Or, typing into WordPress through a phone, whee.

One correction re: a comment on yesterday’s post. MICE will be at the address listed but that’s on the campus of Lesley University, not Harvard. The fault is entirely mine, but in my defense colleges are cheek-by-jowl in Cambridge and Google Maps returned a result for that address and “Harvard”. Mea culpa.

Let’s keep this quick and I’ll see what I can do about front-loading posts from the hotel for the rest of the week.

• Do you like comics that are awesome? And do you like bargains? Then allow me to direct your attention to the Dr McOmnibus, 500 pages of Dr McNinja goodness including 24 all-new pages available nowhere else and dammit Dr McNinja creator Chris Hastings you know I’m a completist and now I have to shell out a fraction of the money I spent on the equivalent books when they came out.¹ Damn you, Chris Hastings … damn you.
• BOOM! Studios Cartoon Network tie-in alert! Adventure Time and Regular Show are heading to the Greater Boston area² for this year’s Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo this weekend, and they hope to see you there³:
  

  Catch Adventure Time comic artists Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline along with the Regular Show comic team Allison Strejlau and KC Green at the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo! MICE 2013 is September 28 – 29 at University Hall 1815 Mass Ave. Cambridge, MA and it’s free admission!

  That’s on the campus of the esteemed Harvard University, accessible via the MBTA’s Porter Square stop.

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¹ Actually, the problem is more shelf-space related than monetary. My damning stands.

² Cambridge. Anytime you see a reference to “Boston area”, it always means Cambridge.

³ To the extent that non-person artifacts like comic book series can want anything.

This post was going to be about the upcoming New York Comic Con‘s webcomics-related exhibitors, but as the floor map isn’t up yet, that’s kind of a useless thing to do. NYCC showrunners ReedPOP have informed me that the map should be up this week, so we’ll tell you who’s gonna be there then.

In the meantime, I did notice that Reed have invited a number of webcomicky types as actual guests of the show: Kate Beaton and Ryan North are Spotlight Guests (Saturday only); Chris Hastings (Saturday), Ed Brisson, Jim Zub, Lucy Knisley (Friday/Saturday), and Tony Cliff (Friday/Saturday) are Special Guests.

I’m not sure what the difference is between Spotlight Guests and Special Guests (or, for that matter, Featured Guests); my guess is that when Beaton, North, and Hastings have their panel presentation together on Saturday, Hastings will get a slightly less fancy name card and have to drink still water like a peasant while Beaton and North imbibe fancy mineral water straight from a Canadian glacier.

• I’ll confess, I all but lost the faith, but then on Saturday afternoon an item popped up in my RSS feed¹ that caught me by surprise: Ramón Pérez was talking Kukuburi:
  

  it’s been a wild year and half. my career has skyrocketed in various different directions. 2012 was full of promotion and travel, i was barely home, and when i was i was squeezing in what work i could to make ends meet. 2013 has been a continuation, though i purposefully cut down on travel in order to refocus on work. while fantastic it’s been a blur. it seems time moves quicker and quicker as you get older and take on more responsibility.

  but i wouldn’t change a thing.

  things are still busy, but i’m exerting more control rather than blindly riding the wave. over the past two years i’ve talked with many people who have expressed their love of kukuburi, and others who have pronounced it’s TOD.

  over the past month i’ve slowly begun to dust off the proverbial cobwebs as i ramp up towards kukuburi’s imminent return. it’s been almost two years after all. i’m not making an official proclamation of a return date, but rather to let those readers who have been patient know that i am gearing up. realistically, i’m saying early 2014. january or february is my target. [spelling original]

  Let me say not About damn time (after all, Ramón Pérez has provided Kukuburi free, from the goodness of his heart) but rather Thanks. I’ve reconciled myself to some stories never reaching their end, but that doesn’t change my desire for them. The fact that Kukuburi will get a finish is a gift and I’m grateful.

• Speaking of unexpected returns, thanks to Zach Weinersmith for pointing out the return of Liz Greenfield to webcomickin’:
  

  OH MAN @lizgreenfield is doing a comic again. http://swallow.fr/

  Ms Greenfield, or the John Cusack of webcomics storytelling, has been engaged in other forms of creation for some years since Stuff Sucks wrapped (with no real home left online, except for a hit-and-miss presence in Wayback Machine snapshots to September 2007), but now she’s back. In her words:

  Swallow is the story of a young American in Paris whose spirit animal is social networking, following a fantastical event. Grab yourself an attractive chair and hunker down.

