There two brief items up here before we get to the major point of discussion today: STRIPPED.

• Via R Stevens at The Nib, itself at Medium: pixel Neil deGrasse Tyson. You know who else R Stevens has pixelized? Me. Is this proof that Dr Tyson and I are destined to be best friends? Probably.
• For your consideration, Tom Siddell has added his previously print-only Annie in the Forest Part 2¹ to his website, free for you to read. Once again, Siddell’s done us a service, making an item freely available that could otherwise be making him money. Read it, enjoy it, drop a few bob via his donation link, or possibly by buying something from him next month at the MoCCA Fest in three weeks.

I watched STRIPPED over the weekend; anybody that caught my twitterfeed between Friday night and Saturday morning saw what I thought of it — it was masterful. But what I’ve been thinking about since was the choice of interview subjects that filmmakers Fred Schroeder and Dave Kellett chose to return to time and again. These folks were the centerpieces of the story of comics.

• There was less of Bill Watterson’s (rightly) lauded contribution than I might have suspected, and the film was not the less for it; in a handful of voiced cutaways, he made incisive points, but he wasn’t used in the film merely for the sake of Being Bill Watterson. I never thought I’d say this, but I admire the restraint that must have been required to not include every syllable of Watterson’s voice that found its way to tape.
• Darrin Bell is not a household name; Candorville and Rudy Park are both pretty damn good strips, but you likely wouldn’t place him or his work without prompting because we’re past the era of superstar comics-page creators. He’s disarmingly young, frighteningly smart, and wonderfully sincere in his many interview snippets. There have to have been many, many creators that spoke about their journey of becoming a creator, but there was a spark to Bell’s interview segments that made him a natural. I can’t wait to see the entirety of his interview.
• Greg Evans is a man I met, briefly, at the NCS Ruebens Weekend; he very kindly took the time to make me feel welcome in a place where I felt out of place. His strip isn’t for me, and I found myself surprised and a little thrilled at how much he was in the film. He almost perfectly straddles the line of long-term creator recognizing the changes in the industry², looking at them realistically, and really wondering how he can ride that wave rather than rail against it. He might have been the decades-long syndicated creator that jumped feetfirst into indy creator endeavours if Bill Amend hadn’t beat him to it.
• Patrick McDonnell is unapologetically Old School³. His tools are old school, the art style is old school — midway between Segar and Herriman, with a verbal sensibility perched directly between Schulz and Kelly — and his air of not concerning himself with the challenges facing the syndication model is older than old school. Syndicated cartoonists didn’t worry about their business model ceasing to exist in the ’40s and ’50s and ’60s; it simply was and would continue to be. Around McDonnell, you get the impression — at least for him — that reality has not changed and will not. His approach to cartooning and the business of cartooning is as Zen as the spare, airy, light-filled studio where he was interviewed.
• Jim Davis, who came up through the cartooning trenches as an assistant before catching lightning in a bottle with Garfield, is far more philosophical about cartooning than one would think he would need to be. He famously created Garfield with a businessman’s eye — there were lots of dogs on the comics page but not many cats, and he saw a market niche⁴ — and has overseen a juggernaut of success based on the broadest possible appeal.

  He is, as a result, richer than God — maybe richer than any cartoonist has ever been, barring only Sparky himself — and is reported to be sitting on a buffer longer than a year. He has a small corporation’s worth of people working with and for him to get All Things Garf delivered to the world on a daily basis. He needn’t involve himself in any aspects of Garfield at this point, he could walk away and live in luxury for the rest of his days.

  But he does. He does because (and this is from the Kickstarter backers-only full interview with Davis; the rest of you, I hope you get to see it) he thinks that one day, he could write the strip that makes the whole world laugh. Because that possibility matters more than every TV series, movie, and tchotchke put together.

