Of course, there are storms, and then there are storms, and terrifying as your basic sharknado is, I’m not sure that it’s actually scarier than the five-day pop-culture death-march that is San Diego Comic Con, which will be kicking off a little more than 120 hours from now. We’ve mentioned who’s going to be there, where to find them, and what panels to attend, so all that’s remaining is getting everybody out to SoCal and preparing for the onslaught.

Actually, one last clarification regarding SDCC exhibitors is warranted: What Pumpkin, the business arm of Andrew Hussie’s personal brain fancies, is in fact going to be there. I had no luck finding them in the exhibitor lists, but that’s because I didn’t read between the lines carefully enough in the ShiftyLook offsite announcement. Not only will Andrew Hussie be doing autograph sessions at the Gaslamp Hilton terrace, What Pumpkin will be engaged in acts of boothing there.

For those looking for things to do after the Great Westerly Nerd Migration, The Toonseum just announced that their third annual specialty beer has reached fruition: the 2013 edition of Illustration Ale by Pittsburgh’s East End Brewing Company is a bottle-conditioned Belgian-style ale, limited to 1500 bottles, with six different labels from local Pittsburgh artists.

East End Brewing and the ToonSeum will unveil the 2013 Illustration Ale with a special tasting session at the ToonSeum on August 3rd. Guests will not only get the first sips of the special brew, but will also be able to meet past and present label artists, have their bottles autographed, and enjoy the current exhibit, 65 Years of Legends: Six Decades of the Reuben Awards.

Tickets to the tasting are $25.00 and include one free bottle of from the artist of your choosing; fun times start at 7:00pm.

Final note before we call it a week: Fleen’s domain shift will take place over the weekend, so if you can’t find us, give DNS a chance to propagate and maybe clear your browser cache. If you find any problems in the new site, let us know in the comments. We already know about the following:

1. The mail form on the contact page needs configuring.
2. Ditto the RSS feed (we’ll let you know when it’s time to resubscribe).
3. Images associated with posts before the end of August 2008 won’t be there; this isn’t associated with the server shift, I noticed it on the old server as well. As near as I can tell, the images are all still in the media library, but the HTML code that includes them in the appropriate postings is gone from the database. I expect that I’ll have time to recreate those approximately never.

That’s it. Enjoy your weekend, and see a whole mess o’ you next week.

The inestimable Scott C dropped a tweet this afternoon that may save a lot of confusion for those attending SDCC 2013 next week:

Booth change for #SDCC! @gallerynucleus will be #2743! i will be there with the gang… @ollymoss @sirmitchell @boltcity @beckyandfrank

Going back to our floor guide, it’s more than a case of just shifting around a couple of booth numbers, because Booth #2743 was already occupied by BOOM! Studios, which is now listed in the SDCC Exhibitor Guide as now being at Booth #2235, which was formerly occupied by … Gallery Nucleus.

Everybody got that? Gallery Nucleus and BOOM! have swapped places. Changes have been made to the earlier posting.

• Speaking of Olly Moss (who will be part of the Gallery Nucleus/Bolt City group in their new home), a lot of his work is done for Mondo, the in-house art gallery/design shop of Alamo Drafthouse¹, who will be situated at Booth #936 on the show floor. Mostly I’m mentioning this because that’s where you’ll be able to see the work of Moss and his fellow designers, retro-styled posters for movies that put the actual work of studios to shame. Seriously, check out Moss’s take on Spirited Away and tell me you don’t want to live inside that image.

In less SDCC-related news, webcomics seem to be making themselves known in quiet ways.

• On the one hand, the Humble Ebook Bundle II [link good for the next six days or so] is halfway through its two week run, and today announced four new books for those that pledge more than the average amount (presently sitting at US$10.24). Two of the four are xkcd volume 0 and the first Machine of Death anthology.
• On the other hand, WordPress today released an official theme just for webcomics; dubbed Panel, it features a mechanism for strip publishing, strip-related blogging, archiving, and integration with social media channels.

  It’s still too soon to tell if it will overtake the excellent Comic Easel plugin from Phil “Frumph” Hofer³ which focuses on functionality inside any theme; like so many other things, it will likely come down to ability vs ease of use. Those that host their comics at WordPress.com will probably find Panels to be a simple approach; those that run their own WordPress installations and like lots of rich features — and are willing to do more of the work themselves — will find that Hofer’s toolbox lets them build interesting and powerful things.

