Higher volumes of postings will kick in later this week; tomorrow will largely be taken up by travel, but expect at least some info regarding build-out and Preview Night on Wednesday, and then as many posts as make sense on Thursday through Sunday. Next Monday will also be a travel day, for what it’s worth.

In the meantime, if you could keep me from forgetting my phone charger/laptop power cord, and make sure I don’t miss the train to the airport tomorrow, that would be great. Travel safe, everybody that’s travelling, and have a good time everybody that’s not.

Personal goals this year:

• Meet Gene Luen Yang and thank him for his work
• At long last, meet Tom Spurgeon in person
• Buy Jim Zub a drink
• Find Chris Sims, give him five dollars

Spam of the day:

As tempting since it could be, it is financially irresponsible to borrow more cash than you’ll be able to afford to repay

This is surprisingly good advice; much like a broken clock being right twice a day (or Ross Douthat for once being merely inoffensive rather than his usual cranio-rectalized), spammers must have useful information once in a while.

Did I use that title before? I feel like I may have but also don’t feel like checking. There are things happening in comics that, oddly, do not involve the imminent San Diego Comic Con.

• If you read my review of the print collection Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell and thought Dang, I’ve got to get me that book!, I’ve got good news for you. Creators Sophie Goldstein and Jenn Jordan are having a book launch This Saturday, 19 July, at the highly-regarded Bergen Street Comics in Darwin’s own borough of Brooklyn. To add to the fun, they’re teaming up with fellow creator Jon Chad, who will be celebrating the launch of The Bad-ventures of Bobo Sadsack from Adhouse Books. The celebratin’ and launchin’ starts at 7:00pm, is free to attend, will have plenty of books for purchase and signing, and (based on past events at Bergen Street) may even feature snacks and drinks.
• Speaking of drinks, there’s a new educated booze-up session from winemistress Kristen Siebecker for those that will be in New York City rather than San Diego, but it’s waitlisted. Lucky for you she’s got a second one coming up a month later, with an emphasis on organic and biodynamic wines that will complement the paleo diet. As usual, Siebecker has provided us with a discount code — EMAIL10 — for 10% off the costs of the class(es).
• August is going to be celebratory at Portland’s own Excalibur Books & Comics, which will be celebrating 40 years in the funnybooks biz. There’s a sidewalk sale the weekend of 1 August, signings — featuring a slate of local comics talent, including about half of Periscope Studio, as well as webcomics types Mike Russell and Bill Mudron (who collaborated on the anniversary poster) — on Wednesdays the 6th, 13th, and 20th, a party on the 27th complete with cake, and a 50% off sale the weekend of the 29th. Lots of events, so lots can change in the meantime; check the link above for latest updates.
• The Harvey Awards ballot for 2014 has been announced, and there are some names of note on it. Webcomics and webcomics-adjacent nominees include Steve Wands (Adventure Time) and Britt Wilson (Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake), both up for Best Letterer, Ryan North (Adventure Time) and Jim Zub (Skullkickers) for the Special Award for Humo[u]r in Comics, and Adventure Time for Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers. In the actual category for Best Online Comics Work you’ve got Mike Norton (Battlepug, which took the Eisner in 2012), Laura Innes (The Dreamer — also nominated in this category last year), Tom Siddell (Gunnerkrigg Court), Yale Stewart (JL8), and Scott Kurtz, Steve Hamaker, and Brian Hurtt (Table Titans).

  Also I should probably mention that serial reprobate (and thus webcomicky enough) Chip Zdarsky got tabbed for Most Promising New Talent for Sex Criminals, which also was nominated as Best New Series. Votes (from comics industry professionals) are due by 18 August, and the awards will be given out at Baltimore Comic-Con on Saturday, 6 September.

• Okay, I lied — one bit about San Diego Comic Con. Pat Race of Alaska Robotics likes running, and he’d like some company, so the somethingth annual SDCC Completely Unofficial Fun 5K will be taking place at some point during the con. Tentatively, the plan is to start at 10:00am on Saturday morning on the bay side of the convention center, but if people want to finish (and shower) before the show opens, it may be started earlier. Check in with AKRobotics at booth 1134 to confirm time and location.