• Mort Walker has been in cartooning for more than six decades. He oversees strips that have been on the page long enough that your parents (or grandparents) read them. He could be everything that’s wrong with comics but it’s clear that he stays in the game not out of stubbornness or to show Those Darn Kids how it’s done, but because he remembers reading Moon Mullins on Sunday mornings with his father, back in the 1920s. He’s see the rise and maybe-fall of comics first hand and never lost his full investment in the medium.
• Stephan Pastis is perhaps the one voice not completely in harmony with the others; he’s perhaps the most recent syndicated cartoonist to find widespread success (or at least, as widespread as it’s possible for any strip launched in the last 20 years to have achieved), and for all the success he’s had with Pearls Before Swine, there’s an edge in his interviews.

  In his segments, he seems like he’s pushing back against the changes in the model, like he wants to actively drag the entire industry back four or five decades. In his most telling exchange, his frustration becomes overt — and completely understandable — when he notes the odds of ever making it as a syndicated cartoonist, and then doing so just as the business implodes. I made it to the NBA, and the stadium is collapsing. His energy would make him a stellar independent creator/owner in the webcomics mode, if only he hadn’t spent so much time in the past openly contemptuous of it.

  His counterpoint, however, is absolutely crucial to the film, if only because he’s willing to express the frustrations that probably everybody in syndicated cartooning (or maybe those not named Davis or McDonnell) must be feeling. Pastis is not the enemy of progress, but he’s no friend of the particular path it’s taking.

Oh, yeah, some webcomics types said smart things too, and Chris Hastings gave as concise an explanation of How Webcomics Work as ever could have been.

Also Cathy Guisewite. And Scott McCloud⁵. And Lynn Johnston. And Jenny Robb. And RC Harvey. And Kazu Kibuishi. And Shaenon Garrity. And David Malki !. And more that I’m certainly forgetting now.

STRIPPED is sprawling, comprehensive, hilarious, heartfelt, honest, and wonderful. It went by in an eyeblink, with no wasted moments or times that don’t serve the narrative. It’s as good a history of comics — where they came from, where they are, where they’re going — as ever there has been, and it’s only the merest fraction⁶ of the material that was collected during production. It feels like the work of a lifetime, and I mean it as the highest compliment that it’s astonishing to think that it only took four years to produce.

If you haven’t seen it yet, there’s probably somebody in your circle of friends that has, given that you’re on this page to begin with. Ask around; I think you’re going to find that everybody’s that seen the movie is of one mind. Something uniquely American that’s touched three or four generations is changing, but will never go away; you should know its history, and barring a time machine that lets you experience the last century of comics first-hand, STRIPPED is the best way to do so.

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¹ More specifically, only available at the 2013 Thought Bubble Festival, now obtainable through the internet boutiquery services of TopatoCo.

² For example, Evans has produced Luann digitally for more than a decade.

³ Disclaimer: he’s also approximately a neighbor; we very occasionally run into each other on the street or in a restaurant and do that 20 second Hey! How are you? thing. It happened at the Reuben Weekend, which caused us both a moment of cognitive dissonance, as we were 3500km away from our usual random meeting stomping grounds. Finally, we chose the vet that took care of our greyhound for most of her life (and our new greyhound, who just had his first visit) based on his recommendation.

⁴ Which, if you think about it, is a very webcomics thing to do — find a niche that isn’t served and become their favorite. Only Davis did it in nineteen-freaking-seventy-eight, before a lot of webcomickers were born. Hell, if you go to his website, he’s got the entire 35+ year archive freely available — you can’t get more webcomics than that.

⁵ The full interview with McCloud — a couple of hours worth! — was released to KS backers last year. I really hope you get to see it someday because dang is that guy smart.

⁶ At just about ninety minutes, carved out of more than 300 hours of interviews, it would be possible to produce another 199 movies of equivalent length from material already on hand. Although I’m pretty sure that the 10 or 15 minutes that they spent talking to me needn’t be seen by anybody.

Well! Some interesting things have happened since we spoke yesterday, and as might be expected I have some opinions on them.

• Firstly, I have finished my read-through of of Box Brown’s André the Giant: The Life and Legend (a review copy of which was kindly provided by :01 Books), and all I can say is Wow. As I believe I mentioned when I received the book, I don’t have any great personal history with professional wrestling and was grateful for the frontmatter and backmatter in the book that explained the concepts of over, shoot, kayfabe, and other esoterica that the WW{F|E} congoscenti take for granted.

