At the ShiftyLook party, I inadvertantly discovered the secret of TCAF’s success — at least, that wasn’t what I intended to do when I started the evening. The secret lies with showrunner Christopher Butcher, who has gathered to himself a collection of creators whose work is beyond reproach, and in turn they love and respect him … and then he declares they will all do shots.

Note to self: what Butcher refers to as a “shot” is known in some corners of the world as “a triple”.

Between Christopher and Jim Zub, every guest was well at-ease, liberally boozed up, and had at their disposal a wide variety of both classic and cutting-edge arcade machines. Zombies, ninjas, tanks, ghosts, aliens, whatever needed its ass kicked received its just rewards and the sort of play that only occurs when friends talk shit with each other continued well into the night.

It was a night where Frank Gibson and Dave McElfatrick traded stories about the weirdness of life in LA and the oddities of having Big Deal Famous People as fans. Brigid Alverson and I discussed the state of municipal Emergency Medical Services. Dave Kellett managed to soil an arcade machine, make it forever unclean in the eyes of righteous people². In other words, it was a hell of a party, and in the end we all learned something.

Namely, never accept shots from Chris Butcher without first checking the size of the glassware.
_______________
¹ No wind rushing down the plain, though.

² There was photography involved, and bare stomachs, and thank whatever deity you worship that your eyes were spared the horror. Horror, I tells ya!

It’s Thursday morning and there is an ever-shifting cluster of Homestuck trollgirls in the vicinity of the TopatoCo booth; I had the opportunity to meet a pair of them walking into the con this morning (their costumes really were very good; they were stopped for photos approximately every 60 seconds on the approach to the convention center), and was pleased to find out that while they enjoy dressing like trolls, neither of them thinks that they actually are trolls. This led to a later discussion at the Dumbrella booth where it was posited that the collective noun for trolls should be a Tumblr.

Stray thought — they may not allow strollers in the panel rooms any longer, but that hasn’t stopped people bringing small dogs with them. A man just walked by with a small Corgi in his arms that seemed bemused but mostly bored with all the outlandishly dressed two-legs around him. Adorable dog.

There was a disappointingly small crowd for Karl Kerschl’s spotlight panel, but the right people were there — lots of cameras, lots of photos, there to watch a livedrawing of next week’s Charles Christopher.

Kerschl laid out a few rough ideas that he had (a process that often takes half of Wednesday day, with a two-row strip requiring two to three hours work to pencil and ink, then to coloring), with the thought of doing something con-related. His first idea (which he wound up using) involved his cockroach therapist character, dealing with another animal (to be determined) on the topic of “agoraphobia”. The unused, second idea (which may form the basis of the following week’s strip) involved the porcupine character and LARPing. I won’t spoil the gag of the strip Kerschl drew, but it involves a grumpy ferret.

While roughing out the strip and working up the placement, Kerschl answered questions from the floor; in no particular order, he shared:

Of the ancillary characters that have really grown on, the owls are the most prominent; all of the relationships in the strip became parental relationships, which largely was from before he became a parent.

The time setting of the strip is intentionally loose — Gilgamesh, 18th century elements, bolt-action rifles, contemporary language, the practice of psychology all mix together. In a lot of ways, the color palette he uses reflects that ambiguity a lot, makes it very hazy.

On the topic of panel composition Kerschl noted that since almost starting it was most informed by film pacing. He attributed the film influence to the fact that he does a lot of silent storytelling, setting up a scene and showing reactions to it. Any success to humanity or sincerity in the story is from those reactions.

Kerschl was always interested in drawing animals. Looking back at the oldest art he has, from the age of 8 or so, it was all cougars and bears and things; as a teenager his interests switched to action-adventure and superheroes until his mid-20s. He doesn’t draw much outside of work, but when he does it’s usually a bird or some form of wildlife. Even trees, trees are very relaxing, you can’t screw them up.

