Correction The entry appears below originally and mistakenly ran yesterday; there was no strip on 23 February 2006, leaving us all in a cruel, two-day interval where we did not know what happened after Ray ripped a guy’s face off. We at Fleen regret the error and run the correct entry below with the appropriate image above

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: Ray faces up to what he’s done. Watching Cody Travis eat heavily sauced pastas cannot possibly be more unpleasant than that pun I just dropped, I’m so sorry. Let’s just go check out The Tenmen and forget I said anything.

• We are nearing the end of the 30 day campaign for the Smut Peddler Double Header, and my initial guess that the books would clear US$150K (and therefore page rates of US$130) has come true, what with the balance sitting at US$152K as of this writing.

  The per-backer average continues to exceed that of the prior two Smut Peddler Kickstarts, although the backer count is about a third lower than that of SP1024, so the total for these two books will likely fall short of that tome’s US$185K. The midpoint of the projected finish for this campaign was US$162.5, and history shows that Spike’s audience is more than capable of making up nine grand in six hours, but we’ll see. In any event, hooray porn, many people are going to be very happy some time around the end of summer.

• And looking back a year to the batshit insane success of the Exploding Kittens Kickstart, part of what Matt Inman, Elan Lee, and Shane Small said as that funding wrapped up was that they expected to spend two years or more on the project. Now fulfillment is done (and has been for half a year or so), but we got some inkling of what the EK team is up to on (where else?) Twitter:
  

  Psst … #TheCrate is now open http://explodingkittens.com/thecrate

  Following the link, The Crate is described as:

  The Crate is our Secret Club.
  If you get in, we’ll send you cool prototype stuff we’re working on.
  FOR FREE.

  Between now and 11:59pm CST on Friday night, if you catch their attention with a special professment of love for the Exploding Kittens, you get in. This looks to be an ongoing endeavour and shows every indication of going past the promised two years (we’re coming up on the end of Year One, anno kitten, after all). More details at The Crate’s site, but at this point, I’d say an entire line of casual card-type games are in our future. Go nuts.

• Not Kickstarter related, because not everything is Kickstarter related: Nimona — right beloved by all who have read it — has been included in the nominations for the 2015 Nebula Awards, specifically for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.

  It appears to be the only work of comics in any category (unlike the Hugos, the Nebulas do not have a category for words + pictures), and the Andre Norton Award appears to be the most hotly-contested (every other category has six or seven nominees, the ANA has nine), so Noelle Stevenson is by definition a longshot … but given all the other prestigious awards she’s been nominated for (and the Eisners are still pending¹), Stevenson’s no stranger to tough competition. Here’s wishing her luck, because it really is a damn good book.

Spam of the day:

Monster Energy Women’s Ultra Mixer brings together like-minded musicians, artists and media tastemakers in entertainment, lifestyle/fashion/health/fitness/sports/business as well as women that are key industry players in an intimate setting. The evening offers a unique opportunity for a small group to meet and share ideas with other women working in entertainment that are ultra-connected as well as re-unite with friends.

Two things: first, the boldface-underline is original and consistently used in the original email. Second, they want me to RSVP to an event strictly limited to 40 people, for moving/shaking/tastemaking women in the entertainment industry.

Should I tell them?

_______________
¹ Yes, yes, she was nominated last year, for Best Digital/Web Comic, a schizophrenic category that mashes up presentation and format. I think the Eisner voters might actually understand what they’re voting for if Stevenson gets a nomination in a print category.

Correction The entry that originally ran below should have run tomorrow; there was no strip on 23 February 2006, leaving us all in a cruel, two-day interval where we did not know what happened after Ray ripped a guy’s face off. We at Fleen regret the error and have indicated the deletion below and replaced the image above.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: Ray faces up to what he’s done. Watching Cody Travis eat heavily sauced pastas cannot possibly be more unpleasant than that pun I just dropped, I’m so sorry. Let’s just go check out The Tenmen and forget I said anything.

• The thing that I love about Kate Beaton’s work — as if there were just one thing, but let’s pretend for a moment — is how often I end up learning as much as laughing. I count myself fairly well versed in history and for every Matthew Henson, Miyamoto Musashi, or Emperor Norton that I know about, there’s a Catherine Sui Fun Cheung¹, Dr Sara Josephine Baker, or Tom Longboat that I’ve never heard of.

