But first, everybody knows that there’s a new Emily Carroll cartoon today, yes? I swear, each story that she puts out is somehow creepier than the one before, and Some Other Animal’s Meat is no exception. She gets more mileage out of one slightly wobbly line, one miniscule suggestion that Something Is Slightly Off (leading to the inevitable truth that Something Is Seriously Off And We’re All Screwed And/Or Doomed) than other horroristas get out of entire novels. 10/10 would be scared witless again.

• It has been about ten months since we pointed you to the fact that Boum was translating her La Petite Révolution into English and running it two pages per week as a webcomic. A Small Revolution had its big gut-punch climax a couple of days back, but today is the day that it wraps up. There’s been plenty of downs and precious few ups along the way, but there’s an odd potential for hope at the end of the tale.

  Revolutions lead to struggle and strife and sacrifice and disquiet¹, trees watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants; yet this particular watering might just lead to a society where just waterings are no longer necessary². Maybe all that happened was one sufferer exacted a price from those that made her suffer. Read the whole thing through.

• The Cartoon Art Musuem continues their cartoonist-in-residence program, as well as their new event-hosting partnership with the FLAX art & design retail concern at their location in the Fort Mason Center for Art & Culture. Specifically, they will be hosting Matt Harding on Saturday, 13 February, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm; the event is free and open to the public, and further details may be found here.
• It’s been a year since Exploding Kittens launched its Kickstarter campaign that became one of the biggest crowdfund deals ever. Not much you can do to surpass that, so why not try? Today marks the launch (iPhone only, booo) of the slightly modified³ Exploding Kittens play-against-your-friends app, with all in-game purchases discounted down to zero for the next four days or so.

  The only way I can think to damage your friendships more than playing Exploding Kittens would be to do so on an app, or to take up Scrabble. Those of you with iDevices, give ‘er a look while those of us with Androids look on sorrowfully from outside in the cold and snow where we’ll die of misery. Have fun without us!

Spam of the day:

Directory of engineering programs available here! Start your search to earn a degree!

I’ve had an engineering degree for more than 25 years, Bunky.

_______________
¹ And they aren’t revolutions until they do; cf: John Adams, on the Congress’s argument as to whether or not to be so rude as to refer to George III as a tyrant, This is a revolution, dammit! We’re going to have to offend somebody!

² I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Painting and Poetry Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine. John Adams, in a letter to Abigail Adams, 12 May 1780

³ It lacks NOPE! functionality, booo.

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.

Spam of the day:

Your life is at stake: I’m Offering you My special ritual to remove the negative energetic vibration in your home — Adrian Medium – Mentalist – Master Hypnotist – Prophetic Expert

Can you tell what I’m thinking at you right now, Adrian? Here’s a hint: it starts g-o-a-t-s-e.

________________
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.

It’s a day for books, my friends — the greatest invention in human history¹, the root of civilization, our hope in a world that sometimes seems bleak and utterly opposed to knowledge or even simple facts. Today, we celebrate books that are one their way books which could very well change your life.

• Matt Lubchansky and Jaya Saxena together created The New Amsterdam Mystery Company, which has sadly been on hiatus while they work on other projects. Those projects would include Please Listen To Me and associate editorship of The Nib (Lubchanksy), writings in many place but especially The Toast and Hairpin, and one very special project together: their marriage².

  Actually, two very special projects together, as Saxena & Lubchansky are the creators of Dad Magazine (the magazine For Dads – By Dads), the latest issue of which is out now. Even more excitingly, Dad Magazine is getting the book treatment and today reveals its cover (scroll down). Dad Magazine (the book) doesn’t drop until April, but you can order it now, and didn’t Dad always tell you to plan ahead?.

• It is now about two and a half months since Ryan North — The Toronto Man-Mountain and Nexus of All [Web]Comic Realities North of 41°57’51” — announced the forthcoming existence of his second interactive Shakespearean adaptation, Romeo and/or Juliet. Today comes the release of the cover of said book as well as an interview with the mad story path convolutor himself, both at The Mary Sue.

