It’s Inventing Conflict Day today at Fleen. Grab a folding chair and prepare to launch from the top rope.

First up, Lore Sjoberg has an interesting bit in yesterday’s Table of Malcontents on the philosophically-explosive combination of webcomics and t-shirts. To wit:

I noticed that popular webcomic Diesel Sweeties has changed its title text from “pixelated robot romance web comic” to “pixelated robot romance web comic and t-shirt party.” Presumably this is a nod to the fact that t-shirts are a major part of the site’s income and that the shirts in question aren’t always, technically speaking, based on the comic strip.

It’s interesting that, in the absence of a steady paycheck from a syndicate, so many comics have settled on T-shirts as an income source. It’s also interesting that while the shirts typically started out as fan shirts, with characters or slogans from the series depicted, increasingly they’re like any other T-shirt shop, with random amusing or interesting images. Some comics, such as Questionable Content regularly show the characters wearing a wide variety of printed T-shirts, some of which then get transformed into actual shirts for fans to wear.

I think that the most likely reason for the non-strip-orientation of many (most?) shirts these days is that it’s easier to sell to Everybody with a computer than it is to sell to Everybody with a computer that also happens to read my comic. As popular and well-regarded as Diesel Sweeties is, there’s probably a lot more potential purchasers of a shirt that’s general-interest (like this one) than one that’s character-specific (like this one). Sjoberg continues:

I can see how this could be abused. I’d hate for web comics to turn into advertisements for merchandise, like a textile-based Yu-Gi-Oh. I also can’t help but wonder if there’s a backlash waiting around the corner. The geekish love of novelty T-shirts is deep and wide, but can it be infinite?

I should disclose that I own a small business that sells custom T-shirts, including those for my own comic strip, but I’m not associated with any other comic strip. So I may not be the most objective observer, but for the time being I say “good for them.” They’re selling things people want to the people who want them, and providing free comics to boot, so I’ve got no complaint. But I do have concerns.

No worries, Lore — in the internet, you’re allowed to change your mind about things like webcomics and t-shirts. Sometimes it’s cool to sell them, but later you realize it’s illogical to produce or buy them.

Speaking of Diesel Sweeties, there’s some good old-fashioned meme stomping going on in today’s installment. Apparently, Jeff Rowland is so enraged that he had no choice but to punch a bald eagle to death. This, naturally, occurs in the context of Rowland being critical of the President, which would seem to put him at odds with Paul Southworth, who reminds us all about the importance of loving the President, with as much inappropriate love as we can muster.

Lastly, Nice Pete would like you to know that he has a book out. You might want to get that one, as Nice Pete’s been known to engage in the regular act of murdering people he doesn’t like, and I’m sure buying his book will only improve his opinion of you.

Randy Milholland tells us in the latest S*P newsbox that his friend Erica Henderson has been animating an S*P strip; to be more specific, the first S*P strip. So far, it’s a work in progress — about one and a half of the four panels are done, and it’s still at the pencil rough stage. Buy the characters are well-done, the animation is smooth and natural (watch Davan scratching his nose in the first 20 or so frames … nice job of keeping the characters from just standing there), and the voices sound pretty close to what’s in my head when I read the strip. The only downside to doing full animation like this is it takes a long time, but when it’s done well it’s worth it. This looks like it’s got a lot of potential.

Also, the parade of webcomics books continues apace, as Bunny chimes in with preorders. While some are not fans of the single-panel webcomic format, Lem’s got some real twisted genius going on, barely moderated by long, fluffy pink ears. Watch for 90 of the best strips to hit sometime late May/early June, subject to printing delays, university workload, and the Royal Mail.

Much as disturbing celebrity news begs to find a webcomics angle, it just ain’t there. Fortunately, John Allison brings us a point of artistic discussion.

In the current Scary Go Round story (Chapter 30: Beyond the Veil), Ryan takes the lead to seek out his beloved Natalie (and a nice turn of story, too — Ryan’s been somewhat under-served for a while now). The story was interrupted just as Ryan discovered that the way to seek out Natalie in the land of wind and ghosts is to go there himself via near-death experience. The interruption was for a guest week so that Allison could recharge his creative juices (forgive the mixed metaphor), and resumed two days ago.

