Hey. How you doing? Me? Oh, nothing, just a Wednesday. You know how it is. Webcomics stuff, some of it pretty random.

• Speaking of random, you’d be hard pressed to find something moreso than a rough caricature of Stan Lee Sharpied onto an egg, with voice supplied by Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett, so let me point you to that lil’ gem right away. It appears roughly 10 seconds into this video, which is in support of LArDK’s latest book Kickstart, Anatomy Of Authors. After you finish muttering Oh, that ain’t right to yourself, take a look at the campaign itself.

  One may, if one so desires, recall the heady days of 2017 and LArDK’s previous Anatomy collection — animals, that time — presented as a faux-1920s reference text, with drawings of various critters from around the world, and commentary on their physical condition supplied by a not particularly astute naturalist¹. The book is very pretty, the contents very funny, and since wrapping up the series of illustrations, LArDK’s been giving the same treatment to prominent authors from throughout history. Case in point: Jules Verne from a few days ago.

  Chances are your favorite author is there (unless they’re still alive; I think that all the authors illustrated have been deceased, and thus safely beyond the chance of being offended at the loving jibes), and if the (as yet, unannounced) stretch goals are anything like Animals, you’ll end up seeing extras like ribbon bookmarks, fancy endpapers, UV cover treatments, and protective wrapping as free bonuses.

  As of this writing, the campaign’s a hair over US$13,000 of the US$20,000 goal; I’d include the FFF mk2 treatment, but LArDK’s in the habit of announcing his Kickstarts on the down-low to his Patreon supporters 12+ hours before they go public, so the numbers on the first 24 hours aren’t suited to the math. It’s gonna fund, it’s gonna hit the stretch goals, it’s going to show up in December as promised (barring the trade war with China getting even stupider than it is now). If you like laugh-chuckles of a literary bent, get in while the gettin’s good.

• Y’know who else does good books? Everybody associated with Iron Circus Comics. I got an email from Iron Circus Supreme Dictatrix For Life And Don’t You Forget It C Spike Trotman that had a list of the accolades piled on various Iron Circus titles, and they included little things like Stonewall Book Honor, starred reviews in Kirkus, Booklist, School Library Journal, and/or Publishers Weekly, Lambda Literary Award nomination and/or winner, Prism Award nomination and/or winner, YALSA Great Graphic Novel For Teens, and so forth. Good stuff. But the gist of the email wasn’t to brag about the books², but to describe a solution to a problem that people have been having.

  I’ve mostly bought my IC books either direct from the creator/the Iron Circus table at a show, because hey — direct support and usually a sketch, too. But when shows are far distant and I’ve tried to give the business to my local comic shop, I wait forever and ultimately get told it’s out of stock and unavailable. This is because comic shops deal with the Diamond monopoly, and Diamond are terrible in every respect. The book isn’t out of stock, Diamond just can’t be arsed to handle less than a few zillion copies of any given book when they’re dealing with book trade’s own monopoly, Ingram. The solution is to go around them. From Spike for your friendly local comic shop:

  To get access to our award-winning, critically acclaimed titles, we encourage you to register an account with Consortium—the division of Ingram in charge of our account—and order directly. You can also order through iPage, if you already have an Ingram account.

  To get started with Ingram, and the ability to order the complete line of award-winning, critically-acclaimed (and fully-returnable!) Iron Circus titles, head over here and register! It’s easy, we promise. And it’ll get you access to even more comics by other publishers, like Uncivilized Books, Alternative Comics, and more!

  That’s how I know that Spike’s more interested in stickin’ it to Diamond than selling books³ — she’s pointing out that the same channel can be used for other publishers, with whom she is nominally in competition. But Alternative or Uncivilized will never take money out of Spike’s pockets (or each other’s, for that matter) to the degree that never making who knows how many sales because Diamond is determined to suck will cost them. Pass it along, and maybe someday Diamond will actually shape up and ha ha ha ha, I almost finished that sentence. Not a chance Diamond ever gets their shit together.

Spam of the day:

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Asshole, I am an electrical engineer that studied communications systems at the undergraduate and graduate level. I worship at a shrine in the shape of Shannon’s Figure 1. Noise is the enemy. Noise is always the enemy.

