This Friday has been the least Fridayish I can recall in quite some time; it’s all worked out in the end, but man I was up to my ass in cocodylomorphans for a while there. Here’s some thing to consider:

• Ryan North (aka The Toronto Man-Mountain) and David Malki ! (aka The Jack of All Trades) both hit on the topic of How Not To Be Terrible In Society And/Or On The Internet in their strips today. I propose we take them as guides for all future human conduct. We can all wear sea lion shirts while we do so.
• I don’t know much about the prior work of Jules Faulkner, but I saw way too many people whose work I do know tweet today about the launch of Faulkner’s new webcomic to ignore it. Knight and Dave — the story of Sir Iris and his caprine sidekick, Dave — will run on Fridays with Mondays and Wednesdays possible if you make with support over at Faulkner’s Patreon. Too soon to tell where this one is going, but so far, it’s hella cute and cartoony.
• TopatoCon¹ haven’t announced any more exhibitors, but they did announce that they’re now allowing half tables, so we may see the number of guests increasing from the 70 or so expected to 100 or more. Neat!

I have to clean house a little, so for the first time please enjoy the plural majesty of the
Spams of the day:

Hey webmaster,When you write some blogs and share with us,that is a hard work for you but share makes you happly right?

I’m perfectly happly to not work hard, actually.

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… let’s not ever put this much stupid in one post again.

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¹ I started wondering why TopatoCon’s twitter is @topatocon2015 and not @topatocon, and then I found out: @topatocon is a dude that’s a fan of the LA Lakers and an LA TV meteorologist.

So just yesterday I was talking about people trolling Kickstarters and wouldn’t you know it, today brought forth an example of the most extreme dickish behavior as an example:

Our Kickstarter is currently listed as funded but 90% is coming from a $9000 pledge from an account that hasnt successfully backed a project

The project in question, to put together a Boys Love comic anthology, presently shows funding of just under US$12,000, but if nine grand of that is from one person with no backer history, I’ma go out on a limb and say that somebody decided that just because he¹ doesn’t like seeing dudes make out, he should do everything possible to undermine people who do like seeing dudes make out.

So thanks for that, Mr Jerk. I don’t know if I would have heard about Boy, I Love You or not; I doubt that I’d be promoting it, but since you’re determined to play the role of spoiler, the least I can do is make it clear that the project still needs your support. Hell, I’m considering tossing them a few bucks just to help offset your desire to spike a project that was doing you know harm. Oh, and Kickstarter? That set-a-threshold-for-requiring-pledge-approval is looking better by the day.

• In new less likely to make me despair of humanity, last year’s Beat the Blerch runs were so successful and oversubscribed that not only will there be a 2015 iteration, it’s spreading² beyond the bounds of original site Carnation, Washington to Sacramento, California and (approximately my stomping grounds) Morristown, New Jersey. I don’t know about Washington or Sacto, but northern Jersey is beautiful at that time of year and I really want to go check out what a bunch of Blerch-runners will look like crowded into a rather quiet, rather wealthy, rather Republican, tastefully-decorated Revolutionary War-era town³.

  My guess is it’s going to be glorious, but — alas — I won’t be able to verify the amusingness of the contrasts, because the New Jersey dates conflict with TopatoCon. I’m guessing that Matthew Inman and his helper elves will put on a terrific event, and that it’ll be the talk of the town until the next one comes around, presumably in 2016. For those not able to make any of the locations, you can order a Virtual Race Kit from next week, and stage your own Blerch run — although you’ll be responsible for staffing your own Blerch cosplayers and sourcing cupcakes, Nutella, and magic purple drink on your own.

  Best of luck to all the runners at all the events, and if you see Matt Inman tell him I said hi from TopatoCon.

• Hey, kids! You know what today is? Only the most wonderful day of the year, that’s what! Today is …

  Bradmas

  That’s right, today is the day we celebrate the gift the world received when the magnificently sexy Brad Guigar blessed us by being born. Today is a day for comic books, old vaudeville routines, terrible puns, bit-champing, and laughter. So, so much laughter; laughter that has the power to kill … and well, mostly just kill. Happy birthday, Brad!

