I thought I was so smart this morning before work, figuring out that today’s xkcd is 165,888 x 79,872 worth of pixels, and determining Randall Munroe’s tile naming scheme, which would allow me to explore the entire, massive environment at my later leisure. Naturally, others had reconstructed the entire image before I’d had my breakfast, including at least one zoomable image of the whole damn thing. For the record, I discovered the secret UFO base by manual clicking and dragging. I think the one thing we can all take away from this experience is the fact that Munroe is never bored if he’s got the time to do stuff like this on random Wednesdays.

• Catching up: the Joe Shuster Awards were given out over the weekend; this page is on record that the Canadian comics awards are consistently well-curated in the breadth and depth of their nominees, and particularly find good webcomics to recognize. That streak remains intact, as the Shusters regonized Emily Carroll for her body of work in 2011 as Outstanding Web Comics Creator / Créateur de bande dessinée web exceptionnel for the second year in a row. Following up on his recent Harvey Award win, the award for Outstanding Comic Book Cartoonist / Auteur de bande dessinée exceptionnel went to Ramón Pérez for Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand.
• Looking forward: rumblings in the twitosphere indicate that the time is nigh. R Stevens, in accordance with the unholy pact he made for the sake of US$1332, and is about to eat two pounds of bacon. Much like ancient samurai would have a trusted retainer act as their second when committing seppuku, Stevens has engaged Anthony Clark and KC Green as witnesses to what is to happen, and may glob have mercy on us all.
• Intriguing: TopatoCo are apparently continuing their march to dominate all in their path:
  

  Just submitted an offer to BUY A TOPATOCO BUILDING.

  With George Rohac heading east to represent his employers, the possibility of collaboration — one might say conspirations — between these superstars of webcomics-related success-shepherding exists, and who knows how this will all shake out. I for one intend to be on the right side of history, and I welcome our new, space potato overlord.

Speaking of SPX, the theme of the weekend appeared to be YOLO, as chronicled by webcomics own photojournalist, Chris Yates. I … I think it’s a gang thing, you guys. Meanwhile, Kate Beaton rounded out the last of the major comics awards with another win for the Hark! A Vagrant print collection in the category of Outstanding Anthology or Collection, making more plaques, statues, and bricks than I can recall off the top of my head.¹ The award for Outstanding Online Comic went to Jillian Tamaki’s SuperMutant Magic Academy, which I’ll confess I am not familiar with. A perusal of the category nominees revealed a nice mix of ongoing and wrapped-up work, strip-type serials, panel-type loosely-linked semi-oneshots, autobio, and more — a nice balance of form, story topic, and art styles.

• Speaking of SPX, the national passenger rail system was not very nice towards Chris “Doc” Hastings, involving both a broken train on the way there and a cancelled ticket on the way back. He’s safely ensconced back in Brooklyn at last report, and
  able to share some of the other projects that he’s been working on, including the comic book-y treatment for a pitch packet of a proposed TV series, presently raising production costs over on IndieGoGo.

  You really can’t go wrong with a name like Freelance Beatdown, the brainchild of comedic personage Jordan Morris; given the glowing terms that Hastings uses to describe Morris, It’s unlikely that he’ll ever feel weirded out by Morris or his usual partner (and damn good interviewer), Jesse Thorn. Look, I like Morris and Thorn’s work a hell of a lot, I’m just saying that not everybody agrees with me.

• Okay, this is clever: all of Machine of Death (at least, the MoD that’s associated with the first volume), including the full book in three different electronic formats, stage show clips, the entire podcast series, and more, in a customized USB thumb drive for fifteen bucks. I think it’s just a matter of time before all collections of a certain size/complexity (lookin’ at you, omnibus edition of Skin Horse, whenever that happens) will have thumb drives as a delivery option.

  Look, I love me some big-honkin’ collections, I think they’re beautiful to look at, satisfying to read, and indicative of the value that I place on the work contained within; I’ve got collection series on my shelf that number as high as volume eleven. But not everybody has the wherewithal to drop US$50 (to US$100 and up) on the really big collections, so having a cheaper, more physically compact option² is going to be a value channel that can’t be ignored.

  Anyway, to celebrate the thumb-book and other items just now releasing, MoD honcho and Wondermark impressario David Malki ! is having a contest with fabulous cash and merchandise prizes. Dudes, you could end up a trillionaire.³

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¹ Seriously though — what was with blocking my girl Kate, 2012 Eisner Awards?

