Readers of this page may recall that we at Fleen (which readers of this page will surely know is just a fancy-pants way of referring to me as there ain’t really anybody else ’round these parts) have participated in a peripheral way with the National Cartoonists Society’s annual division awards re: webcomics, and may also recall that the NCS gives out said awards during Memorial Day weekend (which I was privileged to attend last year).

What you might not recall is that this year, the NCS is doing something really neat in conjunction with Reubens Weekend that is pretty awesome. Given that said weekend is taking place in Pittsburgh, it’s a no-brainer that the NCS would team up with the home-town comics heavyweight, The Toonseum. More specifically, The Toonseum (in conjunction with San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum, also a favorite of this page) will be having an exhibition of original artwork by Reuben winners, nearly 70 years worth:

This is the first time in the organization’s history that original art from these legendary artists has been assembled in one exhibition. Rare works seldom seen by the public from artists such as Gary Larson of Far Side, Charles M. Schulz of Peanuts, and many more will be displayed.

The exhibit is part of a celebration of comic and cartoon arts as the National Cartoonists Society brings their annual conference to Pittsburgh for the first time.

A special VIP fundraising opening reception will take place on Thursday, May 23rd as part of a weekend-long celebration of the comic and cartoon arts. Information on the VIP event tickets can be found at http://comicvip.eventbrite.com/.VIP tickets also include reserved seating for panel discussions on Sunday, May 26th, a signed limited edition print, meet and greet, and much more!

For everybody else, The Toonseum will be turning its corner of Pittsburgh into a street party on the 900 block of Liberty Avenue on Sunday, 26 May, from noon to 5:00pm. Street fun is free, and the usual five dollar admission price gets you into The Toonseum for the exhibit (and signings with many, many artists), and twenty bucks will get you into panel discussions at the Bricolage Theater.

If you live anywhere near Pittsburgh, I cannot urge you strongly enough to try to take in this show. What the heck, it’s a long weekend, you can skip one afternoon of cookouts for a once-in-a-lifetime event like this. Sadly, I’ve got EMT duty that weekend (everybody’s got to do their turn on holidays), so you’ll have to tell me how it was.

I swear by all that I hold dear, some day I will make it to Chris Butcher’s little slice of early-May comics-related heaven. In the meantime, just look for the reports of anybody that was there and once again it appears to have been a success beyond the usual superlatives. There aren’t many situations where I take pronouncements like Best show ever at face value, but in the case of TCAF I can’t ignore the overwhelming consensus. Welcome home everybody that was in the Tee-Oh for the weekend, now get back to entertaining me for free.

• It’s never been the most reliable of updaters, Instant Classic, even going so far as to run an update with the helpful annotation Believe it or not, I have the next 4 or 5 comics drawn. Exciting times! and then not supplying the next strip for just about exactly a year. But irregular updates have never dissuaded me, and even those that are likely never coming back will cause me to peek in from time to time, just to make sure, if they’re good enough.

  And that’s the thing about Instant Classic — however much Brian Carroll may find life (or filmmaking) interrupting him, he’s always going to come back to the comic, because he’s still got story to share. Yesterday marked the first decade of telling that story, in fits, starts, always returning until it’s done. Here’s to as many stories as he has to tell, and however long they take to share.

• Readers of this page may be familiar with one MC Frontalot, official rapper of webcomics and all-around nerdcore badass. When he decided to make his latest official video, the question was what form it should take. Given that he’s commissioned half of webcomics to do art for his various albums, it was probably a no brainer to call upon the drawin’, comickin’, and animatin’ wonders, Carly Monardo (various art for Dr McNinja, coincidentally written and drawn by her husband) and Lauren Monardo Gramprey (BrainFood Comics, Perhapanauts, and coincidentally Carly’s twin sister).

  Said video went live last night, and you may now enjoy I’ll Form The Head [AV] (from 2011’s Solved) in all of its mid-’80s evoking glory. Seriously, if this doesn’t make you want to slip on some feetie pajamas and curl up in front of the TV with a big bowl of cereal, then I guess you weren’t born around 1978. Neither was I, but don’t judge me.