Charles Christopher is the only work Kerschl still does with pencil and paper ; in the last two years, everything else has been digital. Working digitally is a lot less stressful, since I have so much freedom to undo and experiment. But it’s nice to have a finished piece of work when you’re done, and I haven’t found a way to replicate this brushpen, which gets used a lot for things like fur and texture. You get a lot of happy accidents.

Kerschl doesn’t find it difficult to get emotions from animals (which he may have just researched via a Google Image Search). The weird thing is, I don’t go out of my way to put human expressions. If you give them a bit of a googly eye, that works. It’s all body language. Along those lines, the last panel of the strip wasn’t completed, as Kerschl felt the ferret’s body language needed more careful development than he had time for.

Almost all of the storylines came from one-off gags, and pretty much all of the recurring characters. Like Sissi Skunk at first was just [he gives a dual thumbs up gesture and wide grin], and now it’s become this story of intrigue. When I first drew that skunk it was Sissi, and now I’m not sure there is a Sissi. It’s like Wal-Mart, or Aunt Jemima, this corporate thing protecting the sales force.

Most interestingly, Kerschl is working on a bunch of other webcomics. They don’t have names yet, but there are four different concepts right now. All are in the early stages of development as he works up ‘tone pieces’ to get the feel of what they could be. Probably going to pick one to work on primarily, but all will come out eventually for web/mobile/ electronic distribution..

Kerschl laid out a few rough ideas that he had (a process that often takes half of Wednesday day, with a two-row strip requiring two to three hours work to pencil and ink, then to coloring), with the thought of doing something con-related. His first idea (which he wound up using) involved his cockroach therapist character, dealing with another animal (to be determined) on the topic of

The Webcomics been very, very good to Jim Zubkavich; although he’s gotten a lot of good press for Skullkickers, that critical acclaim hasn’t translated into blockbuster sales of the monthlies or the trade collections. But since running old issues (one page a day, five days a week), trade sales have jumped, and he explained why:

I’m at a show and somebody says, “I love Skullkickers!”, so I ask them where they know if from, and it’s always online. So then I get to tell them, “Oh, we’re running pages from issue three online now … and we just released issue thirteen to stores.” Ten issues they haven’t seen, and there’s the trade collection sitting on the table and they have to have it.

Here’s hoping a lot of those online readers drop by the Image booth, Udon booth, or one of Zub’s five (!) panels and let him know how much they need those trades.

Preview Night purchases: Marceline and the Scream Queens 1, Drive 3, Starslip 5 (shiny cover), Skullkickers 15 (kitten cover); given a copy of the new edition Makeshift Miracle book 1.

In the panel rooms today: Karl Kerschl spotlight panel at 11:30.

There’s always an odd feeling on the floor in the hours running up to the launch of SDCC; expectation mixed with seeing people you haven’t seen for months mixed with a smidge of existential dread. Plus, if you’re lucky, you can get some questions answered.

Questions such as, What’s Up With The Penny Arcade Kickstarter, which was the major topic of a generous talk I had with Robert Khoo. The brief answer is, it’s an experiment, which will determine not so much what Penny Arcade does over the next year as how they do it. There’s been a lot of opinions floating around in the 36 hours or so since launch, reactions and counter-reactions as opinion yo-yos in the nerdosphere. Talking with Robert, the key to it is opportunity cost.

It’s a matter of how to get the money necessary to run Penny Arcade, and advertising (which is a great deal more than just accepting an ad and cashing the check) pays for a significant amount of PA’s operational costs — rent, health insurance, things that have a lot of zeros associated with them. As Khoo puts it, Mike and Jerry could do a lot of things for the audience, but right now they’re working for the advertisers. If this drive succeeds, they can work instead for the readers. The guys I have working selling the ads, they have other things that they can produce.

It’s not a whim, it’s not a campaign that’s going to get shut down for ToS violations (anybody that’s ever met Khoo knows he does his due diligence; you can bet that Kickstarter were extensively consulted in advance), it’s a discrete event that, in either the event of success or the event of failure, is going to provide data to PA and inform how they conduct their business.

