To remind you all: It’s Bucketboxing Day.

Remember? ‘Tis the season of the Mystery Bucket. Just remember to keep the meaning of the season close to your heart — it’s about the buckets.

If it seems like the only updates happening these days are from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, well, you aren’t wrong. It’s partly ongoing pandemic, partly not having the time in the day to run down minor happenings and spin them into 600 words, and partly the realization that if I want there to be another 16 years of Fleen (given that 15 December is the traditional observation date for Fleenmas), I’d have to reduce my writing until I felt compulsion to resume.

And largely some things that I haven’t discussed publicly yet; some of you know the deal, and thank you for letting me share the news at my own pace and discretion. It’s a time of transition for me — don’t panic, nobody’s dying — and things are very much up in the air. I’m not going anywhere, but the pace that I’ve maintained for more than a decade and a half is not, for the moment at least, sustainable. But as long as Stuff is Going On for me, FSFCPL has been more than kind enough to provide us with news from the BD scene¹ and keep the lights on in the interim.

So without further ado, let’s turn it over to FSFCPL for this week’s update.

We weren’t the only ones to pay attention to last week’s story, and further developments call for a followup.

First, creator Souillon (through Maliki) had to put out a clarification to counter a narrative full of shortcuts that was developing in the reactions: in essence, the creator’s message is that, no, their managing to sell these 800 copies in a single day would not necessarily prove the publisher was incompetent for failing to sell these before Maliki intervened, as online selling and traditional distribution tend to be different markets². The real responsible party, if anything, would rather be the culture of overproduction in the current market where everyone attempts to get bigger in order to compete, at the expense of individual creators. Moreover, it would hardly translate to other creators who don’t necessarily have Maliki’s community.

And if I might add, other creators don’t necessarily have the cash on hand for such a transaction (team Maliki directly credit their Tipeee patrons for providing that), and even if they did, they could be forgiven for not willing to risk that much money in a way that may never be recouped, or only years later. Do not underestimate how much of a leap of faith this transaction was for team Maliki.

Second, I made a few shortcuts myself last week in the estimate for when the investment would be recouped.

• The first factor I forgot is the taxman, and not any tax Maliki’s business or any of its principals has to pay, but the tax the buyers do: the value-added tax, or VAT. On books, in France, VAT is 5.5%. Fortunately, we know that Maliki’s added value as a retailer here is 40%, which means that out of the 19.90€ they collect, 19.90 * 40% * 5.5% = 0.4378€ will be remitted to the public treasury, regardless of whatever else happens.

  So the operation would cease being a net loss only once 513 copies (rounding up) had been sold, not 503 as previously implied.

• The second assumption I made was that the book hadn’t earned out: in that hypothesis, we can stop now. But what if it had? In that case, each sale not only results in a net 19.4622€ increase in cash from the viewpoint of team Maliki’s finances, but also in royalties being paid out, this time to Souillon as a creator (fortunately, Souillon is the sole creator in that instance). This is triggered by declaring the sale to the publisher. By their own admission, we know the royalties to be 8 to 12% of the retail price before taxes, which here amounts to 19.90 * (100 – 5.5)/100 * 8-12% = 1.50444 to 2.25666€

  So we can now estimate the number of copies that would have been necessary to sell in order to recoup the initial expense to be between 461 and 477 copies. Still more than half of them, even though team Maliki took almost all the risk here while everyone else was willing to write off this batch as worthless.

  (Of course, there are other factors here, but for which we don’t have information, such as credit card transaction fees; this is the best estimate we can put out with the information we were generously provided.)

Speaking of the batch, Becky was kind enough to share a photo of the 800 books they now have to sign and ship. Individually. Each and every one of them. We at Fleen wish them protection from cramps and other musculoskeletal affections …

Thanks as always to Pierre Lebeaupin for keeping on top of the story. It really is fascinating to see what the differences in publishing are in the European model.

Spam of the day:

Dear Madam, Dear Sir Are you looking for splendid X-mas gifts for your loved ones and friends?

Nope. All about the crappy gifts myself. Thanks for asking!

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¹ Bandes dessinées, you pervs.

²For instance, this is the assumption Oni Press made when they simultaneously published both a Kickstarter edition of Lucky Penny — a Kickstarter which relied largely on the existing Johnny Wander community — and a regular edition for bookstores.

We at Fleen interrupt this [American] holiday weekend of pie with news from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, who has a tale of skullduggery. Take ‘er away, FSFCPL!

It all began with a semi-cryptic tweet from Becky, Maliki’s right-hand woman:

We just saved 800 collector copies of Hello Fucktopia. More details soon, but it ain’t pretty.

