Got some bad news, not in a very good mood. This is briefer than it should be, but I imagine you’ll deal.

• Wes Molebash is giving away art from the last four years of comic-drawing; details here
• Spike has opened pre-orders for book four of Templar, AZ; various packages (including a pre-order only t-shirt design) at the store
• Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius was named the best webcomic of 2009 by the readers of Broken Frontier, which site seems to focuse on Marvel & DC normally

That’s all I’ve got right now; hopefully tomorrow will be better.

The thing to keep in mind is, in the Maritimes, they remember how things used to be. We are, after all, talking about a corner of the world where third-generation locals may still be told that they’re “from away”. They remember what it was like in the old days, when the veils that separate one world from the next weren’t quite so thick. They remember that words have power, and formal curses may follow you for a long, long time. They remember about The Sight, even if they try to forget, since after all it’s unseemly and un-Christian. Keep those things in mind when you read Hope Larson‘s newest graphic novel, Mercury.

When Larson very kindly gifted me with an early copy of her book, I had some expectations: that the art would be clean enough to conduct surgery in its immediate vicinity; that the characters would all be individual, fully thought-out, and unique looking; that the story would find its focus in an adolescent girl, but not the Adolescent Girl Proto-Consumer™ that is so common in modern media. What I didn’t expect was the overall darkness of the story, nor the across-time cyclic nature it would have. Those who favor surprises may wish to stop reading before they hit the spoilers; take it as given that the book is fabulous.

Tara Fraser lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, and she’s in rough straits; she’s bunking with her aunt, uncle, and cousin because her house burned down and mom has had to travel to the oilfields out west for work. She’s got almost nothing, school’s starting up and she doesn’t know anybody, and she feels her connection to the family land slipping away. There’s easily enough material there for a damn strong story, so it’s entirely natural that Larson abandons it on page 14; we’ll come back to Tara in a bit, but there’s another story that needs telling.

Josey Fraser lives in Nova Scotia (“Canada” being more of a concept than a country at this point), and she’s in rough straits; her family lives a pretty hardscrabble life in the woods, the farm doesn’t do as well as it should, her father frets about providing a future for his children, and her mother’s never been happy with these circumstances (and every once in a while, mom sees dead people, but tries to forget that she does since it’s unseemly and un-Christian). But there may be an improvement in circumstances: a handsome (if somewhat scruffy) young man named Asa Curry (who has come from far, exotic Australia!) claims to have found gold on the Fraser family’s land, and their lot looks to improve.

By page 20 we’re 150 years in Josey’s future and it seems like whatever improvements the Frasers may have experienced have faded by Tara’s time. Fortunes rise and fortunes fade, but some experiences echo across time: Asa has his eye on Josey, with unspoken considerations of marriage. The easy-going Ben (he’s from Toronto, and his parents from somewhere in Asia) seems to have a thing for Tara, but the focus is more on double-doubles and cheap pizza than a new family. Their mothers push and pull in similar ways from opposite directions: Josey’s mother won’t abide the thought of her daughter leaving the family and land; Tara’s mother has a lead on a job in Edmonton, but will have to pull Josey thousands of miles from her family and sell the land. The gold itself ripples across time to affect both girls: Josey may have a bright new future, residue from refining in the groundwater at least gets Tara a day off from school.

The real tie between the girls takes the form of a gewgaw seen in the hands of Asa from time to time; it shows up in a box of costume jewelry that Tara’s mom had left behind. Josey learns that Asa is protective of the little globe with a blob of mercury in it; he claims it’s what finds the gold. Tara discovers that it’s good for finding lost keys and earrings. Josey sees her father killed for the gold and her mother curse her would-be suitor — a real curse, because words have power even when we forget and pretend that they’re just words. Tara wonders if lost treasure could provide her family the means to rebuild. The death spirit that plagued Josey’s family still lurks in the woods to bedevil Tara, but he finds his powers less in these days when such things are no longer believed (but still, deep down, some remember that spirits and curses and magic are real, and all things have rules — like the rule that says don’t speak when there’s magic going on).

In the end, Tara’s family has come full circle; the fortune that plagued one generation near to ruination may well save the latest — even if it appears that you can’t have family, home, and wealth all at the same time. On the last page, Tara looks over her new treasure and gets ready to tell her mom that their troubles are done.

