I’m just going to refer you to the #TopatoCon social media tag because holy crap, I’m tired today.

Okay, part of that is probably because Stacy King, Andrew Wheeler, and Jim Zub enticed me, Ferocious J, and Dante Shepherd to stay up past midnight playing tabletop games which tested the limits of friendship. Part of it was probably from helping the aforementioned Dr Shepherd and Maki Naro run science experiments on alive humans, or my extensive time in the TopatoCo Merchateria with the redoubtable Ms Smith and the entirely doubtable Mr J. Part of it was probably just the energy in the exhibit hall, where people just seemed to be enjoying themselves.

And part of it is probably because the cocktail competition 86’d! with Holly Rowland, Holly Black, Frank Gibson, Katie Donnelly (contestants), Kaliis Smith, Eric Churchill, and Karl Pacheco (judges) that I hosted drew an enormous crowd that seemed to enjoy itself (too busy to take pictures, but video coming soon). Hollys Black and Rowland made it to the finish, prompting the crowd to break into a spontaneous cheer of Hol-ly! Hol-ly! Hol-ly! before Ms Black took the crown. We have got to do this again next year.

But mostly it’s probably because the best idea of TopatoCon is also the most dangerous: there’s a bar and I had an excellent bottle of scotch to share.

Please enjoy these photos:

• Volunteers, ready to be dispatched to take care of a problem.
• Holly Rowland was everywhere during the day, makin’ decisions and bein’ a boss.
• Calm before the programming storm. I heard crowds applauding and cheering from across the hall throughout the day.
• The quiet before the show got started. That’s Kate Leth in that last photo; take a look at her Twitterfeed for her photosafari of the show floor.
• I offered Naro a pair of safety glasses, but he’s a cowboy.
• Tabletop gaming took place in this nest of rooms all day; it continued on an impromptu basis everywhere late into the night.
• Kim ran the bar and didn’t blanch at serving up a drink called The Walnutfucker. We had some nice discussions about cocktails.
• I made Sara McHenry a drink in a pineapple; I’d originally designed it for Maki Naro’s Pineapple Maki contest that didn’t happen, but she’s dubbed it the Pineapple Khaleesi and that’s a damn good name so we’re going with that.
• Scenes from Topato’s Bar: post show hours, pre going home; animated fun times; food desperately grubbed while holding exhaustion at bay.

Now I’ve got to scrub the filth from my carcass and return for Day Two. I am as nontheist as they come, but friends … pray for me.

Hey, Gary asked TopatoCo President For Life Jeffrey Rowland, you want a walkie-talkie? It was a bit before 10:00am the day before the inaugural TopatoCon and I was there to help. I wasn’t sure I needed a walkie-talkie, but then he added You get an ear-piece with that. Sold. Three minutes later, I have a small speaker in my ear and a radio nestled in the small of my back, looking like the world’s least likely Secret Service agent on detail, except for the talking into the sleeves thing.

Not gonna lie, once I got the volume worked out to a comfortable level, it proved to be a lifesaver, as setup would take me up and down the length of the Eastworks building multiple times an hour, and finding the organizers to clarify a decision or get an assignment would have been nigh impossible otherwise. I dropped my trauma bag at the just-arranged registration desk — the closest thing to a central location — and hopped on the air: Med/Stache to all stations. Report all injuries to me, no matter how minor; thankfully, none needed to be.

And there was potential — a few dozen eight-foot tables got wheeled around, and a few hundred chairs. There were heavy-ass platform risers, toxic fume-laden spray adhesives, random bits of architecture with random bolts sticking out at odd angles, a ton or so of merch to deliver to tables — but each item was dealt with by a crew of a dozen or so volunteers. The main exhibit hall transformed itself over the course of a couple of hours while the Eastworks staff unpacked a significant shipment of booze for Topato’s Bar. A little after noon, the hall was ready for the first exhibitors to start setting up under the watchful eye of Chief of Security Special Agent Fox Mulder.

