Sometimes, things are just rational, from Point A to about Point K with no deviations or sidetracks. They just make sense.

Which is not to say that sometimes those straight tracks are good, mind you. The news of the Flame Con 2020 cancellation is unsurprising, entirely expected, and the right call. We’ll note that we are now seeing events punted to next year in the same timeframe as — or even after — the rescheduled EmCity, and I remain somewhat perplexed that Reed!Pop haven’t called it yet. Doubly so, given that Seattle was the first COVID-19 hotspot in the country, and they well know the consequences of a new wave of cases.

Likewise, it sucks that it looks like we’ll get a hiatus of Irregular Webcomic in the next couple of weeks, as David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc) had a mishap in the kitchen and wound up with ten stitches in his hand, but that’s a completely understandable outcome. Also completely understandable: requiring your society to provide for medical care, such that Morgan-Mar was able to go to the Emergency Department, get treated for the immediate condition, and return the next morning for surgery to repair the damage to his hand. Oh, wait, I meant completely understandable except to residents of the USA because Freedom.

But at least sometimes, the sense-making things are also good; very, very good. Case in point, Randy Milholland is one of the premiere scholars of both Disney Duck comics and the work of EC Segar. The former is undergoing a renewal of interest thanks to the DuckTales revival, but Uncle Randy can tell you — in detail — about the original Carl Barks comics that inspired so much of what you see in half-hour episodes. Ever want to know the full story of the intra-family dynamics of the Duck and McDuck families? Milholland has you covered.

The latter has been pretty irrelevant for a while, but something interesting happened starting last year — King Features editor Tea Fougner, whose responsibilities include Popeye (for Segar invented the character of Popeye as part of Thimble Theater), convinced the syndicate to let a bunch of today’s cartoonists take a whack at the sailor man’s exploits with Sunday strips, and they were great¹.

Because Fougner is good at their job, Milholland was among those creating strips, and he dug down deep into the Popeye lore. An Oyl family reunion? A history of Popeye and the now-forgotten kids he had in his care? Love it.

And because Fougner is very, very good at their job, Milholland is getting a run of daily-updating strips for the next three weeks at Popeye’s Cartoon Club. As I told Fougner once, Milholland on Popeye is the second biggest no-brainer in comics (Milholland on the Duck comics is the first, but I think that Disney might not go for that), and I encourage everybody to read and provide feedback on the strips.

Like ’em, add comments to ’em², give King Features every possible reason to do the logical thing and keep bringing Milholland back. Bonus points as the strips will surely enrage the small-minded by delving into such canon topics as Popeye’s documented history of cross-dressing and gender ambiguity.

Spam of the day:

As a patent inspector, he discovered something that will take the electricity world and change it forever.

Look, I don’t want to over-generalize, but patent inspectors don’t have a great track record. They are frequently tasked with examining bogus inventions outside their area of technical expertise, fail to appreciate prior art, and are required to put far too little time in. The likelihood that one of them found something that would change the electricity world is zero. Signed, an electrical engineer who really disliked the power generation part of his education but still got an A in that class.

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¹ All of them were great, but the one I keep going back to was Shaenon Garrity and Andrew Farrago having Popeye live in a garbage can and go swimmin’ with bare naked wimmin.

² We really need more places where’s it’s acceptable — nay, expected — to use Popeye words. Disgustipating is such a great word.

Hoo boy, I hope that Elon Musk cares more about astronauts using his rocket, capsule, and spacesuits than he cares about people building his cars. I mean, when I say his let us not fall into the trap of thinking that he personally came up with anything beyond a napkin scribble that says People go up WHOOSH and Step 3: I AM MARS KING; a whole host of very smart people made the stuff that’s about to be used.

Okay:

• Shing Yin Khor on Muffler Men, one of their passions in life. Looks to be the first of a series of graphic columns on the cultural weirdness of America.
• Hot on the heels of the revival of Tuca & Bertie, Lisa Hanawalt let us know that she’s got a solo show at Gallery Nucleus on 13 June, and this time it’s personal virtual. Sign up for online previews of the work to be shown at the exhibition page and good luck grabbing some good stuff.
• We knew it was gonna happen: CXC 2020 will not have any in-person component due to the risks of the novel coronavirus. They’d put out a survey earlier to get a feel for what people wanted from this iteration and while people want to talk comics, it’s clear that comics are not worth the risk to life that will still be hanging over all of us in October.

