Brad Guigar + 8 years = today! Yep, it’s eight years of daily goodness from one of the nicest, most nose-to-the-grindstone, happy guys you’re likely to meet in this crazy bid’ness. How many other cartoonists do you know that produce eight separate installments (across three different titles, after the day job) to run online and in a newspaper that only publishes six days a week? For those scoring at home, 8 > 6. I submit, this guy is the Hardest Working Man in Webcomics.

Still with the math, we already know that Wondermark + The Onion print edition > Cathy en Español. But what about Wondermark + Dark Horse Comics? Judging from this page, it looks like that equation equals “$14.95, at quality bookstores everywhere in time for San Diego Comic Con.” It also appears that this is David Malki !’s second book, joining the hilarious and compelling Le Talmud et Ses Maîtres.

Finally, what sort of variables are best for the Zudacontest? David Gallaher (writer/co-creator of Zudaoffering High Moon) draws our attention towards a posting in the Zudaforum. At the moment, the greatest amount of discussion seems to be on the topics of genre competitions (gag-a-day strips not having to compete against storyline strips, for example), the viability of elimination rounds, and the possibility of all-star or second-chance contests. Zudatypes wanting to see how elimination rounds might work may want to check out Webcomic Idol, which uses such a format. In the meantime, those having feelings on the matter may wish to read and contribute to the Zudathread.

February is making me SO-SAD, and without the benefit of a happy light. Here’s stuff:

• The mad genius behind Sinister Bedfellows, mckenzee, has sent me PDFs of his Cðulhuviða project, and news of a Cðulhuviða book available at Lulu. Still waiting to hear back if he’ll be able to realize his handmade book desires, but let me say this now — if such a book becomes available (I’d have to believe it would be a limited edition), I want one. One should also note that alongside the Cðulhuviða book, there are also available for purchase the NCWCC anthology and the Sinister Bedfellows collection.
• Reminder: Katsucon this weekend, with many webcomickers (Dr. McNinja, Evil inc., Onezumi.com, Applegeeks, and many more), and the Epic Webcomic Win.
• Two years of crappy job stories (that’s stories about crappy jobs, not crappy stories about jobs). On the one hand, I want Michael Moss to find a job that isn’t hellish. On the other hand, his hellish work experiences lead directly to my free amusement. This is a moral dilemma.

There may be no harder working, nicer person in webcomicdom than Meredith Gran, she of the stellar Octopus Pie, the brilliant Polar-oid, the gone-too-young Skirting Danger (dead domain, but at least the redirect page recognizes it used to be a webcomic), and the occasional piece of masthead art. Her long-limbed, loose ‘n’ scribbly (in the best senses of the words), animation-derived style is a lovely thing to behold. She’s been doing the webcomics thing so assuredly and for so long now (by my reckoning, more than a third of her life), it’s sometimes easy to forget how young she still is; she’s one of the vets in this community, and she wasn’t even born yet when I left for college.

We may be seeing more of her soon:

The thing that’s been on my mind lately is that the comic could, in time, take the place of a job for me. I work full-time in TV animation. It’s fun work, but I do it to pay the bills. Spending the majority of my time on a personal project I love is a no-brainer.

The fact is that Octopus Pie currently takes up a lot of my spare time. Far more than any hobby. It’s essentially a 2nd full-time job for me. As such, balancing a full-time job AND a full-time webcomic is, in the long run, unrealistic. It’s come down to the fact that I have neither the time nor the energy for it.

That’s why, come summertime when my job ends, I’m going to take a risk and do the comic exclusively. Take charge and be my own boss. I feel as if it’s as good a time as any.

That right there? That’s what the past generation or so of indy [web]comics has been leading up to. There’s really nobody — by training, by talent, by temperment — more suited to this kind of personal artistic project lifestyle than Mer, and I am so very, very thrilled that the state of the technology, the culture, and the economy of [web]comics is such that she can take her shot.

It’s a no-brainer to say that she could have made a living and a reputation in the artistic and/or comics world of decades past, but seeing what she’ll come up with on her own, unfettered by anything other than the number of hours in a day — that’s gonna be something to see. On the off chance that you don’t read Octopus Pie, get started before she gets all famous and conquers the world, so you can say you were there at the beginning.

In other news, it’s been a while since there was teh drama in webcomics, so let’s see if we can’t start something. Hey Mike Russell of Culture Pulp, John Allison’s talkin’ smack about your town.

And because webcomics can educate as well as entertain, a little ASL for you from that Satanic Porn comic. Nothing I know of sign language has made me smile as much as this, and I was present (back in 1992 or so) at the invention of the sign for “geek”.

