See, the thing is, I’m on vacation in a city populated almost entirely with excellent food (much of it in carts), beer, public transport, and awesome people, and I am not online all day as I have things to do that involve interacting with excellent food (much of it in carts), beer, public transport, and awesome people. Between my phone and the basic netbook I have with me, some browsing and webcomic¹ and such, but I am likely horribly behind. I trust that you will adapt in some manner.

• Ryan North has now shared what it was like to win an Eisner Award², but I don’t believe he has shown you what that Eisner Award looks like. Wonder no more, it’s right up there at the top of the page. You can click it for embiggening.
• Zach Weinersmith announced (or perhaps “launched”) his latest Cool Thing during the rush of SDCC — in collaboration with the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, Weinersmith has an e-book of 128 (2^7) nerd insults, with illustrations lovingly supplied by the inimitable Jess Fink. Weinersmith mentioned to me in San Diego that they really wanted to do 2^8 disses, but that they couldn’t come up with a full 256. Anyway, you can get up in the grill of smart people for as little as one dollar.
• Kris (Straub) and Scott (Kurtz) have, as previously mentioned, done up a Mappy series of animated shorts for ShiftyLook, the first of which is now online. It’s difficult to watch with the resources I have at hand, but it’s definitely got the feel of Blamimations³, so that’s all right.

Below the cut, the best remaining cosplay photos from the con: Toki and Murderface, a Plants vs Zombie zombie, and Attack on Titan trainee Sasha “Potato Girl” Brause.

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Okay, okay, I’d meant to get this post up yesterday, but as much of the day was taken up with Airport Fun Times, and I am also on vacation this week (my hotel in Portland is conveniently close to something called Voodoo Donuts, which seems to always have a line outside), you’ll get what you get and you’ll like it.

Fortunately, I think that you’ll like this one a good deal.

The STRIPPED (check out the snazzy new website!) panel went up in an inconvenient location (the literally far corner of the San Diego Convention Center) at an inconvenient time (7:00pm, against the Masquerade, big media parties, and need for food after the major day on the show floor), and still managed to — as they say in Hollywood — kill¹.

Sitting at the front table were co-directors and hivemind Freddave Kellett-Schroeder, editor Ben Waters, and associate producer Jen Troy². Messers Kellet-Schroeder did most of the talking and retain their uncanny ability to both finish each others sentences and interrupt each other for maximum comedic effect; those kids need to take their schtick on the road. In response to an enquiry from the Kellett half of the directorial team, a show of hands indicated that the majority of the audience had been backers of the film’s two Kickstarter campaigns, so they’ve been following along through the four year process of making the movie. More precisely, the interview process started four years ago, Waters and Troy began their work two years ago, and but for a few remaining clearances, the movie’s essentially done.

Without further delay, the first clip was shown. In essence, it’s the first six or seven minutes of the film, about 80% of which had previously been released to Kickstarter backers as a sneak peek. Various unattributed creator voices³ talk about what comic strips mean to them over a scene of a father and daughter reading the Sunday comics together at breakfast⁴. The titles are interspersed with a scene of a comic being drawn (fans will recognize Kellett’s art style), with more clips of creators (with names this time) talking about what comics mean to them, their favorite strips (Peanuts, Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, Foxtrot, Nancy, and Pogo got called out), along with reminiscences of reading the comics page on the floor as an earliest memory of childhood. It sets the stage for a movie that’s a love letter to comics beautifully.

However, that wasn’t always the tone of the movie. In a process that could conceivably stretch to a half-decade, a movie’s narrative has the potential to change⁵; in their first assemblage of footage, Schroeder-Kellett were convinced that what they had in their hands was a disaster movie: comics were endangered, they had to get the interviews done and the movie released quickly before they went away. The second clip they showed had been the original opening to the movie which focused on the theme of comics and newspapers failing⁶. It was a doom-filled two or three minutes that closed on a Bill Watterson quote⁷ about daily comics disappearing.

Following test screenings with filmmakers that they trusted, Kellett-Schroeder came to the conclusion that the opening was radically out of step with what the rest of the movie was about; in the years since they’d started gathering interviews, they’d found hope and certainty that although comic strips are changing, they are also broadening and diversifying and thriving in ways that weren’t obvious at the start of the process. Although it was time-consuming and expensive, that mean the film had to change and it certainly seems better for that correction. As Kellett put it, With a documentary, you’re writing a story with other peoples’ words, and that means making mistakes and learning as you work.

The third clip was the proverbial money shot; in the year since the first clips of STRIPPED were shown at SDCC 2012, Watterson’s involvement grew from answering questions via email to answering questions in an audio interview⁸, which are spread throughout the film as relevant underscores to points being made. In the section titled The Golden Age of Comics, we get to see what the lifestyle of the rich and famous cartoonist of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s was like: newsreel interview clips, sitting on the couch next to Johnny Carson, popular movies built jet-set rich cartoonists, Jim Davis doing a commercial for American Express, Mel Lazarus guest-starring as himself on Murder She Wrote⁹ — there were decades where those making newspaper comic strips (especially serial adventure strips) were millionaires and billionaires. The first Watterson audio clip — the first time he’s allowed himself to be recorded! — closes out the section. There was a hush in the room that lasted two beats past the fade-out, then the applause erupted.

