For those who are new around here, there’s this thing called #ComicsCamp, run by the fine folks at Alaska Robotics (which is a comics shop¹, game shop, art supply shop, and gallery) in Juneau, and it involves bringing creative folks into schools, public events, and a one-day convention before giving them a weekend of recharging and also s’mores. I’ve been privileged to attend three times now, and you can read about my previous experiences at Camp here, here, here, here, and here. Those two series will read differently from each other, and from the one that’s starting now — Camp’s a living, breathing thing, and it changes.

It started for me a couple of days before my travel with a bit of a panic — the SSD in my laptop decided it had reached end of life and bricked itself good; there’s a hard drive in there, too, but it was a tense couple of hours getting Linux reinstalled and data salvaged. Fortunately, I keep a bootable USB drive attached to the power converter cable, so I didn’t have to go searching too far. The whole thing’s a lot slower than it used to be (or should be), but that’s an issue for later this week; it got me through what it needed to, which was ensuring that the creator presentations for one of the public events — about which more momentarily — were tested and projectable.

In addition to seeing a swathe of Campers arrive, Thursday 25 April also saw public events: storytime and a ‘zine making workshop at one of the Juneau public libraries², the Juneau Makerspace got some hands-on puzzle-cutting knowledge from the master, and a lecture by Ryan North on How To Invent Everything which he should know, on account of he wrote a book that tells you how to do exactly that. In case you’re looking for the high points, they include:

• Young Ryan first became aware of the notion of time travel when he was six and saw Back To The Future for the first time; it made an impression³ and he was particularly struck by the Chuck Berry scene and thus had an appreciation of the Bootstrap Paradox at a far younger age than most of us.
• Having decided to write what is surely The Most Dangerous Book In History, North found himself staring down literally years, plural, of research⁴ to determine not only what the key technologies of human history are, but also how to create them from first principles while simultaneously not imparting knowledge that might hurt or kill his readers. This led to what may have been the most existentially self-evident question of all when North asked himself (and I quote):
  

  Have I accidentally decided to do something impossible?

  Again??

• But he persevered, and found within all that research to find a key thought re: human inventiveness and creativity; namely We are not as smart as we think we are. He rattled off a series of key inventions in history — human flight, or the stethoscope⁵ — and found that they came about centuries or millennia after we had the basic parts and just failed to put them together⁶. In the case of arguably the greatest invention in human history⁷ — written language, which allows us to preserve knowledge across time, space, and culture — we were about 200,000 years late.
• The more basic the technology, the later we were, and the further back in time you go, the worse things get. Now-ubiquitous crops were terrible, people died because they didn’t know to wash their damn selves, and the only positive of the past is that if you do end up there, you can name things after yourself.

One thing you should know about Juneau is that it’s basically the same as Portland or Seattle, just smaller; you’ve got great food (shouts-out to The Rookery Cafe and In Bocca Al Lupo, who both fed more than their share of Campers before and after our time off-grid, and the astonishingly good Coppa Ice Cream), great cultural institutions, and great people. Give them something fun to do, and they’ll arrive in droves, as they did for the Kickoff Event at the Valley branch of the JPL. In addition to music from the Marian, Seth & Maria Rockin’ Teenage Combo, you had:

• Cat Farris reading from her graphic novel, My Boyfriend Is A Bear. Fun fact! Farris and I spent several days bonding over our greyhounds, because greyhound people are the best people.
• Molly Muldoon talking about how to solve a murder all Agatha Christie style. Fun fact! Muldoon’s rules for dealing with murderers left an impression on everybody who went to Camp, and who spent a great deal of time making sure there were extra exits from everyplace. Can’t be too careful!
• Alex Graudins explaining how improv can help you make friends and be more creative in all aspects of life. Fun fact! Graudins illustrated Science Comics: The Brain, and included dearly beloved and sadly departed pooch Reginald Barkley in three cameos, not two as I’d previously counted.
• Alison Wilgus explained Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation, and why it’s such a jerk. Fun fact! I have one about Wilgus’s trademark red glasses, but it’s not my story to tell. Sorry!
• Gale Galligan shared her knowledge of bunnies, who are adorable but also super gross. Fun fact! I am not kidding, what rabbits do with poop is gross.
• Dik Pose spoke about baseball. Fun fact! You don’t need a presentation to talk baseball; just like on the radio, a voice and some imagination is pretty much the purest expression of following the game.
• Michael Grover shared comics about starting a band when you’re a ghost and have no hands. Fun fact! Don’t feel bad, Jake Spooky, many bass players have never played bass, or even seen a bass.
• David Malki ! talked about the social history of beards. There was other stuff in there, but it was really about beards. Fun fact! The band’s musical outro was an improvised, lyrics-ignored version of Wonderwall, chosen solely so that Wondermark could be sung in the chorus.
• Tony Cliff read his forthcoming children’s book, Let’s Get Sleepy. Fun fact! There are enough Tonys Cliff in the world that trying to search for this Tony Cliff and Let’s Get Sleepy produces a lot of results on Marxist class struggle.
• Jen Wang talked about chickens, which come in a bewildering variety of sizes, colors, and shapes. Fun fact! There are hen-to-rooster trans chickens.
• Tillie Walden read Shel Silverstein poems. Fun fact! Silverstein wrote more great poems that conventional mathematics can count; for every one of his poems you love, there are dozens that other people love just as much.
• Lucy Bellwood talked about Jeanne Baret, who defied expectations and traveled the world cataloging and categorizing botanical specimens for pre-Revolution France. Fun fact! Baret collected and described more than 6000 species, but the gentleman of society who sponsored her took all the credit and named a couple dozen species after himself. She got one plant named for her like five years ago.
• Shing Yin Khor talked about the numerous dinosaur statues — some of which bear only passing resemblance to what we know about actual dinosaurs — of Holbrook, Arizona. Fun fact: the dinostatue:human resident ratio of Holbrook (approximately 1:149) is much greater than either the whalestatue:human resident or dogstatue:human resident ratios of Juneau (both approximately 1:32,000).

Afterwards, local Camp helper-organizers Rob & Pagan volunteered their lovely home for dinner and dessert supplied by Coppa. At Pat Race’s request, they came up with a Squirrel Girl-themed ice cream called Eat Nuts And Kick Butts (peanut butter with salted caramel ribbons and a chocolate layer on top). Ryan North, naturally, was given the honor of the first scoop which turned out to be necessary, as the solid-frozen carton required a Ryan-sized man’s strength to break through. It took some doing, but he ultimately succeeded; it was a good omen for the days to come.

Pictures:
Juneau is a fabulously beautiful place, and given the landscape found all around, there is little surprise that it’s a vertical city. I once made the mistake of trying to go to a restaurant by the most direct route and wound up taking four separate sets of outdoor staircases.

Remember what I said about arriving in droves? This crowd came out at 6:00pm on a Friday night.

Remember what I said about Coppa’s ice cream? Here’s the Peeps flavor, with real decapitated Peeps throughout. And here’s the ENAKB variety being duly selfied by North, who then did his best ceremonial ribbon cutting pose for the crowd. It proved to be a hard-frozen challenge requiring mighty struggle, but in the end it was worth it.

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¹ And a damn fine one, too. So fine, in fact, that they’ve been nominated for the Eisner Spirit of Comics retailer award this year. If you’re an Eisner voter, Pat Race, Aaron Suring, and everybody at AK Robotics are stellar human beings with a real sense of service for their community.

² The one on Douglas Island, one of three in the Juneau Public Libraries system, all of which saw events.

³ To the degree that he wrote an e-book that is a page-by-page deep reading of the novelization of Back To The Future, which among other things has Opinions on the subject of Mr Strickland. What I am saying is that Ryan North has probably thought a lot more about time travel — real and fictional — than you or me.

⁴ He was maybe halfway into the process when we spoke about it at Camp 2017.

⁵ The only time something was invented, North reminds us, because somebody was too horny to otherwise do their job.

⁶ Or, in the case of the compass, neglected to put it to its practical use. Rather than navigation, the Chinese originally used compasses for fortune telling.