  I knew Mr The Giant almost entirely from his appearance in The Princess Bride, a relatively small part of a long life in show business that consequently gets relatively few pages here. And yet within those few pages, we get moments of quiet as André finds respite from the chaos and expectations of the ring via friendship with Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal¹, Mandy Patinkin, and Robin Wright. Also Rob Reiner finds that André’s bar tab was US$40,000.

  That’s a funny bit, but it masks a sad truth — André never stopped growing throughout his life, his joints couldn’t support his enormous size, and he spent much of his life in pain. He drank mightily, to take away that pain, but also because his sheer size made his tolerance to alcohol almost unearthly.²

  Two little stories out of a few dozen vignettes — André loved telling stories, and they grew in the telling as much as he did. He appreciated show business, making sure the fans were entertained, and would go to any lengths to serve the narrative. Brown has gone to similar lengths to tell the story of André the Giant, and he’s done an admirable job.

• Download codes for Kickstarter backers of STRIPPED went out (thousands of them), and I got mine last night after dinner.

  I had work today and couldn’t stay up to watch it.

  But there’s plenty of love for it on the Twitters, and some of it is even from people who aren’t in the movie!

  Kidding aside, I am anxiously awaiting the moment I can fire up the movie when I get home. It’s going to be marvelous. Review as soon as possible.

• Lastly, I’d like to join the chorus welcoming Ada Marie Weinersmith to the world on this, Pi Day. In my opinion, she’s a marvelous baby, and I would welcome her to the world again! Well wishes may be sent to proud mother and father, and if their various online endeavours are late or missing for a few days, I’m sure we can give them some slack.

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¹ Who, it appears, picked up almost immediately on André’s habit of calling everybody Boss, and everybody referring to André by the same nickname.

² When doctors were trying to figure out how much surgical anesthesia to use on a nearly 300kg human, they asked him how much it took to get drunk. A bottle of vodka would make him feel the beginnings of a buzz.

Following up on one or two things today. Maybe three. Four, tops.

• Two days since launch, 102% of funding met, now the really interesting parts of the Table Titans bookstarter begin. The book gets fancier in another US$4500 or so (as of this writing), and additional goodies appear to be stacked up at US$5000 increments thereafter. Assuming Table Titans lands somewhere in the middle of the Fleen Funding Forecast™¹ range of US$60 – 120K, we could be looking at eight or ten improvements to the final product².
• Just over two weeks from now, STRIPPED, as we have established at length, will be dropping on iTunes. For those that don’t have geographical access to iTunes (or have objections to the Apple media semiopoly), it will also be available on 2 April for HD download and streaming via VHX.tv, Google Play and other channels. What’s newly added to the mix is the announcement that also on 2 April, DVD retail sales will go live on TopatoCo, the internetty boutique of wonderful things. This gives me an indication that my Kickstarter support (at a level that guaranteed a physical disc) will be paying off with a very special package very soon. Note to self: cancel appointments that day.
• Book number two from John Allison’s Bad Machinery released yesterday, and while I have yet to pick up a copy, it’s apparently full of reworked art and story:
  

  Of all the Bad Machinery stories, this was the one that needed the most radical surgery to be ready for publication. About a quarter of the pages are brand new.

  Of particular note is the fact that even for me — I love the inside look at the process of making comics, and then making those comics into books — the skinny on how much of The Case of the Good Boy required tweaking is actually the least interesting part of that bloggening from Allison. He goes into a fascinating discussion about how Bad Machinery has changed, and how it will continue to change:

  Writing a school comic, term by term, means that the characters grow up fast. I never anticipated that the tone of the series would change so quickly. 11-year olds aren’t like 14 year-olds. They’re shorter, for one, and I’m sure a scientist could point to other differences using their expertise in the area. It’s a series where, if I’m true to myself, the later stories might not be appropriate for younger readers of the first story.

  And some good stuff on how to balance the needs of punchline every day with one complete story over six months:

  When I started writing The Case Of The Forked Road, I could see that the plot was complicated. I wanted room to keep on top of that plot as well as writing good dialogue, so I doubled the size of the strips.

