Reports now indicate that Steven Cloud is not dead, repeat, not dead, although circumstances dictated that Team Best Intentions Tea & Travel abandon their beloved Nissa Micra 150 miles into Mongolia, so close to Ulan Bator they could practically smell it. Okay, so close in this case means covering the remaining distance took two days in a bus with progressively more people crammed in it (possibly the proverbial Mike-Charlie-Foxtrot). Nevertheless, they made it bodily intact to the finish line to whoop it up with other teams, despite both skilled and unskilled police/border guards trying to take them for all they were worth, and some being compelled to grow some truly terrifying beards.

Our latest communiqués place Cloudy well on his way home …

I’m chilling in Seoul at the airport. Free internet stations. That’s class.

… thus making it unlikely that we at Fleen will need to run the epitaph that was pre-arranged in the unfortunate circumstances of Mr Cloud’s passing:

Steven Cloud, killed by Gypsies, in accordance with prophecy.

Onward:

• Oh my Dawkins, it looks like they’re actually doing it.
• Work conspired against Kate Beaton running more of her hourly comics, but she more than made up for it by embedding an infectious little piece of music in her LJ post. I must seek out these “Golden Dogs” for further study, seeing as how I can’t stop playing their song. Please stop hogging all the cool bands, Canada.
• Tom Brazelton continues to make progress toward the cost of restoring his trashed hard drive (amazingly, he appears to have irretrievably lost only one MP3 and one Photoshop temp file). How are you coming along with your backup/archive plans?
• Finally, from John Baird, more writeups of webcomickry at the recently-concluded Otakon, from himself, and from Erin Ptah.

Big thing, via community servant extraordinaire John Baird:

On June 24, 2008, the Create a Comic Project was awarded a Small Neighborhood Grant from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (CFGNH). The award will go toward sponsoring the Comic Making Tournament III, the CCP’s major annual event where children wield their imaginations to create their sequential art masterpieces.
The Comic Making Tournament III is planned to take place in either March or May 2009. Like the previous tournaments, it is aimed at the population of disadvantaged children in New Haven. The tournament hands out prizes that these children would not normally be able to afford, such as art books and supplies, as well as graphic novels and webcomic apparel.

The tournament will feature a number of events for the kids to compete in, such as creating single page comics, multi-page comics, and arranging panels in nonlinear fashion. The tournament, like the comic project, will use two types of templates for its events: blank comics for children to draw their own and those with art but without words for children to provide the dialogue.

Small things:

• Been following and Chris Baldwin‘s diary comic since well before my dog showed up as a bit player. Not visible in this drawing: the blissed-out look on her face from Baldwin’s attentive ear-scritching.
• For some reason, I don’t feel like shouting AAAAAAH EYES because the color is so pretty; as A Girl and Her Fed careens towards strip number 500, the plot just keeps drawing me further in.
• First “bork”, now “snailing”. Sweden is full of linguistically-creative perverts.
• So my wife calls down the stairs to me on Saturday evening, “Turn on the radio! Lore‘s on All Things Considered!” This was supposed to happen about six weeks ago, but better late than never.
• Finally, Only 939 views (as of this writing)? C’mon, people, it’s the Clango & Granulac show! RS3 asking the collected brainpower of Google how to make webcomics more easily content-searchable? That’s him doing all of you a solid.

Let’s get started, shall we?

• J Baird (you remember him from the Create a Comic Project here, here, and here) wrote to us in search of artists:
  

  I’m working on putting together a simple teaching guide concerning kids and comics. It won’t be anything on McCloud‘s level, but it’ll give some nice tips on how to simplify certain aspects of comics that may prove useful to potential volunteers. Like Rousse-Deane‘s The Kid’s Book Project, the guide is not for profit.

  More details of what Baird’s looking for over at ComixTalk.

• Also at ComixTalk, it’s gang interview time with the lads of Blank Label.
• Redesigns ho! Starslip Crisis (now with new, shorter URL and a spoiler-laden but concise new reader’s guide) and Las Bragas del Diablo are sporting new looks this morning. In addition to the new look, Starslip creator Kris Straub has a blogposting that nicely illustrates the fact that challenges inherent to achieving the status of professional webcomicker aren’t necessarily the same as the challenges to staying there. Compelling stuff; would-be pros, ignore at your peril.
• Advice for the budding webcartoonist from the woman who causes me to live in terror and who also wrote this nippleriffic little ditty. >sigh< Is it too much to ask that I be able to go a month without fear of being murdered?

I love it when I get to follow up on a good story. Longtime readers of Fleen may recall previous discussions of John Baird and his Create a Comic Project at the New Haven Free Public Library, and Baird has written to tell us that today:

… the Create a Comic Project will celebrate its one year anniversary. It has touched the lives of dozens of children, with over 2000 comics produced by kids from every walk of life. As a youth literacy activity, the project has had tremendous success in inspiring children to create their own stories — to shape their own worlds — using webcomics as the spark to kindle imagination’s torch.

In addition to the regular weekly sessions, the comic project has conducted workshops, a tournament, and even been tested in a university classroom. It has been sponsored by several organizations, including Yale University, the New Haven Public Library, and the Human Services Center Corporation. Its first tournament drew support from several local businesses in New Haven.

