Walking to work this morning, I passed a rather attractive young lady wearing this shirt, which seems to me to be as good an excuse as any to discuss the forthcoming line of ZLIKS figures from Dead Zebra. “But who is this Dead Zebra?” I hear you cry. DZ is the toy-making and merch-producing subsidiary of the demonically creative Andy Bell. Let’s let him tell the tale, shall we?

The ZLIKS are coming! Finally! I got the good word that the boat has landed and that they will be offloaded and through customs by tomorrow! Wow, two years of work almost over … what a ride it’s been.

There will be a ZLIKS promotional site going up tomorrow on dyzplastic, and I will start pre-selling a limited quantity of 6 variants on shop.deadzebra.com tomorrow to a select few. The bad news is that I won’t be able to ship them until mid-August when I return from a wedding in Europe.

If you are coming to comic-con I should have a few sets to sell there!

Since Andy wrote his notice two days ago, you’ll kindly note that the promised site is now live and awaiting your attention. So go forth, my minions, go forth and CONSUME!

If my memory serves me correctly, it’s now the third year that SDCC has been bunching together the webcomics crowd into what Rich Stevens once dubbed the sexy lagoon. Check out the map: Dayfree all right next to Flight, with PA near Keenspot and Blank Label and Dumbrella; lobbing a grenade into this section of the convention center could destroy webcomics as we know it. But what’s that?

Right there in between Keenspot and BLC, where it says, Billy West? Sweet mother of Slurm, the voice of Dr Zoidberg is right in the center of the sexy lagoon! Billy West is going to spend his days staring across the aisle to where Jeff Rowland has a tattoo of a character he (West) voices inscribed on his (Rowland’s) body. Bets are now being accepted to determine precisely how cool this is.

Few more panels of note, y’all.

Saturday

12:30-1:30 Flight: A New Kind of Comics Anthology— The critically acclaimed Flight anthology has begun paving the way for a new vision in comics. Flight artists Kazu Kibuishi (Daisy Kutter), Phil Craven, Kean Soo (Jellaby), Jeff Smith (Bone), Steve Hamaker, and special guest Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics, Making Comics) talk about creating comics for a new generation of readers and artists. Room 9

4:00-5:00 How to Make Compelling Web Comics— Lee Marrs (Pudge, Girl Blimp, Indiana Jones) will present the most direct methods and pitfalls of creating both webcomics and interactive hypercomics, with demonstrations and examples. The direct-from-the-trenches “Marrs Hypercomics Recipe� will be shared by this Inkpot Award winner and Emmy Award–winning TV art director. Room 3

This appears to a usage of the word webcomics somewhat different than you and I are used to.

Sunday

10:30-11:30 History of Webcomics— Join writer T Campbell (Penny and Aggie, Fans, Rip and Teri) and some possible surprise guests to discuss 13 years of online comics, the challenges, conflicts and controversies of chronicling them, and where the project goes from here. Room 9

Unfortunately, gonna miss this one — my flight home is Sunday morning. Anybody want to do some feet-on-the-street reportage? Click the contact link.

The SDCC panel schedule is getting close to finalized, and two more items of note have popped up. In addition to the previously-Fleened Dumbrella and Webcomics 102 panels, we have:

10:30-11:30 Blank Label Comics — The groundbreaking independent comics co-op offers a look at its unique recipe for success and explains why “webcomics” are dead. Moderated by the hosts of the popular Blank Label Comics podcast, Dave Kellett (Sheldon) and Kristofer Straub (Starslip Crisis), the panel will include David Willis (Shortpacked!), Paul Taylor (Wapsi Square), Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary), Steve Troop (Melonpool), and Brad Guigar (Evil Inc.). Room 1A

and

6:00-7:00 Keenspot 2006: Spotlight on Awesomeness — The world-renowned Internet powerhouse that makes webcomics history with every new pixel returns to Comic-Con for its 6th annual panel discussion! Keenspot creators who may very well appear (assuming no cool Star Trek panels overlap with this one) include Dan Shive (El Goonish Shive), Jennie Breeden (The Devil’s Panties), Aeire (Queen of Wands), R. Smith (Funny Farm), and Darren Bleuel (Nukees). The panei will be moderated by Keencast hosts Chris Daily (Striptease) and John Troutman (Flint Again), who will be podcasting this panel. Hear Keenspot’s late-breaking big announcements and preview their newest comics and animation projects before anyone else! Free Keenspot giveaways for everyone who attends. Room 9