  The release date for R+/-J remains 7 June, and the advice to pre-order stands, as Ryan North promises a special treat to backers of his first interactive Shakespearean adaptation who pre-order the second. Looks like once June rolls around I’m going stop lugging around my copy of TBONTB to shows to get the many awesome artists inside to sign their work, I’ll be lugging around my copy of R+/-J instead. Yay?

• By now you probably realize that I don’t recommend brand-new webcomics — especially pre-launch! — without a damn good reason. Today, I add League of Fonts by Emma T Capps to that very short list because:
  • Fonts
  • Personified as characters
  • Fonts, people

  As mentioned previously, I loves me some fonts, even letting that love guide me on overseas travel to visit places where 500 year old punches and matricies may be observed and not quite touched.

  So far we only know that Times New Roman and Futura are going to be in the cast (bonus points for rendering their employee IDs in the appropriate faces); I’m hoping for some of my favorites like Palatino, Garamond, and Hoefler Text (I’m a sucker for Old-style type design). I think we all suspect that the villain of the piece will be Comic Sans, but we’ll find out together when League of Fonts launches.

  What’s that? You don’t see how today’s post is all about books? Well, what are books set in? Typefaces. Checkmate, pedants.

Spam of the day:

OH,GOOD BLOG.

I KNOW, RIGHT?

________________
¹ Okay, okay, maybe agriculture, fine.

² Awwwww.

Sorry about that — the hosting facility that brings you Fleen was down from approximately 23:30 14 January (last Thursday) until 20:30 15 January (last Friday), and thus we weren’t able to update on Friday. It also appears that when the server came back, Thursday’s update was lost, meaning that news relating to my holy book, Abby Howard, the Cartoon Art Museum, and multiple creators whose comics are coming to film would be lost to the ages.

Except for VaultPress. Their service pings this page pretty much continuously, and when there are changes they are automatically recorded. It was the work of a moment to find the backup taken after Thursday’s update and to restore it to its proper place¹. Heck, as I am writing this the restored site and the draft that I am partway through writing are being backed up in case anything goes wrong again.

Honestly, if you run a WordPress install of any kind, you really should be using VaultPress (their simplest plans are five bucks a month; I pay ’em more for a greater degree of confidence and automation). They don’t pay me to say that, I just think that they’re a damn good service and worth every penny they charge.

• Professional terrible person Karla Pacheco (she’s a lot of fun to drink with!) has a lot of irons in various fires: the most inappropriate children’s book ever, naughty, naughty pirates, and a vagabond lifestyle of boats and comics. In keeping her fans (I know! crazy!) up with the latter, she posted her convention schedule for 2016 and inadvertently let us all in on a key piece of information: TopatoCon 2016 will take place 22-23 October. Seriously, she even scooped TopatoCon’s own site on that one. Start making your plans for *hampton, MA in late October — the cocktail competition we had was such a hit, we’re sure to do a repeat variation of some kind.
• We mentioned the Penny Arcade Kickstart to fund a live-action webseries of Automata, and in what’s nearly world lans speed record time for the entertainment industy², filming has gotten underway and they’ve shared with us costumed photos of their leads with bios.

  Given a series length of five episodes each at 10 – 12 minutes, principal filming may well be done in a week or so (it probably depends on complexity of locations and set dressing as much as anything). Then the long process of post-production and effects generation starts, but I’m guessing they may have rough footage to share at PAX South later this month and possibly a finished episode or two by PAX East in the spring.

• The National Cartoonists Society is soliciting nominations for its various division awards, including (for the fifth year) those in the webcomics sphere. Deadline for nomination is 7 February and in the interests of disclosure I’m part of the consulting committee again this year and will be doing my best to make sure that the best work of the past year makes it to the final ballot.

  Like any institutional awards structure, the NCS division awards are not always going to go to what I personally think is the best work, and no winner is going to satisfy everybody (unless we manage to find the webcomics equivalent of Mad Max: Fury Road), but the odds are better when you participate. So if you can think of longform or shortform webcomics that did stellar work in calendar year 2015 that you think I might not have otherwise noticed, make with the comments.

