If you’re not in the mood for heavy news, maybe stop after the first two items, ‘kay?

• Steve Conley would like you to know that he has a Kickstart launching today, although given that he’s already reached 60% of his goal, it’s pretty much assured to fund at some point in the next 30 days. Those who’ve kept up with this page for the past coupla years know that Conley’s main project these days is The Middle Age, which is replete with comic adventures, derring-do, laugh-chuckles, and language-based puns¹ for days.

  The first hardcover collection of TMA having been published crowdfunded last year (and final, straggling orders shipped earlier this year), it’s time to check in again on Sir Quimp of Grawlix, Maledicta the curséd sword, and a mischievous duck². Considering that the book will contain more than 100 pages of full-color story in hardcover, US$25 seems like a steal (US$35 signed, US$50 doodled), but go check it out yourself.

• Speaking of webcomics longtime creators with a new collection, C Spike Trotman would like you to know that Sylvan Migdal is finally going to have a comprehensive printing of the very sexy, very adult Curvy, which started online more than a decade ago and finally wrapped two years back. Migdal’s done a whole bunch of comics — for a while there, seemed like a new one every time you turned around — but there’s always somebody that’s discovering them for the first time.

  But you’re here for the smut, so:

  The Complete Curvy features pink-n-cyan colorization, a spot-gloss cover, refined and remastered panels and dialogue, and the whole story in one mighty, 520-page tome!

  It’s officially on sale everywhere November 19th, but you can get your copy before everyone else by pre-ordering from our online store. There will be no Kickstarter for this project, because the books are finished, ready, and waiting.

  Pre-orders of The Complete Curvy ship on November 4th and quantities are limited.

  PDF is US$25, softcover is US$50.

• Okay. This story isn’t as informative as I’d like (for reasons that will shortly become clear), and it’s not a happy occasion. Readers of this page will recall that we at Fleen are a somewhat rare kind of person (in so many ways, yes), in that we are a casual reader of Erfworld.

  Rob Balder’s sprawling, detailed, pun-charged epic started about a year after this blog launched, and immediately attracted a fanbase that reveled in the deep lore and minutia of the comic. The comments that greeted a new page attracted a level of scrutiny and discussion that would prompt Talmudic scholars to say, Okay gang, let’s take it down a notch, huh?³

  He spent a significant amount of that going-on-decade-and-a-half trying to figure out how to make a living while also providing for his artists and the people that kept the infrastructure running; he was determined to do so in a manner that didn’t take advantage of his readers. When interruptions to the story came, he had to deal with the expectations of people who were shelling out money to support the comic — and the even higher expectations of those who were reading for free. When his wife was diagnosed with a cancer that had truly dreadful statistical outcomes, he tried to balance those needs, delivering story as he could.

  To paraphrase Hamilton, Balder seemed to be frantically searching for a method that would let him get the whole story in his head, all of it, all the twists and turns and worldbuilding, out into the world and be done with it. The burden of producing something so large must have been enormous, and the desire to get it done so people would stop demanding to know when everything would turn out just like they wanted it to, give it to me faster almost overwhelming.

  When it looked like odds might have been beat after all and remission — even a long-term resolution — was in sight, he was grateful, but he hinted at other imminent tragedies in his life, a sense of shoes waiting to drop. So when I browsed by the Erfworld site and saw the announcement, it became clear that an entire cobbler’s shop had been upended:

  Because of horrific and unbearable events in our personal lives, Erfworld is permanently discontinued as a webcomic.

  The statement is signed Rob and Linda Balder, so at least my initial fear that the cancer had won was misplaced. But that means that something worse — perhaps somethings worse — than staring down cancer had happened. Whatever happened to Rob and Linda, I’m certain that a Google search would reveal details, but I’m not going to do that; if they’d wanted us to know more (and they may share more in future), they’d have said so. The barely-subtext is that whatever’s happened makes it impossible to balance dealing with life and the comic, and in that situation the comic isn’t going to win.

  Nor should it.

  Erfworld may come back. It may never come back. The first chapter, which had long been hosted at Rich Burlew’s Giant In The Playground site (which is where Erfworld launched) has been removed at Balder’s request. The full archives are still available (minus, it appears, the comments, which … good). The store appears to have technical issues at the moment, but Balder says it will remain. I imagine some portion of all of this changes, as the immediate tragedy begins to fade. Or not.

