Arrived in the mail today (I will spare you the story of how it was addressed¹), one copy of Dave Kellett’s newest collection, on the topic of that black water that some people like to drink. I can’t in good conscience offer a review of this book since I contributed to it; much like the Unshelved collection, Frequently Asked Questions, Coffee! It’s What’s For Dinner reprints my referee’s commentary from the Coffee Cup Lid Challenge of Holy Crap Four Years Ago?? Aught Seven.

Of course, my commentary doesn’t appear anywhere online, so if you want to see me use the phrase Proustian Madeleine² in print, you’ll have to buy one or the other (or both!) of the aforementioned books. And when you order those books, please be sure to point out to Messers Ambaum, Barnes, and Kellett that I don’t drink coffee, which means that I got a copy of each book in exchange for blathering about something I don’t know anything about³. Suckers!

• Noted in the LiveJournal of Ursula Vernon, a story of her art getting ripped off by the nephew of Joseph Lieberman.

  Really.

  Apparently, the now-stealthed site art4love.com [no link would be provided even if it hadn’t been taken down] scraped a bunch of images, ran ’em through a giclee printer, and sold them for upwards of $1000. I have attempted to get a comment from Mr Chad Love-Lieberman (yes, really), owner of the suddenly off-line site and supposed perpetrator behind this wholesale theft of art from multiple creators, via the toll-free number that ran on his site; the outgoing message identifies the line as belonging to love4art.com, and no response has been received to messages left.

  And because I on occasion resemble an actual journalist, I also called Senator Lieberman’s office⁴, asking if they had any comment on the situation; the press officer was out, a message was left, and any response from the Senator’s office will be run when received. Oh, and a note for any of you wishing to also contact the Senator’s office for comment: Senator Lieberman’s website locked my browser up good, and that was with Javascript turned off; I’d advise you call the Senate switchboard directly at +1 202 224 3121 and ask to be connected.

  Also, without any sarcasm at all, the personnel at the Senator’s office were polite, helpful, and professional; anybody that might interact with them, please do them the courtesy of behaving in a like manner. You should also do the same if calling Chad Love Lieberman’s toll-free number, which is +1 877 226 LUV4 (yes, really), because whoever answers the phone doesn’t deserve your scorn⁵.

• How about something more uplifting? :01 Books continues its march into curated webcomics hosting, with Faith Erin Hicks launching Friends With Boys with more than 30 pages back-dated to the start of July. It’s going to be a new update every weekday as Hicks tells the story of a girl entering high school after having been homeschooled her entire life; the collected story will be published by :01 next year. If FWB is anything like The War At Ellsmere, it’s gonna be terrific.

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¹ Except to say that it was not sent to the proper place, namely: Penthouse Suite, The Fleenplex.

² Somewhere, Eric Burns-White’s ears just pricked up and he doesn’t know why.

³ The astute among you will note that I usually offer up such ill-informed blathering for free.

⁴ This brings the list of interesting places I have contacted on behalf of this blog to one (1) sheriff’s department, one (1) elected official, and one (1) legal counsel for Todd Goldman.

⁵ Presuming that Love-Lieberman doesn’t answer his own phones, which seems a pretty safe bet.

Some time back we noted that the merry troublemakers at SMBC Theater were trying to Kickstart a new web series with an actual budget. A few days back they made their goal five times over, leading to the wherewithal to make an online entertainment comparable to a broadcast TV show, only with dirty jokes and explosions¹. Supporters are receiving fabulous prized including DVDs, art, books, and promotional video², but those that couldn’t bestir themselves to give get rewarded, too.

Yesterday, the SMBC Theatricians put the entirety of their first DVD, SMBC Theater Goes To Hell, on YouTube for your streaming pleasure. Granted, it was previously available for ten bucks plus shipping or pay-what-you-want on torrent (which may as well be free), but this is completely free free. There’s a lesson here that Zach, James³, Kelly, Angel, JP, Jennifer, Chason, Laura, Jon, Betsy, and all of the others that have worked very hard on SMBC Theater for you to learn.

