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.

If you don’t know what license fees I’m talking about, see yesterday’s post where we learn that boilerplate approaches to convincing somebody that your endorsement is really, really essential went wrong. Now, hold on to your (metaphorical, physical, doesn’t matter) hat, because it’s about to go extraordinarily, amazingly wrong.

Yesterday we introduced the idea that Ziff Davis (no link for them!) wanted webcomickers to pay a license fee for the privilege of quoting a listicle about their own comics. The creator who shared that email back-and-forth didn’t get around to asking what that license fee might be but another one did, and gave me permission to share the number if I kept his name¹ out of it. Ready? Here it comes:

Apart from the quote “PCMAG Best Webcomics” you can use the following quotes from the feature:

“[removed for anonymity]”

“[removed for anonymity]”

The fees vary depending on if you want to use the logo and quotes on just your website or on all digital media platforms (social media, emails, etc.) The fees are about $1,000 for a feature like this but I am willing to work with you on figuring out a fee that works for you. [bold added for emphasis]

So that’s a cool thousand dollars for the privilege of using a logo and two pull-quotes for a year. Now you know why defender of the realistic sense of artistic worth Ryan Estrada got all incredulous yesterday. I can scarcely believe it myself.

Let’s end on an up note before the weekend, yeah? By the time you do something official and public twice, it becomes a tradition, which means that The Toonseum is well into beloved, longstanding tradition territory, as they’re releasing their fourth edition of Illustration Ale in conjunction with East End Brewing. Two things of note:

• The launch party for Illustration Ale 2013 is at 7:00pm on 5 December, and as is traditional will feature six labels from six Pittsburgh artists.
• This launch is coming months later than expected, as East End Brewing takes some pride in their craft.

By that I mean that the beer was due in August, and the brewmasters made a tough call:

My apologies for the late notice on this, but based on what we’re seeing with the bottles of Illustration Ale we’ve been sampling here, we will not be doing a release at the Toonseum for bottles of this beer as we had planned this Saturday August 3rd.

We had hoped the bottles would come around (which is why this notice is so late in the game), but they just aren’t up to snuff, so we need to make the call to POSTPONE this release, until we can get a re-brew into the tank and subsequently into new bottles.

It’s one thing to have 1,500 bottles of unsaleable hand-bottled beer on our hands, but it’s another to… well, yeah. In all honesty, this is about the only thing we’re thinking about today. But you can’t sell GOOD BEER every day if you aren’t willing to make the decision to pour some not-so-good beer down the drain. It doesn’t make it any easier though.

Well done, East End Brewing, and well done The Toonseum — you’ve chosen your partners well, and I expect to hear that this year’s vintage is spectacular.

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¹ Side note — of the 25 webcomics on the list there are a total of 33 creators if I counted all the creative teams correctly; 7 of them were women, which is less than I would have expected. Where on earth were Dylan Meconis, Erika Moen, Dorothy Gambrell, Yuko Ota, and Magnolia Porter, just for starters? Okay, Hurricane Erika gets left out because of the sexytimes, fine.

Still, that 21% representation blew away the gender imbalance I noted in their list of best digital comics (that is, regular print comics also available via comiXology and the like). Over there it was ten comics, 14 creators, and the incredibly skilled Fiona Staples the sole lady for a whopping 7% representation. I’m starting to get why so many ridiculously talented comics–making ladies are in the original graphic novel end of the industry, where they seem to be more welcome.

In that the fundamentally unreasonable task in front of me ramped all the way up to You want me to do what? then down to Fine, but when I kick this in its ass you’d best remember my name and from there to I no longer feel the need to cut those responsible. We’ll see how well this mood lasts on Monday.

• In the meantime, the recurring theme today is Webcomics That Don’t Update Often Are Updating Hooray. Achewood is now three-for-three on weekly updates, although it’s continuing Small Times With Ray and Beef instead of the tantalizing search for Ray, Who Sprang This Place (Rehab)¹. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Rowland’s absolutely-true diary of things that actually happen to him shows that Doctor Monkey ain’t no fool, and Aaron Diaz² drops a new Dresden Codak that combines nearly all of his interests: neo-futurist Art Deco, menace, and the world beneath the surface. The end effect is if Michael Whelan cut some primo cyberpunk with The Silmarillion and mainlined a hallucination of Gondolin in the technological age.
• Looking backwards, with a purpose: Raina Telgemeier was one of many people that noted that a certain Japanese school district has removed the classic manga Barefoot Gen — which depicts the effects and aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing, and has long been used to teach that part of Japanese history — from its school libraries. The logic behind the removal is that the manga showing wartime atrocities by Japanese soldiers would lead to young people being aware of the fact that Japanese soldiers committed wartime atrocities. Ultra-nationalists! They’re so sensitive.

