That’s a big book haul. The photo was going to include a lounging greyhound for scale, some somedog decided she had better things to do than get her picture took, hmph! Starting from the top:

• Don’t Go Without Me by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, in fulfillment of the recent Kickstart from ShortBox.
• Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang; I’ve spoken with him briefly about this one, where Yang’s chronicling of Chinese culture and the immigrant experience meets Raina-style memoir. Likely to be a monster hit this year.
• Go With The Flow by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann; want to be this Kids In The Hall character? You need this book which is designed to give young uterus-havers the lowdown on what’s happening with their bodies, and everybody else an appreciation for what they go through. I actually had fairly good public-school sex education starting in 5th grade, and I still expect to learn a ton. Also, a measure of how good :01 Books is — this isn’t an advanced review copy, it’s the regular release of a book that went on sale yesterday.
• Kairos by Ulysse Malassagne; one of the great services that :01 has done for comics in the US is find great work in French and bring it over. There is such a huge pool of comics and creators that are just starting to become known over here.
• Maker Comics: Grow A Garden! by Alexis Frederick-Frost; my beans have been okay for the past coupla’ years, and I hope this helps be improve them somewhat.
• Science Comics: Crows by Kyla Vanderklugt; corvids are scary smart and you should always seek to make friends with them. Never annoy a crow, raven, jay, jackdaw, or rook.
• The Phantom Twin by Lisa Brown; girl haunted by the ghost of her conjoined twin? Sounds like the best ghost story since Anya had ghost trubs.
• Astronauts by Jim Ottaviani and Maris Wicks; the story of women that have been to space, by a team that’s done some of my favorite science–oriented comics for years now. Also, Ottaviani is a fabulous person to talk to, and this remains one of my favorite interviews ever.
• Snapdragon by Kat Leyh; ever wonder what would happen if there were a witch in town, like a real witch, and you decided to make friends? Leyh has, and we get to follow along.

To be clear, it’s a coincidence that Don’t Go Without Me arrived on the same day as the trove of books from :01, but now I get to take it with me to the reading next week. I’ll be working my way through the pile as quickly as I can while still absorbing enough to give proper reviews; it’ll probably be Astronauts and Dragon Hoops first, so watch for reviews in the coming weeks

Oh, and I saw this on the tweetmachine today; it’s from October, but it’s very possibly new to you as it was for me. Eight tight pages, an unreliable narrator who is not having any more of this street harassment shit that we get to see past, and a satisfying gut punch of a finish. Words by Julio Anta, pictures by Katherine Lobo, letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, and if these folks aren’t planning a collection of similar stories, that would be very unfortunate.

Spam of the day:

How a Clorox Wipe Made my Herpes Disappear

Jesus tapdancing … do not rub Clorox wipes on your junk, godsdammit.

Look, there are these sanitary wipes that we used on the ambulance for decontamination. You know what’s on the top of the can? The international do not use on babies or other sensitive things symbol, that’s what. Know what’s not even in most of these babykiller wipes? Bleach. Use bleach wipes on hard, non-porous surfaces only and keep them the hell off of your joybits, genius.

______________
¹ No promises for the future; prostate cancer is basically the escape clause that says individuals like me will not live forever. If nothing else gets you, that walnut-sized gland will.

Hey, running late and sorry about that. Let’s jump into the good stuff.

• Item! Alex de Campi is one of the very best comics writers out there, and she has unerring instincts with respect to who to pair up with on art duties. Don’t believe me? Check out her collaboration with Carla Speed McNeil and Jenn Manley Lee on No Mercy, which made me want to punch characters in the face through the page. So when de Campi tells me:
  

  I’m doing a creator-owned horror thing with @EricaFails this year and I just have to say that 1) she’s the best; 2) her colour roughs are better than most people’s finished pages; and 3) this book is going to knock your socks off. The MOOD and sense of place… immaculate

  I say Welp, have to add that to my pull list when it comes out. Erica Henderson has done some great work since stepping back from Squirrel Girl, with Assassin Nation particularly showing a skill for depicting charlie-foxtrot action leading to severely traumatized bodies. I also can’t wait to see her FCBD contribution to Judge Dredd.

• Item! Readers of this page will no doubt recognize the fact that I absolutely adore the work of Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, and take no small satisfaction in seeing the entire rest of comics recognize how very good she is since Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me released. Hooray for Rosemary!

  So I’m more than happy to tell you that Valero-O’Connell will be doing a reading of her work next Wednesday night, 22 January, as part of the launch of a new monthly comics series by queer and trans creators to be held at Bluestockings Bookstore in lower Manhattan. Come say hi to all the readers, Valero-O’Connell will have copies of her latest collection for sale², and enjoy some awesome comics.

