It is now a trend that when an X-Files episode I really remember comes up for treatment in Monster of the Week, it is presented at an arm’s length distance. Not that I necessarily mind in the case of Home, because watching other people freak out at it is awesome, too.

• On top of yesterday’s pre-congrats to Dante Shepherd for 2000 strips, one must also today congratulate David Willis for nine years of Shortpacked!¹, which also marks some sixteen and a half years of continuous Walkyverse continuity. Too bad it’s only going for one more year. Say what?
  

  Shortpacked! is nine years old today!

  When it turns ten, it will cease regular updates.

  That is simultaneously the most respectable admission of devotion to Big Round Numbers, the kindliest advance notice to fans of changes coming down the pike, and the clearest-eyed discussion of why to wrap up a project — namely, the ability to keep on top of primary source material in the face of personal changes in life:

  Maggie and I sort of wanted kids eventually ourselves, and so this was something I hadn’t considered. I mean, writing Shortpacked! without a growing toy collection or the funds or time to watch movies or basically spend all day on the Internet getting mad at dumb people? How is that possible? It isn’t.

  Rather than not put into the strip what he feels it deserves, Willis has been for years now transitioning his chief efforts to Dumbing of Age, a far more autobiographical work; Dumbing of Age starting in the autumn of 2010, as the Shortpacked threads started to resolve. We’ve been in a transition point for his creative efforts for at least the past four years, we just didn’t know all of his intent:

  I figured Shortpacked! would end whenever that kid happened. I didn’t want to leave my characters hanging, so starting in 2010 I immediately started wrapping things up one by one. I gave Amber closure with her father. I gave Amber and Mike a happy ending together. I got Robin and Leslie back together (as was always the plan). I got Ethan the hell away from retail.

  That right there? That’s a masterclass in creative planning. Kudos to Willis for finding a creative outlet that he can be invested in, for doing what was necessary to bring it to the point of financial stability, and for giving his readers plenty of notice that the Walkyverse will be wrapping up at the age of about seventeen and a half².

• Hey, look what I got in: books! It’s been a good two days at the ol’ Fleenplex mailbox. Thanks to Gina at :01 Books for The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza, Hidden, and The Undertaking of Lily Chen, and to Bill Barnes for Upgrade Path; their generosity is much appreciated. To receive four such very different books serves to remind me just how broad and deep this medium called comics is. Look for reviews as I have the opportunity to give ’em all a good, thorough reading.
• Quick note: work will be taking me to the Upper Midwest at the start of next week, and as a result my opportunities to update during the day may be scarce. Brief and/or delayed postings may be the result, and we trust that you won’t be too broken up about it. As always, should disaster befall me during my travels, I call upon all of you to avenge my blood.

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¹ Which, if the strip ids are consecutive, would also be the 2002nd Shortpacked! update, wowsers.

² Ironically, about the age that all his characters were when he launched Roomies! all those years ago.

PS: Aaaaaahhhhh!!

Holy crap, this thing is big — physically imposing, heavy enough to be a cause of death if rapidly applied to the base of the skull, and it even smells imposing. Thank you Mr Malki !, this will keep me busy roughly forever. So busy, in fact, that everybody else today gets quick updates instead of long writeups.

• The latest wine-learnin’ class from Kristen Siebecker¹, spoken of in the beforetimes, is upon us², with an emphasis on winter-friendly wines at 7:00pm on Thursday, 30 January, at West Elm in Chelsea. As is her custom, Siebecker has extended a discount to those using the code EMAIL10.
• Herr Doktor Professor Dante Shepherd is about to celebrate a Big Round Number at Surviving The World, and we at Fleen would like to wish him a hearty congratulations a day in advance. Tonight he may be partying like it’s strip #1999, but tomorrow he erupts into the rarefied company of those that have achieved 2000 strips. If my math is correct, he will be one of a literal handful³ of PhD-holding webcomickers to achieve such a feat⁴.
• Dave Kellett put up a future plan for himself today, and what jumped out at me was item #6:
  

  6.) MYSTERY PROJECT: In about 2-4 years, when things calm down a bit, I’m also going start on a new “mystery” project. I can’t say much about it, other than to say… it’ll channel a very different side of my creativity, it’ll take me about a year to complete, and that it’ll be super fun to do.

