So this is gonna be quick so I can get some tea and sleep.

Coincidentally after yesterday’s noting of Iron Circus’s distribution deal putting new books into stores, C Spike Trotman is making it worth your while to get any of the Smut Peddler series of books — in print or PDF — at a discount, for today only:

With the Smut Peddler Double Header Kickstarter rewards shipping out to backers, we’re finally able to offer the print editions of My Monster Boyfriend and Yes, Roya in the store! Additionally, the 2012 edition of Smut Peddler is back in print at last! Finally, it is Valentine’s Day, so we thought we’d give you a little love.

Today only, you can use the voucher code VolcanicDeclaration at check out to get 15% off on these three dirty books. This applies to both the print and PDF editions, too.

So get your Valentine something romantical or treat yourself! Today is all about lovin!

Thanks for all the love facilitation, Spike. Rest of you, get on that¹. Oh, and while I’m absolutely, mathematically certain that Spike decided to do this weeks ago — she is not a woman that leaves things to chance — if by any happenstance my post yesterday prompted her, you’re all welcome, and please enjoy the high-class erotica.

Spam of the day:

Go here to help out someone’s super hot mom

You know what they say: every horny MILF slut is someone’s super hot mom, so treat her right [SFW, promise!].

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¹ And get your mind out of the gutter.

Oh, that’s not what you call it? Internet Jesus was the first person I ever saw to point out that Saint Valentine’s Day was originally a Roman celebration of blood, werewolves, and sex called Lupercalia; they’ve got cards and everything. ANYway, if you’re into the modern interpretation of sexytimes without the blood and werewolves, read on.

Because webcomics (and even webcomics collections) often don’t make it into traditional distribution channels, it is sometimes months or even years before a long-since-available webcomic collection makes it to comics shops, or regular bookstores¹. Case in point: I’ve had my copy of Chester 5000: Isabelle And George by Jess Fink for months now (and it’s been in her TopatoCo store for nearly as long), but even with Top Shelf Comix behind the book, it’s lagged getting into the stores.

Until now:

Chester 5000: Isabelle & George comes out in stores & on Amazon tomorrow, VALENTINES DAY!! ? ? ? http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog/chester-5000-book-2-isabelle-george/954 …

Not sure if those heart emoji are going to come through or not. They’re cute, so I hope they do. [Editor’s note: they didn’t.]

Anyway, if you haven’t read Isabelle And George, it’s mostly a prequel to Chester 5000. That is, it tells the story before Chester 5000, then there’s a tiny bit in the middle that recaps the events of the earlier book, then adds a coda to the now-expanded cast and all their various combinations of friendship, love, and hot, hot Victorian boning down (with or without robots).

But seriously, though — even though both Chester books are definitely (defiantly, even!) adults-only, there’s a sweetness to them, a sense of empathy towards the characters that is utterly charming as well as pulse-quickening; Fink is unparalleled in her ability to make us care about her characters as people, and to be happy for their joys and orgasms.

Get a copy for the love of your life and let it inspire you towards feats of horny werewolfdom. Don’t give it to your kids (even though, being largely wordless², it’s an easy story to follow), and probably don’t give it to your mom. Your cool aunt, though, the one that your parents vaguely warn you about, but who takes you ballooning over river gorges? She’ll love it.

Spam of the day:

:):)LetsPlayCALLOOFBOOTY:):)

Gosh, @SeXXXyChikk69, thanks for the offer, but did you really mean Call Oof Booty? The Oof makes it sound less fun and more like moving furniture, you know, like Oof, this damn sofa is heavy, gonna be sore tomorrow.

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¹ And mad props to C Spike Trotman, as Iron Circus’s distro deal means a whole lot more webcomics gonna make it to a whole lot more store a whole lot quicker. My Monster Boyfriend made to the trade last week, concurrent with its initial release; Poorcraft: Wish You Were Here never would have made it into shops widely without the deal, and is now playing distro catch-up.

