It’s time for the SDCC planning to begin in earnest, with the release of the exhibitor list and the floor map. There’s some changes of note, some of which can be determined at a glance by clicking through the picture (the one above takes you to the magnifiable PDF, the one below merely to s more legible, larger PNG):

Did you see it? It might take you a moment. DC Comics isn’t in the center section with the other publishers. They are waaaaay down at the southern end of the hall¹ next to Warner Bros. This should alleviate some of the center-section crowding and aisle clogging, while simultaneously answering the question How many people will travel an extra 30 aisles to stand in an enormous crowd for sneak peaks at whatever “Crisis” DC has dreamed up next?

Also, What happens when that crowd can’t overflow into the areas of surrounding aisles, but is instead constrained by a structural wall right over there? Also also, How badly will the small vendors at the 4500-5000 end of the hall hate DC by the time Thursday is over? Answers on a postcard.

Except For DC, It’s Mostly The Same
The Webcomics, Small Press, and Independent Press Pavilions remain reasonably accessible from the “B” lobby. Let’s break ’em down.

As in previous years: centered roughly on booth #1332, you’ll find a majority of the webcomickers who will be at the show within about a 1.5 aisle radius; some are slightly outside the orange area, but not too far. Those that return are all in the same spots, barring any changes to the map and listings.

Notes:

• No news yet on which TopatoCo creators will be along; we’ll update once we know.
• Hachette (1116), Harper Collins (1029), and Simon & Schuster (1128) remain in Publisher’s Row; :01 Books (2800) and Macmillan Children’s Publishing (2802) continue to colonize the corner with the bend, where their lines will not obstruct main aisles.
• 1232 and 1235 remain, as last year, assigned to Flex Comics (muscle bros hang out there) and Pulsar Entertainment LLC (whose home page prominently features the words MONETIZE YOUR BRAND!), respectively. Inertia, I guess.
• Dumbrella this year will only be Andy Bell because Rich Stevens has decided it’s more important to support his wife in making modern life less stressful pffft, whatever. Another exhibitor will be sharing the space, but the name is not announced yet.
• Penguin/Random House will be taking a chunk of space (1514, 1515, 1623) close by; this is where Gina Gagliano’s new Random House Graphic enterprise will most likely be found.
• Jim Zub will be back for the first time in three years. Citizens are urged to remain vigilant, but calm.

Small Press Folks Are Awesome Folks
Right by the Webcomics section is Small Press. Here you should find:

From the Small Press section, you’re close by:

Notes:

• Gallery Nucleus is closer in than previous years, and will feature arty types when they aren’t hanging out at Mondo down in booth 435. Keep an eye out for your Scotts C, your Beckys and/or Franks, and alumni of the various Flight anthologies. Oh, and they’re listed in the guide as Nucleus.
• No confirmation yet on which webcomickers will be at the BOOM! booth when, but I’d expect a pretty strong rotation.
• For all the drama around the acquisition/merger with Oni, Lion Forge will be over at 5543, which is along the front wall, by entrance C (tucked between Diamond and the wall).

Now head back toward the “B” Lobby into the Independent Press area and you’ll find Terry Moore at Booth 2109, which is split (in accordance with tradition) with Jeff Smith (who remains the best).

Scholastic (that means the Graphix imprint, and that means Raina, Amulet, BONE and other megasuperstars) is in 2115.

Going back to that larger map of the northern half of the exhibit hall. Wedged in between the Marvel and IDW megabooths you’ll find Keenspot in Booth 2635.

The Far End Is Actually Kinda Different
There’s still some neat stuff if you keep wandering past the video games, Star Wars, Legos, and suchlike.

Give yourself time to make the trek, what with DC bringing more folks than usual to the high-numbered end, and you’ll find both Udon Entertainment (4529), and The Hero Initiative (5003). Katie Cook will be at table HH-17, but she’s one of the holdout folks in Artists Alley — it’s mostly comic book types these days. Jim Zub might be found at Udon at some point, or hanging with his Skullkickers partner, Edwin Ironpinky Huang (EE-06).

