Is this a first? I think it might be a first. Scott Kurtz needs to show a character’s comic strip work in-story, and he got KC Green to supply the art. Having a completely different artist (with a different aesthetic and different approach to humor) provide in-continuity work in this fashion is something with enormous potential and I’d love to see how other webcomics might use this approach.

• Speaking of Kurtz and Green, they’ll be guests of the Webcomics Rampage next weekend in Austin, with some of the luminaries of the medium doing the in-store meet/greet thing. Those of you in Texas, check it out. Those of you in Portland, Legends of Webcomics takes place at Dunning-Kruger Solutions (i.e.: Meredith & Aaron’s studio) this Saturday, with more luminaries. Finally, every remaining webcomics luminary will be at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco for Monsters of Webcomics: Webcomic-Con 2009 on Saturday the 12th. If your favorite creators aren’t at any of these, I guess they just aren’t luminous enough.
• Just over a day remains to buy yourself (or a loved one) a sort-of guest appearance in Schlock Mercenary; let’s let my evil twin tell the story:
  

  The upcoming “Mallcop Command” chapter will feature several human side-characters, all of whom need names. In the spirit of giving, we’ve decided to auction off the rights to put your name (or a friend’s name) on one of those characters. The proceeds of these auctions will benefit the Utah County Family Support and Treatment Center, which helps families in crisis and works to prevent abuse. The winner of each auction will supply the name, and Howard will decide how to apply it. This is a great gift for that hard-to-shop-for Schlock fan in your life.

  Please note that unlike corporations buying naming rights to things like the local sports stadium, there’s no guarantee that your namesake will be around for the long haul; Tayler reserves the right to kill off any/all of these background players in horrible and/or amusing ways. More details of what you get if you’re the winner at Tayler’s blog, and the auctions themselves are handily aggregated onto one page here. As of press time, the auctions have raised a hair over $375; it would be nice to hit a nice round number like $500.

• Yeah, can’t really work the “guest” theme into this one; Alice Hunt of Goodbye Chains needs some assistance to make a shared resource complete:
  

  As a service to our readers, we’ve been working on a little project for a while now: a comprehensive listing of historical webcomics. We’d like it to be exhaustive, but the Internet is vast and wide, and I’m sure there’s plenty we don’t have on the list. Could we enlist your help (and maybe the help of your readers) in fleshing it out?

  If you’re aware of comics that we missed, would you be so kind as to let us know?

  That would be webcomics with a theme/subject matter that’s historical in nature, not webcomics that are themselves history-making. You’ll get the idea, just take a peek at the list and let the GC crew know of any they should add.

In conjunction with the currently-running Monsters of Webcomics show at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, there will be a special event on Saturday (-day, -day, -day), 12 December, from 11:00am to 5:00pm. Think “One day webcomics convention and nerd-out” as guests of the museum meet local webcartoonists, pick up swag & sketches, and attend writing & drawing workshops throughout the day.

Featured guests include Brian Andersen, Leigh Dragoon, Karen Luk, Betsy Streeter, Jason Thompson, Chuck Whelon, and Nexus of All Webcomics Realities (US Division, Women’s) Shaenon Garrity.

If you’re interested in participating (and can get to SF on your own), contact CAM supremo Andrew Farago, who runs the gallery at the museum which holds the cartoonart domain, which is a non-profit organization.

• Pre-orders for the lastest book from Evan Dahm (of Rice Boy and Order of Tales fame) are now up; Order of Tales, Book 2: The Hand of Stone will be shipping in 4 to 6 weeks, will run you US$25 ($35 in Canada) for 280 freakin’ pages, and look absolutely gorgeous. Hop to it, peoples.
• If I’ve got my sums correct (and the graphic on this page suggests that I do), Registered Weapon (once a cash register, now a robot, all cop) just hit 100 updates. Ordinarily, 100 updates is something I’d save for a slower news day, since it’s becoming somewhat ordinary to reach that milestone, but honestly I just needed an excuse to quote today’s RW Police Blotter:
  

  An employee of Buffalo Wild Wings called in a report that “two bears or something are straight-up [expletive] in the parking deck like it’s the [expletive] Bang Bus.”