Showrunner Holly Rowland was everywhere, passing out assignments and indicating how things should be arranged. Showrunner Sara McHenry was running logistics from a command bunker in the basement, ably assisted by husband and MRA-bane Tom McHenry¹. BabyBird (formerly StinkBot), SparkleDog, and PizzaVessel wrangled the intake and outflow of volunteers.

Radio calls went out from Ferocious J and Agent Paperklip and things happened: goods bedecked tables in the TopatoCo pop-up store, dollies wheeled infrastructure out of the way, signage went up, airport runs occurred. Easthampton held its breath, waiting for a sign, a signal, anything to indicate that the attempts to beat chaos into order were bearing fruit. The portents were uncertain, but all remained cautiously optimistic.

And so stands the long hallway on this crisp autumn night. There will be the last-minute flurry of table setup from the late-arriving exhibitors, but all that needs to happen to make the show itself launch waits in watchful readiness. Eleven hours and forty-six minutes from now, the doors open.

Forty-five.

Forty-four.

Med/Stache to all stations — sleep well and be ready to dig deep tomorrow. It’s gonna be an adventure.

Spam of the day:

I NEED YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION ON MY PROPOSAL

You know, you might get my immediate attention on your proposal if you actually included the damn things in your spam. Oh, well. Sucks to be you, what with not getting my immediate attenntion on your proposal and all.

_______________
¹ My plan is to find every fedora-wearing MRA/PUA/MGTOW type in the Pioneer Valley and show them that photo so their heads will go sploosh.

On my way to TopatoCon. See you there? I’ll be working the TopatoCo pop-up shop (next to the Marketplace entrance on the map, near panel rooms 2 & 3) most of the time, but I’ll be attending some panels (Science the World with Dante Shepherd and Maki Naro, Saturday at 1:30; Go Away, Sea Lions with David Malki !, Kate Leth, Spike, and Randy Milholland; Sunday at 2:00), and I’ll be hosting one (86’d! with Frank Gibson, Holly Black, and Holly Rowland; Saturday at 5:00).

Spam of the day:

Touche. Outstanding arguments. Keep up the good effort.

Will do.

Computering issues (damn you, Windows 8.1, damn you right in the ear-hole) continue from yesterday. The data transfer process has been running for more than 24 hours, with the progress meter around 97% done for at least 20 hours of that time. Since I went to bed, the meter hasn’t budged despite the fact that the the total number of restored files has gone up at least 15%. I literally have no idea how much work is yet to be done¹, and I can’t just let the process run over the weekend because it requires access to a VPN lease that expires every 24 hours.

So I’m not able to do much with the network connection right now, you understand. And that situation may not resolve itself before I have to leave tomorrow for *hampton.

So let me point you towards the preparations that are occurring as I type:

They’re delivering the tables and chairs for TopatoCon! It just got REAL

OK here we go²

The programs for @TopatoCon2015 are HERE and they’re beautiful! Cover art by @catiemonster! #TopatoCon2015

Best start heading towards Massachusetts now, seeing as how the Pope is gonna have the area between DC and New York all tied up.

Spam of the day:

You’re giving your body what it needs to bee hasppy and hesalthy living blogs canada

This sounds like an ad for Brawndo.

_______________
¹ Not exactly true; the original data transfer set identified itself as having 14461 files, 12.73GB. The progress meter tells me it is presently on file number 37798, which makes very little sense to me.

² Glad to see you got home safely, Jeffrey, and I was very sorry to hear about the TopatoCo https://twitter.com/wigu/status/646306201421094912.

Before anybody makes a call to the local acute psych services on account of me actively wishing for death, consider my recent tweets:

1. New work laptop runs Windows 8.1
2. Max 1 week before I put my fist through the screen of this abomination.
3. Back to data xfer. #killme

It boots
[three blank lines]
so
[eight blank lines]
friggin’
[thirty blank lines]
SLOW.

We have reached a state that Roast Beef would recognize as even worse that the Bead Shop, and the shifting of my work is maybe one third done, which must be done tomorrow, before I leave for TopatoCon on Thursday because when I get back I have to immediately get on a plane for a client gig with said abomination. So this is gonna be brief.

