Dallas/Fort Worth International is my nemesis, the airport that makes no sense, the place with roads that allow no exit, the sanity-stealer … and I say that as somebody whose home airport is Newark. I have to head there in a couple hours, so let’s get this done.

• MoCCA Fest 2018 guests of honor have been announced, and Heidi Mac has the details before even MoCCA’s own site. I’m well familiar with Roz Chast and Mike Mignola, and I’m gratified to see that Nate Powell and Andrew Aydin (of March trilogy renown) are still being recognized for their contributions to John Lewis’s story, and I don’t know Argentinian cartoonist Liniers at all. Looks like a full length-and-breadth spectrum of creators. MoCCA Fest runs 7 & 8 April, in Manhattan, with a hilariously low entrance fee of seven bucks American.
• One of my favorite things that David Malki ! does each year is gather up corrections for a year’s worth of comics and post them for the edification of his readers. The 2017 errata is no exception, with minor fictions “correcting” some gags (#1288; A Real Stand-Up Friend — The rhinoceros is definitely not going to stop doing that), elaborate explications of real-world knowledge (#1285; In which Tax is a Team Sport — a nearly 500 word summary of modern economic theory presented as a counterpoint to the joke premise), and in one case, a sincere correction.

  Originally run as one of the Recipe Comix at Saveur¹, Malki ! did a fabulous reminiscence of his father, via the medium of the salad his father made; in the wake of his own son’s birth, he ran it again at Wondermark, which now features the correction. The original called for a cup of olive oil (!), which is a hell of a lot for a salad featuring the bulk of one head of lettuce, two tomatoes, and a cucumber. As Malki ! explains,

  I have never actually measured how much to use! I always just drizzled it over the salad before tossing. It’s about 4–5 seconds of drizzling, which probably comes out closer to 4–5 tablespoons³.

  Which is much more reasonable, and any that look to the recipe, please use the amended amount unless you like really wet salad. Also, please enjoy the side-by-side comparison at top, and see what other changes Malki ! made over the course of nearly six years.

Spam of the day:

Stripchat Cam Model and Gamer Girl Warlock Princess Bares All in New Interview

Wow. You are a very weird PR agency, if you send around a photo of the cam model in question and don’t even make it one that supports the premise of your headline. I’m not saying send around nudes, but a fully clothed (in very elaborate cosplay, good job on that) is undercutting the subtext (really, it’s just text), i.e.: she’s naked and might be naked for you some day, Gamer Boy. You’re not doing a tease, you’re pissing off the only people that might actually run your spam.

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¹ Thanks to the foresight of then-editor Helen Rosner, who among other things gave Lucy Knisley’s career a hell of a boost², and who has become a friend of the online variety. She’s since moved onto other things, but I was hurt to see the news yesterday that Saveur‘s publishers have instituted draconian layoffs at a profitable magazine that was doing bang-up reporting month after month.

² Rosner is a tireless proponent of the idea that food writing is, at its heart, travel writing, and sent Knisley on fabulous trips to do docu-comics about. Like ten days at a luxury safari resort in Namibia fabulous.

Rosner is also a writer of the highest order herself (and unremittingly hilarious), and made me swoon with a piece she linked earlier this week, writing about the influences and development process of a new typeface for Frere-Jones. Comics nerds are all at least a little bit type nerds, and you owe it to yourself to read that piece; it’s a legit marvel.

³ Depends on what you drizzle it from; my regular pizza dough features a six-count drizzle of olive oil from a gooseneck spout oil can, and it’s closer to 2 tablespoons.

If I can get a stable enough connection for a proper post, I’ll write one. Otherwise, not a lot I can do. in the meantime, at least I’m not as badly off as Sohmer and the Blind Ferret folks, who are dealing with the proverbial idiot with a backhoe.

Everybody send sympathetic thoughts northward. Unless you’re somehow north of Canada, in which case you have your own problems.

