Beginning

Ending

Begun a while back, hopefully ending soon

Edit to clarify: Gary here; in this post, I state that Commie Comics is harvesting RSS feeds, and in point of fact, I don’t know that’s what it’s doing. The About page (linked above) states:

It runs a cron job every 15 minutes that grabs the latest comics from a collection of websites.

… which may or may not pull from RSS feeds. Whether it is or not isn’t the point; the point is I did a bad job of explaining my position above. Let’s start fresh:

The ethics of harvesting comics is situation-dependent; if CC does pull from an RSS feed and said feed features only the comic, then that’s fair game. If the RSS feed features a link to the comic’s page, or features strip + associated content and the aggregator is pulling only the strip minus the original context, that’s not cool. And naturally, if that “every 15 mintues” is a visit directly to the comic in question to harvest the comic, that’s no good at all. In any event, the creator/owner of Commie Comics, by his note on the About page, seems to acknowledge that he’s on shaky ground.

Many thanks to Christopher Wright for his comment (below), which forced me to clarify my position.

First up, the joint Dumbrella/TopatoCo meet, greet, kick up your feet extravaganza planned for the end of the month. I believe all the relevant details are on the event poster, designed by KC Green, but one must note a few things:

1. KC has rendered the webcomickers super adorably (especially the little Chris Hastings, casually scooting over the ice with his hands in his coat pockets, the living embodiment of insouciance), but please note that many of them are larger in real life than shown on the poster
2. KC has done a magnificent job of expressing exactly how homoerotic the main character from Altered Beast (that would be the shirtless dude on the centipede) is
3. KC has mixed his metaphors — yes, it’s frozen times in the snow, thus the AT-AT but Jeff Rowland is in the picture and logically Jeff should be represented by Admiral Ackbar and he’s from a whole different movie and GOD, KC what is the deal

For those of you that don’t make it to Webcomics On Ice (and maybe even if you do), there’s an event the following week in New York; it’s got nothing to do with webcomics qua webcomics, but I thought it worth mentioning. The Most Literary Rent Party Ever is being held at PS 122 in the East Village on 6 February to benefit novelist Charles Bock and his wife Diana Colbert with medical expenses related to the recurrence of her leukemia:

Some 18 writers will be on hand, including Susan Cheever, Jonathan Franzen, Richard Price and Mary Gaitskill, and many of them will be auctioning off their services. Amy Hempel will walk your dog, Ms. Maazel explained over the phone. Rick Moody will write a song for you. And Gary Shteyngart will “buy you a hot dog and flatter the pants off you.” The Cleaver Co., a caterer, is providing its services at a discount; P.S. 122 is donating its space; and the Brooklyn Brewery is contributing free beer. John Wesley Harding, among others, will perform, and Ms. Maazel said there might some booths where for, say, a dollar a minute one could obtain literary advice.

Creators of longform story comics, that last item is tailor-made for you, or would be if the event weren’t sold out (there is a waitlist if you want to try). Mostly, I wanted to make sure you knew about TMLRPE because it reminded me of the sense of community that you get when very creative people (who for much of the time work solo) come together to do something good. Hopefully, you’ll find it as inspiring as I did, as we head into a well-deserved weekend. See you all on Monday.

You know what I don’t talk about enough? Dicebox, by Jenn Manley Lee. It’s right over there in the blogroll, its story is nothing short of brilliant, and the art — so much detail, so much depth to the color, so much work goes into every panel (see the piece written by my erstwhile cohort Jeff Lowrey more than five years ago on this very page), and it’s been going on for so long, one just assumes the brilliance is obvious and takes it for granted. Mea culpa.

Let’s expand on that “it’s been going on for so long” idea a bit, shall we? Book 2 of Dicebox began two days ago, which means that Book 1 is complete, and that means that Book 1 (of a planned four books) can be printed as an undivided single unit. Pre-orders went up on 10 January, and as of about six hours ago (at the time of this writing), Lee reports that more than 10% of the books required to make the print run viable have been pre-purchased.

