I guess that whole “seasons are backwards on the other side of the world” thing is really backwards this year. Let’s do this so I can trudge home in the cold and rain.

• If you don’t mind the cold and rain in New York, trudge your ass over to Rocketship in Brooklyn at 7:00 tonight, for the launch party for Raina & Dave‘s take on the X-Men. Everybody I know that’s read it has really enjoyed it (except, inexplicably, The AV Club, who are normally pretty congruent with my tastes, but for some reason gave it an unneccessarily vicious review). Also, there’s a really good bar next door to Rocketship, and they both a) know how to, and b) are willing to shake one of the best modern cocktails in the world: the Gin-Gin Mule; have one for me.
• Speaking of Brooklyn and webcomickers, the upcoming Brooklyn Book Festival is going to feature a smattering of Topatoco author/creators.
• Speaking of creators, did you vote for the Harvey Awards? You still have a few hours.
• I got nothing to link to that last item. Sorry. Via Tom Siddell’s Twitter: proof that Archaia Studio Press is getting its shit back together after that financial difficulty last year, in the form of a solicitation for Gunnerkrigg Court book two. Yay! With any luck, Siddell will actually be able to buy a copy himself this time.

I wasn’t really going to talk about this new comic strip contest that Amazon’s got going — for one thing, it’s really nothing to do with webcomics. Quick retweet of Meredith Gran‘s dismay that the thing exists at all, and I’d be done.

But then Gordon McAlpin tweeted to me that he felt the terms were actually pretty fair, and I took a good close look at them. You can read our back-and-forth starting here, which is stilted because Twitter isn’t really suited to any kind of in-depth discussion. My reading of McAlpin’s main point is that the contest’s real prize is the syndication contract, which is negotiable (you can read the rules and such for yourself here; pay special attention to section 8).

My main point is: So what? The other contracts are marked prominently with the boilerplate:

____ contract with ____ is not negotiable, and Grand Prize Winner must sign “as is” upon receipt of the executable contract as described in Section 9 below if he/she wishes to enter into the _____ contract being awarded.

In any event, I’m not so certain that the development/syndication contracts are really worth all that much — webcomickers who had been under such contracts have found it to their advantage to get out of them and work on their own. Likewise, I’ll bet that any of the webcomickers that have signed book deals in the past couple years have managed terms a hell of a lot better than what’s on offer here: $5000 against royalties at a rate that’s non-negotiable and non-disclosed.

McAlpin also feels that the stature of the judges means that the winner has accomplished something prestigious even if they don’t choose to agree to the contracts — although I believe that all of the cartoonist judges print their books through contest co-sponsor Andrews & McMeel, and I believe they’re all syndicated through co-sponsor Universal Press Syndicate (they are, after all, one company); as such, those cartoonists have their own obligations to their publisher/syndicate, and judging this contest may be less about their wanting to find very talented new colleagues, and more about living up to their contract terms.

Put another way — with newspapers dying and comics pages shrinking, does any cartoonist that’s established really want to find the amazing new talent that may steal pagespace?

An analogy, if you will: I’m a big fan of Project Runway, but it’s a polite fiction that the show is trying to find the next great fashion designer. They’re interested in finding people that can do work that’s just interesting enough on short time, with little budget, and hopefully some drama. In 20 years, none of the Runway winners will be spoken of as being as important or influential as regular judge Michael Kors (nor is it in his interest for them to!), and I think the same thing will be true of the winners of this contest.

(Side note about that just interesting enough line: the deadline for the contest is less than a month after it was announced, and entrants have to put up 10 dailys, 2 Sundays, and a story hook description in that time — work that’s never appeared anywhere before. Unless you know of cartoonists that have fully-developed strip concepts ready to go, I think we’re going to see a lot of stuff that’s pretty embryonic.)

Naturally, it is given to none of us to see the future, but I honestly think that the winner will get a blip of publicity for a news cycle and then disappear. I hope that I’m wrong and McAlpin is right; I hope that they do find the next great comic strip artist, but I’m confident enough in my pessimism that I’ll bet Gordon McAlpin $20 that at the conclusion of the development period (up to two years) plus another three years for the strip to get settled, that fewer people will have heard of it and read it than, say, the new micro-strip that Rich Stevens launched yesterday.