For reals though, back up your shit³. Like, today.

Spams of the day:
Three messages, all coming from the same source (or at least, all claiming the same, likely bogus, contact address to stop being emailed, ha ha ha):

Is alcohol affecting your life? Search for rehab centers here
Senior Independent-Living May Be The Right Choice-For You
Are you in need of – treatment for an addiction

So apparently I’m in the throes of alcohol use disorder and need treatment and/or a stint in a rehab center, preferably one catering to still-active senior citizens. I can’t wait to figure out what combination of click-tracking led them to that conclusion, but it’s probably somehow Facebook’s fault. Fucking Facebook.
_______________
¹ Okay, it took a moment to find the appropriate backup, about 15 minutes to completely restore the site to the appropriate point in time, and about 2 minutes more to fix the header image.

² Seriously, if this was done through the Hollywood studio system, midlevel executives would still be holding cocaine-and-hookers “meetings” to figure out exactly how much they could pad the production budget to cover cocaine and hookers.

³ To quote the oh-so-quotable R Stevens: I named my hard drive DAT ASS so I remember to always back it up.

What’s this package with no return address and a mess of British stamps on it?, I asked myself. One quick rip of the opening strip later, I had an answer: my personal philosophy encapsulating notebook, courtesy of Stefan Johnson’s Book Block Kickstarter campaign; a bit late, but absolutely exactly what I wanted in all of its Figure 1 glory. This is enough to make me carry a sketchbook to conventions again.

And, per the letter included with the delivery, the Book Block team are gearing up to launch a commercial upload/customization service in the coming months; keep your eyes on www.bookblock.com in the near future if you want to get in on it.

• I realize that January is not, traditionally speaking, an especially spooky time of year (Straubian efforts notwithstanding), but there’s a nice bit of info for those of you that are interested in good, hearty scares. Namely: Abby Howard (whose The Last Halloween just pulled an eleventh-hour reversal on us and now I have no idea where the story is going, in the best possible manner) has announced a new website for her short horror projects, which makes it easy to find some really great work. Bookmark Terror Town to get your short- to mid-length startles on, which so far has features Howard teaming up with writers.

  I love Howard’s take on what’s truly scary, but seeing her work in somebody else’s voice makes it somehow even more unsettling — I’ve perhaps gotten used to how Howard would develop a scene and to see her pictures following a different pace and progression makes everything more a surprise. And you can purchase these comics for your very own in both digital and physical forms, so you’re helping Abby make a living being Abby, which is the very best thing you can do. Check ‘er out.

• The Verge has a nice roundup of upcoming comics adaptations to film and/or TV, as compiled by one of my favorite former writers at The AV Club, Tasha Robinson. Of particular interest to those of us that dig the web-slash-indy comics scene: Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet¹, Ursula Vernon’s Castle Hangnail², Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor³, Jeff Smith’s RASL⁴, and the omnipresent Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona⁵.
• Continuing their involvement with the community while awaiting a new home, San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum is about to have the first of a traveling series of events to be held on the third Thursday of the month, hosted each time at a different Bay Area museum. The inaugural Traveling Third Thursday will be next week, 21 January, at the Museum of the African Diaspora in Yerba Buena.

  The program runs from 5:00pm to 8:00pm, and is free and open to the public. This first event will feature Ajuan Mance, CM Campbell, and Myisha Haynes; those attending can pick up a wristband at MoAD good for all-night happy hours at area bars and restaurants. For info on events in the coming months, visit thirdthursdaysf.wordpress.com.

Spam of the day:

It will flop out of his pants and into you

Oooo, floppy. That’s not half-hearted and mediocre at all!

_______________
¹ With book 7 getting ready to release, this one’s got franchise written all over it.

² From her kids-lit career as opposed to her webcomics career, but man it would be great to get a Digger adaptation.

³ That’s gonna take an SFX budget and a half.

⁴ I love RASL but where the heck is our BONE movie Hollywood do you hate making money or something.

⁵ About which enough good can never be said.