  Two thoughts:

  1. That opening leads to a viciously funny dissection of the phenomenon of “Twilight Moms”
  2. If you know what Bang Bus is without looking it up, shame on you

  PS: Don’t Google it if you’re under 18 21 37 you know what? just don’t or at work.

Via Mighty God King. Just because it’s the greatest non sequitur since Moustache, that’s why.

• More things happening next weekend, this time north of the border in Montréal, as Least I Could Do and Looking For Group bossguy Ryan Sohmer opens up his very own comic book store. Okay, The 4th Wall (should that be Le Quatrième Mur?) has been open for a few weeks now, and Shopkeep Sohmer now has enough of a handle on things to throw the Grand Opening (ouverture grande) on the 14th of November (le 14ème novembre). It’s listed on the Facebook event page as Party – Erotic Party, which just sorta makes the kind of sense that isn’t. Anyhoo, 940 St Jean in Pointe-Claire, out by the airport.
• Also on the calendar, not webcomics per se, but likley of interest to anybody that does them — the Cartoon Art Museum is presenting a talk & signing around a new book that chronicles the creation of the first animated Christmas special, Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol:
  

  Mr. Magoo and Charles Dickens may have seemed like an odd match at the time but Americans of a certain age will remember that the pairing resulted in bit of pure magic. Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol was the first-ever animated Christmas special, and is now the subject of a splendid new book by Darrell Van Citters.

  With a sterling cast, whimsical animation and Broadway-caliber score all wrapped around Dickens’ timeless tale, Magoo became a fixture of the holiday season in the 1960s, but today is all but forgotten.

  I guess that means that I’m “of a certain age”, since I haven’t forgotten it. I’ll wager that more than one person significantly younger than me also remembers Razzleberry Dressing, right? Right?

  Dang. I’m old. If you’re old (or just want to get in touch with a bit of prime early-60s weirdness, which probably subconsciously influenced a webcomicker or two), Darrell Van Citters will be speaking at the museum on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 from 7:30 to 9:00pm, signing to follow.

• Okay, so I’m old (not to unduly alarm anybody, but I’ll be turning 42 in three weeks), but one thing I’m not is balding. That’s why you should be aware that I am definitely not featured in this. Pretty damn funny (thought possibly NSFW, depending on where you W) and depressingly accurate; you should see the PR stuff that I get and don’t run. Anybody sees Josh Lesnick around, give him a high-five for me.
• Finally, heads up for everybody who likes things that rule: The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs has made the transition from webcomic to paper issues, and now its first trade reprint book is up for pre-order. As is often the case, creators Lauren Monardo and Stephen Lindsay are self-publishing, and so need as many pre-orders as possible so they can afford to print the damn thing. Head on over, check out the previews and guest strips, and support ’em if you like ’em. Hint: You’re going to like ’em.

If Chris Onstad wrote nothing more than alt-text for Achewood, it would still be better than most of what’s on the internet. The Lash of Thanatos kind of petered out at the end, but the very next strip (on strip-club etiquette) started a chain of events that led to Todd becoming Kim Jong-Il’s flunky in a new country called PEOPLE’S KINGDOM OF ECSTACY AND WRATH! (complete with Malkian exclamation point) in an early-80s text adventure game. Also, there is a van, and peeling out. Reading back over the past month, it’s perfectly logical that we wound up here.

• Couple things are probably pretty likely if you read this-here blog:
  1. You are aware of the fine work done by the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco (guy in charge: Andrew Farago)
  2. You are a fan of Pixar‘s work (readers of good conscience may disagree on Cars)

  Bunky, you are about to see those two things combined:

  The Cartoon Art Museum is delighted to host its sixth annual benefit on Saturday, November 14, 2009 at Pixar Animation Studios. This year, there are two great ways to experience the magic of Pixar up close and personal at the studio’s Emeryville home:

  The Family Fun Tier (1:00 pm – 4:00 pm)

  Entry includes the chance to get up close and personal to rarely seen Toy Story art, sculptures, and other items from the Pixar archives and experience a gallery exhibition featuring stunning pre-production artwork from Up. [M]embers will also be able to participate in a Silent Auction to bid on original and signed works by Pixar creators. Pixar artists will be on hand to teach kids how to draw Pixar characters ,[and] a selection of Pixar short films will be showing in Pixar’s state-of-the-art screening room in a continuous loop.