  It caught my eye because the last time Kellett put up future plan for himself, not quite four years ago, item #4 jumped out at me:

  4.) MYSTERY PROJECT: In addition to Sheldon and Drive, I should mention that I’ve started up a third project that I’m very excited about, but which I can’t really talk about yet. I know, I know…it’s sounds very third-grade of me to bring up a project that I can’t talk about. But here’s what I can say: I’m very excited about it, it’s my first collaborative piece since the “How to Make Webcomics” book, it both is and is not comics-related, and I think it’ll be right up your alley, when it comes time to announce it. More than that, I can’t say. But good things are a-comin’.

  That mystery project turned out to be STRIPPED, which is now so close I can taste it. One can only speculate what this mystery project will be, only we already know that it’s not a film as he took care of those possibilities in item #5. Damn, Dave, you ain’t got to conquer every creative medium known to the species.

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¹ Whose name would apparently translate as they becker from the original German. Names aside, Kristen pretty much put together the first MoCCA Festival, laying the groundwork for all that has occurred since.

² And by us I mean those of us who are within easy travel of Manhattan, and of legal drinking age, and have a desire to up their wine game.

³ This would be a cartoon-style three-fingers-plus-thumb hand.

⁴ Also, while Jorge Cham has on the order of 1700 strips, he’s also got a feature-length movie, so I’m counting him. Deal with it.

Corrections first, as yesterday during the hourly updates of A Softer World #1000 I spoke of alt-text disappearing as each new row of images was added to what ultimately was a twelve-part story. In fact, the alt-text changed with each new update but was not lost — it was added immediately below each row of photos, below panel #1, in grey text, upside down, and I overlooked it. It’s even right there in the screenshot I used in the post and I missed it. Fleen apologizes for the error.

• Also yesterday, I happened to notice that both Dinosaur Comics and Surviving the World dealt — by coincidence, no doubt — with the subject of time. The last time I can recall a coincidence of such proportions, two strips had hideous monstrosities from the deep, and before that there were the crocoform references the day that Steve Irwin died. Precedent and all that.

  A’course, then both Messers Shepherd and North decided that each was the future self of the other, which is a weirdly Möbius-like kind of time-tangle of the sort that gives me headaches. If they are each other’s future selves, Shepherd seems to be taking a cautious approach to the risks involved, North appears to be doubling down, and Rich Stevens knows what time really is: a vector for regret. I trust this will tide us over on the coincidence-o-meter for the next two, two and a half years.

• Big Round Number o’ The Day: Jon Rosenberg¹ has just dropped the 500th consecutive scene on us over at Scenes From A Multiverse. While 500 updates on a MWF schedule over three years isn’t all that uncommon, bear in mind the more than 2000 updates over at Goats (presently between hosts, but accessible via the Wayback Machine), where it updated regular-like from April 1997 until April 2010; together they represent an unbroken stream of increasingly dense storytelling, complete with bizarre side-trips, twists, turns, and existential crises.

  If you can think back as far as April 1997, think about what there wasn’t: no PvP, Penny Arcade, Diesel Sweeties, Schlock Mercenary, Sheldon, SMBC, or even other webcomics with names starting with letters other than P or S.

  The Walkyverse was still six months from launch, Achewood another four years out, xkcd another four years still. Matthew Inman was still more than twelve years from launching the site that would eventually explode all over Charles Carreon, nobody alive could tell you about Homestuck, and even “Iron Man” Crosby’s Superosity didn’t start until 1999. Of all the webcomics still updating, pretty much only Help Desk and Kevin and Kell predate Rosenberg’s run.Oh, and there was that inaugural NCS Award for On-Line Comic Strip and all.

