Spring when all is good and well again and we may venture outside and breathe deep of the outdoors and almost get murdered by a psycho in a van. Best wishes to John Arthur Kelly, aka the three meter tall grumpy guy from Johnny Wander¹. So maybe stay indoors where you won’t get splattered by a sociopath and if you live in New York and need some work done, you can ask the HVAC company that owned the vehicle in question if they’ve identified their employee that tried to kill John, and too bad, guess you won’t use their company after all since they’re harboring a threat and/or menace.

• Some 14 hours after closing (long enough to be confident that all last-minute adjustments were complete), the Machine of Death card game Kickstarter stands complete at US$556,596 and 10,666 backers and holy crap you guys.

  What may be most impressive to me is the number of people willing to back the project at levels that were clearly some kind of Dadaesque statement (show your copy of the game to a goat before shipping: five people paid more than a US$100 premium over a tier where they could get the same stuff without the goats) or merely to screw with creator David Malki ! (one person pledged nearly US$500 to make Malki ! hand-write all the card, which come to more than 900 separate items).

  There’s a word for actions that have little direct bearing on the mechanics of our lives but which create their own emotion (in this case: amusement and schadenfreude, respectively), and that word is Art. It maybe disguised as a card game, but Malki ! used it as a vehicle for something more, I think.².

• In a month and a half, it might be safe to go back outside again, particularly if you rush back inside and the famed Toronto Reference Library for the equally-famed TCAF, which announced some new featured guests yesterday. The one that caught my eye is French [web]comicker Boulet (en Français ici; in English here), who will apparently be making a third appearance on this side of the Atlantic, where he may still have copies of the extremely limited print version of Darkness that will be available at Stumptown³ and MoCCA in the weeks prior.
• We spoke about Howard Tayler (my evil twin), his nearly-concluded Kickstarter campaign, and the value of reining in the stretch goals a few weeks ago, and Tayler is now chiming in on the same topic in what is likely his last update prior to the close of campaign:
  

  Enough With The Stretching

  It looks like you’re going to unlock at least three if not four ship coins.

  Once that happens, I am done designing coins for this project. Why? Because the designs take about a week to hammer on and get right. Four coins right at the end is already a bit of a stretch (ahem) and I want to make sure that I actually ship all of these coins out in April, like I promised to.

  Think about that for a moment. A successful project should ship ON TIME. A wildly successful project should ALSO ship on time, right? I’m reining it in as best I can, and agonizing over every potential slip of schedule. [emphasis and large text original]

  Drop in the obligatory noting that a wise man knows his limitations and gratitude towards whoever taught the youthful Evil Version of Gary From A Parallel Reality the values of both time management and fanatical devotion to promised goals.

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¹ Most of that sentence is a lie; I’ve met John and while he may look enormous next to Yuko, he’s not three meters by any stretch. He is also a delightful person and even the dreaded Punishment Shirt turned out to be not so bad as I’m told Cricket falls asleep in there now. We are very glad to hear that he wasn’t badly injured, and hope that there’s some form of justice for his destroyed bike.

² Also — look at that chart of backers and dollars by day; that’s just amazing to look at. Malki ! broke nearly every single rule on this campaign and when Kickstarter Theory is taught in the MBA programs of the future, this will be Case Study #1.

³ The annual awards of which, by the way, now include a Best Webcomic. Nominations [PDF] accepted until 30 March.

First thing that doesn’t happen very often: It looks like Holly Rowland was wrong when she said:

Sorry, @malki – I was pretty convinced you were going to hit $500K until the Veronica Mars project dropped. ;)

in reference to the Machine of Death game Kickstarter because dang, y’all, it’s up more than US$45,000 since yesterday and (as of the time of this writing) within spitting distance of a cool half-mil¹. It’s also exceeded the initial Kicktraq projection, whereas Gary’s First Law of Kicktraq Projections is they overestimate the final total by a factor of three to six².

Oh, and that “by the time I’m done eating lunch” call was obliterated; with nine hours to go, today is already the second-highest day for fundraising in the MoD game campaign, eclipsed only by yesterday. Upticks at the end aren’t unheard of, but only the true outliers exceed the totals of the first couple of days.

Second thing that doesn’t happen very often: a webcomic hits 3000 updates. In the four and a half years since I waxed rhapsodically about Irregular Webcomic hitting the 2000 mark, quite a few more webcomics have hit the multiple-thousands achievement, but it’s still pretty damn impressive. This time the new That’s A Lotta Damn Zeros Club inks another tickmark next to the name of Greg Dean, who hit 3000 strips of Real Life today, despite a toddler-driven irregular update schedule and a general eschewance of the convention circuit. Well done, Mr Dean; now get to work, you’ve got #3001 to do.

