But first: Happy 5000 Strips Day to my evil twin. Also, does somebody who knows Wikipedia want to update Howard’s bio to reflect that he’s my evil twin? That would be awesome.

• Not so long ago I was musing on people that Kickstart new comics and don’t deliver and I was thinking to myself Tavis is due to launch in March; I bet he’s all over that deadline. Tavis being Tavis Maiden, whom I had the opportunity to talk to at length last summer, about his Kickstarter to launch a new comic, and why would it take him six months anyway? In a word, infrastructure, and he was quite clear that Tenko King would be launching in March. Well, whaddaya know:
  

  Tenko King is coming in two weeks.

  Short, clear, to the point, and two weeks from yesterday would be … 3 March, the very earliest he could launch in March on a weekday. The lesson here being, do not doubt Tavis.

• David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc) is one of those guys I will never stop following online; his comics (of which Irregular Webcomic is just one) are variously funny, inventive, and/or feature interesting technological hooks. His philosophical treatises on science and the world around us are enlightening. And he’s going to be launching a new project, soon:
  

  I have a new webcomic idea which I plan to work on and launch some time in the next few weeks. It will be wholly produced by me (as opposed to produced with co-authors like Darths & Droids, or soliciting reader contributions like Square Root of Minus Garfield).

  Stay tuned.

  Next few weeks? Sounds like it could be March. I’ll be over here, perched on these tenterhooks.

• In March of last year the internet saw fit to give three quarters of a million dollars to the creators of Cyanide and Happiness for the purposes of cornering the market on hookers and smack making an internet-based show, since attempts to do an actual broadcast-type show would have resulted in a whole bunch of people who were not the creators of Cyanide and Happiness taking ownership of various degrees of Cyanide and Happiness.

  Screw that noise, I can imagine Dave, Kris, Matt, and Rob saying to themselves. Now, a show (even one on the internet) is considerably more complex to put together than an webcomic, but a year’s production time for such an undertaking is practically warp speed. Progress is being made, reports Rob DenBleyker on behalf of The C&H Show team [audio, video, possibly not safe for your workplace], with a launch later this year. You know what’s later this year? March. Just sayin’.

Noted by the inimitable (and very sexy) R Stevens on Twitter: Team USA skier Ted Ligety competes with Red Robot #C-63 (created by Sam Brown, but perhaps most closely associated with Stevens) on his helmet. While it makes perfect sense that Ligety would want to CRUSH his competition, I think that there may be another reason — Red Robot physically resembles the gates that he must slalom through.

Clearly the gates are themselves designed to CRUSH all in their vicinity, and Red Robot’s presence acts as a sort of guarantee of safe passage. Although Ligety didn’t medal in the super combined¹, I’d say coming through the runs without being CRUSHed is a pretty good consolation.

• Looking forward: Dean Trippe will be doing the first of undoubtedly many con panels on his astonishingly good Something Terrible at Emerald City Comic Con next month. Specifically, it will be in Hall D, 4:40pm, Friday 28 March, and it will be moderated by Kate Leth. Programming and floor map haven’t been released for ECCC yet, so there could be some changes still; let’s hope that Hall D, wherever it is, is nice and large.
• Looking at numbers: Almost nobody² shares more data about how he’s doing in comics more often than Jim Zub (perhaps Ryan Estrada); really, the only difference is in detail, as Zub tends to scrub numbers but keep trends visible, and Estrada shares actual dollars and cents. Thus it is in his latest share, this time about submitting to comiXology and how the money breaks down from doing so.

  The big conclusion I took away from Estrada’s tale of submitting (and getting rejected more than accepted) to comiXology? Apple is the big winner, taking more than 25% of the proceeds while not being responsible for either the act of creation nor the curatorial/editorial efforts. Good for Apple — I hear they could use a few bucks. Sarcasm aside, there’s money to be made in the infrastructure end of content industries; the only question is if economies of scale will permit anybody to ever take crumbs away from Apple’s table.

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¹ One part KILL ALL HU-MANS, one part kitty care.

² One should note that nobody in comics comes close to Dorothy Gambrell when it comes to detailed data sharing, but she didn’t have a data dump today.

Done with snow, done with slush, done with packed ice from the plow at the end of my driveway, done. Done, done, done. Two more inches of snow tomorrow? It had better be the last of the season or me and Mother Nature are going to throw down.

Yet always is the winter of discontent made glorious summer by the sun of webcomics, by which I naturally mean Brad Guigar¹. Take ‘er away, Brad:

Today marks 14 years of my doing a daily comic strip on the Web — and the beginning of the second full year since I left my day job to fulfill my lifelong goal of being a full-time professional cartoonist.

