read through the full set of guidelines and the submissions forms for print [PDF] and webcomics [Google form] for more information.

  The nominations list will be released in April, and the two winners announced shortly after.

Spam of the day:

Bitcoin price will be $ 38500 in 5 days

As I write this, one Bitcoin goes for USD30,201.20, and is down approximately 26% from its high 13 days ago. Might want to turn in your prognosticator’s card there, Sparky.

_______________
¹ Interestingly, they are talking about tentative categories, which is not something I can recall seeing previously. I guess if they decide to not have a category you submit in, try not to take it personally?

² Some day, he hopes to be The David Lewis.

What, I’m the only one that remembers mid-’80s Saturday Night Live?

Just a heads up that tomorrow’s post may be somewhat incoherent as I intend to be day drinking in celebration and I don’t think I’ve ever written one of these things when under the influence of sophisticated adult beverages.

• For starters, I see (by way of Boneville) that Comic-Con International — the folks behind SDCC, Wondercon, and APE — are putting on educational panels on the third Thursdays of each month, starting the day after tomorrow. The first will be titled Comics For The Littlest Readers, featuring Jeff Smith, Andy Runton, Jenni Holm, Debbie Huey, and Dan Santat, with more information forthcoming.
• And it wouldn’t be January without the Young Adult Library Services Association releasing the annual listing of Great Graphic Novels For Teens; I’m a little late on that one, but it’s been a year already in just 19 days.

  Readers of this page should recognize Fleen Faves like Almost American Girl, Go With The Flow, Snapdragon, and Superman Smashes The Klan¹, in the Top Ten but there’s plenty of great work on the full list.

  That list includes — but is by no means limited to — such stellar work as Astronauts, Banned Book Club², Dragon Hoops, The Daughters Of Ys, Giant Days, The Last Halloween, Witch Hat Atelier (which was denied a debut and featured creator slot at TCAF last year, boo COVID), and many, many more. Gonna guess you can pick up any three books off the list at random and find at least one all-time fave in that sample.

• Now, I’m not saying that younger readers should be kept from stories of fighting fascists — see Superman and his Klan-smashing above — but maybe the new original story from Matt Lubchansky isn’t the place to start them out. Lubchansky has announced pre-orders for their new, highly cathartic, 64 pages of guilt-free satire of what the hard right think of antifascists, The Antifa Super-Soldier Cookbook.

  And if full-color Nazi-pummeling isn’t enticing enough — and as you know here at Fleen we always say If you see a Nazi, punch a Nazi — orders from Silver Sprocket have the option of including an embroidered patch (limited to 300) or Antifa challenge coin (limited to 100).

  I don’t have mine in hand (yet), but ever since my evil twin launched the webcomics/challenge coin thing³ some years back, I’ve gotten a number of these wonderful little tchotchkes, and one thing they have in common? They are solid lumps of brass and thus perfect for hucking at the skulls of fucking Nazis, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Neoconfederates, those assholes that ruined the OK sign and the word boogaloo, and all other associated CHUDs, the better to make them cry. Still time to get in on that.

  Do it for the children.

Spam of the day:

1 Weird Diet Trick Heals Vitiligo Fast

Oh, so a visible condition that has been known since antiquity had a simple solution that all of humanity has somehow missed out on, except for this one rando who discovered it? Right.

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¹ I have the strongest urge to re-read that right now and I don’t know why. What about Superman punching stupid white supremacists right in their stupid white supremacist faces could possibly have such a hold on me right now?

Yep, that’s a stumper.

² I also want to pull out this story of running an authoritarian (and his wannabe authoritarian daughter) the fuck out of power. Weird!

³ At least, I didn’t see anybody making challenge coin-alikes prior to Schlock Mercenary in 2013. If I’m wrong, let me know!

With the uncertainty of everything swirling around, we’re all just trying to figure out what happens next. Some thing will happen mostly the way they always have, some things are great big question marks, and and it’ll be who knows how long before we know which are which. For creators, there are two things to keep an eye on about now.

• The first is SPX, which has taken the step of communicating with the creative community to admit We don’t know what life’s gonna be like come September. Ordinarily, exhibitor application info would be getting posted about now, and the lottery dates would be announced, but since things are exploding on the COVID front (seriously, people, stay home) and the vaccine rollout has been marked by an almost total absence of unified planning or oversight, nobody knows where we’ll be in six or seven months.

  Personally, I think that Autumn has a 50/50 chance of returning to public events if people get their shit together now (which … yeah, ain’t happening) and people aren’t so fearful of public events that they don’t stay home. Anyway, good on the SPX organizers for trying to be as responsible as they can at this time.

• The second would be the announcement that National Cartoonists Society has opened submissions for their annual awards, of which two categories cover webcomics. What’s in question is whether the awards are presented in person or not¹, but the process of submitting, nominating, voting, and awarding will be the same as in prior years.

  If you want to be considered, you have until Friday 22 January to get the online form filled out. Remember to only submit a given award to one category, provide documentation that the work was released in calendar year 2020, and look carefully at whether your webcomics work is Short Form (gag-a-day or strip work) or Long Form (ongoing story arc). And, as a disclaimer, I have been a part of the jury process for the two Online Comics categories since 2012² and will be serving in that capacity again this year.

Spam of the day:

Deliver the highest-quality face mask from certified manufacturers directly to you at wholesale prices.

Fuckers like you are why I was working with insufficient PPE back in March, April, and May. We spent the summer stocking up before you could raise your bloodsucking head. Die forgotten.

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¹ Even if incoming President Biden can vaccinate 100 million people in 100 days, that’s less than half of the number we need to get us to herd immunity, and then you have to wait another 3-4 weeks for the second shot and then another two weeks for the full measure of protection, which puts us in mid-June before we’re maybe halfway to our goal. Like I said, September is maybe plausible but the spring and summer are likely to be a second consecutive set of write-offs. I’m sure the recipients of the NCS Awards will get a very nice shout out on Zoom and a lovely package in the mail.

² Except last year; lots of things got disrupted in 2020.