That would be the one that says, “Don’t scrape webcomics, and especially don’t try to make money off of them with your scraper.” Yes, yes, I know: Blah blah exposure blah blah they put it in my RSS feed blah blah not charging for the comic charging for the convenience. We’ll leave aside the fact that the creators in question didn’t ask for you to be an intermediary between them and their audience, and even leave the fact that so many of them have released their work under Creative Commons licenses that clearly say No commercial exploitation, Bunky. It’s just a dick move to claim that you’re “supporting the creators”, especially in a world where precisely one (1) person is actually doing aggregation right. Let’s let webcomics fan Chris Hanel have the floor for a moment:

Do you support webcomics? Take this one question survey:

1. Do you take the RSS feed of over 90 webcomics, rip the images, put them in your Android app, and then put your own advertisements next to them in order to make money?

Congratulations: If you said “Yes”, then NO, YOU DO NOT SUPPORT WEBCOMICS.

Hanel raised the flag on the latest scraper with a helpful list of comics being scraped. What kills me in all of these recurring instances of scraping is that the creator always acts all noble and says But I’ll remove your content if you just ask me to! So once again for those at the back that might not have heard: Offering an opt-in is morally defensible; requiring an explicit opt-out from being involved in your scheme is not the approach to take if you want to be seen as helpful. Knock it off.

• Let’s just try to find some good in the world today, yes? On the one hand, congrats to the Little Heart comic for marriage equality; I happened to check their Kickstarter page as they exactly met their funding goal earlier today. Can’t say I’ve ever seen that happen before; if I were the sort who believed in luck, I’d take that as a good omen.

  Lots of talent on the book, and the inimitable Christopher Butcher (founder/showrunner of TCAF, manager of one of the world’s great comic shops, smilin’ face of UDON studios, and appreciator of bizarre Japanese Kit Kats) has contributed a heartfelt intro/foreword, a draft of which is available for your perusal. It’s really good.

• Horrible webcomics pun¹ made, adorable shirt available for purchase six days later; film at eleven.

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¹ For once, not attributable to Brad Guigar or David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc)

That sound you hear is merely the damp, disturbing rhonchi¹ that inhabit my lungs. Nevertheless I am again vertical and catching up on the wacky world of webcomickry because I love you people that much.

• Late last week, something new cropped up — on first glance, it looks similar to a webcomics scraper, but it isn’t. Henry Kuo has tread the middle ground between collecting webcomic content in one place, but not overharvesting and costing creators the ad revenue of eyeballs.

  Kuo isn’t profiteering off other people’s work, isn’t stealing bandwidth, and is truly giving people a means to discover and follow webcomics they might not have found otherwise, making him the first person to actually do an unofficial app/site to benefit creators. His logic is nicely laid out here, but you may has well just dive in and enjoy the goodness that is Just The First Frame².

• Following up on a story that broke on a day that was busy with other content: Jim Zub‘s previous announcement of reviving old videogame IP as webcomics has launched, as Sky Kid joins Namco/Bandai properties such as Bravoman, Xevious, and Alien Confidential under the Shifty Look banner.

  To be clear, the four properties (so far) are being comic-ized by both Zub’s UDON studio (Sky Kid and Bravoman), and by the entirely separate Cryptozoic studio (Xevious and Alien Confidential), and Z-Man is only working himself on Sky Kid. Nevertheless, it’s a kick in the nostalgia gland for people of certain ages and habits, and all four comics show a lot of early promise (keeping in mind that they’re each up to about two updates so far). Keep your eyes on ’em, they’re likely to be fun.

• We’ve previously established (in fact, on the same day as Zub’s Shifty Look announcement) that Angela “Jam” Melick is one of my favorite creators because of Reasons³. And we’ve previously established that her second Wasted Talent collection was imminent, which imminence is even more imminent than it was yesterday. That’s because earlier today, she announced that God willin’ and the creek don’t rise⁴, said books will go up for order on this Saturday, 17th March.

  Melick’s run into the usual bumps and interruptions involved in book launch (and judging from some of her hedged statements on her site and Twitter, some more than usual bumps and interruptions were imposed upon her, but parties unknown but upon whom I wish fire and doom), but with any luck this weekend bumps and interruptions will learn that you do not screw with a woman that has her own construction-grade helmet and high-viz vest if you want to remain unscathed. The wrath of an engineer with scathe you right up.