• Thing That Makes Me Less Suicidal Today #1: Whiny manchild convinced that evil minorities and women are keeping Marvel and DC from recognizing his genius. Jim Zub patiently and kindly schools him. I will buy Zub a drink at TopatoCon for this.
• Thing That Makes Me Less Suicidal Today #2: Forbes covers SPX, and chooses Spike as the lead subject of a feature titled Black Wonder Woman, Feminist Smut: Welcome To Indie Comic Con. I will buy Spike a drink at TopatoCon for this.
• Thing That Makes Me Less Suicidal Today #3: Randall Munroe is going on book tour in support of Thing Explainer. I don’t think Randall is going to be at TopatoCon, but if he is, I will buy him a drink on general principles.
• Thing That Makes Me Less Suicidal Today #4: Ta-Nehisi Coates is maybe the smartest writer on race, equality, and social issues working in America today. He’s also a Marvel comics supergeek, and Marvel announced that he’s going to be writing Black Panther. This is perhaps the only thing that could get me to regularly buy a cape comic not involving Squirrel Girl. If I ever have the privilege to meet Mr Coates under any circumstances, I will buy him as many drinks as he wants.

No spam today, I’m already dealing with too much stupid.

Where to start, where to start?

• How about with the elephant¹ in the Bethsda Marriott hotel ballroom, where it was noticed that the famed bricks that represent the Ignatz Awards all went to women. Before any arrested man-children start bawling their delicious, delicious tears that this is everything wrong with feminazis ruing comics and making things nobody wants to read, they would do well to remember:
  1. The Ignatzen are voted on by everybody attending SPX, which attracts a sizable and diverse crowd.
  2. The nominees range from low-circulation minicomics to critically- popularly-acclaimed works that have large print runs and are obtainable in any bookstore in the country.
  3. Nothing about this prevents you from continuing to read your masturbatory power fantasies, so quit acting like this is a zero-sum game².

  Looking back at the nominations, for instance, I failed to notice that of the five of the nominees in the Outstanding Online Comic, none identify explicitly as male³. A quick scan of the other categories show that women made up pretty much 50% of all the nominations (40% here, 60% there, some teams and group efforts make attempts at calculation necessarily inexact; I’ll note that Promising New Talent was 80% ladies).

  Still, there’s a long way to go from a hell of a gender-balanced slate of nominees to it’s Ladies Night in Comictown, and the simplest explanation is that this year, the work that spoke most to the audience happened to be made by women in each case. So congratulations to Emily Carroll, Eleanor Davis, Sophie Goldstein (×2), Jillian Tamaki, Sophia Foster-Dimino (×3), and Lilli Carré.

• It’s pretty much inarguable that one of the most important tools in the business plan of a web/indy-comics creator (or creator of any sort) is crowdfunding, and that the dominant platform in that space is Kickstarter. So it’s pretty damn encouraging to see that the people that run Kickstarter are in no hurry to run up the valuation, float an IPO, cash out with a dumptruck full of money, and watch from the sidelines as the need to make tech-bubble levels of profit screws over the user base.

  In fact, they’ve just made that worst-case outcome pretty much impossible, and they’ve got the legal structure to enforce it:

  Kickstarter Inc is no more. We’re now Kickstarter PBC — a Public Benefit Corporation. We’re thrilled to share this news, and we’d love to take a minute to tell you exactly what it means.

  Until recently, the idea of a for-profit company pursuing social good at the expense of shareholder value had no clear protection under U.S. corporate law, and certainly no mandate. Companies that believe there are more important goals than maximizing shareholder value have been at odds with the expectation that for-profit companies must exist ultimately for profit above all.

  Benefit Corporations are different. Benefit Corporations are for-profit companies that are obligated to consider the impact of their decisions on society, not only shareholders. Radically, positive impact on society becomes part of a Benefit Corporation’s legally defined goals. [empahsis mine]

  That’s from an email that you probably received if you’ve ever dealt with Kickstarter, or you could read the story at the New York Times if you prefer. If you want to see how Kickstarter is interpreting their positive social impact, you can read their PBC charter here.