Hello Fucktopia is a one-shot in the Maliki universe released years back, even a few years before she would declare independence from traditional publishers, intended for older readers (16 and up); in fact, it’s different enough from Maliki’s usual fare that it is signed directly under the creator’s pseudonym Souillon rather than being attributed to her name.

As for the collector, it refers to a larger, black and white limited edition with a few improvements that was released one year later.

On Tuesday, we got the details, and they aren’t pretty indeed. But they also include numbers, and if there’s one thing we love at Fleen, it’s numbers.

One piece of context: in France, there is no direct market for comics, and in fact no channel dedicated to comics. Some of them, such as weekly or monthly anthologies and US comic book TPBs, are distributed to newsstands along with magazines and follow their rules. But all other kinds of comics are distributed to bookshops along with non-sequential-art books, there is no separate channel.

For instance, we can see in the sample summary (third panel) that 17 copies were destroyed in that sample half-year period; it likely corresponds to returns from bookshops (French-only, but you should get the drift). In that case, the copies had been unbundled and unwrapped, which means it’s not necessarily easy to get them back to another retail point in a presentable state¹.

But the 800 cannot correspond to anything but one or more pallets that had never left storage, with unsealed bundles.

Another piece of context: I am not aware of any French law against the publisher directly selling the 800 copies; rather, I believe the prohibition to be contractual: it could be the distributor who has an exclusive license, which means the transaction would have to go through them. Even if the books were still owned by the publisher and the distributor was only housing them.

However, it is by French law that the publisher sets the book retail price, and no retailer may deviate from it by more than 5%.

From the product page, we can therefore obtain the retail price: 19.90€ (±5%). 800 of them at 40% discount therefore amounts to 9552€ (±5%). The 10,000€ quote, then, likely includes a few additional items such as delivery to the far-away land of Brittany.

Finally, as anyone could determine, by the time they would be down to their 297 last copies, or about 37%, of the initial pile, they would have made up their initial investment and anything beyond that would be pure profit.

One last piece of context: as part of our interesting times, there is a paper shortage going on, and that has apparently affected the release schedule of some books, according to conversations this weekend in Colomiers (festival report forthcoming). Surely this sounds like an ideal time to treat paper like a disposable resource, right?

Many thanks to team Maliki for being forthcoming with the financial details of the transaction. We couldn’t have asked for more!

PS: By the end of the day, Tuesday, all 800 copies had been sold in that garage sale.

Our thanks as always to FSFCPL; if any further information comes to light regarding the mysterious very nearly complete loss of ten thousand Euro worth of comics, we’ll be sure to bring it to you.

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¹ Which doesn’t mean the industry shouldn’t try! At Colomiers, most publishers had a bin of discounted books designated as slightly less fresh or some such, sometimes explicitly telling they were philosophically opposed to stripping these books.

And one in such exquisite detail even more so.

Welcome back to the coverage of this year’s Quai des Bulles festival, courtesy of Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin. As mentioned in Part One, this is his report on the career retrospective interview of Pénélope Bagieu.

The interview took place Saturday at 2:30 PM in the Amphithéâtre Maupertuis, with Vincent Brunner interviewing.

30 minutes before the start, available spots were already thinning out. 15 minutes bore the start, there was no room left at all.

When Pénélope Bagieu entered the room, the audience broke into applause.

After a welcome message, a reminder of her exhibition, and a quick recap of her career, including her Eisner award, the interview started in earnest.

Brunner: How did she realize she wanted to become a comics creator, with so few examples, such as Claire Brétécher?
Bagieu: As far as her young self was concerned, the comics she read appeared out of thin air without anyone needing to be involved, and in fact she noticed female protagonists more than female creators. Later on she studied animation, then worked in illustration, at which point she started being commissioned for comics work as part of her job, and that turned out to be to her liking.

She realized she had been doing comics as a teen (typically girls playing sports, inspired by Attacker You), but she did not think of it at the time as being comics.

Brunner: So she created a blog, a new medium at the time.
Bagieu: She was not interested then in putting out a book; she had always been doing commission work, as she was hired straight out of school, so the blog provided her with a space to express herself freely: no need for any of it to provide a return on investment. In the end, it was a training ground for her to be able to make books eventually.

Brunner: And it provided her direct interactions with the public.
Bagieu: Not necessarily as interactive as with some since her blog did not have comments, but yes that meant being exposed to many people, but pre-Instagram standards. It was an ongoing entertainer job: back then when you went on holidays you used to ask another creator to cover your away days! Today she couldn’t imagine doing the same: she’s just too busy.

The blog removed some of the solemn aspect of books: she never stopped herself thinking: This joke is going to end up in a book and enter the public record! She enjoyed the lack of restraint. She found it nice for it to become a book in the end, but that was never the end goal. Now she has better outlook on the process: for instance, it has become apparent visitors do not necessarily translate to sales.