  Anyway, lots of people have gone beyond noting and into decrying this move, but only Telgemeier had the foresight (more than a decade ago!) to create a comic about the effect that Barefoot Gen had on her as a young reader. Beginnings isn’t cute, or funny, but it’s honest and a little painful and nowhere near as raw (and depressing, but a useful kind of depression that shows you still have empathy and the ability to learn and resolve not to repeat the mistakes of past generations) as Barefoot Gen or, say, Grave of the Fireflies³.

  Telgemeier’s linking of Beginnings got noticed, including by a gentleman in Japan who translated it so his daughter could read it. That translation has picked up steam, leading to a pretty lengthy story about Beginnings and Raina-san in today’s papers. Congratulations to both Telgemeier and her translator, @unpocketable on Twitter, for responding to stupidity with art.

• Looking fowards, with paper cut-outs: if you’re in the LA area on Tuesday (I won’t be), David Malki ! would like you to know that although his summer has been a non-stop whirl of conventions, and Kickstarter reward production and book launches and associated promotions, he is still hitting the creativity on all cylinders. Specifically, a new animated Wondermark short will debut in Santa Monica at 8:00pm, as part of a video showcase called The Web Show Show at the Westside Comedy Theater. A sneak peek of the short (which features puppets, but not the creepy kind) may be seen via Vine.

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¹ Although bonus points to Chris Onstad for delivering up a deep cut first hinted at during Molly and Beef’s rehearsal dinner some five years ago.

² Martial-arts expert and pixelbender extraordinaire.

³ Nothing is as depressing as Grave of the Fireflies, which is at the top of my list of amazing art that I will never willingly consume again.

Of course it does, just as I’m trying to get things together for SDCC 2013. Well, let’s see what we’ve got.

• Probably the biggest news of the day is the release of the official Harvey Awards nominees, wherein indy- and web-type creators are killing it:
  • Creator-owned SAGA takes seven nominations, including Best Writer, Best Artist, Best Colorist, Best Cover Artist, Best New Series, Best Continuing or Limited Series, and Best Single Issue or Story.
  • Longtime independent creator Terry Moore has been justly recognized for Rachel Rising, which has unfortunately now gotten fully into the “critical lauded, but nowhere near widely read” territory. Seriously, if you backed The Sleep of Reason or read Broodhollow you should be reading Rachel Rising, which is nominated for Best Cartoonist and Best Continuing or Limited Series.
  • Ed Ryzowski, who colors Evil, Inc, The Gutters, Looking for Group, and Terminals, is nominated for Best Colorist alongside colleagues from Marvel, Image, and Archie.
  • Adventure Time is tabbed for Best New Series (against the aforementioned SAGA and the critically-acclaimed breakout hit of the year, Hawkeye), Special Award for Humor in Comics (okay, that’s actually a nomination for writer Ryan North, who is competing with Jim Zub for Skullkickers among others), and Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers.
  • That last category, Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers? Other nominees include Cow Boy (where artist Chris Eliopoulos is also up for Best Letterer), Amelia Rules, and Drama; this category is an embarrassment of riches.
  • Most directly relevant to this page, the nods for Best Online Comics Work have been given to:
    • Bandette, Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover
    • Battlepug, Mike Norton
    • The Dreamer, Lora Innes
    • Nimona, Noelle Stevenson
    • Sheldon, Dave Kellett

  And that’s just scratching the surface. Every year there’s talk about the Harveys getting gamed by publisher block-voting, but this year appears to feature a hell of a lot of strong work. Fleen congratulates all the nominees.

• Speaking of Broodhollow, it just keeps getting better and better, and the first arc of the ongoing story finished up today and oh man did Kris Straub deliver up a satisfying twist to the story. End of the arc seems a good place to make a book, and coincidentally the Kickstarter for Broodhollow Book One: Curious Little Thing launched about four hours back.