  One update so far, and I’m confident in recommending this one to you with that little to go on. Greenfield is one of the great storytellers, full of characters that can’t wait to get onto the page so you can share in their lives. Bookmark it now, return MWF until the story’s done.

• Okay, not a return, but definitely an opportunity; I have in the past mentioned Christopher Bird and Davinder Brar’s Al’Rashad, which is a very good weekly comic full of adventure, intrigue, and sly humo[u]r. It seems that Brar (the art half of the partnership) will be a bit busy in the near term, which may necessitate some delayed updates; Bird wishes to keep the comics flowing with a side-story or two, but will require an artist:
  

  This would be a straight work-for-hire gig, moderately fast turnaround time, with compensation – not token compensation (“exposure” is not money! A few bucks per page is not ENOUGH money!) but not big-leagues compensation either. If you’re interested or know someone who is, shoot me an email and we’ll talk. [boldface mine]

  Good on Bird for his approach to artistic partnerships — pay your artists, with money. If he finds somebody half as good as Brar, the Al’Rashad prequel stories will look fabulous, and just as importantly I’ll get background on some of those oh-so-slowly-revealed characters².

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¹ Obsolete technology, my ass.

² Wulf! Do Wulf! My guess is he’s the Rex the Motherfucking Wonder Dog of the Al’Rashad world and I want to know more about him.

Not ready to post yet, waiting to get inquiries answered so I don’t post bogus information. I know, right?

While I have your momentary attention, I’ll just mention that next week may see very delayed posts; starting on Tuesday, work will take me to a client that’s in a secure industry, and I expect both physical and network access to be on the strict end of things. I may or may not be able to reach my own site so we’ll see how that goes.

Welp, I promised you a trawl through the New York Comic Con 2013 programming, with an eye towards webcomics, and you people owe me.

For starters, this is less a comics show and more a whatever we can call pop culture¹ show, and everything goes into one, largely non-filterable list by day — TV, videogames, screenings, and autograph sessions are all mixed in with actual panel discussions. I had to wade through time & place notifications of Hulk Hogan autographing your stuff to find actual content.

Secondly, this year (at least I don’t recall it from prior years) NYCC is putting in untitled placeholder sessions; I encountered at least three of these TBA sessions with no description, title, or topic, but an assurance that we’ll love it. They did say that two are on the videogame track and one from TV, so let’s assume they’re not of interest.

Thirdly, there’s a lot of stuff to work through; the preview “night” begins Thursday at 3:00pm, but programming begins earlier that day for professionals (with a number of actually interesting-looking sessions on comics in libraries and school curricula). But, chances are you won’t be attending those sessions, so let’s focus on what happens once the doors open to the great unwashed.

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

We’ll have a list of webcomicky exhibitors in the coming days.

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¹ For example, the single most-repeated item in the panels list I could find was autograph sessions with this young woman, who appears to be notable mostly for not wearing as much clothing as you or I might [MSFWDOYC]².

² Marginally SFW, depending on your circumstances.

A couple of things happened that people have been kind enough to email me about, and I figure I could share those with you. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Sure it would.

• The accolades keep rolling in for Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers and Saints, which has been included in consideration for the National Book Award (where it is the only graphic novel this year). This is the longlist, the finalists have yet to be determined, but Yang’s got a proven track record, considering that American Born Chinese was an NBA finalist in 2006. Not only that, but if my search skills are correct, ABCwas the last graphic novel to get an NBA nod, and Mr Yang also appears to be the only repeat nominee in the Young Adult category in that time. Interesting.
• New York Comic Con is fast approaching and I’ll be keeping an eye on webcomicky goings-on from the show floor again this year; programming has appeared on the NYCC website, with all four days populated as of this writing. As usual, watch out for last-minute changes, and as others have noted, there are some interesting scheduling conflicts:
  

  @NY_Comic_Con has programmed @KodanshaUSA‘s panel against @shonenjump‘s, & the @FUNimation+Kodansha panel against @yenpress. Nice.