And that lesson is, If you’re cheap and lazy you will be rewarded for it. We at Fleen would like to thank SMBC Theater for being our personal enablers since 2009. Except for James — he knows why.

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¹ We at Fleen only hope that the majority of explosions will be directed at James Ashby, history’s greatest villain.

² Sadly, nobody claimed the top reward, their very own SEX ROBOT.

³ Recently promoted, now history’s greatest super villain.

From the twitterfeed of one Mister Chris Onstad:

New Achewood fanflow piece up. Hiatus end draws near, but here’s some Smuckles for you: http://bit.ly/dnX2v [empahsis mine]

We approach, in approximately seven weeks time, the tenth anniversary of Philippe standing on it and the launch of something that would eventually blow all our minds¹. Even if Onstad himself doesn’t feel that the strip really began until the introduction of three cats named Ray, Pat, and Roast Beef, we’re coming up on something numerically significant, and the end of the hiatus in close proximity to such an anniversary is making me take Emergency Mind Blow Prevention steps. For those of you utilizing the AssetBar premium content interface, there is apparently Smuckleness to be had. That can’t ever be a bad thing.

• Speaking of significant numbers, how do you like zeros? Say, three of them in a row at the end of an ordinal number indicating sequence of updates? Kel MacDonald joins the Four Digit Club today with Sorcery 101 #1000.
• Finally, for those of you looking to spend next spring in a west-coast mode, registration for the 2012 Stumptown Comics Fest opened today; Stumptown’s been one of the fastest-growing, smartest-run, and well-curated shows on the circuit for the past half-decade or so, and one that I must find a way to attend one of these days. It’s just there’s this whole country between me and Portland, dammit.

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¹ Thinking on early Achewood, those that saw the brilliance early on, and its enduring popularity among webcomics creators, I’m reminded of when Brian Eno remarked, Only five thousand people ever bought a Velvet Underground album, but every single one of them started a band.

Oh, is it stuck in your head now? Too bad. A “friend” blackrolled me — I have to suffer, you have to suffer.

Not quite a month after close-of-submissions, the courageous Machine of Death 2 team (that would appear to be David Malki !, or at least it’s him doing the blog updates) have finished cataloguing the stories they’ve received. Here’s a hint as to why it took so long:

On the very last day submissions were open, we received more stories than the ENTIRE Vol.1 submission period.

To quantify that a little further:

[W]e received 6,373,643 words of submissions — if we published all of it, it would be longer than all the Harry Potter books and all the Lord of the Rings books and all the Song of Ice and Fire books and all of Stephen King’s Dark Tower books put together. [emphasis original]

For reference, that would require a total of 1958 submissions, with word counts ranging from 1 to 19,000 words; no conversion has yet been provided in terms of how many Mobies Dick, Wars and Peace, or Crimes and Punishment that adds up to.

In order to best serve the Machine of Death — I’m going to call it a phenomenon, for lack of a better word — Messers Malki, Bennardo, and North want to do a formal, rigorous survey of readers, but want to do it up right. If you’re experienced in such things, contact them via info, which is a mailing address at machineofdeath, a dot-net endeavor. One may also use that same point of contact if one wants to help playtest a prototype MoD card game. And finally on the MoD beat, one may use the similar submit address to enter the new MoD contest:

Write us some Fanfic Flash Fic — an ultrashort Machine of Death story in an existing pop-culture or literary setting. In honor of our friend Rosemary’s website 55 Word Stories, all submissions must be EXACTLY 55 words long. Enter up to three times. The deadline is August 30. We’ll post our favorites here on the blog next month!

Not on the MoCCA website, near as I can tell, but sent to me presumably because I’m on their press list: a comment on the 2012 MoCCA/Stumptown situation. Since it’s in the form of a letter to a non-specific recipient, I’m reproducing it here.

