Back in April, Chris Yates (this blog’s favorite Tintin¹ with a scrollsaw) celebrated nine years making Baffler!s, for a total of 2222 of the handmade wooden mental torture devices, making an average of just under 250 Baffler!s per year, or about one puzzle every day and a half. You’d naturally be curious what Mr Yates was up to in the time since.

How about producing puzzles at more than twice the usual rate, despite having weeks lost to conventions and travel?

Yesterday saw the release of Baffler!s #2499 through #2511, making 289 more puzzles in less than five months. Okay, granted, some are pretty similar and pretty simple², but some of those puzzles are fiendishly clever and complex, more than making up for the simpler ones.

Best of all, Yates was so heads-down in work mode that he didn’t realize that a Big Round Number was coming up, meaning that #2500 was not one of his usual insane anniversary pieces, but rather something pretty appropriate for a guy that runs in comics circles.

That’s a lot of damn puzzles, and no sign of a slowdown in sight. Here’s hoping that Mr Yates keeps all his fingers and that his puzzlecutting imagination continues without pause for as long as he finds this mode of creative expression to be remunerative and to his liking.

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¹ Tintin himself makes an appearance in #2499.

² Bonus points to Yates for titling these Baffler!s — and four others — with a reference to Warhol.

This was supposed to be a day of catching up on things, and instead it’s a day of nursing a spine that’s determined to insist that it is the boss of me. Ow. Let’s see what some young’uns with presumably good backs are up to.

• As previously noted, it was a weekend with several important cons, at least of one — PAX Prime — which is still going on. As anticipated last week, word came regarding the new artist of The Trenches, and it turns out to be Strip Search alumna Monica Ray¹; congrats to Dan Stefanidis who emailed me on Tuesday with a guess that the line weights and color palette reminded him of Ms Ray’s work.

  Continuing their habit of throwing projects to people who don’t end up working in-house (cf: the Penny Arcade Personality Pins, as drawn by Tavis Maiden, whose Kickstarter is down to its final two days), not only will Monica Ray be drawing The Trenches, she’ll find fellow Artist Ty Halley on writing duties.

  Given the trend in the ten weeks or so since Katie Rice was declared the winner², it appears that nobody lost that first season, except those of us who were looking forward to the traps. Certainly not audience- and crew-favorite Cool Guy “Nick” Trujillo who took the opportunity of the Artist Reunion panel at PAX Prime to propose to his girlfriend and simultaneously raised the bar for all future PAX-related proposals.

  In any event, Ray, Halley and Trujillo are all disgustingly young and presumably have backs that do not give them trouble, for which they should be grateful. Also, apropos of nothing, Strip Search Artist Abby Howard, who also just moved to Seattle, should know that thanks to a sketch she did at PAX this past weekend, I finally have found an image that I think is important enough to get tattooed on my body. Oh, Robert … so dreamy.

• Know who else is young and had a good weekend? Howard Tayler, born on the 29th of February, and thus between the 11th and 12th occurrences of his birthday. Last night, he failed to break his streak of winless nominations for the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story; he can take some solace from the fact that he is the only person to be nominated for this award every year since it was introduced in 2009³.

  Oh, and also from the Hugo that he won in the category of Best Related Work, for his part in the podcast series Writing Excuses.

  Now I’m speculating here (Tayler being my Evil Twin only gives me so much insight into his thought process), but I feel that this award might mean even more to him than Best Graphic Story; Tayler’s a pretty self-effacing guy and as much as Schlock Mercenary is where he made his bones, he’s grown to be more than a single-creation creator. He’s done both illustration and writing in the SF/gaming world, and Writing Excuses is all about providing advice and mentorship for future writers, and I just get the feeling that it’s where he might allow himself to feel a bit more pride.

  You done good, Howard; you’re the best nemesis I could hope for, and I’m thrilled that we’re not the sort of mismatched pair that annihilates each other if we come into contact. Assuming that we truly are opposites, I’m guessing that today’s discomfort means that your back is in stellar shape and I’ll let you have that one today. Tomorrow though — I’m expecting you to take your fair share of this stiffness.

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¹ Her dinosaur/rollerskates comic was possibly my favorite piece of art produced in all of Strip Search season one, and you can get an absolutely beautiful print of the comic, cleaned up and reworked for color, is available from her store and you should get it.

² And who just started her year in residency at Penny Arcade, and who has already worked on the PA Presents Project Fairway Solitaire.