  And the Funimation and Vertical panels are also at the same time! Yay!

  I’ll do a thorough schedule-trawl and let you know what happens in webcomics world on the floor; if nothing else, you can meet/greet Maki Naro, Katie Rice, and Mac Schubert of Strip Search in the Artists Alley, as a result of having won reward challenge #4.

• Speaking of big-city cons, Pittsburgh Comic Con kicks off a week from Friday, and you know who will be there, at the booth of Official Fleen-Approved Cool Place The Toonseum? Caroll Spinney. If you don’t recognize that name, perhaps you recognize his work in the personages of Mr Bird or Mr The Grouch? It’s Pittsburgh for crying out loud, the hometown of Mr Rogers, so take a cue from him and do the neighborly thing: if you’re at PCC, drop by the Toonseum booth and thank Spinney for his contributions to the world. If you don’t, I’m not mad, but I will be disappointed in you.
• Speaking of museums and the weekend of the 28th, the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco will be participating in the Smithsonian magazine’s ninth annual Museum Day Live event:
  

  The Smithsonian magazine Museum Day is a nationwide event and offers free admission to any visitor and one guest with a Museum Day Live! Ticket to a participating museum or cultural institution.

  Inclusive by design, the event represents Smithsonian’s commitment to make learning and the spread of knowledge accessible to everyone, giving museums across all 50 states the opportunity to emulate the admission policy of the Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C. Last year’s event drew over 400,000 participants, and this year’s event expects record-high participation.

  The Museum Day Live! Ticket is available to download now at Smithsonian.com/museumday. Visitors who present the Museum Day Live! Ticket will gain free entrance for themselves and one guest at participating venues for one day only.

  For those that don’t happen to be in San Francisco on the 28th, there will be plenty of other venues participating, so grab your tickets now (one per household, per email address, more information on the tickets page).

Karl Kerschl is pretty much universally praised for his comics art — from superhero work for the major publishers to videogame tie-ins, to the critically-acclaimed, Eisner-winning The Abominable Charles Christopher — and is constantly in demand for various projects. The latest of those will see release next week in the form of Fairy Tale Comics from :01 Books, edited by Chris Duffy and with a couple-dozen of the greatest talents in comics contributing. Kerschl was kind enough to take time away from his newborn daughter to talk about how he almost passed on Fairy Tale Comics, a shift from his usual artistic style, and the stories that grab us.

(more…)

I mean, any show where Jeff Smith and Kate Beaton discover that in addition to each being comics royalty¹ they are related to each other is going to be hard to beat. But as just about every tweet from the floor talked about enthusiastic audiences, creators selling out of books, and fun had all ’round … well, that’s just great. I was stuck some 320km away on EMS duty for the weekend and missed it, but at least I treated a woman for smoke inhalation after a house fire so that’s something.

People that were at SPX that have additional news include:

• Templar, AZ and Poorcraft creator Spike got some attention from the hoity-toity New York media for her other high-profile gig of Smut Peddler wrangling. More precisely, New York Magazine took note of the open call for SP2 submissions and officially approved of the notion, although I’m not sure if the placement on the lowbrow axis is because it’s smut or because it’s comics.
• Evan Dahm, who would like you to know that he’s part of a shared-world series that’s Kickstarting:
  

  Cartozia Tales is an all-ages fantasy series, with nine stories in each issue, all set in the same world.

  We are really committed to making this an all-ages series, because we think the world needs more comics that can be shared across generational boundaries. We won’t be including things that aren’t suitable for even very young readers. (Several of the core creators are parents of young kids, so we know that part of the target audience.) We are focused on telling the sorts of stories—of mystery, wonder, and discovery; of searching and striving; of trials and betrayals—that engage us as adult readers. Because we take kids seriously as readers, we know they enjoy the challenge of the occasional new word or a moment of narrative complexity. We especially want to honor the child’s playful impulse to discover and invent complicated imaginary worlds.

