Programming for SDCC is up, and despite the fact that the “webcomic” tag doesn’t seem to be in use this year¹, I have plowed through and found those sessions that are most intersecting with the interests of this page. As usual, I’ve probably missed some, so let me know of any that should be included, yes?

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

I’ll be doing my best to attend these sessions (obviously, except for where they overlap), and trying my damndest to avoid the Hall H line at all other times. See y’all there.

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¹ This could either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on if you read it as a marginalization of webcomics, or a recognition that webcomics and comics are not entirely distinct things.

For several reasons, actually. At the moment, the most significant reason is that I’m presently dealing with the first cold of winter and I’m far less likely to have these vicious headache/sore throat combos in April than December. Rest assured, however, that there are other reasons.

• Such as, sometime in the Spring is when we can most likely expect to see Stripped. Although half of Freddave Kellett-Schoeder was beat down by days of continuous travel and interviewing, the other half joined me for dinner last night, leading to an extensive conversation about the film, its direction, and the logistics of getting a rental car full of moviemaking equipment from Central New Jersey to the least accessible corner of Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan, and on toward Connecticut during prime commute hours. Vaya con Dios, plucky documentary makers.

  On this swing (the last of the filming schedule, although they may squeeze in a couple final interviews back home in LA), Freddave Kellett-Schroeder have managed to rack up another half-dozen interviews, talking with vets of the webcomics scene, the print scene, and super-vets of the glory days of newspaper comics; there were also tidbits and details regarding the film that can’t be revealed just yet, but once they are, will cause at least one of your heads to explode.

  If you don’t want it to be your head that explodes, start acclimating yourself to small doses of incredibly cool, unexpected news now (huh, the A Girl And Her Fed books are shipping¹) to progressively larger doses (huh, the NY International Children’s Film Festival is showing all 15 Ghibli films); by the time Stripped comes out, you’ll be ready to deal with the news I have in mind.

  But because you’ve been so good and patient, I am prepared to exclusively share one piece of exclusive information that I confirmed exclusively with Dave Kellett last night: his daughter is freakin’ adorable. What do you mean, Everybody that’s ever met her knows that? It’s an exclusive!

  In all seriousness, Stripped is impressing ever more, as I learn all that Schroeder and Kellett accomplished so far, and learn about the plans they have for it. There will be days worth of visuals and interviews that serious students of cartooning will want to pour through for decades to come. I can’t help but think that it’s going to form a definitive record of the state of cartooning at this point in time and in 20 or 30 years, some future historians or documentarians will be asking to use clips in future projects².

• Also coming around in the Spring, the comic convention circuit will be kicking into full swing. I got an email pointing out that space for C2E2 ’12 is now available, but what most caught my eye about an otherwise-routine announcement was a section on changed union work rules, which should make exhibiting far more practicable. From the email:
  

  Recent rulings and legislation have improved work rules throughout McCormick Place. Exhibitors can bring in outside food, use power tools to build their own booths with full time staff and benefit from decreased crew sizes. Click the button below for additional information directly from McCormick Place.

  The referenced button leads you to this PDF from the exhibition space, which details reduced work crew sizes, reduced double-time rates, and the ability to use personal vehicles at loading docks. Hopefully Reed Exhibitions and other showrunners will be able to promote similar changes at other convention sites; with comics increasingly the province of independent creators, having realistic overhead costs will be critical to keeping comics shows from becoming the exclusive province of movie and videogame companies.

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¹ I love AGAHF and creator “Otter” Spangler, but would it kill her to have permalinks to individual newsposts on her site? No permalink to the books-are-in story, so here’s a picture for proof.

² I have a suspicion that Kellett and Schroeder might be a bit more willing to share clips of their work for future projects than they have found present licensors to be.

Grey, dreary day. High humidity, just cool enough to make all the moisture hang in the air. A melancholy climate, and well-suited to some indoor entertainments. I know, let’s read some comics on the internet!

• Not that I begrudge Randall Munroe’s use of Bitches way back in comic #54, but Darryl Cunningham is attempting to be a bit more … conciliatory, perhaps? And he’s got more than 100 panels to deal with the topic of the validity of the scientific method and why science denialism is stupid, to Munroe’s one; it’s a slow build as opposed to a single knockout punch — it simply wouldn’t have worked in this context¹. Unsurprisingly, Cunningham has done as good a job as he has on his earlier comics, despite the inherent handicap of having a much broader, less sharply-defined topic (“science”) than in his previous investigative comical endeavours (examining things like the nonscientific denials of vaccine safety, evolution, or climate change).

