Welp, the Eisners were given out over the weekend, and it appears that that webcomic-adjacent had a very good year. I’m a little miffed that Nimona didn’t win for Best Digital/Web Comic, but what are you going to do? Brian K Vaughn (and Marcos Martin, who won for The Private Eye) is pure, distilled name recognition in comics circles. But that’s pretty much the only place I that I was disappointed (aside from my continuing bemiffment that Kazu Kibuishi didn’t get nominated at all), as there were some very encouraging results.

Let’s start with Nimona’s Noelle Stevenson, who as part of the Lumberjanes team (along with Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, and Brooke Allen) took both Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17) and Best New Publication. The former would have been great on its own, but to be recognized as the standout book of the year? That’s a hell of an accomplishment for the hardcore lady types. Likewise, consider that the Best Short Story of the year came from Emily Carroll, whose When the Darkness Presses ran online and defeated the collected efforts of the entire print industry.

You think perhaps there’s a theme developing here, where the most outstanding work of the year is overwhelmingly created by women? Because when it comes to original characters, stories, concepts, and such, that appears to be the case. For instance, Mariko & Jillian Tamaki wrapped up a nonstop year of praise for This One Summer (including being named as both a Caldecott and Michael L. Printz Honor Book) with Best Graphic Album—New, and Cece Bell wrapped up a nonstop nine months of praise for El Deafo (including being named a Newbery Honor Book) with Best Publication for Kids (ages 8-12). These are all stories by women, about girls; these are all stories that are different from much of the history of American comics.

Okay, fine, we’ll throw in a token dude: Gene Luen Yang was recognized as Best Writer for Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Shadow Hero; he was competing against the likes of the previously-mentioned Mr K Vaughn, Grant Morrison, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Jason Aaron, and G Willow Wilson (who I thought was going to win). And next year will likely have some representations from the likes of Scott McCloud for The Sculptor and Ryan North/Erica Henderson for Squirrel Girl; get a few more cases like that and we’ll have enough dudes to have a panel on What It’s Like To Be A Male Creator.

But we all know who the night belonged to, and if there is one Eisner that entirely typifies the art of words + pictures, that says you are the whole creative package when it comes to comics, it’s Best Writer/Artist. Charles Burns, Sergio Aragonés, Steven Collins, Richard McGuire, and Stan Sakai were up for the award — there’s got to be close to 150 years experience in those five dudes.

They lost.

To Raina Telgemeier.

Who told an autobiographical story about growing up with her younger sister.

It’s no exaggeration to say — it’s never been an exaggeration each time I’ve said it in the past — that Telgemeier is the future of comics. She writes and draws stories that resonate with her readers in a way that any artist would give up their eyeteeth to replicate; she hooks them and brings them into a medium turning them into not just lovers of comics, but lovers of reading. And she’s just getting started — she’s got dozens of books yet to share with us. She’s still got four books on the NYTBSL (although she’s temporarily ceded the #3 slot to Fun Home, meaning she only has four of the top five books, which list is rounded out by El Deafo and Nimona, by the way), for a total of 317 weeks.

Oh, and she just announced her next book, due Fall 2016. And there will be a couple more Baby Sitters Club books released between then and now. And Smile, Drama, and Sisters aren’t likely to fall off the list anytime soon. You thought I was kidding when I said that the Times might need to qualify the softcover graphic novel list as best sellers not by Raina Telgemeier? McCloud’s famously said that he sees the industry as majority-women (creators and audience) by 2024, and I think that the clock moved up a couple years on Friday night; comics now belongs to Raina and her fabulous friends, and it’s great.

Okay! This is a bit late, seeing as how SDCC 2015 preview night¹ is a week from tomorrow and all, but the whole unable to sit upright thing yesterday put a crimp in our posting plans. Mea culpa, and let’s do this. As usual, this is a list of programs and panels in/around SDCC that I think will be of interest to the readers of this page.

Special Program For Those In Town Early
An Evening With Raina Telgemeier
TUESDAY 6:00pm — 7:00pm, San Diego Central Library
The appeal of this panel should be self-evident.

Each Day Starting Thursday
The Cartoon Art Museum will be holding its annual Sketch-a-Thon at booth #1930, with top-flight creative talent putting in one hour shifts and sketching for a suggested US$10 donation. See the booth for daily schedules.

Thursday Programming
Comic Book Law School 101: Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda
10:30am — 12:00pm, 30CDE
The first of three sessions on making creators sound less like they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about re: matters of law, copyright, and so forth. Go to all of them.

