Anybody that reads comics online knows that when Kate Beaton goes home to Nova Scotia, the comics that result are always gold — heartfelt, hilarious, occasionally bizarre, and always featuring the inadvertent comedic stylings of her mum and da.

In case you missed them as they hit Twitter over the past ten days or so, Beatonmas Comics 2013 are collected for you on Beaton’s Tumblr in five very tall roughly chronological sections. Go read them now.

Every year, Jess Fink’s in-laws hold Jessmas a few days before Christmas, as Fink isn’t able to spend Christmas Day with them. Taking a lead from Beaton, this year’s Jessmas made it into comic form as well and if there are fewer of them than of the Beatons, there’s about 100% more contextless mentions of vagina so that’s all right. Go read them now.

Perhaps feeling that the west coast was underrepresented, David Malki ! got into the famiy holiday comic-making game as well, with a series featuring Earth’s feistiest grandma. Go read them now.

All told, that’s about 100 comics to tide you over until next year; if you have trouble waiting that long, just go back to one of those links on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and read one update each time. And if you draw comics, maybe grab a Moleskine or two when you head home next.

There’s a pair of longrunners on semi-hiatus right now; I say semi-hiatus because there’s no question that the webcomics in question will be back, and because there are updates occurring in the meantime.

• On the one hand, the return of Bobbins continues in lieu of Bad Machinery, and it’s the same town and same timeline, but featuring characters we’ve not seen in a dog’s age (Hi, Len! Hi, Tim!). We’ll be back to the youth-sleuths soon enough, and in the interim seeing the end of Amy’s pregnancy is a treat.
• On the other hand, a dun-dun-dunnnnn declaration wrapped up volume 13 of Girl Genius on Friday, and creators Professoressa & Professor Foglio are taking a break to get the second half of the Girl Genius saga¹ in shape and in the meantime they’ve got Christopher Baldwin doing a fill-in story from the first Girl Genius radio play. All the details are found at Girl Genius today, except for one, which Baldwin shared with us last week, on the occasion of the Spacetrawler bonus story wrapping up.
• Namely, in addition to the Girl Genius story, Baldwin is launching a new sci-fi webcomic today, One Way by name, at both Spacetrawler.com (for those of you with clicking habits) as well as at Baldwinpage.com (which will be more in the way of its official home). With one update to its credit, One Way is already clearly exhibiting the two elements that have been used to describe it: sci-fi (space ships, zero gravity, serious looking people in serious uniforms) and gag strip (gotta say, that punchline surprised me).

  Spacetrawler started that way and became pretty heavy in and around the laughs, but we knew it was going to be tragic from the beginning; come to think of it, Starslip did the same, and Drive had had more than a bit of serious mixed in. We’ll see which way One Way goes soon enough, I expect; I also expect that it’ll be really good.

• Aaaannd not really fitting into the theme of the day at all, something I’m adding here mostly so I remember it: Danielle Corsetto announced her first public appearances of 2014, including the weather-delayed Bmore Into Comics this Saturday in Baltimore, and then two weeks later on Saturday the 18th at Wild Pig Comics in Kenilworth, New Jersey. See you there, Danielle!

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¹ You read that correctly — thirteen volumes, or approximately 2000 pages of comics, comprise the first half of the overall story. Prof. Foglio has been noted to remark that a breakpoint is necessary, perhaps a renumbering to volume 1 again, to keep from scaring off new readers. I expect that when Girl Genius returns to Agatha and company in March, it’ll be an ideal time for those that haven’t developed favorite Heterodyne stories to jump in easily.

Also, Happy Starpocalypse Release Day Plus One.

As promised the long-awaited SMBC project dropped yesterday; it’s got a would-be prophet, a would-be robosexual, the alternating triumphs of (thoroughly insane and perverse) God and (thoroughly disdainful of everything other than neuro-helmet induced orgasms) Science, and James Ashby¹ getting torn apart. It’s five episodes of a rudely hilarious sketch-comedy series thrown together to form a full season, complete with cliffhanger. Oh, and in and around the various perversities and transgressions, there’s the question of whether humanity should put its faith in anything blindly, whether the supernatural or the scientific².