Spam of the day:

Punctuation simple plus are different. An example is usually”Manner” Regarding”Chanel, The brand are advised to get in line along side appears, And observe after a continual coupled every side of the back pack.

The irony of that quote being about punctuation is giving me a stroke.

I swear I came up with that title before I saw that the first panel listed on Saturday is for The Simpsons.

Saturday Programming
Cartoon Network: Steven Universe
10:00am — 11:00am, offsite
Well, sort of offsite; much like the STRIPPED screening at the Marriott, the Steven Universe panel (with series creator Rebecca Sugar and supervising director Ian Jones-Quartey¹ plus the voices of Steven, Steven’s dad, and all three gems) will be outside the convention center, but part of the show and thus require badged access. In this case, the Hilton Bayfront (that’s the one on the opposite side of the convention center from the Marriott, past the meadow where they line up the Hall H crowd for four days), in the Indigo Ballroom.

Writers Unite: Writing and Pitching Comic Stories
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 25ABC
If you can’t make it to the Bayfront Hilton, this session featuring the ubiquitous Jim Zub looks like a good alternative.

Diversity in Genre Lit
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 7AB
Okay, this is getting spooky; the even more ubiquitous (at least at this show) Gene Luen Yang will be on the panel here …

Avatar the Last Airbender: Legend and Legacy
10:30am — 11:30am, Room 24ABC
And, allegedly, here as well. Okay, at least this isn’t two sessions in exactly the same timeslot like yesterday, but given the distance he’d have to cover to get from 7AB to 24ABC, Yang couldn’t spend more than 20 minutes in the first if he wanted to make the start of the second. Does he know that he’s apparently being shuttled from panel room to panel room all weekend long without so much as a bathroom break? And will we see the ever-elusive triple booking to go with two (and counting) doubles? Let’s find out together!

Berkeley Breathed: The Last Comic-Con Panel!
12:00pm — 1:00pm, Room 9
Whoa. Breathed is almost as reclusive as Watterson. All these influencers on Generation Webcomics are coming out of their cloistered retirements.

Spotlight on Bryan Lee O’Malley
12:00pm — 1:00pm, Room 28DE
Everybody knows that Seconds is out this week, right?

We Are BOOM!
12:30pm — 1:30pm, Room 24ABC
The description starts with a blurb about a deal with 20th Century Fox, and a movie staring Denzel and Marky Mark, but I know I’m not the only one that thinks all of BOOM!s interesting stuff is coming on the all-ages end of things. To that end, I’ll note that Noelle Stevenson of Lumberjanes and the Frank half of Becky and Frank (of numerous Adventure Time backup stories and The Amazing World of Gumball) are the participants what caught my eye.

CBLDF: Banned Comics!
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Room 30CDE
Featuring Gene Luen Yang. I should get a running count of how many panels he’s on. I’m starting to think my kidding about him being held prisoner by the showrunners is more true than I meant it to be.

Spotlight on Lucy Knisley
2:00pm — 3:00pm, Room 28DE
Lucy Knisley is one of the very best creators we have, and the only one that makes me physically hungry reading her work.

30 Years of Usagi Yojimbo!
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 28DE
I am sometimes puzzled that you don’t see more written about Usagi Yojimbo until I realize that after three or four months you run out of ways to say Yep, Sakai put together another master class in comics storytelling, art, layout, and pacing. Uhhh-gain. He’s had a hell of a rough year, and I think everybody showing up to give the guy a little love would be an excellent thing.

Comics Journalism: The Hulk Takes a Butt Selfie and You Won’t Believe What Happens Next
6:00pm — 7:00pm, Room 23ABC
My nominee for best panel title of the show.

TeeFury-Practicing Nichecraft: Marketing & Brand Development for Independent Artists
6:30pm — 7:30pm, find it yourself
Seriously? They gave a self-promotion panel to frickin’ TeeFury? It is the end times.

Best and Worst Manga of 2014
7:00pm — 8:00pm, Room 23ABC
Props to my buddies Brigid Alverson, Christopher Butcher, and David Brothers (and also Deb Aoki, who I don’t know personally but whose writing I find smart and insightful) for sharing their wisdom so late in the day when by rights they should be at a bar enjoying a well-earned drink or eight.

