The next 6-8 weeks have a stack of graphic novels about to drop and I wanted to spend a little time talking about some of them, and their creators. Some of these I’ll have seen advanced review copies of, some I haven’t, and in any event these aren’t going to be reviews — they’re going to be me talking about stuff that looks really friggin’ good so that you can look for them in your local shops. First up: a pair of creators whose work we at Fleen are big fans of.

• It’s been a while since Vera Brosgol had a full graphic novel, but she’s been giving us amazing children’s picture books since then — Leave Me Alone! and The Little Guys are favorites among the younger members of my family — and she’s about to gift us with another.

  Memory Jars is about a young girl who discovers that she can keep anything in jars, safe and whole exactly as it is now, forever. You never have to give it up, you never have to say goodbye. Or, as Brosgol put it somewhat more compactly, [I]t is about canning and death and yeah — there’s some melancholy in there. If a child is ever to gain an appreciation for the ephemerality of life, the fact that all we know will someday cease, there’s hardly a gentler way to learn that with this book. There’s also jam, so that’s cool.

  Although Memory Jars does not release until Tuesday next week, Brosgol will be doing a live reading and drawing chat thing tomorrow at 7:00pm EDT¹ with LeUyen Pham, with An Unlikely Story of Plainville, MA sponsoring (registration here). Copies of Memory Jars purchased through An Unlikely Story will come with signed bookplates (while supplies last), as will copies from Brookline Booksmith (Brookline, MA). Green Bean Books in Portland has signed and sketched copies; try getting awesome extras like that from Jeff Bezos. You can’t!

• We’re a little further out from the release of Molly Ostertag’s The Girl From The Sea — it’ll be in stores a week after Memory Jars — but there’s still time to get your orders in with your local retailer. If you need convincing, the first scene is up for sneak peek and it is terrific at setting up the story. We don’t know where things will go after these few pages, but we know that there’s all kinds of details about Morgan Kwon’s life that we want to know. It’s master-level storytelling economy and proof that Ostertag really thinks about how to structure a story.

  More proof, if any were needed, is over at Ostertag’s alt Twitter account, which is mostly devoted to gayifying Tolkien — I have been reading the various chronicles of Middle Earth for about four decades and cannot believe I didn’t see just how romantic Frodo and Sam are — where she’s shared some of her process work for her latest short gay hobbits comic.

  Thinking about how to compose the pages, thinking about how to end the story, showing off the things she’s figured out on her own make for a better comic in her character-drive mode. Watch how the basic idea becomes a paragraph of idea outline becomes panels. The thing that I never thought about before but which makes perfect sense in retrospect² is her pacing rule of thumb: if the outline has the word and in it, that means a new panel.

  Well, that and the rule about where the reader’s eyes will progress in the panel and how to guide them. And how panel height conveys time. And how words can indicate physical closeness in characters. It’s almost like drawing a hell of a lot of great comics will make you better at drawing great comics³.

Spam of the day:

1 tsp of THIS forces poop constipation out of you – permanently?

That sounds explosively traumatic and permanently disabling. Maybe just improve your diet and get some live-culture yogurt instead?

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¹ I know the tweets says 3:00pm PDT which would be 6:00pm EDT, but the promo image and registration page say 4:00pmt PDT and 7:00pm EDT respectively, so that’s what I’m going with.

² Getting a lot of that from Ostertag, it seems.

³ And it’s also almost like Ostertag has spent way too much time in Appendix C of The Lord Of The Rings, and knows from the family trees that Sam has an older sister named Daisy. Not that I’d know anything about that.

For the second year in a row — thanks, antimaskers, deniers, antivaxxers, and general covidiots! — the Queer Comics Expo is going to be held virtually, and that means it’s time to get ready for the celebration in the Venn diagram where the circles are marked QUEER CULTURE and COMICS. That little slice of overlap is a lot of fun.

Tickets are on sale now, with a US$10 early bird for those of limited means¹, a US$16 regular weekend pass, and a US$55 VIP package (the latter includes a one year membership to the Cartoon Art Museum, otherwise access is the same regardless of payment level); a little birdie told me that discount code CAMPRIDE will let you save on the costs.

Programming on Saturday kicks off at 11:00am (all times PDT, given the fact that QCE and CAM are San Francisco-located) with a spotlight on keynote speaker Vincent Kao, and follows with the announcement of Prism Awards finalists, panels on mental health, furries, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians (the italics indicate a direct quote). From 6:00pm-7:00pm, there’s and online cocktail party (bring your own) with participants matched up for quick 1:1 conversations about everything.

