Michael Rouse-Deane has been keeping us all appraised of the progress of his charitable projects this year: the naked webcomickers calendar, and The Kid’s Book Project. The former has been available for purchase for some time, and the latter has just completed. Rouse-Deane sent us:

First of all the introduction page, something which only the artists have seen. Secondly one page that has been coloured (of course the book is in black and white). Unfortunately I can’t tell you which page this is nor what’s happening but … at least it’s a sneaky peak. And finally, below is the list of the pages of each artist.

We at Fleen how our suspicions who did that colo[u]r page (click for a slightly larger version); answers on a postcard if you want to get your guesses in. And given that the artists don’t know which page their contribution goes to, we’re not going to disclose that here; you’ll just have to buy a copy and see for yourself. But we can tell you who contributed to the book:

Ryan Armand, Phillip Blackman, Eddie Bowley, Box Brown, Jeff Burkholder, Brandon J Carr, Bryan Chojnowski, Zach Clairville & Sam Batzdorff, Mitch Clem, Danielle Corsetto, Brittney Crump, Joe Dunn, J. Edward Edens, Ryan Estrada, Donny Fox, Josh P.M. Frees, Dorothy Gambrell, Frank Gibson & Ned Hugar, Ali Graham, Liz Greenfield
Edward J Grug III, James Hutchinson, Andrew James, Julie Keene, Richard Lillie, Gareth Lind, BT Livermore, Jeffery Manley, Molly McCausland, Les Mellor, Shawn Miller, Steve Napierski, Ryan North, Edmund Osterman, Frank Page, Ivan Pope, Josh Rosen, Ed Ryzowski, Matt Sandbrook, Dan Scannell, Jon Scrivens, Dave Sherrill, Jason Sigler, Philip Spence, Phillippe St. Gerard, Jimmy Tierney, Dean Trippe, Tom Truszkowski, Steve Wallace, Stephen Waller, Liz Walsh, Damian Willcox, Charles Woolbright Jnr., and Nate Wootters.

Okay! That’s today’s contribution towards carpal tunnel syndrome done, and we at Fleen hope to hell we didn’t leave anybody out. Now go order the book, dammit.

Which leaves us with a short list of timely topics:

• Fred Gallagher takes a fair amount of grief for an update schedule that can charitably be called irregular, I think he’s earned a bit of slack this week. Congratulations on the birth of Sarah and Fred Gallagher’s first child, Jack; mom & baby doing well.
• Review of the first Perry Bible Fellowship collection at The AV Club. The thing I found most interesting about The Trial of Colonel Sweeto is that it’s not in the same chronological order that the individual strips originally ran. I’m not sure if they’re in a random order or if Nick Gurewitch sat hunched over a lightbox in his artist’s garret for weeks on end with a cup of ramen and bottle of Jack his only companions, desperately trying to find the funniest possible sequence, but whichever it was, it worked.
• Randall Munroe falls prey to filthy continuity: five updates of XKCD due this week, and a storyline to go with ’em.
• On on a tangetially relevant note, I was sick all weekend and missed seeing the official rapper of webcomics in concert. Anybody that caught MC Frontalot at the Knitting Factory last night, let us know how it was. My guess: awesome.

Too bad, it’s what you’re getting. Attend:

• Described by creator Chris Peloso as an incredibly unpopular comic that almost no one has heard of, Tiny Ghosts has recently published an anthology, making it in Peloso’s words probably the least popular webcomic ever to get into print.
• Onezumi.com: webcomic. Nightwish, Finnish metal band currently on tour. Connection? The latter is wearing shirts from the former (screen caps here).
• Latest 24-hour [web]comic to hit: Ataraxia Theatre — it’s got monkeys!
• Reproduced as received:
  

  on a particularly rainy afternoon, your weary body slumped in a chair, you stare blankly at the computer screen. it gives you no information, no comfort. you click randomly, right, left, crawling through portals appearing to have no end. suddenly you find yourself at a website, a site that invites you to become involved, by choosing where you go next, how you get there and even creating directions of your own. you, the intrepid adventurer, navigate from comic to comic through links embedded within, hidden in shared objects or frames. you are at the tangent pageant.

  Um. ‘kay? Digging past that paragraph, we find a new webcomics site where a bit of poking around reveals a number of comics offerings, some of which have embedded links leading to other offerings. Not too much there at the moment, and lots of dead ends so far, but could be interesting in time.

  One piece of advice to the site owners, though: I’m a patient guy, so I messed around until I figured out what you’re trying to do. Most people will not, so I’d cut down on the mood-setting a little, and just spit out a description of what you’re attempting.