  Today she tops them, bringing us the story of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who was probably the first person to argue for LGBT equality. In 1867, when he had to come up with his own word to substitute for the now-commonplace homosexual because the latter hadn’t been invented yet. As Beaton notes, I only found out about him last fall, which is surprising and also sadly not surprising; I’m certain that pretty much none of us would have found out about Ulrichs without her cartoon today. It’s the most optimistic, affirming thing you’ll read today.

• There’s also optimistic and affirming in the work of Meredith Gran — lots of it, in fact — but the characters that feel that optimism and affirmation might insist that there’s none to find. As previously noted, Image Comics is doing a comprehensive reprint of Octopus Pie from the beginning, and that process starts tomorrow with Octopus Pie, Volume 1, which I will not be buying.

  But this is only because I already own it twice, in the form of the original three self-published books (subtitled A Brooklyn Drama, A Brownstone Companion, and An Interstate Oasis, which between them comprise chapters 1-12), as well as the Villard-published There Are No Stars In Brooklyn (chapters 1-12 again, plus the bonus story The End Of The World; while I’m not above buying a story twice, I draw the line at three times².

  I also have the self-published Listen At Home With Octopus Pie and Dead Again, which between them cover chapters 13-38, meaning that I need not pick up Volume 2 or Volume 3 (due at the end of March and April, respectively), and may pick up with Volume 4 at the end of May which will print stories never before collected.

  Four volumes in four months! This is the ideal situation for somebody that needs to catch up with the best ongoing story of the past ten years. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Meredith Gran gets better every single update, and however good you thought her storytelling was, it’s so much deeper and richer than you thought. Grab V1 tomorrow, and put the others on your pull list.

• Apropos of nothing, today’s Wondermark (number 1200, as it happens) is entirely true to life, in that it closely resembles the struggle I’ve had over the past five months to get Verizon to fix my DSL (which escalated to them pooching my landline to the point it isn’t usable whenever it rains). The only difference being I haven’t (yet!) reached the creepy old crow, but then again I expect to find one when I get high enough in the corporate complaint structure. Webcomics be damned, getting satisfaction from a company that’s been happy to cash my checks is my new hobby.

Spam of the day:

Please accept this Panera Bread gift

I don’t eat at Panera Bread because, ironically, their bread is awful. Really ought to be better at what’s right there in your name.

_______________
¹ With a bonus appearance by Beaton’s best running gag — Top Gun and beach volleyball.

² Although it appears that Volume 1 will be better than TANSIB on the key issue of sparklebutt; V1 has it, TANSIB doesn’t. Then again, my copy of ABD is better than either of the other two as it has sparklebutt made from glitter and highlighter that Gran did by hand.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: Over the weekend, Ray revealed himself to be rude and Téodor was confused. But those are not why we’re here — today is why we’re running this series, in fact.

Today, ten years ago today, everything changed.

Ray, we all know, cheated (or at least greased) his way into the Fight. Heck, even at the end it was revealed he was ready to buy his way out if necessary, for why else would one keep nine grand in the Fite-Tight Elastoband of one’s hat¹? But today he changed when a Guaranteeed Honky-Tonk-Style Blowjob went south and Ray ripped a guy’s face off².

He found something new in himself that day; he didn’t like what he saw, he reverted on Day Two before going on a rampage, he fooled himself and even his father³, but for a period of time Ray was not merely a spoiled, rich⁴ coward who would desert a dying man. Today is the start of Ray truly being Blood of Champion.

• Friday afternoon, about three minutes after that day’s post went live, I came across a really nice piece at The AV Club by Oliver Sava, who’s become one of the people I pay close attention to with respect to comics. In the weekly feature of the most significant new comic, Sava went online and found two comics he wanted to talk about; specifically, two comics by black women, which isn’t a creator profile you just trip over in print.

  Mildred Louis has been working on Agents of the Realm for just under two years; I remember hearing about it when it launched, looking over the first few pages, and promptly misplacing the link. Truth be told, a magical girl series is pretty far down my list of interests, but the work is frankly gorgeous and I’m putting it on my list for an archive binge the next time I’ve got a block of hours to spare.