(Reached for commentary, Stevens noted I have wanted a phone-friendly comic since the 90s, and In retrospect, I think this is the comic Ted [Rall, Stevens’ editor during his syndication foray] should have hired me to do. Subtext that I choose to read: Want to do a comic strip? Go do it.)

Also, acknowledgement must be paid to Brad Guigar, who did a far more thorough analysis of the contest rules than I have. In particular, there’s this tidbit Guigar noticed that speaks to McAlpin’s hope that the ability to not sign gives the winner some leverage:

At the finalist level, you are required to sign the contracts for A-McM and U-Uclick that will go into effect if you’re the Grand Prize winner. … If you don’t sign the contracts at the Finalist level, you can’t progress in the contest.

So I guess you have to pre-waive your ability to not sign in order to be in a position to sign? I completely missed that little turn of logic, but that’s why it’s Brad that will be featured on Fox Business tonight in the 5:00pm (EDT, GMT-4) block, barring any breaking news, and not me. He’s smart and telegenic.

But many things to report on today. Please, enjoy.

• I attended the New Jersey Webcomic Chaos meetup on Saturday, where I got the skinny on the debut book from Glass Urchin creator Auilix; the cover looks great, it’ll be 150 pages (!) in manga digest trim size, and it’ll debut at SPX at what appears to be a very reasonable price point. Be sure to check it out if you make it to Bethesda next month. Side note about the NJWC deal: it appears now to be empirically true that at no time can more than two webcomickers congregate over beverages, but that the conversation will at some point turn to Brad Guigar. He is the glue that binds us together.
• Also over the weekend, news of Team Raina and Dave runninng a workshop at a book camp sponsored by the world-famous Symphony Space. The lucky campers were the first to see the galleys of Raina’s SMILE, making me extremely envious of a bunch of ‘tweens on account of I won’t get to read it for nearly six months.
• Just this morning came word that Commissioner James Gordon is goin’ to the semifinals for the Cutest Dog Competition. Well done, webcomic-loving masses, that’s $500 towards the wedding of Gordon’s people, Chris and Carly; now hang on while the remaining 10 semifinalists get worked out, and we’ll be sure to let you know when to vote Gordon to the finals (only four of twelve dogs will make it to the final round, and the $1,000,000 grand prize waiting the winner). The level of competition will be fierce, and we’ll need all of us working together to do our parts.
• Wanna see something interesting? Check out Google‘s new Labs feature, Google Squared. Now punch in the term webcomics. I’d love to see the algorithms to see how these particular items came to be reported.

Whoo, lots of book news for you today — Raina Telgemeier‘s SMILE is now street-dated for February, Hope Larson‘s Mercury for early January, Chris Baldwin’s third Little Dee collection went off to the printer yesterday, and Chris Hastings (helped ably as always by Kent Archer, Carly Monardo, and Anthony Clark) will soon be able to give us a date for the third Dr McNinja collection. Note to self: buy more bookshelves.

• Everybody see where Penny Arcade has a job opening posted? As of this writing, it appears that applications have probably passed the 500 mark.
• So for those of you wondering if you could ever have enough comics shows in your life, there’s a new one on the block: this October will see the first iteration of the Long Beach Comic Con, perhaps filling the void of the defunct Wizard LA show. New show, unknown at this time how the “feel” of it will play out, but I was encouraged by this bit from the show’s homepage:
  

  We love everything about the medium and the message – from Silver Age bottle cities, to indy mini-comics based on poetry. We want you to experience it all. That’s why we’re lining up more than the trendy guests and sneak peeks that Hollywood wants you to see (though we’ve got that, too!).

  We’re getting the best, the coolest, the most experimental and the … well, quite simply, the grooviest stuff we can.

  West coast creators of indy/web comickry, take note.

• If memory serves correctly, one of the criticisms that Mr T made about the state of webcomics in his book (three years back, which is about 37 lifetimes in this medium) is that too many webcomics didn’t take the opportunity to provide more cultural context for their world-wide readerships.

  I wasn’t convinced that such ambassadorships are a necessary thing to occur, but the argument came back to me as I started flipping through Odori Park, which tells the story of an American/Japanese couple and their multilingual toddler, and which bears absolutely no relationship to the life of the creator, who is part of an American/Japanese couple with a multilingual toddler.

