Once again, I’m assuming that most of you have seen this by now, but there’s been an amendment to the requirements of the new NCS award in the Online Comic Strip Division. Namely, the requirement:

5. Creator must earn the greater part of their living directly from the strip/property

has been altered to:

5. Creator must earn the greater part of their living directly from cartooning in order to adhere to the NCS criteria that creators under consideration must be either full members or eligible for full membership

It wasn’t the intent that nominees in this new division be required to meet more stringent requirements than in the others; I don’t think any of us on the committee were reading the old #5 as meaning anything other than the new #5, but in situations like this it’s important to make sure that what you write is as unambiguous as possible. Thanks to Tom Richmond for clarifying, and don’t be surprised if other clarifications become necessary¹.

• As long as we’re on the topic, I feel it useful to point out a couple of thinky pieces written since yesterday’s post on this award and the focus of this blog; thanks to Dave Kellett and Holly Post, respectively, for their wise words. Dave and Holly both opine that the use of “webcomics” as a word that distinguishes from “comics” is silly², as it distinguishes a model of distribution as being distinct from medium itself³. I fully expect that I will continue to use The W Word well past its generally-accepted sell-by date, turning into a latter-day example of your embarrassing great-uncle whose vernacular is stuck 50 years in the past; I apologize for any future offense I may give.
• In fact, let’s broaden out from “webcomics” by pointing out that Pittsburgh’s ToonSeum has an interesting show opening next week, one whose press release scared the crap out of me because the subject line read
  

  Funky Turns 40 at the ToonSeum

  which immediately made me think it was an exhibit of Funky CancerCancer. In fact, it’s about the first wave of positive black animated characters in the 1970s, which means one thing: Fat Albert, possibly including the early episodes which borrowed heavily from Cosby’s standup routines⁴. Funky Turns 40 is co-curated by Pamela Thomas of the Museum of Uncut Funk, which is the greatest name for a museum ever; the show opens 18 January and runs until 10 March.

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¹ But please do spare me any See? They’re just making it up as they go along in order to screw over [insert grievance here]! We’re doing our best to work out kinks (cf: yesterday’s post, the part about perfect and done), and you can bet that every other NCS division award went through these stumbles, but it was so long ago that nobody remembers.

² A opinion I have expressed myself in the past and am entirely sympathetic to, if only I could come up with a short, obvious word that identifies the things that I write about here. I love all kinds of comics, but this page concerns itself almost exclusively with independent, creator-owned, self-distributed examples of such, and a signifier is just useful. I swear, come up with a term (or even an acronym) that’s brief, and I’ll use it.

³ Not that such distinctions are always worthless; I listen to a fair number of radio shows as podcasts.

⁴ Rousing game of Buck Buck, anyone?

I have a feeling that I’m getting in trouble for today’s opinion-mongering.

• So there was a piece written today regarding a fairly famous slinger of words, how those words fit into a webcomic, and the insight one may gain into the workings of that writer’s mind. There was also an interview with Chris Onstad about the Achewood hiatus. As informative as I found the Onstad interview by Laura Hudson¹, it seemed familiar — Onstad wants to work in prose, the short panel comic format doesn’t interest him as it once did, burnout is a terrible thing, merchandise fulfillment brings him no joy.

  By contrast, I found Jerry Holkins conveyed his feelings on having his brain chemistry [un]regulated in a way that I hadn’t seen before; this may be more due to my aggressively searching out news of Onstad when he went on hiatus last year, and not having seen Holkins talk on this topic so much previously (although I do recall a particularly incisive episode of PATV on the topic).

  None of which should be construed as criticism of Onstad, who is not my bitch; I simply cannot conceive of a life where my email resembles Onstad’s:

  Actually, I just recently got my first hate mail since I got back to work. I was like, what took you so long? …
  I don’t know, I almost don’t want to bother dissecting why people do this. This guy writes me and is like, “I don’t see why you bothered coming back. You’re just trying to be as cool as you used to be, and it’s not working. Why do you hate your readers?”

  In general, the back third of the interview was the most interesting, as Hudson and Onstad got specifically into the economics of webcomics, and that’s a good read.

