You may have seen the list of SDCC programming events went up late last week, but did you notice that this year the programming is searchable by keyword? Some of what shows up under keyword webcomics is stretching the definition a bit, but we’ll run a list of sessions likely to be of interest to webcomickers a bit later this week. In the meantime, some things to keep you occupied:

• Book four of Digger has gone to press, and can be in your hands in consideration of a small amount of money. Two tranches of signed copies will go on sale here at 8:00am and 8:00pm CDT (UTC-5) on Wednesday.
• In case you didn’t see the picture I tweeted from the book launch party Saturday afternoon, Jon Rosenberg’s newest tchochke is in the prototype stage and should be available at SDCC. “Doughboy” courtesy Goats, Chris Yates, and Nikki “Bride of The Dreamcrusher” Rice.
• Some of you may have seen the announcement in Shaenon Garrity’s Livejournal earlier today, but I was conflicted about bringing the news up, lest a deluge wash away her husband, Andrew Farrago, aka curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. However, Mr Farrago assures me he can handle a flood or two, so read on if you’d like to be part of a museum exhibit on webcomics:
  

  The Cartoon Art Museum explores the digital revolution in its latest exhibition, Monsters of Webcomics, a showcase of some of the best and boldest work published on the World Wide Web.

  Cartoonists choose to work on the Web for many reasons. For some, it’s an opportunity to reach readers directly without going through editors, publishers, or syndicates. For others, it’s a chance to explore the artistic possibilities of the Web, whether that means working in a format that would be impossible in print, tackling subject matter most comic-book publishers won’t handle, or taking advantage of the rich palette available with digital coloring. Others simply want to share their comics with as many people as possible.

  The comics by the ten artists featured in this exhibition run the gamut from four-panel comic strips to full-length graphic novels and include comedy, drama, history, science fiction, and sociopolitical commentary. As varied as this work is, however, it represents only a very small sample of the comics available on the Web.

  If you are a webcartoonist and would like to participate in the virtual gallery component of this historic exhibition, please e-mail C.A.M. Curator Andrew Farago at gallery [at] cartoonart dot org.

  Let’s be perfectly clear — the roster of featured artists is set, anybody that emails to say Me! Me! Over here, pick me! and is accepted will be part of the online presentation only. That being said, your reputation could do worse than for your name to be found via future Google search in proximity to Jesse Reklaw, Kate Beaton, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Dorothy Gambrell, Nicholas Gurewitch, Jenn Manley Lee, Dylan Meconis, Chris Onstad, and Spike.

  So if you think that in that august company your webcomic need not feel ashamed, by all means drop the museum and line and make yourself known. It’s a big world out there, webcomics, and your strip is a part of it.

‘Nother day, ‘nother book goes up for pre-order — Starslip volume 3 this time — and Topatoco scores another client. Honestly, it might be easier these days to tell you when Topatoco doesn’t pick up a prominent webcomic as a client. Understand I’m firmly of the opinion that Topatoco is one of the best thngs that a webcomics creator not determined/business skilled/time-blessed enough to run their own merch line can have in their corner, and I’m still surprised by how rapidly (yet smartly) they’ve grown.

I’m really wondering how long it will be before a boutiuqe internet-creator merchandise company becomes a legit media company with a reach and influence equivalent to, say, Dark Horse. Best guess? Five to ten years. Three years if Jeff and Holly can find somebody to keep Weedmaster P occupied. I think I’m going to have to ply them with liquor in San Diego and see what I can get them to commit to on the record.