³ I’m not about to do a comprehensive search of Hugo history, but this may make Tayler the only person to be nominated every year of a permanent award’s existence. While there are some other repeats in new awards — such as Best Fancast, existing for two years, featuring a number of repeat nominees, and in fact won both years by the crew of SF Squeecast — the key there is new awards. Hugo rules, as I understand them, will require a vote after three iterations to determine if these awards become permanent.

Sequences, y’all; it’s all about things that follow logically, the one with the other.

• I’ve always loved the musicality of the one with the other when pronounced along with the rest of Don Pedro’s scheme to match-make Beatrice and Benedick near the end of Act II, Scene 1 of Much Ado About Nothing¹; turns out ol’ Willy S had a way with words. And I’m thinking about that play and its unabashed love of love because I saw today evidence that a webcartoonist has beat the odds and found love enduring to the point of impending genetic reproduction, which (considering the infinite scale of the universe and all of its empty space) is about as unlikely an occurrence as I can conceive². In this case, it’s Yellow Peril’s Jamie Noguchi and his wife Audrey who will be welcoming a daughter into this weird world, and we at Fleen wish them the very best.
• The thing about sequences, though — sometimes they have a sudden jag that can throw you off. For example, consider Philip “Frumph” Hofer, creator of both the WordPress-based webcomic-specific plugin Comic Easel and it predecessor, the WordPress-based webcomic-specific theme ComicPress. Hofer stopped updating ComicPress at version 2.9 and switched his efforts to Comic Easel some years ago, mostly because a full plugin offered so many more possibilities than a mere theme. Now imagine that Hofer has announced the imminent release of ComicPress 4.0; you’d wonder what made him shift developmental efforts back, and those that had never adopted Comic Easel would be pumping their fists in the air and shouting Yes! Front row! New features!.

  And that’s where you’d be wrong, Sparky.

  Despite the name, ComicPress 4.0 is not an update or continuation of ComicPress 2.9; it’s an update and rebranding of Comic Easel. This is vitally important to all you erstwhile fist-pumpers, as it will cause you problems if you accept what appears to be an update to the ComicPress theme, and end up accidentally installing an incompletely-configured plugin:

  [I]f you ‘accidentally’ update your theme to 4.0 you will instantly have to get the Comic Easel plugin and ComicPress to Comic Easel migrator plugin and migrate all of your comics to the Comic Easel format. Your archive will no longer work and you will need to update your pages for it to include the new shortcode for archives. The child theme I’ve been begging you to make will be required to be updated with the new CSS elements. ALL COMICS need to be only set into a SINGLE category (it could be multiple different categories, but only one set.)

  If you don’t want to migrate, don’t update your theme. [emphasis original]

  On the plus side, if you’re already using Comic Easel, this will be no big deal; so basically, if you’ve thought about switching from Comic Press to Comic Easel, the long weekend just might be the perfect time to do so. Should you have questions or concerns, Hofer has a reputation for being extremely accessible and helpful; if he helps you through a migration, do be good enough to consider dropping him a few bucks — the donate button is in the upper left of his home page.

• Occasionally, those sudden zags in sequences loop all the way back to eleven years ago. It’s just shy of four years now that John Allison has been telling the stories of teenager mystery-solvers, an outgrowth of seven years of stories about (mostly) adults and bizarre happenings. But before Bad Machinery and Scary Go Round, in the Iron Age of comics on the internet, there were four and a half years of Bobbins. It was where a workplace comedy slowly transformed itself into a place where weirdness was commonplace, and now it’s back, at least for now:
  

  August 30, 2013 :: BOBBINS IS BACK! Why is it back? Because I couldn’t stop laughing when I thought about bringing back a comic that I stopped drawing more than 11 years ago, that in real terms lives on (in terms of characters and setting still existing). I also liked the idea of drawing strips that would have fit in right at the very beginning of its run, when I was trying to make an office comedy strip. I find the original Bobbins strips (linked to elsewhere on this page) painful to look at, but they’re part of the history of Bad Machinery, so maybe I can flesh that out a little, in a way that doesn’t hurt to read. Will Bobbins return next Friday? YOU DECIDE. [emphasis original]

  Personally, I like that Bobbins is back just as Bad Machinery has reached a point in the current storyline where Mildred and Lottie have managed to break history. How will they fix a divergent timeline that they created before any of the current characters (including our much-dissipated Mr Beckwith, er, Ryan) was even born? This could be a hell-world where Amy was never queen of a fairy-land and things never change, nothing ever happened in a caravan in Wales, and people listen to Trout Mask Replica more than once. It’s hideous to contemplate.