So What The Hell? Con was held in NoCar (as the kids call it) over the weekend, with a healthy representation of webcomics creators in attendance. From Temporary Fleen Field Reporter/Mafia Princess Brooke Spangler, we have the following report from the panel that contained webcomickry:

The panel featured guests from webcomics in addition to authors, graphic artists, and occult researchers. The questions tended to focus on how people in creative professions could make a living from their work. Short answer: you can’t. Long answer: you can, but it requires an unbelievable amount of time, effort, self-sacrifice, and networking with the right folks. Most of the guests, especially the professionals, were extremely pragmatic and tended to frame their experiences in terms of what their jobs cost them as opposed to what they gained.

After the panel, I asked several of the guests why they didn’t talk up the good parts of life as an independent creator. They noted the questions from the moderator and the audience tended to be personal and that if someone wants to know “How can I succeed in [creative industry]?” a very straightforward answer is “Develop a burning passion for ramen noodles and vitamin pills.” Jamie Robertson pointed out that twenty years ago, professional cartoonists and comic artists actively discouraged newcomers from getting into the industry for their own good because there were only so many slices of the pie and those were all spoken for. These days there are more opportunities for creators, but this still doesn’t mean it’s easy to succeed. Not the most upbeat message to take away from a webcomics panel, that’s for sure, but certainly a valuable one.

Thanks for the panel report, TFFR/MP Brooke Spangler! For other perspectives on WTH?C, check out the con report from woman of mystery Otter, which focuses on drunkeness with Ursula Vernon and porn star names. Yikes. No permalink, so read it quick. As long as we’re at Otter’s main page, I would be remiss were I not to note that a veil has been dropped, we are let into a larger world, and there are EYES there. Also noses and lips. Freaky.

Yep. Vendettas. Good times.

In major news, I wrenched something in my hand the other day and typing hurts, so this is gonna be short:

• Shaenon Garrity has cool comics originals and not enough wall space; I can sympathize, as my webcomics and animation originals have long since exceeded the limits of my home, and I am not putting my Rikki Tikki Tavi character study in the bathroom or my Grinch ‘n’ Max in the garage. Solution: I’m having a coffee table made — with map drawers. Hey presto, you got protection, easy access, no more tubes, and enough drawer depth to be able to significantly add to the collection (except that buying a place to store the art kind of cuts into the budget to buy the art).
• From Gordon McAlpin, news that the first issue of the Multiplex eBook collection is now available at WOWIO; it collects Multiplex #s 1-24 plus a couple of guest strips (by McAlpin) and seven strips not available in the Multiplex archives.

  Potentially cooler: the inside front cover has an illustration that preserves the vector artwork Gordon draws Multiplex with, meaning you can literally zoom in over 1000% and look at all the stuff (some call them mistakes, I call them extras!) that’s too small to see on the web. And, as with all WOWIO offerings, free in exchange for demographic characterization.

• And lastly: Oh Richard Stevens III, is there anything you can’t turn into a Venn diagram? You make my set-theory lovin’ heart go dokidoki. All you ever needed to know about non-island-based Scandanavia, in one easy picture.

So much to talk about these days, what with the WCCA nominations, and How To Make Webcomics up for pre-order (Hey, Brad and Scott? You might want to put the book up in your stores like Kris and Dave have, ’cause I went looking to give one of you guys money yesterday, and I went with the first one who made it possible) and Ryan North‘s Goldmanesque situation. And that’s before yesterday’s trip to the local comics shop resulted in purcahse of volume 1 of Dirk Tiede’s Paradigm Shift and yesterday’s mail included Dave Roman sending me three (count ’em, three!) Nickleodeon magazine all-comics issues, none of which I’ve had a chance to read yet.

That’s because I’ve been reading and re-reading Jellaby. Want the short version? Kean Soo has put together a book that’s equal parts Owly and Amulet. If that’s not not totally awesome-sounding, I’m sorry — we can’t be friends anymore.

The longer version is that Kean Soo manages a number of things here that would make me inclined to like him a great deal, even without the bond of right-hand rule brotherhood that we share. In contrast to the usual comics convention of putting lots of deep, saturated color on the page (or the screen), Soo has elected to go with a subtle, almost ink-wash approach. That low contrast, far from making the pages hard to read, forces your eye towards the details that he wants you to concentrate on.

Case in point, from the online archives: Portia, our heroine, has a set of blinders on like you wouldn’t believe. Soo could spend eleventy-six panels of exposition telling us this, but instead shows it with an incredibly subtle and intuitive look at her emotional world. So heading down the hallway at school after a talking-to from her teacher, Portia’s entire world is washed out and pale, except for the much bolder window immediately around her. Looking at other people, walking past them, they suddenly come into sharp relief, then fade after she walks about two steps onward. And as beautifully as it works on your screen, it does so even better on the page.