  And do you know what? It worked. After a few months, people found they were able to recall every character and detail perfectly, no matter how much time had passed. No one was confused. And drawing twice as much each day actually proved to be easier than drawing less! Who knew!

  Now, what I am doing here is saying the opposite of what is true for comic effect. It was a difficult time. I find that a good indicator of chronic overwork is my sudden decision to take on even more work, which is probably why I reactivated my old strip, Bobbins, two thirds of the way through the case.

  Yeah, okay, I guess that’s pretty much how-comics-get-made stuff, too. Good stuff, you should read it.

• There are two Glorkian Warrior projects coming in the next two weeks from James Kochalka. For those of you that like books, The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza (the kind folks at :01 Books were kind enough to send me a review copy) hits on the 25th; it’s a loopy, funny story, sure to please those young enough that they have to have it read to them, and those that do the reading. And tomorrow, the long-awaited Glorkian Warrior videogame (now titled Glorkian Warrior: The Trials of Glork) releases tomorrow:
  

  My game, Glorkian Warrior: The Trials of Glork comes out on March 14 on the iTunes app store for iphone, ipad, or ipod touch.

  Who’s going to stay up to midnight tonight to download it?

  I am! I’m buying it tonight even though it’s my own game and I can get it for free.?

  I don’t have any of those devices, but if the game is anything like the book (and I’ll wager it is), it’s going to be loopy, funny, and engaging for young and old. Even if it weren’t (which it will be), it’s ot like you’ll get anything better for less than three bucks, so pick it up and enjoy the crap out of it.

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¹ Patent pending, original formula, do not steal.

² If one of those improvements is Beholder dice bags for everybody!, Kurtz & Co will have to beat the hordes away with a stick.

• As mentioned in the recent past, Angela Melick is launching her latest Wasted Talent collection, and we now have a target pre-order go-live date: Friday, 14 March, at 11:00am PDT. Jam’s the best, note to myself to get in on that.
• Speaking of future books, Randall Munroe announced today that his What If? sideproject will be releasing a book, to be released on 2 September via Houghton-Mifflin, available in fine bookstores everywhere. The book will feature expanded versions of Munroe’s favorite questions from the past almost-two years (I’m betting that both the Ryan North–related questions make the cut), along with questions submitted that needed more time or space than the website afforded.
• The Table Titans Kickstarter, mentioned yesterday, has been up for about 27 hours as of this writing, making it the perfect time to apply the Fleen Funding Formula¹: the current Kicktraq prediction (at the 24-36 hour mark) is for US$363,500, about 1200% of goal. We divide this number by both 3 and 6, giving a range of 200-400% of goal, or US$60 – 120,000. We’ll see how well the formula works in another 28 days.
• Patreon has been a big splash in webcomics circles this calendar year. Today I learned a few things about it. One, the cofounder of Patreon is the guy from Pomplamousse. Two, it scares the bejabbers out of some creators, primarily because of fears of being indebted to backers. Three, it’s funding a new podcast series on creativity, from Brad Guigar, Scott Kurtz, and Cory Casoni². It’s that last one I want to focus on.

  If there was an announcement on the podcast (dubbed Surviving Creativity) before today, I confess I missed it. The first hint I had of it was last week when I had the good fortune to have dinner with power couple Dylan Meconis and Katie Lane³ and Dylan mentioned that she’d been recording a podcast episode with Guigar & Kurtz; I figured it was an episode of Guigar’s revived Webcomics Weekly, but nope! New venture.

  And the first creator to appear will be the aforementioned GFP, Jack Conte. This looks like one to keep your eye on, if only to get your recommended daily allowance of Guigar Giggles™ (that would be 14 seconds daily, or 150 seconds once per week).

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¹ Alternately, Fleen Funding Factor, Fleen Fudge Factor, or any other F-heavy alliterative phrase.

² Kurtz’s business guy, and deeply involved in the now-winding-down ShiftyLook.