Know what’s not down this way for the first time in forever? Copic. Their longtime distributor stateside, Imagination International, reportedly lost their license this year, and Copic no longer appears on their list of marker brands. Maybe content yourself with a visit to the Moleskine booth, way back towards the Webcomics Zone (1621)?

Offsite
Every year for the past half-decade the amount of stuff you can see outside of the exhibit hall has grown; I’m guessing we’re only a year or so away from complete parity. If you know of anything especially good, let us know and we’ll add it here. Otherwise, just wander the city and see what you got.

Spam of the day:

Drop 28lb ln 15 days. Lose your belly with no gym

and

An engineering and design masterpiece, built to go wherever the adventure takes you.

Identical layout to these spams, but different products (diet; drones) and different fake unsubscribe addresses. Sneaky, but not sneaky enough.

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¹ Also the end of the hall closer to Mexico and the CBP immigration station that is illegally preventing asylum-seekers from presenting themselves at a port of entry as the law and international treaties require them to do. Just saying, if anybody should happen to have a misadventure with some earth-moving equipment over some CBP/ICE vehicles, pretty sure it gets you a straight ticket to the heaven of your choice.

Hey, lookit that, the exhibitor lists and floor map for SDCC are up. I will do my usual trawl and guide to what’s up on the show floor on a day that I am not trying to make it across Atlanta to the airport. Y’all be good until then.

Spam of the day:
Oh, glob, so much spam. So many pre-SDCC announcements and all-caps EMBARGOED UNTIL declarations and no way to opt out of shit that has nothing to do with me. Pray for Mojo.

It’s dark days, my friends — literally in my case as work has me in Atlanta¹, where it’s been very rainy and thunderstormy — but even in these circumstances it’s possible to find little bits of hopefulness.

In this case, news today from Noelle Stevenson (creator of one of the greatest webcomics of memory, which appears to be lost at the moment² because some health and beauty spammers appear to have appropriated Stevenson’s site at gingerhaze.com [don’t click], but thankfully the Wayback Machine is forever) that she’ll have a new book out soon:

Big news! HarperCollins is publishing 8 years worth of journal comics as a collected comics memoir! Check out this exclusive cover reveal and interview! [flame emoji]

You’ll find the interview at io9:

The Fire Never Goes Out is a collection of seven or eight years of Stevenson’s personal comics, which come together in a memoir about her life. Some of the comics were previously published on her Tumblr page, but others are stories and comics she’s never shared before. It’s an interesting and unique look into Stevenson’s life, as she was living it, making it less of a retrospective and more of a journey through someone else’s journey.

Sold. I love the retrospectives that read like the experience of somebody’s life at playback speeds (cf: Lucy Knisley graphic novels). We can expect it in early January, about a year before the scheduled release of the film version of Nimona. Stevenson’s one of our best, most emotionally honest storytellers, and to see her tell the story of herself is going to be a delight. Follow her on Twitter, hopefully her domain comes back under her control soon, and the third season of She-Ra drops in early August. Gotta space out those little bits of light, remind yourself that there’s always another one just around the corner.

Spam of the day:

This “hidden survival muscle” in your body will boost your energy levels, immune system, sexual function, strength and athletic performance when unlocked.

Muscles are not boss fights that must be overcome by grinding or microtransactions. Get up every once in a while, stretch, touch your toes a couple times, and stop making it sound like a damn ‘cheevo.

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¹ But I got to have dinner with Andy Runton last night, so that’s all right.

² I mean, it wasn’t all online any longer because the book’s been out forever now, but the first three chapters were there.

I hope that everybody is girded and oiled, you gotta be careful not to hurt yourself. For those of you not familiar with WSD, it’s Jeffrey Rowland’s favorite holiday and it features sauntering, obvs, and must be observed no matter how busy you may be.

