I mean, it’s SDCC week, people are already traveling to SoCal for the nerd prom, and a billion items have come up in the past couple days. Okay, these are each going to be brief because it’s like seven things.

• New SDCC offsite events In addition to all the programming mentioned last week, there are things happening outside the convention center. Singer-songwriter Marian Call (cohort of Alaska Roboticist Pat Race and famed portrayer of Top Space Man) will be part of a show called Space Time on 10 July (that’s Friday) at 7:00pm. Know who else will be there? Molly Lewis (aka Ground Control) and Bobak “We Are Go” Ferdowsi.

  Lewis will also be part of BAMF, the Bad Ass Music Festival, held 10-12 July in nearby Ruocco Park, alongside such luminaries as Kirby Krackle, Paul and Storm, and The Doubleclicks.

• Future plans for The Response Matt Bors follow up on earlier announcements of what’s going on with editorial cartooning at Medium via an announcement at The Response. Short version: It’s a finite project, through the end of July, and more conversations will occur between now and then.
• The AV Club loves webcomics Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor got cited as one of the best piece of media (not comics, all of media) for the first half of 2015, while John Allison, Noelle Stevenson, Ryan North & Erica Henderson, and Gemma Correll were cited as being part of the best of print for the same timeframe.
• Kickstarts Magnolia Porter wins the Most Adorable Kickstarter Video, Like, Ever award … oh, yeah, and it’s part of the launch for Monster Pulse’s second print collection, Phantom Limbs. It’s no secret that Monster Pulse is one of my favorite webcomics (just check out today’s update to see why — wow), so I’m urging everybody to back this one because I want my book, dammit.

  And if that weren’t enough, longtime editorial cartoonist Tom Tomorrow announced his Kickstart via Make That Thing, and it’s a doozy. Twenty five years of strips will be constructed into a 1000 page, two-volume hardcover collection, with an estimated mass of nearly 7 kg. Such a huge collection needs a huge goal, and with less than 24 hours elapsed, Mr Tomorrow has exceeded the US$87,000 needed and is closing in on US$100K. And can I say holy crap, somebody took him up on the US$10K reward tier? This one’s gonna be metaphorically and physically huge.

Spam of the day:

Dr.Oz bikini secret

Man, I can’t find even one picture of Dr Oz in a bikini. Laaaaaame.

Man, before we even get to the fact that it’s Canada Day and wish well to all our friends north of the border¹, there’s so many things to be happy about. I can’t even decide which would be most important, so I’m just going to hit these in chronological order.

• In the past few days (call it a month or so on the early end), I’ve received packages full of joy from three separate Kickstarts: Evan Dahm’s lovely illustrated edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (now available via TopatoCo), Jon Rosenberg’s long-delayed² Goats book four, and Zach Weinersmith and Boulet’s Augie and the Green Knight, all of which are more beautiful than could have been hoped. Thanks for those, guys!

  For those keeping track at home, this brings my Kickstarter backing record to 49 projects, of which 1 was designated “no reward”, 36 fulfilled, 5 are due for future delivery, 3 are late less than a month (it’s the first, after all), 3 are in the vicinity of a year late (two for what I consider to be good reasons, one I’m mentally writing off) and 1 partially fulfilled three years back for a project that’s gone tits-up. Call it 36/44 success rate, or 81%, which I expect to bump up by the end of the month, and again by end of summer.

• Meanwhile, yesterday David Willis started dropping hints of a new comic which hinted at the future erosion of his famous buffer. Then he dropped the proverbial other shoe:
  

  So on May 27, as I was trying to preregister for BotCon through my phone because our damned Time Warner wifi was having outages AGAIN, Maggie got back from the doctor, noted that there was, in fact, an Ultrasound due that visit despite our expectations, and then handed me this little printout, saying, “Here’s a picture of our baby.”

  And after pausing a bit, she pulled out another little printout and said, “And here’s a picture of our other baby.”

  It’s Twins! David and Maggie become at least the third webcomic couple to bring twins to bear³; previous twin-having webcomickers Jon Rosenberg and Ryan Sohmer were at press time reportedly pointing vaguely in Willis’s direction and laughing hysterically that at least they got to practice on single kids before having to learn how to be parents to twins before weeping uncontrollably. I think that means Welcome to our totally fun club!

  We at Fleen congratulate Willis on his impending great fortune, and are calling for predictions as to how far his buffer will slip. We’re taking 85 days in the pool.