Brunner: This is where Joséphine starts.
Bagieu: It was a commission work, and her first character in fiction, so the matter was finding out in which scenarios, in which contexts, and between which characters she was going to be inserted. Once she had consistent characters, it was just a matter of coming up with setups such as the company party at which point the stories write themselves, even after 20 years.

Brunner: Then a movie.
Bagieu: Joséphine was a kind of training camp, and once it had stopped being fun to do, she stopped. She hasn’t regretted it, even when in Japan when she got asked for more at a signing (the Japanese public is more interested in the pictures than in the stories of comics of the French-Belgian tradition). She is proud of it being her first published book in Asia.

Brunner: Isn’t there always some part of treason when adapting for a movie?
Bagieu: To avoid feeling betrayed, you either do it yourself (which as a creator you always have the option to do, by law, as part of your moral rights), and you’re safe; or you put it in the hands of someone else and own up already that it’s going to be their work.

She find movies to be a source of frustration as compared to comics: in the latter, she can afford to put ellipses for instance, and one person can have total creative control, without sharing it with actors, the people responsible for lighting, sets, or props. That means it’s solitary work, but it’s fine for her.

Brunner: Exquisite Corpse was another milestone.
Bagieu: She had huge worries going into it: was she going to succeed, in particular when it comes to writing? But it didn’t matter in the end: she had fun working on it, and it was the start of a realization that once everything is said and done, the only thing that remains out of a book is the experience she has had working on it, as far as she’s concerned, so the only thing that matters is how much she enjoyed herself doing it.

Brunner: Does she follow any sort of process when creating a book?
Bagieu: She does write a synopsis ahead of time for validation, which is always a source of worries, but beyond that no particular methodology. So she works on her books in an almost school-like manner: plan, introduction, development, conclusion. Other creators may follow different methods: some start without necessarily knowing how the book will end.

Brunner: What form does this take?
Bagieu: A mix of words, arrows, roughs, sketches, in order the represent the staging in her head, and which only she can make heads or tails of it. They are literally impossible to display: it’s hard to even know which orientation the sheet is meant to have.

Brunner: And she has also worked with writers.
Bagieu: At the time of her being proposed La Page Blanche (which occurred before Cadavre Exquis), she requested being paired with a writer, and ended up with Boulet, which was great, in particular so she could concentrate on the illustrations, and moreso the colors: I handle the writing duties.

But she did get frustrated somewhat, as she missed not so much writing the story, as being able to stage it, which is the part she loves best. Stars Of The Stars* was another attempt at drawing someone else’s scenario, this time with Johann Sfar, who had initiated the project. None of this being out of the ordinary: there are no two pairs of writers and artists who collaborate the same way, no two writers who are alike. Sfar taught her a lot, she finds him to be an incredible storyteller.

In the end, she decided she did not want anyone else writing stories for her to draw anymore, even if she isn’t the best writer. And even if that meant leaving Stars Of The Stars stranded with a single tome.

Brunner: What kind of tooling did she use?
Bagieu: Back then, Photoshop and graphic tablet: it was just easier for her. Sometimes you have to find the right tool, as for California Dreamin’, but sometimes also get out of your comfort zone.

Brunner: On that matter, why did she draw this story?
Bagieu: First of all, she’s of course a huge fan. And she found Mama Cass’s story to be incredible and felt the need to transmit it. Her penciling came alive on the page, but any inking froze that, so she decided she would do it all in pencils.

This was her first long-haul book; she loved the feeling of spending 18 months with someone, so she came to appreciate creating biographies. If only she could tell of more women that way …

Brunner: What kind of documentation did she use for that?
Bagieu: Immersing yourself in a setting for the purpose of writing, that sounds fantastic! So she travelled to New York City, sleeping in a B&B in Greenwich Village and spending her days in cafés, and by the end of the week the book was basically written.

Brunner: To which extent does she embellish these life stories with fiction?
Bagieu: She prefers biographies that don’t lean heavily on factuals, as opposed to those that go on that date they did this then that date they did that: the biographies that made a mark on her were those from which readers received love for the person, doesn’t matter if there’s a 20-year time skip in the middle.

Which does not mean she gets to do as she pleases: there are extant relatives who could object. So she had to double-check biographical details: whether they were raised in a rich or poor family, the kind of siblings they had, etc. Her role is to provide embellishments and draw the lines between the given points as she prefers. Out of the truth, shape her own Mama Cass: the one she wants to see.

On that note, if you need background characters who nevertheless need to stay consistent from panel to panel, use your own relatives.

She’d rather introduce the subject to the reader and make him love them, rather than teaching him information.

Brunner: Did she hear from the rights holders?
Bagieu: They refused to license the lyrics, so yes she did hear about them … But other than that, when she went to Baltimore, she got feedback from someone from her parents’ generation that she did render well the high school ambiance, which she did not expect but was glad to hear.