  In times like these, you have to take care of yourself first. I hope that Rob and Linda can find the space to heal, and I thank them — and everybody associated with the production of Erfworld over the years — for entertaining me all this time. The link will remain over on the right side of this page because there’s some damn good story there, told in a bunch of different interlocking ways, and nobody should ever look on it and feel like they’re owed any more. Thank you.

Spam of the day:

It is boring one houses Let’s talk. Pass free registration and find best girls. Only men are more senior than 20 years!

I think they’re trying to say that their site is full of teens? Which, ewww.

_______________
¹ But Gary, I hear you cry, all puns are language-based! Yes, yes, you’re very clever, and we all know the failure mode of clever, right? The puns in question are about language and words, and not just puns made in a language.

² Well before the current interest in poorly-behaved waterfowl.

³ I base this assessment on the many, lengthy discussions I have had over the years with a friend/colleague who is a Java programmer, jazz trumpeter, mohel, cantor, and Hasidic rabbi. A casual question like Wait, you said that beer you bought was kosher and I’ve never heard of such a thing. What about every beer we’ve had before now? would lead to a argument (median duration: three hours) on the intricacies of Jewish Law, commentaries on the law, commentaries on the commentaries, and teachings of sages down the millenia.

When I once commented that he’d been through half an hour of legalistic loopholes to justify why, under certain circumstances, doing this thing was permitted on the Sabbath whereas under very slightly different circumstances it was forbidden, he smiled and said You can’t be stupid and practice my religion. If you can talk the rabbi into it, you’re good.

Yakov would have felt right at home among the canon-keepers and clue-seekers of the Erfworld fora, only I don’t think he ever spent hours in a flamewar declaring that God was a hack who obviously was screwing up the narrative.

Because I’ve got a suggestion:

#comicscamp update, we’re aiming to open applications by mid-November. If you’re on our mailing list we’ll ping you when it’s ready. Dates are April 23-28, 2020. https://minicon.alaskarobotics.com/comics-camp/

That from Pat Race, half of the Pat & Aaron superduo, purveyors of the finest comic shop/art gallery in Alaska and possibly the Pacific Rim. Impressarios of the Alaska Robotics Mini-Con and #ComicsCamp about which I have had occasion to wax poetic for 35,000 or so words.

Pat is a good guy, is what I’m trying to convey.

Attendance at #ComicsCamp is by application and subject to a selection process, but Pat, Aaron, and the many folks that help out with the organization for a big chunk of the year have done a magnificent job of curating an attendance list that spans the entire range of backgrounds and experience levels, not to mention the entire range of adult human heights.

The location is stunningly beautiful, the camaraderie cannot be beat, the food is magnificent, and there’s usually a couple of dogs hanging about. Beards are plentiful. Juneau, Alaska itself features spectacular ice cream, amazing restaurants, and is secretly run by ravens.

If you’re a maker of comics, or otherwise involved in creativity on the internet¹, you should apply. With any luck, I’ll see you there. Now go enjoy the weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Spam of the day:

Would you like thousands of visitors flocking to your website this week? People will come to your website from MAJOR online publications in your niche.

Hate to break it to you, Jason G, but I pretty much am the MAJOR online publication in my niche.

_______________
¹ Or an abettor of same, like the creative community legal services provided by Katie Lane², or my pseudojournalistic endeavours (which, let’s face it, are secondary to the fact that I can keep you alive if you run afoul of a bear) (I have not had to do this yet, but I totally could if it was required).

² Light-ning Law-yer!!

Alert readers may recall that last just ’bout ten months back, we looked at the educational comics of Julia Evans, aka the funnest way to learn programming¹. Longtime Fleen reader Mark V (who was also the one to tip us off to the programming comics in the first place) has pointed out that Evans has shared some numbers on the sales/licensing of her zines, and it’s fascinating reading.

The bottom line is one that should be familiar to webcomics folks — if you have a niche that nobody else is addressing, and you fulfill a need with a quality comic? There’s money to be made there:

This adds up to $87,858 USD for 2019 so far, which (depending on what I release in the rest of this year) is on track to be similar to revenue for 2018 ($101,558).

Until quite recently I’d been writing zines in my spare time, and now I’m taking a year to focus on it.