  Exhibitors will be invited back to the next CXC, and fees will be refunded. Somewhere in the great beyond, Tom Spurgeon is shouting into the void that you don’t need him there personally to have the show because he wanted everybody to experience as many comics as possible.

  Stay the fuck home, everybody. Wear a damn mask, everybody. Wash your friggin’ hands, everybody.

Update: Launch scrubbed due to weather rules. Bob and Doug will not Take Off, eh.

Spam of the day:

Cops say brutal new tool is too powerful for most men (get yours here)

Read the fucking room you violence-worshiping bastards.

… but I need to mention again that Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan are a godsdamned delight and I don’t know anybody else that could start a comic with anxiety over the looming menace of COVID-19 and immediately transition to butt toys. Read their comic and buy their books, you cowards.

In other, non-buttcentric news:

It’s been a while since we talked about folks that don’t do webcomics, but who do do independent creations on the internet, and it’s time the reset the counter. The Doubleclicks (siblings Aubrey Turner and Laser Malena-Webber) make wonderfully nerdy music and Kickstart equally wonderful projects. When not Kickstarting, they still make nerdy projects to keep in touch with their audience and they’ve got a doozy on both the wonderful and nerdy scales for the Isolation Times:

We made a new music video. Together! In one place!

For our song DIMETRODON. From a thousand miles away — we went to a museum, danced in a square … all in the video game Animal Crossing.

It was a ton of fun. And we are debuting it RIGHT NOW!!!

Now, on the off chance you’re not familiar with Dimetrodon, understand that the original music video for the song was pretty damn amazing, so there are some big, clawfooted shoes to fill here, but the new one does just great. But yeah, buncha folks have made cute videos in Animal Crossing, so is there more?

Oh, but of course there is:

Speaking of Animal Crossing… our incredible friend Jules just opened up a queer bookshop and cafe inside this video game (WILD) and invited us to do a concert there.

So on THURSDAY — at 3pm Pacific/6pm Eastern — we are performing live, inside Animal Crossing, and streaming it on YouTube — with our friend Molly Lewis! The whole thing is free to watch, and we’ll be encouraging donations to a charity that supports trans folx in financial need.

The concert will be here, and I remind you of a crucial piece of math: anything involving Molly Lewis is automatically 38% cooler than it would be ordinarily.

Are we done yet? Not yet, Sparky:

PPS — if you play Animal Crossing and have reliable internet, you can be maybe in the studio audience for our show! reply to this email and let me know if you’re interested!!

I’m not gonna share that email address, as it goes to those that have subscribed to Doubleclick emails (via purchases, Kickstart backing, or merely signing up) and it wouldn’t be right for those folks to maybe get crowded out. Guess you should sign up in advance of the next cool thing that they do, huh?

Finally, I would like you to know one more thing:

You may know that Laser is a Kickstarter coach. We wanted to let you know that they made a FOURTEEN WEEK How-To-Crowdfund class and they’re launching it RIGHT NOW!

Here are three pieces of information.

1. Laser has raised $1 million for independent artists, consulted for folks including Jonathan Coulton and the Presidents of the United States of America, and worked on book, music, game, and film projects.
2. Crowdfunding pledges are NOT GOING DOWN during this time — and crowdfunding is just the goshdarn best way to get your art made and connect with your audience. (half of that is opinion, but it is TRUE OPINION).
3. You can get 50% off (yeah, that’s half) of Laser’s step-by-step audience-building and crowdfunding class until May 31, because you are a doubleclicks email list person. the code is THANKYOU

Okay, that’s a separate email, but it seemed like at least some of you might benefit from it; unlike the first communication, this one explicitly included permission to share the discount code, so go nuts. Laser’s super smart and you can only get better at your next crowdfunding unless you’re like, George or Spike¹.

Spam of the day:

Hey – I’m working with a company that is looking for sites that have content relating to clothing and I came across yours. Any chance you’d be open to hearing about a way you could link to a merchant and make money in the case someone clicks on the link and purchases something?

Is that a dig at webcomics creators being nothing but t-shirt sellers? You’re about a dozen years late with that shit, Rob A if that is your name.

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¹ All the best crowdfunders have single names.

Network outage at home completely knocked out my internet (and cable), and the sudden loss put everybody on cell data so the rate on that cratered. Back at limp-along speeds now, and it’s Friday before a long weekend (USians only) so I’m gonna just punt on posting today. Stay in school, don’t do drugs, wear a mask in public godsdammit, and I’ll see you next week.

