Getting back into the swing of work, a bit behind, so perhaps you’ll forgive me if I point you towards some things that I’ve noticed over the last little bit and forgo the more thinky things like the Harvey nominations?

• For starters, we’re coming up on the opening of We Love Webcomics at Doublepunch Gallery in San Francisco. It’ll feature the works of incredibly, almost stupidly talented people. Quite frankly, it would be worthwhile to attend if it featured no more than three random Showdowns, any two Rebecca Clement whimsies, and Natasha Allegri’s tribute to Snooki. As it turns out, I have no special knowledge that any of those things will be present, but then again, you could substitute just about anything by Campbell, Clement and Allegri and have it rock, not to mention the work of Furuichi, Green, Jonathan, and more. Those in the westerly climes, do check it out for us, yes?
• Late-breaking realization #37: by not attending SDCC this year, I am missing out on obvious purchasing opportunities. Under normal circumstances I’d be picking up copies of the new Chainsawsuit, Starslip, Scenes From A Multiverse, Penny Arcade, Super Stupor, Drive, and Flight collections. Just the shipping on all of these books is almost enough to justify the flight and hotel costs for the week¹. That’s not even considering that I wouldn’t be able to pick up the newest Schlock Mercenary and Digger books, since Tayler and Vernon won’t be there either. Gonna be an expensive July….
• Doing me the favor of not having a new book that needs purchasing, the ever-mysterious E Burgoon passed some information to us² regarding some of his(?) recent semi-covert activities. Of greatest interest is the fact that Burgoon has worked a deal with the seemingly-legitimate front organization friendly local comic shop, Empire’s Comics Vault in Sacramento, to offer seminars designed to bring more artists and writers to webcomickry. It’s possible that there may even be video of the first of these for your edification and/or viewing pleasure in the near future.

Okay. Going slightly off script here for a moment; I think that I’ve calmed down enough to approach this rationally and not go on the written equivalent of a tower-based shooting spree. A few hours ago I read this:

[Blog] : One chapter ends, another begins… http://www.mindpollution.org/2011/07/05/one-chapter-ends-another-begins/

… which lead to the unwelcome news that Rick Marshall, consummate comics reportage pro and relentless booster of webcomics, has been let go from this position at MTV Splash Page (no link, because screw them). Rick’s way too much of a gentleman to see this as anything but an opportunity to explore new projects, but I’m not. I’m going to say that MTV are foolish for not realizing what a resource they had (Rick’s Rolodex is deep and broad, and his interviews revealed a knowledge of comics to match); keeping him on a blog with the too-narrow focus of comics-meets-movies-and-TV was understandable when that was all that MTV had in the way of comics coverage, but not asking him to helm their dedicated comics blog (MTV Geek; again, no link because still screw them) was shortsighted in the extreme³.

So, if you’re looking for somebody that exemplifies journalistic best practices and has a deep and abiding love of comics and all they do, drop Rick a line — he makes the rest of us that dabble in banging out copy look bad, while making the medium, its creators, and fans look very, very good. Anybody that’s lucky enough to snatch him up will be lucky to have his talents working on their behalf.

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¹ It is very, very expensive to ship to the Fleenplex.

² Via the traditional dead-drop, as befits his(?) strict adherence to the best practices of tradecraft.

³ Which should not be construed as a criticism of anybody that MTV did invite in to work on MTV Geek. There’s some good work being done over there, but I think you’ll forgive me if I decline to read it in future.

