With no Axe Cop on TV-type announcements today, all is quiet in advance of what strikes me as a fairly unprecedented situation: there are three separate, established, legitimate conventions happening this weekend, at opposite corners of the continent: Calgary Comics and Entertainment Expo, MoCCA Festival, and Stumptown Comics Fest

While the overlap between Calgary¹ and the other two² is theoretically small, there’s a significant draw to the great northern prairies of webcomics talent, many of whom were seen in Manhattan or Portland in other years. There was talk when the Stumptown/MoCCA date conflict was discovered about which way the small creators would go³, but I don’t think the Canadian Factor was recognized at the time. I doubt any one of the shows will be damaged, but it’ll be interesting to see if any of the creators continue to opt away from one or more of the contenders in the future even if they occur at different times.

Meanwhile, if you’re heading to Calgary (or the following weekend to Toronto for TCAF) to see the TopatoCo Vendatorium, please be aware:

A note to TCAF/CALGARY friends, due to Problems we won’t be bringing SHIRTS to either show. We will however have Special Coupon Codes.

Very diplomatically put, but if I had to guess, I’d say that Problems is code for Customs screwed us.

Having traveled to other countries for work on occasion, I can tell you there’s a special stab of fear that hits when you realize that the customs/immigration/whatever official in front of you has that gleam in the eye that subtly communicates one thought at you: I don’t care whatever national policy and/or international treaties might say … in this lane, I am the merciless god of your existence, and I am feeling smitey today. No matter how often you may have sailed through border bureaucracy in the past, today is going to be different, and there’s nothing you can do but smile and nod and say thank you to the person who is casually ruining your day⁴.

Regardless of the reason (and I am going merely on supposition here), it appears that Commerce and Trade will still take place, and you will be able to get your wares, be they present physically or not. And hey — not having to unpack all that stock and pack up the remainder at the end of the show has to be somewhat positive? Yeah, okay, I’m sure the TopatoCo folks would rather have the actual shirts, but lemons and lemonade. If you see them at either show, give them all my best.

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¹ Calgary is taking the “and Entertainment” aspect seriously, what with booking all manner of TV and movie personages, including all the regular cast members of Star Trek: The Next Generation for Cochrane’s sake.

² Both MoCCA and Stumptown focus on smaller, creator-owned/indy-type comics.

³ Reminiscent of the great East Side/West Side webcomics battles of the early Naughts.

⁴ To the many Canadian border personnel I have interacted with in the past: all but one of you have been wonderful. The other one? I prefer to think she was having a bad breakup that day. In any event, the Big Scary Event I had at Customs was in February 1991 on my return from Canada, and I’ve done work gigs for Customs Canada, so we’re cool.

Sorry, no unifying theme today, just a bunch of stuff I found to be neat.

• First and foremost, congratulations to Dante Shepherd of Surviving The World, his lovely wife theSwede, and new infant daughter Cannonball. Expect a brief interruption in lecture, meaning the last of Shepherd’s lessons (until guest lecturers take up the slack) will be this fetus-themed installment with one heck of a disturbing facial expression.
• As has become somewhat traditional in recent years among those that do comics in webform as well as print, Dave Kellett has opted to make it easy for Eisner voters to sample the material for which he is nominated in the category of Best Humor Publication. So if you’ve got network, and 24MB of drive space, and a PDF reader (please for the love of Glob, not Adobe Acrobat), point yourself over to here and grab a copy of Coffee: It’s What’s For Dinner.

  Those with long memories may recall that Kellett’s previous themed collection, Literature: Unsuccessfully Competing Against TV Since 1953, was nominated in the same category last year, but Coffee is sure to succeed where Literature sadly fell short. This is because Coffee has a secret wow factor, in the form of commentary by me mixed in with the Great Coffee Cup Lid Challenge of Aught-Seven. For truly as it is written, if Fleen be with you, who can stand against you?¹

• Machine of Death 2 details? Yes, please! David Malki ! shares with us all today the titles of the stories contained in MoD 2 (title pending), along with a smattering of the creators that will be doing chapter art and comic strips. There’s even statistics, because if there’s one thing that MoD makes me think of almost as much as the stories, it’s the data². In all, writers in 46 different countries submitted stories², overwhelmingly from the US and Canada.

