Photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid

It may help to have some gin on hand.

• If you’re gonna have capital-A Art, then tanjdammit, you ought to have Art that provokes the occasional Art Riot, by which I do not mean some bluenose tut-tutting on TV about how something is insufficiently in line with existing religious or moral beliefs; I’m talking angry Parisians or perhaps Viennese in the streets, offended to their very core that something so wrong could be perpetrated on an unsuspecting world. And if this were 1913 instead of 2013, I do believe that we would have righteous cause for such an action:
  

  “I’m really not sure what you call this,” says TopatoCo founder and CEO Jeffrey Rowland. “There’s probably a German word for it, but I’m afraid to look it up.”

  If the entire internet, in all of its random, rambling, poor-spelled, nonsensical non-glory could be distilled down to its very essence, it would be the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff hardcover collection from TopatoCo. It is the sort of revolutionary, transgressive, frankly frightening creation that makes me want to tear the seats out of an opera house and give future radio¹ documentarians cause to talk about the unrest in hushed, sincere tones². This is Le Scare du Printemps for a later, more addled age:

  The book Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff lavishly presents the comic’s entire run in a treatment worthy of the highest masters of the form. It contains a completely gratuitous 4-page centerfold reading simply “centaurfold” in bright pink type.

  “The printing company we used was utterly convinced that we, as designers, didn’t know what in the world we were doing,” says [book co-designer David] Malki [!]. “The proof sheet listing supposed ‘errors’ in the book’s layout ran five pages long. I had to initial each one saying, ‘Yes, that’s OK. Yes, that’s OK. Yes, that’s OK, trust us.’”

  Scattered throughout the book are perforated business-reply cards taking the form of irredeemable Subway coupons (a first for comic strip collections). Each copy of the book also comes with a “travel version” (a removable poster of all the book’s pages in grid format); a custom commemorative coin (randomly chosen from 4 designs struck); an oversized plastic paperclip imprinted with the word “paperclop”; and an animated lenticular bookmark. Bound into the spine is a red ribbon approximately three feet long, and if you scratch the nacho chip sticker on the back cover, it smells faintly of pizza. (The hologram sticker of Tony Hawk smells only of chemicals.) [emphasis original]

  The Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff Limited Hardcover is available for US$44, in one print run, while supplies last. I’ll put this link up just in case you need it; you’re on your own for torches

• Speaking of riotous unrest, “Uncle” Randy Milholland will be the keynote speaker at the biennial Comic Studies Conference at the University of North Texas. The conference will be 22-23 March, and speakers slots are up for grabs [PDF] if you want to get all academic for an hour or two. If you’ve never had the opportunity to listen to Milholland speak, he is really, really funny in front of an audience, not to mention thoughtful, engaging, self-deprecating, and willing to use naughty words. If there’s a Q&A component (there usually isn’t in keynote speeches), get him to do the Fluffmodeus voice.
• I got an email over the weekend from Dante Shepherd, telling me about a new project he’s dropped a few hints to, here and there. Long story short, a guy who does his comics work primarily in chalk has decided to get all narrative. Professor Blackboard has teamed up with artist Joan Cooke and will in the coming months be launching a strip about hapless grad students dealing with improbably hazardous research. Not hazardous in the make sure you use safety goggles sense, more in the keep the car running and get us out of here quickly and maybe we won’t all die horribly sense.

  Shepherd doesn’t want me to give away the big gag on the first page (which he has shown me, and which is making me giggle as I type this), so let’s just say that PhD Unknown (working title) reminds me of something written by Internet Jesus and drawn by Stuart Immonen that you may have read previously and if you haven’t what the hell is wrong with you.

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¹ Of course there will be radio in the future; it’s the one medium that will never be superseded.

² Follow that link and give Culture Shock 1913 a listen; it’s really good.

Those with no problems with evolution but who hold out a cheery view of publishing, you might want to avoid the third bullet.