Let’s just dive in, shall we?

MARCH:A Graphic History of the Civil Rights Movement By Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
Cartoon Art Museum exhibition: February 1 – June 19, 2018
Reception with Artist Nate Powell Friday, February 9, 2018

— Andrew Farago, Cartoon Art Museum curator

There are few works of graphic fiction more historically important right now than the March trilogy, and it’s entirely right and proper that the Cartoon Art Museum will be kicking off Black History Month with a tribute to the book. Lewis, Aydin, and Powell are treasures.

By this time next month I will either be happily chugging away, drawing An Embarrassment of Witches pages or I will be trudging through a grim, apocalyptic landscape fighting other plague-survivors over post-dated cans of spam. Hopefully the former.

— Sophie Goldstein

Sophie Goldstein is the creator of multiple amazing comic stories (not least being her collaboration with Jenn Jordan on Darwin Carmichael Is Going To Hell), so the news that she’s about to break ground on a 200 page graphic novel is welcome, to say the least. Good luck with the book, Sophie, and good luck fighting off the sickness that everybody seems to have right about now.

Starburns Industries Press, the publishing arm of Starburns Industries (the minds behind Rick & Morty, Community, Anomolisa and so much more) are calling for scary stories written by children aged 12 and under!
As a partnering editor for this project, I’m happy to offer mentoring and advice to any young imaginations looking to submit to this paid writing opportunity! [emphasis original]

— Eben Burgoon, onetime man of mystery, alltimes man of comics

If the opportunity of working with a Starburns-associated title wasn’t enough, I think the notion that it’s a paid gig should put things over the top. More information here about submitting stories to the anthology. Again, this is for writers 12 and under, so pass it along to any budding writers you know (who, if they are reading this post themselves, are about to commit the next sentence to memory for future use).

Diamond can suck my taint.

— C Spike Trotman on the least-loved monopoly in comics

Mostly, I just think that anybody that uses the construction verb my taint (for example, noted First Amendment attorney Ken White is known for his motto snort my taint) should be quoted as often and widely as possible. The fact that it’s Spike talking about how Diamond routinely ignores small press and independent comics that could have seen significant sales success and how much she wants them to notice her¹ is hilarious (as is the descriptor of the quote — a dulcet lilt).

The additional fact that it’s in a Vulture article about multiple companies and individuals breaking the comics industry mold of catering to middle aged cishet white dude cape fans is a delight. Give ‘er a read, and be sure to spare a little sympathy for the poor, neglected CWDCF at your local comics shop who isn’t 100% the center of attention any longer.

Like maybe a taint-suck’s worth.

Spam of they day:

Invokana Users Who Lost Toes, Feet or Legs May Have Legal Recourse

The text of this one reads like I should be checking my lower half and counting my toes, feet, and legs to make sure I haven’t suddenly come up short and didn’t realize.

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¹ For those not familiar, Spike is the least likely person in history to worry about whether or not sempai will notice her.

This may be my professional bias talking, or my innate sense that engineering is the most fun you can have in the physical and mental worlds simultaneously, but there may be nobody taking comics into more exciting directions than Lucas Landherr¹ of Surviving The World. As has been mentioned on this page more than once, Landherr has been making comics (with a variety of artists) to explain the trickier concepts in his discipline (that would be Chemical Engineering²), and of late he’s been inspiring his students to do the same.

As a class project last semester, his students produced new ways of explaining key bits o’ esoteric knowledge, ranging from their own comics (on convection, or heat transfer, or heat exchangers) to video (on heat transfer, or on heat transfer but with a Queen song³). It’s cool stuff, and I get the feeling in that last video that I’ve seen some of the tics that Professor Landherr exhibits in class, and I definitely fear — nearly 30 years distant from my own graduation — to ever take a class with Professor Satvat, judging by how often he shows up in these projects.

From Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin:

Our thanks, as always, to FSFCPL for keeping us up on Gallic comics happenings.

