The PR is coming in hot and heavy, people are heads-down making last-minute arrangements for meet-ups (or getting work done before grabbing a flight to San Diego) … among other things, let this be your notice that Monday and Tuesday’s posts may be sparse or absent, and Wednesday through next week will be plentiful from the San Diego Convention Center.

• Speaking of San Diego, Andrew Farago at the Cartoon Art Museum (give them a couple of bucks, won’t you? they need a home) shared the programming that CAM will be associated with at SDCC. Farago will be moderating a panel on Indie Comics on Thursday at 1:00 (that one made our programming guide), and there will be a CAM-sponsored Family Drawing session at 5:30 (that one didn’t).

  The highlight, as in years past, will be the near-constant parade of comics superstars at the CAM booth, Thursday through Sunday, sketching to benefit the museum. A schedule will be posted in the booth of who’s covering what hour, but we’re told that the dozens of sketchers will include Charlie Adlard, Lalo Alcaraz, Phil Foglio, Scott Koblish, Bill Morrison, and somebody named Raina Telgemeier (never heard of her).

• Know who I have heard of? Melanie Gillman. Know what I’d like to know about them? Their artistic influences, their creative process, when their next comic is coming out. Know what I don’t give a rat’s ass about? Everything that a bunch of Reddit lowlifes apparently spend their fevered nights and days obsessing over with respect to what they looks like unclothed, a circumstance that is common enough for cartoonists (heck, anybody, but our focus here at Fleen is on cartoonists) from traditionally nonpowerful groups (i.e.: anybody not cishet white male) who dare to exist on the internet that Gillman has to think of how to prepare their students for the inevitable day that the soul-crushing objectification/hate machine turns their way.

  So consider this one of way too many reminders and rejoinders that I have to leave on this page more and more often these days — don’t do this. And if for some reason you think it’s a good thing to do shit like this, kindly do me the favor of fucking off and never reading my stuff again. You suck and don’t want even that tenuous, one-way connection between us.

Spam of the day:

Limited Time: Get $30 OFF our Best Security software

So you, a spammer/identity thief, want to sell me security software, and you choose something from Symantec, who have been screwing the pooch on their offerings all summer long? Bad choice, bandit.

Life is accelerating towards next week’s San Diego Comic Con and all the attendant nerdishness therein, if evidenced by nothing other than the nonstop parade of announcement emails sent to me as a member of the press¹. And yet, some things are happening far, far away from Sandy Eggo that I would commend to your attention.

• Okay, it’s probably no surprise that this was me; as noted on this page more than once, KB “Otter” Spangler is a good friend of mine, and I’ve been a beta reader for her series of novels. I’ve been heartlessly pedantic on points of plot, particularly pertaining to the practice of paramedicine and other doctory bits. I like to think that I’ve helped make the final results better, not to mention saving her from a horde of Um actuallys from her readers. I think she’s got a terrific voice — voices, really, as different novels with different POV characters read uniquely — and lots of great ideas.

  But there’s one bit of her writing I didn’t beta-read, and haven’t read at all. She took one of her AGAHF characters and did an action sex comedy (think James Bond with far less internalized misogyny), which is the first of a projected eight novellas. As they concern a character named Josh Glassman, they are collectively known as Joshsmut. You can find the cover of the first entry, The Russians Came Knocking, over here, with 1500 (or so) word installments going up three times a week.

  After TRCK, Spangler will be moving onto new Joshventures as serial episodes, to be collected in book form when each is finished. They are brand new to me (and probably to you), and I suggest we enjoy their ridiculous sexiness (or possibly sexy ridiculousness) together; I’m told that my own travails with tree rats inspired the bit with the squirrels, but I’m not sure what that means.

• Know what we haven’t seen for far too long? A collaboration between Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh. Yeah, yeah, I know, they just finished running the first chapter’s worth of pages from the forthcoming graphic novel Is This What You Wanted, but while Hirsch wrote that, the art is by Tessa Stone and Sarah Stone; the last time we saw Ota illustrating Hirsch’s script was the stellar Lucky Penny.