  Speaking of, the journal comics of Tyler Page and his story of ADHD are pretty similar in tone and character to Cunningham’s Psychiatric Tales, and he’s just posted chapter two. Go get it.

• Know what’s great? Achewood². Know what’s also great? People interpreting Achewood in their own styles. Case in point: Magnolia Porter (of the entirely-wonderful, recently concluded Bobwhite, and the even more wonderful and ongoing Monster Pulse) has decided to take some inspiration from Achewood characters, and set herself the challenge of drawing one a day for fifty days.

  In case her launch (yesterday) with Teodor made you suspect she would be limiting herself to series regulars, please note that today’s winner is Todd’s friend Little Freddie, who has not been seen for lo these many years. Me, I’m waiting to see when we get Rod Huggins, Sidney Yamahata, Sound and Motion, Cartilage Head, and especially Rameses Luther.

• Stripped: funded at 188% of goal, and just barely shy of the level that Freddave Kellett-Shroeder declared would let them add Dolby sound, mucho animations (from indie animators, naturally), closed-captioning, and more interviews. I’m guessing that somehow, they’ll find a way to make those extended goals happen, maybe with “mucho animations minus one animation”. Many congrats to Dave, Fred, and the 2600 people besides myself who pitched in, and will now assuredly get the documentary they were dreaming of.

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¹ For more on using “bitches” as a bit of lexical color, consider the case of newly-minted MacArthur Genius Jad Abumrad and his mom .

² Which I suspect, but I do not have hard evidence for this suspicion, will be dropping some new content on us in or around the imminent 10th anniversary of Philippe standing on it.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say “Seminars, Bloody Seminars”, or “Presentations, Bloody Presentations”¹, but those wouldn’t let me invoke John Cleese, now would they? So busy today.

• Per the comments, Box Brown pointed out correctly that he was not the only repeat winner in this year’s Ignatz Awards — Joe Lambert won for both Outstanding Anthology or Collection and Outstanding Artist. Fleen regrets the oversight.
• Stripped keeps doing notable things, and there’s still a week left in the Kickstarter campaign (as of this writing: 140% funded). Today it’s an open call for creative types to participate:
  

  We’re extending a worldwide “open call” to independent, freelance, or small-team animators, to produce very short segments for the feature-length documentary, STRIPPED.

  Over 50 animators have already submitted samples, before we even asked for work. …It kinda blew us away, frankly! But we’d like to formalize that process, to better review everyone’s work, and compare apples to apples.

  There’s instructions how to submit on the Kickstarter page, with submission requirement #3 being particularly interesting:

  Your requested rate for 10-, 30-, or 45-seconds of animation

  Wait, rate? Let’s check the FAQ:

  Q: Is this a paid job?
  A: Yes.

  Well, that’s pretty unambiguously (especially considering how much, much larger and funded entities keep trying to get creative types to work for free exposure), and ties in nicely with Meredith Gran’s rule for promoting the careers of women²:

  Pay them. No, seriously. Pay them with money.

  The movie just got a whole bunch more interesting (and it looks like this development was driven by creators wanting to participate, sending in their offers to work before there was a call for them), as I don’t think this direction was part of Freddave Kellett-Schroeder’s original plan. Can’t wait to see what the animators of the world come up with.

Okay. Time for eight hours of presentations with no cell coverage in the basement level of a casino meeting facility. Joy.

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¹ Sadly, no chance of “Symposia, Bloody Symposia”, given that the original definition of “symposium” was “drinking party”.

² Equally applicable to any under-represented group — especially those just starting out in their fields.

Hurricane cleanup done, work nearly caught up, end-of-summer slowdown easing away, let’s get back to this embloggenation, shall we?