Ten ninjas, even. Through a combination of patience, taking names, insisting politely on being referred to supervisors, patience, refusing to accept a disconnect or promise of a call back, and patience, I have penetrated to the fabled fourth tier of Verizon customer support¹ and am in the channel to talk to somebody at the policy level.²

But my DSL is still borked. Since Sunday afternoon (when I was told things would be fixed in 24-48 hours; we’re now at 72 and counting) I’ve been capped at approximately 2585kbps, and for periods of time I’m down to actual, literal double digit numbers of “k”. The only thing missing from this late-80s early-90s experience is the shrieking modem handshake sound³. Oh, and the original problem, the one that keeps mutating into worse problems, is still there. Fun!

So I’m not real up on webcomics at the moment. Please take some time to enjoy this latest Channel 58 spookathon from Kris Straub, which looked very spooky and creepy except everything is buffering and that is the absolute destroyer of mood and suspense. But it’s Straub, so it’s creepy, I can tell you that on faith alone.

Spam of the day:

Travel in Style! Amazing-Priced Private-Jet Flights.

Maybe if I win the Powerball tonight (not that I’ve bought a ticket or anything).

______________
¹ Which is actually a contract shop in the Philippines.

² And if that doesn’t work, I have tracked down the Verizon exec in charge of consumer business to a public social media account.

³ Kids, ask your parents, or click here.

Rassin-frassin Verizon throttling me down to 2585 kbps and now they’ve got me down to friggin’ dial-up speed¹. And on top of that I made a major mistake in logic in yesterday’s post so be sure to click back and read the correction. Is there any good news today?

• Actually, yes. Today is the day that we acknowledge the birth and continued existence of the very sexy R Stevens Three. Long may he continue to consume oxygen, coffee, and the envy of weak mortals that require sleep. Stevens, of course, is ever-changing, ever-adaptable, and ever-present wherever webcomics are known, and thus will be figuring out new guerrilla marketing strategies for viral merch after the rest of us are food for worms. Let us praise him with great praise, may his deeds never be forgotten while the thrones of the Valar endure!²
• Speaking of good news, I finally noticed the back cover of Invader Zim issue #6 — written and drawn by KC Green and available at fine comic shops near you since last Wednesday — wherein I learn that Green’s Graveyard Quest (the last long story arc from the now-finished Gunshow) is fixin’ to be published by Oni Press. I’d known that, I’d even written about it, but I’d completely forgotten it. Thank you, house ad on the back of Invader Zim #6, for letting me know we’re a mere eight weeks or so away from the Graveyard Quest print collection!
• And speaking of webcomickers and work that will appear in the spring, news came today that MoCCA Fest (the 14th iteration of same) will feature a show poster by none other than Noelle Stevenson, and boy is it purty to look at. As a reminder, MoCCA Fest will be in its second new home in two years (owing to last year’s space getting snagged for condos, screw you runaway NYC residential real estate market), the Metropolitan West event space, at about 12th Ave (way far west) and 46th. Panels will take place at the Ink48 hotel at 10th & 48th.

Spam of the day:

What would happen to your family if you died today gary.tyrrell?

I’m guessing a massive party with hookers and blackjack. Why? You got a good supply of either?

_______________
¹ Seriously, I’m metering out at 28 to 40 kbps right now.

² I seem to be channeling Aaron Diaz, the Latin Art-Throb.

Pretty much everybody in comics is talking about the page rates survey that dropped over the weekend. Some few thoughts:

• This is a very small sample size (60), but as far as I know, the largest published data set on such things so far. It’ll get better as more people share information, but at the moment it must be considered preliminary and not yet fully accurate.
• The survey combines different kinds of pay (work-for-hire vs Image’s more creator-owned approach), which makes the small sample size even more subject to wobbles in the data.
• That being said, holy crap BOOM! does not come off well. Their rates are crap and there are lots of comments indicating the degree to which they pay slowly and randomly. Since their numbers are based on work-for-hire, they may not apply to creator-owned work, but very possibly the (apparently pervasive) late payment issues apply to both sides of the publishing game.