Sunday programming kicks back in 11:00am again, with discussions involving Paige Braddock & Hilary Price, Latinx queer comics, art demos, body positivity, and more. A full list of speakers is at the ticket link, and the programming will stream at cartoonart.org/qcexpo. For those actually in the Bay Area, the Cartoon Art Museum is open weekends from 11:00am to 5:00pm.

It may lack the around-the-city, multiple-venues approach of the Before Times, but it looks as if it’s gonna be a party nonetheless, and that may be what everybody needs as much as anything. Open your wallet, block out some time, and have fun.

Spam of the day:

The main feature of the new Zoomshot Pro tactical zoom is the possibility of obtaining 4k quality in your photos from a great distance against very defined targets, or for panoramas.

I’m guessing that by describing this aftermarket cellphone camera lens as tactical, you’re hoping that I’m the sort of dude that automatically associates that word with manliness and therefore your toy is a must-have, rather than the sort that took an optics class in nerd school and therefore knows you need completely different kinds of lenses for zoom and panorama imaging. Fuck you for assuming I’m the former.

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¹ And the Cartoon Art Museum, partner and primary fundraising beneficiary of QCE, is asking potential attendees to contact them for other options if ten bucks is too much (email QCExpo at cartoonart, which is a dot-org). They really want you to attend more than they want the money.

To be clear: any life lost is irreplaceable, and each of us is unique. But I can’t get over the grief of damn near everybody in comics at the sudden and unexpected death of Jesse Hamm earlier today — his wife, Anna Sahrling-Hamm, said it was a pulmonary embolism — because it seems that everybody in comics knew Jesse Hamm. Knew him, or knew somebody that knew him.

The number of people posting that he was their first friend in comics is staggering.

I never had the good luck to meet him, but he was a part of Helioscope since forever, and a mainstay of the Portland (and earlier, Bay Area) comics scenes. He was generous with his knowledge out of all measure, and was widely expected to write one of those books on the history and theory of comics that would be a definitive reference for the ages.

As near as I can tell, there’s nobody that didn’t like him and respect him more; if he wasn’t a household name, he did exemplary work — including on a fill-in basis when bigger names needed a break for an issue or two — and spent his time tirelessly sharing his comics knowledge, trying to make the next generation(s) of comics artists smarter, more skilled, and better able to navigate professional careers.

Feelings of loss are sharp and raw right now, but I find it illustrative of who he was that the first thoughts of some are to be found in laughter — bitter respite now, but I’m certain that in time it will be how he’s remembered. And I’m confident that judging by the grief and loss, his memory will be fresh for a long time; his work will live on in unnumbered comics careers made better by his lessons. With any luck, he knew how much he was treasured.

May everybody that knew him, or knew somebody that knew him, find comfort and peace and comfort in those memories.

Spammers don’t get to share the day with Jesse.

Hey, everybody, remember Tapas, formerly Taptastic, the aggregator-slash-kinda-publisher-slash-Tumbleresque-platform that features a lot of webcomics? You know, the one that tried to push through some craptastic ToS changes on the sly, got called out, and backpedalled at a truly impressive speed?

Guess what they said today:

Los Angeles, CA (May 11, 2021) — Continuing their global mission to create super IP across multimedia platforms, the leading digital publisher of webcomics and novels, Tapas Media, Inc., has been acquired by Kakao Entertainment in a cash transaction announced today. The acquisition will expand Kakao Entertainment’s original content business in North America and other English-speaking regions. [boldface original]

This is a big deal? How big? The dollar figure involved is US$510 million — which is a hell of a payday for Tapas’s ownership class. Big enough that it was announced in Forbes (although I’m basing this story on the press release sent to me by Tapas)

But I’d suggest the more important parts are the subhead to the press release title:

and this bit down in the About section:

Kakao Entertainment Corp. is innovating the full spectrum of the entertainment industry value chain. With a mission to ‘Entertain Different’ through its original content, talent and music portfolio, Kakao Entertainment operates Korea’s most popular mobile content platforms, providing users access to over 80,000 IPs, including the most extensive library of original content in the country. Examples include Solo Leveling, Itaewon Class, The Uncanny Counter, Dr. Brain, and Lovestruck in the City. Talent under management includes over 150 globally beloved Korean celebrities and it also owns six highly sought-after Korean film and TV production studios. The company also leads the Korean music industry with a library of songs that exceeds 60,000, with 1,200 new tracks being released each year. Kakao Entertainment Corp.’s global footprint comprises Japan, North America, Greater China, Southeast Asia and India, and is expanding rapidly.