  Specifically, I thought that this comic might make both me and T happy in its approach to such cultural issues — they’re addressed, but in a nicely organic way that serves the story rather than being explicit exposition. Hooray for middle grounds, and check out Odori Park — it’s good. (time from publication to T showing up in the comments starts: now!)

Edit to add: TIME! 13 days, 9 hours, 34 minutes. You’re slipping, T.

Walking with Heidi MacDonald towards the end of MoCCA ’09, she asked me about the takeaway for the event. What one thing summed it up, more than anything else? That was a tough one — there wasn’t a standout book that dominated the show, or an event, and there was (it’s fair to say) a measurable amount of disorganization on Saturday that threw off the cadences of the show for the day. And there’s your theme for the show — determination.

Despite the lack of some very capable people who left the MoCCA board back in October, the Museum was determined to put on the show. Despite organizational problems that prevented the show from opening for its first hour on Saturday, the attendees stayed in line (around the corner and down the block), determined to enter. Despite that late opening making a jumble of the programming schedule, the audiences determined the new times and packed the rooms. Despite the dead air circulation and lack of A/C, all concerned were determined to have a good time.

Lots of exhibitors spoke to me about selling out or nearly so, and if there was a lot of expressed nostalgia for the recent TCAF show, nobody I spoke to was hating on the show — at least, not after getting some air outside. As somebody lucky enough to be a booth sherpa during setup on Saturday morning, the dead first hour gave me an opportunity to connect with creators I’d met previously but didn’t know very well, and to have the time to enjoy it without blocking fans from seeing them. I got to compare notes with MacDonald, Rick Marshall, and Johanna Draper Carlson. I got the lowdown on the previous night’s Drink & Draw Like a Lady and the inside scoop on the dudes who tried to crash the party. Not a perfect show, but a mess o’ fun nevertheless.

Oh, and by means of skillful reportage, I can now let Fleen readers know exclusively that a significant creator has plans to create a new model of webcomicking that will change everything from this point forward — money will be made, competitors will be crushed, and life as we know it will never be the same. I know! Shocking!

Webcomics types in attendance and/or showing included (in no particular order) Bernie Hou, Magnolia Porter (who was slumming with an incognito Kris Straub), Rosemary Mosco (who was not showing, but always a pleasure to talk science with her), Hope Larson (who has excellent new hair and plans for more DDLL in the future), Frank Gibson & Beck Dreistadt (all the way from New Zealand!), Cat Garza (who has found that his recent student advisee at CCS has him thinking about new approaches to comics), Cameron Stewart (who made what’s maybe the single greatest contribution to the Beards & Moustaches theme sketchbook), Darren J Gedron (who waxes ‘stache with the best of them), Ami B & Bree Rubin (who are clever, young, talented, and just starting the show circuit), Spike (whose books are very heavy by the case), John Keogh, and Ian Jones-Quartey (whose unfinished opus, RPG World, got its return pushed back by a year when I enquired when it would finish).

Over on Webcomics Island, one would find Andy Bell, Jon Rosenberg (whose first major-publisher book is hitting the pre-release circuit … we’ll be having a giveaway soon), Sam Brown, Steven Cloud, Rich Stevens, Meredith Gran, Ryan North (whose new book we may see by end of the year), David Malki !, Chris Hastings (whose new book we may see by San Diego), Jeph Jacques (whose first book is still missing a few strips, as the original high-res files have gone missing), Randall Munroe (who for the first time found his table space slightly blocked by another creator instead of being the blocker, and whose update today should provoke groans and beatings), Kate Beaton (who is totally awesome in person and whose crowd was going elbow-to-elbow with Munroe’s), Dave Roman (who wonders if there will ever be another general-interest kids magazine on the newstand racks), Raina Telgemeier, Dylan Meconis (who looks sharper in a suit than I ever will), Kean Soo (who, sadly, I spaced on coming to the show, and didn’t bring my copy of Jellaby 2 for sketchin’ & signin’).

