I kid, I kid. But surely I’m not the only one that thinks it’s just a matter of time before Kate Beaton becomes the subject of one of those Canadian Heritage minutes?

• Because I happened to be reading his blog, and double-happened to find a link to his old blog, and triple-happened to find his post noting ten years as a web com artist was dated exactly one year ago — happy eleventh anniversary of web com artistry, Kris Straub.

  As long as we’re noting anniversaries, today would be the anniversary of the birth of one of the most talented, funniest, and all-around greatest web com artists, Meredith Gran. Want to know how to succeed in this business? Do like Meredith does and spend 40% of your life honing your craft before you leave your mid-20s. That ought to do it.

• Readers of this page may know that I have great affection for the web com artisting of one Ms K Brooke “Otter” Spangler, creator of A Girl And Her Fed. She takes her time with her story, asks some pretty deep questions, isn’t afraid to revisit plot points from half-a-thousand updates previous, and easily takes the Most Improved Art award¹. But I wanted to mention something that she doesn’t get recognized for so often — her prose. Want to get a feel for how razor sharp her writing is? Check out her expose of how department store cosmetics counter reps deal with competition².

  People that write for comics don’t usually spend words as freely as they might like — the limited real estate afforded to speech balloons and fear of the dreaded Wall O’ Text Syndrome dictate economy as the general rule. As a result, most of them don’t really get the chance to stretch their verbal muscles too often, and thus might not be very skilled at it (a notable exception: Rob Balder, who has gotten a lot of practice with his Erfworld text updates, and is in the midst of a months-long page-at-a-time story; in print, Terry Moore used the technique to great effect in Strangers In Paradise).

  I’m mentioning this because Spangler was kind enough to send me a complementary copy of a new, brief, prose-dominant PDF of bonus stories, giving some color and definition to a pair of her minor characters (only seen in a handful pages in the past 10% or so of the story). The thing is, you don’t need to know very much about the (fairly complex) backstory of AGAHF³ to appreciate Issues (for that is its name) and what it reveals about Mare and Rachel (for they are the subjects).

  What you get is a compelling look at the insides of two characters that — had these short stories never been published — wouldn’t affect the overall narrative one whit. It’s an unnecessary set of words, unless you happen to like reading words that are especially well put together for no other reason than it gives you pleasure; in that case, it’s very necessary.

  With AGAHF merch appearing relatively infrequently (Spangler is just now getting to her first big-ticket items — a plush and a book), the majority of the income she’s made to compensate her for the expenses of the comic and time away from paying gigs has been from the sale of PDFs (there were two prior short comic stories, both also worth your time). If you like reading things, you could do far worse than to kick three (3) dollars (US) into the pot and pick up Issues.

  I think it’s great, but one might consider me to have a bias given how much I like Spangler’s work (and rumor has it that a certain hack web com artist pseudojournalist wrote the forward to her first book). Fortunately, as LeVar Burton always used to say, you don’t have to take my word for it — if you spring for the three bucks and utterly hate it, email me and I’ll split the cost with you⁴. I don’t think I’m going to be out much money.

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¹ Second place: Jeph Jacques, who it turns out went to college with Spangler. Small world.

² My niece, who works a counter for a major cosmetics vendor, tells me that Spangler’s piece is 100% accurate in every way.

³ What you would need to know is that Mare and Rachel were agents in an experimental Federal program that involved untried technology and mental conditioning techniques that left the survivors damaged. There, all caught up. If you want the longer recap, it’s here.

⁴ I am sincere in this offer, and trust that anybody who makes a claim to me for a buck-fifty will likewise be sincere and able to articulate why they disliked it. Those obviously trying to cash in on the (very little) money will be mercilessly mocked, but will also get the $1.50; a deal’s a deal, and I have no desire to face the wheel.

Note to all the robocallers that have plagued me this election season: I have kept a mental running tally of how many times each of you has bothered me. Whoever has the fewest Annoyed Gary tickmarks gets my vote.

• Things to have: Zach Weinersmith and Howard “Evil Twin” Tayler both moved outside the usual print/t-shirt/book collection merch axis, with announcements of an iDevice app and a Kickstarting board game, respectively. Particularly impressive is the boardgame, which is sitting at just under 50% of goal around 14 hours into the campaign, despite what I would have pegged as an unusual and potentially hampering reward structure¹. I’ll have to rework my personal model of what works for Kickstarting².