  My guess is that as good as Broodhollow is (and it is very, very good) three days a week, it is going to be even moreso to devastating degree in large chunks. It is one of the most prickling-unease-crawling-at-the-back-of-your-brain stories that you will ever read, and I urge you in the strongest possible terms to back it now. Also, to keep the patterns and check all the doors and look directly at that which haunts you because then it can’t get you.

• Speaking of Ryan North, The AV Club gave an absolutely glowing review to This Is How You Die, which North edited along with Matt Bennardo and David Malki !. Remember, TIHYD drops tomorrow, and if you’re flying to SDCC your mission is to see if it can be purchased in an airport bookstore.
• Speaking of Jim Zub, I’m a little late on this one, but did you see that he’s going to be writing a Samurai Jack comic series for IDW? I don’t feel so bad about him getting jerked around by DC back in January now, since I imagine he’ll have far more creative independence working on Samurai Jack than he would have in an environment driven by editorial fiat.

  In other news, that’s another book I’ll have to add to my pull list come October, and with any luck it’ll go from five-issue miniseries to ongoing. That’s more likely to occur if lots of us buy it, and more Zub is always a good thing, so write yourself a note to buy it when it comes out.

• Lastly, best of luck to the Team Venture crew (a significant fraction of whom are the creators of Little Gamers as they set out on the first leg of their drive to Ulan Bator. You can follow their progress here, where it seems that they’re currently in the Czech Republic, in a corner of the world where Western infrastructure (beer, wifi, democratic regimes) are reasonably common and the countries fit into single time zones. They’ve got a long way to go yet, and vast open countries to cross, and we at Fleen wish them safe travels and sane adventure.

As a quick heads-up, there’s a lot of media presentations on Friday and Saturday, and the comics-related topics take a bit of a back seat.

Friday Programming
Writers Unite: Pitching and Writing Creator-Owned Comics
11:00am – 12:00pm Room 23ABC
It’s got a series of creators that are identified by both corporate-owned properties they’ve worked on and their creator-owned projects. Most importantly, Jim Zub will be there.

CBLDF: Raising a Reader
12:00pm – 1:00pm Room 30CDE
Want kids to get interested in comics? Give them comics¹, and you could hardly do better than made by the panelists.

Drawing Stories: What’s New in YA Graphic Novels
12:00pm – 1:00pm Room 25ABC
Vera Brosgol, Gris Grimly, Faith Erin Hicks, Hope Larson, and Paul Pope. What more do you need?

Celebrating Strangers in Paradise’s 20th Anniversary with Terry Moore
4:00pm – 5:00pm Room 23ABC
To paraphrase something I said with respect to Jeff Smith’s spotlight panel on Thursday, this is what a twenty year independent career looks like.

Digital and Print: Friends or Foes?
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 9
I want to go see this one to see if the consensus has shifted since I moderated Webcomics: Threat or Menace? at NYCC in — goodness! — 2008.

Rise of the Independents
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 32AB
Sounds good, but a caveat: they’re using “independents” to refer to non-Big Two publishers like Image, Dark Horse, and IDW.

Axe Cop
8:00pm – 9:00pm Room 6DE
Premiere episode will be screened and there will be staged battles by cosplayers choreographed by Malachai Nicolle which should be awesome. Also, ready to feel old? Malachai is now nine, he dreamt up Axe Cop when he was five, which means he is rapidly approaching having spent half his life as a comic creator and he’s not even in junior high school yet.

Saturday Programming
ShiftyLook: Video Games/Webcomics Amalgam Extraordinaire!
2:00pm – 3:00pm Room 28DE
Given that this session combines Zach Weinersmith, Kris and Scott (Scott and Kris), and Andrew Hussie, I fear that the room may be too small. Judging from the maps, Room 28DE (waaay over to the left, past the Sails Pavilion, past Ballroom 20, in the upper-left corner) has a capacity of 200, tops.

---

In fact, for the first time, I’m noticing that most of these sessions I’m recommending are over the southern half of the convention center. Allow for an extra 15 minutes or so to get there.

