Yes, there are other things to mention, such as the news that TCAF announced another six guests (including Gene Luen Yang), and Christopher Hastings is getting another Marvel miniseries. Those are good bits of news, go revel in their newness.

• Probably nobody on the floor of MoCCA Fest has had as precipitous an upward trajectory as Noelle Stevenson; I first met her two years back when Lumberjanes #1 was fresh on the shelves and Nimona was not yet nominated for the National Book Award or optioned for the big screen. I asked her how she follows all of that up and she mentioned she has a book in development with HarperCollins called Four Wizards¹, as well as a second project she can’t talk about yet. I told her something I told a number of creators — I can’t wait to see what she’s doing in five year, ten years, because she’s just getting better.
• Despite the presence of a booth helper with a name tag reading Gina Gagliano, the beating heart of :01 Books (and the woman who sends me enough review copies to drown an average-size ten year old) was repping the imprint in Houston during MoCCA weekend; no matter, as the booth was in the good hands of Danielle Ceccolini.

  Ms Ceccolini came on board in 2014 to replace departing book designer Colleen AF Venable; print lead times being what they are, it’s only been in the last six months or so that I’ve seen Ceccolini’s name in :01’s offerings, so we’re just starting to get a sense of how strong her designs are (especially given that a number of her designs have been on continuing series — such as The Olympians or Glorkian Warrior — that had an established look and feel).

  Case in point: Faith Erin Hick’s The Nameless City (out today), which sports an absolutely gorgeous design to go with the engaging story. If you ever wanted to read a graphic novel (for, let’s say, tweens and up) that reminds you of all the best parts of Jeff Smith, Hayao Miyazaki, Gene Yang, and Kazu Kibuishi in one book, this is the one for you. Or rather, the first of three for you, since it’s a planned trilogy.

  Between that deal, the numerous Yang offerings each year (including the Secret Coders series with Mike Holmes, second volume due soon), and the Science Comics line, it seems like :01 is on track for a good deal more ambitious a release schedule than their recent history of 18 – 22 books a year. It’s a hell of a lot of work for four people, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that they need more hands to keep their well-deserved reputation for quality.

• Ken Wong was somebody I’d intended to go see on the floor, as the description of his origami comics — comics where the physical, three-dimensional presentation becomes part of the story — intrigued the hell out of me. As it turned out, I walked by his table somehow not noticing the enormous ORIGAMI COMICS banner, but my eye was caught by the cover of what turned out to be the single nerdiest comic I’ve ever read: Bonetti’s Defense — I Know Something You Don’t Know About Swordplay In The Princess Bride. It’s exactly what it says on the cover: a picking-apart of the slight dialogue (and careful choreography) of the epic duel between Inigo Montoya and the Man In Black on top of the Cliffs of Insanity.

  Drawing on what I’d always assumed to be throwaway names (in the screenplay and the original book), Wong finds the historical Bonetti, Capo Ferro, Thibault, and Agrippa and talks about why their teachings are appropriate to the scene in question. And because anything nerdy that you’re nerding out over can never have too much nerding, he finds likely historical referents for fencing masters McBone, Sainct, MacPherson, and Morozzo. Wong even figures out who the most probable inspiration for the Dread Pirate Roberts was.

  It’s not necessary to read Bonetti’s Defense to enjoy everybody’s favorite movie², but it gives a sense of satisfaction to realize how much William Goldman, Rob Reiner, swordmaster Bob Anderson, and everybody else cared to make things right even if only one guy in Brooklyn would ever realize how right they were.

• Not far from Wong’s table, I did the I was going to look for you and didn’t realize you were here and something on the table caught my eye deal a second time, when I came across Azure. In this case, the catch-my-eye factor was provided by a stack of onesies with dinosaurs on them.

  I’m very sorry to say that I can’t find a link on Azure’s site for these because they are adorable and my gosh, did I just have a grand-nephew born like ten days ago? I believe I did, and young Collin is going to be well-equipped with a dinosaur onesie and small prints with dinosaurs on them because you can never start a love affair with dinosaurs too early.

There were students everywhere. I saw tables either officially representing schools, or filled with students who came from particular schools but not in an official capacity, including (but likely not limited to) Parsons, FIT, Pratt, SVA, Syracuse, CCS, Moore, and at least one high school club.

The students themselves ran the gamut from shy and retiring to immensely outgoing; from art student chic to lacking even one piercing or visible tattoo; their work fell into every conceivable genre and style, from I’m mostly inspired by what’s on Crunchyroll this month but haven’t quite figured out anatomy yet to a noir mystery starring snails³.