² Seriously, the only wordless story that’s easier to follow would be one of Andy Runton’s Owly books. C5K: I&G would make Owly and Wormy hell of blush but they’d seriously be happy for all involved.

Don’t look at me like that. Find any cluster of comickers in the bar on a convention night, and they’re drawing their characters getting up to shenanigans. I seen some things that Owly and Jellaby have done that’ll turn your hair white.

Obligatory non-political content for those that came for such: the SPX exhibitor lottery is now open, and not terribly changed from the last couple of years except for a simplified process for randomly selecting the winners. Good luck to all, and see you in September.

So. Postcards. Maybe not the best way to communicate your desires with your elected representatives (that would be talking to them in person at a town hall or in their constituent office, although a lot of them seem to be ducking that route presently), but one with some unique advantages. Consider:

• It’s a physical artifact that can’t be ignored. It’s there in front of a member of staff and has to be dealt with.
• Ever since that asshole mailed anthrax around in 2001, all Congressional mail goes to a special facility for x-raying/opening away from legislative offices; postcards can’t hide anything and breeze through the process. Heck, if it’s going to a local office, it probably gets delivered directly without any delays.
• Being open to the world carries a message: here is what I believe and I’m saying it in public; additionally, the design side carries its own message to the many hands (postal workers, political staffers) who can’t help but see an eye-catching design.
• They’re cheap, and while long distance call charges are no longer a thing (ask your parents, kids), don’t forget to factor in the time you spend on hold or with a busy signal.
• For those with anxiety issues, no human stranger to deal with.

But a lot of your basic commercial postcards are not gonna convey that message you really want to send, right¹?

So it’s a good thing that webomickers are stepping up and providing designs. Some are download-and-print-yourself, at least one set is going to be for sale at cost (more on that in a minute), and because Congress apparently still uses fax machines, there’s even a handy item for that particular channel. Let’s dive in:

• From Jess Fink, a super-classy floral design with lots of small symbolic cues: Change! Courage! Compassion! Overcoming hardship! Peace!
• From Howard Tayler (disclaimer: my evil twin), a rather fiestier design that demands attention, in two color variations. He even gives a suggestion as to where you can get ’em printed².
• From KB Spangler (disclaimer: my good friend, and I wrote the foreword for one of her books), a series of wallpapers and icons free for download prompted the thought of printing up postcards and selling at cost; this is not a new thing for Spangler, who regularly gives away the PDF version of her books to readers that can’t afford the purchase price. Also a thing: Spangler’s readers regularly buy multiple copies of her books so that she can afford to give away the excess copies in this manner; in that vein, I promised to pay for 100 people to receive postcards.

  Before I could pull my budget Soros act, however, Spangler announced that an anonymous benefactor paid for the print run, so everybody can buy them for the cost of shipping. For those of you with cash-flow issues, that cost will be literally zero, because I sent Spangler the costs of envelopes, postage, and postcard stamps. Order ’em and they’ll arrive pre-stamped for your constituent-communication convenience.

• From Shing Yin Khor, two offerings: for those that prefer to be completely unambiguous about your feelings, fuck-you postcards³; for those that need a bit more immediacy that the postal system offers, a similarly-themed fax template for crappy Senators.

Lots of options to choose from, and more coming every day. May I suggest that you follow the lead of people noted in this Teen Vogue story that are addressing their postcards to President Bannon? I’m pretty sure I heard that the actual president* thinks that’s a great joke.

Spam of the day:

Dunkin Donuts Stuff

I wonder if they use the word Stuff as equivalent to the Stuf in the ubiquitous Double-Stuf Oreos? Like, there’s just some vat somewhere of the filling they stuff into the various filled donuts? And that’s what they want to shill to me? Ick.

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¹ Although I do like the idea I saw of sending postcards featuring various National Parks, particularly those associated with various unofficial Twitterfeeds.

