See yesterday, grrr. I won’t be able to say as much as I’d like, and let’s not try to get pictures up, but there’s things I want to point you towards.

• Via Ryan North from yesterday, news that basically every comic creator from Toronto is having a party:
  

  What are you doing this Thursday night [editor’s note: that’s the day after tomorrow, 17 December 2015]? I sure hope it involves coming to The Fifth-Ever Beguiling, Dinosaur Comics, Squirrel Girl, Jughead, Kaptara, A Softer World Holiday Party 2015!!

  Details at the link. Secret Santa, y’all.

• Via the Boston Comics Roundtable, news that there’s still a month to submit to their their upcoming science-based comic anthology, Boundless. Deadline to submit is 15 January 2016, with full submission guidelines here.
• Kickstarter has had more than a few high-profile projects go bust in its time, sometimes for reasons outside the control of the creators, sometimes likely because projects were too ambitious and they couldn’t see that, sometimes possibly because they were big ol’ scams. They commissioned a report about fulfillment, which you can read here, and definitely should read if you’re a creator or backer. Basically, everybody.
• Compare and contrast the uncultured swine declaration (from Mort at the very beginning of KC Green’s The Anime Club) with the ignorant swine declaration (from the unnamed character in today’s SMBC by Zach Weinersmith, but you’ll have to press the big red votey button to see it). Discuss.

Spam of the day:

<blinky hearts emoji />Jody29 wants to Golf with you!<blinky hearts emoji />

I don’t play golf and I doubt the very well-upholstered and very naked young lady pictured really does want to ‘tee off’ with me.

I need somebody on the inside that is willing to help me burn your employer to the ground.

Because the new DSL modem that they sent me? Piece of crap. Every five days I have to reboot the friggin’ thing because wifi stops working. The eleven year old modem I had before a month ago? Rebooted it like twice a year, normally after power spikes.

Today, in the middle of using it — in the middle of the work day, no less — the wired connection to my desktop goes out. Swapping the cable (it’s old, but it’s not like a cable that’s protected from motion and yanking spontaneously goes bad) did nothing, as did switching the cable to different ports. Connecting the CAT5 to a laptop with wifi disabled also resulted in no internet, to the point that the computer couldn’t even see the router interface. When 192.168.1.1 isn’t responding over cable but wifi is fine, it’s a friggin’ hardware issue and not something you need to line test or have me reboot my friggin’ computer over.

You guessed it — modem reboot fixed everything. And you’ve already guessed how my call with first level customer support went. A replacement will be here in a couple of days (day 30 of the 30 day warranty, yes!), but until then my posting may be irregular. Mea culpa, and for those Verizon employees that may be reading this? Your modem’s bad and you should feel bad.

Continuing from yesterday, The AV Club has more comics that they want you to know about, this time of graphic novels, one-shots, and archive-style reprints.

Webcomics types recognized include Lucy Knisley (for Displacement), EK Weaver (for the omnibus edition of The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, published by Spike’s Iron Circus Comics), Ron Wimberly (for Lighten Up, originally published at The Nib and reprinted in Eat More Comics), the various contributors to The Nib (for Eat More Comics, which some would consider redundant with the last item, but Wimberly’s piece was good enough to be called out on its own), Noelle Stevenson (for — do we really need to remind you? — Nimona), and Kate Beaton (for Step Aside, Pops).

That’s more than a quarter of this list of 25, which combined with yesterday’s haul comes to just about 30% of the 50 comics recognized. Well done, all ’round.

• And while we’re running down lists of immensely skilled creators, Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett has released a new list of contributors to his Tales of the Drive shared-universe series. If I recall correctly, we knew that Zach Weinersmith was going to be doing a story, and that Ryan North would be writing one.

  Not sure if we knew that North’s artist would be Tony Cliff, and it’s definitely news that Karl Kerschl (ooh!), Jeph Jacques (I hope it’s about AI rights), Lar deSouza (due can draw anything), Meredith Gran (is there a Brooklyn in the Second Spanish Empire?), and Evan Dahm (dude can draw non-humans better’n anybody) will be contributing. I figure that’s enough to cover then next couple of years and make one hell of a print collection.

