(Ah-ha-ha.)

• It started here, as Joel Watson noted that it’s been both four years of making Hijinks Ensue his job, and just about five years of the strip in general. Yay, anniversaries. But then it got deeper:
  

  Now here’s the rub. HE used to have a very strong character element along with the humor. I started looking back at old comics and thinking back to the comments I used to get an conventions and the emails I would receive and the number one positive remark I would get is that the “characters are just like me and my friends,” or “I love Josh because he reminds me of my friend,” etc. Then all of a sudden these comments stopped. What changed? I reread my old comics again and realized that as I started traveling more and my daughter got older (requiring more and more time for her extracurricular activities), I started seeing the real life Josh and Eli less and less. In fact, I probably haven’t seen either of them more than once or twice in 2012. Our social realities just don’t align that well any more. It’s a fact of life and a bi-product of having children. I don’t love them any less, and I don’t believe we have grown apart as friends. The time to just fuck around and be silly with each other just isn’t there nearly as often as it used to be.

  The result of this decreased exposure to the inspiration for my characters was that I lost my crutch. I had never been forced to create personalities for the characters since I would just observe the real people behind them and exaggerate their actions and reactions. Sometime around the middle to end of 2011 I really started writing in a singular voice. Every character was interchangeable and while I think the joke writing got MUCH tighter as time went by, the character development essentially vanished. This was never more evident than in the fact that NO ONE ever seemed to know the names of the characters. As one of my peers, who I respect greatly, told me, “Your characters are interchangeable. People love our characters and that’s why they love the comic.” I used to say, “The characters in HE are just there to service the joke,” as if it was one of the selling points of the comic. If that was the case, why would I keep drawing the same guys over and over? I didn’t realize I was admitting a shortcoming of the strip and disguising it as a feature. [emphasis original]

  That couldn’t have been easy to write. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a creator be so self-analytical in public¹, and Watson’s conclusion is that he needs to shake things up — shake himself up² — in lieu of the pure pop-culture commentary that has been his stock in trade:

  I am going to start devoting more time in HijiNKS ENSUE to getting to know the characters. Not necessarily their jobs, relationship or other sitcom type stuff (which still doesn’t interest me), but more their characteristics, quirks and view points. I want to teach myself (by doing) how to write in a voice that is not my own. I want to recapture that individuality the HE characters had in the early years before they became prisoners of my own head and parrots for my own point of view.

  Good on you, Mr Watson.

• Now, let’s go back even further into the mists of time, as one of the most (weirdly) beautiful and (justly) beloved webcomics of the prior decade went on hiatus. To be specific, A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible has been quiet since 23 May, 2006. Fast forward to the present day, and one of the longest hiatuses³ of webcomics history is nearing an end, per co-creator/art half David Hellman:
  

  Yesterday [co-creator/writing half] @DaleBeran and I started on a new episode. So far, just a one-off. Here’s a sketch. More to come. #ALILBTDII pic.twitter.com/Ff9lehZd

  May I suggest that you spend in the intervening hours between now and Update catching up on the ALILBTDII archives?

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¹ In private, sure, all the time, although that has a definite tendency towards “artistic self-loathing” with a soupçon of meltdown.

² Not to mention adding what Jerry Holkins has for a decade or more referred to as dreaded continuity.

³ Hiati?

I can always tell how good a convention/festival I don’t attend is doing by how sparse the updates in my Twitterfeed are during show hours. And boy howdy, by that measure, TCAF ’12 was the greatest show ever, because I didn’t see anything while it was running.

If you want to know how the show went (consensus: Best show ever), check out the #tcaf hashtag over the past few days, or let the participants get home and put up the inevitable, glowing con reports.

One feature of the show is the annual presentation of the Doug Wright Awards, which honor the best in Canadian (English language) cartooning, and which are mercifully brief, featuring a total of three (3) categories: Best Book (self explanatory), Doug Wright Spotlight Award (for emerging talent), and The Pigskin Peters Award (for avant-garde or nontraditional work).

This year, surprising upwards of two people, Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant took the Best Book award, bookending her 2009 win for Best Emerging Talent¹. Given the (frankly, inexplicable) absence of Hark! A Vagrant from the Eisners, that leaves the Shuster, the Harvey, and the Ignatz as potential future wins, in addition to the many, many accolades it has received outside the comics-specific community. As always, the praise is well-deserved.