Dear Friends in Comics,

Next year our 2012 MoCCA Fest will fall on April 28-29, which of course also falls on the same weekend as Stumptown Comics Fest. For the last decade, both festivals have provided the opportunity to annually spotlight independent talent and alternative press exhibitors, with increasing success.

As many who have organized events can attest, it can be a difficult thing to get a venue in New York, or anywhere else, for that matter. I speak from personal experience, having coordinated the MoCCA Fest for the last two years from a volunteer capacity before signing on to the museum full-time. Ultimately, we needed to shift from our original tentative dates for MoCCA Fest 2012 to make it most attainable for our exhibitors and attendees. Was the change in dates unexpected? Definitely. Was it deliberately planned that way? Definitely not. Please keep in mind that even towards the very end of our negotiations, we still felt we would be able to keep our initial planned dates.

It is not, not would it ever be our intention to create a conflict of show dates, which benefits no one. Going forward, it is MoCCA’s intention to work directly with Stumptown to jointly address any questions that may arise from the overlap. You may be surprised with the solutions two coasts can come up with.

We do apologize if this puts a wrench into anyone’s plans to tour, exhibit, or attend both conventions– and we will work to address anyone’s concerns. To echo Indigo Kelleigh, unfortunate scheduling will not impact the quality of our Fest; you will still be able to expect great exhibitors, programming and attendance all weekend.

We look forward to seeing another banner year for both the MoCCA Fest and Stumptown Comic Fest next year, and thank you all for your support!

It’s signed by Jack Walsh, Museum Manager, which makes it about as official as you could hope. Would have been nice to see it a few days ago, but props to MoCCA for acknowledging the awkwardness of the situation. Here’s hoping that 2013 works out more smoothly.

There’s been a lot of discussion about women in comics — pardon me, I meant Women in Comics — of late, this latest round perhaps kicked off by DC’s stand on same, perhaps some by the just-concluded (and highly successful) Kickstarter campaign for the Womanthology¹. Something I didn’t realize about said ‘thology is that apparently the contributors aren’t being paid; from the Kickstarter page:

All money earned goes directly to printing costs and other fees such as postage of the book to all of you fine people!
[If the funding far exceeded the goal of $25,000, which by happenstance it did, by a factor of four] … my ultimate goal would be an expanded version of what this book is about. To create an organization that supports new creators and their creator-owned comics, helps fund them to complete their works, and get them out to major publishers for their chance to shine.

So, nothing about money going to the contributors of this book for work being done now. That, I suspect, is what prompted Meredith Gran to share her thoughts on how to develop and promote the careers women in comics, which is neatly encapsulated in just eight words:

Pay them. No, seriously. Pay them with money.

Exposure has been proposed more than once as a desirable thing for creative types, but as the eminently-quotable Rich Stevens has repeatedly said, People die of exposure. A quick look over my shoulder at the enormous bookshelves full of comics and graphic novels shows about a 60/40 split between the genders overall (favoring males), but interestingly that ratio reverses if you count only original, creator-owned properties.

Because I, and others, have paid these creators in money and not exposure, they’ve had the luxury of time to develop and hone their craft (along with the gift of deadlines, forcing them to learn not just to be good, but good and fast). Read Gran’s entire essay (really, it almost counts as more of a manifesto) and see if that core argument is anything but a fundamental truth. Bonus for those of you still not convinced that women can make comics: it works for creators of all genders.

• Here’s a happy thought about another creator that you can pay with money: Scott C[ampbell] has a new book coming out. And this time, it’s an art collection! Seeing as how I’ve only ever been lucky enough to attend one of his art shows, much of what’s contained in the forthcoming AMAZING EVERYTHING: the art of scott c is likely to be completely new. It’s set to debut at APE, 1-2 October, but you can pre-order it now. In Campbell’s words, the book will contain:
  • King of Kong
  • Zombie Fair
  • Home Slices
  • Cute Hunter
  • Building with the Bowies
  • Ninjas All Over The Place
  • Some rainbows and clouds
  • Great Great Grandshow inventors
  • Cliff Ogres
  • The Cutest Thing Ever
  • Tanks
  • Some drawings
  • Selections from my elementary school career

  I am looking forward to this like you can’t imagine.