Breaking into Comics Right Now
12:00pm — 1:00pm, Room 28DE
Go for the very clever people on this panel — Charlie Chu of Oni, Gina Gagliano of :01 Books, Matt Gagnon of BOOM! Studios, Ed Brisson, Sam Humpries, and Jim Zub in the moderator’s chair.

Comics for Impact: STEM Education
12:00pm — 1:00pm, Shiley Special Events, San Diego Central Library
I’m of two minds about this one; on the one hand it’s got Jorge Cham (PhD) and others from the world of academia, but on the other it lacks Dante Shepherd/Lucas Landsherr, who is as we speak working off a grant to produce comics for STEM education. It’s also got Alan Gershenfeld of E-Line Media, who are the people that bought out all of Joey Manley’s sites/expertise and then never did anything with them in the webcomics sphere again. I suspect it will be about 85% really good and about 15% faintly infuriating.

First Second: What’s in a Page?
1:30pm — 2:30pm, Room 4
:01 honcho Mark Siegel talking with :01 authors Scott McCloud, Gene Luen Yang, Rafael Rosado, and Aron Steinke. Not optional.

Sergio & Mark Show
3:30pm — 4:30pm, Room 8
Year after year I recommend this, and year after year do you go? Why you gotta make me feel neglected here? Sergio and Mark are comics’ great storytellers (that is, telling stories about comics and those that make comics, occasionally in the form of comics).

Comic-Con How-To: Art Theft Law: Prevention, Protection Prosecution
4:30pm — 6:00pm, Room 2
Sad to say, this is an important one. Learn how to make art thieves cry.

Comics Journalism: It’s About Ethics in Comics Journalism
6:30pm — 7:30pm, Room 24ABC
Guh, I hate that title, but Heidi Mac’s on the panel and she’s always good.

Artists as Brand: Rise of the Artist Entrepreneur
7:30pm — 8:30pm, Room 8
Oddly, there are no webcomics types on this panel — Spike anybody? Brad Guigar (who teaches a class on this)? David Malki !? — but I’d be interested in hearing what they’ve got to say.

Webcomics Advocates and the Webcomics Gathering
8:30pm — 9:30pm, Room 4
Key point: the hosts will, quote, will give any webcomic creators in the audience 30 seconds to promote their comic to the crowd, end quote.

Friday Programming
Spotlight on Scott McCloud
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 9
I’m trusting that it’s only the earliness of the hour that put this panel in one of the modest-sized rooms. Last year McCloud interviewed Gene Luen Yang for his spotlight; this year Yang returns the favor.

Comic Book Law School 202: Selling the Sizzle
10:30am — 12:00pm, Room 30CDE
Marketing, licenses, transfers of rights, and everything you need to know so that somebody else doesn’t end up owning your house.

Cartoon Network: Adventure Time and Steven Universe
11:00am – 12:00pm, Indigo Ballroom, Hilton San Diego Bayfront
Start lining up now; the Indigo Ballroom is the new Hall H. Ian Jones-Quartey and Rebecca Sugar will be there (hi, guys!), along with Estelle (Garnet is the best), Zach Callison (Steven), Jeremy Shada (Finn), John DiMaggio (Jake), Olivia Olson (Marceline), and Adam Muto (co-executive producer for AT). Too short a time for so much awesome.

Scott C and The Great Showdowns: Super Happy Hollywood
2:00pm — 3:00pm, Room 29AB
I understand that Mr C will have a limited supply of the third Great Showdowns collection with him in San Diego.

Spotlight on Katie Cook
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 32AB
Gonna just quote from the description because it pretty much says everything you need to know: Katie will be doing a rapid-fire Q&A with the audience while taking audience suggestions for drawings that she’ll be doing live on stage. Be on hand for what promises to be a fun hour of discussion, drawing, cats, and Katie!

How to Crowdfund
3:00pm — 4:30pm, Room 2
Every year they have some variation on this panel, and every year they neglect to invite George Rohac, Spike, anybody from Breadpig, Make That Thing, or any of the post-crowdfunding info services like AFter The Crowd or BackerKit. Get smarter, panel committee!

Spotlight on Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
4:00pm — 5:00pm, Room 29AB
It’s been a heck of a year for the Tamaki cousins, and it ain’t over yet.

In Your Own Time: Webcomics on Your Own Schedule
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Room 29AB
Longtime comics pro-gone-webcomicker Mark Waid, webcomickers turned dead-tree-bestsellers Allie Brosh, Matt Inman, and Lora Innes. I really wish I could see this one.

