Report on the Brookyn Achewood gathering later. Much later, probably.

In the meantime, please check out Box Brown‘s new polititcally-themed strip, Americant. True, we at Fleen don’t usually pay attention to strips ’til they’ve got a reasonable archive to browse through, but I think that Brown’s got an established reputation for quality so we’re pointing you to it now.

A few days before an election is an odd time to launch the strip, but the strip continues apace, and the George Takei-starring musical about the success of Prop 8 was really good.

(Thanks to Joseph Hewitt for the heads-up)

My buddy Lore got all inspired by the Wil Wheaton guest appearance where he busts mad rhymes. Seafood hiphop for life, homes.

Now for the real news: somebody in the hierarchy of syndication has taken note of one of the bright stars of webcomics — indeed, she might be described as the nexus of all webcomics reality — Shaenon Garrity and Jeffrey Well’s Skin Horse has been picked up by GoComics:

Garrity is the creator of numerous webcomics, including the critically acclaimed online comic strip Narbonic. Skin Horse, cowritten by Garrity and Wells and drawn by Garrity, has been running daily since January. Starting this week, it will also run on GoComics.

Skin Horse follows the staff of Project Skin Horse, a secret government organization dedicated to the protection of America’s nonhuman citizens: robots, beast-men, zombies, and other neglected products of mad science. The organization’s field agents are Sweetheart, a no-nonsense talking dog; Unity, a patchwork Frankenstein girl; and Tip, a cross-dressing psychologist and the team’s token human. The comic is both a gag strip and a serial comic with ongoing story arcs.

GoComics is the online distribution portal for uclick and Andrews McMeel Universal.

It’s also the home of such excellent webbish offerings as We The Robots and C’est la Vie. In the past, the semi-syndication offered by the big content companies via their websites was held out as a sort of stepping stone to print syndication, but that seems to have stalled — Little Dee, Boy on a Stick, Sheldon, and others had been offered that possibility of transition to the newspapers, the the leap is far and perilous and many elements of it are inimicable to webcartoonist tendencies.

But Ms Garrity is a smart cookie, one of the best scholars we have on indy comics, webcomics, manga, and the batshit insanity that goes with them. Presumably, she and Mr Wells have consulted carefully with those who are able to give good counsel, and have decided that this is a deal where the risks are outweighed by the rewards; we at Fleen hope that they achieve all that they aim to in this venture (and certainly, it should result in a few more eyeballs over at Skin Horse’s own site).

Also to be seen: like most of the content company portals, GoComics only allows the non-subscriber to go back a few weeks in the archives, so it’s not known how a those who love their newspaper comics enough to pony up the dough will react to the … not quite so family-friendly content that occasionally (and hilariously) makes it way into Skin Horse. Here’s hoping that those who stumble upon such content and are shocked — shocked, I say! — find their perception of comics a little wider than it was before.

Well done, Shaenon and Jeffrey. Knock their socks off.

Tyler Page’s Nothing Better returns today, and you might say the new semester is better than ever. Ha, I crack myself up sometimes.

• Webcomics Idol is down to five: The Superfogeys, The Book of Biff, Xylia, Newspaper Comic Strip, and Calamities of Nature. Little surprised to see Shi Long Pang out so early, but what are you gonna do? Edit to add: dammit, this is what happens when I try to catch up on things in a 10 minute window. Thanks to Lenny in the comments for setting me straight. On a side note, I’m really enjoying the quality of feedback from the judges this cycle — good, trenchant advice in there.
• David Malki ! did a really good interview with occasional boothmate and once (and future?) webcomicker Nick Gurewitch, but you can’t read it yet. It’ll be in the next PBF book from Dark Horse (due in February), but you can read an excerpt here.
• Lastly, it’s not April Fool’s Day, so I’m forced to take the following from Wes Molbash at face value:
  

  I’ve decided to end YHT.

  This decision was not an easy one, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it and talking it over with my friends and family. 2008 has been a difficult year for me personally, and I believe that now is as a good a time as any to end one project and start working on the next.

  The final “You’ll Have That” strip will be published on Friday, January 2nd, 2009. I hope to tie up as many loose ends as possible over the next two months, and I’ll try my darnedest to post these last strips on time! In February of ‘09 I’ll be launching a new comic feature here at this site.

