Two of Fleen’s favorites have pieces of pure, distilled fun for you. From the star-dripping reaches of Beverly Hills, you have photos from the launch party for Dave Kellett’s second Sheldon collection, The Good, The Bad & The Pugly, and the very good news that Google has reinstated his AdSense account. Hooray for Kellett!

And kickin’ it East Coast style, Rich Stevens reports that enough newspapers (including the mighty Detroit News) have signed up for Diesel Sweeties to ensure a successful launch. But! There’s still lots of papers to convert to the cause, so check out the list that Stevens has provided of newspapers that could use a gentle nudge in the right direction. Stevens, ever a classy guy, asks that you:

Please, don’t talk smack about other comics when you write in. Every strip is somebody’s favorite. Just let them know who you are and that you’d like them to consider Diesel Sweeties from United Feature Syndicate for a slot on their comics page.

Please address your letter to the Features Editor. A paper letter is best, but an email would also be appreciated

And if you do, you can make it official: send Stevens a copy of the letter, and you will receive documentation that you liked Diesel Sweeties before it sold out. There are privileges to having this card, and you want to receive one. Hooray for Stevens! And Hooray for Zoidberg!

Breaking-er News:: David Malki ! informs us that his first auction for Child’s Play netted nearly $250; second of three auctions is now live.

Breaking News: You can win a pair of tickets to tomorrow’s Child’s Play dinner/auction by drawing a three-panel comic that includes:

• The 2006 Child’s Play logo
• A cat
• Meat
• A city with a Child’s Play partner hospital

Details here, you have until tomorrow to enter.

Our news roundup starts with Child’s Play, where we remind those of you with a free evening in your schedule that tomorrow is the last day to buy tickets for the annual dinner/auction; Kristin tells us more than 225 tickets have been sold so far, so brush off the black tie and learn which fork is which so you don’t embarass yourself in front of all those people. Likewise, the Fünde Razor is tonight in Brooklyn, so get over there for some Guitar Hero II and good works.

In other news, we’ve heard about a number of comics recently, and wanted to share:

• Jennifer Omand has been chronicling her life in SquareCat Comics for three-plus years now; she recently sat down with videoblog The Eye to chat about her work.
• Speaking of long-time projects we’ve just heard about, ReOdorant has been going for six years now; the archive and navigation are a bit primitive, but they seem to indicate that the strip has been fallow for much of the past four years. Regardless, it’s firmly in the single-panel random gag category (stick-figures subdivision), so check it out if you like that sort of thing.
• Speaking of fallow, Stephanie Wagner & Austin Mackenzie’s Ganalath the Extraordinary has returned from hiatus and is looking to regain its former readers.
• Tevong You chimes in with a request that you check out Adlib Comics; consider yourself requested. It’s got a feel like a single-panel, random gag comic, but the art is much better than that label would lead you to expect, and it’s multi-panel. Weirdly, it reminds me of a bastard child of The Far Side and Sinfest.
• Speaking of single-panel, random gag comics (st.fig.div): SkitZo MaN. Does feeling a little dirty after typing out that random capitalization make me a bad person?
• From Tommie Kelly, news that THE END is switching to a daily schedule, revamping its website, and revamping its art. That means opportunities for reader feedback, so let Kelly know what’s working and what isn’t (my two cents: a big-ass ActiveX control forming the content of the first page pretty much guarantees I’m not looking any further).

Got news you want to share? Send it in.

It’s turning into BLC Week around here: books by Howard Tayler, Kris Straub and Dave Kellett have arrived at my homestead in the past few days, which will have to be read and reviewed (big ups to Kellett who charged $4.25 for shipping/handling, and spent $4.05 of it on postage … you can’t get unskilled immigrant labor to do as much handling as he did for $0.20!). Interview soon with Straub and Scott Kurtz regarding the PvP animated series. And Paul Southworth went and got hisself invited to speak at Vericon, on the hallowed campus of Harvard University, along with such luminaries as R Stevens, Jeff Rowland, and Shaenon Garrity (who is mysteriously missing from the Vericon speakers page). Good times for the BLC crew.

But we’re here today to talk about Evan (no last name, sorry), who’s five days into being a webcartoonist. Normally, we at Fleen wait until there’s a bit more of an archive before we profile a new strip, but there won’t necessarily be a lot more strips, because Evan is only going to be a webcartoonist for one month.