Orphan Black: BBC America Official Panel
5:45pm — 6:45pm, Room 6BCF
I am mentioning this so that Rich Stevens knows where to send a case of his cleverest t-shirt.

Saturday Programming
Comic Book Law School 303: And Another Thing
10:30am — 12:00pm, Room 30CDE
Advanced topics; if you want to argue fair use or parody without being completely wrong, you need this session. To make use of this session, you really should have attended the previous sessions.

Working Together: Writers and Artists
11:00am — 12:00pm, Room 28DE
Yeah, it’s still early on post-Eisners Saturday morning, but look at the panelists: the Tamakis, Kelly Sue Deconnick & Steve Lieber, Asaf Hauka & Boaz Lavie (of :01’s The Divine), moderated by Andrew Farago. Listen to everything they say and do things they way they say it.

Spotlight on Allie Brosh
1:30pm — 2:30pm, Room 24ABC
In conversation with Felicia Day, with a focus on Brosh’s next book (Solutions & Other Problems, coming in October and hopefully including her dogs).

Camp Out with Lumberjanes!
2015 3:30pm — 4:30pm, Room 8
Oh man, I love Lumberjanes, you guys.

HBO Presents the Comic-Con International Masquerade
8:30pm — 11:30pm, Ballroom 20 (ticketed) with overflow in Room 5AB, Room 6, and the Sails Pavilion
Hosted, as always, by Phil & Kaja Foglio.

Sunday Programming
Spotlight on Jeff Smith
11:00am — 12:00pm, Room 4
Jeff Smith is the best. Tell him I said hi.

Spotlight on Matthew Inman
12:00pm — 1:00pm, Room 28DE
Cats, dogs, a goddamned Tesla museum, and very likely Exploding Kittens, seeing as how the game should be shipping while SDCC is going on.

Spotlight on Raina Telgemeier
1:45pm — 2:45pm, Room 5AB
Raina Telgemeier is practically a publishing category of her own; she’ll be talking to Jenni Holm of Babymouse about career, her influence on building up an entire new generation of comics readers, and hopefully a sneak preview of her next book.

Chip Zdarsky: A Life
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 7AB
Dear glob I wish I could see this. Brimp on, Chip!

Markiplier and Red Giant Celebrate Keenspot’s 15th Anniversary
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 4
Keenspot will not have a panel at SDCC about the time that the sun goes cold.

Whew! That’s quite a lot! As always, please let me know if I missed anything.

Spam of the day:

H?ow d?o you d?o ass punisher

Gotta say, that’s the first time I’ve ever been called ass punisher. I’m a little disturbed by it.

_______________
¹ Which I will not be attending, as they still haven’t told me if my press credentials were approved or not. Given the invites I keep getting for things like accredited-press-only interview pools, I’m guessing they were approved but that’s only a guess.

And not to throw shade or anything, but I applied online for press access to NYCC on Saturday and got approval yesterday, a full three weeks before the promised response date. Point: ReedPOP.

You know what I like best about these guest strips? The fact that even those that ran initially without #buttrocket¹ were quickly amended to include #buttrocket, and they legitimately make the strips funnier. Today’s strip by Veronica Vera of Bittersweet Candy Bowl gets extra points for dealing with Garbage Person Ted from Jeph’s Tumblr. Thanks for that, Veronica, and also for continuing the unbroken tale of hilarity passed to you by KB Spangler, Zach Weinersmith, Christopher Baldwin, David Willis, Megan McKay, and Danielle Corsetto.

And oh my goodness, so many other things to talk about today.

• Book! Kate Beaton, who is BEST, has been kind enough to share some process sketches with us, allowing us to see the evolution of Princess Pinecone (the titular princess of The Princess and the Pony, arriving at bookstores everywhere in one week). I love everything about this.
• Also Book! Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh have announced the Kickstarter for their concluded-online (starts here), coming-to-print OGN, Lucky Penny. This puzzled me a bit when I heard the news this morning, as I thought that Lucky Penny was going to be published by Oni Press, and for them to have to self-publish would be a significant change.

  Turns out, Oni is still publishing Lucky Penny, so why a Kickstarter? Yuko and Ananth have anticipated your question and have an answer for you:

  We’ve increasingly found that the people who support us online and via Kickstarter are wildly different from those who would pick up our book in a store or buy from Amazon — and it’s those people (you!) who allow us to make a living. So we’re running this campaign to fund OUR copies of the book to sell direct to you, our fans!

  If this campaign doesn’t succeed we don’t get to make our personal copies. The book will still be available via your favorite local bookseller or comic shop come March 2016, but we won’t have personal copies for sale at conventions.