Brunner: So what’s the relationship with Brazen?
Bagieu: Let’s do a Katia Krafft bio! No, it’d be better to do a Peggy Guggenheim one! Wait, what if I did 30 of them? She was looking for a format with Le Monde: what if she did women bios, told as children’s tales of sorts, and randomly said 30 as to how many, once every Monday? She went on to call her publisher, who said it’d have to be two books then.

Brunner: How did she settle on which ones to write?
Bagieu: She had settled on about 2/3rds of them right away, and the last third came during the course of the project: she got heaps of suggestions, not to mention those who did not make the cut and still regrets. Some who were suggested she passed on because she found them to be sufficiently well-known already, but it could also be because their stories did not connect with her. But sometimes it was love at first sight, such as when Lisa Mandel suggested Phoolan Devi¹ to her.

Brunner: That was quite a synthesis work. What was her process?
Bagieu: Oh yes, there we do learn information. She started the week with their biographies, then she’d have about two days to write and draw their chapter. This was a good exercise, as with such constraints this is what hit her that remains, and in particular their switch: the trigger, the one event where they go I’m done playing by the rules, I’m going to live my life how I decide (either in terms of career, lifestyle, etc). That was in fact her main contribution to the animated version: confirming, and in some cases reminding, of where that spot happens in the stories.

Brunner: How did she handle the publishing schedule?
Bagieu: She did do a few ahead of time, for use in rainy days and the like. But the immediate feedback kept her very motivated, as opposed to her latest book which she was done drawing back in May but isn’t out yet … (Author’s note: at the time this interview was conducted)

Brunner: No sequel then?
Bagieu: No, she’s sticking with the 30 she initially committed to. Tove Jansson never lost sight of her priorities in life, and she’s taken that in turn: she knows that if she works on something she’d rather not work on, readers will notice.

Brunner: So she has no regret on any particular one who did not make the cut?
Bagieu: No, not on one in particular, and anyway there’s nothing stopping her from from discovering more women and reading their biographies.

Brunner: And it was not intended for children specifically, was it?
Bagieu: And yet, there they are.

Brunner: Which leads us to The Witches.
Bagieu: As far as she’s concerned, the children audience is demanding, as you can’t bluff your way out, which is especially the case for drawings: she holds children book illustrators in highest esteem. So when she inadvertently brought a younger readership, she realized it was not necessary to write in a way that targets them. As a result, when she got the offer to adapt Roald Dahl, she was less afraid to do so.

That still meant some pressure, especially for backgrounds: she herself as a young reader demanded to be able to witness everything, down to the smallest detail. Luckily, everything was there in the book already: scary antagonists, funny moments, actual action. He was pretty much the only writer in children’s literature to introduce somber themes.

When she first read the book she was aged about the same as the protagonists, so it helped her get back to the right frame of mind.

Brunner: And it’s a book about grandmothers.
Bagieu: She drew a lot from her own grandmother, as part of generally making an imprint on the story: rather than being an illustrator like Quentin Blake, she was adapting the book and so needed for it to become her own, so the grandmother went from being Dahl’s to being hers as a result. As well as making a character into a girl.

Brunner: Yes, that Bruno character.
Bagieu: He made no impression on her at all, so she wondered: why is he here at all? Let’s replace him, and as we’re at it by a girl who is interesting, has her own backstory, and serves some story purpose.

Brunner: Haven’t witches evolved since then?
Bagieu: It was complicated to adapt The Witches in 2020. But it mattered for them to remain fairy tale witches, as that is what worked for her at the time, because they were impressive. But there is the grandmother who exposes and is a different kind of witch.

Brunner: What were the rights holders like?
Bagieu: A single person in fact, who was open to anything that made sense. He was very settled on some aspects: the setting being England for instance. But he accepted a female character who made sense. He reminded her of an important theme: the grandmother has to love her grandchild no mater what, and it has to be shown.

Brunner: And she created it on the road.
Bagieu: During her Brazen promo tour, so she remembers every page being done in a train or in a waiting room. The iPad was very useful for her: for instance the pencil effect, as seen in this page.

Brunner: And we get to her latest, Strates, set to release on November 10th …
Bagieu: And available at the Gallimard booth ahead of the public launch.

Brunner: Where she gets back to autobio, with moments that made an impression on her.
Bagieu: On the blogs you take highlights out of your life and make scenes out of them, without really exposing yourself: everything has to be made into comedy. Here she collected deeply personal stories, some of which aren’t funny. But it’s a jigsaw puzzle of elements that built her, out of very diverse subject matters, even if some of them appear unimportant at first glance.