Sunday Programming
Panels & Pictures
12:00pm — 1:00pm, Room 32AB
There’s some counter-intuitive staffing on this panel devoted to graphic novels for kids. Kazu Kibuishi, Raina Telgemeier, Mike Maihack, Sonny Liew (artist of The Shadow Hero, written by Gene Luen Yang, who will apparently be in a coma at this point since he’s not on the panel) all make sense … the curveball comes from the inclusion of Emily Carroll, whose work I absolutely adore, but never thought as for kids. Then again, kids love to have the bejabbers scared out of ’em, so I can see them eating her stuff up. Well done, panel organizers!

All-Ages Comics Have Arrived
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Room 24ABC
Gene Luen Yang will be dragged from the medically-induced coma that he’s been in for the past twelve hours long enough to talk with the likes of Dave Roman, Ian McGinty, Dave Petersen, and moderator Shannon Watters.

Fund My Comic
2:00pm — 3:00pm, Room 29A
Everything I said about the Kickstarter panel on Thursday would also apply here, except they included Kel McDonald on this one. Still offering that dollar to successful crowdfunders to attend.

Keenspot 2014: Giant-Size Panel of Pure Weirdness
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 4
The blurb says this is the 14th year for the Keenspot panel and that sounds about right. What caught my attention was the inclusion of DJ Coffman, who we haven’t seen in the webcomics scene for some time. Interesting times we live in.

First Second in Conversation
3:30pm — 4:30pm, Room 26AB
Readers of this page know I stand second to no man in my admiration of :01 Books, and they’ve got four of their very best in conversation: Paul Pope, Faith Erin Hicks, Lucy Knisley, and the restless ghost of Gene Luen Yang. This is my fourth must-attend of the weekend, and if I’ve got my math right, Yang’s eighth panel of the show. If you see him on the floor, maybe pass him some snacks?

Spam of the day:

In just the woman previous ones coming via our lawmakers yet optional places of work, Gurus if i could truthfully come with the actual most jane’s seminars elizabeth LBJ program relating to arrest important affairs collage tx of, Precisely your sweetheart learned.

You know how artificial language-construction systems are getting to the point where they can persuasively simulate like a 13 year old Ukrainian kid? Yeah, this was apparently written by a system that simulates a drunken libertarian brand marketer.

_______________
¹ I’ll give you a dollar if you ask him when RPG World is coming back.

San Diego Comic Con programming continues its release, with Friday’s panels and things now up for your perusal. As always, the schedule may change over the next couple of weeks, so verify the schedule before sitting in line for 37 hours.

Friday Programming
Gender in Comics
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 4
Some very smart people on this panel, whose writings on the Venn diagram of gender and comics I enjoy a great deal, including Janelle Asselin, Andy Khouri, Jennifer de Guzman, and Laura Hudson.

Comics Arts Conference Session #5: Rescued by Batman: Finding Hope in Something Terrible
10:30am — 11:30am, Room 26AB
Dean Trippe talking about his experience with sexual abuse and how Batman saved him. My third must-attend of the show.

Origins of the Comic Strip: The Untold Story of Artists and Anarchy, 1895-1915
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 29A
Could be an interesting companion to the screening of STRIPPED later today.

Walking the Line: An Investigation into Alternative vs. Mainstream Comics and Beyond
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 28DE
Kazu Kibuishi and Gene Luen Yang will be part of the panel, moderated by the always-great Calvin Reid. But here’s the weird part:

Words and Pictures
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 9
Got that? Same time as the panel immediately above. Moderated by Lev Grossman of TIME magazine, it’s a murderer’s row of modern masters of graphic storytelling: Michael Cho, Faith Erin Hicks, Lucy Knisley, Jen Wang, and Gene Luen Yang¹.

Comic Book Entrepreneurs: The Business of Comics
6:00pm — 7:00pm, Room 9
Bunch of business types, but also Noelle Stevenson of Nimona and Lumberjanes.

STRIPPED
6:10pm — 7:40pm, offsite
Well, half offiste; STRIPPED will be screening as part of the Comic Con International Independent Film Festival, which takes place at the Marriott next door to the convention center, in Hall 2. It’s still part of SDCC so you do need to be badged, it’s just not in the convention center. With another film starting immediately after, it doesn’t look like there’ll be time for a Q&A with filmmakers Freddave Kellett-Schroeder, but they’ll be at booth 1228 all show, so drop by there to pick up a copy or ask ’em about focal length or whatever.

