Sometimes, it’s so very incremental that changes take place that you scarcely realize they’re happening, but in the past day or so, I realized that some things are now here with us for good:

• Achewood has become a subscription site, with zero (0) new strips since 5 January, but 50 pages in the Fanflow.
• Howard Tayler has been paid off by Jerry Holkins to produce art inspired directly by his fetish. So slender.

Okay, that last one is actually true. One may note that —

• How to Make Webcomics has entered a third printing in as many years and is now again generally available after a period of drought.
• Christopher Baldwin’s first Spacetrawler print collection has now made its way through the mails (and a complimentary review copy has landed on my doorstep), meaning that the pre-order blues are done. I’ll admit that I was slightly concerned — not about the story or art, which I have been following since the strip launched and have reaved about here in the past — by the possibility that print technology might not do justice to what Baldwin’s been drawing.

  Luckily, the colors are deep, rich, and satisfying, the paper stock shows no artifacts or bleeding, and fancy details (check out the last panel of this strip, where a space city is seen through the jet-wash of the titular ‘trawler) come through as wonderfully precise on the page as on my screen. In all honesty, I didn’t think you could do a print job this good and still price the book at twenty bucks. Guess the global economic slowdown means excess press capacity.

• Tyler Page has made both print volumes of his charming and entertaining Nothing Better, available in PDF form for free under a Creative Commons license. And he did it because:
  

  I want as many people as possible to see and enjoy my work. I’ve been putting it online for years for people to see for free, and I’ve enjoyed a small but loyal group of fans who have bought the book collections I’ve put out. Offering a PDF of the books seemed like a great way to expand that readership.

  Initially I thought I should sell the PDFs. But in doing so I really hoped that what would happen was that a few people would buy the PDFs and then spread the files around online. Eventually I started thinking, “why not just start the sharing myself?”

  A big influence on that line of thought was re-reading about the experience the Machine of Death folks had with their book. If I wanted as many people as possible to experience my work, why put that payment roadblock out in front?

  This is good work. It just needs more eyeballs on it. And once that happens I’m confident at least some of those people will pay for it.

  And if you feel like you’ve been entertained, consider paying something for it.

If I didn’t already own both Nothing Better books, I’d be doing just that right about now.

Other new things (predominantly books) of note:

• Ryan Sias may not be working on Silent Kimbly anymore (boo!), but that doesn’t mean he isn’t doing creative work. Balloon Toons: Zoe and Robot, Let’s Pretend is now available for the kid in your life that you actually like and want to encourage to be creative and imaginative. You never know what imagination in a kid will lead to.
• A Girl And Her Fed, readers of this page may recall, is one of my preferred strips. It’s grown so very much since it launched lo those many years ago, and just keeps getting deeper and better. The first volume of AGAHF, Rise Up Swearing, is now available for your pre-order attentions.

  I hear that in addition to the prologue and first chapter of the story (we’re on chapter seven now), there’s a bonus story entitled, Some Bad Choices I Have Made: An Illustrated Primer (I shudder to think what kind of bad choices a webcomicker could have made) and an Introduction by some hack webcomics pseudojournalist. This one’s gonna be a keeper.

• Finally, I clearly have to invest in a new shelf for my [web]comics toys. Between the army of Androids getting ready to expand, and the just-announced plushy McPedro (pre-order), I’m out of room. Of course I have to get a McPedro! Did you see the moustache on that thing? So bushy.

I like my brother-in-law the meteorologist a lot, but when his forecast emails contain lines like that one, I kind of wish for sweet, sweet ignorance. Given the possibility of power outages due to icing of power lines starting this time tomorrow, and going for as much as 48 hours past that, please forgive me in advance if I miss an update or six in that time frame. In the meantime, webcomics.

• Dammit, Andy, I’m not sure what’s worse — the fact that you have Series 2 Android figures on the way to siphon off my money:
  

  Will get a little Android S2 preview up tomorrow, too much other stuff to do tonight!

  … or the fact that you’re making me wait to see what the money-sink looks like. I don’t want to give into Completist Mania, and I don’t want to not see the toys that I’m trying to resist purchasing. No part of that last sentence made any sense.