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¹ Possibly the greatest movie theaters in history, Alamo Drafthouse also sponsors Badass Digest² and promulgates what is definitely the greatest theatergoer behavior code in history. [A/V, NSFW]

² Who in turn run the work of possibly the greatest living writer on film, Film Crit Hulk.

³ Hofer has been very kindly aiding me in figuring out how to migrate Fleen to its new hosting for the past week; he is generous with his time and knowledge, and I can vouch firsthand that he knows what the hell he is doing and if you’re anything like me, he will save you days of flailing about and trial-and-error. And since time and knowledge should be rewarded, I clicked on the button marked Donate and sent him an amount equal to the value of the time he saved me.

We’ve mentioned a lot of webcomic-centric people and events at SDCC 2103 over the past week or so, and there’s still things to mention.

• ShiftyLook’s off-site events include hours-long Andrew Hussie autograph sessions (Thursday 4:00pm; Friday 3:30pm; Sunday 1:00pm); livecasts with Chris Hastings, Ryan North, and Alex Culang (Thursday 7:00pm), Rob Paulsen and Scott Kurtz (Friday 7:00pm), Zach Weinersmith and Jennifer Hale (Saturday 7:00pm); and spotlight sessions on Mappy with Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub (Saturday 6:00pm) and Wonder Momo with Jim Zub and Erik Ko (Sunday 12:30pm).
• The creators behind SMBC Theatre, Cyanide and Happiness, and other video chucklemongers are going offsite for an evening of japery, lessons learned, and sneak peeks. No Laughs Allowed is sponsored by Callback Comedy and will take place at Reading Cinemas Gaslamp 15 Theater on 5th Street, Saturday at 7:00pm. Get yer tickets now.
• For the third year in a row, Tr!ickster will be providing an offsite space for creator-owned stuff to not be lost in the hell of giant media conglomerates. They’re going to be at East Village Tavern Bowl, about eight blocks from the convention center, from Wednesday afternoon to Sunday.
• For those trapped on the con floor and feeling all desire for continued existence slipping away, [Adult Swim] may actually have a solution for you. Yeah, yeah, panels, famous people, etc., don’t care. Here’s the good stuff:
  

  Fans can also stop by the Adult Swim booth #3721 to enjoy free mini massages and a place to escape from the hectic pace of the convention floor. [emphasis mine]

  Oh man, what if they had a little dark, sound-insulated room with comfy couches? That would rule.

In other news:

• Question of the Ages: Just how much do people like porn? Possible answer, going by the relative amounts raised by the Smut Peddler (porn) and Sleep of Reason (not porn) Kickstarts, run by the same person and featuring many of the same creators: the porn raised US$83,100 and the not-porn raised US46,925, meaning that people preferred porn by a ratio of approximately 1.77:1.

  Another way to look at things? Using the same more-money-raised-means-bigger-bonuses-for-creators scheme, porn makers got paid an extra US$650 to not-porn makers getting US$300 or a 2.17:1 incentive the next time your favorite creator is wondering what the next project should be.

• Finally, a quick note that Fleen should be completing its transition to new hosting this weekend; if you notice anything broken, you can be sure to let me know. Also, I’d like to thank Brad Guigar for putting up a WordPress Newbies Guide today at Webcomics Dot Com … after I’d learned most of his lessons through trial and error. Great timing, Brad!¹

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¹ Awww, like I could be mad at him. C’mere, Brad, give me a hug.

Did you see the Friday and Saturday SDCC programming notes I posted yesterday? Because you totally got a weekend posting out of me. We’ll get to the Sunday programming down below, but first let’s get some other things squared away.

• Book Thing The First: Howard Tayler¹ has opened pre-orders for his ninth collection, Schlock Mercenary: The Body Politic. Tayler’s comics always deliver highly on both the print quality per dollar and laugh-chuckles per dollar scales, so give ‘er a look.
• Book Thing The Second: David Malki !, Ryan North, and Matt Bennardo are aiming to make a whole passel o’ people official New York Times #1 best seller authors. Much like how the first collection of the Machine of Death became the #1 seller on Amazon and gave Glenn Beck a sad, This Is How You Die is aiming to front-load sales across all distribution points to debut in the Times in the top slot. Let’s let North give you the details:
  

  This will be especially awesome since, like the first volume, this will be the first publishing credit for most of the authors in the book. We honestly don’t know if this idea is possible. But we know it’s possible to try.