But there was one (from the far lands of Minneapolis) that stood out from her contemporaries; her work had an assurance, a confidence that I wouldn’t have expected from one so young (and who had only been doing comics for about three years). One whose work I realized I had seen before and (foolishly) had not bookmarked at the time. One who has Big Things happening in the immediate future, and whose future work I am looking forward to as much as Noelle Stevenson’s, one who I think is going to make as big a splash in the industry as Stevenson, Hicks, Telgemeier, or Larson.

But I’m over 1000 words as it is, so come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about Rosemary Valero-O’Connell.

Spam of the day:

Diffuse threats with this recently released technology

You mean I should make them ever less and less concentrated, until they are spread over such a large volume as to be indetectable? Or given the rather rah-rah tactical machismo of your imagery, did you mean defuse? Either way, it’s just a damn flashlight, bunky.

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¹ Or possibly 4 Wizards, or For Wizards; it was noisy and I didn’t ask her to spell it.

² Oh hush, you know it is.

³ The same creator’s other works were all shiny and sparkly, which prompted me to suggest that to my knowledge, nobody has yet combined noir story structures with the Lisa Frank aesthetic and she should get right on that.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: Two cats have taken their time going to the snack tent to retrieve some brandy of the gets-the-job-done variety. We’ll pick up with them when they get back.

I think that what I like best about the small-to-medium sized comics shows is the fact that they actually feature comics. So it’s with that in mind that I brin gyou news from three such festival-type shows that you’ll be paying attention to in the coming weeks and months, and one prize that draws from the same creator cohort.

• First up, MoCCA Fest has announced its slate of programming for the 2-3 April show in Manhattan; as was the case last year, panels and programs will be offsite, but included in the cost of your US$5 ticket. Highlights include a Sonny Liew Spotlight (12:30pm on Saturday), Cece Bell on El Deafo (2:00pm Saturday), Making Comics for Younger Readers (with Noelle Stevenson and others; 12:30pm on Sunday), and a Rebecca Sugar Q+A (2:00pm on Sunday). Best of all? The meeting rooms are actually named Helvetica and Garamond.
• Nextly, TCAF has announced four more featured guests, who you’ll find the weekend of 14-15 May. If it seems like three is a small number, consider:
  • They were specifically invited to appeal to kids
  • There were already Kids Guests announced like Kate Beaton and Faith Erin Hicks
  • This brings the total of confirmed guests to more than two dozen
  • They are superstars Alex A (Super Agent Jon Le Bon), Kazu Kibuishi (Amulet), Dana Simpson (Phoebe And Her Unicorn), and Raina Telgemeier (the entire damn comics industry; Sunday only)
• The second half of the SPX exhibitor list — the part decided by lottery — is starting to fill in, as news is being shared around the Twittersphere about who got in and who didn’t. The list will be fluid for some time, with table payments not due for another month, and then backfills taking place between now and the weekend of 17–18 September. Please note that the Exhibitors link at the SPX site is still showing the 2015 lineup, but expect that to change in the next couple of weeks.
• The Center for Cartoon Studies and Slate have announced the shortlists for their annual Cartoonist Studio Prizes. As in past years, there are ten nominees from the world of print comics, and ten from webcomics. As in past years, there are single-shot stories and ongoing series — length, genre, topic, style, audience age, and all the other qualifiers that usual divide nominees into many categories have no place here, only the strength of the work. As in past years, one nominee from each list will be recognized (announcement due on 6 April), and get both bragging rights and — uniquely for comics prizes — a thousand damn dollars.

  Pretty much everything that I saw on the lists that I recognized I nodded Yeah, that makes sense, and I don’t see any particularly weak or surprising nominations. It’s worth noting that D&Q and Fantagraphics dominate the print category, and that three of the webcomics nominees were commissioned by Matt Bors for The Nib before it shuttered its doors halfway through the year, or for its short-lived followup, The Response; I’ve no doubt that if Bors had a full 12 months in 2015 to play with, we’d see more on the list.

Spam of the day:

Check out the profiles of over 30,000 Russian babes. Make these Russian girls fall for your charm.

Okay, nothing special there, we’ve seen this particular flavor of spam before. What propels it into the realm of genius is the name of the alleged sender, Olga. Olga Contrabasist. That is sheer goddamn poetry.

Heck, I’m in a good mood, let’s do another one!

Signs of a Fatal Heart-Attack

I’ma go out on a limb here — 10 year veteran EMT and all, you pick these things up — and say the most distinguishing sign of a heart attack that is not merely damaging but fatal, would be the part where you’re dead.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: Ray is tired from his rampage and shivering from the cold and loneliness. Some nights are longer than others.

Hell, no! So why should the Cartoon Art Museum stop doing cool things just because The Man says they don’t have a gallery space anymore? Become the ruling body, dude!¹ Or at least check out what CAM has coming up in the next few weeks.

