Okay, so Angela Melick does a webcomic, knows her way around the right-hand rule, and married a guy with a talent for website development. End result: Webcomictweets, a combination Twitter reader, aggregator of statistics, and single point of contact for what’s going on in the webcomics world (once the list of included folks is sufficiently beefed up, that is). It’s got a lot of on-page functionality, it doesn’t turn up its nose at my (admittedly niche) browser of choice, probably isn’t blocked from your place of work (yet), and it’s fast. Heck, if not for the fact that I follow a few folks outside of webcomics, I’d probably make it my new Twitter client.

Submit your site for inclusion (or heck, just submit webcomics superfan Mike Kinyon‘s lists of webcomickers — comics and creators only, we bloggers would only clog up the place), and start following the community.

• Label dead, comic continues: High Moon has been a critical darling for the (just about) three year of its existence, and the disappearance of home base Zuda be damned, creators David Gallagher and Steve Ellis still have stories to tell. If you haven’t checked out High Moon yet (with the Zuda imprint no longer extant, the publishing of future volumes on paper would seem to be up in the air), you can always check ’em out at ComiXology. Expect to see other Zuda refugees over there in the immediate short term.
• October Events: MoCCA is continuing its series of comics classes, with topics such as anatomy (general) anatomy (hand), writing, collaboration, plotting, animation teamwork, and more. Details at MoCCA’s education page.

  On the other side of the country, the Cartoon Art Museum will be having a party in conjunction with APE, with proceeds to support the museum’s mission. Special guest will come from the featured artists of the concurrently-running Storytime! exhibition, and will include Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, Amy Martin, and Keith Knight. Check out the CAM booth at APE for a complete list of attendees.

Sad news broke this morning: Harvey Pekar, jazz scholar, literary analyst of rare insight, and famously cranky bastard — in the best sense of those words — died in the early morning hours at his home in Cleveland. Harvey paved the way for a hell of a lot of people in comics, and was particularly an inspiration for those who wanted to tell their own stories. It seems hard to believe that there could be a Bellen, DAR!, SMILE, Conversations With My Younger Self, or any of a hundred other These Things Happened To Me kind of comics without Harvey’s example.

Although it’s in the Fleen Manual of Style that people are referred to by last name after their initial introduction, I can’t help but use his given name. I was only privileged to meet him once (Harvey himself was gracious, friendly, patient, and erudite, and in that half an hour I learned more about jazz than I had in the prior 35 years), but having shared so much of himself and his life, I think that we all felt like we knew Harvey personally. He was the sometimes grumpy, always fascinating guy that lived a block or two over, even if “a block or two” was on the other side of the world. Now that we have lost Harvey and Studs Terkel, I wonder who will be the next chronicler of ordinary lives.

To his widow, Joyce, and daughter, Danielle, our deepest sympathies; you’ll never read these words and they would likely be only slight comfort, but please know that Harvey made all of our lives richer with his stories, his insight, and his honesty.

For everybody else, there’s a good collection of some of Harvey’s best moments at The AV Club. When you’re done watching those, go out and have an ordinary day that becomes an adventure.

Yeah, not really any closer to easily working today. Here’s some things that I wanted to talk about yesterday.

• Kinokofry is characterized by really large, painterly, whimsical — almost delicate — vertically-oriented strips with labor-intensive-looking art. Also, pastel bugs & mushroom folk. Rebecca Clements would do well to crank out more than one of these every couple weeks, so for her to have hit the fabled 100 updates mark is perhaps a teensy bit more of an accomplishment than for another strip (and that’s before we mention that Clements lives and draws in Melbourne, which puts her at a remove from many of her colleagues). Everybody feel good for Rebecca!
• Speaking of webcomics à la antipodes, Ryan Armand’s Kiwis By Beat! (see, because Kiwis come from New Zealand and that’s near Australia and … never mind) store has something you want and/or need. It’s Great (volume one), the story of striving, excelling, beating up goons with a chair, and ramen. Highly recommended.
• Raina Telgemeier continues to kick ass and take names with SMILE, which has just been named to the short list for this year’s Boston Globe/Horn Book Awards for Excellence in Children’s Literature; basically, it’s one of two runners-up to the winner of the nonfiction category in this esteemed and highly respected awards series (awarded annually since 1967). But the real news makes Telgemeier’s accomplishment all the more impressive:
  

  This is the first time a graphic novel has made it onto the list.