  So it’s a particular delight to see that today they’ve shared the first four pages of Barbarous, their new graphic novel (with color by JN Wiedle), which appears to be hitting an urban magic vibe. Check out the cover from earlier in the week: talk of glamour (as in magic disguises), mystic energy traces, mention of monsters, and then look at those first four pages, which end nice and cliffhangery. Not to worry, Tuesday’s update will bring another four pages, then I imagine it’ll settle down to Tuesday/Thursday updates until we’re all good and hooked. Subway thefts and shadow monsters? I’m there.

• Two words: The Nib. It’s been running a few comics a week, mostly via email to subscribers and then a notice goes up on Twitter and such (case in point: notices have gone upover the past few hours that new comics are available). They’re ready to relaunch for reals, and there’s gonna be more than just comics on the web. So a few more words: Tabloid size newsprint comics. Hecka yeah.

Spam of the day:

No-More-Crowns Get these amazing low-cost Dental-Implants

Dammit, I thought it said no more clowns and I was all thrilled because nobody likes clowns².

_______________
¹ The only one that I’ve acted on is an offer from the nice folks at DC to interview creators they’ll have, and I lit up at the sight of Hope Larson and Gene Luen Yang, who was a pretty good advocate for his take on Chinese Superman on NPR the other morning.

² Or Boxbot.

Is it just me, or is every improvement accompanied by a disappointment? Let’s get the bad news out of the way and move onto the good after.

• As was linked in a tweet yesterday, from the good folks at TopatoCo:
  

  With regret, we must announce that TopatoCon 2 is canceled. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are unable to present the convention we hoped for, and we have decided that the best choice is to cancel the event completely.

  We do not make this decision lightly, and rest assured that we are as disappointed as you are. Thank you for your interest in TopatoCon.

  Well, dammit. I was really looking forward to my trip up to *hampton in October, to see the many quality folks who’d be exhibiting, to get into more liquor-based mischief. TopatoCo is a small company — pretty much the epitome of the small business that fuels the economy and which politics fetishizes — as is the Eastworks venue, and the slightest bit of bad luck could make things prohibitively complex and/or expensive for them to carry on with their plans.

  I know for a fact that this would have been a hell of a hard decision, particularly this far into the planning process; we at Fleen thank everybody at TopatoCo and TopatoCon for their considerable work, and if you think a little thing like canceling the show is enough to keep me from driving north that weekend, you’ve got another think coming. I’ll be there, and I’m ready to buy meals/booze for the best damn people in webcomics.

• It’s pretty much a given that new means of communicating will live or die by how easy it is to get porn on them¹. But in the modern world, moral squeamishness on the part of payment processors² and various funding platforms, along with legitimate economic concerns, makes the business of adult content difficult to realize at time. You can produce tasteful, non-harmful, quality erotica material and have no way to distribute it (and no way to get paid even if you can distribute it). Which is why the announcement (as first noted via the always tied-in and porn-savvy Brad Guigar) from Patreon yesterday is pretty damn important:
  

  Patreon’s announcement — in an e-mail to creators — that it will once again be able to offer its users to use Paypal to pledge to NSFW creators is a huge victory for the crowdfunding service. Patreon had to remove Paypal functionality for creators who were offering NSFW content after Paypal threatened to stop all payments to Patreon.
  …
  [A]dult websites face annual fees of upwards of about $500 — as well as higher processing fees — from credit-card processors. They’re considered high-risk merchants. And when Paypal found out there was NSFW content on Patreon, they made the move to classify the crowdfunding service as “high risk.”

  From Patreon:

  After many long discussions we were able to convince PayPal, or more specifically their subsidiary Braintree, that Adult Content creators on Patreon are not a serious risk. Our content policy, and the nature of subscription payments, means that Adult Content creators on Patreon are less risky than most creators making adult content. We also have a very diverse mix of content types, so even if our Adult Content creators are higher risk than other types of creators, Patreon as a whole is less risky.