  I like this for a couple of reasons — one, transparency is always good; and two, I don’t think I’ve seen this kind of publisher/self-publish hybrid before, and I’m always interested in seeing new business techniques. Also three, backing the creators gets you extras that you couldn’t get from the publisher — thanks in the book, extra swag, and you’ll get your copies before the stores do As I write this sentence, the Lucky Penny Kickstarter is sitting just below US$12,000, or about 68% of its (very modest) US$17,500 goal.

• Still Book! Raina Telgemeier continues to dominate the trade, what with taking the Favorite Cartooist and Favorite Nonfiction Graphic Novel categories at the Kids Read Comics Awards over the weekend, in addition to the Béd&eacure;lys Jeunesse Award in Quebec, in addition to the little matter of three straight years on the New York Times Bestseller List, including a clean sweep of the top four positions. Please tell me again how girls don’t read/understand/make comics. Please.
• Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett! There’s a new announcement from LARDK about the second creator to contribute to his Tales of the Drive series: Fleen fave Dylan Meconis! And this time we have a story blurb — Nosh’s origin! And Christopher Hastings was kind enough to tell me the basic plot of his TftD contribution:
  

  Hmm, it’s so tough to comment without spoiling … it’s kind of a cross between Alien and this thing: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080116142805.htm

  And funny!

  I’m glad he stuck in the funny part, because parasite stories are otherwise horrifying.

• Return! Reptilis Rex, y’all. It’s back.

Spam of the day:

Give your Manhood a Boost

Nope!

JOIN TEEN WOLF’S TYLER POSEY AND JEFF DAVIS FOR

Nope!

Dr:OZ helps Rachael shed 25lbs of bellyfat for bikini season

Nnnnooope!

_______________
¹ If you can imagine such a thing.

Which is not to say that I cannot think of anything to talk about today; there are things worth mentioning seemingly everywhere.

• For starters, I’m working up that SDCC 2015 floor map and will get to it later in the week; we’ll also run the traditional guide to panels that relate to webcomics and the webcomics-adjacent. However, I would like to note that comics supercouple Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier are among the Special Guests of the show. That’s not super-surprising, but I just liked the screencap that Roman provided, where they’re in the same row as comics raconteur extraordinaire Mark Evanier and Greatest Living Pure Cartoonist¹ Sergio Aragonés.

  This would also be a good time to note that other webcomicky Special Guests include Allie Brosh, Katie Cook, Matt Inman, Scott McCloud, and Jillian and Mariko Tamaki.

• Matt Bors promised us that The Nib contraction wouldn’t mean the last of his attentions, and this afternoon brought word of some of his new direction:
  

  Introducing The Response, a new collective of cartoonists of color discussing race, class, gender and culture. https://medium.com/the-response

  The Nib retains its focus on [p]olitical cartoons, comics journalism, humor and non-fiction, and The Response appears to trade the relatively large rotating roster for a tighter group as a [c]artoonist collective on race, class, gender and culture. I can’t help but notice that at least Bors and Keith Knight are were regular contributors at The Nib², leading me to wonder if Bors managed to secure Medium’s funding for something that may become Nib’s sequel/successor down the line.

• Jon Rosenberg³ is one of the first wave of webcomickers, and he didn’t get to stay in the game by turning down opportunities to pry every single potential eyeball towards his work. Come the cool weather, that pool of potential eyeballs is going to go up:
  

  I just got the official okay to let you guys in on a little secret. Goats and SFAM are both going to be running at @gocomics this fall!

  Specifically, the end-stage Goats of The Infinite Pendergast Cycle, starting at the end of 2003, continuing for some 1100 strips, and returning from interruption in the near- to mid-term, it appears. Goats will be joined by SFAM classics, which I’m interpreting to mean the strips Rosenberg likes best, or possibly those that don’t require the GoComics readers to be familiar with the voting mechanism that SFAM launched with, which continued for a couple of years.

  This move makes sense for Jon (and anybody else that can swing such a deal, as Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett did last week with Drive) — if you have a back catalog of material to post, it literally costs you nothing to send files to GoComics for posting. More importantly, for serialized strips like Goats and Drive, if somebody reads the first dozen or so strips and then realizes that there are literally hundreds more available for reading right now instead of at whatever pace they’re getting doled out, that has the potential for some massive archive binges as they catch up to the current point in the story.

  Here’s hoping that Rosenberg and LARDK (and everybody else) have worked out some good ad placements and keep the links to their Patreons nice and prominent. I’m honestly not sure of how many people will make the leap/binge, but every one is a help. Goats launches on GoComics on 19 October, and SFAM on 28 September.

