Hey, Ugly Hill is back. Why yes, we did mention this yesterday, but every one of you not reading Ugly Hill is taking food directly from the mouth of Paul Southworth’s infant son, you heartless jerks. Click over there now. Read the archives, too.

Speaking of guys with young sons, there’s BLC-mate Paul Taylor who has a new limited-run print up in his store. Buy it or heartless jerk, etc. And no infant sons, but check out the scene on my toy shelf now that Ananth & Hawk got the reorders in. It’s like that Zlik wants to watch Eve kick Diablo‘s ass as soon as he sets foot out of his little house.

Back to SPX — there are webcomickers with plans. Schemes, even. Shall we examine some?

• Aaron Diaz tells us that his Hob storyline in Dresden Codak will be wrapping up around year’s end, and then he’s getting to work on a Dresden Codak book. But Gary, I hear you cry, with the large layouts and detailed visuals, how will he manage to reproduce all that sweet art in a book? Two words for you my friend:

  Coffee.
  Table.

  Diaz is planning on an oversize trim, and that immediately propels this book to the top of the Pre-emptive Must-Buy List for 2008 (tied for second: Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet, Kean Soo’s Jellaby, and Scott McCloud’s ZOT! omnibus). Diaz said he hoped to have the book out in time for APE, but I see this morning that the Spurge has confirmed that APE will be shifting from its traditional April date to November. Hey Aaron I still want your book in the Spring okay thanks.

• Singular-named mckenzee is going to be very, very busy. By this time next year, look for him to have no fewer than four separate projects going:
  1. Sinister Bedfellows will continue
  2. He’s recruiting artists for Bearcats of Mandu — an exploration of the recent travails of Nepal and the Nepalese royal family, depicted as furries
  3. He’s busy absorbing the lessons of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way to produce The Adventures of Maintenance Man — in a city where all the capes live in the same apartment building, why shouldn’t the super to the supers be based on Warren Ellis?
  4. Plus a series of one-offs like the achingly beautiful C∂ulhuvi∂a, which he hopes to print into hand-made books. Depending on the cost, these could be printed on Japanese seaweed paper, with hand-sewn bindings. The Pre-emptive Must-Buy List for 2008 is about to get another addition.
• Bernie Hou has plans, oh so many plans. Awesome plans ready to bust open the whole Web 2.0 deal and kick that number to to 3.0, maybe 3.2. But as some of them are still in development, we’ll have to tell you about them later, but here’s a hint — there exists a mathematical possibility of an Alien Loves Predator book.
• He told me at the show, but I didn’t realize how close the time frame was. Jinxlets are nigh. And there’s this whole season coming up when stockings need to be stuffed.

More tomorrow, and photos maybe.

Quickly now: an outstanding use of the Dinosaur Comics template (via Dirk Deppey), the welcome return of Ugly Hill, and the Octopus Pie book on pre-order.

Okay, Small Press Expo, 2007. Fleen was proud to meet with a wide variety of webcomickers exhibiting at the show, including (in no particular order) Colleen Venable, who I forgot earlier, sorry!, Chris Yates, Aaron Diaz, David Malki !, Bernie Hou, Box Brown, Joe Sayers, Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman, Leah & Chris Riley, Kris Straub, Dave Kellett, Howard Tayler, David Willis, and Brad Guigar. Achewood won what I believe is its first major award, the Ignatz for Outstanding Online Comic (more on that later). Webcomics journalism was represented by Xaviar Xerexes and Mister T, and I had a nice conversation with Heidi MacDonald as well. Interesting tidbits & photos over the next couple of posts … for now, I want to talk about a session that took place on Saturday afternoon.

At the moderator’s mic was the able and amiable Josh Fruhlinger, who wrangled Bill Griffith, Nick Gurewitch, Keith Knight, and Ted Rall. The conversation ranged widely across the various experiences of the four creators in the world of print comic single panels/strips, but towards the end took a turn towards issues of the web. Asked about their use of the web as a medium for interacting with their audiences, Griffith replied,

If you have a website, the logical thing is to put your strip there for free … I have that little niche [online] and print, and at this point, I need both of them. My online sales account for half of my income.

Which sentiments ought to be familiar to all reading this. But following up the point later, Rall took a decidedly different tack:

If every cartoonist would agree to take their work offline forever, we would all make fifteen times as much money. We’ve done a really stupid thing [by putting content online].

Now let’s be clear about two things: one, Rall was not speaking in direct reply to Griffith’s point. And two, he’d just been talking about the history of specifically editorial cartoonists (of which he is one), and the rapid decline in their numbers (specifically cited: in 1960, there were more editorial cartoonists in New York City alone than there are now in the whole of the United States).

