So a couple of apropos of nothing observations:

• It’s an oldy, but a goodie: psycho wang shakin’ primate is a combination of words that is never not hilarious. This comic actually went up about six weeks before this blog debuted, and it still makes me laugh out loud every time.
• Burning up the twitters today (I saw the link when Raina Telgemeier retweeted Bill Amend) is a beautiful comic on artistic potential and telling those voices that say you can’t, everything’s too limiting to drop dead. As near I can tell (seeing as how I don’t read Norwegian), Jellyvampire is a new webcomic (only a month and a half-dozen updates old), some of which appears to be plot–oriented in Norwegian, and some of which is non-plot-oriented and in English, by a cartoonist named Ida Eva. Messing around the site (did I mention it’s in a language I don’t speak or read?), I found a bunch of work by other cartoonists, at least some of which make decent sense regardless of language barriers. Explore, enjoy.
• I don’t think I have ever hated a fictional character as much as I hate Clarice (formerly known as Agent 146 ) over at A Girl And Her Fed. I am including Sauron and Cruella de Ville in that statement (but not their hypothetical offspring). What do you do with somebody so irredeemable, when you live in a world where ghosts are an objective reality and killing them only makes them stronger? I want to see Clarice broken down to her constituent pieces and her mind taken apart to the point that she’s nothing but autonomic reflexes. I hate her that much, which I guess means that AGAHF creator Otter is doing her job.

  NB: Clarice the murderous cyborg bitch-goddess is not to be mistaken with Clarice the librarian and part-time dominatrix; Clarice the librarian is cool.

• From the mailbag, Kevin writes:
  

  I am trying to nail down stats on (A) how many newspaper cartoonists remain in the U.S.; (B) how many syndicated comic strips remain, and (C) how many strips are now available online. I also am trying to get a sense how many online cartoonists are making a living at this. If you can help, I can cite you as my source.

  (B) would probably be the easiest to determine, in that there are only a few syndicates left, and looking down their list of offerings should give a pretty good number. (A) will probably be about the same as (B), in that some cartoonists do more than one strip, some partner up on the same strip, and there are some in-house cartoonists here and there. (C) entirely depends on what you count as a “strip online” (Solely online? Primarily online but collected to print? Originally print but tangentially online? English language only — see the second item, above?), and when it’s worth taking note of.

  I’m guessing that the Powers of Ten approach is the best that you can do: at any given time, there’s on the order of¹ 100,000 webcomics, 10,000 of which see more than a week’s worth of updates, 1,000 of which have an audience beyond immediate friends and family, and 100 of which allow their creators to make “a living” (the definition of which is its own can of worms). Anybody got a better set of numbers, the comment link is down there.

_______________
¹ Naturally, “on the order of” means that you could easily go up or down by a factor of ten. In other words, it’s the opposite of anything resembling an accurate measure.

Regarding the brouhaha over the comics-themed issue, Tony Ortega, Voice editor, had this to say:

I wanted to have a big special comics issue, but I had a limited budget. So in a well-meaning effort to make this work, I asked some cartoonists to provide work without compensation. In the last couple of days, it’s been pointed out to me quite clearly that this was not the best way to help out the cartooning industry. The thing is, we’re not a company that expects people to work for free for the exposure. And I’m making this right: I’m paying all of the artists in the special issue.

And hopefully buying them beers and working with them again soon.

Rest of the publishing industry: please follow this example.

• Hey, lookit that, the Eisner nominations are out, and there are some notable names from the world of webcomickry. Over at Best Publication for Teens you have Raina Telgemeier‘s SMILE, a book often championed on this page, which of course started as a webcomic. Likewise, Barry Deutsch’s Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, which started on Girlamatic.

  In the realm of Best Humor Publication you have Dave Kellet’s Sheldon collection, Literature: Unsuccessfully Competing Against TV Since 1953, and Julia Wertz’s Drinking At The Movies, a original graphic novel but direct offshoot from her webcomic (formerly known as The Fart Party, now rechristened Museum of Mistakes). Similarly, Jason Little’s Motel Art Improvement Service (over in the Best Graphic Album — Reprint category) is a collection of his storyline from the ongoing Bee.

