What’s that? You didn’t know how this isn’t the real day to celebrate working folks, the one that’s celebrated around the world? Fortunately, The Nib has you covered, with a timely rerun from two years ago by Sam Wallman.

So in honor of the holiday (not that we can really tell the difference, as today is functionally March 192nd), this is going to be short post, letting you know about the winner of the Fleen Free Graphic Novel Giveaway. We took at look at the responses¹ and from them randomly picked Erik, who wrote:

I’ve been meaning to subscribe to The Nib for quite a while, and this is exactly the push over the line I’ve been needing. Regardless of whether I win a book, I’m subscribing now, for the foreseeable future given the level of content. And if by some chance my name gets pulled, I’d love the George Takei memoir – he’s been a superb role model for how to turn celebrity into positive social energy.

Everybody feel good for Erik! Once They Called Us Enemy gets delivered, there will be a selfie that we’ll run here.

Oh, and as a quick reminder, today is the premiere of Elinor Wonders Why; you can look up broadcast times for your local PBS station at PBS.org and clicking on the link for TV Schedules, which should take you to your local PBS station; for those of you in the NYC metro area, Channel 13 has it at 10:30am and 1:30pm.

That’s it, everybody; enjoy the day, read about the history of the labor movement or other attempts at progress and justice, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Spam of the day:

Hey, great site. Are you guys still open? I’m reaching out businesses who need more customers right away. Here’s how we can increase the visitors to your business immediately

Reply to spam of the day:

If I were any more open, I’d be the Goatse guy!

I swear I actually replied to the email with this. I am both proud and not proud of this.

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¹ Since we posted the contest, we at Fleen have become aware of an irregular email issue where some senders (but not all, and even those that are affected aren’t affected all the time) are getting errors that the domain fleen.com doesn’t exist. I spent some time with tech support today and it’s a nameserver issue, the resolution to which will take another day or two to spread. If you got bounced on your entry, I’m very sorry and better luck next time we give something away.

If there’s one thing true about the opinions of all of us at Fleen, it’s the unnecessarily-pluralized identity that we at Fleen have adopted. But if there’s a second true thing, it’s that we at Fleen are big fans of The Nib. Editor Matt Bors and his staff have put together something special, and if you aren’t supporting them in their mission to bring the best comics possible to the world — while fairly paying the people who make them — then you should be.

But sometimes we need a little push.

I support The Nib with a monthly subscription at a level that qualified me to receive a free book; to be honest, I’d forgotten about it, so when I got the email on Friday with the discount code, it was a surprise. Some of what’s on offer I’ve read already, some of what’s on offer is on my Gotta Get That list, some of what’s on offer I’d never heard of before, but Bors & Co have excellent curation skills and I have no doubt the stuff that new to me belongs on the GGTL.

I’ve also got completely packed booskhelves with a one-in/one-out policy in effect, and a desire to not only talk about The Nib, but to get people to give them money. So here’s the deal: I’m giving away my free book to one of you, gratis. More specifically:

• This offer is good for people that are not presently subscribers to The Nib; we’re looking to expand the subscriber base.
• You’ll get to pick from any of the books on this page (which includes the individual past issues of The Nib magazine, but not the bundle of the first four issues combined).
• We’ll choose randomly from everybody that emails me (that would be gary) at a domain which is also the name of this website, which is a dot-com by end of Friday, 4 September. Heck, if your email is in my inbox by the time I wake up Saturday morning (EDT), I’ll count it.
• You’ll agree to a) subscribe to The Nib at any level you choose for at least six months. Want to cancel after that? Fine; if they can’t hook you in half a year of excellent editorial and nonfiction comics, it’s not for you. You’ll also send in a photo of you holding your choice to run here, so we can all see what good taste in reading material you have.
• You don’t need to send proof of subscription or subscribe in advance to enter our little giveaway; we at Fleen like to think that we’ve promoted a readership that wouldn’t take advantage or go back on their word. And heck, if in a couple of months you’re in such financial straits that keeping a US$4+ subscription is a hardship, it’s not like we’re gonna yell at you. Your good faith attempt is all we’re asking.
• You agree that if you don’t love the book you chose, or if at any time in the future you find yourself ready to get rid of it, you’ll donate it to your local public library.
• Residents of the United States only, please. I don’t regret the ultimately futile attempt at sending a book to Mario from Portugal, but I’m ready for a success this time.