If the effect look a little rough, keep in mind that it was done on a budget that wouldn’t cover a day’s craft services on a regular sci-fi movie or TV show, and in that context, they look damn good. I’d go so far as to say that I enjoyed all the FX, and was disappointed only in that there weren’t more effects of James getting destroyed in creative ways, but there’s always Season Two! Order it up for three measly dollars here, and enjoy the blasphemy.

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¹ History’s greatest villain.

² Although many of the scientific types are dicks, they also didn’t invent suffering and vengeful smiting like the malevolent alien pervert claiming to be God did. Potato, potato.

Much to get done in preparation for tomorrow, with its mirth and cheer and (maybe my house only) marathon of Doctor Who Christmas episodes¹.

But before any of that, I get to see, at long last, the new Hobbit movie at the theater that will bring booze to your seat and does not allow under-21s at all (certain auditoria there do allow under-18s with adult accompaniment; it’s glorious).

I suspect that I will enjoy a movie that I have waited roughly 35 years to see, but in truth I require nothing more from The Desolation of Smaug is for it to be a DDD — a dwarf delivery device. However, the opinions of those I know whose tastes I can map to my own, or whose Tolkien scholarship I trust implicitly lead me to believe that this movie will be far more than a mere DDD.

This is ironic, because in the other field where I trust Aaron Diaz’s scholarship (paleontology) and movies are also made that can be described as DDDs (this time, dinosaur delivery devices), I have less hope for transcendence; hell, I didn’t even see the third JP because it was apparent that mere DDD was all the filmmakers were shooting for.

In conclusion, whatever D you may be interested in², Aaron Diaz is your point of reference and may be trusted in all things, the end.

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¹ For the record, this was my wife’s idea. I believe I married her in anticipation of this moment.

² Behave, you.

Guys. Guys. I don’t know how your Christmas week is going, but as of right now, mine is going great. And by great, I mean full-on creepy and existentially dreadful because I got my copy of Broodhollow Book 1 in the mail and it is so good.

So, in case you hadn’t gotten me a present yet, here is what I want — share this story with me. Start reading Broodhollow from the beginning, if you haven’t previously, and then go to his store and give Kris Straub some money so that he will continue to make Broodhollow. You can get a digital edition now, and I’ll wager that in the not-too-distant future¹, you’ll be able to obtain this handsome volume for your bookshelf, where it will proceed to scare the bejabbers out of your other books. I’m sorry if you were particular attached to the bejabbers of your other books, but that’s just how these things work.

On the off chance that:

1. you have been reading Broodhollow
2. you have already given Kris Straub your money
3. your other books still require some de-bejabbering

May I recommend you step outside of webcomics for a spell and check out Rachel Rising by Terry Moore? Dude’s been self-publishing for decades now, with the absolutely stellar relationship-meets-mob-enforcers Strangers In Paradise and the techno-espionage thriller Echo. Rachel just adds to his genre-hopping, as it deals with a little case of demonic assault on a small town, no big.

Compared to Broodhollow’s interior dread, Rachel is more exterior in its scares (if you take my meaning), but between the two of them, they represent the very best of fright-oriented comics², and what more could you ask for in these days of long nights and wintry chills³?

Rachel (and Echo, and Strangers) is available in print collections or at comiXology, and it gets my highest possible recommendation. Everything I said up there about giving Straub your money also goes for Moore. Now if you’ll excuse me, I still have one or two bejabbers that need removing.

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¹ That is, once the Kickstarter orders have been sent.

² In all likelihood to be joined by The Sleep of Reason, once I get a chance to read it.

³ Northern hemisphere only.

Man, there’s nothing like that grinding fan noise that says Forget about getting any work done over this racket, I am just waiting for you to turn your back before I burst into flame and destroy all I can. Oh, wait, yes there is and it’s the hand damage that’s built into the act of disconnecting and reconnecting a bunch of Molex connectors. Love the secure fit, hate the blood that is inevitably drawn.