  Since we’re talking about iStore iApps for iDevices, I mentioned back in May about a gent named Steven Mausch who was building a webcomics reading app in the iPad that didn’t scrape or steal content from creators. Mausch writes to let us know that the app, ComicsPanel, is now available for your consideration. Somebody with a fondleslab let us know how you like it.

• Places to go: Are you on a continent? Then you can see The PhD Movie without leaving that arbitrary geographical unit. Seven continents of screenings, kids, from Minnesota to McMurdo³ and all points between. If you’re specifically in North America, even more specifically in Toronto, the most dangerous man in webcomics is having a stealth reading of surprise material tomorrow night. Details available for those that have Facebook.
• Things to see: Magnolia Porter⁴, as previously noted, is drawing 50 Achewood characters in 50 days, and just dropped #s 48 and 49: Ramses Luther Smuckles and Cartilage Head. These have been really, really great, and it’s going to be a pleasure to see who the 50th will be, tinged with the sadness that we don’t get any more of these. If we all die tonight because of the close-shave chunk of rock heading for us, not knowing who #50 is might be the biggest disappointment of the fall of civilization.

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¹ Approximately 75% of pledgers have opted for the 2nd tier reward, which includes a copy of the finished game at the $55 level (the first tier gets you nothing but good feelings, for a minimum of $1, so we’re really talking about the first reward tier). The thing is, most of the higher tiers predominantly distinguish themselves from the $55 tier by adding in more copies of the boardgame.

² It’s based around on providing unique and progressively more desirable rewards for more money, but this one opted for a quantity approach (mostly — mixed in with the additional copies are additional game contents that would otherwise not be available or available much later to the general public, so it’s really about quantity and time).

³ Which seems to be the place in Antarctica for webcomickry.

⁴ She kicks mens asses, and she votes.

Yep, slow network. How slow? The hotel’s wifi and wired internet remind me what life was like before that newfangled “DSL” got run to my condo in 1998.

• It’s been a couple of weeks since I pointed out that Saveur magazine continues to run recipes from talented indy/webcomics creators, but no time like the present. Also, I’ve got some pretty good indications that the Recipe Comix series — once thought to be running for a dozen or so installments — can now be reliably described as “ongoing”, so we should have these for a good while yet.
• Countdown to return: Erfworld is hiatusing to allow the artist, Xin Ye, to deal with some fairly awful things in her personal life right now:
  

  That’s the bad news. The consolation prize here is that Book 0 will begin on Halloween.

  I’ve always intended to write an illustrated prequel novel for Erfworld, dealing mostly with the fall of King Banhammer’s Faq. So why not now? NaNoWriMo is coming, right? Let’s pound that sucker out.

  So I will be posting updates of the new novel, “Inner Peace Through Superior Firepower,” three times a week on a M-W-F schedule, starting Monday October 31. It will be a rough draft, meaning that what goes up on the site may be subject to revision, editing, and retconjuration even as the story unfolds. It will be like getting 60 or so text updates in a row.

  Additionally, Erfworld creator/scripter Rob Balder reports that they’re adding an inker and colorist, to allow Ye to work up pencils as she’s able, meaning:

  Once the novel has finished running, we will have a buffer and a new process worked out, so that in the future, Erfworld can run on a much smoother update schedule.

  Erfworld remains one of the long-form webcomics that really works well, so anything that allows Balder and Ye to produce it more efficiently sounds like a good idea to me. I can fill the pictures in my head on my own for a while if that’s what it takes to get past this rought patch.

• Speaking of Halloween, everybody been following the creeptacular watercolors that Randy Millholland‘s been doing? Start here and click forward; originals for sale soon.
• Speaking of for sale, you can now safely channel the thought process of Joey Comeau and/or Ryan North in the comfort and convenience of your own home, most likely in your kitchen. It is claimed that these magnets will allow one to spell out Batmanology, although it’s probably safe to say that one webcomics-related gentleman would prefer to know if you can spell Batmanlogist.
• Speaking of … oh, hell, just go check out MS Paint Adventures for the end of Act Five of Homestuck; it’s the culmination of more than a year’s worth of weirdness, and due to the sheer size of the the thing you’ll have to wait in the download queue¹ because that many people want it and when you see a line that long, you get in it.

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¹ Due to the state of the network where I am, I will likely not be able to complete the download until this weekend when I return to the land of plentiful bandwidth.