  Details at the Facebook event page, and I’ll be certain to keep an eye on future events — it’s tough for me to get out to Brooklyn (where things of this nature usually occur) and back on a work night, and the LES is a lot closer.

• Item! As you may have noticed, I now have in my possession two copies of the first print collection of Junior Scientist Power Hour by Abby Howard¹, which is one more than I reasonably need. Time for a giveaway contest. So by 11:59pm EST on Friday, 24 January, email me (that would be gary) at this here website (that would be fleen, which is a dot com) with a reference to your favorite dinosaur or other extinct critter from any of Howard’s three Earth Before Us titles. I want to know which critter and why you love it so much. Random draw will determine the winner, I’ll be in touch about getting it shipped to you.

Spam of the day:

gary.tyrrell Pay off your mortgage faster and save money!…

I am on track to pay off my mortgage ten years early but sure, I’ll click on your link and give you all my financial information for the possibility of paying it off sooner. [sarcastic thumbs-up emoji]

_______________
¹ Also the original pages to The Most Precious Substance In The Cosmos. When I leave all my original comic art to my alma mater, some of it is going to cause more giggles than others.

² With luck, I’ll have my copy in hand from the Kickstart by then.

On a Monday, no less! Maybe it has to do with the mood elevation that comes from watching Screamy Orange Grandpa realize that he’s being booed by an entire sports stadium, over and over. There will be an explosion of tweetarrhea to punish us all later, I’m certain, but for now all is just a little bit better. Let’s keep that positive feeling going.

There’s just something about webcomics that causes some folks to end up with closely-matching birthdays: Ryan North and John Allison, Dylan Meconis and Katie Lane¹, Jeffrey and Holly Rowland, Jon Rosenberg and some hack webcomics pseudojournalist. And yes, I know the math about cohort sizes and likelihood that two people in the same group will have the same birthday², but let us just admit that it’s neat.

Today, we get to wish Happy Birthdays³ to two more stellar creators, who have produced some of my favorite books in the past couple of years.

On the one hand: Molly Knox Ostertag, creator of the Witch Boy series (the concluding entry in which is due next week) and How The Best Hunter In The Village Met Her Death, artist on Strong Female Protagonist and Shattered Warrior, and soon to be traumatizer of children.

On the other hand: Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, creator of stellar shorter works (a collection of which was just Kickstarted and will be shipping soon), artist on Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, multiple brick-haver, and owner of dangerous earrings.

They are both celebrating their respective births today, and I am so, so glad that we all get to live in a time when their work is widely available and justly lauded. Their comics are so different from what so many people would have you believe are real comics, and the current Golden Age we are seeing in comics at present is in no small part due to the efforts of them and their contemporaries. They are rad ladies and I can’t wait to see what they have produced in their 20s, but into their 30s and 40s and beyond. They’re both only going to get better. Happy Birthday, Rosemary and Molly!

One more thing, since we’re in a good mood: Alison Wilgus announced the official book launch event for her most recent graphic novel (Chronin volume 2: The Sword In Your Hand, a review of which I need to compose after giving it another read or three; it’s heady stuff, and stays with you) today, and maybe you get to attend:

NEXT THURSDAY is the official book debut event for Chronin Volume 2, hosted by the amazing @KinokuniyaUSA store here in NYC! I’ll do a quick presentation about my process, sign books, and generally be VERY happy to have all of Chronin out in the world!
https://usa.kinokuniya.com/event-calendar …

I’m going to do my best to attend, both because I love the book and wish to help Wilgus celebrate, and because it’s been too long since I’ve been to Kinokuniya in Midtown (I used to work about two blocks from there, and haven’t been in since I developed my fountain pen habit). So with any luck I’ll see you at 6th Ave between 40th and 41st — across from Bryant Park — at 6:00pm on 7 November, with my copy of Chronin in hand. In the meantime, everybody feel good for Alison, not only for this book release, but for the great editing job she’s been doing on the Adventure Zone graphic novels.

Spam of the day:

This is an impeccably, motley invitation to join me in Seventh-Heaven; to RITE zzzillions! of overdude books for the lengthNbreadth of eternity, emphasize’n in whatever God has ‘aujourd d’hui’: the Psycadelic VitSee, the Protagonist of the Exponential Universe, exploring the concept of the endless, bombastic now in His validation of
the G O O G L e P L E X I A N T H…

…

…

What.