² I had some postcards printed a while back and can also recommend PsPrint; they’re fast and do quality work.

³ I would pay serious bucks if Onstad surfaced long enough to offer Fuck You Friday postcards.

Those who’ve followed the career of “Hurricane” Erika Moen¹ know that she’s got a myriad of artistic talents besides drawing folks gettin’ it on for your entertainment and edification². She does awesomely classy, vaguely antique-y prints and paintings (many featuring gold leaf accent) on subjects as varied as octopi and vegetables, and/or using the motifs of religious iconography. She tells tales of her life, leaving nothing behind as she tells us who she is, what she experiences, and how she sees the world.

And lately, she’s been doing a lot of needlework, with delicate and beautiful renditions of plants. Even more lately, she’s combined several of these outlets — needlework, plants, how she sees the world — with her support of health causes (sexual and otherwise) in general, and a dose of righteous anger over a shameful incident t’other night. Even better, she’s sharing:

As soon as I heard that phrase, I knew I had to commit it to stitches– but the words by themselves, though powerful, looked a bit empty floating in space all alone. So then I thinks to myself, I thinks “What do I love to embroider? FLOWERS, motherfucker!” After considering a few different species known for their hardiness (Or should I say … their persistence?) I decided on the noble thistle. She’s tough as nails, has a plan, and will draw blood if you try to grab her with your bare hands. Yeah. The thistle is my flower of choice for this project.

I was super flattered to get several requests to share my design with my fellow embroidery enthusiasts! So yeah! I’mma do that! But first, I ask that you follow these instructions:

1. Before downloading this pattern, you must donate at least $5 to International Women’s Health Coalition.
2. You will use this design for personal use only, not for profit or commercial use.

[emphasis original]

If you like needlework (or you like somebody that does needlework), the link to the design of the PDF is at her site; she even includes links to needlework resources in case you’re new to all of this. Patterns, I’m told, can go for quite a bit more than five bucks, and usually don’t financially support such a worthy cause, so get to donating, downloading, stitching, knotting, and hopefully not too much finger-sticking and bleeding³.

Spam of the day:

I used to drink every day of my life until I woke up in an ambulance with a seizure. I flatlined that day. I was dead for a couple minutes. I woke up and realized I had a problem.

Dude, I am an EMT, you do not simply wake up with a seizure in an ambulance after flatlining. Save that shit for movies and TV that don’t know any better in shilling your shitty alleged rehab services.

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¹ So named because she is a friggin’ force of nature.

² Not to diminish the fact that her husband, Matthew Nolan; is an equal contributor to Oh Joy, Sex Toy; today we’re talking about her specific artistic history.

³ If you do bleed, use cold water or club soda, and maybe a little baking soda paste to get stains out of your canvas. Either that or own it and let the world know Yeah, I bled to make this, muthascratchers. Deal or get out.

Oh my goodness, are you ready for some terrific news? Hundreds of strips that are (by any reasonable measure) long past due in print will finally be collected, and there was much rejoicing:

Cat and Girl has been a thing online since 1999, publishing three print volumes and 1,420 comics. Now finally (FINALLY!) we can make the comics from 2010 to 2015 available in print. That’s 536 full color pages of mostly black and white comics in two books. We’ve decided to call them Cat and Girl Vol. IV and Cat and Girl Vol. V. Dinotrux was taken.

That’s straight from Cat and Girl creator Dorothy Gambrell, via the fine folks at Make That Thing; MTT’s involvement means that the Kickstarter campaign [link pending] is planned out in detail, will run by the numbers when it goes up next week, and that the physical production and fulfillment will be out of Gambrell’s hair leaving her free to make comics.

Comics which, it must be admitted, we do not talk about nearly enough here at Fleen; the greatness of Cat and Girl is self-evident and omnipresent. Just as it would be a waste of time to say The sky continues to be above the land or This background radiation occurs according to mathematically-predictable patterns, so would it be to say Cat and Girl is one of the sharpest observations of life in the world, and at times is also startlingly prescient. Just take it as a given that this remains true, and if ever it isn’t, be sure to duck and cover because we’ll be full into the eschaton.