Spam of the day:
Gets the day off for Bradmas.

_______________
¹ Of course it’s a guy.

² Much like your waistline if you don’t beat the Blerch.

³ Also, there is a significant Orthodox population, so lots of stuff you’d expect to be open on a Saturday will be closed, but likely open on Sunday.

The fine folks at TopatoCon keep adding names to their exhibitor list, about one a day. Since we last mentioned KC Green, Jeph Jacques, Jess Fink, and Tom Siddell, the poisonous space-potato has added Rosemary Mosco of Bird and Moon and Kate Leth of almost everything. More guests to be announced until the total hits 70 or so.

The rest of today is about Kickstarter and Kickstarts.

• David McGuire has had some ups and downs over the past day or so; he funded out with three days to spare and announced some stretch goals, then a high-value backer dropped a pledge and knocked him back below the threshold of success, from which he is now separated by just under US$100 and two days. He’s going to make goal, but this situation sparked a bit of memory for me.

  You may recall the Kickstarter backer-scammer of 18 months ago¹, whereby an individual (probably more than one on a site as broad as Kickstarter) made a series of top-tier pledges and then disputed charges with Amazon after rewards had started shipping. While I don’t think that McGuire has been intentionally messed with (personal finances change, after all), I have heard stories of groups of griefers that pledge to campaigns and cancel immediately before close. It’s bad enough if they cause a campaign to fail just to screw with somebody, but it could actually be worse if a campaign just barely succeeded — a creator may have placed orders for merchandise with the expectation of it being paid for, and be stuck with unneeded inventory and overly-large invoices to pay.

  So I guess I’m back to a couple of stray thoughts I had back in November of 2013 — Kickstarter should look at allowing campaign owners to set a threshold above which backers need to be approved, or to make available escrow services. The first is probably easier than the second, and while aimed at those with larceny in their hearts, these approaches would also help to prevent those who are “merely” setting out to spread misery for the lulz. Heaven (and the Uniform Commercial Code) help the next Kickstart campaign that GamerGate (and its similar, noxious offspring in other media) decides to make into its latest chew-toy.

• The Dumbing of Age book 4 Kickstart had a great first day and is settling into the long tail phase — although with a second-day drop of more than 50%, the FFFmk2 is of less value than normal², adjusted for the fact that it launched right at midnight and so the drop is exaggerated — and that means it’s time for a predication. The math indicates US$132.5K +/- 26.5, or a range of US$106K to US$159K. Based on the trend of the previous DoA books, I think that US$90K +/- say US$10K is more likely. Give me another ten or so Kickstarts with a steep second day drop and we’ll have a better model.
• Today’s Kickstarter that you should check out (by way of a tweet my wife saw): a travelogue of Iceland by Lonnie Mann, with a cover blurb from Lucy Knisley³ who pretty much epitomizes the travelogue comic. It looks really good, and has all the hallmarks of a success: the work has already been published as minicomics; a printer is lined up; Mann has backed many, many Kickstarters in the past and obviously isn’t looking to tap into the magic free money machine without a clue. Give this one a good look.

Spam of the day:

Dear Gary – Thank you for your kind support and stellar coverage of our growing list of clients. It’s been slightly over a full year since I formed our small PR and marketing agency and it’s been an amazing ride that I could not have undertaken without your generous support and kind words. Truly, you are the best!

I’ve never heard of you, you’ve never emailed me before, and I’ve certainly never covered your clients. You’re … you’re not very good at this, are you?

_______________
¹ Which — small world! — featured Alex Heberling, now colorist for Brad Guigar’s Evil, Inc, whose latest Kickstart appears to not have been plagued by a complete and utter dick.

² See the TJ & Amal Omnibus, which had the flattest long tail I’ve ever seen, where the FFFmk2 would have predicted US$175K +/- 35K, which I eyeballed down to maybe US$55K, and actually did US$65K. I need more data!

