Friday can, ironically, be both the busiest day at SDCC (any given year, it’s toss-up between Friday and Saturday), and also the one where things first start to feel slow on the floor. If there’s something big in Hall H going on, or if the retailers start to run out of exclusives, there can be periods of relative quiet. For me, Friday was ironically a day that I woke up feeling great, mentally thanking the hotel bed for a terrific night’s rest. A scant few hours later I would be mentally reciting Ow every other step because I am an old man and my spine is made of tissue paper¹.

I’m not sure if the fact that I spent a lot of time sitting in panels rather than standing at the booth was ultimately a positive thing or negative. On the one hand, discomfort was definitely tied to shifting my posture; on the other, I know that you just have to keep moving and encourage muscles to stretch themselves with motion. On the other other hand, I am a lazy, lazy man and sitting suits me just fine.

I started off watching people who make comics with a factual basis talk about their processes of developing topics, researching, and bringing essential truth while not getting bogged down in minutiae on the page. Or, in the case of Dylan Meconis, writing fiction where you get to decide that Henry VIII died before breaking with the Church, but obsessively getting the livestock correct. More on that, on Randall Munroe deep dives into the human systems and groups that deal with the odd corners of our world, and the longer interview-slash-conversation I had with Jim Ottaviani later.

Ursula Vernon had her spotlight panel in the afternoon, ably assisted by her A/V tech and partner in adventure/crime/marriage, Kevin Sonney. It was … look, if you’ve never heard Vernon talk, there’s a lot of side quests in her conversational style, a lot of I have no memory of doing thises, and a lot a lot of hilarity. I’ll be bringing you that story when I can come up with a way to describe it that doesn’t amount to Look, you had to be there, but I absolutely will find a way. Until then, you can find her at the Sofawolf table (Booth 1236) for signings; stop by the booth to verify times.

Similarly, I need to find a way to discuss the panel for all-ages readers that featured a half-dozen Scholastic/Graphix creators talking about their work, and what they’ve got coming up. I don’t want to reduce it to Here’s a list of forthcoming books because it really was much more interesting than that. However, that will be an approach I am taking for the last panel of the day, the annual best/worst manga extended lightning round. Each panelist got 60 seconds on the clock to explain or defend their pick in each category, which does not lend itself to me taking a lot of detailed notes as to rationale (even if I hadn’t volunteered to act as timekeeper, resetting and starting the countdown timer on an iPad from my seat in the front row). So there’s a list of the picks below the cut with links.

Finally, word came late that Pat Race and Aaron Suring of Alaska Robotics were not recognized at the Eisners and you know what? It’s okay. The Spirit Of Comics Retailer Award went to a couple of gents from Buenos Aires, and Pat and Aaron couldn’t have been happier for them. By the end of the night, I heard talk of visits from the near extremes of the Pacific Coast, a Comics Camp exchange program, and an acknowledgment of how comics brings people together. We’ll let Lucy Bellwood have the last word.

Pictures:
Most of the pics today were of panelists, which will run when I write up the panels. Because I spent so much time in panel rooms or moving pretty briskly to and from those rooms, I didn’t catch a lot of cosplay. I did see this rather magnificent dragon warrior, and a very impressive Taskmaster, but best cosplay has got to go to Ruby Rhod, who was absolutely perfect in the costume details, had the attitude (and the walk) down, and had amplified audio. It was green.

Panels to watch for:
Assuming I get a move on, I’ll be going to the panel spotlighting Randall Munroe’s about-to-be-released How To (10:00am, Room 4), and a session on comics in the classroom that will include Gina Gagliano (hey, she’s here, flight’s no longer delayed) and Mark Siegel, who are always smart and informed (2:00pm, at the Library). For those of you that don’t want to make the trek out past the ballpark, may I suggest the panel on women making stuff in Hollywood and the push to parity? It’s also at 2:00pm, in Room 7AB.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that at 1:17pm San Diego time (or 20:17:40 UTC), it will be exactly 50 years since the Eagle landed on the gosh-darned moon². And then at 7:56pm (02:56:15 UTC), it will be exactly 50 years since Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface (which, I will remind you, is on the gosh-darned moon). If possible, I recommend that you lose yourself in the replay at Apollo In Real Time; as I write this line, the crew are on lunar orbit 11/75, prepping the LM for detach and landing.

