Not one, but two webcomickers are celebrating a significant anniversary, oh, now-ish.

Today marks 10 years of Help Desk (although not all online; it started in a now-defunct magazine); Christopher Wright sent a nice summary of what 10 years with Ubersoft have been like:

Over the years it has parodied Microsoft‘s incomprehensible release schedule, the Microsoft antitrust trial, the Y2K bug, unreasonably restrictive software licenses, online privacy and user tracking, identity theft, ridiculous software patents, software patent lawsuits, copyright infringement lawsuits, and the insidious communist plot to destabilize the free market with the PNG graphics format. It has taken broadsides at Microsoft, IBM, Apple, SCO, Iomega, Sun, Oracle, Diebold, the Federal Government, the RIAA, the MPAA, and even — on occasion — Richard Stallman.

The cartoonist would like to take this moment to thank the computer industry for its tireless efforts to keep him inundated with new material.

On behalf of the computer industry, you’re welcome.

And tomorrow marks 9 years of Goats; Jon Rosenberg didn’t send along a quote, but did note the event on his front page. In the meantime, let’s reflect on exactly how long 10 (or 9) years is … it’s a hell of a long time to continue any creative endeavor. And consider how long 9 (or 10) years is in internet time … that’s practically geological-scale time. Time enough to see an entire medium create itself, grow, develop, and devolve into family spats (no links; today’s a happy day). Goats may have been the first “two guys sitting around” webcomic, which makes it the Platonic Ideal of an entire genre. If you see Rosenberg on the street, thank him and buy him a beer. But don’t touch him; he’s not big on touching.

Since Goats has become increasingly story-driven, you’ll find a cheat sheet I wrote a while back behind the cut; it’ll get you caught up on nine years of fabulously twisted backstory. Someday, there may even be more links in there, but in the meantime, Goats features an easily-searched archive and character guide.

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Circumstances have prevented Tuesday Crimson from posting This Week! In Webcomics Boning; she will return as time permits. But because we at Fleen know you gotta have your boning on Thursday, consider following.

You may have seen that Clay has wrapped up Sexy Losers (gateway page that’s probably SFW, but click further at your own risk), which is a shame as now we won’t see the end of the Shiunji and the Suicide Girl story arc. They’ll be forever trapped between life and death, Yuuko unable to find vengeance and rest, and Shiunji never finding out if being dead yourself is all it’s cracked up to be.

Moving on from storyline particulars before they cost me a job someday. Instead, props to Clay — like all solid comedians, he understood the value of a good running gag, and it’s to his credit that he always considered The Funny in equal proportion to The Sexy. Given that he chose to work in a motif of explicit sexuality, one might expect adult aspects to dominate the work, but a surprising number of his strips provided only innuendo. Nudity, sexual situations, adult language, and everything else that moralizers go on about only showed in Sexy Losers to the extent that they made the gag better; if it didn’t need full-frontal, the strip didn’t have it.

Regardless of what you think of adult humor and situations, Clay provided a consistently funny strip over a period of years, his art constantly improved, and he honed his gags into what perfectly fit his (and his audience’s) expectations. Here’s hoping that he finds the impetus to pick up drawing tools again in the future.

Honestly, it’s not that we don’t like your stuff (although it may not be for us), it’s just time. Your story idea was good, but sometimes something that only makes sense to cover on a particular day comes up (case in point), and pushes your idea to the backburner until it’s lost its timeliness. And with one or two exceptions, it’s not because you were a jerk when you wrote us; it’s just that there are (as of right now) 34 decent suggestions in the “to be written” queue, and new stuff goes to the bottom of the pile.

But sometimes you just have to go with a suggestion right away; got this one earlier today:

How’s THIS for shameless?

I write a new webcomic. Very new. Tomorrow, we will have a grand total of 20 strips. Stay with me, I’ve thought of some positive things about this:

1) It is extremely easy to read the entire archives, and it can be done in a single sitting. In fact, even if you find out that you have only a half hour to live, you can still read the comic in it’s entirety.
2) It’s so early in the run that constructive criticism could make a much larger difference than it would to a more established comic.
3) Mentioning us would totally make at least two people’s day (myself and the artist), whereas it might only make 30-40% of a more established cartoonists day.
4) If anything ever becomes of it, you’ll be able to say you read it before it was cool. Because if our visitor logs are any indication, it’s definately in it’s “before cool” stage.