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¹ It is an absolute certainty it will be over five hundred thousand before I’m done eating lunch — and I’m a fast eater, you guys. I guess in all fairness, “Webcomic Kickstarter hitting a half-million dollars” is the thing that doesn’t happen very often, but I’m giving 50-50 odds on Aaron Diaz³ hitting the mark in the next week. So yeah, Holly being incorrect is the uncommon thing in this discussion.

² Case in point: the Schlock Mercenary challenge coin Kickstarter, which is on a nice gentle glide path towards 7400% of goal, plus or minus. Based on the first day’s backing totals, I predicted a finish between 5550% and 11,100% (respectively, 1/6th and 1/3rd of the initial estimate), and it looks like we’ll land square in the middle of that range.

³ Tolkien and dinosaur scholar par excellence.

It all seems to be about the green¹ today.

• The first of the Big Four Webcomics Kickstarters of February Aught-Thirteen has wrapped, with the Cyanide & Happiness guys netting just over US$770,000 with a slight upward tick at the end there. For reference, as of this writing the other three of the Big Four are sitting at:
  • Machine of Death: US$454,000
  • Schlock Mercenary: US$115,000
  • Dresden Codak: US$362,000

  For a grand total of 1.701 million dollars American cash money. Granted, there’s Kickstarter² fees and Amazon fees and taxes and all the rest, but the compelling story remains: more money, more value for your backer contribution.

• The ur-example of more value for your backer contribution remains the Choose Your Own Hamlet by the Reconstituted Toronto Man-Mountain, who is even as we speak laying out the book, overseeing the recording of the audiobook, prototyping lil’ plush Yorick skulls, and giving us a sneak peek at one gorgeous map of the choices that can be made, which is itself made too look like Yorick’s skull. Dang, y’all.
• In fact, the only part of the increasing coolness of the Choose Your Own Hamlet that the aforementioned RTM-M³ isn’t responsible for would be the live-action version of Choose Your Own Hamlet, which will have its premiere this weekend in Busan, South Korea, thanks to local director (and webcomickin’ madman) Ryan Estrada. The presentation of To Be or Not To Be (a live, choose-your-own-adventure play) will be this Saturday at 9:00 EDT (GMT-4, or check your local time here) over the internet.

  Sure, the live audience will have the thrill of watching the actors try to manage hundreds of possible story paths, but you at home can do the same thing, and you can vote on those choices that will affect the story. Just don’t make the choices that keep Ophelia in her original, put-upon, depressive, dishrag-type personality because if you do, the text of the book (and presumably the play) will say that you aren’t allowed to be Ophelia for a while.

  The details on To Be or Not To Be (a live, choose-your-own-adventure play) are at Google+ where you can choose to watch the streaming glory and participate. It is in all likelihood the first live play designed for such social media technology and you’ll want to be able to tell your grandkids where you there at the beginning.

• As part of my theme on money, I was going to point you to a situation where a billing mishap left The Adventures of Dr McNinja facing a shutdown later this week, with the possibility of creator Chris Hastings being sent to collections⁴. Fortunately, that all got resolved before I had a chance to say anything about it, so well done McNinja fans. As always, there’s a lesson here, which in this case unfortunately is of the variety that you have to police the people that are (supposed to be) taking your money because if they don’t do so successfully they may make your life miserable.

  I once had a cable company that received the checks I sent them and credited my bill as paid, but never actually cashed them. This went on for six months and only came to a head when I moved house and tried to get my cable disconnected. Then they tried to hit me with hundreds of dollars of “late fees” because I dunno, they lost my checks or something? The fact that I had statements showing that my bills were paid each month didn’t seem to matter until I mentioned involving utility regulators with the state of New Jersey, then they decided to write it off in the interests of keeping a satisfied customer. Then I moved and never used them again THE END.

  Where was I? Oh, yes — it seems stupid to have to follow up with people to make sure they’re actually taking your money (you’d think they were really interested in doing so on their own), but sadly it’s true. You have to be more business type than artist to make it as an independent artist, so take those steps towards due diligence and it will make your life easier in the long run.

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¹ Note for people not in the US: our paper currency is boring, kinda greenish on one side and mostly black on the other. We desperately need somebody from a country that knows how to make pretty cash convince the stick-up-their-asses types in Washington that bills don’t need to be drab.