³ Holy crap you guys — just as I was typing Lucy Knisley’s name, Terry Gross said her name on the radio. Timing! She’s running an interview with her right now which isn’t available online yet, but probably will be tomorrow at this address.

We’re headed in several different directions today. It’s an adventure!

• I need to start this first item with a disclaimer, and ask you to believe that while I would have certainly written about this regardless, how I learned about the item in question may give the appearance of a quid pro quo. Leaving aside all the roundabout verbiage, David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc and semi-pro Mr Bean impersonator) emailed me over the weekend with an extraordinarily generous offer — an original strip from his always-amusing Planet Of Hats, my choice, gratis.

  He mentioned that I should look over the list of available strips to see if the one I wanted¹ was available or taken, as he’d launched a Patreon and top contributors could call dibs on a strip. Which is how I learned that David Morgan-Mar, the man who started webcomicking a month before Ryan North, the man who famously has not sought to turn his thousands (to potentially infinite number) of strips into anything resembling a career and does this for fun (his own and his audience’s) had started a Patreon to defray the costs associated with all of his internet-shared japery.

  I’ll note that his campaign has the lowest milestone goals I’ve yet seen on a Patreon — ten dollars a month² to cover the costs of pens and paper, $35/month for hosting and registration on all of his sites (ten in all), $50/month to get one new LEGO brand construction brick toy-based Irregular Webcomic strip a week, and $75/month for two new strips a week.

  Guys, this is chump change, and please believe me when I say that a) we would be having this conversation with or without Morgan-Mar’s incredibly generous gift, and b) that after putting in what I’d estimate to be literal tens of thousands of hours on his various comics, this is just about the very least he could be asking for in way of audience support. His has been the most one-way transaction of laugh-chuckles in the history of webcomics; it’s time he was shown how much he’s appreciated.

• Still on Patreon for a moment as I’d like to point out another act of incredible generosity by a webcomicker, and with a far greater impact on somebody’s life than some free artwork. Chris Rusche hit some tough times in his personal life last year, and his readers urged him to set up a Patreon so as to offer support — which enabled him to make his comic his main gig, and not coincidentally allow him to care for his kids (one of whom has a chronic health condition).

  So when Rusche saw another artist in similar circumstances whose tablet blew up over on Patreon, he organized his readers to resolve that and has been pushing as much attention towards her campaign as he can. The beneficiary of this kindness is Ginny Higerd, whose work you can find here; she may need to add a few more high-end milestone goals, seeing as how all the existing ones have now been filled. And kudos to Rusche, for using his powers (and followers) for Good and for Awesome.

• Speaking of using your powers for good, yesterday Jon Rosenberg and family were returning from a Florida vacation when they were involved in a multi-car collision. All are unhurt, thankfully, but at last report the Rosenbergs were trapped in a Denny’s in South Carolina, which is far from the best Denny’s to be at without good transportation options. Maybe this would be a good time to look at his Patreon?
• The list of confirmed TopatoCon 2015 guests now stands at four, with KC Green, Jeph Jacques, and Jess Fink now joined by Tom Siddell (who you can also see at this weekend’s MoCCA Fest alongside Magnolia Porter). And since we’re mentioning Siddell, I want to particularly congratulate him on his current story arc, which has me twisted up in knots, anticipating each new installment, even as he puts our main character through the wringer.

  It’s a masterful job of storytelling, causing an emotional response where I’m feeling protective of Annie, outraged on her behalf, and find my visceral loathing of her until-now-absent father growing by the day. It’s been ten years that we’ve been following Annie’s story and I’m well-invested in her narrative. Story threads that have been woven over that decade are being violently disrupted, and making the agent of all this upending be the person that should be apologizing to Annie (for his sudden and prolonged absence, particularly when he most needed her) is a bold stroke.

  But seriously — Anthony Carver is a jerk, fuck that guy, I also hope he gets laser–cowed.