  Every sale from today onwards counts towards our NYT status. If this book at all interesting, and you think you might like reading inventive and memorable stories curated by a dude whose comics you like, then why not head over to Amazon.com (or .ca or .co.uk) and get the book? They’ve got it on sale for 30% off retail. [emphasis original]

  On top of that, publishers Grand Central Books have released a sweet, hilarious, mayhem-filled book trailer video that nicely explores the premise of the titular Machine and especially the fact that it has a cruel sense of humor. I liked the fourth segment (TIME TRAVEL) best because of an especially good twist, but you can decide for yourself after viewing².

• Book Thing The Third: Sam Logan launched a Kickstart about four hours ago to fund the printing of what may be the largest webcomic collection to hit paper so far — a 1500+ page omnibus edition of the first seven years of Sam and Fuzzy. Naturally, in that time he’s hit 58% of a relatively hefty US$27,000 goal (those 1500+ page omnibii don’t come cheap), which should surprise exactly nobody.

  What is a bit surprising is the rather high per-backer pledge, which as of this writing sits at US$115.14; granted, some of that is because the basic version of the omnibus is gonna set you back US$49, with increasingly fancy versions at US$69 and US$95, but all of those fall below the average.

  Nope, the average can only be explained by the highly-personalized rewards (custom avatars and portraits) available at the US$160+, and the already-claimed tiers that promise original production artwork (US$750 and US$850). Lessons to draw from Logan’s campaign include:

  • Big, exciting projects capture the imagination
  • Having a backlog of demand for never-before printed material is good
  • One-of-a-kind rewards will elicit a siren song whose chorus is Give me money
  • If you’re going to have to send a bunch of books that weigh 3 or more kilos, it’s a good idea to have Make That Thing in your corner

  In fact, I’ll make one last observation here about Make That Thing (a division of TopatoCo) from their announcement³:

  After Kickstarter backers receive their rewards, the softcover books will be sold online through TopatoCo, who are fortifying their warehouse’s foundations this very moment.

  TopatoCo is the United States’ third-largest publisher of independent comics products. Based in Easthampton, Mass., TopatoCo creates books, apparel, gift items, and novelties for over fifty of the world’s most popular web-based creators.

  Did you catch that? TopatoCo is the United States’ third-largest publisher of independent comics products. I’m guessing that the first two have names like Top Shelf or Fantagraphics, and what’s more TopatoCo does far more than just printing comics. The scale of it all is a little boggling.

Sunday Programming

Funky Winkerbean’s 40th+ Anniversary
10:30am – 11:30am Room 8
I was going to list this solely to ensure that Chris Sims wouldn’t miss it, but sadly he tweeted this morning that he has a conflict. Even when he’s not reading the strip, Sims is crushed by the despair of life conspiring against him.

How and Why to Write a Great All-Ages Comic Book
11:00am – 12:00pm Room 28DE
By the time Sunday rolls around, you start to see some repetition in panel topics especially considering that this day’s programming skews towards kids. But you’d be a fool to pass up the chance to listen to Andy Runton, Jimmy Gownley, Katie Cook, and more.

Faith Erin Hicks in Conversation with Jeff Smith
11:30am – 12:30pm Room 8
The appeal should be self-evident.

Shattering Convention in Comic Book Storytelling
1:30pm – 2:30pm Room 23ABC
The title disguises the intent a bit — it’s about how there can actually be comics characters that aren’t white guys. Features Brandon Thomas, Gene Luen Yang, and Gail Freakin’ Simone.

Keenspot 2013: Red Giant Expands to Consume the Earth
2:00pm – 3:00pm Room 4
Wouldn’t be Sunday at SDCC without the Keenspot panel.

First Second: Gene Yang and Paul Pope In Conversation
3:30pm – 4:30pm Room 26AB
The title says it all; it’s a shame it’s been shuffled off to nearly the very end of the con when people are honestly thinking about getting home (if they haven’t thrown in the towel already).

Get Comics Anywhere
4:00pm – 5:00pm Room 28DE
Tablets and phones — are you making your comics look good on them? Why the hell not?