Brunner: There is not even any consistent page count.
Bagieu: She’s trusting the reader to follow. This one story she wrote down ten years ago. Then years later she did three in a month. This was originally a cathartic process not meant for anyone else, but eventually she decided she should not be afraid to make a book out of it.

For this, she redrew some of the oldest ones. She thought to herself that if this was enjoyable to make, it would have to be enjoyable to read. But it’s still not easy for her, as she puts herself bare in these pages. With any luck, she hopes it has some universality and impresses other people in turn.

Audience Member: She went from bios, to an adaptation, to autobio; what’s next?
Bagieu: She does not know herself. About one week before heading into it in earnest, she’ll know. It’s never the same thing twice, because she easily gets bored. Right now she wants to do colors, painting, as Strates is in black and white; if she’s still in that state of mind in a few weeks, she’ll attempt a few pages, and if after three pages it’s still too hard, she’ll give up.

Audience Member: What would be her advice for starting out?
Bagieu: She’s not comfortable providing such advice: she started out in days that are now fully gone, and wouldn’t know how to start over today. But people today are lucky to have Instagram, even if that imposes a format constraint, which she could get bored of: she worries about Instagram formatting stories for swiping as early as inception, for fear of there not being nearly as much of an outlet for them otherwise.

Also, there are some things that shouldn’t be shown right away and need to mature, because feedback on them would catch the ego in too fragile a state.

But it is key to generally show, otherwise you never work up the nerve to do so.

Don’t worry about what pleases the public, as you’re never going to be able to hold that up in the long run: you’re going to get sick of it. Same for artificial constraints: your work as to be personal, and that comes from drawing a lot; that is how your style comes, you don’t decide it.

Existing in an era of abundance requires being demanding with the editing side: you have to demand being backed up and respected, so be careful. You must speak with other creators so as to avoid being alone, to counteract the tendency of being solitary already.

Audience Member: Do woman creators earn less?
Bagieu: Yes, big surprise here: statistically advances are lower for female creators. There has always been female creators (and readers) but now they’re spreading to other parts of the book chain, such as editors.

Things have changed in the last ten-fifteen years, and besides feminization, some commercials successes have forced the attention on them; but women creators are still invisibilized in many cases, or assigned to some boxes, etc.

It’s not the worst occupation in that regard, but not the best either. But now female creators are banding, under the descriptively-named umbrella of Collectif des Créatrices de Bandes Dessinées.

Audience Member: (Author’s note: a young girl who happened to be next to me) How did she learn how to draw?
Bagieu: As the audience member did: pencils and paper which was laying around, then art school after high school. But there are some self-taught creators, who draw better than her.

One additional piece of advice, on that matter: she herself drew a lot because she was made to treat paper and pencils as mundane: the paper won’t serve for any other purpose since there’s a bill on the other side, the pencils are old but abundant, so she was free to draw a lot. The opposite of the shiny Caran d’Ache painting set. Given disposable materials like old markers: you go ahead.

Audience Member: What kind of representation, of feminine role model did she have?
Bagieu: No, she did not know women who drew, or even the people who did: the question of who were creating comics did not occur to her. She did love Mafalda and anime as they featured girls, they were part of the action. Sometimes stories were stereotypical girl stories: rivalries, pests, etc., but it was cool to have girl protagonists. For her the golden era of French-Belgian comic book heroines starts now, with the female creators who are 20-25 today.

Audience Member: What kind of pressure does she have after her previous successes, in particular Brazen?
Bagieu: Now everything she does will be widely read as being from the creator of Brazen. Including when unrelated, such as Strates. But in the worst case, she has already put out a best-seller, so that’s something taken care of already. She’s in awe of the other creators who can keep doing books in a series, because she on the other hand has to be passionate about her work. It helps to be well backed up, and not necessarily driven to what will make the most money.

And that will wrap this year’s report from St Malo. As always, we at Fleen are grateful for the contributions of FSFCPL, and all the hard work he puts in to keep us informed of the state of webcomics in the French tradition.

Spam of the day:

The ZoomShot Pro is the new tactical zoom for smartphones and tablets that resists all types of terrain and that with its magnification up to X18 will allow you to take the best photos outdoors without the need to carry a professional camera.

Make up your mind and decide on your audience: are you trying to scam warrior wannabes with the tactical angle, or serious photographers. This is just muddled.

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¹ Editor’s note: Phoolan Devi, the Bandit Queen of India, was the one subject in the original French edition that was omitted from the US/Canada translation of Brazen.

And taking the time to produce either would prevent me from getting you to the latest festival report from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, and we can’t have that.