Work, customer site, unknown web access, etc. So let’s point out a few things from the recent past and one in the immediate future.

• Never one to pass up a chance to make his audience suffer just a little¹ Brad Guigar announced out his 2000th Evil, Inc strip with an indulgence of his paronomasiac tendencies:
  

  Believe it or not, today marks the 2,000th Evil Inc strip. Time flies when you’re havin’ pun!

  Bad Brad, bad, bad! Leaving aside the inflicted punishment², one must note that Evil, Inc. came directly out of Greystone Inn, meaning that the 2001 (as of today) EI strips are actually part of more than 3000 strips in a single continuity. Respect.

• Although I make it habit to check in on Colleen Doran‘s blog on a regular basis (her thoughts on independent comics creation and the business side thereof are required reading), I missed her State of the Webcomic report of two weeks ago until this morning — thanks to Jamie Noguchi for linking to it. Doran talks about the progress of her readership, her books sales, and the path she took to get there on the web, for the past two and a half years. It’s a terrific discussion of how making the nonstandard choice can pay off.
• Finally, bunnies. Jon Rosenberg designed the bunnies and the print, Chris Yates did the puzzle-cutting. On sale in about 3.5 hours, guessing they’ll be gone in about four hours.

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¹ Either that, or he’s going for the masochist yet family-friendly demographic.

² Dammit now he has me doing it.

Not the happiest day in comics.

• Depressing thought number one: a company that you work for is perfectly willing to screw you sideways not because you are bad at your job or lost money, but merely because you didn’t make enough profit for your financial overlord. Case in point: a mess of comics people cut at Marvel, via Heidi Mac.

  That “enough profit” part is after hundreds of colleagues are forced to work in a facility with only one bathroom for each gender and the decision had been made to not carry inventory of books, which means you can’t supply stores that want to give you money for the books. Nobody that ever went to business school has ever said that your employer owes you anything beyond not bouncing your current paycheck, so it’s your own damn fault if you expected things like “dignity”, “the tools to do your job”, or “loyalty earned by all your hard work”. Indy-/webcomics creators may not have the surety of that paycheck not bouncing (for as long as it lasts), but at least you can’t be fired for crap reasons when you work for yourself. Fleen wishes the recently dejobbed Marvel staffers the best of luck.

• Depressing thought number two: nor did those b-school theorists decide that a company that you pay money should actually have to give you the services that you paid for. Case in point: Jon Rosenberg, whose difficult pregnancy/severely prematurely twin sons have, against all odds, thrived and become happy, normal toddlers¹. The cost of keeping them from dying in those long, horrible months was considerable, but Jon and his family had done the responsible thing and obtained health insurance, knowing that the purpose of health insurance is to pay for circumstances beyond one’s control, thus preventing an accident of fate from bankrupting a faultless family.

  Ha, ha, ha, ha, that was a good one. Actually, the purpose of health insurance is to pay a large amount of money to a company that will employ legions of people to ensure² that they don’t actually pay for the medical expenses that they said they would pay for. The latest evidence of this starts here and continues to make me insanely angry at the entire healthcare system for an hour or so. Jon’s conclusion is as succinct and correct a thing as ever has been said, and a position that I wholeheartedly agree with. I spend a significant amount of my time (approximately 800 hours a year, unpaid) trying to make it so at least one part of the healthcare fiasco doesn’t completely destroy the residents of one small town. It’s a losing battle, and a thought that can put one deep into a depressive funk.

• As we all recall from younger, more carefree days, the one thing that will make any situation better is dinosuars. They were cool and had teeth like this and horns like that and they went rawr and grrrrr and growf and looked awesome. Also, it is highly unlikely that they invented a system of for-profit healthcare that included business methods like recission. You can remind yourself daily of the magnificence of these creatures by looking overhead for anything with feathers, but the really awesome ones are only around in artistic representations.

  Case in point: Dustin Harbin has produced an astoundingly beautiful print of 27 dinosaurs and similar critters³. Also, there’s a baleful eye glaring at us in the water that doesn’t seem to have a name, so your guess is as good as mine. Order yours here and enjoy the cheer it brings you.

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¹ Despite having a father who trades in human souls.

² So to speak.

³ Sauropterygians and ichthyopterygians ruled the ancient seas, much as pterosaurs were lords of the ancient skies. But none of them were dinosaurs.