Translation: Tapas is now part of a much larger, much more active IP farm, one that is gonna want to see some return on the half billion godsdamned dollars it just dropped. Whatever terms of service you thought you had, whatever ownership interest Tapas was asserting in your webcomic in return for hosting and reach?

That was yesterday. This is today. Your purpose now is to make money for Kakao. Please note: not to make money for Kakao, and incidentally score a nice payday for yourself; massive conglomerates do not grow to the size required to drop half a gigabuck on a bunch of webcomics by sharing money¹.

If you are hosted on Tapas, your homework from now until forever is to very carefully read whatever new terms of service drop. Don’t assume that Kakao will communicate them to you, go looking for them on the Tapas site, or wherever that gets redirected to. Grab the old ones from the Internet Archive, and compare paragraph-by-paragraph, line-by-line until you have identified all the changes. Understand how these changes affect you, and do not trust any interpretation as to what they mean from anybody representing Tapas or Kakao. Honestly, don’t trust any interpretation except from a lawyer, agent, or other professional that is legally obliged to represent your interests.

Because if there’s ever a situation to not trust a corporation that smiles and says Of course we’ll take care of you, this is it. If by this time next year there hasn’t been a wholesale, lopsided redefinition of the relationship between former Tapas webcomics creators and Kakao, I’ll be amazed. And if by this time next year you still want to own what you’ve created, the time to do defensive research — and make plans for exit strategies — is now.

Spam of the day:

All she did was this D.I.Y. “carb-pairing” trick that reconditions your 3 female weight-loss hormones to drastically accelerate fat-burning while still eating the foods you love.

a) You’re lying, and b) you sent this to me thinking that I’m AFAB and therefore more likely to be susceptible to your bullshit body-policing diet logic. Fuck that.

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¹ Particularly ones that are exploring an IPO and estimating their company valuation — per the Forbes story — at US$17.8 billion dollars. You are not too small to have value extracted from you. Your small value to be extracted, along with a few zillion other small fry, is the actual business plan.

… One the other, you got to admire the hustle. Kathy Peterson would like you to know that Kidnapped By Gnomes has hit 300 strips total, if one considers both the before & after of an epically productive hiatus¹, and also that KBG is taking part in the virtual TCAF, including an appearance in the exhibitor room on 13 May from 5:00pm-7:00pm. Two books on sale, a third premiering, and I have to check that my blogroll isn’t actually changed — those little geeks are persistent.

And since we’re talking about the reigning Queen of Hey Remember When That Webcomic Launched, maybe we should mention one of the Kings. A looong time ago, one of the most complex (in terms of topic matter and visuals) webcomics was A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible by David Hellman and Dale Beran. They did maybe the last ALILBTDII over at The Nib, where Beran also posted some heartbreaking comics essays about his experiences as a teacher in Baltimore in times of unrest. He did a book about how the worst areas of the internet shitposted their way to an authoritarian government, too.

And lately, he’s been running a comic that he made during quarrantine on Twitter, about a page a day, starting here. It’s called Arthur Pendlebroke, 1st Level Mage, and it’s seemingly about a guy who finishes grad school and discovers his parents never told him about his invite to wizarding school a dozen years ago, and being the oldest recently-graduated wizard in a world of too many roomies and the gig economy.

I say seemingly because Arthur leaves the story after about four pages and a couple of his friends (one of our mortal realms, one decidedly not) have to hunt him down find him you know what? Hunt him down might actually be accurate. He was supposed to take them on a Trader Joe’s run, and now he’s in a goblin palace, you see. Probably. Might be dead. Might have to kill him. Hard to tell.

It’s a hoot and a half, and I recommend that you read along until you decide, Self, I can’t stand this one page a day pace! and drop the five bucks it’ll cost you to grab the whole thing on Gumroad.

Spam of the day:

Vaccine Shedding Testimonies along with Vax Death and Illness Pics/Videos
[lengthy list of bullshit and Bible verses]

I am going to find you, come to where you are, and shed all my vaccine detritus on you until you are irredeemably contaminated and God hates you. Hail Satan.

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¹ Attending med school and doing a residency would have been enough for most folks, but coming back to doing a webcomic while serving as an emergency medicine doctor during a pandemic? That’s gotta be a record of some kind.

Kind of snuck up on us, didn’t it? But it’s Mother’s Day weekend, and that means TCAF. whether in-person (someday) or virtual (again). There’s lots going on with a mix of pre-recorded and live video events, Zoom room exhibitor hours, and a vendor’s marketplace. Some sessions will require registration, and all are subject to TCAF’s Code Of Conduct, so no griefing.