See, the American dollar has been slip-sliding to historic lows against other major currencies. While this does not affect my life directly in any major way, it is starting to affect some of my webcomics merch-puchasing. Drat it all, some of what I like is imported.

Case in point: I loves me some Liz Greenfield autobio comics, and news that she’s got a print mini of them up for preorder made me happy. But given the current exchange rates, the €8.95 (with shipping) that she needs to charge to keep the spectre of starvation from the door comes to more than US$13; toss in the very cool calendar also up for pre-order, and you’re looking at a cool US$40. Yeah, imported items always cost more and the shipping rates are very fair compared to actual trans-Atlantic costs, but at some point it’s going to cut seriously into Greenfield’s business. And unlike the assumptions made in macroeconomic theory, I can’t just find an equivalent domestic supplier of the goods, since there’s only one Liz Greenberg Greenfield [dammit, I apparently had a bowl of Stupid Flakes for breakfast this morning; we at Fleen apologize to Ms Cusack].

Taking a slightly different tack is John Allison, who’s placed his merch business Stateside, leading to the ironic situation that I can buy one of his shirts postpaid for £11 (US$23; pretty fair for an American Apparel shirt with a quality print job) while a fellow Brit would pay £14 (US$29.50). Good for me, and Allison gets more sales out of it than if he shipped from Blighty, but it may not actually help in all cases:

There’s also a strong possibility that in the future I may have to switch to doing the comic in black and white — purely in service of the print editions. Colour printing is getting more and more expensive and the weak dollar means that while some of the sting is taken out of it for me, I’m selling fewer books (and all other items) to the USA, where the greatest percentage of my readers are. I don’t like the idea of this move very much and if I can avoid it, I will. I certainly don’t want to punish my many loyal readers, who like me, enjoy all colours.

Disaster! Particularly when Allison’s decision to draw at a larger size means we’re now getting lips in full detail on our sassy heroines. So this one goes out to any creator with a merch line and an international readership — what kind of shift in purchasing patterns have you seen, and any ideas how to combat it? Barring the ability to do merch-on-demand locally in all major locales of the world, I’m stumped.

Kris Straub is bustin’ out the nerdcore wit’ a quickness. Did I say that right? All I know about you kids and your “hip lingo” I learned from Herbert Kornfeld. In any event, it appears that Straub can freak and flow at the same time.

And what goes better with the rap than the sea shanty? Chris Baldwin makes good on his promises to record We Rogues of Wool, with both audio and video versions. I heard a rough cut of this one over the weekend (minus some filling vocals and sound effects), and thoroughly enjoyed it. If audio alone is good enough for you, download the MP3 here so as not to kill Baldwin’s bandwidth but trust me: the video is sublime. Bonus points for the Gonzo-like and Cookie Monster-like voices, and a definitive pronunciation of “Vachel”.

A bit late with this, but Child’s Play has launched this year’s holiday drive, with an entirely modest goal of US$750,000. Given that last year cleared a cool million, it would really be letting down the team to not at least equal the previous effort, yeah?

And this morning’s browse brings word of an option:

6. a privilege acquired, as by the payment of a premium or consideration, of demanding, within a specified time, the carrying out of a transaction upon stipulated terms; the right, as granted in a contract or by an initial payment, of acquiring something in the future

In this case, it’s Tim Broderick‘s Odd Jobs with a new deal:

Tim Broderick’s ODD JOBS has been optioned to Warner Brothers Television. The series includes Something To Build Upon, published by Twilight Tales, and Cash & Carry, due out in January from Echelon Press.

Two things must be noted here, even as we congratulate Broderick:

1. This doesn’t mean that Warner’s is actually making a TV show out of Odd Jobs; it means that in return for consideration to Broderick, nobody else can do so. If the option period expires without a filmed version being made, Broderick walks away with a check; if they choose to make a show, there will be further deals covering that.

   Even if they do make a show out of Odd Jobs, it could be a hell of a long time before we see anything on screen — it’s been more than two years since Fox optioned You Damn Kid, after all. For a nice discussion of the topic, see the very funny docu-comic Fortune and Glory by Brian Michael Bendis.

2. Warner Brothers Television is a division of Warner Brothers Entertainment (itself a part of the Time Warner megacorporation), as is DC Comics, which is the parent of Zudacomics. Looks like the pathway to big-media partnerships doesn’t necessarily run through Zuda after all. But then, we knew that.