The most obvious thing in that monthly revenue graph above is that 2 months (September and March) have way more revenue than all the others. This is because I released new zines (Bite Size Networking and HTTP: Learn Your Browser’s Language) in those months.

Key metric? 15% of the revenue was from corporate licenses, which is something I don’t usually see creators focus on. Granted, if you’re doing a gag strip, it doesn’t really lend itself to such a use², but if you’re doing anything vaguely instructive? It’s likely that what you’re charging is a fraction of what one day-long “team-building” exercise with Myers-Briggs toting scam artists would charge.

Something Evans doesn’t say: those big jumps indicate that she’s developed an audience of people that trust her work and jump to buy the new thing because all their previous purchases lived up to (and likely exceeded) expectations. That simple act of doing quality work is the most important thing to keep in mind.

The other thing that jumped out at me was Evans’s choice to do a pay-forward BOGO of certain zines, giving away one copy for every copy sold. If you can’t afford US$12 for the HTTP zine, there’s copies up for grabs because other people bought it. If those skills helped you develop professional skills, I trust you’ll pay it forward. I’ll bet you anything that every giveaway copy more than makes up for its lost revenue in subsequent sales.

So if you want to mine some data (or some inspiration), go check out what Evans is doing³. Find something that you’re good at that a bunch of other people need to know, and maybe you can take a year off to do just that, too.

Spam of the day:

Not too long ago I have come across one post which I assume you might find helpful. Somebody may take a steaming dump all over it, however it clarified some of my questions.

This is a great example of trying to use colloquial English and not quite getting it. Keep trying, overseas scammer!

_______________
¹ Although there is a challenger in the form of Code This Game! by Meg Ray and Keith Zoo, a copy of which was sent to me by the fine folks at Macmillan and which I’ve been working my way through in odd bits of free time here and there. In addition to being highly visual (although not what you’d call comics), it offers a structured walkthrough a defined project — we’re building a game! then we’re gonna break it and make it better! — along with access to downloadable art assets.

If you want to learn Python, it’s a damn good introduction to the practical end of programming, and features a unique built-in easel back, so it stands up while you’re working at the keyboard. Odd Dot design supremo Colleen AF Venable credits the design to one of her team, and I’ve begged her to share it with the cookbook division of Macmillan because it’s a friggin’ game changer.

² Although folks like Zach Weinersmith and Jorge Cham have been known to license comics for textbooks.

³ Particularly on this page, where she tackles SQL query optimization and execution, topics near and dear to my heart.

Something that makes comics folk so damn good.

• Firstly, you’ve got the 49th issue¹ of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, written by The Toronto Man-Mountain (and Nexus Of All Webcomics Realities, Northern Division) himself, Ryan North (with art, it should be noted, by Erica Henderson, Derek Charm, and various guest contributors, colors by Rico Renzi, letters by Travis Lanham, and edits by Wil Moss).

  This brings us to nearly the end of a period of time at Marvel that comics could be a) fun, b) all-ages appealing, and c) infused with a genuine originality that transcends the usual cape comic. All because a one-note joke character started rattling around North’s noggin’ and he decided to see what happens if you made the ability to listen and turn villains into not-villains a superpower.

  Also punching. And computer science. And the ability to talk with squirrels. But mostly the listening.

  All while inspiring a legion of kids to pick up comics, and especially girls to see that they can be the one that saves the day. Without spoilers, Squirrel Girl — Doreen Green — is having the worst day of her superheroic career, but she’s still unbeatable because he’s got friends, and only the most unredeemable wouldn’t want to help her. She’s selfless and self-sacrificing to the end, and if it seems like she’s going to be beaten, well, there’s a couple of friends she made along the way² that have yet to show up.

  I halfway don’t want to read issue #50 so that it never ends. On the other hand, North’s built up such a strong characterization for Doreen & friends, so much flawless storytelling, that whoever might do their own take on Squirrel Girl in the future, they won’t dare retcon or change things overly much. Squirrel Girl turns enemies into friends will be as iron-clad a rule as Uncle Ben stays dead. While I suspect I won’t ever love any of those Squirrels Girl in the future as much as North’s, the world will be better off having the character pop up again from time to time to eat nuts and kick butts.