Bill¹⁰ has been very nice, Kellett said, very generous, and that theme recurred; each of the interviewed creators came in for effusive thanks and praise. More than once, Kellett said, somebody they were talking to extended the scheduled interview by an hour or more because they were so invested in the discussion. Kellett pointed out that not only did this add to the amount of transcribing Troy had to do, she also has had to obtain clearance on 627 different comic strips that are visually identifiable in the film. She seemed okay with that.

• The Q&A section opened on the obvious question: How did you get Bill Watterson? His name was at the top of the wish list of must-have interviews (because who hasn’t been moved by Calvin and Hobbes?), but it was accepted that there was no way they’d get him. But in talking to so many other cartoonists, people that Watterson is in contact with and respects, word filtered back to him that these two guys are legit and worth talking to, and if you aren’t a part of this, it’ll be a little lacking. Because of that, Watterson reached out (!) and said he wanted to be a part of it. He spoke over the phone for 40 – 45 minutes in total, and later a recorder was sent to him to ensure the highest possible audio quality for his answers.
• The one clunker of a question came next. A gentleman stood up and asked Can I play devil’s advocate and
  (Kellett: No. Next question.)

  ask, haven’t comic strips gone the way of jazz? Nobody makes movies from comic strips anymore, adventure strips are dead, compared to graphic novels, do they matter? Do people still care?

  Kellett again: Thank you for that, I’m going to go kill myself now. But then he pointed out that comic strips are nowhere near the point of, say, opera, which only survives because of state sponsorship and whose heydey as a popular art is centuries past. There’s an amazing renaissance flourishing, but it’s not concentrated. We will never again see the billionaire cartoonist, but there is so much more good work.

  Schroeder: Art Speigelman said No popular art ever dies, it either becomes “Art” like jazz, or it finds another way. There’s just so much more out there vying for your attention, but you won’t see the huge popularity like in the ’40s when daily entertainment consisted of just comics and radio.

  Kellett: And there are more comics creators making a living than 30 years ago, and comics speak to more people than they used to. If you were a black woman or gay boy in the ’40s, what comics spoke to you?

• Briefer questions: Asked if there were transcripts of the interviews (Troy nodded furiously), it was said that the dream outcome would be a coffee table book that we would not have to publish. Asked when the movie can be seen and how, the process of determining distribution and timing is in active exploration now. Asked if Garry Trudeau was in the movie, it turned out that there were three or four people they really wanted but who didn’t want to participate: Trudeau hates to do interviews, Berke Breathed very kindly declined, Scott Adams deferred on account of his vocal dystonia, Gary Larson and Art Spiegelman also opted not to participate. But as filmmakers, they are thrilled by the 70, 80, 90 interviews that they did get.
• Second best laugh of the night: If the future is on the internet, did you interview any webcomics guys?
  Kellett: We did not. I’m not very familiar with that world. (In actuality, webcomics become increasingly prominent in the second half of the film, and dominate the last third.)
• Noting that Kellett and Schroeder are interested in releasing the full videos (possibly as a series of DVD extras, or 99 cents per on iTunes, or whatever), one questioner wanted to know if they would release the full Watterson audio interview. The consensus was that they would have to ask if he was comfortable with that, and it would probably depend on how he felt about the final film. They speculated that he would be amenable to his interview appearing in print, and amenable to appearing in a book, at least.
• Asked what interview most shocking, Kellett told the story of meeting Jim Davis at PAWS headquarters, the three-building complex rising out of a cornfield in Indiana after following a dirt road, with sunbeams perfectly illuminating the scene and imagined heavenly choir going aahhh-AAAHHH! and realizing That’s where Garfield lives! I’m sorry, what was the question? Clarifying that the question was about shocking opinions, they decided on Stephan Pastis, noting that in the film he and Kellett argue and it got heated. I think it made the documentary better, we wanted the film not to be about our viewpoint, we wanted him in there. He was great.

  Schroder: At first we thought web/print would be hardcore in their community, but they’re all cartoonists.

  Troy: Every interview was amazing, everybody has their own take on creativity, but Patrick McDonnell was my favorite. I was transcribing and he talked about how creating the strip he’ll go into a Zen state and I realized I wasn’t typing any more.

  Waters: A lot of people were watching their language a little bit, but the Penny Arcade guys not so much. They’re very frank, maybe brash, nobody else really talks like that in the movie. Everybody is very nice.

  Kellett: We all fell in love with Cathy Guisewite. Younger unmarried me wants to date younger unmarried Cathy Guisewite. Please nobody send this to my wife.

With time closing in, they showed the clip from last year focusing on how webcomics make their money (it’s done as an 8-bit videogame starting with CARTOONIST NEEDS FOOD BADLY and ending with a boss fight for audience) and took two last questions.

• The first resulted in the biggest laugh of the night when asked how they handled their inner fanboy while interviewing heroes. Kellett responded, Sometimes we didn’t. Fred and I were flying to Canada to interview Lynn Johnston, it’s like four connections and on the first leg of our flight we got the email from Watterson. Literally the whole flight we were GIVE ME THE IPHONE AGAIN, LOOK WHAT HE SAID HERE FRED, HE MADE A STAR WARS JOKE!!¹¹ Schroeder: Dave did that.
• Given the instruction to make the last question a good one, a young man stood and said he didn’t have a question, he wanted to thank the panel on behalf of every eight year old kid that’s ever loved comics, thanks for grabbing that passion, and being able to share that with everybody; his voice was cracking and it was pretty obvious what the comics have meant to him. Kellett was visibly affected by the honest emotion, and reiterated that the film couldn’t have been possible without the help of everybody they spoke to, but also the people that have been supporting the idea of STRIPPED from Day One. The ovation was enthusiastically and genuine, and if it had appeared in a movie you might have felt it too contrived to be real. Fade to black.