And on this World Sauntering Day (or more accurately, Sauntereve), we saw a miracle: lo, the word came from the firmaments that something joyous was upon us:

WE’RE LIVE. Back “Shattered Spear” now on Kickstarter to bring @claystorks’ incredible comic to print at ICC, for the FIRST AND LAST TIME.

And the print edition of Shattered Spear is FUNDED! Thank you, everyone! This KS will continue to run for a full 30 days, to give @claystorks’ readers as much time as possible to back. But don’t miss out! This book will NOT BE AVAILABLE after this KS!

We are LESS THAN $200 AWAY from Shattered Spear’s ONE AND ONLY stretch goal of a sweet cover enhancement!

And that’s IT. “Shattered Spear” is now not just funded, but has hit its one and only stretch goal of a cover enhancement. The book is not only happening, it’s gonna be PRETTY. You have 29 DAYS LEFT to get you hands on this book! Don’t let it get away!

What’s the big deal, Gary? An Iron Circus book funded in five and a half hours, we see that all the time. Ah, but it’s not just a fast-funding Iron Circus book, for a couple of reasons:

• This is the launch of a new imprint, Circus Maximus¹, the purpose of which is to showcase short, unique comics.
• Specifically, things that have not been in print before, and will not be in print again. These are one-shots.
• They have low price points, low goals, short duration runs, and short fulfillment windows. I’d bet you a dollar that the files have already been specced out with Spike’s printer of choice, quotes for both fancy- and non-fancy cover choices received, and as soon as the campaign closes the go order will be given.

So instead of a traditional book publisher-type deal (some years of rights to the work, options to renew, new printings in future as warranted), Circus Maximus is closer to a magazine structure (right of first publication only, unlikely to reprint, narrow timeframe to obtain fromthe publisher and afterwards only on a secondary market). Think of the entire CM project as a very particular, occasionally-updated literary magazine where every issue has a different theme/editor — a mutant child of Granta, Utne Reader, and The Nib — and you won’t be far off the mark. Otava Heikkilä may do a printing of Shattered Spear in the future (indeed, this run may be proof of concept more than anything else), but it won’t be from Iron Circus.

I’ve said it before — sleep on the things that Spike is inventing/experimenting with at your peril. And sleep on this Kickstart only if you’re comfortable maybe never having a physical copy of what’s likely a terrific story.

Spam of the day:

We have found that Your email Adress have been Subscribe on All “Adult Porn +18” Website. If you want to receive more emails
We need you to CONFIRM whether you are a Subscriber or Not! Have a nice day :)

Wow, I have been Subscribe on All porn websites? That … seems like it would take a lot of time.

_______________
¹ No word yet if Iron Circus semibenevolent dictator for life C Spike Trotman will retroactively declare the smut offerings part of an imprint called Circus Penis, but come one, it’s sitting right there!

Things are afoot, my friends. They are footy. Footlike. Gotta keep on our toes.

• It’s been just about a year since the ALA created a new round table dedicated to graphic novels, and that means that the annual conference in Washington, DC next week will likely see a larger contingent of comics folk than in the recent past.

  Taking a quick peek at the exhibitor list/floor plan, you’ve got Iron Circus (2108A), not far from Dark Horse (1915), and somewhere in the enormous mass of Penguin/Random House (the entire 1800-block) is Random House Graphic (Hi, Gina!). Finishing up over in the 1500-plus-or-minus zone you’ve got Macmillan Childrens Publishing Group (that’s :01 Books and allies, 1504 & 1505), Oni Press (1519), Drawn & Quarterly (1514), BOOM! Studios (1616, and spend a little less on your damn booth so you can pay your creators). Scholastic (1232 and 1233) is off on its own, and includes the Graphix imprint, which means Raina Telgemeier, Kazu Kibuishi, Baby Sitters Club, BONE, and I don’t know how many other mega-titles. Yen Press (1134) is ove there too, and I’ve probably missed a bunch.