_______________
¹ Light-ning Law-yer!!

² By the time you’ve got 23 people in a group, the chances of two of them having the same birthday is already greater than 50%. Besides Jon, I knew one guy in high school with my birthday and since I started in EMS two other people that joined my agency had my same birthday, and one more not only lived in the house I lived in when I was 5, but sleeps in my old bedroom. COINCIDENCE??

Yes. Coincidence.

³ Happys Birthday? Happy Birthsday?

Well, goodness, a whole bunch of stuff has occurred since last we spoke. Let’s look at just a few things, ‘kay?

• This past Saturday saw the Harvey Awards handed out at New York Comic Con; you may recall that this year’s nomination slate was really very strong. While the official page hasn’t updated with the winners list yet, you can find the laureates around the web, say at Newsarama.

  The three categories that I was most invested in — the three categories where there really couldn’t be a bad choice to receive the statue — were Book Of The Year (Hey Kiddo by Jarrett J Krosoczka), Digital Book Of The Year (Check, Please by Ngozi Ukazu), and Best Children’s Or Young Adult Book¹ (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell). The last of them, particularly, is going to run out of room on the cover for stickers proclaiming the Harvey and Ignatz wins, especially if it’s keeping some space for next year’s Eisners.

• Saturday was also 24 Hour Comic Day, and while there are literally too many excellent works to point out, I would be remiss if I didn’t share a modern fairy tale by Melanie Gillman. A young woman feleing unloved in an arranged betrothal finds herself beseeching the Goddess Of Mishaps for help, and it’s damn near perfect.
• Heidi Mac spent the morning at the ICv2 2019 Conference, held adjacent to NYCCC. You can find her livetweets via this search, but the one you want to pay attention to is this:
  

  The slide that shocked ComicsPRO showing size of manga and kids genres.
  #nycc2019 #icv22019 #nycc

  

  In case you don’t feel like zooming in, more than two-thirds of all comics sold fell into one of two categories: Juvenile Fiction (41%, think Raina and similar) and Manga (28%). Superheros were the third-largest market category, but they account for one comic sold out of every ten. This is why C Spike Trotman has been most vocal about the YA offerings from Iron Circus.

• Finally, especially for those that perhaps over-indulged in 24HrCD or maybe are pushing it too hard for Inktober? Stretch.

Spam of the day:

15 Military Discounts Only Available To Those That Served Our Country

While it is true that I have, probably in the depths of the US Army Cadet Command at Fort Knox, a form 139-R from 1985 (enrolling me in ROTC so I could take two mandatory, 1-credit classes, which my college required instead of physical education), complete with an X in the box labeled I decline to state that I am not an conscientious objector and a strikethrough in the loyalty oath section, I cannot say that I served in any meaningful fashion as that concept is generally understood. But given that your email came from Hesse, Germany (from a domain registration that has existed for a whole 12 days), I’m going to doubly say that no, I haven’t served “our” country.

_______________
¹ Okay, one complaint — there’s a world of distance between children’s books and young adult books, leading to YA books that are distinctly at the upper end of the age range like Laura Dean, Hey, Kiddo, and On A Sunbeam contending with books intended for a much younger audience like Mr Wolf’s Class #2: Mystery Club (7-10) and New Kid (8-12). Yes, the over-proliferation of categories is, but maybe split this one into pre-teen and teens-plus?

SPX was pretty excellent this year, everybody. I saw too many wonderful folks (and forgot to include some on the list while I was waiting for a burger, like Jamie Noguchi, Boum, MK Reed, Patrick Lay, Lucy Knisley, Maia Kobabe, Britt Sabo, Lauren Davis, Kori Bing, Blue Delliquanti, Kori Michele Handwerker, and Melanie Gillman, plus I hadn’t run into George, Raina Telgemeier, and Andy Runton yet), a side effect of the concentrated nature of excellence:space that the North Bethesda Marriott engenders.

But the trip took on an actual reporting task, as the common perception of Kickstarter’s actions last week skewed nearly 100% to They’re unionbusting. The near-universal consensus of everybody I spoke to hit several repeated points:

• Kickstarter’s upper management does not reflect the community-interface folks, who were spoken of with warmth and support. It was pointed out that the Kickstarter representatives as the show were, themselves, involved in the unionization efforts.
• Creators indicated that they’ll be looking to the Kickstarter Union folks for guidance and will follow their lead. Boycotting right now has not been requested, and would very likely be counterproductive.
• Several acknowledged the difficulty of finding a platform that could serve to replace Kickstarter if the Union calls for a boycott.
• There’s a willingness to lend voices of support to the unionization effort, to the extent that personal involvement with Kickstarter might hold any moral authority or ability to sway management’s decisions.