³ Who just announced that she’s leaving the corporate job to provide services to freelancers and comickers all the time. Hire her if you care about your financial stability.

All LA-casual rumpled clothing and smiling faces. I’d buy life insurance from them if they were selling door-to-door. They being the notorious film/comic hivemind Freddave Kellett-Schroeder; they’re on the move, in these final weeks of moving STRIPPED towards a 1 April iTunes launch, and now towards a fancy-pants Hollywood premiere event:

Tickets now avail for the @strippedfilm premiere! We’re giving away 10 Watterson posters that night! http://strippedfilm.bpt.me

The skinny: Wednesday, 26 March, at the Cinearama Dome Theatre on the fabled Sunset Boulevard, from 7:00pm until they throw you out, for the low, low price US$20 (plus service fees). Be sure to dress up, there will be celebrities there, along with Messers Kellett-Schroeder. Wish I could be there, tell the paparazzi I said hi.

• Rebecca Clements has been absent from comics for a bit, something about getting a “graduate degree” in “something important that matters to the world”¹, but she’s got a new Kinokofry today, featuring everybody’s favorite blue globby dude … IN SPACE. Go, Space Engineers!
• Kristen Siebecker’s ongoing class series on How To Not Suck At Wine (not the official title) rolls on, with the next session devoted to the most elegant (and sneakily alcoholic) of boozes: champagne and other sparkling wines. Fun starts for those 21 & up at West Elm in Chelsea, on 20 March from 6:30pm. Ten percent off the cost of class if you use the super-secret discount code EMAIL10.
• Scott Kurtz has done a lot of comics, but it seems like the one with the most heart in it (if we don’t count Wedlock, but that’s lost to the ages) is Table Titans. The first year’s story arc concluded recently, which means that it’s time for the print collection, and since preorders are passé, the requisite Kickstarter launched today.

  It’s over 20% of goal in the first few hours, and by this time tomorrow we’ll be able to come up with a predicted total for the 30-day campaign by applying the Fleen Funding Factor to Kicktraq’s prediction. But honestly, we can absolutely say this one is going to hit goal, so the only question is if there are any stretch goals not yet announced that will make the book more fancy. I’m betting that there are.

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¹ Urban Planning, to be specific.

Yeah, didn’t think you’d have a problem with that.

• Thing the First: In conjunction with the news about the STRIPPED poster, the Washington Post actually spoke to Bill Watterson about his decision to do the poster.
• Thing the Second: Filmmakers Freddave Kellett-Schroeder have spoken with admiration about how the first Machine of Death collection hit #1 on Amazon for one day, and are trying to pull off the same trick with STRIPPED on iTunes. And heck if it doesn’t look like they might do so:
  

  Guys! You guys! Now @strippedfilm is #7: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/stripped/id816065098?ls=1 … JUSTIN BEIBER IS #15! This is the sweetest plum!

• Thing the Third: The Dave Kellett half of Freddave Kellett-Schroeder was kind enough to answer some questions from me in addition to the first, brief response he gave yesterday. The interview is presented here for your edification:

Fleen thanks Kellett for his time, and we completely believe that what’s in the OSU collection is the original and not a clever duplicate, leaving the actual original in a secret, climate-controlled room at Casa de Kellett. We at Fleen are also totally not planning a way to find into that secret room which clearly does not exist and stare at the original which is not there in a state of rapture until they take us away with tears streaming down our faces. Honest.

Bill Watterson drew the movie poster for STRIPPED. Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.

NINETEEN years ago, Bill Watterson drew his last cartoon for Calvin & Hobbes. Well, here’s some fun news this afternoon….

Bill Watterson’s AMAZING poster for Stripped: The Comic Strip Doc! nyti.ms/1fI7n7P iTunes pre-sales start tonight! WHAAAT

A quote from Freddave Kellett-Schroeder on how the hell they managed this as soon as I can get in touch with him.

Update to add:
When reached for reaction to the completely understandable observation Holy crap Watterson, Mr Kellett replied Ha ha ha! Further updates as his time permits.

Don’t worry, we’re talking about the good kind of trailer today, the kind that doesn’t give away every good joke and scene, and makes you more anxious to see something instead of feeling like you’ve already seen everything worth seeing. Promise.

