It’s been a shit week, but at least one thing happened as expected … even if it’s a bit bittersweet.

Unshelved, written by actual (if pseudonymous) librarian Gene Ambaum, drawn originally by Bill Barnes and more recently by Chris Hallbeck, has finished. The concurrent Kickstart to print the remainder of the very long running strip (nearly 15 years!) wrapped up a week ago, sitting at roughly five times goal. Barnes (who stepped back from cartooning to return to the exciting world of software industry project management) returned to draw the final week in which the question is asked What if you try to rage-quit and nobody cares?

A patron is trying his damndest to indicate that he’ll never come back to the Mallville Library, never I tell you! Don’t try to beg me to stay (totally beg me to stay)! the staff and library-goers are unperturbed. Today it all comes to a head — he announces he’s going elsewhere, branch manager Mel recites a litany of challenges faced by the library, but it’s no stirring call to action; it’s just facts. Dewey gets in the final word: See you all tomorrow!

The challenges never end. The work never ends. The lives go forward without us getting to peek in any longer. Ambaum and Barnes and Hallbeck likewise move on, to be seen other places, launch other projects (creative and not), some of which we’ll be privy to, others not. Ambaum, at least, will continue to speak and appear at library conferences, where he’s a rock star

And somewhere, it’s always the middle of the afternoon and a library-loving kid is assembling a stack of books, looking forward to the chance to read them. There’s worse places to be.

Spam of the day:

MAINTENANCE-FREE TO FULL-CARE LIVING OPTIONS

I thought this meant maintenance in terms of maintenance fees, but nope — turns out it’s another spam that thinks I’m old and need to live someplace where they’ll take care of me. Still in my 40s, spammers!

This post must surely set the record for the longest header image alt-text in Fleen history.

• Ever wonder how the universe really works? What the answers to the big, mysterious questions really are? Ever want a book that would — once and for all — provide clear and concise details about the inner workings of everything? Well, too bad, because what you’re getting is a book about everything that we don’t know:
  

  Announcing WE HAVE NO IDEA! A book about the big mysteries of the Universe: http://bit.ly/WeHaveNoIdea @DanielWhiteson @riverheadbooks

  That would be courtesy of Jorge Cham, actual PhD smart guy and explainer of science to the masses, teamed up with particle physicist Daniel Whiteson, to look at the stuff that we know we don’t know¹, due in May, and with a forthcoming book tour to spread the word. You can get more details from the book’s site, which will hopefully contain recipes and hints for particles you can cook up at home on a lazy weekend afternoon.

• Ever wonder what we can definitively say? Well, when it comes to the state of French [web]comics/bande desinée [-web], we can always relay on Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, who has some knowledge to drop:
  

  • Pénélope Bagieu (La Page Blanche, Cadavre Exquis, California Dreamin’) has wrapped up Les Culottées.
  • Comme Convenu has come full circle, with page 389-390 showing her drawing page 1.
  • Maliki’s Ulule campaign has wrapped up, funded at 8527 books with a nice last-day surge; FFF mkII predicted between 7312-10968 books. This is also allegedly more books than any Ulule campaign so far, e.g. by my count Comme Convenu ended up totaling 8342 books.

  Reminders and Cultural Context:

  • Pénélope Bagieu was a guest at MoCCA 2015, and has seen her Cadavre Exquis translated by :01 Books as Exquisite Corpse (a personal favorite of mine last year), with California Dreamin’ (a bio of Mama Cass) due in March.
  • Laurel [Duermael] and Maliki’s adventures in Eurocrowdfunding and the model of books (instead of currency) forming a goal was discussed on this page a few weeks back.
  • Also previously discussed: the phenomenon of how French-language webcomics are almost always autobio in nature (albeit a bit magical; cf: Maliki, Bouletcorp). Les Culotées was an outlier, being a collection bio/historical portraits of prominent women. Recent subjects [French] including Mae Jemison, Hedy Lamarr, and The Shaggs.