  Rosenberg’s cast a long shadow and now seems as good a time to recognize. Congrats on 500 Jon, yeah, whatever — and thanks for the innumerable contributions before.

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¹ Standard disclaimer: Jon got me into this blog-based opinion-mongering gig, and at present is kind enough to spare the server space to host my daily word dumps. Our relationship is close enough that I actively avoided mentioning him on this page for close to six months after Fleen launched, to avoid any appearance of impropriety. With all that said, feel free to take this item with the appropriate amount of salt.

We told you a few weeks ago about Kazu Kibuishi and his commission to redo the covers for the Harry Potter books; he made the trip to New York for the final image unveiling (and to meet readers and fans). The cover images for the seven books, plus the slipcase and spine art, can be seen at the Scholastic website, alongside the original Mary GrandPré illustrations. They’re beautiful, choose iconic moments from the story to choose, and typically depict Harry in a state of acting rather than a state of being, if you take my meaning.

But it’s a picture in a tweet that makes me really appreciate the work that Kibuishi’s done.

You may recall from our discussion that he proposed doing back cover images as well as front covers, and Scholastic agreed; the back cover for Sorcerer’s Stone was shared a few hours ago and it took my breath away. The close up figures and faces of Harry and his parents could be neighbors to Emily and Navin, it’s so in line with his style; at the same time, it’s unmistakably Harry, Lily and James Potter, their postures and body language conveying all that the longtime (or first time, for that matter) reader knows (or will know) about that family.

As it turns out, I recently passed my hardcovers of the Potter books onto a niece and nephew who weren’t yet born when the books finished; I may need to pick up the boxed set when it releases just to have the visuals in my home.

Further recognition:

• Jeph Jacques hit the Big Round Number (strip count) of 2500 on Monday, and today he hit the Big Round Number (years) of 10 today, in the midst of a story arc that I think he could spend a year or so on without it getting boring¹. It’s been a long, long journey for Jacques from strip number one, with the requisite drama and upheaval both in-strip and in real life. Here’s hoping for exactly as many more Big Round Numbers (strips and years) as he finds he has to share².
• Speaking of Jacques, one of the things that impresses me about him is his desire to be creative in multiple media; while the comic is what gets the attention, I have the feeling he could happily compose and record music for Deathmøle pretty much forever. Likewise, the very funny Chris Hastings is never one to rest on his laurels, stretching out to the lighthearted side of comics writing for Marvel with Deadpool and the recently-announced Longshot miniseries³.

  He’s also, for most of the past year, been studying improv, which I feel has only sharpened his comedic instincts, and for the first time he feels he’s ready to share his new skills with the public at large. If you’re in Manhattan tonight, Hastings and his team will be in the improv competition known as INSPIRADO.

  It’s okay, I didn’t know that was either, but he explained it to me a while back. Two teams compete to perform comedy based around challenges taken from the letters I N S P I R A D and O, and it’s possibly — likely, even — that the word is not completed due to failures of one or both teams. If I recall his explanation correctly, the O stands for Oh shit as the challenge becomes impossibly hard, and it’s rare that a team reaches ultimate victory. We at Fleen join all right-thinking people in wishing Hastings and his team the best of luck, and we would totally be there if not for this stupid day job.

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¹ Namely, the state of artificial intelligence in his world. Specifically, he’s dealing with the concept of robot offense and robot punishment, which is downright fascinating.

² Also butts.

³ Hastings shared with me some of what he’s doing in that miniseries, and even as a not-particularly-familiar-with-Marvel reader, it sounds frickin’ hilarious.

That is, the first day back to work following an awesome vacation (thanks again, Portland!) kind of sucks. I’m buried beneath a pile of things that showed up while I was gone with an absolute deadline of three days ago, and my only refuge is webcomics.