  Put another way, it’s 1958 stories from 1705 different writers, along with 151 art portfolio submissions from twelve countries. Some of the stories won’t fit in the book, but the Mod Squad have plans for them, never fear. Most interesting to me — even more interesting that the fact that apparently Rebecca Black⁴ has a story in the new collection — is the fact that seven creators (counting Malki ! and fellow editors Ryan North & Matthew Bennardo) are returning from Volume One, so if you liked the first one, this bodes well for you.

• New from TopatoCo, five (count ’em, five) books are slated for Spring release, including new collections of A Softer World, Three Panel Soul, Dinosaur Comics⁵. MS Paint Adeventures⁶, and muthascratchin’ Three. Word. Phrase. My guess is that these will be debuting at TCAF (mostly because last week they announced that they’re debuting at TCAF), possibly along with the must-have con season accessory, delivered in a chariot fit for the gods themselves.

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¹ Don’t answer that.

² Some of you will find it sad that I mean that literally and sincerely — the numbers and behind-the-scenes accounts that Malki !, et. al., have shared with the process of producing MoD material is beyond value.

³ Malki ! claimed 44 countries, but I counted 46. Or 47, if you count Antarctica, which isn’t on the list but totally should be.

⁴ Apparently, she knows all about death.

⁵ Continuing the secret book-title code that I totally know because Ryan told me.

⁶ Specifically, Homestuck, volume 2, which many said couldn’t possible be translated to book form without violating the laws of space and time.

Do me a favor. Check out this page of webcomic honor-system goodie purchasing.

Whoops! Wrong link, that would be the Jonathan Coulton honor-system music recording purchase page; I meant to give you this one instead. That would be Chris Onstad’s new Achewood non-physical goods honor system purchase page. I’ve been kind of wondering when this sort of formalized storefront might make a prominent appearance in webcomics; there are plenty of pay-what-you-want operations primarily for things like wallpaper (viz.: here, here, or here), but those have usually used a “send money and tell me which item you want, I’ll send you stuff” mechanism. This formalized, storefront approach is new (or at least, new to me).

It’s even got the equivalent of the “I already stole it” feature over at JoCo’s page, in that you can buy an open pass for all current content or all current and future content for prices that represent some significant discounts from the nominal list prices. Consider: the current ANPGHSPP features fifteen items prices at US$3, and another six at US$6, for a total declared value of US$81; all of this can be yours for US$25 (approximately a 70% discount), or all of this plus all future content for US$50 (for a discount of 38%, assuming you never download future content⁴).

Given our discussion last week about perceived value and the appeal of a bargain, Onstad appears to have created a mechanism that will encourage people to give him money in exchange for work he’s already done, for essentially zero distribution costs. There is no part of this experiment that doesn’t work to his advantage, and it’s worth closely studying. If this is something that other creators can emulate, I’d suggest they do so.

It’s got to be especially appealing to Onstad given his stated dislike of the merch-fulfillment end of running a webcomic as a business. Achewood currently features a sponsorship page, subscriber-only material, and this ANPGHSPP, but no traditional store where one may exchange money for tangible goods. This is a damn shame as when Onstad was willing to produce tangible goods, there was terrific stuff there; I’m still willing — years later — to exchange money for the fabled and possibly mythical second Achewood Cookbook, but if making such a thing brings him no joy to a degree that would outweigh the benefit of my money, then I’ll have to live without. Finding a balance between creating art (to your own satisfaction as well as your audience’s) and keeping the lights on isn’t ever easy, and if the ANPGHSPP is a balance that Onstad can live with, good on him.

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¹ Or WHSGP for short.

² Or JCHSMRPP if you prefer.

³ Also known as the ANPGHSPP; of course, if you neglect the “A” part, then the JCHSMRPP would also qualify as an NPGHSPP, as downloadable music is an NPG.