• Finally, Real Life and Comics always interact; they can feed each other, and they can steal from each other, and for those that do them for funsies, it’s important to remember which of those things is the priority. Tony Piro’s been in that dance of priorities for a half-decade with more than 600 Calamities of Nature strips, and today he has to step away:
  

  Today is my last update for Calamities of Nature. And I’ll be perfectly frank about the reasons. My full-time career is in academics, and I need to put everything I have into it if I’m going to have any chance of keeping it that way. As much as I love this comic, I can’t have it taking precious time away from my work. It’s time to move on.

  I’m going to thank Piro for the time he took, for the remarkably clever (in a phsyics geek kind of way) punchlines, for the charts that were illuminating and challenging, and for a point of view that was uniquely his own, even while working in a format that was familiar. You gave us a lot of yourself, and we’ll miss the comics as well as the bits of you that you shared. I suspect that we may see one-offs in the future, but even if that never happens, thanks for what you created.

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¹ At least it isn’t rales. Look ’em up, and give a listen if you dare.

² It’s pretty much exactly what is says on the box.

³ Engineers are a somewhat mysterious tribe, but we are generally a peaceful people.

⁴ As my great-grandmother used to say.

Those of you that perhaps have been wondering where I’ve been for a couple of days, I’ve been sick. In a hotel room in Boston¹, bringing eldritch horrors from beyond sanity out of my lungs and into an unsuspecting world². I’ve been almost entirely off the grid in that time, a fact more than balanced by the twenty or so extra hours of sleep that I’ve managed to cram in there. Tomorrow looks to be similarly disrupted, this time due to travel³. By the time I get home and figure out with my boss where things sit businesswise, it will probably be the weekend.

So screw it, check back on Monday when everybody’s back in proper working order. It’ll probably take me that long just to figure out what I’ve missed in my fever-times. For example, I just saw a comment from reader Unnatural20 (good one) that Lore Sjöberg has managed at least a partial resurrection of the spammer beset Bad Gods, meaning that my favorite Sjöbergian joke construction of all time (“And I’m Dave!” never gets old) has at least some examples back where they can be appreciated. So yay for that.

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¹ To be fair, a very nice hotel room, and the staff have been magnificent the past 48 hours or so as I’ve been holed up, cranky, burning through their supply of Kleenex like a hot truck through butter. Also, when you call them on the phone, they bring you food, no matter how disgusting and disease-ridden you might be. The staff of The Onyx rocks, collectively and individually.

² Before you ask, no, not in the chestburster fashion, but believe me I felt more than once that it would have been preferable to what I actually went through.

³ Although I am once again well enough to engage in the actions of commerce, my client decided that losing 40% of the contact hours meant it made more sense to just scrap the week and try again another time. Can’t argue with that too much, really.

I am sick and spreading my illness to all who come close; I’d sit a little further back from the screen if I were you.

• Worried about the Mayan Doom Prophecy? Rich Stevens has you covered:
  

  For $2,012, I will personally prevent the end of all life on Earth if the Apocalypse occurs on December 21, 2012. No refunds if by some off chance a religious prophecy was misinterpreted and winds up being bullshit.

  Sounds like the best deal since the invention of post-rapture pet care.

• For a rebuttal with today’s sign of the apocalypse, let’s go to Robert Khoo:
  

  For anyone that sells apparel, bad news today. India stopped all cotton exports. Global prices on the white stuff are going up.

  Reuters and the Wall Street Journal treated the story in a somewhat dry manner, but I found a couple of quotes in the WSJ story that may indicate that it’s not necessarily gloom for your favorite t-shirt monger:

  The announcement sent cotton prices on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange higher. But domestic prices will likely plunge, said A. Ramani, secretary of the Indian Cotton Federation. They have already slid over the past year on expectations of a record crop this year.

  This is the second time in nearly two years that India has banned cotton exports in response to concerns about local supplies.

  The front-month ICE Futures U.S. cotton contract, which had dropped from above 200 cents a pound a year ago to less than 90 cents, surged 4.337 cents, or 4.9%, to 92.23 cents midday in New York.