Okay, that’s it for now; as a quick note, I’ll be on Pacific Time next week, so look for updates to occur later than they normally do. Yep, work sends me to the Left Coast just before I have to fly there for the convention like three days after I get home. I am not going to know what damn time zone it is for weeks.

Spam of the day:

what does yolo swag mean

Let me Google that for you.

_______________
¹ Is Gene Yang able to be in two places at the same time? It might explain how he has the time to turn out so many graphic novels without seeming to rush or skimp on any of them.

San Diego Comic Con programming started to drop today, with Thursday’s slate now available for your perusal. As usual, I’m listing out things that caught my eye; your mileage may vary.

Thursday Programming
Graphic Novel Programming at Your Library
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 23ABC
If you’ve been wanting to get your work into libraries, this is probably a good place to trawl for librarians.

Legends of TV Land
find it yourself
This is just to point out that Betty White now counts as valid topic for SDCC panel time. Look, I get it, she’s a treasure, but we’ve really jumped the sharknado on this one¹.

Under the Dome: Panel and Exclusive Sneak Preview
11:15am — 12:00pm, Ballroom 20
I am including this solely to make Jon Rosenberg’s head explode.

Welcome To Night Vale
12:00pm — 1:00pm, offsite
TopatoCo will be presenting a panel at the Geek and Sundry Lounge on 4th Ave in the Gaslamp, covering the secret history of one weird little town. As it’s offsite, no SDCC badge is needed.

Gene Luen Yang in Conversation with Scott McCloud
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 28DE
This is the first must-attend of the show for me. I’ve never met Yang, but I owe him many profuse thanks for his body of work.

NASA’s Next Giant Leap
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 6A
Okay, I’m not sure why Seth Green is moderating this one, but any panel with Buzz Frickn’ Aldrin and Bobak Frickin’ Ferdowsi² on it gets my attention. They may have undersized the room for this panel.

The Sergio & Mark Show
3:30pm — 4:30pm, Room 8
The two most consistently amusing people in comics.

How to Kickstart Your Dream Like a Pro
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Room 25ABC
Spike, Ryan North, David Malki !, Zach Weinersmith, Aaron Diaz, and George Rohac are, inexplicably, not on this panel (indeed, half of them won’t be at the show). However, I’ll give a dollar to each one of them that attends the panel to kibitz from the floor.

Understanding Stories: The Making of a Graphic Novel
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Room 7AB
McCloud again; hopefully includes previews of The Sculptor.

Cartoon Hangover: Bee and PuppyCat and Friends
5:30pm — 6:30pm, Room 6A
Natasha Allegri, Becky & Frank, Madeleine Flores, Allyn Rachel and Kent Osborne (voices of Bee and Deckard), and others. Second must-attend of the show for me.

Indie Comics Marketing & PR 101
6:30pm — 7:30pm, Room 8
Panelists from comiXology, BOOM!, and Fantagraphics. Could be some very worthwhile info at this one.

Spam of the day:

As explained NASA’s Glenn Research Center, the biggest market of gravity is “the average location with the weight from the object.

This spam may actually tie with this one:

how much is 100 grams in tablespoons

… in terms of fundamentally misunderstanding how basic concepts like mass, volume, and gravity work. Going to ask me how much time twelve parsecs is next?

_______________
¹ Sharknado 2, naturally, has its own panel on Thursday because of course it does.

² Who, let’s be clear, oversaw the most audacious landing in space exploration history before his 33rd birthday. Respect, my brother engineer.

Well, it’s just about two weeks out from Preview Night and (as of this writing) we don’t have a definitive programming schedule for San Diego Comic Con 2014; despite this, there are hints leaking out here and there, such as Dean Trippe’s Something Terrible panel on Friday morning. But what we do have is an exhibitor list for the main floor, Small Press, and Artists Alley areas, which we at Fleen have broken down for your convenience.

Surprising nobody, the SDCC exhibit floor [PDF] remains unreasonably huge; good news, though — if you’ve been before, webcomickers and similar folks are mostly where you’ve found them in prior years. Please note that all the information given is what I could confirm at press time, and as more information becomes available I will update or correct this page.