Anyway, I just wanted to scream about how we exist. Now you know, so I can stop screaming.

I like this letter a lot — shameless, funny, polite, to the point, but what made me want to run it today is not the endearing sense of neediness; it was item #2. It’s so early in the run that constructive criticism could make a much larger difference than it would to a more established comic. That caught my eye, because it relates directly to an upcoming bit in the Dave Kellett followup questions, and I thought it made for a good contrast. Here’s the Kellett Q & A:

The voice of experience is pretty telling here: your first efforts aren’t likely to be good, and even if they are, pretty much every cartoonist I know actively loathes their early efforts. But the eagerness of the newbie is also compelling: I know that! Give me feedback so I can get good enough to loathe my own early work some day.

Despite some opinions to the contrary, we at Fleen don’t enjoy stomping dreams into juice, which is part of why we generally wait to see more stuff in the archive before holding a candle up to it. We aren’t going to wang your server, but a link here could conceivably send a thousand people your way. Make sure you’re really ready for the kind of scrutiny that anonymous internet people will bring. And if there’s stuff in your archive that you’re already dissatisfied with … a quick redo before you put up the Welcome sign might help you sleep easier in the future.

If you read our interveiw with Dave Kellett on the nature of syndication (part 1 and part 2), you’ll recall that we solicited followup questions. Mr Kellett has graciously answered, and we’ll start with his replies today.

Some of the questions were lengthy, and we got some very thorough answers, so we’re breaking this one up a bit. Answers will be posted in several installments, and not all back-to-back. After all, I think that we might all be just a little creeped out if Fleen turned into “All Dave Kellett, All The Time”. (Hey Mer, can we get a redesign on the masthead with the new motto? Thanks.)

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Sylvan Migdal wrapped up Ascent at Graphic Smash today; the story had been steadily building to a climax over the past several months, and today it all came to an end. Up above you’ll see the first of many panels from the strip (you can tell how excited Migdal is about a given installment by how tall it is; today required 13 visits to the scrollwheel), and it’s immediately obvious that today was gonna be special.

Color. Lots and lots of color.

Since the first installment some two years ago, Migdal had restricted himself to four colors: black, white, and two blues. It worked well within his story, but now the main characters find themselves escaped from a magical (if nearly monochromatic) world and back to the planet that birthed them: Earth. Now we see full color, except for a purely black & white flashback detailing the very end of their escape. It’s like The Wizard of Oz in reverse.

On a side note, we heard pretty clearly at the end of last year that new stuff was coming to the Modern Tales family of websites, as free and subscription content would be offered side-by-side under the editorships of Messers Campbell and Burns. Hopefully, some of that content will be coming online soon, as GS is now down another reliably-updating strip, and many days Modern Tales can only muster two or three new offerings (and God forbid Shaenon Garrity gets hit on the head by a rock from outer space, there goes a big chunk o’ pixels).

So do yourself a favor and support more Federal funding for research into webcartoonist-extinction astronomical events, and drop by Migdal’s site on Friday to see what he cooks up next.

This touches tangentially on the current Joey Manley-centered shitstorm regarding dick and fart jokes. I’ll save you some time: every prominent name in the first hundred posts or so says precisely what you’d expect; late in the game, Maritza Campos, Jin Wicked, and Jeph Jacques make some calm, rational points. If you’ve had your fill of webcomics drama for the week, feel free to skip the ManleyMillikinKurtzG fest-o-fun. Now let’s wander a little further afield, ‘kay? Over at A murder of crows (side note: I love the entire notion of “term for a plural group of animals”; if you see R Stevens or Jon Rosenberg at I-CON this weekend, ask ’em what the plural term for “webcartoonists” is), there’s a new piece about Hurricane Joey. And it links a second piece about us.