That makes at least three collectives that will have the soapbox to tell us what they’re up to these days. Will we see the Twin Towers holding forth on behalf of Dayfree Press? Or some announcements about what’s happening at Graphic Smash and Modern Tales? There’s still a lot of hours across four days that don’t have webcomics events, so get cracking, collective people!

Also, it’s starting to look like my schedule will prevent me from attending the “Spotlight on Awesomeness” (you really sorta have to respect somebody that can come up with a line like that with a straight face), so if anybody wants to do the stringer thing for us and grab some dirt, feel free to click the contact link up there.

Hey, look at that! Server all migrated and we’re back in business, just in time for me to write an entry before things consume my evening (none of which, sadly, involve the drinking of beer). A quick scan of the internets reveals that Goats, megaGAMERZ, Real Life, and Oh No Robot! have also made the transition safely.
(Edit: Slight delay getting graphics to load. Picture to be added up there shortly Added.)

So, something PJ wrote got me to thinking about what makes for a good webcomic — archives that you can easily (and freely) navigate are the key advantage of webcomics over their print brethren, despite certain business models to the contrary. Jeff once remarked on the importance of infrastructure, including navigation, forum, and blurb space. And I’ve written about the importance of legibility in artwork. But what else is necessary for a really good webcomic?

A quick scan of popular comics reveals that, much like there are essential elements to country/western songs (booze, death, adultery, Jesus, a train, and/or a truck), certain themes may be considered critical for webcomickin’ success; they appear to include:

• pixels
• pretty people talking
• ninjas
• cute fuzzy animals
• video games

Think of it! All of your big-time webcomics feature at least one of these. We may logically infer that a pixel comic of a fuzzy animal ninja that talks about videogames with its pretty friends is destined for megasuccess … it’s scientific! Dinosaurs would be good too, but that’s closed territory, my friend. Try to encroach, and you’ll get stomped. Even now, highly trained Disney™ Fungineers© are reading this, plotting to extend their dominance, coming for your children. In the meantime, Fleen welcomes your suggestions for comics that fulfill at least three of the Criteria of Wonderfulness.

T Campbell resigns from Clickwheel, now controls only 94% of all webcomics endeavours. On a slightly-related note, we at Fleen are still looking for a copy of Campbell’s El Grande Historio del Webcomics, and would be grateful if anybody knows of a supplier in the New York City Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Jon Rosenberg discovers the joys of grilling meat on land he owns [jointly with his wife and a large financial institution], calls for guest strips as he gets into the homeowner swing.

William G. sends webcomics blog comment in re: the Girly contretemps, adds to quality of discussion. Mr G intended to add the comment to that posting, but since the discussion had scrolled a couple of pages long, he felt that it was a dead topic. However, other comments have arrived since he emailed us, and I think it’s an interesting POV, so I have copied it to that thread.

Lastly, DumbrellaHosting honcho/Fleen publisher Phillip Karlsson announces imminent server switch, promises he will be doing “stuff” to ensure easy browsing while the DNS changes propagate. If you see hiccups here over the next 24 – 48 hours, try to bear up and be brave in the face of it all. We know you have it in you.

From the press release desk at Fleen Central, this item:

July 4th, 2006- In a world where a boundless plethora of information is available at one’s fingertips on the internet, the casual web surfer could be forgiven for thinking that it has all been done… especially in the political arena. But while the internet may have revolutionized politics as a unique forum for dialogue and activism, there are still exciting possibilities yet left unexplored.