But, Gary!, I hear you cry, I’m already a subscriber to The Nib! What kind of cool stuff can I get in on? Glad you asked, Sparky. How about the new Skin Horse Kickstarter? Harking back to the top of the page, if there’s a third thing that we at Fleen are known for, it’s thinking that Skin Horse, by Shaenon Garrity and Jeffrey C Wells (with colors by Pancha Diaz), is hell of rad, and not just because there’s historically a 50/50 chance that something I’ve written ends up on the back cover as a blurb¹.

Actually, it’s two books, containing strips from 2 October 2017 to 7 March 2020, which if my date math is correct corresponds to 762 full color strips, plus bonus stories, which you can get in print starting at US$40 (you can also get the full ten book run in PDF for US$40, so read the descriptions carefully). 30 days to go on the campaign, which is just over 180% of goal so far. It’s a terrifically fun story with lots of ups and downs, and there’s no time like the present to jump in and enjoy the mad science, non-human intelligence, and omnipresent civil service bureaucracy. Plus goinking.

Spam of the day:

Get an accurate body temperature reading at a distance with this medical-grade infrared thermometer.

Or, y’know, just get one from Home Depot like I did. Okay, it’s industrial and I use it on my oven, but there’s medical use infrareds online for as little as twelve bucks. Don’t let these opportunists talk you into something that can be had in exchange for three easy payments.

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¹ For the record, existing volumes 4, 5, 6, and 8 contain quotes from me, alongside such luminaries as Mark Waid, Dylan Meconis, Lauren Davis, Seanan Maguire, Brigid Alverson, and Christopher Baldwin. I’m also quoted on the cmpaign page for these two books, with one of my more tortured constructions, but one which I think sums up Skin Horse nicely.

Revisiting yesterday’s post, we can add a bit more on the two things that got way the hell under my skin, the lack of a nominees listing for the Ringo Awards and the reality-blind full speed ahead intention of the Baltimore Comic Con to take place in person. Let’s take ’em in reverse order.

• The BCC (that would be the Con) seems intent on the fiction that in two months, they’ll be seeing all of you in 3D at the BCC (that would be the Baltimore Convention Center). One more reason that the Con Committee needs to change their messaging to Sorry, we’ll see you in 2021, everybody be safe was added in a comment by reader Rob Nobody:
  

  I feel compelled to point out that the Baltimore Convention Center is ALSO the primary public COVID-19 testing center in Baltimore. (I just got tested today for the second time; very quick and smooth operation and have been getting our results in ~36 hours, highly recommend as much as one CAN recommend getting that thing jabbed up your nose into your sinuses.) So yeah, if the Comic Con people think they have a chance in hell of actually doing this in person, they are in for a RUDE awakening.

  Just pointing that out because the ConCom apparently doesn’t know.

• Right, the Ringos. They are, hands down, the weirdest awards in comics, with a complex structure designed (at least it’s my reading) to deal with the critiques that jury-nominated awards don’t match up with fan interests, and fan-nominated awards can be gamed by block voting. Thus, there are four entirely different kinds of awards at the Ringos:
  • OPEN+JURY NOMINATED AWARDS: Two nominees will be selected by an open, online nomination process. The remaining three nominees will be selected by a jury of comics industry professionals. A tie among the jury’s choices may result in more than five nominees in a category.
  • OPEN NOMINATED AND VOTED AWARDS: All the nominees and the winner of these five categories will be selected by open voting. The five top Fan-Only Favorites will be announced at the Award Ceremony in September at the Baltimore Comic-Con. A winner in a given year’s Fan Favorite category is not eligible to be nominated in that category the following year.
  • THE MIKE WIERINGO SPIRIT AWARD: The nominated works will be voted on by the professional jury as well as three additional, perennial jurors: Matt Wieringo, Todd Dezago, and Mark Waid.
  • THE HERO INITIATIVE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AND DICK GIORDANO HUMANITARIAN AWARDS: These award are selected by Hero Initiative and will be announced at the Ringo Awards Ceremony.