  Interestingly, the Kickstarter board is going extra-strong on the public benefit and transparency. The PBC structure requires them to report every other year on how they meet their charter’s goals, but they’ve also defined themselves as a B Corporation; that’s a voluntary designation that requires annual reports on their social goals, as well as some fairly rigorous environmental standards. What it all amounts to is that the people in charge of Kickstarter not only recognize what made it a success, they want to preserve it rather than abandoning it to unchecked capitalist exploitation. Good for them, and good for all of us.

• And for those of you that like geeky things and leave the house occasionally, Jorge Cham has some news for you:
  

  It’s #ThePHDMovie2 premiere week! Pass it on! >20 screenings this week including @CERN @DukeU and more: http://phdcomics.com/movie/#screenings

  Doesn’t look like any of those screenings will be at TopatoCon, but given that it appears that Cham will be conducting a Q&A and signing at CERN in that time frame, I suppose we can forgive him. Just one request for everybody working the LHC, though: if you want to show off for Jorge, please don’t do so by pressing the Big Red Button that says Generate Black Hole, Suck Earth In. Thanks.

Spam of the day:

Hello pecker 8-) i need s3x right now i’m not picky!!

“[N]ot picky”? Are … are you negging me? Am I getting the same approach that MRA dipshits think works on women?

______________
¹ Fun fact: elephant society is matriarchal in nature; the females that have lived the breadth of life’s experiences are what holds the culture together. I’m sure this has absolutely nothing to do with anything we’re talking about today.

² One might address a parallel thought towards those that are bitching about Viola Davis’s speech at the Emmys last last night.

³ One, Ariel Ries of Witchy, uses the pronoun they; the others describe themselves in bios using explicitly female pronouns or depict themselves in their comics as women.

Friday! SPX is kicking off in mere hours in Bethesda. TopatoCon has its pre-opening concert in a week. More importantly, it’s almost the weekend. Let’s party.

• Speaking of TopatoCon, comics and science fan Propriety had a great idea, shared on Twitter, that I think should become standard for humane-scale cons: a modification of the showfloor map with creator avatars. Brilliant idea, let’s see if it can become a standard.
• Speaking of both TopatoCon and SPX, know who’s gonna be there? Well, lots of people, but I’m talking about KC Green at the moment. Green’s been alluding on the social media about a mysterious creative task that was taking a lot of his time, and he told us today what it is:
  

  i think i can finally say something a out this: I’m doing a one shot Invader Zim comic issue http://www.previewsworld.com/Home/1/1/71/920?stockItemID=OCT151570 …

  Thinking on the words Invader Zim and comic book and writer-artist, there is no place that you can go for a satisfying outcome except for KC Green. Oni made the 10000% correct choice; this is gonna be great.

• Speaking of SPX, be sure to see the many awesome creators that work with :01 Books who’ll be there. And when you get back, check out the latest :01 Books blogtour, celebrating the launch of Fable Comics from Monday. I’d point out that come the 30th, the blogtour will land here at Fleen where we’ll be talking about the absolutely stellar Jaime Hernandez and his take on The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but modesty forbids.

Weekend. Enjoy the crap out of it, see you next week at TopatoCon!

Spam of the day:

HEY! Noticed you on FB and was hoping maybe we could hook up.

I think you mistake me for somebody who has a Facebook account. I mean, I’m sure a complete stranger who makes that basic a mistake is exactly who I want to hook up with.

Also squirrels. Friggin’ squirrels, man. Let’s talk about things that don’t suck.

• Readers of this page will know that I greatly enjoy the work of David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc and amateur Mr Bean impersonator), a man who has gifted the world with literally an infinite amount of webcomics, and a man to whom I cannot give money in exchange for goods because he has not attempted to monetize his best-known effort, Irregular Webcomic¹. For some short while now, he’s been running a Patreon to offset costs, and hopefully reduce his day job by one day per fortnight.