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¹ It was my own fault. I ran into somebody I haven’t seen forever and went in for a hug. Thing is, she’s on the short side, and last time I saw her she was in heels. I bent over an extra 3-4 inches to compensate and when the embrace happened, things moved in ways that were once trivial and apparently are no longer tolerable. Worse, it was probably another five hours before I was able to get some ibuprofen onboard, so I spent the day aware of things not wanting to move or get jostled to any appreciable degree. It’s much better today, but still going to be a day when I want to avoid incidental bumps or unthoughtful movement.

² And did you see that Marvel announced there will finally be a Squirrel Girl figure (just in time for the series to wrap up, grumble)? The sculpt looks amazing, and it comes with a Vespa and a basket full of squirrels.

(more…)

It turns out that there was nobody at the erstwhile Rooster Teeth booth to ask, the prime corner space on a major aisle now reduced to a spot to rearrange the stuff in your bags or adjust how much skin your cosplay has on display.

The rumor was — and let me be clear, this was offered by a person that came up to the Dumbrella booth and claimed to have worked with Rooster Teeth previously — is that since they got reorganized within the Warner Bros corporate structure back in December, and given that AT&T has acquired WB and doesn’t seem to care much about anything other than numbers from the various creative divisions they now control, that somebody decided the booth wasn’t worth time or effort on (it would have been paid for a year ago).

I may travel down to the ass end of the hall to where all things Warner Bros are situated together¹ and see if I can find any reference to Rooster Teeth, but at the moment it looks like they’ve gone the way of Vertigo and anything else that a suit can’t see immediate, massive returns in. RIP Rooster Teeth, you were a noisy neighbor that got on my nerves more than once, but you deserved better than that.

I spent the bulk of the day engaging in commerce and treating Andy Bell like a trained monkey — more than once the cry of Artist! Sign this now! rang out and he would scurry, bent over, Sharpie in hand — in the half of the booth that isn’t covered in cardboard boxes of Funko Pops and other collectible detritus. It’s a living, or more precisely a place to sit and park my laptop bag in the times that I’m not at panels.

Speaking of which, I went to the Random House Graphic panel² where I ran into a very excited (not that there’s any other kind) Colleen AF Venable³. There’s such good stuff coming from Odd Dot in just a couple of months, folks! And Venable just saw finished pencils on a new graphic novel she’s written, the concept of which is going to make you smile so hard when I can talk about it.

Later in the afternoon, I headed over to the San Diego Central Library for a discussion of comics as real reading. That one was by and for teachers and librarians, and I had a really nice talk with moderator John Shableski, who it turns out was also at the Splat! symposium all those years ago where Ted Rall pitched a wibbly fit about how unfair webcomics are. Good times. Fuller discussions of both panels will be forthcoming once I get my notes bashed into shape.

The day finished with the Scholastic/Graphix party, where I finally made the personal acquaintance of Tom Spurgeon, who had some unnecessarily nice things to say about what we’re trying to do with this page. Given how long both The Spurge and I have been on our respective beats, it’s a little weird we only finally made IRL contact at this late juncture, but that’s the way it works sometimes. Vijaya Iyer also let me know how much I’m screwing up by not yet attending Spurgeon’s annual Cartoon Crossroads Columbus; she’s always been one to tell me when I’ve not got my shit together, and she’s invariably correct⁴.

I got to tell Jimmy Gownley that while having my food-based regrets in the early morning hours, the thought ran through my head I am going to have a sneeze-barf incident, which he found amusing. Molly Ostertag confirmed that the forthcoming The Midwinter Witch will wrap the Witch Boy series, all the threads brought together and finished. We also talked about the Disney series she’s on now, and how it is going to amaze, delight, and possibly terrify kids when it launches. She’s rad. The only thing I missed out on at the party was the opportunity to tell Jon J Muth that I read Moonshadow at way too young an age and it messed me up. Then again, I would have had to admit that way too young an age was actually 28. It’s a heavy read.

Pictures:
The floor was busy for much of the day in every direction you looked. It really does take close to an hour to get anywhere within the bounds of the San Diego Convention Center.