On The Right Side
Let’s start over to the right side of the map, which is the side of the building away from the stadium parking lot where so much offsite stuff will be found. It looks like this:

The Webcomics, Small Press, and Independent Press Pavilions are all reasonably accessible from the “B” lobby. Let’s break ’em down.

The Sexy Lagoon
Centered roughly on booth #1332, you’ll find a majority of the webcomickers who will be at the show within about a 1.5 aisle radius; some are slightly outside the orange area, but not too far.

Notes:

• Gene Luen Yang and Lucy Knisley will both be at the :01 Books booth during the show.
• Blank Label is the increasingly-disused name for Willis, Spike, and whoever’s sharing space this year.
• Dumbrella will include Andy Bell, Meredith Gran, Rich Stevens, Chris Yates, and me.
• Congrats to Matt Inman on finally getting a booth of his own. Watch out for Blerch cosplayers in the aisles.
• Danielle Corsetto’s cross-country roadtrip will land at the TopatoCo booth on Saturday and Sunday from 1:00pm to 4:00pm only.

Small Press Is The Best Press
Right by the Webcomics section is Small Press. Here you should find:

From the Small Press section, you’re close by:

Notes:

• Gallery Nucleus/Bolt City will feature Kazu Kibuishi, and no doubt other arty types when they aren’t hanging out at Mondo down in booth 805.
• No confirmation yet on which webcomickers will be at the BOOM! booth when, but I’d expect a pretty strong rotation.

Now head back toward the “B” Lobby into the Independent Press area and you’ll find Unshelved in Booth 2300. Head towards entrance B2 in particular and you’ll be right next to Axe Cop at Booth 1603.

Going back to that larger map of the northern half of the exhibit hall. Wedged in between the Marvel and Image megabooths you’ll find Keenspot in Booth 2635.

Down South
Two last places to mention, if you trek down to the southern (that’s the end closer to the Happiest Place On Earth¹) end of the hall:

Waaay down there, past all the art materials and vinyl toys and Copic markers, you’ll find Udon Entertainment (home of such worthies as Christopher Butcher and Jim Zub at Booth 4529); and The Hero Initiative at Booth 5003. One may also find Mr Zub in Artists Alley, table GG-06, or variously at the Dark Horse, IDW, Image, or Marvel booths; look for the Canadian-shaped blur and that will be him.

Offsite
I don’t have a specific place to direct you like last year’s ShiftyLook (RIP) Arcade featuring Andrew Hussie, but I’m guessing that neither the Gaslamp Hilton terrace nor the massive parking lots within a kilometer of the convention center will be empty. I’ll add info to this page as I become aware of it. I’ll also update any info I get on people that are going to SDCC, but not necessarily boothing on their own.

Spam of the day:

does pizza go bad overnight

You shut your filthy mouth, pizza is never bad.

_______________
¹ Tijuana.

New — in some cases long-awaited — things popping up all over the damn place today.

• Ever want a Scott C painting of your very own? I’ve got a couple and they’re great, but they aren’t necessarily in everybody’s price range. The valiant Mr C heard your cries of despair, though, and has a solution:
  

  THE GREAT, GREAT SHOWDOWNS HUNT

  DAY 1

  Here’s what’s happening: I will post a little painting from a popular little film once every day this week leading up to the Revenge of the Great Showdowns exhibition on Friday, July 11th at Gallery 1988. These paintings shall be placed into envelopes and hidden somewhere at the location in which that scene happened.

  The first person to find this painting shall keep this painting as a gift from me to you! I only ask that you post a picture of the found painting in your possession, so I can congratulate you in front of the world. Tweet it or whatever you like. #GreatGreatShowdownsHunt

  Today’s painting appears to be of the cast of Reservoir Dogs, and it’s been placed in proximity to the diner from the early scene where they discussed tipping. Get on that, LA people! Presumably the others between now and Friday will also be in LA, but maybe he’s arranged for one to be left somewhere in suburban New Jersey. Please?

• From the twitter machine yesterday
  

  Baby arrived 8:14 this morning. Seven pounds, four ounces, 19 1/2″ long. Enjoying family bonding time at the hospital right now.