Other things to note:

• Scott Campbell‘s Double Fine Action Comics volume 1 is a trip and a half; he’s thinking about doing a children’s book with images from the recent HOME SLICE gallery show, with little lift-up doors to reveal everything in the homes. Also, once he gets a definite story idea, an Igloo Head & Tree Head book!
• Box Brown‘s girlfriend Sarah (and inspiration for “Ellen”) has totally got the patient cartoonist spouse/partner thing down; she was a delight to meet, and it’s obvious why Brown finds her such an inspiring muse. Brown also had one of the cooler table items at the show, an eight-page newsprint comics section, filled with strips (daily and Sunday) for the proposed Bellen! syndicated strip, which didn’t end up happening. Similarly, the Transmission X collective found that a simple postcard with their names and comic titles wasn’t working, but a full-color newsprint broadsheet with full strip samples of each of their work is a terrific attention-getter.
• Dylan Meconis’s Bite Me! might be my favorite purchase of the show. Ask me in a week when I’ve had a chance to read everything, but any book that provides a “Revolution Starter Kit” in the form of a drawing of Marie Antoinette’s head (Tab A) and a guillotine (Slot B), with instructions to insert A into B? Genius. Possible competitors: And Don’t Forget The Droids and Only What You Take With You, sequels to last year’s Harvest Is When I Need You The Most — whimsical takes on the minutae of the Star Wars universe. How does one apologize to Lord Vader? What does it mean to “bulls-eye womp rats”? How can a whiny farm-boy upset the economy of moisture farming, and what happens if you do kiss a Wookie?
• But then, Frank & Becky’s Tiny Kitten Teeth book (and portfolio of Becky’s paintings) looked better than any printed material has a right to, and was more adorable (in an acid-flashback whirlwind kind of way) than human eyes can tolerate. Catch them on their tour of the US, culminating in San Diego next month.
• Drink & Draw attracted 70 – 75 ladies, much fun was had, and the dudes trying to sneak in from the unrelated speed-dating event elsewhere in the bar were dealt with summarily. Organizer Hope Larson definitely will repeat the event next year (hopefully with sponsors), and wants to expand to at least a West Coast iteration for those that couldn’t make it to New York. Asked about the possibility of running DDLL prior to SPX, Stumptown, APE, TCAF, and other indy-friendly shows, only the amount of difficulty in arranging things long-distance seemed to deter her. Give it a year or two, there’ll be these things popping up all over.
• I totally forgot that I met you, and I’m sorry. Also, I spelled your name wrong. I suck, but I promise to make it up with some pictures tomorrow, and with book reviews in the coming days.

So, do you read Mark Evanier‘s stuff? He’s been in various parts of the comics/animation/TV/you name it industries for longer than a lot of you have been alive. He’s a consummate storyteller, and very, very funny. He’s also scary-smart, in that way you only become after having seen a lot of mistakes (some of them yours) played out in front of you. I’ve been reading his stuff for a long-damn-time.

But Krishna Sadasivam linked to a piece of Evanier’s that I hadn’t read in way too long, and it’s too good not to share. In fact, if the only thing Evanier had ever written was The Speech, he’d still be one of the smartest observers of the entertainment biz that’s ever lived. If you’re creative, dream of being creative, or really do anything of any sort whatsoever, and want to break into your Dream Job, you need to read it. Don’t worry that it’s nearly ten years old on the web (and far older if you know Evanier in person) — it’s timeless.

• MoCCA information is coming fast and furious these days — an exhibitor list is now up (webcomics-related types include ACT-I-VATE, various Dumbrellites, Comics Bakery, Lucy Knisley, Kate Beaton, David Malki !, Spike, Meredith Gran, various New Jersey reprobates Canadians tall dudes, New Zealand expats, and viewers like you), and programming information is below the cut. My apologies to anybody I might have missed — too many names on that page. Also of interest is a new piece of information this year — where to eat in the neighborhood (although it’s on the same page as the sure-to-be-horrifying news that there is no WiFi at the venue).
• And for those of you who like awesome comics, please join me in wishing Digger creator Ursula Vernon a very happy birthday.

(more…)

Wow, it seems like just yesterday that Alexander Danner told us all about the Massachusetts Library Association’s conference, and the attendant graphic novelry thereunto? More on same from Raina Telgemeier, this time with a perspective from the microphone side of some of the panels.