We all know what this means: Brad is one of the good guys, one who’s always there to share knowledge and hard-won wisdom, so I expect that you will all be there for him in two years when his webcomicking career turns 16 and gets its driving license and stays out all night causing poor Brad endless worry. It’s only right.

Kickstarter update time!

• It’s been two and a half weeks, roughly, since Jesse Thorn’s Make Your Thing campaign launched, and it’s not looking too likely. It’s stalled at about the 20% mark with a bit less than eleven days to go to make its US$120,000 goal. The idea behind the conference is entirely laudable, and I hope that Thorn, et. al., find a way to make it work even without funding up front; if nothing else, they’ve learned that there’s a scope-and-scale disconnect between what they want to do and what people are willing to participate in.
• In better news, Tony Breed is, as I write this, on the verge of meeting goal for the fourth collection of Finn & Charlie Are Hitched … like eleven dollars away from the very modest US$3800 goal, also with a bit less than eleven days to go. Be the person to put him over goal and we can see how the stretch goal(s) will make the books nicer. Do it just because this book is dedicated to the very concept that the very wise Lore Sjöberg noted are the three most wonderful words in the English language: I’m somebody’s fetish.
• Two days in, about 20% of the way there — Great Adaptations will be a children’s book about evolution, with contributions from the likes of Rosemary Mosco, Yuko Ota, Zach Weinersmith², and JN Wiedle (plus a bunch of scientists that — let’s face it — you wouldn’t recognize by name). It’s a very neat project, and I’m a little surprised that it’s only sitting at about 150 backers, with the limited rewards at the higher tiers mostly unclaimed. Let’s get the word out on this one — little Ada Weinersmith needs good books to be read to her when she arrives, and this is our chance to help make that happen.

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¹ Ladies.

² Illustrating a story called The Mystery of the Vanishing Killifish, which just happens to be the subject of a doctoral dissertation by Kelly Weinersmith, who is coincidentally married to Zach Weinersmith, the two of whom are in the end stages of a possibly-illegal cloning experiment.

(Ho as in the sense of Yukon Ho!, not in the sense of insulting somebody as a ho.)

So David Willis made him some porns last month, and it was a huge¹ success, prompting more porns. The sequel to Walky Performs A Sex goes up on Slipshine at midnight tonight, or the moment that it becomes Valentine’s Day because Willis is nothing if not romantic. As before, access to the porns will be via Slipshine subscription; it will not be available for individual purchase.

Over the last few hours there have been some discussions and backs-and-forths regarding the name of the latest porns, with the original title — My Lesbian or Dongs? Where We’re Going We Don’t Need Dongs having come in for … I’m not sure if I’d call it criticism, actually. More discussion as to whether or not the confluence of the ideas lesbian and no dongs was exclusionary towards lesbians that have dongs. Willis being Willis, I’m certain that it’s merely a matter of time before his comment threads are besieged by those that feel that merely entertaining a discussion on the issue is somehow giving in to those who would censor/demand political correctness/aarrghglghblblargh!!².

Consensus on the issue was not to be found, and Willis changed the title — not, I’m pretty sure, because of pressure, but to clarify his intentions. Namely, if it’s possible to not cause concern to any potential readers and still work in a sweet Back to the Future reference in the title, isn’t that the more generous approach to all concerned³? So it was, and I don’t think the humor is the worse for it.

The lesson here is not to change the substance of your work in response to complaints; that’s a really good way to never produce work that satisfies anybody. It’s to apply an editorial eye to your own work, and make careful decisions as to whether or not your work is conveying the message you wanted it to convey. Yes, the act of creating (or in some cases, existing) is going to enrage some people almost autonomically, there’s not much we can do there … but when somebody produces a polite observation that the story (title, character, whatever) might not be taken the way you thought? That’s worthy of some additional thought, and it’s no different than any other circumstance where you might be called upon to kill your darlings.

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¹ So to speak.

² Honestly, it’s like he breeds them in a special facility or something.

³ Except for those who are going to be dicks toward Willis regardless.

John Allison has neatly, in just two panels from today’s Bobbins redux, why half of EMTs regard the two most important words on a childbirth call to be Don’t push¹. Naturally, Shelly is enthusiastic about all things, and here’s hoping that Amy doesn’t murder her in retribution.

• I wasn’t going to say anything about the big, fat nothingburger petition that’s decrying rampant, oppressive, Big Brotheresque censorship re: the Science Fiction Writers of America. For one, it gravely misunderstands what the concepts censorship and freedom of speech and fascistic; for another, it’s extremely illogical and poorly written. John Scalzi neatly addressed those points and I could gladly go back to not caring.

  But.

