Listen well, my loyal minions, for I bring you wisdom that is great and deep.

• Firstly: Erika Moen. Y’all read DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary, right? It’s got adventures, surprising emotional depth, and BOOBIES. Also wang, buttsex, and precious bodily fluids, in a completely non-exploitative way (except for when it’s really damn funny).

  And now there’s a book! You are all instructed to go get it because there’s no way it’s not going to rock your face off. Also, update your links because Moen now has her own domain, www.darcomic.org, which makes this all kinds of a triumphant week for her. Even better, next week will be the joint book-release party with Dylan Meconis’s Bite Me, which is more awesome than one venue should be allowed to have.

• Speaking of books, a little bird tells me that Goats Book 1 has achieved physical form; release date is edit: see below prior to MoCCA, and you can bet that Random House sprung for the good paper stock on this sumbitch.
• New feature at MTV Splash Page from Friend o’ Fleen (and newly engaged guy) Rick Marshall — ADAPT THIS focuses on comics stories that would make awesome movie adaptations, and launches with Alex Robinson’s Too Cool To Be Forgotten (which, appropriately enough, really is too cool). If I may, this feature needs to look at a webcomic with appropriately epic scope & sweep, which logically means Templar, AZ.

  Tell me that a giant statue of Jimmy Carter wouldn’t look kickass on the big screen. Tell me that Reagan Mancuso isn’t the breakout role of the millenium. Tell me this sequence wouldn’t be the biggest laugh-chuckle in Oscar history. Hell, just do a short film of Reagan meeting her younger self — got a storyboard for ya right here, Bunky..

  Anyway, let Marshall Willenholly know what works you’d like to see get the treatment, and see you back tomorrow.

Ready for various good news? I am!

• Cat Garza has successfully intervened to get his art back under his control. A quick letter to the ISP of the page-rank manipulators has yielded positive results (a previous appeal directly to the malefactors having had no effect). Everybody be happy for Cat!
• Tom Brazelton caught a raw deal last week when some total jerks hacked his site and added a bunch of boner-pill hidden links to his footer. As a result, Google suspended him from search results for 30 days, and though he cleaned up the tags, was not being listed in the search behemoth. A quick petition and personal appeal (so quick that I didn’t have time to include it here among other breaking news … I figured a giant corporation would have taken a bit longer to react and I’d be able to summon the appropriate amount of high dudgeon) have resulted in Theater Hopper once again reclaiming its rightful spot in Google’s results.

  Those of you with long memories will recall that last summer, Brazelton provided us with a teachable moment about making backups; now he’s given us another on making sure that your site is clean of unwanted visitors. His unluck is your wakeup call — everybody both feel good for Tom, and drop him a note thanking him if you find any nasties in your site code.

• Hey, you know what’s due within the next week? Jellaby Know what else? Octopie 3, which has a book release party in two days, just in time for Stumptown this weekend. Hopefully, this will mean that a) my local comics shop will have Jellaby next Wednesday (if it gets released to bookstores first, I’m not above going to my local Borders), and Meredith Gran will have time to start sketchin’ and shippin’ when she gets home from Portland. Gonna be a good readin’ week.
• Mike Rouse-Deane, indefatigable do-gooder of webcomickry, is deep into production of a new Tastefully Done calendar (I’ve seen the cover and can’t decide if it’s a beauty or mentally scarring — damn you, Krishna Sadasivam!). While I have some definite preferences as to who might be a good contributor to the project, I realize that my tastes do not reflect those of the internet as a whole — if you have suggestions as to who you’d like to see (or if you’d like to participate yourself), I’m sure that Rouse-Deane would love to hear about it. Comments are down thataway, peoples.

So there the wife and I were in Brooklyn on Saturday night with nothin’ to do; might as well go see some major personalities of the webcomics world, we figgered. Thus, we found ourselves at 303 Grand St in the Williamsburg section at Titans of Small Town, with Ryan North, Chris Hastings, Emily Horne & Joey Comeau, and the remote telepresence of Chris Onstad.

Other webcomickers in attendance included Jon Rosenberg, Andy Bell, and a shockingly beardless Steven Cloud (all accompanied by their lovely wives). Organizer Tim Hwang (between the dapper dudes) was busy and everywhere during the evening; look for a talk with him here later in the week once he’s caught his breath.

