Speaking of merch, Diablo action figure pre-orders are now open! And, like all good action figures, it comes with a variant:

Pre-ordered Diablo is available in two flavors, a regular chicken-flavored variety and the special “personalized” variant. The personalized figure comes with some bonus stickers and is signed by Yours Truly, and the first 250 people to order one of these will get an extra Super-Bonus Glow-In-The-Dark Ecto-Skull in addition to all the other groovy accessories Diablo normally comes with. This skull can replace Diablo’s normal head; I cannot stress enough how radical this is.

How cool is this? Read on, my friend:

Diablo has four points of articulation, at the waist, wings and neck.
Diablo’s head is removable, just like in real life.
Diablo comes with accessories:

• one (1) Human Skull
• one (1) Satanic Whoopee Cushion
• one (1) Necronomicon, 2nd. Ed.
• three (3) pc. Oversized Novelty Bacon

Diablo’s head can be replaced with his Human Skull for awesome skull-chicken action.
Diablo is approx. 3″ tall, and will be to scale with future Goats action figures. [emphasis mine]
Diablo comes in a neato collector’s box.
Diablo will bring you everlasting joy and peace of mind.

Serious collectors, speculators, and dealers are urged to stock up on plenty of both versions. I just ordered mine, how about you?

Adding to our previous list of webcomics panels at SDCC:

DUMBRELLA
FRIDAY, JULY 21
2:30-3:30PM
ROOM 7B

Artists from Dumbrella, one of the most popular online comic collectives, discuss webcomics, independent publishing and subverting popular culture. Feel free to quiz Andrew Bell (the Creatures in my Head), Sam Brown (explodingdog), Steven Cloud (B.O.a.S.a.S.), Jon Rosenberg (Goats), and Richard Stevens III (Diesel Sweeties) about anything your inter-net heart desires.

Bonus points and a one American dollar cash money to the first person to ask the panel, “What is the collective noun for members of Dumbrella?”*
(more…)

Work has me far off the beaten path this week, with almost zero net access; thus, brief updates.

Kristofer Straub’s given us some wicked satire over the past year in Starslip Crisis, and his lead character, Memnon Vanderbeam, has been a reliable buffoon. Even his mopery over the death of the love of his life has been played more for laughs than anything … until last Friday. He can get her back, but it will take 400 millenia. So what is he to do, but to stop whispering and give the command: Begin.

Beautifully written, heartbreaking, and new depths to an established character. Kudos to Straub, and our wishes that Vanderbeam doesn’t have to wait quite that long to get Jovia back.

Two ways to check out ‘Mega’ webcomics this week, going back through all your favorite gags. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll remember the good times.

First up, Diablo the Chicken’s megaGAMERZ 3133T is going into reruns. Started on 22 June 2005 and ending not quite a year later with the Deathrumble, you’ve got an eye-popping 49 self-contained storylines and a cast of dozens (including my personal favorite, Fishapod). Given the tremendous demand to see them again, Diablo has added one to the year, and opted to rerun the entire series from the very beginning. No revisions or redraws, no commentary track, just pure gamery goodness. Hop on board now while you can and enjoy the thrill ride.

And secondly, Megatokyo released volume 4 this week (following a shift from Dark Horse to CMX, an imprint of DC Comics), covering chapters 5 (starting 25 February 2004) and 6 (ending 1 August 2005), you’ve got a year and a half’s worth of strip, plus various side-stories, fillers, and sketches.

However, this is not a review, given that everything included only accounts for about three days of story time, it’s hard to say whether or not the story is progressing without reading the entire damn thing. Some day, Fred Gallagher will finish MT and reading it all in one go will either prove to be very satisfying or deeply disturbing. Neither outcome, however, will shift anybody from their present opinions on the man and his work, so if you like MT assume you need this book, and if you don’t, assume your ten bucks would be better off contributing to the purchase of Tezuka’s Phoenix, volume 7.

My buy-list for SDCC is getting longer, as in addition to Kristofer Straub’s second Starslip Crisis book, there’s a new comprehensive volume of Wapsi Square coming from Paul Taylor. Big, beefy bargain books, too, clocking in at 180 and 160 pages respectively.

Speaking of Blank Label, Steve Troop has a new gig doing puppet videocasts over at Kevin Smith‘s site; the link to Troop’s video wasn’t working on Tuesday, but since he’s scheduled to run on Friday’s, I imagine that makes sense. Also worth noting is a list of fairly impressive names that Smith has contributing to his relaunched site: Fred Hembeck, Paul Dini, and the cast/crew of Scrubs will be bumping elbows with Troop at the website Christmas party.

Given how long Troop’s been at this game, that makes him an overnight success after a decade-plus of grinding effort — our sincere congratulations to him, and wishes for future ass-kickery.

New banner headline:
William G, Joey Manley, Scott Kurtz, and Chris Crosby all agree on a substatantive issue; world fails to fall off axis.