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¹ As far as evil doppelganger’s from a parallel universe go, he’s the best I could have hoped for.

² Other deaths: OLD AGE, PARACHUTE FAILURE, HOT GIRL, BEAR.

³ I would have written up this Kickstart regardless, but the announcement from MTT Public Affairs Supremo Sara McHenry is a work of beauty and it seems a shame not to share it.

As a quick heads-up, there’s a lot of media presentations on Friday and Saturday, and the comics-related topics take a bit of a back seat.

Friday Programming
Writers Unite: Pitching and Writing Creator-Owned Comics
11:00am – 12:00pm Room 23ABC
It’s got a series of creators that are identified by both corporate-owned properties they’ve worked on and their creator-owned projects. Most importantly, Jim Zub will be there.

CBLDF: Raising a Reader
12:00pm – 1:00pm Room 30CDE
Want kids to get interested in comics? Give them comics¹, and you could hardly do better than made by the panelists.

Drawing Stories: What’s New in YA Graphic Novels
12:00pm – 1:00pm Room 25ABC
Vera Brosgol, Gris Grimly, Faith Erin Hicks, Hope Larson, and Paul Pope. What more do you need?

Celebrating Strangers in Paradise’s 20th Anniversary with Terry Moore
4:00pm – 5:00pm Room 23ABC
To paraphrase something I said with respect to Jeff Smith’s spotlight panel on Thursday, this is what a twenty year independent career looks like.

Digital and Print: Friends or Foes?
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 9
I want to go see this one to see if the consensus has shifted since I moderated Webcomics: Threat or Menace? at NYCC in — goodness! — 2008.

Rise of the Independents
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 32AB
Sounds good, but a caveat: they’re using “independents” to refer to non-Big Two publishers like Image, Dark Horse, and IDW.

Axe Cop
8:00pm – 9:00pm Room 6DE
Premiere episode will be screened and there will be staged battles by cosplayers choreographed by Malachai Nicolle which should be awesome. Also, ready to feel old? Malachai is now nine, he dreamt up Axe Cop when he was five, which means he is rapidly approaching having spent half his life as a comic creator and he’s not even in junior high school yet.

Saturday Programming
ShiftyLook: Video Games/Webcomics Amalgam Extraordinaire!
2:00pm – 3:00pm Room 28DE
Given that this session combines Zach Weinersmith, Kris and Scott (Scott and Kris), and Andrew Hussie, I fear that the room may be too small. Judging from the maps, Room 28DE (waaay over to the left, past the Sails Pavilion, past Ballroom 20, in the upper-left corner) has a capacity of 200, tops.

---

In fact, for the first time, I’m noticing that most of these sessions I’m recommending are over the southern half of the convention center. Allow for an extra 15 minutes or so to get there.

---

Mainstream Talent and Indie Spirit
2:30pm – 3:30pm Room 5AB
Looks pretty similar in tone to the Writers Unite panel on Friday morning, but if there’s one thing you can’t have too much of, it’s Jim Zub.

comiXology Submit: The Future of Self-Publishing
3:00pm – 4:00pm Room 23ABC
Oddly, a big part of the pitch for this session references — quoting here — Kickstarter sensation Rachel Deering², which definitely involves a different kind of self-publishing than the comiXology kind. Odd.

Adventure Time Comic Book Panel
3:30pm – 4:30pm Room 8
Ryan North, Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb, Meredith Gran, and Natasha Allegri. I was hoping they might have Yuko and Ananth also to talk about their imminent six-part miniseries of PepBut and Cinnamon Bun in a noir mystery, but you can’t have everything.

Spotlight on Vera Brosgol
4:00pm – 5:00pm Room 4
I’ll be the guy asking how much money she wants to finish up Return To Sender.

Jeff Smith and Terry Moore
5:30pm – 6:30pm Room 24ABC
To paraphrase something I said with respect to Jeff Smith’s spotlight panel on Thursday, and also Terry Moore’s retrospective panel on Friday, this is what two twenty year independent careers look like.

Financing Your Dream: Kickstarter Fundraising
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 23ABC
Everybody involved in this panel appears to have been part of a major property like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica; low chance of it addressing the scale of the individual creator.