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¹ Which appears to be the former name of the Doug Wright Spotlight Award, but the DWA website isn’t clear on this.

In the short term, you’ve got this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival, kicking off tomorrow at the Toronto Research Library. In the somewhat longer term, you’ve got Marceline and the Scream Queens, set for monthly release starting in July. The common thread? The supremely talented Meredith Gran, who took time out from drawing Octopus Pie and packing for the trip to TCAF to talk to us about Adventure Time, her own comics, and the importance of having a dog in the house.

Time prevented me from talking with other creators extensively, but even brief conversations are fun.

• For example, Box Brown’s been working much of the past six months on Retrofit Comics, which is now down to a familiar process. The back catalog is pretty much sold out, and the project will run its course as planned; Brown may or may not keep the “Retrofit Comics” name for future projects.

  The project most consuming his time would be his comics biography of André Roussimoff, professional giant and haver of posses. Brown has gone so far as to communicate with Mr The Giant’s brother¹, and expects to work the rest of the year on what may well be the definitive biography of André. Oh, yes, and he’s also doing webcomics again, you know, in his free time.

• Magnolia Porter, meanwhile, is splitting her time, with the first project being the ongoing Monster Pulse, which mixes a quirky visual style with lots of heart². Speaking of visual style, I finally figured up what it is that makes Guuzy so appealing, despite that fact that he may be the most dangerous of the monsters, what with being an acid-filled stomach monster and all. It’s the way that his forelegs are so much shorter than his hindlegs, giving him the same posture as a dog that’s got a tail wagging high and a head down low and eyes that say Play, play, play time to play!

  That same instinct for creating appeal in non-human characters carries over to the human characters as well; Bina and the other players we’ve met all act like whole, real people; their anger, their exhaustion, their bewilderment and denial all come from an organic place and make you want to know them more.

  It’s something that Porter has had a lot of practice with, what with years of Bobwhite under her belt — Marlene, Ivy, and Cleo lived and breathed and influenced each other, and shortly their story will be collected into print. That would be the other thing that Porter is working on, and I can only believe that Bobwhite will read beautifully as a continuous story. Personally, I’m holding out for a bonus story that reveals more of the main cast’s feelings for Ben Bailey.

• Shifting gears for a moment, all those books will surely require some Kickstarting, which put me in mind of a conversation that took place on the Armory steps. It started with some catching-up with Rick Marshall³, and we were by chance joined by a passing Johanna Draper Carlson and Heidi MacDonald. Kickstarter discussion about sweet spots, Smut Peddler’s ultimate total (I’m putting it in the range of US$55-60K), and Shaenon Garrity’s clever use of unlocked rewards on the Skin Horse 3 campaign.

  I tried laying out some of my (very early) analysis and desire for a Grand Unified Theory of Kickstarter, but so far my attention has been on the numbers and not the words to describe it. I should have just waited a few days more and I could have pointed them towards yesterday’s Penny Arcade, because (as usual) Jerry’s words do the trick:

  You’ve seen Stretch Goals before, if you’ve ever watched one of these things succeed: mechanisms to maintain funding momentum after success, with whispered promises of more…. Goodies you can add a la carte, independent of your pledge level. They’ve essentially developed an RPG, where your money is the XP. [emphasis added]

  There it is, maybe the key element I’ve been grasping for. Kickstarter reward design isn’t just a min-max problem for the creator, it’s one for the supporter as well. We’ve established that you need an audience that’s crying out for whatever you’re offering, and you have to give them a compelling reason to back you. Those things are still true.

  But now, shift the perspective: instead of trying to manage the money you take in, you should be setting up a structure where your backers will seek on their own to maximize the money they can possibly contribute. There’s a weird mixture of industrial-grade psychology and probability math at the heart of it, which is to say — it’s a game. Don’t try to play it yourself, try to make the most appealing set of rules.

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¹ Or at least attempt to; a letter has been written to an address in France that reportedly once belonged to the surviving Mr Roussimoff. He hopes for a reply, but acknowledges the odds are long.

² I’m so, so sorry.

³ Will, and Holly.