From some digging, it appears that the author of these essays is named Jeff Knooren; I say “appears” because his name doesn’t appear on the blog page or as a signature to any of his posts, so I’m not entirely sure. Assuming I haven’t completely misinterpreted things, Knooren is the individual that I referred to as “this guy” in a previous post, which he’s apparently taken as a vile insult. Sorry ’bout that, but without a name to put to the links, didn’t have a lot of choice there. He’s pretty much got it in for webcomics critics (not my term for what we do here) and commentators (that’s closer) in general, and while he’s pretty angry about how we parasites have conspired against him (honestly, the first time we’d heard of him was when he pinged us to call us “industry heavyweights”, which is a gross mischaracterization), he does make an interesting point in his open letter:

So, I ask you, where will I be the following week after [Fleen’s] trashing review of my comic? You and I both know, a full comic review from you, will not convert into readership for me, come next week. (emphasis original)

I cite the Porkwrench [sic] review by Jeff Lowery. Porkwrench [sic] got a HUGE boost of many thousands of visitors from you, for a week. Your full review did not translate into readership for porkwrench [sic] that I could tell.

(Aside: I have no idea what kind of bump Pork Wrench got from us; I’d be tickled to think that it was “many thousands”, but our traffic logs don’t indicate we have quite that level of influence. Fleen invites Petie Shumate to share what readership changes did or did not come about after the review.) The comic that Knooren’s referring to (actually, it appears to be two comics) may be found here; the “trashing review” is one we haven’t written yet, but which he apparently feels will be both unfair and unhelpful to him. Can’t comment much on the fairness of something I haven’t written, but he’s absolutely right on the second point. A review from Fleen will not convert into readership for his comic.

Because no matter how much we might link to it, or how much we might say it’s good, it’s up to the comic to keep whatever eyeballs might appear. To wish otherwise is to remove the power of deciding “this is good” from the reader and to give it to the critic. Some feel that this is an essential element of critical discourse and the rightful role of the critic. I disagree, and I have a feeling that Knooren does, too. But opinions do not equal facts, and it’s entirely possible that the success or failure of a comic depends on having somebody else invite you to eat lunch with the cool kids.

So now’s when we get to find out. Here is a link to comics by Jeff Knooren. There is nothing here that can be construed in any way as either positive or negative regarding its worth. If anybody should happen to wander over there and take a look, they’re pretty close to tabula rasa. There’s your potential bump in readership, Jeff Knooren. It’s yours to win or lose.

First off, there has been much talk in Webcomics (capital W, proper noun as Tycho reminds us) since small times of special interest strips versus general interest strips. Some decry special interest strips (and the decrying seems to be especially loud if the interest is video games); others wonder if it’s even possible to launch a general interest strip at all. Enter Unshelved, with items of note from both SxSW and the PLA conference; the latter is the more interesting one. From the Unshelved blog, a story about what happens when you create a strip about librarians and surround yourself with them:

We were mobbed. I thought I understand being mobbed before, but several times I looked up today and saw crowds of twenty or thirty fans deep, all wanting shirts, jackets, bags, hats, books, and of course limited-edition badge ribbons. Our exhibit hall neighbors were impressed and maybe a little scared.

Long story short, in two and a half hours we made as much money as the entire five days of Comic Con 2005.

Al Franken wrote something like this in Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot when he described the stand-up gig known as the “industrial” — you get paid by a trade group to appear before an audience that’s composed entirely of their members, and all it takes is an occasional nod to whatever it is they do and they go crazy. It’s like you exist to entertain only them, even if 90% of your material is generic. Now if you entirely tailor a strip to an under-served (in entertainment terms) audience, they’ll love you with American Cash Money. Some call that selling out; you might want to think of it as buying in.

Second item, it’s I-CON 25 in Stony Brook this weekend, and webcomickry will be amply represented by the likes of Greg Dean, R Stevens, Ghastly, and a pair of reprobates who are probably up to no good. Given that Randy has just decompressed from a schedule beyond crowded, and that Jon is, well, Jon, I’d advise all attendees that the very best way to make friends with either of them would be to recite the magic words:

Would you like this six-pack of IPA and/or bottle of Scotch?

And if you should happen across a dead-drunk webcomicker, the hospital is here; it’s a university, they’ve seen intoxihol cases before. If you need help carrying them, ask Hercules, the Beastmaster, or Mister Sulu. I’m sure they’d be pleased to help out.