In other news — and if I’m asked about this in the future, I will deny it all — reports now indicate that a major trove of intelligence data are nearly compiled, and should be complete in less than a week. The shadowy (perhaps fictional, perhaps they only want you to think he’s fictional) operative known as Agent Eben07 has been linked with a dossier of information dating back more than 40 years that could have lasting impact on the world’s geopolitical situation. All are encouraged to … did you hear that? Listen carefully — burn everything, and I was never here! The one-eyed dog barks at midnight! The one-eyed dog barks at mi~~

See, today was going to be easy. The last twelve hours brought the announcement of two webcomics book-launch parties, which combined with reminders one already in the news would give me a post that writes itself. Quick compare and contrast (slightly grimy basement bar with vengeful barmaids vs. Preview Night party at San Diego Comic Con complete with DJ vs. the beautifulest of the Hollywood beautiful people sipping effortlessly elegant drinks by a fire), throw in an offhand title about how there ain’t no party like a webcomics book-launch party (why yes, I am the whitest guy on the planet, thanks for asking), boom, finished.

Add a quick addendum about how (speaking of San Diego Comic Con) Alice Bentley is again compiling a list of webcomickers in attendance (and since nobody’s mailing me their info to run, Alice is once again our best resource … please drop a comment in her LJ) and we can all get on with our day.

Then John Allison had to go and get all newsworthy:

This is a brief announcement to say that Scary Go Round will be ending in September. The eighth collection will be the last. Goodbye is the final story. I’m sure a lot of you had worked this out already.

Well, shit.

If your claw-like fingers are rending your clothes to rags as we speak, I would ask you to be calm. I have a new project in mind and, like the transition from Bobbins to Scary Go Round back in 2002, it won’t all be new, all different. I could probably have got away with making the change with no fanfare at all and kept the name the same.

Oh, well that’s all right then.

I don’t want to talk about my new project yet as it would spoil the current story, but you can rest assured that there will be plenty that you recognise about it. I’m not sure about the exact end date of Scary Go Round, and there may be something transitional in between, but expect no interruption in service.

I take great pleasure from entertaining and surprising people, writing and drawing are a continual source of joy to me and I will endeavour to do both for as long as I am able.

I actually left a bit out from what Allison wrote, about the economics of webcomics and how the landscape has changed for even one of the long-respected exemplars of the genre. All those who take interest in this medium and its vagaries will find it required reading.

Maybe on the event itself, but the discussion rages on.

Firstly, I’ve received helpful communiques from both Xaviar Xerexes and Lore Sjöberg on the matter of case law. X-man (who, unlike myself, is a lawyer) shares that there’s plenty of case law on Fair Use and threatens his already-stretched family time with the notion of putting together a primer on the topic. Sjöberg helpfully pointed me towards Dr Suess Enterprises v Penguin Books USA, which both corrects my belief that there isn’t case law concerning third-party parody, and settled the question against such being protected by Fair Use.

But the more interesting communication came last night (well after deadline) from Kelsey Armstrong, identified as the infringing party. An excerpt you may find enlightening:

I already appologized to Scott Johnson yesterday right after I saw what happened. I had no intention to rip anyones work off … I just started making shirts and stuff for some fun. Every now and then I would find stuff on google and just post it. I googled “geek” and came up with 56 Geeks. Not bothering to check where I got it from for the owner, any copyrights, etc., I just naively took it from google and posted it….

Like I said, I apologized to Scott for this whole thing and he seemed to understand where I was coming from. I was just being stupid with the power google gave me.

Salient points: it was more from a lack of understanding than from design practices that encourage the rapid development of visuals without regard to origin (cf: “artists” who pay others to come up with designs for them, then produce the work in question for large dollar figures; figures as notable as Todd Goldman engage in this practice) that caused this situation, and Ms Armstrong realizes her mistake.

I feel really stupid for this whole thing, and … although many people seem to think of me as the biggest asshole on the planet, I hope at least you can see me differently, as I hope Scott Johnson does now that I have emailed him. And no, I wont be a repeat offender lol.