  And, of late, for another reason. Morgan-Mar has been publicly musing about the possibility of finally doing a print collection of Irregular Webcomic, but as the strip is largely composed of tableaus (tableaux?) of LEGO-brand figures, he needed to navigate their intellectual property boundaries carefully. Not wanting to unleash a torrent of IANAL on Dr Morgan-Mar², I kept quiet as he mentioned that Patreon funds would be going to find competent legal advice on issues of international intellectual property³.

  But that all changed today:

  There’s plenty of net.advice saying that parody is Fair Use of copyright material, but this doesn’t apply for two reasons: (1) I’m concerned about misusing LEGO’s trademarks, not copyright. Also those of Star Wars and Harry Potter, for those comic themes. And (2) I live in Australia, where there is no such thing as Fair Use. (We have Fair Dealing, which is a less permissive law than US Fair Use.) Basically, I have no real idea if I could publish IWC for profit without violating LEGO’s intellectual property.

  …

  I have just signed an agreement to have the lawyers investigate the relevant trademark laws and provide me with professional legal advice. [emphasis mine]

  So, with an actual lawyer consulting actual laws, hopefully Morgan-Mar will not be best by armchair attorneys all day and night, and even more hopefully I’ll be able to exchange money for a copy of an IWC book sooner rather than later. Oh, and if the attorney’s advice comes back as It’s a shame you aren’t in the US, their laws would let you do this but Australia’s won’t, I’m sure that Katie Lane and Make That Thing would just love to find an excuse to head to Sydney for business meetings with Morgan-Mar If you want to see all this come to pass (and honestly, who wouldn’t?), keep that support going to Morgan-Mar at his Patreon.

• Sneaky webcomic of the day goes to Jeffrey Rowland, whose 16 page return to the adventures of Topato and Sheriff Pony (who have gotten kind of … doughy since we saw them last) led through a philosophy of capitalism, a quick peek at an older Wigu Tinkle & family, and ended in naked shilling for TopatoCon.

  I am in awe of the sheer coincidence that a con being put on by Rowland’s company wound up being referenced in Rowland’s comic. And I am delighted to think that by going to TopatoCon in, oh, ten days, I may be contributing directly to the ongoing existence of the Butter Dimensions. I would only add, on behalf of Topato and Sheriff Pony, that in addition to intangible currency, you spend lots and lots of tangible currency with all the exhibitors in Eastworks. Do it to keep existence existing.

• From the comments yesterday:
  

  Kate Beaton did a Q&A on Tumblr the other day. In general, the way she talks to her fans online makes me think that she is basically the best person ever.

  Jacob, in that assessment you would be entirely correct. For those interested in some of those Qs and As (on the day of Step Aside, Pops! launching) and how awesome Beaton is with her fans, check out this, this, this, this, especially this, this, and this.

Spam of the day:

Hi Dear,

Let me stop you right there. Sending a spam in the name of noted philanthropist Charles Feeney, claiming to want to give me a large amount of money, in case I did a 10 second Google search and decided things are more plausible because that’s an actual person? That’s pretty evil. More importantly, I’ve never met Mr Feeney, but I don’t think he’s the sort to open a business email with “Dear”. Maybe if I was his kid? Then again, I am adopted … so he might … I MUST RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL AND GET MY MILLIONS. SO LONG, SUCKERS, I’MA BUY ME SOME BETTER FRIENDS.

_______________
¹ Although I would be remiss if I didn’t point out his Star Trek recap comic, Planet of Hats, does sell originals.

² Which he received anyway.

³ Morgan-Mar lives in Australia,the LEGO empire is Danish, likely the majority of his customer base is in North America.

Man, I dig exhibitor maps for conventions. I love being able to figure out my approach to talk to all the people I want to talk to in the least amount of time. Sometimes the maps are huge and sprawling, and sometimes there’s no point in trying to point out where the cool web/indie-comics types are because you’d just end up putting a circle on the entire damn map that says HERE on it.