_______________
¹ But, presumably, said naturalist was at least a gentleman of the requisite background and breeding, and therefore must needs be paid attention, despite any dearth of actual factuals.

² Welllll, mostly. Spike’s always bragging about her backlist, and with justification.

³ Welllll, mostly. Spike’s always selling books. Gotta respect the hustle.

This is something I pretty much thought I’d never had to write for a book review; I’m a little shocked, to be honest. I’ve reviewed a lot of books for Fleen Book Corner — more than 150, if I had to make a guess — and for those that are not just strip collections, anything with a plot, I’ve pretty much always done something, something I will not be doing today.

There is no spoiler warning for this review.

There’s no spoiler warning because there’s pretty much no way to spoil this book. The American Dream? A Journey On Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Men, And The Perfect Breakfast Burrito lays it all out there in the title: Shing Yin Khor — sculptor, installation artist, power tool wrangler, creator of awesome Halloween house decorations, comics artist, and space gnome — took a roadtrip on the famed highway, from LA to Chicago, wandering through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois with faithful Adventure dog Bug riding shotgun. There were dinosaur statues, muffler men, breakfast burritos, and reflections on the meaning of being American¹ (and who gets to be American).

Along the way, Khor reveals as much about their thoughts and self-conception as anything they learned about the country — which is a familiar notion if you’ve read any of their short comics. To read Khor’s work is to understand what it’s like to live life in that particular skin, which is as often as not an unconfortable or painful² experience. You want to know what another person’s lived experiences are like? They’re not all happy, and that’s the price of empathy.

The lack of surprise along the way is not a flaw; it’s a strength. Khor’s laid out a thesis — America is a complicated place full of contradictions, assumptions about each other, beauty, wasted potential, needless cruelty, inclusion and exclusion, dinosaur statues of questionable paleontological accuracy and also both you and your dog will have to poop sometime — and the book is the evidence in support of that thesis.

There’s a singular voice behind all the delicate watercolors, and you’ll end up reading the narration in Khor’s cadences without necessarily knowing that’s what you’re doing. In person, Khor’s vocal delivery has distinctive pauses and inflections, and the words chosen for the text reinforce those characteristics. It’s like Shakespeare and iambic pentameter, only not quite. But trust me, listen to Khor speak for ten minutes, and you’ll realize that’s the rhythm you read the journey in all along.

TAD?AJOR66DDSMMATPBB is available everywhere, including all the places that didn’t have any back on release day. It’s appropriate for any reader that’s willing to listen to how somebody else experiences America without reflexively shouting Nuh-uh! If you go to SPX, you can give her money in exchange for goods, including this book I’ll wager.

Spam of the day:

Did you know that 1 unusual but extremely effective stretch can completely elminate your back pain and sciatica?

Next time you want to convince me of this, just put a graphic in your email instead of links to click because my back may no longer be what it once was, but I ain’t stupid.

_______________
¹ It’s important to note that the drive — three weeks out, two back — took place in 2016, before the election. Whether or not a green-haired (or sometimes blue) gnome-sized brown woman could make the same journey today with the same degree of comfort is a matter for contemplation.

² Heading off complaints — yes, that piece in The Nib was published anonymously. Three years later, Khor claimed it.

One of the things I love about the SPX exhibitor listing is that it’s geographic in nature rather than alphabetical by name. You can see who’s near who, and plan out which of the blobby pods you want to hit first (even though the floor is small enough that you can see everybody pretty easily). Here, then are the folks we at Fleen noticed on the 650+ deep exhibitor list, which was due for final update today.

Pod A
Britt Sabo (A5B), Collen AF Venable (A9), and onetime Fleen scribe Anne Thalheimer (A11B).

Pod B
Kevin Czap and the associated Czap Books folks (B4B), Ananth Hirsch and Yuko Ota along with George Rohac (B9; I wonder who they had to bribe to get that table spot).

Pod C
Lauren Davis (C3); I’m not saying Pod C is a bad place, just that I didn’t recognize names.