But first, a quick correction; yesterday we at Fleen implied that all-around creator-owned comics superstar¹ Jim Zub got his gig writing a two-part digital-first Batman story as a consequence of not burning bridges when he got cut (publicly and foolishly) as the writer on Birds of Prey before an issue had even been completed. Mr Zub informs us that in fact the Batman gig predated the BoP fiasco²; however, the lesson remains: be classy and professional at all times as it’s better for your career. Whenever faced with a dilemma about how to proceed, ask yourself What would Zub do? and then do that³.

• TCAF! The Toronto Comics Arts Festival kicks off this weekend at the Toronto Reference Library and other nearby venues (programming also takes place in the Toronto Marriott and the Pilot Tavern, each mere steps from the TRL), and it is totally free to attend. So many webcomickers and natural allies are going to be there that it’s probably easier to list out who isn’t there this weekend; there are sixty-six book debuting, and panels out the wazoo. Here’s just what caught my eye:

  Saturday, 9:30-10:15, TRL Novella Room; Toon Books Storytime Celebration Featuring Frank Viva, Frank Cammusso, Francoise Mouly
  Cartoon Books needs to find a way to hire Frank Gibson so they can have just one more Frankish name on this panel.

  Saturday, 1:30–2:30pm, Marriott Forest Hills Ballroom; Moebius, Past and Future
  If you can’t find Aaron Diaz⁴ on Saturday afternoon, it’s because he’ll be in the first row of this panel.

  Saturday, 10:00-11:00, Pilot Tavern; Crowdfunding Comics
  This has the potential to be the first Kickstarter-themed panel that isn’t attended primarily by a bunch of haven’t-created-anything-yet-give-me-money types. If not, panelists like Spike and Holly Rowland will put ’em straight. If they can’t be put straight, 10:00am is not too early for a grizzled comics pro to start drinking and oh look, we’re already in a bar, so watch if, all you h-c-a-y-g-m-m types.

  Saturday, 1:30–2:30pm, Pilot Tavern; Machine of Death Pictionary!
  Always a big draw (ha, ha; oh god I’m sorry); I look forward to seeing the video of this one.

  Sunday, 1:30–2:30pm, TRL Learning Centre 1; Spotlight: Lisa Hanawalt
  Did Tom Spurgeon manage to sneak his killer robots across the border? Signs point to yes.

  Sunday, 11:00-12:00, Pilot Tavern; Is Comics Blogging Over?
  Uh oh; comics bloggers and booze.

  Hmmm, that’s six down and sixty more to go. That’s right, there are as many panels as there are debut books. COINCIDENCE??⁵

• On the off chance that you can’t be in Toronto, but do feel the need to be north of 49 (as they say), Vera Brosgol and friends will be making the trek north to Juneau, Alaska this weekend for puppet-related events, this being the second event in the past month sponsored by Alaska Robotics to bring webcomickers to Juneauans rather than make Juneauans travel far distances to catch up with webcomickers. A grand plan, says I, and I hope to see more creators pulled north by the siren call of whales, glaciers, and the scent of sitka spruce. It is seriously beautiful up there, guys, and if AKR were to invite you, I’d jump on the offer if I were you.
• Finally, a treat for everybody that didn’t take advantage of Ryan Estrada’s Whole Story Winter 2013; you may recall that I reviewed KC Green’s contribution to the choose-your-price comics bundle, The Dog’s Sins, and found it terrific. Speaking with Green last month at MoCCA, he mentioned that he was thinking of putting The Dog’s Sins online in conjunction with a milestone update at Gunshow (aka hugs own, hugs now, ugh snow, uh gowns, and others). That milestone comes today, update #700, and you should go read it now because it’s wonderful, maybe Green’s best work ever (much as I love The Anime Club). Go. Read.

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¹ And, if there’s any justice in the world, soon-to-be plain old superstar, period. Zub’s check with way too many zeros, his just reward for all the things he’s created, should have been in the mail five minutes ago, world.

² My wording, not his; he’s too classy to hold grudges but I have a low and suspicious nature and am not classy in the least.

³ Except if your answer is Write and publish a few dozen issues of Skullkickers, because that ain’t yours to do, Sparky.

⁴ Tolkien and dinosaur scholar par excellence.

⁵ And for a double dose of COINCIDENCE??, Kevin McDonald was in a comedy troupe with Scott Thompson, who will be hosting the Doug Wright Awards in conjunction with TCAF. Once again, COINCIDENCE??