• Hey, Sparky, where will you be on Friday evening? If your answer isn’t On an airplane from Rhode Island to New Jersey², it should be At the Johnny Wander 2 book release party in Brooklyn. Bergen Street Comics has a justly-deserved reputation as one of the best stores in the Northeast, and given the sheer density of webcomickin’ talent in and around Brooklyn, I’d say there’s an excellent chance of meeting some quality creators above and beyond the evening’s headliners. Fun starts at 8:00pm, and includes a live delivery of advice from John. I’d like to tell you that John is much less scary in person than he appears to be in the comic, but I’m afraid it’s only marginally true.

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¹ Who may have been induced to drink Chartreuse, which if you have not had it is sort of the monastic version of Jägermeister, or possibly Malört, in that there’s a million herbals and botanicals in there. Unlike the others, however, Chartreuse can be made to play nice with others in a cocktail. My theory is that mixability is negatively correlated with umlauts.

² As mine is, dammit.

Alternate title: It’s a Box, Box, Box, Box World.

So Dustin Harbin hosted the Ignatz Awards were held over the weekend at SPX, and the signature bricks went to a variety of talented creators, with a healthy showing by webcomickers.

As widely expected, Kate Beaton continued her metaphorical march to the sea of cartooning, burning and pillaging all in her wake, and taking the brick for Outstanding Online Comic. I’ma go out on a limb and say they should just set one aside for next year’s awards for the best collection or reprint or whatever the most appropriate category might be¹ for her new collection from D&Q. The darn thing sold out almost immediately and I have a first-hand account that Beaton’s signing line was “redonkulous”.

The Ignatz for Promising New Talent (which award in the past has gone to people as distinguished as Carla Speed McNeil, Nick Bertozzi, Derek Kirk Kim, Andy Runton, Hope Larson, and Sarah Glidden) went to Darryl Ayo [Brathwaite] (sometimes he uses the surname, sometimes not), who I had the pleasure of talking with last year at … was it NEWW? I think it was NEWW. Focused, clever young man, lot of future success to be had. I think there’s a lot of interest in his comics work today, as one of his sites is down, presumably from over clicking.

Meanwhile, Box Brown was the night’s only repeat winner, taking two bricks for Outstanding Mini Comic (Ben Died of a Train) and Outstanding Series (Everything Dies). Brown’s quickly become webcomics’ most prominent explorer of eschatological topics, and it’s nice to see him recognized for both a personal reflection of a death and the polar extreme of trying to examine beliefs of what happens to all of us in death.

And keeping on the Box Brown theme for just a moment longer, his Retrofit Comics imprint has released its first monthly comic, James Kochalka’s Fungus, which got a writeup at the AV Club today. Box Brown’s on a roll, and all you can do is get out of the way, or grab hold and hang on for dear life.

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¹ Also a Harvey, an Eisner, a Shuster, and every other comics award.

Where to start, where to start? With the announcement of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s new book, Seconds? Or with pictures of Kate Beaton’s D&Q offering, which is either enjoyed by very small people or is a giant book? Or perhaps about the hot, new game that’s sweeping SDCC, courtesy of Marshall Willenholly? Or heck, why not the book trailer for Amulet 4, due this fall from Kazu Kibuishi?

• Okay, how about here — a couple of weeks ago, Chris Sims (professional Batmanologist and surprisingly astute analyst of pressing issues in comics) wrote a piece about how DC and Marvel should adopt aspects of webcomics. In reaction, a bunch of creators talked about what they’d pitch to the Big Two for ongoing, daily, fun-chuckles. Webcomickers invited to the party included Brad “The PUNisher” Guigar, Curt Franklin, Justin Pierce¹, Lucy Knisley, Shaenon Garrity, and the if-he-stops-comicking-he-dies Ryan Estrada². Each of these pitches that doesn’t happen is a wasted opportunity on par with Lois Lane, Girl Reporter.
• A couple of days ago, David Malki ! was “kind” enough to share an earworm with the world on Twitter (DO NOT CLICK HERE if you don’t want it to be stuck in your brain all day), so now I’m going to return the favor. David, check out what Kris Straub is doing in the current Starslip storyline. Now you have the Dick Wolf cash register sound³ in your head and can’t get rid of it! Ha ha, my evil plan worked!
• Last notes. Readers of this page may recall the name Øyvind Thorsby, who does webcomics that are funny, make creative use of space (click through the next dozen or so strips), and are (to be kind) populated with enormous heads. Thorsby dropped me a note that I wanted to share:
  

  Remember me? My latest comic is The Accidental Space Spy. It’s reached 100 strips. First strip here.

