There are a couple of kinds of ATTENTION that we want to talk about today. In both cases, take the lesson of how you want to pay.

• So I got a notification that the latest Girl Genius book-kicker was going up, on account of I’ve backed all of the previous books. I went by Kickstarter and saw an implausibly low number of backers and dollars (3 and US$140, respectively) and thought there was no way that I was in quick enough that I would be backer #4. Then I saw that the campaign was canceled, and an update from Kaja Foglio:
  

  I hit the launch button and then saw that the campaign was set to end in SEPTEMBER instead of in August. There was no way to change that, and I panicked and cancelled the campaign. I then had to go make a new clone of the whole thing. SO…The proper Sparks and Monsters campaign will be going live in the next few days, just as soon as it’s approved (again) by the Kickstarter team.

  So yeah, learn something new every day — Kickstarter won’t let you make changes once the campaign goes live, which I guess makes sense. The having to re-submit and re-approve it seems like something could be automated, a kind of accounting for whoopsies to say Look, it’s exactly the same but I changed this one typo but yeah — any loophole, eventually somebody will find a way to exploit it for nefarious purposes.

  Trust me — as a guy who has to edit his own stuff and who will go back to a piece that he’s read and linked literally dozens of times and still will find a typo or missing word, there’s no substitute for getting your most anal-retentive friend to look at your Kickstarter without any foreknowledge, and then report back on what they find. In this case, pretty much no harm done, but an annoyance that Professoressa Foglio surely didn’t need, particularly after her recent bout with bacterial colonization that landed her in the hospital. Double check everything, folks, and then get somebody else to triple-check it.

• When a creator tells you to hang on, there’s gonna be an update delay because multiple pages will go up at once, you in the next update, you PAY ATTENTION. They are cooking up something rad. Oh, sure, there’s sometimes oversized updated that take your breath away that casually drop without any notice (Meredith Gran was especially good at these), but when you feel a story climax coming on and there’s a notice of delay? That’s gonna be good.

  And when they deliver early? Buckle up.

  That, naturally, is the latest four pages of Kill Six Billion Demons by Tom Parkinson-Morgan (or Abbadon as he styles himself on the pages), which is what would happen if Old Testament apocrypha, New Testament eschatology, Medieval demonology, and half a liter of grain alcohol were thrown together and the results were emblazoned on the side of a van¹ blaring the heaviest metal known to science. And I mean that in the best way possible.

  It is the latest twist in the championship round of a gods-and-demons fighting tournament that has been going on roughly as long as a season of Dragonball Z, only with loads less posturing and delay, and way more character development. It’s the moment that one of the seven gods of the universe — one who’s just as full of himself as that face in panel four indicates — is caught by surprise just when he’s certain that he knows exactly what’s going on. It’s a living embodiment of the dictum If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him, with the caveat that there’s more than one way to kill a god. If you’ve not been reading the story you’re liking clearing time in your schedule to go back and start from the beginning.

  And if you have been reading, and following the very intricate and thought-out plot development for the last few hundred pages, I’m not sure what there is to say other than Great Googly Moogly. Shit just got kicked to the next level, and it’s only going to get wilder from here on out.

Spam of the day:

Welcome to Top Doors for all your commercial and residential door needs. Serving Toronto since 2004.

Tell you what, spammers from Russia, if I ever need a door in Toronto, I’ll hit you up. But as Toronto is some 600km away, I’m thinking it’s gonna be a while.

_______________
¹ Chain wheel optional.

Faith Erin Hicks has done a lot of graphic novels, and is one of the most reliable writer/artists we have working today; whatever the topic, whatever the genre, the book is going to be pretty to look at, consist of pages that serve the needs of the story, be cartoony enough to convey a range of action and moods, but not so much as to overwhelm the characters. One of her earliest works was The War At Ellsmere, and she’s recently reworked the visuals and tweaked the title, resulting in One Year At Ellsmere. The folks at :01 Books¹ were kind enough to send me an advanced review copy, and so we’re going to talk about it.

This is going to be a less than usual review (the original is a good dozen years old now, so you know what? it’s too late to worry about spoilers), and more a series of thoughts on what’s different. Hicks is not merely re-releasing an earlier work, but re-editing, or re-cutting it. Maybe the best analogy would be how some of the Star Trek series have been released with their SFX redone with modern technology to look good in resolutions that are commonplace today.

And then there’s the title; the story of a scholarship student arriving at a prestigious private school and being targeted by wealthy Queen Bee girls, there’s a definite shift in emphasis from The War to One Year. The former implies that Juniper was engaged in a period of conflict which ended; as she’s the protagonist, she presumably prevails. The latter implies that Juniper made it through a year, but there’s more in front of her, and the antagonists will surely not just tuck tail and leave her alone in coming years. It’s the difference between a one-and-done bad time in your life and the more complicated reality that you don’t solve all your problems in middle school.