• A pair of webcomickers whose work I enjoy, whose drafting skills are exquisite, and who coincidentally happen to be housemates, are about to embark on a project that promises the awesomest creatures this side of old Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strips. Evan Dahm (sample critter: here) and Yuko Ota (sample critter: here) will be … let’s let Dahm explain the ground rules:
  

  Beginning with this creature drawn by me, we will take turns drawing future creatures, each one representing a visible step in a theoretical evolutionary process. We’ll play with the aesthetic of living things and the process of natural selection, and may or may not end up with a biologically plausible series of beasts.

  Future evolutionary leaps of The Exquisite Beast will take place on Fridays (Ota) and Tuesdays (Dahm), so be sure to check back tomorrow for what ol’ squidface’s genetic descendant looks like — and no cheating by comparing notes around the breakfast nook, Yuko and Evan! I’ve got my eye on you.

• Just to throw out a number: US$3,512,345. That would be the total monies raised by Child’s Play in 2011, having obliterated what I thought was a stretch of a goal by more than half a million friggin’ dollars. For reference, this kicks the lifetime total for Child’s Play to a (frankly, staggering) US$12,510,909; I’m pretty sure that there are sovereign nations with budgets for child health services that don’t reach that number.
• Found via the twitterfeed of Dylan Meconis, a link to an interview with Ellen Archer, CEO of Hyperion Books¹, wherein she discusses changes in the publishing world (some coming, some already here). The bit that caught my eye starts about three questions from the end, where Archer (who has already floated the idea of the end of advances as we presently know them) is asked by Jeremy Greenfield for an example of changes to the business side of things:
  

  EA: I’ve been looking closely at pre-orders and pre-order strategy and how that aligns with authors that we acquire and publish that have active blog sites and followers.

  We’ve got a number of authors who are really good with social media and when we acquire their books, three months ahead of time, they’ll do something really interesting for their audience, like a cover-reveal, and all of the sudden, you’ll see the pre-orders build. Then you take that information to retailers and that can impact their interest in ordering more copies.

  On the publication date, all of those orders release, and then it gets really quiet and euphoria dissipates because you get these mediocre daily sales for three or four weeks.

  Then sales start growing and building. The core fans buy the book, and then they start talking about it and sharing it with all their friends, and then you begin to see the results of it all paying off.[emphasis added]

  From discussions I’ve had with more than one creator who went from self-publishing to working with a traditional publisher, that expectation that The author will help promote the book has pretty much crossed the line into The author will provide a ready-made audience and do all the promotions and we can just cash the checks. Following up on that answer, Greenfield continued:

  JG: That’s interesting, but what if your author isn’t skilled in that approach?

  EA: That’s going to be a problem. That’s always been a problem.

  If they’re not promotable, then it makes selling their book challenging.

  If the work is extraordinary, it will be discovered, but it will be challenging. You have a much more cluttered marketplace than we did beforehand.

  Also, I will look to acquire media-genic authors and properties. [emphasis added]

  Catch that? There’s a couple different ways to interpret that last sentence. The more generous (based on a reading of an earlier part of the interview) interpretation is You have to have a property that will translate to other media and tie into other product types. Think of the book that can be referenced in the TV show (Disney owns networks, after all), which then shows up as a plush (they own retail stores) and decorate a peripherally-related amusement park ride (Disney owns … aw, you know).

  The less generous interpretation of that last sentence (one which a lifetime of observing media companies, along with a low and suspicious nature, tells me that I cannot ignore) is And you, the author, have to be pretty and have a compelling story of your own; survive horrific circumstances or get a disease that doesn’t show in the face and then we can talk Lifetime Original Movie. Think I’m too cynical? Let’s give it a couple of years and see how many more highly-hyped fake memoirs² make it to the shelves.

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¹ AKA the publishing arm of The Mouse.

² I once saw David Sedaris read a short piece of mostly fiction that featured his lament that The fucked-up alcoholic whose memoir is keeping me from the shelves turned out to have made up the whole thing. Can you believe it? Goddamn fucked-up alcoholic.

Later that night, I fixed the printer driver on his Macbook and he paid me twenty dollars.