And in the event of success, there’s going to be a lot of media companies (from webcomics up to larger enterprises) that will (or at the very least, should) be paying very close attention and determining what they can learn and implement themselves. Khoo’s goal has never been to run a webcomics company; it’s been to find new ways to provide creative media as pervasively and ubiquitously as possible. And, given the sort of businessman Khoo is, this is not an isolated event; I’m expecting two or three more shoes to drop in the near future (which ones likely depending on what happens over the next 34 days of crowdfunding).

The other question that got answered today: was the purported Rob Liefeld/Owly drawing that made its way across Twitter in the past week legitimate? Andy Runton looked a little sheepish as he confirmed the story behind its creation — that some fans had gotten the pencil sketch from Rob Liefeld and enticed Runton to “enhance” it. The best part of the conversation was explaining to Runton’s mom (who was working up custom Owly shoulder bags) exactly who Rob Liefeld is. This is such a beautiful idea that I don’t think you need to consider anything else today. Just revel in that.

My buddy, Ms K. Brooke “Otter” Spangler has an unholy love of SyFy channel original movies. So what to get such a person that will hold a place in their heart forever? This is why my wife has put up with my cursing needles and threads as I mutilated several Toys Backwards-R Us plushes into the hideous form of a Sharktopus. Otter got the box in the mail yesterday, so I can finally share this bit of arts-n-crafts time with the world. None of this has anything to do with webcomics, other than my usual admonition that you should read A Girl And Her Fed because it’s really good, and that Otter’s got an in-universe series of prose stories that she’s been working on, and she is a hell of a writer.

The annual nerd-wrangle kicks off in about … 10 hours, as I’m writing this; rather than try to do daily posts, I’m going to do my best to update as information hits me, so look for lots of random updates. As always, RSS is your friend.

For those not entering the Nerd Herd of the Mexican Frontierland, may I direct you to a show that you can attend from the comfort and convenience of your own home? ComfyCon is the brainchild of Corsetto and Milholland, who really shouldn’t be allowed in each other’s company, but what are you gonna do. Neither of them is making it out to San Diego this year, so they’ve announced a virtual con to take away the lonelies:

The idea is simple. Danielle and I are gonna do video conference panels – some together, some alone – for any readers who wanna show up. We talk, answer questions, swear… all while in our pajamas or whatever. No travel. No cost to attend. No con flu or “too many people in the room” smell.

We’re also talking to a few other webcartoonists about “attending,” namely:

• Aaron Diaz
• Anthony Clark
• Angela Melick
• Bill Barnes

Howard Tayler

My tenative schedule (up for change – check the site every day around 10am ET for updates):

• Thursday: 9:00 pm EST panel with Danielle
• Thursday: midnight-ish, EST, late night S*P ramblings
• Friday: 9:00 pm EST general panel/hangout
• Sunday: 9:00 pm EST panel with Danielle

Google+ is likely going to be the engine for the hangouts, so keep an eye on the Something*Positive site, or Randy’s twitter for announcements.

But first, what US$211,223.04 in cash looks like.

And, because it’s dropped this morning, big news from Penny Arcade with respect to Kickstarter. This is too new for me to put together anything reasonable in the time I’ve got, so I’m just gonna go find Mike and Jerry and Robert and ask them directly, ‘kay?

As previously noted in the discussions of this year’s MoCCA Fest, Benign Kingdom was not a one-shot, and the second iteration of the artbook is upon us, with four more beyond-talented creators: Aaron Diaz, Danielle Corsetto, Emmy Cicierega, and Anthony Clark, once again under the guidance of George Rohac, mysterious man of [comics] mystery. The only thing that could make this project better (which, naturally, is sitting near 200% of goal around 15 hours after launch) would be if Cicierega and Clark were to resurrect their occasional online collaborations known as Laserpony Studios.