So I’ve been away for a bit, as mentioned last week. For those who were wondering, being married for twenty years and then getting to throw a party for your friends is sort of awesome. But I’m back now, and it seems not a moment too soon, as things are beginning to pile up around here.

• I’d planned on coming back to bloggening today, and even if I hadn’t I would have had to after seeing a blip in my twitterstream last night, the first in 18 months or so from Allie Brosh who is sublimely wonderful and had fallen entirely out of public view. It happens, and in her case, Ms Brosh has shared why it happened and done so in a way that’s honest and brave and makes me want to punch capital-D Depression right in the neck.

  I don’t know if her words+pictures today have helped more people with depression or without — being able to recognize when somebody you know is suffering and being able to help is not a skill that’s widely taught just yet, but damn if this comic isn’t a tremendous first stride. Read it, think about it, go be a shriveled piece of corn for somebody that needs it.

• Also dropping today is the latest Jim Zub project; while he was famously jerked around by DC Comics earlier this year, he was also classy as hell about the whole thing. I’m going to ascribe his newest news to that classy-as-hellness, because I’m not certain that anybody at DC has two functioning neurons to rub together, but they probably recognize kind behavior¹. In any event, Mr Zub is responsible for the writerly portion of a two-part Batman story in a digital-first anthology series, with Part One appearing on devices today and part two next Thursday, 16 May. My only quibble with Zub’s entirely understandable enthusiasm is when he says:
  

  My first published superhero story and first published DC Comics work, Legends of the Dark Knight #49, has been released on digital and mobile platforms and it’s only 99 cents!

  That’s because every time Zub shares his wisdom on making comics and making it in comics (start here, look to the sidebar that says “Tutorials” and don’t stop so long as there are still links to follow), he is himself a goddamn superhero to everybody that loves comics, and don’t you forget it, Zub.

Various new things were introduced while I was gone:

• Comic Chameleon, long awaited, has seen its official launch, meaning that you can download it to your iDevice now and start reading webcomics for free, and with the cooperation of their creators. Well done Bernie Hou and the entire Comic Chameleon team; once I get my Android version you’ll escalate all the way to “Attaboy” status.
• Dante Shepherd, this blog’s favorite Chemical Engineer², has launched a new undertaking and it’s not the second comic (provisionally dubbed PhD Unknown) that’s been hinted at for a few months now. That’s cool, we at Fleen would rather wait until it was done cooking to Shepherd (and art collaborator Joan Cooke)’s standards.

  No, what Shepherd announced was a new initiative to promote interest in and understanding of STEM topics by K-12 educators, who will presumably share their knowledge and enthusiasm with the various rugrats budding scholars who will form the technological basis of future generations. If you happen to know anybody that teaches K-12, do everybody a favor and point ’em towards Science The World so we can start building a smarter tomorrow.

• Kickstarts have also been underway, with campaigns set for the second volume of The Bear (including a webcomicky presentation of Volume 1 at MyBear.net, as promised recently), the second volume of Dumbing of Age, the first volume of Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, and the revival of the Penny Arcade Downloadable Content podcast.
• That last one has been getting a bunch of (to my mind, ill-informed) pushback, on the grounds that podcasts don’t cost anything and therefore it’s a big scam. Au contraire, mon frère, podcasts do cost something; they cost time, which if Mike Krahulik, Jerry Holkins, and others at Penny Arcade Industries take, they won’t be spending on other things that will generate money.

  Could Jerry and Mike do the podcast without impacting their lavish, Russian mafia-like lifestyles? Probably, but they aren’t just supporting themselves — their efforts are what make payroll for more than a dozen people, and with that kind of responsibility comes Robert Khoo’s responsibility to say, We have to find a way to make it pay. Me, I’m just interested to see if they set the all-time record for highest percentage funding in Kickstarter history, which as of this writing is at an astonishing 570,000% of goal. Okay, granted, that was a ten dollar goal, but let’s not lose sight of the distractingly-large number.

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¹ Much in the way that my dog will be your very best friend if you offer her a treat, but shies away from small children that haven’t learned how to pet gently.