• Next weekend, CAM will be heading down to the South Bay and the inaugural Silicon Valley Comic Con in San Jose. Curator Andrew Farago will be interviewing Norm Felchle (he works on Spider-Man, Mick Gray (Batman and Robin, Alex Sheikman (Moonstruck), and Ryan Sook (Hawkman and a stack of Buffy titles) in a panel discussion, 10:00am on Saturday the 19th.
• A week later, they’ll be at WonderCon at the LA Convention Center; this time it’ll be Program Coordinator Nina Kester doing panel duties with Comedy in Comics, on Sunday the 27th from 11:30am. Guests will include Kyle Baker (Plastic Man, Why I Hate Saturn, The Cowboy Wally Show, and many more), Ming Doyle (DC Bombshells), Francesco Francavilla (Afterlife With Archie), Agnes Garbowska (My Little Pony), Joe Quinones (Howard the Duck, having to put up with Chip Zdarsky), and Raina Telgemeier².
• June 18th and 19th will see the third annual Queer Comics Expo at the SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco, which will also serve as a fundraiser for CAM. In fact, they’re looking for people that want to be part of the fun, with applications for QCE programming, volunteers, and exhibitors open through 31 March. Table rates range from US$15 to US$50 (half or whole, one day or both) and exhibitors can get the application details via qcexpo.tumblr.com/exhibitors.

I can think off the top of my head about a couple museums that do less than this in a year, much less in a couple of months while also juggling a major capital fundraising campaign/real estate search. They’re good folks over at CAM, and you ought to take one of these opportunities to go see ’em. Drop a couple bucks in the donation jar while you’re there.

Spam of the day:

Look 20-Years Younger: Celebrity Method Revealed

Man, I already look 10 years younger than I actually am (and the entire insurance industry apparently thinks I qualify for Medicare, which event won’t happen until the 2030s); if your miracle goop makes me look another 20 years younger, I’m never going to get a drink again.

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¹ I appear to have mixed my metaphors somewhat.

² Do I really have to tell you what she does? Read literally any week of postings here and you’ll come across her.

This dayin Great Outdoor Fight history: The presence of tick-pimps, boilbacks, and yard-sleepers quite frankly raises as many questions as they answer. Such as, how many were made into cowboy sauce? I’m going to guess 250-300.

• We’re getting down to the end times here — from issue #1 in September of 2010 to issue #100¹ in August of last year, to the final wind-down of the rerun as a webcomic, Jim Zub’s Skullkickers is reaching a milestone. For the first time, it’s going to be complete for all new readers; a significant portion of his audience never picked up the dead-tree floppies, and only knows Skullkickers as a webcomic; for the first time, it’s going to be there as a complete story, with no new updated on the next Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

  It’s the comic where he really made his bones and his reputation as a journeyman that can write anything for anybody, 1000 pages a year. It’s the comic that launched a series of tutorials on creator-owned comics, whether the economics of such, tricks for promotion, pitching, you name it. In a lot of ways, it’s always going to be the Zubbiest comic of his career¹ other works since have incorporated some of the madcap insanity of Baldy and Shorty (okay, Rex and Rolf), and have tried to do as ambitious things with the nature of stories, but only here did all of it come together.

  I’m just saying, Wayward and Thunderbolts and Samurai Jack and Makeshift Miracle and Baldur’s Gate and Pathfinder and Batman and Figment and all of the others? Excellent writing, in every genre for every possible audience, but they lack something essential. They have far less mayhem, far fewer crotch-kicks, and as a result are thus only partially Zubby. Zubbish? Zublike? Whatever the adjectival form of Zub is, less of that. He set out to tell as big a story as he could², with as much fun as possible along the way, and he succeeded admirably. It’s a Zub world, and we’re lucky to be living in it.

• One really cool thing about Skullkickers was how Zub treated the character of Kusia, the elven assassin. She wasn’t just the major female character, but just generally a more competent and likable character than the putative leads. In a testosterone-fueled genre (six of them, actually), she was the rational touchstone, and she got to argue that just because the eternal archetypes of adventure are male shouldn’t mean that there’s no place for women protagonists. Then she dragged the eternal archetypes into something resembling gender parity and it was cool.

  I’m thinking about this, because it’s rare for male cartoonists to actively seek out reasons to have female protagonists³ but female cartoonists aren’t so blind to the ability of women characters to anchor a story. It’s not even so much that women cartoonists create women characters at the expense of men — it’s that they know that including a mix of both reflect the real world, even when nearly every form of entertainment and social interaction results in dudes thinking women are overrepresented and dominating a story when they hit a ratio of about 1 in 4.