Just a thought here, take it as you will. Ms Armstrong has learned a valuable lesson, and it’s one that I think a lot of teens can stand to learn at that age: the ability to recognize when you do something dumb is a valuable life skill. Anybody that’s tossing barbs towards her might do well to remember what idiot things they did at that age (I you don’t look back to that age and realize that you did dumb stuff, you’re fooling yourself) and back off. It took some considerable courage to:

• Contact and apologize to Scott Johnson
• Resolve the situation so quickly
• Reply to my email with a sense of responsibility and desire to do the right thing

In some ways, it would have been much easier for Ms Armstrong to be a defiant jerk all around, and that would make it easy for all of us to dogpile on and hate her. As it is, let’s agree to chalk this one up to a mistake, and at least take the comfort that the example may teach others the lesson about what you can ethically and legally sell, and what you can’t. In the long view, this turned out pretty well all around.

So, it all started a bit less than 20 hours ago (as of this writing): Scott Johnson of Extralife noticed a Zazzle store (it’s kind of like CafePress, except they can also print postage stamps) was selling a mug and a mousepad (and possibly other items) that lifted the art from his 2007 print, The 56 Geeks.

Word spread rapidly, as it is wont to do on Twitter. The store in question led to minor information about the proprietor, which led to a MySpace page and eventually a store page with contact info (note that depending on your browser settings, that last page may either immediately roll over to Zazzle, or just close). A sample of that store page, to give you an idea what we’re dealing with:

Here at Poison Art, YOU are what matters. The loyal customer, the one who appreciates the genious [sic] behind the artwork. At Poison Art we are all about supplying you with some of the most random, but most attention grabbing shirts, shoes, accesories, and more. There is no real theme to our products, just COOLNESS, so that you too can be cool. We are fairly new, and still getting ourselves organized, so the products are especially random at this point in time, but please, bear with us! When we get more products out there, it will be easier to sort through and create more understandable categories of merchandise.

If you would like to navigate our zazzle site, you can go directly through that link above, or use the quick links below. Hope you enjoy =)

-Poison Art Designer- Kelsey Armstrong

Okay, so Kelsey Armstrong is not so much of a “genious”, not much of a designer, and 18/F according to MySpace. Given that teens with access to the internet aren’t always up on the latest in intellectual property ethos, I sent a quick email (address withheld; no need to abuse the girl):

I followed some links at Zazzle to get this contact address. There appears to be a remarkable similarity between a design that you are selling and a print by webcomic artist Scott Johnson of “Extralife”. Any comment?

No reply as of this writing (about 19 hours), but as of 15 hours ago, the offending designs had been removed from the Zazzle store without comment. Contacted for comment, Johnson replied:

I get so disenchanted with “the system” when stuff like this happens, but then I remember, the system is a great big chaotic freak show, and I am lucky I don’t find that sort of thing every day. :)

What is it exactly that makes people think that because they found content created by someone else online, that they really liked, they have license to use it as if it were their own and sell things based
on it? It seems completely insane to me. For example, it’s one thing to share songs online with other people, it is another thing entirely to sell CD’s, t-shirts using other people’s music.

At this time it’s unknown whether Ms Armstrong actually made any money off of Johnson’s design (and it’s probably safe to assume that the use of Johnson’s work was more from ignorance of how artists rights work than from actual malice aforethought, thus we are unlikely to see her as a repeat offender), but we can at least take some lessons away from this:

• Regardless of law, policy, or common courtesy, it will in all practical respects be up to the owners of IP to hunt down those who would appropriate from them.
• The willingness of people to back their favorite creators and take appropriators to task means that time from discovery to resolution is shrinking. The Great Todd Goldman/Dave Kelly Contretemps Of Aught-Seven took 30 days to shake out (from first report to press release that everything was settled).

  The Great Jess Fink/Hot Topic Unpleasantness of Aught-Eight took 11 days. This one took about five hours from discovery to resolution, and hopefully each time we go through this, the word leaks out a little more — take inspiration, but draw your own goddamned art if you’re going to sell it.

• We desperately need some case law to settle exactly what constitutes “Fair Use”; clearly, any reasonable reading of current US law (those of you in less freedom-loving countries are on your own, and in any event, I Am Not A Lawyer) would say that you can’t just life an image and sell it as if it’s yours. But what of transformations, or visual quoting? I’m thinking here of Jeff Rowland’s Internet design, which got a C&D from the photographer that originally captured the image now known as the ORLY owl.