⁴ There are presently twelve additional items listed but not yet available on the ANPGHSPP; assuming they each end up going for the lowball price of US$3, that’s US$117 declared value for US$50, or a 57% discount. Undoubtedly, some of those will be priced higher than three bucks, and “anything forever” means more than just the presently-listed twelve future items, making for a significant potential savings.

Advice for aspiring comic artists:

Before the Internet, I would have had a totally different set of rules. But now people are putting their work up on the Internet and getting a response, so that might be the way to go. Can you discipline yourself to turn out work on a regular basis?

Many people can’t do a syndicated strip for more than three years. People not my age are programmed to want change, to want excitement. They’re not embarrassed to leave a job to move to a new city. They’re not likely to stick with the same thing for 30 years. With that kind of itchy-feet need for change, it’s difficult work. It’s not like you do a doodle in the morning and then you’re free. They realize the pressure is on. You’re working evenings, weekends, in hotel rooms, on airplanes. And you can’t turn out work that’s not your best, because you have to fight for that real estate in the paper. A lot of people can’t do it more than three years.

But if you can do it every day for a year online, disciplining yourself, getting honest feedback from readers —- well, some miserable dough-heads don’t deserve a voice, but you’ll also get good feedback from honest readers. If someone says, “I don’t get it,” that’s your best reader.

Lynn Johnston of For Better or For Worse, in an interview this week at The Grindstone. Her strip may not have been to everybody’s tastes (particularly as it approached wrap-up), but nobody’s ever said that Johnston phoned it in or didn’t put in the many, many hours across 30-odd years in syndication.

I trust you’ve seen this? Radical Adventures? Videogame? Starring Dr McNinja? It’s got an interesting dilemma, as the game is free to play, so what to offer in the way of backer rewards at the low levels, which are traditionally filled with things like You get a free copy of the game?

Answer: credit for in-game power-ups and future content updates, which is pretty clever when you think of it, and which presently is what most backers are opting for. At higher levels there are things like custom McNinja soda packs, original art, and inclusion in the game (as an enemy, to be killed again and again and again). At the very highest level, you get a pizza party with Chris Hastings, who is an excellent dude to eat pizza with. They don’t say where the pizza is from, but if you get that prize I’d suggest asking for the the corner pub-looking place near where the giant feral raccoons¹ scurry between the power substation and the cemetery, haunting Brooklyn with their sinisterly dexterous² hands. The pizza there was awesome.

Anyways, less than a day in and approaching ten percent of goal, which is a bit slower than other recent Kickstarts for webcomics-type properties with built in fan bases. I’m attributing this not to a dearth of desire for a cool videogame that features Dr McNinja doing awesome things, but rather because the rewards hypothesis I’m working on identifies low-dollar-value pledge rewards as a particular challenge.

As of this writing (too early to draw strong conclusions, to be honest), some 57% of backers are at the two lowest reward tiers, in for US$15 or less. This can work, especially considering the zero cost associated with distributing the rewards at these tiers, but you need a whole lot of people to make up for the low incremental dollar value each contributes. I’m going to keep my eye on the third through sixth tiers, with dollar values up to $US50, and see what kind of growth occurs there; that’s going to be where Dr McNinja’s Radical Adventure makes goal, or obliterates it with awesome punchings.

I was experimenting with horizontal rules yesterday to give The Bradster the pull-quote treatment, but now I’m quite liking them. Could I at long last be shucking off the yoke of bullets and unnumbered lists?

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¹ All together now: Aaaaaahhhh!

² I swear to dog when I wrote that I wasn’t intending to make a pun in Latin.

Who likes numbers? Sure, we all do, but what numbers should we talk about?

• From the wilds of the Pacific Northwest comes the news that Penny Arcade are shifting publishers, with Oni Press getting the nod this time. On the one hand, this shift¹ could lead some to wonder if Mike and Jerry are capable of forming long-lasting bonds of commitment. It’s not you, baby, they tell Random House imprint Del Rey, it’s us. Alas, the trail of broken hearts is long, with other exes in their history, but considering one of them was a vanity press that screwed Jerry and Mike sideways, maybe a little fear of commitment is a good thing.