  Ursula Vernon — and I believe the record will show that I am on the record as loving me some Digger — decided that she is not just a writer but an arter also and attempted to bring some perspective. Some people aggressively didn’t get it, others aggressively nitpicked wording, and in the end, there was only one thing to do: add more honey badgers. Morally ambiguous honey badgers, honey badgers looking for love, honey badgers decrying things aren’t like they used to be, honey badgers coming face to face with change, honey badgers seeking an equal voice. If a grumbly hissy fit about how Things Should Be Like They Used To Be is what gets Vernon drawing honey badgers, I am more than willing to poke the cage of a codger.

• Times come when creators feel the need to apologize about not making updates on time, and I think that in very nearly every case that’s unnecessary. As well established by precedent, your favorite creator who entertains you² owes you nothing other than to create. But there are times when it is especially unnecessary to apologize regarding missed updates, hiatuses, or other irregularities, and that is when meeting a particular schedule will take away from the time the creator needs to care for either their own or their family’s well-being.

  Cases in point: a printer that delivered weeks ahead of schedule and has disrupted Minna Sundberg’s production of new episodes of Stand Still, Stay Silent (a comic that updates with a gorgeous full-page in color four days a week!). But you know what? Fulfilling the orders of people that have already given you money for the last series trumps production of new pages for people like me that haven’t given you anything. Creators: in all cases, your well-being comes first.

  Actually, in some cases it comes second. Parents³ know what I’m talking about, and in no reasonable universe should Paul Taylor feel the need to apologize for taking a few days off when his young son is facing a hospitalization. Best of luck to your little guy, and to your entire family, Paul. We’ll be here when he’s back on his feet; in the meantime, do what you have to do.

• Advance notice: two of my favorite people are about to have a conversation that some of you have already had the chance to hear. Brad Guigar continues his series of Kickstarter-funded podcasts, which release first to backers, then to subscribers of Webcomics Dot Com, and then the world in general. The lastest ‘cast (which will be generally available on Friday) features the very sexy Rich Stevens, and I am hard pressed to think of two people who are so different (particularly in terms of improvisation vs planning) and yet so similar (both are whip-smart) at the same time. An hour and forty five minutes never went by so fast.

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¹ Alternately, I’ll drive.

² In exchange for money or other considerations for a section of their work, and especially if they distribute their work for free.

³ And others with younglings in their care, which is a situation I find myself in from time to time with EMS cadets.

How the hell are ya today? Pretty damn good day if you ask me.

• It could be argued that it is, in some sense, “late”, but Wondermark #1000 has arrived and David Malki ! has put the freely-shared assets of the British Library to their greatest possible use: to convey the meeting of Piranhamoose and Sharkhawk. Welcome to the thousand-strip club, Mr Malki !, and long may you bring fresh life to the forgotten work of Victorian engravers.
• Wondermark is not the only strip encountering a milestone, as Emily Softerworld and Joey Also Softerworld celebrate eleven years of A Softer World:
  

  A Softer World is eleven years old!! Look at these chumps from the early 2000s, what did they think they were doing?!

  The “chumps” in question are, of course, Emily Horne and Joey Comeau, perhaps even before the latter lived in Ryan North’s attic and became his best friend. Fun fact! This month, Dinosaur Comics by Ryan North also had an eleven-year anniversary? It’s true!

• Success! The Kickstarter campaign for Rachel Peng audiobooks by my buddy Otter sits, as of this writing, at US$15,005, or just enough to meet the second stretch goal which will get the backers absolutely nothing new for their pledge dollars. Nothing but the satisfaction of bringing the experience of active reading to the visually impaired, as this is where Digital Divide and Maker Space get a professional Braille conversion and copies donated to libraries.

  And not for nothing¹, but I happened to read a nearly-complete version of Maker Space last night and holy crap you guys is it good. Better than Digital Divide, in fact. Good enough that with full knowledge that I have work today I stayed up three hours later than usual because I couldn’t put it down. Nine days to go on the audiobook campaign, and just a couple weeks after than until the novel releases; get in on this now and thank me later.

• Speaking of webcomickers writing books, The AV Club gave a rave review to The Martian, the first novel by Casey Weir. Weir, before taking up the without-pictures writing mantle, was the creator of both Casey and Andy and Cheshire Crossing. How many more webcomickers will release prose works before it becomes just another expected part of the creator’s professional development? I can think of a few who I think would make some terrific words-no-pictures storytellers.

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¹ And please note with a proper degree of skepticism the degree of personal familiarity I have with Otter aka KB Spangler aka “my buddy”.

The snow we were promised over the weekend turned out to be a light dusting. I found out that work will be sending me to Portland next month¹. The dog we fostered for a couple of weeks has settled in nicely at his permanent home.

But even these positive outcomes are tempered by the fact that the world is still filled with terrible, terrible people, particularly if you have the gall to be both a) creative, and b) a lady. Combine this with weather systems that have disrupted life in the various centers of comics creation (and the post-Angoulême European dispersal), there is very little new happening today.