Since we last took a look at regular webcomics news:

• Order of the Stick released comic #500 (extra length, as is traditional in these situations), then followed up quickly with #501.
• Steve Troop‘s back in the saddle for the latest revival of Melonpool; this time around, there’s a definite story with beginning/middle/end, and he’s not committing to more than that … but he’s having fun and we get free comics, so what’s not to love?
• I am sore afraid of the final panel of today’s Ugly Hill — I can’t make those three streams of ejectamenta square with my knowledge of anatomy, but presumably new father Paul Southworth knows these things. So scared.
• The hell? Has Gunnerkrigg Court always been at Graphic Smash and I just never noticed before today? That’s what I get for paying too much attention to the comic, and not enough to the newsposts.
• There’s a very interesting interview with Joey Manley and one of his new investment partners, Alan Gershenfeld, over at CBR; toss Gershenfeld’s name into Google and tell me you don’t go Hmmmm. Anyway, there’s some interesting between-the-lines readings to be gleaned from what Manley and Gershenfeld have been willing to say on the record; we at Fleen have our own interview questions before the gentlemen behind the megamerger, and we’ll bring you those answers as soon as we can.

Editor’s note: As reported yesterday, three members of Blank Label Comics have struck out into the wilds of Webcomicstan to try to make their fortunes away from the group. Their goal: a new association, Halfpixel, which beckons to them like an oasis in the desert. Will these three plucky upstarts succeed? We asked Brad Guigar, Kris Straub, and Dave Kellett just what the deal was, and how it fit in with Scott Kurtz‘s continuing plans for global domination.

(more…)

You may have noticed that the Blank Label Comics Brady Bunch grid is a little short today — six headshots instead of the usual nine, and three names missing from the sidebar. Aside from completely messing up my usual morning webcomics trawl routine (hit the BLC site, and start reading comics in a criss-cross pattern, starting from the lower right), this means that Kris Straub, Brad Guigar, and Dave Kellett have left the webcomics supergroup to try their hand at solo projects under a different band name. Or something. Wherever the metaphor is going, there’s no hard feelings and no Yoko Ono in this breakup.

Where they’re going is under the Straub/Scott Kurtz studio label of Halfpixel. Rather than a defined collective with shared responsibilities, Halfpixel will be giving the four creators a common identity for things like promotion and con appearances, but allow them to pursue their comics endeavours in a more independent fashion.

Plans for the shift have been in the works since before SPX, where one would not have known that any kind of breakup was imminent by the way that all the Blank Labellers carried themselves. Commenting on the change, Howard Tayler said this morning:

Think of this as ‘fission,’ like the nuclear kind. Counting Scott Kurtz’s advisory position there were ten of us at Blank Label pouring energy in several different directions. This split focuses that energy in some exciting new ways. Readers should expect to see big things from both Halfpixel and Blank Label Comics in the weeks and months to come.

Indeed, during a late-night rumble between Blank Label and Playground Ghosts, this reporter personally witnessed David Malki ! aim a vicious swing with a baseball bat at the back of Brad Guigar’s head. David Willis, heedless of his own safety, hurled himself between the bat and Guigar, dramatically shouting “NOOOOOO” in slow motion, despite knowing that their creator’s relationship was mere weeks from dissolution. Clearly, friendship means more to these gentlemen than mere business association.¹

Despite the fact that I got scooped by Xaviar Xerexes, there will be an interview with the four Halfpixelites tomorrow.

Updated to add: Received after press time was the following comment from David Willis:

Hey, look, they just had a thing about how I refused to wear pants, y’know? And then one day I freeball it, and PAM!, they’re “starting
a new collective.” Well, joke’s on them. Now I can lounge around pantsless without those shifty eyes. This is a new golden age.

Pants nazis. Every single one of them.

_______________
¹ Obligatory disclaimer: In truth, David Malki ! did not assault Brad Guigar with a baseball bat. It was actually a cricket bat. The Willis quote, however, is real.

Whew — what with interview and blockbuster announcements, we at Fleen have neglected some of the happenings in our corner of the interwebs. For example: Zudacomics Zudalaunched yesterday, with a couple of Zudahiccups that seem to be worked out now.

Others have commented on how the initial batch of contestants seem to predominantly be creators with a history of working with DC, which may be coincidence, or it may be people that don’t have a problem with the Zudacontract’s terms because they’re used to them.

That being said, there’s some very good work there, and you ought to check it out, but be prepared to hate the interface. It’s not that I object to Flash per se, but holy mother of all that’s good and pure that’s a slow load. If you’re not on broadband, forget it.

Lightning round!

• Want to see a guy lose 10 years in five photos? Check out Beardvember 2007!
• Warehouse sale!
• Webcomic goin’ animated!
• So … shiny! Scroll down for Halloween caliente.