  We are very happy about this victory, but the payment industry does not provide much transparency around payments for adult content. As a company we are not happy with this lack of transparency since it impacts the livelihoods of Adult Content creators. We will continue to work towards more certainty around these issues, but for now we feel that the benefit of allowing PayPal payments for Adult Content creators outweighs any hypothetical risk that it may change in the future.”

  And those risks are so, so malleable. Don’t tell me that something like TJ and Amal doesn’t get more scrutiny for involving two dudes than something that doesn’t existentially offend would-be child-protectors³ to the same degree.

  For everybody that’s out there trying to make something as literary as Chester 5000 or Smut Peddler, as educational as Oh Joy, Sex Toy, or just something that’s super hot, this is great news. For everybody that wants to read those things and support the creators, it’s even better.

Spam of the day:

Finish Your MBA In Under 2 Years. 100% Online & Accredited. Get Info.?

Assuming that I wanted to spend between one and two years becoming a computer and utter douchebag, why on earth would I click on a link that purports to be on behalf of a company in Chicago, but which offers me the opportunity to unsubscribe by contacting either an address in Samoa or a completely different address in Mississauga, Ontario? Make up your mind, identity thieves.

_______________
¹ Trust me on this, I spent most of a year looking at the evolution of large, distributed, networked systems, and this was the inescapable conclusion. Someday I will dig out and complete my master’s thesis on this topic, when I have no other demands on my time.

² No doubt enhanced by the heavy hand of various political officials. Everybody see how the Republican platform decided yesterday declared porn to be a national health crisis to be stamped out at all costs?

³ Also in that platform? A defense of anti-gay conversion therapy, for fuck’s sake.

All things we’ve mentioned previously today, with new bits layered on top. Let’s dive in.

• It’s about six weeks since we mentioned the launch of a Patreon to support Christopher Bird and Davinder Brar in making a sequel to the thoroughly wonderful Al’Rashad. Support has hit the one page per month level (and is closing in on two pages per month), so yesterday saw the launch of Ra-Boka: Kingdom Of The Bound with page one picking up directly after the end of Al’Rashad so maybe go read that if you want to read this. Given the apparent shift in time storywise, I’d say that the Rashadi caliphate has seen as much time pass as we have since the last update — a year and a half, give or take. Buckle up, this one’s going to be good.
• Oy. Not content with nearly breaking Kickstarter with the sixth highest funded project of all time¹ which is simultaneously the most popular project of all time, not content with topping three quarters of a million dollars of pre-orders of adult (and in one case, they do mean adult) coloring books, Matthew Inman and the Exploding Kittens crew took today — Amazon Prime Day, no less — to launch the first expansion to Exploding Kittens.

  It’s US$10 and I’m guessing pert-near everybody that bought Exploding Kittens (that would be a nearly quarter million people) is gonna drop their tenner for the expansion. Put another way, approximately US$2 million of capitalization just hit BoomGoKittens, LLC (or whatever they call their company) and they’ll be able to repeat this feat to a large proportion of their customer base, oh, once a year or so. I’m reminded about King Camp Gillette and his famous thoughts on how to get rich.

• What can we say about both Ra-Boka and Exploding Kittens? They are creator owned, not dreamed up by a band of contentgineers working for a multinational that just wants to slap a name and logo on something and flow the money upwards. The people doing the thinking are the ones benefiting, either now and hugely (ExKit) or potentially in the future and modestly (Al’Rashad, Ra-Boka). At least, I hope they are.

  As the invaluable Katie Lane takes the time to remind us today, Creator Owned is not a legal term, and there are both benefits and pitfalls to be found in maybe (maybe) selling some of your creation (or better, licensing it, with clear terms about which rights are up for assignment and when they revert. Confused? That’s why you need a lawyer, Chuckles, but in the meantime check out Lane’s primer on the topic; it won’t give you all the answers, but it will help you figure out what questions you need to ask.