Hicks hasn’t completely redrawn Ellsmere, although there are fairly obvious differences between War and Year; in the back matter she shows a pages-long process of redrawing the background of the opening splash page, finishing with a side-by-side comparison between an original page (at right) and the redrawn version (left); the inking is much less heavy — a practical consideration as Year has picked up an expert coloring job by Shelli Paroline — but there are other differences as well. Although Juniper is less redrawn than the tableau in front of her, she is different — her posture is less stiff, and crucially she’s reoriented on the page to a more forward position. In the original, she’s hanging back, in the redraw, she’s moving into the unknown. Even the looming tower in the distance is left perfectly geometrical and seems more plausibly real in the new version.

And although it’s not really obvious from behind, Hick’s style has evolved from rather Scot Pilgrimesque in War in the past dozen years. Reading one of Hicks’s later books — Pumpkinheads or an installment from The Nameless City, you know what Hicks’s style is like. Pick up a copy of War today and you’ll do a doubletake before you necessarily recognize the art as hers, much like suddenly seeing an original model sheet for Bugs Bunny. Hicks has almost split the difference here, bringing character designs into her modern style while retaining elements of the original, particularly around the eyes.

The story is as sharp as ever, but the reworking/remastering/rewhatever of the art makes it look more assured, resulting in an even stronger narrative impact. If you’ve got a copy of War on your shelf, strongly consider picking up Year, and if you don’t have it already, there’s never been a better time to read what is basically the exception to the rule that artists shouldn’t worry about going back to redo completed work.

One Year At Ellsmere is available in bookstores now; it’s highly recommended for anybody that would appreciate a go away to school and deal with bullies story that unlike, say, Harry Potter, doesn’t have 1000+ pages of bloat before you get to the end of the story. So basically, everybody.

Spam of the day:

Kalamazoo Erectile Dysfunction Health Center

Friend of mine from college was from Kalamazoo; he later became a nuclear engineer on an aircraft carrier, and told me on shore leave somewhere in a Gulf emirate, he was offered a dried lizard on a stick with the explanation it was For power … man power … man sex power. In this moment, I like to image that John has returned home and has a dried lizard on a stick import thing going.

_______________
¹ They say that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but do me a favor and check out Collen AF Venable’s cover design vs the original and tell me which has more shelf appeal.

With my unplanned hiatus coinciding with the runup to SDCC@Home, I am now drowning in vaguely amusing spam messages. Time to clear out the backlog in the very occasional and marginally popular Spamofthedaypalooza.

Spams of the day:

Re 670439 Infamous Eva Mendes literally almost collapsed from shock … he was such a shy kid I had no idea what he did.

You’re trying to convince me that Eva Mendes made a kid collapse from extreme Eva Mendesness?

Arctic Hat has a built-in radiant barrier to deflect and block 99% of the sun’ s harmful UV rays and reflects 80% of the sun’ s heat. Stay cool, comfortable, & protected with Arctic Hat!

You’re describing tin foil. Will it also protect me from the mind control satellites?

This New ‘ Summer Heat Busting’ Portable AC Device Takes United States of America by Storm

You’re describing a fan with a mister attachment.

In three hours, you will learn the premise behind creating a simulated nightclub and getting the audience in the act; the equipment and set-up instructions needed to create the simulation; marketing your shows, ticketing and generating a steady revenue stream. Fee: $44.95

Oh glob, we’ve got self-proclaimed Zoom experts now, competing with the self-proclaimed Kickstarter experts. Look, Chumpy, I’ve been using Zoom as the platform for my friggin’ job for the last two years, and you are not teaching me anything about how to move my nightclub (or other live-audience business; I’ve received variations on this one) in Zoom. You suck.

Do you have “LEAKY BRAIN SYNDROME?

The fun thing about leaky brains is how they schlorp out when you open the skull!

1 Bathroom Trick That Kills Diabetes

You have a way for me to poop out a new islet of Langerhans?

[Translated from German]
We are pleased that you would like to subscribe to our SATURN newsletter.

Dudes, I had a Saturn more than 20 years ago, and that entire division of GM has been out of business for nearly a decade.

[Translated from German]
Lump litter is characterized by its extremely good and fast lump formation.
1 sack (10 liters) — € 13.99 (gross, free delivery)

Gross is right.

Apologies if you are receiving this message a second time – you are receiving this message because you are on the official Comic-Con 2020 Media List.

Okay, time to get real. 90% of what I get from being on various cons media list is garbage and not relevant to me. And I don’t mind, as long as you give me a way to get off your list. Those many, many media contacts with an unsubscribe link? They’re good folks.

The ones with no unsubscribe link or way to stop getting their announcement about whatever a Kardashian is up to? They suck and get reported as spam.

The one shop that has an unsubscribe link in MailChimp and it doesn’t work because they send all their stuff not to individual emails but rather to one of their own people with everybody else BCC:’ed? They’re evil, and I unsubscribed them ’cause it was the only email I had access to, and I ratted ’em out to MailChimp. Don’t be evil, kids.