As the second in a series of month-long challenges (in November, he ate $1.00 of food per day), Evan has set himself a goal:

For the month of December, I’m drawing a web comic every day. I’m not an artist, never wanted to be one, and have never drawn anything more complicated than a smiley face in my life. Still, I’ve always enjoyed comics, so this is my chance to try my own.

Each drawing is occompanied by a short description of what I was thinking while I was drawing it. I’m a pretty firm believer that over explaining a joke is the fastest way to ruin it, so read the comic first (click to enlarge) and then click on the comments section to read my thoughts.

For a self-described ‘not an artist’, Evan’s doing better than expected; he started off looking a bit like John Callahan (although presumably with a full complement of motor control), and by Day 4, he’s already as visually polished as, say, Scott Adams.

Lots of webcomics were started on a whim, out of malice, or a sense of boredom (possibly all three), so you can’t really say that Evan’s in bad company. We’ll check back on at the end of the month to find out if the cartooning bug bit, or if he’s going to move onto a new temporary hobby (maybe future ‘for a month’ reports could feature cartoons of the wacky misadventures?). In the meantime, check out Cartoonist for a Month to see how his skills evolve.

And on the off chance that they don’t, he’s convinced his friends Rob, Erin, and Tim to play along; at present, Erin’s in the lead (she’s already picked a theme — true life at a credit union).

Editor’s note: As noted on this page previously, Sheldon creator Dave Kellett has renounced the world of syndication and gone out on his own. Kellett’s a smart guy with an extensive background in the history of comics and syndication, and we’ve spoken to him previously on this topic at length, so we thought it would make sense to talk to him again and follow up on his big shift.

(more…)

For those of you that keep up with such things (which I would hope would be all of you), Child’s Play has crossed the $260,000 mark, with 24 days yet to go. Good start people, but let’s see if we can crack the official goal of $600,000 with some more to spare. Speaking of Child’s Play, David Malki ! would really like you to know that he supports Child’s Play, and he’s making good on that support with auctions of original art:

I’ve designed three unique Wondermark poster prints that I’ve personally matted and framed, and I will be offering them on eBay, one after the other. These are brand new, never-been-seen one-of-a-kind Wondermark pieces that will look handsome on someone’s wall. (They’re beautiful copperplate engravings — they’ll look like ART, for God’s sake. Until you read the captions.)

100% of the proceeds from all three auctions will be donated to Child’s Play.

While we’re on the topic, I’d like to draw your attention to one of the hospitals in this year’s Child’s Play network: Children’s Cancer Hospital, in Cairo, Egypt. As you may have read in our interview Kristin Lindsay, Children’s Cancer Hospital is in exteme need; they don’t have paint on some of the walls. Want to change the world? Give what you can to your preferred local hospital, then give just five bucks to CCH. Can’t do five? Three. ONE.

If everybody that gives to Child’s Play gives just one extra dollar, think of what it would do for the reputation of gamers, webcomics readers, Westerners. We aren’t a government, we’re just individuals — and we can say, “We’ve never met you, but we think your children deserve better than they’re getting, and we’re willing to help.” I’m making a donation in the name of each of my nieces and nephews, and I hope that some of you reading this will be willing to do something similar.

In other news, it’s been six years of Scandanavian naughtiness at Little Gamers; celebrations include the announcement of a third book (in color, this time), and undoubtedly some drunken debauchery. Skaol, guys.

And I note with interest that Achewood is now hooked up with Oh No Robot, meaning that the world is a mere 700 200 transcriptions away from being able to search for their favorite Beefism any time day or night. Get typing Nice job, people.

The news brings us sad tidings, of the passing of two well-beloved webcomics.

After five years, Justin Pierce finds that he’s no longer in love with Kilroy and Tina, and will be wrapping the strip at the end of the current story arc. From his blog:

I really love the characters, the premise, the overall storyline… but I also haven’t been making progress at the scale I wanted to, and to be quite frank, after years of barely denting the epic story, I’m burned out. I don’t want to be doing this thing when I’m in my thirties, and with the current format and pacing, I can’t foresee any other outcome. I’ve been dealing with this on-and-off for about a year now, tried tweaking with new storylines, techniques, and more, but it’s just not eliminating the fact that this thing is taking me forever.

So the plan as it stands is this: I will finish Chapter 15 because it’s the right thing to do. That’s about nine or ten comics out, which closes the chapter around the beginning of February. Then I’ll step back from Killroy and Tina, and do… something. I’m not sure what. I haven’t really had an open Tuesday night in half a decade. Guess I’ll figure something out.