The rumor and innuendo swirling about was damn near impenetrable. Suddenly, a mysterious message appeared in my inbox, promising shadowy secrets in webcomics, and for once it didn’t come from Eben Burgoon. Who could the beardy figure in that photograph be? The possibilities are endless, although the filename — prof_smith — offered tantalizing possibilities, but nothing concrete. Then I just read the email and it was all obvious:

[W]e’re making a PHD movie! — Jorge

Yeah, probably shoulda just read the damn thing first ‘stead-a getting all worked up. Jorge Cham (for it was he that sent the not-very-mysterious email) tells us that it’s not yet decided how/when/where the movie rolls out, but if they went to the trouble to find a guy that’s such a dead ringer for Professor Smith, I’m guessing that the project is planned well enough to see completion on time, under budget, and without any hint of procrastination. Jorge would never procrastinate. Besides, if you look closely enough at the picture, there are playback controls, so I’m betting a significant chunk of the film is “in the can”, as they say in Hollywood (or Hollllywood as Bullwinkle tells us is correct, with “three or four Ls”).

Now, the only question is if Cham plays the (thus-far nameless) POV character in the movie.

In other news:

• New books have been announced by Rich Burlew and Paul Taylor. They would be, respectively, the special-to-Dragon-magazine monthly strips that ran outside of regular Order of the Stick continuity, and the post we-kicked-the-calendar-machine’s-ass strips from Wapsi Squre. For good measure, Burlew will be donating $1 per copy of Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales bought or pre-ordered this month to the Japanese Red Cross for earthquake and tsunami relief.
• Per The Beat, the nominations for the Stumptown Awards have been announced, to be held on 16-17 April in conjunction with the Stumptown Comics Festival in Portland “Stumptown” Oregon¹.

  What I found refreshing is that that Stumptown Award jury, in contrast to pretty much every other comics-related awards program — has essentially drawn no distinction between webcomics and not-webcomics. Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder: Voice (cf: here) looks to be the most-honored work, and it’s a web-to-print creation. But look at the multiple nominations for Emily Carroll’s His Face All Red, which is purely a webcomic.

  Carroll’s not up for Best Artist That Doesn’t Use Paper or Best Colorist That Works In Pixels, she’s up for Best Artist and Best Colorist, period. Heck, Ben Costa’s nomination for Best Colorist nod is listed as for Pang: The Wandering Shaolin Monk, but is that for the book or the webcomic? It doesn’t matter, and the Stumptown Awards are the first to really erase that distinction. Bravo.

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¹ Stumptown, Stumptown, Stumptown, smock!

That would be trying to catch up everything at work the day after a snow day. Which is why I’m terribly behind on my reading (again), and will be dipping into the mailbag so as not to post nothing. If the Fimbulvetr continues, those of you with press releases will have a much better chance than usual to get them run.

• Item! Friend to words-with-pictures everywhere and curator of the Cartoon Art Museum Andrew Farago (aka Prince Consort to the Radness Queen of the Greater Bay Area) would like very much for you to come to an event next month:
  

  San Francisco, CA: The Cartoon Art Museum welcomes celebrated cartoonists Aaron Renier and Jason Shiga on Thursday, February 17, 2011 as Renier celebrates the release of his new book, The Unsinkable Walker Bean, published by First Second Books and Shiga presents his innovative graphic novel Meanwhile, published by Abrams ComicArts. Please join Renier and Shiga at 7:00pm for a discussion of their latest books, followed by a signing in the museum’s bookstore. Copies of The Unsinkable Walker Bean and Meanwhile will be available for purchase onsite. Please call 415.227.8666, ext. 310 to reserve a copy. The suggested donation for this event is $5.

  If you didn’t read Meanwhile, go find a copy and leaf through it — it’s a pick-your-path comic so complex that new computer software had to be constructed from base theory in order to track all of the story paths. And Walker Bean was one of the standout books that First Second sent me last year, one that I’d recommend to reader that’s … let’s say eight and up. Fabulous stuff.