A fake message from the IRS to my Fleen email, telling me I need to answer all your questions to settle my unpaid taxes, and you can’t be arsed to hide the fact that your email came from Brazil? Actually, this correlates neatly to other sorts of spam, junk (physical) mail, and cold calls I get; somebody, somewhere, has decided that I’m older than I actually am¹, and thus more vulnerable to transparent ruses, or receptive to certain come-ons² that in fact hold no interest for me. Want me to read your scam attempt? At least pretend you’re linking me to a spectacular new instance of Strong Female Poses by Yuko Ota.

• I was going to say, Huh, I must have missed Zach Weiner’s new book announcement when I saw a link tweeted to his store, but then it turned out it hadn’t been announced yet. The store link tweet went live approximately 34 minutes before the announcement tweet. Anyways, here’s the announcement, and here’s the store page.
• Noted at the Twitter of Scott McCloud, a link to a new social-network-exchange-dealy that treats time as money. Here’s why I hate it already: go look at the page that explains what the hell is going on here, and read. It seems to me that it’s a very clever means of harvesting contact information on a lot of people, which is fine if you want to give all of that info away. Be my guest. My hackles start to rise on slide 2 of 7 [no direct link] where there’s an emphasis about how you can trade (technically, it’s an obligation for 10 minutes of time, but really it’s contact info) on anybody:
  

  Even if they aren’t on allthis yet.

  Exact quote. They felt it was important enough to call it out. Why? Because they want to plant that idea in your head in preparation for slide 5 of 7 [no direct link]:

  Not only is it possible to buy the token of someone who isn’t on allthis already, it’s actually rewarded! [emphasis original]

  They are enticing you, setting a bounty system for all intents and purposes, to find somebody that doesn’t want to be in their metadata farm³ and rat ’em out. It’s bad enough that when I get an invite to join Facebook (I’ve never had an account) from my nearly 70 year old aunt, it somehow figures out that “other people I might know on Facebook” includes, say, Kazu Kibuishi⁴; this is equivalent to Mark Zuckerberg⁵ offering a reward to drag me kicking and screaming in whether I want to be there or not.

  Somebody at allthis (extra strike: stupid name) might come up with an explanation to convince me that this isn’t the single creepiest business model on the internet, but I doubt it. So on the off chance anybody wanted 10 minutes of my time, talk to me face to face. Tell me that I’m being traded against my will to benefit All This, All That, Inc.⁶ in their attempt to claim proprietary rights over the fact that I exist and I will punch you in the neck.

• With any luck, that neck will be nice and tender and hurty because you got visited by Bulimic Dracula (click forward). The digression today into the lyrics of the worst song of the 21st century was a moment of sublime genius by Jeff Rowland.

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¹ I started getting invites to join the AARP before I turned 35, so somebody thinks I’m approaching retirement age by now.

² Including leases on Mercedes-Benz convertibles, wealth-preservation and estate-planning services, and the Republican party.

³ Hi. How the hell are ya?

⁴ Not an exaggeration, that actually happened to me.

⁵ He’s the CEO, bitch.

⁶ Somebody was (or will be) paid to have thought up that name. Jesus Tapdancing Christ.

It’s kinda quiet today; webcomics are normally full of dudes and ladies with opinions and words and everything, and today — quiet. In the wilds of Colorado, Boxhead breaks out the semaphore flags. In a San Francisco toy store, a pantomime takes place, exeunt lovers. In Anytown USA (although one that tends not to get snow — draw your own conclusions), taxes provoke silent desperation and release for one family, while workplace frustrations drive a man to the only place he can have peace and quiet (although it’s been pretty quiet for him all week).

Ninjas always strike silently (whether in the Great White North, or plummeting over Western Maryland), so I’m not sure that counts, but the noisiest two dudes geeking out over a unicorn in silence? That’s definitely weird (although they appear to have made up for it some 65,000,000 years in the past). A bit more recently (at least in geological terms), a man quietly plumbs the depths of filthy desires, and Jeph Jacques provides an unusually quiet episode of Magical Love Gentlemen — usually, it’s pretty shouty until all de plookin’ ‘n thrashin’ be done wif.