  So let’s recap — cotton prices are up about 5%, but are still less than half what they were a year ago. That drop didn’t result in t-shirts becoming suddenly more affordable, so hopefully a small recoup in prices won’t be used as an excuse to jack up prices now¹. Other analyses remind us that global production and market supply are actually up over last year, meaning this may be a temporary thing.

• Even if we are heading to a hellish future of all life extinguished/slightly higher t-shirt prices, no reason we can’t laugh along the way — Business Insider magazine will have you meet your doom with some insights from Zach Weiner on how he does what he does. Just in time for his birthday², too. Happy Birthday, Zach — by living one more day, you made the BI headline a total lie.

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¹ Since as we all know, large international firms would never engage in such asymmetry in pricing to their profit and the consumer’s detriment.

² Also my sister’s. Happy Birthday, Laura; I hope you’re enjoying those umbrella drinks in the piano bar of that enormous cruise ship you’re on.

Busy, busy, busy. Please enjoy David Malki ! gettin’ all philosophical in this bitch. For those of you that like word balloons, I prefer the punchline in the extended version.

Also, for those of you that like logistics (guilty!), Rich Burlew is doing everything right with his massively successful Kickstart, providing followup progress reports on the massive job of fulfilling all the pre-orders. Also included in that latest report are breakdowns on failed pledges:

So we’ve gotten the final tally for how many pledges went through, and the total of all pledges that were dropped (due to irresolvable processing errors or the like) added up to just $3954.00 from 61 backers. That represents just 0.32% of our final pledge total, or less than one-third of one percent. That is shockingly low; you’ll remember that I allowed for 5% of all the money pledged to drop out due to complications. So congratulations to you: As a group, you have excellent credit. [emphasis original]

Many thanks to Burlew for being so transparent — he’s setting the standard for future campaigns. And I’m sure that Kickstarter and Amazon ain’t complaining today, either:

We also have the final total for how much we paid to Kickstarter and Amazon in fees: $106,799.87, divided up among the two companies in a way that would require more math to explain than I feel like doing. It does represent 11.71% of my completed pledge totals, which is a little higher than I had counted on (10%). Still, given how much extra I had allowed for dropped pledges, it’s not a problem at all.

Holy cats, that’s a lot. Between this and Double Fine, Kickstarter are off to a really good start this year.

Namely, getting things wrapped up for the work client; very little time, and probably none tomorrow. On the other hand, you’ve gotten a couple thousand words out of me already this week, and I imagine you’re good with a light day or two.

So let me give you one thing that’s caught my (rapidly skimming in between work obligations) eye today, as it combines two of my favorite things: respect for fairy tales and Ursula Vernon. She’s offering up some old-school European tales (complete with Aarne-Thompson type codes) with her own commentary, complete with keen observations that sometimes you can’t tell who the protagonist is, who the adversary is, and how sometimes either or both switch back and forth from magnanimous to malevolent, or clever to stupid:

All those who think that the prince will have learned to listen to the absurdly competent Master-maid and will be very sure not to break his promise, raise your hand!

Okay, if your hand is raised, you have failed Fairytales 101. Please report to the office for our remedial class, entitled “Why We Do Not Insult Old Women At Wells And Other Vital Lessons.”

That would be from The Master-Maid, which I’m certain I’ve never read before, but which seemed oddly familiar in places (Aarne-Thompson type 313), and which offers up a casual reference to an unexplained artifact/creature/I don’t know and assumes we should recognize it:

Okay, forget the rest of the story, what the heck is a river-sucker? And how is it so completely common that the storyteller doesn’t even bother to explain—”You know, a river-sucker, jeez, what’re you, dumb?”—as if they’re as common as horses, stables, and porridge.

I don’t know what a river-sucker is, but I halfway expect one to show up in Øyvind Thorsby’s Hitmen for Destiny¹. The other, shorter tale is The Blue Light (Aarne-Thompson type 562, which I recognized as a variation of The Magic Tinderbox), which is a stellar example of story where the “hero” has some real dick tendencies. Good times!