  And seeing as how it’s International Women’s Day, The AV Club has done us the favor (as in past years) of pointing out some great women in the comics and cartoon sphere that you may not be familiar with (not to mention names that you should already know — like Fiona Staples, Emily Carroll, Kate Beaton, Jillian Tamaki, Raina Telgemeier, Eleanor Davis, Meredith Gran, Emma Rios, and Noelle Stevenson — who are recapped in the intro). As is happening in a lot of capital-c Comics, women are making the biggest inroads into indie and webcomics because there’s nobody there to tell them they can’t or that there’s no audience for their stuff.

  Read the article; get to know the names. In a couple of years, these ladies will be as dominant as the now-familiar creators in the intro. Don’t believe me? Take note of the fact that DC Comics lost its position as the biggest vendor of graphic novels last year to Scholastic. And Raina Telgemeier by herself was responsible for about 6.5% of all comics sold through bookstores last year. Sisters and Smile are bigger than Batman, and all the women coming up now are going to get to the top by walking past increasingly less-relevant cape comics. Rock on, ladies; you rule.

Spam of the day:

Gorgeous Kitchens – Check it out.

Attention Brett g Porter; it’s not XTC or Zappa or Pynchon, but I believe this is of interest to you.

_______________
¹ The precise moment when he shifted his professional name from Jim Zubkavich to Jim Zub is less important than the debut of Skullkickers #1; that is the moment when he shed his former identity and became who he is.

² With, it should be noted, the likes of Edwin Huang and Misty Coats, without whom the end result would lack a significant amount of Zubness. He has a knack for picking collaborators that get him and bring out all that he envisions in his brainmeats.

³ cf: Zub’s Wayward, where the current group of nominal heroes is 4 women (or at least female monster-type creatures) and 2 men; the major antagonists are one each male and female with a male junior villain. It feels ordinary in the context of his story, but it’s far from common in comics.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: No strip; Ray is napping off all those sporkfuls (sporksful?) of Christian Brothers.

We had a bit of snow earlier today, but it’s melting off in the sun. Let’s talk about what the deals are, and head into the weekend.

• Kazu Kibuishi is no stranger to the New York Times Best Seller list, and if he spent less time at #1 for Amulet volume 6 18 months back, well, that’s probably because Scholastic made the inexplicable decision to release it on the same day as Raina Telgemeier’s Sisters¹.

  But Kibuishi’s done something that I can’t recall seeing before: he’s debuted Amulet volume 7 at #1 on both the hardcover and softcover lists; given the cliffhanger that this book ends on², expect to see it pop back up when the eighth volume releases sometime next year.

• Hey, you know who else is no stranger to the Times Best Seller list, but who hasn’t done a book for — goodness! — nearly five years? Vera Brosgol. She’s been busy as heck with Laika Studios, contributing to some of the most original and imaginative films in decades. But we’ll be seeing more of her own work soon:
  

  Today is my last day at Laika. I’m leaving to work on my own projects! I will miss these guys so so much. T_T

  Brosgol was one of the first people I met in webcomics, before I started blogging even, back when Return To Sender³ was still updating, and I’ve adored her work from the beginning. Leaving a place of tremendous creativity (the sort that’s got to rub off on you) to work on her own stories again? This is the best possible news.

• Mark your calendars for the tail end of October:
  

  What if I told you to mark October 22-23rd on your calendar, because those are the dates of TopatoCon 2016? WHAT IF

  I would say Yes, please and start scheming as to how we could make last year’s competitive drink-making session even better. I made a drink in a pineapple, people, and kept up the small talk while competitors wrangled ingredients, the kindest of which was pop-boba. What would make for a good successor? An Iron Chef type format⁴? Something more educational? More samples? Answers on a postcard, or at least in the comments below.

• Speaking of conventions, a schedule change to this weekend’s In-Store Convention Kickoff: Jim Zub and Nathan Fillion/Alan Tudyk will be swapping timeslots, with the former now at 4:40pm and the latter at 6:30pm (all times EST). Please adjust your day planners accordingly.

Spam of the day:

Protect Against Identity-Theft

I suppose you mean to educate me by means of direct experience, seeing as how Gmail has helpfully labeled your email with Be careful with this message. Similar messages were used to steal people’s personal information.

______________
¹ Which remains on said list to this day, 78 weeks later, along with Drama (135 weeks), Smile (194 weeks), and the latest Baby Sitters Club reissue (5 weeks). She’s released her 70% stranglehold on the list, but I make it even money she regains it and possible pulls off the eight-peat once Ghosts releases in the fall.