• Item! Back in the Spring, when snow seemed far away, we spoke a bit about Flash interface comics (also about David Malki !‘s Big Paper conspiracy theory), and as such brought up Red Light Properties. Creator Dan Goldman has been hard at work, seeing as how he’s about to crank out his 250th update in just over a year; given that he has to construct interactive features into each update, that’s quite a accomplishment. If you haven’t read the story of a Miami real estate office run by a hallcinogen-boosted shaman, his broker ex-wife, and the“previously-haunted” homes that they flip, maybe you should.
• Item! Speaking of Mr Malki !, everybody should read this. Doesn’t matter if you’re working on a webcomic, or any kind of creative endeavour. Just read it.
• Item! Spy talk, cryptic remark, offhand reference to Eben07 by Eben Burgoon. Clancyesque, overblown description of clandestine meeting. Fake intelligence report on the wrap-up of the second chapter of the on-going series Operation: 3-Ring Bound. Mission instructions that Burgoon is expected to lie low for a two month hiatus to build up a buffer of comics and to obtain all possible information on his work in the meantime, perhaps by listening to the Full Disclosure podcast.

  Tip that known associate Lauren Monardo of Brainfood Comics (which succeeded with its Kickstart, woo!) is providing the variant cover to the new Eben07 book, now available for pre-order. Cut-off sentence evoking danger and disaster. Honestly, it all reads a bit like a semi-drunken pastiche of the far superior work of Department Head Rawlings¹.

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¹ REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS, EYES ONLY
Have planted rumor that previous leaked intelligence reports regarding subject: Burgoon were only meant as attempts at humor. Believe that this version of events will take root and become dominant. Continue operations as normal and initiate protocol omega.

Nothing like a Monday off, except when there’s a mountain of news that piles up over the weekend.

• From PAX came the news that there’s going to be a new webcomic in town, and much like the 1960s when the news could break that talented musicians from different groups were coming together to form a supergroup, this one is coming from established stars of the medium, viz., Messers Holkins, Krahulik, and Kurtz.

  Not much known right now beyond the name and basic concept: The Trenches will focus on a group of videogame testers, and the one teaser image released so far visually sits exactly in the middle of Kurtz & Krahulik’s artistic stylings. For me, the most intriguing part of it all is the name, because when I hear about The Trench(es), my mind goes back to another group of three young guys (as they were then) who set their minds to challenges and made things happen. I’ll let Jerry, Mike, and Scott argue who is FIDO, who is GUIDO, and who is RETRO, since they’re all equally cool (which is to say, nearly as cool as EECOM).

• Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Phil & Kaja Foglio (indeed, all of Studio Foglio) received the news that Girl Genius Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm was the winner of the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. One may note Studio Foglio, having won this particular award twice in its two years of existence, are a supergroup in their own right.

  One might also note that although Howard Tayler’s Schlock Mercenary: The Longshorman of the Apocalypse didn’t win, by all accounts he enjoyed a lovely trip to Melbourne in conjunction with the nomination. Congrats to Tayler, the Foglios, and Girl Genius colorist Cheynne Wright.

• Okay, calling it now — as of today, Intervention is not allowed to drop any more last-minute news. Today came the announcement that the new con and its spacial/temporal neighbor SPX will be cross-promoting each other, with the shows giving out weekend passes to encourage attendees to take in both events.
• Anniversaries: The wholly mysterious Eben07 turns three years old today (intercepted satcom intelligence image here), Funny Webcomic hit 500 strips yesterday, and Kevin & Kell hit a literally unprecedented fifteen years last Friday. Yikes.

That would be 500 strips worth of Mulitplex from Gordon McAlpin (my gentlemen’s bet nemesis, coming up on one year into the 3 to 5 year lifespan of said wager) and 3000 strips worth of Unshelved by Gene Ambaum (friend to one and all) and Bill Barnes (my nemesis on everything except the friendly wager with Gordon).

And if my sums are correct (which they may not be), Thursday will mark 1000 strips worth of Girls With Slingshots [link not valid yet] by Danielle Corsetto (even friendlier to one and all than Gene Ambaum). So that’s all right.