• This page has not been shy about the general awesomeness of people that occupy my voluntary tribal affiliation, the Engineers¹; there are a surprisingly large number of engineer-cartoonists in webcomicdom, particularly given the relative stealthiness of engineers in society² compared to other careers and professions.

  What can I say? They don’t make exciting and/or sexy TV shows about my mathematically-inclined, winging-it brethren. This may well be because we aren’t really very good at explaining what we do³, beyond it’s very complicated and it would take too long so don’t worry. Which may go a long way to explaining why my very favorite engineer-cartoonist is the one that does the most to demystify the ways of my people; while never dismissing the hard work and lifelong study that are the hallmarks of engineering, Angela Melick also shows the sheer delight of making something awesome.

  The latest chronicles of Melick’s life as an engineer (and just as importantly, life beyond engineering) is rapidly approaching, and she has graced us with a book trailer for Cubicle Warrior, the third collection of Wasted Talent. Be ready come March to order the crap out of what will be the best collection yet of the best webcomic dealing with engineering, life, change, Canadianess, and the best stuff in life. Nothing will exceed it until the fourth collection of Wasted Talent, because that’s when we’ll get swords.

• I have watched the trailer for STRIPPED more times than I can count. I am full of anticipation for the final film, and have tried to be patient, lo these long months since an ever-optimistic FredDave Kellett-Schroeder thought that they could have the film wrapped and Kickstarter rewards delivered by January 2012, or at least December 2013. Nobody could have known how many outside limiting factors would delay the production of STRIPPED (not the least being licensing and legal clearances from copyright holders), but for a while now the progress on releasing movie has been dependent upon literally the richest corporation in the world. Thus, these tweets yesterday:
  

  Hooray! Good news from iTunes, today, means good news is coming shortly for 5,000 Kickstarter backers. Just sayinnnnnnnn’.

  Kickstarter backers! @strippedfilm email went out asking for your info to send rewards! If you have probs/questions: dave@davekellett.com :)

  I have a feeling that I am shortly going to be toasting Freddave, and Jen and Ben, and everybody else in the production of STRIPPED with a very generous pour of very good scotch⁴. I’ve known in my heart for a long time that y’all have done good; now’s just when we finally get to see it.

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¹ Right-hand rule represent.

² I speak here of actual engineers, those that are trained, examined, eligible for licensing, and have drummed into them the idea that what they do matters because lives and safety depend on doing their work right.

Anybody that mentions fake “engineering” fancifications designed to make a crappy job sound more appealing will be beaten.

³ My preferred elevator pitch is Engineers bend the laws of nature and math to practical use. If it stands up instead of falling down, goes where it’s supposed to instead of stopping, turns on instead of powering down, or generally works instead of breaking, then engineers designed the interesting bits.

⁴ I have it on good authority that that Kellett half of Freddave Kellett-Schroeder will be celebrating with a delightful wine cooler.

But first: Happy 5000 Strips Day to my evil twin. Also, does somebody who knows Wikipedia want to update Howard’s bio to reflect that he’s my evil twin? That would be awesome.

• Not so long ago I was musing on people that Kickstart new comics and don’t deliver and I was thinking to myself Tavis is due to launch in March; I bet he’s all over that deadline. Tavis being Tavis Maiden, whom I had the opportunity to talk to at length last summer, about his Kickstarter to launch a new comic, and why would it take him six months anyway? In a word, infrastructure, and he was quite clear that Tenko King would be launching in March. Well, whaddaya know:
  

  Tenko King is coming in two weeks.

  Short, clear, to the point, and two weeks from yesterday would be … 3 March, the very earliest he could launch in March on a weekday. The lesson here being, do not doubt Tavis.

• David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc) is one of those guys I will never stop following online; his comics (of which Irregular Webcomic is just one) are variously funny, inventive, and/or feature interesting technological hooks. His philosophical treatises on science and the world around us are enlightening. And he’s going to be launching a new project, soon:
  

  I have a new webcomic idea which I plan to work on and launch some time in the next few weeks. It will be wholly produced by me (as opposed to produced with co-authors like Darths & Droids, or soliciting reader contributions like Square Root of Minus Garfield).