• Show news: Big announcement pending from TCAF, very hush-hush for the moment, but showrunner Christopher Butcher doesn’t mess around. If he says it’s exciting, it’s exciting. Keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow’s announcement. And following up on the earlier announcement that Intervention attendee registration is open, today comes the news that Artists Alley/vendor applications are now available.
• Until the news of the aforementioned Killer Ice Storm reached me, this was going to be the header image for today’s posting, if for no other reason that to be able to use the phrase sac weevils. Though Digger may be close to finishing for good, as long as Ursula Vernon cranks out art from the depths of her subconscious, I’ll remain a happy guy.

You know what I don’t talk about enough? Dicebox, by Jenn Manley Lee. It’s right over there in the blogroll, its story is nothing short of brilliant, and the art — so much detail, so much depth to the color, so much work goes into every panel (see the piece written by my erstwhile cohort Jeff Lowrey more than five years ago on this very page), and it’s been going on for so long, one just assumes the brilliance is obvious and takes it for granted. Mea culpa.

Let’s expand on that “it’s been going on for so long” idea a bit, shall we? Book 2 of Dicebox began two days ago, which means that Book 1 is complete, and that means that Book 1 (of a planned four books) can be printed as an undivided single unit. Pre-orders went up on 10 January, and as of about six hours ago (at the time of this writing), Lee reports that more than 10% of the books required to make the print run viable have been pre-purchased.

And you’ve got some choices with those books — much like Dylan Meconis did with Family Man‘s first book, there are different editions at different price-points, with varying degrees of goodies attached. These range from The Simple (US$25 plus shipping, for a signed copy — which one should note is a freakin’ bargain, given it’s more than 300 pages, 8″ x 10″ in size, and probably several new printing technologies had to be invented in order to get the depth and subtlety of color properly reproduced) up through The Sponsor (US$500, with the book upgraded to hardcover, and including a hand-colored tip-in sheet, a print, actual dice in a cup, and your choice of story pages recreated by Lee in watercolor just for you). It’s like a Kickstarter, only without the progress & countdown bars.

Even if you’re only enthusiastic about Dicebox (as opposed to rabidly enthusiastic — there really aren’t any other kinds of Dicebox readers, near as I can tell), you ought to pick this one up. After all, somewhere in the indicia, there will be a mention of where the book was printed, and then all webcomickers will find out which company is willing to print 300 pages at a very reasonable cost, and then we’ll get a lot more full-color, thick books from all of our favorite creators. Win-win-win, QED.

• Speaking of Kickstarter, there’s one I’d like to direct your attention towards, offered by Michael Gianfrancesco, to fund a new comic anthology to be titled Show and Tell, a Comic Anthology about Learning and Teaching. Alexander Danner (who is on the editorial board for Show and Tell, and who tipped me to the story) informs us:
  

  This anthology is part of a larger project that we are very excited about — the New England Comic Arts in the Classroom conference, which will be held March 26th in Providence, Rhode Island. Guests at the con will include Raina Telgemeier and Tracy White.

  Comics, naturally, have an affinity in the classroom, if only to judge by the many uses of them around the world to teach language and literacy. We will be following both the conference and the anthology closely.

• Once more back to Dicebox — if you look carefully around at Ms Lee’s store, you might notice something that most stores don’t have: a blog. It’s pretty short (given that the shop’s only just opened), but having this sort of mechanism within the store itself to communicate with your readers is a pretty damn good idea. Something similar just launched over at the Transmission X storefront, making it easy to note specials, low quantities, sold out items, etc.

  In the past week I’ve noticed creators from Box Brown to Rich Stevens tweeting or posting on their main pages about store special offers (Stevens) or imminent out-of-print status (Brown). But if a customer missed those announcements and just wandered over to the store directly? Just seems to me if it deals with your merch and it’s worth mentioning, it’s worth mentioning again where the merch is presented. Heck, TopatoCo’s landing page focuses on new items, shipping deadlines, special announcements, and whatever weirdness is spilling out of Malki ! today. If they can do it, you can do it.

• Lastly, it’s getting a lot of attention right now — a manifesto on not being a particular type of internet jerk in webcomic form, courtesy of Rosscott and Caldy. See Something? Cite Something has already spawned shirts based on the bottom two images in the flowchart, one of which has been objected to by a copyright owner. Irony? Or ultimate manifestation of the message in the strip? Regardless, it’s been pulled in accordance with the copyright holder’s wishes, and no need for C&Ds or legal threats. So that’s all right, then.

Still under the weather but awake for some of today. So here’s some brief items, and I’ll see you for regular updates on Monday.