² How ubiquitous is Kickstarter these days? My sister brought it up the other day, asking me to explain how her friend, a musician, managed to raise US$49,000 to master & press an album and what the crap-hell?

³ Known around the house as Ryan North

⁴ If you don’t happen to know Chris Hastings, you should be aware of two things:

• He is just the nicest guy, even nicer than he appears to be via the internet if you can imagine such a thing
• He is too pretty to be sent to collections, you guys

Long week, so let me just leave you with this still from John Allison’s entirely wonderful Bad Machinery; it’s the end of The Case of the Unwelcome Visitor, and I think it perfectly captures the joy of being young, carefree, and with your friends, without so much as a word. And as long as we’re on the topic, the first Oni Press collection of Bad Machinery drops in twelve days, so get ready to pick that up because this right here? It’s not optional.

Sorry, @malki – I was pretty convinced you were going to hit $500K until the Veronica Mars project dropped. ;)
— TopatoCo and Make That Thing impressario Holly Rowland, yesterday afternoon.

This is likely to be ramblier and less structured than much of what I write. Apologies in advance.

I am deeply conflicted on the burning-hot Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter (presently about 16 hours in and a total of US$2,749,938 raised). Not because I never watched Veronica Mars when it was on TV and am not invested in it — the fact that I don’t have any interest in the project doesn’t make it threatening to me or the projects I want to back¹. I’m conflicted because it’s got me wondering deeply about the purpose of Kickstarter.

Some people in the Net-o-Sphere are objecting to the project because it’s large, because it’s not a personal endeavour done by a creator (or small group), but that doesn’t bother me either. Kickstarter can be for little folks as well as big folks². Rather than finding the scope troubling, I’m worried more about the why of Kickstarter in this case.

Let’s take another moving-pictures example. The Cyanide & Happiness folks have raised (as of now) US$583,142 towards a streaming TV show. While C&H is pretty darn successful, I kind of doubt that between them Kris, Dave, Matt, and Rob have the quarter-mil that was their original goal sitting around in the couch cushions; without the campaign, they couldn’t have made the show happen³.

I’m sure that Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas likewise doesn’t have two million dollars (his original goal) to make a movie sitting around — but that’s not to say that the movie couldn’t have been made. It’s my understanding that although VM is his baby and brainchild, the rights and ownership reside with Warner Bros., who merely have chosen not to make a VM movie because they didn’t think it would be profitable enough. They could find two million dollars if they wanted to without even dipping into next month’s hookers-and-blow “office supplies” budget, but decided instead that Thomas should do the legwork to prove the demand for such a movie.

In other words, Kickstarter is being used not as a funding instrument (like a bank loan), but more of a second-order financial instrument; if my listening to Marketplace hasn’t led me astray, it’s akin to the process known as “leverage” — I put up a bit of money, get others to put up more, and then they have an ownership interest but the risks are still mostly on me to make the enterprise work. It’s how takeover-and-dump financiers made money by breaking up or shutting down companies in the ’80s and ’90s.

Not that Thomas is of an ilk with the financial cowboys who trashed the economy two or three trashings ago; he’s a creator that wants to make something, but has to play by somebody else’s rules. Warners, in this case, has created a situation where they are guaranteed to make money — Thomas has raised the money to make the movie and gin up the audience, they distribute/own it, keep some of the money and pay him some⁴, and don’t have to bear any risk. They will make exactly as much money as they would have had they put up the two million in development/production costs, but without having to put up the costs in the first place.

Which I guess means they make two million dollars more than they would have. Sweet deal for them.

It really reminds me of the very bad publishing contracts that Scalzi has been writing about where the publisher (in this analogy, WB) expects the author (Thomas) to bear all the costs and risks that would traditionally represent the publisher’s investment against the possibility of profit. It’s disturbing.