  I was more interested in Nilah Magruder’s MFK because I hadn’t heard of it before (much like the golden age of TV, there are too many webcomics that I probably should be reading that I simply haven’t come across, or if I have, don’t have the time to keep up with), all the more distressing because a) it’s been running for four years, and b), this description sounds like it’s tailor-made for me:

  In a world of sleeping gods, a broken government, and a fragile peace held in the hands of the corrupt, one youth must find the strength to stand up against evil and save humanity.

  This story is not about that youth. [emphasis original]

  There is, for reals, nothing I’d rather read more than a story of somebody that is desperately trying to stay out of the way of Chosen Ones, apocalypses, oppressors, liberators, and self-appointed helpers, all of whom are in the damn way. This comic is why everybody that whines about inclusion and diversity in the creator ranks needs to shut the hell up: diverse creators don’t lead to the death of stories, they lead to different stories getting told.

  Every cliche and trope that you’re sick of? I can pretty much guarantee that there’s somebody out there who is telling a story that’s new and you’d like a lot — the thing is, they don’t look like you, sound like you, act like you, or come from a background like you. Seek them out because all of the sameness is really boring.

• And sometimes, a creator that you do know decides to change things up just because, and I love them all the more for it. The latest case at Bad Machinery — the case that wasn’t a case — has wrapped up, and John Allison is today launching a story inspired by ’70s and ’80s takes on supernatural horror comics, Mordawwa: Queen of Hell in Kill It Before it Grow.

  Or, you know, Erin from Tackleford, if you care about such things. Allison makes a particular kind of comics (characterized by his playful language and love of the absurd being taken completely at face value), but he uses those comics to tell many different kinds of story.

  To summarize the last two years or so: Robert Cop. Destroy History. Expecting To Fly. Bobbins. Bobbins.horse. Space Is The Place. And, in print, Giant Days — they may share a common DNA, but they exist to tell different kinds of stories. More than ten years back, I compared Allison to Frank Tashlin, and while that’s still a decent comparison I’m coming around to thinking of him more as Edgar Wright: one vision, common archetypes, a repertory cast of players, distinct stories. I’ll always go see one of Wright’s movies, and I will always click every day to see what Allison’s up to today.

Spam of the day:

This opportunity is set for those people who were
thinking of how to become rich and famous as a Son Of Doom of the great
Illuminati contact us now

Everybody knows about haiku — a Japanese poem of three lines, 17 syllables in a 5-7-5 pattern — but there are other forms of set numbers of lines and syllables. Here we have three lines, 42 syllables in a 14-19-9 pattern, and on the theme of batshit insane conspiracy theory. I think we have a new poetry form for the modern age.

_______________
¹ Why nine grand? Because he couldn’t cram in ten.

² I maintain that his grip was instinctively similar to that used when Ramses Luther tore off Fancy Mark Clancy’s entire middle. I also maintain that Ramses Luther was involved in taking down keys to one of the Jeeps.

³ Since small times Beef certainly used brains, but Ray didn’t use brawns … he used money.

⁴ I further maintain that the question Ray, Ray … you’a the rich boy, or you’a the jerk? reveals a false dichotomy. Pat is certainly the jerk, but so is Ray by all objective measures.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: No strip; I believe that Sound And Motion is getting up from his Downward Dog or some such.

It’s nearly the weekend and by way of advance notice, the next couple of weeks look to be a little weird. My teaching schedule next week will be to accommodate students who are variously located in Holland, India, and Australia. The week after that is jury duty (one day or one trial; really hoping for the former). Starting the week after that will be a fairly lengthy period of travel. Apologies in advance for any interruptions.

• However, the day I anticipate sitting around in a room waiting to find out if I’m part of a jury, I intend to catch up on some reading. Stacked up and waiting to be read: no fewer than four review copies from the good folks at :01 Books (by Ben Hatke, Tony Cliff, Faith Erin Hicks, and James Kochalka¹). I’ve also got a PDF of the second part of Sophie Goldstein’s House of Women (the first part of which garnered a 2013 Ignatz), which Ms Goldstein was kind enough to send along. Everybody else in the jury room can stare glumly into their phones, I’ma get my comics on.
• I’ve expressed this before, but I really need to learn to draw one of these days. And, were I not on jury duty, I just might spend that week in San Francisco² seeing as how the Cartoon Art Museum is kicking off their latest education program on Thursday, 3 March, at 7:00pm. To be more specific, Mark Badger will be running a class on drawing, in conjunction with CAM, each Thursday night in March.