• New strip alert! Otaku Dad looks to be hilarious, which is hardly a surprise as it’s coming from Ronny Filyaw of Whomp!; just one page and a cover so far, but the premise in that one page is delicious.
• Live action Automata, possibly under production as soon as the fall and released next year? Intriguing.

Spam of the day:

Hi my name is Janette and I just wanted to drop you a quick note here instead of calling you.

a) It is very unlikely that is your name, and b) people that call me are subject to significant levels of verbal abuse. I once reduced a I am calling from Microsoft Technical Support, we have detected a virus on your computer to a frothing rage. Then again, it’s pretty easy to provoke that when you study the work of the master.

_______________
¹ Which presented a dilemma — which episode of Star Trek would make the best fodder for a humorous piss-take? Something intentionally silly like Planet Of The Gansters A Piece of the Action? Something no-doubt well-intentioned but more than a litte train-wrecky, like Planet Of The Primitive Blonde Americans (Not Native Americans, They Get An Episode Next Season) And Yellow Peril Communist Stereotypes The Omega Glory? Something well-intentioned and a bit heavy-handed but not entirely train-wrecky like Racism Is Bad, Mmmkay? Let That Be your Last Battlefield? Something completely off-the-rails insane like Space Hippies Don’t Like Herbert The Way To Eden? Coming near the end of Trek’s run, Morgan-Mar’s skills ought to be nicely sharpened by the time that one comes up in the rotation. Ultimately, I went with a strip yet to be drawn — the ur–Planet Of story — one which should sum up everything in SF’s tendency towards every planet is just one thing: Planet Of The Nazis Patterns of Force.

² I’m assuming ten US dollars a month, since Patreon in a US-based company, but don’t discount that he’s looking for ten Australian dollars, which would be about seven and a half American at today’s exchange rates.

Lots of people are already halfway into ham-mode, what with Easter and all; even those who are not believers tend to go big on the ham. I only have two brief items for you before I call it a week and take a nap.

Item the First: New TopatoCon guests announced! While exhibitor applications are open for a couple more weeks, we now have our second and third confirmed guests, Jeph Jacques and Jess Fink. In the immor[t]al words of TopatoCon’s governing body:

We should put @JessFink and @jephjacques in a room and see who can draw the most boners in five minutes. #topatoconeventideas

I volunteer to be the timekeeper of this event.

Item the Second: I don’t know if you follow the nameless, heroic computer security specialist that tweets behind the façade of a world-ruling pop star, but InfoSec Taylor Swift has impressed the hell out of me with their knowledge, analysis of current security threats, and snark. Even better, as the person that ends up Designated Tech Guy At Family Gatherings, InfoSecTayTay has put together a hell of a timesaver: a guide to securing computers that I can point relatives to instead of doing it all myself.

If you end up being your own tech support, you could do worse than bookmarking Decent Security (work in progress, so revisit often) and examining your own habits and practices. It’s rather Windows 7-centric at the moment, but the page titled Computer Security Is Not Magic applies to everybody.

Okay, that’s it. Enjoy whatever you may celebrate this weekend, and don’t forget: chocolate goes on sale Monday.

Spam of the day:

My spouse and I stumbled over here from a different page and thought I might check things out. I like what I see

What you and your spouse do is none of my business, please do not involve me in your sex games okay thanks bye.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m late. Let’s do this.

• Evan Dahm’s got me convinced that I’ll need a copy of his Moby-Dick Illustrated. His first chapter illustration has the feel of a woodcut crossed with an engraving, and a brooding, heavy quality that pervades the atmosphere in the same way that lightness and hope suffused his Wonderful Wizard of Oz drawings. I never had much desire to read Moby-Dick, but if it inspired work like this, I’ll need to give it a fair try.
• MoCCA Fest will be having a dedicated lounge for special sponsor Wacom, all day both days of the show. You’ll be abe to see (and play with!) Wacom’s various products, and there will be five demos spread across the two days from a variety of well-known artists.
• Abby Howard started her webcomicking with a vaguely autobio strip, broke through to a wider audience on Strip Search, and parlayed that into a hell of big Kickstart for The Last Halloween, which continues to delight and startle. She’s turning full circle back to that vaguely autobio¹ strip and Junior Scientist Power Hour will collect the best strips since its launch into a 200 page book, provided the funding goal is reached oh who am I kidding, it’s Abby, people love Abby, she’s going to crush this.