So let us instead focus this day — when we could all use a bit of brightness in our lives — on the one thing that is unashamedly, unambiguously beautiful and right and pure in this tarnished world:

Davis.

Thank you, Anthony Clark. Thank you.

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¹ Opportunity to see friends on somebody else’s dime? Excellent. Only two days long? Booo.

Yay. Even better, Soterios Johnson took the time to send me an email debunking the rampant rumors around the region that we were going to be getting 70 – 80 cm of snow this weekend. Rumors be damned, if SoJo says we get a dusting, Mother Nature herself must needs obey. Only good news today!

• How you know Hiveworks is doing something right: they’re well-known enough to be a target of people with nothing better to do. In a recap of last year’s incident, miscreants broke in, did minimal damage, and triggered malware warnings from Google. No malware (never was), and the actual interruption was brief, but warnings may linger. Hey, miscreants? We get it, you’re very clever. Maybe give people that just want to read comics a break for a while?
• Jason Shiga has a new comic, years in the planning, and anything that guy does is more likely than not going to be brilliant. I mean, did you see Meanwhile? Demon starts here, features Jimmy from Meanwhile, has seven pages so far, and will be updating daily. Most interestingly, at the top of the comic is a progress bar, which kicked over from 0% to 1% on page four, making me thing we’ll be getting patented Shiga wonderfulness for the next year-plus.
• Slate’s Book Review and the Center for Cartoon Studies have announced their nominations for the Cartoonist Studio Prize (last year’s winner: Chris Ware’s Building Stories in the Graphic Novel category, and Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona in the Webcomic category), and there’s some brilliant stuff listed there by the likes of Gene Yang, Boulet, Erika Moen, Gabrielle Bell, Emily Carroll, KC Green, and many more.

  I can’t say that I’ve read everything on the list (consulting judge Christopher Butcher has knowledge that is both broad and deep), but everything on the list that I’m familiar with damn well deserves to be there. Even better, the breadth of form, content, and genre is breathtaking; the only thing that some of these nominees have in common is, they’re comics. Winners will be announced next month.

Just a hint, if you’re ever crewing an ambulance headed towards a patient, the last thing you want to hear over the radio is Be advised, CPR is in progress¹. Let’s find things that are infinitely more cheerful on this sunny day before the weekend brings us — what’s that from the back? Repeat that a little louder, please? That’s right! More snow! Fortunately, the past couple of days have brought some beautiful artwork and encouraging announcements from some veteran creators. Let’s enjoy it before the fimbulvetr kills us all.

• It’s hard to anybody more universally respected and beloved than Raina Telgemeier, who’s been sitting on the New York Times bestseller lists for her previous two graphic novels (if my search skills are strong, Drama was there for more than half a year and as of this week, the paperback of Smile has been there a staggering 89 weeks). It’s just a matter of time before her next book joins them, and we can get excited starting now, since Sisters now has a cover; the visual similarity to Smile‘s cover ought to make everybody that has read (and re-read) the story of dental challenges rush to read (and re-read) the story of sisterly challenges.
• No stranger to the Times bestseller list, Kazu Kibuishi hasn’t been there for a while, thanks to last year’s illness which robbed him of months of writing and drawing time. He’s bounced back nicely, and also has a cover to share with us for the forthcoming Amulet 6.It’s gorgeous, and the only thing about it that doesn’t make me ecstatic is the wait:
  

  Amulet 6: Escape From Lucien will be released August 26th, 2014.

  Dammit! Another six-plus months!

• We knew back in October that Jim Zub’s Samurai Jack would be running at least ten issues, up from the initial five issue miniseries. Now comes the word that sales are justifying another extension:
  

  Just received wonderful news from my editor- the SAMURAI JACK comic will continue through 2014, taking us to at least issue 15! YIPPY!

  Folks, I cannot stress this enough — for a comic to get an extension like this is purely a matter of sales, and SamJack is a wonderful story, so there’s no reason that anybody that enjoyed the heck out of the TV series² shouldn’t be buying the comic. I wants my Zub, people, so make sure the sales stay strong.

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¹ Much respect to our local police, who are always on scene with us, and since they’re dispatched first usually beat us to the scene. They were providing high-quality compressions by the time we got up the narrow staircase, climbed over the banister and railing, and got to work in a hallway that was narrow enough to require straddling the patient in order to reach the chest. Ultimately it took three EMTs, four cops, and two medics to get the patient packaged and down the stairs, through tight corners in an old, twisty house, and out to an ambulance via slushy/icy exterior stairs and sidewalk.

² I.e.: all right-thinking people.

All that slush and ice we were expecting?

Yeah. Got that. Cleared it from the driveway and sidewalk. More built up before the clearing was done.

Ow.

Going to collapse now. Updates when the weather gods stop tormenting me with their frosty hell.