⁷ No, not dogs. Humanity has domesticated about 16 different species, and only dogs are workmates, guardians, helpers, and friends that know our minds and read our expressions. Given how thoroughly and completely they have tied their lives to ours, it’s reasonable to say they domesticated themselves, or at least deserve credit for the assist.

For those of you that were wondering, it’s been 15 hours and 4 time zones since I got up.

Also in case you were wondering, because I probably will not have another chance to write this before it becomes old news, the Cartoon Art Museum has stuff going on for Free Comic Book Day, Saturday of next week:

• CAM’s “first Saturday” workshops summer season kicks off with a special set of themed lessons on Saturday, May 4th. In celebration of Free Comic Book Day, participants will learn how to make their own mini-comic. Kids 7 to 13 years old can catch the 1:00pm to 2:30pm session, and those 14 and up can come by at 3:00pm to 4:30pm; cost is US$20, with a 15% discount for CAM members. Similar sessions will also run the first Saturday of June, July, and August.
• Anticipating the release of the Detective Pikachu movie release on Friday the 10th, there will be a Sketch-a-thon on the 4th Local artists will be drawing pictures related to Detective Pikachu in the museum lobby, and free Pokegoodies given away. This event is free and open to the public, 11:00am to 5:00pm.
• And, of course, Saturday the fourth is also Star Wars Day, and you can also craft your own paper lightsaber, with materials provided, from 11:00am to 5:00pm.

Okay, still got things to do before this very long day is done. See you when I see you.

[Editor’s note: Postings this week are going to be brief (as I prepare for) or absent entirely (as I travel to and attend) on account of Alaska Robotics Mini-Con on Saturday and the adjacent events. For that matter, you probably won’t get anything out of me next week as I’ll be away from network and/or traveling and/or recuperating. We thank you in advance for your patience.]

• Evan Dahm’s latest Overside tale, Vattu, is reaching a point in the story that feels like the end game is approaching. The overall plot is at an inflection point — the emperor is dead, plots swirl around the succession, at least two communities of ex-pats are in various stages of revolt, and another of individual exiles is in upheaval — and there are arcs around the main characters to wrap up. What better time to release the 1000th page of the saga, as Dahm did yesterday?

  If you think that reading the whole damn thing to date (which is a very good use of your time, let me assure you) is too taxing via the website (I sympathize, I can’t read big story chunks online), I refer you to the two books that tell the first roughtly-half of the story (nearly six hundred pages worth!), and a third one is about to ship to Kickstarter backers. In the meantime, everybody congratulate Dahm, and I’ll see you in the depths of the Blue Age.

• Less than three weeks out seems to be not the time to announce new special guests, but you are not TCAF, who add on until the very last moment before opening their doors. The newest tranche of guests from around the world includes Seth, Bessora, Margreet de Heer, Erica Henderson, Kid Koala, Rachel Lindsay, Jonathan Ng, Richard Marazano, Alex Norris, Émilie Plateau, Jérémie Royer, David Rubin, Hiromi Takashima, Typex, Jhonen Vasquez, and Chip Zdarsky¹.

  TCAF will happen in and around the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street) on Saturday 11 May (9:00am to 5:00pm) and Sunday 12 May (10:00am to 5:00pm). Attendance is free, but some events will require tickets to control crowding.

Spam of the day:

Stop What You Are Doing And Look At This Very Good Offer !!

This Very Good Offer includes a coupon so I can advertise on Bing. I do not think you know what constitutes goodness with respect to offers.

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¹ Who for once is at the end of the alphabet instead of that bastard Jim Zub².

² Jim Zub was kind enough to send a preview copy of issue #2 of his current comiXology series, Stone Star. As you may recall from launch day last month, issue #1 impressed me, and I can safely say that issue #2 builds on that framework and ramps up the narrative.

And, uh, looks like Zub’s now the last person to be mentioned in this post. Sorry, Chipster.

Like, a bunch more Homestuck dropped about five minutes ago.

Can’t imagine why I’m so distracted today.