  But the significant thing is, about 20 aisles west of Iron Circus, I’m noting an entire section given over to graphic novels and an Artist Alley (which I think is a new development). There you’ll find Ngozi Ukazu (3934), Yuko Ota & Ananth Hirsh (3936), Ru Xu (3938), Tess Stone (3940), Brian Clevinger (3951) — basically, the entire George Rohac lineup) — along with names such as Jim Rugg, Gene Ha, and Top Shelf/IDW.

  It’s into this new acknowledgment of the importance of comics in reading that Booklist, a publication of the ALA, will be letting everybody get back from Annual and then take a couple of weeks to sort through what they brought home before diving into a free two-part webinar on graphic novels. The first features BOOM!, Diamond distributors (ick), Image Comics, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Scholastic. It’ll be at 1:00pm CDT (GMT-05:00) on Tuesday, 9 July. Want to see where libraries are going with comics? Yeah, you do, because that’s the first step to getting yours included.

• On the far side of the continent from Washington, DC you’ll find San Francisco and the Cartoon Art Museum. They’d like to remind you that one of their current exhibitions looks at teens and their teenness via the medium of comics. Specifically they’d like you to know that the selection of modern teen comics published by BOOM! Studios from the exhibition abstract includes originals from pencils to finished work:
  

  Before and after: ‘Giant Days’ (@lbtreiman, @smashpansy, @badmachinery) and ‘Lumberjanes’ (@BrooklynAAllen, @PencilCat, @Gingerhazing, @shanito) — now featured as part of our #teenage comics retrospective. @boomstudios @Lumberjanes

  Obligatory moment to note that Giant Days will be ending in just a few issues, sniff. But dang, Max Sarin can draw pretty pictures.

Spam of the day:

Alzheimer’s!

That superfluous exclamation makes me think you’re trying to reference the title of a Broadway musical. You know, Allllllllllzheimer’s, where the wait what was I saying?

Hey, did you see the news? You probably saw the news. The news is good:

Steven Universe The Movie ?…? is a musical!!!? Featuring all NEW songs by @rebeccasugar in collaboration with @chancetherapper @EstelleDarlings @PattiLuPone @UzoAduba @SoGallant @aimeemann and more! #stevenuniversethemovie #stevenuniverse #cartoonnetwork

Steven Universe: The Movie, readers will recall, was announced at SDCC last July, with your humble hack webcomics pseudojournalist nailing an interview with lead character designer Becky Dreistadt minutes after the announcement. Since then, we’ve seen huge amounts of Steven lore — Homeworld, White Diamond, the healing of the corrupted gems on Earth, what could have served as a finale for the series.

Rumors have swirled about the movie — it takes place after a time jump, it takes place immediately after the season 5 wrapup, it’ll be the last of Steven Universe — but little definitive until the announcement:

• It’s a musical! With music-heavy episodes like Mr Greg under their belts, and with the Crewniverse only getting better at songwriting, I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am. Delightedly so.
• Artists collaborating with Rebecca Sugar include Aimee Mann (Opal’s back!) and Chance the Rapper, and the guy who dropped tight rhymes as Eff-Nocka is a co-executive producer.
• It’s not the end of the show.

Apart from that, who knows? Me, I’m holding out for a time skip of sufficient duration that we find out if Steven inherits Greg’s hairline or not. Oh, and apparently we’ll get physical media — DVD, soundtrack (probably including vinyl) — by end of the year. It’s a good year to be a Steven Universe fan, and we’re all lucky to have Rebecca Sugar’s vision¹ of what a kinder world looks like. We’ll undoubtedly learn more in about a month at this year’s SDCC Steven Universe panel.

Spam of the day:

hotty Desire Fleen: The Awkward Christmas Dinner Of Our Obligation To Existence

I think they’re trying to say that a hotty (possibly plural hotties) desire Fleen? I mean, it’s a website, so I’m not sure what that would look like?

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¹ Speaking of, this year’s Studio Ghibli Fest — where classic Ghibli movies are simulcast to local theaters in both dubbed and subtitled versions — will be premiering Whisper Of The Heart‘s first major North American theatrical release on 1 (dub) and 2 (sub) July, with a special introduction by Rebecca Sugar. Details on which theaters are participating in the simulcast and advanced ticket sales here.