_______________
¹ To paraphrase noted filmmaker Mr The Frog, It’s gonna be boffo, Lenny! Totally socko!

² Big ups to Troy, who had the good grace to speak slowly and use ordinary words, a boon for those of us (me) transcribing in the audience; I attribute this to the fact that it was her job to log the film — that is, sit through all 300+ hours of interviews and transcribe the entire damn thing. Respect.

³ I believe that I recognized Lynn Johnston, Greg Evans, Jim Davis, Cathy Guisewite, and Jerry Holkins in that vocal montage but again — no names shown. Yes, I am a tremendous nerd.

⁴ The breakfast scene was beautifully art-directed, and I say that without a trace of irony or sarcasm. First time I saw the five second pan across the table, past the coffee and juice and toasted bagel smeared with fresh creamery butter, I got hungry. Well done, Mr Schroeder.

⁵ And, in the case of documentaries, I’d argue has an obligation to do so in a lot of cases; if you come into a documentary with the conclusions predetermined, you aren’t showing how things are.

⁶ Literally, it started on a cold open on Gregg Evans being asked about the state of newspaper comics, getting a pained expression on his face, and letting out a ragged sigh.

⁷ Which I believe was from his famed speech at Ohio State’s Festival of Cartoon Art in 1989. Watterson has always been not just a genius-level maker of comics, but a scholar and observer who has few equals, and foresight about where they’re going that’s nearly unparalleled. We’ll be hearing more from him in this piece.

⁸ I confirmed with Schroeder later that the audio portions were not in person, so it’s no use trying to kidnap one of them to divulge where Watterson lives.

⁹ What is this theme with cartoonists and murder?

¹⁰ Not Mr Watterson, I note. Of all the people in the world to be on a first-name basis with!

¹¹ For full effect, you have to imagine Kellett’s voice Dopplering up in the all-caps part.

Yesterday was the day that I discovered that porn starlet Tera Patrick (who is apparently a cousin by marriage to a guy I ride EMS with) is signing on the show floor. Go Team Central Jersey.

• Speaking of porn, Smut Peddler impressario Spike confirmed for me that there will be a new edition of the sexytime comics anthology next year, possibly in the spring, maybe in the summer. After that, it looks like alternating porn and not-porn anthologies, with the next not-porn project in 2015, probably on the theme of fantasy, and much like The Sleep of Reason will be restricted to no cliches: TSoR said no vampires, no werewolves, no zombies, and Untitled Fantasy Anthology will say no elves, no dwarves, no Tolkien analogs. In a decade or so of alternating anthologies, we should be able to finally quantify how much people like porn compared to other entertainments.
• Speaking of forthcoming print projects, I got to speak to Evan Dahm about his first Vattu collection, The Name and the Mark; Dahm’s happy to report that the book is at the printers, and well on the way to release in October. In fact, he’ll have a limited number of books to debut at SPX alongside his Midnight Monsters collaboration with Yuko Ota, The Exquisite Beast. SPX is a good book-buying crowd, and having debuts ought to drive a lot of commerce for Dahm, so that’s all right.
• Speaking of Yuko, she and Ananth Panagariya got a nice mention at the Adventure Time Comics panel, seeing as how their Candy Capers miniseries launched last week; BOOM! editor Shannon Watters gave us a some advance details of the next couple of issues, as Peppermint Butler pairs up characters as the new heroes of the Candy Kingdom in Finn & Jake’s absence. The next issue will feature Tree Trunks and Marceline as partners, and the issue after that will partner up Lumpy Space Princess (!) and Lemongrab (!!).

  The bulk of the panel was a discussion of the creative process of Braden Lamb, Shellie Paroline, Ryan North, and Meredith Gran, their approaches to all-ages comics, and their best jobs at doing the voices in live readings. North, Paroline, and Lamb were of course fresh off their Eisner win, so it’s no surprise that in a room that allowed 500, there were few empty seats, and the audience was predominantly there for the current panel, not squatting in the room for some later panel; the wealth of cosplay (especially on younger kids) was proof of this.

  Watters also let us know that there will be another Adventure Time graphic novel penned by Danielle Corsetto and drawn by Zach Sterling; the theme of the series is pretty quickly becoming princesses go on adventures, as the new book will feature LSP facing trials (maybe) and tribulations (possibly) and saving the world (probably not). But hey — one of the messages of Adventure Time is that we can all be more than we appear initially, even spoiled princesses from Lumpy Space.

  In the main Adventure Time comics, the next issue will wrap up the current story arc (it features Jake stuck in a dream existence with a stretchy-powers Finn!), and the one after that will be a Princess Bubblegum-centered story. Peebles stories often feature her need to control and manage everything (from her kingdom to the fundamental forces of physics) and how her messing with Things That Should Not Be Messed With have consequences, but they aren’t usually taken past the end of the episode.