  So if you’re enjoying the jaunt to a younger, less stakes-filed time, let Mr Allison know, but first take the opportunity to politely ask @twitter and @twitteruk just why the heck his account was suspended without notice. Speculation at the moment is that somebody decided to be a dick and report the account for spam or abuse, and suspension has resulted. Given the flurry of brutal abuse that erupted on Twitter earlier this month, particularly in the UK, such a mechanism is pretty necessary. And with such an abuse-reporting mechanism now appearing, it’s likely that the process is not yet sufficiently fine-tuned. Remember: polite inquiries, and hopefully it’ll all be back to normal soon.

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¹ Which, unlike numerous other Shakespeare works, does not appear to make a cameo appearance in Ryan North’s To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Adventure. Granted, I haven’t hit all the story paths or endings yet, but I have come across two separate instances of what I believe to be fake story branches, ones that you can only come across by chance as nothing seems to lead to them. Let me just say: space battles and self-makeouts, y’all.

² So to speak.

Dead water heater? Of course! Netbook bricking itself and requiring a Linux reinstall? Why not? But dammit, I’m going to tell you something today if it kills me¹.

• For starters, it’s another three-con weekend for fans of webcomics; you have your choice of stalking meeting your favorite creators at Dragon*Con² in Atlanta, WorldCon 71 in the guise of LoneStarCon3³ in San Antonio, or PAX Prime⁴ in Seattle.

  At Dragon*Con you can see possibly the most aggressive cosplayers and sexytimes atmosphere of the annual con circuit — including the obligatory kilt blowing. At WorldCon you can see the Hugo Awards — or join the live stream — where Howard Tayler will either continue or break his streak as the Susan Lucci of the Best Graphic Story category. PAX Prime will feature the first reunion of Strip Search artists since the show revealed Katie Rice as the winner.

• Assuming you need more than that, how about some hot, hot porn?
  

  Smut Peddler 2014 begins next week. Submission guidelines, invited line-up, deadline, and planned release date. Watch for it, folks.

  Countdown to quality, lady-friendly sexytimes? Starts now.

And I realize that I am tempting the metaphorical demons of fate itself by saying this, but I hope that tomorrow will be back to normal, just in time to slide into the long weekend here in the States. See you then.

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¹ It very well may kill me.

² And with con co-founder/accused child molester Ed Kramer finally going to trial — and legally separated from the legal entity that owns D*C — a shadow that has hung over the show for some years is finally lifted.

³ Who had their own kerfuffle last week, as it was noticed that they were going to be showing the largely-unseen and deeply racist Disney film, Song of the South. Questions were raised as to what context the film would be shown (it can definitely be watched in the context of an artifact of its times, with a frank acknowledgement of how poisonous much of its content is to modern eyes), as well as whether or not the film could possibly be legally licensed (Disney does not want Song to be associated with their name and has kept it locked up in the vaults for decades). In any event, con organizers nixed that idea.

⁴ The tenth consecutive PAX, for those counting.

Gyuhhh. Home. Nappy time now.

I have no idea what’s been going on in webcomics because of work issues; long story short, yesterday was an absolute horrorshow that kept me isolated from life¹. Randy Milholland could have gone on a naked bear hunt on the show floor of the Toronto Fan Expo and I wouldn’t have heard about it. So I’m writing off anything that happened Sunday or Monday, and making a real quick survey before I have to deal with the remainder of this gig and I see….

New, mysterious artist(s) at The Trenches replacing Mary Cagle? Robert Khoo acting all mysterious? It’s Tuesday, all right. Theories as to the mysterious new contributor’s identity in the comments, at least until Khoo decides to let us know. Probably an announcement will be made at PAX Prime this weekend or something, so it shouldn’t be long.

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¹ I was on-site at my client from 6:30am to 6:10pm, during which time I did not see the sun; I didn’t get a break until 1:30pm and I had a total of 25 minutes in which to eat (at the mysteriously-empty company cafeteria, which managed to give me a low-grade case of food poisoning). We’re now at least two hours behind in a two-day class because the technical environment was not what I was promised, and we don’t start until 1:00pm today just because. I’ve spent most of the time since end of class yesterday either sleeping or wishing I had some Judge Harlan’s Parts Unknown Tonic and flour water. This entire thing is sass in the main and I am ready to tear off somebody’s entire middle.

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.

Okay, got something dumped on me that’s likely going to disrupt posting for most of the next week; tomorrow’s looking 50/50, Monday is probably out entirely, Tuesday is reasonably likely, and Wednesday most likely a write-off. Sorry about that, hit me up with a beer sometime and I’ll tell you about how amazingly entitled and unreasonable a very, very large multinational corporation is being, merely because they have more money than God¹.

In the meantime: new comic from Jeffrey Rowland! Let the rejoicing commence!