Spam of the day:
Today’s winner features a mass of Cyrillic letters followed by:

Who’s ready to have sex c 37-year-old woman? I’m totally serious. I’m not 21 and my time is coming to an end, sex c husband no no.

Her time is coming to an end? I know that life expectancies are dropping in Russia, but 37 seems a bit young to be so fatalistic.

In real life I can’t find a young partner in any way. I’m afraid it’s perceived as a joke. And I need to fucking understand? Not with his son am I to do? Why I write here. I’m aware that the so-called milham you think positively.

Milham? Okay, I’m going to thank you very kindly for your putatively sincere (if widely distributed) interest in gettin’ it on with me, and politely decline. Good luck finding a dude who doesn’t mind having sex.

_______________
¹ Arguably the fifth, as the second ain’t never going to complete fulfillment.

Saturday, oh Saturday, the day where hopes go to die in San Diego. Sunday, the day where the light at the end of the tunnel is visible, except for those that have to wait to bring their cars around to the docks for load-out. Before we get to those, let’s make a quick visit to a pair of Fridays.

First, last Friday, C Spike Trotman¹ announced her latest forthcoming publication, this Sarah W Searle is bringing her Sparks from serialization at Filthy Figments {NSFW, depending on your W]. Second, this coming Friday, when Kel McDonald finds out if the second and final Sorcery 101 omnibus funds or not. I’m kind of astonished how many established creators are having trouble making funding on their Kickstarts, and McDonald’s sitting on a projected 97% final funding, so this is literally make or break time.

Okay, onward and conward, and as always, let us know what we overlooked.

Saturday Programming
Once Upon A Time: Teaching Fables, Fairy Tales, And Myths With Comics And Graphic Novels
10:00am — 11:00am, Shiley Special Events, San Diego Central Library
The aforementioned Ms McDonald will be talking about fantastical tales for a library-centric crowd, along with Chris Duffy, Alexis Fajardo, Ben Hatke, and Trina Robbins, with moderator Tracy Edmunds, MA Ed.

Spotlight On Kate Beaton
10:30am — 12:00pm, Room 5AB
This will be my first chance to tell Kate Beaton in person how much my niece loves The Princess And The Pony. Hint: a lot.

Comic Book Law School 303: New Revelations
10:30pm — 12:00pm, 30CDE
Part three, which bee-tee-dubs is qualified for continuing education credits for lawyers. This one’s on complex issues of copyright and trademark.

Spotlight On William Gibson
11:30pm — 12:30pm, Room 24ABC
Appropriate, since we seem to be living in one of his cyberpunk dystopias at the moment.

Spotlight On Jeff Smith
12:30pm — 1:30pm, Room 8
Jeff Smith is the opposite of a dystopia. Let’s all go and have some fun and ignore stupid, stupid [fill in horrible person type here]s.

The Kids Comics Revolution
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Room 29AB
Best panel ever? Emily Carroll, John Patrick Green, Noelle Stevenson, G. Willow Wilson, and Gene Luen Yang.

Spotlight On Noelle Stevenson
4:00pm — 5:00pm, Room 23ABC
Because she’s a shark, AAAAHHH.

Buckaroo Banzai: Getting The Band Back Together
5:30pm — 6:30pm, Room 8
Holy crap: Perfect Tommy, Pinky Caruthers, Scooter Lindley, and Rugsucker will be on stage together.

Sunday Programming
Historical Comics
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Room 28DE
Kate Beaton, Chester Brown, and Derf Backderf in conversation with Calvin Reid. Hopefully to contain Nemeses.