• Secondly, if you’re in Toronto tomorrow evening, say around 6:00pm at the Toronto Reference Library, you can watch a piece of trans-Atlantic culture happening. Specifically, the French Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, will honour (the Canadian spelling feels appropriate on this occasion) Christopher Butcher, founder and showrunner of TCAF, for his promotion of comics (in general) and bandes dessinées (in particular), and for spreading knowledge of French comics to the world.

  Specifically, Butcher will be invested as a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, in the presence of the Tudor Alexis, Consul General in Toronto, and Kareen Rispal, French Ambassador to Canada. The Order recognizes significant contributions to the enrichment of French cultural heritage, and is limited to no more than 200 chevaliers each year (along with up to 80 higher-ranking commandeurs and officiers), the vast majority of them French citizens.

  Foreign recipients include the likes of TS Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges, Stevie Wonder, Nadine Gordimer, Seamus Heaney, Frederica von Stade, Dexter Gordon, Katsuhiro Otomo, Margaret Atwood, Isao Takahata, William S Burroughs, Rudolf Nureyev, Elton John, Roger Corman, Akira Toriyama, and David Bowie. Note the presence on the list of the occasional Nobel laureate, or The Muppet Show guest star.

  I am reliably informed by Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin that, due to that whole Egalité thing, Chevalier Butcher should not be addressed as Sir, but all the same: on Friday, I’d advise Butcher to avoid Agincourt, as that place is not welcoming to those but yesterday dubb’d knights.

  In all other matters, we at Fleen congratulate Butcher, and recognize that all his work so far — and all the work yet to come — was all done not in hopes of honour, but for the love of comics³.

Spam of the day:

Capitals take on their mastery of the Bruins

This continues for another … thirteen … fourteen … fifteen paragraphs of hockey, with every link’s URL removed and replaced with a Ukrainian mail-order bride site. Okay?

________________
¹ I refuse to use the nut-themed pun in the word that means “one before the end” that ends in -ultimate, sorry Ryan.

² And North is dropping references to things that happened waaay back in the first issue, which means either he’s skilled enough to play a years-long game, or he’s skilled enough to make it seem like he’s playing a years-long game. Good job, either way.

³ Manga, too, in case somebody in the Decoration Bureau of the Cabinet Office feels like bestowing the Order of the Rising Sun.

Alliteration, too. Let’s jump in.

• I first started reading Jennie Breeden’s non-Satanic, non-porn autobio strip, The Devil’s Panties, way the hell in the past. Maybe 2002? 2003? I’d been a reader for years before she tipped me off to A Girl And Her Fed¹, and that was 2006 so somewhere in there. I’ve followed a post-college career, time working in a comic shop², dating, pirates, breakups, marriage, family, a cross-country move, kilt-blowing, and now pregnancy and imminent childbirth (the real life corresponding event being some two years in the past by now).

  Although she exited the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge after about two years (and let’s not forget that the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge site itself is no longer operational, but that the last two contestants continue on, 14.5 years on from the start), she’s been putting strips up like clockwork since.

  As of today, for eighteen damn years:

  Guys… guys, my comic is 18 today. It needs to move out or start paying rent.

  The start was understated, and today’s strip takes approximately zero time to acknowledge the strip’s birthday. That’s just the way it is with daily autobio — no time to gloat, tomorrow’s strip is due. Happy Strippiversary, Jennie, Obby, Devil Girl, Angel Girl, Pretty Pretty Princess, and Small Child To Be Named Later.

• Hey, whatcha doing tomorrow? If you’re around Boston, you could be seeing science-comics types in conversation at Porter Square Books in Cambridge:
  

  We interrupt these Inktober posts with an important announcement: I’ll be doing another awesome Science Comics event with @toonyballoony @Zackules and @jasonviola at @PorterSqBooks this Wednesday October 9th 7 PM!!

  That from Maris Wicks, who’s done books on coral reefs and the human body, and paired up with Jim Ottaviani for books on women on the leading edge of primate research, and women on the leading edge of space exploration (the latter coming in February). Oh, and she’s also done nature cartoons from the middle of the sea, the edge of a frozen continent, and the heart of the city.

  Alex Graudins illustrated a book about Reginald Barkley and also the human brain, and an upcoming book on the Great Chicago Fire (due next June). Zack Giallongo and Jason Viola teamed up to teach us about polar bears, and Viola has also chosen a manatee and an amoeba as stars of other comics. They’re all there because of their association with the :01 Books Science Comics line, which remains an excellent way to spend your time and money. The talk starts at 7:00pm, next to the Porter Square stop on the MTA.

