I was sitting on the news until the anticipated Wednesday launch, but since it’s been announced over at Penny Arcade, I get to share. Your eyes are not deceiving you — that image up there tells you that Becky Dreistadt will be drawing an ongoing Lookouts story (written by the impressively-resuméd Oliver Grigsby) for your consumption starting the day after tomorrow. Now be kind and don’t completely wang the TKT server, hey? Space out your clicking over and revelling in the lush, painted-on-paper-and-every-damn-thing art in an orderly fashion, please.

Wasn’t sitting on the second big item, but man — sometimes the news cycle moves fast. Long story short — Brian Carroll of Instant Classic remains at heart a filmmaker, and faced with a sudden funding crunch for his indy feature, Natalie, Queen of Scots, he turned to the internet for help in raising the money to move forward with production. That was Saturday.

‘Bout twenty four hours later, nearly $20,000 had been raised. Three hours later, the ugly spectre of US securities law made itself known, and it became necessary to take down the fundraising appeal to consult with counsel. At this time, all indications are that N,QoS remains a priority for Carroll & Company, and all away the latest information with bated breath.

By the time you read this, Carroll may know what the proverbial deal is, and he will doubtless share with us at the first opportunity (which can probably be found at the Twitter hashtag #findaway.

Soooo … Scary Go Round has a storyline that’s been running for a few weeks (and will for some weeks more), with a suspiciously pale and noseless character who favors epaulets. Also, one glove. It’s a mighty peculiar corincidence that John Allison would choose this of all possible times to include what may or may not be Michael Jackson in his work, just as it was pretty unlikely for one of David Morgan-Mar‘s Steve Irwin strips (wherein Steve narrowly survives a croc attack) to run the same day that the real Irwin died.

It’s just a coincidence, but if anything happens to Bill Cosby after today’s previously-announced Draw Cosby For Science! event, I’m going to be officially creeped out. Also, we wouldn’t want to make Ray even more miserable than he already is, so stay safe, Bill.

Oh man, I am sitting on some really cool stories right now — can’t spill the proverbial beans just yet, but at least one of these is gonna make those of you that love awesome things squeal with delight. Just sit tight ’til next week. Onto what we can talk about.

• Is there a more beautifully-drawn webcomic than Karl Kerschl’s The Abominable Charles Christopher? The gentle (if not overly bright) yeti hit two years of updates with a heartbreaking pair of parallel stories.
• So yesterday Jon Rosenberg announced that the launch party for his new color collection would be the day after tomorrow. Apparently, the timing didn’t work too well for a lot of people, so now it’s been pushed back, with best estimates centered on 11 July, 2pm, at the famed Peculier Pub. I’m personally hoping there will be a guest list, velvet rope, and big intimidating dude with a headset at the entrance. In any event, assuming the date doesn’t change, our ace reportorial staff will be there to cover the star-studded event.
• Plan B, a music/culture magazine from the UK, has apparently wrapped — the current issue is the last — which is a shame because they just discovered webcomics in a big way. They haven’t updated their website with the article (and mostly likely won’t get around to doing so), but Box Brown (featured in the writeup along with Rene Engström and Meredith Gran) has scanned it for your enjoyment.

Also, nothing to do with webcomics, but you will be the better for knowing:

• Tasmanian wallabies are getting high on opium and creating crop circles.
• The Mythbusters (minus the hugely pregnant Kari Byron) will have a session at San Diego Comic Con, to be moderated by Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer; this is what’s known as a localized nerd singularity inside the greatest concentration of geekery known to mankind. Somebody save me a seat.

Cat and Girl, the benevolent Philosopher-Queen of webcomics, is ten years old. Actually, it’s a bit more than ten years old, but Dorothy Gambrell is a modest sort, and only got around to mentioning it in a quiet little notice. From its humble anarchic and hellraising beginnings, Cat and Girl has been consistently funny, and never more so than in Gambrell’s ongoing act of webcomics diary-keeping, Donation Derby, wherein she shows you where your donation money gets spent.