  Thanks as always to Lebeaupin for keeping us informed of the comings and goings in BD-web.

Spam of the day:

VIEW NEW SLIDING DOOR OPTIONS

Gotta confess, sliding doors is not an area of my life where I felt as if I lacked for options.

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¹ A book containing all of the stuff that we didn’t know we don’t know would be much, much larger.

I thought momentarily that I was possibly quoting some Zappa lyrics, but Wiki Jawaka says no; I think most likely I conflated multiple different lyrics (odds are, from Joe’s Garage or Thing-Fish) and with three links in close proximity, I should be tripping all kinds of SEO right about now. Let’s talk webcomics.

• For those who’ll be in Portland next week and will be looking to either celebrate the salvation of our republic or alternately to grab one last bit of joy before the Apocalypse, Wednesday night should fit the bill nicely. The very sexy, very smart, very educational Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan will be hosting a launch party for the third volume of Oh Joy, Sex Toy, which will be the first place to get a copy if you weren’t part of the recent Kickstart.

  There will be raffle and door prizes of an appropriate nature, as well as the opportunity to rub elbows¹ with people that appreciate the fact that sex really resides a couple of centimeters behind your eyeballs and is best appreciated with plentiful use of that particular organ. Fun starts at 6:00pm, runs until 9:00pm², at Portland’s newest (pretty sure, but you never know in Stumptown) comics shop, ,Books With Pictures, 1100 SE Division Street. Tell Erika and Matt I said hi.

• For those that believe that the launch party will be in celebration mode and not Happy End Of The World Mode, and are looking hopefully towards the future (or perhaps just looking to get out of the country), next May (the 27th & 28th) marks the return of VanCAF. It’s been a bright spot in the Comic Arts Fest circuit of shows inspired by TCAF, attracting an eclectic mix of creators (big names, indie, and a healthy intersection), readers, and food trucks. Showrunner Shannon Campbell has done a bang-up job shepherding VanCAF into existence and a steady upwards trend in both size and quality.

  But everybody needs to step back and try new things from time to time. Ordinarily, I’d be concerned about a drop-off in quality, had I heard only that Campbell was giving up her position as the festival director. Fortunately, I heard a good deal more than that, as it was announced today that several changes are afoot, all of them positive:

  • While Campbell is stepping down as director, she is joining a new advisory board for VanCAF
  • The new director will be Andrea Demonakos, formerly of Emerald City Comicon³
  • The entire shebang will be under the organizational umbrella of TCAF
  • Other members of the VanCAF board will include TCAF’s Miles Baker and Andrew Woodrow-Butcher, Vancouver-based comic creator Nathan Fairbairn, and musician/visual artist Jarrett Samson

  The sheer amount of talent and experience on display is mind-boggling, and given that TCAF just finished a delegation to Tokyo to exhibit at Kaigai Manga Fest (and has likewise been to various European festivals), I can only imagine that VanCAF’s overseas reputation (and ability to invite guests) is about to take a step up.

  The only possible downside right now is that the two CAFs presently retain their scheduling two weeks apart; while not impacting either show’s ability to attract guests or audience in the past, it may prove to be a logistical challenge for one organization to coordinate two shows on opposite ends of a continent in such a narrow timeframe. I’m going to place even odds on one show (more likely VanCAF) shifting to a different part of the calendar in future years.

• But in the meantime, if you should want to be in Vancouver at the end of May, applications for 2017 opened today.

Spam of the day:

3 Habits To Fight Off Dementia.

There’s a picture of what looks like a French Onion SunChip attached to the inside of a forearm with packing tape⁴, which leads me to believe that they want me to do this to stave off dementia. Given that they have not provided any dosing information for the chip shown — duration, weight or age restrictions, effectiveness of French Onion vs Garden Salsa, viability of TransPore easy-removing tape — this is highly irresponsible. I’m not sure if I should report them to the FDA, the USDA, or the Snack Food Association.

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¹ Or whatever else you are into and can politely arrange in a consensual fashion.