And through all my discussion of Aaron Diaz yesterday, I never mentioned the suit; it’s beautiful, it fits him perfectly, it classes up the immediate environment. His tablemates, Yuka Ota and Ananth Panagariya, were not to be outdone — they had their own black three-pieces, and resulting in a localized dapperness singularity and made my midweight fleece jacket seek a means of exit from the vicinity, so great was its shame. To distract from my suitless disgrace, I had to ask Panagariya about everything he and Ota are working on. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot.

As if the warmest, most generous¹ journal comic weren’t enough, the pair are a quarter of the way through production on Lucky Penny, their project from Oni, overseen by the ubiquitous George Rohac². That means that 200 page have to be done in time for all the production work to be completed to enable an 2013 release. A year, a book, lots of people work to that schedule.

Except that more is already in the works — Johnny Wander book 3 is due this fall (with a goal of a book a year), and a fuller version of Girl With The Skeleton Hand. Other projects, too; Panagariya wants to make sure that in addition to JW, there’s a book a year, and in his copious free time, he’s getting back into the narrative webcomics game. No name of either comic or artistic partner to share with you yet, but he’s got story planned to the extent that he knows it will take a “television season” approach: 25 to 50 pages per episode, six episodes to the season, keep those writing skills sharp.

It’ll be a stretch, naturally, to work with an artist other that Ota, especially when their skills are so complementary. Yuko noted that while Ananth tends to focus on character, she centers on story structure, making the combination stronger than what either could accomplish on their own. Turns out that Jeph Jacques was right — they really are like Voltron.

Naturally, while Panagariya is collaborating with others, Ota has plenty to keep her busy. Her trade-off sketching with Evan Dahm via the Exquisite Beast is just the most public of these. Dahm, by the way, indicated that the Beast has no planned endpoint — it will just keep evolving³ for as long as they have fun with it. Likely there will be a book at some point, which would make a nice shelf companion to the (as yet hypothetical) Diaz Dinosaur Compendium mentioned yesterday.

Dahm, meanwhile, continues with the largest, most sprawling story he’s ever tackled. At more than 270 pages long, Vattu is perhaps one fifth of the way through the story he wants to tell. And consider: even once he’s done — in five years, or maybe seven — he will have chronicled only a few discrete years distantly separated in the 5000+ year history of Overside. Every odd species, every writing system, every story he’s told so far fits into a few temporal niches on (mostly) one continent.

The scope and scale of this particular Overside story also means that the one-volume editions we’ve seen of Rice Boy and Order of Tales are probably not practical to attempt with Vattu. The complete story would be more than twice the size of the OoT one-volume. Instead, Dahm plans on releasing a series of impressively thick reprint volumes, 300 – 400 pages each, in both paperback and deluxe hardcover presentations.

In keeping with his prior releases, he’s experimenting with wordless cover designs, with an eye towards releasing the first volume of Vattu in early 2013. Rumors that MoCCA staff are arranging with Armory personnel to reinforce the floor in anticipation of Dahm’s expanded catalog at next year’s art festival could not be confirmed at press time.

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¹ Not to mention true-to-life; for those wondering, the Punishment Shirt is real.

² For somebody not at the show, Rohac loomed large in numerous conversations; I must have words with him, long words about the direction of independent comics and the direction that he seems to be steering them in.

³ Which at this point has evolved through every ecological niche and environmental habitat and keeps on cranking. I have a feeling that eventually it will have evolved through more forms than an actual biological entity could manage in the entire lifespan of the universe.

I can’t reveal that.

Aaron Diaz is full of ideas, and it pains him when he can’t share with you an idea that’s not ready for inclusion in Dresden Codak. Concrete plans about books, sure; dinosaurs, he’s all over that conversation. But questions regarding the nature of science/speculative fiction that might reveal where he’s going with his current story arc, Dark Science? That’s where he draws the line. So let’s focus on what he will discuss.

Firstly, there is a Dresden Codak book in the works, which he hopes will be out for Christmas¹. So far, so good, people do books of their webcomics literally every week. But this book is from the man that puts minute detail into single “pages” that keep scrolling on and on, and that requires space. When I first met Diaz, he was musing about putting together a book for Hob, and I speculated it might require a size approaching that of a coffee table book. We chuckled.