Spam of the day:
Spammers don’t get to share the day with spam.

Or something.

Hey. There’s something I could have thematically included in yesterday’s post, but

A: I didn’t want it to get overwhelmed in by everything else in the post on account of it deserves room to breathe, and

2: I can give you a more complete report because the thing was incomplete when I was posting yesterday.

Y’all, Shing Yin Khor¹ is a freakin’ genius, and slightly evil. They’ve been doing a distributed mystery for Patreon supporters, with physical artifact clues sent to different people, having them share experience and discoveries to determine what happened out past Portal 12.

Let me back up.

This is The Center For Otherworld Science, a comic about explorers who travel through portals to other universes to document the flora, fauna (often the same), and physical world there. It starts off as an excuse for Khor to draw their absolutely gorgeous unearthly critters, and turns pretty rapidly into a meditation on human worth and ethics.

This is the start of a mystery that Khor constructed, complete with correspondence, newspaper excerpts, and physical artifacts regarding the disappearance of a scientist and an engineer at the CFOS. Alexis was on the survey team that went through Portal 12, out to the safety boundary; Alexis was extremely sassy. Alexis and her fiance Jo seemed to be up to something before Alexis went past the safety boundary and disappeared, presumably dying.

Through official statements and memoranda on CFOS letterhead, the contents of Alexis’s desk, and samples returned from Portal 12, it quickly becomes apparent that this was no ordinary disappearance/death. After Jo also disappeared, their sister began to suspect that something was up. Strange rocks were found and made their way to Alexis’s ex, to researchers at the CFOS, or were found by family and friends.

Khor actually sent these to Patreonistas — field notes with blacklight ink; rocks with USB drives secreted inside; books that were really safes, with clues locked inside. There’s audio and video of the world beyond Portal 12, bits and pieces going to any given supporter, but none of them got all of the artifacts.

To create a fictional world, to create a mystery, and then to create all of the (mostly nonnative to this universe) physical objects to add layers of creepy verisimilitude to that mystery? That’s the work of somebody who is both genius-level creative and in all honesty somewhat more than slightly evil.

Read through the whole thing, and understand: you could be part of one of these at any time, if you decide to support Khor on Patreon. Just sayin’.

Spam of the day:

We get Rid of your Timeshare Contract

Wowsers. How bad do timeshares suck that there’s a population of scammers out there to prey on people desperate to get away from the first set of scammers that sold them the timeshare in the first place?

_______________
¹ Seen yesterday messing with a Deadpool figure; told you I could have mentioned it yesterday.

I mean, it’s not as bad as the regular hangovers, right? And the Con Crud is — depending on how you look at it — either completely absent, or entirely everywhere for months now. Here’s a couple things I noticed.

• I mentioned that Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett had worked out a mechanism to interact with fans during book personalization, and by his account it was a success in a couple of ways.

  First, LArDK got to interact with folks for the first time in for-evs; ever met LArDK? Dude thrives on interaction. He is genuinely thrilled to talk to every single person that comes to his booth. Second, he noted that most of the people that dropped into StudioCon had never been to a convention before. These were not just folks that make a point of dropping by his booth each year to see what’s new, they’re people that never had the opportunity to interact with him in person (for Zoomlike values of in person).

  This, for folks that make their living by cons, reflects a significant game change. Not only in this, the Plague Year, but in any year you can reach out to people that wouldn’t have been to a show to see you, and might not have made a purchase without the added incentive of Oh, I’ll get to tell [favorite creator] how much I love their work! That drive to human connection is powerful.

  So powerful, in fact, that StudioCon II is go for sometime in November, and LArDK being the rising-tide-lifts-all-boats kind of guy he is, is going to be talking about the tech setup he used for StudioCon in the next Protips edition of Comic Lab — that’s the podcast that you only get if you’re a Patreon supporter. Undoubtedly there are things that others will do differently, some for the better, and the sooner that conversation starts, the sooner con-dependent creators can get back to making some income — without the travel, the pack in/pack out, and the Con Crud.

• It’s not to do with SDCC@Home, but it’s too good to pass up — LArDK was also on a YouTube action figure-posing game show … thing? … along with David Malki ! and Shing Yin Khor. I have so many questions about what is apparently an entire series of similar contests. I’m not sure when it was recorded, but given that LArDK is missing his recent quaranstache¹, I’m guessing it was the Before Times. It’s so very, very weird but also kind of a hoot. Take ten minutes and watch what’s essentially the best commercial for a high-end Deadpool figure ever.
• So, something happened with respect to the Eisners, and I needed to make sure you saw it. The journalism award was given to Women Write About Comics — who collectively do terrific work — and the editor in chief made a statement that she² is not accepting the award.