² And it’s evil, I tells ya; the story is also so full of major twists and turns that I don’t know how to review it — even with my usual warnings of spoilers — without recounting the entire damn thing in detail. Suffice it to say that Kibuishi has lost none of his chops, has kicked the story into even higher gear than it was, and guaranteed that the wait for the last two books of the series will be the longest wait in the lives of his many fans.

And when volume 9 finally hits, I’m taking a day to re-read the entire thing at once. It’ll be glorious.

³ Since shuttered, and the domain obtained by persons of low intent. Only browse via Wayback Machine, and go no further than 2006. Some day, Often and Colette will reveal the rest of their story to us; in the meantime, they live in my heart and memory.

⁴ If we can figure out some way for me to shout allez biberonner, I will die a happy man.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: Still waiting for the Fight to start; things really kick in tomorrow, though.

• Ordinarily, I’d have run the story that linked to the art as the first item, but this is too big to go anyplace but the lead slot; I trust that Kate will understand. Re: our call two days ago for book purchasers to push Raina Telgemeier from holding 60% of the New York Times Best Seller List to 70%; that didn’t take long. Thanks, book purchasers! Now hold on until Ghosts comes out and make it 80%!
• Now then: Kate Beaton, who all right-thinking folk regard as a treasure and one of the very best creators in both comics, and in any creative medium from the Great White North. Beaton was tapped to provide a show poster for TCAF, and it’s a beaut. More than all the geekly references, it’s also terrific because the message could not be any more clear: TCAF¹ is for everyone. Be sure to thank Beaton when you see her at the Toronto Reference Library on the 14th & 15th of May.
• I got a press release and some sample pages from a guy named Derrick Johnson recently, and I wasn’t going to do much with it — another first release of a webcomic in print form, I see those literally every day, and mention only the ones that grab me in the eyeballs and don’t let go. But something about Johnson’s missive did grab me, and I wasn’t sure exactly what for a couple of minutes. Then it hit me:
  

  I’m a comics creator, that posted comics regularly to my website for a 4 year period in 2007-10. After a long hiatus, I decided to collect the best strips from that time and self-publish a book, The Best of Colored Comics, Volume 1.

  Everybody catch that? 2007-10. Comics creators (like artistic types of all sorts) that I know have a definite tendency to be their own worst critics. The most well-balanced of them can stand to look at their most recent work without berating themselves, but maybe on an 18 month rotating cycle. That is, today’s work is pretty okay, anything from last year is barely adequate, and older than 18 months is fit only to be burned. Of course, 18 months from now, today’s work will fall firmly into the burn category. Thus does skill push itself to improve, on the back of total neuroticism.

  So to read that Johnson worked at Colored Comics for four years, then to set it aside for five with plans to print, then to resume? That’s an act of supreme bravery. The samples that Johnson sent along, I can tell which are older and which are more recent; the new comics on the site reveal that regularly updating or no, Johnson’s been practicing and improving. I can’t imagine what it was like to go through work almost a decade old to prepare it for print, but it’s the most self-challenging and fundamentally optimistic act I’ve seen in quite a while.

  Confidence is a major part of creativity, the feeling that putting a part of yourself out there won’t come back to bite you in the ass, that the random cruelties of a thousand internet griefers won’t drag you down. So yeah — if you’re looking for what early work (that improves as you read it, and gets better still past the end) looks like, Derrick Johnson’s your guy. Here’s hoping he continues to develop without falling to the 18 month neurosis, because I want to see just how good he gets. The Best of Colored Comics, volume 1 is US$15 from Johnson, and pay what you want at Gumroad. Check ‘er out.

• Oh, and 4000 is a hell of a big number, minus maybe a couple dozen guest strips, plus more than 700 for the newspapers. Happy Big Round Number Day, Rich Stevens. You’re a goddamn inspiration.

Spam of the day:

Discount COSTC0 MEMBERSHIPS

So I’ve gone from being on the sexy MILFs spam list to the bootleg warehouse-club membership spam list? Guess it’s just a matter of time before I end up on the oatmeal-and-diabetes-meds spam list, then the prepaid funeral services spam list. Welp, it was nice knowing you.

_______________
¹ Indeed, comics, and nerdery, and all fandoms you can think of.

This day in Great Outdoor Fight history: No strip; Beef is undoubtedly deciding who among the gathering hordes will be invited to roll with Son of Rodney.

So much going on, I barely know where to start. Let’s just go in the order of when I scribbled notes to myself.

• Longtime Friend o’ Fleen Eben Burgoon started in [web]comickry with spy spoof Eben07, then moved onto action-adventure spoof B-Squad (and, almost uniquely among creators, managed to repurpose a failed Kickstart into success with the first volume). He’s back with more weird deconstruction of the ragtag-team concept as B-Squad volume 2 launched on the ‘starter yesterday. I was going to write about it yesterday, but honestly when C&H dropped their immediately megasuccessful card game¹ on the world, any other new Kickstart was just gonna be overshadowed and so I pushed back a day.