Not that there aren’t similar arrangements in popular entertainment already. It’s my understanding that even long-anticipated videogames may be canceled if they don’t garner enough pre-orders to help cover the costs of development. However (and please correct me if I’m wrong, as I’ve never pre-ordered a videogame), if I were to buy a game on Day One of release, I won’t pay any less than somebody who pre-ordered (although I may have to wait for a supply to come in). If I were to back the VM Kickstarter at the lower tiers, my outcome would be:

• Pledging less than US$35: I still have to buy a ticket to see the movie when it comes out (with a PDF script and/or t-shirt as a side reward)
• Pledging US$35 to US$49: I get a digital copy of the movie to download, but still have to buy a ticket to see the movie in a theater (plus the script and t-shirt)
• Pledging at least US$50: I get the DVD when it comes out, but still have to buy a ticket to see the movie in a theater (plus the script and t-shirt)

I’d feel a lot more comfortable if there were some way for backers at some threshold (say US$10 or US$15) to get a free pass to the movie, but accept it may not be possible. However, I’d really like to focus on that third reward: US$50 for a DVD. Compare to somebody who doesn’t contribute to the campaign: I can buy a ticket same as a backer, and when the DVD comes out, it sure as heck won’t cost fifty bucks. The non-backer is advantaged over the backer in this situation. The DVD will not be exclusive to backers; Warners will sell that sumbitch to everybody they can, because that’s money they’d be leaving on the table otherwise.

The advantages to the backer of the Kickstarter are less than to those of the non-backer. It’s not like you won’t be able to see the movie if you aren’t a backer, or have to pay more, or get to see it before non-backers by a significant amount of time. Were Thomas the owner of the project in a meaningful sense, that might happen; but WB is designed to get as many people as possible to give them as much money as possible, which only happens by not treating the backers as privileged.

Finally, Thomas appears to have embraced the Kickstarter ethic of “more money, I’ll make the thing better for you”, talking about how much more he can accomplish within the film with a higher budget. Kudos. Looking at megasuccessful Kickstarts in the webcomics sphere, hitting hundreds of thousands of dollars won’t make Ryan North or Zach Weinersmith or Aaron Diaz richer, because they’re putting the money back into the project and giving the backers more for their money; in fact, given that they’ve taken on more work and production burdens, it’s arguable they come out behind in such a deal.

But I can’t shake the feeling that while Thomas will be giving back to the backers in such a fashion, the more direct outcome will be a bigger inflow of money (given a more polished film that generates more demand) to the studio who — again — seem to be reaping rewards without shouldering any burden. It would kill Kickstarter, which would be no real loss to the corporations, but a devastating blow to the independent creators who were its original reason for being.

So as my thoughts have evolved in the time it’s taken to write this (and as the campaign has increased its take to US$2,759,088), I guess that means I’ve coalesced around several objections:

• Kickstarter isn’t being used to make a project possible for a creator so much as it is to minimize effort by a rights-holder
• Kickstarter is being used as a complex financial instrument rather than a funding mechanism⁵
• Backers are disadvantaged compared to non-backers⁶
• The creator is undertaking the burden of both raising capital and production, but the purported publisher will be making money without a matching risk or investment

I hope that Thomas breaks all records and that VM fans get exactly what they want from the movie; I also hope that this isn’t the start of a trend to use Kickstarter to burnish the bottom lines of corporations that could make projects but choose not to without a guarantee of profit.

PS: US$2,769,005.
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¹ And to be perfectly clear, that quoted tweet up top does not indicate that Holly Rowland is threatened either; in fact, I believe that she’s backed the project.

² As far as keeping Kickstarter a viable platform, having some really huge fundraisers is valuable, given that they make their money and keep their service running by taking their cut from successful projects.

³ At least not on their terms; multiple networks were willing to finance it at the cost of ownership.

⁴ I’m being optimistic here that Thomas is smart enough to budget into the two mil a salary for himself; I don’t think for a second that a studio with a guarantee of income would pay out any more than they absolutely had to, following a decade of accounting voodoo.

⁵ If we continue down this path, there could come into being Kickstarter-based derivatives, and then that’s the beginning of the end. The purpose of the platform will be to make money by making money instead of making money by undertaking projects. It’s also how the economy got trashed the most recent time.

⁶ We’re assuming a successful delivery here; there’s plenty of projects where the backers are disadvantaged by getting their rewards late or not at all, but in those cases non-backers typically don’t have the opportunity to get anything of substance from the project.

Slow day.

• Jeffrey Rowland has built TopatoCo up over the last ten years as an enclave of idiosyncratic, wildly creative goofballs, so it’s no surprise that he would find much to like in the most free-form of all radio stations, WFMU. WFMU (which is public-supported, but about as far from traditional public radio as you can likely imagine) is having their pledge time right now, leading Rowland to tweet:
  

  I just pledged to http://wfmu.org #tomthon ! And TopatoCo will UNOFFICIALLY match pledges for employees and clients (up to $25 each)

  You guys, said pledgeathon last night featured Expert on Everything (and TopactoCo client, via Maximum Fun) John Hodgman in an impromptu Star Trek trivia battle with Twitter’s favorite elected official, Newark mayor Cory Booker. That’s what supporting the independent arts gets you — unplanned wonderfulness.