  Personal opinion, Rowland’s design quoted the owl (and ceiling cat, and the general look and feel of the Ouija board), but in the service of commenting on/parodizing general internet culture, which is Fair Use. Or it’s not. There’s zero case law on third-party parody (c.f.: Penny Arcade and American Greetings) and we need it settled; unfortunately, the way to get case law is to first have a case, which means somebody gots to get sued.

In any event, this situation has resolved itself quickly enough (and about as well as could be possibly expected), so let’s call it done. Barring a repeat from Ms Armstrong, it doesn’t even require the coining of a The Great ____ of Aught-Nine to enshrine it in the annals of webcomics.

Quick addition to yesterday’s item on Xeric winners with award work online — although I didn’t find it, Alexander Danner pointed out that Tymothi Godek‘s “!” was published online in its entirety, and that the thumbnails for “!” may be found online (Blogspot and Livejournal flavors), along with a writeup of what “!” is about. Fleen regrets the omission.

Know what’ll perk you up today? NUNFIGHT! Okay, very little to do with webcomics (aside from the fact that this little gem ran on The Sound Of Young America, which is very webcomic–friendly, and that it’s crying out for webcomickers to draw their impressions of the battlin’ nuns — that’s right, I’m calling for a meme to get started here), but dang is it funny.

Okay, webcomics:

• Ima come right out and say it: one of the highlights of my day is Skin Horse, because what can possibly be wrong about a webcomic that deals primarily with paranormal-managing government bureaucrats who subtly recall the less-well-known Oz books and gets regularly cranked up to about 14 on the Insane-o-Meter? Unstoppable zombies, talking dogs, killer robots, crystalline entities, baby cobras that only want hugs, opera-loving silverfish, a likely-undiagnosed-Asperger’s brain transplanted into a military airframe, and a transvestite psychologist who bags all the babes?

  And it’s drawn by Shaenon Garrity, the one person able to compete with Ryan North for the title of Nexus of All Webcomics Realities? The first year’s worth of strips are collected into a book which is now set for pre-order and it is worth your time and money so much that it hurts.

• Everybody saw that the latest round of Xeric Grant awardees got announced last week, right? It’s not always the case that the Xeric winners have been sharing their work online (either before or after the grant), but in this crop it appears that Adam Bourret and Joshua Smeaton have made their work available for your perusal. Please enjoy Bourret’s I’m Crazy and Smeaton’s Haunted.
• Do you know any DJs in San Diego? Tweet @topatoco if you like to work parties.

Can you feel the America-ness?

• Melting pot: Tails has recently relaunched as a webcomic; written and illustrated by Ethan Young, it was a 3 issue print comic that originally debuted in late 2005, detailing the semi-autobiographical misadventures of Ethan, a young, quirky Asian vegan living with his parents while struggling to become a cartoonist. The web version features an updated and re-edited version of the original story, along with new stories.
• Freedom: Comico was one of the original upstart comics publishers back in the 80s; in its day, it published a lot of comics by creators that are today well-known talents (most notably, Matt Wagner’s MAGE and Grendel). Then they went away. But now former Comico partners and publishers, Bill Cucinotta and Gerry Giovinco are taking another shot at the whole crazy game, utilizing the free and open spaces of the web.

  CO2 Comics is structured less like a traditional webcomics collective, more like a dead-tree publisher, and appears to clearly treat updates as placeholders on the way to print publication but still — very interesting. And any website that can get me fresh Bernie Mirault? That’s worth a look.

• Commerce: Jimbo (I think I’m genetically predisposed to like anybody that actually goes by “Jimbo”) Hillin’s Wireheads is ramping up for San Diego, complete with a new book at Lulu and a promise of much swag available in return for your banknotes at the convention.
• Public service: J Baird of the Create A Comic Project is rolling into Otakon in a couple of weeks, and will be running sessions on Make A Manga! (room: Workshop 2). First session runs Friday the 17th from 4:00 to 6:00pm and the second on Saturday the 18th from noon to 2:00pm. Baird’s bringing along creators Kittyhawk and Erin Ptah, and would welcome the participation of any webcomickers who happen to be around.