• On the other end of the spectrum, we have a brand new webcomic for your consideration — Mimi and Eunice. Ordinarily, a comic that started sometime last month wouldn’t be mentioned here, but two things distinguish M&E:
  1. It’s by Nina Paley, who applied the free content (or “webcomic”) model to an entire feature film that kicked ass
  2. The archive already has 16 entries for August 2010 and an astonishing 115 for July 2010

  At the moment, it’s easy to search out M&E strips by topic, but there’s effectively no dating or archive system. This is a bit weird, but given that the strips aren’t topical or plot-driven, my initial suspicion of this situation may not be entirely warranted. In the meantime, M&E rewards random topic-diving.

• Following up on a post from last November, wherein we noted that the mysterious Eben07 would be “doing print” with Brain Food Comics, an outgrowth of The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs: BFC has since also picked up the print bid’ness of Dinoman, and is now in the “cash intensive” phase of expansion. Kickstart[er]ing is not unusual in these cases, but the donation patterns on this fundraiser caught my eye: all pledges are currently at the $50, $75, and $100 levels, with none at the more economical $5, $10, $20, or $30 levels.

  This would seem to indicate a fairly high level of buy-in from fans of the associated comics, as nobody’s opted for the cheap donation levels. Conventional wisdom has been that you can’t succeed in business catering to a narrow (but free-spending) audience without a broader base, but with better than 10% of goal in the first two days of the pledge period? Maybe the “long tail” can be stubbier than we all thought.

Most days, the stories, news, and emails suggest a sort of commonality, but it’s not working too well at the moment. Let’s see if something pops up as we go along.

• Winning the Best Title of 2010 award in the prestigious “Fleenies”, Vepo Studios presents Whazamo! State of the Art: Webcomics, a profile of webcomickers at this year’s TCAF. Ramón Pérez, Hurricane Erika, and The Toronto Man-Mountain are featured in the five-minute mini-edudrama.
• The Best Creator’s Pitch Fleenie goes to Chris Eliopolous for the best possible reason to read Misery Loves Sherman:
  

  Just go read my damn strip already. It don’t come any cheaper.

Nope, haven’t got any more of those, and we all know you need at least three things to make a theme. But we do have some comings and goings to note:

• Dirk Tiede’s Paradigm Shift is due to return from hiatus on Tuesday, 1 June, as Part 4 kicks off the start of Act II. Considering that Act I took more than ten years (including the self-publishing of three books) to complete, a half-year hiatus ain’t so bad.
• Over at Hello With Cheese, it appears that co-creator and artist-half Bryan Prindiville has moved on; thanks to the extensive buffer, Prindiville actually stopped drawing two weeks ago, but the new artist doesn’t start for a few weeks yet. Prindiville will bow out on Almost A Big Round Number strip #250, on 4 June.
• Having wrapped up Act I of Operation: 3-Ring Bound, the mysterious creators of the spy-themed webcomic Eben07 (of whom no photographs are known to exist, and who are believed to sport modified finger- and iris-prints) will be on break for a month or so.

  Signals intelligence has them taking time to put their report of proceedings through review and classification before distribution to the appropriate departments. It is imperative that copies be obtained and decoded — you are authorized to sacrifice your own life (as well as those of your teammates and any friendly assets) if necessary to meet this objective. Do not fail, or the world may never recover from the consequences.

Andy Bell‘s Android figures were much anticipated by me. Then they went on sale and disappeared in minutes, leaving me a sad camper. Then Bell brought a small stock with him to MoCCA ’10 and I scored two of the blind-boxed wonders. Now, thanks to the generosity of a collector (and compatriot from the old Goats forums) who scored a stack, I have been given the opportunity to purchase duplicates and have nearly the entire set. They loom over my head as I type these words, menacing, casting off the volatile gases that constitute “new toy smell”, and ready to destroy me the moment I let down my guard. Hooray!