Yeah, so the new book might have to be trimmed down by 15% or so, but right now he’s looking at a 17×23 inch treatment. In color. Hardcover. Covering from the first introduction of Kim (presumably this story) and every subsequent story prior to Dark Science (he didn’t say if the guest week that immediately preceded DS would be included), including all of Hob. I remarked the only book he could work on that would require more space would be a collection of Moebius tribute art, which caused an eye twinkle and a terse, “Don’t tempt me.”²

It is worth noting that while having this conversation, his exhibitor’s wristband was configured in a möbius strip, which he incessantly traced with his fingers. That prompted a discussion of spatial mathematics, which led to a discussion of the philosophy of science, and how he believes he’s on a unique track with Dark Science.

Some of what he said is pretty obvious: it’s about a third done (the last update fairly screams “end of first act reveal”). It’s in tribute to Metropolis. Ayn Rand is in for some mockery in Act II (which he described as “intense”) and Act III (“surreal”). The key concept of Dark Science hasn’t been revealed yet, but as far as he can tell, it’s not an idea that’s been done before in SF:

It’s not a “go here, get this, bring it back, fix the problem” kind of story. Hob was about having different points of view with respect to the unknown, Dark Science is about science, the philosophy of science, what it’s for.

That’s when I asked him if he was using “science” as a verb and not a noun, and that brings us back to his inability to reveal things up there at the top. Between now and us learning what he can’t reveal at this time, we’ve got four or five years, a hardcover (at least one), and a lot of days besotted by the newest discoveries in maniraptor locomotion and neck structures. The world comes rushing at Diaz, and comics are how he does science to it. Pretty, pretty science.

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¹ Perhaps noting his update schedule, Diaz did not specify Christmas of which year.

² I continued to tempt him; while deep in a conversation about how coelurosaurs invaded every ecological niche, I remarked how I’d love to see him do a book containing the likes of the enormous Charles R Knight murals of dinosaurs that have been mainstays at natural history museums for half a century.

Knight worked from the best paleontological information of his times, and Diaz would certainly work from the state of today’s art, meaning feathers everywhere. “I want to see your take on pterosaurs,” I said. He got that twinkle again and muttered, “Ooooh. I could … you’re giving me an idea.”

The thing about Frank Gibson and Becky Dreistadt¹ is that they are living proof that all you need to be super-successful in any creative field is reasonably talented, a little lucky, and a completely insane, work longer and harder than anybody else and eat their friggin’ lunch machine. Like Becky does. She paints nonstop, moving from project to project, dropping beauty via gouache and watercolor the way other people accidentally drop a gum wrapper out of their jacket pocked while fumbling for their keys.

Much of this you will never get to see. Some of it, shortly, nobody will ever get to see again, and that is a goddamn shame². And if a few things come together in the offices where such things are decided, Dreistadt will be doing more of it than she ever has before, with a higher profile than ever before. And even if none of that comes to anything, she and Gibson have enough projects confirmed and in-progress to make anybody this side of a meth freak on a coke bender wonder where the requisite energy to do all the work might come from.

And the infuriating thing about them is, they are so damned cheerful about the whole thing.

They’ve got their new hardcover collection of Tiny Kitten Teeth to finish up, naturally (since it will undoubtedly see the influence of the rapidly-approaching mythical status George Rohac, it will no doubt look as gorgeous as the Benign Kingdom hardcover, and — Gibson tells me — three or so times thicker). There’s the Capture Creatures gallery show and book to do this year, as well as finishing up Ryan Sohmer’s The Bear, and whatever else people may pay them to do. At this point, the only limit on them is time.

Speaking of B9, three of the four creator teams were at MoCCA (all except KC Green), and I got to express to Becky/Frank, Yuko/Ananth, and Evan Dahm how beautiful their work is. They spoke seemingly with one voice about what happens next with B9 (or at least I didn’t write down which of them told me): the Kingdom was not a one-shot, there will be future releases in sets of four, perhaps new hardcovers even. Then there was this from the original solicitation:

If this goes well, it could be the foundation of a much bigger project in the future: Benign Kingdom could print more books, and maybe involve other artists! Thank you very much for your support!

At this point, I say that the runaway success of B9.1 pretty much ensures that other artists will be brought into the fold. I sense that Mr Rohac has plans where all of this might go, plans that he and I must needs discuss, because I have often commented on the need for webcomics to have a shadowy genius providing specialty genius-type services in a financially self-sustaining fashion, and I have a suspicion we might be looking at the seed of such now.
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¹ The hive mind that is the artist/writer combo is nearly always referred to as “Becky and Frank”, so I decided that just this once I’m puttin’ Frank first. Also, the majority of the time I have news from the Tiny Kitten Teeth duo, it comes from Frank, since he is like me an inveterate talker.