  Not remember somebody with maybe the metal-est name this side of Toki Wartooth? Heaven forfend! Anyhoo, the “space” in The Accidental Space Spy refers to the “outer variety with galaxies and aliens and things”, not the “let’s get creative with all the dimensions and mess with the readers heads” type (again, funny, make follow the link and click through to the end of the chapter). Thorsby’s line is thicker, smoother, and more assured, and the heads have settled on a size that’s less “disturbing” and more “quirky”. I’m going to enjoy catching up with this one.

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¹ Just give him Wonder Woman and let him write it like Wonderella; can’t be worse than most of what WW’s been subjected to for most of 70 years.

² Much like sharks must keep swimming in order to breathe.

³ Credit for that term must go to Richard Belzer. Also, be glad I gave you a link that doesn’t repeat the sound a bunch of times — after a half-dozen or so, a certain hypnotic insanity is known to occur in up to 19% of the population.

No theme today. Sorry.

• Reminder: Anya’s Ghost, Astronaut Academy, and Level Up all release today. Reiteration: Anya’s Ghost remains the best comics I’ve read all year.
• Scott Kurtz continues to mend (and occasionally trip all the balls) from his busted rib, leading to a searing pain in his drawing arm and an impromptu guest week-or-two. It’s pretty cool, actually, because today’s guest strip pointed me back to a webcomic I discovered earlier this year, then promptly lost the link for — Frankenstein Superstar, by John Hazard. It’s still a bit too new to do a comprehensive review on, but I was upset with myself for not being able to follow its progress, and now I can. So I guess that’s a win for everybody except Scott’s ribs? Feel better soon, Scott.
• Jon Rosenberg is getting back on the webcomicking horse, combined with the caring for infant twin sons horse, and is probably pretty darned glad to have taken the visiting the infant twin sons in the PICU horse out to pasture and let it run free, never to return¹. To celebrate, he’s got a new print and t-shirt sale goin’ on (not to mention a considerable number of expenses, cf: infant twin sons).
• Words of Wisdom² from John Allison’s blog today, on the topic of how you present yourself; this one is important enough to quote at length:
  

  On more occasions than I care to count, someone has come up to me at a comic show, pressed their little photocopied effort into my hand, and said “it’s not very good”. And 49 times out of 50, I manage to stop myself saying “then why on earth should I read it”.

  Your work may not be of a professional standard, it may be loose, “sophomoric”, poorly lettered, imperfect — it may be flat out rotten — but you finished something, and if you finished one thing, you can finish another, and you will improve.

  Self-criticism is a valid exercise and a vital component of improvement. But it is not an attractive attribute to strangers.

  Out and about, on the scene, I want to see you beaming with pride that you made it out of that room with all your teeth and most of your sensibilities intact. [emphasis original]

Very little to add. If you’re the sort to judge your cartooning skills as inferior to John Allison’s, it’s not a leap to judge your social skills as being the same; you’d leap at the opportunity to follow his cartooning advice, so give his personal interaction advice a damn good listen.

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¹ Or possibly shooting that particular horse with high-yield atomic weaponry, you can never be sure, and it was a bastard of a horse anyway.

² The capital-w is warranted, as these words are very wise.

Warm, bright, sunny, low humidity, and just hours after an anxious afternoon/evening of tornado watches. Oh weather, can you be any crazier/more wonderful?