• It’s the latter case that we concern ourselves with today, as both the SPX and TopatoCon exhibitor maps have gone up, and they’re chock full of creators you’re going to want to see. They’re also on a humane scale, so I don’t have to do one of those maps-hacks where I show you where to go on the showfloor, as I’ll have to do sometime next week for NYCC¹.
• Since we’re already talking about TopatoCon (because let’s face it, we’re always talking about TopatoCon), one might point out a couple of new programs on the schedule. At noon on Sunday, please note the killer description for Pleasure Is The Measure:
  

  Join us for a sciencey, sexy, feminist conversation about women, their bodies, and comics — featuring Kate Leth (Kate Or Die), Jess Fink (Chester 5000), Danielle Corsetto (Girls With Slingshots), and Spike (Smut Peddler) and moderated by NYT bestselling author Dr. Emily Nagoski (Come As You Are).

  Smart ladies who know their way around what makes things sexy as all hell? Yes, please.

• Also, one modestly points you to the new official description of the 5:00pm Saturday event in the podcast space²:
  

  Join host Gary Tyrrell (fleen.com) as our three contestants Frank Gibson (Bee & Puppycat, Capture Creatures), Holly Black (The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Darkest Part Of The Forest) and Holly Rowland (TopatoCo VP) square off in a tournament-style cocktail challenge. Each contestant will be given a box of mystery ingredients and will make up a theme cocktail on the fly. One contestant will be eliminated in each round by a panel of judges chosen from the audience. Who will emerge victorious and who will get 86’d?

  86’d/eighty-sixed is bartender slang for cut off and ejected from the establishment; think Chopped but for booze. This is gonna be fun, and I want to make ti clear that I am not the one putting together the challenges and will be just as surprised with what the contestants have to work with as you will. It’s not Cutthroat Bar and I am not channeling my inner Evil Alton Brown³.

  Oh, and because it’s a damn shame that cocktail enthusiast Christopher Hasting will have to miss Boozetopia (due to his comedy-writing workshop happening at the same time), I will need a volunteer to take the best drink of each round across the hall to him.

  Also, if you are going to be at TopatoCon, are at least 21 years old, and interested in being a judge for 86’d, I’m looking for people who will be able to articulate what they like (or don’t) about a drink, not just chug the damn thing with an eye towards getting wasted. Please email me (gary) with the subject line TASTING AND JUDGMENT, at this-here website (fleen.com).

• Speaking of Hastings, news comes today that once again Marvel is coming to him to add to their cape-comedy offerings:
  

  The Gwen Stacy/Deadpool mash-up begins in a three-part back-up story by writer Christopher Hastings and artist Danilo Beyruth beginning in Howard the Duck #1 and going through the two subsequent issues.

  In December’s Gwenpool Special #1, She-Hulk throws a holiday party and invites many Marvel luminaries, with Gwenpool showing up. Writers Gerry Duggan, Charles Soule and Christopher Hastings, along with artists Danilo Beyruth, Langdon Foss, Gurihiru are listed for the book.

  Marvel, just do what we all know you need to do and give Hastings and ongoing title where he can blend the action with the goofy. Because is there anybody else that would throw in a scene with Tony Stark telling Reed Richards about how many weddings he’d been to that summer where Get Lucky got played⁴? No, there is not, and that little bit of human interaction is what’s missing from so many cape books (the magnificent Squirrel Girl excepted, obviously). Give him a book, Marvel. Doooo iiiiiit.

Spam of the day:

Hi, I do think this is a great website. I stumbledupon it ;)

I never use StumbleUpon; it renders like shit in my browser.

_______________
¹ Also, I’m never thrilled with the interactive maps that take you someplace else every time you click on the damn thing and which require JavaScript/Flash to run and are completely useless on mobile.

² AKA the bar.

³ Maybe next year.

⁴ Four.

Hey, welcome back from the long weekend (those of you the States), or just to a random Tuesday (everybody else). Got some things to recommend to you, in the positive and negative senses.

• Maritza Campos and Bachan’s Power Nap is a weird, wildly creative, half-hallucinatory romp o’ fun, and they’re presently crowdfunding their second print collection. A bit atypically for webcomics, they’re doing the Power Nap collctions in a thinner, Euro-style presentation rather than the thick, halfway-to-omnibus style you get in American comics (print and web).