Subsequent releases this season include Kiki’s Delivery Service (late July), My Neighbor Totoro (late August), The Secret World Of Arriety (late September), Spirited Away (late October, spooooky), Princess Mononoke (late November), and The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya (mid December).

[Editor’s note: Today, Fleen concludes the recap of last week’s bandes dessinées festival in Lyon, courtesy of Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin.

Lyon BD has always been an international festival, but it was particularly visible this year with the presence, hot off their appearance in NCSFest, of Charlie Adlard, Bill Morrison, and Steve and Luke McGarry, the latter of which was responsible for this edition’s poster. Their lines were packed whenever they were signing, unfortunately precluding me from meeting these big names, but I was able to meet other international creators such as Ariel Vittori and Natalie Nourigat on Sunday; I was especially interested in the latter’s I Moved To Los Angeles To Work In Animation (which I ate up on the trip back, very interesting even though I has little relationship with my trade of software engineering, you should check it out), and we were able to chat and discuss differences between the Euro and North American comics signing systems, since she has experience with both. I also had Jim Jourdane sign his Fieldwork Fail: while not an international creator, his book is available in English, though it seems you’ll have to catch him to get a copy after his online store had to close.

Another Sunday highlight was the Badass (sic) exhibition: Sandrine Garage, who has been helping organize Lyon BD for some time already, took it upon herself to see whether there were now enough comic book heroines to be worth showcasing, 6 years after the first Héro-ïne-s exhibition, and there were. Rather than commission imaginary covers, she was able to showcase 10 actual, published comic book heroines that have in common that they don’t conform to stereotypes, including that of the strong female character: instead, they do what they want to do; one may be bold, while also being empathetic (and they made sure to display the pages showing that), while another heroine may be friendly to everyone while having a tendency to take responsibility to solve every single problem in the valley. Akissi and Aster were featured, but also Ben Hatke’s Zita the Spacegirl and Cece Bell’s El Deafo, giving it a worldwide scope. In between the various heroines, pages of Miron Malle’s comic book on feminism concepts, The League Of Super Feminists, were featured. However, they did solicit visitors in creating their own badass heroines, and they obliged.

But Sunday was most interesting for its interviews, beginning with that of Pénélope Bagieu. Of particular interest were these bits:

• While she has to focus on one project at a time, she likes to alternate between personal projects and boring ones, the latter of which to allow her to recharge and remind her why she sets out to plunge on multi-year personal projects. In fact, at the end of a project she tends to be unable to work on much, trying to start new stories but failing, though by no mean remaining unoccupied as she devolves some time to the promotion of the just completed project (book tours, etc.), until such time as the sparks strikes again and she dives back in a new project.
• No one has so far managed to publish Brazen in Arabic; the only publisher who was interested started demanding a long list of absurd changes which she gave up on reading halfway through, such as not showing women who smoke, at which point she told them she might as well remove all women and avoiding them the trouble of publishing the book. She did mention breasts having to be covered and the story of Phulan Devi having to be removed from the U.S. edition, explaining to the audience the particularity of the young adult positioning of the book in the U.S., in no small reason because comics books are still thought as being for children there and are hard to sell to adults, relating feedback such as I bought it for my daughter, and couldn’t believe I was enjoying it myself. But she was proud to mention she successfully fought back more meaningful censorship, such as when the Polish publisher wanted to remove any mention of abortion, while she refused, and she won as it ended up being published there without any cut in that regard. Ironically even when censorship happens there is no mention of it: the only disclaimer that was added to the U.S. version was a warning that elements in the books should not all be taken literally, due to the duality in the U.S. market of fiction/non-fiction and Brazen being sold as non-fiction, and the fear of fact-checkers coming e.g. for the campus restaurant background gag in Agnodice’s story. On the other hand while there was less censorship there Russia made sure to physically slap the book with a forbidden to minors badge, due to the references to homosexuality.
• She is currently working on a comic book adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, which she is very excited about: she takes it to be the best Roald Dahl book. The idea of a comic adaptation of a Roald Dahl book came from Dahl’s estate, which proposed it to Gallimard, their French publisher, and that is how she was proposed the job. However, Gallimard initially proposed adapting Matilda, and while she loves the book, its relative lack of action did not strike her as making it particularly suited for a comics adaptation (that, and people’s idea of the universe tend to be shaped by the 1996 movie, not to mention Quentin Blake’s illustrations), so she made a counter-proposal to Gallimard of adapting The Witches, which the Dahl estate accepted. It will simultaneously come out in French and English beginning of 2020, which means she’s glad it is going to beat the Zemeckis movie to market and not be taken to be the book of the movie.