Stripped: The Comics Documentary
7:00pm – 8:00pm Room 28DE
Last year Dave Kellett revealed that he’d gotten an email interview with Bill Watterson; a few months back he made it known that he’d upgraded that to a voice interview. I am almost afraid to guess what he might drop on us this year, but wouldn’t you want to be there when “Dave Kellett” removes the lifelike mask covering his face and is revealed to be Bill Watterson!?³

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¹ As I write this, it’s the day after my youngest nephew received as part of his birthday present a stack of Adventure Time and Road to Oz comics, along with both volumes of Astronaut Academy and Drawing Comics is Easy! (Except When It’s Hard). He’s five and I hope to be starting him down a long, enjoyable road.

² I wasn’t familiar with Ms Deering so I searched for her; if I’ve found the right person, she’s run two projects, both successful, for a total of just over US$32,000. I don’t wish to minimize her achievement, she’s funding her comics, that’s admirable — but whoever wrote that copy needs to adjust their definition of “sensation”. Here is a small sample of projects that I feel would better qualify for that word.

³ That’s not going to happen. Probably. Maybe I should check with Dave’s wife to be sure.

The programming for San Diego Comic Con 2013 is starting to go up; Thursday’s schedule appeared yesterday afternoon, and I expect Friday’s later today. In past years, I’ve gone through searching specifically for content relating to, and featuring creators of, the webcomics that are the focus of this page. That was usually good for distilling down to a solid 12 — 15 items per year, put up all at once.

Not doin’ that this year, in part because I wouldn’t be able to put it up until Monday (I’m expecting Saturday and Sunday programming to drop over the weekend), and in part because “webcomics” as a topic isn’t very easy to separate out. Oh, there’s a tag for Web, but the term has expanded so broadly that anything that has a website gets the designation.

In a way, I think this means that “webcomics” won — they’re no longer off in their own designation, everything overlaps with the internet; so instead I’m looking for items of interest to the independent creators that retain ownership in their work and look for things that may be of interest. I’ve also pulled a few items that I felt were worthy of commentary. Onwards.

Thursday Programming
Bringing Digital Comics into Schools and Libraries
12:30pm – 1:30pm Room 24ABC
Not sure why the focus is on digital comics rather than comics in general; creators, this is someplace you should want to get your work and since digital is now an option, that reduces the barrier to entry of schools and libraries wanting heavy-duty binding which might not be in your budget.

Gender in Comic Books
1:00pm – 2:00pm Room 28DE
Interesting balance: longtime industry dudes (Mark Waid, George Pérez) mixed with ladies who’ve made careers very quickly (Kelly Sue Deconnick, Grace Randolph, Meredith Gran). I’m not sure if the choice of panelists is due to demographics, or if it’s a comment on something I’ve believed for a decade now: the future of comics is dependent on the women who will create and read them.

Insights for Independent Creators
1:00pm – 2:00pm Room 9
I’ll be at the gender panel; this one caught my eye because it’s part one of a two-part discussion that (if I’m reading the descriptions correctly) starts out talking about indy comic creation so that you can leverage it into movies. I’m getting kind of sick of the I want to do movies so I’ll use comics as a stepping stone trope.

Digital Development and Marketing Your Comic, Web Series, App or Game: Kickstarter
1:30pm – 2:30pm Room 8
Surprisingly, George Rohac is not on this panel.

Cartoon Hangover: Bravest Warriors, Bee and Puppycat, and Friends
2013 2:00pm – 3:00pm Room 28DE
Lots of webcomics creators intersect with the Cartoon Hangover projects. Please do not ask Ian Jones-Quartey when he’s bringing back RPG World.

Integrating Comics into the Common Core
3:30pm – 4:30pm Room 26AB
Remember what we said up above about digital comics vs comics in general in schools and libraries? Panel includes :01 Books manager Gina Gagliano, which automatically means this is worth your time.

Spotlight on Jeff Smith
4:00pm – 5:00pm Room 9
This is what a twenty-year independent comics career looks like.

Bizarre? Queer? Perfect: Taming the Wild Webcomics Frontier
5:00pm – 6:00pm Room 28DE
Looks like a good set of panelists but sadly, no Erika Moen.

Webcomics Advocates: The Webcomics Gathering
5:00pm – 6:00pm Room 32AB
Quoting here: [T]hey will give any webcomic creators in the audience 30 seconds to promote their comic to the crowd.