On the far end of the spectrum, Jess Fink’s Chester 5000 XYV has gotten loud, gender-swapped, and marginally less SFW than it normally is, but hey — eight page update. Latin Heartthrob Aaron Diaz has found that existentialist films can be made more quickly than the insanely detailed comics he normally does. Meanwhile, messers McGuire, Green, and Lesnick have joined forces to create comics that can never be read on an iPad even as xkcd goes old-school … hint: “xyzzy” does nothing.

April Foolery has a long history in webomics, but even today there’s some legit stuff happening:

• DJ Coffman returns to daily stripping
• Steve Troop maintains a perfect once/year update schedule at Zero Worship
• K-9 Lives has a new short up at Vimeo
• The Ego And The Squid just hit update #1003 (more significant than 1000, because squid)

Where to start? How about with a live-action adaptation of the mystery solving teens — en español! Or with the extremely limited-edition fat pony sculptures (lovingly crafted by Nikki Rice Malki, who apparently does not take the honorific exclamation), which go on sale at Topatoco tomorrow at noon EDT, inevitably leading to an even bigger rush and hordes of frustrated, denied, would-be patrons than today’s SDCC hotel wrangle (which, as of this writing, amazingly does not show as sold out yet).

Or maybe the fact that she’s up for a Shuster Award again this year¹, in the category of Webcomics/Bandes Dessinées Web (along with such worthy competition as Attila Adorjany, Andy Belanger, Rene Engström, Karl Kerschl, Gisèle Lagacé and David Lumsdon, Tara Tallan, and Steve Wolfhard, not to mention Cameron Stewart in the Artist/Dessinateur category for his print work).

Long-time readers of this page know that I have a thing for webcomics depictions of squid, and it should be noted that on a day when all the rest of that was happening, Our Kate also drew: squid. Seriously, if I were the sort to believe that God was sending me signs to start a cult, yesterday would have been shouting THE BEATON SHALL SHOW YOU THE WAY.

In non-Beaton-related news (unusual, I know), did everybody see that Rich Stevens‘s inevitable march to conquer all media (via t-shirts) has claimed another milestone? Namely,prime-time network comedy featuring TV’s Wil Wheaton. Now I’m gonna have to explain that I owned the Electric Sheep shirt before it was cool.

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¹ I have to admit, this is the award that leaves me most conflicted every year, since the slate of nominees is always so strong. I think this year I’m pulling for Engström, because the ending of ALM made me sniffle and smile, or Wolfhard because Cat Rackham rocks my face off.

For those that enjoyed the Jess Fink covers yesterday, we’ve got more eyecandy for you today (this time from Hurricane Erika), along with some process porn. Is it weird that I, who creates no visual art, cannot get enough of this image-building? Anyway, it all builds up to a tentacle-rich conclusion, and should be available in time for TCAF.

• Okay, not exactly webcomics, but I’ma go with it anyway. Andrew Farago, the oft-mentioned on this page curator of the Cartoon Arts Museum and champion of [web]comics in general, wants to raise some money for the museum and is willing to put his pride on the line to do so:
  

  In honor of the Cartoon Art Museum’s current exhibition, Batman: Yesterday and Tomorrow, CAM Curator Andrew Farago is turning back the clock to 1989. Or, to be more specific, he’s turning his head back to 1989. If the Cartoon Art Museum receives $5,000 in donations between now and the evening of April 2, Farago will shave the famed Bat-Symbol into his hair at the Museum’s annual WonderCon weekend fundraising party, just as many Bat-Fans did in the months leading up to the release of Warner Bros.’ 1989 Batman film.

  “My mother thought it was a bad idea 21 years ago, and I’m sure she’d still think it’s a bad idea today. I’ve had plenty of bad haircuts before, but this is the first one I’ll be getting for a good cause,” said Farago.