Speaking of the second and fourth points above, Taylor Moore (one of those ousted last week) is currently tweeting a call to action, asking creators to sign on to a petition to Kickstarter management. Not being a project creator myself I am not the intended signatory, but I’ve noticed more than a few webcomics folks retweeting and stating they’ve signed, so maybe take a look.

Specific responses when I asked if there were comments about the situation for the record:

I’ll just end on a couple of personal notes: I had a couple of people come up to me on Saturday to thank me for this page³, and one woman who told me that she took a photo of me at MoCCA 2018 to use as reference for a painting, which she showed me on her phone (and which she’ll be emailing to me soon, I hope; I’ll share it when I get it). Thanks very much, Susan, John, and Qu.

Congratulations to Colleen AF Venable and Ellen T Crenshaw, who found out this morning that Kiss Number 8 is longlisted for a National Book Award.

And congratulations to Rosemary Valero-O’Connell on your three (!) Ignatzen for Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me. I told her when I met her that her already-strong work was going to become world-class; I told her on Saturday to make room in her luggage for three bricks. So far I’m two-for-two. Back her Kickstarter, which I guess brings us full circle.

Spam of the day:

Every my part are getting hot when I see you

I am a sexy, sexy man, it’s true.

_______________
¹ They had a bunch of balloons and I saw similar critters on half the tables on the show floor. They were … yeah.

That’s mine in the picture up top. I call him Bob The Unsettling. He lives on the shelf above my computer, with my Stupid, Stupid Rat Creature. The Rat Creature has a quiche as an accessory!

² I noticed later that Evan Dahm similarly editorialized on the balloon at his table.

Oh, and that’s not a silver wang in the background, pervs. SPX has helium balloon letters of the alphabet floating above each table pod, and that’s Pod J, listing to the side.

³ One added it had been their homepage when I was in high school, which I took as a tremendous compliment. There’s all kinds of things you fixate on at that age, and a hack webcomics pseudojournalist wouldn’t make the top 1000 most popular online topics among highschoolers. Thanks for that, and for the mini — it’s good work.

After all, Todaybor Day is Labor Day. But then I saw the news on the Twitters — Zainab Akhtar launched her final ShortBox project of 2019 and it’s a collaboration with Rosemary Valero-O’Connell. Specifically, it’s a 235mm x 168mm (approximately 9.25″ x 6.6″, or a hair under ISO B5 paper size) volume collecting three stories, two of which are brand new, and one of which is the superlative What Is Left.

What Is Left was produced as a mini in 2017-18 (I got my copy at MoCCA 2018) and is very out of print. It’s a tale of memory and loss and identity and premised on a story conceit that is startlingly original. Because it’s Valero-O’Connell, I don’t mind buying it again (in a larger size) to get the two new stories, which are described as:

Don’t Go Without Me (also the collection title): Two lovers sneak out for a night out on the town — a town where spirits and the supernatural exist as a realm within and alongside our world, with humans crossing over frequently. The lovers get separated, and must barter with stories in exchange for clues as to where the other may be. But, unknown to them, each time they gain a morsel of information, they lose something, too….

Con Temor, Con Ternura [With Fear, With Tenderness]: For years, the residents of a small, ocean-side town have been living in the shadow of the sleeping giant who is prophesised to one day wake up and lay their world to waste. As the foreseen date of their impending doom draws near, the town decides to put on a festival on that very same night, to celebrate their lives and face whatever fate awaits them together.

I am all in. The Kickstart campaign has a relatively large goal — £29,000, or about US$35,300 — to fund a significantly large print run, one that will sustain stocks for the next couple of years. Akhtar believes (as do I) that Valero-O’Connell is about to become a top-tier creator, and as more people discover her work they’ll want to have books to sell¹. Thus, there will be 10,000 copies of Don’t Go Without Me printed (I can’t recall another indie title with such a large run), which will start shipping in November. This November. The month after next. This is less a pledge and more a pre-order of a gift to yourself this coming holiday season.

The rewards are simple — get a PDF and/or a print copy, or a retailer’s bundle. Three people can pledge £1000 for a lifetime subscription to ShortBox. Stretch goals make the book prettier, or produce small, additional items (a sticker, a process zine) for those who are getting print copies. That’s it. The campaign runs until 2 October, by which time the print job will likely we well in hand in order to meet the delivery date. The only way this could be better is if it were available now so I could take my copy to SPX and have Valero-O’Connell sign it. Some future show, then.