Best cosplay was a tossup; there was a really good Peter B Parker with just the right amount of stubble, but there was also a Peter B Parker with bagel in a costume group (and I loves me a good costume group) with Spider-Man Noir and Dr Olivia Octavius. The Unstoppable Airman Higgs and Princess Zeetha of Skifander dropped by the Girl Genius booth for some well-deserved accolades, there was an adorable and fully operational battle station, and a Mother of Wing-a-Ling Dragons with Burnination.

But I think top honors have to go to a family cosplay, dad and kid, of Indiana Jones Running From The Boulder. It’s the Chucks on the boulder that sell it — it makes it look like a Scott C Great Showdown.

Panels to watch for:
Busy day today. Barring trubs, you’ll find me at the comics based on factual stuffs discussion (10:00am, Room 32AB), the Ursula Vernon spotlight (1:30pm, Room 24ABC), the all ages comics panel (4:00pm, Room 32AB), and the best/worst manga of the year panel at 6:00pm (Room 4), plus an interview in the middle. Gonna be busy.

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¹ Let’s be honest, I will not.

² Sadly, Gina Gagliano’s plane was severely delayed and she was possibly landing in San Diego about the time the panel started; her senior editor Whitney Leopard repped the imprint well, in conversation with NPR’s Petra Mayer.

³ Venable’s artist on Kiss Number 8, Ellen T Crenshaw, is up for the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award at the Eisners tonight.

⁴ When I ran into Iyer, I mentioned that immediately before leaving my hotel, I remembered the very first words she ever spoke to me — at drinks after MoCCA — the second or third year it ran, I forget which — she turned to me, tapped my badge which was still around my neck and said, You’ve got your dork tags on. For the record, when we met up last night, I did not have my dork tags on.

In the end, it wasn’t the jet lag that defeated me, nor the enormous task of turning a massive convention center and the surround area into a geek temple in the space of a day-plus, nor the ravening crowds on Preview Night that sprint for those exclusives and limited-editions that they must have¹.

In the end, it was the simple fact that whatever age you have to be to work all day in the San Diego Convention Center, not leave until approximately 9:30pm, search for a place with food that can serve you before it closes for an hour, not see food until past 11:00pm, and then inhale a friggin’ enormous French Dip and a truly prodigious amount of fries² followed fairly immediately by a brief walk to the hotel and then bed, I am no longer that age. My digestive tract spent a couple of hours in the night prompting thoughts like, When will you learn to just get a sandwich to bring with you to Preview Night, genius? and If you’re going to feel this crappy in a bed, you should at least have gotten drunk for it³.

In any event, the magic happened, I got to talk some with Dave Maass from the EFF about the smart meters in the UK that spontaneously switched themselves to Welsh, with Pat Race about the mess that the new governor of Alaska has put their state in (NB: Pat & Aaron have made it to the short list for the Eisner Spirit Of Comics Retailer Award, so if you are involved in the final selection, you should vote for them because they’re the best), and with Karla Pacheco about her brand new (released yesterday!) Punisher Annual #1 which involves jet skis in space.

I also got to visit the Space Gnome trading post (Earthbound representative, Shing Yin Khor, and trade a hand-written copy of my favorite poem (Litany, by Billy Collins) for an invitation to an interstellar trade guild. It’s a joyous thing that Khor is doing, having certain neat little things that you can only get via trade — this year, the Gnome is accepting handwritten poems, cuttings of succulents, or (as always) a good rock — is a celebration of capital-A Art that we should all be glad of. The stuff available for sale is always beautiful, quirky, and worthy of your time and earthly currency units.

Pictures:
It’s the usual, really; the organized chaos of setup looks largely the same from year to year, although this year pretty much everybody told me it went suspiciously smoothly.

The Space Gnome’s wares are colorful, and what’s that? Oh, yes, Khor has a book releasing in a few weeks, with a single preview copy for thumbing-through. Show that you pre-ordered it from your vendor of choice and you’ll get a bookmark.

Best cosplay went to Peter B Parker, right down to the sweatpants and mismatched shoes. Only could have been better if he had a bagel or a cold slice of pizza, but hard to carry your purchases with one of those in your … wait. Computer, zoom in and enhance on sector 7G! That is the booth of Rooster Teeth, who seem to have encountered some kind of setup misfortune, in that there’s nothing there. I’ll hop over today to ask them what the deal is.