One thing that helped my focus, though? Called the office of my Congressional representative to make clear that it is utterly necessary to begin the process of impeachment. It will not be quick — the process for the previous title-holder of Most Corrupt And Venal Piece Of Garbage To Occupy The White House took somewhere between six and fourteen months, depending on when you want to say it started. It won’t be easy, it will be divisive (but no more so than allowing the present state of affairs to continue), but it is gods-damned necessary.

So. Call your representatives, since that’s where things start. Chairman Nadler’s subpoena for the full, unredacted Mueller Report is a good start, but it must be made clear — the power being exercised in the executive is illegitimate, the daily violations of the emoluments clause unconstitutional, and the damage to the country by all associated with this administration are not tolerable until a new election. The time to compel testimony, build a case, and refer for trial in the Senate is past. We are either a self-governing people, or we are not.

I want to introduce you to Dr Leah Misemer, who is a postdoc at Georgia Tech¹ and assistant director of GT’s Communication Center. She researches comics, how they can be used by marginalized audiences to find community, and the use of comics in the fields of medicine and allied health. She teaches students about using comics as a mechanism for civic engagement, and to think about all the ways that comics reach audiences.

She’s had students in her Webcomics And Digital Culture course doing research on the structural nature of webocmics, and the niche they occupy in the online landscape. The resulting exhibition (which is, appropriately enough, online) is now up and running, and you may wish to check out Webcomics, Print, And Digital Culture: Speaking W/O Limit.

The exhibition is built around a series of collections, each examining a central theme:

• Building Community looks at everything from how audiences congregate in forums to how the societally disadvantaged can find places to congregate without fear or judgment.
• Online Identity looks at how authors can express themselves through their creations, particularly via autobio comics.
• Digital Affordances looks at the unique capabilities of online vs print; alt-text, animation, the sheer scope of Homestuck are all present, but so is the bit where you can change Dinosaur Comics to alternate forms by messing with the URL.
• Digital Vs Print is exactly what it says on the tin; it might be a superset of the other themes, in fact.
• Global Reach is probably the collection you should read first, in that we here at Fleen have (by necessity of language if nothing else) a clear tendency towards English-language webcomics in general, and North American webcomics in particular (the efforts of FSFCPL notwithstanding). Even accounting for that, there’s a whole dang world out there making webcomics, and we don’t really talk about them except for when The Nib introduces us again to somebody doing great work in yet another corner of the world.
• Diversity Of Purpose looks at how webcomics can always find a niche. A webcomic can be about depression or transition or cancer, or it can be about wacky things that happen in a library, or even (in a few cases, at least I’ve heard of such) about a coupla’ guys on a couch playing videogames. It’s all fair game.
• Case Study: xkcd, which was chosen because it exemplifies all of the other themes in one handy combo platter of stick figures. So, so many stick figures.

There will be interpretations you don’t agree with², there will be stuff that leaves you scratching your head³, but I can pretty much promise it’ll make you consider aspects of this weird, wonderful world o’ webcomics that had never occurred to you before. And ten internet points to anybody that can produce arguments for which of the theme criteria Fleen meets.

Spam of the day:

I’ d tried everything to beat my E.D… But when I injected Thai street drugs directly into my penis… Let’ s just say, things went too far. They nearly amputated my ” Johnson” with a scalpel…

This email, in case you were wondering, features the subject line Secrets to perfect female satisfaction, but appears to have completely forgotten the clitoris. So, yeah.

_______________
¹ It is not known if she is a ramblin’ wreck.

² I found the Digital Vs Print and Digital Affordances sections to be overlapping substantially, and would have personally combined them into one collection, adding in a collection examining how webcomics typically are creator-owned and do away with editorial/corporate control over material. A webcomic’s audience is the reader, where a corporate comic’s audience is the editor or publisher. This idea is, to be fair, addressed to a degree in the Diversity Of Purpose collection.