  Prubs is a genius, but she also pretty damn irresponsible with her mad science and her creations are idiotically dangerous as often as they’re helpful. In this new story, PB goes off the rails and actually has to deal with one of these things that she’s responsible for rather than foisting it off on Finn and Jake.

  The Q&A section had time for ten questions, and the first was from a boy maybe ten years old that wanted to know if Ryan knew about a webcomic called Homestuck and does he use it for inspiration?, particularly because of one Homestuck-referencing quote that North snuck into a recent issue. He was apparently unaware that Ryan and Andrew Hussie are credit card bros, and Ryan told the young gentleman that Everything I write is Homestuck fan-fiction. The seriousness of the exchange was honestly charming, as was the number of kids in the audience that had brought binders full of their Adventure Time-themed drawings, eager to show them to the comics creators.

  After the session I got a chance to chat with Braden Lamb, where we immediately fell to talking about Kitty Hawk, his long-hiatused adventure webcomic project with Vincent LaBate. On the one hand, Lamb would love to get back to Kitty Hawk, on the other other, BOOM! projects keep him busy to the point that an ongoing webcomic isn’t practical. A complete story might be a possiblity, but with the releases of stories like Delilah Dirk and Lady Sabre, the market may be a bit crowded, even for a story that predated the others.

  We also spoke about the challenges that Lamb and Paroline had producing the Choose Your Own Adventure Time issue that North penned a while back, making the choices easy for kids to follow, but not so obvious that you could cheat your way to the desired outcome; it probably helped a lot that North has some experience writing such stories, but the best contributor to the success of that issue was probably Lamb’s choice to do some color-coding. Future artists/writers of such stories, take note.

• Speaking of Andrew Hussie, I saw the initial start of the ShiftyLook panel referenced yesterday, and I owe the SDCC showrunners an apology. I very much doubted that the maximum capacity of 170 in room 28DE would be sufficient for the presumed crowd o’ Homestucks that would descend upon Hussie like unto a tsunami, and it turned out that they fit just fine; there was a minimal line outside the room prior to the panel, but a pretty healthy population of fantrolls were already in there for the prior panel¹.

  The panel discussed the Zach Weinersmith²/Dave Shabet collaboration (interactive DigDug), the previously-announced Andrew Hussie-penned MMO (NAMCO High, available pre-holiday, 2015), and the Kris Straub/Scott Kurtz Mappy series (first episode goes live tomorrow).

• Speaking of room 28DE, it would later host the STRIPPED panel, which managed to fill the room despite being scheduled at the late hour of 7:00pm, against large media screenings, ramp-up to industry parties, and pre-Masquerade prep. I have nearly 1500 words of notes that need to be whipped into shape, so let’s put that off for another post. But speaking of STRIPPED, yesterday I learned that co-director Fred Schroeder’s agent is from my town, despite his currently agenting in the nearly polar opposite of LA. Go Team Central Jersey.

Below the cut, the best cosplay photos of the day: Simon Petrikov and Hello Randy.

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Morning has come way too damn early at San Diego thanks mostly to the people that decided hosting an overpowered audio system in an unenclosed place and letting the sound rip until one in the damn morning was a nifty-neato way to promote whatever their brand is. I get it, Friday night is an acceptable party night and everybody at the event seemed to be enjoying the crap out of themselves; hell, I was enjoying the crap out of myself at the ShiftyLook party¹ until the old man sleepies caught up with me.

The difference being, a bit after eleven, the ShiftyLook party bosses and hotel staff conferred, some of the louder game cabinets were turned off, groups talking were discreetly asked to be mindful of the hotel’s guests, and the sound system was playing ambient electronic music at a considerate volume.

Meanwhile, between Island and J, 7th and 8th, an audio monitoring app on my phone tells me that sound levels with the windows closed were peaking at 70db and with the window open, 85db². For reference, 70db is defined as EPA-identified maximum to protect against hearing loss and other disruptive effects from noise, such as sleep disturbance, stress, learning detriment, etc. and 85 db as Hearing damage (over long-term exposure, need not be continuous). No kidding, a fire engine running full lights and sirens shortly after the speakers were turned off was not as audible as DJ ScrewYouPayingGuests, and of course was not sitting in one place cranking up the bass³.

So here is the deal: I want to know who sponsored this act of disregard for everybody not on the guest list, so I can be sure to never, ever give them money in the future, and I will pay an reward in the amount of one dollar American Cash Money to whoever can tell me whose party this was.

There were cars set up in a way that suggested they were on display, and what appeared to be pages from The Walking Dead were being projected onto the side of a nearby building. Oh, and at least two patrol cars from San Diego’s Finest (number 6-955 and 6-266) were on the scene, hopefully with industrial-grade ear protection (but certainly not doing anything to enforce local nuisance ordinance). Go forth, my minions, return with the information I seek, and help me in my quest for vengeance.

• Speaking of the ShiftyLook party (which was excellent, by the by, allowing me the opportunity to talk with the likes of Sam Logan, Jim Zub, Stacy King, Kris Straub, Christopher Hastings, Evan Dahm, the aforementioned Chris Butcher, and others), I had the opportunity to talk briefly with George Rohac of What Pumpkin where we tried to figure out what the heck the session booking team was thinking.