• Speaking of Goats, the third volume of The Infinite Pendergast Cycle, Showcase Showdown, is up for pre-order. This will complete the three-part saga that took the long-running webcomic from the two guys sitting around drinking beer story model that it pioneered (now, commonly found in webcomicdom) to the groundbreaking two guys alternately imperiling and vaguely attempting to save the universe, but they’d rather be drinking beer story model that continues to break ground (and occasionally my brain).

  With luck (and an assist from you), the three-book package (commissioned back before the economy went poof) will have done well enough that Random House will re-up for the next three-book set. These are handsome volumes, and as soon as I’ve got a copy in my hands, the megastory represented by these pages will get the long-overdue writeup here that is deserves.

• Speaking of both deserving things, and things wrapping up, did you see the latest costume redesign contest at Project: Rooftop has announced winners? Black Canary has her makeover, and I can’t help but notice that Carly Monardo is once again one of the top finishers. After her second place result in the Wonder Woman contest, and her giving BC a costume that I think would get a favorable critique from the guy who is correct about such things, I think it’s now official: DC and Marvel need to have Ms Monardo redesign costumes for their entire line of heroes.
• Speaking of heroes — Hey kids, do you know what tomorrow is? Besides the day that my rail fares go up by a tremendous amount, dammit (PDF)? It’s Free Comic Book Day, and you’ll find a variety of webcomickers doing things all over the damn place. Assuming you live in any of those places, give ’em some love, and remember: all those free-to-you books cost the stores money. Buy something.

I hadn’t mentioned this before, but the final attendance for the inaugural PAX East: 52,900, capped largely by space availability. Given the size differential between the Hynes Convention Center (ignore the little text label, it’s the building on Boylston that has the round structure in the northeast corner) and the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (site of future PAX East iterations), I’m predicting the attendee count will flirt with 100,000 before the current three-year deal with the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority expires.

To put this in perspective, the BCEC in 2008 (the most recent year I could find numbers for, and prior to the economy pitching a wobbly) listed its most economically impactful conventions as having attendances between 3800 and 35,000 attendees (PDF, page 3), from a total attendance of 444,000 – 489,000 (depending on whether you count fiscal years or calendar years; PDF, page 17). Any way you care to crunch those numbers, PAX East has already significantly increased the convention attendance of a major city, and will only do so to a greater degree in the future.

• Other numbers: 4 and 1000. The former is the number of years that Chris Hallbeck’s The Book of Biff has been running as of today, and the latter would be the update number that Mr Eyebrows will hit on Monday.
• Still another number: 7. Or, more precisely, 07, as in Eben07, shadowy master of espionage and general master of tradecraft. Process documents regarding Mr 07’s working methods are rumored to have surfaced, and in a stunning example of hiding in plain sight, will be displayed in a public art event in Sacramento, CA tomorrow.

  The organizers of the public art display claim no knowledge of this occurrence, but we’ve intercepted written documentation that we believe to be credible. Investigate thoroughly, and remember — the safety of the free world depends on … <signal lost>

Actually, compared to me, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins are pretty young guys … but Penny Arcade turns eleven years old today, which is practically stretching back to the Cretaceous in terms of webcomics. They’ve had some pretty serious ups and downs in that time, although for a while now it’s been definitely on the sky-pointing trajectory. Congratulations to them for being the sorts that would push themselves further with each update, to give back to their community as much as they do, and for (dare I say it) respectable family men with wives and kids and every damn thing.

• After all that heart-warmness, let’s turn to the other coast and another old-timer; Jon Rosenberg¹ not only has his second big-publisher book up for pre-order, he’s got an update today that neatly encapsulates Objectivism in words and pictures. Plus, I have always wanted to type the words, Somehwere in the distant infinite depths of space and time, Ayn Rand is sporting a massive chubby.
• Events! For those of you down with tha’ GMT, may I commend you towards the Thought Bubble Festival, tomorrow through Sunday in Leeds? Looks like the comic-bookiest part will be on Saturday. And may I ask why it is that here in the states we don’t get comics events funded via lottery? If I gotta wait to buy my lunch at the deli because the registers are taken up with people dumping money into Powerball, I oughta at least see some cosplay as a result.