• Let’s start with some Big Round Numbers! Anybody that’s read this page for any amount of time should know by now that I loves me some A Girl And Her Fed by the inestimably awesome K Brooke “Otter” Spangler. Today, Ms Spangler hits the Big Round Number of 1000 strips, on Saturday she announced the general availability of her first pulp¹ e-book spinoff from AGAHF, The Russians Came Knocking², and yesterday was her birthday. Everybody feel good for Otter!
• Know who else has a Big Round Number today? Jeph Jacques, one of the literal giants³ of our weird little medium has hit 2500 updates at Questionable Content. Oh, and you know who went to college with Jeph Jacques? K Brooke “Otter” Spangler, that’s who. Small world.
• I mentioned to you last week that Christopher Baldwin’s Spacetrawler — which is barreling towards a conclusion that we knew from the first would be tragic — is presently Kickstarting its third (and final) print collection. What I want to mention to you today is that Baldwin is a clever, clever man. As the story is reaching its end, as we are waiting for the gut-punch that we know could happen at any time, Baldwin gives us a tease of today’s strip and directs us to the Kickstarter page to get the rest of it.

  I expect that the strip link will not show the redirect forever (once the campaign’s done, there’ll be no need), and this isn’t something that just anybody could get away with (Baldwin has not messed with his audience before so they aren’t feeling messed with, and it’s a serial story with a lot of stickiness so they will click through to Kickstarter), so it’s copied up top so you can see what being just a little bit — the right little bit — of evil looks like.

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¹ That is, action/adventure with the sexytimes left in. Regular AGAHF fans will recognize plenty of sexytimes have been implied, but the written word’s inclusion of such allows for both more and less detail at the same time. Look, Otter’s a damn smart writer who has a damn good handle on these characters, and she’s funny as all hell. Go buy the e-book.

² Starring Josh; if you don’t know Josh, he’s awesome, a total man-whore, and awesome some more. Also, the references to squirrels as vermin that must be exterminated make Otter my best friend ever.

³ Seriously, he and Ryan North could totally dress up for Halloween as one of the big fights from Pacific Rim; I’ll leave it to you to determine which should be the ravening monster from another dimension and which one of them has little dudes all up inside.

Now that Apple isn’t making everybody sit in front of their computers and hit compulsively refresh their browsers every ten seconds, maybe we can talk about some webcomics things?

• Yesterday saw the debut of a very impressive Big Round Number:
  

  It only took 8 1/2 years, but I’ve finally created 2000 puzzles!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/30135689@N05/7980598350/

  Let’s do the math to properly indicate just how busy Chris Yates has been: eight and a half years and 2000 Baffler!s comes to 1.55 Baffler!s per day, and while some of them are pretty simple, that doesn’t preclude monsters like ol’ 2K here, with its more than 550 pieces spread out across nine fields and eight layers.

  In that time Yates was also making ghosts and POOP signs¹ and SLÜGs and t-shirts and prints and the designs for mass-market Baffler!s and the iPad Baffler! app and a few zillion Baffler! commissions not to mention a whole mess of terribly excited photocomics.

  For those interested in seeing exactly how damn much art one can cram into 3105 days, there’s a photo archive for your perusal. If you should see Mr Yates this weekend at SPX, tell him I said hi, be sure to smile for any photos you end up in, and ask him when the hell he sleeps.

• Know who else is gonna be at SPX? Well, a whole damn lot of people, but for the moment I’m thinking about Becky and Frank, who will but a week later make their way back LA-wards for a book launch at the world-famous Secret Headquarters. Tiny Kitten Teeth’s print version has been a long time a-bornin’ but now it’s here and it’s going to be gorgeous and you can get in on the fun of the launch at 3817 W Sunset Blvd (also known as Historic Route 66) in Los Angeles at 7:00pm on Friday, 21 September. Books, prints, fun times, and sophisticated adult beverages will be present in copious amounts.
• Speaking of book launches, (in this case, literally so), I believe it is a matter of public record that this page is fully in the tank as far as Sailor Twain goes, as it is beautiful, and melancholy, and atmospheric in a way that few comics manage. It’s still a few weeks before the very handsome and substantial print collection drops, which makes this the perfect time to note that there will be a special to-do to mark the launch of the book.