  We at Fleen have been focused on the tech issues of the Eisner voting fiasco and not the way the actual vote was conducted. Apparently, the initial vote was cut short when the tech issues became undeniable, but when the new site was rushed into service, only folks who had voted in the truncated original voting period were allowed to register for the revote.

  What the hell.

  A lot of the discussion around the Eisner voting fiasco centered on the idea that the revote was rushed; given the severity of the breach, the noncommunication about what the fuck went wrong, and the lack of an actual con to give the awards out at, why didn’t the Eisner folks take the time to do a proper investigation, declare a complete fresh start, and run a full voting period open to all eligible pros? Why the rush to get things done instead of delaying the vote, delaying the awarding, and making sure it was done impeccably correct and beyond question?

  Nola Pfau’s choice is the very definition of integrity, and speaks to anybody that takes pride in their work. I still think everybody that won should be proud of their accomplishment, but I’ll be forgiven if I always look at the 2020 Eisners has having an asterisk next to the winner’s list.

Spam of the day:

End Gutter Cleaning Forever

Serious question here — why do we even have gutters? Why not just let rain fall all along the roofline?

_______________
¹ I am always in favor of moustaches, but I have to observe that due to the hair color and maybe the lighting in that StudioCon intro video, he’s halfway to looking like he’s gonna demand pictures of Spider-Man.

² The individual in question uses both she and they pronouns, but I’m using she specifically because she indicates this is a single person’s decision, and didn’t want to imply via an ambiguous they that it was collective.

I think this may be my last comment on the Eisner voting site breach fiasco but no promises.

This is the entirety of the CCI communications on this matter that I was able to find:

As a result of our investigation into the recently reported issues with the Eisner voting website, it appears this was not a malicious attempt but an error in the platform itself,” Glanzer told Newsarama. “While our examination of the records leads us to believe the problem is small and we have no direct evidence that any votes have been altered, out of an abundance of caution and care we have decided to re-run the vote with a current and secure voting platform.

That, by the bye, from David Glanzer, the chief communications and strategy officer of Comic Con International, aka the guy who wouldn’t answer my questions. Now I want you to contrast that with an email I received yesterday:

Let’s note the elements of what an actual breach disclosure communications look like:

• The organization contacts anybody potentially affected:
  

  We’re reaching out to let you know that the ACLU was notified of a security breach at one of our vendors, Blackbaud.

• Details of what happened and who was involved:
  

  Blackbaud, which works with many nonprofits to support their fundraising and engagement efforts, was the target of a ransomware attack. As a result, the hackers obtained some personally identifying information about Blackbaud’s nonprofit clients’ donors and prospective donors, including those of the ACLU. Please note that no credit card or bank account information was compromised in this breach. A full description of the incident is available here. (note: this link will take you to a third party website, blackbaud.com)

• Source of failure, current efforts, future direction:
  

  Blackbaud believes they have successfully retrieved the stolen data, but we cannot be completely certain this is the case. The ACLU’s contractual agreements have always required Blackbaud to keep our constituent information confidential and to have security procedures in place to minimize breaches.

  In all candor, we are frustrated with the lack of information we’ve received from Blackbaud about this incident thus far. The ACLU is doing everything in our power to ascertain the full nature of the breach, and we are actively investigating the nature of the data that was involved, details of the incident, and Blackbaud’s remediation plans.

  We are also exploring all options to ensure this does not happen again, including revisiting our relationship with Blackbaud.

• What you can do:
  

  If you have questions, please contact us at 1-888-567-ACLU (2258).

Please note that the failure on Blackbaud’s part was less than what’s been said to be compromised in the Eisners breach: although names and contact information were apparently up for grabs, there’s no indication that anything was changed as at the Eisner site.

Please also note that Glanzer’s statement was about the vote, and didn’t acknowledge the loss of control over the information about the voters. He doesn’t seem to understand that the vote is not more important than the voters.

To repeat again, the response from CCI has been wholly insufficient, and is likely in violation of California state law, EU law, and maybe that of other jurisdictions. I’m not competent to assess their legal liability, which is why it is critical that CCI get some godsdamned guidance from qualified Incident Response experts. Anybody that voted at the breached site should be demanding CCI get off their collective ass and treat this seriously.

The Eisner awards presentation went up last night, with Phil LaMarr doing a nice job of providing context and hopefully making all the nominees and winners feel like this is significant thing, even with the distance required.

It was a nice touch that the Hall Of Fame inductees (near the end of the program) were given the opportunity to make video acceptance speeches; I’m wondering if the Eisners will reach out to the winners of the 32 regular categories and give them the same opportunity.

Of the six inductees voted in (Nell Brinkley and E Simms Campbell were the historic inductees chosen by the jury), Alison Bechdel, Stan Sakai, and Louise Simonson spoke on their own behalf; Maggie Thompson accepted for herself, but also her late husband Don; Howard Cruse died last year and his award was accepted by Ed Sedarbaum, his husband. Bill Watterson declined to send an acceptance, but honestly — if you had the chance to have an award accepted on your behalf by Sergio Aragonés instead of public speaking, you’d probably do so, too.