  Weirdly enough, I don’t think that this is bad news. It’s not a sudden decision, there’s a natural end planned for the strip, and Molebash has clearly found a new project that he’s fired up about — those are all elements that lead to a reinvigorated and even-more creative cartoonist. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

Making the rounds — a question from Rick Marshall (tireless promoter of cool things and friend to children everywhere) to various webcomic creators: Who would your characters vote for? Answers so far from Rene Engström and R Stevens in their LiveJournals, and by the time you read this, Marshall should have a collection of responses at his blog. Oh, and Rick? Keep coming up with cool ideas like this one before I have a chance to, and I’m bringing back the Sleestak references. Just sayin’.

• The official rapper of webcomics sees his new CD shipping today; those of you that pre-ordered have probably been enjoying the downloaded tracks, but I’m a physical artifact kind of guy. That’s why I’m extremely pleased that The Front slid me a disk a few weeks back and I’m loving it. Bear in mind — I’m a suburb-livin’ white guy who can no longer deny that he’s in his forties, and thus not the prime audience for hip-hop of any sort. But Final Boss (like its predecessors) has earned its spot in heavy rotation for my commute — the only thing that makes me feel better about facing the working day than Front is Radio Lab, and Jad & Robert don’t rap.
• Hey, webcomicker! Ever wish you could bend the ear of an entertainment lawyer? Joey Manley wants to hear from you. Expressed by the Colonel:
  

  Over the next few months, I will be doing a series of podcast/interviews with Phyllis Kaufman, a leading media/entertainment/intellectual property rights attorney here in NYC. The goal of these interviews will be to help give webcartoonists a sense of how to successfully negotiate a publishing/movie/videogame/etc. licensing deal.

  We’re still trying to figure out a structure for the set of interviews (whether we’ll take it medium by medium — a book deal podcast, a movie deal podcast — or issue by issue — or what). But I hope and expect that these interviews will be useful and meaningful.

  If you had Phyllis in the room with you, what would you ask her about this stuff? And if you have a contract that you’ve signed or are about to sign, would you be willing to share it with us (we promise never to tell anybody), so that Phyllis can speak with an understanding of the actual kinds of deals that people are having shoved at them? I’ve already shared with her the Zuda and the TokyoPop contracts, both of which are public info, but any further information we can obtain would be useful.

  Responses can go directly to Joey, whose surname is Manley, and has been known to keep an email address at the Google-based email service, which I understand is a dot-com.

Things may be of necessity short and at random times.

• Paul Taylor could use your good wishes — a shoulder injury has sidelined the Wapsi Square cretor for at least the next week or so. For future reference, the fact that he could even type enough to let us know that things are screwed up after a reduction is pretty damn impressive. Feel better soon, Paul — but don’t come back to cartooning until you’re completely well.
• You may recall that about a month ago, this page pointed readers to Robin White’s Skitzo Man webcomicking/blogging about webcomicking endeavour. At the time, White was talking a great deal about process, and coming back to webcomics after a lengthy hiatus of some years.

  Most recent in these looks back is a pondering of why the first version of Skitzo Man didn’t succeed; there’s some good analysis there, and anybody looking to succeed in webcomics ought to at least check out the thoughts of a creator who’s trying to figure out why he didn’t. For those of you looking for something a little more technique oriented, check out the video that White found about drawing with water.

• Finally, the Great Outdoor Tour rolls on this week, with stops in Ann Arbor, Toronto, Chicago, Brooklyn, and Boston. For those of you going to the Boston appearance on Saturday, get there early — The Million Year Picnic (while convenient to mass transit) has very little space that’s not taken up with comics, so it’s gonna be tight. Those of you going to the Brooklyn signing at Rocketship, see you there.

What’s that? Another webcomicker with a Hollywood option? News came yesterday that Agnes Quill by the prolific Dave Roman (with the help of various other creators) has been picked up for development. For those of you new to the game, Dave and his wife Raina Telgemeier are, in addition to scary-talented, two of the nicest people in indy/webcomics you’re ever likely to meet. Between this and the publication pickup of Raina’s SMILE: A Dental Drama, it’s turning out to be a very good year for the kids from Brooklyn Queens dammit I knew that, thanks for the correction, Dave.