Don’t sleep on this. There’s a big, ambitious goal that benefits not only those of us pledging now, but literally the next couple thousand people that discover how good comics can be. So much of what’s gone into ShortBox collections (or, for that matter, so much of what indie creators self-publish) is only available for a brief period, so it’s a welcome change to see works that are being made for the long haul.

Spam of the day:

Increase majestic Trust Flow – Guaranteed

Thanks, I don’t need your boner pills … what? SEO services?

Really?

_______________
¹ After a book or two of her own, these earlier, shorter works will be what people are scrounging for, like me ordering copies of Tilie Walden’s pre-Spinning books earlier this year. Speaking of which, Walden’s Are You Listening? releases a week from tomorrow; I trust that you are now anticipating it as anxiously as I am.

One of the things I love about the SPX exhibitor listing is that it’s geographic in nature rather than alphabetical by name. You can see who’s near who, and plan out which of the blobby pods you want to hit first (even though the floor is small enough that you can see everybody pretty easily). Here, then are the folks we at Fleen noticed on the 650+ deep exhibitor list, which was due for final update today.

Pod A
Britt Sabo (A5B), Collen AF Venable (A9), and onetime Fleen scribe Anne Thalheimer (A11B).

Pod B
Kevin Czap and the associated Czap Books folks (B4B), Ananth Hirsch and Yuko Ota along with George Rohac (B9; I wonder who they had to bribe to get that table spot).

Pod C
Lauren Davis (C3); I’m not saying Pod C is a bad place, just that I didn’t recognize names.

Pod D
D1 Ben Sears (D1), Eric Colossal and Jess Fink (D2), Megan Rose Gedris (D4A), Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson (D9), and Gigi DG (D12A).

Pod E
Keith Knight (also the Ignatz MC, E1), Beth Barnett (E4A), Mike Holmes (E5B), Ben Passmore (E10B), Darryl Ayo Brathwaite (E10B), Ronald Wimberly (E12A)

Pod F
MK Reed (F1), Paulina and Savanna Ganucheau (F8), and Bianca Xunise (F12A).

Pod G
NBM Graphic Novels, including Jessica Abel (G1-2).

Pod H
Sara and Tom McHenry (H12), and Evan Dahm (H14).

Pod I
Shing Yin Khor (I4A), Julia Gfröer (I5B), Sarah Horrocks (I6A), Katie Skelly (I6B), Tony Breed (I7A), Monica Gallagher (I8), Penina Gal and Radiator Comics (I9), and Carta Monir and Diskette Press (I14).

Pod J
Maia Kobabe (J4B), Emi Gennis (J5B), and Kory Bing (J10).

Pod K
Carla Speed McNeil (K1), Gemma Correll (K2), Audrey and Jamie Noguchi (K9), and Drew Weing (K10-11).

Pod L
Retrofit Comics (L2), Danielle Corsetto (L8), Eleri Harris, Matt Bors, Matt Lubchansky, and Sarah Mirk, which is to say, The Nib (L9).

Pod M
Annie Koyama and Koyama Press, including Connor Willumsen, Daniel Nishio, Ed Kanerva, and Emily Carroll (M1-2).

Pod N
Dustin Harbin but not his bike (N2), and Secret Acres (N3-4).

Left Side Wall
Drawn & Quarterly including Ebony Flowers, Eleanor Davis, Kevin Huizenga, and Sylvia Nickerson (W1-4), Jessica Trevino (W7A), ShortBox (W8), Carey Pietsch (W9A), Cathy G Johnson (W9B), and Meredith Gran (W10A).

Back Wall
Hope Nicholson (W19), Self Made Hero including Sam Humphrey (W23-24), Mari Naomi (W27A), Box Brown (W27B), Kori Michele Handwerker and Melanie Gillman (W30), TopatoCo featuring Abby Howard, Chris Yates, Elliot Jasper, Holly Rowland, KC Green, and Tom Siddell (W31-33), Out Of Step Arts featuring Rebecca Kirby, Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, and Venesa Del Ray (W38-39).

Right Side Wall
Alison Wilgus (W41), and Fantagraphics featuring Jaime Hernandez (W50-54).

Front Wall
Top Shelf including James Kochalka, Kim Dwinell, Leigh Walton, and MK Reed (W56-59), Ru Xu (W60A), Natalie Riess (W60B), a contingent of Danish comic book artists (W68-69), Steenz (W71A), Blue Delliquanti (W71B), Iron Circus including Amanda Lafrenais and C Spike Trotman (W72-73), Lucy Knisley (W75), and the CBLDF including Alex Cox, Chris Ware, and Raina Telgemeier (W80-83).

As always, I very possibly missed you or your favorite; drop us an email and we’ll update.