³ For example, whoever described Girls With Slingshots as The webcomic follows a group of friends who are all members of the LGBTQ community and their day-to-day experiences seems to have overlooked a raft of characters (Maureen, Clarice, Candy, Hazel’s mom, Jameson, Melody, Chris, Zach) and especially how Hazel — who is arguably the closest stand-in for the creator — is sometimes uncomfortable with her best friend’s queerness.

There’s also a description of Scenes From A Multiverse using few digital affordances, which overlooks the polling feature that SFAM was originally designed around. I get it, students at GT are in demanding majors and this is a humanities elective; they don’t necessarily have time to go back through a decade or more of archive. But I will never understand how anybody described Homestuck as convenient while keeping a straight face.

NNnnnnnnokay, I think I can get through this post without reminding you about the Alaska Robotic Mini-Con, which will take place on Saturday, 27 April (plus lead-up events) in Juneau Alaska. Probably. Let’s see what’s up at our friend, the Cartoon Art Museum, instead.

• This Saturday, 20 April, CAM hosts Rob Rogers as he talks about his editorial cartoon collection, Enemy Of The People, and how he got fired for not being willing to be Ben Garrison-lite. The talk (and signing to follow) is free, and starts at 2:00pm at CAM, 781 Beach Street in San Francisco.
• The following Saturday and Sunday (that would be the 27th and 28th¹), the Queer Comics Expo will take place at the museum, from 11:00am to 5:00pm, including the announcement of the 2019 Prism Award nominees. Maia Kobabe (who has a current Artist Showcase in advance of the release of Gender Queer: A Memoir, coming this summer from Lion Forge) will be the featured guest. QCE doesn’t have a dedicated site, per se, so check them Facebook or Twitter for info on exhibitors and programming. Tickets run from free (for CAM members) to US$10/day at the door.
• The Saturday after that is, of course, Free Comic Book Day, and CAM is getting in on the fun. By spending the day visiting comics-oriented shops up and down the Bay, you can get fabulous stuff in addition to the requisite free comic books:
  

  The Comic Shop Hop is a comic book store scavenger hunt throughout the entire Bay Area. Participants will go from store to store filling up their passport as they go along, tracking their progress from store to store.

  All participants who visit two or more comic shops and submit their passport to the Comic Shop Hop Google Form will be entered into a Free Comic Book Day prize raffle.

  Anybody visiting two or more locations for passport stamps gets entered for the lowest tier prize, the mid-tier is open to those that get stamped in five ore more locations (or visit two to four and purchase in at least two of them), and the top tier is for those that get stamps in ten or more locations (or visit five to nine and purchase in at least five of them).

  Passports are available in any of the participating shops or CAM; hours vary from location to location, so click on the location names in that map to see who’s open when. More information is available by calling (415) 227-8666 or emailing either membership or education at cartoonart.org.

Spam of the day:

We have sent you a message
An email containing confidential personal information was sent to you

Yes, because the US Postal Service (who are the fake senders of this spam) are famous for providing delivery of electronic mail and not physical mail.

_______________
¹ For those of you not going to Juneau … dammit!

That would be the show poster for Alaska Robotics Mini-Con, which has announced more of the goings-on in and around the show on Saturday the 27th. To wit:

• For those in town as early as Thursday the 25h, Chris Yates will be running a puzzle making workshop at the Juneau Makerspace, and Ryan North will be teaching you how to invent everything at the Juneau Downtown Library. Times for both TBA.
• Friday features the traditional kickoff event at the Mendenhall Valley Public Library, with snacks at 5:00pm and the variety show (music, short presentations of Mini-Con exhibitors) at 6:00pm. This will follow a full day of school visits by creators, leaving no school unvisited.
• Saturday will be the show itself, as well as a workshop on making picture books at the Alaska State Museum from 12:00pm to 3:00pm, and talks at KTOO and the Zach Gordon Youth Center; these will include drawing hangouts, a stop-motion animation rig, Sculpey monster-making with Shing Yin Khor, and talks by Kazu Kibuishi, Raina Telgemeier, Jen Wang, Gale Galligan, and Tillie Walden.

Speaking of Tillie Walden, I should note that the LA Times Festival Of Books named Walden’s On A Sunbeam the 2018 Festival Book Prize winner in the Graphic Novel category. If you haven’t read it you really should.