Panels to watch for:
Gina Gagliano will be talking about Random House Graphic at 2:00pm in Room 28DE; there will be a discussion of comics as real reading at the Library from 5:00pm.

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¹ More than once, I heard people buying Andy Bell’s latest toy exclaim excitedly, I have all of the color variations except ____ ! or These are my favorite! When asked if they wanted their toy signed, faces would light up and they’d ask, Could I? Only one guy answered with a shrug and a disinterested Nah, and he was carrying an actual case (like, easily 75cm on a side of cardboard) of Funko Pops. Definitely the sort that haunts Preview Night to snag up exclusives and low-volume releases for the eBay crowd. No joy for toys in his heart.

It’s only Bell from Dumbrella at booth 1335 this year, but Chris Yates sent along some appropriate Bafflers!, and Rich Stevens sent along a selection of his pins. I have a supply of his various Pride-themed nerd pins for giveaway; show me a receipt that you donated any amount of money to RAICES or a similar organization and you get one.

² I just want something small and fast I’d claimed while looking over the menu. An hour ago I’d have eaten a lot but now I just want to keep it reasonable. Then I saw the mound o’ food hit the table and went inhalatory on it. Good job, Gary!

³ Oddly, I don’t feel that bad this morning; it was the flavor of up-all-night where you want to say I didn’t sleep at all, I was just lying there awake and then you remember the quite detailed conversation you had with people who weren’t there and figured you actually did sleep. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.

Long day yesterday, long one ahead today as I head into the maw that this the San Diego Convention Center. Reports as I’m able.

Packing and logistics today, travel tomorrow. Posting sparse until later in the week. You know how it is.

I almost had a nit to pick with Queen Of The Sea Dylan Meconis’s gorgeous, immersive, engaging, and absorbing alternate history of the disputed succession of the British crown. It’s not the history we know, it’s a different history with the lands of Albion, Gallia, and Ecossia standing in for England, France, and Scotland. King Edmund reigns in Albion rather than Fat Henry; his daughters from various wives include Catherine and the fire-haired Eleanor (taking the place of Mary and Elizabeth), and the order of nuns¹ that make a large portion of the cast all worship the Mournful Mother and the Sorrowful Son.

Everything is just a little bit off, but so little that if you came to the book not knowing much about the tail end of the Wars of the Roses, and figured that for some reason some Latinish names were used for countries, you might not realize it’s a different history at all. The economics of an isolated abbey on an infrequently-visited island, the politics of serving and betraying noble families, the mechanisms of exile, the remnants of pagan culture to be discovered, the modes of dress, they all read mostly familiar and just a little different. It’s our history, plus or minus a few key differences at a few branches of history’s tree.

A metaphor may help you place the degree of familiarity and oddness that we’re talking about, one that I think Meconis would appreciate — this is the 16th Century by way of a Trekian Mirror Universe². Not the one that we keep seeing in the various iterations of Star Trek where good is evil and everybody has the same name with a reversed personality; it’s more of an angled mirror, one that’s a random 17.6° off from our reality instead of 180.

And that is why I decided that I don’t have a nit to pick over the first few pages of the book, where we see a put-upon and about to be captured Queen Eleanor, flanked by a pair of rather majestic greyhounds.

You see, they’re actually grey, uniformly grey, from tip to tail, and in our reality greyhounds very rarely come in that color³, and those few that do are nearly always sporting a tuxedo pattern of white on their chests. But in that world that’s 17.6° off from ours, let us allow that the grey in greyhound actually refers to the color, rather than having an unknown origin as it does here.

I mention it because it was literally the only thing in the book that I didn’t absolutely love with all my heart from the very beginning.

Young Margaret, our POV character, takes us through her life on an isolated island and the ten other people that live there, the socio-political state of her world, the foundation of the dominant religion, and the rhythms of her life in a natural, conversational tone over two dozen pages. The plot kicks in when two more come to the island to stay, and she discovers that the simple truths we absorb in childhood have layers of hidden truth behind them. As she grows (and grows more inquisitive), she finds that answers to earlier questions and personal biographies change, the world becomes more complex, and that the heroes and villains she’s heard about are both more nuanced — and closer — than she’d dreamed.