Spam of the day:

Truly programming is nothing but it’s a logic, if you obtain grip on it afterward you are the professional else nothing.
Legendario.

Every word of this is true. I am nothing if not legendario.

_______________
¹ Seriously, take the work ethic of Rich Stevens, the prolific output of Tezuka, the craft of Stan Sakai, the appeal across genres of a combined Jeff Smith, Terry Moore, and Carla Speed McNeil, the pure humor of the Foglios, the longevity of Sparky, the hustle of Spike Trotman, and the peer regard of Miyazaki or Watterson, and you’ve about equalled Sergio.

² I didn’t recognize other names, but I see that three of them — Chris Kindred, Whit Taylor, Ronald Wimberly — had pieces at The Nib that I remember. I wasn’t familiar with Shing Yin Khor, but after reading this piece by her, I want to read more.

³ My first friend in webcomics, official owner of my soul, and generally awesome grumpy dude who is awaiting old age so he can officially yell at youth to quiet the hell down, goddammmit.

• Every year, I resolve to remember the cluster of webcomicker birthdays that occurs at the end of May; since I’m already well into the missed the start and try to remember next year, bozo phase, I’ll point out that today is the co-birthday of Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman, as if they could be any more adorable together. Additionally, it is Becky Dreistadt’s birthday, yesterday was Holly Rowland’s, and about three-four days back was Jeffrey Rowland’s¹.

  So happy [recent, in some cases] births-day, Jeffrey, Holly, Raina, Dave, and Becky! You are all awesome people.

• Speaking of birthdays, I think I’ve got the upcoming birthdays of my youngest niece and nephew covered; I received over the weekend my copies (one to keep, one to give away) of Evan Dahm’s² Wonderful Wizard of Oz adaptation, and with any luck the next couple of weeks will bring my copies (one to keep, one to give away) of Zach Weinersmith and Boulet’s³ Augie and the Green Knight.

  Here is my question: given those two books, which would you give to the younger sister, and which to the older brother? I’m leaning towards Oz for the older brother (as he’s just about old enough to read it for himself) and Augie for the younger sister (as she’d need either one read to her, and Augie’s such a kick-ass hero and it’s never too early to start that habit in nieces).

  I imagine that they’ll both end up reading (or having read to them) both books, I’m just wondering if anybody out there who’s maybe read the PDF backer copy of Augie or Oz has a definite idea of age ranges. Help me out, peoples, and make a couple of little kid birthdays happier.

Spam of the day:

Shed 25lbs of bellyfat for bikini season,

You really sent this to the wrong person; to get rid of 25 pounds from my abdomen, you’d have to remove at least four major organs.

_______________
¹ Not so weird that such a cluster occurred; at one point in the past, there were three separate people (me being one of them) on my EMS agency with the same birthday; it’s just a matter of time until you get these coincidences and duplications.

Heck, some day I’m going to start a business with another Gary Tyrrell just so we can confuse people that call up the main phone line. Can I speak to Gary Tyrrell? Which one? The one that went to nerd school. Which one? The one that likes beer. Which one? The one that pronounces his last name like “Ferrell”. Which one? The trombone guy? Please hold for Mr Tyrrell.

² Who, by the by, yesterday started rerunning his seminal series Rice Boy with commentary over at Tumblr. Read it again for the first time!

³ Who, by the by, will be having his French-language books released in English, starting next April and continuing for the next half-dozen years or so. Goo news for those of us who can’t get enough Boulet.

I believe that I am well on record that Raina Telgemeier is the most important person working in comics today, and if the industry wants to really grow they should be watching everything she does and emulating it. I thought she’d reached a pinnacle when she had three books on the New York Times Bestseller List, then specifically the top three slots on the list¹.

Pfft, old news.

As her publisher, Scholastic, noted via tweet earlier today, Telgemeier has added the first of the reissued-in-color Baby-Sitters Club books to the list, meaning she now owns the top four positions all by her lonesome².

I am through being astonished, and will no longer be surprised at anything Telgemeier manages to pull off.

If I remember a-right, the BSC books are being re-released at six month intervals, which should mean that we’re never more than half a year from something new with Raina’s name on the cover between now and her next original graphic novel in 2017. Could the entire four-book BSC stay on the list along with the other three? To be (inevitably) joined by that next OGN? Could we actually see between five and eight Raina Telgemeier titles hogging the NYTBSL, to the point where — in order to maintain any relevance — it’s repurposed as a list of the best selling paperback graphic novels specifically not by Raina Telgemeier? No bets, my friends, no bets.