• News of all the announced contributors to the revived MST3K has set my head a-spinning. I wouldn’t call myself a hardcore MiSTie, but I love this tendency we seem to have these days where enormously creative people in one field seem to gravitate towards enormously creative people in other fields, like a post-millenial version of the Algonquin Round Table, with less emphasis on the literary and possibly even more drinking.

  Just look at the list! Pendleton Ward! Rebecca and Steven Sugar! Adam frickin’ Savage! I saw on another list that Paul and Storm would be part of the project, and of course we’ve got Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt — the cross-pollination of pure imagination is going to be a wonder to behold. It’s something we spoken about here in the past, where a creator need not be just one kind of creator for their entire career, and I think it means we’re in for a golden age of guerrilla entertainment.

No good spam today. Maybe Monday.

One thing you get at this time of year is a plethora of Best Of The Year lists, as everybody that talks about cultural artifacts reviews what we’ve seen and what we’ve loved. It’ll be nonstop on the best movies, TV, music, books, comics, and suchlike for the next couple of weeks, and each year that goes by sees our weird little corner of the culturesphere become a little more prominent.

Case in point: The AV Club (which I trust above all other review sites) released today its list of their favorite comics of 2015, and creators from in and around webcomics are all over that thing. Out of 25 properties so mentioned, we find current and former webcomickers honored for print comics: Cameron Stewart (for co-writing on Batgirl), John Allison (for creating and writing Giant Days), Sopie Campbell (art on Jem and the Holograms), Kate Leth (for writing Power Up), and Ryan North (for writing The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl).

Is it a coincidence that these comics come from a primarily female point of view, with main characters almost entirely women¹ and a less-than-total emphasis on solving problems through fisticuffs. There’s lots about the value of relating to others on a personal level, and an overwhelming respect for empathy in all these books. Okay, I don’t read Jem because I’m not in the age cohort for it to be For Me, but the rest are all terrific.

The honors don’t stop there, with actual webcomics also getting nods: Berkeley Breathed (for the revived Bloom County), Blue Dellaquanti (for O Human Star), and Meredith Gran (for Octopus Pie). I’m on record that Bloom County was a product of its time, and think that Breathed may be getting recognized more for what he represents than anything else. Dellaquanti and Gran, though? They’re doing the best work of their careers, and Gran especially has been on an ever-better upward slope for about two and a half years now. OHS and OP have always been about character above all else, and both are delving deep into what makes us who we are; in this way, they are very much of a piece with the creators recognized above.

Most importantly, let’s look at aggregate influence; our webcomics and webcomics-adjacent creators list is responsible for 8 of the 25 total honorees — a full third of what a well-read panel of comics readers thinks is the best of the year comes from our neighbors. Add in the rightful recognition being given to the likes of Nimona, The Princess and the Pony/Step Aside Pops, The Sculptor, and more, and it appears that the creator-owned world has established yet another peak level of acceptance for the sheer quality of their work.

This is what I always hoped for ten years ago² when I started writing this blog — not that we’ve hit the Promised Land yet … let’s make sure that these great creators are making a decent living with the possibility of the occasional non-working holiday and well-deserved retirement someday — but I’ll confess that I didn’t think it would happen this soon. We’ve come a long damn way.

Spam of the day:

Rent a Private Jet in style!

Dude, the only people making more modest livings than your average webcomic creator are your hack webcomics pseudojournalists. This gig costs me money. I’ll rent your private jet after I win the lottery that I don’t play.

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¹ Power Up and Squirrel Girl being possible exceptions; in the former, half the main cast are women, one’s a dude, and one’s a fish of indeterminate gender. But the topic of the book is Magical Girls, and the dude is dressed like Sailor Moon. In the latter, there’s been an introduction of supporting characters that are male (Koi Boi and Chipmunk Hunk), but the titular SG, her squirrel Tippy-Toe, her roomie Nancy, and Nancy’s cat Mew are all ladies. The villains tend to be dudes though.

² Holy crap, I’ve spent a decade of my life on this? If I ever do a word count, I’m going to cry, aren’t I?

It’s maybe the most melancholy holiday song ever written — a little mournful, a little slow, and perfectly befitting the mood as toutes les bandes desinée-web watches shipping deadlines pass and thinks to itself, Time for a breather. You get a Kickstarter message here or there that says Last chance to update your shipping address! or All backer rewards should be in the shipping channel by now!. Maybe a note about upcoming reductions in posting frequency until the festivities are done. You know — mid-December.