Making a Living in Manga: New Trends Worth Watching
5:30pm – 6:30pm Room 26AB
Quoting again: As a generation of North American comics fans who grew up with manga aspire to become comics creators, they’re bumping up against a glass ceiling: a lack of paying publishing options for their work. But a new wave of manga-inspired creators are finding new ways to get published and get paid.
Emphasis on those last two words added by me. Moderated by Brigid Alverson, so it’ll be smart and well-run.

Comic-Con How-To: Kickstartering the Heart
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 2
Okay, I’m going to quote the entire description to this one and then come back with a question for everybody. Ready? Here we go:

Siike Donnelly and Matt Hawkins — along with guest panelists Olivia Peterson, Jon Schnepp, and Joshua Levy — give you a look into the process of running and promoting a Kickstarter campaign. Learn how to reach your audience directly and put your dream project into the hands of many. Discover the ups, downs, and rewards of believing in your work.

Now the question: Why should you listen to these people? The description doesn’t tell me who any of them are or why I should believe anything they have to say. Google searches are of slight help here, as I believe that Donnelly is an occasional contributor to Bleeding Cool, Schnepp a Hollywood producer, and I have no idea about Hawkins, Peterson, and Levy because the names aren’t distinct enough. I’m hoping that the panel members aren’t the ones that wrote the description, because whoever did can’t speak to effective promotions at all.

Indie Comics Marketing and PR 101
6:30pm – 7:30pm Room 8
Maybe whoever wrote the description for that last panel needs to sit in on this one. Yes, I’m still mad about it.

Family Feud: The Comics Blogging Panel
7:00pm – 8:00pm Room 23ABC
Featuring The Spurge, Heidi Mac, Tony Isabella, Alexa Dickman, and Rich Johnston. Contrary to a rumor that I just made up, the special surprises in the description do not include a cameo appearance by me.

Holliston: Inside the Laughs, Screams, Metal, and Geekery!
8:30pm – 9:30pm Room 24ABC
Two words, everybody: Oderus Urungus.

And, because it will always be mentioned here at Fleen:

The Sergio and Mark Show
2:30pm – 3:30pm Room 8
Sergio Aragonés, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai, and Tom Luth. For when you need to feel good about life again.

As much as I said that I wanted every Artist on Strip Search season one, after my beloved Hurricane Erika bowed out I was really pulling for Maki Naro. Maybe it was his whole-hearted adoption of the pineapple motif, maybe it was his comic’s embrace of science, maybe it was the magnificent facial hair¹. His pitch in the finale for Sufficiently Remarkable, a nature show about humans in their natural habitat, just resonated with me, as did the knowledge that we have the same taste in dive bars.

As was entirely inevitable, Naro has launched the Kickstart to get Sufficiently Remarkable off the ground² and as was entirely inevitable cleared his goal in about 12 hours and is (as of this writing) about 160% of goal approaching the 24 hour mark. Applying the Fleen Fudge Factor³ to the Kicktraq prediction puts Sufficiently Remarkable in the US$42 – 84K range, but that doesn’t account for the pull of the higher stretch goals:

How cruel will Naro’s followers be? Hopefully, either US$95,099 or more than US$100,000 worth of cruel.

• Names are being added to the Official SDCC Webcomickers List, but to summarize them here:
  • Ryan North will be at the TopatoCo booth, 1229 & 1328, as well as signing This Is How You Die at the Hachette booth, 1116, on Friday 19 July from 11:00am to 12 noon.
  • Zach Weinersmith will be sharing space with Unshelved at booth 2300 in the Independent Press area.
  • Andrew Hussie will be across the street at the off-site area set up by ShiftyLook.

  In fact, let’s expand on that ShiftyLook off-site piece a little, because they’re going to have a mountain of webcomickers at the outdoor deck of the Gaslamp Hilton, including (in no particular order):

  Andrew Hussie
  Ryan North
  Christopher Hastings
  Scott Kurtz
  Kris Straub
  Zach Weinersmith

  There will also be the ShiftyLook freeplay arcade games, music at night, fun times for all, and some panels over in the convention center. Check out the ShiftyLook page for details (and the SDCC event schedule once it goes up).