Pod D
D1 Ben Sears (D1), Eric Colossal and Jess Fink (D2), Megan Rose Gedris (D4A), Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson (D9), and Gigi DG (D12A).

Pod E
Keith Knight (also the Ignatz MC, E1), Beth Barnett (E4A), Mike Holmes (E5B), Ben Passmore (E10B), Darryl Ayo Brathwaite (E10B), Ronald Wimberly (E12A)

Pod F
MK Reed (F1), Paulina and Savanna Ganucheau (F8), and Bianca Xunise (F12A).

Pod G
NBM Graphic Novels, including Jessica Abel (G1-2).

Pod H
Sara and Tom McHenry (H12), and Evan Dahm (H14).

Pod I
Shing Yin Khor (I4A), Julia Gfröer (I5B), Sarah Horrocks (I6A), Katie Skelly (I6B), Tony Breed (I7A), Monica Gallagher (I8), Penina Gal and Radiator Comics (I9), and Carta Monir and Diskette Press (I14).

Pod J
Maia Kobabe (J4B), Emi Gennis (J5B), and Kory Bing (J10).

Pod K
Carla Speed McNeil (K1), Gemma Correll (K2), Audrey and Jamie Noguchi (K9), and Drew Weing (K10-11).

Pod L
Retrofit Comics (L2), Danielle Corsetto (L8), Eleri Harris, Matt Bors, Matt Lubchansky, and Sarah Mirk, which is to say, The Nib (L9).

Pod M
Annie Koyama and Koyama Press, including Connor Willumsen, Daniel Nishio, Ed Kanerva, and Emily Carroll (M1-2).

Pod N
Dustin Harbin but not his bike (N2), and Secret Acres (N3-4).

Left Side Wall
Drawn & Quarterly including Ebony Flowers, Eleanor Davis, Kevin Huizenga, and Sylvia Nickerson (W1-4), Jessica Trevino (W7A), ShortBox (W8), Carey Pietsch (W9A), Cathy G Johnson (W9B), and Meredith Gran (W10A).

Back Wall
Hope Nicholson (W19), Self Made Hero including Sam Humphrey (W23-24), Mari Naomi (W27A), Box Brown (W27B), Kori Michele Handwerker and Melanie Gillman (W30), TopatoCo featuring Abby Howard, Chris Yates, Elliot Jasper, Holly Rowland, KC Green, and Tom Siddell (W31-33), Out Of Step Arts featuring Rebecca Kirby, Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, and Venesa Del Ray (W38-39).

Right Side Wall
Alison Wilgus (W41), and Fantagraphics featuring Jaime Hernandez (W50-54).

Front Wall
Top Shelf including James Kochalka, Kim Dwinell, Leigh Walton, and MK Reed (W56-59), Ru Xu (W60A), Natalie Riess (W60B), a contingent of Danish comic book artists (W68-69), Steenz (W71A), Blue Delliquanti (W71B), Iron Circus including Amanda Lafrenais and C Spike Trotman (W72-73), Lucy Knisley (W75), and the CBLDF including Alex Cox, Chris Ware, and Raina Telgemeier (W80-83).

As always, I very possibly missed you or your favorite; drop us an email and we’ll update.

The Small Press Expo runs Saturday, 14 September (11:00am-7:00pm) and Sunday, 15 September (noon-6:00pm) at the Bethesda Marriott North in Bethesda, Maryland.

Spam of the day:
Your very own portable oxygen concentrator
I do not suffer from CHF or other respiratory conditions, and besides, I can get the pure stuff in the green cylinders. It’s good for hangovers.

Okay, this is almost too late, but it’s still about something in the future, so it’s okay.

Tomorrow, the third annual Marin Comics Fest kicks off; it’ll be a month-long series of events — talks, demos, book signings — around Marin County. The bulk of the Fest doesn’t begin until 4 September, a week from Wednesday, continuing until the 25th, with details on all events here.

But the launch? That’s tomorrow, at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. Landry Walker will be discussing his work and signing his books in the lobby, with admission to the event free to public.