² Possibly after a delay to not conflict with physical book sales. Even more so, we’re now getting to webcomics that have run long enough, and have enough books in their catalog, that deciding when to let things go out of print becomes an actual concern. Get a bunch of custom-screened (or engraved, or shaped) USB drives, orders come in for various items out of print, copy master files over and drop it in the mail. Once you’ve got the thumbs in house, the rest of production doesn’t have to be an expense of anything other than the time it takes for file-dragging.

³ In Zimbabwe. Actual value as of this writing: US$27,631,942,525.560 in theory, except for the part where Zimbabwe’s currency has been indefinitely suspended from international trade because it’s worth less than the paper it’s printed on; 6.5 sextillion percent inflation will do that.

Let’s see now — network is slowed to a crawl, electrical is intermittently going out (including lights, including in the bathrooms), PAs sniffily holding up fingers to indicate that you simply can’t go that way now, equipment accumulated in the hallways to the point that access to the fire exits is entirely theoretical at this point, and attitude thrown at my students. If it weren’t for the plentiful snack tables set up, I’d be approaching An Incident at this point. And okay, fine, I hate things like the murder of all my loved ones more, but those situations typically don’t occur at work.

So I’m behind on the details of what came out of SPX, aside from the fact that everybody seemed to be selling a mountain of stuff. I can’t give you a numbers breakdown on the latest Homestuck Kickstarter unlocked tier¹ except to note that it’s caused a pretty significant upwards tick in backing. I can tell you that Order of the Stick, Penny Arcade, and TwoKinds remain the all-time top three Kickstarter comics projects, but that’s because Homestuck is classified as a videogame. With US$1.4million and counting, Homestuck has eclipsed all other comics-related endeavours.

So come back tomorrow, hopefully the film crews will be out of here, and I’ll be able to share more, like how Raina Telgemeier has managed to snag the #1 and #2 slots on the New York Times bestseller list for graphic novels, which is normally the sort of thing that requires you to be named Rowling or King or Gaiman. Everybody celebrate by getting a copy of DRAMA to go with their copy of SMILE — it’s seriously that good, and well deserving of the acclaim and sales.

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¹ Although I will say: Homestuck-themed tarot deck? Genius.

We have a winner! Alert reader mwk found the wrong item in yesterday’s post:

1.55 days per puzzle, 0.644 puzzles per day.

What, you thought it was the presidential slash fiction thing? Pfft, that’s nothing compared to a math error.

Today’s Homestuck Kickstarter update is going to look at tiers and supporter counts. One may recall from when the goal was met back on 5 September, there was a breakdown on supporters. One may also recall that a day later, one of those $5000¹ backers bumped up to $10,000. I’d like to show what the numbers are like as this piece is being written; to make comparisons easier, I’ll be repeating the numbers from the 5th, with new values/items interleaved in boldface:

• Backers: 7701
  Backers: 12,369
• Total raised: $700,049
  Total raised: $1,229,969
• Dollars per backer: $90.95
  Dollars per backer: $99.44
• Dollars per hour: $21,819.60
  Dollars per hour: $5124.87

• $15 and up: 2118
  $15 and up: 3489
• $25 and up: 1693
  $25 and up: 2586
• $55 and up: 794
  $55 and up: 1152
• $80 and up: 280

  $80 and up: 406

• $105 and up (unlimited): 579
  $105 and up (unlimited): 793
• $105 and up (limited reward #1): 671 of 1000
  $105 and up (limited reward #1): 1202 of 1500
• $105 and up (limited reward #2): 132 of 1000
  $105 and up (limited reward #2): 187 of 1000
  $130 and up: 286
• $180 and up: 84
  $180 and up (reward #1): 195
  $180 and up (reward #2): 40
  $180 and up (reward #3): 107
• $255 and up (unlimited): 141
  $255 and up (unlimited): 165
• $255 and up (limited reward): 600 of 600
  $255 and up (limited reward): 700 of 700
  $330 and up: 52
• $405 and up (limited reward): 458 of 1000
  $405 and up (limited reward): 415 of 750
  $505 and up (limited reward): 309 of 750
  $1000 and up (limited reward): 80 of 100
• $5000 and up (limited reward): 3 of 25
  $5000 and up (limited reward): 2 of 25
• $10,000 and up (limited reward): 0 of 10
  $10,000 and up (limited reward): 2 of 10
• No reports of God Tier rewards 2 ($100K) through 6 ($1B) yet
  No reports of God Tier rewards 2 ($100K) through 6 ($1B) yet