  On the other hand, Oni Press means that they’re getting the love and attention of a good man — the best man — in the person of George Rohac. Besides shepherding the Benign Kingdom project to Kickstarter superstar statues, George is a man who cannot be destroyed except that he returns under his own power. His smiles last through anything, and good thing too for us all. He reserves his hatred for forces of nature and his punchings for problems². And Yuko. What I am saying is that Penny Arcade are likely in good hands.

• I think I can be forgiven for missing the date (especially seeing as how the creator missed it as well), but Help Desk turned sixteen years old on three days ago. Granted, a chunk of that history was in print, or subject to occasionally-lengthy hiatuses (hiati?), but it’s been there in one form or another, finding new variations on the theme for 2065 comics³ and counting. Happy (belated) birthday to Help Desk, and happy stripperversary to Christopher Wright.

  Edit to correct: As Mr Wight points out in the comments, Help Desk was never in print and I am an idiot; it was originally published as part of an online magazine. Fleen regrets the error.

• If there were only 72 websites in the world that you should pay attention to in 2012, what would #61 (alphabetically) be? TopatoCo. From the Maximum PC list/declaration/manifesto:
  

  Topatoco Web artists make our lives better by publishing their work on the web for free. You can make sure your favorite artist has food, shelter, online access, ink, paper, and other necessities of life by shopping at Topatoco; buy T-shirts, books, coffee cups, and lots of other art-emblazoned goodies.

  All of which are valid points, but which I think might miss the most wonderful thing about TopatoCo — the customer service experience, which is snarky, informative, timely, and offers the opportunity to interact with members of the Great and Bountiful TopatoCo Empire in curious and wonderful ways. Well done, you crazy, magnificent bastards.

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¹ By my count, this would make Oni the fourth publisher of Penny Arcade books, but I’ll have to check my bookshelf when I get home.

² Which wisely decide it’s a good time to be elsewhere.

³ Which is equivalent to one comic every 2.83 days on average across the total time period.

I don’t know about where you are, but it is absolutely gorgeous out today, and I’m almost over my plague. Let’s concentrate on happy stories today.

• There is nothing that warms the cockles of my black heart more than seeing an example of extreme customer service. This could be as simple as acknowledging a mistake and making good; it could be going out of your way to deal with a customer that’s determined to be a jerk¹. Sometimes you didn’t even make a mistake and instead, found a way to do something better; the old way was good, people that you dealt with then were dealt with fairly, but you want to give ’em a little something anyway. That’s where customer service enters the heroic realm², which I saw an example of today.

  Back up a couple of years, and Penny Arcade sold some polo shirts that their more office-job-type fans could wear to work. Nice, understated game controller logo stitched on the left breast, breathable cotton, decent color selection. They sold well. But the PA people weren’t 100% satisfied with them, so after they sold out they went away for about a year for retooling:

  When asked for comment about the improvements made in v2.0, Penny Arcade’s President of Operations and Business Development Robert Khoo addressed the issues seen in v1.0, stating the “the v1.0s had really specific care instructions, because the materials we selected weren’t treated to be preshrunk. Well… it turns out folks hated the idea of dealing with care instructions, so for the v2.0s we switched to a higher quality cotton that shrinks less and is quite a bit softer.”

  So far, so good; product improvement ought to be everybody’s goal. But now that the second iteration of the shirts are coming online, Penny Arcade decided to do something extraordinary: they’ve decided that everybody that bought one of the first version of the shirt is entitled to a free shirt upgrade [PDF]. Short version: cut out the logo on the 1.0 version of the shirt, include it with your name and address on a form, and bam! New shirt.

  No fee, no shipping on domestic orders (US$10 flat for international), and you’ve got until 30 June to take advantage. The new shirts aren’t up at the PA store just yet, but as far as loss leaders go, I can’t think of a better demonstration to your customer base to convey the idea We will take care of you³.