There’s a million reasons to be reading Dr McNinja, ranging from the Strong Badian Cease and Desisted! to the GI Joe-like morals at the end of each adventure. You got your cameo by T-Rex, punching snakes in the face (almost as cool as tasering them), shades of Evil Overmom, high-fiving turkeys (Can you high-five a turkey? Sure, monkeys got five fingers, but turkeys don’t … anyway, nice Eraserhead moment there.), and a shout-out to Cartilage Head. The strip fairly hums with crackling dialogue, occasional scenes of pure domestic horror, and clean art, courtesy of Chris Hastings (story and pencils) and Kent Archer (inks; actual deep, black, wondrous inks! A tracer!).

But more than anything else, you should be reading Dr McNinja because it’s possibly the first, the very first to explain why pirates and ninjas have such a storied rivalry. Everybody on the internet just knows that pirates and ninjas hate each other, but even the Wayback Machine can’t find a historical reason why.

Plus: giant monkeys! I have a friend who’s getting a PhD in monkeys, and she likes these parts a lot. And yes, she knows that gorillas aren’t monkeys, but are you gonna argue with a primatologist? Didn’t think so. There’s only one Monkey Doctor in this conversation, and her name’s Katherine.

There’s something about Jeph Jacques that makes you want to be in a fake internet fight with him. Sure, we at Fleen decided to spite him by not reviewing Dr McNinja, but you know what? You’re not the boss of me, Jeph Jacques! At best, you are the Associate District Manager of me, which is totally not the same thing! All is forgiven, though, and Dr McNinja will seen on these pages soon.

The interest in the stealthy doctor may be partially attributed to meeting co-creator Chris Hastings last week, or to the fact that Jon Rosenberg of Goats (and publisher of Fleen, thus purchaser of my beer) is doing his best to pimp the Edo-era medic. He also tells us that creative genius Lore Sjoberg has a new blog over at Wired, but we’re not going to mention it. It’s pretty much been done to death that a website mentions a blog, which gets mentioned by another blog, which might eventually get cross-referenced by other sites or blogs along the same topic, even those by bloggers that don’t like the second (or was it third?) blog. So we are not going to perpetuate that vicious cycle which was identified by, of all places, User Friendly, even if the other blogs name-check me personally and cause my wife to ask, “Why would Lore pay attention to you?”

Instead, we’ll note that the Great Outdoor Fight has caused Ray to take a 90 degree turn with his personality; sadly, while you and I might hell of admire him for the way he’s grown, I’m afraid that he may end up shunned in his own world for ruining the Fight, perhaps even by Beef. In the meantime, we’re all just along for the ride.

PS: Lore has a new blog, and it’s heavy on webcomics.

So I was talking with a guy at the Andy Bell opening because he was wearing a Great Outdoor Fight shirt. “Nice shirt,” I said. “Thanks,” he replied, “What do you think is going to happen next?”

In truth, I told him, I had no idea. Everything we know, the entire storied legend of the Great Outdoor Fight, has been revealed in little pieces since Mrs Smuckles let slip a choice tidbit over Rib-eye and Chablis less than two months ago. And it’s always dangerous to predict what Chris Onstad is thinking; the only prediction I would make is that he would take the story in a completely unexpected direction. Ergo: The Jeeps. Like every other aspect of the Great Outdoor Fight (too big a fight to be constrained by acronym or abbreviation), this is new to us, but not to Roast Beef.

Ray, in his ignorance, is more than willing to face The Jeeps … or is that the real reason at all? Does he not appreciate the dangers that they face? Hard to believe, since Beef has filled him in; could he possibly be sincere in his defiant bellow:

Man, fuck those guys! The hell they’re gonna say how this Fight is won! BRING ON THE JEEPS, GOD DAMN YOU!

Ray, of all people, is trying to rebel against the system instead of gaming it or weaseling for advantage. He’s taking something like a principled stand here, maybe only because he doesn’t realize the import of The Jeeps. Beef, of all people, might be pushed by sheer terror to putting a major beatdown on Ray rather than face The Jeeps (and to save Ray’s life, but will he recognize that?). Or, given that it’s Achewood and death is malleable (especially where Beef is concerned), and the fact that keys are being passed around, maybe we see two more grave markers southeast of the Acres.

“Why should the Fight get to say how the Fight is won or lost! Become the ruling body, dude!” is no less impressive than “Give me Liberty or give me Death!” “Beat your best friend since small times ’til he can’t crawl, see or cry … or Death” doesn’t have quite the same ring, but it looks like Hobson had nothing on Beef’s Choice.