Smart moves by Andrew Hussie and the Mysterious Kickstarting Genius advising him:

• Limited rewards at naturally-occurring popular tiers ($105, $255) were expanded to pull in more support (the latter of which was sold out, and then promptly did so again after expansion)
• New tier at $330 added, incrementally adding to the value of the unlimited $255 tier
• The popular but stalled limited reward at $405 was reduced from a limit of 1000 to 750, but tiers at $505 and $1000 incorporating the high-demand items from the $405 tier were added; although 43 backers dropped at the $405 level, there were nearly 400 backers added at those new, higher tiers for a net increase of nearly $220,000
• Recognition that this project doesn’t adhere to the normal rules of high-value tiers; as of this writing, 393 people have pledged $500 or more, for a total of $266,045, or 21.6% of all money raised from 3.2% of all backers

We’re a third of the way through the campaign, in the doldrums section where there’s little movement (relatively speaking — on the slowest full day of the campaign so far, Hussie raised more than $26,000), and the right tier adjustments could cause the sudden uptick that’s often seen on runaway successful Kickstarts. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a quarter or more of the total raised in the last three or four days.

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¹ All dollar figures are in US currency.

Now that Apple isn’t making everybody sit in front of their computers and hit compulsively refresh their browsers every ten seconds, maybe we can talk about some webcomics things?

• Yesterday saw the debut of a very impressive Big Round Number:
  

  It only took 8 1/2 years, but I’ve finally created 2000 puzzles!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/30135689@N05/7980598350/

  Let’s do the math to properly indicate just how busy Chris Yates has been: eight and a half years and 2000 Baffler!s comes to 1.55 Baffler!s per day, and while some of them are pretty simple, that doesn’t preclude monsters like ol’ 2K here, with its more than 550 pieces spread out across nine fields and eight layers.

  In that time Yates was also making ghosts and POOP signs¹ and SLÜGs and t-shirts and prints and the designs for mass-market Baffler!s and the iPad Baffler! app and a few zillion Baffler! commissions not to mention a whole mess of terribly excited photocomics.

  For those interested in seeing exactly how damn much art one can cram into 3105 days, there’s a photo archive for your perusal. If you should see Mr Yates this weekend at SPX, tell him I said hi, be sure to smile for any photos you end up in, and ask him when the hell he sleeps.

• Know who else is gonna be at SPX? Well, a whole damn lot of people, but for the moment I’m thinking about Becky and Frank, who will but a week later make their way back LA-wards for a book launch at the world-famous Secret Headquarters. Tiny Kitten Teeth’s print version has been a long time a-bornin’ but now it’s here and it’s going to be gorgeous and you can get in on the fun of the launch at 3817 W Sunset Blvd (also known as Historic Route 66) in Los Angeles at 7:00pm on Friday, 21 September. Books, prints, fun times, and sophisticated adult beverages will be present in copious amounts.
• Speaking of book launches, (in this case, literally so), I believe it is a matter of public record that this page is fully in the tank as far as Sailor Twain goes, as it is beautiful, and melancholy, and atmospheric in a way that few comics manage. It’s still a few weeks before the very handsome and substantial print collection drops, which makes this the perfect time to note that there will be a special to-do to mark the launch of the book.

  Even more exciting, this celebration will be taking the form of a sunset sailing trip aboard the Clearwater, a replica of the mighty Hudson River sloops of the 18th and 19th centuries. A sloop that was dreamt up, built, and launched by the legendary Pete Seeger² to act as a literal platform to remind people of the need for clean waters in general, and the Hudson River in particular.

  The Sailor Twain Sail departs from the 79th Street Boat Basin in Manhattan at 5:30pm on Friday, 5 October.

• New site, tangentially related to webcomics in that David “It’s!” Willis did the logo, and also because it’s the brainchild of webcomics friend Josh “The Comics Curmudgeon” Fruhlinger. Hail to the Slash [Not Safe For Anything] is devoted to … well, let’s just quote Josh on this one:
  

  2012 has been one of the most homoerotic presidential elections since JFK completely discombobulated DIck Nixon with his sexual charisma live on television. This site is a repository of the same-sex presidential fan fiction our nation needs right now.