² In keeping with tribal custom, all specific engineering disciplines are capitalized here at Fleen, in acknowledgment of the skills, knowledge, and hard work of those who practice our peculiar intersection of design, intuition, math, science, the right-hand rule³, and blowin’ shit up. Respect.

³ AKA, The engineering gang sign.

You know, just a thing, that’s all. In fact, this turn of events is going to be preoccupying me for the next couple of days, so apologies in advance if I’m not rushing here to post when I have celebration-related things going on.

I hope you’re all in as good a mood as I am. See you when I see you.

Warning: today’s post contains references to the most evil creatures alive.

• Nothing to do with webcomics, but interesting nonetheless — a short-duration Kickstart (14 days) with a high goal ($US50,000) and a single reward tier priced at the very popularest dollar figure (US$25). The NPR/This American Life team-up known as Planet Money¹ have decided to Kickstart a t-shirt that contains all the information that describes where the shirt came from and how it was created and shipped to you, the recipient:
  

  We will take you on that odyssey and document the route our t-shirt took to your back. We’ll meet the people who grow the cotton, spin the yarn, and cut and sew the fabric. We’ll ride on the cargo ships that bring our t-shirt from factories in Bangladesh and Colombia to ports in the US. And we’ll examine the crazy tangle of international regulations which govern the t-shirt trade the whole way.

  Obligatory note that they’ve cleared their goal by more than US$10,000 as of this writing, and the entire project fascinates me more than anything the PM team have done since they went out and bought a toxic asset just to see what that was like. Alas, “Toxie” is no more, but this shirt should prove to be a better investment and I would have pledged for it already if not for one thing.

  Squirrels.

  One of the attic-invading, cable-chewing, fluff-tailed little bastards² is prominently featured on the shirt so screw that noise. No offense, David Kestenbaum, Jacob Goldstein, Marianne McCune, Zoe Chace, Caitlin Kenney, Chana Joffe-Walt, Matt Levine, Lam Thuy Vo, Jess Jiang, Robert Smith, Adam Davidson, Cory Turner, and all the other Planet Money contributors; I love your work and give money to my public radio station, but I ain’t puttin’ no damn squirrel on my body.

• Speaking of Kickstarts, Holly Rowland’s sneak preview of what’s coming to Make That Thing this springtime is now becoming less “preview” and more “up and running”. Tyson Hesse’s Boxer Hockey is essentially about people in their underwear whacking the crap out of a frog (and each other) as a competitive sport; since the beginning, Boxer Hockey fans have been wanting their own frogs and now Hesse and Make That Thing have finally produced a prototype with just the right expression, floppiness, and ability to stand up to blunt instruments.

  The Make-a-Frog Project kicks off just as Boxer Hockey (the strip) is approaching a crucial story point as the main characters meet their female counterparts in a Boxer Hockey (the sport) match that is sure to be unrivaled in terms of grudges, hilariously cheap shots, and frog-whacking. Get your own Make-a-Frog in time for the showdown so you can recreate the mayhem at home!

• Speaking of not exactly webcomics, I came across an essay that originally dealt with creative blocks in programmers, but I think it’s probably applicable more widely than that. The McDonald’s Theory is mandatory reading for anybody that doubts the utility of Just start, it’ll absolutely get better once you’ve discarded the initial crap as an operating philosophy.

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¹ Unofficial motto, in the sense that I just made it up: Cutting through the crap since before the financial meltdown.

² I’m convinced that it was squirrels that took down the Charles Christopher site last year, meaning that I can’t link you to the Squirrel Chew comic as the archives are incomplete. Yeah, well, screw you, squirrels, I have the book and I’m sharing your perfidy with the world.

Vive L’alliance de la bande dessinée. Or more precisely, somebody please tell me where the very talented writers from Comics Alliance [link may not work much longer] end up, since their site (the only comics site I read regularly) got axed by parent company AOL. I really liked CA, I liked the writers, I liked their approach which appreciated comics in all its varied forms (not to mention the respect they gave to webcomics — do a search there for as long as the site is live on “Nedroid” say, or “Jess Fink”). They reveled in the most batshit insane¹ of comics, thought deeply about how comics tell their stories, poked fun at the comics they couldn’t stop reading and always somehow found happiness in a shared legacy of the world’s greatest heroes (and Aquaman).