And so her story goes, learning to navigate the priorities and plottings and conspirations of people who range from utterly dismissive of her existence to desperately willing to exploit her. Her personal experience is no different from any other pre-teen girl, one that’s still got a sense of adventure and inquisitiveness, that hasn’t yet been pulled fully into the allowed gender roles of her time. She’s naive — or maybe merely uninformed, not having grown up among intrigues — but not stupid. She knows when things appear right and when they appear wrong, and she feels the sting of injustice as keenly as any child whose temper flares in a That’s not fair! reaction. She may not appreciate the weighty nature of all that’s landed on her little home island, but she’s willing to kick back at the cruel and manipulative to the best of her ability.

The lack of chapter breaks in Queen Of The Sea may have been for practical reasons (the book is exactly 400 pages long, plus endpapers), but it makes the experience of reading reflect Margaret’s perception of time. A child of just about ten years, she lives life in a continual flow, one thing leading to another, aware of the larger passing of days, but not really saying and then this ended and having it be a true break before the next thing begins. It also makes it almost imperative to read the book in one sitting.

Be sure to set aside enough time for that sitting, though — the art throughout is gorgeous, subtle, each page a watercolor (some decorated by embroidery), done in a color palette inspired by the cloudy skies and choppy seas around a little spit of an island housing a rather subdued order of nuns. Each face is lovingly lived-in, each life revealed by posture and expression as much as word and deed. Every drape and fold of clothing reveals the effects of both gravity and a cycle of wear and repair. Eyes and brows speak volumes, and the noses….

Ah, the noses. Who pays attention to noses when they design comics characters? Meconis does, each one different and full of character. In a medium where too many careers are built on sameface and samebody and clothing that may as well be spray-painted onto naked (exaggerated, idealized, ridiculous) bodies, Meconis does her characters the respect of making them stoop here, sag there, to exist as gloriously varied and imperfect people.

Queen Of The Sea is, by turns, contemplative, pulse-pounding, educational, silly, philosophical, and overall a perfect distillation of what it’s like to be a child learning your way in the world rather too quickly for comfort. It’s a perfect read for anybody of, let’s say 8 or 9 years and up. Producing it was a labor of years — I was privileged to watch several of the pages be painted last year, in the rush towards deadline — and I wouldn’t wish that burden on anyone, but if Meconis should feel the need to tell us what came next in the dynastic struggles of that world that is 17.6° off from ours, she’ll find a crowd of readers eager to join Margaret, Eleanor, and the rest in the next phase of their lives.

Queen Of The Sea by Dylan Meconis is published by Candlewick Press. It’s available wherever books are sold.

Spam of the day:

Revolutionary Bluetooth-Powered Smart Wallet is Driving Pick-Pockets Crazy

Oh yes, because having a shit-security bluetooth connection in your wallet won’t make it vulnerable in all kinds of interesting new ways. Just keep your damn wallet in your front pocket. Problem solved.

_______________
¹ Of which we are introduced to four: the Clarites, the Wandering Sisters, the Lamentines, and the Elysians.

² Meconis, one may recall, is a Trekkie from birth, and one of the few people I would trust with an actually operational phaser.

³ Which greyhound people refer to as blue. And plausibly-colored or not, these greyhounds are marvelously rendered, each pose and proportion perfectly rendered. It’s almost like she had a live model to draw inspiration from.

A bunch of forthcoming stuff has been announced, which I thought we ought to be familiar with. Let’s dig in, shall we?

• Lucy Knisley does memoir like nobody else. I mean, her ability to capture the mood and tenor of a situation in her completely authentic voice is like an inward-focused Studs Terkel. We’ve seen her travel the world, eat, marry, and have a child, now we’re going to see what motherhood is like:
  

  Cover reveal! Check out the cover for my book, “Go To Sleep (I Miss You)”, which collects my sketches and comics from my days (and nights) of early parenthood. Out February! https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250211491 …
  #babies #newborns #breastfeeding #birth #comics #thelongestshortesttime

  Did I mention that she’s a comicking machine? It will be only one year since Kid Gloves released that we get Go To Sleep (I Miss You).

• Last July, the world learned not only that there would be an original Steven Universe movie, but also that Becky Dreistadt would be the lead character designer. At the time she couldn’t say that the story took place after a time skip, but the poster reveal shows a clearly older, taller Steven¹ as well as a new villain. Entertainment Weekly has the first look.