At its heart, The Nib is all about the politics. Sure, there investigative cartooning going on there, reportage from around the world, commentary on culture and society, but editorial supremo Matt Bors came up from the world of editorial cartooning, and their most memorable stuff has cut straight to the heart of politics.

Thus, six or so years (minus a restart or two here and there), they’re collecting the best of their political cartoons for print, and raising the requisite funds as we speak¹. And check out the talent on tap for this collection:

Take a look at these cartoonists: Pia Guerra, Tom Tomorrow, Jen Sorensen, Ben Passmore, Gemma Correll, Joey Alison Sayers, Matt Lubchansky, Chelsea Saunders, Matt Bors, Rob Rogers, Niccolo Pizarro, Charis JB, Peter Kuper, Emily Flake, and Kendra Wells.

Hold on, we’re not done: Nomi Kane, Mark Kaufman, Keith Knight, Michael Kupperman, Eli Valley, Lauren Weinstein, KC Green, Megs Wolf, John Martz, Ward Sutton, Julia Bernhard, Jon Rosenberg, Ruben Bolling, Terry Laban, and Barry Deutsch! [emphasis original]

On a day when I had more patience, I’d hunt down websites for all those folks and link them. I’ll content myself with Jon Rosenberg on account of he provides my hosting. Pretty sure about 80% of the others are linked in some post or another here on the blog, so search in the box up there to the right and click whatever you find. It’ll work out fine.

Anyway, bunch of great creators, and a top tier that is making a compelling amount of sense — for US$500, you get The Nib print magazine for life; the individual issues are priced at US$15 per (at least, so far) and there’s been as many as four a year (being dropped by First Look last year and then the pandemic have delayed this year’s offerings, but Bors is determined to get back to quarterly). Call it US$60/year for the magazine (which is actually a mechanism to support the daily cartoons because — and we can never say this too often — Bors pays people what they’re worth), or just over eight years worth of print to the break-even point.

I have every confidence that the magazine will continue that long, and it actually makes even more sense for me. My subscription is actually at the US$8/month funding level, or US$96/year. Would The Nib still be around in five years? They’ve been around for longer than that so far, so I figure it’s a good bet. Gonna have to think on that; I’ve been using the stimulus money to buy more comics from more creators than usual; have to decide if spreading it around is as effective as sending it to one place that in turn pays a couple dozen folks.

Anyways, they’ve been funding for about 24 hours, so the FFF mk 2 tells us that their end level is probably going to be in the US$45K to US$67.5K range, safely above the US$30K goal (which they are currently halfway towards). You’ve got another 27 days to get in on it with the rest of us.

Spam of the day:

Save up to $610 on Auto Insurance This Spring

My auto insurer has already sent me checks for more than US$100, on account of the lockdowns have made them assess downwards how much they’re likely to pay out this year, and decided that we needed the money more than they did. They’ve always issued a similar dividend after year end, so I’m pretty confident this is going to continue. You were saying?

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¹ We need a better equivalent to that saying for the current age. I’m not speaking, I bet you aren’t either — Fleen readers have generally demonstrated an ability to read without moving their lips — so it kind of falls apart. I’m typing, you are at some future point reading, maybe we just need to make a reference to observing from the outside, at the as-yet-undetermined state of the Kickstart, like a half-alive cat?

Yeah, I’m a bit punchy today. My students, who have been generally capable this week, suddenly decided to have a big ol’ bowl of stupid flakes on what’s usually the easy day of this class, stumbling from step to step on what’s normally the easiest exercises of the course. Should have been done, 45 minutes in and out, everybody gets an early afternoon. As I write this, we’re past two and a half hours. Grrrrr.

For the best experience reading that headline, adopt the accent and vocal patterns of the faux German baker¹ in the old Pillsbury Toaster Strudel commercial: Strudel … zum toasten? And yes, there are new Kickstarts of which you should be informed.

• Sam Logan cannot be accused of thinking small. He’s been drawing Sam and Fuzzy for just about eighteen damn years, through four distinct eras, wrapping up the last arc after more than 1700 pages and ten years. He took time for a little introspection, and some shorter stories that won’t turn into the behemoths he’s been known for (probably).

