Will this be the last time I feel the need to talk about Raina Telgemeier‘s stellar new graphic novel, SMILE? Maybe! I mean, there’s the launch party next week at Rocketship in Brooklyn, and it’ll certainly be making the rounds of the awards at shows for the next year or so. But it’s out now, I’ve gorged myself on it, and you should too.

Here’s the deal: I know Raina personally. I met her as an adult, I never knew the sixth-grader who when through a nearly five-year ordeal to repair a busted set of teeth. I know firsthand that things turned out okay, but I still found myself flipping pages in the grips of the story, wondering if it would all turn out okay. I winced with Young Raina, hurt with her, triumphed with her, and around the corners of memory of my own dental dramas, tasted way too much blood with her as I read along.

SMILE is more than the tale of one person, it’s a Hero’s Journey from gangly still-a-kid to almost-adult; the teeth are the hook that the story hangs on, but it’s really about the pain and effort to grow up. It’s telling that at times, Telegemeier draws herself as still looking like her 12 year old self, while her friends seem to already be grown women — have any of us at that age not wondered why we seem not to be as at ease with ourselves, not as grown-up as those around us?

SMILE is also the book that’s destined to put a stake in the heart of Highlights for Children, which has haunted every pediatric dentist’s and orthodontist’s office since the Truman administration. It struck me as awful, ugly, insipid, and insulting when I was 7, and I was desperately convinced that some day, somebody would come up with something better to read while waiting for the guy with the drill to call my name. If there’s anything on this planet that would improve trips to the dentist than a story that says, “Yeah, I was sitting where you are now, I went through the pain, and the headgear, and the teasing, and it turned out okay, promise”, I can’t imagine it.

A few side notes before we wrap up today:

• What The Hell?! Con is scheduled for Greensboro, NC this weekend, but a major storm system looks like it might smack the area, at least peripherally. As NC native Otter puts it:
  

  [P]lease check the main page and the weather reports before you [head to the show]. North Carolina has a Zero Tolerance policy for snow and since a minor dusting of flurries is expected, there’s a chance the convention might be canceled. Check, check, triple-check, and save yourself the gas!

• Good couple of comments in the followup to yesterday’s story of Karl Kerschl’s woes. ComicPress is a terrific product, but as a dominant player, it runs the risk of monocultures everywhere — susceptibility to disease. As Rob Tracy (also mentioned in yesterday’s dispatches) notes, Webcomics Community is working up some ComicPress alternatives, which can only be a good thing.
• Finally, nice pro-tip at Wapsi Square today: when causing a supernatural event, convince the cops that nothing happened by babbling about flying saucers. Works every time!

I see a book-buying trip in my immediate future.

• Are mini-things the new merch trend? Erika Moen made a whole bunch of mini-characters for various webcomickers as fan art, and she’s done all those tentacle–themed sculptures (the anemones are gorgeous, if sadly not for sale). Sean Archer has gotten into the game of pocket art with representations of his own Milo the Cloud. If you’re shy on space, this could entirely be a thing.
• Early news of the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing is drifting in, with Peter Vine now officially first out of the gate with “I’ll be there with my friends” notification. If you head up to Mile End on 27th March (unfortunately, I’ll be at Pax East that weekend; I really have to pencil The Thing in for one of these years) you’ll be seeing the likes of Rose Loughran, Steve Dismukes,and German Erramouspe). As Vine noted:
  

  If Kate Beaton is attending then it must be good.

  Indeed, but there are easily a half-dozen draws at the show just as compelling.

• Webomics and webcomickers (indeed, much of our modern society) appears to orbit the Robot Juice; for those (such as myself) who have never understood the appeal of the The Bean, the world is a lonely and judgemental place that shuns our kind. What of the noble, gentle-steeped leaf of Camellia sinensis? Well, our time has come. Adagio Teas have commissioned Katie Sekelsky (of the twice-weekly SF story Magpie Luck) to produce a new, tea-themed webcomic for their monthly newsletter, Tea Muse. Tea Tales (first installment here, hopefully an easily-accessible archive in the future) provides an illustrated look into some of the quirkier areas of tea’s history; it is both suitably pretty and sufficiently weird for anyone.

You need to read that title out loud, in the voice of a newsreel announcer; click the picture for an example and then try to get that voice out of your head. When you’re done listening to the news of yesteryear, stick around YouTube for a moment and check out the video trailer for Raina Telgemeier’s SMILE, which is due for release so soon that I can barely stand it. Yes, I keep bringing this book up. No, I’m not going to apologize. It’s terrific and the world must know.