  Not mentioned in the press release is the reaction of Farago’s wife, who will likely find the prospect of a Bat-Head husband to be either irredeemably stupid or rad beyond all measuring; I’m betting on the latter, actually. Donations can be made through CAM’s website, Facebook pages, tinyurl, or by mail to the Cartoon Art Museum at 655 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94105 (please indicate “Bat-haircut” in the subject line, and don’t forget to deduct it from next year’s taxes).

• So we’re less than a month until the Jesus Pad completely changes comics (both print and web varieties) or doesn’t. In the meantime, I have to believe that those that might be most impacted are publishers currently trying to distribute for-pay material electronically, but not going through any of the mega storefronts to do so.

  Case in point: iPulpFiction.com, distributing some fairly big name authors, at really low price points, what appears to be be online-only material. At least, their new graphic novel, The Cobweb Dective Club is described specifically as “an online graphic novel”, and I can’t find any references to eventual dead-tree versions (while they’re advertising the iPad as a viewing platform, near as I can tell, they maintain their own payment system).

  General question for all of you early adopters — if you buy an iPad and oh look, no iPhone tethering to avoid having to purchase a second data plan — are you likely to then also pay to third parties, or will the ongoing costs drive you more toward free content? I’m trying to get a sense of what you’re willing to purchase.

• Quick reminder: Danielle Corsetto signing in Dallas tomorrow; details here.

Let’s just right to it, shall we?

• Jess Fink gave us a treat on Saturday: the covers for her two forthcoming (i.e.: this summer) books from Top Shelf: We Can Fix It (a memoir of Fink’s time-travel exploits) and Chester 5000 XYV (hot, hot Victorian robo-erotica) (warning: contains wang, both organic and robotic). I love both of those pieces, but the Chester cover just might be my new favorite thing ever. How Fink can do something so sexily charged and yet balance against a certain demureness, I’ll never know.
• There’s a couple of major centers for cartooning scholarship in this country: SVA, of course, CCS and SCAD are fast establishing themselves, and CAM is the public face. But for good old-fashioned throw yourself into the collection stacks archivery, you really have to go with Ohio State University’s Bily Ireland Cartoon Libary & Museum, which is undoutedly the premier collection of comics in the country, with maybe only the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée to rival the depth and breadth of its collection. The entire stack of original BONE pages is just one of the treasures that OSU has.

  Every three years, they have a festival and academic conference on cartooning; the tenth one will be in October, and there’s some interesting names on the presenter list: Matt Groening, Roz Chast (the best and most prolific New Yorker cartoonist since Charles Addams), Gene Yang, and some guy named Kellett. Kellett’s particularly an interesting choice because he plans to speak in response to a speech at the same event 21 years ago by some guy named Watterson. As Kellett puts it:

  At the 1989 Festival, Watterson spoke of the incredible potency in comic strip cartooning: This rarest of arts that let one artist, one voice, speak to millions. This artform that lets the personal outlook shine through, where so many other mass media arts do so by committee.

  I want to speak to his concerns about the space allotted comic strips in newspapers; about zombie comic strips still being drawn long after their original creator had died; about why so many features have stale, interchangeable voices; or why so many are merely advertisements for dolls and greeting cards; or why comic strips in general have been on this slow, downward trend of diminishment in American life for the past 20-30 years

  Because basically, I’m going to talk about this incredible change of fortune for the comic strip. I’m going to talk about Webcomics.

  Note to self: see if the limited seating at the festival includes press access or not.

• The hottest writer in webcomics is now six: Happy Birthday to Malachai Nicolle.
• The donation drive to benefit Cheyenne Wright is underway here. From Phil Foglio:
  

  Originally it was feared that he had congestive heart failure, which was surprising, as he is in his thirties and a quasi-vegetarian. It has since been disclosed that there is a fucking virus (Coxsackie B virus) that can cause it, and you don’t even have to eat 2 pounds of bacon every day. He is doing better, but can only taste lemons, and is under the illusion that he has a pet squid named ‘Renaldo’. We ascribe this to dosage issues with his medication.