The fact that those last three links lead to pieces written by the same guy should tell you something. I have no doubt that none of the CA staffers and stringers will have much trouble landing in their next writing gigs (and boy do I hope that they take the Eisner Award that they’re nominated for this year); in the meantime, if you haven’t already, maybe toss a thank you towards the staff of CA as they disperse (hopefully to coalesce together again — like Voltron, they are mightier together than in their constituent parts). And if it won’t get you fired, they’ve already received the ultimate accolade in a pop culture-saturated world: an angry tirade about their fate from a noted friend of comics [NSFW on account of naughty subtitles and oh yeah — Hitler].

Nevertheless, there is always good news to be found, and little is more regarded as good news in these parts than a new project from Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson, this time a book launch party for the Capture Creatures collection. Those with long memories may recall that Capture Creatures launched at the beginning of 2012, with a goal of finishing the 151 painting series, a gallery show, and a book collection in the same year.

Along the way, other things intruded², and the completion of Capture Creatures pushed back to 2013. Good news: the painting are apparently done, since the gallery show will launch in LA on 1 June. And with the completion of the paintings comes the comprehensive book (including the creatures we haven’t seen on the site yet), details of which I am solemnly assured are nearly upon us. We at Fleen will bring you the details as soon as we can, and in the meantime, dibs on whichever creature might be based on the greyhound, if such a thing exists.

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¹ So to speak.

² Dreistadt did more than 300 (!) paintings last year, so I think we can cut her some slack.

You can tell how well a particular comics awards program meets the standard of “credibility” or “legitimacy” by how closely it matches my ballot. Okay, kidding, but face it — that’s how we all think; if we agree with the winners then it’s good and if we disagree then we can’t believe what idiots the jury/voters/whoever are. By this (admittedly solipsistic) standard, the 2013 Stumptown Comic Arts Awards were pretty damn good. Let’s take a rundown, shall we?

Of the eleven categories, it appears that eight come from the webcomicky world; granted, one of those is for Best Webcomic, which is pretty much guaranteed to represent our weird little community, so maybe it’s really closer to seven out of ten. A’course, Best Webcomic went to Evan Dahm for Vattu which was my choice, so yay.

The big winner of the night was undoubtedly Spike, taking Best Anthology for Smut Peddler (with a few dozen fellow contributors) and Best Small Press for Poorcraft (with Diana Nock). Carla Speed McNeil has been running Finder as a webcomic for a while now, and the reissue of Talisman saw her recognized as Best Cartoonist and Best Leterer.

Kory Bing’s Skin Deep (specifically the chapter entitled Exchanges¹) led to gongs for Best Colorist and Best New Talent². The Reader’s Choice Award went to EK Weaver for The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal.

If all that weren’t cool enough, the design of the awards themselves is pretty neat: a plaque with a little big-eyed monster-critter, as seen in photos shared by Ms Bing, Mr Dahm, and Ms Spike. It’s a fun touch³, one that says You don’t need to take this too seriously, let’s all just have fun now, which is exactly how we should approach comics.

Fleen congratulates all the winners, and all the voters for having such good taste (defined, of course, as liking the same things that we at Fleen like). Now if only somebody could talk to the [insert name of your least favorite award for anything here] voters, then we’d be set.

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¹ On the web, Exchanges dates from 2009, but it’s recently made it to print.

² In another case of laboring long before finally breaking out as a “new” talent, Bing’s Skin Deep has been updating since late 2006.

³ Possibly not as fun as the brick that forms the Ignatz Award, but with less chance of being seized by security prior to your flight home.

It’s very nearly the weekend, so let’s keep this brief and then we can all go out and enjoy it. ‘Sides, half of webcomics is¹ either at or in transit to one show or another right about now so it’s kinda quiet.

• Quiet except for the promise of sexytimes, as Hurricane Erika has finally launched a new, ongoing, weekly webcomic: Oh Joy, Sex Toy [PNSFYWBWDIK²]. While the focus of OJST would seem to be on the exploration and review of sex toys, Moen makes it clear in the first installment (and on her twitterfeed) that if it makes happyparts happy, it’s fair game.