• Lot of press this year about comiXology, especially since the iPad made reading comics on-the-go (and on a screen larger than that of an iPhone) so very easy. They’ve spread into direct support for the other major mobile O/S, with a new comiXology app for Android. While I love my Android phone, it’s a very early model, and apparently the app requires a later version of Android than I’ve got, so no luck to me. And in any event, this probably won’t live up to its potential until the inevitable breakout Android-based tablet (to present, none of the models has made a big hit in the marketplace) sometime in the future. In the meantime, if you’ve got Android 2.1 or higher, let us know what you think.
• Friends of comics The ToonSeum invites friend of comics, webcomic creator, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum, consort of the Radness Queen of the 510 Area Code, and (most relevant at the moment) author of The Looney Tunes Treasury Andrew Farago for an appearance and signing on Boxing Day (that would be 26 December) from noon to 2:00pm. Anybody in Pittsburgh, drop by and say “hi” for me; I’d join you, but I pulled Christmas weekend EMS duty and western Pennsylvania is just a little bit outside of response range for any 911 calls we might get. I’ll have to make do with a lot of pie.
• Just bout five years ago, an evil genius named Jon Rosenberg enticed me (and a pair of co-conspirators, but I’m the only one without a life, it seems) to make with the opinion-mongering found here so frequently. Although Fleen officially launched on 22 December 2005, a handful of posts had been written over the prior couple of weeks, so today serves as well as any as an “official” anniversary for this bastard child of hype, opinionmongering, and occasionally non-mangled syntax.

  I’ve never adequately “thanked” Jon for getting me started down the path to hell known as blogging, but it appears that the past few years of attempting to kill him with my mind may have finally had an effect — Rosenberg and his lovely wife Amy are expecting twins come June. This may not prove to be his death, but surely the lack of sleep that it causes will push him ever closer to the edge of madness. This is probably a good place to insert maniacal laughter, but I’ve got a sore throat, so click here for a reasonable facsimile.

  In all seriousness, congratulations to Jon and Amy — twins rule (I should know, I married one) and they can only benefit from having one of the most weirdly creative of all the possible dads in the world. Here’s hoping that they get good and stockpiled on sleep and diapers, and maybe this would be a good time for you to purchase some fine merchandise from him, so that his sproglings need not be clothed in discontinued t-shirts and sleep in a bassinet made of unsold books? Do it for the children.

Springtime is usually Neil Cohn time — you remember him, with the surveys of how people read comics — but this time he’s getting a jump on his latest solicitation of experimental test subjects. Despite the scary way I just worded it, if you participate in Cohn’s latest experiment of visual linguistics, you almost certainly won’t end up a gibbering mockery of nature … after all, there aren’t many mad social scientists. Plus, you might win a Best Buy gift card.

• Child’s Play update: given the November 30 total of US$752,000, and the amount raised just last night (from the charity dinner, and a check delivered by the Desert Bus people), but not counting any direct donations over the previous week, 2010’s efforts stand north of US$1.14 million. Wowsers.
• Anniversary times! In the past twenty four hours, we’ve seen both four years of Erfworld (seriously, four years? seems like two, tops) and the 100th page of Spacetrawler. Then again, the first couple of updates were double-sized, so it’s probably more than 100 pages by now, but what the heck — I’m declaring it an official Significant Round Number anyway.

  For those interested in extras and the collegial side of webcomics, the Erfworld page has a nice discussion on lettering and the efforts in redoing work for print, so that you can learn from their experience. And the Spacetrawler page (as well as the previous update) has a list of webcomickers with quality merch available for the holidays, who each have their own lists as well.

  It’s not really in anybody’s direct self-interest to make it easier for potential competitors to produce their wares more easily, or to promote those wares at potentially the expense of your own, which just goes to show you what fundamentally decent people one finds among independent comics creators. Also, were I to point out just one piece of exciting merchandise this season, it would surely be the Sailor Twain prints. Goodness, those are gorgeous.

• Lots of people putting together year-end lists and summaries; I think that I can safely say that 2010 was the year that substantially all the balls were tripped. Top that, 2011!

It’s not much better out now. Maybe the next day or so will be better?

• You know what’s for wimps, apparently? NaNoWriMo. You know what the true creative make-or-break project is? OnMoAnFe. That would be Ryan Estrada‘s effort in the rain forest of Central America for the month of December — the One Month Animated Feature:
  

  It’s always been my dream to make an animated feature, but I’ve never been able to get the time and resources I need. Well, I’m sick of waiting. This December, I’m sitting down at my desk in the Costa Rican jungle to work. And on January 1st, I’m releasing the finished movie online, free to all.