• Some are even slacking off on drawing new strips entirely, but a) have the best possible excuse reason, and b) a buffer that reaches past the next equinox, so that’s okay. In fact, let’s look at the complete family portrait since It’s Babies!! (two exclamations for two babies) a week ago: proud parents David and Maggie Willis, reasonably (if temporarily) content human children Dash and Chase¹. I am as non-theist as they come, but that picture of mom, dad, kid, and other kid is a goddamned miracle, and I will fight any man-jack that says different. Happy first Christmas, kids. Stay warm.
• Some are feeling the spirit of Janus, who looks both back at the year finishing and forward at that yet to come. Some are looking further down the next year than others, as plans become announcements become action become (eventually) delightful books by Kate Beaton featuring King Baby, ’round about the equinox after the last one we mentioned. Lots of equinoxes and babies today, huh?

  Anyway, I suspect that the title-not-yet-revealed King Baby book will be at least as charming as The Princess And The Pony was. Dare we hope that this time next year will feature King Baby plushes to go along with the Fat Pony plushes? Okay, given that King Baby is based on Beaton’s nephew that might be weird, but imagine when he grew up and you got to tell him There are a few thousand well-worn and well-loved plushes in this world that exist because of you. That might be worth some weirdness.

Spam of the day:

If unable to spot the C0MMERCIAL.Advertisement under? Try to inspect this url.

Pardon me if I don’t click a link explicitly described as a commercial for a personal injury lawyer. I mean, unless it’s the greatest lawyer commercial ever. It’s almost as good as Chuck Testa.

______________
¹ Or maybe Chase and Dash? I mean, babies are all pretty much interchangeable, right?

Quick tip: if you’re ever in one of my classes and I say that when you’re asked to set a password in a particular product’s installation that you should write it down because if you forget it you won’t be able to do the rest of the week’s exercises and it will take more than my entire friggin’ lunch break to fix your mistake so that the rest of the class is massively behind and I become both hungry and cranky? Please do that or I will hate you.

• The Cartoon Art Museum may not have a proper home, but that doesn’t mean that it’s quiet. Curator Andrew Farago informs us that they are continuing their tradition of Winter Break cartooning classes for those Bay Area parents looking for something for their kids to do during the day. 28 Dec, 10:30am to noon is the parent & child class on Space Heroes, with an adult class from 1:00pm to 3::00pm. Same times on the 30th, with the morning given to a parent & child class on Cartoon Critters and the afternoon class given over to teens on the topic of character design. Kid classes are US$10, teen & adult classes US$35, with discounts for CAM members. All classes take place at 275 Fifth Street in San Francisco, with tickets available at those links.
• Kickstarter alert: Steve LeCouillard of Much the Miller’s Son (focusing on a bit player of the Robin Hood mythos, which appears to be offline) and Dreadful Sirens (sexy, sexy pirate ladies, as written by Karla Pacheco, so there’s like actual — but tasteful! — penetration of sexy pirate ladies) has launched a crowdfund for his current project: Una the Blade. Think single mom Red Sonja, with the added motivation of wanting to protect a couple of toddlers she’s got in tow. This is gonna be good.
• La bande dessinée est mort, vive la bande dessinée! Or, Brad Guigar is getting out of the comic strip model of webcomics for the half-page graphic novel model of webcomics, while indulging his current tendency for classy porn. Which, let’s face it, is what pays the bills these days. Guigar’s probably thought about how to approach webcomics with respect to what the market is looking for, what will pay, and what’s creatively interesting. He’s put in Jim Davis levels of hard-nose businesslike thought, and he’s shifting his model for at least the third time since I’ve known him. Watch this very carefully, even if you don’t read his comic (maybe especially if you don’t read his comic).

Spam of the day:

Too bad we must return them.

Quit being greedy, it’s somebody else’s turn.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

• Longtime readers of this page will recall that Ryan North (once and future, resurrected from beyond exploding) is one of the living avatars of webcomics, one of the trinity of the Nexus of All Webcomics Realities. He’s kinda a big deal¹.

  He’s also getting attention outside the world o’ webcomics, what with a nice shout-out from The AV Club yesterday, specifically mentioning the first Dinosaur Comics print collection, Your Whole Family Is Made Out Of Meat². And laster this week, North will be interviewing Randall Munroe live on stage in Toronto regarding Munroe’s new book, Thing Explainer. It looks like a lot of fun and if I were in Toronto I’d totally go there!