² Or until whenever you and your partner(s) decide, but you gotta find someplace else to be by nine.

³ When ReedPOP bought EmCity a couple years back, speculation ran rampant that it was less about buying the show and more about acquiring the expertise of Demonakos and husband Jim, EmCity’s founder. Jim’s still with ReedPOP, Andrea was until today-ish.

Given the inclination that ReedPOP has towards less comic-centric shows, Andrea heading over to VanCAF is probably a both a better fit for her, and an indication that VanCAF will get even larger while retaining its reputation for excellent administration.

⁴ That is not the original photo from the email, it’s a screenshot. I ain’t stupid enough to click on or distribute that thing.

It’s Halloween and I have to get back to handing out candy, so this is going to be brief. But as it is Halloween, one would be remiss if one did not remind all of you fine people to check out the latest Homestar Runner Halloween toon. While not a webcomic per se (and despite being around for years before this page even debuted), H*R epitomizes the do it yourself, own it yourself aesthetic that is the focus of this page. Brothers Chaps, I salute you and really wish I could have been at your 20th anniversary concert last month.

• And while we’re on the topic of Halloween, has there ever been a webcomicker with a moodier, more … unsettling Uncanny Valleyesque style than John Keogh? Given that it’s my rhetorical question I’m going to answer and say No, no there has not. Lucid TV may gone these six and a half years (even to the Wayback Machine, thanks to robots), but the staff and patients of Jim Belushi Memorial Hospital live on in the memories of those of us that got to follow their lives. Our hazy, unreliable memories.

  So it’s with no small joy that we at Fleen can note that Keogh dropped a series of new comics on us yesterday — nine to be precise — at his Tumblr (the aptly named Pillars Of Fear, which may also be accessed via http://hamburger.football). Among the brilliant (and occasionally tender and heartwarming) comics, please also enjoy the best titles this side of Burke’s Peerage, particularly what may be the single greatest title for a one-off strip in history¹.

• And to round out our tribute to the weirdest time of year (in what is surely the weirdest year any of us has yet seen; courage, friends; The Mountain Goats would not want you to despair, at least not too much ), for what webcomicker could be said to hold the spirit of Halloween in his heart all the year ’round more than Lar DeSouza?

  And in what is surely the greatest proof yet that not only is our existence some kind of simulation, but also that whoever programmed said simulation needed a good editor (because damn, this is some contrivance verging on cliche), today is also DeSouza’s birthday. I’d tell you to have a very happy one, Lar, but given your universally cheerful (and beloved) demeanor, I’m not sure how you’d tell the difference between a very happy birthday and any other ordinary day. Regardless, many happy returns, and here’s to many more.

Spam of the day:

Are You Ready To Retire In A Tropical Paradise? Here’s How

Come on dudes, does anybody ever say no?

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¹ Namely, If Mike Wazowski Does Not Feel The Pain Of Death By Your Hand Then You Will Be My Daughter Nevermore, which prompts just so many questions.

But still plenty day-ish, you know? I mean, what’s up with seeing five-bar wifi signals all over an office, but only being able to connect when sitting in one particular chair? Somebody’s messing with me. So let us move onwards and put this whole unpleasantness behind us. And quickly, too, as I shortly get to subject myself to the greatest Transportation Hell this side of the fabled I-95, namely, the United terminal of O’Hare International. At least they have a dinosaur.

We hinted at the San Francisco Comics Fest a couple of days ago, and seeing as how San Francisco is also home to the Cartoon Art Musuem, I figured you’d want to know more about where the two intersect; too bad if it’s not what you wanted to know. Today you get to learn about Storytelling Across Media, which is a free one-day symposium produced in association with San Francisco Comic-Con¹, capping off the Fest with panels and workshops covering comics, gaming, animation, movies, and other media. The Fest itself starts next Wednesday (2 November), with SAM occurring on Saturday (5 November).