I’ll note that the survey lists Smut Peddler (that is to say, Iron Circus Comics) as a Misc Publisher, at a page rate of US$50 (script + finished art) plus potential for artist bonuses (but not guaranteed). For reference, the four projects that ICC has run under that not-guaranteed bonus plan have paid an additional US$450, US$300, US$1700, and US$400¹ per page, making ICC’s page rate effectively US$350 to US$1750, meaning the least paid ICC rates are comparable to DC/Marvel, and her top rate blows everybody else away [Editor’s note: see below] (the only comparable rate is that of Cards Against Humanity — US$1000/page for art and script — presumably for their comics anthologies in their Holiday Bullshit packages).

[Editor’s note resumes: Okay, I had a bad misinterpretation of ICC’s bonus structure, which was kindly pointed out by Alert Reader N in the comments, and by ICC supremo Spike via email. ICC’s bonus is per-job, not per-page, which makes the effective page rate variable. However, that does raise the ICC rates into the triple-digit range for much of what they’ve published and certainly puts them above some established comic book companies in terms of effective rates, although not on par with The Big Two, as was originally stated.

Fleen apologizes for the error and confusion.]

To date, that’s been limited to anthology work, but since ICC is in open-submission territory for book-length projects, I’ma guess that Spike is going to be writing checks with a crapload more zeros on them than any of the established publishers. Creators that have not bought into the myth that you need to suffer don’t-even-cover-rent jobs to establish your career, take note.

Oh, and those who like the work of creators that aren’t getting screwed on their rates? Iron Circus has a double-header² of Kickstarters coming³ up on 25 January. New smut!

On the off chance that you want to be one of those creators that has pride in their work and wants to be paid fairly for it, time to brush up on your skills! Danielle Corsetto is offering a light version of her illustration class via Patreon at the low, low price of US$20 per month. Folks, that is the greatest bargain in the history of illustration and I urge you to hop on that even if you’re pretty good. You can always learn a trick or two and up your own game by comparing notes and experiences.

Spam of the day:

View Photos of Senior Singles on Match

Okay, what the hell, you are identifying senior as over 45! Is this spam run by the same genius that’s decided to send me Medicare information nearly 20 years early? I’m sending all the prepaid envelopes back with YOU’RE TWO DECADES EARLY, FUCK OFF scrawled across the paperwork in Sharpie. It’s kinda fun, actually.

_______________
¹ For Smut Peddler 2012, The Sleep of Reason, Smut Peddler 2014, and the not yet released New World, respectively.

² You’ll see what I did there.

³ And there.

Sometimes, it’s the things that you didn’t even look for that you realize you wanted the most. After a series of tentative steps back into comicking — new art, new blogs — Achewood has come back with three new strips in three weeks. Reached for comment, Achewood fan and Fleen editor Gary Tyrrell described himself as cautiously optimistic.

The hiatus — unlooked-for when it happens, often equally unlooked-for when it ends — it by no means a phenomenon unique to the knuckleheads of Achewood Heights. The various denizens of Ubersoft have spent long stretches apart from prying eyes, but just as Achewood was getting back up to speed, Help Desk has not only been dropping new strips, but has done so daily this week. Regard: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today. The strips are listed as being one-off rather than part of a storyline, but one likes to think that just perhaps we’ll get a nice chunk of tech support shenanigans to make the dreary wintertide less dreary.

Fleen thanks Chris Onstad and Christopher B Wright for their efforts, and appreciates any future strips in advance.

Spam of the day:

From hair oil to cricket, wherever Amitabh Bachchan has his name hooked up in just one way or perhaps the other he assures achievement.

Ohhhhh-kay.

There were a few other things (some of which got displaced by yesterday’s dumbassery) so let’s talk about them, yes?

• Jess Fink has finished — for the second time, no less — the ongoing story of Chester 5000 and the people who built him, love him, and love each other. It started off as straight Victorian robo-erotica (that old saw) way the heck back in 2008 but quickly became something more. It wasn’t just about heaving bosoms sprung free of corsets and a startling array of gadgets put to increasingly hot use; it was about neglect and jealousy and absorption and fury and reconciliation and forgiveness — it was about love.