Note that Allison has shifted the look to his (too rarely seen) hand-drawn style, which gave a nice contrast to the previous portion of the story: Ryan’s dead, and everything looks different. But then comes today’s update, and there’s Shelley and Amy in the world of the living, looking all hand-drawn. Hmmm. There goes that theory.

Whatever the reason, looks like we get organic Allison goodness for some while, until the siren song of Illustrator calls him back (which, if nothing else, provides the toolset to do absolutely gorgeous work like the back cover to the forthcoming Book Four).

Okay, it’s not really a “book”, per se, but the fine men and women of the Postal Service placed a copy of the digest-sized The Case of the Missile Crisis by Jeff Rowland in my mailbox sometime yesterday forenoon. It came packed with stickers, a sketch of a wholly disinterested-looking Topato (which, one would imagine, is his natural reaction to woefully inadequate beings such as you and me), ads both real and fake, and 24 full pages of Wigu goodness. That’s more fulfilling than most indy comics that I read.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had any Wigu installments, so any adventure with the Tinkle family is welcome — no surprises there. Also not surprising is what readers of the earlier Wigu books know — as good as Wigu is in daily doses (it’s made of a 50/50 mix of pixels and heroin), it’s even better in larger amounts. While Rowland is an ascended master of putting a solid punchline on the screen every day, it’s sometimes easy to forget that he knows how to pace a story over multiple pages.

Given the room to focus on a story designed to be read at one sitting (and not having to have a specific laugh line on each page), he’s free to let Wigu, Paisley, Quincy and Romy express themselves in ways that we haven’t necessarily seen before. Add to the mix Quincy’s genius brother, conspiracies straight out of late-night AM radio, and a stray ICBM, there’s only one place left to take the story: Atlantis! (Is it just me that hears Ike Willis as Thing-Fish every time the word Atlantis! appears?) Thus, a cliffhanger, and a promise from Jeff to get the next issue out as quickly as possible. On a scale of one to awesome, TCOTMC scores 9.5, with bonus points for the Snakes Flying A Plane stickers.

Tonkatsu is the greatest name for a pig ever.

And with this, we finish up your questions for Dave Kellett regarding syndication. Many thanks to Dave for his time and expertise. Many thanks to all of you who submitted questions.

(more…)

I’d like to make a little more noise about something that happened in the comments the other day. Feeling that the “post every day” requirement wasn’t on the List o’ Fun Things To Do Today, webcomics afficianado The Kea decided to start a webcomics blog without a picky editor demanding to know where the new article is. We at Fleen salute The Kea, and like what we’re reading so far. Go check it out.

Now, on the topic of the open call for writers, we have received nearly 20 submissions for the largely unpaid position of webcomics press scum journalist, and this round of submissions is now closed. I’ve done a preliminary look-see on the submissions, and will be soliciting opinions from Jeff, Jon, and Phillip before deciding who makes it to Round Two. As we said, it’s a matter of finding writers we think will be the best fit for Fleen, so no disrespect if we don’t choose you.

Just so you know, it’ll probably take a few weeks to come to a final decision; recall a few of the rules that Jon laid down when we launched:

I will not be allowed to tell the writers what they can and cannot write about (aside from the “posts must be about webcomics” mandate). I will attempt to post my dissent in the comments, just like everyone else will be allowed to do. In some instances I may write them directly if the nature of my comments demands it (as you can also do), but they have every right to tell me to screw off.

and

I cannot fire a writer without the consent of a majority of the other writers.

Given the very loose rein that witers ’round here have, we want to make sure of the people that we invite to join. Naturally, we will endeavor to conduct this process with a maximum of dignity and respect. Now strip naked and get on the probulator.

From Jeff Rowland, news that copies of The Case of the Missile Crisis will be shipping out next week (look for a review soon after); and an introductory pimer to what happens when Mario Blocks are denied their rightful place as public art.

The Mario Blocks lead us to Ryan North‘s buddy Poster Child, and the backstory of this laudable project to take back public spaces in the name of art. Naturally, any mention of North means we would be remiss if we didn’t point out that the new Dinosaur Comics book (Your Whole Family Is Made Out Of Meat) is up for for pre-order.