Let’s finish up the week on some cool news, ‘kay? Mike Holmes, cartoonist¹, main artist on the Bravest Warriors comic series², is also known for his self portraits in the styles of various artists, Miknessess. Today he got a little attention at one of the science-themed blogs at NPR, handled by RadioLab³ co-host Robert Krulwich. Titled One Man. One Cat. Multiplied, there’s not much here from a science angle, but Krulwich knows as well as anybody that sometimes, you just gotta run some cartoony self-portraits in the style of Hergé, Watterson, Larson and more.

In case you’ve never checked out the Mikenesses (and I’ve been remiss in not mentioning them before today), now’s a good time. There’s about 100 of them, there’s a new one this week in the style of Hope Larson that’s really great. If you like what you see, might you be inclined to download the first collection of Mikenesses, 100 styles in all, at Gumroad for five measly bucks? I think you might.

Okay, weeekend now. Also holiday times coming up, so there may be somewhat fewer entries until the new year. Be good.

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¹ As opposed to Mike Holmes, contracturally-sleeveless Canadian building contractor with his own bobblehead.

² I haven’t been able to find issue #15 this week, nobody spoil it for me.

³ Everybody loves RadioLab except, inexplicably, Rene Engström. Minus one point on her awesomeness score, leaving her a total of … 239,837, well above the threshold score for One of the Best People status (15).

Re: Cards Against Humanity’s 12 Days of Holiday Bullshit and hints of the involvement of webcomickers. There are more than twenty creators whose work has been wrangled into shape (by R Stevens) together in a Sunday Funnies-style comics section.

You can enjoy the entire thing online, if you happen to dig on people like (in no particular order) Allie Brosh, Nick Gurewitch, Dylan Meconis, Erika Moen, Maki Naro, Abby Howard, Anthony Clark, Sam Brown, Jon Rosenberg, Ryan North, Natasha Allegri, John Campbell, Zach Weinermsith, Shawn Smith, Elaine Short, Kris Straub, Megan Murphy, Jana Kinsman, Jess Fink, or John Allison¹.

For my money, though, the best one was from Katie Rice, a wordless, delightfully evil little parable about Santa rewarding good children and punishing bad children. For your money, you’ll just have to browse through, and if you find work that you particularly like, maybe visit the creator and check out their fine wares?

In other news, as I write this, there have been Something*Positive comics for twelve years and eight minutes. Sadly, I can’t claim to have been there from the very beginning, having been tipped off to the brilliance of the pudding cat known as Choo-Choo Bear some time after his first appearance, probably around the time two dangerously violent psychopaths got luchador masks. I guess that means for me there’s only been eleven years, eight months, eleven days, and eight minutes of S*P, and I’ve loved every minute of it.

I have written extensively on this page about how Randy Milholland may be my favorite writer of characters, because they quickly grew out of the caricature stage and into messy, complex, changing (ever so slowly) people, none of whom can be entirely dismissed or despised. All of them, even Ollie, have reasons to empathize with them².

Maybe it’s appropriate that today’s strip features Kharisma, as she’s grown the most of any of the cast³. It’s a messy kind of extended family that Milholland’s built centered on Davan, who I’m just now realizing I haven’t felt the need to describe as hapless for a couple of years now. That’s the way that Uncle Randy works — slowly, incrementally, and before you realize it, those little incidents of not being an utter asshole have assembled themselves into something resembling redemption and self-improvement.

The really amazing thing, though, is that Milholland used S*P as the springboard for multiple other strips, each of which are just as good. Seriously, get the Super Stupor issues and ask yourself (like I do) why Randy doesn’t have major publishers offering him miniseries.

Finally, let me wrap up this by reminding you all that it is your moral duty, on whatever occasion you may actually meet Mr Milholland, to badger him mercilessly until he does the Fluffmodeus voice. You may need to offer booze. It’s a fair trade.

So sorry about that, Randy, and thanks very much for the comics; you — and they — are damn good.

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¹ All of whom, it should be noted, were paid for their contributions, ’cause CAH don’t screw around.

² Okay, not Avogadro, but he’s dead. Also, I’m not sure that Fluffmodeus is actually a sentient being as opposed to free-roaming hallucination.

³ Except maybe Mike, but I’d argue that he’s much further along the way towards being an actual, whole person and Kharisma is very much still a work in progress. Additionally, Kharisma’s growth has largely been by dint of her own personal effort, seeing as how she’s on the wrong and the only good examples she’s got are the ones she can make for herself.