  And then in 2011, Fink went back and told both what came before and what’s happened since the original run of Chester; subtitled Isabelle and George, it dealt with the characters in even greater depth, added a dash of adventure and vengeance, and gave us a better idea of who these people (Chester himself appears less and less as the story goes along) really are. It’s full of heart, completely lacking in dialogue, and immediately engrossing. Not to mention hotter than hell. Thanks for letting us ride along for the last 300 or so pages, Jess. Here’s hoping that we get a print collection of Isabelle and George to go alongside the first Chester collection.

• We mentioned not too long ago the Voltron-like collaboration of KC Green and Shmorky to make some animated bumpers for [adult swim]. Via Shmorky, we now have a collection of GIF clips from the other bumpers (ten in all), which are conveniently collected for your viewing pleasure at NerdSpan
• From the Big Damn Numbers department, today is as good as day as any to declare an end to Child’s Play 2015; per the CP site (which hasn’t changed for the past couple of days), the lifetime fundraising total for the campaign sits at a little north of forty million damn dollars. Taking into account data from previous years, the history of Child’s Play looks like:
  

  2003: $250,000
  2004: $310,000
  2005: $605,000
  2006: $1,024,000
  2007: $1,300,000
  2008: $1,434,377
  2009: $1,780,870
  2010: $2,294,317
  2011: $3,512,345
  2012: $5,085,761
  2013: $7,600,000
  2014: $8,430,000
  2015: $6,438,053
  Total as of 7 January 2016, the arbitrary end of CPXIII: $40,064,723

  So, in case you were wondering what it looks like when Child’s Play doesn’t raise more than the prior year, it looks like they still raised almost six and a half million. If that counts as failure, we could all use some more failure in our lives and endeavours.

• New show alert: Pat Race, the never-still creative force behind Alaska Robotics, has with some partners brought a bunch of indy/web comics types up to Juneau, Alaska for talks, cultural events, and meet & greets; word on the street is that the creators have had a fabulous time, and the denizens of America’s least-accessible capital city have enjoyed ’em even more. So how to top a record like that? With a mini-con, naturally:
  

  I’m very happy to announce Alaska Robotics Mini-Con, a festival and artist camp taking place right here in Juneau from April 22-26th.

  Aaron, Lou and I have been hosting guest artists for several years through our work at the Alaska Robotics Gallery and JUMP Society as well as through partnerships with other non-profit organizations like the Friends of the Juneau Public Libraries. We’ve also spent many years attending and exhibiting at comic conventions and arts festivals. Encouraged by those wonderful experiences, we decided it was time for us to host our own tiny comic convention and artist getaway.

  I hesitate to even use the phrase “comic convention” when describing the event but those who have attended such things know that the term has grown to include a much more broad collection of pop and contemporary arts, games, music and more. We’re planning to embrace the spirit of those outside conventions but provide a far more down-to-earth, Southeast Alaska experience.

  The draft schedule calls for a one-day public event on Saturday, 23 April, followed by a two day artists camping retreat with a limited number of attendee slots — applications will open on 18 January. Look for a roster of guests in the near term but for now, if this sounds like fun, I’d say start looking into transport to Juneau before knowing the lineup; the on-faith, camping-centric thing works for MaxFunCon, and it ought to work as well for ARMCon. Given the talent that Race has attracted to Juneau in the past — Kate Beaton, Vera Brosgol, Dylan Meconis & Katie Lane — I’d bet on there being some killer guests hanging ’round the campfire under the northern lights.

Spam of the day:

Reverse your Blood Pressure in only 7 Days

If I reverse my blood pressure, doesn’t that make my entire cardiovascular system collapse? That doesn’t sound good. Then again, this particular bit of sparkling medical science (featuring the obligatory one weird food) came from an actual email address that I swear I am not making up: Dr. Dave <cretin @[redacted].date>. That’s just beautiful.