  Since it’s not an every-strip-reprint project, I can only hope that my personal favorites of her strips — Sadness Brownies, Creepy Dog — will be included. An added bonus in some tiers will be Junior Paleontologist Power Hour, which could be an expanded version of the early strip of the same name, the more recent five-part maxi-series How To Dig Up Dinosaurs, or some combo platter of the two. Regardless, I’m in, because Abby loves dinosaurs makes good comics about them.

Spam of the day:

This design is incredible! You obviously know how to keep a rezder entertained. Between your wit and your videos, I waas almost moved to start myy own blolg (well, almost…HaHa!) Fantaetic

Sir or Madam, I believe that you may not be perceiving reality as it actually is. Please check that you are in a safe space, and call for medical assistance.

_______________
¹ Does anybody believe that 80s Tom Hanks really lives in a hole in her bedroom? Actually, now that I think of it, it is entirely possible.

Okay, one April Fools, because Emily Carroll’s work is too spooky for some people, she made the ending of her critically- and popularly-acclaimed His Face All Red less mysterious and spooky.

• Congrats to the nominees in the NCS division awards for long- and short form webcomics. Repeat nominee (and past winner) Vince Dorse for the now-concluded Untold Tales of Bigfoot, Harvey- and Eisner laureate Mike Norton for Battlepug, and Minna Sundberg for Stand Still, Stay Silent are showing the world what you can do with long form; Danielle Corsetto’s just-concluded Girls With Slingshots, Jonathan Lemon’s Rabbits Against Magic, and Rich Powell’s Wide Open are the esteemed representatives of the short form.

  I should also mention that in other categories — graphic novel, gag cartoons, editorial cartoons — you’ve got indy- and webcomics types like Jen Sorensen, Jillian Tamaki, Mike Maihack, and Liza Donnelly recognized; between that, and seeing the animation categories recognize The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Song of the Sea, and Over the Garden Wall, it appears that new, bold works are getting their due consideration. I’m not a member of the NCS, but I’m pulling for Sundberg and Corsetto over in webcomics; best of luck to all the nominees. The NCS awards will be handed out at the NCS Reubens Weekend in Washington, DC, Memorial Day Weekend.

• Congratulations as well to Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh for wrapping up Lucky Penny yesterday. It’s been a goodly while since Johnny Wander was an autobio/diary strip, and while we’re going to be getting strips about Ota’s trip to Japan in 2014, I doubt it will ever entirely be autobio again. Nevertheless, Lucky Penny was a damn good read, and the fact that it got completed despite Ota’s frequent wrist impairments¹ is a monument to either work ethic or stubbornness to the point of insanity. Read it again from the beginning, and look for it in print when it’s released.
• The first guest of TopatoCon 2015 has been announced and it’s all-around great cartoonist KC Green, whose new comic (on which we speculated yesterday), He Is A Good Boy, is a now running and hitting on all the familiar Greenian themes — a semi-likeable protagonist, the requirement to grow up despite the desire for things to stay the same, a deep ambivalence (bordering on loathing) about things staying the same, and sudden outbursts of profane (yet I suspect utterly earned) fury. Oh, and the main character is an acorn who doesn’t want to go plant himself. It’s gonna be a good one, folks.
• Zach Weinersmith has his hand in so many projects it’s tough to keep up, but one that he keeps circling back around to is BAHFest — the Festival of Bad Ad-Hoc Hypotheses — which aids the cause of science literacy by getting science types to laugh at themselves before going back out to show the world what is and what is not science.