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¹ Let’s just say it’ll involve a project that was decided upon this morning, has to launch on Monday, will involve weird hours, and flights to a place that isn’t very convenient to fly to/from. Wheee.We care, Jeffrey! We care SO HARD.

I first met Matt Lubchansky at NYCC a couple years ago via the kind introduction of one Jon Rosenberg¹ and have followed the various comics that he produces since. Much as I like the laugh-chuckles of Please Listen To Me, I find that his collaborations are even better and he’s got a doozy of a collaboration with Mallory Ortberg today. I wasn’t familiar with The Toast, where said collaboration is running today, so thanks to Hey Pais’s Sara McHenry for the pointer.

With that buildup concluded, please go check out Tips For Improving Street Harassment because it’s really smart, really funny, and makes you wistfully sigh If only.

• To be honest, I don’t check in on Lubchansky as often as I should; something about the number of hours in the day. Likewise, I also don’t check in on the many, many comics projects of John Troutman as often as I should, but this time I think we can attribute it to the sheer amount of output, given that he’s working at least two and a half comics presently and (if I have my sums correct) has done at least a half dozen others in the past.

  That and a half comic would be Lit Brick, which updates “whenever”; it’s out of this comic about literature that Troutman has spun a story of Carol, twin sister of Jesus². Or rather, is looking to spin that story, provided it gets Kickstarted; as mentioned in part one of our Tavis Maiden interview, pre-funding webcomics is becoming a thing, although you’d be hard pressed to find a creator with a longer track record than Troutman.

• Speaking of Kickstarts, it appears to be doll season in the crowdfunding corners of comicdom. On the cute and cuddly side, you’ve got Jennie Breeden looking to plushify her Devil Girl alter-ego. Right now she’s funded plus a bit with most of a month to go but if the campaign hits a 200% funding level, it will unlock a matching Angel Girl plush; this means that you can act out your own crises of conscience with little Jennies acting as your personal shoulder devil/angel.
• On the holy crap is that gorgeous side, longtime creator Jill Thompson is looking to translate her Scary Godmother character (star of comics, books, and the occasional animated special) into a fully-articulated fashion doll. You know how sometimes things that are clearly toys have labels that state This is totally not a toy it’s an adult collectible not intended for kids because it is soooo adult really because it’s got small parts that could cause choking?

  Yeah, this isn’t that, this damn well is an exemplar of dollmakers craft, the sort that requires US$40,000 steel molds, custom textiles, custom accessory fabrication, and suchlike. But whoo boy, is it pretty. It’s an ambitious project, one that will require US$150,000 to come to fruition; about a third of the way through the funding period, it’s about 35% funded, so that’s good so far. It’s definitely not a general-audience, impulse-click kind of thing, so signal-boosting is probably not going to make a huge difference.

  But one thing might: check out Thompson’s profile on Kickstarter; unlike a lot of people who come to crowdfunding for the first time when they are looking for cash Thompson backed fifty projects before launching her first. Anybody wondering is she was high-balling her project requirements or trying for an easy payday, her history of backing creative projects in others would suggest otherwise.

• I can’t finish this post without some connection to Jim Zub³, so let me cast your memory back to last month when Mr Zub was kind enough to talk to me about current and future projects and in particular how he called out his Skullkickers collaborator Edwin Huang for some praise. Huang’s work has been getting widely noticed and he’s getting to be in demand, so what better time to put out an art book focusing on his style and character designs?

  The Rogues Gallery is up at Kickstarter and the fact that it’s cleared goal means that it’s functionally up for pre-order at this point; going higher on the total funds will mean improvements like more guest artists and fancy gloss on the cover, so if you like Huang’s work, now’s the time to make the book better. And seriously, 100+ page full-color hardcover art book for as little as US$25? Bargain of the year.

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¹ Who, as a reminder, owns my soul and keeps it in his wallet. Not my first choice of soul repository, not when there are nice temperature- and humidity-controlled boxes for valuables available, maybe resting on a nice mantelpiece, but I guess that’s the lesson here. You sells your soul for a dollar, you takes your chances that it’ll get sat and/or farted on daily.

² Yep, that Jesus; this particular comic chosen because What’s up, Lamb of Hosts? will never not be hilarious to me.

³ I, uh, may have signed a document to that effect.

Welcome back to Part Two of our talk with Tavis Maiden; yesterday we talked about his upcoming project, Tenko King, and how Kickstarter fit into his launch plans. Today we’ll be discussing how most people came to know him and his work, Strip Search, the nature of being around creative people, and how facial hair is critical to marital stability.

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