Spam of the day:

Hi Gary,
I saw you tweeting about reading and I thought I’d check out your website. I really like it. Looks like Gary has come a long way!

Not only has Gary come a long way, everything’s coming up Milhouse Gary!

_______________
¹ Alter-ego of mild-mannered chalkboard enthusiast Dante Shepherd.

² Which, as a proud Electrical Engineer, I might concede almost involves more difficulty and scholarship than my own chosen field.

³ Very cool thing I noticed — judging from the clock on the wall in the lecture portion of the video, the Landherr-spoofing scene was done with few (if any) reshoots.

⁴ If you need a refresher, these are comics specifically designed to be read by scrolling on a smartphone screen; they are a big deal (not to mention big business (French-only)) in Japan and South Korea.

Okay, I get that my job really isn’t very difficult, but for the first week back after two weeks off, the ol’ voice is kinda raspy. Vocal chords lose their calluses just like hands do. I’m ready for some relaxation (oh, and Monday probably won’t have an update, as I’ll be in transit for much of it).

Steve Conley, as has been noted on this page in the past, has been making quality comics forever; his current efforts are largely concentrated on The Middle Age, as recently noted. He’s put out a couple of print collections¹ (a chapter at a time, about twice a year) thanks largely to his Patreon supporters, and now he’s joined the challenge known #Make100.

January of last year, if you’ll recall, a series of Kickstarter habitués, launched projects with short timespans, low funding goals, and a limited reward set: just 100 of a given thing available. Conley’s making a set of three Middle Age pins, with just 100 sets being made. 79 of them are up for grabs at US$30 (67 at this writing), another 20 in bundles with the two books for US$45; the last is for Conley himself. The US$900 goal has been met in the first two days, there’s still nearly three weeks to go, and then that’s it.

There’s no point in applying the Fleen Funding Formula Mark II to this one — too small for statistical significance, but if you enjoy rude wizards, well-meaning and occasionally non-oafish heroes, and strangely bad-ass ducks, you should check out the campaign. And if the totals should hit US$2500 (which requires only 76% of the available rewards to be claimed), everybody gets a fourth pin, to be determined by backer voting².

Best thing about these small Kickstarts? Fast turnaround. Estimated delivery for the pins is next month, which means Conley’s already got the art ready to go, his vendor will turn ’em around in a couple weeks, then he just has to have an envelope-stuffing party one night with friends. I bet if you know him and help him with the envelopes, he’ll bring pizza; he’s just that kind of guy.

Spam of the day:

[FREE GIFT] Beginner’s Guide to Bitcoin

I can help you with that: a mysterious guy nobody admits to being decided to overthrow the entire world economy with a new currency — backed by nothing — based on math intensive enough to cause global warming from all the computing cycles it consumes. A large number of Libertarian-inclined types, angry man-children, and Winklevii are betting they can get enough of you interested that they can making a killing and cash out.

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¹ And I should acknowledge that he sent me a copy of the second print collection of TMA over the holidays — thanks, Steve!

² Although let’s be real: one of the candidates is gender-swapped Sir Quimp and this is the internet, which always goes for gender swaps whenever possible.

What I think might be the longest read that The Nib has ever put up as a single update ran today; Andrew Greenstone has gone out and done participatory-type things and then done docu-comics on them, and today he brings the story of the days-long post-apocalyptic LARP known as Wasteland Weekend. It’s a cracking good read, and that’s before I consider that I know somebody that’s fought in Thunderdome. Take 20 minutes and enjoy the crap out of it.

• Sometimes, you gotta start ’em young in webcomics; it’s been a week or so and I have shamefully not yet congratulated Randy Milholland and his wife Stephanie¹ on the birth of their daughter. As befits a reasonably private guy (who has attracted some of the worst, most entitled, boundary-disrespecting “fans” ever), Milholland has shared some anecdotes, but no details on the lil’ replicant, so if you’re wondering about name or birth weight, too bad.