  Think of every graphic novel that’s been aimed at (or appropriate for) younger readers, ever, in the history of the medium; they didn’t get he recognition that’s been afforded to SMILE. My guess? It won’t be another 43 years before we see the second graphic novel honored, nor before it takes the top award. Well done, Ms Telgemeier.

• Finally, break out the sewing machines and prosthetic limbs; free stuff for [p]re-enacting Dresden Codak comics.

Spent a couple hours running down what appeared to be a virus on my computer before I figured out that somebody had messed with a DNS server upstream, and that’s why trying to browse to google.com (but not www.google.com) was redirecting browsers in my office to a crappy social network with a history of such stunts. So frustrating when people make the active to decision to suck.

• Speaking of sucking, got a rough story to share with you. Indigo Kelleigh does some pretty neat comics, including Ellie Connelly and the pretty awesome 8-bit Tarot deck. Long, unfortunate story short, Kelleigh’s in a financial bind and is liquidating his entire stock of merch at below-cost. Long story slightly longer, it’s in anticipation of bankruptcy. Long story fully told at Kelleigh’s site, which should probably be taken as a companion piece with Brad Guigar’s thoughts on preparing for retirement [subscription required], which doubles as a cushion for financial ups and downs.
• Let’s get to the non-suck, shall we? Kids Read Comics kicks off this weekend in Dearborn, MI, with a stack of guests including webcomics own Raina Telgemeier & Dave Roman, John Green, Krishna Sadasivam, and organized by the people behind the Art & Story podcast. Upper Midwesterners, go check it out.
• Those of you that haven’t ordered Karl Kerschl’s first collection of Abominable Charles Christopher, you’re doing yourselves a disservice. For what was originally designed by Kerschl as an exercise in spontaneous creation (no plotting ahead, no sketching, just sit down on Wednesday and draw whatever popped into his head), there’s a remarkably rich narrative that doesn’t reveal itself easily when going update-by-update.

  Sure, you could read the strips online, but there’s been some judicious re-arrangement, leading to stronger story arcs interleaved with one another. My favorite arc, curiously, isn’t about the big guy, or even Vivol and Moon Bear … it’s the story of this bird, trying to be a good husband and father, and not finding it as easy as he’d hoped. Of course, she could do worse.

  Second favorite: the bug psychiatrist. He’s awesome. But what’s really awesome is I care about these characters — most of whom don’t even have names that we’ve learned (aside from the irrepressible Sissi Skunk) — because they’re living, breathing, distinct personalities that make themselves known to Kerschl on Wednesdays.

Here’s the deal: Ted Rall will always be an irritating mystery to me.

On the one hand, he does solid, provacative, cartoon-based reportage from places most people would never think of going. On the other hand, he often seems to be provacative purely for the sake of being provacative, making illogical, self-contradictory agruments in online fora. On the other other hand, in person he’s thoughtful, engaging, funny, and interesting. At the same time seeking to support the cartooning talents of the future as trying to roll the industry back to the past, espousing positions both populist and elitist, seemingly more interested in the argument than the solution, my solution for a good long while now has largely been to ignore him.

And now he’s going back to one of the most dangerous corners of the earth, and taking friends along with him:

I’m leaving for Afghanistan the second week of August. I have three goals:

1. Go to Taloqan in Takhar Province, to revisit the place where I spent much of the fall of 2001 during the battle of Kunduz.
2. Visit the site of the construction of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project between Turkmenistan and Pakistan. This is supposed to be north of Herat.
3. Travel to the remote western deserts near the Iranian border where U.S. forces and reporters rarely venture or report from.

We’ll be “in country” one month—that’s the limit set by most media outlets for reporters covering rural Afghanistan, and with good reason. It’s a hard place to travel, not just from a security standpoint but also because of the harsh climate and poor food and lodging, not to mention lack of basic infrastructure (running water and electricity).

We’ll fly into Dushanbe, Tajikistan, obtain permission from the Tajik Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enter the restricted 100-kilometer zone along the southern border with Afghanistan, then drive overland to Taloqan, and head west and then south before crossing the border into Iran.

Travelling with Rall will be fellow cartoonists Matt Bors and Steven Cloud, who apparently didn’t get enough of Central Asia on the Mongolian Death Fun Drive.