• But the news that will resonate outside our community hit after things wrapped up on the east coast; reports were seen (first in Deadline, later in other corners) that both Kris Straub and Jeff Smith have new Hollywood deals. Straub’s case is perhaps further along, as it was announced that Max Landis will be producing a horror anthology for SyFy, the first season of which will be Candle Cove. Straub has struggled in the past to be recognized as the author of this particularly unsettling piece of fiction, with occasional claims that the short story was in fact true from people who are overly credulous, misremembering their own childhoods, or possibly both.

  Meanwhile, a production firm named a vet of AMC to head up their TV unit, and one of the first projects that’s being examined is an adaptation of Smith’s RASL. A story that mixes art thievery, dimension hopping, Nikola Tesla, and existential horror, RASL is about as different a followup to BONE as could be imagined. It would be a while before we see it hit the screen, but in tapping RASL and Candle Cove for adaptation, it appears that the entertainment complex is showing a willingness to explore wholly original ideas and has an idea of who might be a good source for them.

  Which got me to thinking what webcomics would make a good TV series. Achewood or Wonderella could absolutely rule on [Adult Swim], A Girl and Her Fed could do well on a basic cable channel with experience in showrunning (say, A&E or AMC), and I’m convinced that the Henson Workshop people could do something really good with Monster Pulse. I’m not sure how far we are from effects being able to do justice to any of Overside stories, but Skin Horse maybe could be made to work. Any other ideas? Leave ’em in the comments.

Spam of the day:

cheater detox

I know those words, but can’t figure out they mean together.

_______________
¹ AKA future ruthless overlords.

² The campaign for which coincided with, more or less, a high-risk pregnancy and birth of special-needs twins, who have defied every possible odd to be happy, healthy, distressingly clever young men. Well done, Team Babies!

³ It appears having a long-running webcomic must now be added to the contributing factors for having twins, such as being a twin yourself.

Will post when I’m able, and thank you for your understanding.

One of those days where the happy just comes pouring out of people. I think that Andy Bell summed it up nicely:

also all these Androids are legally married now <3 pic.twitter.com/Bdby0SQRTs

— Andrew Bell ? (@deadzebra) June 26, 2015

my feed is so full of rainbows it looks like a leprechaun made sweet love to a unicorn and pulled out early. love it.

— Andrew Bell ? (@deadzebra) June 26, 2015

Webcomics happenings and dramas and such can wait until Monday, along with a discussion of the webcomics-related panels at SDCC (Thursday’s and Friday’s schedules are posted; by Monday we should have everything ready for dissection).

In the meantime, hug somebody you love and be glad that today we’re all a little more equal.

And that’s it. As quickly as it zoomed across the sky –spreading wonder, and mayhem, providing counterpoint to philosophical arguments, and landing in faces both undeserved and richly so — #buttrocket has left us behind. Jeph Jacques has picked up his normal storyline, with nary a mention of the petabyte of porn carried by 2015-TAYLER-AWESOME. Goodbye, #buttrocket, may you find a worthy place to deposit your payload¹; you were perhaps too good for this world.

Speaking of too good for this world, the news broke too late for me to write about it yesterday, but Brandon Bird has crafted no less than the pinnacle — nay, the apotheosis — of art. I speak, naturally, of a series of thirteen oil paintings of Shia LaBeouf encompassing all of his regenerations.

Pack it up, world. Museums, try your best to get the eleven paintings still out of the hands of private collectors, in the hopes that someday all thirteen may be presented together as time, fate, and the universe intend. Those of you without the wherewithal to purchase an original can still get signed prints, or get the entire series of in one glorious bolus of Shia LaBeoufosity. Get it now. Do it for the children.

Spam of the day:
I was going to include one, but the contents of my spam folder now reads Shia LaBeouf over and over for about ten thousand lines. Creepy.

_______________
¹ So to speak.

You know what I like best about these guest strips? The fact that even those that ran initially without #buttrocket¹ were quickly amended to include #buttrocket, and they legitimately make the strips funnier. Today’s strip by Veronica Vera of Bittersweet Candy Bowl gets extra points for dealing with Garbage Person Ted from Jeph’s Tumblr. Thanks for that, Veronica, and also for continuing the unbroken tale of hilarity passed to you by KB Spangler, Zach Weinersmith, Christopher Baldwin, David Willis, Megan McKay, and Danielle Corsetto.

And oh my goodness, so many other things to talk about today.