  By all accounts mom & child are doing well (indeed, she appears to be mastering skills at a terrifying rate), and I’m sure all of us wish them all the best. Some more than others — KB Spangler did a kickin’ guest strip for Daddy Randy today, whereas I’m just saying nice things about him².

• One of my favorite stories of recent vintage has been Ursula Ver … I mean, T Kingfisher’s Summer In Orcus (okay, okay, they’re the same person, and the TK name normally means a more adult bent to the stories than UV, which are decidedly kid-friendlier; I don’t see a whole lot of age range difference between, say, Orcus and Vernon’s Digger). It hit all the notes I want in a fairy tale (unsurprising, as Vernon/Kingfisher’s prose typically dig their way into my brain and wrap around the primitive structures, resulting in pure emotion³), and I’ve been recommending it to everybody ever since.

  The Kickstarter campaign to print what had been an online-only serial went up in July; the accompanying illustrations Lauren Henderson were gathered, the books (in both hardcover and soft) designed and printed, and fulfillment is happening now. I got my books (hardcover for me, soft for whichever niece or nephew I deem needs it most in the next round of birthdays) today, and I can’t say enough good about them.

  With those who Kickstarted getting their stuff in the mail, look for publisher Sofawolf to add them to their store in the near future. Okay, sure, it’s been available in e-book form for ages now, but you know what? Some books just demand to be held, pages flipped, corners bent, etc. Don’t sit on this one; it’s some of the best work of one of our best wordbenders.

Spam of the day:

Give The Gift Of Music! Rich, Room Filling Sound

I have a friend, an audiophile of note, who have more invested in his pre-amps than my wife and I do in both our cars combined. His speakers have a pricetag that resembles the student loans you take out to go to a top-tier med school. And you know what? In a blind test, I bet they sound better than these rich, room filling sound triangle speakers, but not hundred of thousands of dollars better.

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¹ She and Randy haven’t been public about her surname online, so I won’t be using it here.

² For now; within webcomics circles, my new baby gifts are well-regarded. Speaking of which, Randy, I need your new address.

³ Normally joy, but sometimes rage, despair, and murderlust; whatever the story calls for at the time, really

It’s been a long time coming but the Cartoon Art Museum is back, baby. Oh, sure, they’ve been open in their new home on San Francisco’s famed Fisherman’s Wharf since October, but big institutions like this haven’t really made a change until they have a party. Gala grand opening celebration time, y’all:

Cartoon Art Museum
Grand Opening Celebration
Saturday, January 20, 2018

Hellboy Tribute Signing: 6pm to 7pm
Reception: 7pm to 9pm

Tickets: $10 – $100, free admission for CAM members

Join the Cartoon Art Museum as we celebrate our new location at 781 Beach Street, near Ghirardelli Square, Aquatic Park and the Cable Car Terminus. After a two-year hiatus, the museum is thrilled to be open to the public again with our first round of exhibitions.

This party also serves as the closing reception for our Tribute to Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, which concludes Monday, January 29th. Several artists featured in the Hellboy tribute will be on hand to sign the Cartoon Art Museum’s limited exhibition catalogs. Special guests include Gary Amaro, Mark Badger, Lee Ballard, Nick Dragotta, Steve Purcell, Ben Seto, and Jon Way$hak.

The opening exhibitions (which went live on 28 October, CAM’s relaunch date) are A Tribute to Mike Mignola’s Hellboy (through 29 January), Smile! The Comics of Raina Telgemeier (through 19 March), and Emerging Artist Showcase: Nidhi Chanani’s Pashmina (through 12 February). Ticket available at Guestlist.

Hey, you know who would definitely attend the CAM Grand Opening Celebration if he were on the correct continent? David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc). Alas, as far as I am from CAM being on the wrong side of North America, Morgan-Mar is not only on the wrong continent, not only in the wrong hemisphere twice, he’s not even in the correct season.