Even better, if you have a library card from any library in Marin County, you’ll get a free admission to CAM for the day. If you don’t have a library card, go to any Marin County public library to fill out the form or click here for instant online registration. Note that online registration requires a credit card for age verification, but is free; also, you get a temporary card from instant reg, and need to visit a library in person to convert it to a full card with access to all resources.

Okay, now enjoy your weekend; my wife’s visiting her sister, so it’s just me and the dog if you wanna come over and hang.

Spam of the day:

GET A FREE 15 IN 1 SURVIVAL KIT For a VERY LIMITED TIME we are giving away these 15 in 1 survival kits with every backpack.

From what I can tell, your “Combat Bag” is crap — poorly laid out, low quality materials, likely to fall apart on the first use. Thing is, there’s good bag makers out there, only they aren’t all Rah rah, I’m a prepper waiting for society to fall so I can be a big ol’ badass and alpha predator so the intended audience for this tangible piece of toxic masculinity doesn’t know about them.

The Ignatz Awards are maybe the most democratic of all the major comics awards — if you attend SPX, you get a ballot. At least, if you attend on Saturday, because they tally the votes through the day and the bricks are given out Saturday night, but you get the idea. They also, traditionally, have a very good jury, who provide a very good slate of nominees. This year’s nominees have just been announced, and it’s a cornucopia of quality.

As readers of this page know, I am a major fan and promoter of the work of Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, and her work on Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me could have come from a 20 year veteran of comics, rather than somebody working on their first book who’s still in the first half of their 20s. It’s no surprise that Valero-O’Connell was nominated for Outstanding Artist, Oustanding Graphic Novel, and Oustanding Story, the later two categories being co-nominations with writer Mariko Tamaki. I’m thrilled everytime I am reminded that so many people loved this book as much as I did.

The other multiple nominee that caught my eye, and of which I am a tremendous fan, is The Nib; Matt Bors’s marvelously eclectic endeavour has a history with SPX, debuting their hardcover collection there a few years back. The Nib was nominated as Oustanding Series (for the print magazine), and two issues (Family, and Death) were separately nominated for Oustanding Anthology. Well done Bors, and the entire group of editors and contributors.

But those are not the only deserving nominees; let’s take a look at who we at Fleen will be rooting for.

• Outstanding Artist: In addition to Valero-O’Connell, you’ve got Lucy Knisely for Kid Gloves, which I also loved. I’m not familiar with Koren Shadmi on Highwayman, Sloane Leong’s Prism Stalker, or Ezra Clayton Daniels on Upgrade Soul.
• Outstanding Collection: Love Letters To Jane’s World by Paige Braddock, Girl Town by Carolyn Nowak, Dirty Plotte by Julie Doucet, Leaving Richard’s Valley by Michael DeForge, and This Woman’s Work by Julie Delporte. I have no clear preference, but all these creators are skilled and worthy of the win.
• Outstanding Anthology: In addition to the two issues of The Nib, you have Electrum (edited by Der-shing Helmer), Wayward Sisters (edited by Alison O’Toole), and We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology (edited by Tara Avery and Jeanne Thornton). My preference is for The Nib, only because they do so many different kinds of comics in each issue. I suspect they’ll split the vote, though.
• Outstanding Graphic Novel: In addition to Laura Dean, you’ve got Upgrade Soul by Ezra Clayton Daniels, Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal, Highwayman by Koren Shadmi, and Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. I believe I made my preference clear, but Kobabe’s been doing some damn good comics, including Gender Queer.
• Outstanding Minicomic: Trans Girls Hit The Town by Emma Jayne, Gonzalo by Jed McGowan, Silver Wire by Kriota Willberg, Cherry by Inés Estrada, and YLLW YLLW YLLW by Mar Julia. Not familiar with any of the books or creators. If I get the chance to vote, I might throw it to a dude because so maybe at least one dude wins. ‘Cause damn, women having been outshining the dudes at the Ignatzen for a couple years now.
• Outstanding Comic: Lorna by Benji Nate, Infinite Wheat Paste #7 by Pidge, The Saga Of Metalbeard by Joshua Paddon and Matthew Hoddy, Egg Cream by Liz Suburbia, and Check, Please!: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu. I do love me some comics about gay collegiate hockey bros, but I’m surprised to see the nomination in print but not for …
• Outstanding Online Comic: Isle Of Elsi by Alec Longstreth, That’s Not My Name! by Hannako Lambert, What Doctors Know About CPR by Nathan Gray, About Face by Nate Powell, and Full Court Crush by Hannah Blumenreich.