• Finally, some guys that just might have enough money, but what the heck, pay them some anyway: the long-rumored collaboration/second webcomic from Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins and Scott Kurtz has come to fruition. The Trenches hints at the possibility of filthy continuity, one (1) update that hints at a sharp comic sensibility, and an absolutely gorgeous website design. Seriously, that stitching-on-fabric motif is really pretty.

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¹ I hate that name.

Time to open up the ol’ Oxford Fleenic Dictionary, see what’s new in the language

• class·y [klăsˈē]
  Over the weekend it was announced by MoCCA that registration for next year’s Fest was open, but also that there was a change of date; the previously-announced 14-15 April, 2012 had become 28-29 April. Wee problem: that’s the same weekend as the long-since-announced Stumptown Comics Fest across the country in Oregon, and a week before TCAF. A lot of indy creators that might have done both MoCCA and Stumptown will now have to choose, and even those on the East Coast will have to decide if they want to be in New York or Toronto in the spring.

  After a weekend of speculation as to whether or not the MocCA people knew they were stepping into a particularly busy period of time (there’s no mention of it on their website, and consensus ran to “no”), Indigo Kelleigh (showrunner for Stumptown) stepped up with an announcement:

  I just wanted to state for the record, that I know the difficulties in arranging for a venue for an event of this size, and more often than not our own final dates are dictated by the venue’s availability moreso than our desired schedule. I can’t assign any malice to this announcement on the part of the MoCCA organizers, and I hope nobody else does, either.

  It is going to be a challenge for small press exhibitors, and obviously many will need to choose at which of the two shows to exhibit. Having two shows on the same weekend obviously removes one of them from many exhibitor’s schedules, and for those who rely on the convention circuit for income and promotional opportunities, this will clearly have an impact on their bottom line. To that end, we’re looking forward to working with the organizers of the MoCCA Art Fest to find ways to minimize that impact.

  The spring season has become crowded with conventions all over the continent, and I do look forward to continuing to communicate with the organizers of other conventions like MoCCA, TCAF, SPACE, SPX, Emerald City Comicon, STAPLE!, and APE to help ensure that scheduling conflicts like this don’t arise to inconvenience the exhibitors, or attendees, in the future.

  It would be nice to see a similar announcement at the MoCCA, but as has been noted here in the past, that show has been less organized in the years since it left the Puck Building for the Armory, and we may or may not see MoCCA get their act together. In the meantime, Stumptown opens for registration in a week, a bunch of creators have some decisions to make, and Indigo Kelleigh should be acknowledged for being the pro that he is.

• in·spir·ing [ĭn-spīrˈĭng]
  A wee tweet from Vera Brosgol (whose Anya’s Ghost retains my Best of 2011 designation even after the summer releases) caught my eye yesterday:

  I wrote a piece about my life for the Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog

  You should read it, as it’s a nicely done bit about finding who you are is sometimes an awful lot like who you used to be, and that’s not such a bad thing. I particularly enjoyed reading Brosgol’s essay because it’s not so long now since the Journal ran a remarkably ill-informed opinion piece that essentially shit on the entire contemporary offerings of Young Adult publishing. I can’t say that inviting Vera to have her say is the result of some editor coming to their senses, but it would be nice to think so. In any event, there’s plenty of nonsense for those that desire it, in the form of one of the most amazing comments I’ve ever read. I’m going to quote it verbatim because it is beautiful. In reaction to other comments on Brosgol’s piece:

  Gary Ru wrote:
  You are Mankurts. Thank God that such as you (Mike&Rita) have left my country. Otherwise you would spoil till now in entrances of houses implementing the teenage complexes in powerless hatred to my country. Let your children watch the American cartoons, it’s possible once having something learnt they otmudohayout you by baseball bats as Tom does with Dzheri and will send you na her using the cleanest English language.