Things that caught my eye (all times EDT):

Friday, 7 May
Kickoff Session
Pre-recorded, premiering on YouTube at 7:00pm.

Saturday, 8 May
Make Comics Your Way With Story Planet
Live online (register here) geared for grades 3-6 as the panel and participants create characters & a story. 1:00pm

Sunday, 9 May
Molly Knox Ostertag Spotlight
Pre-recorded with live Q&A (register here), featuring a reading from Ostertag’s new graphic novel, The Girl From The Sea. 3:00pm.

Monday, 10 May
Rage, Apathy And Satire In The Black Creative Realm
Abdul Ali, Ben Passmore, and Richie Pope live (register here) talking about the meaning and challenges of being Black and creative. 3:00pm.

Tuesday, 11 May
Boulet Spotlight
Live talk (register here) with Peterbirkemoe. 5:00pm.

Protest Comics
Ho Che Anderson, Derf Backderf, and Nate Powell in a pre-recorded talk about the need to present dissent, and the responsibilities that entails. Premieres on YouTube at 7:00pm.

Wednesday, 12 May
Nagata Kabi Spotlight
Creator of the groundbreaking My series of autobio manga (My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, My Solo Exchange Diary, My Alcoholic Escape From Reality) in a pre-recorded conversation with Deb Aoki and interpreter/comics translator Jocelyne Allen. Premiering on YouTube at 7:00pm.

Thursday, 13 May
Health (S)Care: Personal And Global Perspectives
Everything from traumatic brain injuries to the big and small ways that COVID-19 has affected all of us. Live panel discussion (register here) at 4:00pm.

Friday, 14 May
Life Into Comedy
Where autobio meets humor, or mining real-life experiences for various degrees of fictionalized funny. Shary Flenniken, Meichi Ng, Thom, Yuko Ota & Ananth Hirsh, moderated live (register here) by Boum. 8:00pm.

Saturday, 15 May
Closing Panel
When else are you going to get to see Katie Skelly, Jaime Hernandez, Aubrey Sitterson, and Chris Moreno hold forth on their love of professional wrestling, comics about professional wrestling, and the history of women in professional wrestling? Never, that’s when. Live (as all the best wrestling is; register here) and refereed by S-Quire Johnson. 5:00pm.

Libraries & Education Day
A separate track for librarians and educators (register here) on Friday, 14 May, with keynote speaker Jeff Smith kicking things off at 9:00am and a full day of programming following.

Of particular note are a mingle session with reps/creators of Scholastic Canada, Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Fantagraphics, and Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group + First Second (12:30pm to 1:30pm) and Comics Publisher Speed-Dating with a series of quick presentation on new releases from NBM/Papercutz, Renegade Arts Entertainment, Highwater/Portage & Main, and Arsenal Pulp Press (4:00pm to 5:00pm).

Naturally, there’s lots of other sessions during the day about the kinds of material that comics in the classroom excel at, but librarians and teachers making contact with the creators and publishers behind the comics has been, in my experience, a uniquely fruitful thing.

Spam of the day:

Every person who did this 30-second trick after brushing their teeth, experienced a dramatic rejuvenation of their gums AND rebuilt their teeth…

Or you could just floss. It’s easy, it’s cheap, it saves you a mountain of headaches — some literal — and doesn’t require to mix three common household ingredients (why do I get the feeling two of them are ammonia and bleach?).

One of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my purchases of comics was waiting until the March trilogy was complete, as it gave me the chance to purchase all three at once from Nate Powell at MoCCA, and tell him how much his work meant to me. It was a quiet moment at the table, nobody else looking to buy or talk for about ten minutes, and the respect that Powell had for his creative partners Andrew Aydin and Congressman¹ John Lewis suffused the entire conversation.

Powell will forever be associated with March² — rightly so — but he’s done plenty of work on his own for years. For those that need a quick primer, you can find a exploration of how fashion (in the sense of what we want our clothes to convey about us) ties into toxic masculinity and fascism, or maybe a look at people for whom global warming is neither abstract nor in the future. There’s a strong tendency towards thoughtful consideration of complex issues, and a sense of seeking justice in Powell’s work, and all of it resonates with emotional heft, not least because of his tendency towards abstract, implied panel gutters (check out the page previews here, here or here, you’ll see what I mean immediately).