  Along the way, he published books, including five great big tomes for the final arc, ranging between 368 and 606 (!) pages each. A’course, the fifth book only contained the story up to the October/November 2015 time frame, meaning four solid years of story remained unpublished in dead tree form.

  For now:

  After 17 years, the Sam and Fuzzy saga’s epic, hilarious, earth-shattering conclusion has finally arrived. And this grand finale is so big, it took two books to contain it all: Volume 6 and 7: Race to the Bottom Part 1 and 2!

  Race to the Bottom is the two-part conclusion to the series, and is jam-packed with over 1100 pages of surprises and mayhem.

  US$45 gets you the two new volumes in softcover, which is a ridiculous value in terms of per-page costs. US$65 upgrades you to hardcover (ditto), and you can get all seven volumes for US$159 (softcover) or US$175 (hardcover). If you’re an obsessive completist and have about a linear meter of bookshelf space, you can get the print versions of the earlier three eras (pre-2009 or so) as well as all seven modern books for US$195 (softcover) or US$229 (hardcover). The bundles also come with a suitable amount of bonuses — pins, bookplates, everything in PDF, etc.

  Impressively, even the largest of those instant libraries doesn’t appear to charge more than about US$25 for shipping (to the US, at least), which makes me wonder it it arrives via freight. The whole thing is under the Make That Thing umbrella, so you know it’ll get done on time and reach you when promised, subject to the possible complete destruction of the US Postal Service to meet the whims of a narcissistic sociopath. In that eventuality, I’m pretty sure the MTT magical elves will find a way to get it to you about three weeks later, possibly by unicorn.

  Anyhoo, as of this writing the campaign is a little under US$24.6K of a US$37.5K goal, which is pretty damn good for a project that launched earlier today. Look for this one to fund out by a more than comfortable margin.

• Speaking of comfortable margins, you’ve seen Madi: Once Upon A Time In The Future, right? Launched yesterday, presently 378% of its US$50K goal, the third part of Duncan Jones’s distopian trilogy (the first two parts being the films Moon and Mute, co-written with Alex de Campi (for my money, the most broadly capable writer in comics today), with sections of the story drawn by a murderer’s row of artistic talent? No? Well, here’s the first 19 pages available for you to download now.

  Artists include two of my absolute favorites, Pia Guerra and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, mixed in with a few names you might recognize: Stokoe, Fabry, Bisley, Fegredo, and more. The artistic contributors are paid their full asking rate² and will receive royalties. These 260 pages (and various bonus pages in the fancier form factors) will be done on paper period. To quote the campaign, No digital version of MADI will be made available at this time, or indeed maybe ever.

  This book is going to sweep a lot of awards. The free preview has its hooks deep into my brain, and I cannot wait to get my copy come November. Check this one out at the first opportunity.

Spam of the day:

Metformin and 3 other big selling diabetes drugs are under secret review.

Let me know when they’re under double secret review. Until then, you’re full of crap.

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¹ This introductory paragraph is dedicated to my old college co-conspirator John Costain “Thrice” Knight III, with whom I would occasionally lock eyes and intone Strudel knowing that he would always reply zum toasten?

He also barfed over the counter in Hardee’s one post-midnight Saturday night, because when you’ve been drinking after exam week and need food at that hour no other place is open. Eventually he became responsible for standing watches to ensure that the nuclear reactor on the John C Stennis (CVN-74) did not melt down despite the fact that he was part of the pre-commissioning crew and the reactor was not yet loaded with fissile material. I’d chalk it up to weird-ass military thinking but it honestly just kind of made sense for Thrice.

² I’m now remembering some tweets from Jones, maybe end of last year, asking how much he should expect to pay for the art for a graphic novel of ~ 200 pages, because he didn’t want to be an exploitative jerk and underpay people. He didn’t know, he asked, and he didn’t pitch a fit when large numbers were quoted at him. I made a mental note of Jones’s approach then, and I’m excited to see what comics can do when a writer of expansive vision partners with a writer super skilled in the medium, with and with visual artists of supreme ability, and nobody’s getting screwed.

So there’s a Kickstart you should know about, and a Kickstart that you hopefully did know about with a twist that you should know about. They both offer self-evident reasons why you should engage in commerce that are so compelling as to brook no contradiction. Shall we?

• Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan are on a mission: to make the world better at sex. Sometimes that means sharing reviews of sex toys, so that you can find the device that makes your joybits happiest. Sometimes it means sharing horny, horny smut of all varieties so that you can get all hot and bothered. But a lot of the time — maybe most of the time — it means recognizing the fact that neither horniness nor happiest joybits are enough if you — using the broadest sense of you, the society-level you — don’t know how things work Down There¹.

  Sadly, ours is a society that seems determined to undervalue truthful, actionable information about sex and sexytimes because … honestly, I don’t know. I can’t think of a single reason that this information should be suppressed and kept hidden that isn’t deeply (pardon the pun) fucked up. But [gestures around] yeah. So if Matt ‘n’ Erika are going to make the world better at sex — and that translates to you (this time it’s the personal you specifically) being better at sex, in whatever way you prefer it — they’ve got a lot of sharing and educating to do.

  Thus, Oh Joy, Sex Toy’s line of print collections, but especially the ones that focus on the educational end of sex. Last year, it was their first focused collection that got Kickstarted, and today it’s the followup. Drawn To Sex: Our Bodies And Health moves on from the mechanics of — quoting here — doin’ it² and into the more science-y and biology-y side of sex.

  Because of the importance they feel for their mission, the PDF version of the book has the lowest price point I’ve ever seen for a 200+ page file: eight bucks (US). Even the full print version is ridiculously affordable at US$20 (plus shipping). And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that they have a support tier at US$1069³ that includes the physical book, the PDF, a unique piece of art in the book, and we’ll take you out for coffee if you’re ever in Portland. Erika and Matt are awesome folks, I would wager that coffee is at least a thousand bucks of excellent times.

  As of this writing (maybe three hours in), DTS2:OBAH is just over US$15500 in pledges, or comfortably over 200%. You are taking no risks by backing this one (also, the guest artists are definitely getting bonuses). Go get the book, then get to gettin’ it on.

• Hey, remember how David Malki ! had a book Kickstart delay so much that it ran into the time he was planning to launch his next book Kickstarter? And how he decided to respond to that delay by adding the contents of the second book to the first one for free? No? Funny, we at Fleen went on about it at some length. Assuming you missed out on the Kickstart that suddenly delivered twice as much book as you’d expected, you have a chance to get in on that massive (I just weighed my copy and it’s more than 1100 grams) tome, with the greatest cost for international buyers zeroed out:
  

  I’ve worked out a special deal with the warehouse in China that is storing copies of my latest book, FRIENDS YOU CAN RIDE ON.

  They are moving to a new warehouse soon, and they want me to clear my inventory off their shelves as quickly as possible.

  So, before they palletize my remaining books and ship them to the US, we have worked out a limited-time deal for economy shipping to the following countries:

  UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • Austria • Belgium • China / Taiwan / HK • Croatia • Cyprus • Czech Republic • Denmark • Estonia • Finland • France • Germany • Greece • Hungary • Indonesia • Latvia • Lithuania • Luxembourg • Malta • Malaysia • Netherlands • Poland • Portugal • Slovakia • Slovenia • Sweden • Thailand

  Orders to these places, of just this book alone (or multiple copies of it), will ship FOR FREE through May 27 only.

  $30 USD gets you the book sent to anyplace listed above, via some kind of intercontinental train or something.

  (USA and Canada orders will ship from me personally, but for the same limited time, I’ll honor the free shipping deal for those shipments too.)

  Just for reference, the cost to ship 1100 grams of book via Priority Mail International flat rate padded envelope (or whatever would protect it en route) from the US to the named countries range from US$35.35 to US$38.60, or more than the cost of the book. Heck, even shipping it to Canada would be US$26.90 and domestically US$8.40 (or US$3.86 for media mail, which can take a while). Bottom line, wherever you are, this is a tremendous deal and you will probably never see another such like again.

Spam of the day:

Ion Mineral Reduce Fatigue, Eliminates Flaky Skin, Improves Hydration & Cell Regeneration

You are selling a shower head. Keep that nonsense for somebody that doesn’t know what ions are. And anyway, if you want to sell a shower head these days, point out that one with a hand shower attachment is easier to install than a bidet on the toilet and you’ll get a zillion takers.

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¹ Or, one should note, Up There, as they are not neglecting the role of the brainmeats in sexual response, attraction, and preferences.

² Gods, I love those two.

³ Nice.

Some new things kicking off, and a very cool thing returning for another go.