• Book! Kate Beaton, who is BEST, has been kind enough to share some process sketches with us, allowing us to see the evolution of Princess Pinecone (the titular princess of The Princess and the Pony, arriving at bookstores everywhere in one week). I love everything about this.
• Also Book! Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh have announced the Kickstarter for their concluded-online (starts here), coming-to-print OGN, Lucky Penny. This puzzled me a bit when I heard the news this morning, as I thought that Lucky Penny was going to be published by Oni Press, and for them to have to self-publish would be a significant change.

  Turns out, Oni is still publishing Lucky Penny, so why a Kickstarter? Yuko and Ananth have anticipated your question and have an answer for you:

  We’ve increasingly found that the people who support us online and via Kickstarter are wildly different from those who would pick up our book in a store or buy from Amazon — and it’s those people (you!) who allow us to make a living. So we’re running this campaign to fund OUR copies of the book to sell direct to you, our fans!

  If this campaign doesn’t succeed we don’t get to make our personal copies. The book will still be available via your favorite local bookseller or comic shop come March 2016, but we won’t have personal copies for sale at conventions.

  I like this for a couple of reasons — one, transparency is always good; and two, I don’t think I’ve seen this kind of publisher/self-publish hybrid before, and I’m always interested in seeing new business techniques. Also three, backing the creators gets you extras that you couldn’t get from the publisher — thanks in the book, extra swag, and you’ll get your copies before the stores do As I write this sentence, the Lucky Penny Kickstarter is sitting just below US$12,000, or about 68% of its (very modest) US$17,500 goal.

• Still Book! Raina Telgemeier continues to dominate the trade, what with taking the Favorite Cartooist and Favorite Nonfiction Graphic Novel categories at the Kids Read Comics Awards over the weekend, in addition to the Béd&eacure;lys Jeunesse Award in Quebec, in addition to the little matter of three straight years on the New York Times Bestseller List, including a clean sweep of the top four positions. Please tell me again how girls don’t read/understand/make comics. Please.
• Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett! There’s a new announcement from LARDK about the second creator to contribute to his Tales of the Drive series: Fleen fave Dylan Meconis! And this time we have a story blurb — Nosh’s origin! And Christopher Hastings was kind enough to tell me the basic plot of his TftD contribution:
  

  Hmm, it’s so tough to comment without spoiling … it’s kind of a cross between Alien and this thing: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080116142805.htm

  And funny!

  I’m glad he stuck in the funny part, because parasite stories are otherwise horrifying.

• Return! Reptilis Rex, y’all. It’s back.

Spam of the day:

Give your Manhood a Boost

Nope!

JOIN TEEN WOLF’S TYLER POSEY AND JEFF DAVIS FOR

Nope!

Dr:OZ helps Rachael shed 25lbs of bellyfat for bikini season

Nnnnooope!

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¹ If you can imagine such a thing.

So hands up if you like insane fight-tournament manga — everything from Dragonball to Yakitate!! Japan¹, where the plucky [young/orphan or semiorphan] hero survives against all odds and the individual fights consist of endless posing and mystic mumbo-jumbo, for hundreds and hundreds of pages (or entire seasons of the tie-in TV series).

Yeah, Last Man ain’t like that.

It’s taken from the model of the insane fight-tournament manga, but the creators are French; the visual designs are halfway between manga and ligne claire, and our POV character isn’t the plucky kid, it’s the ne’er do well from out of town that shows up and grabs the plucky kid for the tournament because the rules say he needs a partner and there’s nobody else around.

That’s Richard; he doesn’t know squat about the town he’s landed in, the nature of the tournament, or the local fighting style; he just heard there’s a tournament and he wants in for his own reasons. He appears to be a man out of time, referencing modern (technological) items that fly over the heads of the pseudo-middle ages locals. And the first time he sees an opponent start to marshal his mystic energies with endless posing, Richard calmly decks him to the shock and consternation of all present. It’s just Not Done!

Furthermore, the story moves fast; in Book One (The Stranger), Richard shows up, partners with young Adrian, puts the moves on Adrian’s mom, and makes it all the way to the quarterfinals. Book Two (The Royal Cup, out tomorrow) continues where the first left off and ends on a cliffhanger indicating that the tournament was not the important part of the story — and that Adrian’s mom is more worldly than she ever let on. Books Three and later will presumably alter the insane fight-tournament manga model further, as that little town and the all-important tournament recede in the rear-view mirrors of a pair of motorcycles² heading out to a world that Richard knows better but which is as mysterious to Adrian … and us. It’s a great read.

Thanks to Gina Gagliano at :01 Books, we were able to send some questions to the creators of Last Man — Bastien Vivès, Michaël Sanlaville, and Balak — and are happy to bring their answers to you now.