• The final countdown to this year’s Small Press Expo is underway, with nearly everybody from web/indy comics that you can think of, and work has me going in very nearly the opposite direction. Have fun in Bethesda (and the following weekend for Intervention) for me; I’ll be picking up a case of neon poisoning in Las Vegas.
• With just about half of the pledge period past, Stripped is sitting about 125% of goal, meaning that what might be the most important “if we go over goal” is pretty much a certainty. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I never considered the costs of closed captioning, but Freddave Kellett-Schroeder didn’t; comics are uniquely appealing to the hard of hearing, and now they won’t be left out of what could become a definitive exploration of the medium. Also, somebody check me on this — has any previous project in the comics arena gathered as many supporters as Stripped? As of this writing, 1765 people have pledged actual cash money to the project, which strikes me as a significantly high number¹
• Dustin Harbin — well versed in comics of all sorts — has had his thinking cap on and congealed his thinks into Fifteen Thoughts on Digital Comics. These thoughts are aimed squarely at those that publish comics on paper and are now flirting with comics in the digital realm, and it’s worth reading for anybody that makes or loves comics, because the way that large producers answer Harbin’s concerns will determine the future — even the existence — of comics. My eye particularly lingered on thoughts number 10 and 11:
  

  10) It seems to me like a foregone conclusion that people are going to one day wake up and think “Hey, why are comics the most expensive media purchase I make each month?” Digital device culture is increasingly ubiquitous, and the idea that the comics industry can funnel its readership in a direction that’s somehow in the best interests of publishers, brick-and-mortar retailers, and digital distribution companies is … hard to swallow. This is driven home to me whenever the “day-and-date” question pops up. Essentially, “Should digital comics be available the same day as their (presumably better? more important?) print version?” Because that question has nothing to do with users, and everything to do with print publishers and comic book shops. Here’s why:

  11) Publishers have tricked themselves into thinking that digital comics –- THEIR digital comics –- are somehow competition for their own print comics. They’re the same comics! You made them, publishers! Surely any person on your staff under the age of 40 can see that hmmmm, maybe print is not the safest boat to float in, maybe digital is going to be big “one day”? Alter your business model and give room to both. Stop competing with yourself, and start competing with your competitors again.

  One might note that webcomics² deal with those concerns neatly. Furthermore, webcomics³ seems to have engaged in one behavior that crucially differences it from the big print enterprises — there’s an ongoing (sometimes low-level, but always acknowledged in the background) conversation to the effect of What next? What comes after the current form of webcomics? What will be the next method of distribution, the next business model, the way that I meet the challenges that haven’t popped up yet?

  The reticence of print comics publishers to have that conversation among themselves is similar to the response of the music and movie industries to non-physical forms of their products. DC and Marvel may not have thrown around lawsuits with ridiculous monetary damages claimed like the MPAA and RIAA, but they have spent a similar period of time denying the shift to digital and engaging in a reaction that essentially amounted to If we ignore it hard enough it will go away and when we deal with it, it will be from a perspective of trying to keep things as much the same as they’ve always been. Whether they make the mental (and business model) shifts necessary to keep up with technological changes will determine how much of their industry still exists in ten years.

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¹ Not to mention the thirteen backers that have pledged at the US$500, US$1000, and US$5000 (!) levels.

² That is, creator-owned, web distribution to start, print and otherwise tangible iterations to follow.

³ Passim.

Readers of this page may recall that I have mentioned in the past a work-in-progress that I consider to be really significant: a documentary film¹ on the state of cartooning, in these times of great change, by Dave Kellett and Fred Schroeder. Said documentary recently acquired a title (Stripped²) and a trailer, and reached the milestone where the real work left is post-production: editing, effects, sound mix, color timing, and other words that mean nothing to you and me because we don’t work in the film industry.

To get to this point has cost Kellett and Schroeder two years, countless trips to interview subjects³ (more than 60 of them, which means that NEWW2 must have been a godsend because they were able to talk to more than a dozen people in one weekend), and undoubtedly a serious chunk o’ personal cash. Keep in mind that documentaries don’t make a huge amount of money — this has been a labor of love, cost them each deep, and taken time that could have been spent on projects that paid them actual cash money for things like rent and food.

To finish at this point will require more money than has been spent to date, so they need some help. If I were Kellett and/or Schroeder⁴, I’d be going crazy right about now. Crazy that the financials won’t work out and the film won’t get finished. Crazy that the financials do work out and Oh god I have to finish it and there will be a million little things that only I notice and why didn’t I fix that bit of sound and that was a dumb question and, and, and….

While we can’t do anything about that self-doubt that seems to affect all the great creative minds, we can at least help make sure that the financials not working out fears are put to rest. The requisite Kickstarter campaign (where you may view the trailer) is live, and in the (approximate, as of this writing) 24 hours since it launched, 512 backers have gotten Freddave Kellett-Schroeder 32% of the way to their US$58,000 goal.