  Weinersmith will be talking to public radio’s Science Friday this Friday about BAHFest, which is sure to be the most amusing segment until this year’s coverage of the IgNobel Awards. Check here for local NPR stations, and then with that local station to see if they run the show live 2:00pm-4:00pm EDT; alternately you can listen to SciFri segments at their website following the broadcast, or via iTunes.

• Some day, Randall Munroe may tire of elaborate, experimental comics that act as crowdsourced idea factories, but today is not that day. Start clicking and don’t forget to eat at some point.

Spam of the day:

Mayo Clinic Study-Eradicate Diabetes

While more plausible than your previous attempt to hook me in by claiming NASA had figured out the cure for diabetes, I still somehow doubt the truthfulness of your claim. I’ve been up to the Mayo Clinic for work, and I’ve rarely met a group of people so dedicated to their work² and you know what? They have an actual public affairs office, one that does not announce major medical breakthroughs — and a cure for diabetes would rank up there with the polio vaccine and the eradication of smallpox in terms of medical breakthroughs — by direct-emailing me at my blog on webcomics. Try harder, you horrible people.

_______________
¹ Finding herself under doctor’s orders to not use her right hand, she taught herself to draw just as well with her left, which she then promptly injured from overuse so the right wouldn’t be jealous. She’s gotten better about pacing herself but make no mistake — this is a woman that can draw better than you with either hand.

² In the main lobby there is a display case showing the gifts that they give you for your 5th anniversary working for the Clinic, 10th, 15th, etc. They went all the way up to sixty-five friggin’ years, which I believe is the definition of dedication.

It’s coming up fast, folks! And you’ll see lots of webcomics (and webcomics-adjacent) folks there; usual disclaimer, there are others I’ve undoubtedly missed.

• Table 231: Tony Breed, cartoonist, DJ, gentleman about town.
• Table 314: Josh Neufeld (I love his collaboration with public radio’s Brooke Gladstone, The Influencing Machine).
• Table 320: Koyama Press; if they are the not great hope for comics, they’re damn close.
• Table 326: Evan Dahm; dare I hope that he has copies of his Wonderful Wizard of Oz with him?
• Table 328: Sam Bosma and Kali Ciesemier, of many different things.
• Table 340: Rachel Dukes has been tearing it up on the BOOM! books, and working on her first graphic novel.
• Table 354: the creators of Strong Female Protagonist, Brennan Lee Mulligan (words) and Molly Ostertag (pictures)
• Table 352: Sophie Goldstein (half the team behind Darwin Carmicheal Is Going To Hell and all of the team at Red Ink Radio). Along with her, Sylvan Migdal, who’s been at MoCCA since forever.
• Table 383A, Jordan Witt of The Organization of Ghost Hunters.
• Table 404: not an error, but the fine folks of :01 Books (the best folks).
• Table 423: Michelle Czajkowski of Ava’s Demon.
• Table 424: Magnolia Porter and Tom Siddell are, between them, on career-best streaks right now. So good, both of them.
• Table 425: Carey Pietsch has been paired up with Meredith Gran on the latest Marceline series; she’ll be joined by Janet Sung and Arielle Jovellanos, together forming creative forces behind Ladies of Literature.
• Table 450, Scott C of the Great Showdowns, adorable childrens books, and fine art collections everywhere.

Fun start at 11:00am on Saturday and Sunday, weekend after next, at Center 548 in Manhattan. See you there!

Spam of the day:

Hi, my name is Catherine and I am the sales manager at StarSEO

Nope.

Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO

Nope!

Despite More Prominent News page and noticed you could have a lot more hits

Nnnope!

It occurs to me that while I mentioned programming at the upcoming MoCCA Fest t’other day, I neglected to make mention of the special guests that will be there. Obviously, Scott McCloud and Raina Telgemeier will be there, what with their spotlight panels being discussed, but there are loads of others.

(For those wondering who is going to be at EmCity, which kicks off tomorrow, the answer is: everybody. Every person in webcomics is gonna be there.)