• Speaking of webcomics characters named “Girl”, the eponymous heroine of A Girl and Her Fed (actual name subtly revealed, but if you didn’t find it, I ain’t ruining the surprise) tells us the unvarnished truth about time travel[lers] today. For me, the real treat is the voice I hear for her when reading panel one — it’s got that little-kid-saying-sorry-but-not-really intonation, and I like to think that she’s making circles on the floor with her toe. Also, the word “skullfucked” (Hey kids! Ask your parents what it means!) is inherently funny.
• T Campbell‘s mysterious, unfathomable, and eerie powers of knowing when he is mentioned appear to be on the fritz. Nearly two weeks to respond? Gotta get back in shape, T.
• SDCC Preview Night is officially four weeks away, so this is a good time to start the clearinghouse of webcomics information that we at Fleen strive to provide every year. If you’re going, drop us a line with booth number and any special events or panels you want to highlight; we’ll start with the info transfer in two weeks or so, and update as appropriate.

Confidential to SEO scam artists that write emails featuring many correctly spelled words: We’re just fine with our Google ranking, thanks very much. Please stop offering to game the algorithms for us, or we’ll be forced to get the hose.

So here’s the deal: the new Goats book, Infinite Typewriters is available everywhere today. If you ordered a copy, it ships today. If Random House were kind enough to send you an advanced copy (as they were with me), you’ve had it in your hands for a few weeks now. And if you’re cheap, you can read the whole damn thing online starting about here. Simple process, right? Book, read, review, post.

But it’s not. Goats wasn’t the first webcomic I read, but it was pretty early on. It was the first webcomic that lead to me being involved in the medium and with the creators as I am. Many are the beers that I have had with Jon Rosenberg, many are the times that inadvertant physical contact has sent him recoiling in horror, and it is a factual matter that I sold him my soul about four years back (I got a dollar for it!). It’s in large part because of Jon’s prodding that Fleen exists today. There are gags in the book that spring more or less directly from conversations that I took part in. Hell, it’s pseduo-canonical that I’m a character in the strip, and Jon and I even share a birthday. Objectivity is not possible in these circumstances.

Which is a shame, really, because I love this book and want to be able to tell you objectively why you should buy it. But I can’t, so take everything with the requisite open-pit mine full of salt.

Faced with the very messy task of disposing of (depending how you want to count) either six and a half years (pre-reboot) or one and a half years (post reboot) of continuity, what took me 800 words to summarize Jon neatly pulled together in 8 pages (which I guess means the whole pictures/words things is off by a fact of ten). Faced with a jumping-on point to the story that was originally in black and white, he went back and recolored. Staring a rights-clearance issue in the face, he dug deep into his show tunes loving heart and rewrote lyrics and made them funnier. Realizing that every scene is better with Steven Cloud in it, he was added (Soviet historical photo style) where previously he had not been.

I’m saying that Jon Rosenberg is flexible. If it serves the joke, he’ll follow any slender thread of potential as far as it can possibly go, past the ridiculous, beyond the absurd, to the batshit insane.

And damn him, it all works. If you’ve grown up in a certain timeframe, if you voraciously consume science fiction and fantasy stories, and if you find yourself simultaneously engrossed within and repulsed by the conventions of those stories, this book may as well be the sacred tome of your tribe. If you’re not of that particular flavor of industrial-world 21st century geek, you can still marvel at the audacity of taking what had been a stellar example (and perhaps was the progenitor) of the two-guys-sitting-on-a-couch school of webcomics, and turning it into a dimension-spanning epic with all of reality at stake, and still making it funny.

Yet, somehow, Jon’s the same loveable, squisy-hearted guy he’s always been (for certain values of ‘loveable’). Regardless, he’s given us a tremendous story that’s still careening wildly out of control, and now I get to read a sustained high point again and again even when my mousing hand’s wrist-hurt disease is flaring up. And if that ain’t a great way to blow a Tuesday afternoon, I don’t know what is.

See, tomorrow is when the first of the Random House/modern-era Goats books releases, I aim to write about it, but I’m treading the line of being too close to the material to provide a useful writeup. So. Working angles. In the meantime, let me point you to some other items of note.