Enter SpinZone Comics, the web’s first collective of politically oriented webstrips that consistently bring fresh ideas and images to the tedium of talking heads in the digital blogosphere.

Webcomics are an understandably popular artistic form online- quick to read and easy to digest, they fit perfectly with the speed and aesthetic obsessed online community. Though comics can be used to address any subject, they have all too often been dismissed or pigeonholed into the insular gaming and fantasy genres. With its unique blend of styles and political voices, SpinZone Comics aims to change all of that.

A quick perusal of the site reveals the “unique blend … of political voices” to be about as blended as one might think; given the fact that Spinzone calls itself a “collective”, and that conservative attempts at political humor rarely result in anything other than profound suck, it’s unsurprising that the six contributors to the ‘Zone all tilt to the (shall we say) progressive side of the fence. In an attempt to forestall conservative complaints about liberal domination of yet another branch of the media, Fleen is now calling on the ‘Zoners to invite Day by Day to join up, as well as a pool to guess the exact date that happens. Please note that “when hell freezes over” is not a valid entry.

The contributors to SpinZone are Cosmic Awareness by J.E. Mills, Fighting Words by Ben Smith, Monkey Law by Brad Hawkins, Idiot Box by Matt Bors, Death of the Party by Jonathan Fischer, and Line Item Vito by Eddie Caplan.

Much driving this weekend, along with family obligations and the desire to beat the everliving snot out of the sumbitch that abandoned a dog at the I-64 (westbound) rest stop at mile marker 213 in Virginia on the hottest bloody day of the year; there’s a special circle of torment for you in hell, asshole.

Anyway, fast roundup of things you may have missed over the holiday weekend. Something resembling normal updates tomorrow.

• Over at Graphic Smash, the first storyline of Bang Barstal by the colorful William G wraps; I’m liking it so far.
• Over at Webcomics Nation, Narbonic goes free and leaves Modern Tales. You got six years of Pinkwateresque archives to plow through, Bunky.
• Over in Connecticuit, Connecticon is coming this weekend. Lots of webcomic folk to be there.
• Over in Merrie England, the full list of Scary Go Round Idol contestants have been posted by John Allison. Some nice work there.
• And at Penny Arcade for the rest of the week, cartoons will be supplied by the Third Graders From Mrs. Eriksen’s Class. Although not yet live, the PA Archive drop-down lists Wednesday’s offering as Third Grade Gold, Wild Styles and Friday’s as Third Grade Gold, The Secret. Miss them, and you will miss the future of the internets.

… and tired as hell. Which is probably why, in the context of this, I find this far funnier than I should. After all, we here at Fleen are all about webcomics community, and not interested in provoking shitstorms or internet fights to the bloody death. That being said, Bunny is owning all over those birds (start here and keep clicking on “next”, through the ten updates that Lem managed in one day).

Items to be bought at SDCC are starting to pile up exponentially. Stop producing cool things, webcomics people!

In the meantime, please enjoy the upcoming orgy of national holidays, and we’ll see you next week.

Art vs. writing discussed passim; xkcd brings the funny (thanks to Ryan “Nexus of All Webcomics Realities” North for the heads-up). Let’s see, the creator, Randall Munroe, is a physicist and works on robots for NASA. Nerd humor ahoy!

You got your math and STDs, Venn diagrams (true story: I grew up at the tail end of the New Math, and wound up learning set theory in second-friggin’-grade; turned out handy when I went to engineering college), relativity, recursive sets, gravitation and yo’ mama, Escher, and anarchy on the comics page! Add a little theoretical math, Boolean love, some probabilistic outcomes, frequency-domain felines, things I’ve actually done, astronomy, chemistry, and it all adds up to science!

In fact, reading through xkcd, one is left with but one conclusion: FUCK computational linguistics.