  Even more exciting, this celebration will be taking the form of a sunset sailing trip aboard the Clearwater, a replica of the mighty Hudson River sloops of the 18th and 19th centuries. A sloop that was dreamt up, built, and launched by the legendary Pete Seeger² to act as a literal platform to remind people of the need for clean waters in general, and the Hudson River in particular.

  The Sailor Twain Sail departs from the 79th Street Boat Basin in Manhattan at 5:30pm on Friday, 5 October.

• New site, tangentially related to webcomics in that David “It’s!” Willis did the logo, and also because it’s the brainchild of webcomics friend Josh “The Comics Curmudgeon” Fruhlinger. Hail to the Slash [Not Safe For Anything] is devoted to … well, let’s just quote Josh on this one:
  

  2012 has been one of the most homoerotic presidential elections since JFK completely discombobulated DIck Nixon with his sexual charisma live on television. This site is a repository of the same-sex presidential fan fiction our nation needs right now.

  Also:

  [I]n the days leading up to the 2008 U.S. presidential election, this civility broke down as a number of nasty political fights broke out. In attempt to stave off further unpleasantness, I demanded that my readers funnel their political passions into Taft/Roosevelt slash fiction, because it was the only thing I could think of off the top of my head.

  This worked better than I could have ever imagined, both in terms of stopping arguments and in producing legitimate masterpieces of Taft/Roosevelt erotica. I always had in mind that, come 2012, I would return to the idea. This site is that return.

  In case you still have some shred of innocence in your soul and are casually wondering if Mr Fruhlinger could really put together something truly depraved and soul-searing, consider this description of the very first entry at HttS:

  Heart and Soul (Cheney/Bush/Cloned Cheney/Crown Prince Abdullah; WARNING: EXTREME HORROR)

  Cloned Cheney. I’m warning you, there isn’t enough bleach in the world to get that image out of your brain. So tread carefully and if y’all will excuse me, I’ll be over here with the jumbo bottle of bleach and the cleansing fire.

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¹ It will remain one of my life’s most cherished memories will be the time I watched Lynn Freakin’ Johnston try to convince a complete stranger to buy a POOP sign. The only thing needed to make that day perfect would have been for that stranger to be wearing some form of “Roadside” clothing.

² One of America’s great social consciences, a musician of incredible importance (largely responsible for the preservation of folk music and the modern development of the banjo), hell-raising for all the right reasons still in this, his 93rd year.

What’s your favorite number? Mine is e, and in honor of this awesomest of numbers (it kicks π’s ass), all numbers in this update will be related to this most lasting legacy of Lenny Euler^e0.

Okay, this has been a more difficult HTML-wrangling job than any post I’ve ever done, with the exception of the review of the first Dinosaur Comics book. Let’s just … let’s not do this again.

Edit to change: the Otter link, because really, the Animal House gag is so old by now.
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^e0 Okay, that’s a disputable claim, given that Euler has more numbers, constants, theorems, formulas, and every other damn thing named after him than anybody else in the history of mathematics. But for my money, if you’re going to remember just one thing about Euler, it’s gonna be e.

^e0.693147181 Unfortunately, Spangler’s site doesn’t do permalinks to blog postings, so click through today if you want to read the bit I’ve quoted from.

^e1.09861229 Disclaimer: I wrote the foreword to her first book collection, so take that into account when judging my recommendation. It’s not like I get any more or anything, but clearly I’m on Team Otter.