And in other news, the Nerd Prom is listing some webcomics panels for next month; list courtesy of Kristofer Straub, as the SDCC site doesn’t seem to have this year’s programming info up yet. Check it:

THURSDAY, JULY 20
6:00-7:00pm Webcomics 101: Getting Started – It’s easy to make a webcomic, but hard to do it well. Bill Barnes (Unshelved) asks fellow web cartoonists Dave Kellett (Sheldon), Jon Rosenberg (Goats), Brian Fies (Mom’s Cancer), Phil Foglio (Girl Genius) why they went online, and what artistic, business, and technological choices they made. Room 3.

FRIDAY, JULY 21
4:30-5:30pm Webcomics 102: Finding Your Audience – When will your genius get the adulation it deserves? Bill Barnes (Unshelved) asks fellow web cartoonists Jerry “Tycho” Holkins & Mike “Gabe” Krahulik (Penny Arcade), Scott Kurtz (PVP), R. Stevens (Diesel Sweeties), and Kristofer Straub (Starslip Crisis) how they attract crowds online. Room 1B

SATURDAY, JULY 22
6:00-7:00pm Webcomics 103: Making Money – Can you really make a living posting comics to the web? Bill Barnes (Unshelved) leads fellow webcomic businessfolk Robert Khoo (Penny Arcade), Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary), Phillip Karlsson (Dumbrella Hosting), Jennie Breeden (The Devil’s Panties) in a discussion on how they turn bits into bucks. Room 3

That last one looks particularly interesting; I’ve been wanting to see non-creator types like Khoo and Karlsson talk about their perspectives of what makes for success in this crazy world. Fleen will do its best to ensure full coverage of these sessions, and any others that appear on the schedule.

From a January discussion on webcomics merch:

The only attempts at quantities of actual action figures (with accessories!) that I’m aware of are from Messers Bell and Rosenberg. And these are fraught with delays, as the only manufacturies are a) far overseas; b) speak a different language; and c) hate you and want to make you suffer.

Welp, it looks like the manufacturies in question might hate you just a little less than before, as a color proof of Diablo the Chicken has made it past snarling dogs, razor wire, US Customs, and the postal service to end up in the hands of Messers Bell and Rosenberg. Rumors abound that there may be a couple cases of these bad boys at San Diego, with the bulk of the order arriving later. Price point is still to be determined, but keep an eye on the Goats newsbox for further info.

When that info comes out, buy one! Buy two! Get your Christmas shopping done early! Success on this experiment means that someday I may have other Goats figures. Seriously, Oliver with deathbot? Or being able to watch the look on Jon’s face as he sells figures based on his cartoon alter-ego (with short-packed gray variant) to random fanboys, knowing not what they’ll do with it? getting a genuine Phillip figure (with sentient lemon accessory) in close proximity to — dare I hope? — a Penny Arcade Fruit Fucker 2000? Count me in!

Written on this page, eleven days ago:

… stupendous badassery is the natural inheritance of every living thing (even Philippe and Mr Bear)

It looks like Cornelius Bear is indeed a stupendous badass, with his skills at bread-baking, rule-breaking, jail-surviving, and car picking (not to mention porn writing) serving him well. Maybe now that son of a bitch Lyle will give him some respect.

And is it just me, or does Magnus Intactus look like he was the model for cell-phone nuts? This makes up for the fact that, sadly, no Badass Games wiki is yet in evidence.

Nobody’s ever happy, everybody can find a reason to turn on somebody helping them, and the only emotionally-consistent characters are sociopathic black-ops agents for videogame manufacturers. I think that Dave Sim has been beaming his, errr, unique view of gender relations directly into the script-writing center of Fred Gallagher’s brain.

And look at the other parallels: a long-running series (although Gallagher has quite a ways to go to equal Sim’s 6000 pages of Cerebus) of black-and-white art from a single creator; divorce from a creative partner relatively early in the run (in Sim’s case, a literal divorce, in Gallagher’s, a parting of the ways with Rodney “Largo” Caston); and a tendency to long essays accompanying the art. They say that Sim rarely leaves his home, so who knows what kind of secret mind-control lasers he might be playing with?

Mostly photos this time ’round, and that will wrap up our discussion of MoCCA for the year. Before we get to the pics, profound apologies to both Tyler Page and Ryan Sias.

Page put together the best take-aways to promote a webcomic I’ve ever seen: a brochure for the fictional college that is the story setting, and student IDs for the main characters. Great idea, wonderful execution, couldn’t get a decent photo of them.

I had only about two minutes to talk with Sias, which was not nearly enough time to discuss Silent Kimbly, his work as an animator, and being a Ryan. As soon as we at Fleen have the opportunity to talk with him further, we’ll be sure to share with you.

In the meantime, please enjoy visuals of Ian Jones-Quartey’s ‘frohawk, T-Rex in all his majesty (Ladies, please! One at a time!), the free-est and fun-est eagle in the world, Ryan North gettin’ down, and webcomicdom’s fiercest thug mug. Andy Runton is about to learn to his detriment that you do not screw with Kean Soo. Lastly, this man is more of a ninja that you will ever be. In fact, he is such a master of disguise that he doesn’t even look like that.