• Dresden Codak update, with an unofficial declaration that today is Literary Technique Day, Vocabulary Day, and Cross-Tabulation Day all in one.
• Neil Gaiman wrote something that’s not about webcomics at all, something that I’ve read five times since he posted it last night, something that you (here, I’m using you in the sense of a creative individual with people who consume your work) that you should point out to members of your audience who bitch about your work not being what they want it to be.

  In the context of a reader asking if it’s unreasonable to be annoyed that George R. R. Martin doesn’t release books in a series more promptly, Gaiman opines:

  I keep trying to come up with a better way to put it, but the simplicity of things, at least from my perspective is this:

  George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.

  This is a useful thing to know, perhaps a useful thing to point out when you find yourself thinking that possibly George is, indeed, your bitch, and should be out there typing what you want to read right now. [emphasis original]

  The piece goes on for a bit after and you (and here I’m using you in a broader sense than before that, one that encompasses each and every individual reading this, including you personally) should go read it in its entirety right now because it’s a beautiful piece of writing besides being a lovely manfiesto on the proper relationship between creator and audience. Should I be on the wrong side of that line in future, please be sure to point me back to Gaiman’s essay.

More of the stuff that’s dropped since the various holidays wrapped up.

• Interviews! Raina Telgemeier at Newsarama, Chris Onstad (and shortly David Malki !) at The Sound of Young America (listen at your local public radio station this week, or to Onstad online now; Jesse Thorn is seriously the best interviewer alive right now).
• Speaking of Malki !, sad news at Wondermark today — The Onion is dropping the comics page from its print edition, and thus Wondermark will be losing that distribution channel (and I’ll be losing Ziggy en Español). But to make up for it, Wondermark is joining a syndication service for college/independent papers.
• Also heading to a three-days-a-week update schedule, Ugly Hill.
• John Campbell is going insane again: hourly comics!
• Webcomics Weekly returns after six or seven weeks, and apparently they had some fun at my expense.
• Finally, they basically raise money year-round, but I’m going to arbitrarily put a period on this year’s Child’s Play efforts, which to date amount to US$1.17 million. Considering they keep telling us this is one of the crappiest economies in six or seven decades, to have exceeded the goal by nearly a half a million dollars is one of those things that make you feel good inside. We’ll see if we can’t come up with something tomorrow to cure that.

Flurry of baking going on at the homestead: cheesecakes a’ chilling, bread sponges a’ aging, and there are rumors of cookies. Allow me to share the good will (etc) of the season with you, as I have lately received two cartoon cards of the electronic variety that I trust you will find as charming as I did.

First up, received from Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman, the latest in Roman’s holiday cards series. From there, you may enjoy previous entries, including Dave and Pikachu discovering the true meaning of Kwanzaa.

Secondly, a card that I was supremely happy to receive — you may recall how pleased I was to discover a strip called Rooby Moon last year. Then the RSS notifications tapered off, and it it seemed no more. But Rooby creator Chris MacNeil sent along holiday greetings and it appears that my forgetting of the strip was premature after all. Safe journeys all, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

I’d be willing to be that if I went back through the three years of Fleen postings and looked at all the days that absolutely nuthin was happening in webcomics, the majority of them would be Thursdays.

But here’s an item of some interest: while the MoCCA website lists the 2009 Art Fest dates (6 and 7 June), it says that registration and venue are “coming soon”. But Raina Telgemeier (whom all and sundry should both love and trust) is reporting today that the 2009 MoCCA show will be shifting from the Puck Building to the 69th Regiment Armory, which is no stranger to art shows.

No idea what the space inside is like, although I believe it’s probably got more room than the Puck Building. If you’ve not exhibited at MoCCA before (or have been unable to get space), keep your eye on the MoCCA website … I’d guess they’ll be able to accomodate more people this year. And while the Armory isn’t in SoHo, 26th & Lex isn’t a bad neighborhood for cool stuff at all. See you there in six months or so.

By the way, you know that every MoCCA inevitably leads to webcomickers in search of karaoke, right? And in case you hadn’t seen it, Dr McNinja creative team members Chris Hastings and Carly Monardo apparently get to sing karaoke with their buddy Bill Murray. Lucky little so-and-sos.