And the data geek in me would be remiss if I didn’t notice that line in Gambrell’s announcement about mostly black and white comics, which means some will be in color, which means we’ll get the data shares, yes. So keep your eyes peeled on Thursday, 16 February, as Cat and Girl’s next half-decade worth of strips go up for crowdfunding; you have until then to make room on your shelves.

Spam of the day

Enjoy Free Live Chat with Russian Beauties

But you’re claiming to represent UkraineBrides4You.com! Classifying Ukrainian ladies as Russian is sort of a manifestation of the nationalist hegemony that is causing armed fighting in eastern Ukraine. Your come-on for your identity-theft site is lost in all the tragedy that you have glibly tried to gloss over.

It’s astonishing how quickly a series of books can be released when you’ve got all the pages done. Case in point: Jason Shiga’s Demon wrapped its online run about the time its first volume made it to these shores some six months ago. Two months later it released to comics shops and bookstores, and today is the release of Demon, volume two (of four). Thanks to Gina Gagliano at :01 Books, who sent me a review copy, we can talk about Shiga’s latest book.

It’s really fun, you guys. And more than a little disturbing in a way that makes sociopathy downright fun.

For those of you that didn’t read the first one, a quick recap (which Shiga accomplishes in 25 quick panels): Jimmy Yee is a demon. He can’t die; when events occur that would end the life of an ordinary person, his consciousness hops into the nearest person and he takes over their life. This is both very inconvenient (as he’s very much trying to die, having lost his wife and daughter to a drunk driver, and failed in his plan for revenge) and puzzling (he didn’t know he was a demon before the first suicide attempt), and he’s trying to both figure out his situation and stay out the of the clutches of the OSS, who want to use him for their own purposes. But they didn’t count on the smarts and amorality of a man who’s willing to repeatedly kill himself by any means necessary to possess his way out of his current situation.

That’s right, they tried to out-think an actuary.

Now (and here ends the recap of volume 1, so spoilers ahoy for volume 2) Jimmy’s pieced together enough of his powers to come to a logical conclusion: all he has to do is outlive his adversaries. Couple of possessions of random folk, lie low, wait 75 years or so and BAM! Victory. After his revenge on the man that killed his family, that is. Jimmy Yee (mild-mannered actuary pushed to the edge) may have been thwarted, but Jimmy Yee (demon) is pretty well unstoppable.

There’s just one thing he hadn’t counted on: demonism is hereditary and his daughter, Sweetpea, isn’t dead. She’s in the body of her killer. Then there’s another: the OSS figures it out, and also figures that a quiet guy with no interests beyond being an actuary will do anything for his remaining family, and they’ve got her. They want to use Jimmy (and undoubtedly Sweetpea as well, once she’s grown) to impose a new order on the world, and the only way out from under their extremely well-planned thumb is to kill a whole buttload of people that he either actively hates or has never met and cares nothing for. To be honest, it’s probably more the latter.

Yeah, Jimmy’s a lot smart, a lot ruthless, and more than a teeny bit amoral; every single person in that buttload has hopes and dreams and Jimmy absolutely does not care that possessing and then discarding each of them in favor of the next one is no different than murder¹. And that’s just the ones he possesses — there’s going to be a bunch he just straight up kills because they’re in his way, or wrong place/wrong time. Getting out from under the OSS’s thumb is going to easily triple the size of the buttload and Jimmy is going to sleep like a baby at the far end of it. Jimmy and Sweetpea could get to see the end of the species (if not the planet, or the universe) if they’re just a little bit careful and that’s the improbably happy note the book ends on, 90 years in the future, free and clear.

Except.