  That would be the sprog of Shaenon Garrity and Andrew Farago, born to webcomics royalty. There’s only so much you can say in 140 characters, so we at Fleen will presume that mother, child, and father are all doing well, and hope that all settle into their new routines easily. Child, you are going to have an amazing life, with parents that not only love the crap out of you, but also draw great pictures for your amusement and have a appreciation of nerdy things second to none.

  Listen to them well, learn their lessons, and you may someday inherit your mother’s crown as one of the three Nexuses of All Webcomics Reality and Radness Queen of the East Bay and Adjoining Metropolitan Areas. Welcome, little one; we’ll try to make the world worthy of you.

• Little baby children are all adorable, and a good thing too, or the stories of what they’re like at two years old would have led to a lot more of them being raised by wolves¹. Nightmares at that age, the lot of ’em. Not that nightmares don’t have their appeal from a storytelling perspective, which is why I’m equally curious and (given the imagery coming out of Broodhollow these says) trepidatious about Kris Straub’s newest project:
  

  What if there was a company that could go into your dreams and kill your nightmares? EXTERMINITE is a mind-bending 5-part graphic novel from Len Peralta, Mikey Neumann, and Kris Straub that will scare you out of your own pants, hilariously.

  Okay, sure, the blurb there claims that Exterminite will also have the hands of Len Peralta and Mikey Neumann, but when you start talking about nightmares, really disturbing nightmares, my mind goes straight to Straub. Hopefully the ha, ha aspects of this one will outweigh the Well great, you can just rock me to sleep tonight, Kris aspects.

  May Straub find this project a means to deal with his well-known fear of ghosts, because he’s just way too nice a guy to spend his days spooked by the things that aren’t quite there. Besides, he’s expecting his own first child soon, and as I understand it worrying about everything dangerous your infant can do to her/himself leaves little time to worry about ghosts.

• New book cover/recently rediscovered Art Deco masterpiece courtesy of Justin Pierce; Wonderella may be taking a little break while the third collection of her nonadventures is being put together, but if we get beautiful renditions like this (love the juniper, barley, and hops, very apropos) I’d call that a fair trade. Kickstarter information to come soon.

Spam of the day:

Depending which type, gas powered or electric, make certain you hands are dry before plugging it in to operate. You can buy this dryer at Sears, Home Depot and select Loews locations.

And remember, you have to keep the lint screen clear or you’ll burn down your house.

_______________
¹ Or perhaps moles; I can never keep those two straight.

Okay, there’s still a day left to cost me and Dave Kellett some money. If it wouldn’t be unethical as hell, I’d bid the damn thing up to somewhere in the US$500+ range. In fact, let’s make this game a little more interesting: I pledged to match the purchase price of this piece up to US$500. If this is what it takes to spur some of you to get in the spirit of things (only full cast of Drive watercolor in existence, people!), I’m going to change the terms of my pledge:

I, Gary Tyrrell, will match the selling price of Dave’s piece as a donation to Team Cul de Sac up to US$1000, and with a minimum of US$500 in any case

You can’t afford to bid on a piece that might cost you multiple hundreds of dollars? Pledge a donation — however small — in the comments. You’ll get a reward beyond measure: official mensch¹ status, as declared by Richard Thompson himself.

• One of the things that I’ve observed with interest over the past few years is the (slow, but growing) adoption of writer’s rooms in webcomics. You could say that there’s an element of it at Cyanide & Happiness where it’s easy to imagine one of the lads bouncing an idea off another of them, but I think primarily it’s individual efforts. Anyplace you get a writer/artist partnership, there’s certainly give-and-take there.

  But I think you could probably trace proper writer’s rooms to the Pacific Northwest where (as often happens) you find Scott Kurtz at the center of experiments in webcomics. The Trenches started as an explicit writerly collaboration between Kurtz and the established duo of Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins; along with the artist changes, the writer’s room reduced to a singular voice: that of Strip Searchmonaut Ty Halley. While he may have withdrawn from one writer’s room, Kurtz was busy building up another as Dylan Meconis² joined him on writing duties on PvP.

  Crucially, I think the fact that Meconis creates comics so very different from Kurtz is a strength of this particular partnership. While Kurtz, Krahulik, and Holkins undoubtedly work well together they have similar strip approaches (gag-oriented, videogame and pop culture focii) and that limits the number of additional viewpoints that can be brought to bear on the final product. One might wish to compare with the writer’s room that was put together for the now-shuttered NAMCO High, featuring a bunch of creators of different ages and backgrounds (although there was a tendency for them to presently live in Brookklyn).