Actually, one of these items has nothing to do with a birth, and one is as much about compound plurals as births. Let’s all agree to deal with that inconsistency as best we can.

• For those of you wondering, it will soon be possible to have Beartato, T- and Wee-Rexes, Doctor McNinja, Yelling Bird, and various-sized Worribles (cf: here, here, here, and here for the existing spherical friends) over to your house for tea. The bouncy pile o’ plush at the next NEWW is gonna be awesome.
• Speaking of NEWW, that last photo contains Erika Moen next to the Tower of Squishy Fun. Transitively speaking of Erika Moen, she contacted us to point out a factual error in yesterday’s post — despite what we at Fleen¹ wrote, Moen did not attend Pacific University. She was graduated from Pitzer College, one of the famed Claremont Colleges, which I should have remembered because I almost went to Harvey Mudd and then me ‘n’ Erika coulda been almost-college buddies which would rule. But I didn’t, and I got it wrong. Fleen² regrets the error.
• Speaking of T-Rex (up above), did you know that today is the anniversary of the birth of Ryan North³? Speaking of today being an anniversary of birth, did you know it’s also the birthday of John Allison? Fleen wishes Happy Birthdays to them both. Or would that be Happys Birthday? Happy Birthsday? Ryan, we need a ruling here before language loses all meaning.

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¹ That would be me, but “me at Fleen” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

² Me again.

³ The Toronto Man-Mountain; need proof of his enormity? Check out this photo from the Wikipedia page dedicated to him and note the caption: 20 October 1980. Like unto some Olympian of olde, North was born fully grown, complete with lustrous mane, three-day stubble, and a leather jacket.

Dumped all my good story points yesterday, and today’s a slow day. Dadnugget.

• One thing I neglected to mention from NYCC: I had discussions at the Dumbrella table about Jon Rosenberg’s entirely adorable bunnies. The discussion I had was actually with <name withheld> about a collaboration, to produce bunnies in the form of <detail withheld>, which will be an awesome announcement once it’s made. Trust me. But what I didn’t get even a hint of was the fact that Rosenberg’s got prototype in hand for a plush adorable bunny¹.

  Guys this is so cute I am ready to destroy stuffed animals my wife has owned since childhood just to have room to keep this thing in my house. Also, one cannot but hope that if the adorable bunny plushes are a hit, we could possibly see an in-scale Mother of All Bunnies? I cannot wait to put that thing in a menacing posture next to my Diablo The Satanic Chicken².

• New webcomic alert — I missed out on the early days of Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant, and Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, but this time I’m on top of what looks like the next promising, full-page webcomic based on a recognizable setting but not quite our world: The Water Clock launched today, with a definite Dynastic Egypt design sensibility, but a wiki that indicates it’s going to be drawing inspiration from all of the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. Thanks to Magnolia Porter for the heads-up.
• Followup-cubed: Mia Wiesner has confirmed to me that the results of her digital comics survey (announced here, initial results here, final results discussed last week) are available to anybody who wants them. There’s not a server set up for the PDF, so if you’re interested, drop me a line at the contact link up there on the right, and I’ll send you her email address. Hopefully, this will keep her from getting spammed into next month.

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¹ If nothing else, Rosenberg has certainly cemented his reputation has Greatest Dad Ever in the eyes of his daughter, who is undoubtedly playtesting the prototype as we speak.

² Mint in box, not to be confused with Mints in box.

NYCC was a low-key, short-duration affair for me this year; other commitments kept me from being there the full weekend, but hey — anytime I can spend shooting the breeze with Brad Guigar about ladies and their disturbing cosplay¹, that’s a good time².