People, we can do better than this. I particularly want to draw your attention to a FAQ at the bottom of the project page (past all the photos of eminent cartoonists, cartoon historians, and one hack webcomics pseudojournalist):

What will you do if you exceed your funding goal for STRIPPED?

If we exceed the goal by a *small* amount:
We’ve carefully budgeted for a set amount of special effects and animations … and it’s going to look gorgeous! BUT! With even a slightly larger budget, we’d be able to add significantly more effects and animations … upping the look of the whole film.
===========================
If we exceed the goal by a *large* amount:
We have a big-picture idea that gets us very excited. We’d like to edit and make available ALL 230 HOURS of the individual interviews. These cartoonists shared incredible stories, tips, tricks, and recollections with us, and we’d love them to be enjoyed and preserved for posterity.

As we’ve said elsewhere … the 13-year old versions of ourselves would’ve killed to watch all these interviews, so making them available to the world would be a real gift to all who love cartooning.

I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned this before — knowing so many talented cartoonists, getting to hang with them over beers, counting so many of them as friends is one of the high points of my life. No fooling, no hyperbole, the sheer talent oozing out of the people I get to see on a semiregular basis takes my breath away. The only downside is that when the sketching starts, I have nothing to contribute — I can’t draw worth a damn⁵.

This is something that I intend to remedy before I die; at whatever point in time I can free up the hours, I will take lessons in drawing, then start doodling the thousands of hours until I develop a repeatable cartooning style, and I will join in one of those sketch-fests (that always seem to degenerate into Bomers doing rude things) … possibly not until the funerals of the older and harder-living among the circle of friends⁶.

This is why you need to donate. Not just because it’s a worthy project. Not just because it may become the definitive documentation of an artform at a moment of key change (something I don’t believe has happened before, in any medium). Not just because Fred and Dave are the nicest guys you might ever meet.

You need to donate so that the goal is obliterated to Hades and back, so that I get those 230 hours of tips and tricks and my end-of-life shakydoodles are barely acceptable. Fail to do so, and you will be spitting on the final wishes of a dying man. And I think we all know how horrible that would be.

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¹ If you ever get Dave Kellett to do his Irish Guy voice, make sure you get him talking about the state of the “fillum” — it’s adorable.

² I’m still holding out for Hot Pen On Paper COMIXXX Action.

³ Their raw interview footage accounts for more than 200 hours at this point; if it were your full-time, 9-5 Monday-Friday job to watch that footage, it would take you more than five weeks to do so.

⁴ Interesting dilemma — which of those two would I be? Dave’s family is wonderful and he has a lemon tree in his yard. Fred’s a filmmaker in LA, which has to be good for meeting ladies. I simply can’t decide which of them I should assume the identity of for the purposes of this discussion.

⁵ Let me amend that statement — I can do circuit diagrams that are crisp, clean, balanced to the eye, and generally aesthetically pleasing, but these are geometric-symbol representations of abstract mathematics. I can’t draw things in the real world, no matter how cartoony or abstract, worth the aforementioned damn.

⁶ My money’s on Rosenberg to go first, from Spontaneous Whisky Immolation; eventually it will be just a coffee-infused Rich Stevens, a post-singularity Aaron Diaz, and me to document their discussion.

If you’ve been paying attention to the Twitterfeed of one Mr David Kellett (“The David stands for Dave”), you may have noticed a trend over the last several weeks: tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet of screencaps from a mysterious documentary, often in proximity to the mysterious (and beautiful) Fred Schroeder (tiny piano optional).

During NEWW I sat down with Mr Kellett and Mr Schroeder to find out about this documentary. Be warned, on the topic of this project, the two of them speak almost as one voice, starting and finishing thoughts for each other, like a hive mind that decided two brains was sufficient and why bother with the rest. Thus, except for a brief bit near the end, it is not clear who said what exactly, nor does it really matter.

Bottom line: Dave and Fred like comics, think this is an important point in the history of comics, and want to produce a record of what these times are like. What started as (potentially) a look at one cartoonist (Kellett), his studio and methods, and how he approaches the business end of his craft, has become a fairly broad look as the state of cartooning as a technological shift undoes a century’s worth of business model.

We think this is a really interesting time, not just casually, but in relation to how the business models are changing, the technology to create comics is changing, and also changing the way people read comics.