• As I told many, many people⁴ on many, many occasions, I loves me some Digger, concluded or no. Of course, just because Ursula Vernon is out of the regular webcomickin’ game doesn’t mean that she’s off my radar — I follow creators I love into their other, not-webcomicky projects, be those comic books or gallery shows or animation or whatever. The POV and voice of the creator is the important part, not the particular medium they choose to work in today. Anyway: Ursula Vernon.

  She’s the subject of a retrospective in April, on the campus of Lamar University’s Dishman Art Museum in scenic Beaumont, Texas (which I’m reliably informed is about 90 minutes east of Houston or four hours west of New Orleans). Show runs from 4 — 26 April, with a reception⁵ on the 6th, from 7:00 to 9:00pm.

  The show, which is co-curated by Larry “mckenzee” Holderfield[see below], will incorporate local signings, previews of Vernon’s latest Dragonbreath book, and a single-page comic contest for the kids. Details on the flyer (front, back), which somehow neglect to include what might be the show’s centerpiece: a brief history of the Biting Pear. Now all I need to do is get my job to send me to Texas next month.

Edit to add: I inexcusably truncated Larry Holderfield’s name in the original posting; we at Fleen apologize for the mistake.

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¹ May I recommend to you the Nerd of Advice podcast on this very topic?

² And I’m going to acknowledge up front that almost nobody smaller than a mid-sized corporation has the resources to engage in this kind of customer service. That alone doesn’t explain its rarity, as those that do have the resources typically don’t.

³ Where the “we” probably refers mostly to Brian Sunter, who is seemingly everywhere that merchandise and fulfillment occur on PA’s behalf. He’s like a magical shipping ghost made out of Khoo’s sentient shadow.

⁴ That one’s for you, Ivy.

⁵ Read: “Food and booze”.

That would be the one that says, “Don’t scrape webcomics, and especially don’t try to make money off of them with your scraper.” Yes, yes, I know: Blah blah exposure blah blah they put it in my RSS feed blah blah not charging for the comic charging for the convenience. We’ll leave aside the fact that the creators in question didn’t ask for you to be an intermediary between them and their audience, and even leave the fact that so many of them have released their work under Creative Commons licenses that clearly say No commercial exploitation, Bunky. It’s just a dick move to claim that you’re “supporting the creators”, especially in a world where precisely one (1) person is actually doing aggregation right. Let’s let webcomics fan Chris Hanel have the floor for a moment:

Do you support webcomics? Take this one question survey:

1. Do you take the RSS feed of over 90 webcomics, rip the images, put them in your Android app, and then put your own advertisements next to them in order to make money?

Congratulations: If you said “Yes”, then NO, YOU DO NOT SUPPORT WEBCOMICS.

Hanel raised the flag on the latest scraper with a helpful list of comics being scraped. What kills me in all of these recurring instances of scraping is that the creator always acts all noble and says But I’ll remove your content if you just ask me to! So once again for those at the back that might not have heard: Offering an opt-in is morally defensible; requiring an explicit opt-out from being involved in your scheme is not the approach to take if you want to be seen as helpful. Knock it off.

• Let’s just try to find some good in the world today, yes? On the one hand, congrats to the Little Heart comic for marriage equality; I happened to check their Kickstarter page as they exactly met their funding goal earlier today. Can’t say I’ve ever seen that happen before; if I were the sort who believed in luck, I’d take that as a good omen.

  Lots of talent on the book, and the inimitable Christopher Butcher (founder/showrunner of TCAF, manager of one of the world’s great comic shops, smilin’ face of UDON studios, and appreciator of bizarre Japanese Kit Kats) has contributed a heartfelt intro/foreword, a draft of which is available for your perusal. It’s really good.

• Horrible webcomics pun¹ made, adorable shirt available for purchase six days later; film at eleven.

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¹ For once, not attributable to Brad Guigar or David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc)

I am sick and spreading my illness to all who come close; I’d sit a little further back from the screen if I were you.