  That’s just what Foglio wants you to think, as I happen to know that he’s prejudiced against squid. All kidding aside, Phil & Kaja Foglio, and everybody that works with them, are stellar people and if you have a few bucks to spare, there are far worse things you could spend it on. How much food and shelter do you need anyway?

• Finally, from Danielle Corsetto, jet-setter extraordinaire, news that the new, previously-unnamed New Jersey comics show now has a name, and a date, and a guest list! Wild Pig Comics II presents Wild Pig Comic-Con, May 15 & 16, in Springfield, New Jersey, complete with Ms Corsetto, her partner in infamy, Randy Milholland, David “I did exclamations before Malki” Willis, a stack of other web- and print-comickers, and the latest iteration of Super Art Fight. Total cost to you for all this? FIVE BUCKS. Seriously.

So I’m guessing that the occasional explosion and plume of smoke/flame from over that way would be the trail of destruction left by various webcomickers on their drive south to Bethesda, Maryland for SPX. Those flying are, I’m guessing, about half a rum-and-coke from getting tazed by air marshals.

• For those of you heading that way, look for a small (potentially drunk and/or naked) woman named Bree Rubin and tell her “thanks” for me, ’cause she tipped me to a new webcomic that’s a continuation of a play:
  

  Disgraced Comics is the new off-shoot of Disgraced Productions, offering original online visual dramatic storytelling. And in our first online comic, The Adventures of Max Quarterhorse, you will get to see the first-ever Independent Theater-to-comics crossover. The Adventures of Max Quarterhorse picks up where Disgraced Productions’ 2008 play, All Kinds of Shifty Villains, leaves off. [emphases original]

  The first half of the first ten-page issue of TAoMQ are online now, starting here, and the art (by Miriam Gibson) is damn pretty. Can’t think of anybody that’s done this kind of cross-media use of webcomics yet, so hats off to Robert Attenweiler (creator of Max Quarterhorse) for taking the artistic leap.

• Speaking of webcomics-slash-other-artistic-medium (as opposed to webcomics slash, which is full of Ryan North and Jeph Jacques and squishy noises), the last time I attended SPX (and goodness, was that nearly two years ago), I thought about webcomics as a distinct medium:
  

  We’ve really reached that happy point where the distinction between indy/small press comics and webcomics is largely academic.

  … was the conclusion. Although we at Fleen continue to use the word “webcomic” as a signifier, really, all it signifies is a means of distribution within the larger realm of comics. I bring this up because there’s an interesting discussion about the separateness of webcomics vis a vis comics over at the Transmission-X forums that’s worth your time. There’s a good level of thinkin’ going on, and given that TX are Canadian (and the conversation is in the context of a Canadian comics industry award), it’s exceedingly polite. Nice to see so many people thinking along these lines.

• Finally, quick note that Johanna Draper Carlson (who’ll be trawling the aisled at SPX on Saturday) has caught an interesting tidbit: the Android phone platform (aka “Google phone”) has a new category coming up in its applications market — comics. More than one person declared the iPhone to be an ideal mobile platform for comics (especially of the webbish variety), but the open API and lack of Apple approval at the Android Market may make it an even better platform. I know for a fact that at least one creator designing comics for a mobile generation made sure to test against the Android G1 (which, full disclaimer, is my phone of choice) in addition to the more ubiquitous Jesus Phones and Crackberries. Could be interesting times ahead.

Keith Knight cuts to the chase, re: syndicated cartoonists and indy/web cartoonists.

MoCCA updates:

• L Nichols of Jumbly Junkery will be at table 328 and Chris Andersen of The Ego and the Squid will be at table 221; see yesterday’s post below the cut for a more extensive list of exhibitors/tables
• NERD Comics have a portion of their table available; direct message @breegeek on Twitter if you’re interested in showing, couldn’t get a table, and can help cover the table fees
• Floor map of the Armory here; the RED ZONE is for loading and unloading only, please do not loiter in the RED ZONE.

Mailbag!

• John Woakes wrote:
  

  I have a little pet project where I put up a webcomic every hour on my site. I have been collecting my favourite web comics for some time. My collection is all over the map. Check it out.