Okay, I lied, one other thing to recommend to you: Lore Sjöberg (proprietor of Wired magazine’s Alt Text, the sadly-offline Bad Gods, and the least creepy white cargo van in the country) has managed to resurrect his most famous endeavour, The Brunching Shuttlecocks! This means the return of most of Bandwidth Theater (including the much-beloved Kitchen Floor²), and many of the Lore Brand Lore comics. Significant portions of his work still await reconstruction after the devastation wrought by particularly malicious spammer/hackers³, but as the world is no longer lacking a short animation featuring a depleted-uranium beholder statue, who am I to complain?

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¹ NB: Øvind Thorsby remains an awesome name, and that Hitmen for Destiny remains … challenging in its art.

² Warning: this short not only contains a depleted-uranium beholder statue, but also two (two!) of the most creative pieces of profanity that have ever been uttered. It’s glorious.

³ Or should that be “spammers/hacker”? Can I get a ruling, Ryan North?

He is eleven years old today, and yet I am 44. If you’re not sure how that works out, it’s because of his powers. Evil powers, which will fully manifest when he hits the cranky teenage years in 2020.

• Following up on a discussion of Kickstarter and taxes from last week (including comments¹ on same), I came across a link (via the twitterfeed of Colleen Doran, who always finds/thinks the best stuff) regarding this very topic. Key takeaway — consult with a professional, since there are lots of rules (which may or may not apply to you, and may or may not seem to conflict with other rules), preferably before launching your Kickstarter campaign.

  It appears that the US federal tax rules have been worked out (you’ll get a 1099-K; if you don’t know what that is, consult with a professional), but state and local rules (especially with respect to sales tax issues) are going to vary widely. When in doubt, refer to the exchange between Kurtz and Stevens here.

• A little while ago, “Uncle”² Randy Milholland announced an original art sale that left me with a few thoughts. To wit:

  Milholland is (and I’ve told this to him in person) criminally underpricing his work. Granted, he doesn’t do full strips, per se, with borders and the rest on bristol board; a lot of one-off character bases and extraneous elements (backgrounds, hands, eyes) get done on paper and then assembled in Photoshop, but still — US$20 for four sheets, which may include multiple characters? It’s the bargain of the century, and only the fact I don’t get to paw through the box looking for favorite bits³ is keeping me from buying up Milholland’s work by the kilo.

  I am reminded of another art sale (for all intents and purposes) that took place years ago, one inspired by Milholland’s famed “pay my salary” fund drive. That was the event that brought me into the orbit of creators, as US$100 was exchanged for original art. Goats wasn’t the first online strip that I followed, nor was it the first webcomic that I bought merch from⁴, but that first original was purchased because two years earlier it was when a casual interest turned into a rabid interest. Jon Rosenberg intersected a Manhattanite’s rage over the intrusion of K-Mart culture into a place that rejected big-box stores with a rage over the burgeoning, post-9/11 security state and made it hilarious with two words:

  Anal sovereignty.

  That moment, in the opening days of 2002, when Carl went spelunking was the start of this infatuation, which led to the exchange of money for goods, which led to many, many beers which led to my absolute privilege to have an ever-expanding circle of friends made up of the best people on earth.

  And now, the strip that started me on this journey to new fresh hells considerable laugh-chuckles is coming back if another US$18,000 (roughly) can get raised in the next 22 days. Milholland may not have intended his announcement to be a Proustian madeleine, but it worked out that way.

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¹ I didn’t comment on Warren Terra’s “I’m a complete layman, but” assertion at the time, but he seems to be conflating the tax implications of corporations and those of individuals (who may or may not have a formal business structure, whether a single-proprietorship, an LLC, an S-Corp, among others).

² Possibly of the “creepy” variety.

³ I am the proud owner of “came a brain” and this bit of fanservice.

⁴ That would have been the oft-hiatused but never fully gone You Damn Kid, which I happened upon via a particularly circuitous route following a purchase of a BoFH collection from the now-defunct Plan Nine, volumes of which were predominantly illustrated by various Keenspot creators of the day. But the YDK collection, and a sketchy of Jethro featuring the famed frog rocket wiener (re-released several times, most recently here), that was the first purchase, and the reason that Owen Dunne will always have a place in my list o’ webcomics over there to the right, no matter how long the current hiatus may be.