  In its own way, it’s also inspiring.

• o·pen bar [ōˈpən bär]
  Well, metaphorically at least. Open Fire!, a new collective of webcomics artists and writers, has launched and is holding a party to celebrate the event. This Saturday, 13 August, at 6:00-8:00pm Pacific (GMT-7), they’ll be broadcasting the festivities here (password: omgcomics), where you’ll be able to meet the creators and mingle with fellow lovers of our chosen artform. Remember: it’s poor etiquette to show up without bringing something, and try not to puke on anybody’s shoes.

For starters, let me point out the Birthday Boys of Webcomics, Rick Marshall¹ (today) and Aaron Diaz² (tomorrow). You would be hard pressed to find two guys more in love with comics, more devoted to finding good examples of same, or more dedicated to improving their own skills within their respective roles (reviewer/promoter, writer/illustrator/teacher). Happy birthday, guys, I owe each of you a beer.

Pretty things for you to see, some of which I’m recommending purely on the basis of their creators’ past work:

• Rebecca Clements did a 24 hour comic, and it’s available for your purchase. Come Inside My Body is a choose-your-own adventure tour to the insides of Clements³. Her whimsical, Seussian style is ideal for what might otherwise be an unending parade of horrors, since let’s face it — our insides are pretty awful, disgusting bags of glop. Bonus points if you can tell which pages were done during the onset of no-sleep madness.
• Also on the recommended sight-unseen list, Tyson Hesse has a Kickerstarter campaign up, to support print versions of his Boxer Hockey and Diesel projects. There’s lots of price points with small incremental dollar amounts, with tangible dead-tree product available down to the $15 level.

  Guys, if you’re not familiar with Hesse, what you need to know is that he has a command of color that’s mindblowing. Check out his posters if you don’t believe me. That one guy working alone can produce work this pretty (and that printing technology is advanced enough that it can be produced without the need for a monastery full of illuminators) is surely proof that we live in the future.

• Recommended sight-seen: I’ve long been a fan of Tyler Page’s Nothing Better — it just reads so honestly that you could almost think that you were reminiscing about your own experiences, not reading about people that are totally made up and not real. Page is now turning that eye for verisimilitude to somebody that is real and not made up — himself, in the just-released first chapter of a full graphic novel titled Raised on Ritalin.

  Part memoir, part exploration of ADD/ADHD and the medicines prescribed to treat it, it’s eventually going to be a full book, but for now you can get a taste of what’s to come. So far it’s unsparing, uncompromising, and promises to read like a combo platter of Tracy White’s How I Made It To Eighteen and the psychiatric/science comics of Daryl Cunningham.

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¹ Will, and Holly.

² Who may need a new nickname, seeing as how the only reason he doesn’t have a promised update today is that he had to run off a pack of four would-be muggers yesterday. The Latin Art-Throb sounds great, but what do you all think about The Punkbuster?

³ She already did the ladyparts previously, so don’t expect a guided tour this time around. KLARBLARG, indeed.

Evan Dahm declared it’s Achewood Fanart Day and kicked it off good. There may be more on Twitter by the time you read this. That would be great. Not only is it Friday, but it’s been a long week and my wife’s out of town which means as soon as I’m out of here I’m in for hell of naps. Let’s hit it.

• Dave Kellett throws book release parties — this is a truth-fact. Once again, his latest book will be dropped onto an eagerly-awaiting world with a fabulous party in Beverly Hills which will feature free booze, free other stuff, two new books and cake bites which are also truffles. Also, he will apparently be premiering the trailer for the documentary (tentatively titled Hot Pen On Paper COMIXXX Action¹) that he and Fred Schroeder have been so hard at work on for a couple of years now.

  One day, I will attend one of these shin-digs². Oh yes, I will.