Other media have had turning points like this, but they weren’t captured at the time. It could be viewed as a scary time, but we see it as fascinating.

Comics have had at least five different business models in their history; they’ve gone from a patronage/subscription system to portfolios and pamphlets to printmaking to today’s comic magazine/strip format. This is just the latest of changes the artform has gone through, but it survives because it’s so powerful, and so flexible.

It’s also interesting to talk to creators, see their process, see their studios, learn how they approach things. When I was starting out, I’d have killed for a peek inside that curtain.
— Freddave Kellett-Schroeder, except for that last bit which is probably more the Dave half of the collective intelligence

They’ve spoken to established masters, some upcoming geniuses, and, weirdly, at least one hack webcomics pseduo-journalist. On this score, they are perhaps a third of the way through their interviews, with at least 75 sessions to be completed before that portion of production is complete. Asked for a list of dream interviews, they mentioned names like Trudeau, Groening (who agreed to sit with them while at the OSU Festival of Cartoon Art, as soon as schedules allow), Breathed, Adams, Rall, Spiegelman, and Munroe. Commenting on such an ambitious list of names, they noted that everybody they’ve spoken to has been enthusiastic and supportive of the process once they’ve seen the level of care that Schroeder and Kellett are bringing to the table:

Thankfully, people have been very generous, very open, 99% of the time it’s been just a matter of timing and logistics. From a filmmaking standpoint, it’s heartening to see how supportive cartoonists are of each other. It’s nice to see the snowballing effect of cartoonists recognizing that we love the medium, and want to explore it in depth.

Jeff Keane was a little wary at first, but during the interview he saw what we were doing. We got to the end of our time and he said, “I’ve got an appointment, but I can give you another half-hour.” He wanted to know what he could do to contribute to the process. — Freddave Kellett-Schroeder

It’s worth noting that Schroeder and Kellett were particularly productive with interviews at the OSU conference and a recent trip to SCAD; this is not a coincidence, given their view of where cartooning is headed:

We’re also at a new place in terms of how cartooning is accepted in academia; it’s achieved a legitimacy and even a sense of equality (with respect to literature, film, music) is building (but not yet achieved). Ohio State is out there, finally putting a stamp down to say “We need to preserve and save this work.” SCAD, RISD, SVA are saying it’s worth teaching the techniques and skills so that each generation doesn’t have to relearn the art from scratch. And not only worth teaching, but teaching at the university scope, and not merely as a skill for trade schools. — Freddave Kellett-Schroeder

Just in case there wasn’t enough to address in the film (which doesn’t yet have a name — not an unusual occurrence in the world of documentaries, I gather), there’s the nature of how current society itself is changing:

[The movie] also gives us the chance to use the microcosm of comics to explore the macrocosm of the shift from analog to digital. That’s the fundamental shift of the present century, and it hasn’t been explored in a fun way yet.

Interviews are projected to continue through the spring, then the serious business of editing can take place. In addition to a feature-length cut of 90 minutes or so (hopefully by next October to hit the film festival submission dates), Kellett and Schroeder are promising supplemental material (possibly to be released online, possibly as DVD extras). These could include full unedited interviews, or alternate cuts of the interviews on given themes or topics. They acknowledge that such niche material might not appeal to a large audience, but see it as service to those that are interested. Kellett compared it to how the Eisner lectures or Wally Wood’s 22 panels are still passed around by comics artists because of their value. As for the width of distribution:

SCAD has asked us to their film festival in the fall, but we’re not certain yet what form the film would be in. We’d love to put it in theatres, but it might be on public television, or it could just go around the festivals. Our other option is to follow the webcomics model and distribute it online ourselves. Most likely, it’ll be two or three of these methods. — Freddave Kellett-Schroeder

Naturally, all of this will depend on financing; at the moment, Schroeder and Kellett are footing the bills themselves, but hoping to get some third-party support soon. There are grant-making foundations that might contribute, or it’s possible that a promo trailer could prompt PBS to supply funding to finish it (in which case it could take the form of a multipart series). Individuals might choose to invest in the film, and Kickstarter remains a possibility. Once done with the interviews, the long process of sound mixing, color timing, creation of infographics, transitions, and editing remain, but both Schroeder and Kellet describe it as a passion project — that they will find a way to get it made. Expanding on the issue of money and potential market:

And with that, I think we have a title for the film; look for Hot Pen On Paper COMIXXX Action in late 2011.