• Worried about the Mayan Doom Prophecy? Rich Stevens has you covered:
  

  For $2,012, I will personally prevent the end of all life on Earth if the Apocalypse occurs on December 21, 2012. No refunds if by some off chance a religious prophecy was misinterpreted and winds up being bullshit.

  Sounds like the best deal since the invention of post-rapture pet care.

• For a rebuttal with today’s sign of the apocalypse, let’s go to Robert Khoo:
  

  For anyone that sells apparel, bad news today. India stopped all cotton exports. Global prices on the white stuff are going up.

  Reuters and the Wall Street Journal treated the story in a somewhat dry manner, but I found a couple of quotes in the WSJ story that may indicate that it’s not necessarily gloom for your favorite t-shirt monger:

  The announcement sent cotton prices on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange higher. But domestic prices will likely plunge, said A. Ramani, secretary of the Indian Cotton Federation. They have already slid over the past year on expectations of a record crop this year.

  This is the second time in nearly two years that India has banned cotton exports in response to concerns about local supplies.

  The front-month ICE Futures U.S. cotton contract, which had dropped from above 200 cents a pound a year ago to less than 90 cents, surged 4.337 cents, or 4.9%, to 92.23 cents midday in New York.

  So let’s recap — cotton prices are up about 5%, but are still less than half what they were a year ago. That drop didn’t result in t-shirts becoming suddenly more affordable, so hopefully a small recoup in prices won’t be used as an excuse to jack up prices now¹. Other analyses remind us that global production and market supply are actually up over last year, meaning this may be a temporary thing.

• Even if we are heading to a hellish future of all life extinguished/slightly higher t-shirt prices, no reason we can’t laugh along the way — Business Insider magazine will have you meet your doom with some insights from Zach Weiner on how he does what he does. Just in time for his birthday², too. Happy Birthday, Zach — by living one more day, you made the BI headline a total lie.

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¹ Since as we all know, large international firms would never engage in such asymmetry in pricing to their profit and the consumer’s detriment.

² Also my sister’s. Happy Birthday, Laura; I hope you’re enjoying those umbrella drinks in the piano bar of that enormous cruise ship you’re on.

He is eleven years old today, and yet I am 44. If you’re not sure how that works out, it’s because of his powers. Evil powers, which will fully manifest when he hits the cranky teenage years in 2020.

• Following up on a discussion of Kickstarter and taxes from last week (including comments¹ on same), I came across a link (via the twitterfeed of Colleen Doran, who always finds/thinks the best stuff) regarding this very topic. Key takeaway — consult with a professional, since there are lots of rules (which may or may not apply to you, and may or may not seem to conflict with other rules), preferably before launching your Kickstarter campaign.

  It appears that the US federal tax rules have been worked out (you’ll get a 1099-K; if you don’t know what that is, consult with a professional), but state and local rules (especially with respect to sales tax issues) are going to vary widely. When in doubt, refer to the exchange between Kurtz and Stevens here.

• A little while ago, “Uncle”² Randy Milholland announced an original art sale that left me with a few thoughts. To wit:

  Milholland is (and I’ve told this to him in person) criminally underpricing his work. Granted, he doesn’t do full strips, per se, with borders and the rest on bristol board; a lot of one-off character bases and extraneous elements (backgrounds, hands, eyes) get done on paper and then assembled in Photoshop, but still — US$20 for four sheets, which may include multiple characters? It’s the bargain of the century, and only the fact I don’t get to paw through the box looking for favorite bits³ is keeping me from buying up Milholland’s work by the kilo.

  I am reminded of another art sale (for all intents and purposes) that took place years ago, one inspired by Milholland’s famed “pay my salary” fund drive. That was the event that brought me into the orbit of creators, as US$100 was exchanged for original art. Goats wasn’t the first online strip that I followed, nor was it the first webcomic that I bought merch from⁴, but that first original was purchased because two years earlier it was when a casual interest turned into a rabid interest. Jon Rosenberg intersected a Manhattanite’s rage over the intrusion of K-Mart culture into a place that rejected big-box stores with a rage over the burgeoning, post-9/11 security state and made it hilarious with two words:

  Anal sovereignty.