  Naturally, it’ll be full color, the better to make all those gorgeous dreamscapes pop. And I would be remiss to not point out that five readers have a chance to make a cameo in the strip, presumably to be killed in some horrible, hilarious fashion. I positively recommend you get in on this while the gettin’s good (the campaign will run for another 36 days, after that no promises you’ll be able to snag a copy).

• Following up on our earlier story, it appears that the Cartoon Art Museum has nailed down the talent list for this week’s Night of 1000 Sketches, likely the last fundraiser to take place at CAM’s current location in the Mission District of San Francisco.

  Remember, that’s this Thursday, 10 September, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, with tickets ranging from US$10 to US$100 (the more you pay, the more drinks, sketches, and goodies you get). Tickets are available here, along with a list of the 36 artists who will be sketchin’ their hearts out¹ to benefit CAM’s venue shift. Anybody in the greater Bay Area on Thursday, I recommend this one most positively.

• I also want to positively recommend that you check out the ongoing blog tour for Ben Hatke’s Little Robot, which will be landing here at Fleen on Monday. In the meantime, check out the other places that are talking about Hatke’s latest (and possibly most personal) children’s book at the blog tour HQ.
• Know what’s positively hilarious? Watching people at the website of a comics syndicate trying to wrap their brains around the comics of Jon Rosenberg², selections of whose Scenes From A Multiverse started running at GoComics yesterday.

  My favorite was from the individual who described SFAM as, quote, Mediocre newcomer to gocomics [sic], unquote. Moments later the same person flagged as a favorite this Heathcliff comic, and today was puzzled by a Peanuts strip due to not knowing what the word pompous means. Recommend Rosenberg’s comics for the giggles, double-recommend the confused reactions for double-giggles.

• I promised some negativity, so here we go. I got an email that insisted I had signed up for news from a self-described film production company (I didn’t) that thinks it’s very important for me to tell you about a contest they’re running to design a spaceship for a movie that they say is going to have a Kickstarter, but doesn’t yet. So let me tell you about it.

  The rules tell what they want (broad outlines for the spaceship, deadline, etc), but don’t say boo about rights or what they do with the entries that don’t win. The awards section specifies that the winner will get to do a bunch of stuff:

  – You get an opportunity to have your design included in the TRIBORN universe.
  – You will have an opportunity to work with the production design team as they model and build from your design
  – You will get to design the interior of the cockpit that will be built into a set.
  – You get a special credit in the movie as a concept designer.
  – You will get a one day pass to set in the Los Angeles area during the making of this movie with the opportunity to meet Ricco Ross, plus other cast and crew members. You will see your design in action, get photos of yourself on the set you designed, hang out with cast & crew, and get some other free swag (travel and lodging not provided).

  Anybody want to tell me what’s not included in that list of fabulous prizes? Like maybe compensation (above and beyond the promised free swag) for getting to work with the actual paid people, and getting to do additional design work? They aren’t even promising the bullshit reward of exposure³ because the only exposure they’re offering is a special credit in the end credits of a movie that nobody is ever going to see and which means exactly jack.

  Oh, but they get to share your design on their websites and social media, so the more they get people to draw for free, the more content they have to draw eyeballs to their site (their rules don’t specify you get so much as a link back). So I recommend most heartily that you submit entries to them that consist of a spaceship that resembles the words FUCK YOU, PAY ME.

  I doubt they’re the sort to learn their lesson and resolve to do better, but pointing out how much they suck could at least be amusing.

Spam of the day:

Update Account (Final Notice)
You received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes in services.
Your account gary[at]fleen.com will be terminated if you don’t respond immediately.

You mean the account that I control will somehow be cut off if I don’t click on your link? Wow, how does that work?

_______________
¹ In order to make the name of the event not be a tremendous lie, they will each have to draw approximately 28 sketches, or a bit more than 9 per hour (or one every 6.5 minutes) during the evening. Give an artist a drink ticket and they’ll probably make the sketch 37% awesomer.

² The soulkeeper.

³ Quoting again, as we must, Rich Stevens: People die of exposure.