  I’d ask Dreistadt about it next week in San Diego, but I know she’s gonna be under killer NDAs, so let’s just consider — this is a movie that’s already announced Patti Lupone (as Yellow Diamond) in the cast, so at least one Diamond is still on Earth and this new baddie has to be a credible threat to the team that took down the Diamond Authority. Citizens are urged to remain calm until the air date.

• You know what we haven’t had in waaay too long? A collection of Scott C’s Great Showdowns. So you know what Scott C just teased over on The Gram? News of a new collection of Great Showdowns. Teased is the right term, too, since all we have is a title (Legend Of The Great Showdowns) and a super-vague release date (2020). You know what? I’ll take it.
• In terms of scientific journals, you don’t get much more prestigious than Cell. It’s pretty much up there with Nature and Science, and within the family of Cell journals there is a new one, Matter, which is devoted to Materials Science². Volume 1, issue 1 has just released, and there appears to be a section for discussion of issues that are less hard-science-and-numbers in nature, things that scientists should keep in mind as they are Doing Science, but also dealing with people who are Not Scientists. This section is called Matter Of Opinion and the inaugural iteration is titled On The Sensory Analysis Of Matter And Materials.

  Very interesting, Gary, but what are you talking about this? What’s it got to do with webcomics? Excellent questions, Sparky. Because this first Matter Of Opinion features an illustration by Lucas Landherr and Monica Keszler, names that should be familiar if you recall Landherr’s contributions to STEM education via comics, Science The World. Landherr, one should recall, is one of the most highly regarded STEM educators in the US university system³, as well as the proprietor of Surviving The World, and Keszler formerly one of his Chemical Engineering students and also an animator. It hasn’t been said that Landherr and/or Keszler will continue to provide comics to the journal, but it hasn’t been said that they won’t, either.

• And in the ultimate in first looks: HarperCollins announced today the formation of a new graphic novel imprint, HarperAlley, under the editorial directorship of Andrew Arnold (formerly an art director and acquisitions editor at :01 Books). The HarperCollins backlist (which includes Scott McCloud’s Comics trilogy and Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona) will be joined by about 30 books a year, starting Fall of 2020.

  That is an insanely close time. To release books in the Fall of next year, they need to already be pretty much done with the editorial process and well into the production cycle. Recall that when Gina Gagliano got headhunted by Random House in May of last year, the first books were set for 2020. Arnold is trying to do what Gagliano is doing in half the time. And the thing of it? With what he learned at :01, he’ll very likely succeed. :01 Books is looking as much an incubator of the next generation(s) of publishing leaders as it is an imprint.

Spam of the day:

Action requested: Regarding your subscription …

This claims to come from Sears. The only communication I want from Sears is a notification when Brandon Bird decides to do something Sears-related.

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¹ And hey, we saw Stevonnie shaving last season, so a puberty-affected Steven so it’s rational to expect some rapid changes from Steven.

² I prefer to read a second meaning into the title — these are things that matter.

³ Relevant part of his CV: American Institute Of Chemical Engineers 35 Under 35 Award, 2017; AIChE Award For Innovation in Chemical Engineering Education, 2018; American Society Of Engineering Education Northeast Section Outstanding Teacher Award, 2016; ASEE Chemical Engineering Division Ray W Fahien Award, 2019, Fostering Engineering Innovation In Education Award, 2017; Dr RH Sioui Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2015; Omega Chi Epsilon Faculty Member Of The Year Award, 2015, 2016, and 2018.

Gotta take care of the pooch today. Looks like it might just be a one-day thing and she’s starting to act like she feels a little better, but she’s still out of sorts. To make up for it, please enjoy an extra-special Spam of the day, and I will be sure to post any further responses from Dorian. Talk to you tomorrow.

Spam of the day:

Dorian wrote:
Hello,

I would like to know if you are selling your domain name fleen.com? because I would be interested to buy it from you

have a nice day

Dorian

Hi Dorian,

Sure, I’ll sell.

To account for the effort of reporting, editing, and writing on the site, I will require US$1.37/word of content. For brand recognition and accumulated goodwill, I will require US$4.82/word. The site registration itself is worth US$12.95, which I am willing to provide gratis if you meet the price for the rest.