• Regular readers of this page will recall that I dig me some Templar, AZ, and possibly that I like to read it in great big months-long chunks at a time. But when Spike does short self-contained stories set in the Templar world, that’s just gravy, ’cause I ain’t got to wait whole season to see how it all plays out. Couple months back, we got the story of Reagan’s first communion (and a talk with her really annoying future self), but only after people ponied up to read it. Them’s the rules, kids — this is bonus material, and much like public radio, somebody’s got to pledge before everybody gets to read it. Awaiting your support now — the male cast talks chicks in a place where lies aren’t allowed; it’s about halfway to the donation goal … pony up a few bucks so I can read it, dammit.
• Along the same lines, Vincent LaBate & Braden Lamb have an 8-page Kitty Hawk mini that they’ve been selling at cons, but is available in electronic form as a donation thank-you. They were kind enough to toss a copy my way and oooh, is it pretty. Got three bucks? It’s a nice chunky PDF with a lot of gorgeous art.
• It’s a good nine months since we pointed y’all at One Swoop Fell, and creator Mike Dutton has found the strip’s traffic to justify a move to twice a week (Tue/Fri) from once (Wed). Considering that each update is full-page, full-color, that’s a lot of work that Dutton’s throwing out into the aether, and you should at least go take a look by way of saying thanks. He’ll also have a short story in next month’s Flight 6, which is pretty awesome in and of itself. Add to this the ongoing work towards a One Swoop Fell book, and Mr Dutton’s fairly burying us in quality comics work.
• Finally, a story of a big break. There’s little in the way of webcomics that I love as much as Ursula Vernon’s Digger, and I cannot wait for the next collection to come out. But today, Ms Vernon is recognized for some of her fine art work, viz., the Biting Pear of Salamanca (sometimes erroneously identified as the “LOL WUT” pear) has gone Marvel. With any luck, vinyl toys and/or plushes will be out by San Diego.

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Note for those that read too much between the lines: There will not be Biting Pear vinyl toys or plushes out by San Diego, or likely ever. If there were, I’d damn well buy one but in all likelihood? Not happening.

I’m sure that nearly everybody has seen this by now, but the well-regarded and totally free biennial event known as TCAF has decided it can no longer run every other year. So instead, they’re going annual. Festival director Christopher Butcher gives us the lowdown:

That’s right, the next Toronto Comic Arts Festival will be held Saturday May 8th and Sunday May 9th, 2010, at Toronto Reference Library. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. And yes, we know that’s Mother’s Day… All of the cool moms read comics.

What, so soon, you ask? Following up on feedback from our partners, our guests, our staff, and attendees, we’ve decided to build on the incredible momentum of having a new home and incredibly supportive presenting sponsor in Toronto Public Library, and produce our first annual show. This is something of an experiment for us, and I can’t say for sure that we’re “going annual” with the event, but we feel that a 2010 event is the best course of action to ensure that TCAF stays a fun, vital, and prominent festival both within the city of Toronto and in the larger comics community. That’s around the corner so we’ll be running a tight ship, and further details about TCAF 2010 (including exhibitor application & information) will be released later this summer. [emphasis original]

I know that the urge to get in on a good thing is probably overwhelming, but Butcher’s said that details about exhibitor registration, guests, and suchlike won’t be released until August, so please be patient. With PAX coming east, TCAF running early, and NEWW coming back to Eastworks, it’s going to be a very busy spring.

• So apparently a lot of people didn’t get today’s XKCD; via my buddy Brett, Crooked Timber points to what might be called The XKCD Effect — webcomic posts with geekily obscure (but very funny) punchline, and Google Trends lights up. Does this qualify as an “effect”? Mayhap a “syndrome”? Regardless, it’s clear that Randall Munroe wields an influence over the secret masters of the internet that you and I might only dream of. If he ever decides to get into product placement, look for a sudden spiking in wealth in the Munroe Park vicinity.
• Beards. Holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews, the beards.

Busy day, please consider these meager crumbs of infotainment and we’ll see if we can’t do something more substantial tomorrow.

• For those that hadn’t seen it, Chris Hallbeck’s The Book of Biff is preordering the next volume of eyebrow-laden hilarity. Since this is the fourth book in the Biff series, shouldn’t it be The Books of Biff?
• Speaking of eyebrows, nobody does them as funny as Paul Southworth; sorry Chris, I know they’re kinda your thing, but just look at what Southworth does with them. A’course, we’ve been without Southworth on the webcomics scene since Ugly Hill wrapped three months back, but nothing bad lasts forever — that’s right, Southworth is doing cartoons again, and you get to read them.