I’ve been reading this one since the beginning, and I’m going to miss it something fierce, but at least I still have The Non-Adventures of Wonderella to keep me warm at night.

Meanwhile, from the other side of the Atlantic, Ali Graham’s HOUSD finishes up its run tomorrow, which correspondent Michael Kinyon notes, marks a daily run since 28 March 2003, with a total of 61 missed days before 10 Dec 2004, and none since. It’s a marathon accomplishment, which Graham notes:

I’m not too sure what the past four years of my life would have consisted of without the comic. It gave me structure and most importantly a tangible and highly gratifying outlet.

Although HOUSD is essentially me, there are so many people who have helped and supported me through the years, without which I don’t think it could have existed. I’ve made and lost contact with countless people, but every person who has ever emailed me, or chatted at a convention genuinely made my day, all 1284 of them.

Thus ends Chapter 1 of my online comic saga. I hope you’ll stick around, plenty more chapters to be written and read.

HOUSD was always on my list of comics to “read through the archives when I’ve got time, get caught up, make it a regular thing …”, which I guess will be a one-shot deal now. 1284 comics is one hell of a marathon, and we at Fleen salute Graham on the accomplishment; since he notes that there’s bigger and better projects coming up, I guess I’ll just have to get in on the ground floor of those.

No response yet to the letters I wrote to my local paper, asking them to pick up Diesel Sweeties. I am this close to giving out that guy’s email and inviting the masses of the internet to convince him that it’s good manners to reply when sent a polite missive. Anyway, the battle against comics-page crapitude continues.

In other news, Winterview #3 is up, starring … Rich Stevens! Watch them play Nintendo! See the future of the world, in pint-sized, eleven-year-old girl form! I’ve been in close personal proximity to Winter McCloud, by the way, and trust me when I say there’s been some careful editing to make her somewhat less full-bore than you see in person. She is a proverbial hoot and a half.

And in other other news, we have the reason for the season: the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Morningstar, and Lord of Dark­ness! Yes, you could get a present (or a lump of coal!) from … Rich Stevens, merely for bandying his name about the blogosphere. Rules for Secret Satan 2006 here.

It’s Philosophy, Ho! time over at Irregular Webcomic today, with a lengthy discussion on the nature of art from David Morgan-Mar. Those of you looking for punning snarkery and Lego constructions may want to check back tomorrow.

In other webcomics news, you gots Andy Bell, solo-showin’ machine, getting his gallery schedule off to a fast start for 2007. Those of you in Chicago, you got about five weeks to clear your calendar and check out the show. Now if he could just remember to bring my ZLIKS figure to me at the Pub …

From the nearest titty bar, you gots Wiz Rollins, formerly of Bad Shape, informing us that he’s teaming up with DJ Coffman as the new co-writer of Yirmumah. Look for Rollins to add erotical pole technicians to approximately every third strip.

Over Webcomics Nation way, you gots Grant Thomas announcing the first minicomic for My Life In Records, available through Lulu.

Also at Lulu, you gots Gabe Strine of Brinkerhoff fame, releasing a book of the full three-year run of his online-and-print strip, The Zoo.

In Great Britain, you gots the launch of chapter four of the online graphic novel Shades, courtesy of Broken Voice Comics.

At Otaku Generation, you gots the creative team behind Onezumi interviewed for podcast#75, and also at Sequential Tart.

And finally, from deepest space, you gots David C. Simon pointing us to his sci-fi strip, Crimson Dark, wherein it’s shown that you can do 75 strips (and counting) of a renderish art style without falling into the Uncanny Valley (even if he can’t spell “Tyrrell” correctly, dammit.)

Go check it out.

(See, this was what I was planning on writing about, before all the birthday/anniversary/animation news cropped up).

Bang Barstal is back from hiatus; as noted about 10 weeks ago, creator The William G (not just any William G, but The William G!) has decided to deliver the story to us in chunks; for such a plot-driven strip, the 12-pages-at-once model works nicely. This means that you get a full half of a story arc, all in one big heapin’ helpin’.

Part two of “The Dead” will be dropping on 23 December, and then reverting to a weekly schedule on the first Saturday of January (we’ll see how big the story chunks are in the new year). If you aren’t reading Bang Barstal, this is a good place to start.