  As mentioned earlier, the ShiftyLook panel will be kicking off later today (2:00pm to be precise) in a not-overly-large room (28DE), and will feature Zach Weinersmith, Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub (any one of whom could fill the room just with his own readers, much less those that are coming to hear the ShiftyLook plans) and Andrew Hussie in his only panel appearance. I want to go by 28DE, find the little plaque that indicates the maximum number of persons allowed in the room, and then take a picture of the Homestucks lined up outside the entrance and receding into the far distance.

  It’s not as if the SDCC staff don’t have some warning about the Trollstorm that’s about to hit them; last year I watched the Homestuck Parade that occurred when they relented and finally granted TopatoCo a section of the autograph area for Hussie’s signings (which they had requested and been told wouldn’t be necessary) after the first session turned into a seven-aisle backup that snarled traffic on the show floor for a ten-aisle radius.

  After TopatoCo Supreme Presidente Jeffrey Rowland brought the news to the lined up Homestucks that they would have to relocate to meet their Lord and God, he led a line of fans that took more than ten minutes to pass by in reasonably clear booth traffic. Every single one of those people will be wanting to see this panel. This is gonna be awesome.

• Speaking of panels to see today, the Adventure Time panel will be at 3:30 in Room 8, and the STRIPPED panel at 7:00pm in 28DE.
• Speaking of commerce being driven, Friday on the show floor was weird. Everybody I spoke to had a different impression of how the day went — it was busy from start to finish, or it was quiet, or it had bursts; the show floor was crowded at all times, or it was preternaturally empty; sales were strong, or they were okay, or they were terrible compared to last year. In my past experience, these are the sorts of things that usually evolve a consensus, but literally every booth I stopped by to talk to creators had a different view on how the commercial end of Friday went.

  My personal impression is that the number of sales events that I could see from my vantage point in Webcomics Central was less than on Thursday (which is consistent with the personal experience I had of Square through much of Friday — instead of being nigh-unusable from load as it was for most of Thursday, Friday was very hit-or-miss; a card swipe might result in a communications failure in ten seconds, and the customer might see approval after a minute and a half of waiting). Considering that Friday is traditionally neck-and-neck with Saturday for the top day, saleswise, here’s hoping that today is a monster in terms of merchant activity.

• Hope Larson dropped by at the start of Friday and I was privileged to tell her how much I enjoyed her film short, Bitter Orange; she in turn was kind enough to pull out an iPad and share her next film project, a music video for Dan The Automator featuring Mary Elizabeth Winstead. I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s say the following:
  • It is beautifully shot in black and white and every moment had near-perfect visual composition
  • The storyline is hilarious
  • It required Larson to figure out where one could obtain prosethetic eyes, which is probably not a conversation you ever anticipate yourself having until it actually occurs

  The video’s in the hands of the label and they’ll hopefully be releasing it soon because dang, this needs to be seen by everybody.

• Speaking of Larson, she was one of the winners at last night’s Eisner Awards, and we at Fleen are thrilled for her, even as we’re sad that Meredith Gran was one of those that Larson beat. The two actually agree that should either of them prevail, the other would start a fight, so if you heard any rumors of flipped and/or jumped tables, punched thrown, or security having to separate combatants, they are undoubtedly true.

  In addition to Larson’s win for Best Publication For Teens (A Wrinkle In Time), let’s also congratulate Ryan North, Shellie Paroline and Braden Lamb for Best Publication For Kids (Adventure Time), Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover for Best Digital Comic (Bandette), Tom Spurgeon for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism (The Comics Reporter), all of the other winners, and the parents, who worked so hard to make the costumes.

Below the cut, the best cosplay photo of the day: Hench 4 Lyfe.
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I held off writing this yesterday, hoping that it would be a temporary situation, but by new it’s pretty clear that Square is stumbling in the Convention Center. Wednesday night was a dream, transactions flying through, credit cards approved, signatures captured in the blink of an eye. The beginning of the day Thursday was likewise smooth and unremarkable, but after a few hours transactions took longer to approve, then gave way to connection failures.

While the various Wis and Fis and Gs are chugging along at sometimes widely different speeds, connectivity is not the actual problem. I am writing this post on the same WiFi signal that is showing connectivity issues with Square, but which is browsing at a practical (if slightly pokey) rate.

Reports from vendors across the floor are similar: random pockets of decent responses from Square interspersed with an approval time measured in whole minutes. Performance did get better towards the end of the day on Thursday, but it wasn’t obvious if it was due to sales tapering off or Sqaure adding transactional capacity. Given that the slowdowns kicked in earlier today than yesterday morning, it seems the former is more likely.

Here’s hoping that Square’s capacity problems (it is a very common sight on the floor: phones and tablets with the ubiquitous white dongle) doesn’t impact the sales of creators. SDCC is just one weekend in one city, but there is a disproportionately large ratio of total merchants:Square users right here and they deserve not to be let down by technology on their most important sales weekend of the year.

TIHYD autograph count: 17 total (picked up Rhiannon Kelly, Rebecca Black, Carly Monardo, Lissa Tremain, John Chernega, Bill Chernega, Tony Cliff, Claire Hummel, and Ryan North and David Malki ! each signed a second time).