• Finally, the latest from Kickstarter United, ways that you can help their efforts to make Kickstarter see the sense of recognizing the union:
  

  Make your opinion heard:

  • email Kickstarter’s senior leadership:
  • kickstarter-sot[at]kickstarterunited.org
  • post your support using #RecognizeKSRU
  • post a picture showing your solidarity and tag @ksr_united
  • download a version of our logo to use as your icon on Kickstarter, Twitter, and anywhere else
  • back projects that show solidarity with Kickstarter United
  • have another idea? get in touch!

  Show solidarity on your project page:

  • add #RecognizeKSRU to your project title or subtitle
  • include a note of solidarity at the top of your campaign text
  • download a solidarity badge to add to your project image
  • post a project update to rally your backers

  For reference? While both logos are nice and eye-catching if somebody is looking at your Kickstarter profile page, the white one is easier to read if it’s showing as an avatar, say on a comments page³. Just sayin’.

Spam of the day:

Senior Discounts|The Complete List Of Senior Citizen Discounts nice senior

I am, despite my desire for you durn kids to stay off my lawn, not yet a senior citizen. And I can assure you that when I become one, I will not be a nice senior.

_______________
¹ When I did the foreword for the first AGAHF collection, I mentioned coming to the comic via Ms Breeden, and Otter gave me crap about pimping another comic in her book. So we’re square now, right?

² Oxford, which is a very good shop that I make sure to visit whenever I’m in Atlanta.

³ Oh, and while it’s nothing to do with webcomics, please look at that project page for ceratopsian action figures and pledge up the total to somewhere around US$450K in the next week, please. It has to hit that funding level to unlock the full-size Triceratops horridus (stretch goal #20). I have the sub-adult trike figure pledged, along with a Zunicertaops christopheri (each of which is approximately the size of my BONE Stupid Rat Creature, if you disregard the tail), but I need that full size critter (approximately the size of Kingdok, again neglecting the tail) if at all possible. Thank you.

Well, goodness, a whole bunch of stuff has occurred since last we spoke. Let’s look at just a few things, ‘kay?

• This past Saturday saw the Harvey Awards handed out at New York Comic Con; you may recall that this year’s nomination slate was really very strong. While the official page hasn’t updated with the winners list yet, you can find the laureates around the web, say at Newsarama.

  The three categories that I was most invested in — the three categories where there really couldn’t be a bad choice to receive the statue — were Book Of The Year (Hey Kiddo by Jarrett J Krosoczka), Digital Book Of The Year (Check, Please by Ngozi Ukazu), and Best Children’s Or Young Adult Book¹ (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell). The last of them, particularly, is going to run out of room on the cover for stickers proclaiming the Harvey and Ignatz wins, especially if it’s keeping some space for next year’s Eisners.

• Saturday was also 24 Hour Comic Day, and while there are literally too many excellent works to point out, I would be remiss if I didn’t share a modern fairy tale by Melanie Gillman. A young woman feleing unloved in an arranged betrothal finds herself beseeching the Goddess Of Mishaps for help, and it’s damn near perfect.
• Heidi Mac spent the morning at the ICv2 2019 Conference, held adjacent to NYCCC. You can find her livetweets via this search, but the one you want to pay attention to is this:
  

  The slide that shocked ComicsPRO showing size of manga and kids genres.
  #nycc2019 #icv22019 #nycc

  

  In case you don’t feel like zooming in, more than two-thirds of all comics sold fell into one of two categories: Juvenile Fiction (41%, think Raina and similar) and Manga (28%). Superheros were the third-largest market category, but they account for one comic sold out of every ten. This is why C Spike Trotman has been most vocal about the YA offerings from Iron Circus.

• Finally, especially for those that perhaps over-indulged in 24HrCD or maybe are pushing it too hard for Inktober? Stretch.

Spam of the day:

15 Military Discounts Only Available To Those That Served Our Country

While it is true that I have, probably in the depths of the US Army Cadet Command at Fort Knox, a form 139-R from 1985 (enrolling me in ROTC so I could take two mandatory, 1-credit classes, which my college required instead of physical education), complete with an X in the box labeled I decline to state that I am not an conscientious objector and a strikethrough in the loyalty oath section, I cannot say that I served in any meaningful fashion as that concept is generally understood. But given that your email came from Hesse, Germany (from a domain registration that has existed for a whole 12 days), I’m going to doubly say that no, I haven’t served “our” country.