After yesterday’s Big Think on Kickstarter, I decided to let somebody else do the big thinkin’ today. Fortunately, that somebody is the very capable Jesse Thorn, who I believe — misadventures with Gabe & Tycho aside — embodies the webcomics ideal pretty well. Sure, his medium is radio rather than pixels, but it’s a give-it-away, charge-for-stuff calling, he uses TopatoCo for his merch, has interviewed webcomickers¹ for his radio and blogio audiences, and answers stuff sent to his public email address.

And, like webcomickers, Thorn is sharing his secrets. A print version of a speech/presentation/manifesto² that he’s been delivering to audiences around the world started making the rounds yesterday via Transom.org; entitled Make Your Thing: 12 Point Program for Absolutely, Positively 1000% No-Fail Guaranteed Success, Thorn lays out examples of creators that embody elements of the path he followed to his present position of being as successful as one could hope for without being beholden to somebody else.

There’s a lot of very smart ideas in MYT, and that’s before you consider that he’s one sharp-dressed mutherscratcher who may well be responsible for young adult males getting the idea into their collective heads that a decent wardrobe is an asset in their lives. Even if you create nothing more meaningful than hack webcomics pseudojournalism³, read through what Thorn’s got to say. It’s damn good stuff.

• Hey, you know where Things are getting Made tonight? The East Village, where Kate Beaton and Michael Kupperman continue their regular series of entertainments, Crimestopper’s Club. As with previous entries in the comedy & comics show, Beaton and Kupperman have invited some of their buddies along to amuse you, and this month’s iteration includes Aaron “The Latin Art-Throb” Diaz and Chris “Doctor” Hastings.

  I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to talk with Hastings briefly over the weekend (while we were on a pizza-retrieval mission; very exciting stuff, featuring a near-fatal encounter with one of Brooklyn’s oversized and potentially-rabid urban raccoons), and while he was still finishing up his material for tonight, I am convinced it will be most chuckle-worthy. I didn’t have a chance to talk to Diaz, but if takes requests, just get him started on the topic of Ian McKellen as Magneto; trust me on this one.

• Sometimes Making Your Thing involves re-evaluating your Thing’s message. For a peek inside that aspect of the creative process, I commend to you Jeph Jacques’s thoughts on how today’s QC was originally going to go, and why he changed it. I know that a lot of people might think that Jacques was too afraid of a reader backlash that might never have developed, or that by framing in argument in terms of concern over how readers might be offended, that he was caving into reader entitlement.

  I prefer to look at it as, although you can’t control the interpretation of your work, you’d be stupid not to admit to yourself that others might not follow your intent to your interpretation. Having consideration for those points of view isn’t just courteous, it can make you consider your work in ways that you might not otherwise, and make your work stronger as a result. For what it’s worth, I think his original idea would have been fine, but the revised strip is better. Well done, sir.

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¹ David Malki ! has also been involved in the Gathering of the Thornalos known as MaxFunCon.

² Not his first manifesto, either.

³ And quite frankly, it would be tough for you to create something less meaningful than that.

I’m assuming that you’ve seen the latest bit of The Internet directed at Kate Beaton¹; her unwillingness to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous dickishness in silence is commendable in and of itself, but I’m actually more interested in a broader reaction she had. Namely, to reinforce the idea that, despite their general shouty volume and unwillingness to Just Stop It Please, the dicks aren’t in charge, Beaton spent some time on Saturday soliciting for names of and links to webcomics that she could share with her followers. When more came in that could be easily re-tweeted, she put ’em on her Tumblr; there’s more than 150 listed there — some new, some established, all potentially My New Favorite That I Wouldn’t Have Know About Otherwise.

• Speaking of new to me (and maybe to you) webcomics, almost two years ago Danielle Corsetto² pointed me at Space-Time Condominium, “based on a failed Canadian sitcom” about a guy named Griff and all of his parallel-universe alternate self roomies. I hadn’t thought about S-TC since I archive-binged season one, and quite frankly I’m sure I’ve forgotten most of it (though I remember enjoying it, particularly the Griff from the cow dimension). Fortunately, S-TC has gone and published season one in handy book form, which fact I overlooked until I happened to see it on this week’s release list from the always-hip-to-webcomics Midtown Comics. Well done, Griffs.
• Let’s end on what may be a somber note.