The City of San Diego must rotate which of its fire stations respond to emergency calls; Engine 4 has been dispatched a half-dozen times or more since I left the convention center at the end of Thursday’s show hours (a significant amount of this period coincided with when I was trying to sleep), a situation that I don’t recall occurring in the previous days. Let’s do this.

One of the things that gets lost in Comic Con is interaction at the personal scale; even when the crush of the day is done and you aren’t surrounded by thousands of attendees, the desire to catch up with every friend, don’t waste a minute of time, where can twelve people get dinner together is strong. I got away from that tendency at several points during the day, taking the opportunity to talk to just one person:

• Aaron Diaz was giddy about Dresden Codak’s current storyline, Dark Science, approaching the halfway point, and about changes coming in the story structure, and about how things will get interesting (read: blow up). When Diaz is enthusiastic, it’s contagious.
• Kris Straub was contemplative about boothing alone (the missing Penny Arcade and PvP have merged booths into a joint satellite booth with t-shirt vendor We Love Fine, leaving Straub solo), and desirous of figuring out exactly when the lulls would come on the floor which means you can run to the bathroom. He remains incredibly humbled and grateful for the ongoing success of the Broodhollow Kickstarter, which is proceeding apace.
• Ryan North was willing to confess that his contribution to This Is How You Die was essentially a gender-swapped Ryan/Joey [Comeau fanfic, with a healthy dose of the history of Henrietta Lack and the most literary use of the phrase dick move in history. He’s also been gifted with copies of his own head (seeing as how it’s open source and all), including a test strip of different sizes, the smallest of which would fit on a chessboard and you guys we need to get Joey’s head scanned and make a chess set of Joey heads and Ryan heads and then have Grandmasters contend with that set forever.
• Andy Runton just because he is the nicest guy in the world. Seriously.
• Randy Milholland and I spent hours on a wide-ranging conversation that centered on the past fifty or so years of comics; I have a broad but shallow knowledge of a lot of comics, having heard that a particular character, title, or story arc exists and knowing its basic outline; Randy’s actually read all of those and will kick your ass in any showdown of comics trivia knowledge. It was perhaps a tactical error to have dinner with just one person and hope for a quiet night after a day of talking and wear/tear on my throat because when that one person is Randy, you end up talking more than if you were shouting to be heard in a loud bar with ten other people, and you like it. It was perhaps the most purely comics experience I’ve ever had at Comic Con.
• Vijaya Iyer, the publisher of Cartoon Books, you may recall spent some of last year’s SDCC going through the webcomics section, asking how things work. Her husband, Jeff Smith, has spent decades as a dead-tree publisher but now they’ll be making the leap to the give-it-away-sell-stuff-on-the-back-end model with Tüki Save The Humans on November first. Honestly, if this isn’t a monster runaway success, it’s because we let Smith and Iyer down; we know the he’s going to turn out an outstanding comic, so let’s not let this experiment fail. It will help determine the particulars of Smith’s career for the near- to middle-term, and he’s earned our attention and consideration many times over.

I didn’t make it to any panels, but today I expect to see the Jim Zub panel on pitching creator-owned comics, which unfortunately starts at the same time (11:00am) as the This Is How You Die autograph session, so I’ll likely be a little late. By the way the TIHYD autograph count now stands at seven total, having added Ryan North, David Malki !, Becky Dreistadt, Aaron Diaz, Tyson Hesse, and Kris Straub).

Below the cut, the best cosplay photo of the day: Dr Venture and Pete White.

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Or, I suppose I should say, front load waste container-emptying truck since This Is How You Die has taught me that Dumpster™ is a trademark of Dempster Brothers, Inc. Thanks, TIHYD! Speaking of which, my TIHYD autograph count now stands at 1, Meredith Gran, who illustrated ROCK AND ROLL. I should also note that the first copies of To Be Or Not To Be are available at the TopatoCo book and a lovely fellow brought one by to get Meredith (and Jon Rosenberg’s) autograph, and one of Meredith’s two illustrations is for the ending where (spoiler alert!) Ophelia just starts killing the crap out of everybody until half of Denmark has personally been murdered by her and it is hilarious.

• Speaking of Ms Gran, I asked about her Gender & Comic Books panel, later today at 1:00pm in room 28DE and it turns out she never agreed to be on this panel and is trying to figure out why the heck she’s listed as a participant. I’ll be double-checking with her to determine if she’s going to participate, but at this point I’d kind of doubt it.
• Still at the Dumbrella booth, Rich Stevens has two samples (one hardcover, one softcover) of his Oni Press reprint collection, I’m A Rocker, I Rock Out (the first of a series of themed collections — this one focuses on Indie Rock Pete[r Gaylord Wiener]), and they are beautiful to behold. It’s my understanding that Oni have a limited number of copies of the collection at their booth, in the 1800 aisle, underneath the giant hanging banner that features Red Robot.
• The endlessly cheerful Kazu Kibuishi looks good; this time last year he had a health crisis that came pretty close to killing him, but he’s bounced back. I’ve known people to have faced bad health situations and subsequently fall into a never-ending cycle of worry about what goes wrong next; Kibuishi has decided to be happy.