I estimate I’ve written about 2.3 million words, meaning the cost for Fleen.com and all of its intellectual property will be approximately US$14.237 million; I can provide a more accurate accounting as we get closer to finalizing the deal.

Please remit to me a certified check in the amount of 15% of the above total as a non-refundable deposit against final costs to obtain exclusivity. For a period of time not to exceed 180 days from the time the check clears, I will not accept any other offers, and you will receive the right to meet any offers that exceed the amount above.

Gary

Hey there. Let’s catch up with some stuff over at the Kickstarter, yes?

• Rippin’ up the charts, the latest game from the folks over at Cyanide & Happiness is notable for a few reasons:
  1. It gamifies the traditional philosophical connundrum known as the Trolley Problem for laugh-chuckles.
  2. They asked for a funding goal of US$69,420, an amount known as one sexweed.
  3. They cleared goal in 44 minutes.
  4. They have further gamified stretch goals by putting in now-familiar social media promotional activities, but also by essentially playing a mass game of Trial By Trolley. The outcome for the first vote hasn’t wrapped up yet, but presumably the stretch goals will be revealed based on which path the murdery (but quaint) mass transit vehicle takes.
• Jon Rosenberg¹ is Kickstarting the third Scenes From A Multiverse collection, in part to get the revenue to reprint out of print Goats collections to fulfill a previous Kickstarter². Normally, an uncompleted fulfillment would be a red flag, but since Jon’s gone from trying to run this himself to engaging the professional stuff-handlers at Make That Thing, I’d say that supporting this one is safe, and will do a solid to folks waiting for the earlier one to finish.
• From Matt Inman and the Throw Throw Burrito team, news that shipping on product which was due to begin in September has been rescheduled to approximately now. I am not convinced that somebody on Team Kittens hasn’t internalized the lessons of one Commander Montgomery Scott, who notes that you always inflate your delivery promises so as to come in earlier than you said you would. If half of adulthood is showing up, the other half is managing expectations.
• Anthology 1: A new themed anthology that will raise funds to support the Coalition To End Gun Violence and the Community Justice Reform Coalition has been announced. Shots Fired finishes its 28 day campaign in a week, and features a (pardon the expression) murderer’s row of creative talent, including Tom Beland, Alex de Campi, Colleen Coover, Roger Langridge, Carla Speed McNeil, Trina Robbins, Marguerite Sauvage, Scott Snyder, Paul Tobin, Fred Van Lente, Shannon Wheeler, and about four dozen others. US$25 for the paperback, US$35 for the Kickstarter-exclusive hardcover.
• Anthology 2: There’s lots of harbingers of the End Times out there, friendos, but maybe none so disturbing as the fact that a Kel McDonald Kickstart is in danger of not funding. The anthology Can I Pet Your Werewolf was Kickstarted back in 2017, and it’s out of print. The reprint campaign is three days from wrapping and (as of this writing) a bit more than US$3000 from goal.

  That’s a lot better than it was two days ago when it was under US$10K (and boy howdy, that’s a weird funding curve), but still possibly it will fall short of the mark. McDonald and co-editor Molly Muldoon have a lot of great folks on the book³ which again — just needs a reprint. It’s done, it’s all laid out, it’s a proven seller. It just (as Thrór told Thráin⁴) needs gold to breed gold.

Spam of the day:

The guy lost 84 lbs

Wait, which guy? Stinko Man? Because everybody says he’s the guy, and I wanna be the guy, too!

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¹ Disclaimer: he hosts this page, was the one that prompted me to start it in the first place, and owns my soul.

² And let’s acknowledge that was approximately the time that Jon and his wife had a high-risk pregnancy with two very small twin sons, one of whom has spent a significant chunk of his life getting past the medical side-effects of being born. Dude’s had some shit on his plate is what I’m saying.

³ Aud Koch! Seanan McGuire! Monica Gallagher! Sophie Goldstein! Cat Farris! Kendra Wells! Plus at least one dude because there are men that make comics, too.

⁴ Nerrrrrrrrrrrd.

And we make it at last to the wind-down, which weary resignation is a recurring theme when talking about San Diego Comic Con and Sunday, whether considering advance planning or the actual experience. Sunday remains the kid-themed day, with lots going on for the younger fan of comics, not to mention the wild rush to finish up commerce before things that getting torn down until next year. And hey, Con ends at 5:00pm, so there can’t be panels that don’t start until 9:00. I think …

Sunday
Food Network’s Chef Duff Goldman
10:00 — 11:00, Grand 10 & 11, Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina
I love that dude, and the joy he brings to creation. I may just go check this one out.