• It’s less than a week until three books by noted webcomickers drop — one may stoke anticipation for Anya’s Ghost, Astronaut Academy, and Level Up here, here, and here, respectively. Come Tuesday, you can find out if I was right about them or not¹.
• Heroes Con kicks off this weekend (starting tomorrow, actually) in Charlotte, NC, and while their website seems to list a considerable number of guest cancellations (including Frank’n’Becky and Tyson Hesse), one has to expect a certain amount of last-minute plan changing and it’s nice to know in advance of the show rather than be disappointed, yes? In any event, Fleen Faves heading to the show include Danielle Corsetto, Dustin Harbin, David Malki !, Carla Speed McNeil, Andy Runton, Dean Trippe, Joel Watson, and Jim Zubkavitch. Tell ’em I said hi.
• If you find yourself in the opposite of North Carolina (generally agreed by most authorities to be Toronto), you can still get your fill of webcomics people, as Ryan North² will be speaking tomorrow night on comics as part of a lecture series that invites people from completely different fields to talk on completely different things to spark creativity. As the website of The Treehouse Group states:
  

  3 people × 3 topics = 1,000 ideas

  North will be joined by John Paul Morgan (speaking on the process of invention) and Nathalie Desrosiers (speaking on Twitter and civil liberties).

• Finally, it has been established in the past that if there’s one thing that gets under the skin of Kate Beaton, it’s that comics cliche of the woman twisting her spine to show of breasts and buttocks simultaneously (and a rightly-so under-skin getting, as it’s a truly ridiculous and pandering pose). Exhibit A.

  It has also been established that when something does get under the skin of Kate Beaton, that something is in for a cartoon dope-slapping. Exhibits B, C, and D. Just in case you ever wondered, Huh. Can cartoon high-heeled shoes ever truly be sarcastic? the answer is “yes”.

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¹ I was.
² The linguistically pedantic amongst you may object to the term “webcomics people” being applied to Ryan North, who forms but one webcomics person. However, these pedants are overlooking the fact that Ryan North easily qualifies for a plural term, much like how the Queen of England uses “we” and “us”. Ryan North is, after all, both the Toronto Man-Mountain and the Nexus of All Webcomics Realities. Deal with it.

Slow, but awesome. We’ll just put a few things here and call it good.

• There were webcartoonists at this weekend’s NCS Reuben Awards, and lo it was good. Dave Kellett, Kate Beaton, and Kris Straub all gave their takes on the evening’s goings-on, with Scott C contributing both semiphotobombery and a killer sketch of Scott Kurtz (seriously, Scott’s drawings of people look more like those people than the people themselves do). For deeper analysis, Straub had some pretty inspiring thoughts; it was terrific to watch all of this happen (at a distance), and it’s thrilling to see that the long Print vs Web cold war has had its Nixon goes to China moment. Things only get better from here.
• Speaking of Kate Beaton (which one cannot do too often), Drawn and Quaterly has released the cover of her next book, due in October. It’s pretty.
• Correction to a post last week — I remarked that there were five contenders left in the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge, which turns out not to be correct. Michael Payne has pointed out that although Mike Stevens is still listed as in the running on the main DGIMC page, in the forums it is confirmed that Stevens fell out of the competition on 19 May. We at Fleen regret the error and congratulate the four remaining competitors: Payne, Andrew Rothery, R Smith, and Brad “Ladies, Please, He’s Taken!” Guigar. One may note at this time that the remaining four could opt to split the prize money and still come out more than ten times ahead of their original $20 buy-in.

Yeah, it’s a bit overcast, but it’s also appropriate given that Scott McCloud and Steven “Cloudy” Cloud¹ are making waves today.

• On the one hand, you’ve got process video (which I always find fascinating, despite the fact that I don’t draw, much less with technical tools) from McCloud. Not only process video from a guy who went purely digital a long damn time ago (eight or nine years by my estimate/recollection), but weirdly enough, his first process video ever. Specifically, it’s all about the McCloudian method of lettering (including balloons, tails, and suchlike) using Illustrator, in two parts (part one; part two), each a shade over ten minutes in length. Anybody that does digital production undoubtedly has worked out personal methods for this sort of thing, but seeing another’s technique can’t be a bad thing, especially if that technique’s been practiced and refined over the better part of a decade.
• On the other hand, you’ve got Cloudy’s return to Boy on a Stick and Slither; there were nearly 1200 little digressions into the deeply philosophical end of the webcomics topics pool, followed by adventure travel and other priorities for a good long while now. But the BoaS and S are back at their very own Tumblr and traversing a bunch of mental reality shifts for your workaday amusement. Any day with these two arguing the minutiae (and occasionally the maxutiae) of life is a good one, and apparently that makes for two good days, as the infinitely malleable arguers made a stealth appearance back in October that we all missed.