• Longtime readers also know that I do my blogging primarily at lunchtime, in and around my day job. Day job blew up when I had just finished with that paragraph, so that’s all you’re getting today. More tomorrow, God willin’ and the creek don’t rise (as my grandmother used to say).

Spam of the day:

Old Saint Nick: bring back the magic and excitement when they open there very own personally addressed letter from Santa himself!.

Unless this letter comes from the main character of Nicholas Was by Neil Gaiman, not interested. Hail Satan!

_______________
¹ Not the least because he’s like two meters tall. That is (per the novelization of Star Wars I read as a kid in 1978, before even the infamous Holiday Special) the same height as Darth friggin’ Vader.

² The review of which is maybe my favorite thing I’ve ever written for this site.

David “Damn You,” Willis “!” and his lovely wife Maggie have welcomed twin boys into the world. Let’s let the new daddy tell the story:

here we go
MARTY! ITS YOUR KIDS!
Everyone’s okay!

Judging from the timestamp, sometime between about 8:30pm and 10:00pm last night, the boys got introduced properly to mom and dad:

Do I have to know the weights before making the Official Announcement? That seems like the done thing, but I forgot them. Ohwells
It’s Zachary Dashiel and Chase Alexander Willis! 6lbs4 and 5lbs8 respectively. Hello! http://tmblr.co/Z9FhQx1zH2gBB

Overwhelmed by a rush of emotions, Willis reflected on how evolution now views him as redundant:

I HAVE FULFILLED MY BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE

After that, there wasn’t much left to say:

Late night sleepy Chase

Zach, Chase, welcome. The world is bright and noisy and chilly compared to what you’ve been used to, and you aren’t all tangled up in each others business, but we hope you find it adequate. You’ll meet lots of people; some are dumb and hateful, but most are pretty okay when you get down to it. Do your best to be patient with them and enjoy the fact that right now, not one of them thinks you can do any wrong. Ride out that adorable stage as long as you can!

Your parents are pretty great people, and they’re going to make you very happy in the long run; it won’t always feel that way, but in time you’ll see that they always want the best for you. See if you can give ’em as much sleep as possible in the meantime. Oh, and it won’t be long before Dad sets you up with your own toys, but even after he does, best keep your hands off of his. He’s kinda obsessive about them.

Happy Birthday.

I mean, there’s some stuff that isn’t necessarily news, like Jim Zub having a critically-acclaimed run on Samurai Jack comics and now they just so happen to announce a revival of the series for Cartoon Network? We all suspected that would happen when all the Jack fans realized how much they’d missed the show and said so repeatedly during the comic’s twenty issues. TopatoCo rolling out a bunch of new merch for your gift-giving needs? Various creators stocking up, bemoaning the drudgery of shipping, or pointing out forthcoming order deadlines if you want to get stuff in time for your soltice-adjacent holiday? Terrible people insulting my mom¹? No surprises there.

• But there was one bit that I’d consider newsy, and that is that Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett² will be doing a live chat tomorrow, 4 December, at 1:30pm Central Time via the Twitters. Hit up @GoComics with hastag #AskDaveKellett³ and find out what’s up in LA these days. Can’t imagine what else you’d want to ask him.
• Annnd I was just about to put this to bed when some news dropped into my lap, and made me into a horrible liar about the quietness of the day; still keeping everything up there, though. Via a Kickstarter update, Dean Trippe announced something fairly large about the much-delayed Something Terrible:
  

  I’m very pleased to announce that Iron Circus Comics will be handling both the publishing and the reward fulfillment for this project, and everything is proceeding along much quicker with their much-needed assistance.

  What with Iron Circus honcho/showrunner/chief cook and bottle-washer (it’s like that with single proprietorships) C Spike Trotman opening up solicitations for her publishing services, and what with her reaching out to Trippe on the Twitters earlier this week, I should have guessed something was up between them. This is great news all around for several reasons.