And you’ve got some choices with those books — much like Dylan Meconis did with Family Man‘s first book, there are different editions at different price-points, with varying degrees of goodies attached. These range from The Simple (US$25 plus shipping, for a signed copy — which one should note is a freakin’ bargain, given it’s more than 300 pages, 8″ x 10″ in size, and probably several new printing technologies had to be invented in order to get the depth and subtlety of color properly reproduced) up through The Sponsor (US$500, with the book upgraded to hardcover, and including a hand-colored tip-in sheet, a print, actual dice in a cup, and your choice of story pages recreated by Lee in watercolor just for you). It’s like a Kickstarter, only without the progress & countdown bars.

Even if you’re only enthusiastic about Dicebox (as opposed to rabidly enthusiastic — there really aren’t any other kinds of Dicebox readers, near as I can tell), you ought to pick this one up. After all, somewhere in the indicia, there will be a mention of where the book was printed, and then all webcomickers will find out which company is willing to print 300 pages at a very reasonable cost, and then we’ll get a lot more full-color, thick books from all of our favorite creators. Win-win-win, QED.

• Speaking of Kickstarter, there’s one I’d like to direct your attention towards, offered by Michael Gianfrancesco, to fund a new comic anthology to be titled Show and Tell, a Comic Anthology about Learning and Teaching. Alexander Danner (who is on the editorial board for Show and Tell, and who tipped me to the story) informs us:
  

  This anthology is part of a larger project that we are very excited about — the New England Comic Arts in the Classroom conference, which will be held March 26th in Providence, Rhode Island. Guests at the con will include Raina Telgemeier and Tracy White.

  Comics, naturally, have an affinity in the classroom, if only to judge by the many uses of them around the world to teach language and literacy. We will be following both the conference and the anthology closely.

• Once more back to Dicebox — if you look carefully around at Ms Lee’s store, you might notice something that most stores don’t have: a blog. It’s pretty short (given that the shop’s only just opened), but having this sort of mechanism within the store itself to communicate with your readers is a pretty damn good idea. Something similar just launched over at the Transmission X storefront, making it easy to note specials, low quantities, sold out items, etc.

  In the past week I’ve noticed creators from Box Brown to Rich Stevens tweeting or posting on their main pages about store special offers (Stevens) or imminent out-of-print status (Brown). But if a customer missed those announcements and just wandered over to the store directly? Just seems to me if it deals with your merch and it’s worth mentioning, it’s worth mentioning again where the merch is presented. Heck, TopatoCo’s landing page focuses on new items, shipping deadlines, special announcements, and whatever weirdness is spilling out of Malki ! today. If they can do it, you can do it.

• Lastly, it’s getting a lot of attention right now — a manifesto on not being a particular type of internet jerk in webcomic form, courtesy of Rosscott and Caldy. See Something? Cite Something has already spawned shirts based on the bottom two images in the flowchart, one of which has been objected to by a copyright owner. Irony? Or ultimate manifestation of the message in the strip? Regardless, it’s been pulled in accordance with the copyright holder’s wishes, and no need for C&Ds or legal threats. So that’s all right, then.

So I got an email about two weeks back — in celebration of several birthdays that are pretty close to each other (one being that of the very sexy Rich Stevens, who turns 34 today), there was gonna be a party at the Eastworks building (lunar base of Dumbrella, TopatoCo, and more comics types that you can shake a stick at) featuring all the arcade games that Stevens and his mailroom minion Melissa have been acquiring in anticipation of opening a cafe/arcade. Said party took place this past Saturday, and there were snacks, and booze, and machines on freeplay, and awesome times to be had. I also picked up an interesting piece of intel regarding a book deal and thought, Huh, that makes perfect sense; in fact, it’s so obvious I must have heard it elsewhere previously and everybody knows it. Hold that thought a moment.

Said intel, it turned out, was not common knowledge, and was broken by The Spurge as a scoop (since confirmed by the principals) this morning, which left me smacking my head in exasperation because honestly, sometimes I don’t even rise to the level of hack webcomics pseudo-journalist. Clearly, I haven’t pseduo-journalised enough, and must pseudo-journalise more. Said scoop, naturally, being that Kate Beaton (everybody’s favorite) has been picked up for publication by Drawn & Quarterly (again, just about everybody’s favorite) for the publication of a fancy hardcover collection of her work. However, the interesting-est part of Spurgeon’s report was, for me, this tidbit near the end:

Beaton’s representative Seth Fishman has sold UK rights to the book to Jonathan Cape, and will further represent the work to international markets.