  And B-Squad didn’t deserve that, so here we are today. One day in, 38 to go, sitting at about 16% of goal, as Burgoon pairs up with five artists to tell five stories and also deal with the worst writing constraint in history: each story, at least one character is going to kick it, as determined by a die roll that Burgoon must then adapt to. They say that writing is about killing your darlings, but what if you put work and love into a character and then the die says they gotta, well, die? Help make it all a bit less painful for Burgoon by at least making financially worthwhile for the creators to deal with the challenge and heartbreak.

• The ongoing endeavour that is trying to figure out who the heck gets a table at SPX hits a significant date soon; the curated portion of the floor is being allocated, and soon the showrunners will know exactly how many spots will go into the table lottery. Want to exhibit but not specifically invited? Check it:
  

  On February 12, 2016, the lottery registration will become available and the lottery registration period will last between February 12 and February 26, 2016.

  The lottery registration will take place through a web page on the SPXPO.com website. We will provide basic instructions on this page that can also be viewed in the FAQ section below.

  Each lottery registrant will receive an e-mail containing their own randomly generated 6-digit number that you will receive within 48 hours of registering for the lottery.

  Once the lottery registration period is completed on February 26, 2016, we will have a digital coin flipper to determine whether we sort the random numbers by ascending or descending order. The lottery registrant list will then be sorted by random number according to the coin flip, and those tables above the capacity threshold will be selected to exhibit at SPX 2016. The order of the tables below the capacity threshold will determine the wait list. [emphasis original]

  Got that? Friday is the day to start looking at the website for lottery applications. This is a much better system than the frantic rush to apply that SPX used before the lottery system, meaning that timestamps and postmarks and checks received don’t determine who gets in. Two weeks, same chance whenever you apply, and hope to see you in September.

• For those wondering, Queen of Comictopia Raina Telgemeier has topped off a recent move back to San Francisco with the release of the fourth of her newly-colored Baby Sitters Club adaptations and whaddaya know, it’s entered the New York Times Best Seller List in its first week. In slot #1. With five other books (Smile, Drama, Sisters, and two other BSC volumes) in slots 2, 5, 7, 8, and 9. Okay, book purchasers, let’s get that last BSC book on the list so that Telgemeier can have 70% of it to herself (until Ghosts comes out and she hits 80%). It’s her world, comics, we may as well acknowledge it.

• The Nib, lost to a reorg at Medium, has pretty much been Matt Bors’s singular focus for the past eight months or so. First it was the Kickstart to reprint the best of the site, and much of the time since has been dedicated to finding a new home for editorial cartooning on the web that pays. Good news dropping this morning, then:

  First Look Media today announced that they have partnered with award winning cartoonist Matt Bors on his irreverent comics publication, The Nib. Formerly part of the online platform Medium, The Nib will re-launch this summer through First Look Media as an independent daily publication and online newsletter.

  Great news, in fact, but why do I recognize that name, First Look Media?

  Bors will remain editor of The Nib as it joins First Look Media’s family of media properties including The Intercept, reported.ly, and Field of Vision.

  Ohhhh, right, The Intercept — that’s Greg Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the people that brought Edward Snowden’s leaks to light. Damn, this is going to be a match made in heaven, with adversarial journalism committed in both words and pictures. It’ll have been a year spent Nibless, but before long we’re going to have voices back that we haven’t seen as much lately, in one place, both delighting and enraging me, and (most importantly) getting paid. That’ll do, Matt. That’ll do.

Spam of the day:

say hello to these naughty and wild milfs

Why, for the love of all that you might find holy, why would you send me a spam trying to intrigue me on a sexual basis and then write that spam in ficking Comic Sans?

_______________
¹ As of this writing, above US$400K on a US$10K goal, with more than 8700 backers. The FFFmk2 predicts a final funding in the US$1.5million (plus or minus call it US$300K) range, which would be frankly insane if not for the example of Exploding Kittens last year.

It’s a good day for those of you that travel to the northerly climes for comics conventions featuring indy-type creators, and are interested in discovering exactly who the guests of such cons would be. Let’s take ’em from North to South, earlier to later, and smaller to larger.

• We mentioned that there was going to be a small convention in Juneau, Alaska, under the aegis of Pat Race and Alaska Robotics about two weeks back. Race has now put up a dedicated site for what is now dubbed Alaska Robotics Mini-Con and the associated camping trip, to be held 22-26 April.