  Mark Badger’s Just Draw is for older teens, adults, runs two hours per session, held at the temporary educational space in the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center at 275 Fifth Street. It’ll cover everything from four-page minis to the four hundred page magnum opus, with a veteran cartoonist/teacher (thirty years and fifteen years, respectively) for the low, low price of US$200 (US$175 for CAM members), with enrollment available here.

• Now that the thirteen part travel halfway round the world and get married epic is done at Johnny Wander, Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota are getting ready to drop their next project on us, and it looks like a doozy. It’s tempting to think of them as one Voltron-like single entity, but they are actually separate people! And sometimes they work on their own projects! And starting Tuesday, the latest of these will begin serialization. Let’s let Hirsh tell us all about it:
  

  Beginning next week we’ll be running the first chapter of IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED, a comic I’ve been collaborating on with Tessa Stone and Sarah Stone! I’ve worked with Tess previously on BUZZ!, a graphic novel about full-contact spelling bees (available through Oni Press). Tessa currently does Not Drunk Enough, and Sarah Stone has worked on a huge range of projects, including Transformers: Windblade!

  We’ll be running the first chapter on Johnny Wander, at which point the comic will migrate to its own website. The first four pages will run on Tuesday, and then we’ll post a comic per update like normal.

  One chapter to get us hooked, eh? I’m onto you, Hirsh, and if your previous collab with Tessa Stone wasn’t so good, I’d be getting the hell out of here before you got your greedy hooks in me. But BUZZ! was good — very, very good — and so I’m willingly coming back to you. I trust you’ll make it worth my while.

• And, from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin:
  

  Sorry, it turns out my reference for [the end of Notes on paper](http://fleen.com/archives/2016/02/17/happy-returns-of-the-day/) was outdated, as more recently Boulet indicated that « [Volume 9 was a “pentimento” after I planned to stop after volume 8](http://www.bouletcorp.com/#answer54) » and that he even had extra pages that would end up in a volume 10, where we are today. It is probably best to consider each volume of Notes as being potentially the last, while leaving open the possibility of future volumes, much like these singers who always claim this is their last tour but can’t seem to actually bring themselves to stop.

  Duly noted; on the plus side, we’re gonna get several hundred pages of Boulet, so that’s all right. Have a good weekend, everybody.

Spam of the day:

Keep your bait possibilities different by pking a couple dozen leeches just in case.

Gotta say, leeches are a welcome respite from the slutty moms in my area that want to have sex with me. Pretty sure that combination of words has never been uttered in any context throughout human history.

_______________
¹ Which is in all likelihood the greatest book in history.

² Okay, not really — if I don’t get picked for trial, I have to head to Dallas for work later that week.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: No strip; must be taking a while to find Sound And Motion.

So I’m about to go to the eye doctor and may not be able to see things clearly when I get back, so let me leave you with this before I go: Zach Weinersmith has some ideas for new chess pieces; I expect to see some of you playing on a board with Bishop-Kickers, Wilderness Preservers, and Gortak The World-Eater at the next BAH!Fest. Get to it, nerds.

Spam of the day:

your cheating partner notice

See, this isn’t very clear. Are you notifying me that my partner is cheating, or is this notice that I have been assigned a cheating partner? If it’s the latter, is this a random thing?

your partner cheating on you

Thank you for the clarification. I’m not sure what you’re getting at, though — Chuck, my EMT partner, doesn’t ride on any other nights or with any other crew. I think maybe you got me confused with somebody else!

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: We discover who has a gigantic and deep-seated fury at the world.

• Here’s the thing about webcomics — as a wide-ranging method of distribution featuring every possible type of story and creator, whoever you are, you’re going to be rubbing somebody the wrong way. The best-known creators attract the greatest scrutiny, naturally, because a wider audience also gives you a greater chance to be exposed to somebody who just isn’t going to like you. Nobody is universally liked¹.

  Except Anthony Clark.