---

Mainstream Talent and Indie Spirit
2:30pm – 3:30pm Room 5AB
Looks pretty similar in tone to the Writers Unite panel on Friday morning, but if there’s one thing you can’t have too much of, it’s Jim Zub.

comiXology Submit: The Future of Self-Publishing
3:00pm – 4:00pm Room 23ABC
Oddly, a big part of the pitch for this session references — quoting here — Kickstarter sensation Rachel Deering², which definitely involves a different kind of self-publishing than the comiXology kind. Odd.

Adventure Time Comic Book Panel
3:30pm – 4:30pm Room 8
Ryan North, Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb, Meredith Gran, and Natasha Allegri. I was hoping they might have Yuko and Ananth also to talk about their imminent six-part miniseries of PepBut and Cinnamon Bun in a noir mystery, but you can’t have everything.

Spotlight on Vera Brosgol
4:00pm – 5:00pm Room 4
I’ll be the guy asking how much money she wants to finish up Return To Sender.

Jeff Smith and Terry Moore
5:30pm – 6:30pm Room 24ABC
To paraphrase something I said with respect to Jeff Smith’s spotlight panel on Thursday, and also Terry Moore’s retrospective panel on Friday, this is what two twenty year independent careers look like.

Financing Your Dream: Kickstarter Fundraising
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 23ABC
Everybody involved in this panel appears to have been part of a major property like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica; low chance of it addressing the scale of the individual creator.

Stripped: The Comics Documentary
7:00pm – 8:00pm Room 28DE
Last year Dave Kellett revealed that he’d gotten an email interview with Bill Watterson; a few months back he made it known that he’d upgraded that to a voice interview. I am almost afraid to guess what he might drop on us this year, but wouldn’t you want to be there when “Dave Kellett” removes the lifelike mask covering his face and is revealed to be Bill Watterson!?³

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¹ As I write this, it’s the day after my youngest nephew received as part of his birthday present a stack of Adventure Time and Road to Oz comics, along with both volumes of Astronaut Academy and Drawing Comics is Easy! (Except When It’s Hard). He’s five and I hope to be starting him down a long, enjoyable road.

² I wasn’t familiar with Ms Deering so I searched for her; if I’ve found the right person, she’s run two projects, both successful, for a total of just over US$32,000. I don’t wish to minimize her achievement, she’s funding her comics, that’s admirable — but whoever wrote that copy needs to adjust their definition of “sensation”. Here is a small sample of projects that I feel would better qualify for that word.

³ That’s not going to happen. Probably. Maybe I should check with Dave’s wife to be sure.

But even here there must be some encouraging news, yes? Yes.

• Encouraging News The First: Lucy Knisley’s latest book, the absolutely stellar Relish, has made the New York Times graphic novel bestseller list, debuting at #8. For reference, that puts Knisley above Batman¹.
• Encouraging News The Second: Sometimes I’m shocked about what I look back and find that I haven’t written about on this page — particularly when I’m convinced that I did at some point. For example, PostScript, by brothers Graham and Neal Moogk-Soulis, which deals with what happens to fairy tales after the happily ever after part². Five years they’ve been at this, and I haven’t mentioned them until now? Bad hack webcomics pseudojournalist!

  Anyways, Los Bros Moogk-Soulis are celebrating with a site redesign and a fifth print collection, and debuting it next weekend at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. Oh, and comics; many, many fine comics. Should you see Neal and Graham on the wide prairie next weekend, give ’em a big high-five and strongly consider picking up their books; there’s some good stuff in there.

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling better now. Let’s hope that all the crap that’s been foisted on us this week sees fit to stay there as we move forward together.

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¹ Also the still-there-after-56-weeks Smile by Raina Telgemeier, hanging in at #10. I’m not sure that book will ever fall off the list.

² Not that happily ever after is how fairy tales always end; my favorite is the Polish ending that I recently learned about, where the storyteller states … and I was there too, and we drank mead and wine.

Everybody’s on a plane right about now, heading to Emerald City Comic Con; I suppose it’ll be just as bad when TCAF or SDCC come around, but man I’ll breathe easier when this flight lands in Seattle:

.@aidosaur @yaytime @goraina @dresdencodak @caitefa @MagnoliaPearl @hanoodlez @jnwiedle @johngreenart @jonrosenberg on same flight! Wowwww

Go safely, my friends. Oh, and when Aaron Diaz lands, somebody tell him that his Kickstarter cleared US$200,000.