The show started with an open mingle, allowing patrons to enjoy the art on the walls and meet the creators. For example, I was able to hear Comeau’s story about the book launch party for his new novel in Toronto earlier in the week, where the venue’s front door got jammed and the owner of the building had to kick in the glass. The Q&A featured a wide variety of questions, with choice quotes laid out below. Afterwards, a projector was set up and through the magic of the internet, Onstad participated in a chat with whoever wanted to type in questions.

Actually, now that I think of it, there’s no proof it really was Chris Onstad. It could have been an elaborate ELIZA-like program … the Ontological Natural Statement Turing-compliant Automated Dialog-o-matic or some such. Anyway, O.N.S.T.A.D. shared anecdotes about “his” favorite wine (whatever gets the job done) and amusing things “his” “daughter” did. Hopefully, the chat transcript will be made available and we can all decide if it passes the Turing Test or not.

In the end, the assembled creators collaborated on a piece of art on a large sheet of paper attached to the wall; it was unfinished at the time that I had to leave, but it featured both SPACEMEN RIDING DINOSAURS and MORE DINOSAURS, so you know it was awesome.

In conclusion, Titans of Small Town was a great success, and judging from the conversation Hwang, Rosenberg, and I had (on the topic of who should be invited to headline at the next one of these) (KATE BEATON, KATE BEATON, KATE BEATON DAMMIT), it will certainly not be a one-time deal. The End.

Overheard during the evening:

When I get home and my faithful hound (she’s nearly 9 and is becoming a literal grey-hound) comes over to say hi, I’m going to look her in the eyes and whisper, “You’re going to break my heart some day.” Then she’s going to lick me because she thinks I taste like food, and she’s going to get a million skritches. All those of you with dogs in your life will hopefully do likewise. Requiscat in Pace, Kirby; our condolences to Scott & Angie Kurtz.

• Okay, happy thoughts, happy thoughts — how about, new webcomic from some proven talents? What do you get when you combine an isolated orphanage deep in the Andes with a bunch of kids desperate to be elsewhere with new families? Judging from the launch strips of Snowflakes, the answer is “a laugh riot”. Tell me that the history of kid warfare tortures doesn’t make complete sense, I dare you. Snowflakes comes to you from Zach Weiner, Chris Jones (who previously collaborated on the now-concluded Captain Excelsior; Jones did Grumps and Weiner does Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal) and James Ashby. And it’s all-ages friendly!
• You know what’s not all-ages friendly, generally speaking? Comics by Internet Jesus; case in point, the new-this-week Ignition City (which is where the space heroes of yesteryear go to drink and die) is full of colorful language and ray-gun evisceration. But the art is gorgeous and more than a little reminiscent of Kitty Hawk (which is somewhat more barnstormery, less spacey, and so far absolutely safe for work if a bit pulpy for the wee ones). If you like the one, try the other.

Time to go hug my dog. Have a good weekend, everybody.

Backlogged stuff down below, but first, a fresh email that’s just so ridiculous that I have to share:

Just back from a major book tour to promote his new memoir “Zig-zagging: Loving Madly, Losing Badly – How Ziggy Saved My Life” (HCI Books), Tom Wilson, Internationally Syndicated Ziggy™ Cartoonist, joins Jeanette Smith, the powerhouse behind the DILBERT™ brand and former Vice President of Licensing at United Media/United Feature Syndicate to teach a vital new online course called “Cartooning Into the Marketplace.”

Learn from these pros how to give your cartoons a substantial advantage to gaining success! This program will bridge the gap between your creativity and reaching your audience, providing the essential elements that every emerging cartoonist, humorous illustrator and character animator must know to leverage their talents and take their creativity to the national and global markets.

Date: April 22, 2009
Time: 11:00 am – 2:00 pm PST
Price: $90.00/USD

To reserve your place, you can REGISTER NOW FOR THIS EVENT

Wow, all those secrets to success in only three hours. Cartooning must be easier than I thought.

Okay, onto more useful missives.

• From Tony Piro:

  Calamities of Nature is having its first ever caption contest. Whoever thinks of the funniest punchline to [30 March]’s comic will win a book or t-shirt along with the original art.

  Missed this when the contest was first announced, but the voting is underway; head over and help choose the winner.

• From Adam York Gregory, news of another competition of sorts:
  

  TNP Press (The Noir Project) are looking for a new member… it’s an open call to any comics wanting to join. Details can be found here. We will take every application seriously.