  Also:

  [I]n the days leading up to the 2008 U.S. presidential election, this civility broke down as a number of nasty political fights broke out. In attempt to stave off further unpleasantness, I demanded that my readers funnel their political passions into Taft/Roosevelt slash fiction, because it was the only thing I could think of off the top of my head.

  This worked better than I could have ever imagined, both in terms of stopping arguments and in producing legitimate masterpieces of Taft/Roosevelt erotica. I always had in mind that, come 2012, I would return to the idea. This site is that return.

  In case you still have some shred of innocence in your soul and are casually wondering if Mr Fruhlinger could really put together something truly depraved and soul-searing, consider this description of the very first entry at HttS:

  Heart and Soul (Cheney/Bush/Cloned Cheney/Crown Prince Abdullah; WARNING: EXTREME HORROR)

  Cloned Cheney. I’m warning you, there isn’t enough bleach in the world to get that image out of your brain. So tread carefully and if y’all will excuse me, I’ll be over here with the jumbo bottle of bleach and the cleansing fire.

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¹ It will remain one of my life’s most cherished memories will be the time I watched Lynn Freakin’ Johnston try to convince a complete stranger to buy a POOP sign. The only thing needed to make that day perfect would have been for that stranger to be wearing some form of “Roadside” clothing.

² One of America’s great social consciences, a musician of incredible importance (largely responsible for the preservation of folk music and the modern development of the banjo), hell-raising for all the right reasons still in this, his 93rd year.

Too many things I talked about on busy days all at once, instead of pacing myself; ah, well — it’s just a couple of days until every pert-near webcomicker east of the Continental Divide makes their way to Bethesda for SPX. So while you’re waiting for that, please enjoy the following:

• PONY COP, the most adorable buddy-cop story of all time, gets the fandub treatment and it is glorious. All we need now are the pulse-pounding third and heartbreaking fourth installments in the PONY COP saga and all will be well in the world.
• Math meets snacks.
• She’s got your number, cat.
• Just guessing here, but I think that the Stretchladder of the Homestuck Kickstarter will be seeing an update on the “new perk” and “???” entries soon. We’re almost certainly going to hit the US$1.25 million level by end of the day, meaning that the game will be available on a physical Homestuck-branded medium¹. If Andrew Hussie is smart (and all available evidence is that he is, very much so), a carefully-revealed tease could pump up the response and drive people to ever-higher monetary support in exchange for exactly the right reward.

  Again, just guessing, but I’m thinking that a response equivalent to that for the SNOUTPACK² (and higher tiers) with the Senator Lemonsout and Pyralspite plushies, could be achieved with the right merch. Imps? Plush cuddle-cthulhu? Bec? Highly disturbing puppets? It’s like a totem lathe card for the making of money.

________________
¹ And if there’s one thing that Rich Stevens has taught us, it’s that custom USB drives will motivate the heck out of your reader base.

² Which has increased by another 50 slots, to 700 backers, selling out as quickly as it’s expanded.

Nothing, I tell you!

• Okay, maybe this, from a little before midnight (EDT) last night:
  

  ONE. MILLION. DOLLARS.

  Mister Smiley refers, naturally, to this — only the twelfth million-dollar project in Kickstarter history — which is actually accelerating the pace of pledges instead of dropping as would be usual at this point. Chalk that up to the addition of several more supporter tiers (mostly incorporating the now-legendary SNOUTPACK) in the high-dollar range and stretch goals getting revealed.

• Two pieces of really neat comic work that’ve gone up in the past day or so that I want to recommend to you. On the one hand, Renée French’s Baby Bjornstrand is subtle, moody, spare, and plays with your head in all the right ways. Even better, it looks like it will be a continuing story!

  On the other hand, Lucy Knisley’s Vanishing Into My Head has a bright exterior, and a chewy center of memory, philosophy, identity, and the desire to be truly understood by another. They’re both top-notch examples of what can be done in comics that can’t be done elsewhere.