_______________
¹ Okay, one complaint — there’s a world of distance between children’s books and young adult books, leading to YA books that are distinctly at the upper end of the age range like Laura Dean, Hey, Kiddo, and On A Sunbeam contending with books intended for a much younger audience like Mr Wolf’s Class #2: Mystery Club (7-10) and New Kid (8-12). Yes, the over-proliferation of categories is, but maybe split this one into pre-teen and teens-plus?

Recall, if you would, my observation of how the New York Times was dragged kicking and screaming into recognizing Raina Telgemeier‘s Guts in what’s turned out to be the most half-assed way possible. They pushed graphic books off to a monthly bestseller list (among other things, this makes me wonder if they will bother with a ___ weeks on the list notation), and they expanded the list to fifteen titles from ten (to be fair, all their lists appear to do this now), so that nobody can dominate it too much.

Didn’t change a damn thing. In the inaugural Graphic Books And Manga list, Guts is in the top slot, Drama (2012), Smile (2010), and Sisters (2014) in positions 5, 7, and 12, respectively. One may recall from the previous NYT Bestsellers list that included comics that Drama had an accumulated 179 weeks on the list, Smile 240 weeks, and Sisters 117 weeks (also, Ghosts was #1)¹.

And now that I’ve finished my mockery of the Times for all this weaksaucery, I’m happy to tell you that Raina hasn’t lost a step with her latest. I was lucky to read an advance copy at Comics Camp, but it was only yesterday that I got my own² and was able to refresh my memory.

Guts, for a long time, wasn’t the book that we were supposed to be reading. On her Ghosts book tour three years back, when she asked Do you guys want to see some pages from my next book?³, what she shared was an expanded version of her story about Barefoot Gen, the comic that changed her life. It focused on her relationship with her father. It was supposed to be out a year ago. It just wasn’t coming together like it needed to. And during that stalled creative process, she four herself moving across the country, back to her hometown of San Francisco and away from an ending marriage.

I can’t imagine the stress and anxiety it must have caused to have to travel the country and be on for her fans, be all-caps RAINA at each tour stop. Eventually, the solution was a complete shift of the book that would be delivered, a prolonged period of stress and frustration leading to a story about another prolonged period of stress and frustration.

As Guts tells us, stress and anxiety have been there in Raina’s life for a very long time. Some of those stressors we all live through — mean kids in grade school, say — and are grown out of. Some of them take root and cause a self-perpetuating cycle of I’m anxious, I’m going to barf, I don’t want to barf, now thinking about barfing is making me more anxious than I was and … oh no.

The real trauma of growing up Raina? It started before the teeth.

Her prior two memoirs have had a hell of an important message for her readers: You aren’t alone. Everything that’s wearing on you, it happened to me, too. I got to grow up and draw comics for a living! You can grow up and do what you want to do.

But she’s added several things that are more raw, more true than she’d previously shared: When you grow up, even if you get to draw comics for a living, things won’t be perfect. My phobias and fears are still with me, but they’re part of who I am. I learned to accept them, but not by myself. I got to talk about my fears, therapy has helped, and just like I didn’t have to deal with my challenges alone, you don’t have to deal with yours alone, either.

The reason that Raina’s on a first name basis with kids (or nearly so … I usually hear them, very shyly, call her Miss Raina; it’s adorable) is that they know that she respects them enough to tell them the truth. That she will tell them that she remembers the parts of that age that sucked, that she won’t discount their hurts and stressors and anxieties. She also remembers the value of a well-timed fart joke which, come on, that’s kid comedy gold there.

But it’s about 96% the truth telling, the creation of a space in her stories where kids can feel safe to admit their fears and vulnerabilities, to feel seen and validated, to try and fall short, but be able to try again.

Guts carries the dedication For anyone who feels afraid, and that’s essentially all of us. We won’t all get to grow up to draw comics for a living, but we can learn to deal with those fears and feel confident that at least one person is going to encourage us to be our best, bravest selves.

Guts by Raina Telgemeier — with colors by the indispensable Braden Lamb — may be found wherever books are sold. If you aren’t sure where that is, find a kid about 8 – 13 years and ask where they got their copy.