  That moment, in the opening days of 2002, when Carl went spelunking was the start of this infatuation, which led to the exchange of money for goods, which led to many, many beers which led to my absolute privilege to have an ever-expanding circle of friends made up of the best people on earth.

  And now, the strip that started me on this journey to new fresh hells considerable laugh-chuckles is coming back if another US$18,000 (roughly) can get raised in the next 22 days. Milholland may not have intended his announcement to be a Proustian madeleine, but it worked out that way.

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¹ I didn’t comment on Warren Terra’s “I’m a complete layman, but” assertion at the time, but he seems to be conflating the tax implications of corporations and those of individuals (who may or may not have a formal business structure, whether a single-proprietorship, an LLC, an S-Corp, among others).

² Possibly of the “creepy” variety.

³ I am the proud owner of “came a brain” and this bit of fanservice.

⁴ That would have been the oft-hiatused but never fully gone You Damn Kid, which I happened upon via a particularly circuitous route following a purchase of a BoFH collection from the now-defunct Plan Nine, volumes of which were predominantly illustrated by various Keenspot creators of the day. But the YDK collection, and a sketchy of Jethro featuring the famed frog rocket wiener (re-released several times, most recently here), that was the first purchase, and the reason that Owen Dunne will always have a place in my list o’ webcomics over there to the right, no matter how long the current hiatus may be.

As I sit here, thinking about webcomics for your amusement, that is what a motor inside my house’s furnace sounds like. A very nice man named Jared has just gone to fetch the part that will fix my furnace so that I may have heat; the price attached to this part is not something I wanted to hear¹. My dog² just knows that a new person was in the house and will be coming back soon oh boy oh boy oh boy. Forgive me if I’m rambling; it’s a combination of cold and carbon monoxide paranoia, yay.

• The idea of storyline as ebook proof of concept appears to be gaining steam, as Brad Guigar³ compiled a recent Evil, Inc storyline (with roots going back four years or so), one that threatened to change everything you know forever!! Naturally, being comics, “change forever” lasted about six weeks (and brought Guigar some criticism from his readers; I thought he might have milked it another six months easy and really cheesed ’em off), but we’re getting away from the major point here.

  Much like Rich Stevens’s recent foray into free e-books (not to be confused with his future foray into free e-books), Guigar’s testing waters, figuring out what works for various devices, and learning how to best make things tablet-friendly. I’m guessing in another few months, this experimentation will be common enough that we won’t even notice when a creator mentions they’re diving in.

• Wanna see something pretty? Chris Yates has photos of the second tranche of mass-market Baffler! puzzles, due this spring. Start here and work your way through the pretty pictures.
• Have you heard of Solid Saints? Long story short, they’re a charitable works aggregator — people that want to make a difference (but lack large economic resources) are matched up with people who are looking for goods/services of a unique nature (and don’t mind the proceeds being used for something more meaningful than lining the pockets of a heartless corporation⁴.

  The goods/services are auctioned by Solid Saints, and all proceeds go to Child’s Play, and the ramp-up period comes to an end at 9:00pm PST (GMT-8) tonight when the auctions launch. Three days later, all the cash gets totaled up and we find out how much it was.

  Of particular interest to readers of this page, perhaps: an original comic by KC Green, a bundle o’ fun from Anthony Clark, and custom art by Nic “Tynic” Carey, who some of you may recall was an original contributor to this site and who presently spends her days creating robots with meat brains⁵. Now who wouldn’t want to have art created by a woman that has meat-brained robots⁶ at her disposal? Only people who have lost all joy in life, that’s who. Get bidding.

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¹ Were I a creator, it would sound like, “Time to sell some originals and take some commissions.”

² Portrait by Mary Cagle.

³ He’s dreamy.

⁴ Foreign sweatshop/migrant labor optional.

⁵ I’m oversimplifying here somewhat, but when you start throwing around terms like neurobiology and mechatronics, most people start to tune you out.

⁶ Possibly of the “killer” variety.