Fleen congratulates Telgemeier and reminds an industry that lurches spasmodically from line-wide-crossover-that-changes-everything to line-wide-crossover-that-re-changes-everything: this woman is single-handedly eating your lunch, half of your dinner, and is in the process of repossessing your coffee machine and all the good snacks. Adapt or die.

Reminder: Next week is my internet hiatus. I’ll be back online and posting again on the 18th.

Spam of the day:

Yes! Finally something about Michael Kors.

Weirdly, although I have mentioned His Orangeness several times over Fleen’s history, including once within the past two weeks, this particular spam was left on a post that didn’t mention Kors at all. Feel free to insert a paraphrase of Kirk telling Khan that he keeps … missing … the target.

¹ Since then, the order has been shifting back and forth, but Smile, Drama, and Sisters have been holding strong.

² Rest of the list? Cece Bell (El Deafo), Victoria Jamieson (Roller Girl), G Willow Wilson (the second Ms Marvel collection), and Jillian Tamaki (Supermutant Magic Academy), all aimed squarely at girls. Only two books could be said to be “traditional” comics — the fourth Saga collection and a resurgence of the nearly 30 year old Dark Knight Returns, probably because they just announced Miller would be doing a second sequel. Figure it won’t be off the list in a week.

Welp, the Eisner Award nominations are out, and the thing that jumped out at me is how thoroughly web-/indy comics creators have entered the mainstream; they are competing head-to-head against some of the most revered creators of traditional publishers, and against some of the most well-known creations. Let’s go down the list.

First and foremost would be Bandette, which aside from a nod in the Best Digital/Web Comic category (about which more in a bit), was also nominated for Best Continuing Series (going head to head against the likes of Saga and Hawkeye), and artist Colleen Coover’s nomination for Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art). Similarly, Emily Carroll’s as-yet online-only When the Darkness Presses is up for Best Short Story against works featuring these obscure guys named “Bat-man” and “Su-per-man”; Carroll also took a nomination for Through the Woods as Best Graphic Album — Reprint. It happens a little more each year: an online work competes directly against print comics, and it’s an encouraging trend.

The other multiple nominee I wanted to mention is Lumberjanes (newly ensconced on the New York Times bestseller list for their first collected edition, by the bye) for Best New Series and Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17), with LJ co-writer Noelle Stevenson also nominated for Best Digital/Web Comic for Nimona. And since that’s two of the webcomics nominees listed, let’s continue and acknowledge the rest:

• Bandette
• Nimona
• Failing Sky by Dax Tran-Caffee
• The Last Mechanical Monster, by Brian Fies (winner a decade ago for Mom’s Cancer, recently returned as a serializing webcomic)
• The Private Eye by Brian Vaughan & Marcos Martin

As in past years, the category is a bit of a mish-mash, with The Private Eye and Bandette being comic-booky where Failing Sky, Last Mechanical Monster, and Nimona release page-at-time; Bandette is sold via comiXology, the others release on their own websites. There’s not much overlap between format or genre, with all five being united solely by dint of the fact they release online first. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad, but it’s still restricted to whatever the judges decide counts as long form work, and that maybe should be reconsidered. Regardless, all strong work in the category this year.

That being said, it wouldn’t be the Eisners without a What the hell? moment or two, and for me that came when I noticed a complete lack of webcomics in the Best Humor Publication (where they are often represented) and a lack of both Sisters and Amulet in any of the younger readers categories. In the case of the former, it’s hard to argue when you do get nominations for Cul de Sac and Groo; in the latter, Raina Telgemeier was nominated as Best Writer/Artist, which is arguably better. There are still people out there that regard works for younger readers as somehow lesser; that’s a garbage argument, but to the extent that some perceive it as a ghetto, Telgemeier isn’t being pigeonholed. She’s competing against the best across the entire swathe of comics, including grand masters like Stan Sakai and Sergio Aragonés. Still nothing for Kazu Kibuishi, so I’ve got that to complain about.

But let us finish up on a happy note: Gene Luen Yang is up for Best Writer, both for his Avatar tie-in comic at Dark Horse, and his own The Shadow Hero, and the Tamaki cousins were recognized for This One Summer as Best Graphic Album — New; collectively they’ll be facing competition including Jules Feiffer, Brian K Vaughn, Kelly Sue DeConnick, G Willow Wilson, and Grant Morrison. Webcomics creators (and webcomics veterans) aren’t just being compared to each other, they’re being compared to the best alive. It’s a good year for the community.