  Cartozia Tales has published one issue already, the second is at the printers, and the Kickstart is to bring that up to ten issues, with contributions from the likes of Dylan Horrocks, James Kochalka , Kelly Sue DeConnick, Meredith Gran, and more. It looks like a great project in the vein of BONE (or Dahm’s own Overside creations), and I’ll be watching it carefully. They’ve got eight days to go, are only at 2/3 of goal, and the project runner is doing that most honorable thing and paying his creators. Give it a good look.

People that were not at SPX that have news include:

• Zach Weinersmith, who found himself stalked by a dangerous Boulet last week, has a chance to turn the tables. It appears that Mr Weinersmith will be at the same eurocomics festival, representing America at its best. If anybody can get a picture of the two of them together in that moment before everything descends into madness and violence, I will pay them a dollar.
• K Brooke “Otter” Spangler, who finds herself getting even more free book shillage than previously thought possible, via a very kindly fan:
  

  So! A very generous reader purchased an extra copy of the paperback version of Digital Divide. She requested this extra signed & sketched version to be given away to a reader. If you want to be entered in the drawing, please tweet at me (preferred method) or email me (if you do not do the Twitters) with something like “Gimme free book!” or the whatnots. I’ll pick one winner at random on Thursday.

  Since this contest is only open for three days, I won’t give Otter² the usual grief for not having a linkable newsbox. I will reserve the right to give her all kinds of grief for anything I feel like in the future, though.

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¹ As opposed to American royalty.

² Fun fact about otters via Wikipedia: With the exception of the sea otter, they have anal scent glands that produce a strong-smelling secretion the animals use for sexual signaling and for marking territory.

Going through the spam filters just now, the vast majority of the (trapped, never to see the light of day) submissions were shilling for Yves Saint-Laurent. Apparently, the spammers in question have never seen how webcomics people dress.

• Speaking of brand identity, I received a press release this morning that led to some momentary confusion. Here’s the subject line:
  

  For Immediate Release: FROM THE GUTTERS interview webseries launches

  Naturally, my mind went to The Gutters, the Ryan Sohmer + rotating artists editorial comic on the funnybook industry; it was an especially easy assumption to make on account of Sohmer’s got a Kickstarter campaign going right now to bring The Gutters back from hiatus¹, and Sohmer’s got a history of messing with interview/documentary filming in the funnybook industry, as well as a habit of launching projects off of Kickstarter stretch goals. So naturally I thought Sohmer’s got another platform for telling people what he thinks, I bet he talks to some cool people.

  Nope. Different gutters.

  Writer/editor Jamie S. Rich is hosting “From the Gutters” — a new original online show featuring in-depth video interviews with comic-book industry professionals. The nine-episode first season debuts on YouTube on Oct. 4 — with a special sneak-preview event set for Portland’s Rose City Comic Con on Sept. 21.

  As an editor, Mr S Rich was a big part of early Oni Press, and has done regular novels, graphic novels, illustrated books, and regular ol’ comics since going freelance. He’s going to have some good thoughts on the funnybook industry, and talk to some cool people² at the From The Gutters YouTube channel.

  Reached for comment about the possibility of brand confusion, Sohmer said I hope they enjoy the daily e-mails requesting a quote on 2 feet of K-Style gutters with 3 x 4 inch downspouts so that’s all right, then. Here’s hoping in season two, Mr S Rich invites Mr Sohmer on From The Gutters to talk about The Gutters as well as the relative merits of K-Style gutters. I’d watch that twice.

Speaking of confusion, I was confused the other day when I said:

Two weeks ago, Angela Melick¹ suffered a break of the wrist of her drawing hand. I just wanted you to see how she’s managing with her allegedly “off” hand. Naturally, Kory Bing’s coloring job is a big help, but Jam deserves a nod for how much she’s improved her non-dominant art skills so quickly.

• Not about the art being amazingly good for the injury, that’s true; no, I got Ms Bing’s role wrong, and I have no excuse because it was there on the page clear as day and I misread it. Fortunately, Ms Melick caught my misstep:
  

  Thanks for your kind words today but Kory is *inking* for me :), I coloured. The lines look way worse without her good work.

  I’ve corrected the original piece, and apologize to Ms Melick and Ms Bing for the mistake; I will maintain that the colo[u]ring job is also far better than anything I could manage with my dominant hand, so the gist of my original praise remains. Namely, Jam is awesome and I eagerly await the day she can again throw down the Right Hand Rule³ with the rest of us.