  Some pretty good talent over there at TNP; if you’re looking for an association of like-minded cartoonists, be sure to check it out.

• Story followup, courtesy of Tom Mason :
  

  In response to your post on infinite potential, here are some stats on WGA employment in Hollywood. Yeah, some screenwriters do significantly better than others, but it’s still not a pretty picture.

  The post in the link was put together during last year’s writer’s strike. The WGA has 4,434 registered members (as of last year).

  The money quote in the article: “The median income of screen and television writers from their guild-covered employment is $5,000 a year, in part because almost half our members don’t work in any given year.”

  So, for every 2200 that work, another 2200 don’t, at least as writers on projects covered by the Guild.

  PS: I remember reading similar stats about the Screen Actor’s Guild, but can’t find the link yet. All I have now is anecdotal evidence rolling around my head.

• And finally, one of the funniest guys blogging in the comic-ish world is Chris Sims, proprietor of The Invincible Super-Blog (now with even more weekly kicks to the face). One of his own comic projects is now available for your reading online, which based solely on his writing about comics I recommend to you unreservedly:
  

  Click [here] to read the first chapter of the all-new, all-awesome Chronicles of Solomon Stone #1, by me, Matthew Allen Smith, and Benjamin Birdie! Thrill to Solomon and Minxy’s latest case and the revelation of the newest–and deadliest–foe to face the World’s Greatest Half-Vampire Private Detective! I’ll be putting up a new chapter every Wednesday for the next three weeks until the whole 24-page story’s available.

Finally, the blogroll over thataway has just had its semi-whenever the hell I remember to redo; items no longer updating have been pruned, stuff that I’m liking and had inexplicably omitted has been added, and I won’t be doing it again for a while, but if you think you should be there, the criteria remain the same — do a comic that grabs me enough that I keep reading it when you update.

It was snowing, now it’s not and it’s gotten much warmer in the past hour. Wacky.

• Eisners: One of these days, the committee will figure out what they mean by “Digital Comic”. Is it a comic that’s primarily produced digitally? That would be an awful lot of the total output of what we call “comics”. Is it designed to be seen (or seen first) in some digital medium? That might include episodic animations, story-based videogames, as well as various near-advertorial content (not that we’ve seen that before) Will there continue to be a “longform story only” requirement that has prevented so many really good journal-type (or random-topic’ed) comics from gaining consideration? Must it be “comic-booky” or can a more strip–like endeavor find favor?

  In any event, the nominees for 2009 are reasonably solid, although I would naturally have nominated an almost completely different slate were I in charge of the world (and so would you, don’t deny it). For your consideration:

  • Bodyworld (Dash Shaw)
  • Finder (Carla Speed McNeil)
  • The Lady’s Murder (Eliza Frye)
  • Speak No Evil (Elan Trinidad)
  • Vs. (Alexis Sottile & Joe Infurnari)

  Speaking solely for myself: go, Finder. And if the heavyweight interface at Shadowline makes you a sad panda, there’s a lighter-weight iteration (but still unfortunately slow; Carla Speed McNeill, I emailed you so we can continue that site-optimization conversation we had at NYCC!) at www.lightspeedpress.com.

  Meanwhile, David Malki !’s Wondermark reprint volume has been nominated in the Humor category (but the source material isn’t in the Digital category … answers on a postcard), so please send well-wishes towards Mr Dreamcrusher.

• I was going to clear some stuff from the mailbag, but something else came up that I had to mention. Probably you’ve seen it and been appropriately appalled, but what the hell people? At the risk of declaring a Venn diagram to be wrong, this is why we need a long-range slapping device.

What the crap? I turn around this morning and our main machine decided to have a small lobotomy. Thanks to those who emailed to let us know about the site outage; all is now well, and we may move on to more important things.

Joey Manley emailed me this morning to point me to a new piece at TalkAboutComics; short version: Cat Garza’s old site (Whimville, no link, for reasons that will soon become apparent) had lapsed its registration some time back, which ordinarily would not be a big deal, what with Magic Inkwell and all. Somebody scooped up the domain (again no big), and is now using it to most likely game Google’s search rankings and promote a chiropractor in California. And they’re using Garza’s name and art to do so. Right there? That’s your big deal.