• SDCC update #1: Know who I’ve never met that will be in San Diego? Sarah Becan, debuting her new book, Shuteye. Catch her in Artists Alley, table DD-07, and in the Small Press Pavilion, table M-04, which the alert reader may note is the same space occupied by Eliza Frye — two mad-talented creators in one stop? Bonus.
• SDCC update #2: Seen on the website of one mister Jim “Jim Zub” Zubkavich, the oddest, most clever approach I’ve ever seen to The E-Bay Problem. Namely, creator spends time signing, sketching, knocking themselves out for a “fan”¹, who immediately turns around an slaps that book/sketch/whatever on an auction site to make money. It’s dickish behavior of the first rank, and it’s always pissed me off. But what to do?

  How about providing a financial disincentive?

  Our exclusive for the show this year is our Kitten variant cover for Skullkickers #15, which will be available in limited quantities.They’ll be selling for $5 personalized, or $10 signed/raw as an incentive for fans to keep their copy rather than flipping it.

  Genius. You want to E-Bay that show-exclusive? It’s going to cost you more if you don’t want it personalized, because the only possible reason you wouldn’t want that comic made out to you is because you’re a profiteer and Jim Zub is putting a five dollar bounty on your activity, Bunky. Here’s hoping other creators put a similar surcharge on unpersonalized exclusives/commissions.

• Last thoughts for the day: For those of us who have been going back to Starslip since the strip wrapped because it’s a hard habit to break, and for everybody that wants to enjoy it for the first time, Kris Straub is bringing his sci-fi epic to GoComics:
  

  “No catch, kid. Howzabout your Starslip runs five days a week at GoComics.com starting July 9?” I tried to act nonchalant but suddenly realized I was wearing mismatched shoes. “Sounds like a sweetheart deal for you, maybe,” I said coolly, “but what’s in it for me?” I glanced down again. Getting dressed in the dark, I had also accidentally put on one of my wife’s blouses.

  “A whole new audience who’s never heard of it before. They’ll probably love it. With Starslip finished, maybe this’ll give it a chance to reach new people. Give it new life.”

  Your job: find somebody that never read Starslip the first time around, and tell them to clear a few minutes each weekday morning for the next seven years. Go.

_______________
¹ Who insists it’s not necessary to sign the work in question made out to any particular name.

As we hurtle headlong into next week’s San Diego Comic Con, now is as good a time as any to remind you that postings next week will be on their own schedule. Cool? Cool.

• Previously noted, the hands-down best publisher of graphic novels, :01 Books will be at SDCC, but now it’s time for me to share with you some of who and what they’re bringing (many thanks to Gina Gagliano at :01 for passing along the info, as well as numerous advanced copies throughout the year).

  To start, I realize that some of you may object to that “best publisher” claim that I made, so check out the Eisner nominees from :01 this year: Nursery Rhyme Comics (Best Publication for Early Readers and Best Anthology), Zita the Space Girl (Best Publication for Kids), Anya’s Ghost and Level Up (Best Publication for Young Adults), and Zahra’s Paradise (Best Graphic Album — Reprint). Bascially, a :01 publication has a one in three shot of being recognized by the most prestigious awards in comics.

  Second, check out who will be visiting the booth: Jorge Agurre and Rafael Rosado, Vera Brosgol, Zack Giallongo, JT Petty, Thien Pham, Nate Powell (also an SDCC Guest of Honor), Dave Roman, and Jen Wang. They’ll all be signing at least a couple of times during the show, so drop by the booth for the schedule. Also check out the program guide for the many :01 creators and staff that will be talking about various topics near and dear to their heart; if nothing else, try to catch up with Colleen AF Venable to tell her how awesome her book designs¹ are. Among those book designs: the just-received, not-yet-released Sailor Twain, which I can’t wait to get my hands on (October, can you come quickly enough?).

• Know what you won’t be able to pick up at SDCC? The Schlock Mercenary boardgame. When my evil twin told me that his game guys wanted to send me a review copy, he didn’t mention it was going to be the single largest item ever delivered to The Fleenplex for review. This thing is heavy, on account of it’s stuffed full of thick cardstock pieces, in a box that is far more solid than anybody used to American boardgames would ever consider necessary. Those of you that like Euro-style games, it probably feels right at home.