YA? Why Not? The Importance Of Teen And Young Adult Comics
1:00pm — 2:0pam, Room 24ABC
Going to be tough to decide where to be this hour — Kate down the hall, Hope Larson, Raina Telgemeier, Cecil Castellucci, and Brenden Fletcher over here at the same time.

Spotlight On Emily Carroll
2:00pm — 3:00pm, Room 4
It’ll be the spooktaculariest room all weekend for an hour.

Kickstarter Secrets Revealed
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 4
At last, they finally admitted that if you’re gonna do a how-to on Kickstarter, you got to get goddammned George Rohac there. Also the afivementioned Kel McDonald, Hope Nicholson, and Kickstarter’s comics outreach lead, Jamie Turner.

Markiplier Comics & More: Keenspot/Red Giant 2016
4:00pm — 5:00pm, Room 7AB
The annual Keenspot panel, pretty much closing out the programming for the year.

Spam of the day:

Make $7,682/month from home

a. That’s a supiciously specific number. b. Who’s to say that I don’t already?

_______________
¹ C Spike Trotman. Trotman, Spike, Trotman!

No? Fine.

Oh Achewood, how you play with language delights me as few other things can. Let us just hope that Téodor has learned his lesson, and while we’re at it, let’s see what happens in the panel rooms for the first half of this year’s San Diego Comic Con. As always, let us know if we’ve overlooked anything.

Special Program For Those Who Maybe Don’t Even Go To SDCC
Space Time With Marian Call and Friends
FRIDAY 7:30pm — ??, 98 Bottles in Little Italy
An evening of music and nerdery; tickets $12 + $10 food/drink minimum, 21 and up.

Thursday Programming
The Graphic Novel Medium
10:00am — 11:00am, 29AB
Derf Backderf, Peter Kuper, Hope Larson, Sydney Padua, and Maximilian Uriarte kick off the show with a discussion of the graphic novel, moderated by Evan Narcisse who is seriously smart and a hell of an interviewer/moderator. I still remember the great job he did at SPLAT! back in 2008. I also enjoyed hearing him recently on This American Life.

Comic Book Law School 101: Genesis
10:30am — 12:00pm, Room 30CDE
The basics of intellectual property law, from actual lawyers and not people on the internet that got opinions.

Getting Into Comics And Staying There
12:00pm — 1:00pm, 28CDE
This year’s iteration of Jim Zub and others willing to share their advice for getting into comics creation, thus creating more competition for themselves.

The Business Of Creativity: Can Comics Find The Balance?
12:30pm — 1:30pm, Room 4
Paul Levitz had a long and storied career with DC and is now a board member for BOOM! Studios. So maybe ask him why BOOM! financially screws their creators so badly, because it sure as hell doesn’t seem like they’re in anything resembling balance.

Something For Everyone: Indie Comics
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Room 29AB
Moderator Andrew Farago (from the Cartoon Art Museum) talking to Emily Carroll, Lisa Hanawalt, Jennifer Hayden, Keith Knight, and Ed Luce about how comics need not equal capes.

First Second Tenth Anniversary Celebration
1:30pm — 2:30pm, Room 4
Because they’re the premiere art-house publisher of graphic novels, that’s why.

Fantasy Mixology: The Perfect Literary Cocktail
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Horton Grand Theater
Don’t be fooled, it’s not about booze. Dammit!

We Need Diverse Comics
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 9
Nidhi Chanani, Ben Hatke, Nilah Magruder, Raina Telgemeier, and Ron Wimberly talking about how comics have changed and still need to change. Anybody arguing that white guys can write characters unlike themselves will be beaten by me. Moderated by Petra Mayer of NPR.

The Mark, Sergio, Stan, and Tom Show
3:30pm — 4:30pm, Room 8
You never listened when I told you to go listen to Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier, so now they’ve added Stan Sakai and Tom Luth. These guys have known each other forever and have about a century and a half of stories between them. Go.