I contacted Garza a little while ago and verified that he’s neither given his permission for his art to be used, nor has he been offered compensation. Manley’s engaged in a little Google-fu to try to mitigate whatever benefit the chiropractors might ultimately see; I’ve just sent the following message via their contact page to inform them of the situation and see if they have any response:

I am a blogger that covers the world of digital comics; please be aware that the purpose of this email is to solicit information for publication.

I am writing about what appears to be an attempt to make your website rank higher on Google. An expired domain has been obtained for this purpose (whimville.com), and is using the art of its former owner to promote your business.

I have verified with the artist, Cat Garza, that he has not given permission for his artwork to be used this way, nor has he been compensated for its use.

Mr Garza is both well-known and well-respected in the world of independent and digital comics; he is also distressed that his work is being used this way.

For the record, now that you are aware that these actions have taken place, will you be either compensating Mr Garza for the use of his art, or instructing those who are promoting you to discontinue using Mr Garza’s name and copyrighted material?

Gary Tyrrell
editor, Fleen
www.fleen.com

Nothing received yet, but we’ll be sure to let you know if there is one. In the meantime, if you’d care to contact the back-crackers and ask politely if they would care to deal with the situation in a manner that’s not ripping off Garza, that would be awesome. Remember: we won’t get a good response by yelling, threatening, or acting crazy. Let them know the situation, let them know it’s bad publicity, ask them politely to change their approach. Updates on the situation as warranted.

That grass looks like it came out of children’s storybook; Mike Krahulik has mentioned wanting to do a children’s book, and given what I’ve seen of the Penny Arcade’s attempts at kiddiebooks (and things that look like kiddiebooks), I’ll go out on a limb and say I’m ready to purchase that effort the day it’s published.

In other news:

• Long before I met Dave Roman, I was captivated by one of his many projects — in this case, a collaboration with John Green called Teen Boat; after all, how many things combine the angst of being a teen with the thrill of being a boat? (By the way, a Teen Boat Safety Note: please do NOT go to teenboat-dot-com unless you seek to lose your employment) Anyhoo, the recent Teen Boat Dreamboat video has now gone high-quality, which you can enjoy over at the Vimeo site in all its musical glory.
• Hey kids, do you like the originator of Estradarama (alternately, the theoretician behind Estradanomics), the globetrotting adventurer (and confessed Ryan) Ryan Estrada? And have you managed to work your way past the heavyweight (and frankly horrific) interface at Zuda? If you answered “Yes!” to both, you may be interested in Estrada’s contribution to this month’s Zuda-off, The Kind You Don’t Bring Home To Mother. This page is on record as not being thrilled with Zuda, but having previously read through TKYDBHTM, it’s a real kick and you will likely enjoy it.

Events!

• Those of you in Toronto will have the opportunity to hear panelists including Kate Beaton, Emily Horne, and Ryan North at the Keep Toronto Reading Web Comics Panel at the North York Central Library tomorrow at 6:30pm. Moderated by Christopher Butcher of The Beguiling, organizer of the upcoming biannual Toronto Comics Art Festival and generally smart guy.
• Those of you in New York can enjoy North, Horne (with her partner in madness Joey Comeau), Chris Hastings, and Chris Onstad at Titans of Small-Town (as of this writing, some tickets appear to still be available). Doors open 6:30pm at 303 Grand in Brooklyn. If I see you there, we can compare notes to see if Hastings is still tired from the night before, when fiance Carly Monardo is featured at My Plastic Heart’s New Moon show, interpretations of the Chinese Zodiac, at 6:00pm, downtown in Manhattan.

Finally, a dip into the mailbag for an intriguing email. Y’all remember Ben Heaton? He did Terror Island with Lewis Powell for a couple of years, has been running Request Comics since, and is likely at least one of the official keepers of The Ham Project. Ben sent me an email, which I now share with you:

Remember when Randy Milholland asked Something Positive readers to match his yearly salary in donations, and they totally did? I’m going to see if Request Comics readers can pull that off too.

I’m unemployed, so the target value is $0.

If you want to support request-based photocomicry, come check out the donation drive here. Even if you donate nothing, that’ll go a long way toward my goal. Especially if you donate nothing.

I’d note that donation drives really only work once, so here’s hoping that Heaton gets his $0; if you’ve got nothing to donate, it’s hard to think of a better place to not give it than to him.