SAM is free and open to the public, but space is limited and you’re better off registering online to reserve your place. Programming starts at 11:00am and runs to 6:00pm, at the Marriott Marquis on Mission. The full list of guests and participants is has some damn impressive credentials associated with people who aren’t necessarily household names; for example, how many of you could identify the supervising animators on The Iron Giant? I couldn’t, and I love that movie, but you can bet I’d attend the hell out of a spotlight panel on any of them (Stephan Franck, in this case).

The programming list has at least one must-see panel every one of those seven hours, and frequently more than one in conflict. Click on the More Info button next to any panel description to reserve your place, but be aware — some are shown as sold out (including — encouragingly, the session on Diversity And Representation In Storytelling). Go, enjoy, and report back so that those of us in other parts of the world may share in the positive aspects of comics.

Spam of the day:

Revolutionary smart home accessories are here. Enjoy Wi-Fi enabled devices that keep your home safe brought to you by the Verizon Accessories Store.

You’re actually trying to sell me — me, who has a long, painful history trying to get Verizon to make a proven, perfected, 140 year old technology not suck — on Verizon’s Internet of Things garbage when IoT is behind the entire damn internet falling over last week because they’re unsecurable shit? And pitching it as a way to make my home safer? You’re either insane or tripping all the balls.

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¹ Not to confused with the previously-mentioned San Francisco Comics Fest. SFCC is a production of Comic-Con International, who also put on San Diego Comic Con and Wondercon.

I think today is a beautiful day for stomping sharing with you the latest programming notes for the Cartoon Art Museum, who though they currently lack a home of their own, have not let that fact dissuade them from engaging in educational programs of their own, and in conjunction with other San Francisco cultural institutions. They’re basically unstoppable comics-and-culture machines.

They’ve got a return visit this time, as Ajuan Mance (previously a cartoonist-in-residence at CAM) is going to have a conversation with Shawn Taylor at part of SF Comics Fest. This particular discussion will cover Mance’s latest projects (cartooning, writing, illustration, professing English at Mills College, and is presented jointly by CAM, Black Comix Art Festival, and the Museum of the African Diaspora.

They should have plenty to talk about, what with Mance’s rise in profile of late (she was the Guest of Honor at the recent 2016 San Francisco Zine Fest) and her ongoing (nearly concluded, in fact) 1001 Black Men project. If you’d like to be a part of the conversation, it’ll run 6:30pm to 8:30pm on Wednesday, 2 November, at 685 Mission Street (at Third) in San Francisco. It’ll run you US$10, US$5 for students and seniors, or free if you’re a member of CAM or MOAD; admission will include access to MOAD’s exhibits and a brief reception with Mance after the public program.

Honestly, this is the best kind of work that CAM does — partnering with other institutions that don’t have comics as their main focus to broaden both constituencies. Popular perception of comics in America skews very white, and African-American culture has long been perceived to concentrate in certain areas (music, oral traditions, “outsider” art) to the point where contributions to areas like comics may not be fully appreciated.

By seeking out areas of intersection with underrepresented communities of creators (CAM has especially brought focus to queer creators and comics), they expand what all of us think about capital-a Art in general and the comic arts in particular. Good on them, and if you’re about the Bay Area next week, drop in and give a listen.

Spam of the day:

Adult dating, the best girls from your city

and

SEX DATING: Seeking a man to meet.

Curiously, these come from the exact same return address, and feature the exact same 24 – 27 year old “hot singles in your area that want to sex you”. Could it be that this is an exaggeration?

But first, for all of you creators and readers in the Pacific Northwest, please stay safe as the murderstorm bears down on you.

• Sad news to start: Amanda Lafrenais lost her brother, Chris Volesky, at the start of the week. Just 27 years old, he died in his sleep. Sudden expenses can damage any family’s economic standing; when it’s for a funeral, the gut-punch is even harder to bear. You can help out at the GoFundMe page that Lafrenais set up.
• It appears that I’ve managed to not mention Cartoon Crossroads Columbus at all this year¹, although I’m pretty sure I mentioned it when The Spurge was announced his intentions to debut last year, following his move to the Columbus area. The goal of CXC is ambitious: to do a stateside version of Angouleme, presumably without the incredibly sexist and moronic executive director (hi, Franck!)