Speaking of Kickstarts, Ben Costa’s Shi Long Pang, The Wandering Shaolin Monk has built up enough pages for Volume 2 to hit, to the production of which you may now contribute. Pàng, The Wandering Shàolín Monk, volume 2 is, in the few hours it’s been up, about 10% of the way towards its relatively modest US$6000 goal. Sure, there are Kickstarts asking for less, but consider that PTWSMv2 will match the form factor of volume 1 (full disclosure: Costa was kind enough to give me a copy at SDCC 2010, namely a full-color, heavy-stock, hardcover volume which is as well-designed an upmarket as anything put out by :01 Books.

For a self-published collection, it’s about as high-quality as you can get, and it’s offered right at the base reward tier, US$25 bucks to get a copy sent to you in August. Bargain of the year, easily, and that’s before you factor in the pitch video, which features 1970s-style Hong Kong cinematography and cheapo, out-of-sync dubbing. For anybody that grew up watching Black Belt Theater on channel 11 out of New York (or your local equivalent), the video is a trip down nostalgia lane, and no less than one would expect from the Dean of Iron Crotch Studies at Iron Crotch University¹, and founding publisher, Iron Crotch University Press.

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¹ Home of the Fightin’ Rusties.

If anybody was going to do an extra-special comic for update number Six! Six! Six!, you knew it would be KC Green.

Ah, late February, when the comic-reading public’s fancy turns towards the far northwestern reaches and the first major show of the year: Emerald City Comic Con. As in past years, the webcomics contingent and their allies are well represented but the show floor is a bit compex, recalling the bifurcated layout of MoCCA Fest back when it was still in the Puck Building¹. The main floor of EmCity is broken into North and South areas, with a section of Artists Alley in each area. Let’s break ’em down so you can find people.

The bulk of the webby-ish creators are going to be in the South area, shown here:

And the showrunners have helpfully clustered webcomics types within about a two-aisle radius of the easily-located Dark Horse booth (1102), immediately in front of the main hall entrance. Start from there and follow the arrows:

and you’ll end up in the booths of Weregeek/Lunasea (705), Wasted Talent (806), the Great and Bountiful TopatoCoan Empire (with a dozen or more creators at 905 and 1002), Kel McDonald, Kory Bing, Magnolia Porter, Meredith McClaren, David Willis, and Tyler Crook (1008), Dave Kellett & Kris Straub (1107)², Something*Positive and Girls With Slingshots (1108), Scott Kurtz (1105)², Blind Ferret (1106), The Oatmeal (1202), Girl Genius (1204), The Devil’s Panties (1205), Brad Guigar (1206)², and Unshelved.

Staying in the South area, the bulk of the Artists Alley denizens may be found in the B, D, and F islands:

That would be Katie Cook (B-08), Raina Telgemeier (B-10), Dean Trippe (D-01), KrazyKow (D-03), Dave Roman and John Green (D-11), Mary Cagle (F-10), Evan Dahm (F-12), Phil McAndrew (F-13), and Yuko & Ananth (F-16).

Casting your eyes to the North area, you’re going to want to head left coming off the Sky Bridge:

Over on the west side of the hall you’ll find Alaska Robotics (2606), Erika Moen and Dylan Meconis³ (2615), John Troutman and Ryan Smith (Q-19), and the Cloudscape Comics collective (R-03). It’s a little bit of a hike from the South area, but worth the few minutes it’ll take you to traverse the distance.

Naturally, I’ve probably missed people in my survey that I should have included, so if you want to correct any oversights, the comments are open and awaiting your feedback.

Edit to add: exhibitors to list, updated map of the North area.
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¹ Back before the Great Comics Conflagration of Aught-Eight. Such a tragic day.

² The members of Halfpixel appear to have split themselves across three booths; unconfirmed reports indicate that they may be arriving at the show in separate limousines, and that Yoko Ono has been seen canoodling with an unnamed member of the collective. More on this as it warrants.

³ If you see Snowicane Erika, ask her if this time she’s come to Seattle to make friends. #teamerika

Feeling somewhat less insane today. Dunno what was up with that. Hey, is that a copy of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff? I gotta get on reading that!