  It’s only the first cohort that has a proper ballot, as the second is all write-in and the third and fourth are closed processes. Since we spoke yesterday, the Ringos have made public the nominees for the 17 Open+Jury categories, 8 which have five nominees and 9 of which have between 6 and 9 nominees. Folks, this is getting overly complicated already.

  Look, I’m not going to fault the jury for having ties, but when you’re supposed to come up with 3 nominees and you end up with as many as 7, you need to pare that down a little. I’ve been part of a jury process eight times (holy crap), and we’ve had protracted voting rounds to get down to three nominees every single time.

  You’ve got to work it down because if you’ve got eight or nine nominees, you’re going to have a winner with somewhere in the 20% range of votes. It’s a situation tailor-made to get the most excitable, antisocial, attack-oriented chuds (and no, I’m not naming their little hate movement here because fuck those guys) screaming about how the real fans were excluded by secret SJW cabals trying to destroy comics and also tits.

  Anyways, you can find web- and indie comickers up and down the ballot, including in Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist) (which features alternative/political comics makers alongside arthouse comics makers alongside strip cartoonists alongside monthly floppy folks alongside Raina, just in case you were wondering), Best Writer (where you’ll find Mariko Tamaki), Best Artist Or Penciller (including Fleen fave Rosemary Vallero-O’Connell), Best Single Issue Or Story (which includes Hot Comb by Ebony Flowers), Best Original Graphic Novel (Hot Comb again but weirdly this category has essentially zero overlap with the Cartoonist, Writer, and Artist categories in terms of people and their work both being nominated), Best Comic Strip Or Panel (including Nancy by Olivia Jaimes, Sarah’s Scribbles by Sarah Andersen, The Middle Age by Steve Conley, and specifically Pia Guerra’s comics at The Nib but looks like not anybody else), and Best Kids Comic Or Graphic Novel (Guts).

  The Best Webomic category has seven nominees:

  • The Croaking by echorise
  • Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe
  • Fried Rice by Erica Eng
  • Penny Arcade by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins
  • Rocío Diestra by Rocío Diestra
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent by Minna Sundberg
  • SubZero by Junepurr

  The category is dominated that what you’d call graphic novels updated in chunks, with only Penny Arcade following the strip format.

  But the one that’s most unlike the others is Rocío Diestra, which is a) on Instagram (which means I can’t really read it because fuck Zuckerberg), b) single comics panels interspersed with photos and other content, and c) in Spanish. From what I can see, the art style is reminiscent of Gemma Correll, so that’s all right. I’m intrigued and honestly surprised that Americans would nominate something not in English.

If you want to vote on stuff, you can do so here. The winners will be announced on 24 October, but despite what both websites say there is zero chance that this will be a presentation at Baltimore Comic Con.

Spam of the day:

In general, I recently broke up with our mutual friend (if interested, I’ll tell you later when we meet)
Well, now I need a man for hot, but very pleasant meetings.

The only mutual friend we might have that speaks Russian is John, who I knew in college, and who learned to drink from Russians one summer on a work exchange in Orel back before the Berlin Wall came down (and thus was responsible a year later for the single most epic drunk incident at my college in the entirety of the 80s). He’s why I have a genuine Red Army furry hat, which he got in trade for an old, worn-out pair of New Balances I was going to discard. Fun fact: John’s wife doesn’t speak Russian so I think you might be fibbing.