And with a new collection of comics essays³, Powell is talking about his work, the message he wants to share, and the world he wants to see. Save It For Later is the book of the month at The Nib (buy it from them and you’ll get a signed bookplate, while they last), and they’ve got a talk with Powell up at their YouTube channel. Also: Powell in conversation with Eleanor Davis (courtesy of Politics & Prose), and an upcoming Q&A with the Monroe County [Indiana] Public Library on Sunday, 16 May at 2:00pm EDT (register here).

That ten minutes that I spent talking with Powell was an experience that I still think back on — it’s the sort of conversation that makes you want to think hard about things and make decisions that will bend the arc of your life in directions that benefit others. Check out the interviews he’s done, sign up for the session in ten days, and see if it doesn’t lead you in some new directions (which may or may not involve good trouble).

Spam of the day:

Scientists at the Dental Study Institute in New Jersey have quickly run some tests and CONFIRMED the mixture is legit and that it indeed eliminates cavities in a very short time. [emphasis original]

There is no “Dental Study Institute” in New Jersey. There is a Dental Studies Institute, but they don’t have scientists; they are an instructional company that teaches dental practice personnel required continuing education courses. The only test they’re running is on the students, to determine if they learned enough about herpes to get their 5 CEUs.

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¹ And strong contender for Greatest Living American Of The Past Century, alongside Mr Rogers and Dolly Parton.

² And, undoubtedly, Run once it releases.

³ I’m still waiting for my copy, which is also your occasional reminder that Diamond’s entire comics distribution business is extraordinarily craptacular.

Running on no sleep thanks to the cardiac call on EMT duty in the wee hours. Take care until tomorrow.

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (hereinafter: “The Billy”) has an upcoming event that is free, but strictly capacity limited, for Saturday, 15 May at 2:00pm EDT. It’s a comics drawing workshop with Hyejeon Jeon, recently graduated from OSU with her MFA, and working as a freelance illustrator while doing comics (not all of which are available in English, sorry!).

Okay, so there’s lots of comics-drawing workshops from The Billy, or CAM, or similar organizations. Why did this one catch my eye? Because of the primary medium participants will be asked to work with, which makes for an interesting rule, and as was established on this page way back in small times, rules prompt creativity¹.

The rule is that these comics will be drawn on sticky notes. Small space, but you can move them around and see new ways to make the story work. The object of the workshop is to produce a mini adventure story, but before that you’ll stretch your creative muscles with sticky note drawing games.

Registration is strictly limited to 25, so hop on that quickly if you want in. The session isn’t being recorded, but if it’s popular (and if it produces a deep enough waitlist), maybe the folks at The Billy can run it again or even make it recurring. It looks like a lot of fun, and you have to respect any workshop that includes on its list of things to bring:

• Sticky notes or note cards (any small pieces of paper works!)
• Your trusty pen or pencil.
• Optional: tea and snacks because one cannot create on an empty stomach.

They get me. All skill levels welcome, recommended for those 16 and up.

Spam of the day:

Recently, I have figured out that you are a big fan of porn and enjoy watching “XXX movie”. I think you know what I mean … I have managed to edit a few clips, where you eagerly cum, and I have included the films you were watching while masturbating. You transfer $1750 USD in Bitcoin equivalent to me and I once the payment is received, I will immediately delete all the evidence against you. So, here is my Bitcoin wallet: 1NTAPV7fYhWqNjwZmaDnJwdCSUSCYS6fhF

Okay, so 1) Everybody watches porn; b) I don’t have a webcam on the computer that I use for watching porn, and the webcam on the other computer is covered by a hard plastic shutter; III) I’m publishing your fakemoney wallet so that people can flood you with requests for money and fractions of fractions of fakecoins until you are so bothered you decide to leave behind your life of petty scamming and resolve to be a better person, maybe join a youth group or something. Otherwise, fuck off.

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¹ I swear to you that it is a coincidence that the linked post is from exactly 15 years ago. Weird how life works out sometimes, innit?

Also, I may have been doing this for too long.

No time to dilly-dally, we’ve got items to discuss.

Spam of the day:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren Wir gewähren Darlehen in Höhe von 10.000,00 € bis 5 Mio. € mit einem Zinssatz von 2%

I’m sorry, when I read German in a spam, I go into a frothing rage much like Steve Martin in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Please take your concatenated devil language elsewhere.

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¹ Whose character arc I’ve just now realized is a pretty good parallel to that of Mike Dowden over at Something*Positive. Randy Milholland and Shaenon Garrity/Jeffrey C Wells are giving me hope that emotionally stunted manchildren can, with the right influences, become capable of empathy and grow into the sort of person that is a good partner worthy of love.