² You may have heard about the Adventure Time gallery show which is going on in Austin, Texas about now. Follow that link, and check out the photos . See the murals, with the squarish Finn and Jake and the all-swoops-and-curves Fionna and Cake, and the Rainicorn that meanders along the walls? Better get your ass down to Austin and see ’em in person, because when the show’s over, they’re getting painted over.

Every art conservator that puts an Old Masters painting through X-rays and MRIs trying to look under the layers of paint and see what’s underneath ought to be descending on the world’s art galleries and carefully disassembling every piece of drywall they can find, because there are friggin’ masterpieces under all that Behr matte white hi-cover and the thought of it makes me want to drink until I can’t cry anymore.

On any other day, Wondermark’s ninth anniversary or my delight at seeing the expanding white zone/shrinking grey zone over to the right of today’s xkcd might have been top item of discussion, but instead we have to go back to the Kickstarter well again.

• Yeah, yeah, new Kickstarters, funding achieved in less than 22 hours with a month to go, the usual. Except there’s something quite novel about the Kickstarter for Smut Peddler (which has been A Thing for about 18 months now), and it’s a lede that’s halfway buried:
  

  This pre-order event will determine the bonuses of SP’s authors. They’ve already been paid for their contributions, but the more money this Kickstarter makes, the more money they get. [emphasis original]

  Actually, make that a couple of novel things: first, that the artists have been paid; second that they’ve been paid up front, before a single book is sold; third, that they will be paid more based on how successful the Kickstart is.

  If the Kickstarter reaches $20,000, each contributor/team gets an extra $50.00.
  If the Kickstarter reaches $25,000, each contributor/team gets an extra $100.00. [emphasis original]

  … and so on. Every US$5000 raised increases the payments to the creators by fifty bucks, on up to infinity. If Smut Peddler breaks into the ranks of the most successful comics projects (call it 50 large), each creator is looking at the original pay scale (US$50/page, per the original call for submissions) possibly doubling or tripling. And since these pre-ordered copies are being fulfilled against a known, public total pledge amount, there’s no need to delve into elaborate accounting or wonder exactly how royalties are being calculated¹.

  Also, it’s full of naked people gettin’ it on.

• At the opposite end of the spectrum, Tiny Kitten Teeth. Not to imply that Becky Dreistadt hasn’t ever drawn people gettin’ it on², it’s just not what one associates with her bright, colorful, sunny-dispositioned style. For those that want to see more of that style, TKT are heading down the print version route, with a handsome hardcover in the works featuring with big pages to suit the detail in the original watercolor/gouache pages.

  In addition to the book itself, Dreistadt (and partner/writing collaborator Frank Gibson) are offering patches, pins, prints, paintings, the usual enticements and holy crap original pages:

  Measuring in at 11×16 inches, few people outside of our close friends have ever seen original pages until now. You will be the only person other than us to own one. We don’t envision selling a page again for quite some time. These pages take days to complete and we are yet to part with one since we started, over 3 years ago!

  Translation: it would be only slightly trickier to get your hands on an original BONE or Calvin and Hobbes page than an original Tiny Kitten Teeth page. I think that the description is meant to convey that only one TKT page is up for grabs, but right now the Kickstarter doesn’t show it as a limited reward, so maybe more than one are available? One way to find out, my friends, and it’s gonna cost you US$1250 (which is entirely reasonable, given that is it certain that Becky Dreistadt will be listed in the annals of animation next to Mary Blair, Frank ‘n’ Ollie, Chuck Jones, Eric Goldberg, Andreas Deja, Richard Williams, and other giants of the field)³.

  Or, actually, I could pretend I’m some kind of journalist and just ask Frank and Becky about their intent, and it turns out it was intended as a limited reward, one person only, and now shows as such on the campaign page. Race for the prize begins: now.

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¹ Not that SP honcho Spike would try to screw the contributors to this publishing venture; I bring it up only to contrast with the traditional publisher/creator relationship, where the right to examine books and determine whether or not the degree to which you were getting screwed was seen as a major concession on the part of publishers/producers/studios/labels/etc.

