Georgia seems to be the place for live talks in the immediate future. You got Scott McCloud tomorrow night at 7:30 on the campus of Agnes Scott College. And just a bit further along in the “advance notice” cateory, Dave Kellett and Scott Kurtz will be at the Savannah College of Art and Design in four weeks. Monday the 13th they’ll be visiting with students in the Sequential Arts program, and Tuesday the 14th there will be a public talk in the evening. If you see my niece Colleen there, tell her Uncle Gary said hi.

• Wapsi Square book number three (that would be The Timekeeper’s Daughter, for those of you playing at home) is now up at Lulu. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, Wapsi reads much better in big chunks than short nibbles, so dig in and pick up on the mythology.
• On the heels of Funky Cancercancer and My Mother Is F’in Insane, we have David Willis taking a swipe at venerable busybody Mary Worth. I almost thought it was Joe Giella’s work in the first panel.
• Genius-level work in today’s Octopie. Should this strip ever go up for sale, you cannot have it. It will be mine. You can have this one instead, at least for the next three days or so.
• Quick bits:
  • R Stevens: interview on Creative Commons
  • Mezzacotta: still up for sale.
  • Wigu: now with extra backstory
• Finally, should you ever find yourself at dinner with freelance firearms specialist David Malki ! and Latin Heart-throb Aaron Diaz and you find youself in need of hearty laugh-chuckles, just throw out one word to the table. Just. One. Word:
  

  Magneto

  Trust me on this.

Various things that sound like hadrons are colliding (or not) in webcomics today. I can’t recall a hard-science topic that captured the public imagination in quite this way before, but I guess that’s what happens when your lab bench might accidentally erase the earth and everybody on it.

Soft reboots:

• Stupid and Insane Defenders Against Chaos, with a new backend and story focus.
• Pilli Adventure, as rendered 3D instead of drawn comics.
• The System, as somehow more surreal within the limitations of signage graphics than it was before. We may be into A Softer World territory here.

Okay, that’s it. Been up since way too damn early, and it’s gonna be a busy-ass weekend. Enjoy the imminent demise of the world and everybody you’ve ever loved.

Question: How much do you have to suck to steal from somebody while they’re moving? If you’ve been thinking about ordering anything from Ursula Vernon, now might be a good time.

• I’ve been noticing this thing where the depth and quality of interviews with webcomickers is really going through the roof; case in point: Girls With Slingshots creator Danielle Corsetto talks with Alex Dueben at CBR. Oh, and this one by Shaun Manning with Liz Greenfield on Steak & Kidney Punch. Rest assured that we at Fleen, rebels every one of us, intend to buck this trend.
• The WOWIO WEIRDNESS™ just won’t go away. If you missed Van Jensen’s piece in Publishers Weekly on Monday, he’s added some supplementary analysis. The most INNNNNterestin; part (in the sense that monsters are INNNNNterestin’ people): Platinum could actually lose money if WOWIO succeeds too much in the short term. Curiouser and curiouser.
• Self-described boiling vat of pepperminty machismo Brad Guigar will be signing and sketching for charity in South Jersey this Saturday from noon to five. That’s at Hall of Heroes in the Moorestown Mall, with proceeds going to Heroes for Heroes (side plug for a similar organization: Operation Comix Relief).
• And finally, check out what is still (as of this writing) the Bargain of the (admittedly young) Century: Octopus Pie strip #187 original on eBay. I think we’ve all felt the sentiment There had better be a dead person at the end of this line, and now’s your chance to own it.

Zero Batman jokes? David Willis is slipping, but I suppose we’ll congratulate him anyway. I’m Batman.

• Rene Engström talks process and backgrounds. I firmly believe that if you’re going to be really great at what you do, you can’t half-ass it, and in these two simple surveys Engström shows you how much attention to the little details matters.
• Official phrase of the day: Femented horse junk. Your task is to find a way to use it in casual conversation. Speaking of which, do you suppose they will be mixing up Breast Men at the GOF launch party on Saturday?
• Today’s webcomics business lesson: Don’t ship t-shirts to Malaysia.
• Silly Daddy reviewed at The Webcomic Overlook. Make sure you read the postscript.