Boy, there’s nothing I like more than comics that give me relevant, actionable information that I can use in everyday life. It might be something for the home (lookin’ at you, Erika and Matt), it might be a delicious new recipe (what up, Saveur magazine?), or it might be tips and tricks for overthrowing an oppressive policing system.

No, really.

Coming at you from (unsurprisingly) The Nib, there’s an entire zine titled Safer In The Streets, full of advice for protecting yourself and others during protests against increasingly violent and irrational police. Highlights include:

• Have you noticed the prevalence of kettling, where cops prevent protesters from moving in any direction and then run out the clock until curfew or a declaration of protest illegality so they can descend with force and arrests? There’s ways to counteract.
• Bike cops! They were supposed to be a kinder, more community-interacting form of policing, but they seem to be overpopulated with hyper-reactive physically-confronting roid rage cases. You can get in their way and prevent them from shaping your march.
• Keeping together, keeping masses of people from being strung out along a march route can keep police from picking off subgroups.
• Directing your de-escalation efforts (this is for you, White People acting as meat shields for BIPOC) at cops instead of protesters is where you can use your privilege.

I’ll note that you can download a B&W or color version of Safer In The Streets for printing (assembly instructions here; all three links are PDFs) and distribution. I’ll also note that this zine is captioned Vol 1, so hopefully we’ll see more in the future, maybe including info about counteracting chemical agents, first aid, communications opsec, and more.

Spam of the day:

Half glass water + THIS = Smaller Belly By Morning

Dude, I am already concave but even if I weren’t, this would still be gross. Stop fat-shaming.

It took all day to find a story that didn’t make me want to despair, but the Eisner nominating committee came through with this year’s nominations. Let’s talk webcomics and indie comics presence, which we’ve seen spreading way outside the two official (and increasingly nebulous) web-adjacent categories. As they’ve been out for less than an hour as I write this, it’s going to be initial impressions, and we’ll go back and revisit in future as warranted.

First thing I noticed: The web is where you find short comics; the five nominees for Best Short Story are dominated by established web properties (Matt Inman at The Oatmeal, Miriam Libicki at The Nib) and places that include comics, but are general-audience magazines (Mira Jacob in Believer, Emma Hunsinger in The New Yorker). Only one of the nominees is in an actual comic comic, Ebony Flowers (Promising New Talent, 2019 Ignatzen) for Hot Comb, which was all over best of lists for last year and which is my pick to take the category.

Second thing I noticed: The category for Best Single Issue/One-Shot is entirely indie producers, with Zainab Akhtar’s Shortbox taking two of the five (Minotäar, by Lissa Treiman and Sobek by James Stokoe). The others are Coin-Op No. 8: Infatuation, by Peter and Maria Hoey, The Freak, by Matt Lesniewski, and Our Favorite Thing Is My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, where the ubiquitous-in-2019 Emil Ferris told a few last stories about My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. Gotta give this one to Treiman or Stokoe, as those are the two I saw last year and they’re both great.

Third Thing I Noticed: The competition in Best Publication For Kids is going to be fierce. It’s got Raina’s latest, of course, but also last year’s Dog Man by Dav Pilkey (the dude’s a machine), New Kid by Jerry Craft, This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews, Akissi: More Tales of Mischief, by Marguerite Abouet and Mathieu Sapin, and The Wolf in Underpants, by Wilfrid Lupano, Mayana Itoïz, and Paul Cauuet. Haven’t seen the last one, but the others are all excellent and I do not envy the judges their task.

Fourth Thing I Noticed: The repeat nominees have been cleaning up earlier awards (particularly the Ignatz last fall), with Hot Comb also nomindated in Best Publication For Teens, alongside Kiss Number 8 (Colleen AF Venable and Ellen T Crenshaw), Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Vallero-O’Connell), Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass (Tamaki again, and Steve Pugh), and Penny Nichols (MK Reed, Greg Means, and Matt Wiegle). For the record, I absolutely could not choose between Kiss and Laura Dean, both of which I adore. Also, one may note that Venable appears as the model of a character in MK Reed’s The Cute Girl Network because excellent people feed off each other’s creativity.