I don’t know Bors and I don’t know Rall well, but Cloudy is a friend of mine; although we joked about pre-arranging an epitaph in case he didn’t return from his previous adventure to lands unknown (Steven Cloud, killed by Gypsies, in accordance with prophecy.), I didn’t actually believe that his trip would result in more than border hassles and some damn fine stories. It was also far less likely on that trip that he would be travelling through places where he might be shot by accident or intent.

Like most people, I like to think of myself as being as good a person as my dog believes me to be. I try honestly not to wish ill fortune on anybody, and as much as Rall has pissed me off in the past, I don’t hate him. I wonder how smart travelling through that part of the world (which has a tradition of summertime = war time stretching back largely interrupted for four or five millenia) will turn out to be. I hope that the reporting and whatever insight it provides is worth the risk. And from the bottom of my athiest heart, I wish Cloud, Bors, and Rall the safest of travels in an unsafe series of places. Come back to us whole and well Ted, so you can get back to pissing me off over things that ultimately don’t matter.

On to lighter things.

• New England Webcomics Weekend 2 is go. Add the bird to your twitter for further updates.
• Meredith Gran interviewed by Gothamist on Brooklyn and her forthcoming Octopus Pie collection.
• Re: bottom two rows of panels from today’s Shortpacked! mega-update — oh, that ain’t right.
• Happy birthday to almost everybody!

Let’s see, you had the usual reprobates hanging around a hotel ballroom in the Jersey burbs this weekend, news of a new signing, books and reviews, and some news you can use. Let’s take ’em one at a time.

• The inaugural Wild Pig Con took place Saturday and Sunday in Springfield, NJ, in a hotel featuring an in-lobby Mexican place with $4.00 margaritas (yay) that didn’t open until 5:00pm (boo). At any random time you might have heard Randy Milholland being told that he was responsible for con-goers getting married, seen David Willis molesting Danielle Corsetto‘s booth decoration, observed Ross Nover hosting Super Art Fight! (to an audience chock–full of webcomickers), or watched old Spider-Man reruns. Not a bad use of five bucks, honestly.
• Emergency last-minute signing! Seattle fans of Kellett, Kurtz, and Straub (which, weirdly, is not the name of a white-shoe law firm) should make their way over to The Comic Stop in Lynnwood round about dinnertime. Tell ’em I said Hey.
• News broke over the weekend of a review in the New York Times of Raina Telgemeier‘s SMILE, and just as importantly, the USPS finally delivered my copy of Erika Moen‘s DAR! A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary Volume Two. In case I hadn’t talked enough about either book/webcomic previously, they’re both as good as I can possibly express.

  For two works so very different in tone (for the life of me, I cannot imagine Raina ever producing work that isn’t all-ages friendly, whereas Moen had jerky employees at a printing plant refuse to work on her book because of its adult content), they have something in common — an honest, clear-eyed look at the lives of the authors as they try to figure out who they are. Plus, one of them has enormous sex toys and mystery poop.

• I’m assuming that by this time next week you’ll be able to go into any random Pearl art supply store, wave your hand and casually remark I’m a Webcomics Dot Com subscriber, and they’ll load you up with everything you need for a $5 co-pay. Okay, maybe not quite that far, but a nearly 40% discount on retracto-standing banners? If you were going to buy one of these guys anyway, taking out a membership at WDC means you’ll end up $50 ahead by the time it’s all said and done.

  Enjoy your purchase and savings in good conscience, as I’m sure Brad Guigar totally isn’t neglecting his family with all the time he must spend arranging these deals — if you hear his kids humming Harry Chapin songs, I’m sure that’s completely a coincidence.

So the MoCCA Art Fest was held over the weekend, and at the end of it, I think everybody had a collective sigh of relief. The heat and organizational problems that plagued last years show didn’t recur. The crowds moved easily and, from the webcomics folks I spoke to, were eager to snap up stuff. The show was a success, and much fun was had, and I got a bunch of stuff. Let’s recap, shall we?