Mmmmmm … no. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite. A WOWIO “publisher” (that is, content provider) who wishes to remain anonymous received the following from Kristin Ellison, Editorial Director of WOWIO in response to a query as to when payment could be expected:

Unfortunately I don’t have any update on when payments will be going out. I hope to very soon and will be sending out an email to all the publishers when I do. As an apology and a thank you for your patience while we go through this transition, we will be paying an additional 5% late fee to active publishers (those with books currently on the site) and a 2.5% late fee to in-active publishers (those who have removed books from our site). We hope this will help illustrate our commitment to our publishing partners.

Our source adds:

For what that’s worth. (2.5%, apparently.)

Anybody else in receipt of communications from WOWIO regarding payment? Let us know what you’ve been told. While we’re waiting, more on from WOWIO’s payment woes from Van Jensen and Platinum’s Hero By Night debacle from Rich Johnston (links via ¡Journalista!).

• Speaking of 500 strips, Brooke Spangler of A Girl And Her Fed joins the august ranks of high-achievers. Even without the constant threat of vendetta visited upon my person, I really enjoy reading her stuff in the morning. Check out today’s celebratory strip, full of extra AAAAAAHHHHHH!
• Via Danielle Corsetto:
  

  Just a quick reminder that MY FAVORITE WEBCOMIC KUKUBURI BY RAMON PEREZ returns today! Wooooo!

  Wooo, indeed. Go check it out.

“Hob” wraps, and Latin heartthrob Aaron Diaz raps about the storyline, and Dresden Codak in general with CBR.

• I could leave this running all day long (but my students are already starting to look at me funny). I wonder how this little treat will show up in Octopus Pie book 3?
• Hey, remember The Great Halfpixel Intern Fight of Aught-Eight? Former Straub-tern Magnolia Porter has launched a new webcomic (with a month’s worth of strips on launch day!). Please to meet the ladies of Bobwhite University.
• Open secret: you can own Devil’s Panties original strips. But the cash reserve requirements of self-publishing are pushing Jennie Breeden to be a bit more prominent about it. See the blogpost here for more information, and make sure your Etsy/eBay accounts are in good working order.
• Krishna Sadasivam wrote to remind me of the latest Sequential Artists’ Pub Night too late for me to run the notice on Friday, but you can catch the recording here. To make up for my tardiness, I’ll point out that the next episode is due to start on Friday, 19 September, 10:00pm EDT. Grab some booze and start thinking of what you want to talk about.
• Those of you looking for Bellen! to be part of your regular existence (and you know you should be), be aware that Box Brown has changed his website address to boxbrown.com. Update your bookmarks accordingly.

Chris Daily has now given us 800 Stripteases. Not that kind. Geez, get your mind out of the gutter.

Mailbag:

• JG Brin wrote:
  

  The Crown Prince just celebrated its third anniversary. To mark the occasion, I’m moving to a Monday and Friday update schedule instead of just Mondays. I am hereby wishing myself luck.

• Joseph Hewitt wrote:
  

  I have three bits of news from Transplant Comics. Matt Sandbrook (of Chip Shop Adventures) has been featured in a children’s book. He’s the one responsible for the animated DVD that comes with The Big Noisy Book of Vehicles. And earlier this summer, he released a music video for the band Captive State.

  Ben Costa of Shi Long Pang (where the massive action scene has wrapped after months) has finally released the ending of Cloaca Maxima. It gets even more disturbing than before, of course.

  Finally, at Ataraxia Theatre, Mischa’s Story is starting up again with guest art from Francisco Munoz. Other artists who have signed on for pages listed here.

• Tim Demeter over at Clickwheel would like you to know that the print comic Elephantmen is getting podified. Not sure how well the very detailed art from Moritat and Ladronn will translate to the small screen, but maybe you’ll be able to use the online reader.
• If Chris Yates had a costume rack with more clothing and less papier-mâché, fewer aliens, a superheroics story to tell and a bunch of Germans hanging around: Union of Heroes.