• Speaking of books, I received this week my Kickstarter-backed copy of Johnny Wander volume 3, which is an awesome read. I actually was given a copy by creators Yuko Ota and Ananth Panagariya a bit more than a month ago (thanks), so I’ve decided to give away the copy that came in the mail. You (yes, you) know somebody that doesn’t read Johnny Wander and should; tell me about who that person is and why they need to read JW, and you’ll win the book. Best comment contribution by, let’s say end-of-day next Friday, 8 February, wins for their friend/relative/whoever.
• Speaking even more about books, the Young Adult Library Services Association has released their annual list of best graphic novels for teens, and there’s some familiar names on the list. In addition to the almost obligatory Raina Telgemeier’s Drama and Hope Larson’s adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time, you’ve got Chris Eilopoulos & Nate Cosby’s Cow Boy, and a whopping six entries from :01 Books: Hades: Lord of the Dead by George O’Connor, Broxo by Zack Giallongo, Legends of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks, The Silence of Our Friends by Jim Demonakos, Mark Long and Nate Powell, and Sumo by Thien Pham. That’s like one book out of three of their output in 2012. I’ll also note that Drama, Friends (boys) and Friends (silent) were also listed as among the top ten for 2013.
• Happy ten yeariversary to Dinosaur Comics and the nearly-resurrected Ryan North; highlights of the past ten years (from North’s perspective beyond the grave) are here¹, and you can see how far he’s come as an artist by comparing the first strip to today’s. Congratulations for being so awesome at comics Ryan and also for getting better at parties. In your hono[u]r, please enjoy once more this review I wrote of your first Dinosaur Comics book, composed entirely of quotes by T-Rex.
• East Coast (of the United States, that is) denizens! Make your way to New Haven, Connecticut and the Ivy League university contained therein by next Friday, as “Hurricane” Erika Moen will be speaking at the IvyQ conference. According to the conference schedule, that’ll be at 2:45pm in WLH 208; I’m told that “WLH” stands for “Harkness Hall” at 100 Wall Street on the campus of Yale, which is apparently the home of Yale’s LGBT Studies program. Tell Erika I said “hi” and “Hope you won Strip Search although I won’t know for months yet”.

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¹ Warning: features photos illustrating North’s fetish for oddly spherical dinosaurs crushing Admiral Ackbars. It’s kinda out there?

Or, TCAF Turns Ten, as the press release I’ve just received informs me. Reliably one of the best showrunners each year, Chris Butcher has put together a stellar lineup for this year’s iteration (to be held 11 and 12 May), including headliners Art Spiegelman, Francoise Mouly, Taiyo Matsumoto, Raina Telgemeier, Blutch, Gengoroh Tagame, Dash Shaw, Maurice Vellekoop¹, plus the crème de la crème of webcomics (pick ’em out from the list here, there’s too many for me to hunt ’em all down).

Quick shots:

• Kazu Kibuishi (Daisy Kutter, Copper, the Flight anthology, and a little thing called Amulet) announced yesterday that he’ll be one of the judges (along with some guy named “Pendleton”, which is surely not an actual name people give their kids) for this year’s Doodle 4 Google competition for schoolkids. The idea of art contests often brings up hard feelings in the independent arts, but the terms for the D4G contest seem pretty reasonable:
  

  11. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS: As between Google and the Entrant, the Entrant retains ownership of all intellectual and industrial property rights (including moral rights) in and to the Doodle (excluding Google’s rights in the Google logo/trademark). As a condition of entry, Entrant grants Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, transferable, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish, distribute, publicly perform, create a derivative work from, and publicly display the Doodle for any purpose, including display on the Google website, without any attribution or compensation to Entrant. Entries will not be returned. [boldface original]

  Google can use your Doodle, but it’s still yours, and I’ll note that the prizes are far more fabulous than for any art contest when I was in school. The top 50 winners get a trip to New York City and a Wacom digital tablet; places 2 through 5 get US$5000 scholarships, and the overall winner gets a Chromebook, a US$30,000 scholarship, plus a US$50,000 technology grant for their school².

• Courtesy of John Campbell, michaelkeaton.net for all your Michael Keaton needs, with special guest appearance by Mister Rogers.
• As promised, you can now make your own Ryan North.

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¹ Of whom, Matsumoto, Blutch, and Tagame are making North American debuts.

² If homeschooled, they get a US$5000 grant for home, and get to designate a local library or public school to receive the remaining US$45,000.