Joining Telgemeier and McCloud as special guests will be Aline Kominsky-Crumb: painter, cartoonist, collaborator with husband R. MoCCA has also always made a concerted effort to bring cartoonists (both guests and exhibitors) in from overseas (remember the year of the Swedes?), and continues the tradition this year. The emphasis this year is on French-speaking countries, from whence come:

• Pénélope Bagieu (known for comic bloggery and her collaborations with Joann Sfar and Boulet)
• DoubleBob (whose pencil-centric style has found a home in Belgium, in contrast to the ligne claire style)
• Annie Goetzinger (with a career of longform work, especially graphic novels dealing with societal and historical issues)
• Ilan Manouach (whose experimental comics are a part of a larger creative output, including music and publishing)
• Anne-Françoise Rouche (founder/director of an arts center catering to the mentally handicapped)
• Barbara Stok (the token non-French guest; she’s from Holland and known for humorous autobio as well as a comic biography of Van Gogh)

Several of the international guests are touring in support of their first translated-into-English work, so it’s an opportunity to get in on the ground floor in following talent that new to those of us that don’t speak French, Dutch, or the Belgian variations on French and Dutch.

MoCCA Fest runs Saturday and Sunday, 11 and 12 April, from 11:00am to 6:00pm. See you there.

Spam of the day:

93 Mouth-Watering Quick Easy Recipes at a Whooping 66% discount!

I’m not sure if you mean a whopping discount (as discounts typically do not whoop, but honestly — do they whopp?), but that’s actually the lesser of my concerns. What exactly is being discounted? The recipes themselves? The watering mouths? Enquiring minds want to know!

I didn’t enter today’s hotel rodeo because I still have received no assurance that I’d be let in the front door¹ and hell if I’m spending the money to get out to San Diego and not get in; let’s focus on shows that answer their damn email.

• EmCity happens later this week, and there’s a plethora of webomicky programming going on. Of particular note, you may find Spike, Destroyer of All That Oppose Her on four panels:
  

  MY 4 ECCC PANELS: Running a Comics Anthology- Fri, 1:10 Adult Comics- Fri, 6:50 Non-Compliant- Fri, 5:00 Discussing Diversity- Sun, 3:50

  The one on Adult Comics will also feature Leia Weatherington and the invaluable Hurricane Erika and Blue Delliquanti

• And for those that want to learn some of the best tips for making your way in the waters of business, superlawyer to the creative community Katie Lane will have a series of appearances: building up your legal toolkit, on the role of the artist in this electronic world (with Gene Ambaum, Pat Race, and Nadia Kayyali), and how to negotiate like a murderous acrobatic spy. If you aspire to destroy all those that oppose you (and truthfully, who doesn’t?), that last panel is a good place to start.
• After you’re done bein’ all adult and all lawyerly, there’s a screening of STRIPPED Friday at 6:00pm in Hall A, with a Q&A featuring Danielle Corsetto, Kris Straub, Dylan Meconis, and the very sexy Brad Guigar (we appear to have looped back around to the adult portion of the show, if you know what I mean).
• Not to be outdone, MoCCA Fest released their programming schedule for this year’s show, with a Q&A with Scott McCloud and another with Raina Telgemeier being the two standouts to my eye. Given its size, MoCCA only does a dozen programs, only two at a given time, so you can see a significant fraction of the offering if you’re determined to do so. Reminder: the programming is not at the main venue (Center 548), but rather about 2 blocks away at the High Line Hotel; see the map on the programming page.

  Please note that due to limited space in the panel rooms, the Q&A sessions on Saturday require a reservation which you can get by “purchasing” a free ticket. Yeah, it’s a pain to sign up for an account, but Raina! Scott! Worth it.

Spam of the day:

Hi, my name is Pauline and I am the marketing manager

Nnnnnnope!

_______________
¹ If I didn’t earn back my press status this year, SDCC, just bloody tell me. Don’t not tell me by your own announced deadline and then refuse to respond to my enquiries for three damn months.