The Nappy Hour
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Room 32AB
The latest iteration of Keith Knight’s lightning-round discussion of comics/nerdstuff by, for, and involving people of color; joined this year by Lalo Alcaraz, Roland Poindexter, and Ashley A Woods. Anybody arguing that there should be panels about white guys and comics/nerdstuff will be beaten by me.

The New Comics Journalism: Representation For All
7:00pm — 8:00pm, Room 23ABC
The latest iteration of the state of comics journalism panel, with comics journalists Heidi MacDonald, Megan Purdy, Emma Houxbois, Brett Schenker, and others talking about journalizing.

Webcomics Advocates: The Webcomics Gathering
8:30 — 9:30, Room 4
As was done last year, webcomics creators will have 30 seconds to promote their work to the crowd. Seems like most creators will be getting dinner but you never know.

Friday Programming
Keeping It Short: Short Form Comics
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 28DE
Kate Beaton, Emily Carroll, Lisa Hanawalt, together, holy crap.

The Black Panel
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 5AB
Not the one with Keith Knight, but it does have Wayne Brady (who is more than that one Chappelle sketch).

Cartoon Network: Steven Universe
10:15am — 11:45am, Indigo Ballroom
Crap, crap, crap, do I try to get into the Steven Universe panel (that defeated me two years ago) or go see Beaton, Carroll, and Hanawalt? This one has Rebecca Sugar, Jeff Liu, Ben Levin, Zach Callison (Steven), Estelle (Garnet), Michaela Dietz (Amethyst), Deedee Magno Hall (Pearl), and Charlyne Yi (Ruby), with composers Aivi Tran and Steven Velema, moderated by Ian Jones-Quartey¹.

Comic Book Law School 202: Numbers
10:30am – 12:00pm, 30CDE
Part two of your legal education, talking about licensing, rights transfers, contracts, and the like.

Exploding Kittens And The Oatmeal
6:00pm — 7:00pm, Room 25ABC
Huh, I thought for sure that Matt Inman wasn’t going to be around, seeing as how he doesn’t seem to have a table. He’s welcome to come say hi over at Dumbrella Central.

How Old Is YA In Europe And The USA?
6:30pm — 7:30pm, Room 8
Alas, I have tickets for the Space Time show or I’d be checking out this transatlantic discussion moderated by the invaluable Brigid Alverson.

The Girl Genius Radio Plays
8:30pm — 10:00pm, Room 24ABC
Because you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Phil Foglio do a dramatic monologue as Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer.

Spam of the day:

Biblical Miracle Confirmed(pg. 1117 King James Bible)

That’s a new one — biblical reference by page number. Every bible I’ve ever seen numbers the testaments (sometimes the individual books) separately, which means there isn’t a page 1117. And even if there were, I doubt that whatever’s on that page actually contains the secret to curing your diabetes in three days.

_______________
¹ Ask him about RPG World, I dare you.

The annual release of the programming schedule for SDCC has started; if past years hold true, they’ll release a day’s detail per day from now through the weekend. We at Fleen will keep our eyes open for anything of interest and share with you in the coming days.

In the meantime, past webcomics Eisner and Harvey winner (not to mention current nominee) Mike Norton of Battlepug has some news to share:

Webcomics people who have been looking for a SQUARESPACE template. @jemmons just made your day for f’n FREE.

Squarespace, naturally, is the hosting/registration/SEO provider that lots of people use for their websites. They don’t really have webcomics on their radar, and so don’t have any templates particularly suited for the demands of a comic site. Enter Norton’s web guy, @jemmons, who’s made the solution he cooked up for Battlepug available at GitHub¹:

In the mean time, intrepid folk with SquareSpace developer accounts can clone this repository and push it to their sites. You should get a functioning copy of battlepug.com — sans all the content, of course.

So you can do a quick-and-dirty site with content front and center, side bars below for whatever, and a center column for announcements, and if you have any difficulties, @jemmons (sorry, I can’t find an actual name) is ready offer advice. I’m not saying that this is going to replace ComicPress or Comic Easel, but you can never have too many low- or no-cost CMS options, I always say².