That’s it for today — it’s my anniversary and I’m gettin’ out of here early for some special celebratin’, if you know what I mean²
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¹ Smock, Smock, Smock, Smock, Smock, Smock.

² Pizza and TV. What?

Quick logistical note before we get started — Fleen’s had a WordPress upgrade, so there’s a slight chance of weirdness in the immediate term; if you notice anything wonky, please use the contact box over there to the right.

• By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the picture up above; if not, you have a bit more than three hours to find some money and try to get in on some sweet webcomics Baffler! action. Seems that webcomics very own hyperactive Tintin with a scrollsaw, Chris Yates, has teamed up with a bunch of his buddies to create original Baffler!s based on their iconic characters and designs.

  Thus you got yer pirhanamoose, yer Beartato, pre-screaming horror bunnies, Biff‘s spaceship, Mania (as played by Commissioner James Gordon), a momentarily non-evil Pintsize, a surprised Meatloaf, and a self-portait by Rebecca Clements. They go up for sale at 4:00pm MDT (UTC-6) today. and Mr Yates has priced them exceedingly fairly, especially considering:

  1. There’s only one of each
  2. He’s splitting the proceeds with the respective creators
  3. At least three of them would spark highly-lucrative bidding wars if they were placed up for auction

  More Bafflers! with more characters coming next week, and if the voices of disappointment are especially legion perhaps Yates and the respective comickers would consent to more runs of similar designs in future? We can hope.

• In other news, I wound up following a trail of Project Wonderful ads and wound up on a webcomic I’d never heard of before that I found interesting enough to archive trawl. Taking a fresh spin on the (frankly tired) zombie genre, The Other Grey Meat posits a society where all humans have been “enlightened” and everybody you know is a zombie. Only the least-evolved are the shambling wrecks that you know, with individuals benefiting from a brain-eating pyramid scheme and getting smarter based on how many brains their ‘children’ have eaten.

  This society is ruled by the guy at the top of the pyramid, the one who makes the brain-substitute that all zombies subsist on (think Soylent Grey). There are cracks in the society, and a single human who doesn’t know how he survived the zombocalypse, and an art style that somewhat resembles mid-period Questionable Content (that last point is slightly disorienting, to tell you the truth). All in all, worth a couple hours to get caught up with the story.

• Speaking of death, I found an odd confluence between Friday’s Chainsawsuit and today’s posting at Webcomics Dot Com [subscription required to read more than the abstract]. To wit: what happens to your creations when you die? Neil Gaiman discussed this same topic and did the creative world the favor of presenting a sample will naming an executor specifically for intellectual properties. It’s worth a read if you have creations that you wouldn’t want to see misused after you no longer have a say.

Sure, these news items are reported elsewhere, but sometimes you just get pulled in by the particular flavor that Heidi Mac puts on a story. Thus, we’ll be referencing The Beat‘s versions today.

• By now, I imagine that everybody and their dog has heard of the demise of Megan Fox Tits Wolverine magazine; actually, my dog (above) was napping pretty hard yesterday, so maybe she hasn’t. And since the mighty has fallen, I suppose we’ll break with the Fleen Style Guide and refer to MFTW by its former name, Wizard. Having studiously ignored the ever-descending fortunes of said magazine, a thought occurred to me yesterday in the aftermath of the implosion.

  Let’s be clear — I am not qualified to comment on the legalities of securities transactions, and I am not saying that anything I’m about to comment on was less than perfectly legal. But a paper transaction that effectively allows one company to cease to exist while an almost identical company (run by the same people) suddenly begins to exist, but allowing a clean break from the old company? We’ve seen it before in comics, which you may cross-reference under the names WOWIO/Platinum, and Dreamwave/Dream Engine to name two. These situations strike me as extraordinarily distasteful.