Which, again, is just one of those things that makes sense. For the past couple of years everybody that speaks English and talks about [web]comics has been raving about Beaton’s work, so why shouldn’t it have appeal around the world? We at Fleen congratulate D&Q and Beaton for their partnership, and Tom Spurgeon for actually having journalistic instincts. For myself, I will just note that I was indulging in a couple of happy–making influences, so perhaps it was inevitable that it slipped my mind.

(By the bye, today being the actual birthday of Mr Stevens, he’s got a free shipping sale until the day is up, and a special story for your enjoyment.)

• In other news that I am not the first person to tell you, the first Dark Horse collection of Axe Cop is wonderful (yes, I’m weeks late, but my local shop just got it back in stock). When the creation of Los Bros. Nicolle was brand new, I wrote the following:
  

  Having thoroughly enjoyed AXE COP episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 0, and 5, I am only left to wonder a) at how good they are, and b) if all of us were that creative at age five and just had it beaten out of us.

  It’s that second thought that came back to me as I was reading Ethan Nicolle’s between-chapter notes in Axe Cop Volume 1 — at one point, he describes his work with Malachai as “a race against puberty.” At some point, Ethan figures, Malachai will lose that anarchic, creative streak (or maybe discover girls) and then there’s no more Axe Cop. Here’s hoping that the feedback and encouragement that Malachai’s receiving means that his imagination doesn’t get tamed.

• Last bit of bears-repeating today — the latest iteration of Super Art Fight hits home turf The Ottobar in Baltimore next Friday, 21 January, at 9pm. And although not a sanctioned event, SAF will be at MAGFest 9 in Alexandria, Virginia this weekend in its portable aspect. Details, as usual, at the SAF website.

Hey, hey, kids! Let’s talk about the last gasps of culture before we’re all buried under wintry death straight out of Roland Emmerich’s wet dreams.

• In LA, far from the impending doom, Scott C[ampbell] will have an exhibition show of his Great Showdowns. For those of you that aren’t familiar, the Great Showdowns feature key moments from movies, a single line of dialogue, and the cutest lopsided grins ever recorded on amphibians, inanimate objects, sociopaths, and hulking killing machines. It kicks in on 4 February at Campbell’s usual LA venue, Gallery 1988, and it’s your opportunity to own one of these marvelous treasures.
• Our friends at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco (also far from the impending no-friction, low-temperature doomathon) will shortly be opening an exhibition (indeed, one might say a definitive retrospective) of the career of a one Mr Berkeley Breathed¹. From the early days of Bloom County to his gorgeous illustrated picture books, Breathed has always been an influence on a generation of [web]cartoonists. Basically, if you’re over 30 and draw a strip, Breathed was one of your inspirations. From Bloom County to Mars: The Imagination of Berkeley Breathed runs from 5 February to 19 June, with the big opening reception on 1 April (details TBA).
• From an episode of a radio show (that would be the stellar RadioLab) on what happens when we die, containing a short story about one possible afterlife (read by the incomparable Jeffrey Tambor), comics artist Blue Delliquanti took some inspiration. Here, then, is a 24 page adaptation of Metamorphosis, a short story by neuroscientist David Eagleman. As much as I enjoyed Tambor’s sonorous, soulful reading of Metamorphosis, I think that Delliquanti’s comic adaptation is even more affecting.
• Not a show in the traditional sense, per se, but the members of ACT-I-VATE are putting together a virtual gallery show of webcomics featuring monkeys (okay, “primates” in the general sense, but I knows a monkey when I sees it) from an astonishingly wide range of talent (from veterans to up-and-comers) as a benefit for the Primate Rescue Center in Nicholasville, KY. It’s called Panels for Primates and it’s operating strictly on a donation basis, so if you like what you’re reading, give the PRC a few bucks, hey?

_______________
¹ Not a typo, but a tribute to one of my favorite Bloom County throwaway gags.

Expecting that 48 hours from now is going to be firmly in the “no fun” category. How about we grab some laughs while we can?