  His strips delight everybody; he’s the go-to colorist in webcomics; in person he is the sort of person that makes you think to yourself How can one guy be so damn likeable?² A friend of mine who reads webcomics but is mostly what you’d call a webcomics civilian expressed once that any day that started with a new comic from Clark was automatically a good day. And let us not forget the greatest expression of back-and-forth jam comics to ever exist, the Anthony Clark-Emmy Cicierega collaborations known as Laserpony Studios.

  And as of today, Clark’s been doing his Beartato comics for ten years. Beartato, Reginald, Harrison, Gary, and the other agents of whimsy came into public at the same time as The Great Outdoor Fight was running — they could not be any different, but they are just as enduring and delightful to read. Happy Anniversary, Anthony. Your comics are good and you should feel good.

• Via the twitterfeed of John Kovalic comes the news that the the John Locher award (for student editorial cartooning) is now open to webcomics and graphic novelists. Any full-time students between the ages of 17 and 25, you have until 15 April to get in your application, and since opportunities for editorial cartooning are thin on the ground, may I suggest you also drop a line to Matt Bors in anticipation of The Nib’s revival later this year?
• A correction and an additional bit of info from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, as regards our mention of Boulet yesterday:
  

  A quick dispatch to let you know that Soaring Penguin Press is, shall we say, incentivizing preorders of the first volume of Boulet’s “Notes” by offering his 24-hour comic the Gaeneviad to the first people who preorder.

  Speaking of which, I’m afraid the ten volumes of Notes are not really “and counting”, as Boulet announced some time ago he would keep doing notes but no longer collect them on paper after volume 10 (sorry, I can’t find the reference at the moment).

  Well, that’s both terrific and disappointing new, respectively. For those who didn’t see it, Gaeneviad is online here, and like his earlier 24 hour comic, Darkness, it’s a delight. Not really a surprise, really, since everything he does is a delight.

Spam of the day:

Look what I found growing in your stomach!

What the hell are you doing in my stomach? Get out of there!

_______________
¹ If you’re thinking of Ryan North as an exception, I have it on good authority that some find him to be disturbingly tall, unrepentantly Canadian, and a setter of bad examples to our youth with respect to holes.

² There is a speculation that Clark being so likeable could theoretically make him unlikeable to a certain sort of deeply insecure and damaged person, but to date the existence of such people remains unproven. It’s possible that CERN would have to get involved to find anyone of such a sour disposition.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: We see how fallen fighters are removed from The Acres.

• Speaking of, Happy Birthday to the nearest thing this broken world will ever have to a real-life amalgam of Achewood characters, KC Green. He is the best parts of the entire cast except Pat, because Pat’s a jerk and KC is no jerk. Celebrate with some of his comics, or perhaps by pre-ordering Graveyard Quest.
• TCAF announced its second lineup of special guests today, and oh boy is this one talent-heavy show. You got your Boulet (appearing in conjunction with the launch of the English translation of his 10-volumes-and-counting Notes series), you got your Faith Erin Hicks (launching the first volume of a new trilogy from :01 Books), you got your Emi Lenox (launching a new boo, Plutona, co-created with Jeff Lemire), and I guess that means you also got your Jeff Lemire (also launching the second print collection of Descender).

  In addition, the very international character of TCAF’s guest list is on full display, with creators from Germany, Portugal, Japan, Italy, and the very odd lands of Canada and New Jersey [NB: jenniferhayden.com; no link since I’m getting a security warning, but you can visit if you like]. TCAF runs at the Toronto Reference Library on 14 and 15 May.

• It’s Big Round Number season in webcomics — 4000-plus for R Stevens, 5000-plus for Jennie Breeden, and now 5400-plus for Brad Guigar, taking 14 February as the 16th anniversary of his descent into madness pro cartooning, and counting up contributions from five different series plus Patreon naughties and miscellaneous strips that may not rise to level of ongoing series yet.

  The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but I think you can bet that cartooning success goes to whoever is stubborn enough to keep improving, keep showing up every day, and to keep developing a laugh that will frighten off scavengers in the night. Happy Big Round Numberday, Brad!

Spam of the day:

Hello Stella. it’s Mike. can you please send my photos from Jake’s wedding? thanks.

I think I’ll reply with this link.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: on Saturday, Ray put on the hat and on Sunday, a small band made for the Northeast corner. Today, it’s Leander, The Latino Health Crisis, and a 29-Minute Ab Minder.