• As long as we’re playing with A/V capabilities, let’s take a listen to a podcast: The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe is a creature after my own heart — ruthlessly rational, determined to shine the light of reason on pseduo-science of all sorts, and not above a bit of snarkiness in the pursuit of those goals. Show #236 features Jon Rosenberg, who’s been known to address skeptical audiences from time to time … something about writing a webcomic that settled the answer of the existence of God definitively by having two characters eat him. It’s a pretty general-purpose interview, not so much about the webcomic, more about science, influences, and Rosenberg’s worldview. Jon, for his part, comes across as reasonably normal, which makes me wonder how much he drank from the bottle of Scotch Baio prior to the interview.
• Got a double dose of Scott Kurtz news for you — in about two weeks time, those of you in NoCal will have two opportunities to see him do the formal talk thing, at a pair of fairly prestigious venues. To start, he’ll be at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco on Thursday, 11 February from 7:00 to 9:00pm for a talk and signing. It’s free, but it’s a museum, and the suggested donation of $5.00 isn’t going to break you. Give ’em $10 if you can.

  Two days later, Kurtz will head up to Santa Rosa and the Schulz Museum; that would be the museum devoted to Charles ‘Sparky’ Schulz, the most wildly successful, influential, and vaguely depressing strip cartoonist the world has ever known. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess this is about the most exciting possible invitation for any working cartoonist.

  On Saturday, 13 February, Kurtz will be speaking and teaching. The fun kicks off at 10:00am with a 1.5 hour Master Class for Adults, then continues as Kurtz becomes the latest Cartoonist-in-Residence; he’ll be talking from 1:00pm with meet/greet and signing to follow. The Master Class requires registration and a fee, which can be arranged by calling (707) 284-1263. For the general presentation, ten bucks gets you in the door, five if you’re a kid.

• Oh yeah, then there’s this: the Android (Operating System) Android (mascot). Andy Bell first dropped hints to me about these guys way back at SDCC 2009, and I’ve been anxiously waiting to see how they would turn out. Answer: Awesome. As the owner of an Android phone, I want one.

I gots stuff to take care of, so let’s do this.

• Want a free copy of SMILE? There’s a giveaway in progress, which holds out the possibility of a free book in exchange for the story of your most embarrassing dental experience. You’ve got just over a month to get your entries in, so make ’em good.
• Little Dee is busting out all the old one-shot characters; I expect that this buildup to the end will encompass everyone who’s ever appeared in the strip. As long as we get more Rogues, I’ll be happy.
• Speaking of Little, Little Gamers now ha an iPhone app for you to download and enjoy; perhaps this will convince the authors of webcomics-scrapers that they should knock it the hell off.
• Myth Adventures occupied a fair amount of my mindspace from my early high school years, and the Phil Foglio-adapted comic version was one of my earliest regular purchases. Like Buck Godot before it, Myth Adventures will be running 3 pages a week at Foglio’s website (starting here), but with eight issues to get through, it’ll take a couple years to get through the whole thing, so it you enjoy it, might I point out that you can short-circuit the excruciating wait and just buy the whole damn thing in one go? Why yes, I might.
• Finally, I have a new goal in life: to find circumstances where I can legitimately use the phrase homeopathic blow job in casual conversation. Chris Onstad, he tasks me.

Everybody saw how the American Library Association announced the Caldecott, Newbery, and Printz awards yesterday, right? Today the Young Adult Library Services Association of the ALA announced their annual list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens. There’s the requisite Huh moments to be found, but on the Top Ten list, one may find two items from the realm of webcomickry: Tom Siddell‘s Gunnerkrigg Court Volume 1: Orientation, and Jeremy Love‘s Bayou. Toss in a mention on the main list of the Dave Roman/Raina Telgemeier-scripted X-Men: Misfits 1 and you’ve got a pretty respectable showing. Well done, all.

So. Dave Kellett. Ignore the weapons-grade punnery that pervaded his strip earlier in the week, he’s got something good to talk about; two things, in fact.

• Thing the First: Dave’s lovely and talented wife, Gloria Calderón Kellett is an actress, screenwriter, and playwright of no mean talent; on Monday, she’ll be reviving her show Skirts & Flirts in LA for One Night Only to benefit the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Both Kelletts are in the show, along with a considerable number of their severely talented friends. Tickets are twenty bucks, and if you’re of legal age you get free vodka. I saw the show when it ran in New York, and it were damn funny. Go.
• Thing the Second: Dave can talk well. That seems like a minor thing, I mean most everybody manages that on their own, but what I mean is that he has one of those moderately rare brains that allows one to organize thoughts, put them into a compelling order, and make them sound interesting on the fly, which is a pretty neat trick. If you read this page, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve heard Dave on a majority of the Halfpixel Webcomics Weekly podcasts (now on indefinite hiatus), but hearing him go one-on-one is a different beast altogether. Tom Racine of Tall Tales Radio did exactly that, sitting down with Kellett for a lengthy, rambling (but not random) podcast interview. It’s worth a good listen.