But those of a low and suspicious nature would do well to remember that this is the Maritimes, where they remember that all things have their cost. That trending-towards-happy ending? We’ve seen that sort of fortune before, just as Josey’s father was riding off, before he came to his untimely end. I wonder if Larson has, in the back of her head (even if she tried to forget, because it’s unseemly) another ten pages or so where we find out that curses follow you even in these modern times when such things are no longer believed. That fortune has blood on it (figuratively and possibly literally) and while magic has rules, I wouldn’t bet whether that curse would decide the gold returning to the Fraser family means that its job is done, or still ongoing.

Words (and moreso: words and pictures) have power, even for those of us that don’t live in the Maritimes. The story of Josey and Tara will stay with you long after you’ve closed the covers on Mercury, and it will reveal more depth each time you open them again. Take your time, revel in the details, and enjoy — in a career full of stellar work, this is Larson’s best so far.

Whole bunch of stuff that came up in the past 30 hours or so that we just didn’t have time to address previously. Let’s take it one at a time, shall we?

• KC Green has preorders for Horribleville Vol 1 (with release scheduled for 16 February) open at New Reliable Press. He’s also got a really touching strip up at Gunshow today, and not the bad kind of touch, either. Don’t be surprised as you read it that you discover you’ve got something stuck in your eye.
• I first heard about Mocktopus from the tweetings of Chris Sims (he of The Invincible Super-Blog; I’ve since learned both that creator Max Huffman is ludicrously young (that would be “15” in your Earth years) and he has a pretty good eye/hand/brain for absurdity. The art started off pretty rough and has since become much better in a really short period of time.

  Comics Alliance (which site is shockingly well done most of the time, and pretty damn funny when the aforementioned Mr Sims is writing) interviewed Huffman recently on the experience of being one of the younger creators out there, with an undercurrent of Risinig star who will be the hotshot cartoonist of 2013 (of course, the world will end in 2012, so that’s less to look forward to than one might have hoped).

  Anyhoo, Huffman acquits himself well; Dawkins knows that if somebody had interviewed me when I was 15, I’d have come off like a complete idiot, which is the natural state of most teenaged males.

• Wondermark makes a return appearance over at at MySpace Dark Horse Presents (note: the direct links for the various stories all seem to go to “Brody’s Ghost” by Mark Crilley which was pretty good, but you’ll have to click to get to Wondermark) with an eight-page tribute to awkwardness. Also, the next issue of MDHP (due 3 February) will feature stories by Yuko Ota and Graham Annable, so keep your eyes open for that, hey?
• The last Teaching Baby Paranoia went up yesterday. Ten years, more than 500 comics, and an unknown amount of true knowledge mixed with an even more unknown amount of complete apocrypha. Thanks to Bryant Paul Johnson for all the pseduohistory.
• Via Joey Manley: there’s a Skottie Young webcomic a-comin’ and I for one am excited. Anybody that hasn’t seen his work on the Eric Shanower-adapted OZ comics (if you think you know the story from the Judy Garland movie, you’re sadly mistaken) from Marvel (of all places) is missing out. Completely charming work, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with when given the opportunity to work with an original creation of his own.
• Speaking of Marvel, this was pointed out to me by my friend Brett: VC money backing “an immersive social experience and marketplace around digital comics and associated merchandise.” Partnership announced with Marvel, but it’s not clear what (if any) impact this will have on the indy creators that we focus on here; from the very minimal description, it sound like a turnkey solution so that the next time a publisher decides that “webcomics” means “put our back catalogue pages online”, they don’t have to build the whole damn thing from scratch. So in the forthcoming maybe-battle-for-marketshare between Graphic.ly and Longbox, which one is Betamax?

Finally, had another back-and-forth with The Guig-star late yesterday to find out how the somewhat abrupt transition at Webomics Dot Com had gone. In no particular order, it was established that:

1. The lack of Terms & Conditions for subscribers at launch was an oversight that needs to be fixed and will be “soon”
2. Those who wrote articles for WDC will be able to give their approval to Guigar to use their stuff or not as they wish; those that don’t want their stuff on Pay!WDC can run it elsewhere as they wish
3. It’s been bumpy, but WDC got more subscribers on Day One than anticipated (Guigar described the number as “For a non-porn site, encouraging”)
4. If Pay!WDC doesn’t work out, there may be a market for Guigar Porn, ’cause the ladies love them some Brad Guigar

Man, if webcomics could calm down for like a minute, that would be awesome. Let’s round this up, shall we?