• It’s been a bit less than three years since Jeff Smith announced that he’d be launching a webomic called Tüki Save The Humans (and therefore about three and a half since I talked the webcomics model with Smith’s publisher and wife, and one of my very favorite people in comics, Vijaya Iyer); it’s been about 27 months since Tüki launched; it’s been a bit less than two years since it took an NCS award; it’s been a bit less than a year and a half since the first reprint issue of T¨ki hit the stands¹; about a year since Tüki chapter three wrapped up online; about 11 months since Tüki chapter three saw print, and a week or two since the print release of chapter four².

  But the last page of chapter three is still the most recent page online.

  When Iyer and I talked webcomics, when Tüki was announced, the plan was to tell a chapter over about two months of MWF updates, then print it in a traditional floppy comic, then take a break before the next chapter. There were delays (Smith has drawn a lot of pages in his career, and must be careful when repetitive stress injuries even suggest themselves; there was a very scary period of extended hiatus heading into the last act of BONE where I wondered if he’d ever be able to finish), but the model held: online first, then print (presumably, eventually trade paperback style re-reprints). But the webcomic approach isn’t for everybody; hopping over to it isn’t something that will work for everyone that tries it³.

  And that’s okay. This page is devoted to webcomics, sure, but it’s just as much about those creators that make comics that reflect their own voices, comics that — crucially — they own, and Jeff Smith embodies that as much as anybody that’s currently working in the medium. I was buying the issues of Tüki anyway, and I’ll continue to do so because Jeff Smith comic.

  Maybe these new comics go online, maybe they don’t. Smith and Iyer tried something outside their comfort zone, and the fact that they’ve retired the effort is neither evidence that it can’t work for anybody, nor that it was done poorly — it didn’t meet their needs, and that’s all that matters. There’s still more stories of the first human to leave Africa coming, and they’re gonna be good.

• Know what else we’re gonna see plenty more of? Autobio comics from Jennie Breeden, who was one of the first people I met in this crazy business — one may recall the wisdom that she shared as a just-jumped-into-comics-as-the-job newbie at SDCC in 2006 — and she remains hard at work with The Devil’s Panties seven damn days a week. Which brings us to yesterday and the 5000th comic, or actually the 5189th, as she missed the actual 5000th on … let’s see … this day.

  Breeden joins a select group of completely bonkers creators who have hit this threshold, and we at Fleen both congratulate her and urge her to seek professional help immediately. Mostly the congratulations, though.

Spam of the day:

honey,how are you

Careful, not everybody likes honey.

_______________
¹ And when Smith and I agreed that Dylan Meconis should have won the NCS award; he’s as humble and generous a guy as ever lived.

² It was due on 3 February 2016, but widespread shipping issues meant it got pushed back a week in much of the country.

³ The Foglios have found it tremendously successful; Carla Speed McNeil largely released Voice online before printing, but both Third World and the currently-running Chase The Lady eight pages at a time in Dark Horse Presents. Coincidentally, the Foglios seem to do fewer side-jobs, whereas McNeil is also working on No Mercy and shorter jobs all over the place (Wonder Woman, Smut Peddler, Avatar stories, etc).

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: Still waiting for the Fight to start; things really kick in tomorrow, though.

• Ordinarily, I’d have run the story that linked to the art as the first item, but this is too big to go anyplace but the lead slot; I trust that Kate will understand. Re: our call two days ago for book purchasers to push Raina Telgemeier from holding 60% of the New York Times Best Seller List to 70%; that didn’t take long. Thanks, book purchasers! Now hold on until Ghosts comes out and make it 80%!
• Now then: Kate Beaton, who all right-thinking folk regard as a treasure and one of the very best creators in both comics, and in any creative medium from the Great White North. Beaton was tapped to provide a show poster for TCAF, and it’s a beaut. More than all the geekly references, it’s also terrific because the message could not be any more clear: TCAF¹ is for everyone. Be sure to thank Beaton when you see her at the Toronto Reference Library on the 14th & 15th of May.
• I got a press release and some sample pages from a guy named Derrick Johnson recently, and I wasn’t going to do much with it — another first release of a webcomic in print form, I see those literally every day, and mention only the ones that grab me in the eyeballs and don’t let go. But something about Johnson’s missive did grab me, and I wasn’t sure exactly what for a couple of minutes. Then it hit me:
  

  I’m a comics creator, that posted comics regularly to my website for a 4 year period in 2007-10. After a long hiatus, I decided to collect the best strips from that time and self-publish a book, The Best of Colored Comics, Volume 1.