  Tickets are $35 for an individual or $100 for a Family Four Pack, which includes entry for 2 adults and 2 children under 18 (or 1 adult and 3 children).

  The VIP Screening Tier (11:00 am — 4:00 pm)

  Entry includes access to everything from the Family Fun Tier plus access to Pixar’s Studio Store where guests can purchase Pixar items at employee prices.The centerpiece of the event is a noon time 3D screening that includes the rarely seen Cars toon Tokyo Mater, and the feature film Toy Story 2, hosted by Dr. Michael B. Johnson (Pixarian and CAM board member), who will lead a Q&A session along with several other Toy Story 2 crew members. The VIP Screening Tier also includes an offering of light lunchtime snacks, treats and conversation with the speakers and other Pixar employees.

  Cartoon Art Museum members can purchase tickets for the reduced rate of $99, while the non-member rate is $149. Call 415-227-8666, ext. 300 to purchase tickets. Tickets will not be sold at the door.

  Days like this, I’m almost wishing I lived out on the left coast (although, my company used to be headquartered in Emeryville right next to Pixar, and is still in the Bay Area … hmmmm …).

• I know all about the CAM/Pixar event because I’m on Farago’s press release list; not everything he sends me is of interest to this blog’s purpose, but they’re always well-written and to-the-point, so I pay attention to them. The other way to get attention is to … well, see for yourself below the cut. Just keep in mind that wacky for wackiness’ sake can lead to one (i.e.: me) to contemplate the difference between good attention and bad attention. You have been warned.

(more…)

Gotta hand it to Andrew Farago — in addition to curating the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco and being married to the Nexus of All Webcomics Realities (west coast division), he does his own webcomics, and has today wrapped up the first mega-arc of The Chronicles of William Bazillion today. Across seven chapters (some of which have nearly a hundred pages), multiple digressions, and side stories, Farago has brought us the adventures of the titular William Bazillion — plucky boy adventurer, leader of similar plucky boy adventurers, and total dick.

Seriously, he spent the past however long destroying alternate (good) versions of himself from parallel universes, teaming up with the clone of Richard Nixon (and a few hundred accessory Nixons, making a Nixon Family that makes the Marvel Family look lame by comparison), leaving a swath of destruction so he could overthrow Santa and obtain the naughty/nice database for his own nefarious purposes.

Bazillion does it because he knows that world is a game, and he’s the master of its rules and loopholes. By contrast, over in Erfworld, young Parson Gotti is trapped in a literal game world and is desperately trying to learn the rules and loopholes.

A hundred and fifty comics later, we’re on summer break, and getting occasional updates that are mostly text to tell us what happens in between the big important story arcs. It’s a really clever device, actually — creators Rob Balder and Jamie Noguchi could have gone straight to the next chapter in comics form, and caught us up on the “between” plot in a few pages of panels, but breaking out the prose allows the easily-exposited points some space to breathe.

In a way, it reminds me of what Terry Moore did repeatedly during the run of Strangers in Paradise: when presented with a lot of information that needed to be conveyed quickly, lest the plot drag (or a little information necessary to the plot and a lot of color that just made the story feel more fully inhabited), Moore would abandon the comics for up to four or even six pages of plain prose. No pictures — just dense, omniscient third-person prose that got a lot across in very few pages, without requiring whole issues of talking-head exposition. It’s such an effective thing (when done well) that I’m surprised that more creators haven’t done it. Kudos to Balder and Noguchi for trying something new, and I can’t wait to see how well it integrates when Erfworld goes back to regular comics.

For those keeping track of such things, there’s still a stack of books from the recent comics gathering that I got and haven’t read yet. Capsule reviews: Dr McNinja 3 and Girl Genius 8 are both shining exemplars of how to bring a payoff to every thrice-weekly page, while still having an overall story develop. Since I’m mentioning Girl Genius, word from Phil Foglio is that the recently-finished-catching-up-online Buck Godot epic, Gallimaufry, will see print in January. Hooray!

• If you’ve ever looked at the list of websites over there to the right, you may have noticed waaaay down at the bottom is one that hasn’t seen updates in a long time; Owen Dunne’s You Damn Kid updated for a long time, released a book (via Keenspot’s imprint), got optioned by Fox TV, went on hiatus, came back, went on hiatus, launched a bunch of other comics, went on hiatus for a long damn time, came back with a live-action video series this past February, and managed a pair of updates before reverting to hiatus.