Spam of the day:

Hier können Huren anzeigen schalten um kunden zu finden. [boldface original]

Take it away, Google Translate:

Here whores can show off to find customers.

It’s no Gib zu mir etwas Fussbodenbelagunter diesem fetten fliessenden Sofa, but what are you gonna do?

______________
¹ If you don’t know GitHub, ask your local coder.

² Shut up, I totally say that all the time.

Holy crap, somebody went and made Ana-Tomix. Chris Onstad is, once again, ahead of his time. Let me know when you’ve got the three-ball option, or the counterintuitive uniball model.

Okay, so the Harvey Awards. The ballot got announced yesterday and again there’s the inexplicably high number of nominations for one publisher (Valiant this time) due to block voting (it’s part of the game)¹, and again there’s an inexplicable set of nominees for the webcomics category. Let’s take a look:

Best Online Comics Work

• Albert the Alien, Trevor Mueller and Gabriel Bautista
• Battlepug, Mike Norton
• Bloom County 2015, Berkeley Breathed
• Oh Joy, Sex Toy, Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan
• Zombie Boy, Mark Stokes

Where to start, where to start? Once again, nominees are distinguished solely by their medium for distribution, with no regard to length, format, genre, or purpose. The longform Battlepug and Albert the Alien are up against the strip-based Bloom County and Zombie Boy, and the educational, page-oriented Oh Joy, Sex Toy. Could there someday be a recognition that OJST should be in the educational category (okay, the Harveys don’t have one, but the Eisners do, if memory serves), or at least matched up against educational comics like Your Wild City and Battlepug against Dr McNinja? Also, how is Bloom County nominated for both Best Online Comics Work and Best Syndicated Strip or Panel? The one really should preclude the other.

Then again, complaining here has no value, since this is based off of how many people nominated their own work and got their friends to do likewise. Get organized and see what you can do for next year. And while you’re plotting out the takeover of the webcomics category next year, check out the webcomickers that are competing in the print arena:

• Giant Days (written by John Allison, art by Lissa Tremain and Max Sarin on art) and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (written by Ryan North, art by Erica Henderson) are competing for Best Continuing or Limited Series against the likes of Bitch Planet and Saga
• The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal (written and drawn by EK Weaver) is contending for Best Graphic Album Previously Published against five Valiant books²
• Giant Days again, up for Best Original Graphic Publication For Younger Readers versus Lumberjanes and Over the Garden Wall (although, mysteriously, nothing by Raina Telgemeier or Kazu Kibuishi)
• Lissa Tremain is up for Most Promising New Talent, to complement Giant Days (again!), up for Best New Series

It’s John Allison’s year, people. We’re just living in it.

Balloting for the Harveys is open until 8 August, with comics professionals eligible to vote. The awards will be presented at Baltimore Comic-Con on 5 September.

Spam of the day:

truTV PR: Media Alert: truTV’s Impractical Jokers Invade San Diego with Fan Events

Heh — Gmail has categorized an actual PR email blast as Be careful with this message. Similar messages were used to steal people’s personal information. Unless you trust the sender, don’t click links or reply with personal information. Awesome.

_______________
¹ Then again, I see that both Terry Moore (for Rachel Rising)and Stan Sakai (for Usagi Yojimbo) are nominated as Best Cartoonist, without publisher-wide blocks behind them. That’s gotta be purely the respect of their peers, and well deserved, too.

² Take that, voting block!

