Lots happened over the weekend, which I can only attribute to Canada Day. A belated happy national holiday to our friends from the north, and when they conquer the world in a bloody reign of terror and tyrrany, we hope that they will remember our friendly nature towards them and their webcomics. In the meantime, it’s a Fleen Quick Quiz™! How many Canadian webcomics can you name? We’ll spot you Canadaman.

In south of the border news:

• IRS regs meet webcartooning as Dorothy Gambrell illustrates the complete Schedule C Principal Business or Professional Activity Codes Table.
• Loremaster Lore, with some intriguing thoughts on how successful we should hope for webcomics creators to be (hint: fair-middlin’).
• Are the readers of Stuff Sucks also concerned about music? Liz Greenfield with a new piece of tunes-related merch.
• Which led to a journal comic of which I was not previously aware. Reminds me of Dirk Schweiger’s Moleskine journal in art style, with the same sort of “watch my life, learn about me” vibe you find at Planet Karen. Ladies & gentlemen: Adam Cadwell presents The Everyday.
• Meanwhile, Dave Kellet on breaking free of self-imposed artistic boundaries, Scott McCloud on the end being nearly in sight, and another creator quittin’ the day job: Danielle Corsetto may or may not have to file as category 711510 (Independent artists, writers, & performers) on Schedule C at some point in the future.

The Chris Hastings interview may be found here.

This is apparently the season for webcomics hosts to sudden deny access. After Ryan North‘s forced exodus last week (for being too awesome, as I recall), we find this morning that Girl Genius has exceeded its bandwidth allotment and been pulled from the interwebs. Now, lest you think this is a mere technical glitch or accidental oversight, here’s what we get from the Studio Foglio LJ:

girlgeniusonline.com is down, probably until the end of the month. Kaja is working to fix it, but things are progressing slowly.

WHAT’S HAPPENED:
We’ve exceeded our monthly allowance of bandwidth. Unfortunately, our service provider doesn’t offer any more, we were already buying as much as we could. We’ve found another provider that we like, and are working on the switch. It may take a while. (emphasis mine)

The host in question, by-the-bye, is Network Solutions, whom you may have heard of since they’re one of the oldest, largest, and most important vendors of network capacity. Hey, Network Solutions? These webcomic things are kind of big these days, and getting bigger; you could be making money off this situation, but instead you’re driving away a high-traffic site. Business logic: QUESTIONABLE?

Fortunately, those looking for their GG fix can head over the Girl Genius LiveJournal, where apparently things like “load balancing” and “network capacity” are not foreign concepts. Damn good thing, too, ’cause today’s installment features a pissed-off Jägermonster, violence (but I repeat myself), and very good coffee. You might say it’s genius.

MoCCA artifact: Hope Larson‘s sketchbook, hopelessly (ha, ha) defiled by evil internet cartoonists, now making the internet rounds.

The online version of Wizard once more seeks to drag its readership into awareness of webcomics; starting tomorrow, Brian Warmoth will be doing biweekly interviews with webcomics creators. First up, Chris Hastings, to be followed by Chris Baldwin on 13 July. I’m informed that two or three more interviews are actually completed at this time, and just waiting for scheduling; check ’em out and let Wizard know that you enjoy them.

There really must be something special in Owen Dunne‘s work, because no matter how long he goes on hiatus, I just want to come back for more. Case in point, citing burnout and a desire to build up a large buffer of strips, Dunne announced yesterday that he’s taking the summer to recharge his creative batteries, finish some projects, and come back in September ready to knock our socks off. I’ll be there on the internet, waiting … waiting.

From the newsbag:

• Erik Bouchard tells us that Eyeskream recently launched a new website, including a third anniversary contest.
• Meghan Murphy would like you to know that Kawaii Not hit 100 posts and 2 years this month.
• Kathy Peterson wanted my opinion on her comic, Kidnapped By Gnomes, so here ’tis: clean design, easy to navigate, readable even though the lead character is a Libertarian and I haven’t met a Libertarian yet that I didn’t think wasn’t really just a Republican that didn’t want to pay taxes. The strip is sorta political in nature, and does not feature video games, furries, TV shows, L33T speak, anime, obscure Sci-Fi, or underage Japanese girls in their panties. In other words, it’s significantly different from 98.353% of all webcomics in existence and Peterson gets a high-five just for that.

Seems like it’s open season for new webcomics blogs. On the one hand, you’ve got Useful Lies, which going by the profile is written by a gent named Dalion Barinon in Spain. Overall tone: enthusiastic, voluble, somewhat lacking in depth. I don’t want to rag on somebody who’s just getting started, but if you’re going to write about webcomics (or any kind of comics, for that matter), you really want to minimize sentences that include:

Ah, well, we at Fleen have certainly written worse ourselves. Welcome to the game, Dalion.

Secondly, there’s Your Webcomic Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad, which (Zoidbergian references aside) is credited to John Solomon, a pseudonym. It’s — well, it lives up to its name. Solomon hates your webcomic and will tell you in detail why, although his savage critiques are miles from, say, Josh Lesnick’s desire to analyze, praise & damn in equal measure, and make everybody’s art better. The rhetoric is pretty over-the-top, and reading YWISAYSFB reminds me of my halcyon days reading Ed Anger. Seriously, if your first blogpost includes the line:

This is because anyone who likes Dominic Deegan is a fucking moron. (emphasis original)

then I figure your tongue has to be pretty far in-cheek (and what the hey — he’s driving up David Willis’s hits and books sales so that’s all good). In any event, everybody say hello to Dr Zoid Solomonberg!