A little (simulated) murder, and little (definitely non-simulated) mind-gaming, a little (clandestine) blowing town for some far-off destination (I’m betting on Vegas and/or Tijuana); it must be the 3000^th extravaganza. It started with Maura hatching a fairly evil plan involving Pale Suzie, Suzie’s horrible cat (who has a history of violence), and a faked death. Naturally, mayhem become Red Robot, who just wants to join in the fun. Repercussions will inevitably follow, but for now let’s just enjoy that evil grin in panel #5.

If we’re being completely honest, the very sexy Richard Stevens III has actually done more than 3500 installments of Diesel Sweeties, once you count the year and a half he ran as a syndicated strip in newspapers, all while bouncing from crazed idea to even more crazed idea. It’s a hell of an accomplishment, and one that would break lesser mortals, or at least anybody that didn’t regard the phenomenon of sleep with a mixture of pity and contempt. Congratulations on the fairly arbitrary Big Round Number, Rich. Now get back to work baking tomorrow’s cookie.

• On the far end of the webcomics long runner count: Reptilis Rex, which launches today with an archive of a week’s worth of strips¹. As previously noted, Reptilis Rex claims to be the work of one “William Tallman”, which is an admitted pseudonym. Now obviously this is a fiction, and the strip is not produced by a lizard man from the center of the hollow earth, chupacabra, sasquatch or any other type of cryptid. We can reveal, as the result of an extensive investigation, that “William Tallman” is actually an established webcomicker, lying low from the potential wrath of angry corporate interests.

  Consider: “William Tallman” anagrams to “Anal Am Will Milt”, which stands for “Anal [collector, I] Am Will[is, fan of] Milt[on Bradley]”; as everybody knows, Milton Bradley is a subsidiary of Hasbro, who make the Transformers line of toys. Thus, “William Tallman” is clearly David Willis, well-known Transformers shill enthusiast, who is fearful of offending those who make his addiction possible and thus hides his new, non-Transformers-related project² behind a fake name. OPEN YOUR EYES AND SWIM IN THE TRUTH.

• In the middle of the webcomics duration scale: Gastrophobia, which has a totally-handy catch-up strip for those of you that haven’t kept current on the previous two “seasons” of the comic. If you want more to help you catch up on the story twists, Season One (cleverly paralleling the twelve labors of Herakles) is available from creator David McGuire’s store, and Season Two will join it shortly, providing the fundraising is successful over the next month or so. If you like ponies, you should really scroll down to the bottom of the list of supporter gifts because there’s one there that’s totally just for you.

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¹ A M-W-F strip, this puts RR’s archive at a total of three.

² His third simultaneous strip, the second with no relation to Transformers, which constitutes an unconscionable reduction in Transformers content in the eyes of his Cybertronian masters. Life thus imitates webcomics, as in the completely true diary comics of Jeffrey Rowland, whose corporate boss must spend an inordinate amount of time ensuring that one little boy continues to believe in him and buy his toys. Truths within truths — David Willis is a thinly-disguised Wigu Tinkle.

• 2.96 From Child’s Play:
  

  Our current fundraising total for 2011 is $2,960,000, making this our BEST YEAR EVER! We are absolutely blown away by your generosity- this year has obliterated last year’s fundraising total of $2.3 million.

  Last week when I goaded y’all to hit US$2.5 million, I figured it was doable (at the time it would have required US$300,000 to be raised by the end of the year). Instead, that Big Round Number I suggested might be a nice milestone has been exceeded by half a million dollars. Let’s just admit to ourselves that by the 31st, Child’s Play will hit 3 megabucks¹, making a to-date total of twelve million dollars². I’ve said it before and I will say it again — everybody that gives to Child’s Play is engaged in the definition of Good Works.