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¹ It’s the rotating artists bit that makes The Gutters so expensive; Sohmer’s got to pay people outside the Blind Ferret organization and he’s attracted some big-name talent since the very beginning. It would also be a good idea to point out that regular The Gutters colorist Ed Ryzowski has been award-nominated for his work here, as well as working on Looking For Group, Evil, Inc, and Terminals. It’s fair to say that he’s a big part of the success of these comics, and I hope he don’t come cheap.

² Season one guests are said to include Matt Wagner, Ming Doyle, Becky Cloonan, Dave Stewart, Micheal Avon Oeming, Mike Allred, Ted Naifeh, and Bob Schreck.

³ AKA the enginer’s gang sign.

I have this notion in the back of my mind that if I were to examine the nearly eight years of posts on this page, the vast majority of miscellaneous-topic updates would fall on Thursdays. It seems that webcomics, much like Dentarthurdent¹, can’t get the hang of Thursdays, at least not enough to focus on one thing.

• Let me first offer hearty kongratulations to Karl Kerschl and his lovely wife Amy on the occasion of their family growing by one:
  

  No comic today. Just had a baby girl.

  The undoubtedly adorable and perfect daughter took longer showing up from when she was first expected, and this may keep Kerschl from having the time to update us on Kharles Khristopher and the denizens of the Kedar Forest for some time; please note that I willl fight any man-jack that says this is a problem. In the meantime, let’s all send the best of wishes towards Montréal and hope the little one gives her parents that most precious gift of a full night’s sleep very, very soon.

• Speaking of Kerschl, one of the things that he’s probably too busy to do right now (and again, this is only right and proper) is talk to a hack webcomics pseudojournalist about his participation in the :01 Books anthology, Fairy Tale Comics. :01 wonder-editor Gina Gagliano has wrangled a bunch of comics-blogger types to talk to a bunch of the FTC contributors, and I was lucky enough to draw Kerschl’s name. The timing of little ones, though — we’ve been unable to set a time to talk, and so it’s not terribly likely at this point that I’ll be able to make good on my contribution to the cause next Tuesday as planned.

  There’s still lots of conversations that will be taking place, though, and you can see the entire blog tour itinerary here. Rest assured, as soon as Kerschl is able to spare the time I will be talking to him, if only because the fairy tale he presented² is one of my very favorites. Then again given how many fairy tales have animals as central characters, and how well Kerschl draws animals, he could do a killer job on just about any fever dream Jakob and Wilhelm had.

• Speaking of books, I mentioned one to you on Tuesday without a permalink because some creators can’t bother to keep their news items linkable, Otter³. Fortunately, said book is now purchasable, which means I can point you to something better than a news item: a store. Please note that for the same price you’d get a mass-market paperback in the local shop, K Brooke “Otter” Spangler will autograph and sketch in your copy, and if you asked her to sketch a Sharktopus, she will be very happy⁴.
• Still speaking of books, Brad Guigar (webcomics’ own Most Interesting Man In The World and Old Spice Guy merged into one sexy, sexy, package) reports that his successor volume to How To Make Webcomics is now pretty much entirely in the hands of the pre-order via Kickstarter crowd. In the interests of full disclosure, I did an early read and thorough commenting on The Webcomics Handbook, and as such I won’t be reviewing it here as I did HTMW. I will tell you, though, that it’s very, very good, and if you get a chance to buy a physical copy from Guigar after the Kickstarter rewards go out next month, you definitely should.

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¹ No link; if you need that one explained to you, your parents and society have badly mismanaged your cultural education and you’ve got some self-study to do.

² The Musicians of Bremen, although I think he could also have done a bang-up job on The Boy Who Went Forth To Learn What Fear Is (a version of which also in FTC), Hans My Hedgehog, or The Solider and Death (neither in FTC, darnit).

³ God. <eyeroll>

⁴ Please note that it was not me that requested the Sharktopus sketch. Also note that as more Sharktopus requests come in, she is less likely to want to marry the requester, particularly considering that she is already married. Also-also please do not typo Sharktopus in your request, as Otter is just feisty enough to sketch out a shartopus if that’s what you spelled.