• Speaking of eyeballs, I got some great news from Magnolia Porter about Monster Pulse. “Speaking of” because I led off by telling her how much I’ve enjoyed the current chapter (The Eyeball Kid), and how well she’s nailed the character of the eponymous Kid — he comes across all strong, ruthless, doing whatever he must to survive, but show him a plate of chicken nuggets and he’s just a kid again. Perfect. The good news was that Monster Pulse will run for the next couple of years — no end in sight, which means I get to enjoy this one for a good long time.
• Similarly, Evan Dahm let me know that the nearly 200 pages of Vattu posted so far are the tip of the iceberg — we’re still getting setup, the story has so many place to go, and will be both “the largest story [Dahm] has ever told” and require “more than 1000 pages”. Hopefully, we’ll get printed versions along the way, because I’m not sure if I could wait another 800 pages (at three a week, or more than five years) to give him money in exchange for this story. Especially since he was kind enough to give me a copy of the Vattu: The First Day mini, which I would point you to in his store, only it’s not there. Look, just give the guy money, okay?
• Speaking of talking with creative types and ongoing stories, Jim Zubkavich seemed to get a lot of attention (and well deserved) for various Skullkickers developments, but I was happy to talk to him about Makeshift Miracle. Interesting development — book 1 of the remastered series will pretty much follow the story of the original webcomic/print collection, but after that he sees the story will diverge. Look for an interview with the esteemed Mr Zub in the coming weeks.
• Most interesting talk I had of the weekend was probably with Jon Brence, Ogeeku cofounder and SMBC Theater regular. Zach Weiner was there, too, but he had a nasty case of biological colonization going on and his voice was just terrible and I didn’t want to stress it. Anywho, Brence was able to give me some good news about the forthcoming sci-fi web series — new equipment has been obtained, shooting planned out, and principal photography will complete pretty quickly. There’s going to be a lost of post-production though; this project will feature lots and lots of CGI, the better to find new and interesting ways to destroy James Ashby in space³. Speaking of, James’s new video series with Marque Williams on cheap eating? Check it out if you haven’t yet.
• I was able to have nice long talks with my friends from Dumbrella, which is actually good and bad. Good for me, bad that long talks means that there weren’t people interrupting to engage in fan interactions and commerce, due to the vagaries of floor layout. Dumbrella were given space against the back wall, behind a major Marvel comics installation, which provided a near-perpetual knot of people that were difficult to break through. Dedicated fans found their way back, but casual floor-walkers probably looked at the congestion and went the other way. One person who was able to break through the knot was Cory Doctorow, but I’m told that he wasn’t wearing the goggles and cape. Booo.
• Things learned: Meredith Gran is working on a project with Frank ‘n’ Becky that is going to make many of you go Oooo! Chris Yates continues to make a name for himself in the world of handmade wooden puzzle aficionados, who appear to develop intense loyalties to the few skilled individuals that can do what he does. Jon Rosenberg’s twin sons (Team Babies) have beaten all conceivable odds and turned out adorable; nevertheless, children are expensive (what with wanting to be fed and clothed and all), so do Jon a favor and buy some of his stuff.
• Purchases that I was lucky enough to make: The Anime Club, Amazing Everything, O No Sashimi (except mine is red).
• Finally, I didn’t get to track down or talk to Ramón Pérez but that’s okay, because soon Kukuburi will be back, so very, very back.

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¹ Specifically, one young lady that didn’t seem to be dressed as anything particular at all (or at least, we didn’t pick up the reference), but whose eyes were completely black. Pupil, iris, sclera, the whole thing, inky black. “Nice contacts,” I told her. “What contacts?” she replied. “I’ll rephrase,” I countered, “If those aren’t contact lenses, I’m calling an ambulance for you, because whatever could be causing that couldn’t possibly be good.” She laughed and didn’t die, so I guess that’s okay.

² Yes, yes, I know. We’re wild, self-destructive party animals. Tell the cops to bring the riot squad, there’s no controlling me ‘n’ Brad. Mostly Brad.

³ I suggested spaghettification in a black hole, but I’ll settle for explosive decompression.

For lo, the day long prophesied at Canadian World Domination have come to pass, as our Northern Neighbors have begun their conquest. First webcomics, comrade … then the world.

• Where else to start but with Kate Beaton? In the ten days since the official release of Hark! A Vagrant, Beaton has debuted on the New York Times bestseller list for graphic novels (hardcover) in the top position. Somewhere, the bookish equivalent of Casey Kasem is noting that Beaton is Number one … with a bullet. The bullet, naturally, will be used to enforce Canadian dominance over the unwilling careful stewardship of we poor, blighted ‘Mericans.
• Beaton is, of course, published by Drawn and Quarterly, proud Canadian publishers of quality comics, and inhabitants of Montréal. Also found in the francophone corner of the Great White North — Blind Ferret, home of Ryan Sohmer’s various reaches into comics — webcomics, animation, and even an actual brick-and-mortar comic shop. Never content to rest on his laurels, The 4th Wall is expanding to a second location. 4th Wall East (so named by Sohmer in his twitterfeed) would presumably be closer to the the center portion of Montréal, given that the original is to the west of downtown. Thus, he continues his march on the heart of the seventh-largest city on the continent, the better to seize power.
• A bit south of the border (way south, as far from Canadian as you can get, mostly), Randy Milholland occupies a corner of Texas. It seems a bit obvious in retrospect, but as near as I can tell, today was when he made it official on Twitter:
  

  When I get home, I’ll post pictures of the final prototype for the Choo-Choo Bear plush – which is in production now.