The Small Press Expo runs Saturday, 14 September (11:00am-7:00pm) and Sunday, 15 September (noon-6:00pm) at the Bethesda Marriott North in Bethesda, Maryland.

Spam of the day:
Your very own portable oxygen concentrator
I do not suffer from CHF or other respiratory conditions, and besides, I can get the pure stuff in the green cylinders. It’s good for hangovers.

The Ignatz Awards are maybe the most democratic of all the major comics awards — if you attend SPX, you get a ballot. At least, if you attend on Saturday, because they tally the votes through the day and the bricks are given out Saturday night, but you get the idea. They also, traditionally, have a very good jury, who provide a very good slate of nominees. This year’s nominees have just been announced, and it’s a cornucopia of quality.

As readers of this page know, I am a major fan and promoter of the work of Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, and her work on Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me could have come from a 20 year veteran of comics, rather than somebody working on their first book who’s still in the first half of their 20s. It’s no surprise that Valero-O’Connell was nominated for Outstanding Artist, Oustanding Graphic Novel, and Oustanding Story, the later two categories being co-nominations with writer Mariko Tamaki. I’m thrilled everytime I am reminded that so many people loved this book as much as I did.

The other multiple nominee that caught my eye, and of which I am a tremendous fan, is The Nib; Matt Bors’s marvelously eclectic endeavour has a history with SPX, debuting their hardcover collection there a few years back. The Nib was nominated as Oustanding Series (for the print magazine), and two issues (Family, and Death) were separately nominated for Oustanding Anthology. Well done Bors, and the entire group of editors and contributors.

But those are not the only deserving nominees; let’s take a look at who we at Fleen will be rooting for.

• Outstanding Artist: In addition to Valero-O’Connell, you’ve got Lucy Knisely for Kid Gloves, which I also loved. I’m not familiar with Koren Shadmi on Highwayman, Sloane Leong’s Prism Stalker, or Ezra Clayton Daniels on Upgrade Soul.
• Outstanding Collection: Love Letters To Jane’s World by Paige Braddock, Girl Town by Carolyn Nowak, Dirty Plotte by Julie Doucet, Leaving Richard’s Valley by Michael DeForge, and This Woman’s Work by Julie Delporte. I have no clear preference, but all these creators are skilled and worthy of the win.
• Outstanding Anthology: In addition to the two issues of The Nib, you have Electrum (edited by Der-shing Helmer), Wayward Sisters (edited by Alison O’Toole), and We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology (edited by Tara Avery and Jeanne Thornton). My preference is for The Nib, only because they do so many different kinds of comics in each issue. I suspect they’ll split the vote, though.
• Outstanding Graphic Novel: In addition to Laura Dean, you’ve got Upgrade Soul by Ezra Clayton Daniels, Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal, Highwayman by Koren Shadmi, and Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. I believe I made my preference clear, but Kobabe’s been doing some damn good comics, including Gender Queer.
• Outstanding Minicomic: Trans Girls Hit The Town by Emma Jayne, Gonzalo by Jed McGowan, Silver Wire by Kriota Willberg, Cherry by Inés Estrada, and YLLW YLLW YLLW by Mar Julia. Not familiar with any of the books or creators. If I get the chance to vote, I might throw it to a dude because so maybe at least one dude wins. ‘Cause damn, women having been outshining the dudes at the Ignatzen for a couple years now.
• Outstanding Comic: Lorna by Benji Nate, Infinite Wheat Paste #7 by Pidge, The Saga Of Metalbeard by Joshua Paddon and Matthew Hoddy, Egg Cream by Liz Suburbia, and Check, Please!: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu. I do love me some comics about gay collegiate hockey bros, but I’m surprised to see the nomination in print but not for …
• Outstanding Online Comic: Isle Of Elsi by Alec Longstreth, That’s Not My Name! by Hannako Lambert, What Doctors Know About CPR by Nathan Gray, About Face by Nate Powell, and Full Court Crush by Hannah Blumenreich.

  I find it interesting that despite the rules specifying an online comic can be an individual comic, continuing storyline comic or strips, and the only real restriction being that it appears on the web before print, that there’s a real tendency towards shorter works. Three of the nominees (Name, CPR, and Face) are arguably essays in comic form (any one of them could have appeared at The Nib), and Full Court is a 16 page short story. Only Longstreth’s Elsi is a traditional (whatever that means) plot-based, ongoing webcomic.

  The extremely wide-open criteria means that this category, more than any other, varies widely from year to year, based on the jury’s personal views of what a good online comic looks like. I am precisely 50% in favor of having a narrower definition so there can be some consistency, and 50% in favor of the variety that is rewarded by the present system.