Just now noticed, and worth a read right now now now: Great, by Ryan Armand, who gave us the sublimely beautiful Minus. Starts here, hit “next” 58 times until you’re caught up.

Daisy Owl, friend to moustachery everywhere.

• Okay, this sucks: Kean Soo‘s most famous work, the award-winning Jellaby, is losing half its presence in print. For reasons beyond our Earth Logic, Disney-Hyperion are yanking Jellaby volume 1 from print:
  

  It was, I presume, a financial decision on the part of my publisher, Disney-Hyperion, even though the book has been a modest success by comic standards (more than 18,000 copies sold over the span of 21 months), and had been slowly picking up readers as time went on. Having Jellaby off the shelves does create an unfortunate situation, however — the second book, Jellaby: Monster in the City, is the conclusion of the story that runs through both books, and by removing the availability of the first book, Monster in the City is in danger of leading a shortened life as well, being a now- incomplete second half to a two-part story.

  Now, I’m no publishing mogul, but it seems to me that if you have something that sells, then making more means you can sell more. So yeah, terrific logic there, Disney-Hyperion. Heckuva job. Bottom line, if you want a copy of this utterly charming book, better grab it now. Those of you that plan on having children some day, get a copy or two now and lay them down like fine wine for your progeny to enjoy in the future.

• How about some good news that relates to our Northerly Friends? The Toronto Comics Art Festival has had a reputation for being one of the best shows on the circuit, and 2010 marks the move from biannual to annual occurrences. Furthermore, the exhibitors list has been released, with the guests forming a veritable who’s who of our chosen artform. In addition to Mr Soo, in no particular order, you got yer Spike, yer Doc Hastings, yer John Campbell, and yer KC Green.

  Want more? You also have Graham Annable, Kate Beaton, Box Brown, Danielle Corsetto, Joey Comeau & Emily Horne, Becky Dreistadt & Frank Gibson, Rene Engström, Meredith Gran, Chris Hallbeck, Andrew Hussie, Jeph Jacques, Lucy Knisley, Sam Logan, Davids Malki ! and Maguire, Dylan Meconis, Hurricane Erika, The Toronto Man-Mountain, Yuko Ota & Ananth Panagariya, Dave Roman & Raina Telgemeier, Jon Rosenberg, Jeff Rowland & the TopatoCo crüe, Rich Stevens, and Jim Zubkavich, plus about a million others that I’ve no doubt missed on the list.

  Whew. My travel plans for the spring aren’t entirely set yet (there’s this pretty awesome out-of-state post-wedding party-up later in May), but I hope to attend TCAF if only to say howdy to all the incredible talent that will be attending. But whether I make it there or not, if you’re not doing anything much, much cooler on May 8th & 9th, the Toronto Reference Library will be the place to be.

Mr Madsen and R Stevens both celebrate their respective births today, woo. In gratitude to all of you, Stevens has unleashed a veritable cornucopia of pixellated delights: 33% off socks today, a dinoriffic t-shirt, and custom pixel portraits commissions until the end of the month. In honor of his generosity, I direct you all to what may well be Stevens’s holy book.

• As long as we’re celebrating birthdays, one might note that Sam Brown’s Exploding Dog is now ten years old, and Registered Weapon by Gardner Linn, Chris Thorn, Dave Lentz, and Rob Simmons, is a year old. When the inevitable world-wide holiday to celebrate webcomics is someday declared, I guess that 12 January will be the natural choice.
• Missed this last week, but it’s not yet hit the ‘sell by’ date, so I think we’re good: Ryan North got interviewed at Question Riot on the topic of his webcomics infrastructure efforts. If you were curious about Oh No Robot, RSSPECT or Project Wonderful, get yourself over there immediately.
• Question: who, in all of [web]comickry, is nicer than Raina Telgemeier? Since the Dalai Lama doesn’t do comics, I’d gonna go with “nobody”, and you can share in the niceness in person. To celebrate the imminent release of her graphic novel (from the webcomic of the same name), SMILE, Telgemeier will be having a launch party on Saturday, 13 February at Rocketship in Brooklyn. There will be a live reading, braces-friendly food, and possibly a Valentine’s Day theme (NB: I haven’t confirmed this, but I’m pretty sure that Raina’s valentine is her husband, Dave, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up if I were you). If all that isn’t enough to entice you, the bar next door to Rocketship does outrageously good cocktails. With any luck, I’ll see you there.