• For me, one of the big thrills was meeting people that I hadn’t before — Jess Fink, Yuko Ota & Ananth Panagariya, Dorothy Gambrell were awesome to make the acquaintance of (whoo, tortured syntax, but I think you take my meaning), and only after I’d left did I realize that I’d missed meeting Andrew Hussie — dang. I also enjoyed meeting more of the crew from :01 Books, because I think they’re putting out the best line of graphic novels in existence right now — thanks to Gina Gagliano for putting me on their distribution list, and to Colleen AF Venable for designing such good-looking books.
• Speaking of Ms Venable, she’s got her own book out now — Hamster & Cheese, the first of a series of six kids books starring a reluctant guinea pig PI, and illustrated by the mightily talented Stephanie Yue. I learned a lot about snakes from the notes in the back of the book, including the following critical information:
  

  If snakes slowly dissolve their food, does this mean they don’t poop? Nope! Snakes poop. They don’t poop very often. When they do — how can I say this nicely? It’s a bit watery. [emphasis original]

  Not only informative, Hamster & Cheese is likely the best kids book of the show in a particular category; I don’t know if publishers have a fancy words for this, but H&C is laid out more like a short graphic novel than anything — panels, word balloons, the works.

• For traditional kids book (whole-page illustrations, text narrating the events), you’d have to go with the very handsome Golden Books tribute, Tigerbuttah by Beck Dreistadt & Frank Gibson. Full disclosure: I was (am?) a Kickstarter supporter of this book, so assume that I was inclined to like it anway. Fact of the matter is, reading this thing is a kick in the childhood nostalgia gland — pokey little puppies and engines that could start swirling in your brain just holding this thing, and seeing the way that the ink looks on the paper stock would drag anybody back to those first experiences of reading on your very own. This book is a marvel, plain and simple, and anybody in the creative industries with any measurable amount of brain should be driving a dumptruck full of money up to Frank & Becky’s front door.
• Weirdly enough, I got a very similar reaction from reading David McGuire’s The 12 Labours of Gastrophobia, even though it could hardly be more different that Tigerbuttah; I think it’s the smell, actually — the aroma of ink and paper is very reminiscent of the books I had as a kid, and the use of white paper with red and black inks also reminds me of the limited color palettes that were the hallmark of books for so very long.

  More than merely dredging out 35 year old memories, McGuire’s choice of color serves him very well, as it makes the entire book look like it could have been drawn on amphorae. As a bonus, there’s an index in the back so you can see which pages were originally animated online, or where webcomics cameos are to be found. He’s also done the best job I’ve ever seen presenting a back-cover bar code.

• Elsewhere, Aaron Diaz had the haunted look of a man that didn’t get nearly enough food or bathroom breaks, mixed with the happy realization that it was because he was swamped with fans wanting his wares. His 2010 sketchbook offers a good look at his (previously seen on Twitter) inspired-by-Tolkien speed paintings (each featuring dominant colors that really resonate emotionally), and news that Dresden Codak will feature more of the Tokamak twins gladdens my heart.
• Just across the aisle, Hope Larson‘s newly-released Mercury was going great guns, and Box Brown‘s Everything Dies #1 & #2 offered up a primer on a pretty wide range of metaphysical beliefs. Jon Rosenberg had an advanced copy of his forthcoming third volume of Goats, which featured the funniest foreword I’ve ever read, courtesy of Lore Sjöberg.
• To all of this one may add the always-delightful presences of (in no particular order) Chris Yates, Ryan North, Raina Telgemeier & Dave Roman (from whom, we now know, there will not be a second volume of X-Men: Misfits, victim of an expired license), Chris Hastings & Carly Monardo (the latter now in a starring role in the new print from Bernie Hou), R Stevens, Sam Brown, Magnolia Porter, Andy Bell, David Malki !, Scott C, Danielle Corsetto (not showing, just wandering the floor and enjoying herself), Kate Beaton, Jeph Jacques (counting the days until C2E2 is done and he can bring home his new dog), various NERDS, Jeff Rowland (who put together the new Axe Cop store at TopatoCo with his laptop and phone on the ride to New York because we are living in the goddamned future), Jen Babcock (who recently did a talk at The Met pointing out that a form of ancient Egyptian popular art was essentially comics in general and Five Card Nancy in particular) and generally more talent than one can shake a stick at, which is why I’m certain that I’ve forgotten half the names I meant to include here, because I wasn’t writing things down. Mea culpa.

Additional photos: My “beards & moustaches” sketchbook grows ever closer to full, with a gorgeous addition from Hope Larson; Dave Roman does the world’s first SFW moustache ride; Kimiko Ross discovers new feelings; a T-Rex grows his beard long enough to stroke with his tiny arms; teenage Raina finds something worse than headgear; and Chester 5000 XYV sprouts a new attachment.