Robert Khoo on what PA want to accomplish with the Diversity Hub & Lounge.

tl;dr: It’s being headed up by one of the founders of GaymerX.

Oh my stars and garters, The Boy! Neil threw me a bit there, what with identifying Eustace Boyce as 25, but then Bad Machinery has been running more than four years now, and that was three years after the end of Scary Go Round¹, and I guess you leave school around age 18 in Britain, so yeah, 25. Looks like since breaking up with Esther, he’s moved well onto the Susan end of life. Still, good to see him again.

• It’s been a while since we at Fleen have mention Matt Lubchansky, which is Our Bad, because he keeps doing good comics. For just about exactly one year (the first strip dates from a year ago yesterday), The New Amsterdam Mystery Company by Lubchansky and Jaya Saxena has been bringing the mystery, and yesterday the first NAMC collection, The Curse of the Dying Dutchman (which coincides with the first NAMC story arc) went up for pre-order. You’ve got two slim weeks to get in on a story that’s part supernatural mystery, part love letter to New York.
• Hat tip to Ryan Estrada (or at least, the twitterfeed of The Whole Story): Jerzy Drozd² of Comics Are Great!³ is now offering a course in comic-making; okay, lots of people do that, even people that make (and promote the art of) comics as much as Drozd. What distinguishes this one (and makes sense, being linked by The Whole Story, the name your price publisher) is that Drozd’s course is being offered on Gumroad, pay what you want:
  

  In this four-part series we’ll explore how to build a comics story from the ground up! There’s a lot to consider when making a comic: developing a dynamic cast of characters, defining your world, devising visually exciting pages, and more. And what about figuring out your options for getting your work to your audience? This series of interactive presentations will provide you with some context and options in navigating those waters.

  Name your price for seven hours of comics instruction! You’ll be able to download the DRM-Free videos or stream them from Gumroad.

  So that’s seven videos, seven hours, for free? Well, yes, but only if you’re a chump. There’s a lot of knowledge and work there, so if you decide to download, don’t leave the price set to zero, ‘kay?

• I expected to wake up this morning to a bigger than usual backlog on Twitter, what with the last episode of The Best Show, but I didn’t expect to see a new Penny Arcade/PAX controversy. Here’s the short version: Indie Statik broke (and Kotaku confirmed) the story of a new offering at future PAXes: a diversity lounge. There’s been a lot of back and forth about segregation and I’ve seen the word ghetto used more than once; I think that a lot of the reactions have come from people that read the Indie Statik and Kotaku stories, and more of the reactions have come from people that read the first reactions.

  I also think that a lot of people aren’t discussing things so much as they’re projecting assumptions on on each other. We’ve got one set of primary source material here, the document describing the lunge in question, the originals of which may be seen at Indie Statik (image 1, image 2). I think that everybody that’s got an opinion on the matter might want to follow those links, because they might not say what you think they say.

  Most importantly, a lot of people I’ve seen have been describing the lounge as a designated safe space and getting angry that all of PAX isn’t likewise. Thing is, my reading of the document doesn’t indicate that’s what’s planned at all. I do see indications that it’s a place that people can come and learn, and that part of what can be taught is how to establish safe spaces.

  My reading of the description is Hey, want to learn about people who aren’t like you but play games anyway? Willing to pry yourself away from demos for half an hour, maybe? Go here. Implicit in that is a subtext: Everybody that’s always complained that you get jumped on for being oppressive and wondering what you’re doing wrong and why won’t anybody teach you? This is what you’ve been asking for, so avail yourself or shut up.

  What I didn’t see anywhere in the description is All minorities go here so the rest of us don’t have to think about you, which is a pretty close paraphrase of one of the criticisms I read earlier today. But you know what? It hasn’t happened yet, and whether or not it’s well-executed will be determined months from now; whatever aspects of it aren’t done well at PAX East, will they be done better at Prime and Aus? Will the PA principals be involved in curating the content, or will they be delegating that to somebody else? How credible will the content slate be? Crucially, will Mike and Jerry be spending some learning time in there?