  So yeah, all those pieces (which, by the way, are double-sided) — gonna be a while before I get the chance to punch ’em all out but when I do, I can tell that the good folks at Living Worlds Games love me and want me to be happy, because one of the items in the box was a little bundle of sealable bags to sort those pieces into. Just saying, I had to make a trip to the supermarket for Zip-Locs when I bought Settlers of Catan.

  My only complaint being (and this is preliminary, as I haven’t punched out all those double-sided pieces yet), the designers put in such necessary play-pieces as banana peels and cursing, but didn’t manage duct tape or an ominous hummmmmm? Priorities, man! On the other hand, the entire purpose of the game is to be recklessly violent and make a bunch of attorney drones go Pop! Mostly; the rules (which I have had time to read through) feature different styles of gameplay, from kill people and break things to retrieve the macguffin without dying. With all the characters, tools, objectives, floor layouts, and game styles, it’s going to have a hell of a lot of replay value.

  Schlock Mercenary: Capital Offensive is up for pre-order at Game Salute, or you can get it from Howard Tayler at GenCon Indy (mid-August) or ChiCon 7/WorldCon70 (end of August), and eventually at his store.

_______________
¹ You could also note that she’s got the Best Tattoo Ever, but if you lead with that it could come off creepy.

Short posting today. I’m certain that you will, somehow, perservere.

• Ever wonder how many pages of comics James Kochalka has done, updating American Elf as a daily diary since 1998-ish? The first comic in the AE archive is dated 26 October 1998, and the most recent is 3 July 2012, which happens to be exactly 5000 days if we count both the start date and end date¹. I’m certain that the mathematical possibility exists that there’s a day or two missed in that time, but I’m not going through the 164 months of archives to count up how many there might be; let’s just agree to call it 5000.

  Big number. Imposing. Solid. A little intimidating, if you want to be perfectly honest, so perhaps it’s not just a good thing, but the best possible thing, that Kochalka is planning a comprehensive e-book program:

  We’re going to digitally publish new volumes each month, each volume collecting a single year of the strip (except the first volume which collects all of 1999 plus the tail end of 1998).

  So if you’ve got the means to read an Apple-type book file, each year (or in the case of the first volume, year-plus) of comics is available for two bucks at iTunes, with the first volume available now. Rounding off very slightly, that’s about US$25 for about 5000 pages, or half a penny per page for some of the most important comics of the past forever.

• Updating the Fleen Field Guide To The North American Webcomicker, I missed Eliza Frye’s name on the exhibitors lists, but fortunately received an email from Ms Frye herself² fixed that oversight. Frye will be debuting Regalia, her recently-kickstarted collection that includes nine of her stories (including The Lady’s Murder, nominated for an Eisner in 2009 and well deserving of the recognition) at the show. You can find it, and her, splittingn time between the Small Press Pavilion (table M-04) and Artists Alley (table DD-07).

________________
¹ Kochalka was somewhat more modest, only noting it was “like 4500 comics”.

² I’m not saying this is the first time I’ve received a piece of SDCC PR that was actually helpful, but let’s just say that my Spam folder is looking unusually well-stocked at the moment, or would be if I didn’t empty it about fifteen times a day.

Much as I want to just eat grilled things in the manner of my people, there is something to discuss, albeit briefly due to a paucity of reliable details.

Late yesterday afternoon, just before offices and businesses and courts closed for the holiday, Charles Carreon withdrew all his suits related to Matthew Inman making him and his client look foolish.

None of the principals have, as near as I can tell, commented publicly on the dismissal. The best analysis (hampered by the lateness of the filing and the incipient holiday) remains that of Ken White at Popehat, who reminds us that this may not be the end of the crazy. Hard to believe that somebody might momentarily decide to stop digging the hole that he’s in, pause, reflect, and then go back to digging, but weirder things have happened.

Should the story flare up again, we’ll be sure to take note; in the meantime, I just want to see what the picture of the money looks like.