The spiritual/cartoonical heirs of Harvey Kurtzman had their shindig on Saturday night, and as near as I can tell from the winners list, the most calls to the podium were for various Daredevil properties and one Ms Kate Beaton, who won for Best Online Comics Work, Special Award for Humor in Comics, and (most impressively) Best Cartoonist. The exceedingly modest Beaton remarked on her Tumblr:

To have won these awards is touching, and reaffirming, and I was not expecting so much faith in my work, but I thank you for your votes and your confidence. God knows, I am not the greatest cartoonist drawing breath at the moment, but I will try to always improve, and produce the best work I am capable of. I hope that I live up to your present opinion in further endeavors.

Also grateful for all of the wins: Mrs Brad Guigar. See, Brad was Kate’s designated award-acceptor, which meant he got in a lot of cardio sprinting to the podium and back three times, which means that he’s healthier today that he would have been otherwise, and why on earth wouldn’t a healthier Brad be a wonderful thing?

Continuing the webcomicker presence at the podium — Ramón Peréz hasn’t been able to keep up with Kukuburi so much due to the demands of paying work, but since one piece of that paying work was the stellar (and twice-honored) Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand, I’d say that Pérez made the right decision. And rounding things out, Vera Brosgol will always be a webcomiker in my heart, no matter how unfinished Return to Sender remains; she was justly recognized for Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers for Anya’s Ghost, about which this page has had much good to say.

One more thought regarding Maryland’s annual designation as Center of the Comics World: this Friday, the day before SPX kicks off in Bethesda, the University of Maryland (College Park)’s Stamp Student Union will be holding a special panel discussion on webcomics:

“Pixels and Paper: Comic Art in the Digital Age,” is a panel discussion at the Hoff Theater in Stamp on September 14th from 2:00pm – 4:00pm about the creation and dissemination of comics in the digital age.

FREE and open to the public, the panel will converse on a number of topics related to the creation and dissemination of comics using both analog and digital methods, and how those choices are made.

Participants include Sally Carson (Fixpert), Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson (Tiny Kitten Teeth), Jeph Jacques (Questionable Content), and Rob Ullman (Atom-Bomb Bikini).

Not listed there, but also participating: Holly Post, Vice President in Charge of Kicking Your Ass for TopatoCo. This panel will feature much good information, and probably hugs.

How about: I’ve seen the epilogue of Starslip, and you should, too? Fortunately, you can with the general availability of Starslip’s fifth collection and also a handy-dandy five-book bundle with bonus embroidery. Read ’em straight through and marvel at the möbius strip that K’thris Stribe crafted to twist and turn and end up (almost) where it started.

There’s something about Lord Baltimore’s stomping grounds that just grabs hold of comics in September and won’t let go. Three weekends, three shows, serving three different constituencies. Let’s run ’em down.

• Up first, this weekend brings the return of Baltimore Comic Con to Charm City, with its big-name companies in a comics-centric show. With an awards ceremony and Stan Lee, it’s got everything the very largest shows have, with the exception of a million media companies crowding comics off the floor and a non-PDF programming guide. Lotsa people from the webcomicky world listed as showing, including your Brads and Sohmers and Braden & Shellis and Cubes and Speeds.
• One week later, Bethesda hosts the indy- and art-comics types at SPX, with the Ignatz Awards and more webcomickers and their natural allies than you can shake a stick at. I know I missed a lot of people from the list (including repeats from BaltoCon) so give it a good going-over, yes? On the off chance you don’t find somebody you want to meet in person, you can see some of the brainiest comics panels around or hit the handy hotel lobby bar.
• One week on, Intervention hits, also in Bethesda, and less “comics” than “things made on the internet”, with a real focus on programming late into the night, but with a preponderance of webcomics types on the guest list, including some repeats from the prior two shows, and a rare East Coast sighting of webcomics resident West Coast Tiki Queen and one third of the Nexus of All Webcomics Realities¹, Shaenon Garrity, and her Skin Horse writing partner, Jeffrey C Wells.² I don’t know if there’s a lobby bar, but it there is and any of the drinks come in glasses with faces on them, don’t get between them and Shaenon if you value your life.
• A little further in the future, Matthew Inman and the Little Gamers crew will continue webcomics traditions in 2013 by, respectively, presenting at the next SxSW Festival and driving from London to Ulan Bator. Gonna be a busy year next year.

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¹ The other two thirds being The Tall Man and The Smiling Man.

² I’m pretty sure I just set a record for the longest single sentence at Fleen.