  Then, naturally, the Best Digital Comic is entirely ongoing webcomics, with nods for Karl Kerschl (The Abominable Charles Christopher), Travis Hanson (The Bean), Tracy Butler (Lackadaisy), Caanan Grall (Max Overacts), and the pseudonymous duo of Amir and Khalil (Zahra’s Paradise) getting the nod.

  Here’s what’s most satisfying to me: the do-it-yourself, no publishers, no distributors, entirely creator-owned model is creeping out of the webcomics category (which, as we’ve argued before probably shouldn’t be a category of its own, but let’s not rehash that now) into the other awards. Kellett’s nominated book didn’t come from a publisher that was looking to get in on “this web-comics thing” — he produced and put out the book on his own. Look for this to continue in future years.

• As long as we’re talking about DIY publishing, get yourself over to Olly’s Organix and pre-order the new Octopus Pie book. Listen at Home with Octopus Pie contains more than a year’s worth of comics that have never seen print before, and now that Meredith Gran is back to self-publishing (following her Random House sabbatical), the enterprise is both potentially more rewarding for her (nobody else to split the money with) and more financially taxing (nobody else to pick up the printer’s bill).

  The book ships next month, and even if you’ve never read Octopus Pie before (and if that is the case, what the hell is wrong with you?), just the cover should be enough to pull you in. That is some goddamn gorgeous work, and it only gets better on the inside. Git. Order.

The Village Voice, in either an incredibly ballsy “fuck you” to an entire industry, or an incredibly clueless display of irony, answers its own question.

Namely, If Cartoons Are So Big, Why Don’t They Pay?, the title of the four page surface-treatment of the economics of cartooning. Right in the middle of page 2 is the answer:

Also, many of the artists in this issue aren’t getting paid, but have contributed work for the exposure¹. [emphasis added so you can’t possibly miss the important bit]

Dear The Village Voice, you could have done a one-graf blurblet and accomplished the same thing. Here, you can have this one for free:

If cartoons are so big, why don’t they pay? It’s because publishers [including us] would rather put together an entire issue focusing on cartoons, but not pay cartoonists for their work. Works for us, sucks to be them. The end.

• Let’s shift gears to happier thoughts, shall we? Raina Telgemeier, genial chronicler of dental trauma, got to share some good news yesterday regarding fellow Comics Bakery members John Green and Dave Roman (the latter being Telgemeier’s husband):
  

  Finally announced!! @yaytime & @johngreenart‘s TEEN BOAT to be published in full color by Houghton Mifflin.

  For those of you not in the know, TEEN BOAT is an all-ages, very funny, occasionally touching web/print comic that tells a universal story: that of a typical teen who also happens to be a boat. Also, in a stunning proof of the proposition that there’s nothing that the internet can’t ruin, Googling “teen boat” also leads to a porn site that involves alleged teens gettin’ extra naked on a boat.

  Please don’t confuse the two if you’re trying to share Green & Roman’s work with your mom, the local librarian, kids that you know, your grandparents, or pretty much anybody that you’d be willing to shake hands with and not immediately want broad-spectrum antibiotics. For more on the good kind of teen boat, the announcement, some comic excerpts, and a video trailer can be found at The Beat.

• The thing about the bad kind of teen boat is that — like so much unimaginative modern naked media — it leaves a bad taste in my mouth (yes, yes, “That’s what she said”, moving on) from its exploitative, power-disparity POV. There’s quality naked media out there, by the likes of Jess Fink [NSFW] or Erika Moen [NSFW-ish], stuff that’s personally revealing, romantic, tender, and/or funny.

  Another good provider of quality naked media (although that’s far from the extent of his talents, having done by my estimation far less naked media — nakedia? — than non-naked) is Sylvan Migdal, who’s never been satisfied with doing just one comic at a time. Seeing as how Curvy [NSFW or not, depending on the page in question] is in the depths of storyline, it’s naturally time for Migdal to launch another comic, which will apparently happen on 1 June.

  Judging from the teaser, I’d say this one is towards the fully-clothed end of the spectrum, albeit the global catastrophe that’s hinted at might change social mores. Proceed with caution at place of employment, and with full enjoyment elsewhere. If you’re dying to know the naked-people quotient of the new strip, you can ask Migdal this weekend at MoCCA Fest, where he will be tabling.