  Confirmed guests appear to have been heavily pulled from those that Race has brought to Juneau over the past couple of years for spotlight appearances; the fact that they’re willing to make the long trek to Juneau speaks well towards how AKR treats its guests. So if you’re in the land of whales ‘n’ bears in April you’ll be likely to meet Kate Beaton¹, Vera Brosgol, Tony Cliff, Amy Kibuishi, Kazu Kibuishi, Dylan Meconis, Ryan North, and Raina Telgemier.

  Joining them will be musicians Seth Boyer, Marian Call, and Molly Lewis, as well as Georgina Hayns and Jeremy Spake from Studio Laika (they’re responsible for the puppet and armature manufacture behind such films as Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls), and superlawyer to the artistic world Katie Lane. After the convention on Saturday, the artists head off camping for a creative retreat, with a limited number of spots for [aspiring and accomplished] artists who want to attend.

  Best of all, AKRMCon has the best first-year show harassment policy I’ve ever seen:

  Many conventions have harassment policies and we feel like it’s important to approach this event in the spirit of inclusion. We love the many varied groups and fandoms that congregate at comic conventions we’ve attended and we want everyone to feel safe and welcome at our convention. If anyone makes you feel unsafe or goes out of their way to make you feel uncomfortable, let us know. We’ll feed them to the bears. [emphasis mine]

  I call upon every convention in the world to adopt this sanction for jerk behavior; f you don’t bears, put the offenders in a box and ship ’em to Juneau with a note asking Pat Race to help and I’m sure he’ll do you a solid.

• Some three weeks later, many of those that were at AKRMCon will be making their way southeast about four time zones to Toronto for TCAF, who have just announced their first eight featured guests. Kate Beaton will be there, of course, along with Duncan Fegredo, Lisa Hanawalt, MariNaomi, Sean Phillips, Michel Rabagliati, Chip Zdarsky, Japanese vulva sculptor Rokudenashiko (really! look her up, she’s super cool!).

  The exhibitor list is too extensive to copy here, but it’ll include Lucy Bellwood, Tony Breed, the Boston Comics Roundtable, Anthony Clark, Eric Colossal, Tony Cliff, Rachel Dukes, Mike Dawson, Sophie Goldstein, John Green, KC Green, Megan Rose Gedris, Meredith Gran, Nick Gurewitch, Der-shing Helmer, Mike Holmes, Kori Michele Handwerker, Alex Heberling

  [inhale]

  Ananth Hirsh & Yuko Ota, Abby Howard, Dustin Harbin, Faith Erin Hicks, Kel McDonald, Erika Moen, Angela Melick, Sfé R Monster, Tom McHenry, Hope Nicholson, Ryan North, Em Partridge, Ryan Pequin, Carey Pietsch, MK Reed, Sarah Winifred Searle, Kean Soo, Tessa Stone, Ben Towle, and EK Weaver. Oh, and also publishers Drawn + Quarterly, Iron Circus Comics, Koyama Press, and Retrofit Comics.

  Also professional terrible person Karla Pacheco, who should not — repeat, NOT — be allowed in the same space as Tony Breed and/or Chip Zdarsky if we (as a people) wish to avoid unpleasantness. Like, international incident unpleasantness.

  As in past years, TCAF, will take place at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street, on 14 (9:00am – 5:00pm) and 15 (11:00am – 5:00pm) May, and it free and open to the public.

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¹ Beaton’s travel distance from Nova Scotia to Juneau will be approximately 5000 km, greater than the distance to London, Madrid, Havana, or Mexico City.

The inestimable Pierre Lebeaupin was good enough to leave an extensive comment on yesterday’s post on the dumbassery surrounding this year’s Grand Prix d’Angoulême. It was too good to be potentially overlooked, so I’ve copied it here. Please enjoy this bonus post for today.

A message from the Fleen French correspondent …

• The FIBD published a communiqué telling that they are going to “without removing any name, reintroduce names of female creators in the list of nominees” (via everyone in France including mainstream media; Robot 6 post. Take it for what it’s worth, especially the communiqué is still quite on the defensive in this correspondent’s humble opinion.
• Analysis from Isabelle Bauthian, via Boulet’s twitter; my translation:
  

  I had an inkling for a detailed article on this absurd lack of any female creator name on the list of nominations for the FIBD Grand Prize, but I am swamped with work, which is probably a good thing as it will avoid me a few blood tension spikes. So, we’ll make it short:

  • No one is asking for strict parity (about 12% female creators in the field. We’re not completely dumb), nor even quotas.
  • Yes, there is a good choice of influent female creators in the generation of some of the nominees (even just in manga, seriously …).
  • No, you don’t just have to “wait for society to change”. Society has already changed and the leading bodies in many domains do not correspond to it, that’s the very issue.
  • I do no condemn men unconscious of their “privileges”. We all are to some extent, or have been. But I find it fundamental that people can make their biases known to them.
  • To raise awareness the presence of discriminations and consciously correct them is not “favoritism”. Favoritism is what created them in the first place.
  • The decision from Riad Sattouf [correspondent note: first creator, and probably only one at that time, to have withdrawn in protest] forces respect (possibly even admiration), but I can’t help but witness that “feminist men” are considered classy, but “feminist women” are considered damn nuisances.
  • YES, this selection is also 100% white and Asian [correspondent note: and this argument doesn’t even stand if we consider Riad Sattouf, precisely, who is half mid-eastern, this is even the whole basis of “l’arabe du futur”]. I don’t know the percentage of black authors in comics [correspondent note: originally put as “bd”] (it seems to me very low in France-Belgique but I could be wrong) [correspondent note: it might even be illegal to make such statistics anyway], nor, among them, which ones have gained enough influence to earn a Grand Prize, but the fact is the FIDB is barely starting the earn its “I” [correspondent note: stands for “International”] and it should put a light on ALL comics [correspondent note: originally put as “bande dessinnée”].

    Let me remind you that, as late as last year, people would bemoan the presence of manga creators in the selection. If African author collectives have ideas to improve this situation, I am certain that a bunch of female creators will support them, individually or through their collective. But here, right now, this is not the case, so thanks for wanting to save the world but let us start with helping those who are struggling against an issue rather than tell them to shut up because they are not the only ones with a problem, thank you very much.

  • Yes, creators have other issues, starting with an iniquitous reform of their retirement pension system and, especially and more complex, their increasingly lowering revenues. The good news is that talking about the lack of women in the selection does not prevent from tackling those. The bad news is, if we stop talking about the lack of women, it will start becoming apparent that the bulk of your actions for “authors in general” just amount to complaining on Facebook.

    So don’t blame us for multiplying the struggles. Rather thank us for putting a veil on your passivity (And if I’m wrong concerning you, let me remind you that the SNAC is recruiting, hey, friends. Punchy, coordinated and exhaustive actions are not set up in 15 days between 10 voluntary suckers).

  And on that, allow me to take my leave, I’m going to go ahead and improve the percentage of “women’s books” to be published in 2016.

Now from the correspondent analysis:

• Gotta concur on the somewhat parochial aspect of the FIDB, in particular your correspondent was not particularly aware of the general importance of EW as compared to, say, Megan Fox Tits Wolverine [Editor’s note: how we at Fleen refer to that onetime exemplar of comics news, Wizard magazine], so he wouldn’t be particularly surprised if the head of FIBD wasn’t either. Not an excuse, but not a scandal either.
• Double checked his comments on Le Monde and Télérama, and yes, he did actually say that in the original French. His comments about Tintin and Pilote are disingenuous, in particular, given that the most late breaking of the nominees broke out in the 90s, while both Tintin and Pilote went under in the 80s.
• Raina Telgemeier (haven’t checked the other female creators you mentioned) may indeed however be of a later generation than any of the nominees; it’s indeed not about creators “running around today” (except, as Télérama mentioned, for Zep in 2004 …). Takahashi-san however would certainly qualify by that measure.

Hey, Franck? Franck Bondeux? I know that you think that women just haven’t ever made comics, and that your complete dismissal of considering even one woman for inclusion on the list of nominees for the Grand Prix d’Angoulême is therefore just logical¹, but let me help you out a little.

On the very same day that you decide there’s simply no notable women making comics for a lifetime, the cover of Ghosts, Raina Telgemeier’s next book — not due for nine months! — was released along with a brief excerpt. It wasn’t released to the comics press, it was released to Entertainment friggin’ Weekly because she’s that ingrained in the popular culture. But, you know, women haven’t made careers of comics.

Or maybe we could look at today’s announcement of Hope Larson’s upcoming series, Goldie Vance, a collaboration with Brittney Williams. That one ran in the LA Times, the paper of record of the popular entertainment capital of the world … but you can’t think of any women that have made contributions to comics.

Franck? I hate to say this, but you are not very good at your job. I’ll leave it to others to provide the extensive lists of names that support this argument (and seriously, Rumiko Takahashi is gonna surpass Tezuka’s lifetime page count before long), as there are so damn many of them running around today.

Just — just stop doubling down on the stupid, okay? Withdraw the award for 2016, let some other person start transitioning into your position, and they can do better next year. Because honestly, if you give out the Grand Prix this year, you’re gonna have to mark it with an asterisk that notes the severe dumbassery that surrounded this entire process.

Spams of the day:

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¹ In the most fedora-topped sense of the word.