• Little Dee has entered the endgame with its last storyline; Christopher Baldwin informs us on the main page that it will take three to four months to play out, but then that’s it. No more Dee, no more Ted, Blake, or that magnificent bastard (with the soft, gooey center) Vachel. Fortunately, Baldwin won’t leave us high and dry, as he’s brought a brand new strip in the form of Spacetrawler. The sci-fi hijinks (sci-fijinks?) started on Friday with a small archive, but take a look: each update (there will be two each week) is a full-page, full color extravaganza. Get in while the gettin’s good.
• Changes over at Unshelved, too — new back end to the site, some features still getting ported, and a new schedule. Per art-half Bill Barnes:
  

  When we launched Unshelved … we adopted a newspaper schedule: seven days a week. Later we made the Sunday strip the Unshelved Book Club. Well, newspapers may run seven days a week, but our website statistics overwhelmingly show that most of you work five days a week. We think that sounds nice, so we’re adopting a five day work week too. Starting next week, Unshelved daily strips will run Monday through Thursday and the Unshelved Book Club will run on Fridays. [emphasis original]

• Then there was the bombshell: as of yesterday afternoon, visitors to Webcomics Dot Com were greeted with a slight change of policy:
  

  Starting today, Webcomics.com will begin charging a $30-per-year subscription fee.

  Yikes. Given the trend towards free, this seems both a) sudden, and b) unlikely to succeed, and c) really sudden. I talked with WDC E-I-C BG to get the lowdown on the changes, leading to the following factoids:

  • Brad remains in charge of WDC, and this was his decision
  • Abstracts of new articles will be available on the main page, with the full text behind the pay wall
  • Fellow Halfpixellite Scott Kurtz will contribute to this new iteration of WDC, as will Robert Khoo, Penny Arcade business guru; it doesn’t appear at this time that Kris Straub and Dave Kellett will be (although to be fair, while WDC was launched as a Halfpixel common effort, it’s been All Brad, All The Time for quite a while)

Honestly, I’m not sure that this is going to succeed; WDC has been a pretty active and useful resource for webcomickers, but that accumulated wisdom is now locked off behind a subscription wall — the archives of the free days are not freely available. The change was dropped into the laps of readers pretty abruptly (something that I’m bitter about in other circumstances right now, in fact — but I’m far more pissed about Scripps yanking programming from my cable company just before Iron Chef America Super Chef Battle, dammit). Asked about this, Guigar replied,

[T]his site has become the second volume of How To Make Webcomics. There’s incredibly useful info there. And I’m not getting compensated nearly as well as I was for HTMW.

It becomes a little hard to argue with that rationale — Brad does Evil, Inc. and gives it to me for free, against the possibility that I’ll buy stuff; he can run ads on the site based on a wide and large readership. HTMW isn’t entertainment, it’s a resource for a much smaller audience, and it exists only in pay-to-read form. I can see the argument that WDC takes Guigar as long to produce on a daily basis as any of his strips, but with no recompense other than perhaps driving a few people to his strips (although I doubt many who frequented WDC didn’t already read his comics). That effort deserves remuneration, and Guigar has set what he thinks is a fair price.

I just don’t think that many people are going to pay it.

Guigar’s betting that the distinction between entertainment and information is sufficient that people will pony up a couple bucks a month for access (side note to those attempting such things in the future: “ten cents a day” sounds much less than “thirty bucks a year”).

Unfortunately, with the exception of very few prominent brands, with high-quality content, pitching to niche audiences (we’re talking Wall Street Journal grade, here), this hasn’t proved to be the case on the internet so far — people pretty much equate “content” and “free”.

Guigar’s got a brand, quality content, and a niche audience, but I don’t think this is going to work any more than when Murdoch attempts to monetize his entire media portfolio (and/or get fees from Google) this year.

Anyway, there’s a … lively discussion occuring at what is now the oldest accessible post at WDC. All that remains is to see if it works or not.

• Finally (and I hope that people read down this far), John Campbell hourly comics return! Wait, let’s try that again:

  
  John Campbell hourly comics return!

  That’s better.