Speaking of awards, the Slate/Center For Cartoon Studies Cartoonist Studio Prize winners for 2019 were announced today, with the honors (and a thousand dollars cash money) going to Chlorine Gardens by Keiler Roberts (Best Print Comic) and Being An Artist And A Mother by Lauren Weinstein (Best Web Comic).

As previously noted, Nancy was nominated in the Best Web Comic category which remains a head-scratcher. It’s still the best thing on the newspaper page in the past decade or more and if you aren’t reading it you need to start reading it. That being said, congratulations to Roberts and Weinstein, and to all the nominees.

Spam of the day:

Open An Augusta© Gold IRA

No. Just … no.

A pair of comics shows had announcements about guest appearances today. One is large, one is HUGE.

• Large: The Nerd Prom in San Diego announced its second tranche of special guests, and within the group of six were two with webcomics roots.

  Carey Pietsch does the art for Mages Of Mystralia, and has worked on everything from a Meredith Gran-penned Marceline & Prubs miniseries to Lumberjanes to a series of self-published comics; seems like every SPX and MoCCA, she’d have a new story.

  But these days she’s best known, and most likely achieved Special Guest statues, for her collaboration with La Familia McElroy to adapt The Adventure Zone. The first book was a hoot and the second (which drops the day before SDCC Preivew Night) hasn’t lost a step (at least, judging by the preview excerpt that :01 Books sent me. The McElroys appear to be settling into their characters and their shared story, and the humor is sharper, the running gags have more legs, and Pietsch is throwing even more little bits into the background to satisfy the obsessive fans.

  The other is Randall Munroe, who generally keeps a low profile, but who also has a major book coming out this year. If there’s one thing that publishers who work with wildly creative webcomics types (cf: Ryan North), giving them a platform to be themselves in public pays off in interest and sales. San Diego Comic Con runs from 18-21 July, with Preview Night on the 17th.

  If you don’t have badges lined up already you probably won’t get in, but then again a lot more of the happenings around SDCC happen outside the convention center. But then again again, if you didn’t get in on the Hotel Rodeo last Thursday (and more importantly, hear from the hotel folks tomorrow that you got a room), you may not be able to say in the same metropolitan statistical area as the convention center.

• HUGE: The Alaska Robotics Mini-Con takes place next weekend in Juneau, Alaska. There will be school visits on Friday 26 April, and one day of con activity at the Juneau Arts & Culture Center, with programming in the immediate vicinity at the Alaska State Museum, KTOO, and the Zach Gordon Youth Center. There will be upwards of 60 folks exhibiting, and the show is open and free to the public. So what makes this HUGE?

  Scroll down the list of exhibitors, past graphic novel slingers like Alex Graudins, Alison Wilgus, Cat Farris, Jen Wang, Tillie Walden, Tony Cliff, and Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett. Notice that artistic goofballs Chris Yates and Scott C will both be bringing their distinct forms of whimsy to the show, but keep reading. Scroll past even such names as your Dylans Meconis, Lucies Bellwood, Kazus Kibuishi, and Ryans North, to the biggest name in comics: Raina Telgemeier.

  And then notice this detail:

  Her newest book is Share Your Smile and will debut at the Mini-Con!

  Share Your Smile has a release date of 30 April. The one day Mini-Con is on the 27th. If you’re in Juneau, you will get your hands on Raina’s book about making your own comics before anybody else on the planet and that, my friends, is HUGE. See you in Juneau.

Spam of the day:

Looking for some awesome gadgets to spice up your life?

Thanks to Gmail not displaying images for spam, I’m not sure if this is meant to target people that would be enticed by the manly tactical kinds of gadgets, the everyday carry types of gadgets, or the sexy, lube-dripping types of gadgets. Maybe be more clear in your copy text?

Futhermore, I have a lawn that needs mowing and no time this weekend to do so. I think the 4000+ words you’ve gotten this week on MoCCA Fest 2019 should sustain you until Monday. Enjoy the weekend, friendos.