Our thanks to Gina Gagliano at :01, to Balak, Sanlaville, and Vives, and to everybody that helped bring Last Man to these shores. You can read more about the series (and Book Two, go get it) at the other entries of Last Man Blog Tour, which continues tomorrow at Graphic Policy.

______________
¹ Or even sports manga; if you haven’t read Cross Game you really should, but a single baseball half-inning can take dozens of pages. Then again, other games slip by between panels.

² In a pseudo-middle ages setting, whaaaa?

Special bonus Sunday post to reflect momentous happenings over at QC’s Guest Week-Plus-A-Couple-Of-Days. As noted in this space yesterday, Friday’s strip, initially #buttrocketless, was amended to incorporate #buttrocket. Then Jeph went and ran another guest strip today, this one by the incomparable Danielle Corsetto, with a callback to Goopy Kitty and every-damn-thing.

Also #buttrocket.

The entire saga may be observed by reading the contributions of Corsetto and her #buttrockety siblings (KB Spangler, Zach Weinersmith, Christopher Baldwin, David Willis, and Megan McKay by clicking here and then clicking forward.

Jaqcues says that there are still guest strips to run, with QC returning to his hands on Wednesday. Will there be #buttrocket in those strips? Maybe. Will Jacques break out #buttrocket as an easter egg in his own strips going forward? Oh glob I hope so. We’ll all find out together.

Note: as tomorrow is the scheduled blog tour entry for The Last Man (also discussed on Friday), if there is another #buttrocket sighting, it will get its own post so as not to detract. Thank you, and good evening.

Or possibly they’re urged to remain calm; the ink ribbon in the teletype here at Fleen Central is really old and faded.

• It appears that the magic has faded, but vague hope may be held out for next week, as Jeph Jacques allows for the possibility of return:
  

  I have a few awesome guest comics left so I will run some more next week! Have we seen the last of #buttrocket???? WE SHALL SEE

  None of which should be taken in a way that causes one to think that Megan McKay hasn’t turned in a terrific strip; it’s adorable, and one could argue more QC-ish than the past four days of gluteal missilry, and should be enjoyed on its own merits.

  Edit to add [6:00pm EDT 20 June 2015]: #buttrocket is too strong to be denied; the strip has mysteriously sprouted three more panels and now features #buttrocket. The #buttrocket panorama will be updated at a later date to reflect this.

• As a consequence of the Cartoon Art Museum getting a lease extension¹, various events at CAM now have different run dates. More precisely, the following exhibitions have been extended to run to the (currently scheduled) close date of 12 September:
  

  Darth Vader and Friends
  Savage Dragon: The Art of Erik Larsen
  The Bronze Armory Showcase
  Songs and Secrets: The Art of Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells
  Small Press Spotlight on Geoff Vasile

  You’ve still got all summer to make your way to San Francisco and check ’em out.

• Regular readers of this page may recall that from time to time, Fleen participates in blog-based book tours, usually for releases from our friends at :01 Books. There’s one going on now, in support of the second volume of Last Man by Bastien Vivès, Michaël Sanlaville, and Balak, due out Tuesday. If you haven’t read the first volume, it’s basically on the time-honored manga theme of the insane fighting tournament, but done by French creators so it’s over in three books instead of fifteen or twenty.

  There’s a lot going on in the book below the surface, and we’ll have a Q&A with the creators here on Monday, so be sure to come back then. Thanks as always to the incomparable Gina Gagliano at :01 for our review copies, and for doing all the logistical footwork in getting the blog tour set up.

Okay, we’re out of here; enjoy your weekend and remember tell your da you love him this much.

Spam of the day:

thermal & cold polymerization petroleum resin, petroleum naphthalene, tar and thousand-ton capacit

You’re the sons of bitches that lifted my credit card number to try to buy US$7000 worth of industrial chemicals, aren’t you? Only got one thing to say to you.

_______________
¹ Meaning they won’t have to close their doors next weekend.

Hear me out! After this, what can Jeph Jacques ever run for guest strips in the future? Can anything ever match up to the beauty that is #buttrocket? David Willis adds his take on the lace-trimmed Thong o’ Doom today, adding his take on #buttrocket to KB Spangler (who is killing it with textiles in her own strip today), Zach Weinersmith, and Christopher Baldwin. All hail the #buttrocket. Give yourself to #buttrocket. The #buttrocket is.

Hey, want to see some cool, fun things on a day that desperately needs them? Me too!

• Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett put up a teaser at Drive a while back that he was going to go the shared-universe side-story route, and yesterday we got the first details:
  

  I am so excited for the “Tales of the Drive” series. As you remember, I’ve gone out to my favorite pros working today, and invited them to write short stories set in the DRIVE universe. These are people I trust to write amazing DRIVE short stories. And today I can reveal the first: Christopher Hastings of Dr. McNinja and Adventure Time!

  I just read Chris’ story last night, and it’s so fun. So fun. You are going to love it. [emphasis original]

  I’m on record as really liking the heck out of Drive, and given the vast swathes of history and geography (astrography?) that LARDK has laid out, there’s plenty of fertile ground for creators to play with — who were all these emperors whose writings we see? What about those galactic powers we’ve seen in the star charts? Why, exactly, did Neuvo Chile get banned from ring travel? Over the past half-decade I’ve asked LARDK these questions and more many times and he stubbornly refuses to let go of even a crumb of detail, other than the fact that we’re probably going to see nine books in all to chronicle The Pilot’s War.

  With that in mind, I had a few questions for him, and LARDK had answers:

  On how many stories we’re likely to see:

  I’d eventually like there to be two dozen stories … running 6-15 pages, each. They’re set anywhere/any time in the DRIVE universe, either using characters we know, or completely new folks.

  On the limits he sets as Determinator Of What Happens In This Continuity:

  I’ve asked folks to (try to) stay with canon — but after that, they’re free to write and draw what they like. I’m not editing these artists: They’re all pros, and they know their way around a story.

  [Editor’s note: Brave. Very brave.]

  On who we can expect to see contributing and when:

  So far, there are eight artists who’ve said “yes” — and I imagine we’ll see those over the next 12-18 months?

  On come on, LARDK, don’t tease us, who’s contributing already:

  Folks who’ve said yes include Zach Weinersmith, Jon Rosenberg, Dylan Meconis, Phil Foglio, Jake Parker, Meredith Gran, and Jeph Jacques … so far. There’s another half-dozen super-talented folks on the “interested, but currently swamped” list, so we’re waiting for their project schedule to lighten up.

  On what shouldn’t need to be said but sadly does because it often doesn’t work out this way:

  Oh, and they’re getting paid a page rate that (I think?) beats most comic book work … so I feel good about that.

  Keep your eyes peeled for Tales of the Drive, the schedule for which is presently being determined.

• Know who’s made a habit of sharing hard numbers on her business, making it far more likely that those who come after her will avoid falling into traps?¹ “Hurricane Erika” Moen, or as I should probably say, “Hurricane Erika” Moen and Matt Nolan (who sadly lacks a weather-related knickname, but I’m working on it), since they’re partners in all aspects of Oh Joy, Sex Toy. They did the world a favor by releasing that big ol’ bolus of data on their first OJST Kickstart, and they’re back with more:
  

  Kickstarter Updates!
  1) Current cost breakdown https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/erikamoen/oh-joy-sex-toy-volume-2/posts/1267433 …
  2) $2 backers get an extra wallpaper https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/erikamoen/oh-joy-sex-toy-volume-2/posts/1267470 … [backers only]

  At that first link, Nolan lays out the numbers for gross funding on OJST volume 2, rejected pledges, the fees associated with running the campaign, and the costs experienced so far. Everybody that looks on Kicktarter as a magic money machine², follow these public postings that Nolan and Moen are very kindly sharing — you’re going to learn how much time and effort go into fulfilling their obligations, and maybe even get to decide if that much work is worth whatever they net (hint: it’s not going to be as much as you think it is). This is a gift worth more than all the business courses that your art school never offered.

• The only thing wrong with the interview that Noelle Stevenson had with The AV Club’s Oliver Sava (a very smart writer on comics) is that the opportunity did not come up for Stevenson to declare I’M A SHARK AAAHH, which I like to imagine is printed on her business cards. No email or website, mind you, nothing but:

  Noelle Stevenson   I’M A SHARK AAAHH

   
  That would be so rad.

Spam of the day:

It’s amazing in support of me to have a website, which is good in favor of my know-how.

If I ever feel like changing our site motto from Fleen: Try Our Thick, Creamy Shakes, then Fleen Is Good In Favor Of My Know-How would be a pretty good replacement.

_______________
¹ I’ve been over that sentence three times and I’m pretty sure it says what I want it to, but damn it’s kind of clumsy.

² Or worse, constructs elaborate arguments as to why a creator doesn’t deserve [a level of funding] or is making too much money and screwing the backers. Stop that.