• Continuing on the theme of Fun Things that rock, everybody knows that The Blams is back, right?
• Last thoughts. The ToonSeum in Pittsburgh decided that just being a museum devoted to cartoons wasn’t geeky enough, so they’re upping their game by hosting monthly nights of geektacular TV. The inaugural event will be on Thursday the 18th, with screenings of The Muppet Show, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, The Simpsons, The Tick, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Mystery Science Theater 3000.

  Future installments will feature shows such as Black Adder, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Fraggle Rock, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and The The Young Ones, along with classic cartoons. Particulars (which episodes, which version of the The Tick and Battlestar, etc) haven’t been announced yet, but they have said that MST3K will be the closer each night³.

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¹ Not really, but I’d kick in a significant chunk of money towards its completion if that were the case.

² Where I’m told one actually goes out back to dig up shins — cartooning and grave defiling have often gone hand in hand, historically speaking.

³ Keep circulating the tapes.

Although it’s only August (and therefore only half over), the one thing that I think it’s safe to say I regret this summer is that I didn’t get a chance to attend a certain class at CCNY and get to see Aaron Diaz¹ teach a class full of college students about webcomics. I’ve long admired Diaz’s art process blog, and I was eager (as a practitioner of the instructive arts myself) to see how he would do in front of an audience (if nothing else, he was sure to have the regulation sport coat with leather elbow patches).

While our schedules never meshed, the results of Diaz’s efforts are available to me (and to you) in the form of the webcomics created by his students:

At the end of the course, everyone was given the option to actually publish a webcomic of their as their final, and I’m going to share them here (because, after all, they won’t get the full experience unless someone’s reading their work online)! I highly encourage you guys to contact these artists and provide constructive feedback. Note: these are beginners, most of which have never drawn any comics before this course.

Keeping that in mind, I want to call out the work of Sharon Stokes, who produced a gag-panel comic called ‘Tis Race, for not only having an easy-on-the-eyes style (that is, she didn’t try for art beyond her abilities, and instead polished what she was capable of — I’d expect to see much more elaborate work from her in a year or so), but also for having multiple updates. Most of her fellow students managed a page or two (sometimes much more elaborate), but in only providing the beginnings of a story, it’s tough to see how they might follow through. Stokes put up five different gags with five different directions, which shows a certain flexibility. Plus, this is a legitimately funny joke, one that I’m surprised I’ve never seen before.

As for the rest — since a lot of creators send me links, I see a lot of beginner-level work, and none of what got posted by the class is on the low end of the beginner talent spectrum. As far as being interesting enough to make me check back without a reminder, Leon McKoy’s Desert Raine caught my eye; if none of the others did, well, I can count on one hand the number of single-update beginner-level webcomics that have over the past ten years, so no real failing there. Art will be refined, story beats will get more subtle, lettering, coloring, and spelling will all improve. With any luck, there will be more classes like this at CCNY, and we’ll be able to see the progression of these students and those in the future.

Also on the theme of lessons: Daniel Davis, maker of comics, prints, postcards, and the like, has shared some lessons learned over a half-decade of exhibiting at San Diego Comic Con, and he’s willing to share them with you. Key points you might want to pay attention to:

• Davis has run a profit each year at SDCC
• He’s also improved gross sales each year at SDCC
• He has a keen eye for things that could be done better (booth layout, payment solutions, visual appeal)
• He’s got the number of everybody that’s ever wondered, Should this be a shirt?:
  

  If you want to make a whole lot of money at the con, make prints/t-shirts based on a famous property that you don’t own, or mashup two hot properties. You’ll get some quick sales for sure.

  But I wouldn’t recommend it; it’s a short-term gain with no brand-building. You’re competing with tons of other folks doing exactly the same thing, it’s not memorable, I predict that eventually the big studios will shut down this sort of activity, and then you’ll have to start from zero all over again.

  It lacks story. “Why did you make X?” Oh, well I’m a fan of X.” That’s a boring story compared to being inspired, excited about your creation.

Read the whole thing, even if showing at a convention isn’t on your immediate list of things to do. There’s a lot of very astute self-analysis there.

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¹ The Latin Art-Throb, naturally.