  You’ve got a cluster of super-talented folks up there (Jeff Smith not the least), not to mention Ohio University and the Jenny Robb-curated Billy Ireland collection therein, where a triannual gathering of comics luminaries sets the stage for getting Big Name Folks to drop in. My mistake, too late to urge you to go (unless you’re local), and I’ll try to do better next year.

• We’re down to the final six days of the Check, Please! Year Two print collection Kickstart and Ngozi Ukazu is sitting on more than US$312,000 in pledges, with Kicktraq projecting just about US$400K as a final total. I suspect that a last-minute fan rush (and there are some seriously serious fans of the hell of cute hockey boys, some of whom are also hell of gay) will push it beyond, but we shall see.
• Holy crap, Matt Bors has an actual entertainment industry development deal for The Nib, which is as free-wheeling and unsafe an environment for the notoriously risk-averse Hollywood machine to find itself in as could possibly exist. I can’t wait to see what may (or, given that it’s Hollywood, may not) come of this deal. But either way — Bors has put something important together, and has been noted on this page in the past, he pays his contributors. On that last score alone, I consider this to be nothing less than a karmic reward.
• Oh, yeah, and Chris Onstad made me actually laugh out loud at Roast Beef’s latest blogpost and the description of children whose number two is more like a one-point-three. Holy crap (phrasing), that’s a perfect, perfect, completely gross and still perfect turn of phrase. Bravo.
• Finally, some very skilled people are taking the entire piss out of Cheeto Jesus and you can either purchase a copy, or get one for free with a donation to defeat what he and his Trumpaloompas² stand for. Be sure to listen to the audiobook, too.

Spam of the day:

GET YOUR DREAM BATHROOM IDEAS

My dream bathroom idea is pretty much that the stuff I don’t want goes away without fail. Beyond that, I’m pretty easy.

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¹ Thanks to alert reader Ben Cordes for calling me on it.

² Tip o’ the hat to Charlie Pierce, whose formulation I like slightly better than Ken White’s Trumpalos, primarily for its mental invocation of orangeness.

We’re going to be going in several different directions today; best strap in now while you can.

• This has been a stinker of a year, top to bottom (and I fear we haven’t hit bottom yet), so I think we all deserve a little cheering up. Today marks the release of the King Baby Plush, based on Kate Beaton’s book of the same name. Just lookit that chubby face and try to keep a bad mood — it’s basically not possible.
• Motionographer, which dedicates itself to issues of interest to designers, animators, and storytellers of all stripes (at least, according to their About page) has a nice Q&A up today with Katie Lane (lawyer to the indie comics community and possibly also you) on the topic of protecting your work from being ripped off. She starts off damn smart in delineating the situation we’re in:
  

  I don’t think that every use of visual art on social media is a misuse, though, at least not in terms of copyright law. But because of the way social media has enhanced our ability to communicate visually, when we start creating art, we’re doing so with those social media skills as part of our vocabulary.

  And because on social media we use art, it’s understandable that some of us use art when we create. For me “using” is different from “referencing”. When we “use” art, we keep it largely intact; details might change, but the art is still recognizable in what we create. When we “reference” art, the art influences and informs how we create; a transformation takes place so that the original and our work are different.

  I think how we communicate on social media is part of why you see the rise in swiping, but I don’t think it’s the cause.
  …
  The cause, in my opinion, is not being mindful of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.

  and gets altogether smarter from there. Want to know about when the drop the legal hammer? Or what to consider before filing a DMCA takedown? Or even how to prevent rip-offs in the first place? Read it.

• For those going to Thought Bubble in a few weeks, I wish to share the session that you most want to see:
  

  OFFICIALLY CROWNED! Come see me talk to @ryanqnorth and @EricaFails on Sunday afternoon at @ThoughtBubbleUK

  Details here, that’s John Allison talking with Erica Henderson and Ryan North about Squirrel Girl on Sunday 6 November in the News Room, Royal Armouries (Fourth Floor), from 1:10pm to 2:00pm.