If there’s a better way in webcomics to work on your craft and get noticed outside your usual audience than getting that one idea you’ve got perfectly polished and tight and accepted by an anthology full of super-skilled people, I don’t know what it is. Examples follow:

• We were just talking about Beyond Press the other day and look what happened over the long weekend: they went and launched the Kickstart for an anthology that looks pretty damn impressive. Elements: Fire is going to present stories from the speculative fiction end of the spectrum (your basic sci fi, but also horror, cyberpunk, and the like) featuring characters — and, crucially, creators — from the underrepresented end of the talent pool¹:
  

  Elements looks to add to the current conversation happening in the book industry: yes #WeNeedDiverseBooks, but #WeNeedDiverseCreators too. We are no longer just the sidekicks or token characters, we’re creators with our own stories to tell. In Elements we’re the main characters, dismantling tropes with our own stories that see people like us saving the day. Be it quelling a volcano, learning to fight with our brand of love, or breaking cyberspace, we want to let these stories and characters take center stage.

  The contributor’s list features names that I recognize — Aatmaja Pandya, Der-shing Helmer, edited by Taneka Stotts with an assist from Shing Yin Khor — and a bunch more that I don’t, which is great (cf: above, about getting noticed). Taking a cue from anthology maestro C Spike Trotman, Elements: Fire will be offering bonuses to its creative team based on funding levels, which is becoming a welcome trend².

  Since launch on Friday (and over a long holiday weekend with people away from their computers), the campaign has cleared 58% funding on a US$30K goal and attracted enough early support to qualify for the Fleen Funding Formula, Mark II, which now predicts a total of US$50K +/- $10K (this is the first time numbers have ever turned out so beautifully round), which would mean bonuses of US$100-$300 per creator/team. The opportunity to discover killer talent with an experienced editor, and everybody gets paid? Time to make with the clicky and support.

• Speaking of anthologies, the Spike-helmed New World anthology got some damn good notices over at The AV Club today courtesy of Caitlin Rosberg:
  

  Though each creator’s style is different, the level of skill and talent is consistently high and there is something for every reader’s taste….But all 24 of the comics are excellent in their own right.

  If there’s one thing that ties all of the pieces together beyond the genres they fit into, it’s that each forces a character or characters to make an incredibly weighty choice….Each of the pieces has a clear perspective and message, as much speculative fiction does, but every single one of the creators avoids heavy-handed manipulation and preachiness, two common pitfalls for less skilled sci-fi/fantasy creators. Rather than lecturing the reader, they start a conversation by shifting perspectives and inviting introspection, which is speculative fiction at its best.

  New World is available in both print and PDF from the Iron Circus store.

• Anthologies need not even be big ol’ book; they can fit into floppy-style comic books as well. We mentioned previously that Faith Erin Hicks would be doing a Ms Marvel/Squirrel Girl story in an Avengers annual due in August; now it appears that other creators (Natasha Allegri! Zac Gorman! Scott Kurtz! Chirp Zblarglblarg!) will be adding their own takes as Ms Marvel gets to share all her in-universe fanfic.
• Tomorrow is First Wednesday, meaning it’s time for the second of the previously-announced TopatoCo Summertime Funtime Drink ‘n’ Draws, and what is a drink ‘n’ draw but an anthology of people instead of stories? Making the trip to Easthampton will be special Drinker/Drawers Meredith Gran and Mike Holmes; fun starts at 7:00pm at Eastworks, runs until 10:00pm, and is unfettered by filthy cover charges. All in the Pioneer Valley area, go and have fun.

Spam of the day:

Limited Time: 60% Off Silicone Wedding Bands

So millennials don’t want to buy diamonds, and your counter is to try to market unsized squeezy bits of medical material that behave like slow-acting tourniquets? Okay.

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¹ Anybody that’s sputtering about Why aren’t there anthologies for white creators? can leave now. Door’s to your left.

² Also to be noted for bonus payments: Erika Moen & Matt Nolan.

It appears that most of Webcomickia has taken off early in anticipation of the holiday on Monday (USAians) or because today is the holiday at the start of the long weekend (Canadians), and who am I to fight that? See y’all back next week. Have fun, don’t eat or drink so much you cease to enjoy it, and try to pet a dog. Everything’s better with dogs.

No spam of the day. Happy National Holiday!