  Everybody catch that? 2007-10. Comics creators (like artistic types of all sorts) that I know have a definite tendency to be their own worst critics. The most well-balanced of them can stand to look at their most recent work without berating themselves, but maybe on an 18 month rotating cycle. That is, today’s work is pretty okay, anything from last year is barely adequate, and older than 18 months is fit only to be burned. Of course, 18 months from now, today’s work will fall firmly into the burn category. Thus does skill push itself to improve, on the back of total neuroticism.

  So to read that Johnson worked at Colored Comics for four years, then to set it aside for five with plans to print, then to resume? That’s an act of supreme bravery. The samples that Johnson sent along, I can tell which are older and which are more recent; the new comics on the site reveal that regularly updating or no, Johnson’s been practicing and improving. I can’t imagine what it was like to go through work almost a decade old to prepare it for print, but it’s the most self-challenging and fundamentally optimistic act I’ve seen in quite a while.

  Confidence is a major part of creativity, the feeling that putting a part of yourself out there won’t come back to bite you in the ass, that the random cruelties of a thousand internet griefers won’t drag you down. So yeah — if you’re looking for what early work (that improves as you read it, and gets better still past the end) looks like, Derrick Johnson’s your guy. Here’s hoping he continues to develop without falling to the 18 month neurosis, because I want to see just how good he gets. The Best of Colored Comics, volume 1 is US$15 from Johnson, and pay what you want at Gumroad. Check ‘er out.

• Oh, and 4000 is a hell of a big number, minus maybe a couple dozen guest strips, plus more than 700 for the newspapers. Happy Big Round Number Day, Rich Stevens. You’re a goddamn inspiration.

Spam of the day:

Discount COSTC0 MEMBERSHIPS

So I’ve gone from being on the sexy MILFs spam list to the bootleg warehouse-club membership spam list? Guess it’s just a matter of time before I end up on the oatmeal-and-diabetes-meds spam list, then the prepaid funeral services spam list. Welp, it was nice knowing you.

_______________
¹ Indeed, comics, and nerdery, and all fandoms you can think of.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: No strip; I suspect that SoRod is napping while Beef makes plans.

• We have mentioned several times the fact that Yuko Ota & Ananth Hirsh’s Lucky Penny (long delayed by repetitive stress injuries in Ota’s drawing hand … so she taught herself to draw with the other muthascratchin’ hand) is approaching publication. Should be here next month from the good folks at Oni Press), and to celebrate, there’s a contest that could net you three (three!) copies of Lucky Penny, if you’re funny enough:
  

  Make up a steamy romance novel for Penny to read for a chance to win copies of Lucky Penny! #LuckyPennyPicks

  See, Penny reads terrible-slash-awesome sounding romance novels (excerpts of which have been shared), and if you come up with the best title for a novel out of Penny’s collection between now and Sunday (Valentine’s Day!) at 11:59pm PST, you could get a copy of the standard edition of Lucky Penny, plus copies of the Kickstarter-exclusive softcover and hardcover editions. Details at the Oni blog, along with the rest of the rules. Think up your best romance novel title (nothing too creepy or rude but definitely suggestive would be my advice) and good luck to all.

• The Cartoon Art Museum continues its traveling roadshow of events while it is between permanent locations; as in the past several months, the Third Thursday of February (that would be the 18th) will see CAM set up in the new location of the American Bookbinders Museum at 355 Clementina Street in San Francisco. Fun starts at 5:30pm and runs until 8:00pm, and will feature live art demos, trivia, food & drink, and is free and open to the public. Creators on hand this month will be Myisha Haynes, Melissa Pagluica, and Liz Mayorga. Check out their work — lots of great looking stuff there.

Spam of the day:

Breaking Story: Trump has been taking a ‘smart pill’ – you have to read this..

If this is Trump on smart pills, I don’t want to see what he’s like when he runs out.