• If you are going to SDCC and you skip the Sunday-night parties, or if you aren’t going to SDCC and are looking for something on TV on a Sunday night, FOX is giving Axe Cop a primetime preview:
  

  Tune in to the special primetime preview of ANIMATION DOMINATION HIGH-DEF, featuring AXE COP (9:30-9:45 PM ET/PT) and HIGH SCHOOL USA! (9:45-10:00 PM ET/PT), on Sunday, July 21. In the “Night Mission: Stealing Friends Back” episode of AXE COP, badass crime fighter AXE COP heads out on a special night mission with the help of his partner, FLUTE COP (Ken Marino), and sidekicks GREY DIAMOND (guest voice Rob Heubel), ARMY CHIHUAHUA (guest voice Giancarlo Esposito) and LIBORG (guest voice Tyler, the Creator), when fellow superhero BAT WARTHOG MAN’s (guest voice Vincent Kartheiser) friends go missing. Then, in the “Bullies” episode of HIGH SCHOOL USA!, upbeat and super-positive teen MARSH MERRIWETHER (Kartheiser) learns a valuable lesson when his best friend is accused of bullying. Meanwhile, CASSANDRA (Mandy Moore) gets ready for the “It Gets Better After High School” high school dance.

  Weirdly, nowhere in the entire press release is there so much as a mention of Nick Offerman as the voice of Axe Cop. Bizarre.

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¹ Everybody’s talking about the “beardwall”, but come on — dude’s got a ‘stache worthy of respect.

² Not to mention financially buffer his shift from “day job plus comics” to “leave the day job and make a go of it in comics”.

³ Look at the Kicktraq prediction somewhere around the 24- to 36-hour mark and the final tally will be between one-sixth to one-third of that prediction. But counterexamples abound!

Happy Canada Day; what with another national holiday in a few days, it’s pretty quiet which makes it a good to day to note some few items of interest. First, I have a brief story to share with you.

Once upon a time Jon and Phillip shared an apartment in Manhattan and a pair of barstools at the Peculier Pub.

That was the first sentence I wrote in a summary of all that had happened in the electronic pages of Goats (and good glob, that was more than seven years ago … the time, she does fly); the site is in the between-places now, but if you like you can find it in the Internet Archive. Jon being Jon Rosenberg, as responsible as anybody for my being in a position to inflict my opinions upon you lovely people, and Phillip being Phillip Karlsson who for most of the history of Fleen served as the more-or-less publisher by virtue of the services provided by Dumbrella Hosting [link likely to be dead soon].

As is its wont, time has brought changes and Phillip has closed up Dumbrella Hosting; along with this mostly-daily indulgence of me, Phillip provided services for a number of webcomics most well-known creators as well as a good chunk of the code that managed their comments and stores. This may be a good time for you to peruse those links, make sure you have the latest addresses¹, RSS feeds, and suchlike³.

On a personal note, I’d like to thank Phillip for all that he did for Fleen (which is to say, me) for most of seven years. He insulated me from the costs and efforts of keeping what is ultimately a hobby running, and with an uptime that would be the envy of any IT department; I can literally count on one hand the number of down hours the we at Fleen suffered over the better part of a decade.

Jon Rosenberg is very kindly offering me space on his server, and in this way the Ciiirrrrrcle of Life is completed and I return to where I started. If, during the transition phase and after, I prove to be less adept about making everything work than was customary in the past, offer your thanks to the powerful looking man with a chair meant for malefactors, and let me know what’s broken.

• From Christopher Baldwin: the end of Spacetrawler is rapidly approaching, and he’s got a couple of questions for his readers regarding what comes next:
  

  As I wrap up Spacetrawler, and am developing the strip which will replace it, I am planning to stay in the Sci-Fi genre. I have received a lot of praise for doing sci-fi in both a funny and respectably-true-to-genre way.

  What I want to know from you all is: what I can do to do it even better? If there is anything you’d like to see me weave in more in the new project let me know. Also, if you know of any bloggers/podcasts/critics/etc who focus on sci-fi, I would like to write some of these folk to do regular sci-fi critique and ask them the same thing, so let me know who you look to for that kind of info.

  If the new comic is even half as good as Spacetrawler (and I have no doubt it will be much better than that), it’ll be worth your time from Day One. Watch this space for more information.