Spam of the day:

Sure makes you thankful when your house is behaving itself though right? It doesn’t take a lot for problems to occur that’s for sure.

Sorry, spammer, nothing left to do on my house right now that doesn’t involve spackle. Not enough broken for you to try to scam me on it.

Well, that turned out to be less disastrous that it could have (in that the bill was about 10% of the bad outcome, but still greater than most people could throw together on short notice — I’m lucky to have the ability to keep an emergency repairs slush fund without too much sacrifice), but required a bunch of time and it’s still not quite done. Missed a bunch of stuff while I was gone, too:

• Announcement of the monthly TopatoCo Drink ‘n’ Draw, the last for 2016 if my memory serves
• The return of The Abominable Charles Christopher (these pups are going to learn not to screw with Vivol, and if Luga was around he’d knock sense into them)
• The release of Tyler Page’s Raised On Ritalin print collection to the general public (last month when I was in Minneapolis, Page and his wife Cori Doerrfeld graciously had me over for dinner and a lively discussion with our mutual friend Raina Telgemeier)
• An update from France from esteemed Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin (that one’s not time-sensitive and appears below)
• An entire convention

On the other hand, I am around to catch some timely things, like:

• The incomparable Hope Larson (comics maestra, ice cream maker extraordinaire, and caterpillar wrangler to the stars) has found enough time in her schedule (between Batgirl and her next book, out sometime in 2018) to resume Solo¹, or the news that after fifteen years, 4500 strips, and one-and-a-half creative teams, Unshelved is coming to an end next month.
• There’s also word of a benefit for the Cartoon Art Museum (reminder: they’ve been sleeping on the couches of other museums for a while now, and could really use some help getting back to a place of their own) next month, featuring cast members of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra:
  

  Go behind the scenes of The Legend of Korra and Avatar: The Last Airbender with special guests voice actors Janet Varney, John Michael Higgins, Mindy Sterling, Dante Basco and Avatar: Legacy illustrator Dan Parsons. Cosplay highly encouraged! All ages welcome.

  The event will be 19 November, starting at 7:00pm, at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco. General admission tickets at US$28, with premium tickets (which get you an autograph from each special guest) for US$38, with CAM members receiving a 10% discount. Tickets can be purchased via the Friends For Benefits website and are likely going to go fast.

And, as promised:

Team Maliki has just unveiled the first self-published Maliki collection, and to the surprise of absolutely no one they have launched a preorder [French version] for it on a crowdfunding platform called Ulule [English version]. One aspect which stands out is the use of “books” rather than “sum collected” to define stretch goals.

Gary here. That’s a new one on me — I’m going to have to think about how it differs from regular currency-based stretch goals, but it could allow a project with multiple forms of a book (PDF, softcover, hardcover, limited edition, retailer discount multi-packs) to count equally towards stretch goals. Interesting.

[T]here is some precedent for a French comics campaign of this scale, which in fact may be a daunting yardstick to be compared to; I couldn’t cover it at the time, as it was before I took up the mantle of Fleen Senior French Correspondent in January of this year, so this is the ideal opportunity to introduce it as background …

Laurel [Duermael, athough she’s mononymic in her work], while French, lives in the San Francisco bay area with her husband, and works there as an illustrator, mostly for Docker. She maintains a comics blog about her life there. Don’t be misled by her seemingly happy style, as she can deal serious blows, whether it is to cover her experience (French-only) dealing with the French consulate in San Francisco, or to excoriate (French-only) French magazine Biba and Little Market for a “competition” that amounted to providing illustration work for little more than exposure (and you know what they say about exposure).

Her blog is currently taken up by a story (only in French so far) titled Comme Convenu [As Agreed] which is inspired by her experience starting out in the Bay Area in a video game startup. Around this time last year, she launched a crowdfunding campaign on Ulule as a preorder for printing the first volume, with a goal of €9167.