Still, this struck me as a monumentally absurd statement — from our researches here at the Fleenplex, it appears that only new cartoonists in this country that are able to make a living from their cartooning are the ones that do the exact opposite of what Rall proposes. Seeking reaction from webcomickers in attendence elicited a uniform disagreement with Rall, but I’d like to open the question more broadly. If you’re a webcomics creator that makes a significant portion of your living from your creation, can you see a set of circumstances where Rall’s assertion makes sense, or is it just crazy talk?

Memorable Quotes:

Tayler, in reaction to the Rall quote — We’re about to do a really stupid thing if we pay attention to Ted Rall.
Willis, ditto — I can’t hear him through my big wad of cash.

On the indoor front: what could be better than opening up the just-arrived Little Dee Volume 2 and finding a strip that you own? Finding another one. Plus nearly 18 months of daily strips (Jan 2006 to June 2007), packed full of the sweet awesome that drips from Chris Baldwin’s pen. If you haven’t obtained this yet, we can’t be friends.

On the outdoor front: a surprising number of webcomickers apparently believe in the ancestral game of the Scots. From Chris VanGompel:

What started as a conversation in the Something Awful forums has become comicalized. When discussing conventions, the idea of a Webcomics Open golf outing was proposed. Open to all webcomic creators, what could be better than boozing it up on a golf course to meet and greet fellow artists in the medium?

Well, KC Green of Horribleville implemented the idea and I continued it.

Really, wouldn’t a webcomic golf outing be splendid? Knickers, carts and booze, in a mutant get-together spawned of the intertrons?

Indeed it would, Chris. I forsee a side-trip at San Diego next year. Okay, off to SPX, see you there.

Just a reminder, I’ll be at SPX this weekend; if you see a guy with glasses and a moustache, it’s probably me. As AlP creator Bernie Hou and I have to get an early start on the driving, you’ll probably get a slight or missing update tomorrow; I swear I’ll totally make it up to you.

Speaking of events, there’s a new contest in the offing and you (yes, YOU) could win stuff. And we’re not talking about t-shirts this time; we’re talking genuine consumer-grade electronics. Take it away, David Davis:

My webcomic is about to transition into Cosmic Dash, and to celebrate, I am holding a drawing contest with the winner recieving a 30 gig Microsoft Zune as well as some original penciled pages and a character designed around the winners specifications. The contest is pretty easy to get involved with and lasts until November 5th, so check the contest page for details.

I just hope it’s not the poo-colored one. Regardless, if you want to get free stuff, fire up your art studio, break out the scanner, or at least see what you can put together with some webcomics tools from Strong Badia. Stuff’s awaiting.

Randall Munroe has an interesting superpower — things that he casually includes in his webcomic come true. Sometimes it’s out of his control, and just due to readers gettin’ creative. Sometimes Munroe nudges it along. Truly, I’m hard-pressed to think of any better use of the internet than to provide pictures of scantily-clad or naked people rocking out in the shower (one of whom does her own webcomic which has more than its share of xkcdesque moments). Well done, Munroe and wet rocking people!

In other news:

• Hardy leave-print-for-the-web-then-reprint pioneers Phil and Kaja Foglio will be speaking at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign campus, on Saturday at 2:45pm:
  

  Titled “I Can Haz Moniez Now?”, the topic is webcomic business models and their successful transition from print to web as a comic publisher.

  To be held at the U of I campus, SEIBO Siebel Center, Room 1404. The lecture is open to the public.

  LOLFOGLIO? FOGLOLIO? Something like that.

• The fresh hiatus made necessary by life’s ass-kicking tendencies will not deter Owen Dunne from finishing the latest Beevniks storyline.
• And via Lore Sjöberg, news of 400 or so bad comics on the web:
  

  Two guys I did not know about until just today are each publishing 200 bad comics on some sort of Internet double dog dare sort of a thing, and I have to admit I’m enjoying them.

  Bad comics guy 1, bad comics guy 2, and the meme has spread to guy 3. This could get out of hand.

So Sheldon [the Pig [Who Couldn’t Stay Put]] isn’t going to be Sheldon [the Pig [Who Couldn’t Stay Put]] any longer. Not to say that Sheldon will be staying put, he won’t (except in the sense that he’ll still be at Modern Tales). What I mean to say is that Sheldon [the Pig [Who Couldn’t Stay Put]] will be renamed.

But not Sheldon the pig. The strip about Sheldon the pig (who may or may not be able to stay put). Here, let’s let creator Kevin Moore explain:

I am hosting a contest to re-name this series. Don’t worry, Sheldon gets to keep his name, but the series needs something a bit different, wider in scope to reflect the growing world Sheldon inhabits. Or something like that.

The winner will receive a custom t-shirt with the new strip title and their favorite character on it, so that’s pretty cool. If you want to enter (or just vote on current entries), do so here.

And in less confusing news, Paul Taylor is joining Wonder Woman Day II, which is an art auction at the end of the month to benefit domestic violence shelters in Portland, Oregon and Flemington, New Jersey. Check out Taylor’s Wapsified entry here. I thought for sure I blogged about Karen Ellis‘s three awesome contributions in weeks past, but I guess I didn’t. Anyway, we’ll keep our eyes open to see what other webcomickers get in on the meme.