  As readers of this page have no doubt divined by this point, I think that Erika Moen does some of the best comic out there: fearless, honest, beautiful to look at, and they always teach me something³. I am more eager than ever for the forthcoming projects that she’s mentioned, including a graphic novel about a woman whose sketchbook comes to life, and a second that’s focused on sex education for teens (who in many cases don’t get honest information in school). She also has the rare ability to make truly terrifying things appear almost cute; not cuddly, mind you, but definitely cute.

• On the other side of the cute scale, the inimitable Gigi DG launched her Cucumber Quest Book One Kickstart just about a year ago, and it was a runaway success. Since then she’s been part of the absolutely gorgeous Benign Kingdom Spring 2013 collection, and today she launched the campaign for Cucumber Quest book 2. At current trends, she’ll hit goal around the twelve hour mark, and will go far, far beyond the US$12,000 she’s seeking. Ms DG’s work is wonderful in nearly every way, so if you like wonderful things by all means check it out.

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¹ Are? “Webcomics” is plural, but I’m using it to represent a singular community, and the “half of” is a single subunit. If only somebody knew singular/plural rules like your Ryans North know about the compound plural.

² Possibly Not Safe For Your Work But What Do I Know?

³ Ranging from what it’s like in her head (and goodness, has it really been more than three years since DAR wrapped) to the notion that Juggalos are more than just their clownish exteriors. I was pretty ingrained with my anti-juggalism, so kudos to Moen and her co-creator Jeff Parker for knocking some awareness into me.

Five Fs worth of alliteration? Might be a personal record. Also, Fleen personnel upgraded WordPress and plug-ins in response to the current exploit going around, so let us know if anything is behaving oddly.

• I’m assuming you’ve seen this first piece already, but just in case: a scammer or scammers unknown are lifting Kickstarter campaigns wholesale (straight down to text and video) and reproducing them on IndieGoGo so as to rake in money by piggybacking on legitimate campaigns. Kudos to Chris Sims at Comics Alliance for the full story¹, which has grown by at least one more attempt in the time since his story went up.

Conventions! Half of [web]comics is traveling to one show or another. If you’re in transit and prepping up your exhibit or alley space, :01 Books has some handy tabling tips that even veteran pros could stand to give a quick-once over. So where can you see these people? Depends on where you go (and names are in no particular order, and likely to be missing names that really should be there).

• Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon typically shoots for an indy-/smaller press feel, though there are plenty of big names coming to town. Webcomickers and similar types you may see there will include Bill Mudron, Boulet, Spike (no doubt with copies of the Too Hot For Gumroad Smut Peddler in hand), Diana Nock, Dylan Meconis, Emi Lenox, “Hurricane” Erika Moen (debuting her new, weekly webcomic tomorrow!), Evan Dahm, Faith Erin Hicks, Hope Larson (with her brand new Who Is AC?), James Kochalka, Jenn Manley Lee, Kel McDonald, Kory Bing, Mac Schubert, Matt Bors, Phil Foglio, Rembrand Le Compte, and the suspiciously named Tyrell Cannon, who has a comic called “Gary” what the hell, people.
• Meanwhile, the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo in Calgary, Alberta will see a somewhat more mainstream crowd, but has proven to be a lucrative show in the past for webbish types like the Blind Ferret crew, Sam Logan, Joel Watson, Danielle Corsetto, Jennie Breeden, a TopatoCo contingent (including Jeph Jacques, KC Green, and Meredith Gran), Alina Pete, and Jim Zub.
• Finally, C2E2 in Chicago, Illinois hasn’t really gained traction with the webcomics crowd (one indicator: Spike apparently opted to incur flight, shipping, and hotel costs for Stumptown rather than stay home in Chicago for this weekend), but you’ll still find Ramón Pérez, Chris Giarusso, the Cyanide & Happiness clade, Ed Brisson, Mike Isenberg, Oliver Mertz, and Daniel Lapham, Katie Cook, and BOOM! Studios (although it appears none of the creators from their Adventure Time or Regular Show projects).

Superfans may wish to note that it is probably just possible to hit all three shows this weekend. This is not a request or a recommendation, just an observation.

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¹ Also for FunkyWatch, which allows me to keep a weather eye on the most miserablist strips in history without having to read them myself. I think that falls clearly into the category of taking one for the team.