  Stay tuned.

  Next few weeks? Sounds like it could be March. I’ll be over here, perched on these tenterhooks.

• In March of last year the internet saw fit to give three quarters of a million dollars to the creators of Cyanide and Happiness for the purposes of cornering the market on hookers and smack making an internet-based show, since attempts to do an actual broadcast-type show would have resulted in a whole bunch of people who were not the creators of Cyanide and Happiness taking ownership of various degrees of Cyanide and Happiness.

  Screw that noise, I can imagine Dave, Kris, Matt, and Rob saying to themselves. Now, a show (even one on the internet) is considerably more complex to put together than an webcomic, but a year’s production time for such an undertaking is practically warp speed. Progress is being made, reports Rob DenBleyker on behalf of The C&H Show team [audio, video, possibly not safe for your workplace], with a launch later this year. You know what’s later this year? March. Just sayin’.

John Allison has neatly, in just two panels from today’s Bobbins redux, why half of EMTs regard the two most important words on a childbirth call to be Don’t push¹. Naturally, Shelly is enthusiastic about all things, and here’s hoping that Amy doesn’t murder her in retribution.

• I wasn’t going to say anything about the big, fat nothingburger petition that’s decrying rampant, oppressive, Big Brotheresque censorship re: the Science Fiction Writers of America. For one, it gravely misunderstands what the concepts censorship and freedom of speech and fascistic; for another, it’s extremely illogical and poorly written. John Scalzi neatly addressed those points and I could gladly go back to not caring.

  But.

  Ursula Vernon — and I believe the record will show that I am on the record as loving me some Digger — decided that she is not just a writer but an arter also and attempted to bring some perspective. Some people aggressively didn’t get it, others aggressively nitpicked wording, and in the end, there was only one thing to do: add more honey badgers. Morally ambiguous honey badgers, honey badgers looking for love, honey badgers decrying things aren’t like they used to be, honey badgers coming face to face with change, honey badgers seeking an equal voice. If a grumbly hissy fit about how Things Should Be Like They Used To Be is what gets Vernon drawing honey badgers, I am more than willing to poke the cage of a codger.

• Times come when creators feel the need to apologize about not making updates on time, and I think that in very nearly every case that’s unnecessary. As well established by precedent, your favorite creator who entertains you² owes you nothing other than to create. But there are times when it is especially unnecessary to apologize regarding missed updates, hiatuses, or other irregularities, and that is when meeting a particular schedule will take away from the time the creator needs to care for either their own or their family’s well-being.

  Cases in point: a printer that delivered weeks ahead of schedule and has disrupted Minna Sundberg’s production of new episodes of Stand Still, Stay Silent (a comic that updates with a gorgeous full-page in color four days a week!). But you know what? Fulfilling the orders of people that have already given you money for the last series trumps production of new pages for people like me that haven’t given you anything. Creators: in all cases, your well-being comes first.

  Actually, in some cases it comes second. Parents³ know what I’m talking about, and in no reasonable universe should Paul Taylor feel the need to apologize for taking a few days off when his young son is facing a hospitalization. Best of luck to your little guy, and to your entire family, Paul. We’ll be here when he’s back on his feet; in the meantime, do what you have to do.

• Advance notice: two of my favorite people are about to have a conversation that some of you have already had the chance to hear. Brad Guigar continues his series of Kickstarter-funded podcasts, which release first to backers, then to subscribers of Webcomics Dot Com, and then the world in general. The lastest ‘cast (which will be generally available on Friday) features the very sexy Rich Stevens, and I am hard pressed to think of two people who are so different (particularly in terms of improvisation vs planning) and yet so similar (both are whip-smart) at the same time. An hour and forty five minutes never went by so fast.

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¹ Alternately, I’ll drive.

² In exchange for money or other considerations for a section of their work, and especially if they distribute their work for free.

³ And others with younglings in their care, which is a situation I find myself in from time to time with EMS cadets.