Of the 32 regular categories, I called a couple closely-contested decisions, including Ebony Flowers (Hot Comb) for Best Short Story and The Way Of The Househusband, vol 1 as Best Humor Publication. I never did get around to looking at the digital/web nominees (on account of … yeah, everything), but we should acknowledge Chip Zdarsky and Jason Loo (Afterlift) as Best Digital Comic, and Erica Eng (Fried Rice Comic) as Best Webcomic¹.

But let’s talk about some Fleen favorites from last year:

• Raina Telgemeier took both her nominated categories — Best Publication For Kids and Best Writer/Artist for Guts.
• Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me touched three awards, with Mariko Tamaki getting the Best Writer nod (which included other works for the year), as well as Best Publication For Teens and Best Penciller/Inker for Rosemary Valero-O’Connell.
• Tillie Walden was up for three awards, and lost out on the lettering award to Stan Sakai² (who’s literally been winning Eisners since before Walden was born) and the writer/artist award to Raina, so no shame in either of those. But I imagine that’s made up for the fact that Are You Listening? took Best Graphic Album — New, marking at as the best, single new graphic novel of the year which … damn.

Kindly consider that of the 32 categories and 43 named winners³, 23 were women (25 men and 28 women if you count the Hall Of Famers). Black women, queer women, young women, old women, women going back to the dawn of cartooning are the major force in the creation of comics, and the people that make them — including the people that make cape comics that can only recycle storylines and try to maintain sales with endless reboots, variant covers, and line-wide crossovers — recognize them as the best in the medium.

And given that Walden and Valero-O’Connell are still in their mid-20s and getting better — not to mention teaching and inspiring the creators of tomorrow — none of that is changing anytime soon. That keening sound you hear in the distance is the increasingly-irrelevant cohort of manchildren that want comics to be their boys-only club that never changes, and their tears are delicious.

Weirdly, they didn’t announce the Spirit Of Comics Retailer Award in the video, but just as weirdly, they only announced the short list a couple of days ago; the website does mention that Sergio López of Nostromo Sevilla in Seville, Spain was recognized. That makes two years in a row for shops from Spanish-speaking countries, which is just another change for the better — comics is a worldwide artform, and the more people from different backgrounds about, the better it is for all of us.

Spam of the day:
Spammers don’t get to share the day with these awesome folks.

_______________
¹ As a reminder, Best Digital Comic appears online in comic book format, and Best Webcomic is a longform work created for viewing online, neither of which necessarily describe a lot of the best work being done on the web, which is why Matt Inman keeps getting nominated for Best Short Story, I guess.

² Who had a very good virtual night; Sakai also took the award Best Archival Collection/Project — Comic Books, for the hardcover/slipcased edition of the complete Grasscutter story from Usagi Yojimbo.

³ I’m omitting translators in this count.

And also because it deserves its own post, naturally

Rosemary Mosco does the best comics about the natural world; this is a fundamental truth. And more people than ever are going to get a chance to share in her Nature Wisdom, because Gina Gagliano at Random House Graphic has signed Mosco and Binglin Hu to a chapter book about a mole and a vole exploring their natural world, then suddenly getting transported to the city. Wild critters in the city? Gee, I wonder if Mosco has anything to say about that.

Expedition Backyard is due in 2022, and I’m going to just recommend you pre-order it now, because it is gonna be great.

Spam of the day:

New Miracle Coffee, Infused with ” Nature’ s Oxycontin” , Is a Breakthrough Pain Reliever for Americans

They mean CBD, by which they want you to think weed.

It’s a little odd to do a panel writeup when anybody can go back to see the panel themselves, but maybe some of you wouldn’t have watched the panel in the first place until somebody gave you a rundown and said Hey, this is neat. So consider this to be that — the conversation between Raina Telgemeier and Robin Ha was a talk that went some expected places, some unexpected places, and nicely overcame the inherent limitations of the video talk.

Excitement and enthusiasm aren’t things you expect to get in a teleconference, but Raina and Robin found a way to bring energy to their audience, despite being separated by time, space, and networking distance. Given that my job is teaching, and even in the Before Times it was often done over Zoom, so trust me when I tell you that to summon energy over the camera and make the viewer feel like they’re there in the room is entirely a thing.

The other thing that really struck me is how well the conversation flowed; there’s a need in such situations for somebody to direct things, and even moreso when network lag might enter into it. The best are able to sense when they need to yield the lead role to the other person for a while, and when to pick it up and run with it; Robin and Raina probably did the best job at knowing when to let the other drive I’ve seen since Scott McCloud and Gene Yang had a spotlight talk back in 2014. Like that earlier example, it was a case of two creators with similar sensibilities finding a resonant frequency that they could hop onto and off from as needed.