• Speaking of impromptu wonderfulness, the always-delightful Chainsawsuit turned five years old yesterday. Then it accidentally got its website registered a second time, and now it’s TWO WEBCOMICS.
• Official: more people should write about Evan Dahm’s comic, Vattu, and also interview him on the internet. I can think of few creators who take more time and care in getting all the details that matter exactly right¹ and treating world-building not as an exercise in self-absorption, but as a means of creating an organic setting for his stories. He’s also a really, really nice dude.
• I can’t wait to see how the latest Octopus Pie story arc translates to print. Although the animation aspects have been steadily ramping up for a half-dozen updates, today’s is my favorite, mostly for panel 2.

  Even with all the flash and splash provided by Lacey Micallef, it’s the expression on Hanna’s face that tells me all I need to know about her state of wonderment. Meredith Gran remains the master of communicating everything you need to know about characters via deceptively simple faces.

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¹ Even the ones that casual readers will never notice or appreciate; perhaps especially those details. The man’s invented like four different internally-consistent writing systems just to make documents and banners look more plausible.

Out of context and mostly spoiler-free quotes from Strip Search’s first elimination:

• What is your favorite thing about Hitler?¹
• I know a lot of stuff is changing, are we still releasing the bats at the ten-minute mark?
• We just need you to wait in the car.

In all seriouslness, though, I was struck by how very, very good-natured Alex and Katie were throughout what must have been one of the more stressful times in their lives, and was sorry that there had to be a winner and a loser. Also by one piece that was very, very telling about how Creators Mike & Jerry are approaching the show and the Artists:

What’s interesting is … seeing you copy my mistakes.

That’s a critique that has a lot of sting, but also a tremendous amount of potential to help an Artist improve. It may be that the most interesting part of Strip Search is seeing how all twelve contestants have upped their game in a year or so.

A Girl And Her Fed creator (and Official Fleen Fave) K. Brooke “Otter” Spangler must have had a bit of a frantic month, what with the discovery of forthcoming TV pilot based on a yet-to-be-published YA novel that bear a resemblance to her own strip (and its spin-off digital novel). Lots of people are still contacting her urging Big Dramatic Gestures and Drawing Lines In The Sand and maybe even Cutting A Bitch.

Spangler, however, did the smart thing — talked to her lawyer, made sure to establish that her work has been the earlier instance of Federal agents with chips in their heads (and dick jokes; so, so many dick jokes), and is generally going about this situation the smart way. The TV show may or may not be picked up; the YA series may or may not see print next year; the time to Release The Metaphorical Hounds is not yet here, as she outlines in an interview at Altergamer on copyright and IP in the modern world. It’s a good set of questions/answers, and an even better example of how to be a grown-up in the age of the internet.

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¹ For anybody that ever gets asked that Hitler question? Your go-to answer should be He’s dead.

The incidence of conventions delayed things a bit, but we at Fleen were finally able to carve out a niche in the very busy schedule of Holly Rowland (VP of Kicking Your Ass at TopatoCo) to Gchat about their new venture, Kickstarter fulfillment service Make That Thing. Some of the assumptions I made about MTT were borne out in our conversation, some weren’t, and in any event it’s going to be a damn interesting service to watch grow, evolve, and brutally destroy all competitors. Along the way we talked about real estate, the similarities of comics conventions and cater-waitering, and yurts.

(more…)

Don’t worry, the math is mostly philosophical in nature.

• So if you haven’t seen the newest¹ episode of Strip Search, be aware that winning a challenge carries with it a twist that made me suspect that Robert Khoo, et. al., had finally given into their supervillain destiny. At least, the ratio of Good:Evil is dropping somewhat precipitously

  In case I had any doubts, I saw the list of PAXEast Omeganuats and certain names jumped out at me from the list of 32 names:

  Casey Carper
  Norwood Carper
  …
  Harry Hayes
  Dylan Hayes
  …
  Caleb Thompson
  Amanda Thompson
  Chelsea Thompson

  Okay “Thompson” and even “Hayes” are reasonably common surnames, but “Carper”? Are the Omegathon gamemakers (why, that would also involve Mr Khoo) choosing family members to compete against each other? Better start looking for extinct volcanoes in Lair Monthly, Robert, you’ll need one for when you make the call to threaten the UN.