Spam of the day:

What bananas do to your body

I’m going to guess your contention is not provide nutrition, as part of a varied and healthy diet.

_______________
¹ I’ll go a little farther; in that final accounting of Paperback Graphic Books, the 18 weeks for Ghosts all occurred in the 20 weeks since its release in September 2016; 117 weeks for Sisters happened in a span of 127 weeks since release; 179 weeks for Drama out of 230 weeks in print; Smile‘s 240 weeks were out of 365 weeks since release. Or, considering that Smile didn’t make the list until September of 2011, 240 of 279 weeks since it debuted in the #9 spot.

A Raina book will sit on that list, week after week, between 65% and 92% of the weeks since it’s first printed, forever. And keep in mind, there are far more books vying for a spot on the list these days than in 2010. The only conclusion is that Raina Telgemeier is the most significant voice in comics today. No pressure.

² I’d ordered it at that start of summer from my local comics shop, and Diamond finally saw fit to send it along this week. Monopolies, folks!

³ For the record, asking that in an auditorium full of tweens will cause them to loudly and completely lose their shit.

Work thing goin’ on. If I don’t talk to you before then, see you Monday.

I was going to be writing about how our old friend, Christopher Hastings, has picked up a significant writing gig on Quantum & Woody, and how his sense of humor is a natural fit. I mean, look at what he’s done in comic books — a very funny Six Million Dollar Man series, Deadpool and Longshot minis¹, and a character-defining stint on Gwenpool that legitimately played with the nature of comics and fiction in original and hilarious ways. He’s gonna kill on a series that features a caprine superhero pet named Vincent van Goat.

But something happened that’s unfortunately larger, so we aren’t doing any of that. Sorry, you absolutely will not learn from me that the Hastings run on Q&W will start in January, or that he’ll be at the Valiant booth (#1635) at NYCC this Saturday at 3:00pm, or at their panel (room 1A02) at 6:30pm. You won’t learn about his drunken superhero movie discussion podcast, or his new Halloween-themed merch at TopatoCo, or remind you about his weekly, posted-to-Twitter webcomic, a noir detective story starring Wario. Sorry. You’ll just have to go elsewhere to learn about those.

But I suspect that Dr Hastings will forgive me (especially given his own recent statements on the matter), because what we’re discussing instead is the Kickstarter United union effort. Because despite the repeated declarations from Kickstarter’s CEO that he will not voluntarily recognize the union, they haven’t actually asked for voluntary recognition.

Until this afternoon:

Today KSRU officially requested voluntary recognition of our union, and we are waiting to see if it will be granted. We stand firm in our commitment not to call for any boycotts, but we need your help.

Join us in urging leadership to recognize our union! Email, tweet, and post everywhere to express support for KSRU. Activate whatever channels you can to share our message of solidarity: Kickstarter is ready to be united, and senior leadership must grant us voluntary recognition.

Gauntlet thrown, management. Because as C Spike Trotman points out — and she’s pretty much the poster child for making KS work for you in webcomics — Kickstarter didn’t invent crowdfunding, they aren’t the only game in town, and whole communities exist that are fans of creators, not the KS platform.

Which is super important because you know what I’m seeing all over social media? Project creators and backers declaring their support for the union. You know what I’m not seeing? Anybody that claims to be either creator or backer loudly going on about how unions suck and they’ll use Kickstarter even more because screw the union. Now maybe it’s because I curate my feed to eliminate assholes, but I’m not finding anybody in comics taking the anti-union position. Granted that’s just one category out of what, fifteen? But high-profile creators, and people with deep success in the Kickstarter ecosystem are all on the side of KSRU.

For the record, here is what I said:

As a superbacker, and as a blogger that promotes many Kickstarter campaigns, I stand with @ksr_united and urge @kickstarter management to recognize the union.

It’s happening one way or another, or we all find another platform. Want to be a PBC? ACT LIKE IT.

Want to help, particularly if you previously decided to close your account or cancel pledges (which, let’s be clear, the union hasn’t called for³)? Tweet, email, or reach out to anybody you may know in Kickstarter management. Let them know that Kickstarter (the platform) is made up of Kickstarter (the people, all of them), and which of those Kickstarters you’re loyal to.

Spam of the day:

Fingernail Fungus — All the patients who put this incredibly strong spice in their shoes…Cleared their fungal infection for good in as little as a couple of days

Are you suggesting I wear these spice-laden shoes on my hands? On account of that’s where my fingernails are.