Thanks to Ted Naifeh, I now have my cosplayer identity: Unkempt Superman. At first I thought this was about my hair: I haven’t bothered cutting my pandemic hair, plus the bad weather outside wasn’t doing it any favors. But I realized my attempts to help fellow festival-goers identify my costume (this was on Halloween’s day), namely having my cape stick out of my collar, and my shirt being open in front, doubled as painting the image of a Clark Kent who had barely had time to change back from his superheroing duties. So I’m definitely keeping the image of a superhero that goes increasingly unkept as the festival progresses; in fact, as soon as masks are off (vaccines providing sterilizing immunity can’t come soon enough), this will include increasing amounts of stubble.

This year, Quai des Bulles took advantage of November 1st (a holiday in France) falling on a Monday to go from three days to four, and while this was a good way to compensate for the cancellation of last year’s edition, this also meant this was my first four-day festival.

As the first large-scale festival in months (remember the 2021 edition of Lyon BD had limited scale, and no publisher presence), this was the occasion to reconnect with some creators, such as Cy, which I hadn’t seen (except through a screen) since the release of her latest work, Radium Girls (to be available stateside from Iron Circus in 2022), so lining for a signing with her was a no-brainer. But also the occasion to meet creators I had never seen in a festival before, such as Gally: she has illustrated l’Esprit Critique (a McCloudesque treatise in defense of critical thinking) and created Mon Gras et Moi (My Fat And I), so of course I had her sign both.

And I of course couldn’t skip having John Allison sign one of his Giant Days collections at the Akileos booth (where Naifeh was as well). While Akileos does not have all the interesting adaptations of non-cape English language sequential art (the adaptation of Witch Boy was found elsewhere), they do publish the French editions of Stand Still Stay Silent, of Jen Wang’s recent works, of pretty much everything by Raina Telgemeier, and as you may have guessed those of Allison and Naifeh. While I had caught a glimpse of Allison at Angoulême in 2020, Angoulême also is a big mayhem and I couldn’t manage to meet him at the time. So many thanks to Akileos in general.

Also returning were the fairy tale performances, the drawn concert performance, the painted shop windows, exhibitions (including one of Pénélope Bagieu’s works), and various events such as movie projections. In fact, it would be easier to list the differences: the previously mentioned extra day, the absence of in-hall food options (which was a relief to me), way fewer small scale meetups in bars or the like (which is fortunate, because I don’t think I’d have attended them; in unrelated news, cases were already on the rise at the time in France), and most significantly, an impressive pipeline for validating the mandatory health pass (either vaccination, certificate of remission from COVID-19, or a recent test) before you were given the festival bracelet, valid for the day, that would allow you to enter the festival spaces. In the end, while there were lines at times, everything otherwise went smoothly all things considered, which is testament to the festival organizers.

Stay tuned, I should soon be done transcribing the interview Vincent Brunner did of Bagieu about her whole career, but in particular her latest release, Strates.

We at Fleen, as always, thank FSFCPL for his contributions, and will share the Bagieu interview as soon as it is ready.

I got an email about a new Image series of original graphic novels set in the world of The Walking Dead, which is something that I have zero interest in. Comics, TV, video games, cultural phenomenon, none of it holds the slightest degree of compulsion for me whatsoever. What’s that? It’s the start of a new imprint at Image of YA/middle grade graphic novels? Nice, but still no interest in this book, or the two that will follow it. I’ll keep my eye on the imprint in the future, but I get the feeling it’s mostly going to be spinoffs of Image properties so maybe I get stuff down the line, maybe I don’t.

Except.

Except that the book in question, Clementine, Book One¹, due in June 2022, is by Tillie Walden, and that makes all the difference because Tillie Walden — as previously determined here at Fleen — is hell of rad. Okay, Image, hit me:

It’s a new beginning for Clementine … as she’s back on the road, looking to put her traumatic past behind her and forge a new path all her own. But when she comes across an Amish teenager named Amos, the unlikely pair journeys north to an abandoned ski resort in Vermont, where they meet up with a small group of teenagers attempting to build a new, walker-free settlement. As friendship, rivalry, and romance begin to blossom amongst the group, the harsh winter soon reveals that the biggest threat to their survival … might be each other.

The press release email contains the first eight pages of Chapter One — the splash page of which I’ve shared above — and they are very Waldenesque. Much as I don’t care about The Walking Dead, I’m very curious to see how she works on a non-original IP, and with rights holders that have their own opinions on how the story should turn out. Clementine, Book One releases on 22 June, 2022, and will be the launch title for the Skybound Comet imprint².

Spam of the day:

I wanna Do Bad things tonight b’b free access 4 you only Unsubscribe If you no longer wish to receive

Is this where I point out that the line in the email that says If you wish to Unsubscribe click here is plain text and not a link?

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¹ Apparently, the character comes from a video game adaptation.

² That link doesn’t work yet; I imagine they’ll get around to it presently.