  For anybody else, I’d say it was probably suicidal; for Estrada (veteran of the 168 hour comic), I’d call it merely semi-insane, but unlikely to produce permanent mental harm. Everybody send Estrada some good vibes tomorrow as he begins his descent into Ultimate Crunch Time.

• Speaking of tomorrow, congrats to Christian Fundin and Pontus Madsen, who will celebrate ten years of deceptively-cute-yet-foul-intentioned (in the best way possible) updates over at Little Gamers.
• Still speaking of tomorrow, I get to flip over the card in my 2010 Wondermark calendar from November to December; I wonder what ribaldry and/or misery will await me in all of its artisanal screen-printed glory? Also, to ensure that another 12 months of inappropriate thoughts continue, I ordered my calendar cards for 2011 today, and urge you to do likewise, as they exist in an extremely limited edition of under 200.

  Watching screenprinting, letterpressing, typebothering and old-style ink-manipulations of every kind is utterly fascinating to me (and also to a statistically unusually large number of the readers of this page — as compared to the general population), so while the rest of you go enjoy a refreshing beverage or snack, we will be enjoying a short video documentary on the creation of the 2008 edition.

• Hey, you’re reading Zahra’s Paradise, right? The first webcomic launched under the imprimatur of the creative wünderkinden over at :01 Books about life in modern Iran, and the search for a disappeared protestor is just now starting a storyline on Iran’s secret prisons:
  

  Kahrizak is the incarceration center where so many protestors disappeared to. It was eventually closed when it became public
  knowledge, and an embarrassment for the regime.

  In this chapter, the blogger [and narrator of the story] receives news: one of his friends who was missing, Ali, has been released and has returned home. Everyone rejoices, and they gather to celebrate. But Ali does not want to celebrate; his experiences in prison have been
  traumatic. He does have a message for the blogger, though: his brother, Mehdi, was held with him in Kahrizak, where the government moved
  troublesome people it wanted out of the normal system, inaccessible to any pleas for help.

  The creators of Zahra’s Paradise, Amir and Khalil (anonymous for obvious reasons) have done their homework throughout the story, but given that Kahrizak is based on the accounts of people who have seen the inside of the secret prisons, it’s likely that this chapter will be especially harrowing, and important. If you haven’t been reading, this is the time to jump in.

Multiple disciplines suggest themselves in today’s stories; it’s like an Ig Nobel in miniature around here.

• Chemistry
  Back in my college days (ah, nerd school) we had a simple test to determine what items went in which department — things that fell down were Civil Engineering, things that moved around and made noise were Mechanical Engineering, things that made your hair stand on end were Electrical Engineering, and things that smelled funky were Chemistry¹.

  Years later, I found myself doing a week’s work at a manufacturing facility of a flavoring and fragrances company and I was struck by the near total absence of any scents whatsoever — like the magic of chemistry had sucked out all of the olfactory noise that would prevent testers from judging tastes and scents on an isolated, objective basis. I wonder if Kaja Foglio knows what I’m talking about.

  This isn’t some idle speculation — Professora Foglio likely has experienced the odor equivalent of a sensory-deprivation chamber because she’s recently wrapped up the development of ZOMG Smells (noted geeks perfumers) development of a line of Girl Genius perfumes. Whether you want to smell like a Jägermonster, a madboy Spark! I meant Spark!, or the aftermath of the Nuremberg Pudding Incident (not to be confused with the Noodle Incident), ZOMG Smells (and shortly, the Studio Foglio online store and con booth) have you covered.

  If anybody knows of another webcomic that’s inspired a line of perfume, let me know. Since we’ve had songs recorded by/about webcomic characters (cf: Deathmøle, Dinosaur Comics: The Opera), interactive animations (cf: MS Paint Adventures, Dinosaur Comics again), recipes inspired by webcomics (cf: Webcomics: What’s Cooking?) and now perfume, I guess the only sense left to tie in would be touch. How long before we see a line of Girls With Slingshots sex toys?