The Eisner Awards will be given out Friday, 10 July, at San Diego Comic Con; best of luck to all the nominees.

Spam of the day:

1. Don’t continue putting off your lifestyle change.

Let’s see — wife, dog, house, volunteer work, and the opportunity to opinion-mong on a regular basis? My lifestyle’s jammin’, Sparky.

Although I was only able to attend on Saturday, I’m prepared to call MoCCA Festival 2015 a success: the new venue was airy and light-filled (if a bit daunting), the location of the panel discussions was fancy — schmancy, even — and the weather was beautiful. Okay, that last one wasn’t up to the Society of Illustrators, but it was a bit of good luck, as the exhibit venue and the panel locale were about five minutes walk apart and if it had been an April-in-New York spitty, squally, rainy day, that would have been a miserable five minutes.

Center 548, the replacement for the Armory of the past four-five years, is arranged vertically rather than horizontally; in practice this means a few things:

• There was one hell of a steep, narrow staircase to navigate as soon as you enter to get up to the second through fourth floors
• The crowds marginally thinned out as you went upwards¹
• I’m told there was a rooftop lounge, which I never found but many I’m envious of those that did

Along with the aforementioned light and windows and blue skies; it felt old and new simultaneously inside, not unlike the onetime location of the Puck Building (presently spending its day as an REI store and a bunch of Starbuckses).

The High Line Hotel (formerly some famous dude’s home, laid out like an Ivy League quad with courtyards and vaguely connected subsections and echoing staircases that feel like they should be in a cathedral) hosted the panels in a pair of rooms that featured stylish, minimal decor (I felt like I was in a very tasteful Scandinavian loft apartment) with enormous stained-glass windows; okay, they were covered by shades, but they were still stained glass.

Accenting the Chelsea vibe, the courtyard entrance of the hotel was hosting a small marketplace aimed at fashionable dogs and the people that care for them, so there were corgis in tutus and handbag foofoo pooches to add a little color.

Oh, and there were comics, too.

• Evan Dahm and I discussed what classics he might work on after Moby-Dick (as I got to thumb through a sample copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), and he allowed that he’d like to tackle The Illiad and The Odyssey as a two-volume box set some day.
• Bill Roundy and I discussed the best neighborhood in Brooklyn for bars with outrageously creative drinks-mixers, as he had a half-dozen volumes of his Bar Scrawl minis to choose from, each covering a neighborhood and a dozen or more bars in more-or-less a straight line walking. He’s begun to look at the history of particular drinks and had an eight-pager about the first of them: the Floradora. He may have offered to make me one on the spot, and I may have enjoyed the hell out of it. With any luck, he’ll do one history per month.
• Raina Telgemeier (unsurprisingly) and Scott McCloud (only marginally less so) had fans in the sub-teen age range that waited through hour-long Qs and As to talk to them — the next generation of comics is in good hands.
• Tom Siddell and Magnolia Porter tabling together is remarkably convenient if you want to talk to the greatest concentration of webcomics talent without having to walk any further than absolutely necessary; as mentioned previously, both are on career-best streaks right now, both are sending characters in new directions that will change their respective statuses quo, and both are (fortunately) getting more positive feedback than negative for their choices.
• I was lucky to make the acquaintance of Carey Pietsch, who is illustrating from Meredith Gran&rsquo’s scripts for the newest Marceline miniseries from Boom!; as I told her, I love Gran’s words and pictures, but I think that writing for another artist (and doing so in a way that shows off her strengths), I think that she’s sharpened her writing skills even further. They’re a good creative team, and I’d be interested to see them collaborate again in the future on a story that they own.
• It is impossible to get past the adoring crowds to Scott C; dude was swamped every time I went by.

The only real negative I can think of is that the floor was pretty loud; the Armory had that problem too, but it was greatly improved the last couple of years when tall drapes were put behind tables to cut down on echo. Drop those into Center 548² and I think you’ve got a great MoCCA Fest venue for the foreseeable future.

The MoCCA Festival was on shaky ground for a couple of years, but since the SoI took over, it seems to be assured of a successful future; I’m not sure how you can do everything that they do with a door price of five dollars, but I’m impressed that they do. See you there next year.

Spam of the day:

Zune and iPod: Most people compare the Zune to the Touch, but after seeing how slim and surprisingly small and light it is

You lie. It’s been mathematically proved that nobody ever owned a Zune.

_______________
¹ This may have been an illusion, as it appeared the aisles were narrower on the second floor than the third and fourth — presumably to make room for the food service and Wacom lounge. Speaking of which, the food service was tasty, plentifully-supplied, and fast, but there needed to be places to sit and eat. Had I known about the rooftop lounge, that would have been a different story.