Most importantly, the Create a Comic Project has found support from numerous comic creators, including Shaenon Garrity, Kazu Kibuishi, T Campbell, and Phil Foglio. Special thanks goes to Yukihime, who provided inspiration with his Penny Arcade Remix Project; Emily Snodgrass, whose webcomic was the first used; Erin Ptah, who’s helped provide hi-res art; and Robert Anke, who brought the project into his own classroom. Over 50 different comics have pledged their support for the comic project. Without the permission of these creators to use their art for community outreach, none of these accomplishments would have been possible.

The next year promises to be even more edifying. The comic project will continue to orient youths to the creative medium of comics through workshops and sessions. It has been awarded a grant supporting a second Comic Making Tournament (coming March 8, 2008) from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. Also, a research study will examine the potential benefits of using the activity in education.

Awesome job there, John. If you’re interested in what else can be done with comics to do good in your corner of the world, Baird has written a series of essays on the theme of Comics and Community Service; please note that this is the good kind of community service, not the kind that misbehaving celebrities get sentenced to.

We’ve written about John Baird and his Create A Comic Project at the New Haven Free Public Library previously, so it was a pleasure to hear from Baird that he’s got new stuff on tap, and you (yes, you) can help out:

On June 2 the Create a Comic Project (CCP) will have a Comic Making Tournament (CMT). The CMT will be at the New Haven Public Library in New Haven, CT, on June 2 from 11 AM – 2 PM. A brief summary of the tournament is here.

There are several sponsors for the event (including Yale University), but volunteers to help with judging are greatly needed. Anyone in the New England area is welcome, especially webcomic artists. Any comic creator who shows up will be dubbed a celebrity judge. The chief reward for doing this will be a massive ego boost from being treated as awesome by several dozen kids.

One idea for a concluding tournament event: all the children will issue a mock challenge to the artists for a comic making showdown, á la Iron Chef. This should prove to be a very fun time!

If you’re interested in helping, please send me an email to createacomic at NOSPAM gmail dot com. Thank you!

Man, I wish I could attend that. Given the number of New England-located webcomickers, there better be at least one that shows up in a Chairman Kaga costume. I’m looking at you, Southworth.

Scott McCloud has some last-minute changes to his speaking tour; if you live anywhere near Cheyenne, Wyoming (and I realize that out thataway, the concept of “near” is somewhat fluid), you can join in on the fun on Wednesday at the Laramie County Public Library, 7pm. Also please consider that the McCloud family minivan will be ass-haulin’ from South Dakota to Wyoming to Montana, so if you see them in your rear-view, pull over to let ’em pass.

In other news, Dinosaur Comics is about to turn 1000 strips old! But this week is Guest Week, so does that count? Maybe! Today’s strip is numbered #993, which means that sometime next week the strip odometer rolls over. In any event, today’s strip (by the dudes from Dr McNinja) is pure, distilled awesome and features bacon and a secret Achewood (which is today the source of my new favorite saying) shout-out. What more could you want?

And lastly: new SGR book. Ryan dies and Tim gets run out as mayor and Esther and The Boy get it on in a caravan in Wales and there’s Devil Bears and Rachel and Tessa and crime doin’ and justice is served via giant bazongas!

So with the Wikibattle now engaged further and further from the realms of logic. Short form:

1. Ugly Hill is not notable and should be deleted
2. Ugly Hill is published by Viper Comics
3. Therefore, Viper Comics is not notable, and therefore also should be deleted

How about some good news instead? Alert reader Geiseric sent us a link to the Yale Daily News, about a program at the New Haven Free Public Library that’s using webcomics to teach literacy and writing skills. Project creator John Baird previously used the technique when teaching English in Taiwan:

“The breakthrough occurred when I came across [a comic] … with the text blanked out,� he said. “Students then filled in the blank comics in English using whatever language skills they possessed.�

No clue what [a comic] means, but there’s been a prior example or two of webcomics being used to this end, both overseas and stateside, so I can offer a guess. More good news:

Although it has only been a few months since the program began, Baird said, he has noticed his students’ writing skills improve significantly. He encourages students to observe cues in the pictures when writing in dialogue — a method he feels teaches them how to creates scenes that are situation-appropriate. If the students see an angry person in the comic, he said, they learn not to use words that connote happiness. With time, they are also encouraged to draw their own comics.

Of course, you can see where this is going:

1. Yale Daily News reports on a program at the New Haven Free Public Library involving webcomics
2. By Wikipolicy, the vast majority of webcomics are not notable and should be deleted
3. Therefore, Yale Daily News and the New Haven Free Public Library are not notable, and should be deleted

This chain of logic will eventually encompass everything and everyone that you know, love, or might love you someday. To spare the Wikicrowd any further anguish, I’m pre-emptively declaring both Fleen and myself to be non-notable. However, given the perversity of the situation, I rather expect to be getting emails that I’ve been duly enshrined, and proposed for deletion. You know — just another Friday afternoon.

Update: The Fleen Request Line just got a dedication request. “Owen” sends out todays Beevnicks to “Brad” and “Paul”.