• Wigu’s back. Gonna be an interesting day, what with the media convinced young Master Tinkle is the son of God and all. Economically, Jeff Rowland has told you everything you need to know about Wigu and his family (involving more than 1000 strips across nine years and three days) in a mere ten panels. Even if you’ve never read Wigu before, you’ve got an operating sense of the crazy distilled down into a single page (arguably, a single panel, that of the MacaTaCaHodo 360), rendering you into a fit state of mind to see what happens next. Strap in, it’s gonna be a bumptacular ride (MWF until Rowland gets the hang of story cartoonin’ again).
• Via the twitter of a police officer with a woodland hand tool (and hopefully his first book will be back in stock today and I can finally pick it up), news about a new webcomic worth following from the very beginning:
  

  Fair warning, @tennapel is starting a web comic. First page goes up [today]: http://bit.ly/gco5eW Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  In this case, @tennapel would be Doug TenNapel, creator of Earthworm Jim and The Neverhood, contributor to Flight 2, and creator of a literal stack of wildly creative comics. The webcomic in question is Ratfist, and we appear (with all of one page to judge from) to have a Batman wannabe that’s about to find his crimefighting and romantic lives collide in spectacular fashion. Don’t wait for a backlog of strips to pile up — get in on this one now.

• Hey, guess who got a Xeric Grant? Steve LeCouilliard, of Much The Miller’s Son. LeCouilliard’s retelling of the Robin Hood legend (which, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern style, focuses on the POV of a minor character that most people had never heard of) shows you what all the famous types were really like: variously drunk (Friar Tuck), politically naive (Maid Marian), perpetually horn-doggin’ (Robin, natch), murderously larcenous (Will Scarlet), delusional (Alan a’ Dale) or Lenny from Of Mice and Men (Little John).

  Poor Much might be the only sane one among them (at least, he’s got a healthy sense of self-preservation), and if not for that unrequited crush he’s got on Marian he might actually get the hell out of Sherwood and settle down to a nice boring life of not getting the crap kicked out of him or being hunted by the sheriff’s goons. It’s a hoot. And now, book three of Much’s adventures (I was lucky enough to pick up 1 & 2 from LeCouilliard in San Diego this year) will now be underwritten by the award. With luck, Much 3 (tentatively named Nobody’s Vault But Mine) will see print by summer, but if you can’t wait, it starts here, with interspersed pinups, guest strips, and gift art.

Almost more than one can keep up with today. Let’s dive in, shall we?

• From Tony Piro‘s twitterfeed, news that Calamities of Nature is one of the twelve finalists in the Washington Post’s “Riffy” Awards, webcomics division. One might note that two of the nominees, xkcd and Jesus & Mo are in the running for the overall Best Comic (Any Medium) award.
• Speaking of the Riffies, one might also note that one of the nominees is The Oatmeal, the status of which as “comic” or not formed a great deal of the discussion on the latest Webcomics Weekly. Yet another of the nominees (Scott Kurtz for PvP) has Opinions on this, and outs himself as a curmudgeon in both the podcast and yet another comment thread at The Daily Cartoonist. Even more remarkably, Kurtz and his nemesis, Ted Rall, find themselves in agreement towards the end of said comment thread! In other news, the end of the world has been moved forward from 2012 to next Thursday.
• Book alert — the first Girl Genius novelization (first reported about six months back), Agatha H[eterodyne]. and the Airship City has been in release since the first, but 12 January (which by amazing coincidence is Professora Kaja Foglio‘s birthday) is Girl Genius Day. If you intend to buy the book but haven’t yet, make your purchase that day and make a bit of a splash, hey? After all, there is precedent.
• How does Warren Ellis do it? Today marks the 120th 6-page update of FreakAngels, which makes it the last update to be a part of the fifth reprint collection (each of which consists of 24 updates of 6 pages), which is due for release on 8 February — a mere 32 days from today. That’s called not letting your audiences have to wait to give you money. Granted, Internet Jesus has the advantages of an established name and no backlog of stories to work down, but damn. That’s some organization right there.
• Darryl Cunningham, who did such a wonderful comic about Andrew Wakefield (whose falsified vaccine “research” almost certainly caused children to die of preventable diseases) back in May was well ahead of the curve — the British Medical Journal are reporting on Wakefield’s actions (they mince no words, calling it fraudulent) this week, and Wakefield is finally getting the attention he deserves. Too late for some of those kids, of course, and no matter how thoroughly he’s discredited he will still have those that believe him uncritically (no links, not giving them any traffic), but it’s good to know that investigative cartooning has a valued place. How valued? Cunningham tweeted that the BMJ wants to reprint his cartoon in the student version of their journal. Well done, Mr Cunningham.
• Family News — via webcomics überfan Michael Kinyon (seriously, I read five or six dozen webcomics regularly; he reads several times that), the news that the irregular postings and hiatuses over at Digital Pimp Online are done. Creator Kevin Gleason’s son, Alexander, has had multiple health issues and surgeries in his short life, and now he’s healthy. Congratulations to the entire Gleason family. Oh, and congrats as well to Greg and Liz Dean, who are expecting their first child. If Real Life is a bit sporadic over the next decade and a half, I hope you’ll understand.
• Finally, late-breaking news that Kate Beaton has been invited to Yale University for the purpose of a Master’s Tea Q&A with the The Yale Record. The fun kicks off at 4pm on Monday the 24th, at the Pierson Master’s House, 231 Park St on the campus of Yale.

Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps the greatest animation director that ever lived (and understand that I have multiple Chuck Jones originals hanging in my home, so I set the bar pretty damn high) turns 70 today. Aside from the fact that I was once close enough to reach out and touch him (I did not), my relationship with Miyazaki is based purely on the astonishingly high quality of his many animated films. His works have made me laugh until I cried, cry until I laughed, and think until my thinker was sore.

Although to the best of my knowledge Miyazaki has never worked in webcomics, it’s entirely meet and proper to salute him today on this page for a few reasons:

• The quality of his work is near-universally acclaimed, and his influence is apparent in the work of many who do produce webcomics
• His approach to his creations is rather webcomicish — although Studio Ghibli is big enough to merit its own museum, it doggedly pursues personal projects guided by almost singular vision, rather than having a market research driven, corporatized approach to its creations
• It’s my damn blog and I’ll salute whoever I want to

We’ll also mention that, in conjunction with Miyazaki’s birthday, the ToonSeum in Pittsburgh is hosting a series of screenings of his movies this month; anybody in Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, or that weird little finger of West Virginia that sticks up rudely that hasn’t seen Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, or Princess Mononoke on a bigger-than-TV screen, don’t let this opportunity pass you by. Laputa runs 7pm on Thursday the 13th, Totoro 3pm on Saturday the 22nd, and Mononoke 7pm on Thursday the 27th; admission is by donation.

• Recent long-form comic read-it-in-big-chunks catch-ups: Go Home Paddy, Zahra’s Paradise, Sailor Twain. All are just about to cross that point where getting all caught up is slightly inconvenient. Also, a huge re-reading of about two thirds of A Girl And Her Fed, because … well, never mind why. If you haven’t read it previously, it’s only about four dozen strips since the big jump in the storyline (part one finished, part two is “five years later”, you can get caught up here) and now’s a good time.

  The Guigster made a comment the other day at Webcomics Dot Com (subscription required) that he thinks 2011 will be the year of the longform story webcomic, and with contributions like these, it’s hard to dispute him.

• Finally, the TCAF ’11 website is now live, and wowsers just look at the list of exhibitors. Aside from the minor detail that the partnerships of Frank Gibson & Becky Dreistadt, and Ananth Panagariya & Yuko Ota only list the first half of each team (by coincidence, the writerly halves), there’s pretty much not a damn thing I’d change about this lineup. Now to see if the sovereign nation of Canada will let me across the border.

Grumble! Fortunately, a series of quick, self-explanatory items today.