Then later in the afternoon, as the last event of the day, it was Boulet’s turn to be interviewed in a similar setup, and … wait, what are these people queueing in the stairs for? Oh, come on, it can’t be for the room where the Boulet interview will take place, it’s too far!? Well, turns out that is what it was for that. I swear, I never intended for the Lyon BD festival to conclude with the sight of Boulet’s mile-long line to be a running gag, but here we are; except that in the case of a panel/interview/etc., it’s not that you have to wait hours for your turn, it’s that the room is full before you have a chance to enter. So I am unfortunately unable to report on anything that happened there. I’m going to have to start showing up 15 minutes early whenever Boulet is involved from now on …
[Editor’s note: Nobody tell him about the Hall H camp-out lines in San Diego.]

Spam of the day:

It’s 2019 and yes! you can now burn fat without exercising!

I do that all the time, unless you count trying to put out a grease flash on my stovetop as exercise.

So this came across my Twitterfeed a little bit ago:

Earlier this year, we announced that we’d partnered with @kickstarter to build a new platform to succeed @drip. Today, we’re announcing that we’re cancelling the project. We wrote a little about why.

To catch everybody up, Kickstarter was turning the task of building a Patreon-killer over to The Andys. It held out great promise. The reason that Drip: The Next Generation is not gonna happen? Economics:

Our platform would prioritize the large population of smaller creators in our community, with a focus on raising up work from new and marginalized artists. We were designing strong community moderation tools, and writing progressive policies and guidelines. Discovery and curation would be based on personal recommendations, rather than an over-reliance on algorithms.

Ultimately, we couldn’t find a way to make the business viable. We explored a number of different options—voluntary subscriptions from users, premium features, increased fees—but the resources required to support a high number of lower-volume creators always outpaced our revenue. [emphasis mine]

A few thoughts:

The lack of business viability is disturbing. I’ve been operating under the assumptions that Patreon has been bungling a golden egg situation, and trying to bleed creators with their various pricing scheme changes. But what if that’s not the case? I’m not aware of any public number from Patreon on its burn rate, which means we don’t know if it’s actually making money. Their emphasis on the biggest creators (the opposite approach of The Andys) may alter the math somewhat, but what if they don’t have a positive cash flow?

What if they’re Uber, but for subscriptions?

Uber, remember, has lost money on every ride, and only maintains negative double-digit profit margins (as opposed to triple digits) by knuckling their drivers. They cannot make money in any rational economic manner of free exchange of goods and services, only by subsidizing the growth process of crushing existing for-hire services, then shifting costs to their employees. Now Patreon’s creators aren’t like Uber’s drivers, but if Patreon cannot make money without VC support, the eventual crash of this (again, Uber-like) quasi-monopoly will be devastating. A few super-rich people will have gotten richer, a series of moderately rich people will lose their investments, and a lot of people that depend on the service for income will be SOL.