  I spoke last week (Friday, to be specific) about how we need to be careful not to overestimate the potential of Kickstarter as [web]comics Next Big Thing. I started digging a bit and have some numbers that you might be interested in. As of this writing, the number of comics projects submitted to Kickstarter is somewhere between 420 and 940. My methodology is as follows, and I’ve got to warn you, it’s inexact.

  I searched Kickstarter for the term “comics” as a literal, but did not go to the “comics” category. This is because the category shows editor’s picks, most-funded, and other called-out projects. The search for the word reveals each project that incorporates the literal string “comics” in its description — not all of which may be actual comics; there were 422 results, at least two of which in my casual examination were not actually comics. Similarly, a search on “comic” as a literal showed 940 results, which likely include the vast majority of the 420, but which I have not attempted to confirm beyond casual skimming.

  Now here’s the fun part. If you look at all the pages of results from those searches (up to twelve projects per page; 79 pages in all for the 940 superset, 36 pages for the 420 subset), all of the successful projects are at the front of the list, and the unsuccessful ones at the end. That made it relatively easy to determine that the number of successfully projects were 543/940 and 243/420, respectively; those ratios are remarkably close to each other: 57.77% vs. 57.86%.

  In any event, it appears that more than four out of ten comics-related Kickstarts fail, and when they do, they frequently really fail. Without getting into names (no need to embarrass anyone), a random sampling of those failed projects revealed results like:

  • 22 backers, US$1013 of US$8500 goal
  • 1 backer, US$10 of US$8500 goal
  • 0 backers, US$0 of US$10,000 goal

  And that’s before we get into active campaigns that likely are going to fail, but haven’t yet, so they’re still listed at the front:

  • 15 backers, US$165 of US$7500 goal, 15 days to go (project approximately six days old)
  • 3 backers, US$210 of US$3000 goal, 19 days to go (project approximately ten days old)
  • 0 backers, US$0 of US$2100 goal, 21 days to go (unknown project age)

  There’s one other project that I’ve been keeping my eye on that looks like it might finish just shy of goal, which is heartbreaking; it’s under two and a half days from completion, sitting at some 85% of goal, but has been trickling one or two supporters for each of the past several days.

  What makes this project interesting to me is its supporter breakdown. Out of not quite 50 backers, a full 45% pledged US$25, which is just enough to get a signed copy of the book. Add in a few more people looking for unsigned copies and you come to 55% of backers, and 61% when you get to the lesser rewards. There’s a few people in the mid-ranges (book + assorted goodies), and then nobody until you get to the very top reward at US$100.

  18% of the backers sit at that mega-support level. I’m left with no possible interpretation other than the creator has a few dozen loyal readers, of whom a portion are willing to get a book. He’s also got close friends and family that really want him to succeed and have put their money where their respective mouths are. I wasn’t watching this project from the beginning, but I’d be willing to bet that they were among the earliest supporters, which could easily have made the project appear more viable than it actually was.

  Also worth remembering: a lot of those successful projects were from long-time established creators with long-time established audiences and they squeaked by with 103% or 104% support. The super–jumbo–mega successes are few and far between, and they’re driven by the people that are already making a living at comics.

  Despite the news making the rounds over the weekend that Kickstarter may disburse more monies this year than the NEA, that does not translate into free money for all [web]comickers who are smart enough to just ask for it. So what’s the lesson here? Same as everything else in business matters — you can’t buy into your own press and think yourself more important than you actually are. Do the work, build the audience up to something substantial, then look at it as a business. There’s no shortcuts.

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¹ More precisely, two separate instances of The Internet were lobbed at Beaton. The first was her finding yet another of her comics posted without attribution (just as common: other people claiming credit over the funny for themselves, having excised references to Beaton). The second, and more vile, was somebody sent Beaton a pornographic representation of herself because That’ll Show Her And Now She’ll Behave As I Want Her To.

² Who’s got me on tenterhooks with her current story-arc; I have a sinking feeling that Hazel really doesn’t realize what thin ice she’s on in her relationship and hope she works it out before things with Zach are really damaged.

As a side note, posts may be wonky for the next couple of weeks; I’ll be working from a client site, and the extent of network access during the day isn’t known. Somehow, I know you’ll cope.