So over the weekend I was talking with my wife’s sister, the lawyer, and an interesting term came up that’s new to me: Contract of Adhesion:

n.(contract of adhesion) a contract (often a signed form) so imbalanced in favor of one party over the other that there is a strong implication it was not freely bargained…. An adhesion contract can give the little guy the opportunity to claim in court that the contract with the big shot is invalid.

Now she’s not IP or entertainment lawyer, but this little concept isn’t particular to IP or entertainment contracts — it’s a part of common law. Anyway, I can’t think for the life of me why I found this interesting in the context of webcomics. Nope, not at all.

In other, completely non-legal (as opposed to barely legal) news:

• The Spurge takes webcomics to task (short form: don’t fool yourself, there are good webcomics, but just as many crappy webcomics as crappy non-webcomics).
• Brian Warmoth joins the legions of those fascinated with my facial follicles. Oh, and he talks to Ryan Estrada, too. Hey, Brian? Two “R”s in Tyrrell, buddy.

On the one hand you’ve got the traditional publisher, complete with royalties for creators, paid from the coffers of a large media conglomerate. I particularly recommend your attention to lines like Two sources close to the production recall a principal player receiving a merchandising residual check for 45 cents and In several instances, New Line struck deals with companies within the Time Warner family, such as Warner Bros. Records and the TBS cable network. Just sayin’.

On the other hand you’ve got the indy creator, who will try all kinds of things to connect with the audience on a one-on-one level. The concept of a street team isn’t new to webcomics — just view the year-round association of über-PA boosters/volunteers known as Enforcers — but Meredith Gran (disclosure: she did our masthead) has taken this a step further and created a street team that is geographically specific. Interesting.

And while, yes, large publisher types have done street team-type things before, they always end up like those hot women in calculated tight black pants pretending to like a particular brand of vodka — contrived and artificial.

Hey, kids! Who’s goin’ to SPX next weekend? Webcomickers (and related types) to be seen there will include Blank Labellers Guigar, Kellet, Straub, Tayler, and Willis; Box Brown, who I completely read over on the list, sorry!, Nick Gurewitch, Bernie Hou, Jeph Jacques, James Kochalka, Carla Speed McNeil, Dave Roman, Joe Sayers, Raina Telgemeier, Colleen Venable, Chris Yates, and The Dreamcrusher.

Additionally, of that number, Sayers and Malki ! are up for the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic, along with Chris Onstad, Nick Bertozzi, and Kris Dressen. What I like best about the Ignatz is the physical form of the award — it’s a brick. And as long as you’re there, keep an eye out for the Josh Frulinger-moderated panel on the current state of comic strips, with Gurewitch on the panel

I should note that Gurewitch is on that panel as a cartoonist, not specifically a webcartoonist; in this, SPX has regarded the delivery medium as less important than the content. Give it a few more years, and we’ll hopefully see webcomics sprinkled throughout the categories of the Ignatzes (and the Harveys, and the Eisners), rather than segregated into one slot. Until then, come see what it looks like on an exhibit floor where webcomics are spread around instead of concentrated in one spot. It’s pretty cool.

Two things that could be of interest to capital-W Webcomics.

First up, the long-memoried among you may recall that most of year ago, we at Fleen tried to answer the question, How many readers do you need to make a living? We never got enough offers of data to do a proper analysis, but that hasn’t made the question go away. Fortunately, somebody else is taking a stab at answering it. I give you Jan Jaap Sandee, webcomicker and business student:

I have to write a business plan for a business. I chose to write a business plan for a webcomic and making a living off of this.

However to do this I have to do a viability test. For this purpose one of the things I have is a survey. To clarify the survey is about 5 to 10 minutes, and there’s no veiled advertising.

Eventually the entire research will result in an interesting document regarding living off of a webcomic. I have no problems sharing this document and/or relevant information.

Jan, we’re taking you up on the offer — send us a copy of the business case when you’ve got it done, and we’re sending you as many survey respondants as possible.

As to the other thing that may have some bearing on capital-W Webcomics, we mentioned way back in July that the Halfpixel Duo of Straub & Kurtz (makes them sound like a hero team … I’ll let them worry about which one is the sidekick) are working on a book about how to make them (webcomics, that is … stay with me, son), due in January from Image. Turns out that Straub and Kurtz aren’t making that book anymore.

That’s because the book will be made by Straub and Kurtz and Kellett and Guigar. Since the Webcomics Weekly podcast produced by the four of them is all about how to make webcomics, it makes perfect sense that all four ‘casters be in on the book. I was interested in the book before, but now I’m counting days; between those four guys you’ve only got about 30 years of webcomics experience. If you’re trying to make a webcomic, or trying to make one better, this book could be the online equivalent to Comics & Sequential Art.