• If you’ve read Fleen ever, one indisputable fact will jump out at you: Ryan Estrada doesn’t do things by half measures. We’re on the eve of release of his new collaborative graphic novel, Banned Book Club (co-written by Estrada and his wife, Kim Hyun Sook; art by Ko Hyung-Ju), based on his wife’s experiences in the former South Korean military dictatorship. Not content to rest on any laurels (a mountain of glowing press, and continually-increasing pre-orders of the book count as laurels), Estrada decided to launch his latest project: a podcast of sorts.

  Big deal, I hear you cry, everybody and their dog is startin’ a podcast during quarantimes. To which I reply, a) Estrada’s experience of quarantine is very different from yours and mine, as he and his wife live in Busan, South Korea, which has managed the pandemic better than probably anyplace else on the planet¹ and b) it’s not a podcast. It’s a series of radio plays based on the sequels to A Christmas Carol that Dickens wrote and the world promptly forgot about. Let’s let Estrada tell it himself:

  I’m the new writer/host/director of BeFM Drama!

  I’m turning Charles Dickens’ 22 weird forgotten Christmas Carol sequels into brand new radio plays for Korean radio. Not direct adaptations, but kinda like how Clueless is based on Emma.

  Please enjoy episode 1 of my new radio show!

  This one is about a man who has such a bad day that he wishes he didn’t exist. But he reconsiders his position when he’s tricked into believing he’s already dead.
  https://youtu.be/XFRFP0kkzcs

  Yep, sounds weird. The Riverside Chimes is a bit under 20 minutes, and if you like it, there’s three more stories already posted to the Tubes. And if that doesn’t satisfy you, BeFM Drama has a few dozen audio adaptations of Sherlock Holmes and other classic English language short fiction for your listening pleasure.

• Also kicking off, The Nib is partnering with Reveal, the investigative reporting project from The Center For Investigative Reporting; the new series is called In/Vulnerable, and it’s chronicling the ways that the COVID pandemic is hitting all layers of society, where billionaires are demanding everybody else go back to work with insufficient protections.

  Up today: the story of Manuel, a refugee from Cuba who’s been in prison humane and efficient temporary detention for more than a year, and is watching the threat of the virus creep closer. Whatever your views on immigration, you cannot possibly argue that fleeing a repressive government (it’s even one that Screamy Orange Racist Grandpa hates!) is a crime merits being thrown into inhumane conditions until a deadly disease kills you.

  And if you do argue that? Do me a favor and leave my page and never return. I make it a policy not to consort with sociopaths.

• Lastly, the :01 Books virtual comics show, Comics Relief, has announced sign-ups for its second session:
  

  Comics fans, mark your calendars for Comics Relief: June 2020 on Saturday, 6/6 from 12pm-4pm ET! Click here to register for the next virtual :01 festival: https://bit.ly/2WFlTcs #ComicsRelief

  Four sessions this time, with a discussion of space comics at noon EDT (Maris Wicks! Jim Ottaviani! Alison Wilgus!), a discussion of Maker Comics at 1:00pm (Falynn Koch! JP Coovert! Sarah Myer! Robyn Chapman!), a discussion of documentary comics at 2:00pm (Box Brown! Calista Brill!), and a talk about whatever’s on their minds at 3:00pm (Clint McElroy! Leuyun Pham! Mark Siegel!). Sign up at the link above, and I’ll see you in the conference on the 6th.

Spam of the day:

New project started to be available today, check it out [redacted].com/?renee

I’m including you because you listed out a series of porn genre terms, and one of them was tannie. Assuming this is a new genre based on, I dunno, well tanned people gettin’ it on, okay for giving people what they want I guess?

But if you managed to misspell the derogatory term for trans folks, then you get double my normal dose of contempt, which I assure you is both well merited and considerable.

_______________
¹ Which is what happens when your country demands competency from its leaders, and learned the lessons of the SARS outbreak and determined to never fail in pandemic response again.

The first really warm day of the year, and I haven’t see sun in weeks. I’m going to tend to my beans, you should go outside (remember to keep distance and wear a mask) and get away from the computer. I’ll see you next week.

We’re looking at a pair of nonfiction, largely non-narrative :01 Books (and thus the concept of spoilers doesn’t really apply) today, both of which have been out for a while but which haven’t gotten write-ups because of [waves hands] everything.

Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I held off on reviewing Maker Comics: Grow A Garden (words and pictures by Alexis Frederick-Frost, released 25 February) because I wanted to try out some of the suggestions in my own annual, smallish garden endeavours and see how things worked compared to previous years. And I held off on Science Comics: Crows (words and pictures by Kyla Vanderklugt, released 24 March) because I was going to bring it and make observations of the ravens of Juneau at Alaska Robotics Comics Camp, only that didn’t happen.

Grow A Garden‘s up first, with a framing story about garden gnomes at the garden gnome version of Hogwarts, including the obligatory reveal of the evil professor up to no good. It’s cute, it serves the purpose of providing a rationale for lecture-like content (a similar approach was taken in Falynn Koch’s baking contribution), but it’s not why you’re here. You’re here to learn a bit about dirt, how to make compost (although you’ll likely have to wait until next year to see how it turns out), how to start seedlings and keep them comfortable, and about the things you might do that will mess up your plants.

On these scores, Grow A Garden is a resounding success, particularly in the way it finds MacGuyver solutions to gardening needs. Fancy drainage posts aren’t needed, you can drill a hole in the bottom of any can or container and give it a good cleaning (unless it held paint or other complex chemicals). Cold frames are complicated, but you can clip together a couple of those transparent shields for window wells.

And that seedling you started that is all atrophied right at the dirt line and falling over? Damping-off disease, from cool, wet conditions and soil fungi¹. Once I get my stuff in the dirt outside² (fortunately I started them a bit late this year, otherwise they would have been outside for the polar vortex and hard frost we got on 7 May, what the heck), I’ll be able to try some of the pest control recommendations. Grow A Garden won’t turn a kid (or an adult) into a master gardener in a season, but it’ll give you some time to get your hands dirty and build up some skills, and we could all use a distraction along those lines.

Crows, subtitled Genius Birds, does a bit better with its framing story. It features a flock of crows that use planning, stealth, tools, and misdirection to steal food from Buddy the dog, with one of their number taking Buddy for a walk around town in search of more food. Along the way, Buddy gets taught about crow vision (color perception into the ultraviolet), memory (faces, circumstances, etc), tool use and fabrication, problem solving, counting skills, vocalization, family dynamics, and brain structure, as the POV crow explains how awesome crows are to an eager (but not genius) audience.

Both Buddy and the nameless crow (well, Buddy refers to the crow as Crow, but there’s never a proper introduction) are pretty expressive characters; mention digging or the park or friends or praise him and Buddy is all excited, ears and tail and eyes doing the talking. Crow, meanwhile, uses some distinctly non-corvid eyebrows and primary feather finger-guns to indicate emotion and reaction.

Crow’s also got a pretty healthy sense of self-esteem (I’m the smartest crow in the world, which would put Crow on par with about a five year old human), a sense of mischief, and an occasional streak of dickishness. It’s Crow that orchestrated the heist of Buddy’s food, earning the gratitude of their family for the feat; a’course, Crow ate far better than they did with Buddy’s help, meaning Crow simultaneously put one over on the flock, pillaged multiple garbage cans, suckered Buddy into all kinds of mischief, and got an ego boost in the process.

Honestly, it might be a bit much, except for the fact that I’ve seen ravens — close cousins of crows, after all — act pretty much like Crow just because they can. As the foreword (by corvid scientist John M Marzluff) reminds us, it’s not a coincidence that crows and ravens are part of myth and religious belief around the world, sitting on the shoulders of All-Father Odin, saving Israelite prophet Elijah, or being regarded as the creator spirit of numerous indigenous groups.

Both books are appropriate for any readers that have the patience to sit and plow through 100 pages at a go; Grow A Garden is useful as an activity guide for let’s say 10 and up with supervision as individually necessary. As always, we at Fleen thank everybody at :01 Books for the review copies.

Spam of the day:

Keep America’s Great

Keep America’s what great? And no, I ain’t clicking on your identity stealing link so I can get my (quoting here) free New Donald Trump gold $1,000 Dollar Bill, whatever the hell that’s supposed to be, not even to blow my nose in. I was going to do something far ruder with your Trump thing, but kids might be reading today’s post.

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¹ I’d noticed this in the past with some of my bean seedlings, and was more careful about overwatering this year as a result. Only one seedling out of 24 damped off this time!

² The gnomes recommend starting from seed with two seeds in a pot and then culling the smaller prior to transplant; I’ve traditionally started with two seeds per cup in a pressed-paper egg carton, but never culled. Wondering how that will turn out.