Finally, just because it’s not something we’ve seen before, check out today’s Concerned; you’ll have to scroll down past the comic and click where it says Hide/Show Notes. Christopher Livingston, mad genius behind the adventures of Gordon Frohman, has posted a link to what can only be described (and he does) as audio fan art.

While it’s true that comics like Something*Positive and Penny Arcade have had audio gifts in the form of theme songs (from, respectively, Kristofer Straub and MC Frontalot), this is different. It really seems more like the audio equivalent of a guest strip or sketch. What with all the podcasting and amatuer audio announcers out there, it’ll be curious to see if others pick up on this idea.

Paul Southworth is going political starting this week over in Ugly Hill. The President is coming to town to announce plans to wage war on “Eyeraq”. Plans are for the storyline to run for four weeks, which gives Southworth plenty of time to cover lots of territory.

Could Southworth be planning an extended exploration of cyclopes in his monster world, further developing his “one-eye” characters as a metaphor for racism in our culture? Is it a balanced, nuanced, carefully considered critique of America’s current path? Or might he just be trying to stir up some controversy, knowing that nothing brings in the eyeballs (ha, ha!) like people who are severely pissed off at you (and/or don’t get the joke)?

More on this as it develops.

Edit: This was actually written Wednesday night for posting on Thursday, but I neglected to do so in a timely fashion. As the Skipper used to say, “Oop!” To make up for this inadvertant oversight, you’ll get two pieces today.

We are approaching a dozen respondents to our recent call for contributors; there have been some questions about the gig, so we’ll address those here, in no particular order.

1. Did you get my submission? ‘Cause you haven’t written back yet.
   Yes, we did; we’re still going through and deciding which we like best. We’ll be contacting some of you for a second round of submissions.
2. Wait, “some of you”? You hate me, don’t you? I suck.
   No, no, nothing like that. It’s just that some of you have a style that’s a bit more in line with what we’re looking for, and some of you sound a little bit like you’re submitting an essay in English class. Part of what we’re looking for are writers that have their own voices and don’t sound 95% similar to the other applicants.
3. When’s the deadline?
   Well, let’s say that Fleen is on an open-admission plan. If you don’t think you have the time to commit now, but find you have the time in the future, feel free to drop us a line and we’ll consider you (I’m talking to you, Mr Math Guy). For this round of submissions, let’s say that getting something to us by the weekend would be good.
4. You said “compensation”. What’s up with that?
   Actually, what we said was, “The compensation is so small that you may not even notice it is there.” It involves a cut of the ad revenue (my share from inception to date comes to about US$0.20) and you get your beer bought for you when in the physical presence of the publisher, which is helped by a proximity to Manhattan (for me, fairly regular; for Jeff, not so much). There’s also the intangible benefits you get from sharing your opinion with the world, and occasionally annoying William G.
5. I’m thinking of submitting samples. What would make my writing better?
   Best damn question we’ve gotten! First of all, read through and make sure that what you’ve written is logically and grammatically solid. Check for spelling. I have poked some fun at Eric Burns for his … verbosity, but I can count on one hand the number of typos that he’s made in the past 100,000 words.

   We’re a blog, so show us that you can locate links that support your ideas, and include those in the body. Did we mention spelling? Check again. And so far, the front-running topics are Penny Arcade, Questionable Content, and PvP; you might want to address something a bit further afield so we can see your range. Also, that 15-paragraph opus looks nice, but remember the goal is to convince us that you can write something five days a week. Two to three hundred tight words a day will thrill us.

6. Can I be an asshole? Or write about what sucks and say that it sucks?
   Sure. We’re here to talk about the good and the bad in webcomics, but we’ve attracted something resembling a reputation for having well-written and well-thought-out stuff here, and don’t want to lose that just because you got a mad-on for the world. If you can channel Ambrose Bierce or Dorothy Parker, great. If the best you can do is THIS SUXXORS [name of creator] IS A FAG, don’t bother.
7. Can we work from home?
   You sure as hell aren’t going to be working from my home.
8. Seriously, you hated my very personal, soul-baring essay, didn’t you? I suck.
   Yeah, you suck. Everybody else is okay.
9. Tuesday Crimson sounds hot. Can I date her?
   You suck, even more than that last guy.