The book just oozes that level of craft — Soo never tells us what he can show, and has taken the challenge of working with an extremely limited color palette and turned it into a strength. Everything in Jellaby is dominated by shades of purple, from motion smears (check out the very solemn head nod here) to seriously creepy dreams; that one basic color can convey so many moods was a happy surprise for me. And when a decidely non-purple color show up, the effect is arresting. Those are some mighty good lookin’ carrots there, Jason. Oh, and did I mention that it’s hilarious? And that Soo conveys emotion in facial expressions better than anyone this side of Tom Beland?

Best of all — Jellaby clocks in at nearly 300 pages, making it almost three times as long as the online (and sadly hiatused) version. Tensions build and release in the story, leading up to a cliffhanger that’s got me counting the minutes to the next installment (which I’m told will also be in 2008, but you never know with printing schedules). If Soo’s editors and publishers are smart, they’ll keep him happy and the rest of us well supplied with our favorite purple whatchamacallit.

Catching up first with a friend of webcomics in general, and Fleen in particular: Rick Marshall — who along with Brian Warmoth successfully de-suckified Wizard‘s website and was dejobbed for his trouble — has landed at ComicMix, where he is contributing up a storm and taking on the position of Online Managing Editor. Heidi’s got the press release, we’ve got the good wishes, and Esbat apparently got the Marshall genetic legacy. I think that’s what they call win-win-win-win.

Catching up with other news:

• Greg Carter reminds all and sundry that Atlanta Comix Expo is this weekend, and he and Gina Biggs will be representin’ webcomics there, and conjunction with Dark Horse releasing the second graphic novel of Biggs’s Red String. And in a rather generous act, Carter also reminds us that also this weekend, two states to the north, Jennie Breeden and a mess of other webcomickers will be at What the Hell? Con this weekend with a ton of other webcomickers; look for strips including Carter, Biggs & Breeden doing con prep to show up at the site of Satanic Porn soon.
• Lori Henderson of the Manga Village portion of Comics Village would like you to know that there’s a competition on. You (yes, you!) could see your manga-style webcomic published online and in print, including distribution to UK bookstores, and through Diamond. Details here.
• I’ve been seeing lots of links around webcomicdom pointing back to The Scienteers in the past month or so. There’s a reason for this: the people that do the scienting have decided to merge the idea of webcomics collective with the idea of webcomics news site, with a particular emphasis on exposing little-known creations. Want some exposure? Send ’em announcements & news, and submit comics to be run on their website. Details on submitting news and comics here and here. Bonus points for especially good scientication.

Many things:

• Via ¡Journalista! yesterday: the future of comics is on the web; via Corey Doctorow: the future of SF literature is on the web. Compare a) to b) for extra credit.
• Little Dee en Español.
• The Tesla Love Theatre Company of Greater Canadia invites your partcipation.
• A meditation on Super Tuesday, from within the troubled psyche of a fish.
• Still no category for webcomics at the Reubens. Given the ridiculousness of the devices he created, you’d think ol’ Goldberg would have a fondness for something as bizarre as the modern internet. Maybe next year.
• And as of this writing, it is a mere 24 hours and 41 minutes until you’re officially boned trying to get a room in San Diego for Nerd Prom ’08. Good luck to all, and try the Powerball while you’re at it.

The day before Jellaby Day!

It’s been more than 18 months since we first reported that Kean Soo‘s Jellaby would be getting the print treatment, and tomorrow all our waiting is over. Between this and Flight Explorer (due next month), it looks like plenty of the big purple monster about town to satisfy our needs, but for those of you that need just a little bit more, and are in Toronto, there’s two more things of interest:

Presented in association with THE BEGUILING and Scholastic Canada, Kazu Kibuishi and Kean Soo will be at the North York Central Library to debut their brand new graphic novels Amulet and Jellaby. Both Kean and Kazu will be interviewed on stage by The Beguiling’s Christopher Butcher.

That’s 6:30pm tomorrow, with a bonus signing event at The Beguiling by Kean & Kazu at 7pm on Wednesday.

In other news: new vinyl toy on tap from Andy Bell. Man, I love that guy’s designs, but what’s with all the butts? All his toys have lovingly-sculpted ass cheeks. Ominous.

Starting to see responses in the comments thread from yesterday about Eisner nominations. Yes, my minions — go forth and prod your favorite creators to submit themselves for consideration. And one of the called-up creatrixes (creatricies? creatrixii?) has informed me that she has thrown her metaphorical hat in the metaphorical ring.

Speaking of evil, we at Fleen are given to understand that some people don’t have a sense of boundaries, and so Rene Engstrom has been forced to take down her contact info and her charming “get to know me” comic, which her nickname referenced; a replacement is now needed — how does The Candianest Viking sound?

Hourly comics abound! I have it on good authority that fully 48% of those comics are actually drawn by Ryan Estrada.

Anybody read the posting at Wondermark today? The Very Nice Freelance Firearms Specialist Who Everybody Likes has essentially been transitioning to self-employed creative type (including webcomics) over the past year. Time to chalk up another one in the “pro” column?