• 10 Guessing you’ve seen this already — Paste magazine describes itself as Signs of Life in Music, Film, and Culture, and in their year-end roundup they’ve included a list of the 10 Best Webcomics of 2011. We’ll take all assertions of different tastes, shocking omissions, and the appropriateness of the use of the word “webcomic” as a given; it’s nice every time somebody on the pop culture beat pays attention to creator-owned comics on teh intertoobz.
• Approximately 450 and/or ∞ Two years and three months after launch, Paul Southworth’s last contribution to the Not Invented Here art chores ran today. Four strips a week since then, with some rerun weeks to accommodate various alternate priorities and storyline beats, making some 450 times that Southworth has illustrated Owen, Desmond, and the other refugees from common sense in the world of software development. As previously noted, Jeff “Wooo!” Zugale will be taking over the art chores in a couple of weeks, and Southworth is hard at work at his next project:
  

  Just finished the first installment of my new webcomic. Only infinity more to go!

• 1 Friend o’ Fleen (and webcomics in general) Rick Marshall³ is down one wisdom tooth today, having had that sucker removed from his face. Feel better and enjoy tripping all the balls, buddy.

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¹ Or be so close as to make no difference.

² Ditto.

³ [obligatory Land of the Lost reference here].

Regular readers of this page (both of you — hi, Rick; hi, Helen) know that I don’t let Javascript load on my browser without a damn good reason, but when Jess Fink tweets about awesome comics that can only be done online, and they require it? That’s a damn good reason.

Hobo Lobo of Hamelin is a take on the old Pied Piper story, but one that achieves a depth (both visually and storywise) that’s almost unique. The art is laid out in different planes, at varying distances from the viewer, and which move at different rates as you scroll from left to right. It would look like a storybook without the Javascript effects, but with it, you become an observer — but not quite a participant — in something that’s not animated in the usual sense of the word, but in the original sense: the scene has been brought to life.

Hobo Lobo is made by Stevan Živadinović, and you can see the progress of the story on his About page; he’s powered through a nominal three pages since 26 Jan 2011, but considering that a “page” consists of as many as 17th multi-field “panels” (which run continuously together, not like the panels you’re used to), the updates every couple days are a pretty impressive feat. Best of all, Živadinović is open to sharing his code which makes this parallax-as-comics possible, so we may see more sites that merit the inclusion of Javascript for actual reasons in the future.

Speaking of Neat Things:

• Shopping for the various end-of-year holidays continues apace, and webcomickers (many of whom derive from these end-of-year sales intangibles like rent) want you to remember to buy stuff from them. But because they’re a collegial bunch, all over the place you’ll find creators that a pointing their readers towards colleagues with neat stuff. You got your neatly-formatted, easy-to-browse version from Mr Willis, your full-of-pictures version from Mr Guigar, your enthusiastic version from Ms Corsetto … basically, start at any of those pages (or from your favorite webcomicker’s front page), follow a link to an esteemed colleague, and you’ll likely find more recommendations to follow. Happy Propping Up of a Tottering Economy with Consumer Spending Holidays!
• The third chapter of Tyler Page’s Raised on Ritalin has released, and hoo boy, it’s a good ‘un. Moving away from the personal history portion of the story for a bit, Page engages in a Larry Gonick-like exploration of brain function, the history of amphetamines, and how Ritalin in particular came to be used for ADD and similar disorders in children (despite the fact that we’re not quite sure how it works). Fascinating stuff, and just the breather necessary before we dive back into Page’s personal story.
• Webcomics readers may recall that Help Desk creator Christopher Wright has, on occasion, been slightly erratic with his timetable. From a starting point in 1996, he’s sometimes gone months or even most of a year between updates. But (and this is a big but), he’s always come back. And when his life permits him to get into the proverbial groove, he knocks down updates like nobody’s business.

  Which is pretty much what he’s been doing since the end of October, cranking out the Monday-to-Friday releases like they were going out of style. As a result, he dropped the 1997th episode of Help Desk today, putting him on track to hit the Big Round Number of 2000 on Friday. As we all know, 2000 updates is the number that separates the adults from the children, and if there are a few more comics to have hit that threshold than back in 2008, it’s still pretty damn impressive.