Oh, Last Week With John Oliver, you find the best things to spend money on and you’re sending them on tour to the Cartoon Art Museum in January and I need to find some way to see them in person. It’s not on the website yet so let me quote the press release liberally:

The Cartoon Art Museum is pleased to announce that it will host a public exhibition of The Last Week Tonight Masterpiece Gallery in January thanks to the generous patronage of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. The Last Week Tonight Masterpiece Gallery will complete its national tour in San Francisco at the Cartoon Art Museum as part of John Oliver’s effort to showcase his unique art collection and to highlight museums that have been impacted by the global pandemic. The Cartoon Art Museum has been awarded a $10,000 donation from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver to facilitate the exhibition, and the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank will receive a $10,000 matching donation.

The three works featured in the Masterpiece Gallery include a painting of talk show host Wendy Williams preparing to eat a lamb chop; a still life of ties painted by Judy Kudlow, wife of Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow, and Stay Up Late, a painting by Pennsylvania-based artist Brian Swords, which depicts two anthropomorphized rats engaged in an act that inspired Oliver to proclaim the piece “high-quality rat erotica.” [emphasis original]

In non-rat erotica news:

• The Quai des Bulles Festival will be in St Malo, France between 29 October (that would be Friday, the day after tomorrow) and 1 November (that would be Monday). If my rudimentary (at best) French is to be believed, it’s the 40th iteration of QdB, which is a nicely auspicious round number. Folks like Pénélope Bagieu will have public meetups, and creators such as John Allison, Cy, Pascal Jousselin, and Rodolphe — all mentioned on this page, some more than others — are expected to be in attendance.
• For those on the correct side of the Atlantic, but perhaps not the correct side of the Channel, Thought Bubble will be held in the Harrowgate Convention Centre in Yorkshire a mere two weeks later; the likes of Cecil Castelluci, Sarah Graley, Ron Wimberly, John Allison, and Marc Ellerby will be guesting, and exhibitors will include Avery Hill Publishing, Doug Wilson, Tiny Wizards, and Widdershins — also variously mentioned on this page.

It’s a weird time for comics shows, and the spread-out festival type appears to have a better shot at keeping guests and attendees safe than the massive nerd herds of the super shows, but all the same — get your shots, keep your distance, and wear a mask. Reports from the shows as practicality and time allow.

Spam of the day:

This is because it’ s shown that if these lethal toxins accumulate in your body they can ATTACK the pancreas and liver…making it virtually impossible to regulate your blood sugar…

Please peddle your bullshit to somebody who does not know that the purpose of the liver is to remove toxins from the body, and that very little can damage it apart from prolonged alcohol abuse or certain mycotoxins you get from eating the wrong mushrooms. Milk, coffee, orange juice, and black tea do not come from the wrong mushrooms.

Discuss.

It is one of the most magical days of the year, as today is the day John Allison was born which means (as previously established) it is also the day Ryan North was born. Two such fine members of webcomicdom sharing a birthday? That never happens. Happy Birthdays (Birthsday?) Ryan and John, and many happy returns¹

And it is also the day that I catch up with the latest Iron Circus Kickstart, this one for Real Hero Shit by Kendra Wells. Wells, you may recall, is a favorite around these parts, and the description of RHS caught my eye, especially this bit:

Every day is Spring Break for Eugene, but outside palace walls, he crashes into a hard reality: the system that keeps him safe in his silk-sheeted bed isn’t particularly concerned with the well-being of anyone who isn’t him. Eugene will have to level-up his awareness if he means to be a real hero, and time is running short! [emphasis original]

So that’s sword and sorcery, plenty of queer representation, and a critique of entrenched, generational power structures. Sounds good. Stretch goals include prints and pins, and are about to unlock as the campaign approaches US$40K on a goal of US$15K. It’s a short campaign, having launched the day before yesterday and wrapping up in a mere 9 days more — why hang about when you got books to sell and fulfillment to start hopefully before the friggin’ Post Office gets even more gutted around the start of the year². FFF mk2 says US$53K +/- 10.6K, or somewhere in the US$42.4K – US$63.6K range, but the calculations aren’t built for short runs like this, so we’ll all see whether the Factor or the McDonald Ratio holds true in about ten days.

Spam of the day:

32-second ritual cures back pain (do this tonight)

Is this one of those rituals that you have to like strangle a marmot or you can’t achieve orgasm? Because I’m not strangling any marmots even to relieve my back pain.

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¹ All returns must be accompanied by a receipt.

² The apparently-unfireable hack that Trump appointed to run the USPS has decreed that First Class Mail slow down in 2022, meaning it will get worse by pretty much the only metric that matters — how soon your shit gets to where it’s supposed to. Louis DeJoy can fuck off into the ocean.

There’s some combinations that are always going to work; individual item is incredibly wonderful on its own, and each immeasurably made better when combined with the other. Gin and lime. Bob and Ray. Bugs and Daffy. Jim Henson and Frank Oz.