It ended up funding in about one hour. After about one day, it was already 800% funded. It ended up funding at 2,860%² (no, this is not a typo). And remember, the story and book are only available in French, so this couldn’t have been tapping in the established English-speaking comics crowdfunding audience.

Of course, Maliki: Blog does not need to reach the same kind of total amount to be considered a success, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up overfunding in a similar fashion.

At present, Maliki: Blog has pledges for 3414 books (on a goal of 1000); as those are spread out across three different quality levels (Classic, Collector, Super Collector), it’s hard to say how much money it represents, but if everybody only opted for the lowest tier, that would be nearly €70,000³. With just over two weeks left to go, Maliki seems like as not to hit €100K.

Spam of the day:

Mighty Dolly

Okay, so they’re pretending to sell me industrial warehouse equipment for moving heavy loads but you know what? If they told me that their dolly product was named Parton, I’d click on the link because Dolly Parton rules.

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¹ I really dig Solo; it’s her most adult (in the sense of acknowledging that being an adult can suck sometimes) and melancholy work to date, I think. In case you were wondering, no Karl Lagerfeld here.

² That would be in excess of a quarter-million Euro. If I have my exchange rates correct, that would have been just shy of US$300,000.

³ Conversely, if they all opted for Super Collector, it would be over €170K; just a €100K margin of uncertainty, no big. Oh, and as of this writing, €1 is a buck-eleven (US$1.1139 to be exact, which there’s no point in being since it’s gonna float).

Ready for the weekend? Me too. Let’s look ahead just a bit, though.

• The 5th of October is gonna be a fun one in comics shops, as it will see the debut of both the original graphic novel Squirrel Girl Beats Up The Marvel Universe (Ryan North and Erica Henderson), but also the reissues with comic shop safe covers of Oh Joy, Sex Toy (Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan) volumes 1 and 2. For added bonus fun, Oh Joy, Sex Toy volume 3 will hit a mere month later, on 9 November.

  The latter is brand new to everybody, what with Moen & Nolan’s deal with Oni Press imprint Limerence moderating the need for a Kickstarter campaign this time². It’s a great time to see webcomics folks in the traditional store channel, particularly since it’s because of such fun topics as a) Squirrel Girl, and b) sexytimes.

• As long as we’re talking about the next couple of weeks, the Cartoon Art Museum continues its outreach and education programs whilst simultaneously looking for new digs. Next up: weekly adult classes on character creation (October 13, 20, & 27) and visual story design (November 3, 10, & 17) at CAM’s temporary educational space, 275 5th Street in San Francisco.

  Classes run for two hours each (6:30pm to 8:30pm), at a cost of US$135 for the public and US$100 for CAM members. Considering individual membership only runs US$45 (US$35 for students), that’s practically the cost of a year’s support there in the discount.

  Oh, and in-session materials will be provided, but you may want to pick up some basic tools (pencils, choice of inking tool, paper, sketchbooks) for homework/practice. The session sign-ups are found at the links above.

So it’s a bit rainy and a bit melancholy and a whole lot Fall-y¹, which is very possibly the best season. Get out there and enjoy it. See you back on Monday.

Spam of the day:

[block of kanji I’m not going to look up Unicode for and paste in individually]/VIRUS DETECTION(SMTP,Trojan:W97M/MaliciousMacro.GEN)

Oh my goodness, a throwaway address in Japan is warning me about viruses on my computer! Whatever shall I do? [hits the delete button, goes to get more tea]

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¹ Note to readers in the Southern Hemisphere: it is so Fall. If you claim it’s Spring, fine, but here it’s Fall.

² This point was previously worded differently, and poorly. The intent is: a Kickstart is well and good, and will meet immediate needs as well as supply a modest inventory for store sales. A publisher means reprints as necessary and enough stock to supply as many comic shops as come calling without the danger of going out of print. Fleen regrets the clumsy construction caused by poor wording.