But just so we’re all clear, this does not necessarily mean that we’re gonna get an Agnes Quill movie; it means that the producers have negotiated for the right to make such a movie. A’course, Dave gets the financial benefits of that transaction whether or not the movie is ever made (and as has been pointed out before, more than one Hollywood idea-fountain has made a tidy living by not having movies made — options that expire can be resold again and again), so everybody be happy for Dave!

While we’re on the subject, anybody notice this peculiar corinsidence? Word of the Amulet deal came around St Patrick’s Day, Last Blood got announced on April Fool’s Day, and Agnes Quill in the immediate vicinity of Halloween. Look for the next big webcomic/movie deal around Groundhog Day.

• Speaking of Comics Bakery, their frequent convention boothmate (and my EE-knowin’, right-hand-rule-throwin’ brother) Kean Soo sends word that the second Jellaby book (Jellaby: Monster In The City) is now available for pre-order, with a release date and every damn thing. Unfortunately, it’s not until April, but maybe it drops a little bit early? Maybe? In the meantime, enjoy this Jellaby short.
• Finally, in the not quite ten days since the return of webcomics.com under the aegis of the Halpixel lads, there’s been some really good stuff going up. If you haven’t been over there yet, let me recommend particularly Krishna Sadasivam‘s practical tips on using ComicPress, Dave Kellett‘s interview with Karl Kerschl, and Chris Eliopoulos‘s on how you either make comics because you want to, or because you can’t not make them. If the entire community continues to contribute quality material like this, they’re gonna put me out of business and I get to sleep more — sweet.

Latin Heartthrob Aaron Diaz dropped some hints about this to me when we had dinner back in September — it’s The Dresden Codak Show (in color)! According to Diaz, it’s not Dresden Codak the webcomic brought to live action — the title is the same, and many of the big themes will be present, but it’s a different story for a different medium. But don’t take my word for it — drop by APE this weekend and ask him yourself.

• Jeff Rowland‘s got yo’ notability hangin’ (‘long wif a two-week supply of IGNINT MCNUGGET): his leg has been immortalized on Wikipedia, under the topic of warning seriously awesome icky photos “necrosis”.
• Free lesson of the day: Howard Tayler shares some hard-earned wisdom on shipping, while freely acknowledging that most of the hard earning was done by his wife, Sandra. To wit — how to ship a thousand packages in six hours, from a series of blog posts by Sandra during the process.

  Short version: you don’t just ship packages at a rate of 167/hr by showing up on the big day. Things start weeks earlier with order collection, getting said orders into a useful order, getting the inventory whupped into shape, getting all the postage arranged, before finally stuffing stuff into stuff-holders.

  To be clear — following exactly these instructions will not work for you the way it worked for Sandra and Howard. You’ll have to work out your own methodology to keep massive shipping events under control, but stealing ideas from Sandra is probably a very good starting point.

I think it’s officially on the way to being a movement now: last week, R Stevens and Sam Brown held an experiment. Noting that there are no longer many shared cultural experiences in a world of thousands of channels and easily-accessed internet porn, they declared that at 8pm EDT on 23 October, everybody should listen to Michael Jackson’s Thriller all the way through.

Time for the second instance of shared culture: tomorrow night, 10pm EDT, it’s The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars by David Bowie, and you can tweet along with Sam ‘n’ Rich. Give this a few more weeks, and we’ll be talking “watching Apollo 11 land” levels of worldwide shared experience.

In other news:

• Following up on our thoughts about the blurring line between webcomics and episodic games, part two of On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness drops today.
• Just over a year ago, Ryan Estrada and John Campbell launched the Cartoon Commune from Mexico. They’ve moved on from the country in question, but the urge to communally cartoon rises strong, and Estrada has announced Cartoon Commune 2.0 for all your quick illustration needs, with a stellar array of talents just waiting to draw for you.
• Finally, as we hurtle headlong towards the spookiest day of the year — filled with ghosts, goblins, witches, sexy soldiers, sexy devils, sexy catgirls, sexy cops, sexy Ghostbusters, sexy barristas, sexy devils, sexy pirates, and God help us, sexy Alan Greenspan — okay, maybe it’s not so spooky. Unless you’re in Detroit, where Eric Millikin, wrangler of monstrous images extraordinaire, is going to be part of a show of macabre art. The disturbing images of the damned that will haunt your dreams and waking hours until the sweet release of death fun kicks in tomorrow night, at Tangent Gallery/Hasting St. Ballroom. Head over after you finish listening to Ziggy.