  I’m bringing this up because for anybody that’s considering a writer’s room, finding that balance of different experiences is probably one of the most crucial elements for success, but historically it’s something that’s been elusive. The traditional venue for writer’s rooms has been TV comedy, and much has been written in the past about how those rooms tend to be dominated by white dudes, often from Ivy League colleges, and viciously under-representative of women and minorities.

  And all of that is by way of pointing out a discussion that anybody considering a writing partnership (whether in a room or not) will probably want to listen to: as I write this sentence, WNYC midday host Leonard Lopate is introducing the author of a new book on comedy writing to discuss writer’s rooms at places like SNL, Letterman, and The Onion. You can listen to the interview here, and we can discover together what makes a good writer’s room (or perhaps the discussion follows some other track, but it’ll probably still be enlightening).

• Skin Horse, by Shaenon Garrity and C Jeffrey Wells, is in an odd semi-hiatus right now. Those of you paying attention may have noted that Garrity is (as of this writing), hugely pregnant and not intending to do a daily strip whilst dealing with the immediate aftermath of presenting a small human child to the world³.

  Having wrapped up a storyline on Saturday, she announced that she was done drawing comics for a while on Sunday, and the next storyline (a catch-up-with-peripheral-characters melange, to feature a variety of guest artists) started on Monday. And if my eye does not fool me, Garrity even provided the art for the first vignette herself (or somebody out there has her style down cold), easing us into a summer of random fun, with Wells undoubtedly shifting plot and pacing to best match the fill-in artists.

  And in one of those weird coincidences, today’s strip features an offhand reference to an obscure cryptid known as The Hodag, which by a peculiar corincidence just happens to be one of the critters mentioned in an endnote of Darwin Carmichael Is Going To Hell, to wit:

  In 1893, the Rhinelander Daily News reported the discovery of the corpse of a hideous creature with huge claws and a spiked tail. It’s discoverer, local land surveyor Eugene Shpher, called it the hodag, then claimed to have caught a live one in 1896. Shortly after, he displayed it at the First Oneida County Fair. He stood by the veracity of his claims until the Smithsonian Institution announced it would travel to Wisconsin to inspect the evidence, after which he promptly recanted. This ridiculous hoax is now the official symbol Rhinelander, Wisconsin, which is pretty great.

  The more you know!

• The last time David Malki ! thought up a game, it turned into a half million dollar Kickstarter and a year-plus process of production and fulfillment. This time, he’s just decided to put the damn thing up in a post and let you play without going down the path that leads to things like livestock and international shipping incidents.

Spam of the day:

Today, I went to the beachfront with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back!

Yeah, that’ll happen. My suggestion is that to avoid future trauma to unsuspecting and blameless hermit crabs, you seal your daughter in a barrel, with a small opening to pass in food and water.

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¹ For those of you that didn’t grow up someplace where you got off from school for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, being a mensch is a good thing.

² About whom it is literally impossible to say too many good things.

³ With, it should be noted, the assistance of husband and Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago.

Today just seems to be chock-full of further references to things we spoke about earlier in the week. Weird how that happens sometimes.

• I hate to keep flogging the :01 Books is awesome horse¹, but they keep cropping up in my daily life. Today it’s because the mail brought a review copy of Farel Dalrymple’s forthcoming graphic novel, The Wrenchies². Look for a review a little closer to the September release.
• Scott C persists in his scruffy, charming ways — so much so that the jaded, flinty-eyed tastemakers at The AV Club noticed, lavishing some well-deserved praise on The Great Showdowns.
• Thanks to the Spam of the day, this week also saw mention of Angela Melick and her prodigious skill in both engineering and autobio comics. Word is today is her birthday, which should be marked on my calendar of significant births in engineering history. Oh, you doubt I have a calendar that features the birthdays of famous engineers³? Check it — annotated version for your viewing pleasure.