  Excitement! And a promise of quality!

  They’re being made by the same company that makes @dcorsetto’s McPedro plushes

  Here’s where I was going to do a bunch of investigation and fact-checking to confirm my hunch, but Milholland went and spilled the beans in a later tweet, so screw it — all this ties into Canada because Corsetto’s merch (including the McPedro plush)is handled by the aforementioned Blind Ferret, so that’s where Choo-Choo Bear will be coming from, too. Aw, who am I kidding? Huggable pudding cats are enough to even make me forget to be terrified that Sohmer’s reach now extends across the entire United States to the very borders of Mexico. “World’s only superpower” my ass — if he’s conquered Texas, Sohmer is on his way to his very own Bond villain style volcano lair.

So things have been happening since yesterday which suggest connections in my brain. The most obvious, of course, is the untimely (if not unforseeable) death of Steve Jobs, given that much of webcomics as we know it wouldn’t exist if not for the products that Jobs shepherded through Apple. I think the best bit written about him was from Scott McCloud, not just because of its brevity¹, but because I think he captured more of the complexity of the man and less of the myth that Steve strode alone upon the face of computing and made it all by dint of his sole effort:

The story of Steve Jobs and Apple is more complicated than most news outlets would lead you to believe, and there were plenty of great minds that led to the original Mac and that contributed to all that followed.

But anyone who thinks that Jobs’ contributions to society can somehow be reduced to “marketing” or “fashion” betrays a complete ignorance of the power and importance of great design.

Great design can and does change the world. Poor design can and does ruin lives.

To Steve Jobs, and to everyone trying every day to put their own dent in the universe, thank you.

Visual memorialists today include Randall Munroe, Krishna Sadasivam, and Rich Stevens, who knocked it out of the muthascratching park.

Speaking of Stevens, I mentioned the other day that it doesn’t do to ignore him, and his new venture) has shown us why. I’ve written before about how quickly the man can go from idea to execution to done with that, what’s next?, exhibiting that fast, ruthless edge that the small innovator must have to compete against the entrenched corporate behemoth. With the launch of its first offering (or “experiment”, as it’s termed), Lab-Mo-Tory Industries has signaled their approach — get an idea, execute, you either get one or you don’t, and move on to the next thing next month. With the people that Stevens has found to assist in his mad plans², I think they’ll achieve the odd poetry of fast, cheap, out of control pretty easily.

Speaking of poetry, I see that a well-beloved Swedish poet was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. It might be a while before another Swede is loved enough at home and abroad, with a deep enough body of work, to take the prize again. It might also be a significantly long time before a comics creator is seen as contributing to the field of “Literature”, but it might just be that those two events are contemporaneous at some Nobel ceremony some decades from now. If so, my money’s on Rene Engström and Rasmus Gran, or at least one of their students. Yes, students — following up on the CUNY class taught by Aaron Diaz³ in early summer, Engström and Gran will be teaching a class on webomics at Malmö University this term. Can’t wait to see what kind of cartoon art they create.

Speaking of cartoon art, the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco (which has an appreciation of all things webcomicky) will be holding its annual benefit at Pixar Studios on Saturday, 10 December. Access is a bit pricey ($250 or $500 for Fan and VIP packages, respectively; knock it down by $50 if you’re a CAM member), but you get access to the fabled campus, viewings of pre-production art and screenings hosted by filmmakers. Details, tickets, etc., at the CAM website. If there’s a more focused dedicated group of artists than at Pixar, I’m not sure who it would be, but let’s remember a simple fact: Pixar pretty much was able to make its magic because of the backing and support of a man named Steve Jobs. It all comes back around.

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¹ Let’s face it, Steve Jobs is such a huge idea that you can write pages upon pages and still not come close to adequately describing the man and all that he represented. Brief was definitely the way to go here.

² Rich, have I ever introduced you to Otter? Something tells me you two should talk and make plans for a product launch.

³ The Latin Art-Throb.