_______________
¹ People die of exposure.

For the past couple of years, one of the most successful and generally-agreed-upon-as-fun events that’s occurred in proximity to the MoCCA Festival has been the Drink & Draw Like A Lady meet-up. At least, that’s the report that I’ve always gotten, as (not being of the XX chromosomal persuasion, much less a lady) I haven’t been.

Event brainstormer Hope Larson won’t be at MoCCA Fest this year, but she’s passed organizational duties on, and arrangements are being ably handled by the likes of Raina Telgemeier and Lucy Knisley. If you are a lady who loves/makes/sells comics, head over to 192 Books (Tenth & 21st in New York) on Friday, 8 April, starting at 7:00pm.

• Have you guys been enjoying the between-chapters break at Curvy? It’s been sexy and occasionally SFW guest strips all week, from the likes of David McGuire, Erika Moen, and Megan Gedris. More than just a chapter break, these strips also honor ten years of webcomickin’ by Curvy creator Sylvan Migdal. If Curvy is the first of his work that you’ve read, go familiarize yourself with earlier works like Spork, Rho, Mnemesis (don’t be put off by the fact that the first page says “The End”), Ascent, or Where the Typos Og.
• I believe that I may have mentioned in the past that there are certain no-longer-updating pages that I always go back and check; I don’t care what anyone saw, some day Vera Brosgol will get the sudden urge to finish Return to Sender, and I’ll be ready when she does. Occasionally, these acts of extreme optimism pay off, as this morning when I noticed the following:
  

  Because there are more heartwarming childhood memories still to share … You Damn Kid returns on Monday, March 7 2011.

  Yes!

  Owen Dunne’s had — and returned from — numerous hiatuses (hiati?) in the past, but he’s always come back, and I’ve always been waiting when he does. Maybe it’s because something in his work speaks to me. Maybe it’s because the first webcomics purchase I ever made was the YDK print collection and a sketch of Jethro and the frog rocket wiener. Welcome back, Mr Dunne; also: Clippy!

• Let’s finish up with a quote that I found yesterday after reading Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #1:
  

  “Zany” clearly does well on the Internet, and another graphic-novel-compiled webcomic, Dr McNinja, definitely embodies the word. It’s memo-olific, with pop-culture references flying a mile a minute. I super enjoyed realizing, “Hey! That’s a He-Man quote!” and patting myself on the back for being clever and “in”. The pace of this comic is super fast, and my mind was whirling in glee at some of the outrageous stuff that happened.

  That was reigning nerd-goddess Felicia Day, in the March 2001 edition of “Horsepower” (which runs on the inside back cover of Dark Horse comic books) in reference to the upcoming fourth overall/first from Dark Horse Dr McNinja print collection. Hey, Chris, now that you’re all buds with Ms Day, can you get her autograph for my wife? Awesome.

Okay, so Em-City. Lotta webcomics folks heading out that way, including some that I almost certainly missed, so let me know about any obvious omissions, yeah? Most of those folks have been helpfully putting up maps to show where to find ’em, and they all have something in common: a tendency for the arrows to point towards the lower-left corner of the booth space.

For the sake of convenience, because it’s got the most names pre-written on it, I refer you to the TopatoCo map [PDF] and add that most every other webcomics person of interest not written on the map is within a brief walking radius of the smiling Topato in booth 202. We’ll use that as our navigational starting point, because it’s right by the entrance.