  Checked. Seems to mostly be single-panel gag strips culled from the syndicate websites (each comic I’ve noticed so far today has been from GoComics, a division of Andrews McMeel. Woakes provides full credit and links to the originals, and appears to host the images himself instead of bandwith-leaching.

  Of course, the comics are presented without the context of their home sites, but the random factor does seem to up the chances of serendipitously coming across something that otherwise would have been unknown. Comments on the legality/ethics of this welcome below.

• Kent Vaughn wrote:
  

  I started creating my webcomic Mixed Brood about 6 months ago and have compiled a small archive of around 60 or so comics. I feel like I’m now starting to get the hang of it and improving with each one (which is the goal I guess right?).

  Okay, this shouldn’t be taken as an invitation for every new webcomicker to ask me for full feedback — I get a zillion such requests. But Kent used the magic words with me (and, having used them up, they won’t work in the future — sorry, find your own angle): I feel like I’m now starting to get the hang of it and improving. I don’t think that any comic has launched hitting on all cylinders from day one unless the creator was already crazy experienced — that first six-months-to-a-year is where the most radical improvements are likely to come in.

  And I can see those improvements in Vaughn’s work. Reading from the beginning, I was thinking something about Mixed Brood remarkably similar to what Brigid Alverson wrote yesterday at CBR (she was writing about Zudaentries, but it applies here, and in many, many webcomics):

  Each Zuda page includes a space for a text-only synopsis, and that is where I would often find finely crafted, intricately thought out backstories and alternate universes.

  Unfortunately, that’s not where they belong. They belong in the comic.

  Too often, I see elaborate descriptions of characters that don’t seem to relate to what’s actually in a comic. In Mixed Brood, the three characters (a dog, a goose, another dog) have bios, but didn’t seem to have much in the way of distinguishing characters at first — but that’s changing, especially in the case of Flash, who’s developing what can only be described as a lazily cruel streak. He’s distinguishing himself from the other dog, Barney (who has a bit of Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel in his visual design but as there’s a lot of Groening in all the character designs, I can’t always tell Flash and Barney apart in a quick scan), and is starting to come into his own.

  The joke constructions are starting to tighten up nicely, and Vaughn has even pulled off a rare successful post-punchline extra laugh line, which almost always fails no matter who attempts it. That’s easily a 7.8 on the difficulty scale, and he nailed it. And pleasingly, Vaughn isn’t afraid to set his strip someplace definite, instead of the usual and nebulous a house, somewhere. These critters are Canadian, and prominently so.

  Is it a new masterpiece, a nascent classic that everybody will be studying in the future? Not yet. Maybe someday. But it’s improving, and Vaughn is conscious about trying to make every strip better than the one before, and that’s good enough for now.

If anybody from the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is handling press info for the upcoming MoCCA Art Fest, I think your email is broken. Contact established! Yay! Also, we’re only a few weeks out, and while the webpage for the Fest has this year’s show poster, the bulk of the information there is still for last year’s show.

Seriously, I love the MoCCA show (and am looking forward to the new venue like nobody’s business), but without at least a list of exhibitors and preliminary schedule of programming, people are going to start to get nervous about whether or not they should come by.

In fact, the one event that I’m certain is going to happen in conjunction with MoCCA is unofficial — Hope Larson would like comickers of the lady persuasion to drop by a get-together the night before for sophisticated adult-type beverage imbibing, cupcakes, and art, art, art. Ladies and Ladies, I give you Drink & Draw Like a Lady. I’ll be wandering around looking at your sketchbooks the next day, where I hope to see amazing art that magically becomes looser, scribblier, and drunker as the pages flip by. Also, if there are any cupcakes left over, I’d be happy to ensure they don’t go to waste.

Lightning Round!

• 100 strips at My Fuzzy Nuts!
• The Ego and The Squid fundraiser for friends to get married in space!
• Tom Mason interview with Miles Grover of Thinkin’ Lincoln!
• I finally get to see Star Trek tonight!

Okay, that last one doesn’t have anything to do with webcomics, but I don’t care. Deal.