Okay, time to batten down the hatches in advance of Hanna coming to say ‘hi’. See you on Monday if I don’t wash away.

Dark Horse‘s MySpace offering for September hit yesterday, with three of the four entries from the world of webcomics. You got Mitch Clem‘s Nothing Nice to Say: Getting Hip (two pages), Chris Onstad‘s Achewood: One Dollar Genius (eight pages), and the very fancy Liz Greenfield‘s Steak and Kidney Punch (eight pages). And the other offering is an eight-page Larry Marder Beanworld tale, so it’s all good.

• For further proof that Onstad is taking over the world, there’s another piece in the Sandwich Duel due today, and this little beauty on the Achewood front page (no permalink):
  

  Achewood NPR interview airs next week.

  My guess? Weekend Edition Saturday or Sunday, The Bryant Park Project, or Day to Day, but nothing known for sure at this point. Good news: NPR programs are generally available for streaming within a hour of their initial broadcast.

• Interview day:
  • Brad Guigar interview. For added fun, imagine the guffaws in your head (note to self: 1. Mix down 10-second repeating clip of Guigar laughing, 2. Embed everywhere humanly possible, 3. Profit!)
  • Also got one with Lil’ Johnny A (note to self: buy things from Allison before prices go up due to dollar not being quite so sucky)
  • Joy! Rick Marshall gets back to chattin’, this time with Bernie Hou of the hiatused Alien Loves Predator and the non-hiatused If You See Something
• Ephemera note of the day: a micro-piece on webcomics bid’ness from Entrepreneur magazine; very little there you don’t know if you follow our happy little medium, but quite a bit new if you don’t. Secret fear: flood of I’m gonna make it big in WEBCOMICS ideas bubbling up in the brains of B-school douchebags types looking for easy pickings and providing crappy comics. I trust that if they show up, you will know how to greet them.

Emmett Furey at CBR follows up on the WOWIO payments issue; for the record, we at Fleen have been contacted by exactly zero creators that have been paid for the second quarter. If/when checks ever do show up, we’ll let you know.

• The webcomics are so relentlessly digital that we sometimes forget that these guys can bust the ancient technology out when they need to. Check out Mike “Gabe” Krahulik and Scott “Scott” Kurtz (no action shot, sorry) painting with acrylics.
• Moustache bonanza? I like where this is heading:
  

  Monsieur Moustache is truly making his rounds! Check out his latest travel destination!

  Yessssss. Be free and spread your influence, my moustachey brother.

I’m still a little bummed out to learn that Don LaFontaine died yesterday.

• Schlock Mercenary: The Teraport Wars goes up for pre-order today. Remember: everybody that orders a sketched-in edition will directly contribute to Howard Tayler’s crippling hand and wrist pain, so let’s try to find a happy medium that balances Tayler’s health against his financial interests.
• Speaking of books, the mailman just now delivered my copy of Pugs: God’s Little Weirdos, which I will have to enjoy later because the postal service has bound up the package in so much of their industrial-strength tape that I’m presently unable to open the damn thing.
• So it’s reptiles now, Mr Malki !? Verrrrry interesting. Or perverse. One of those two.
• New website for You’ll Have That, as creator Wes Molebash has left publisher Viper Comics. Other projects for the coming year include an amped-up con schedule, a new YHT collection, and a graphic novel. Everybody congratulate Wes!
• In today’s Good Start deparment: Jovian Luck; it’s starting slow, but there’s a definite feel that creator Kyle Sanders has the full story mapped out. This is sci-fi in the Serenity mode, where space is just another place for hard-luck types to try and get by (although what it really reminds me of is an old BBC show called Star Cops, which you have never seen but was quite good).
• Finally, I have neglected the most recent Top Shelf 2.0 offerings, so let me fix that by pointing you towards contributions by Joe Decie (autobio and fiction with “a whole heap of ink wash”) and Kagan MacLeod (a bonus chapter to the self-published Infinite Kung Fu comic book).