  Because of my avocational interests, I am pulling for What Doctors Know About CPR (which really, really could have appeared in The Nib’s Death issue).

• Promising New Talent: Haleigh Buck, Ebony Flowers, Emma Jayne, Mar Julia, and Kelsey Wroten. I’ll have to dig into their work, but I’m really liking the looks of what Jayne and Julia are doing.
• Outstanding Story: In addition to Laura Dean, you’ve got Sacred Heart Vol 2 Part 1: Livin’ In The Future by Liz Suburbia, Sincerely, Harriet by Sarah Winifred Searle, Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal, and The Dead Eye And The Deep Blue Sea by Vannak Anan Prum. Although I’m a tremendous fan of Searle’s work, Laura Dean remains my favorite book of the year until The Midwinter Witch arrives to make its case.

  Speaking of which, I’m very surprised to not see Molly Ostertag and/or The Hidden Witch in any category, nor Tillie Walden and/or On A Sunbeam anywhere in the nominations. Ah well, if I want the nominations to be perfect, all I have to do is become a comics writer and/or artist, and have a distinguished enough career that people in the industry think enough of me that I’m asked to be part of the jury. Simple.

The Ignatz bricks will be distributed starting at 9:30pm on Saturday, 14 September, at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland.

And hey, if the competition for the Ignatzen is a little to wholesome, there will be some virtual blood in a head-to-head original character deathmatch tournament sponsored by Abbadon over at Kill Six Billion Demons’s Discord. Registration’s open until they get 64 entrants.

Spam of the day:

Kontrollnummer- FX 75/463. (Kontrollnummer- FX 75/463.)
Garbage bags and much more.

I am less concerned by the German language pitch for what appears to be general shipping supplies than I am for the inclusion on the list of Solvent. All kinds. I get the feeling that you are selling to the serial killer market.

I don’t think this has ever happened before — a comics awards nomination list came out and I can’t find a single fault with it. There’s an embarrassment of riches in the Harvey Awards for 2019, and in multiple categories there are so many good works nominated that I’d be hard pressed to select any one (were I a voter, which I’m not). Let’s begin:

• Book Of The Year includes Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J Krosoczka, Kid Gloves, by Lucy Knisley, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, BTTM FDRS by Ezra Claytan Daniels and Ben Passmore, On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden, When I Arrived At The Castle by Emily Carroll (Koyama Press) — any of which I would be thrilled if they won — along with Belonging: A German Reckons With History And Home by Nora Krug, Berlin by Jason Lutes, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, and Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels.
• Digital Book Of The Year includes Check, Please by Ngozi Ukazu, Space Boy by Stephen McCranie, The Contradictions by Sophie Yanow, The Nib edited by Matt Bors¹, and Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal. I’m not familiar with Space Boy or Woman World, but the other three are top notch.
• Best Children’s Or Young Adult Book² includes Hey, Kiddo, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, Mr Wolf’s Class #2: Mystery Club by Aron Nels Steinke, New Kid by Jerry Craft, and On A Sunbeam. Three of those are also up for Book Of The Year, which should tell you something about how critical the MG/YA space has become to comics.
• Best Manga includes Frankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection, Mob Psycho 100 by ONE, My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi, Our Dreams At Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani, Smashed by Junji Ito, and Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama. I’m only really familiar with Witch Hat Atelier — which is excellent — but I recognize the others from the Best/Worst Manga session at SDCC this year, all in various Best categories; when Chris Butcher tells you a manga is good, take that to the bank, friends.
• Best European Book includes Corto Maltese by Hugo Pratt, O Josephine by Jason, Radiant by Tony Valente, Red Ultramarine by Manuele Fior, translated by Jamie Richards, and Waves by Ingrid Chabbert and Carole Maurel. I’ll be honest, I’m not familiar enough to comment intelligently here, but I’d be very surprised if the nominating committee suddenly sucked for one category.
• Best Comics Adaptation Award — that’s movies and TV — includes Alita: Battle Angel, Avengers: Endgame, The Boys, Captain Marvel by Marvel Studios, Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, Doom Patrol, Marvel’s Spider-Man (videogame), The Snagglepuss Chronicles (a theatrical adaptation), Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, and The Umbrella Academy. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have a dog in this fight, but come on … Spider-Verse, right?

The Harveys had, in the past, a reputation for ballot-stuffing and really mediocre work being mass-nominated by publishers. This is … not that. Somebody really sat down and looked for outstanding work, and if there’s one thing that stands out it’s the utter lack of capes outside of the adapted work.