Fifth Thing I Noticed: Comics types not only feed off each other creatively, they sometimes become a hive mind. Best Humour Publication include Sobek and Minotaär, Death Wins A Goldfish (Brian Rea) and The Way Of The Househusband, Vol 1¹ (Kousuke Oono, translated by Sheldon Drzka), but also two very handsome hardcovers by a couple of dudes that last time I saw them, were throwing Stan Lee impressions at each other at warp speed — David Malki ! (Friends You Can Ride On), and Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett (Anatomy Of Authors). David, Dave, love you guys, but I can’t choose between you. I’ll have to give it to Househusband to preserve our friendships.

Sixth Thing I Noticed: Aside from individual stories at The Nib getting all sorts of nominations all over comics awards for the past several years, the print magazine is starting to get notice; issues 2 through 4 (Matt Bors and about five dozen other people) are collectively nominated for Best Anthology.

Seventh Thing I Noticed: If you put together a few zillion pages of comics in a half dozen years, you’re gonna get really good at it; if you were already really good when you started, you’re going to get amazing. Tillie Walden scored three nominations for the magnificent Are You Listening?, for Best Graphic Album — New, Best Writer/Artist, and Best Lettering. I cannot say enough good things about that book, it’s entirely remarkable. And since we’re here, we should note that Raina, Jacob, and Stokoe are also nominated for Best Writer/Artist. That’s gonna be a tough category.

Eighth Thing I Noticed: Original graphic novels sharpen your chops like nobody’s business. Best Writer includes Tamaki again, alongside Reed and Means.

There’s more, I know I’ve missed stuff but it’s getting late and I need to post this. I also know I haven’t talked about the Digital and Webcomic categories because once again I can’t figure out the distinction, but we’ll come back and do that after I’ve had more time to digest.

As a reminder, all comics industry professionals are eligible to vote on the Eisners; results will be announced in July at a time to be announced.

SM20 Countdown for 4 June 2020:
8

_______________
¹ About the meanest member of the yakuza, who gives it up to keep house for his wife.

[Update to add: Okay, closed now, for all of you being awesome.]

The thing you need to know is that Karla Pacheco, self-described Johnny Appleseed of Mary Worth Eats Ass t-shirts, is a terrible person. The living embodiment of questionable decisions and Fireball, she will absolutely bring about the Blood Reckoning and very possibly be the cause of my own death. Just terrible.

She also writes rad comic books¹ and her questionable decisions are something I’d aspire to if I were more courageous. I love her entire deal unreservedly, and never moreso than for the fact that she’s trying her damndest to make the world suck just a little bit less, because post–societal collapse dystopias are only fun (very fun) when they’re pretend.

Because within that walking chaos vortex is a heart the size of the Exxon Valdez:

I feel sick and powerless. My body isn’t much stronger than my bank account, but some things I can do.

I will match all donations up to $2000 dollars.

Even if you can only give $5, I can make it $10 right now.

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd

The Fleen Fight For Fungible Futures Fund is open again. I will match Karla’s contributions on a two-to-one basis, and will extend that 2:1 match, up to US$4000 total, to North Star Health Collective or any other street medic organization².

Post your receipts to Karla’s Twitter (or DM her if you don’t want it public) until she closes down. If she hasn’t hit her limit, mail your receipts to gary at fleen, which is a dot-com. I want to get this money out there, so let’s say we close this one at noon EDT on Wednesday.

Spam of the day:
Nope. Not today.

_______________
¹ Not to mention being the direct inspiration for two webcomic characters: May the AI and Miss Ink.

² Reminder: I am an Emergency Medical Technician and police in Minneapolis and elsewhere have been targeting clearly identifiable medical personnel and aid stations.