• Speaking of updates today, Evan Dahm’s Vattu hit 400 pages, and as near as I can tell, we’re still somewhere in Act I. Best guess, we are maybe twenty percent of the way through the story as a whole, which is taking as much time as it needs. Heck, for the past 100 pages or so, Vattu herself has been a supporting player in her own story as Junti and the mysterious Surin alchemist enclave and their even more mysterious “unweight” have been the recent focus.

  Not that I am complaining! I would read a thousand pages about Junti and her curiosity about unweight² and its ratio³ that leads to balance. She (and goodness, so many primary characters in Vattu are female, including seemingly all of the Surin) is possessed of that most dangerous of all qualities in a place dedicated to balance: curiosity. Combined with Vattu’s drive it could change face of Overside.

• No ratio (unless you’re counting alcohol by volume), but today’s Questionable Content made me snerk out loud, particularly the title. Also, let’s not overlook the fact that the word whisky is derived from the Gaelic for water of life which would be entirely appropriate as it appears that Claire is now a Reverend Mother. Honestly, no book could ever inspire more nerdery than Dune.

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¹ And longest, clocking in at more than 20 minutes. The earlier estimates of approximately 9 hours total running time may no longer be valid.

² We know it’s a refinement of a naturally-occurring substance, but why have no other people learned to distill it? It’s a luxury good for its coloration, its flavor, and possibly drug-like properties? Oh, yeah, and the fact that it defies gravity without violating the suspension of disbelief. Honestly, the Junti portions of Vattu remind me of nothing so much as H. Beam Piper’s Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen and its story of a world where gunpowder was a semi-sacred, entirely secret concoction.

³ It’s at least 12:1, assuming that “weight” is a standard reference substance.

We’ll be starting out with the happy items before we get to the infuriating stuff at the end. You’ve been warned.

• We’re still most of a month away from the release of Lucy Knisley’s Relish¹, but that’s not to early to make plans to celebrate it when it hits the market. The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco is doing exactly that, having announced an author’s appearance:
  

  The Cartoon Art Museum welcomes cartoonist Lucy Knisley on Sunday, April 14, 2013 from 1:00-3:00pm for a discussion and booksigning of her latest release, Relish, published by First Second Books. This event is free and open to the public.

  And heck, let’s mention another upcoming event, featuring a man that probably every comicker born after about 1960 considers a major influence:

  The Cartoon Art Museum and Chuck Jones Center for Creativity will host a special reception for the exhibition, Chuck Jones: Drawing on Imagination on Saturday, March 23, 2013. Special guests include Chuck Jones’ widow, Marian Jones, his daughter, Linda Jones Clough and grandson, Craig Kausen, who is the Chairman of the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity, as well as other guests from the family and the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Cartoon Art Museum and Chuck Jones Center for Creativity.

  Since that event is a benefit, tickets will cost you US$10 (with an additional US$50 for VIP access). Having spent many, many hours in study of Chuck’s various works, I can tell you without reservation that if I were on the Left Coast I would absolutely be there.

• I’m pretty sure I met the guys behind First Law of Mad Science last October at the 2012 NYCC IDLH experiment; I spent some time on Saturday bringing pizza to hungry webcomickers and although I missed Meredith Gran (who was boothing with FLOMS), I did leave some pizza for creators Mike Isenberg and Oliver Mertz. Nice fellows.

  So nice, in fact, that in order to get the word out regarding the second & third issues of FLOM launching on Comixology, they’re giving away free download codes for the first issue. Just be one of the first 50 people to tweet to them at @FirstLawComic² and you’ll get a redemption code that you can plug in via your Comixology account. That’s it! Free comics!

• Not webcomics, but holy geeze go read it: The irreplaceable John Scalzi has spent the last couple of days eviscerating a contract being offered up by new e-publishing imprints at Random House that is so amazingly bad I can only hope that Random House will release a statement in a week that says, Yeah, sorry, we were totally blitzed on cough syrup when we wrote that. Our bad.

  Hey, TopatoCo? After Make That Thing finds its feet and you’re looking for your next realm to conquer, it seems that e-books needs a publisher that isn’t criminally stupid about how nakedly it’s seeking to exploit authors.

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¹ Which you may recall that we at Fleen found to be a terrific book, and you should definitely go buy it when it releases on 2 April 2013.

² I always thought that the First Law was Ape shall never kill ape, but whatevs.