• From MoCCA comes word of their programming for Will Eisner Week (celebrating what would have been the master’s 95th birthday), centering on a panel discussion at 7:00pm, Thursday 1 March. The panel composition caught my eye — couple of comic book guys¹, an academic², and Judith Hansen.

  If I were going to be in town (cf: irregular updates for the next couple of weeks³), I’d be attending this panel and listening to Ms Hansen very closely, as she is the literary agent to [web]comics. Name a major creator, Ms Hansen’s repped them⁴. She has Ideas and Thoughts about where this creator-driven industry has been, where it is, and where it’s going. Also — and this may be my favorite thing about her — she’s tremendously knowledgeable about Belgian beer, and she and I have pointed each other in the direction of some seriously tasty stuff. Anyway, 7:00pm next Thursday, at the Museum (594 Broadway, fourth floor), $7 general admission, members free.

• Let’s contrast on the Business of Comics angle for a moment; you may have noticed this week that Corey Pandolph announced that he was discontinuing his syndicated strip, The Elderberries, on Sunday 4 March. Relevant parts from Pandolph’s blogpost:
  

  Put simply, my career is going in another direction. I’ve been writing and performing more comedy, finding my cartoons in the pages of The New Yorker and discovering new ways to work in comedy, while still keeping myself happy and food in the refrigerator. I’ve done a daily comic strip in one form or another for nearly 15 years. There have been some real breaks along the way — a few reasons to really get excited about a future in comics strips — but nothing seemed to manifest itself into a solid career path.

  As I mentioned, this is all on me. I chose the manner in which I wanted to find success in the world of comic strips. I chose to not involve myself in today’s artist-owned business model of embracing the Internet and constantly hustling my own work to make a buck. I tried all that for a time with Barkeater Lake and I knew it was just not for me. Those who find success at being both creator and salesman in this world have my respect. It is very hard, very disciplined and it is not my bag.

  Best of luck to Pandolph — and especially thanks to him for that second paragraph quoted. With the Golden Age of Syndicated Strips fading ever further, I think that history will eventually come to observe it as a temporary blip in the great continuum of Art, where the usual condition always was (and likely always will be), To be an artist, you gotta hustle. It’s hard, it’s an entirely different skillset from the art itself, and it must be mastered at least as much as the creative portion.

  I’ve been having a back-and-forth with a creator of my acquaintance about a possible dark side to all of the Kickstarter successes that [web]comics have been seeing lately. The crux of the matter is, by focusing on the tremendous successes — which by definition are noteworthy — and not the many failed kickstarts, are creators who don’t have established audiences and a reputation for high-quality work going to be falsely convinced that raising money (read: success) is easy? The more I think of it, the more I’m convinced that making a go of comics is just like joining my volunteer EMS agency.

  Bear with me.

  As the Membership Trustee for my organization (also: Vice President, Cadet Advisor, Captain, and all-around datagathering and IT guy), I spend a significant amount of time telling prospective members that riding with us isn’t what they think it is. It’s not wall-to-wall excitement, dramatically shouting Live, dammit! until the CPR works, and walking away from explosions in dramatic slo-mo. Not only does none of that exist, most of our time is spend on the business of keeping everything running: inventory, supply management, raising money, paying bills, keeping the grounds and rental hall bathrooms clean.

  Everything that I just said that doesn’t involve a lights-and-sirens ambulance call? That’s the business of being a cartoonist. No matter how cool the creation, business remains paramount if you want it to be your living. There’s no shortcuts, no magic fountain of free money, no way to get around both putting in the work to build the audience, and putting in the work to make it pay. By all means, create because you can’t contemplate not creating, but don’t convince yourself that it’ll be easy; the best things never are.

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¹ Paul Levitz and Dennis O’Neil, both from DC.

² Karen Green, librarian for Columbia University’s Ancient & Medieval History and Religion collections; she started the Columbia libraries graphic novel collection, which seems a deliciously broad range of interests to span from ancient times to modern graphic novels — but not one that’s unprecedented. Jennifer Babcock has done plenty of research tying ancient Egyptian art and ancient Greek ostraka to modern comics. Fascinating stuff.

³ Speaking of which, anybody I know in Boston want to get a drink?

⁴ Just names like Eisner, Brosgol, Gran, Kibuishi, Larson, McCloud, O’Malley, and Smith.