• Put your back against the wall and stare directly at the TopatoCo booth, then let your gaze wander leftward and across the aisle. All four Halfpixel üdes are at booth 102, adjacent to the Sam Logan/Jeph Jacques Argument Annex in booth 203; special guest Mary Cagle joins said Düdes. Nestled in the bosom these two booths is the Red Bull Top Fuel Fun Machine (booth 104), with the exception of Ms TMI Tuesday, who can be found oversharing at booth 207 with the Weregeek.
• Not sure where 207 is? No problem. First of all, look at the TopatoCo aisle opposite the wall of the convention center. On the other side of it, you’ll see The Library Guys and Mister Mumbly Eyebrows at booth 206, and behind them you’ll find The Historian & The Hurricane in booth 208, as well as Angela Melick and Joel Watson (I, uh, ran out of nicknames) in booth 307.
• Having visited the Melick/Waston Axis of Awesome (Nickname! Still got it!), do a 180 and you’ll see the Blank Labellers in booth 210; merely rotate leftwards again and walk forwards until you see all the Steampunk cosplayers, and you’re in Foglio country (not to be confused with bat country), booth 110. Rotate again until you once more face the mighty Unshelved/Biff booth and the once-mysterious 207 will be directly in your sightline. Alternately, you can stand alongside the gaslamp mafia and walk towards the back of the hall two aisles, and you’ll be at the Webcomic Bucket Brigade, booth 116.
• Since you’re hugging the left wall and all, this might be a good time to visit Artist Alley, where you can find multiple Bobs — both Angry Flower (E-14) and White (L-06) varieties — along with Let’s Be Friends Again (A-11), various members of Comics Bakery (G-10), my sporting bet nemesis (G-14), and the Chancellor of Iron Crotch University (I-07).
• Finally, you’ll have to brave the far side of the hall to visit Alaska Robotics, off in booth 906, the veritable hinterland. It’s okay, they’re from America’s Frontier, they can survive on their own just fine. We should also note that Scott Kurtz wants you to remember that Saturday is Classoline Alley Day at ECCC, when all and sundry are invited to nudge their wardrobes up a notch or two. If you’re not sure what constitutes “classy”, quietly observe Latin Art-throb Aaron Diaz back at the TopatoCo booth, but please — no sudden motion; he startles easily.

Now that we’re all caught up, let’s move on to fresh territory, shall we? Actually, let’s revisit recently-covered territory; in comments on this site, one may observe a pair of missives that are worth your attention.

• In reference to the difficulties of getting the Erfworld books delivered, Darren Gendron helpfully notes that any business with China around the Lunar New Year is a dicey proposition. File that one away for next year, those seeking overseas printing.
• In reference to the wanton destruction of his sites, Friend o’ Fleen Lore Sjöberg (link still dead, but it’ll be back someday) thinks out loud about a madcap new idea he’s having. From his Tumblr, the possibilities of new forms of electronic media enjoyment:
  

  I want you to be able to treat my digital creations — pictures, words, music, video, whatever — the same way you do mp3 files. I want you to be able to download them as files, mail them to your friends, stick them on the portable or stationary device of your choice and enjoy them how you want.

  I want you to be able to read them online if you have a net connection, but I want you to be able to pack them up and carry them along with you in case you don’t. Maybe you want a simple, no-frills reader on your smartphone, and maybe you want a pretty custom skin for reading them on your home computer, and maybe you want random Lore cartoons to come up on your screensaver.

  I think in a decade or so this sort of thing will be much more common. Websites and PDF files will still exist, but encapulated data with rich metadata that can be sorted and rendered according to the needs of the reader will be the standard for any sort of serious data stream.

  I’ve done a little poking around, and I’ve found something that I think will work for now. It will render in at least 75% of current browsers in operation, and more like 99% of browsers that don’t have my name in them. It will be reader-friendly, generous with metadata, and extremely portable. I hope you’ll have fun reading it, and I hope other people will join in the fun as well.

  I’m just going to dive in and see if I can make something neat. With a little luck and a little free time, you’ll see the first steps in a few days.

  Call me crazy, but that right there is what you call a Manifesto, with a capital Man! I am going to be really intrigued to see what Lore (who is a very clever guy) can do along these lines, and even more intrigued to see if, in that promised decade, we’re all casually using LEM (Lore’s Encapsulated Media) as the default content format.

You know what I don’t talk about enough? Dicebox, by Jenn Manley Lee. It’s right over there in the blogroll, its story is nothing short of brilliant, and the art — so much detail, so much depth to the color, so much work goes into every panel (see the piece written by my erstwhile cohort Jeff Lowrey more than five years ago on this very page), and it’s been going on for so long, one just assumes the brilliance is obvious and takes it for granted. Mea culpa.

Let’s expand on that “it’s been going on for so long” idea a bit, shall we? Book 2 of Dicebox began two days ago, which means that Book 1 is complete, and that means that Book 1 (of a planned four books) can be printed as an undivided single unit. Pre-orders went up on 10 January, and as of about six hours ago (at the time of this writing), Lee reports that more than 10% of the books required to make the print run viable have been pre-purchased.