² Also find a way to completely retrofit staircases that are less vertiginous; easy, right?

It occurs to me that while I mentioned programming at the upcoming MoCCA Fest t’other day, I neglected to make mention of the special guests that will be there. Obviously, Scott McCloud and Raina Telgemeier will be there, what with their spotlight panels being discussed, but there are loads of others.

(For those wondering who is going to be at EmCity, which kicks off tomorrow, the answer is: everybody. Every person in webcomics is gonna be there.)

Joining Telgemeier and McCloud as special guests will be Aline Kominsky-Crumb: painter, cartoonist, collaborator with husband R. MoCCA has also always made a concerted effort to bring cartoonists (both guests and exhibitors) in from overseas (remember the year of the Swedes?), and continues the tradition this year. The emphasis this year is on French-speaking countries, from whence come:

• Pénélope Bagieu (known for comic bloggery and her collaborations with Joann Sfar and Boulet)
• DoubleBob (whose pencil-centric style has found a home in Belgium, in contrast to the ligne claire style)
• Annie Goetzinger (with a career of longform work, especially graphic novels dealing with societal and historical issues)
• Ilan Manouach (whose experimental comics are a part of a larger creative output, including music and publishing)
• Anne-Françoise Rouche (founder/director of an arts center catering to the mentally handicapped)
• Barbara Stok (the token non-French guest; she’s from Holland and known for humorous autobio as well as a comic biography of Van Gogh)

Several of the international guests are touring in support of their first translated-into-English work, so it’s an opportunity to get in on the ground floor in following talent that new to those of us that don’t speak French, Dutch, or the Belgian variations on French and Dutch.

MoCCA Fest runs Saturday and Sunday, 11 and 12 April, from 11:00am to 6:00pm. See you there.

Spam of the day:

93 Mouth-Watering Quick Easy Recipes at a Whooping 66% discount!

I’m not sure if you mean a whopping discount (as discounts typically do not whoop, but honestly — do they whopp?), but that’s actually the lesser of my concerns. What exactly is being discounted? The recipes themselves? The watering mouths? Enquiring minds want to know!

I didn’t enter today’s hotel rodeo because I still have received no assurance that I’d be let in the front door¹ and hell if I’m spending the money to get out to San Diego and not get in; let’s focus on shows that answer their damn email.

• EmCity happens later this week, and there’s a plethora of webomicky programming going on. Of particular note, you may find Spike, Destroyer of All That Oppose Her on four panels:
  

  MY 4 ECCC PANELS: Running a Comics Anthology- Fri, 1:10 Adult Comics- Fri, 6:50 Non-Compliant- Fri, 5:00 Discussing Diversity- Sun, 3:50

  The one on Adult Comics will also feature Leia Weatherington and the invaluable Hurricane Erika and Blue Delliquanti

• And for those that want to learn some of the best tips for making your way in the waters of business, superlawyer to the creative community Katie Lane will have a series of appearances: building up your legal toolkit, on the role of the artist in this electronic world (with Gene Ambaum, Pat Race, and Nadia Kayyali), and how to negotiate like a murderous acrobatic spy. If you aspire to destroy all those that oppose you (and truthfully, who doesn’t?), that last panel is a good place to start.
• After you’re done bein’ all adult and all lawyerly, there’s a screening of STRIPPED Friday at 6:00pm in Hall A, with a Q&A featuring Danielle Corsetto, Kris Straub, Dylan Meconis, and the very sexy Brad Guigar (we appear to have looped back around to the adult portion of the show, if you know what I mean).
• Not to be outdone, MoCCA Fest released their programming schedule for this year’s show, with a Q&A with Scott McCloud and another with Raina Telgemeier being the two standouts to my eye. Given its size, MoCCA only does a dozen programs, only two at a given time, so you can see a significant fraction of the offering if you’re determined to do so. Reminder: the programming is not at the main venue (Center 548), but rather about 2 blocks away at the High Line Hotel; see the map on the programming page.

  Please note that due to limited space in the panel rooms, the Q&A sessions on Saturday require a reservation which you can get by “purchasing” a free ticket. Yeah, it’s a pain to sign up for an account, but Raina! Scott! Worth it.

Spam of the day:

Hi, my name is Pauline and I am the marketing manager

Nnnnnnope!

_______________
¹ If I didn’t earn back my press status this year, SDCC, just bloody tell me. Don’t not tell me by your own announced deadline and then refuse to respond to my enquiries for three damn months.