But he’s got other things to keep busy with; in this case, he’s trying to drive contributions to the collaborative webcomic Lightning Made Of Owls (which last updated … hmmm, 27 October 2017, the day before CAM reopened, which I find to be suspiciously coincidental), and he’s offering cold hard cash. Key points:

In 2018, we’re running a comic contest. With prizes! Prizes are for the best comics published in 2018, as determined by our readers:

First prize: AU$500
Second prize: AU$200
Third prize: AU$100¹

Send us your comic! Follow all the rules below under “How to Contribute”. Pay particular attention to the Characters and Copyright sections.

• You may enter multiple times. If you submit multiple comics in a very short time, we reserve the right to space them out (e.g. one per month) so other submitters get a chance.
• At the end of 2018, a nomination and voting system of contributors and readers will be used to determine the winning comics. (Details to be determined.)
• If practical, we will seek to collect the 2018 contest comics into a printed book collection, funded by Kickstarter, with all profits donated to The Jane Goodall Institute (an internationally registered charity).

You can send your your comic, chosen author name, and a text transcript to Morgan-Mar, also known as dmm, who may be found at a site dedicated to the memory of semibeloved cartoon character dangermouse, dot net. And presuming the planet continues to spin on its axis, Morgan-Mar indicates that the same will happen in 2019. Get crackin’.

Spam of the day:

Canvas Prints – Limited Time Offer, Up to 81% off!

You seem to have mistaken me for somebody that wishes to have art on his walls that isn’t on animation celluloid or Bristol paper. Good day, sir!

I said, Good day!

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¹ For those curious, the prizes are approximately US$392, 157, and 78 respectively (at current exchange rates). Canadian dollar amounts are 492, 197, and 98; Euros are 328, 131, and 66; pounds sterling are 290, 116, and 58; you can figure out any other units on your own.

• The TCAF application jury has ruled, and creators are being notified that they’ll be spending 12-13 May in Toronto; the exhibitor page hasn’t updated yet¹, so I went trawling on the sosh meeds for people saying they were accepted. Caveat: I’m not including waitlisted creators, I obviously didn’t get everybody, and naturally, there will be changes between now and blessèd springtime. But for now, expect to see some (if not all) of (in the order that I found them in my search):

  Rosemary Vallero-O’Connell, Sharean Morishita, Myisha Haynes, Mildred Louis, Taneka Stotts, Sophie Pass-Lang, Tony Breed, Chan Chau, Zainab Akhtar, Awuradwoa Afful?, Irene Koh, Dylan Edwards, Tess Reid, Shannon Wright, Meg Brennan, Jackie Reynolds, Angelica Maria, Allie Kleber, Christopher Sebela, Hope Nicholson, Anoosha Syed, Shing Yin Khor, Jayd Aït-Kaci, Kori Michele Handwerker, Melanie Gillman, Christian Ward, Megan Byrd, Becca Tobin, Sarah Horrocks, and Angel Cruz.

  (A quick perusal of those links reveals the changing face of comics, but maybe it’s a sampling/self-selection error; it may just be that women and POCs are better at saying look at me, I did a thing than white dudes and … yeah, no. Just made myself laugh out loud. It’s going to be a far less male, less white set of exhibitors than you’d find in nearly any comics show. Hats off to the showrunners for looking to the future rather than the past.)

  In addition to the individuals listed above, publishers including Fine OK Press, Retrofit Comics, and the Ladies Night Anthology will be present, and I imagine we’ll also see such TCAF stalwarts as TopatoCo, Koyama Press, D&Q, and :01 Books, all of whom will bring their own creative conspirators.

  And if you didn’t get in this year, remember that even the most well-known creators are basically on an every-other-year basis, and will remain so unless TCAF can find a venue that is 1) central; 2) free; 3) possessing about twice the floor space of the Toronto Reference Library and surrounding venues. So, basically, forever. Congratulations to everybody that will be heading to TCAF, and enjoy the crap out of the weekend.