Hope Larson and Rebecca Mock.

Larson is a writer and illustrator of comics that has spun many a quality tale. Mock is a comics artist and illustrator that has worked with everybody from Archie to The New Yorker Radio Hour. Together, they made the wonderful Four Points books in 2016 and 2017, and since not long after have been working on their next collaboration.

Salt Magic is what The Wizard Of Oz might have looked like if it stayed on the sod-rich prairies instead of flitting off to a fairy kingdom. Based on character designs that Mock has posted over the years, I said it looked like a Hayao Miyazaki collaboration with Jeff Smith’s BONE; I was talking purely about visual aesthetics, but hell if that comparison doesn’t actually work on the story as well. Mild spoilers ahead, but not too much.

There’s a formula to a Miyazaki story — the protagonist (usually a young woman, 10-12 years old) gets swept up in the larger world outside her home. Magic and mundanity both exist but usually there’s a boundary between them, or the two domains are otherwise separate (for example, Spirited Away), or with one ascending the other fading (for example, Princess Mononoke) but some crossover still possible. BONE opted for a world where the fantastic and the ordinary exist and can be travelled between if only you’re willing to walk far enough¹, likely through some inhospitable terrain.

And in Miyazaki’s tellings, at least, the denizens of the magic lands aren’t malicious, per se, but may be misunderstood or have priorities and mores that are different enough at to make them seem antagonistic to the main character. Conflicts are more likely the result of ignorance or misunderstanding that actual aggression. Yes, this is oversimplified, but work with me.

Salt Magic is the story of an Oklahoma at the end of the Great War where there are still witches with very specific domains — the salt witch that wields the titular magic, a sugar witch, the mention of crystal witches — that most people seem to have just forgotten exist. Or maybe they’re just too isolated, to disinterested in the affairs of the ordinary world. To stray into their lands is to encounter risk, perhaps none greater than if they like you.

Which is what’s happened to multiple generations of twelve year old Vonceil’s sod-busting family, though nobody quite figures it out until she does. In her eyes, the greatest crime is that her beloved older brother is returned from war and settling down with a wife who commits the greatest crime Vonceil can imagine: she makes him ordinary. Why couldn’t he have stayed in glamourous Europe and fallen in love with a beautiful nurse and stayed there and she could visit him in that far-off, nigh-magical place?

There’s a saying about getting what you wish for. Vonceil’s brother, Elber, would be the classic hero that leaves home for adventure and returns, but he didn’t find adventure; he found two years of grinding hell in the trenches and carries scars (both visible and invisible) for his troubles. Unlike the Campbellian hero, he hasn’t returned home having achieved a great quest and saved anything or achieved great wisdom; you could say he descended to an underworld of sorts. But as it turns out he did cross paths with a witch, a salt witch, and she loves him though he has spurned her, and the spring that sustains the family farm will run only with salt water until he loves her again.

Did Vonceil’s wish kick all of this into gear? Was it her that caused this to happen? Whether that’s the case or not — and to my eye it’s nicely ambiguous — she figures it’s her job to fix it, as she’s the only one that can see it’s a curse in play and not bad luck. She’s young enough, starry-eyed enough, focused on the horizon enough to slip into the territory of witches and find a way to bargain, to free her brother and maybe unravel her family’s history with witches in the bargain. She pays a price and learns the meaning of sacrifice along the way, but nobody ever quite realizes what she did to bring about peace between the two worlds.

Larson’s writing is sharp and subtle, creating characters in broad strokes and then filling them in with quirks and slowly-revealed detail until they are as complete any any of the great characters in the famous stories. Dorothy, Gawain, Peach Boy, Anansi, the Witch Of The Waste, Ged, Granma Ben, Nausicaä, she’s all of them and more.

Mock’s artwork is the best of her career, with clean, engaging character designs with magnificently expressive faces. They sit in their environments with a sense of heft, and both motion and the effects of magic move about on the page in a manner that’s instantly understandable. Mock and Larson were a formidable team on Four Points; they are five years better here. The only question left when you finish Salt Magic is when they will work together again, and how much better they will be individually and together.

Salt Magic is published by Margaret Ferguson Books and is available wherever books or comics are sold. It’s a magnificent read for anybody old enough to keep their attention through a 200+ page story.

Spam of the day:

Hey! gary.tyrrellyou block me on Whatsapp?! – I am hurt.

The thing I am most upset about in this pornspam is the assumption that I would use Whatsapp, which is owned by Facebook, in the first place. Ew.

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¹ Which Miyazaki dabbled in with Kiki’s Delivery Service, where witches just exist in this Europe where World War II never happened and to a lesser degree Laputa where the magic is actually a secret, forgotten technology that proves Clarke’s Law.