There’s still two more books, and Shiga’s not likely to spend them all on a flashback of how Jimmy spent the intervening time because there’s no stakes in that story. But there is one dangling thread, one danger that Jimmy has certainly not overlooked — there’s one other person knows about demons. The inventor of the demonizing process used it on himself and killed multiple buttloads of people making his escape back in the ’40s. Since then he’s made himself absolute ruler of a South Asian petrostate, and he certainly knows the one way to kill a demon is to make it impossible to possess anybody at death by having another demon be the nearest person. With one demon in the world, you’re functionally immortal²; with more than one there is a threat out there, somewhere, that you can’t ignore. July will bring volume 3 and November volume 4, in which we’ll learn just how much one man³ with one power can reshape the world into his own image.

In the meantime, enjoy Demon volume 2 (and pick up volume 1 while you’re at it) — it’s smart, tight, fun, and a bit disturbing once you realize just how bloody the hands of the hero (who you’re rooting for) have become. Somewhere, Jason Shiga is smiling as we enjoy the story, and that smile is just a little too wide and filled with teeth.

Spam of the day:

20???????hat Will Make Your Day More Interesting

This only works if you actually attach the 20 pictures, or at least a link to your virus-ridden hellsite. YOU ARE VERY BAD AT BEING A SPAMMER.

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¹ Informed that his body count is up to 287 men, women, and children, Jimmy is utterly unaffected

² Which brings up an interesting situation — if Jimmy and/or Sweetpea ever tires of immortality, either one just has to commit suicide near the other to be actually dead-dead. But the remaining one? No way to die, ever. That’s gonna get lonely.

³ More precisely, two men and by then one woman, all more than a century old and with varying degrees of desire for all that life offers. But Jimmy’s clearly our protagonist, so let’s just go with one man.

So I’d heard that this week’s New York Times Best Seller List would feature March mixed in with the real-people books which don’t have pictures, but heck if I can find it. The Children’s lists (which is not synonymous with Graphic Novels either) feature a distinct lack of Raina Telgemeier, and she’s not in the Fiction lists either¹.

But if the paper of record’s Books editor doesn’t think that graphic novels deserve note (and I’m not going to link in her entirely insulting Look, kids, COMICS! quote about March the same week it became the most honored book of the damn year), then we’ll have to recognize the best of [web]comics via other channels. Let this, then, serve as your reminder that nominations for the 2016 NCS Awards close tomorrow, and that there are two separate categories for work first published online: long form and short form. Oh, and you can submit work of another cartoonist, if you think it’s likely to be overlooked.

Either form requires 12 pages of comics be submitted (no physical copies), along with some basic biographical information. And I feel that I should also remind you that I have been involved in the process of selecting nominees since the online division awards were established in 2012². I’d be fascinated to see what changes have been wrought on the membership and direction of the NCS in the years since I sat in on some of their sessions.

Jut be wary of one possible side effect: if you win, you turn into Jon Rosenberg for a year, until the next winner is announced. Unless you’re already Jon, in which case you get to spend a year as Jon-Squared, which is both better and worse than you are presently imagining.

Spam of the day:

GAIN BENEFITS OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA – LEGALLY

While it’s true that the hoops one must jump through to get medical-indicated cannabis in New Jersey are stupid onerous and withholding approved-buyer credentials from those who would benefit from them is idiotic, your offer does not entice me because:

a) I don’t have any conditions that would benefit from weed, and;

b) Having grown up in the same household as my brother and the omnipresent THC cloud that followed him, I can tell you with absolute certainty that for me the chief effect of being even moderately pot smoke-adjacent (as opposed to wood smoke, liquid smoke, charcoal grill smoke, or even cigar smoke) is to experience a significant pain reaction from the resinous layer that immediately forms in my trachea. Alas, there is no epi-pen for this condition.

This may have been due to the extremely crap quality of weed he bought back in the ’80s, but I’m good not finding out.