Look, just nobody do anything important & time-sensitive today, okay? Okay.

• Report on the first meeting of the extension chapter of the North Carolina WebComics Coffee Clatch, via TS Holden in Boone, NC:
  

  It went well, we had a thin crowd (to be expected) but ended up moving from the coffee shop to Mellow Mushroom, where there was pizza and beer. We talked for a good four hours about all kinds of subjects, from the very practical to the extremely obscure.

  Evan [Dahm] and I will be sure to figure out the next meeting further in advance so that we can get the word out better. We’re also considering having the next meeting in a more centralized town (for Western NC) such as Asheville or Hickory.

• Joseph Hewitt is putting together a book for the sake of family togetherness:
  

  It’s been a long eleven months since the birth of my son, Sean. With the help of many great guest artists I’ve managed to keep Ataraxia Theatre going (mostly).

  I’ve just released a print collection of Voles of the Dusk. This is my first wide release print venture in well over ten years. The book contains three stories — Voles of the Dusk, Scum Hive, and The Vole that Dare Not Speak its Name. It’s 84 pages long, color cover, black and white inside. All proceeds from the book are going to my family to help them afford a trip to Korea to see Sean.

• Anthrocon kicks off this weekend (hi, Ursula!), so allow me to point you towards what may be the most stylishly designed furry webcomic/grpahic novel — Five Glasses of Absinthe. “Egypt Urnash” (that’s what the email return address says; it’s written by Nick Brienza and drawn by Spümcø escapee Margaret Trauth) promises:
  

  Five Glasses of Absinthe is an adult fantasy inspired by French New Wave films, 70s prog-rock album covers, and the simple joy of drawing lots of smart, sexy people in really happening boots.

  Be aware that some of the smart, sexy people will have animal ears and tails (and/or engage in sex, presumably of the smart variety). Not really into the whole “animal people get it on” genre, but the visual style is striking; give it a once-over if you’re not at work.

Okay, that’s gonna do it for now; gotta get busy with the whole “taking off early the day before a holiday” thing that is the god-given right — nay, the holy obligation — of all Americans who toil for The Man. There may be beer in the immediate future, beer and cupcakes.

Seriously, I’ve got email and story tips backing up because there’s timely stuff happening today. Where to start?

• Maybe with the relaunch of Webcomics.com and Brad Guigar‘s promotion to Editor-in-Chief? I’ve been doing this gig for like three and a half years now and I’m still just “Editor” … if Brad gets a promotion, I think I deserve one too. Suggestions for a new editorial title welcome — something that conveys a bit of gravitas, like “Benevolent and Terrifying Philosopher-God-King-Editor”.
• Then we’ve got the latest from Brian Carroll, who updates the Natalie, Queen of the Scots fundraising page to let us know that the lawyers have done their lawyering and cash intake is once again cleared for launch. In addition to everybody else that’s come together to help Carroll, he’s got a very special assist from webcomics own wandering monk/utility pinch-hitter:
  

  Hey Gary-
  Reporting from on scene at Lobsterback down here in Florida, where I’ll be helping Brian Carroll make Natalie, Queen of Scots. It’s time to move my filmmaking career to the next level. Sure, I’ve been a Bollywood voiceover artist and a B-movie zombie extra, but I really wanna do is be a grip!

  We at Fleen believe by the time he moves onto his next far-flung destination, Estrada will have gripped everything on the film set that possibly could be gripped, and may also in fact have gaffed.

• Got a detail wrong on Monday — the Lookouts story continuation by Oliver Grigsby and Becky Dreistadt is not running Wednesdays at Penny Arcade. It’s running today, Friday, Monday, and next Wednesday, and to make it up to you for the mistake, please enjoy some of Dreistadt’s concept art. She’s made me tear up a little with what that vile basilisk did to that littlest Lookout, but man — she sure does draw monsters purty.