• Even if you didn’t get into TCAF, there are things you’ll be able to enjoy in mid-May. For one, Shaenon Garrity is now running down horror movies, making an appropriate recommendation for every day of 2018.

  And assuming whatever movies for 12-13 May aren’t enough to distract you, you’ll be able to tell yourself It’s only four and a half months until Amulet volume 8. Kazu Kibuishi announced cover, title (Supernova), and sale date (25 September) yesterday in a talk with Heidi Mac. But there’s no better teaser than from series colorist Jason Caffoe:

  When I first started working full-time on Amulet I asked Kazu about the trajectory for the series and he said “at some point there will be giant robots in space.”
  I 100% thought he was joking.
  He was not. [emphasis mine for giant robots in space]

  Form an orderly queue, and try not to get trampled by kids who will be in a frothy state of excitement for the release.

Spam of the day:

Wait!… We have a Free Sample of Sams Club for you!

You have a little chunk of Sam’s Club on a toothpick for me to enjoy while shopping?

_______________
¹ Nor would I expect it to, less than a day after notifications went out; some people are going to have to decline, the waitlist is going to shuffle … give it a week or so, it’ll be a definitive list.

How’s everybody doing? First full week back to everything? First working Monday of the new year? Mine’s been pretty Mondayish, but it’s starting to look up. Let’s see what we can look forward to in the nearish (and in one case, fairly immediate) future.

:01 Books has shared its Fall 2018 release list, and that includes first looks at some covers.

• For example, Castle In The Stars: The Moon King is the second half of a French BD that is very early-period Miyazakiesque (think Laputa) adventure tale; I’ll give it a review along with the first volume (which is excellent) when it releases (the books are, individually, a little too short to review alone).
• Drew Weing’s Margo Maloo series continues with The Monster Mall, which I suspect will be a more than satisfying successor to the first volume in the adventures of the Monster Mediator.
• And as long as we’re talking webcomickers, :01 announced the newest in the Science Comics series, this one written by science communicator/cute critters comics creator extraordinaire Rosemary Mosco. She’s partnered up with Jon Chad on art for Solar System: Our Place In Space. I’m a little surprised that it wasn’t to do with the sort of stuff you’d find on a terrestrial nature walk (birds, snakes, bugs), since Mosco is known for that, but it will be adorable (because all of Mosco’s stuff is adorable). Just check out her description:
  

  I’m so excited! Here’s the cover reveal for my graphic novel with @jon_chad. It’s about space, how it’s ok to be both brave and scared, and A NERDY SNAKE IN AN IMPROBABLE SPACE SUIT.

  Oh, and it’s out September 18th. Sorry, I should have mentioned that but I got distracted by the snake (his name is Mr. Slithers).

  Did I say she was known for things like snakes? Never doubt Mosco. She’ll probably work in bird parts somehow.

• The big reveal, though, is the cover of the first combined volume of Check, Please! from :01; subtitled Hockey, it’ll cover the first two years of Ngozi Ukazu’s delightful (and zeitgeist-tapping) gay bro college hockey players love story (with pie). This is gonna sell a zillion copies.
• And not all of the books have gotten the tweet treatment yet, but the announcement contains news of the third Nameless City book (The Divided Earth) by Faith Erin Hicks, the print collection of Tillie Walden’s On A Sunbeam, the final volume of Secret Coders by Gene Yang & Mike Holmes, a new Cucumber Quest collection by Gigi DG, another Science Comics volume on The Brain, a Zita The Spacegirl box set, the long-awaited next volume in the Walker Bean series, and more. It’s gonna be a busy fall.