• Last minute notice! KC Green has been summering in the ancestral land of his people and will be having a public event before returning to the (given how this summer’s going, only slightly) less tornado-prone climes of Western Massachusetts. Specifically:
  

  This Wednesday July 3rd, I am doing a last minute signing at Atomik Pop in OKC at 3pm til 6pm for the Regular Show comic books! I will only have RS issues 1 and 2 on my person, nothing else. Very last minute stuff, but you can still come by and say hi!

  Tell KC that we said hi.

• Latest updates have been made to the webcomics exhibitor’s list for SDCC 2013. Enjoy.

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¹ For example, Brad Guigar² is now preferring www.evil-inc.com to www.evil-comic.com

² He’s dreamy.

³ We at Fleen are concentrating first on ensuring the blog is good, then we’ll worry about feeds, re-hosting email, and such. Please be patient with us.

Bow howdy, that is one big building [PDF]; fortunately, like previous years, there’s a pretty decent clustering of webcomics and their natural allies, so read on down into the sections below to figure out where the heck people are gonna be. 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.

Low Numbers
Let’s start over to the right side of the map, which is vaguely northish if you’re feeling all geospatial. 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.

Webcomics Central
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 unless there’s another Homestuck lineup stretching back to the 700 aisle¹ it shouldn’t be too difficult to get around.

Notes:

• Blank Label will be David Willis and others to be confirmed.
• Randy Milholland and Joel Watson will be with Blind Ferret.
• Dumbrella will include Andy Bell, Meredith Gran, Jon Rosenberg, Rich Stevens, Chris Yates, and me.
• Halfpixel will be a solo Dave Kellett.
• Monster Milk will include Evan Dahm, Tyler Hutchinson, and Zach Marcus, with the odd appearance by Becky & Frank.
• Penny Arcade will be in Australia for PAXAus and are letting other use their booth; I have confirmed that their booth plans were set months ago and although it would be awesome, there will not be a bunch of Strip Search Artists there, darnit.
• Kris Straub will be at the PvP booth.
• TopatoCo boothers will include Brandon Bird, Aaron Diaz², Christopher Hastings, Tyson Hesse, Sam Logan, David Malki ! and Ryan North.

Small 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 Becky & Frank, Kazu Kibuishi, Scott C, Olly Moss, and Mike Mitchell.

Their booth assignment has switched to #2743, location described two paragraphs below

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

For the other places of note, we’ll have to go 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, and between Image and the back of the hall you’ll find BOOM! Gallery Nucleus/Bolt City See below at Booth 2743, where I imagine some of the many contributors to the Adventure Time, Bravest Warriors, and Regular Show will probably make an appearance or two. Confirmed appearing at the BOOM! booth are Shelli Paroline & Braden Lamb.

Two last places to mention, and you’ve got a hike in front of you. Head down to the southern half 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 & 4628); it’s roughtly midway between 20th Century Fox and Yes Anime, on the main travel aisle. And if you go all the way down to the vicinity of Artists Alley, The Hero Initiative is in Booth 5003, near Big Wow! Art.

Offsite
Finally, head out the doors walk across the rail tracks to the Gaslamp Hilton terrace and see Andrew Hussie at the ShiftyLook Arcade for one autograph session per day.

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¹ I think that Con management learned their lesson last year when TopatoCo Supremo Jeffrey Rowland led a parade of Homestucks up to the autograph area to clear the enormous line that had built up on the floor. It was glorious to watch.

² If he ever combines his dinosaur scholarship and his Tolkien scholarship, I may die of pure nerdjoy.

Let’s start with a logistical note: Fleen will be shifting hosting in the next couple of days; apologies in advance if anything gets broken. If you can’t get enough of me while DNS propagates and so forth, you can always follow my twitterfeed.

• The big news today is that the SDCC 2013 exhibitor list/floor map went up, and I’m busy figuring out where everybody’s going to be — I should have a list and maps for your pleasure tomorrow. If you’re going to be exhibiting and want to make sure I know about you, the contact link is over there to the right.
• In the meantime, please take a moment and follow this link to a posting by international bon vivant Ryan Estrada, where he describes seeing a Korean horror movie that concerns a woman that steals content from webcomics creators and posts without attribution to a Tumblr-like site, prompting the ghost of a dead creator to lash out with death and destruction. It basically sounds like the best thing ever, and for webcomickers it could possibly serve as a checklist of methods by which to haunt the crap out of non-attributors.