Because it’s apparently Webcomics Book Week; the due to release list for tomorrow in your local comic shop contains a half-dozen items, and I may have missed some. Shall we run down the list?

• Dark Horse is dropping Wondermark‘s third volume (Dapper Caps & Pedal-Copters along with Graham Anable’s The Book of Grickle (I know that page says 7 April, but if Midtown Comics says it’s 24 March, then by Darwin it’s 24 March). Not from Dark Horse, but worth mentioning: Gene Yang‘s got Animal Crackers, a reprint of Gordon Yamamoto and Loyola Chin, with a new story, from Slave Labor.

  Not done yet, Bunky. Tom Siddell’s second Gunnerkrigg Court collection, Research is due, in a much more timely fashion than the first. Zuda brings The Night Owls by the Timonys (again, Midtown says it drops tomorrow), and PvP‘s seventh collection appears to be getting back into release channels.

  People, I am working on a budget here.

• Speaking of PvP, Scott Kurtz would like you to know:
  

  I guess it’s official. I’m MCing the Harvey’s again this year. Also, Harvey Award nominations are now open.

• Still on books, the big-publisher edition of Meredith Gran’s Octopus Pie, There Are No Stars In Brookyn, is up for pre-order. I could put up a link to Amazon or some other big retailer for that book (due 22 June), but let’s let Mer tell you herself:
  

  I’m offering the book for sale on this site. If you want your book signed or personalized, this is the only place to get it. All pre-ordered books are signed by me for FREE! You’ll also get 2 super exclusive 1? mystery buttons with every order. Buying it from me directly ensures a portion of the sale goes to me.

  Many online retailers are offering pre-sale discounts, which may be a good option if you’re strapped for cash or a member at these stores.

  Can I be straight with you for a moment?

  This is a crucial time in the success of Octopus Pie. The sales of this book will do a lot to determine whether or not future books can be made. If you love the comic, but have never ordered OP merch before, this is a fantastic way to show your support. Plus you’ll be getting an awesome signed book out of it! [emphasis original]

  Guys, Meredith is the real deal. Her success with this book (both her own sales, and in the broader market) will probably become a significant data point as publishers try to decide how much it’s worth dealing with independent creators. The groundswell of support that she (and others like Raina Telgemeier, Hope Larson, Kazu Kibuishi, Kean Soo, and others) have built will set the stage for the next couple of decades of corporate decisions. I don’t know about you, but I’d kind of like the next couple of decades to be filled with awesome comics easily available to me, so I’m pre-ordering on that basis, and not because I’m an obsessive completist (although let’s be frank, I am an obsessive completist). Join me, won’t you?

• Still books: Joey Comeau‘s latest prose book, One Bloody Thing After Another, is due for release shortly, and to celebrate he’s release new or missing-from-the-net stories. The first one is here.
• Finally, not books: Blind Ferrett is hiring, both in Montréal and away. Details here.

Several things I noticed (some today, some holdovers looking for the right theme), all of which refreshed my hope in webcomics, humanity, and the universe in general (although understand it’s a sliding scale — we’re not talking Mentos levels of refreshment here).

• First, allow me to draw your attention to the the Young Adult panel at MoCCA in a little less than a month’s time; I didn’t notice it when it first posted, but happened to today when Raina Telgemeier tweeted about it (odd, as it’s even harder to pick out in the tweet). It’s on Sunday, at 4:30:
  

  Young Adult graphic novels are swiftly gaining popularity among librarians, teachers, and most importantly, young readers! Join Hope Larson (Chiggers, Mercury), Jillian Tamaki (Skim), Raina Telgemeier (Smile, Baby-sitters Club), and Tracy White (How I Made it to Eighteen) for a discussion about their work, their influences, and their audience. Moderated by The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald.

  Everybody on that panel is allowed into this year’s Drink & Draw Like A Lady (Eastern division), and it’s not on the topic of What’s It Like To Be A Comics Creator With A Vagina? I think we just hit the comics panel equivalent of the Bechdel Test.

• Also on the refreshing scale: sharing data to the benefit of all. The most instructive panelist I’ve ever seen talk about the business of webcomics remains Jennie Breeden at SDCC ’06 because she talked about the hard lessons (not quitting the day job, struggling to not lose by going to a convention, how all paths to success involve a million baby steps). She remains that which all aspiring pro cartoons should figure they are going to emulate, one way or another.