  Please don’t misunderstand me — I labor under no illusion that Owen Dunne is my bitch, and I don’t mean to bring up the irregularity of his comickry as a means of criticism. Life gets in the way, and through all the interruptions, YDK has retained its place on the links because I really like Dunne’s work and consider myself essentially infinitely patient waiting for the next iteration which begins today:

  [Y]ou get paid and hate your job, I make squat but I like to do this. And that place where we meet in the middle is The Happy Monday Place. Or something like that. So welcome, and I hope you make it a regular stop each week.

  So here’s how it will work. A new page every Monday, with new comics, a short installment of the Barnyard Pete Show, and a monthly edition of Banion — The Podcast. The individual pages will be archived, not the individual comics. (However, the old YDK comics are archived, just click on the text at the top right of the comic.)

  Catch that? The Barnyard Pete live-action shorts will now be in Flash (much faster to produce), and Banion (clueless but serious detective in the Joe Friday tradition with his own webcomic) will now be podcast as an old-style radio drama. Looks like my theory about webcomics being a breeding ground for other forms of creativity wasn’t too far off. Speaking solely for myself, Dunne had me at an all new Nippleshine Manor! Welcome back to the game, Mr Dunne — should a hiatus come up again, I’ll be waiting for your return.

• Know who else we haven’t heard from in a while? Nicholas Gurewitch. Know who’s trying to remedy that? Andrew Farago:
  

  The Cartoon Art Museum’s Monsters of Webcomics exhibition is so big that it needs TWO opening receptions with special guest Nick Gurewitch, creator of the popular webcomic The Perry Bible Fellowship.

  On Thursday, August 27, Gurewitch will meet fans and sign copies of the two bestselling Perry Bible Fellowship collections, The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack. The booksigning is free and open to the public.

  On Friday, August 28, Gurewitch guides Perry Bible Fellowship fans through an artistic thesis about visual storytelling, and will go behind the scenes of comic-production with co-writer/spiritual advisor Evan Keogh. Special guest Michael Capozzola (stand-up comedian and creator of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Surveillance Caricatures) will lead a Q&A with Gurewitch immediately following the presentation. This is a ticketed event. General admission for this presentation is $10, or $5 for members of the Cartoon Art Museum.

  Those of you in the San Francisco area at the end of the month, take notes and report back to us.

Dang, don’t know where my brain is. Well, here’s some stuff for y’all:

• Sooner than expected, Little Dee book #3 has hit the store shelves; get ’em while they’re hot. Grab one of the sweet posters, too (I think I need the one of Shibuya crossing).
• Reports from last night’s Super Art Fight! are sketchy — survivors continue to trickle into aid stations, but no clear picture of the devastation‘s full scope has yet emerged.
• Told you earlier this week about the webcomics show at the Cartoon Art Museum (as curated by Andrew Farago); those of you in Tokyo will be able to get your own taste of Farago’s curatorial skills, as the CAM collaborated with Studio (freakin’) Ghibli to mount an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo on the works of famed illustrator Mary Blair:
  

  The Colors of Mary Blair is on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo from July 18 through October 4, 2009.

  Cartoon Art Museum Curator Andrew Farago and his wife, cartoonist and editor Shaenon K. Garrity, assisted Studio Ghibli with the assembly of this exhibition. The pair co-curated the Cartoon Art Museum’s 2007-08 exhibition of Blair’s work, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair, and were recruited by Studio Ghibli to act as liaisons between their curatorial team and the Mary Blair Estate.

  The travel to Japan to set up the show was chronicled by Shaenon Garrity in a three–part series at Comixology. Try not to hate Andrew & Shaenon for getting to hang around with Hayao Miyazaki (I know, the envy is overwhelming, but try anyway).

• Brigid Alverson talks to Gina Biggs on independent publishing & webcomickry. Please enjoy.

Okay, back to getting things ready for San Diego. Please forgive any erratic posting schedule that might crop up next week, and keep an eye on my Twitter; if you’re going to be there, I’ll most likely be found in a 30 meter radius of booth 1337.