  I find it interesting that despite the rules specifying an online comic can be an individual comic, continuing storyline comic or strips, and the only real restriction being that it appears on the web before print, that there’s a real tendency towards shorter works. Three of the nominees (Name, CPR, and Face) are arguably essays in comic form (any one of them could have appeared at The Nib), and Full Court is a 16 page short story. Only Longstreth’s Elsi is a traditional (whatever that means) plot-based, ongoing webcomic.

  The extremely wide-open criteria means that this category, more than any other, varies widely from year to year, based on the jury’s personal views of what a good online comic looks like. I am precisely 50% in favor of having a narrower definition so there can be some consistency, and 50% in favor of the variety that is rewarded by the present system.

  Because of my avocational interests, I am pulling for What Doctors Know About CPR (which really, really could have appeared in The Nib’s Death issue).

• Promising New Talent: Haleigh Buck, Ebony Flowers, Emma Jayne, Mar Julia, and Kelsey Wroten. I’ll have to dig into their work, but I’m really liking the looks of what Jayne and Julia are doing.
• Outstanding Story: In addition to Laura Dean, you’ve got Sacred Heart Vol 2 Part 1: Livin’ In The Future by Liz Suburbia, Sincerely, Harriet by Sarah Winifred Searle, Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal, and The Dead Eye And The Deep Blue Sea by Vannak Anan Prum. Although I’m a tremendous fan of Searle’s work, Laura Dean remains my favorite book of the year until The Midwinter Witch arrives to make its case.

  Speaking of which, I’m very surprised to not see Molly Ostertag and/or The Hidden Witch in any category, nor Tillie Walden and/or On A Sunbeam anywhere in the nominations. Ah well, if I want the nominations to be perfect, all I have to do is become a comics writer and/or artist, and have a distinguished enough career that people in the industry think enough of me that I’m asked to be part of the jury. Simple.

The Ignatz bricks will be distributed starting at 9:30pm on Saturday, 14 September, at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland.

And hey, if the competition for the Ignatzen is a little to wholesome, there will be some virtual blood in a head-to-head original character deathmatch tournament sponsored by Abbadon over at Kill Six Billion Demons’s Discord. Registration’s open until they get 64 entrants.

Spam of the day:

Kontrollnummer- FX 75/463. (Kontrollnummer- FX 75/463.)
Garbage bags and much more.

I am less concerned by the German language pitch for what appears to be general shipping supplies than I am for the inclusion on the list of Solvent. All kinds. I get the feeling that you are selling to the serial killer market.

It has been a day, people. On the plus side, my copy of The American Dream? by Shing Yin Khor finally arrived, so I got that to look forward to. Let’s just point you at some stuff and call it so I can get to reading. Review soon.

• New Bobbins! Considering these strips take place … I’ma say 18, 19 years ago, maybe longer, they capture the current zeitgeist with amazing accuracy.
• He Is A Good Boy may have finished, but you can get all the Crange you need in your life in the new single-volume collection on Kickstarter. I love that cover design; while I have been chafing for Back to return from its summer hiatus, if this is what KC Green has been spending his time on, it will have been worth it.

  Anyhoo, huge book (444 pages! 8 x 11 trim size! full color!), maybe a t-shirt, stretch goals, etc. Get on that.

• And about two minutes ago (as I write this), You Died finished its two week crowdfunding at US$46,505; when the FFF mk2 would have projected US$31K – US$41K or thereabouts. That’s a handy exceed of the expected range, and in half the time of the usual campaign. I’ll have to take that into account should there ever be a mk3.

Spam of the day:

[Translated from Hebrew] Could interest you in cooperation regarding the product owner
?