Space Wizards: The Quest To Define Speculative Fiction
11:00 — 12:00, Grand 12 & 13, Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina
Wait, there’s a panel about Space Wizards, and they didn’t invite Jon Rosenberg? That’s messed up.

The Adventure Zone: Murder On The Rockport Limited! Graphic Novel
11:00 — 12:00, Room 7AB
Two McElroys (Travis and Clint), Carey Pietsch, and Satine Phoenix talk about the brand new graphic novel adaptation (it releases the day before Preview Night).

140-Odd Years Of Looking At The Future
12:00 — 1:00, Room 25ABC
Junior high school me, with a serious habit of ’60s-and-later hard SF, would shit himself at the possibility of being in a room with Larry Niven, David Brin, and Greg Bear (who, at 17 or 18, was one of the founders of SDCC). The topic will be time travel, and discussion will be guided by Dr Travis Langley (professor of Psychology, Henderson State University).

Growing Up with Comics: Introducing Younger Readers To Graphic Storytelling
12:00 — 1:00, Room 28DE
One of my great thrills in life is giving a stack of graphic novels (some exactly age appropriate, some that require stretching a bit) as a birthday present as part of my grunkle duties. Last year I watched a seven year old forgo a water fight on the hottest day of the year when she say I’d given her a copy of The Witch Boy². So I imagine a good deal of the discussion from Cecil Castellucci, Sarah Graley, and Amy Mebberson will be variations on Put comics in front of kids and let ’em rip, but they’ll find much smarter ways to express that thought.

iPhones And Wands: Can Tech And Magic Coexist?
1:00 — 2:00, Room 25ABC
Clarke’s Law gets a workout from the likes of Gene Ha, Maya Kern, Katie O’Neill, Bree Paulsen, Carey Pietsch, and Ursula Vernon, with moderator Lilah Sturges.

Short Form Comics For Every Reader
1:00 — 2:00, Room 28DE
There is a certain irony in inviting Randall Munroe to this panel, given that probably his most famous comic¹ took four months to play out and has an entire wiki built around its 3102 frames. But join Sarah Mirk as she talks to Munroe, Aminder Dhaliwal, Ebony Flowers, Kevin Huizenga, and Sophie Yanow about getting ideas across in just a few frames.

Super Asian America
2:45 — 3:45, Room 5AB
Do me a favor. If CB Cebulski shows up to bother Andrea Walter, CB Lee, and Wesley Chu, somebody smack him.

Wonder Women CEOs — Female Owned And Operated Comic Publishers
3:00 — 4:00, Room 7AB
Quoting here: One day a female comic publisher will be standard — until then, we have Wonder Women! Hoo-howdy, that’s a crappy topic sentence, and whoever wrote it needs to re-evaluate where they are in life. As previously noted, it’s women that do the nuts-and-bolts work of getting comics out, and as the big two become less relevant because their corporate masters see the money brought in from Wednesday sales as a rounding error, the small companies are going to fill those niches. Hear about the revolution in the offing, and try to convince Sandy King Carpenter (Storm King Comics), Enrica Jang (Red Stylo Media), D Lynn Smith (Kymera Press), and C Spike Trotman (Iron Circus Comics) that you’ll be useful to the new regime. Comics is about to be a women’s game, and the dudes currently running things are placeholders.

Spam of the day:

Bring Your Doorbell Into the 21st Century 2.4g WiFi connectivity, Android and iOS compatibility, image capture technology

I have a bell. I also have glass up and down the front door, and other windows that look out on the front door, and a dog that loveloveloves new people bouncing up and down scrabbling at the front door.

Under no circumstances am I bringing your shit-security, hardcoded-admin-credentials Internet Of Things thing into my house. Fuck outta here with that nonsense.

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¹ Depending on who you’re talking to, of course. In my day job, it’s more likely to be a discussion of scrubbing SQL inputs or computer voting being an inherently bad idea.

² Certain of the grand-nieces and grand-nephews have had to be informed by friends that not all graphic novels come signed and sketched by the creators.