  Back on the left coast, mark your calendars for Legends of Webcomics, an open-studio party in Portland hosted by Meredith Gran and Latin Heartthrod Aaron Diaz with special guests Dylan Meconis, Erika Moen, and Luke Mahan; there is gonna be so much sexy times going on in that studio even if Moen doesn’t bring Cockosaurus with her. Fun starts Saturday 5 Dec, 3 to 7 pm, in PDX.

• Here is where I’d normally throw in a spy-motif extended joke because I have new relating to Eben07, but I think I’ve used all the good ones up. So straight story it is as we note that Brain Food Comics (formed by the principals of, and to publish the collected comics pertaining to, The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs) have taken an interest in the espionage-themed webcomic. So that’s an in-house publisher grown out of the indy/webcomics scene, picking up another title; from such small beginnings develop massive successes, sometimes. Best of luck to Brain Food, and with any luck they’ll be crowding out staid titles from the comics shops, and achieve total market dominance in a decade or two.
• Von Allan’s The Road To God Knows … is getting a wider distribution. The exploration of mental illness (and the effects on not only those ill, but those around them) is being made available as a free PDF, a torrent, or at Scribd.com; the electronic versions are being distributed under Creative Commons Canada licence that grants readers the ability to distribute the online versions of the book for free. It’s also available in physical form via the usual online venues or in the better comics shops and bookstores. More info at Allan’s site.

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¹ Obligatory disclosure: Jon started me out on this-here blog, and in fact owns my soul. I sold it to him for a dollar one night while drinking, and he carries it in his wallet to this day. Next to his butt, where it’s nice and cozy.

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Where to start?

• Perhaps with the almost-overlooked PC Weenies anniversary? Turns out that you won’t be able to see those first efforts, since the current site only goes back to the retooling of January Aught-Eight, but there it is: Krishna Sadasivam’s been using the same characters to poke fun at kohm-puu-tars since October 1998, which is about 93 years in internet time.
• The long wait for new Erfworld strips is finally coming to a close; as of this writing, the site is down (presumably for retooling), but expect to see the new “book” start soon, with a new artist, and a new model: twenty-five pages equals a book, short texty interludes between books; by that model, “Book One” was actually about six books worth (and, coincidentally, will be available from Giant In The Playground early next year in dead-tree form).
• APE happened, and the news was joyous as a sizeable portion of the TopatoCo roster (including all of the ruling junta) plopped themselves in a limo and toasted, Here’s to stumbling ass-backwards into good decisions. Big Apple Comic Con also happened, and the news was decidedly more mixed, with none of the major comics publishers present, one of the two “biggest” draws (Gary Coleman) not showing (that building-super job must have kept him too busy) and the show’s management announcing that next year, BACC will take place the same dates as New York Comic Con (which has made a pretty good name for itself in only four iterations). So, webcomickers — NYCC or BACC, and why?
• Tweeted this AM: Templar, AZ books to be distributed by Last Gasp, which ought to make them available anywhere that artcomix are to be found. Whoa.
• John Baird of Create A Comic Project (oft-featured in these pages) sends word of interest to all New York City area comickers of all stripes:
  

  LearnPlay is looking to bring a series of speakers to Teachers College at Columbia University to speak on the combination of comics and education. The monthly speaker series starts in November and will go through April.

  LearnPlay is TC’s student organization for the research and development of educational games and activities, including comic making. If you’re interested, please contact LearnPlay’s president, John Baird, at jlb2226 at columbia dot edu.

  Okay, everybody else who is not in charge of multiple educational/outreach programs for kids? You’re officially slackers now. Baird’s the man.

And that’s it for today. Nothing else going on in webcomics, nope. Aaaaaaabsolutely nothing. Move along, and don’t bother to click on that completely non-descript link that leads nowhere.

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