I’m almost tempted to make the paraphrases more exact and mine the video for quotes, but if I do that, I’ll never finish. I’m treating the session as if I sat in the room and just had the one shot to experience it; the words attributed to Ha and Telgemeier are paraphrases I’ve tried to make as accurate as possible, but words in italics are direct quotes.

The video was mostly split screen, with Robin on the left and Raina on the right, but occasionally it would switch to just one of them for emphasis. Both are spaces that have been carefully designed to show that they’re creative spaces, but neat and organized; everything is very professional-looking, and it makes an impression. You can tell that Raina’s done a lot of video remote interviews, as she’s got quite the setup — pro-looking mic on a boom with baffle, fill lights to make everything look even, and cameras that point down at her drawing desk that can feed a shadowless image.

Raina started off by asking Robin for details about her work, then Robin asked Raina about her latest book. The common theme between their work might be anxiety (appropriately enough, there was a Lucy Bellwood Inner Demon behind Raina on the shelf). Ha remarked that she had frequent stomachaches as a child which doctors could find no cause for; she noted that at that time, Korean culture’s view on stress and anxiety was … maybe not that they weren’t recognized, but maybe more that they were denied. Raina, by contrast, talked about how helpful it was that her parents were able to get her therapy to help deal with her anxiety as a child.

Ha brought the conversation around to the process of constructing a memoir, with Raina noting that it’s not always easy to tap into memories and history and something that’s a story in them; Guts wasn’t easy to make due to the subject, but also because the memories of the real people involved can vary. Her father was in his 40s when the story started, she was 8, so her memories are more directs to how she felt at the time about what happened. It’s necessary to take creative license, but you also have to want to get to the kernel of truth.

For Robin, growing up reading fantasy, scifi comics, and other work not based in reality makes it strange to be a cartoonist that draws mostly nonfiction, but at least I know what happens and how it’s going to end. She deeply feels the obligation to tell the story as truthfully as possible, given that it’s about real people, real life, wants to do justice to all of them as well. Her mother was completely against being in the book and was upset about being one of the main characters, because most of the things I talk about in the book happen because of her. Robin talked about how she had to earn her mother’s trust, tell her this is going to be a book that’s important to me but I respect you and want you to be okay with it. She gave her the manuscript after the layout stage, and was relieve that after two or three days she only had a couple of edits and loved it.

Raina asked if Robin and her mother talk about [the events of Almost American Girl] now that it’s done, or are you glad it’s done and don’t have to deal with it any longer. Robin talked about how the first couple of times she had a book signing in the DC area, her mother came and during Q&A had some of the questions directed to her. She was embarrassed by the spotlight, but enjoyed people telling her how much her action and bravery meant to them.

Raina brought up the topic of comics influences, and Robin mentioned that all of her most formative favorites were Korean or Japanese; her favorite creator wrote grand epic, LOTR style fantasy, but also loved CLAMP and the other 80s and 90s big names in manga, especially Ikeda Riyoko’s Rose Of Versailles, which was translated into Korean. When Robin first read around 8 years old, she didn’t know it was Japanese. I didn’t have a concept of anybody other than Koreans living on the Earth, I watched American shows dubbed into Korean and just figured the Friends spoke perfect Korean.

Raina, growing up years earlier and an ocean away from Japan, didn’t get much manga, but was much influenced by newspaper comic strips. As recounted numerous times, her first manga was Barefoot Gen, which her father gave her at age 10 because hey, she loves comics, right? Yeah, a tragic story about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima opened her mind, but it was also a disconnect from, say, Calvin And Hobbes. Robin remarked on the power of comics to take something huge and hurtful and turn it into something meaningful for readers.

She then suggested that they each do a drawing of something that happened during self-isolation, and turned to an easel to draw herself in her first Zoom session, unnecessarily shouting to be heard. I’m the worst at technology, worse than some of the grandmothers I know, she explained. Raina did a sketch of her compromise with everybody’s new bread-baking habit during quarantine. After all, there’s only so much bread you can each by yourself, so she’s shifted into baking pizza, on account of you can always eat pizza.

The back half of the talk was dedicated to questions solicited from readers on Instagram and Twitter.

Maddy, age 13: What would your non-author job be?
Robin: Probably fine arts, like a painter. When I was little, I went to art school after school, I did fine art in college, I was always a painter first.
Raina: What I enjoy most is planning stuff. I’ve had to change my personality because of pandemic, because I am no longer planning my next trip, my next tour, deciding where I’m going to eat in the next city. So I think I might have been a publicist. I love spreadsheets and plans and calendars!

Brisa, age 9: How did you get over your fear of vomit? I’m afraid of it too.
Robin: Me too!
Raina: The clinical term is emetophobia, and I didn’t learn the term until my early 30s. Once I learned the term, I learned there are ways to make it better. I went to therapist that specialized in treating phobias, did and did cognitive behavior therapy. I learned a lot about breathing, how to ground myself, how to engage my mind in other ways when I felt the panic. One of the techniques is exposure therapy, which means experiencing the thing you’re afraid of in small doses. [Editor’s note: The look on Ha’s face read, Oh, no.]