Quoting again from The Andys:

We were intent on running a sustainable and independent business. Even if we went the traditional route and raised venture capital, it didn’t appear likely to survive once that funding ran out. We were building this for the community we care about, and many of the artists and creators in our community are already financially insecure and vulnerable. The idea of launching something with so much uncertainty and risk felt irresponsible and unfair. [emphasis mine]

That’s a wholly ethical and admirable thing — they aren’t going to take people along for the ride if they don’t have confidence where they’ll end up. It’s a huge disappointment for everybody that was waiting for an actually viable Patreon competitor (or replacement), and noneso more than early adopters:

We’re working with our friends at Kickstarter to help migrate the remaining Drip beta creators elsewhere. And then we’re returning the remaining seed funding back to Kickstarter.

There’s the collateral damage in all of this — the people who’d made the shift to Drip (as it is now) were waiting for the new platform, but since it’s not happening and Kickstarter announced that they were shutting down Drip in favor of The New Thing, those folks have limited options. It’s going to be an uncertain time for those that were on Drip, and I think it’s only going to magnify down the line.

Editor’s note: Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin continues his reporting of the French comics festival scene.

Setting up a festival of the scale of Lyon BD is never an easy task, but this year they had their work cut out for them. For instance, terror level in France as a whole has abated somewhat since 2017, when I first went; but the explosion of an abandoned package which wounded about a dozen people (they’re all out of the hospital by now) in the center of Lyon mere weeks before the event was undoubtedly responsible for heightened security: mainly, the need to show an ID before entering the main festival spaces on Saturday, and the need for tickets to be nominative, which was completely unplanned. As a result, at the ticket booth vendors had to manually write down the name of the attendee on the tickets, slowing down the sales process and lengthening the lines.¹

Given that context, my Saturday went remarkably well. I took advantage of the lack of panels in the morning to check out local creator Phiip and his Lapin crew (Marc Dubuisson, Cy, Tim, etc.), and catch up on their latest releases. Same with Thom Pico (who I met for the first time on this occasion, allowing me to congratulate him for not talking down to kids in his writing, and he was glad I noticed that) and Karensac, whose Aster is slated to be released in English by Random House in 2020.

[Editor’s note: I’d been wondering when another imprint would challenge the essentially free reign :01 Books has had with grabbing the pick of Franco-Belgian comics for re-release in the US; it’s not surprising that it’s Gina Gagliano that’s taken up the banner.]

Then the afternoon was the occasion to get to the LGBTI+ comics event (the second edition, meaning the first wasn’t a one-off), where I bought a zine from Anna Lkiss and Holly Rectum, where each of them tells how they found out they were non-binary. Then a number of panels and events on Chilean comics (including a zine created by women, the latest edition of which they made wordless, in order to present their work abroad), on migrants entering France through the Roya valley north of Nice, and on making the invisible visible, where creators of a “hobo mom” story, of a story of a Roma family tricked into emigrating to France then getting trapped into debt by the human traffickers, and of a story of emigration from Africa to Europe, exchanged on their processes for bringing these stories to life. For instance, Christian Lax, creator of the latter story, told he took advantage of a partnership with a museum and mixed that with a migration theme to create the story of a man saving an African art artifact from Muslim fanatics by taking it with him in Europe.

Come back soon for coverage of the third day, including U.S. and English creators, Pénélope Bagieu, and Boulet.

Spam of the day:

This revolutionary lightbulb camera is driving home security companies out of business

Yeah, under no circumstances am I putting an unvetted wi-fi attached camera on my home so that you assholes can either stripmine the video for your own purposes, or leave it exposed to the world. Bugger off.

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¹ Oh, and the Lyon city hall was searched by police mere days before the festival following an inquiry involving the mayor, though I have no idea whether that affected festival activities.

I wished to neither take away from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin’s report from Lyon BD below, nor to ignore an act of remarkable longevity on the part of Howard Tayler:

Today, June 12th, 2019, marks the 19th anniversary of Schlock Mercenary on the web. The comic has updated daily, every day, without fail, for nineteen years now. Not because I’m a machine, but because I plan ahead, and have always had smarter people than myself handling the automation.

Don’t let him fool you, he is a machine. Or at least, more machine now than man, and the best evil twin I could ask for. Well done, let’s see what twenty (and maybe the wrap-up of the story of Schlock?) looks like.