I dunno man, why don’t you ask Screamy Orange Grandpa? Apparently he thinks he’s King of the Jews and the Second Coming of God (which, one must take pains to point out, isn’t recognized by Jews) while simultaneously being a huge antisemitic piece of shit. Sounds like he’s credulous enough to work with you and deeply loathe you at the same time.

It’s getting to that point in time that you look to the fall comics shows and festivals: SPX in just about a month, then NYCC (not that they do much with comics these days) about three weeks later, and then Thought Bubble about a month after that. The first two have awards associated with them (the Ignatzen at SPX, and the reconstituted Harveys — which look particularly good as noted — at NYCC), but Thought Bubble has something the others don’t — an anthology that’s always worth talking about.

I mean, hell, in 2016 they did a tenth anniversary volume that may be the only printed work in history whose two lead author credits are Kate Beaton and Warren Ellis¹. Sure, there were a few dozen other names on the collection, but the contrast of those two is just unreal.

TB 2019 will feature Becky Cloonan, Luke Pearson (of Hilda fame), Gerry Duggan, Abigail Jill Harding, Lee Garbett, Benji Goldsmith² Kim-joy (okay, I’ve only seen like one season of The Great British Bake Off, but I understand she was a runner-up in a post-Mel & Sue season), Pernille Ørum, Jock, Daniel Warren Johnson, Helen Mingjue Chen on the cover. The thing about the TB Anthology is it’s always good, so even creators whose work you aren’t familiar with, you’ll probably enjoy. I’m not familiar with Chen, but that cover is gorgeous, and Ørum’s work appears to be both beautifully composed and super cute.

The Thought Bubble Festival will take place in Yorkshire, the week of 4 November, with the comic show on the 9th and 10th. The Anthology will release on 9 October, and can be ordered from your friendly local comic shop ahead of time.

Spam of the day:

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[14 blank lines]
This is an adv. American Airlines is not affiliated with this ad.

Why do I not trust this “voucher”?

_______________
¹ Now I want a proper collaboration between Beaton and Internet Jesus. Something even more of a pure comic book than Nextwave. I desperately want to see Beaton’s rendering of a character getting kicked and then exploding.

² I’m not sure, but it might be this composer/performer?

Happy Monday, err’body. Let’s see what’s new for us today.

• I do love me a good Kickstart, yessiree. Today, it’s Christopher Baldwin, who’s held off Kickstartering the story arcs of the revived Spacetrawler — one may recall that the original story ran into three books, 100-ish pages each — because he decided to do one big ol’ comprehensive volume, at a full 8.5 x 11 trim size, and full color. Oh, and all books are signed, so that’s cool.

  Actually, it’s more than that. Those three slim volumes from the first Spacetrawler run? Smaller in all three dimensions than the new one, so Baldwin’s also doing the omnibus single volume reprint at the full 8.5 x 11. And a previously web-only bonus story from Spacetrawler: TOS will be included in the big book, or you can get it as a standalone mini (about 30 pages) if you’re only getting the book for Spacetrawler: TNG. It’s all here, Spacetrawler BIG Book 2, where (as of this writing) just under US$5500 of the extremely modest US$6000 goal has been raised.

  What I like best about this is the high-end rewards for inclusion of somebody that looks like you on the back of the book, or somebody named like you included in/your childhood home destroyed in the next series. Because that means more Spacetrawler, y’all. I guess the third series¹ will be Spacetrawler: DS9? They’re all good, and I can’t wait to see how Mr Zorilla fits into the next; he’s such a selfish dick, I can’t wait to find out what being in space has done to him.

• If, at this point, you don’t know about the recent on-goings at The Nib, well that I suspect you aren’t paying attention. We at Fleen have made a thing of it, as has pretty much everybody you know and follow that’s a cartoonist. Heck the New York Times even mentioned their defunding woes, although apparently didn’t bother to mention that Matt Bors has taken the site independent. It’s amazing what’s happened at the Times since they got rid of their public editor. But I digress.

  Although the outpouring of support for The Nib since First Look ditched ’em has been significant, to get back to the level of publishing they were at is going to take capital, so Bors is having a fundraiser. You can still subscribe, but if you wanted to purchase merch, or just make one-off donations, you can do that, too. It’s all here, and I urge you to support the best in nonfiction/political/longform reportage cartooning that exists. They’re like the Pro Publica² of funny pictures.