My therapist did not make me throw up in his office [Editor’s note: And now Ha’s expression shifted to Whew.] It was about saying the word out loud, seeing it written on paper, and eventually I got to see photographs or hear audio recordings. I learned to face my fear and very, very gradually your anxiety decreases. I would not have been able to write Guts without having had the therapy first.

Fox, age 13: You get bullied a lot in your books, do have any advice for readers who are bullied?
Robin: The most important thing is to know it’s the bully who has a problem, not you. Never think of it as like it’s your fault. It’s not something to be ashamed of, or that there are reasons you’re being treated that way. Don’t try to go through it alone, find allies, talk about it.
Raina: I’m going to echo finding somebody you can trust, a place to talk about it, somebody on your side to remind you of everything Robin said. There’s so many kinds of bullying and one of the worst is when the bully is your friend.
Robin: You end up afraid of losing your friends, but there’s millions of people out there and the “friends” you’re afraid of losing and being alone aren’t going to be around forever! They’re going to be replaced by somebody better as you grow older and evolve into a new person, so don’t worry about keeping them.

Mia, age 12: What made you have the passion to start writing?
Robin: I started reading comics before books, thanks to my mom who is also a big comics reader; I wanted to grow up and become a cartoonist, write down my ideas, plan on what I’d create.
Raina: I was a big diary writer in addition to drawing, then figured I could put them together. I made my first journal comics when I was 11 years old about what happened to me each day and never showed them to anybody. People would ask if I wanted to be a writer when I grew up and I said No, because I don’t have any ideas. [Editor’s note: It appears that young Raina was a bit mistaken.]

So you thought you were going to be a fantasy writer and wound up doing personal comics and memoir, I thought that wasn’t even an option. This isn’t a job! I wish I’d had more access to memoir when I was growing up as an example. [Editor’s note: This is a classic case of how if something you need doesn’t exist, the best thing is to invent it.]
Robin: Are you going to show your comics you made when you were 11?
Raina: They’re not very good! I think not being good is kind of important, they don’t have to perfect, they don’t have to be for show, they don’t have to be for anybody but yourself because you enjoy doing it. I did it as a hobby, would have continued if I was a publicist instead.

Josie, age 13: Do you envision drawings first or words first?
Raina: For me they come together; in my head it’s visual and I can hear the words. I draw a quick box, some stick figures, words, balloon, expression on the face. I write entire manuscripts and my editor works from these thumbnails. I have to draw the head, and the mouth before the words come to me. I’m actually not great at keeping a sketchbook, if they’re not acting, not talking, it doesn’t work.
Robin: I’m the same way; the story comes to me like a movie or a dream, a scene with characters acting in my head. I draw index card size at the scene level. Now I’m working on fiction, a fantasy like it was my childhood dream to create. I actually had to transcribe what I envisioned in my head as text, as it’s easier to edit and have other read it because my sketches are super rough, they only make sense to me. I have a synopsis, I can’t wait to draw it.
Raina: Is this an announcement?
Robin: I can show you a few drawings [holds up two pages of character studies; see below for the images] It’s going to be like drama and action, there’s going to be shapeshifters and murder.
Raina: Oooo!

Chandrima, no age: I want to publish my own graphic novel, what suggestions do you have?
Robin: You need to first learn to finish your comics. I had a plan for an epic, 500 page fantasy for my first graphic novel and they’re very fun for the first 20 pages, but you have to be able to finish it! Start small, maybe 20 pages, finish it, have something you can show to people.
Raina: I always say that, start small! Have two characters in a conversation, or a small adventure. Do another, maybe turn it into a collection of short stories in your world, work on your skills, maybe you find that you don’t really like doing comics and want to just write or just draw. Just start on page 1, put in some sketches and word balloons.
Robin: One danger of doing something long as a young creator is your style may change over the course of that 500 page epic, or your taste in stories may change. So if you’re on a project that going to take years to finish and by the middle you’re a different kind of writer or artist, it’s not fun.
Raina: Read lots of comics! Different kinds, styles, genres. There’s so many out there to read and learn from.

They finished up by recommending some book and comic stores that they’re familiar with.
Robin: Here in Washington, DC, Loyalty Bookstores is owned by a queer Black woman; it has a lot of great signings and community events, I highly recommend them. Also, Big Planet Comics, they have an excellent curation of indie and mainstream comics, there’s always something going on there.
Raina: Brain Lair Books¹ in South Bend, Indiana, is Black owned, and has a great graphic novel selection which you can find on their website. Check out their recommendations on YA and MG books, too. And Green Apple Books is my local independent bookstore in San Francisco; I’ve been going there since I was a teen, they have great comics and kids selections. Check them out, and support your local bookstore.