  I’ve seen the disappearance and new-name-reappearance of a company from the inside; close to fifteen years ago, I worked for a tech consultancy (about whom I have nothing but good things to say) that one day ceased operations and restarted them. In a bid for investment capital, the founder/principal signed a deal with some money guys who took a previously-unused, publicly traded company that had zero activity, bought the consultancy, and immediately spun it back off via a penny-stock issuance under a name practically identical to the old one. Go back to the story at The Beat and re-read the 2nd and 7th grafs, and the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th comments. Note the parallels.

  Things got real interesting for me at that point. The money guys promptly fired the owner/principal, and in the course of about 10 weeks screwed the remaining employees sideways, then declared the business a failure without paying us everything we were owed¹. This is, hopefully, as close as I’ll ever get to personally experiencing the historical business practices of the comics industry.

  Wizard staffers, as of this writing, don’t seem to have much expectation of severance, although one would hope that they do qualify for unemployment (but that’s a can o’ worms right there, with advanced legal degrees needed to determine what has to be true for somebody to claim unemployment insurance beyond the entirely-logical and therefore almost certainly-insufficient fact of being unemployed).

  Now here’s where it intersects webcomicdom; one of the interesting parts of this story is that Wizard World (the new public company) is keeping its convention business (the last year or so saw it aggressively purchase small- to medium-sized conventions all over North America). If the conventions are what keeps the business going, they’re going to need to stock up on guests. I happen to know that prior to the dissolution of the “old Wizard” and the formation of the “new Wizard”, a number of webcomickers were being aggressively courted to show at various Wizard cons in 2011.

  This is where the bad taste in my mouth (over the securities deals) starts turning into … let’s call it a “heightened situational awareness”. If I were being asked to exhibit at a Wizard show (I haven’t been), and they were offering more than table space (say, flight & hotel) I would want a damn good lawyer to look over the contracts to make sure I wouldn’t be on the hook for anything. After all, in the words of “new Wizard”‘s own press release:

  Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this press release relating to Wizard World’s future plans, expectations, beliefs, intentions and prospects are “forward-looking statements” and are subject to material risks and uncertainties. When used in this press release, the words “will”, “future”, “expect”, “look forward to”, similar expressions and any other statements that are not historical facts are intended to identify those assertions as forward-looking statements. Any such statement may be influenced by a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of Wizard World that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different from those projected, described, expressed or implied in this press release due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur. A detailed discussion of these factors and other risks that affect our business is contained in our SEC filings, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, particularly under the heading “Risk Factors.” Copies of these filings are available online from the SEC or by contacting Joe Favorito at (917) 566-8345 or fatherknickerbocker1@yahoo.com. All information set forth in this press release is current as of January 24, 2011. Wizard World undertakes no duty to update any statement in light of new information or future events. [emphasis mine]

  Yeah, it’s boilerplate. I’m also interpreting it to mean, if “new Wizard” suddenly gets replaced by “new new Wizard”, creditors may have a long slog in front of them to get what is theirs by right. Any lawyers want to chime in on the comments page with a correction or reasons why anybody that does business with “new Wizard” shouldn’t be more cautious than usual? I’d love to hear your take on it.

• Let’s end on the very good news — again, lots of places to get background on this story, but let’s just stay with The Beat — that James Kochalka has been named the first-ever Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont (or anyplace else, near as I can tell). You’d be hard pressed to find a better CL, and you can be sure that this story will only become more awesome between now and the official investiture? coronation? accolade? Whatever the correct term, Kochalka starts fulfilling the duties of his office on 10 March. Everybody be glad for James!

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¹ From the distance of time and cynicism, I’d say that the money guys had some money that they desperately needed to make disappear, because they all seemed to come out of it smelling like roses. I eventually got a chunk of my outstanding pay by offering to have a chat with the state Attorney General and IRS about whether or not it was legal for the money guys to tell me, as they were handing me my paycheck, that I hadn’t been an employee for the past two weeks, but had actually been an independent contractor and thus only entitled to half my previous salary. Classy.