That’s nearly 2009 done; let’s be frank, in a lot of ways the year was a challenge, and it’s capping 10 years that really kind of sucked. Sucked in a way that prompts me to share the first comic strip that I can recall reading, more than 30 years past (certainly, I read comics before this one, but it’s the oldest that’s stuck with me): a kidney stone of a decade, indeed.

But … webcomics.

Sure, webcomics existed prior to 1 January 2000 (hell, you can see a stack of ’em in the links over to the right), but the start of the 21st century is when they exploded. For going on half that time, I’ve been sharing my thoughts with literally dozens of you, and if this particular implementation of a delivery system/business model/art form isn’t enough to redeem a time when we as a species seemed to be sliding backwards, well, it’s helped keep me from screaming myself awake. So there’s my Best of the Decade list in a single (possible obsolete now) word: webcomics. As Sturgeon would have it, most of ’em are crap, but there are so damn many of them now, it was inevitable that some would be gems.

It was not inevitable that some of the creators, rather than have their work undiscovered, would create comics loved so much by so many, that they could make this most frivolous of passtimes a career. It was not inevitable that one of those webcomics would launch a charity that would, in seven years, raise $US6.5 million to benefit children’s hospitals. It was not inevitable that numerous creators would score Hollywood movie deals (some of which will even get made). It was not inevitable that a new kind of publisher/merch fulfillment/services provider would not only slouch its way towards success, but bring a stack of creators along for the ride.

Maybe it was a series of happy accidents, maybe it was down to the pure determination of the parties involved. But it happened, and I think those of us reading this page are happier for it.

And, because it’s become a slight tradition for me to talk about Shaenon Garrity on New Year’s Eve, check this out: she wants to give you fifty bucks for free. More precisely, she wants to give you fifty bucks of original artwork just so she doesn’t have to move it:

From now until the end of January, for every copy of Skin Horse Volume One you purchase, I will send a randomly selected original daily strip. These normally sell for $50, but I’m moving and I need to lighten my load.

In one of the most profound lessons that I ever took to heart, Chuck Jones once wrote that his beloved Uncle Lynn taught him that being lazy is a virtue, and it takes a good deal of brains to be effectively lazy. Garrity has learned this lesson well, and to your benefit. Naturally, she knows how to work all the angles on this deal:

Oh, and if you want a specific strip, you can purchase one for the normal price of $50. Which might be worth doing if you don’t want your favorite strip to go to somebody who doesn’t appreciate it on the same level you do.

My only problem is that there’s too many strips that I feel that way about, and only so much money that I can spend, so I think I’ll take my chances (but if I were to randomly get a strip of Dr Lee looking all hot, or “Man, there ain’t nothing in this world sadder than a wet transvestite”, that would be extra rad). I wonder if I could order enough copies to be declared a distributor?

See everybody on Monday.

Gotta hop a train to go see cool stuff at The Met (which I hope won’t be overrun with tourists, but let’s be realistic), so any lengthy postin’ is right out. In the meantime, few things I found interesting this week:

• Wait, it’s gonna be 2010 (first of the barely legal teens), not 2012? Wapsi Square may be running a bit fast (or the calendar machine a bit slow), but can’t say I’m not loving the suddenly fast-paced movement on the mythic story arc.
• How to deal with robots that love you: a handy primer from Tom Siddell.
• Everybody’s reading what is likely the last week of Dr Ladysounds ever, right?
• For those who enjoy The Comedy Stylings of Corsetto & Milholland, a tweet that one may find … intriguing.

As of this writing, last week’s story on the Keenspot reorganization has clocked 140 comments; for the record, that’s more than any of the Wikipedia Purge stories, more than the time we were asked to govern ourselves accordingly, more than twice as many as the first big collective poo-fling we had here, near as I can tell the most on any single post in the five year’s we at Fleen have been doing this. I’ve never locked a comment thread at Fleen and I’m not going to, but at some point the discussion is really going to degrade to “Did not!” “Did too!” and I’m gonna have to ask you all to step back from the internet for your own health and well-being.

Some of you are still getting tagged as spam, so do remember to email me if you comments don’t show up (caching effects mean that even when I post, I can sometime see my comment in the Fleen Mission Control administrative end of things, but not at the site — just give it a few); for ease of tracking, let me know about what time you posted, and what name you signed. Oh, and to satisfy my mercenary tendencies, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that there’s a lot of people reading right now, and cheap, open ad buttons from Project Wonderful for any that want to reach eyeballs. Just sayin’.