If you’d told me a year ago that this award would feature exactly zero bats or mutants, but instead feature multiple nominations for a memoir about growing up in a household dominated by addiction, a very queer high school drama, and and sci-fi story set in a universe of no men and spaceships that are giant fish, I never would have believed you. I honestly would have to vote by random chance among three to five nominees in no less than three of those categories. Here’s hoping this is just the first year of a new era for comics awards.

The Harvey Awards will be presented on 4 October in conjunction with NYCC; voting by comics professionals is open until 10 September.

Spam of the day:

NostalgiaCon 80’s Pop Culture Convention Launches Media Village for Media and Social Media Influencers

Okay, 1, quoting John Hodgman: Nostalgia is a toxic impulse and 2, quoting me, Influencer culture is a cancer. Also, 3, your press release says this con will be in Anaheim, but your offices are in Miami, what the fuck? and 4, you credit the con as the brainchild of two people including — and I’m not making this up — the Chairman and CEO of Walmart’s exclusive car-buying platform, what the actual fuck?

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¹ That’s the way the nomination reads; as Bors noted on Twitter, if The Nib wins, it’s a recognition of all of his editors: Eleri Harris, Matt Lubchansky, Andy Warner, and Sarah Mirk.

² Note that those are very different demographics!

This, in this particular circumstance, being a clearly full of crap website that’s selling simply dozens — dozens, I tell you! — of stolen TopatoCo t-shirts every day. A full of crap website that’s stolen not only the designs (which are sarcastic air quotes submitted to us by independent designers close sarcastic air quotes) but even the SKUs. They may or may not be associated with another full of crap website that appears to lay off the stolen webcomics designs but has lots of other stuff stolen too, like traditional Haida designs that non-Haida people don’t get to use or sell. And the most hilarious part? Their shitty knockoffs (if in fact they actually produce and send anything) are priced above the genuine articles.

Normally, I’d tell you to politely contact the full of crap website to very politely ask them what the fuck, but a) they’ve done their best to hide who they actually are (although it appears the possibly-associated second crappy website keeps an address in Delaware that coincidentally houses a consultancy that provides a incorporation services and possibly a mail drop), and b) Jeff Rowland is already on it, and c) they may have roused the wrath of R Stevens III, in which case I doubt you’ll even find DNA when he’s done with his vengeance.

So instead, how about we look at some shirts that are both official and original?

• From TopatoCo, there’s new Lucy Knisley designs, including her take on the performatively/toxicly masculine tee designs that have been making the rounds lately. I’ll admit it, I do like all the responses to the GRRRRR I AM A WALKING COMMENT SECTION GET OUT OF MY WAY GRUNT designs, but I stand by my belief that the originals are just wordier variations on Roast Beef’s shirt.
• Meanwhile, Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh are settled in at their new storefront and celebrating by bringing back their ZooLOLogy design for a limited time only. Also, if you missed out on the Kickstart for their latest print collection, Wander, the after-campaign pledge add-on process is live and you can pick up a copy for yourself before it hits the store at a future date.
• Finally, they’ll be at Flame Con this weekend, which I realize now that I’ve not been through the guest and exhibitor lists to let you know who’s gonna be in Midtown Manhattan on Saturday and Sunday. So: Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, Melanie Gillman, Kate Leth, Taneka Stotts, and Steenz are among the guests; Alison Wilgus, Bianca Xunise, Bill Roundy, Blue Delliquanti, Carey Pietsch, Catuallie, Jakface, Megan Rose Gedris, and TopatoCo will be among the exhibitors¹.

  The fun goes down at the Sheraton Times Square, from noon to 8:00pm (Saturday) and noon to 6:00pm (Sunday). Tickets are US$25/day or US$40 for the weekend. I’d be there to say hi, but I’ve got EMS duty all weekend. Y’all have fun in my stead, ‘kay?

Spam of the day:

Big Ass-Photos – Free Huge Butt Porn, Big Booty Pics

Holy crap, this spam has adopted the [adjective] ass [noun] rule from xkcd #37.

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¹ Unfortunately, the website doesn’t link the exhibitors to the floor map, and those that qualify as publishers (around the perimeter of the main floor) appear not to be listed on the site at present. But there will be several creators associated with George Rohac’s Creative Havoc, and given the likes of Iron Circus and Hiveworks are listed as Sponsors, I’d presume they have a presence as well.

Fortunately, the scale of the show is such that you probably won’t miss out on anybody, even if you didn’t specifically know they were going to be there. If the exhibitor info updates before the show, we’ll add to our listings here.