  1. It’s clear that the publishing and fulfillment have overwhelmed Trippe; I have my belief why that’s happened, others have theirs. Point is, Spike’s the sort of person that makes things happen, so backers are now absolutely going to get their books sooner than they would have otherwise.
  2. To quote Spike from her part of Trippe’s announcement, Something Terrible is an important book, and it needs to be out there where people can find it; bookstores, libraries, comic shops. I want every backer to leave this project with what they ordered, and I want to do my part to make sure this happens. Whatever you may think of Trippe’s logistical follow-through or about him as a person (again, I have my opinion), the importance of his book is pretty much inarguable. Anything that gets it to the person that doesn’t yet know how much it’s needed is a net good in a world that desperately needs it.

  Not so slow today after all. Cool.

Spam of the day:

Do you like a screamer? Want to see what happens in bed?

Moaners yesterday, screamers today, are these the only noises that fake porn sites care about? What about people into grunting, or honking, or squeaking or squawking or barking or or bleating or burbling? Probably somebody’s into sexual partners that moo or only express their pleasure in Seussian rhyming couplets. I ain’t gonna judge.

______________
¹ Not that she probably doesn’t deserve it. My name is Gary, I’m in my late 40s and don’t get on with my Mom. Hi, Gary.

² Which is how GoComics described him when launching weekly re-runs of Drive and how he will always be referred to on this page. Tough break, LArDK.

³ It would be hilarious if the tag was #AskLosAngelesresidentDaveKellett, but that would bring you down to under 100 characters right there, so I suppose we can forgo it.

Okay, we’re talking about other paper-based webcomic-related items, but since a couple of them are specifically calendars, I got to use one of my favorite words for the title. That alone makes it a good day.

• Firstly, the intrepid David Malki ! has announced the 2016 iteration of his Wondermark calendars, with various bonuses if you’re special. For example, purchasers of four or more previous Wondermark calendars are heroes in his eyes and get a special plague plaque to display along with the calendar. There’s also original art left over from the 2014 calendar up for grabs, and the entire release remains a limited edition of … actually I couldn’t find the edition size but the last couple of years have been 250.

  In any event, the calendar is progressive (you’re always looking at the current two-week block and the next, instead of waiting until the end of the month to flip the page and see the first of the next), and the entire thing is one of the classiest items you can put in your home or place of work.

• A somewhat more traditional calendar (month at a time, big ol’ piece of artwork) was also announced today from We Love Fine for the Homestuck in your life. Artwork by Evan Dahm, KC Green, Mary Cagle, Caitlyn Humprhies, Cole Ott, M Harding, Matt Cummings, Mallory Dyer, Adrienne Garcia, Xamag, Shelby Cragg, Jonathan Griffiths, and Gina Chacon. I’m guessing that Green’s contribution includes Sweets Brougham and Helpful Geoff, so maybe just burn that month instead of looking at it.
• Fans of calendars that let you look at a whole year at time and also the Fat Pony will want to check out Kate Beaton’s 2016 calendar, although I personally find it outrageous to consider that the pony doesn’t fart until December.
• Other paper goods: greeting cards that open a new front in the War on Christmas, courtesy of Zach Weinersmith and assorted artists. It turns out Christmas is not only beset by liberal pants-wetting secular humanists, but now also by the ultrareligious types that love Jesus more than you ever could and are putting a second Christ in Christmashrist. the collection is worth it just for the Abby Howard design of high-fiving socks-and-sandals Jesuses (Jesii?)?
• Finally, today marks the release of Gotham Academy issue #12, the last to be illustrated by Karl Kerschl. I’ve enjoyed the book over the past year, in no small part because I will read anything Kerschl illustrates, up to and including the phone book. But I’m excited at the possibility that with the end of his involvement with GA, Kerschl will have the time to return to his interminably great The Abominable Charles Christopher.

  It’s been just under a year since the strip updated, and even longer since there was a Kerschl strip instead of a guest strip. Charles, Gilgamesh, and all the denizens of the forest (including the nefarious Sissi Skunk and Luga, the only honest cop) have about a year’s worth of stories left to tell. We’ll see if Charles Christopher wraps up before or after the much-hyped Dark Knight III series¹, but I know where my money is: Karl don’t shiv.

Spam of the day:

joaniemoans24: Do you like moaners in bed?

The only question I have is what joaniemoans1 through 23² think about this.

______________
¹ The original telling of which 30 years ago remains a formative influence on Kerschl, and for which he has contributed at least one variant cover.

² Or possibly joaniesmoans? Can I get a ruling on this, Ryan North?