Now that we’re that much close to bidding the story goodbye (and believe me, if there’s anything that warrants a followup, we’ll talk about it; Chris Crosby has been very generous with his offers of answers), let’s talk about another goodbye.

Today marks the end of DAR! A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary.

The short form is that DAR!iarist Erika Moen wants to tell other stories; that’s also the longer form, for Moen is nothing if not brimming with stories and talent. It’s been a constant presence in her life for six years (or, if you prefer, about a quarter of her life) and in my browser for about half that. I’m a little brokenhearted (for me) and a lot thrilled (for her) that it’s ending, but ultimately I feel DAR! has served its purpose.

If memory serves correctly, Moen and I met at SPX about five years ago super-briefly; neither of us is too sure if we actually did. We’ve corresponded by email a handful of times, and we have some mutual friends. But from her comics, she feels so much more connected and familiar than our very casual history would suggest. I don’t mean to say that I “know her” because I’ve read her comics, nothing so shallow as that — but it’s pretty clear that Moen has spent her adult life putting her soul out for anybody to share in that wanted to. I’ve smiled for her and hurt for her, wanted to hold her and tell her it would all be okay, and realized that holding her almost certainly means holding on for dear life. I feel privileged — honored — that she’s shared herself so generously.

I’m going to miss that feeling I get where it’s like the two of us are hanging out and we’re probably a little drunk as she’s telling me about her day and then the tender moment ends with farts. But I’m looking forward to what Hurricane Erika cooks up next, and am ready to ride along wherever she may go. If you haven’t read DAR! obsessively, now’s a good time what with the long weekend coming up and all — start from the beginning and watch what growing into the person you’re going to be looks like for one woman who’s just getting started.

The unusually high volume of comments on a particular recent post from people without a history of posting at Fleen has made the spam filters go a bit wacky. If you’ve had your comments disappear (it’s happened to several posters) or are getting denial notices when you try to post, please use the contact page to let us know and we’ll clear that up.

This has happened before, during The Great Todd Goldman/Dave Kelly Contretemps Of Aught-Seven and during the MyFridj story. The only real alternatives to this occasional unpleasantness are:

1. Requiring moderation on all comments
2. Requiring accounts for all posters
3. Allowing a flood of blogspam

The first is a pain for me, the second is a pain for you, and the third is an offense against God, Man, Nature, or whatever you personally believe. So we’ll have these situations from time to time, apologize in advance, and thank you for your patience.

Christmas Eve, Christmas already some places. Lots to do for tomorrow, and I don’t think that my pseudo-journalistic hackery is what you’re dying for right now. Enjoy the holiday (if it’s your thing), or at least the break from me. See y’all Monday.

Committing actual journalism takes a lot of time. I don’t wish to journalise more today, so we’re going mega-brief. And since every webcomicker and their dog is running filler or taking off for a significant part of the next 10 days or so, the coming days may be brief as well. I suspect that you’ll deal.

You know what? This isn’t new, but it escaped my notice until now. New Star Blazers stories, more than twelve chapters worth, are being released as a webcomic.

I was twelve years old when the first English language dub of the Space Cruiser Yamato series was syndicated in the US; by sheer chance I was sick and home from school at 2:30 that afternoon when something new showed up on channel 9. After half an hour of animation that was nothing like the rest of the cartoons I watched, I was astonished to see that this was merely the first episode and the story was “To be continued”. There was an ongoing storyline! More characters than I could count! After a couple of days I had to go back to school, but I followed the show as often as I could; unfortunately, it got yanked from the schedule before summer vacation came around, and I was barely able to piece together the full story of those 52 episodes.

Since that day thirty years ago, I’ve discovered around the world, guys of a certain age know that this cartoon holds a special power over them. It predated the ability to record TV cheaply, boxed sets of favorite stories, and magazines or discussion groups that gave easy access to others that shared our interest. For decades, we had only memories, and now there’s more stories aimed straight into my amygdala.

I’ll be honest — the webcomic doesn’t match up to what I watched bundled up in bed with half a grilled-cheese sandwich forgotten in my hand. Nothing could. But damn if reading it doesn’t bring back some memories.

Dudes of a certain age, get into your pajamas, plop yourself under the covers with your laptop, and start reading. It’s not the same, it can’t be the same, but it’s a hell of a ride.