And, for those of you that don’t want to wait, Ethan Kocak continues his fascination with elongated critters by launching a new comic. Punchy Punches Everyone is about a hard-boiled mantis shrimp private eye that … well, the title sort of says it all, and mantis shrimp punches are not something you want to screw around with. I’ll be honest here; I’m not sure how long Kocak can keep up the joke, but I’ll be there as long as he manages to do so.

Spam of the day:

[FREE GUIDE] Learn How Bitcoin is Creating Millionaires?

I’m guessing that, much like the California Gold Rush didn’t make many miners rich but did start the fortunes of mercantile empires (and a guy named Levi Strauss) from all the stuff they sold to those chasing fortunes in the gold fields, any Bitcoin-adjacent millionaires are mostly among those that are cobbling together special “mining rigs” out of extra CPUs and video cards they have hanging around and selling them at a vicious markup to those that think they’ll get rich on cryptocurrency.

Get ’em while they’re hot.

• So Gordon McAlpin went and made a Multiplex short (the funding of which was mentioned in the beforetimes), and before we get to that, can I commend him on one thing? The Kickstarter in question launched on 9 April; between that day and when the campaign finished on 8 May, McAlpin posted more than two dozen updates on the project. Since completion of the campaign, he’s dropped more than sixty progress reports. That degree of communication with backers is worth noting and emulating. Okay, back to where we were.

  Judging from the topic lines of the updates (most of which are backer-only), the short is done, seeing as how certain backers go the early-access link a couple days before Christmas. Hooray, project successful, all done, right? Nah, that’d be boring. The campaign was just to get the first short done; now it’s time to release the short wide, get shopped around the festival cicruit, and maybe make more. A very modest US$2000 (you read that right, two stinkin’ grand) will:

  [H]elp fund the film festival run, digital release, and promotion of the Multiplex 10 short film, in hopes of reaching the widest possible audience. Although the Multiplex 10 short film stands on its own, it was conceived as a pilot for a series, and reaching a wide audience will give us the best possible chance of producing more Multiplex 10 videos.

  [O]ffer a physical copy of the short for existing (and new) backers who want them, and to sell at conventions, screenings, and other venues. And …

  [I]f we can raise significantly more than the base goal, we can fund additional 2–3 minute Multiplex 10 webisodes, to be released free online. These webisodes will feature Kurt and Jason (and possibly some other familiar faces) talking about a then-current movie or facet of movie culture

  As of this writing, there’s 11 hours left and the campaign has passed the second stretch goal (US$4K), meaning that the USB cards the short will be sold on are 4GB instead of 2GB, and the first webisode will be made. At US$5K, the USB doubles to 8GB, at US$7K a second webisode gets added; at US$8K the USB doubles again to 16GB, and at US$10K a third webisode is produced. If you want to see any of these things happen, now’s the time.

• It’s less than a month since we noted the up-wrapping and comprehensive collection-printing of Plume;; it’s got another week to go on its crowdfunding and is approaching double its US$25K goal. Today, K Lynn Smith announced that since all the financial stretch goals have been met, there will be one more based on backer count.

  1000 backers means that the book plate used for signing the omnibus edition (alas, the earlier single volumes don’t qualify) will have a fancy spot gloss added to it; this is not something I’ve seen anybody do before, and it’s a neat idea. Spot gloss and other fancy treatments get added to the covers of books, but this is a fancification that’s like a secret between creator and fan.

  Okay, that’s probably stretching the point a bit, but it’s a neat idea, and it may drive backers to up their pledges if they weren’t getting the omnibus, so it’s a smart way for Smith to push upsells. As of this writing, there are 903 backers and a bit more than six and a half days. Let’s see if that count can go up by 11% in a week.

Spam of the day:

IT Degrees with SE

Okay, gotta ask — what in the world is SE? Because I’m being offered IT degrees with it, nursing degrees with it, local hot wives not getting enough sex from their husbands with it, knockoff Viagra with it, and credit scores with it. Whatever SE it, it’s very flexible.