And you’ve got some choices with those books — much like Dylan Meconis did with Family Man‘s first book, there are different editions at different price-points, with varying degrees of goodies attached. These range from The Simple (US$25 plus shipping, for a signed copy — which one should note is a freakin’ bargain, given it’s more than 300 pages, 8″ x 10″ in size, and probably several new printing technologies had to be invented in order to get the depth and subtlety of color properly reproduced) up through The Sponsor (US$500, with the book upgraded to hardcover, and including a hand-colored tip-in sheet, a print, actual dice in a cup, and your choice of story pages recreated by Lee in watercolor just for you). It’s like a Kickstarter, only without the progress & countdown bars.

Even if you’re only enthusiastic about Dicebox (as opposed to rabidly enthusiastic — there really aren’t any other kinds of Dicebox readers, near as I can tell), you ought to pick this one up. After all, somewhere in the indicia, there will be a mention of where the book was printed, and then all webcomickers will find out which company is willing to print 300 pages at a very reasonable cost, and then we’ll get a lot more full-color, thick books from all of our favorite creators. Win-win-win, QED.

• Speaking of Kickstarter, there’s one I’d like to direct your attention towards, offered by Michael Gianfrancesco, to fund a new comic anthology to be titled Show and Tell, a Comic Anthology about Learning and Teaching. Alexander Danner (who is on the editorial board for Show and Tell, and who tipped me to the story) informs us:
  

  This anthology is part of a larger project that we are very excited about — the New England Comic Arts in the Classroom conference, which will be held March 26th in Providence, Rhode Island. Guests at the con will include Raina Telgemeier and Tracy White.

  Comics, naturally, have an affinity in the classroom, if only to judge by the many uses of them around the world to teach language and literacy. We will be following both the conference and the anthology closely.

• Once more back to Dicebox — if you look carefully around at Ms Lee’s store, you might notice something that most stores don’t have: a blog. It’s pretty short (given that the shop’s only just opened), but having this sort of mechanism within the store itself to communicate with your readers is a pretty damn good idea. Something similar just launched over at the Transmission X storefront, making it easy to note specials, low quantities, sold out items, etc.

  In the past week I’ve noticed creators from Box Brown to Rich Stevens tweeting or posting on their main pages about store special offers (Stevens) or imminent out-of-print status (Brown). But if a customer missed those announcements and just wandered over to the store directly? Just seems to me if it deals with your merch and it’s worth mentioning, it’s worth mentioning again where the merch is presented. Heck, TopatoCo’s landing page focuses on new items, shipping deadlines, special announcements, and whatever weirdness is spilling out of Malki ! today. If they can do it, you can do it.

• Lastly, it’s getting a lot of attention right now — a manifesto on not being a particular type of internet jerk in webcomic form, courtesy of Rosscott and Caldy. See Something? Cite Something has already spawned shirts based on the bottom two images in the flowchart, one of which has been objected to by a copyright owner. Irony? Or ultimate manifestation of the message in the strip? Regardless, it’s been pulled in accordance with the copyright holder’s wishes, and no need for C&Ds or legal threats. So that’s all right, then.

I do this a couple times a year — open up the mailbag, look over new (or new-ish) comics that people have sent me links to, and read the most recent five to ten installments. It’s gut-level, it’s not deep, and very occasionally I find something that I like. This time I’m sharing it with you.

• Sketchfervor! by Amelia Altavena
  Art’s a bit like Raina Telgemeier, ranging from cartoony to watercolorish. Topics range from daily life to deeper thoughts. Not much in the way of storyline, but probably worth an archive trawl sometime.
• The Deadlys by Chris Cantrell
  Chas Addams meets Seth McFarlane, with a family & friends circle of monsters (some under-the-bed mythological types, some, evil-that-men-do types) in a world skewed towards creepiness. Not as over the top committed to a monster reality as Monsters, Inc or Ugly Hill, it’s essentially a sitcom with the suburb having Halloweentowne set dressing — job worries, wacky hijinks, and mix-ups included. Currently running a holiday-themed story arc that will likely be more plot-cohesive than prior installments.
• Rhetoric by Darrell Stark
  Laugh-chuckles in a retail setting, this time a bookstore. Not much I can tell in the quick trawl about who the characters are — they don’t show clearly developed personalities across this sample, and even the physical design and color palettes assigned to them are kind of same-y. The boss is apparently sympathetic and a driven jerk? There may well be plenty of development and differentiation if you read from the beginning but I’m having trouble getting myself past the faces — they’re all sad, disturbingly so, almost Winkerbeanian in the depths of their unhappiness.
• Wunderman Comics by Nate Wunderman
  Comic book type stories, from alien invasions of Earth to time travel capers. Art looks and feels like 1980s 2000 AD one-off stories (Alan Moore wrote a lot of great stuff, and a bunch of up and coming artists illustrated it), with colors straight from old school Métal Hurlant. I couldn’t get the promised navigation (keyboard or mouse) to work, so a lot of clicking on one page in the archive gallery, reading it, going back, and then clicking on the next. On the up side, a lot of comics show up here weekly.