• It’s been mentioned more than once on this page that I generally don’t promote many new comics. I like to see that there’s something good and consistent before I tell you that you should take time to check something out. There are exceptions for creators with track records, and sometimes I will make early recommendations based on the taste and judgment of people I know and trust. And when a quick read of 10 or 20 strips³ confirms that taste and judgment? Then, my friends, it’s time to share some comics.

  Park Planet is done in black and white and grey washes, almost reminiscent of Roz Chast’s work. It’s a workplace comedy, set in a sci-fi natural park for the preservation of Earth’s nearly extinct flora and fauna; there’s a bunch of extraterrestrials and androids that don’t really understand Earth and it’s critters too well, along with a long human employee named Lorraine who’s trying to find her footing in her very new, very weird job.

  Sammy Newman is absolutely killing it so far, and I heartily recommend you check out Lorraine, and Paisley, and Wurlitzer and all the rest of the staff at Hartwood Park as they awkwardly bumble through their approximations of the human experience together.

Spam of the day:

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Man, I don’t know how to explain my lush, thick, silky-smooth halo of hair, but it sure isn’t from vital and powerful nutrients.

_______________
¹ Which I suspect will not be until after Baldwin’s collaboration with Shaenon Garrity, Willowweep Manor, sees print next year. Garrity and Baldwin have been going over their roughs, and you can see some here and I can’t wait until fall 2020, this book will be so rad.

² Who you should also support, if it’s in your means to do so.

³ Which, it turns out, has been updating on Wednesdays since April. To be fair, it only got its own, non-Tumblr website a few days ago, and I don’t do Tumblr.

Sometimes things that scarcely resemble each other in intent grab hold of me and demand to be considered together. My brain just works that way sometimes.

Case in point #1: Today’s xkcd, which is taken from Randall Munroe’s forthcoming (and apparently far more unhinged — in a good way! — than even I’d anticipated) book, How To. There are not many people that, faced with a theoretical swarm of drones that are unwanted, would seek to solve the problem by having Serena Williams swat them out of the air with her mighty serve.

There are even fewer that could reach out to Serena Williams and she would say Sure, let’s try that.

But the reason I’m mentioning this comic — aside from its self-evident hilarity — is that one lower left panel. Although she is rendered, as near as I can tell, with 8-10 main lines, plus small hatchings to represent tennis racket strings, hands, and perhaps 20 more to represent her air, the power and determination and competitive drive for which Williams is renowned come through perfectly. All I’m saying is, if I’m a drone, I am not annoying Serena Williams¹.

Case in point #2: I’ve long said that it’s pretty much a tie between Kate Beaton and Meredith Gran when it comes to who can convey the exact emotion of a character with the least detail. A purse of the lips, a cocked eyebrow, a hunch of the shoulders — the expressiveness of Eve at the start of the latest rerun story arc runs the gamut. I’m seeing the same skill, presented in deliberately glorious low res, in Gran’s new autobio diary strip, where she talks about her experiences in gardening.

The Garden Of Everything has seven strips in the buffer, updating not quite daily, and presenting illuminating little vignettes about kale, meeting neighbors, and the sheer delight of watching her toddler pluck a tomato from the vine and chow down. They’re charming, they’re obviously done super quickly in between the tasks of game-making and childrearing, and they are absolutely perfect. Introspection is one of the things that Gran conveys best in her work, and I’m going to be coming back to The Garden Of Everything² to get my quasidaily dose.

Spam of the day:

Fox Sports product burns off 15 of fat every month

There is not a single damn thing in that subject line that makes a lick of sense and amazingly, the body of the spam is even worse.

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¹ Although as the alt-text notes, Drones don’t bother [Williams].

² I reserve the right to skip any updates that speak well of beets. Beets are gross.

I’m going to a town hall meeting with my Representative, where I will be urging him to not only support, but actively advocate for impeachment. Call me misguided, but it seems a little more important than webchuckles today.