• Following up on yesterday’s posting, Ryan Estrada (dammit, I’m never living that down) has started posting clips from The Alias Men, this one featuring the vocal stylings of Scott Kurtz.
• From Jess Fink, news of a comics-themed show at the Museum of Sex in New York, including pages from Chester 5000 XYV [NSFW]. The show goes up 13 January at MoSex, 5th & 27th in Manhattan.
• From Child’s Play, news that the 2010 year-end total hit US$2.3 million (or at least within six grand of 2.3 million; alternately, 99.75% of 2.3 million, which I think allows one to round up and not be accused of exaggeration). For those interested, this brings the lifetime total for Child’s Play north of US$9 million.
• For those that have insufficient supplies of adorableness in their lives, Becky Dreistadt has a new sketchblog for presenting her warm-up drawings.
• At long last, Dave Kellett’s sci-fi Saturday strip/Sheldon offshoot, Drive, has its own site. No more skipping through the Sheldon archives a week at a time to catch up on the adventures of Nosh, Steve, and the rest of their motley band of spacefarers.
• Finally, news that Indigo Kelleigh (you may know him as the showrunner of a little comics-related show that, oh, everybody attends) has collected the first “issue” of Ellie Connelly in electronic form for a piddling ninety-nine cents. With Ellie generating some income, this will hopefully make it worth Kelleigh’s while to toss us more pages, which would be a good thing, as it’s a good story. Like, Tintin levels of good, only with little chance of being appropriated by Spielberg for a really scary-looking film adaptation.

The end of the year’s always dead time for webcomics, what with people wanting to enjoy holidays and eat pie and all, but a few things happened while we were all away. A bunch of us got buried under a metric crapload of snow (66 cm ’round these parts), I got severely behind on news, and by the time I came up for air, I just said “Screw it” with respect to writing any kind of year-end retrospective. But we’re back now, and ready to get back to the absolute finest in webcomics pseudo-journalism.

• From the Holy Crap He Did It Desk, word that Ryan North Estrada (edit to add: Dammit! Stop invading my subconscious, Ryan North!) finished his one month animated feature (animation portion) on Wednesday the 29th, and dropped straight into the post-production portion of the work (working through New Year’s Eve). The plan had been to finishing the rendering & compositing over the weekend and release today, but it didn’t quite all come together:
  

  There are still a handful of scenes to composite, but there’s no way we can get them done, uploaded, downloaded, edited, rendered and posted in time.

  But screw that — for all intents and purposes, Ryan Estrada made a feature-length animated film in one damn month, and shortly we’ll all be able to see the fruits of his labors. We at Fleen know that we are echoing all of you out there in Fleenland when we say Well done, Ryan.

• From the Hooray, I’ve Been Waiting For This Desk, Minus pre-order? Minus pre-order! One of the most justly-acclaimed webcomics of the past five years is finally coming to print form. Let’s let Ryan Armand give you the details:
  

  Hi! It is two and a half years late but I was finally able to manage something decent so suddenly there is a minus book available. It’s 141 pages, 9×12 inches in size, weighs almost two pounds and has a new story plus a couple of extra comics included somewhere in the middle. Will be taking preorders through January and should be able to ship the books out by the middle of February. It costs $40 before shipping in the US and a little more for outside the country to make up for extra shipping costs. A sketch will be included with all pre-orders and… I guess that’s it?

  Pick up GREAT Volume One while you’re at it.

• From the Not A Ryan, But Still Really Talented Desk, I (like a number of you) discovered The Wormworld Saga last week (it went up on Christmas Day), and hoo boy is it good. Long story short — Daniel Lieske is a German digital artist, and he’s launched an online graphic novel (first chapter now available) about a boy named Jonas, a secret room, and a summer break adventure that’s just about to be much, much more than he expects.

  If it starts a bit slowly, it’s only because Lieske has really excelled in conveying what life is like for a 10 – 12 year old — all boredom and adults and droning and waiting until you can start the fun you’ve been looking forward to all year. We’re just at the beginning of Wormworld; imagine Dorothy or Alice looking back at their childhoods and relating what happened on that fateful day with the rabbit hole or the tornado, but didn’t quite get as far as the fantastical.

  At this point, it’s an open question whether it’s Jonas or the reader with the greater sense of anticipation to see what happens next. Just be assured that a) the characters have got me hooked, hard; and b) the art is gorgeous. Go read it, and settle yourself in for what looks to be a a long, complex, deeply satisfying story to reveal itself over the coming months and years. The Wormworld Saga merits my highest possible recommendation, and just set the land-speed record for getting added to the blogroll over there to the right.