Limited access to network duing the day, and probably the same situation next week as well. Thus, we’re going to be heavy on pre-written things that miss the latest news, or late things that address the latest news after everybody else. I imagine that you will, as you have in the past, adapt to this unsettling turn. Onwards.

• The Spurge is looking for input into what’s likely the Definitive List of Comics People and Places, by Locality. Quite a few webcomickers on there already, and if there are some that should be, contact the gentleman so that updates may be made.
• Photos of an early copy of Raina Telgemeier‘s SMILE. Oh, and be sure to check out the blurb on the back cover; less-good work at the end of a long career aside, dang if that isn’t a hell of a quote. Everybody go “yay!” for Raina.
• Speaking of “yay”, Telgemeier’s husband Dave Roman is finalizing the disposition of the physical remains of Nick Magazine, where he was one of editors of one of the best markets for kid-friendly ‘toons. In other worlds, there’s one last stack of old magazines and books, and he’d love to share them with you.
• Scott Campbell in a LOST-themed gallery show in LA? Yes, please.

Okay, more likely-outdated stuff tomorrow. Have a good Monday, everybody.

Sure, there’s awesome stuff in Bethesda, like John Campbell’s debut Pictures for Sad Children book — don’t buy all of them, because the leftovers will go on sale online next week. Oh, and I guess Latin Heartthrob Aaron Diaz will have a new Dresden Codak book available. And other attendees (missed yesterday) will include Dylan Meconis (tabling with Carol Burrell) with a new print, and Dave Shabet and Evan Dahm getting a last-minute table assignment.

And that’s not even considering Raina Telgemeier giving away two galley copies of her forthcoming graphic novel, SMILE:

I’m also holding a raffle and a contest! I have a few advance-reader galleys of SMILE available, and I’d like to give them away. There are two ways to win:

Raffle! Come fill out a raffle ticket at our table, any time before 4:30 PM on Sunday. I will draw a winner at 5 PM.

Contest! Tell me a horror story about your teeth! You have to come and tell me your story in person, also any time before 4:30 PM on Sunday. I will choose a winner at 5 PM. Most horrific dental story wins.

Man, I have a great horrific dental story, too. I won’t go into it here, because I realize that some people are squeamish; if you have a strong stomach, the short version is below the cut. Suffice it to say, nearly 20 years later I am still fully prepared to run down a respectable member of the dental profession in cold blood in front of his terrified family, then kick my car into reverse and repeat until the cops drag me away.

But I promised you good news for those not going to SPX, and that would be the First Ever Topatoco Tag Sale:

[W]e ain’t no second-rate ham-shop runnin’ T-shirts out the back of an off-label methadone distillery either — we’re the world’s largest graphical internet entertainment licensing firm, and we got literally twenty dozen different designs that we throw away on a daily basis. We are straight-up and down-low professional and the side effect of all this legitimate-businessin’ is that we got tee-shirts in every orifice and stacked up to reach the danged rafters.

Solution? TAG SALE. This Saturday, September 26, we are opening our doors and urging you, a bunch of strangers, to come paw through a giant stash of our clean cotton miscellany. That’s right — the TopatoCo offices will be open to the discount-loving public for a one-day bargain-basement housecleaning hootenanny. [emphasis original]

Note to every random entertainment company that sends me press releases — use the words “methadone distillery” in your boilerplate, and I’m far more likely to run with it.

(more…)

SPX is coming up in a few days and dammit I won’t be there because virtually every cool creator is going to be. You should check out all of the webcomicky people, which list includes — but probably not exhaustively so — the following creators (big breath now): Aaron, Ami, Box, Bree, Bryan, Carla, Carol, Chris, Danielle, Dave, David, Dern, Emily, Erika, James, Jeph, Jess, Joey, John, John, John, Jon, Julia, Kate, Marion, Mer, Raina, Rich, Sara, Spike, Sam, and Scott. Whew!

For added fun, Box Brown has a list of must-buy books, and The X-Man will be wandering the floor on Saturday.

• Know who won’t be at SPX (besides me?) Liz Cusack Greenfield. ‘s been a while since Ms Liz stepped away from webcomics, but that doesn’t mean she’s given up drawing. Behold: magazine spot illos, which I’ll take because I love her stuff so much. Should she ever decide to return to the reprobate-filled world of [web]comics, I’ll be waiting with bells on. On what? I hear you cry. None of your damn business.
• Finally, thanks to Webcomics-dot-com for reminding me: 24 Hour Comic Day is coming up! From the aforementioned w-d-c, thoughts by Trev Wood as to why 24HCD is something you should be in on; read it, accept the wisdome, then stock up on the No-Doz and Jolt cola, sharpen up your Sharpies, and get crackin’ oh my sleep-deprived droogs.