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¹ The latter of which featured Reed Richards and Tony Stark having a discussion about how many weddings they’d been to recently that prominently featured Get Lucky at the reception. That’s just such a ludicrously ordinary thing for the two biggest geniuses of the Marvel universe² to be talking about, which is why it was perfect.

² Only if you discount DOOM, which of course only FOOLS would do.

³ Largely, I suspect, because individual statements don’t have the impact of a mass boycott, and because the folks in KSRU aren’t trying to establish their union on the backs of creators.

Pretty much, yeah. Late yesterday I heard an odd flappity sound, and then Bob The Unsettling flopped down on my desk from the shelf where he resided. It’s … well, nothing lasts forever?

The one thing that actually improved as time went on is that the eyes and mouth that were Sharpied on became darker and more defined — pigments which had originally been inscribed over a certain area became more concentrated as everything shrunk. When he was freshly spawned, rubbing your thumb on the balloon’s surface wouldn’t disturb any of the black; reduced to little more than a worm of slightly varying circumference¹, there’s Sharpie all over my hands even though the eyes and mouth are still there.

Not to mention the fact that my actual dog keeps giving him the side-eye, like she’s about to pounce. Not wishing to deal with a long balloon clogging her guts, I’ve deciding it’s time Bob met the great hereafter, also known as the kitchen garbage can. I’m pretty sure it’s what his mutant heart would have wanted.

How about we forget this unpleasantness and take a look at something that I guaran-damn-tee will make you happy?

Get an exclusive first look at Random House Graphic’s debut line-up https://aux.avclub.com/get-an-exclusi … via @TheAVClub

That would be the same Random House Graphic headed up by the irreplaceable Gina Gagliano, who’s been working harder than any random three people for the past year and a half to get to this point. We’ve known since SDCC what the first half dozen or so books would be, but this is the first time we’ll get to see them, and there’s nobody in comics better suited to give us the lowdown than Oliver Sava at The AV Club; even if he’s telling me about something I’ve already read and written about (say, Tillie Walden’s superb Are You Listening?), Sava always finds a way to make me see it with new eyes (say, in his review of Are You Listening?, also out today).

So this is what we know:

Laura Knetzger’s Bug Boys is aimed at the youngest readers, a beginner’s chapter book about two bug besties learning about themselves and the world around them.

Aster And The Accidental Magic, written by Thom Pico with art by Karensac, and Johan Troïanowski’s The Runaway Princess are Random House Graphic’s forays into middle grade fiction, both spotlighting young women with adventurous spirits.

Jessi Zabarsky’s Witchlight explores the growing relationship between a witch and her new friend, which changes as secrets from the past come to light.

Smart work by Gagliano and her colleagues, snagging two already-published books from France, and two self-published, ready-to-republish books from the US, allowing them to ramp up with one book per month in January – April 2020 (Runaway Princess, Bug Boys, Aster, and Witchlight, respectively). It would have taken, minimum, four-five months more to have a completely new book ready to go, assuming she managed to sign a contract for a well-developed pitch from an absolute comics-cranking machine on the day she got the job.

Which, pretty much, is what she did. Lucy Knisley’s Stepping Stones is scheduled for May, which is near land speed record turnaround, considering she finished the pencils at the start of August and a full year is the usual turnaround once the book’s done. RHG is set to continue their 2020 slate of releases with books from Andi Watson, Sophie Escabasse, Reimena Yee, Kaeti Vandorn, Mika Song, Trung Le Nguyen, and Jose Pimienta.

Did you notice? The lineup isn’t exactly crawling with white dudes and good. The future of comics is people who aren’t constrained by its past. McCloud’s prediction re: comics, majority women, 2024 is not coming closer to us at a rate of one second per second, but by leaps and bounds and is probably already here. It’s not happening because Gagliano and her colleagues are making it happen, it’s happening regardless and Gagliano and her colleagues are smart enough to recognize it.

Spam of the day:

Washing method: warm water, gentle hand, natural dry, reusable, long-term use will not be flat deformation.

Almost everything I own that doesn’t run on electricity could be cleaned this way, but I can’t say that it’s true for all of them that long-term use will not be flat deformation.

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¹ And as I watch, it’s equalizing.