As noted previously, Webcomics Idol 2008 is underway, with the judges weighing in on the Top Ten contestants. At this early stage of the competition, I’m personally liking Biff and returning competitor Shi Long Pang, but then again I thought that SLP would go on to the final two last year.

Answering our earlier question about the judges, it appears that Brad I don’t do portfolio reviews Guigar is Simon, and that’s a good thing. From a mechanics-of-comics standpoint, his critiques have been dead on, even when I like what he doesn’t. As a philosophical aside, can Simulated Comic Product still be called “chronically underreviewed” given that this is its second year in the WITT, and it got all the way to 3rd place last year? Discuss, then vote (and remember, you’re voting for the comic you want out).

Greg Carter (usually mentioned in conjunction with Gina Biggs edit to add: and Jennie Breeden) sends word that his webcomic, Abandon, has completed the first step of getting into print. The first issue of Abandon is now available direct from the creators, or via your local comic shop with a handy ordering coupon.

Let’s close on a moral dilemma: Kazu Kibuishi’s Copper is back, and that’s some of the best news in webcomics in about forever. On the other hand, drawing Copper means taking time from producing Amulet book 2, which makes my heart sad. With sadness. But then there’s the reason that Kibuishi decided to steal some time to update the webcomic:

A few days ago, I received an email from Charley Murdock in Virginia, in which he said he would vote for Barack Obama if I drew a new Copper strip, and that I need to keep drawing the strip, since it’s what started my career. This cracked me up and made my day. Now, nobody should vote a certain way simply because of a new Copper comic (Charley is an Obama supporter anyway and will hopefully help swing the state in his favor), but I had already been thinking about how I should continue to produce the comic regularly no matter how busy I am, or else Copper and Fred would sit by the wayside indefinitely. I couldn’t just let that happen, so I put Copper and country first!

It’s a beautifully complex piece of artwork, and in a period of time when the news is focused on doom and/or gloom, it’s got a wonderfully optimistic message. On behalf of the country, Messrs. Murdock and Kibuishi — thank you.

We’ll have to see how timely updates can be. In the meantime, there’s a few things to talk about.

• I know that just last week I mentioned that some day ten years of webcomickin’ wouldn’t be that common any longer, and here we have another. But somebody check me on this — would yesterday’s American Elf tenth anniversary strip be the first webcomic that went for ten years on a daily basis? I think it might. While we look around to see if there’s another, please enjoy the AmElf tributes that James Kochalka will be running for the next week or so. First up: if the Elf hung out with Drinky Crow, courtesy of Tony Millionaire.
• Is it just me, or has Tatsuya Ishida become the sharpest sometimes-politcal cartoonist on the internet? He’s been doing a series of strips addressing the current political/economic climate that have been both brutally funny and devastatingly on-target, and done so with the handicap of fitting an existing cast members (with existing personality traits) into his commentary, instead of having the relative luxury of just making up one-shot characters to fit the gag o’ the day. Yesterday, he turned that eye towards the web/print divide, and lo it was good.
• Hey, APE y’all. San Francisco is beautiful this time of year, and it’s not like you had anything better to do the weekend after Halloween except lie around in a sugar coma/hangover (depending on how you celebrate the holiday). See how many webcomics types you can find on the list of exhibitors (not on the list but to be found on the grounds: Meredith Gran). And tell me you don’t want to go see what’s on display from:
  

  The World of Jack T Chick [booth] 564

  Yeah, I thought so.

• Finally, we’ve got a pulp/adventure type comic debuting at Kitty Hawk; much like Freak Angels, we’ll be getting multiple full pages per update, the better to let the story stretch its legs. Even better, the site debuted with a retroarchive going back to the end of July, so there’s enough story to get you hooked. Contacted for comment, co-creator Vincent LaBate promised “controversial sound bites”, which we at Fleen are taking to mean that LaBate is a Man of Opinions that you should be loathe to miss.

  Hop on over and enjoy the gorgeous pictures (there’s something very subtly Alex Robinsonish about the faces that really suits the characters — they look like very distinct people), then stay for the immersive story; aside from one somewhat anarchronistic ninja reference (but hey — webcomics), this one looks like a keeper.