  Now steps in another willing to share the tales of what it takes to make comics, and it’s Tyler Page of Nothing Better, and in a pair (so far) of Livejournal posts, he’s pulled open the metaphorical kimono to share all the gory details on self-publishing. Want to know how much you get for US$46,918.60? Read the posts, and consider them carefully.

• You know what’s fascinating in an awful, stomach-churning kind of way? Reading a comment thread on a topic that you care about. So it’s refreshing that a lot (but never all — thanks, Ted!) of the reflexive rancor towards webcomickers and webcomicking has muted over the years, to the point that Ryan Sohmer (an admitted webcomics author) has been accepted as an associate member of the National Cartoonists Society.

  No doubt his success with Least I Could Do and Looking for Group had a lot to do with it, but one cannot deny the love Sohmer has for cartooning in general or the lengths to which he will go to support it (although some will try damndest — thanks, Ted!). Fleen offers congrats to Sohmer, and holds out hope that this rapproachment and blending of cartoonists (regardless of distribution medium) may continue.

Things not happening today: bank counter hours, mail delivery, my usual job, much reading of webcomics. Things happening today: a whole lotta errand-running. Fortunately, the things I wanted to mention don’t require a whole lot of due diligence. Contrary to the view of some, the slightly dashed-off nature of this post does not make today “just another Monday.”

• The SMILE launch party was on Saturday, and an official Good Time was had by all. In case you could doubt such an outcome, there’s photographic proof. While we’re on the topic of Raina Telgemeier, I wish to draw your attention of one of her retweets: kids comic creators who are going to be at Wondercon in April are wanted for a panel; ping Jenni Holm if interested.
• Speaking of California, Scott Kurtz has been on a pretty impressive march through the state, with gigs at the Cartoon Art Musuem and the Schulz Museum, and he’s about to address Macworld. There’s a nice interview with him in the pages of The Washington Post about how he’s not really trying to destroy newspapers.
• Some of you may be acquainted with The IT Crowd, a British televised humor programme which deals with technologist in particular and their nerdery in general; they have a history of using webcomickry as set-dressing. And as a new block of shows is in production, there is a call for appropriately nerdy artifacts to appear in the background, which perhaps one or more of you might be able to help with?
• Speaking of The IT Crowd, it bears some resemblance to the venerable Bastard Operator From Hell (past ten years or so worth of installments here — warning: high risk to free time and higher risk of being inspired to inappropriate behavior if you’ve ever worked in IT).

  A long, long time ago, the BOFH’s early adventures were collected in book form, and volume 4 (now long since out of print) was my introduction to the work of one Bradley J. Guigar (side note: all great cartoon characters, have “J” as a middle initial, like Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel, not to mention Homer J. and Bartholomew J. Simpson; I’m not saying that Brad is fictional, I’m just saying that’s a mighty big coincidence).

  Anyway, that was where I first took notice of youngling Brad; as it turned out, he’d been engaged in daily cartooning for a couple of years at that point:

  On Valentine’s Day, as many people celebrated romance, Brad Guigar raised a toast to a passion that has been a driving force in his life for ten years — daily comics.

  That’s from the press release, where Brad talks about himself in the third person a lot; a more personal take is at Evil, Inc. today: Brad’s adventures in cartooning at college, his syndicate rejections, launching Greystone Inn, Courting Disaster, Phables, and E,I. There there was this:

  It’s been an incredible journey. And I’m thankful that you’ve been around to help make it happen. To that end, I’m going to be celebrating this anniversary all year long.

  … which is just one heck of a warm-fuzzy moment. But for my money, the big summation of his career comes at the end of the press release:

  Surprisingly enough, his wife of 12 years hasn’t divorced him.

  … which by my math means that the lovely Mrs Guigar had Brad to herself for two years before she had to share him with his inky, bristolly, pun-laden mistress, which makes her the Best Cartoonist Wife Ever. In all seriousness, nobody who does what Brad’s done can make any realistic claim that cartooning doesn’t involve the support of their entire family, so it’s as much her achievement as his. Since it was Valentine’s Day that stole away her husband, I suggest that if you feel inclined to drop Brad a note of congrats, maybe you should pass them along to her instead. Or is “condolences” the right word?