• Economics (it’s sort of a science)
  Speaking of Girls With Slingshots, one may note that Danielle Corsetto has a brand-new design to her website, complete with spankin’ new RSS feed, blog capability, twitterfeed, con schedule, alt text, and the works. If you didn’t read Corsetto’s intro to the new design (and kudos to Tyler Martin for his work — it looks great) you might be confused by the list of conventions for 2011 where she notes she’ll be at the Blind Ferrett booth. If you did read the posting, you may have noticed that GWS has joined up with Blind Ferret — hosting, storefront, merchandise fulfillment, book publishing, handy excuse to head to Montréal every few weeks for “business meetings” (and absolutely not to enjoy a fabulous city full of comickin’ people).

  This is a big deal for Corsetto, and possibly a bigger one for Blind Ferret, who are now branching out into the sort of webcomics services-for-hire that this page has called for (and international/binlingual in scope, too); between the seeing-impaired mustelids and the toxic sentient solanid, those top-tier webcomickers that need business services appear to be better supplied than ever. Exciting times.

• Temporal Mechanics (okay, it might be Star Trek science, but it’s at least sciencey, right?)
  Michael Payne wrote to point out something important is happening next Friday, besides the expected post-American Thanksgiving tryptophan coma: the Daily Grind Ironman Challenge will cross 1500 updates. There are still six of the original 56 contestants duking it out for the status of Last Webcomicker Standing and the fabulous prize of $1120. How long is that, really?

  Long enough that most of the Final Six are actually approaching 2000 to 3000 updates in their comics, since they were merely hopping into the contest with whatever comic was actually running at the time. Long enough for contestants like Dean Trippe, John Campbell, Brian Fukushima, and Natasha Allegri (to name but a few) to build careers since they got knocked out, careers so notable that it’s a surprise to look down the list and say, “Crap, they were in that contest five years ago?” Long enough that the contest had already seen its field winnowed by half before I started my hack webcomics pseduo-journalism.

  Heck, it’s even been long enough for Brad Guigar to grow a sweet moustache/chinbeard combo and get a pair of contacts (compare/contrast). So to all of the remaining Iron Men, we at Fleen say well done and geez, are you gonna make us wait another 1500 days to see who wins this thing. Just bow out together and split the money.

_______________
¹ In large quantities, things that smelled funky qualified as Chemical Engineering.

• The last word on Machine of Death and Glenn Beck (whose producers were hittin’ up Malki ! for free copies).
• Via Randy Milholland: Squishable (makers of Red Robot, T-Rex, and Yelling Bird) have a webcomic now!
• Even more Top Ten lists, this time about The Future of Art. Coming soon: Top Ten Top Ten Lists of ___ in Comics.
• Baffler! commercial staring this guy (see 0:50), formerly seen in the commercial for the Poop Sign.
• Everybody booze up and riot!

From Steve Lieber, re: Underground getting scanned at 4chan:

Pictures help us learn.

Those Etsy sales mentioned in Lieber’s graphic? They’re fulfilled by Hurricane Erika, who is even now working her fingers to the bone to get you your orders. If you ask extra nicely, maybe she’ll give your copy a hug!

• Missed it, tipped off by Lesley Davidson: Webcomic Alliance member/1977 The Comic creator Byron Wilkins regularly contributes to the Two Guys Talking Webcomics podcast (also a Webcomics Alliance member site), which is part of Kurt Sasso’s TGT Media. Together, they’re spearheading a reasonably unique project — Webcomics: What’s Cooking?
  

  … is [a] cookbook that will feature dozens and dozens of recipes from popular webcomic creators showcasing a variety of recipes from Breakfast to Dinner and a few things in between!

  The cookbook will feature a full page, custom created comic from each participating artist along side a favorite dish or beverage. From Alien Cupcakes to Alamo Queso to Chicago style Deep Dish Pizza, you are sure to find a dish that will satisfy your hunger. The concept behind the cookbook is “Feed Your Family, Feed the World”. You purchase the cookbook and receive all these wonderful recipes to create for your family or friends and the proceeds from the project go to Canadian and American National Food Banks to help feed those in need.

  Orders available starting 30 October at the TGT Media site, with delivery in time for the (US) Thanksgiving season; while you’re waiting for next Saturday to come around, feel free to peruse the list of contributing webcomickers.

Today, in various corners of Her Majesty’s Commonwealth, John Allison and Ryan North are united in the knowledge that today is the most special of days, the anniversary of their births 34 and 30 (respectively) years ago. Welcome to the primes of your lives, webcomics dudes.

• Making the rounds — Steve Lieber is a comic book writer and artist (primarily working out of Portland’s Periscope Studios, home of more than one webcomicky type), perhaps best known for his work on Whiteout (the very good comic, not the middling movie). That’s thing A.