You may have seen the list of SDCC programming events went up late last week, but did you notice that this year the programming is searchable by keyword? Some of what shows up under keyword webcomics is stretching the definition a bit, but we’ll run a list of sessions likely to be of interest to webcomickers a bit later this week. In the meantime, some things to keep you occupied:

• Book four of Digger has gone to press, and can be in your hands in consideration of a small amount of money. Two tranches of signed copies will go on sale here at 8:00am and 8:00pm CDT (UTC-5) on Wednesday.
• In case you didn’t see the picture I tweeted from the book launch party Saturday afternoon, Jon Rosenberg’s newest tchochke is in the prototype stage and should be available at SDCC. “Doughboy” courtesy Goats, Chris Yates, and Nikki “Bride of The Dreamcrusher” Rice.
• Some of you may have seen the announcement in Shaenon Garrity’s Livejournal earlier today, but I was conflicted about bringing the news up, lest a deluge wash away her husband, Andrew Farrago, aka curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. However, Mr Farrago assures me he can handle a flood or two, so read on if you’d like to be part of a museum exhibit on webcomics:
  

  The Cartoon Art Museum explores the digital revolution in its latest exhibition, Monsters of Webcomics, a showcase of some of the best and boldest work published on the World Wide Web.

  Cartoonists choose to work on the Web for many reasons. For some, it’s an opportunity to reach readers directly without going through editors, publishers, or syndicates. For others, it’s a chance to explore the artistic possibilities of the Web, whether that means working in a format that would be impossible in print, tackling subject matter most comic-book publishers won’t handle, or taking advantage of the rich palette available with digital coloring. Others simply want to share their comics with as many people as possible.

  The comics by the ten artists featured in this exhibition run the gamut from four-panel comic strips to full-length graphic novels and include comedy, drama, history, science fiction, and sociopolitical commentary. As varied as this work is, however, it represents only a very small sample of the comics available on the Web.

  If you are a webcartoonist and would like to participate in the virtual gallery component of this historic exhibition, please e-mail C.A.M. Curator Andrew Farago at gallery [at] cartoonart dot org.

  Let’s be perfectly clear — the roster of featured artists is set, anybody that emails to say Me! Me! Over here, pick me! and is accepted will be part of the online presentation only. That being said, your reputation could do worse than for your name to be found via future Google search in proximity to Jesse Reklaw, Kate Beaton, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Dorothy Gambrell, Nicholas Gurewitch, Jenn Manley Lee, Dylan Meconis, Chris Onstad, and Spike.

  So if you think that in that august company your webcomic need not feel ashamed, by all means drop the museum and line and make yourself known. It’s a big world out there, webcomics, and your strip is a part of it.

Like all good souls, I was looking forward to today’s release of David Malki !‘s long-awaited movie, Expendable. Unfortunately, it looks like the release will be pushed back a week, so mark your calendars for 23 January when it debuts as part of the Now Film Festival. Now all we need is a Wondermark movie (score by Kris Straub), and all will be well.

Also! If you didn’t make it to MoCCA for Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics, you’ve officially missed your chance. But you still have time to get your ass to the Cartoon Art Museum in San Fransisco for Shaenon Garrity‘s Cartoonist-in-Residence gig this Saturday.

Hey, guess what? Short topics to help fill the busy (yet low-news) end-of-year days, with a couple of book reviews being held until I need something pre-written whilst cooking a family feast.

• Karen Ellis does book reviews — in living color.
• Ever wonder what a cartoonist-in-residence looks like? According to the Cartoon Art Museum in San Fransisco, next month there will be a startling resemblence to Shaenon Garrity.
• Received via email last friday:
  

  Are you going to write the Webcomics knol?

  Haven’t been asked, so I guess not. But if anybody at Google thinks I might do a good job, I’ve got some time off next week.

• Jinxlets preorder!
• And finally, Otter over at A Girl And Her Fed has taken some umbrage at my continually pointing out that her characters lack a key sensory organ:
  

  Hmmm, I think I might need to take revenge upon a certain Gary Tyrrell. The good sir is on about the lack of eyes again… I see no other course of action than to visit the craft store and break into his home armed with brown pipe cleaners, a bag full of googly-eyes, and Crazy Glue. Gary, when the contents of your fridge stare back at you over their fine handlebar mustaches, you’ll know.

  Somehow, I think I would have preferred a horse head in the bed to what she left for me. Horrifying.