In other news, I shamefully neglected to list Tyler Page along with the other creators I met at MoCCA, and have been enjoying the hell out my copy of Nothing Better, volume 1. My minireview of this book: Terry Moore + flashing back to college (sometimes painfully so) = you should give Tyler Page money and read it yourself. Speaking of books, looks like Karen Ellis will be dropping one sooner rather than later. My minireview of this development: Awesome.

So the lads of Wizard’s website were at MoCCA, although I missed spending any time with them which is too bad; the online version of the magazine continues to kick the ass of the dead-tree version. They have some cool panel coverage and pics for you to enjoy. Speaking of people I missed at MoCCA, Randall Munroe is rumored to have made an appearance, and the Comics Curmudgeon, and I’m not even sure who else I may have missed.

But I did run into The Twin Towers of Webcomics, ninjas with varying degrees of stealthiness, the official webcomics sweetheart, the tiredest man in webcomics and a vendress of fine cephalopods, the most exclamatory man in webcomics, a supremely talented man with a jigsaw, and the results of beer + Sharpie + bird tattoo [NSFW?]. Items were purchased, fun was had, beer was consumed. And that, in case you were wondering, is what MoCCA is all about. Or Christmas, I forget which.

Editor’s note: In case you were wondering, the photos are of: Ryan North, Jeph Jacques, a somewhat hidden Kent Archer & glaringly obvious Chris Hastings, Liz Greenfield, Jon Rosenberg & Meredith Gran, David Malki !, Chris Yates, his woodwork, and Jeff Rowland‘s addition to Jeph Jacques’s arm.

Photos of webcomickers from the big show coming tomorrow. In the meantime, two items relating to creators who have webcomics on hold for the moment.

Up first, Space Coyote, creator of the on-hiatus Saturnalia, drew a picture a while back, tranforming the familiar into a new idiom. Job offers resulted, culminating in a story in Simpsons Comics #131, a small epic entitled Too Crazy, Juvenile Prankster: BARTOMU!. I am not ashamed to admit that I LOLed. (story first seen on ¡Journalista!, although I saw that TV scene on DeviantArt a while back).

And straight outta Magical Brooklyn: Ian Jones-Quartey popped by MoCCA on Saturday to let us all know about a new project: nockFORCE. Check out the funny at nockFORCE.com, or at IJ-Q’s LJ, and somebody please remind this guy of the First Law of RPG World (now scheduled to return in October 2057 … good going, Kayoden Usoden “The Chaos Seeker”!)

As for nockForce itself, the writing has the same loopy quality as the much–beloved Bandwidth Theater shorts, and the animation feels loose & spontaneous without falling into the trap of aping Ren & Stimpy house style (I like John K. as much as the next guy, but too many young animtors can’t remember a time before him, and much of what gets produced these days comes across as Kricfalusi Lite™).

It’s quiet in webcomics today, approaching “dead” as all and sundry gear up for this weekend’s MoCCA festival o’ fun. Of note today:

• Cat & Girl predates the turn of the century, and wants to give you a STICKER because it is AWESOME but you have to get your request postmarked TODAY.
• It’s good to see that Bernie Hou‘s The Burgg back from its IMDB link-induced sluggishness.
• He lives, I tell you! LIIIIIVVVVVES!

That’s it. Be sure to say howdy if you see me at MoCCA.

In the list of webcomics creators to be found this weekend at MoCCA, we at Fleen inexplicably omitted Meredith Gran. We apologize for the oversight, and encourage all in the Greater New York City metroplex to come to MoCCA and buy something from Ms Gran.

In other news, Zach Weiner wants to know: why do my traffic numbers stagnate in the summer? Couple of theories I’ve seen bandied about:

• Depending on how many of your readers are students, leaving free high-speed at school and going home where you have to compete for computer time may have an effect
• Everybody’s outside while the weather is nice

Any other thoughts as to whys and wherefores of the summer slump?

Also:

• Sometimes a simple gag is the best (link here after the archive locks).
• Karen Elllis draws a kickass Wonder Woman.
• Onezumi.com: 350 strips and counting.
• Okay, I’m intrigued:
  

  I just launched my webcomic, Sensational George. It is a loosely-connected series featuring ambitious staplers, unemployed bears, angry jellyfish and zombies working as interns.

  Throw in some squid, and you got yourself a deal.

Should be about one more day to clear the backlog of news items — do bear with me. In the meantime:

• A Girl And Her Fed brings us corneas for only the second time by my count. I’ve gotten so used to The Girl and Sparky having no eyes that it’s actually a little creepy today.
• Seriously, guys, Jennie Breeden has a comic in stores with strips that aren’t online. Don’t make her make them bigger, or we’ll be overrun with Rob Liefeld fans.
• Does doing something twice make it a tradition? Bookcarts gettin’ pimped again.
• Not webcomics, but when has that ever stopped me? John K. at The AV Club.
• MoCCA Art Festival this weekend, to feature webcomickers Andy Bell, Sam Brown, Steven Cloud, John Green, Liz Greenfield, Chris Hastings, Jeph Jacques, Hope Larson, David Malki !, Ryan North, Tyler Page, Ramon Perez & Rob Coughler, Dave Roman, Jon Rosenberg, Jeff Rowland, Ali Solomon, Rich Stevens, Raina Telgemeier, Jim Zubkavich, and maybe more. Get yer ass down to the Puck Building, it’s a fun time.