Emerald City Comic Con runs this weekend, and about the time you read this everybody I know in webcomics (almost) (not really) is on their way there. According to various twitterings, most of them are either delayed until further notice or on the Turbulence Express from Hell, so be kind when you drop by to say howdy. Additionally, rumor has it that Aaron Diaz will have a pre-order going for the long-anticipated, limited-edition Hob hardcover. If you say hi, remind him that my name should be at the top of that list.

• Small-Town (perhaps it should have been Tiny-Towne, or Sinkytowne?) is a little more crowded today, as Emily Horne & Joey Comeau are added to the lineup of talent. One night only in Brooklyn! Woo!
• Happy Birthday! Josh Lesnick’s Girly has been running for six years (and considering it’s an offshoot of the earlier Cute Wendy, you could credit it with a bit more age still. By amazing coincidence, today’s strip is #665, which is an awful lot of sixes for a strip that just happens to be six.
• Happy Birthday! David Willis has now been variously obsessed with toys, cartooning, Transformers, Transformers wiki, toys that transform from one shape to another, pie-throwing, and an awesome fiance (bonus points if you pronounce that word like Holly Hunter did in Raising Arizona) for 30 years. Congrats on living past your twenties David, and remember: it’s all a downhill slide into decrepitude and senescence from here. Have some cake to celebrate! Aw, heck … cake for everybody!

At this stage, do I really have to remind readers of this page that I loves me some Digger? Of course not, and may I say that I’m thrilled to be able to link to any page in the archives now that the strip no longer has a subscription wall. Today’s installment in the inadvertant adventures of everybody’s favorite wombat is both hilarious and question-provoking. Namely: is the ghost actually speaking to Murai, or is she addressing Digger (who would certainly find the thought of being a “child of prophecy” to be mortifying)?

But my sheer delight at Ursula Vernon nailing it again is tempered by her text update:

I have been waiting to get to this scene for YEARS. An embarassingly long time. I didn’t always know what was was going to be said, but I knew the ghost scene was somewhere on the horizon. Like Ed’s story and the revelation about the tail of the peacock, it’s been one of the touchstones I used to steer the plot.

Having reached it — well, gang, this is kind of the beginning of the end sequence. I mean, Digger still has a good chunk left to run — I suspect we’re looking at close to another year, if not more, since I always seem to run long (remember that I expected Digger to be less than a hundred pages long once!) — but having reached this scene, we’re definitely barreling towards the climax and picking up speed.

DAMMIT. I’ll let you people in on a secret: for nigh on three decades now, I’ve paced my life by a series of goals that weren’t entirely in my control. Things along the lines of “I can’t die until ____”, where the blank was usually along the lines of being able to read the end of some ongoing story. Until today, Digger and Anders Loves Maria were my don’t-die milestones.

But now Vernon tells us Digger’s maybe got a year and Rene Engström told me at NEWW that we’re down to the endgame of ALM. Now I need to find another ongoing story or I will die. If Vernon or Engström would care to let us in on their plans for their next projects, that would be awesome for all concerned except for my greedy, grasping heirs.

• Speaking of Engström, I wonder if her place of birth on the majestic Canadian prairies edit to add: mountains! I meant mountains! see comments below would be enough for the organizers of the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards to consider her in next year’s nominations, on account of she’s not in this year’s. A’course, given the slate of nominees in the Webcomics/Bandes Dessinées Web category (scroll down), the inclusion of Engström might actually qualify as an embarassment of riches.

  Having any one of Kate Beaton, Karl Kerschl, Cameron Stewart, Ramón Pérez, or Kathryn & Stuart Immonen would make any country proud; having all of them plus Michael Cho, Lar De Souza & Ryan Sohmer, and Gisele Lagace almost makes Canadia look greedy (side note to the organizers of the Eisners, Harveys, Ingnatzen, and all other comic-related awards: this is what the webcomics category should look like, kthxbye).

• Final note: Matt Boyd, scribe of (formerly) Mac Hall and (latterly) Three Panel Soul is job-hunting. He’s a crackerjack writer/interviewer, and unlike some hack pseduo-journalists we could mention, actually has considerable skills in that (increasingly competitive) field.

  His name/work aren’t searchable worth a damn at Kwanzoo, but you can find a lot of his stuff here. If you’ve got need for an awesome communicator, drop a note to machallboyd at the Google-run email, which is a dot-com.