Only one item today kiddies, but it’s a good one: the much-respected (and usually amusingly snarky) Kirkus Reviews have started releasing their Best of 2010 lists, and we’ll be paying particular attention to the Best Children’s Books and Best Books for Teens (both lists are broken down to sub-groupings — historical novels, nonfiction, picture books, etc — just look at the complete lists for each age range), because there is where you will find webcomickers.

From the Children’s list (graphic novel and chapter books division), two by Collen AF Venable, creator of the late, lamented Fluff in Brooklyn and possessor of the awesome connect-the-dots giraffe tat — Hamster and Cheese and And Then There Were Gnomes (Guinea PIG, Pet Shop Private Eye, #1 and #2, respectively, with art by Stephanie Yue). Sasspants the guinea pig solves mysteries in the pet shop, with just the right tone of sarcasm to demonstrate that Venable knows kids get subtle humor, too (also discussions of animals and their poop). As an added bonus, Venable spends her days book-designing the :01 Second line, including fellow honoree Aaron Renier’s The Unsinkable Walker Bean.

Same division, two books by Fleen Fave Ursula Vernon, Dragonbreath — Attack of the Ninja Frogs and Dragonbreath — Curse of the Were-Wiener (the second and third entries in the Dragonbreath series). Same sensibilities and goofy fun as found in Vernon’s (soon to be wrapped, sniff) Digger, toned down a bit for the pre-teen set. Be sure to also check out the first (self-titled) Dragonbreath and the vaguely-related-to-Digger Nurk: The Strange, Surprising Adventures of a (Somewhat) Brave Shrew for more delights.

Moving up to the Teens (or Young Adult, if you prefer) list, again in graphic novels, one each from Raina Telgemeier and Hope Larson — the justly-famous SMILE and Mercury, about which much has been said previously in these parts.

Fleen congratulates the honorees, and thanks them for their service to comics — keep in mind, all of the books recognized by Kirkus on these lists were for younger readers. The extent to which creators have jobs in the future (and that readers have worthwhile material to consume) will be determined in large part by the numbers of kids that pick up the habit of reading words + pictures. Larson, Telgemeier, Venable, and Vernon are doing their part to pass that habit on, and we are all luckier for it.

Following up on the list of webcomics types at NYCC from a few days ago, some additional creators for your consideration; in some cases, they aren’t listed under their own names, in others they aren’t tabling but will be at the show.

• Scott Campbell, wandering the floor
• Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman will not have tables, but will be at various (Raina) panels (Dave)
• Tracy White will be around on Saturday, including at the :01 Books booth (#2314)
• Yuko Ota & Ananth Panagariya will have copies of their new book at the Lerner/Graphic Universe booth (#2307)
• Magnolia Porter and Tom Siddell will both be at the Archaia booth (#2301) at various times

In other news:

• Over at Kickstarter, a project that’s got an interesting intersection with webcomics: Matthew Duhan of Gozer Games are following up their card game Zombie Ninja Pirates with a sequel/extension called Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Fairies. The three of the four key “characters” in the game deck will be drawn by John Kovalic (the Vampire), Randy Milholland (the Werewolf), and Phil Foglio (the Witch); only the fact that Fairie card artist Terry Moore doesn’t do webcomics prevents this from being a clean sweep but hey — Moore’s work is predominantly creator-owned and could have been a longform webcomic, and it just damn beautiful to look at, so that’s all right.