  What we’ve got at the moment is a two-page outline, vague enough that it could have come out of a corporate mission-statement generating workshop. It’s not a blueprint, it’s the brainstorm that will build the structure that will eventually be used to define the blueprint. Maybe nobody avails themselves of it and it fails spectacularly. Maybe it succeeds to the extent that the hub and lounge grow and assume more floor space at each subsequent show. Maybe it’s an expression of Mike & Jerry’s parental concern that their kids come up in the hobby they love, but without absorbing the worst parts of the culture that surrounds it⁴.

  Penny Arcade is too big to do anything quietly — or subtly, for that matter; they’ve got a load of momentum to shed before they can chart a new course. It will take years to work past some of their mistakes (if in fact they ever completely do) and to be known for more than their worst behavior. Maybe — just maybe — this is where it changes.

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¹ We’ve actually seen The Boy within the pages of Giant Days, if memory serves, but that’s from the early days of university and thus seven years ago in story time.

² Improbably enough, there are two Jerzy Drozds out there, the other being a bass luthier of some repute. Odd, but no odder than there being two Gary Tyrrells, I suppose.

³ Word.

⁴ Mike and Jerry have not always been wise in picking which fights to have or how to have them. I suspect that like all conscientious parents, they want their kids to be wiser, smarter, kinder, better people than they themselves have been. Or maybe I’m projecting because my parents and grandparents taught me to be better than the prejudices that they learned and didn’t always grow out of.

Guhhh, this bout of the Martian Death Flu apparently wanted to cram four or five days worth of feeling crappy into about twelve hours. I’m over the worst of it, and don’t actually feel bad, but I could use about ten hours of sleep. Thankfully, the snow appears to have stopped with less accumulation than would have required shoveling, so yay. Oh, yes, also webcomics.

I don’t think that there’s a world-builder of alien¹ environments and characters² that’s more accomplished, more thorough, more in tune with the totality of what’s being dreamed up and then deposited on the page³ for you to read than Evan Dahm. We’re conditioned by years — decades — of entertainment to think of not human as human, but slightly taller/shorter with different ears/nose/forehead, possibly a vocal tic, and entirely analogous to one particular culture, but Dahm’s creatures and characters and architecture and scripts and, and, and spring from a place that isn’t merely the familiar with a smear of paint and some prosthetics.

Case in point: Overside.

I’ve lost count of how many cultures and species and languages and geographies and histories Dahm has created to populate this place that feels organically⁴ real, and for each of those that he shares with us, there are hints about many more just around the corner. Junti becomes the most curious and inventive Surin in history and takes to the skies and it is exhilarating … but around each of those corners and alleys surrounding the Chapterhouse enclave there’s a debate, a haggle, an argument, a conspiracy taking place, because the city of Sahta is more than just the scene that’s being depicted now — it’s someplace that Dahm has made breathe since the first time we glimpsed it.

By the way, we spent 200 pages building up the story of Vattu, whose world can’t conceive of such a city. And as of yesterday, he’s spent another 300 pages building up the experience of Vattu (and Junti, and other captives, exiles, citizens, and rulers, highborn and low) in that city, and bringing us along for the ride. We’ve learned bits of culture, society, religious thought, calendrical structure, climate, politics, economy, and natural philosophy⁵, never laid out explicitly, always sneaking in at the periphery of whatever’s happening on the main stage.

So there we are, 500 pages of the current Overside story, rendered in glorious color, and we might be approaching the 40% mark of the story. There’s much more ahead of us than we have behind, and there are many more eras and lands in Overside still to share their secrets⁶. Given that Dahm’s about to be able to ship the first volume of Vattu, this would be a good time to catch up on at least one of those stories (there are others), and luxuriate in all the world-building. You’ll be glad you did.

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¹ In the sense of not like that which is familiar rather than the sense of outer space monsters.

² I should probably say people instead.

³ Or screen; work with me here.

⁴ Free-range, even. Locally-sourced.

⁵ I almost said science, but I think that Junti is the first Surin to approach unweight — and life, possibly — with the critical, systemic approach that demarcates the line between natural philosophers and scientists. She’s going to spark the Sahtan equivalent of the Enlightenment, that girl is.

⁶ Not to mention what he’s doing with L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Dear glob, that’s going to be beautiful.