  Crispy Gamer has invited Southworth to do a weekly gag panel on the topic of computer gaming, but Southworth being Southworth, you don’t have to be a hardcore gamer to enjoy the funny. Enjoy the first You Are Dead now, and come back each week for more.

• It’s always an uncertain thing when a strip changes its primary direction — say, when an autobio/journal type comic that centers on discrete, not-related events decides to tell a longer story. Even if I didn’t know creator Auilix slightly (and by “slightly” I mean “not remotely well enough to know where this story is heading”), I think that the teaser page for the just-started “Senior Year” arc would have grabbed me — there’s a lot of promise in those five panels, and they do a hell of a good job at setting the hook and making me want to see the story through. If you haven’t been reading The Glass Urchin, this might be a good time to start.

You may recall that we at Fleen recently pointed you to AP. Furtado’s newest webcomic, Major Tom. It wasn’t possible to give you a set schedule, since Furtado updates it on a “full chapter when it’s done” basis, but we can tell you that chapter two just hit the webs. If chapter one was about setting and atmosphere, chapter two is all about laying out the plot for the upcoming story. Aside from a touch of black holes don’t work that way! I’m really digging this one.

• From the mailbag, Kory Bingaman would like you to know that her webcomic, Skin Deep (a story about mythical creatures living hidden from humanity), is now going to press over at IndyPlanet. Skin Deep: Orientations collects the first story arc (which ran from November 2006 to last August) and has a real Castle Waiting meets Nothing Better vibe to it.

  By the bye, IndyPlanet runs merch from such respected creators as Jerzy Drozd — not really related to anything, I just like typing “Jerzy Drozd”.

• Speaking of [K|C]orries, Corey Pandolph continues his march towards the title of Most Prolific Cartoonist Not Named Tezuka by launching a fourth comic. Most people would get all the good ideas out of their skulls with just one strip the likes of Barkeater Lake, but Pandolph is not most people. Thus, Greene With Envy, about that weirdest of all suburban creatures, the childless-by-choice couple.

  Speaking as half of such a couple, never knowing the joys of small creatures urping up their breakfast all over us or screaming for half the night, allow me to explain to our parental friends that while Pandolph may portray the no-kid lifestyle as relaxing, glamorous, and awesome, in reality it is much, much better than that. Take a glimpse of what awaits you in 18 to 25 years and start dreaming of the quiet (in those random moments of sleep that the replicant permits you).

• Speaking of kids, I’m reliably told that they have some good features, such as you can share your geekly tendencies with them and they might not rebel by growing up to be accountants and Republicans. If you find yourself in such a position, may I recommend the latest GeekDad column at Wired, which features an interview with Dr McNinja creator Chris Hastings? Why yes, I believe I may.

Received: Peloton. Lots of status-quo up-shaking in this stack of Scary Go Round stories, as major players are taken off-stage (Shelley) or changed in fundamental ways (Amy, Ryan, Le Garçon); chaos and silliness ensue, complete with a little Allisonian love for my place of residence. Also, since I pre-ordered, there was a minicomic detailing the ultimate fate of Erin Winters (who was sucked into hell and forgotten by friends & family) … this being SGR and she being a Winters, it turns out pretty acceptably for her.

Two words for you: Beard photos. There is a booth that makes photos of you with a beard. This wonder of modern alchemical science may be found in the vicinity of one Mr David Malki !, Esq., proprietor of the Wonder-Mark etheric humors, and patron of a grand entertainment in honor of said japery to-morrow night in the Beverly Hills of California.

Revelation of the day: Johnny Wander. Why did I not know about this comic before today’s guest strippage and link from Jeph Jacques? I mean Ananth Panagariya is mentioned in these pages enough and I’ve casually followed Yuko Ota’s earlier work even, and it’s terrific enough that I had to do a freakin’ archive crawl today. I do not have time for another webcomic in my day, so please stop giving us stuff as majestic as the ant shower, ‘kay? Thank you.