² Or is incapable of doing so; after all, she’s a cartoonist, and the first place slow-time-at-the-con-table jam sketches go is to the naughty side of the equation.

³ Look ’em up, you should already know their names and significance if you’re the sort of person that hangs out here.

Nearly halfway through, and my first read on the Skin Horse 3 Kickstart is largely holding true — nearly 60% of all pledgers are holding at the $20 level, which remains the quantum unit of money. In another month after the campaign closes (and perhaps just after NCS weekend¹, where I may have a chance to talk to Shaenon Garrity about it) I’ll be very interested to look at the final distribution, particularly given the inclusion of one item that I’d previously disregarded in Kickstarter analyses: the unlocked reward. My Grand Unified Kickstarter Theory is moving ever-further away from completion.

Oh, and in the interests of complete disclosure, I am quoted² on the Kickstarter page, but I’ve had no communication with the creators of Skin Horse and my thoughts here have not been influenced by any offers or promises. Although I am very glad to see that Ms Garrity has chosen an appropriate funding level for giving away original art; in the past (if my memory serves me correctly), originals have been thrown in at purchase points as low as US$50 which is just crazypants.

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¹ Did I mention that the NCS have graciously offered me the opportunity to attend their get-together so I can see who actually wins the first division award for webcomickry? They did, and for the same cost as members, which was quite kind. Gonna be an expensive weekend (not to mention that it’s Las Vegas), but it’s something I figure I ought to do once.

² At least I think I am — those words sound like something I’d write, but this Gary Tyrell fellow that’s quoted spells his last name wrong.

With no Axe Cop on TV-type announcements today, all is quiet in advance of what strikes me as a fairly unprecedented situation: there are three separate, established, legitimate conventions happening this weekend, at opposite corners of the continent: Calgary Comics and Entertainment Expo, MoCCA Festival, and Stumptown Comics Fest

While the overlap between Calgary¹ and the other two² is theoretically small, there’s a significant draw to the great northern prairies of webcomics talent, many of whom were seen in Manhattan or Portland in other years. There was talk when the Stumptown/MoCCA date conflict was discovered about which way the small creators would go³, but I don’t think the Canadian Factor was recognized at the time. I doubt any one of the shows will be damaged, but it’ll be interesting to see if any of the creators continue to opt away from one or more of the contenders in the future even if they occur at different times.

Meanwhile, if you’re heading to Calgary (or the following weekend to Toronto for TCAF) to see the TopatoCo Vendatorium, please be aware:

A note to TCAF/CALGARY friends, due to Problems we won’t be bringing SHIRTS to either show. We will however have Special Coupon Codes.

Very diplomatically put, but if I had to guess, I’d say that Problems is code for Customs screwed us.

Having traveled to other countries for work on occasion, I can tell you there’s a special stab of fear that hits when you realize that the customs/immigration/whatever official in front of you has that gleam in the eye that subtly communicates one thought at you: I don’t care whatever national policy and/or international treaties might say … in this lane, I am the merciless god of your existence, and I am feeling smitey today. No matter how often you may have sailed through border bureaucracy in the past, today is going to be different, and there’s nothing you can do but smile and nod and say thank you to the person who is casually ruining your day⁴.

Regardless of the reason (and I am going merely on supposition here), it appears that Commerce and Trade will still take place, and you will be able to get your wares, be they present physically or not. And hey — not having to unpack all that stock and pack up the remainder at the end of the show has to be somewhat positive? Yeah, okay, I’m sure the TopatoCo folks would rather have the actual shirts, but lemons and lemonade. If you see them at either show, give them all my best.

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¹ Calgary is taking the “and Entertainment” aspect seriously, what with booking all manner of TV and movie personages, including all the regular cast members of Star Trek: The Next Generation for Cochrane’s sake.

² Both MoCCA and Stumptown focus on smaller, creator-owned/indy-type comics.

³ Reminiscent of the great East Side/West Side webcomics battles of the early Naughts.

⁴ To the many Canadian border personnel I have interacted with in the past: all but one of you have been wonderful. The other one? I prefer to think she was having a bad breakup that day. In any event, the Big Scary Event I had at Customs was in February 1991 on my return from Canada, and I’ve done work gigs for Customs Canada, so we’re cool.