  This past Sunday over at the 4chan board devoted to comics, a poster put up scans of all five issues of Underground, a recent miniseries by Lieber and writer Jeff Parker. Underground has been well-received critically, but has not seen sales figures commensurate with its overall quality; the original poster wanted more people to see it. That’s thing B.

  When these two things meet, ugly outcomes are usually the result — creators have (rightly) an interest in people paying for their work, and having the entire damn thing spread around for free (particularly on a niche title selling not too many copies) can have a measurable impact on the rent and groceries fund this month. But when a work is not widely known, making it more widely available can entice people who wouldn’t have found it otherwise to discover both work and creator, and may (let’s emphasize that may) lead to sales down the line; indeed, this is the entire model that webcomics (as we use the term in these parts) is predicated on.

  Key thought, though — it’s a model that creators opt into, rather than having their work distributed outside their control. There have been public internet poo-flings over such events in the past, (often for the posting of only selected excerpts of comics instead of complete stories), accompanied by legal notices and DMCA takedown requests. So Thing A + Thing B couldn’t possible end well when Lieber virtually wandered into the 4chan discussion.

  Except that it did. Lieber engaged with the original poster and other commenters, an unusually civil (downright pleasant and respectful, even) discussion ensued (remember, we’re talking about a comment thread on the internet here, and outside of The AV Club, any right-thinking person’s rule should be Never read the comments), and all went away happy. Then it took a turn for the surreal. Yesterday Lieber posted about his experience at 4chan and for a kicker, included the full content of Underground for free download. As he put it:

  I just participated in a genuinely fascinating discussion, and I think it’s old dog, new tricks time.

  After much discussion and email, we’re going to try to offer the book in a proper digital format via Comixology. Til then you’re stuck with pdfs.

  Give it a read! If you decide you’d like a hard copy, the best thing you can do is order one through your local store. If you’d prefer mail, try our friends at TFAW, or just get it directly from our us:
  Periscope Studio Etsy store.
  (The book has been selling out really quickly, so if it’s not there, bug us and we’ll restock ASAP.) [emphasis mine]

  Two thoughts came to me as I watched this one play out. Firstly, I find the timing of Lieber’s reaction to be interesting, given the talk at last week’s Festival of Cartoon Art and the Dave Kellett talk therein. From Alan Gardner’s livetweeting of Kellett’s presentation:

  • comics are a slow building relationship with readers. Paywalls and paid apps make that relationship harder.
  • how to be a successful cartoonist: be accessible, be entertaining, be kind.

  I don’t mean to imply that Lieber took Kellett’s talk as guide or direct inspiration, but I found Lieber’s self-assessment, it’s old dog, new tricks time, to be revealing. Lieber isn’t a grown-up-with-the-internet (or grown-up-with-a-computer, or likely even grown-up-with-my-own-electronics-before-high-school) type. He’s about my age, north of 40, but in a field of sometimes significantly younger colleagues who did grow-up-with-x. I’m guessing that he’s at the low end of the age cohort that Kellett was aiming his talk at, the end that most likely to be able to make the transition to new business models in artistic endeavours.

  The second thing that struck me? I’ve seen more than one reference to the Lieber/4chan interaction described as “Lieber wins”. And I thought Isn’t it funny that “wins” has two very different connotations? In one sense, “winning” means that somebody else loses, and the encounter was fundamentally adversarial.

  But in another sense (and the sense that I think applies here), there’s “winning over” the other party, making somebody else not a defeated adversary, but an ally. With a bit of logical flexibility (and perhaps artistic jiu jitsu), Lieber’s turned a situation that has historically meant confrontation into one where he’s been rewarded with new readers, perhaps new sales, and gets to experience personally the effects of a new business model.

  Maybe he stays with it. Maybe he doesn’t. But he’s seen alternatives to traditional business and recognized the value in exploring them. I’d call that a win-win.

• In other news, Andy Bell sounds as if he’s braced for a fresh round of fan hatred and loathing, as a new Android variant goes up for very limited order on Halloween Day at 2:00pm EDT. Looks appropriately spook-tacular, which pretty much guarantees a sellout and disappointed would-be buyers. Thems the breaks, and good luck to all who want to grab the creepy little guy. I’ll be right there with you trying to get my order in, so do me a favor and ignore the FAQ that Bell put together to make the purchasing process more likely to succeed? Thanks.