  He’s happy to be working, happy to see the positive reactions to the Harry Potter book covers¹ he’s done (the latest gets released today), happy that he got to do back-cover images for the books², happy to be working on Amulet again, happy to see his kids growing up healthy and safe. He hopes to finish Amulet 6 by December or so (print lead times meaning we may see it in a year or so) and is working out ideas for volume 7 and beyond. At this point, there’s no limit to the series and he is full of stories to share; after knowing that he is well again, that’s the best possible news.

• As mentioned earlier, Kibuishi is sharing booth space with Gallery Nucleus, Olly Moss, Scott C, various Flight contributors, and the entirely adorable Becky and Frank at the back of the 2700 aisle.
  Becky and Frank have a limited number of a new resin toy (see photo at top) at their booth (sharing with ) in multiple colorways, and the possibility of vinyl later. They’ve also got a gallery show (arranged by Nucleus) in Pasadena that is launching near the end of the month, a show that will see Becky’s work shelved alongside Dr Suess originals. Details aren’t released yet, so keep your eyes open on that one.
• Back in Webcomics Central, there’s a lot of people thrilled by their recent/ongoing Kickstarter successes: Sam Logan, Evan Dahm, Kris Straub, Aaron Diaz, David Malki ! (who has an actual Machine of Death, ready to predict your demise), Ryan North — taken together they’re responsible for something on the order of US$2.5 million of creative commerce.

  Speaking with Make That Thing Benevolent Dictator For Life Holly Rowland, we ballparked an estimate that MTT may hit US$1.5 – 1.6 million of project shepherding in 2013, their first year of operation. While we were having that bit of conversation over booth construction, the hardest working man in comics, Jim Zub wandered by and we were able to talk about Samurai Jack and Skullkickers.

• With respect to the former, it’s hopefully going to be an ongoing title, not just the five-issue limited that’s been announced. As Zub put it If they keep buying, we’ll keep making it. He’s excited about the storytelling and visual experimentation that Jack (which was experimental on both counts) will lend itself to, and noted a model for a five issues/one issue production pattern (much like Skullkickers, which consists of five issue story arcs, followed by one issue of guest short stories) that I’m not entirely certain I’m allowed to share right now, so let me just say that you want this 5/1 model to come to fruition. You don’t even know how much those 1s will rock.

  Speaking of Skullkickers, the fourth story arc just wrapped, the fourth guest issue is on deck, and Zub is busy working on the fifth arc (we’ve seen the basic sword/sorcery arc, the urban intrigue arc, the pirate arc, and the jungle arc; this one will be the frozen north/viking/barbarian arc). He’s hoping to mostly get the two remaining arcs (the sixth will be … the kitchen sink, throw everything in there, find out what the hell has been going on …) done in 2014, which means that 2015 can be the wrap-up tour, comprehensive omnibus collections for everybody, and letting the next project (there’s always a next project with Zub) come to the fore.

  If the timing works out right, the online MWF reruns of Skullkickers will catch up and finish about the same time the last issue sees print. That’s not only a neat way to wrap up the project, it may be a necessity: Zub’s primary artistic partner, Edwin Huang, has been getting a lot of inquiries and requests on various projects, and may be very busy if Zub doesn’t get him on the remaining issues quickly. Dang, good work leading to attention and more work — doesn’t suck.

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¹ The request to do the covers came along at a time when after-effects of his illness made writing difficult, but drawing was still possible.

² He had an image that he really loved for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but was perhaps too subtle for the cover; he offered to rework it as a back cover image, and it worked so well that he continued the experiment for the other six volumes.

It’s the little touches that you notice, the ones that say I’m paying attention, like turning a piece of wall art into an impromptu superhero in a classy, understated way. Well done, San Diego.

• For those of you in (or coming to) San Diego, you now have one more thing that you should include in your to-do list: on Friday morning at the Hachette booth (#1116, around the corner from Webcomics Central), there will be a This Is How You Die signing, with eight of the writers and artists from the book in one place for your convenience. Additionally, there will be another eight contributors on the show floor at various places and times, a checklist of which David Malki ! has helpfully provided for you. One possible correction to that checklist: it has Braden Lamb at booth #2734 and he may in fact be at booth #2235 due to the previously-mentioned Great Booth Swap of Aught-Thirteen. I’ll check around today and get back to you on that.
• Speaking of booth #2743, Scott C will be there, and you may want to ask him about something cool coming in October. The only thing that could make a second volume of Great Showdowns better is if it included the amazing Pacific Rim Showdown from yesterday, but an October release date means these books are already in the printing pipeline. Oh well, guess that means that there will have to be a third collection in a year or so. Darn.
• Finally, those of you looking past the end of SDCC and who will be in New York in a couple of weeks, and are sick of the extremely hot summer already, Kristen Siebecker has announced her latest learn to drink the good stuff class, this time on the topic of pairing wine with warm-weather foods. You get booze, you get snacks, you get a convenient new location at the West Elm Market in DUMBO, Brooklyn, you get 10% off the class with the code EMAIL10, and 15% discount in the market after the class. August 7th, 6:30pm, at 50 Washington Street in Brooklyn.

For the rest of the week, expect postings throughout the day, as often as I can make them happen.

If all is working correctly, I am on a flight from Newark to San Francisco, and thence to San Diego as this post goes live. This will also serve as a reminder that I’ll be on Pacific Daylight Time for the next while, and postings may be later than you are used to. Then again, I may just post throughout the day rather than try to stick to one update per day, so come back here regular-like and you’ll be fine.