Lotta Weiner in this post — Zach Weiner that is, who has a new sketch comedy show thingy (teaser here). The show will debut with a new website that launches concurrent with an Amusement-o-Rama (some might say, “concert”) to run Saturday night at San Diego Comic Con. Said live extravaganza will feature Weiner, the Cyanide & Happiness dudes, MC Lars, MC Frontalot, and YTCracker. I’ll be there, will you? Tickets on sale now.

• Everybody see the Harvey nominations this morning? Others have commented in the past on the tendency of one title to dominate the nominations (cf: last year three Disney/duck titles from Gemstone took a total of 12 nominations out of a total of 21 categories … 20 if you consider they weren’t eligible for Best On-Line Comic), but it’s really odd that Buzzboy (an entirely worthy endeavour, to be sure) shows in five categories when it doesn’t appear to have been published in 2008, and the prominence of Zuda offerings in the Best New Series and Best Online Work categories.

  All the same, congrats to David Malki !, Ryan Sohmer & Lar DeSouza, and the Halfpixel crüë for their nominations. Plus, now Master of Ceremonies Scott Kurtz will have two separate occasions to either present an award to himself, or comment on how he didn’t win — I’m guessing that he’ll make either outcome pretty damn funny. The awards will be, uh, awarded at Baltimore Comic-Con on October 10th.

• Howard Tayler branches out from self-publishing to regular publishing tomorrow, with the launch of pre-orders for a non-Schlock offering. If you’re of the RPG-type of geek, XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery (by Tracy and Curtis Hickman) may be of interest to you. If you’re not that type of geek, you might still like Tayler’s pretty pictures. And if you prefer Tayler’s webcomic efforts to his publishing company mogul efforts, the first Schlock Mercenary book is going to a second printing, with the usual sketch edition available for pre-orderers. Have at it.
• So Miss Lutrinae¹ tipped me to a new academic journal (or book, the website appears to use both terms in different places) out of Monash University (which is mostly located in and around Melbourne, Victoria, Strailya) — Drawing The Line: Using Cartoons As Historical Evidence. It covers the full range of historical cartoons and how they document the times they live in (lots of stuff for you Punch fans, looks like), but the relevant part to this discussion is Chapter 11: ‘Teh futar’, in which author Marianne Hicks (Monash Johannesburg, South Africa) looks at comics of the webby variety.

  Your humble correspondent is cited in conjunction with the Matt Boyd: Terroristic Threatener incident and the Ted Rall: All Webcomics Should Be Taken Off The Web panel. There’s also discussion of what constitutes a webcomic, how the medium skews towards pale-complected North American voices (not sure I agree with that, but okay), and the achievements of Child’s Play. Oh, and as it’s an academic publication, slightly less than half the 25 pages are notes and references.

  I’ve managed a quick skim through ‘Teh Futar’ today, and so far I wish that Hicks had contacted me (or anybody in our community) for feedback and up-to-date information — for instance, a reference to women making webcomics misses out some prominent names and another states flatly that John Allison is the only person outside the United States to make a living from webcomics. Far more seriously, the references consistently identify a Mr Gary Tyrell (future wikifiddlers please note there are two Rs in my family name), but as we’re still a new field for academic examination we’ll let it slide this time.²

_______________
¹ Previously, I have referenced the creator of A Girl And Her Fed by way of family Mustilidae, but I realize that this nomenclature properly identifies weasels, badgers, minks, and other critters besides the relevant otters. Thus, subfamily Lutrinae, which consists solely of otters.
² Seriously though. One of Australia’s premiere (and still family-owned) wineries was founded by (we figure) distant cousins who also spell “Tyrrell” with two Rs. Granted, the Hunter Valley is in NSW and not Victoria, and Hicks is from South Africa but still … two Rs, people. Although a free copy of the book might go a long way to soothing my aggrieved family pride.