  As long as we’re on the topic of birthdays, it is also the birthday of Lore Sjöberg, whose website presence is less these days than it has been sometimes. Nevertheless, there’s still a significant amount of his old Brunching Shuttlecocks work available, including Lore Brand Comics and the greatest use of Flash animation in history. I am pretty secure in my atheism, but every day I thank the possibility of God that I was born into a world featuring the phrase depleted uranium Beholder statue.

Weekend now. Enjoy the crap out of it, and I’ll see you on Monday.

Spam of the day:

After a three month long research project, I’ve been able to conclude that how to change your minecraft name doesn’t negatively effect the environment at all.

That is exactly what I’d expect a shill for Big Change Your Minecraft Name to say. Don’t believe the “official” story! Stand up against those who would despoil our natural world by changing Minecraft names!

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¹ Not true; I’ll tell you that :01 Books is awesome every day and twice on Sundays.

² Book design by Colleen AF Venable, natch.

³ Okay, technically it’s a calendar with the birthdates of significant electrical engineers. With all the circuit-building and Arduino-wrangling that Melick does these days, I’m declaring her one of us in spirit.

If there are three guys in webcomics that could be said to resemble each other, it’s probably Zach Weinersmith, Boulet, and Scott C. It’s something about the way they all draw themselves as scruffy. And, as chance would have it, all three of these scruffy gentlemen are in the news today.

• As of about half an hour ago, Messers Weinersmith and Boulet were still in an AMA over at Reddit that started at noon, eastern time (meaning that one or both of them were answering questions for more than three and a half hours); they were talking about their storybook, Augie and the Green Knight. There’s lots of great Qs and As all the way through, but for my money you can’t beat this particular exchange about two hours in:
  

  Draw yourselves each other like one of your French girls, please? A sketch would be more than sufficient.
  Edit: figured this would be more fun.

  The results are … about what you’d expect, given that cartoonists are suspect under the best of circumstances, and generally horrible to each other. It was beautiful. Truly.

  This is also a good time to note that as the AMA was kicking off, Augie crossed the eight days remaining mark; it’s been a while since they crossed a stretch goal and there are still some unreached. It’s already inside the lower bounds of the (admittedly wide margin-of-error) FFF prediction; if it reaches the midpoint of US$400,000 (a bit more optimistic than Kicktraq’s model), it will be the #4 all-time most funded publishing project and the most-funded children’s book.

• Scruffy guy #3, Scott C, has a new gallery show about to launch; the third exhibition of Great Showdowns (can a book be far behind?) will be unveiled at Gallery 1988 in LA on 11 July¹. If you think you’d like to buy Showdowns originals, you have a fair chance to do so since they won’t go up for sale until the day after the opening — contact Gallery 1988 to get on the preview list, and you’ll be able to see the works being shown, then try to buy your favorites when they go up for sale online the next day. You’ll get your art some time after the show goes down on 2 August, and from personal experience I can tell you that Gallery 1988 do an outstanding job of packaging and shipping art.
• You know who does webcomics and is the opposite of scruffy? Chris Yates. I have to assume that having a beard is a hazard around all the power tools he uses to make Baffler!s. But Gary, I hear you cry, Chris Yates doesn’t do webcomics any more! He retired Reprographics ten months ago to make short films on YouTube! You even wrote about it! Yeah, turns out that once you get cartooning in you, it’s hard to shake:
  

  Hello! So it turns out I really miss making comics, so I’m going to make them again on a regular basis.

  Working on Nothing But Flowers was a really interesting experiment, but I think I’m probably better suited to making weird diary comics and wooden puzzles than attempting to be the next big YouTube sensation.

  The plan is I will post at least one comic each week and try to break some bad shortcut habits. No more automatic Cutout filter at 50% and no more fonts are the first to go. I’m calling this current effort “In Medias Res” which emphasizes just pulling a few moments from real conversations and keeping things concise.

  So happy to be back and hope you stick around!

  For simplicity I’m going to keep the link over there to the right marked Reprographics, but for at least the time being the (very different from photocomics) content that Yates puts up will go under the name In Media Res. The first one is up now, and it looks really nice.

Hi there! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a group of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us beneficial information to work on.

You’re starting an initiative in the community to talk about webcomics? Neat. Let me know how that works out for you.

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¹ As luck would have it, I’ll be flying through LA a couple of days later, but my connection times won’t permit me to see anything beyond the bounds of LAX. Booooo.