• In the now-ish timeframe, I am thrilled to report that Kris Straub’s Broodhollow Kickstarter cleared goal around the six hour mark, is already knocking down stretch goals, and is trending high on Kicktraq¹. Speaking of spooktacular Kickstarts, Abby Howard’s campaign for The Last Halloween is in its final minutes and may well hit the US$130,000 mark. The C and the D could not be any more cranked.
• Also happening roughly now, Paul Southworth recently spent some time drawing people that responded to him on his Twitterfeed, and is now opening the opportunity up to all:
  

  Digital Cartoon Portrait Studio’ is open for business! http://southworth.bigcartel.com/ Digital cartoon portraits starting at $35.

  Speaking as the owner of a Southworth original (from the Ugly Hill days), that’s a frickin’ bargain. If you get a portrait from him, see if you can talk him into including the Eyes of Liquid Rage.

• The Cartoon Art Museum will again be hosting some of the greatest talents in comics at their SDCC home, booth #1930, and will also again be hosting the CAM Sketch-A-Thon. For a suggestion donation of just ten bucks you can get a drawing from your favorite creator! Preliminary schedule now up on the CAM website, although circumstances may require last-minute changes, so check back there regularly.

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¹ Obligatory disclaimer: the early Kicktraq predictions are wildly higher than almost any project will actually make good on; give it another 24 hours and apply the Fleen Fudge Factor and we’ll have an idea where it’s headed.http://www.jspowerhour.com/li

Of course it does, just as I’m trying to get things together for SDCC 2013. Well, let’s see what we’ve got.

• Probably the biggest news of the day is the release of the official Harvey Awards nominees, wherein indy- and web-type creators are killing it:
  • Creator-owned SAGA takes seven nominations, including Best Writer, Best Artist, Best Colorist, Best Cover Artist, Best New Series, Best Continuing or Limited Series, and Best Single Issue or Story.
  • Longtime independent creator Terry Moore has been justly recognized for Rachel Rising, which has unfortunately now gotten fully into the “critical lauded, but nowhere near widely read” territory. Seriously, if you backed The Sleep of Reason or read Broodhollow you should be reading Rachel Rising, which is nominated for Best Cartoonist and Best Continuing or Limited Series.
  • Ed Ryzowski, who colors Evil, Inc, The Gutters, Looking for Group, and Terminals, is nominated for Best Colorist alongside colleagues from Marvel, Image, and Archie.
  • Adventure Time is tabbed for Best New Series (against the aforementioned SAGA and the critically-acclaimed breakout hit of the year, Hawkeye), Special Award for Humor in Comics (okay, that’s actually a nomination for writer Ryan North, who is competing with Jim Zub for Skullkickers among others), and Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers.
  • That last category, Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers? Other nominees include Cow Boy (where artist Chris Eliopoulos is also up for Best Letterer), Amelia Rules, and Drama; this category is an embarrassment of riches.
  • Most directly relevant to this page, the nods for Best Online Comics Work have been given to:
    • Bandette, Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover
    • Battlepug, Mike Norton
    • The Dreamer, Lora Innes
    • Nimona, Noelle Stevenson
    • Sheldon, Dave Kellett

  And that’s just scratching the surface. Every year there’s talk about the Harveys getting gamed by publisher block-voting, but this year appears to feature a hell of a lot of strong work. Fleen congratulates all the nominees.

• Speaking of Broodhollow, it just keeps getting better and better, and the first arc of the ongoing story finished up today and oh man did Kris Straub deliver up a satisfying twist to the story. End of the arc seems a good place to make a book, and coincidentally the Kickstarter for Broodhollow Book One: Curious Little Thing launched about four hours back.

  My guess is that as good as Broodhollow is (and it is very, very good) three days a week, it is going to be even moreso to devastating degree in large chunks. It is one of the most prickling-unease-crawling-at-the-back-of-your-brain stories that you will ever read, and I urge you in the strongest possible terms to back it now. Also, to keep the patterns and check all the doors and look directly at that which haunts you because then it can’t get you.

• Speaking of Ryan North, The AV Club gave an absolutely glowing review to This Is How You Die, which North edited along with Matt Bennardo and David Malki !. Remember, TIHYD drops tomorrow, and if you’re flying to SDCC your mission is to see if it can be purchased in an airport bookstore.
• Speaking of Jim Zub, I’m a little late on this one, but did you see that he’s going to be writing a Samurai Jack comic series for IDW? I don’t feel so bad about him getting jerked around by DC back in January now, since I imagine he’ll have far more creative independence working on Samurai Jack than he would have in an environment driven by editorial fiat.

  In other news, that’s another book I’ll have to add to my pull list come October, and with any luck it’ll go from five-issue miniseries to ongoing. That’s more likely to occur if lots of us buy it, and more Zub is always a good thing, so write yourself a note to buy it when it comes out.

• Lastly, best of luck to the Team Venture crew (a significant fraction of whom are the creators of Little Gamers as they set out on the first leg of their drive to Ulan Bator. You can follow their progress here, where it seems that they’re currently in the Czech Republic, in a corner of the world where Western infrastructure (beer, wifi, democratic regimes) are reasonably common and the countries fit into single time zones. They’ve got a long way to go yet, and vast open countries to cross, and we at Fleen wish them safe travels and sane adventure.