  Anyhoo. You know the deal with Kickstarter pitches by now, and this one looks to be a pretty good bargain at the $20 pledge point — a copy of the finished game, US shipping included, signed by the creator and primary artist (Neko Pilarcik, who will do the remaining 100+ cards in the deck). Given that the game will likely be priced in the $18 – $22 range (plus shipping), that’s under cost. People that like fun things are urged to check out the project.

• Long time readers may recall that I once drew a compare-and-contrast of the stringency in Wikipedia notability requirements for web content (including webcomics) and porn stars. Since it appears that The Most Wonderful Encyclopedia In The Universe cares more about naked people gettin’ it on for your entertainment than for even the finest of webcomickry, what to make of the press release I received this morning?
  

  What happens when you combine two adult film actresses, a rock star and a tense, sexy murder mystery? DarkBrain.com is about to find out when it launches its newest web comic story, “Church of One.” Issue #1 debuts Wednesday, October 6, 2010 and new pages will be updated daily.

  Dark Brain have been throwing around a lot of Project Wonderful ads in the past couple of weeks, most of them promoting comics dealing with the theme of tits, with a subtext of OMG you can totally see her tits. I’d love to tell you more about Church of One (starring notable porn actresses Tabitha Stevens and Raylene, and musician Tony Campos), but the Dark Brain site put up a notice when I followed their link:

  ---

  DarkBrain.com
  DarkBrain.com – Web Comics with Balls.

  This site requires the following to function properly:

  • Cookies enabled
  • JavaScript enabled
  • Adobe Flash version 10 (or better) installed

  ---

  For a site not proved to be safe that advertises itself on the back (ha, ha) of porn stars? Yeah, no. So if anybody still cares about Wikinclusion of webcomics, there’s your in. Since notable naked ladies are involved, webcomics are now officially significant. Yay?

Sorry about the interruption, everybody. Let’s get back to it, shall we?

• There was my short blurb about the Guigar/Kurtz/Rall debate upcoming at NYCC, but it’s not the only session of interest to webcomicdom. Consider also the following:
  Friday, 7:00pm to 8:00pm, room 1A24
  The Digital Age of Comics — Not about webcomics as we use the term around here (with a heavy bias towards the creator-owned and direct audience contact), more about how comics in general (that is, major publishers) are moving into digital distribution. High odds of forward-looking discussion on iPads and future iPad competitors, which means you webcomics types will want to keep an ear to the ground to figure out what formatting to use to best capture that channel.

  Saturday, 2:15pm – 3:15pm, room 1A15
  SMBC Theater — Some of the nicest, most talented people you’ll ever meet talk about making short films in which they portray the worst people in the world. Guaranteed laugh-chuckles.

  Saturday, 7:30pm – 8:30pm, room 1A14
  Kurtz v. Rall: The Print/Web Debate — As previously mentioned.

  Sunday, 10:45am – 12:45pm, room 1E02
  Webcomics Bootcamp with Brad Guigar and Scott Kurtz — Lots of time, an intimate setting, a roaring fire and Barry White on the stereo eager creators looking for a seminar-type round-robin critique of their work. Join in if you think you’re ready for the experience.

• Speaking of conventions, the after-action reports on Intervention have been interesting reading, particularly this dissection of what went wrong with PayPal processing of membership fees. Anybody looking to use PayPal at a convention in any scope, give this a good read.
• Looking for experience in the comics-production field? Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman are looking for an intern (unpaid). Yeah, lack of pay is no fun, but like Ira Glass once said:
  

  [Y]ou work somewhere for a year or two for free or for next to nothing while they get to know you and you get some skills…. It’s not a great system but at least it’s cheaper than grad school.

  The actual quote pertained specifically to public radio, but it parallels the situation in comics (with the exception that you’re even less likely to be hired by an independent creator than by a public radio station, but hey — weirder things have happened).

• Final thoughts: For going on three one and a half years now [Thanks, Roman!], Tatsuya Ishida’s been running a story arc around Fuchsia Devil Girl and Criminy in the pages of Sinfest, and it’s been as sweet as, um, hell. But for the past two weeks or so, Ishida has been stunningly, outstandingly good. It would be easy for this arc to get cloying and saccharine, but instead it just makes you smile. Check it out if you haven’t.