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¹ One reason why, maybe: the paperback fiction list is now combined print & ebook. Not all graphic novels get a digital release, and those that do are dominated by Comixology, which I can’t tell are or are not included in the vaunted methodology.

² At that time, a single category; since 2013, both long and short forms.

Although if we have to make our way through a nascent authoritarian nightmare¹, I’m really glad that Matt Bors and his co-conspirators have a budget and the will to use it. When they revived The Nib last June with funding from the folks behind The Intercept (a partnership announced just 51 weeks ago), meaning that nobody’s gonna get cold feet because a truth-challenged gargoyle in the White House yells at them.

Consider just one of the cartoons run today, which tries to limn the difference between the administration doing things because they’re fascists, or just dicks (although I do think there needs to be an additional conclusion the chart — flailing incompetence). Other cartoons today deal with the president*’s handling of Black History Month, the meaning of White Supremacy’s favorite appropriated mascot (whose creator ain’t happy), and a smart piece on the what being fat means in terms of emotional costs.

That last one might be the most important — it’s easy to get furious at the antidemocratic cabal currently running the country into the ground, but not all our problems stem from them (I know!). Some are deeper in our society, ingrained even when the government isn’t run by complete monsters. Bors has been conscientiously running cartoons that isn’t focused on the government (or at least, not ours): the fraught state of trans rights in Denmark; a Japanese wrestler turned politician; Russia’s crumbling nuclear facilities.

So, you know, uplifting stuff. But different stuff, so that’s good. Thanks bigly to Bors and his cohorts for bringing the cartoons that we need and deserve.

Spam of the day:

gary.tyrrell, Beautiful RUSSlAN_Women, Wanting-You!, Check Their PlCS lNSlDE

Gotta say, the prevalence of both Russian-language and Russian mail-order bride spam has gone through the roof since the election. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

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¹ Fun fact! Donald Trump has managed in only 12 days something that took Richard Nixon 18 months of active Watergate scandal to accomplish: 4 out of 10 Americans favor his impeachment.

Where to start, where to start? There’s so much evil running around in the world, we need to grab up the positive where we can find it. Let’s dig in.

• You can say what you like about C Spike Trotman — and in the past, a lot of people did, which opinions she catalogued for future reference/vengeance — but nobody can say that when she sets her mind to something that she will half-ass it. She set ambitious goals for Iron Circus Comics for the 2017-2018 timeframe, including more than a dozen new books (well underway) and finishing up a distribution deal (done!).

  Now that she’s got the ability to put IC books in any bookstore in the country, she’s determined to find the best of independent comics that have been overlooked by major publishers, and she’s gonna shove ’em at libraries and the trade until everybody can see ’em. And she’s starting with one of the very best:

  Real Talk: indie and small press comics are the industry vanguard. They set the pace and predict trends; they’re years ahead of the rest.

  But sometimes, that means independently-published masterpieces never get the dissemination, and wider audience access, they deserve.

  ICC wants to fix that. And we WILL fix that.
  Starting in autumn of 2017.

  When Spike says she WILL do something, understand that arrangements are in place, all will be ready to go, and nothing shy of a multi-state near-extinction-level event will derail those plans. The wider world will soon learn what we in webcomics know (namely that Rice Boy is friggin’ brilliant¹), because she is going to shove the books in front of them until they can’t ignore them. Well done, Spike.

• The influence of webcomickers on the next generation of comics creators continues to grow; Jamie Noguchi is getting ready to join the faculty of Montgomery College, and he’s got the purpose of comics down:
  

  I start teaching comics next week at Montgomery College. Lesson 1, comics are about fighting fascism and hate. Done.

  While comics can advance any view desired (cf: Jack Chick was fabulously successful at advancing a particularly hateful POV with his comics), starting the kids off with a charge to uphold a vision (say, Truth, Justice, and what is still The American Way) via their art is a damn good way to start. Within that overarching philosophical approach, there’s lots of room for opinion:

  • Don’t buy Moleskine. They are entirely too expensive for what we’re planning on doing with them.
  • The Canson Fanboy [bristol] pads, despite the terrible name, have blue guidelines printed on the pages to help you measure panels and keep things proportional.
  • Brushes. Welp. If you thought nibs could be confusing, brushes for cartooning will drive you mad.