Photos!
Robin Ha shared two images of characters from her forthcoming drama/action/shapeshifters/murder fantasy epic. I love the hair designs in the female-presenting character — they have a lot to say about station and class. The male-presenting character has a little Jaeger by Carla Speed McNeil in his DNA. It might be the attitude, it might be the eyes. I very much want to read this book.

The Eisners are tonight; I’ll post this now so you don’t have to wait until after midnight EDT to read, and do a writeup of notable winners later.

_______________
¹ As per the description on the panel page, The first 100 purchases of Raina books from Brain Lair that use the promo code RAINATA at checkout will receive a signed bookplate.

Web Comics: Saving the Entertainment Industy [sic], Four Panels at a TIme[sic]
So when I did the programming guide t’other day I typed in the session titles manually; I didn’t notice until just now when I got lazy and copy/pasted that the title of this session features two separate typos. Let’s just hope that this isn’t a metaphor for the panel itself.

[fires up the session]

Welp, that was … a thing. It’s a mere 26 minutes and 38 seconds long, starting out with the moderator reading the panel description verbatim before mentioning four-panel webcomics, not acknowledging anything else about the medium, presenting a thesis of OMG did you know there are comic strips on teh intarnetz??!! I made it to the 3:16 mark when the moderator told one webcomickers People weren’t coming within six feet of you even before [COVID] hit.

Sorry, but Ha ha, laugh chuckles, you’re a reclusive loser and people hate you is pure douchebaggery and not something I’m spending any brain on. I’d say that it’s a shame this panel wasn’t in person because the message of closing my notebook, putting away my pen, and standing up in the front row (where I typically do my panel reporting from) and leaving less than three and a half minutes into a session would have sent a message, but honestly? I only checked this one out because I didn’t have to walk across the convention center. The description was not promising and it was sadly accurate.

Shaenon Garrity In Conversation With Andrew Farago
Now that’s more like it. Andrew Farago, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum, went above and beyond in preparing for conducting a Special Guest Spotlight interview with Shaenon Garrity — he’s spent every day of quarantine living with his subject, which makes sense given that they’ve been a couple forever. It provided an advantage that most every other session won’t have, in that it’s not a thing for Garrity and Farago to sit next to each other on the couch and have a face-to-face conversation¹.

And despite the fact that there’s literally nothing Farago wouldn’t know about Garrity’s work and career², he’s a skilled enough interviewer to ask the questions that prompt answers that will both satisfy Garrity’s longtime fans and also people not really familiar with her work. The conversation ranged from the challenges of monetization — what happens when your bandwidth costs exceed what you make from ad revenues? — to the shift from webcomics portals and collectives to scrapping for eyeballs on social media giants of today.

Garrity’s known and worked with so many people over her career, people that have gone on to be key contributors everywhere from King Features to :01 Books that Farago remarked that comics only exists today because of her and Joey Manley; while Garrity put most of the credit towards Manley, I would note that this page has for years noted that Garrity is a Nexus Of All Webcomics Realities³ (and Tiki Queen of the Greater Bay Area). She sits at the center of so many people, who connect other people, who connect other people. If you have anything to do with comics, you’ve probably got as many different connecting paths to Garrity as Kevin Bacon has to … let’s say Kermit The Frog^{4, 5}.

All in all, Garrity and Farago offer the superior choice if you’re looking for a webcomics-focused discussion, as I don’t see any others on the schedule until you get to the Keenspot panel on Sunday, and even that appears to be more about how one of Bobby Crosby’s stories got picked up and adapted to a movie that may or may not ever happen what with everything going on.

Back with more tomorrow.

Spam of the day:

Are you tired of struggling to get Instagram followers and engagement?

As I do not, have never, and never will have a Facebook/Instagram account, I’ma say the answer to that one is no.

_______________
¹ Or, more properly, both half-facing each other but mostly facing the camera.

² Literally within two minutes of talking about her post-college cartooning start, Garrity talked about how webcomics circa 2000 were unique in that they might be inspired by comic strips, but would feature long plotlines and story arcs that would never fly in newspapers, which put her several million up on the guy in the earlier, allegedly webcomics-centric session.

³ The others being Ryan North and George.

⁴ Although the Bacon Oracle should list Mr The Frog’s Bacon number as 2 — there are a whole bunch of people in The Muppet Movie with Bacon numbers of 1, such as Charles Durning, Steve Martin, Elliott Gould, Austin Pendleton, and Bruce Kirby.

⁵ Which puts me in mind of the Erdős-Bacon number, whereby a small number of scientists and actors have connections to both Kevin Bacon and prolific mathematician Paul Erdős. I’m guessing there’s some number of cartoonists that can site their connections to both Bacon and Garrity, but if there’s a chain from Garrity to Harvey Pekar you won’t need two separate connections, as Pekar had a Bacon number of 2.