  I have a feeling that Professor Noguchi’s classes² will learn as much as Professor Zub’sProfessor Gran’s, Professor Guigar’s, and Professor Corsetto’s³ do and/or did. Heck, as alert reader Mark V noted, the legendary Lynda Barry will be teaching at this year’s Clarion writer’s workshop; there’s a lot of talent out there developing the next generation.

  And everybody that doesn’t get to take classes from the pros? Just recall the Jamie Noguchi System and fuckin’ do it all self-taught style.

Spam of the day:
Okay, this isn’t really spam, since it comes to the Fleen email account as a consequence of being on the press list for various cons; it’s a minor comics publisher that doesn’t really overlap with our interests here at Fleen, but gotta recognize them for the subject line:

So a mustachioed skeleton walks into the jungle …

It’s like they know me. So congrats, Alterna Comics, I’m name dropping MR. CRYPT #3 (US$1.99, digital comic book, all ages) as a result of your email. You win.

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¹ Seriously, how do you get a Jeff Smith blurb on your book and not have publishers drive a dump truck full of money up to your front door?

² For extra credit, be ready to discuss your favorite sentai and kaiju series/movies. Trust me on this one.

³ For those that were smart enough to snag up the Girls With Slingshots book 9/book 10 bundle, some of the lessons that Corsetto gave in her cartooning class are in the back. It’s good stuff!

I speak, naturally, of Saint Groundhog’s Day Eve (SGD is the holiest day of the year on its own merits, and not just because it’s the day I met my wife). Lots of hourlies out there, ranging from the mundane to the profane to the heck, yeah! (that last being the contributions of Magnolia Porter’s mom, who isn’t a comics artist but wanted to give it a whirl).

• And, of course, Comics takes many forms, and chalkboariste Dante Shepherd is doing hourlies with small portable chalkboards instead of the great big one in his basement — the equivalent of a quick sketch or individual panel. Well done playing with the form, Dante. And by the way, have you heard of this guy Lucas Landherr who teaches Chemical Engineering at Northeastern and was honored as the outstanding teacher by the American Society of Engineering Education’s Northeast Section (basically New England & Atlantic Canada)?

  There’s a lot of well known colleges in that area, and a lot of engineering programs, and Landherr was judged the one worthy of recognition out of all of ’em. Seems like you and he have a lot in common, Dante; weird how I never see the two of you in the same place at the same time. Anyway, speaking as somebody that teaches in a fashion not too distinct from Landherr, it’s a hell of a tough job, and he’s preparing a hell of a lot of undergrads to do hell of difficult work. Congratulations to him/them/aw heck you know what I mean¹.

• Meanwhile, Saint Groundhog’s Day Eve is also known in some quarters as T-Rex Day, as it was on this day fourteen years ago (!) that T-Rex considered the joys of stomping. Nearly 3100 comics later (some fraction of which are reruns or guest contributions, call it 3000 originals), T-Rex is still pondering the big imponderables. Namely, can you make a dog-based religion even radder (and probably as a result solve all the problems of a pained world) and if so what would that look like?
• And double-meanwhile, a number of comics have made returns in the past two weeks or so, seeking to address the craziness of the world with art; this is why you don’t get rid of RSS feeds, kids. On the one hand, Christopher B Wright brings back Help Desk to talk about authoritarian overreach, and on the other Pontus Madsen has some opinions on the state of our government and found producing comics again to be to his liking.

Spam of the day:

Press forward and recognize images to take into account all content.

I don’t have a forward key, sorry.

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¹ One or the other of Shepherd/Landherr is Batman, the other is Bruce Wayne.