Know who else was an EMT? Breonna Taylor. So yeah, even though I should regard all these police violence tragedies equally, I take that one a little more personally.

At its heart, The Nib is all about the politics. Sure, there investigative cartooning going on there, reportage from around the world, commentary on culture and society, but editorial supremo Matt Bors came up from the world of editorial cartooning, and their most memorable stuff has cut straight to the heart of politics.

Thus, six or so years (minus a restart or two here and there), they’re collecting the best of their political cartoons for print, and raising the requisite funds as we speak¹. And check out the talent on tap for this collection:

Take a look at these cartoonists: Pia Guerra, Tom Tomorrow, Jen Sorensen, Ben Passmore, Gemma Correll, Joey Alison Sayers, Matt Lubchansky, Chelsea Saunders, Matt Bors, Rob Rogers, Niccolo Pizarro, Charis JB, Peter Kuper, Emily Flake, and Kendra Wells.

Hold on, we’re not done: Nomi Kane, Mark Kaufman, Keith Knight, Michael Kupperman, Eli Valley, Lauren Weinstein, KC Green, Megs Wolf, John Martz, Ward Sutton, Julia Bernhard, Jon Rosenberg, Ruben Bolling, Terry Laban, and Barry Deutsch! [emphasis original]

On a day when I had more patience, I’d hunt down websites for all those folks and link them. I’ll content myself with Jon Rosenberg on account of he provides my hosting. Pretty sure about 80% of the others are linked in some post or another here on the blog, so search in the box up there to the right and click whatever you find. It’ll work out fine.

Anyway, bunch of great creators, and a top tier that is making a compelling amount of sense — for US$500, you get The Nib print magazine for life; the individual issues are priced at US$15 per (at least, so far) and there’s been as many as four a year (being dropped by First Look last year and then the pandemic have delayed this year’s offerings, but Bors is determined to get back to quarterly). Call it US$60/year for the magazine (which is actually a mechanism to support the daily cartoons because — and we can never say this too often — Bors pays people what they’re worth), or just over eight years worth of print to the break-even point.

I have every confidence that the magazine will continue that long, and it actually makes even more sense for me. My subscription is actually at the US$8/month funding level, or US$96/year. Would The Nib still be around in five years? They’ve been around for longer than that so far, so I figure it’s a good bet. Gonna have to think on that; I’ve been using the stimulus money to buy more comics from more creators than usual; have to decide if spreading it around is as effective as sending it to one place that in turn pays a couple dozen folks.

Anyways, they’ve been funding for about 24 hours, so the FFF mk 2 tells us that their end level is probably going to be in the US$45K to US$67.5K range, safely above the US$30K goal (which they are currently halfway towards). You’ve got another 27 days to get in on it with the rest of us.

Spam of the day:

Save up to $610 on Auto Insurance This Spring

My auto insurer has already sent me checks for more than US$100, on account of the lockdowns have made them assess downwards how much they’re likely to pay out this year, and decided that we needed the money more than they did. They’ve always issued a similar dividend after year end, so I’m pretty confident this is going to continue. You were saying?

_______________
¹ We need a better equivalent to that saying for the current age. I’m not speaking, I bet you aren’t either — Fleen readers have generally demonstrated an ability to read without moving their lips — so it kind of falls apart. I’m typing, you are at some future point reading, maybe we just need to make a reference to observing from the outside, at the as-yet-undetermined state of the Kickstart, like a half-alive cat?

Yeah, I’m a bit punchy today. My students, who have been generally capable this week, suddenly decided to have a big ol’ bowl of stupid flakes on what’s usually the easy day of this class, stumbling from step to step on what’s normally the easiest exercises of the course. Should have been done, 45 minutes in and out, everybody gets an early afternoon. As I write this, we’re past two and a half hours. Grrrrr.

Some new things kicking off, and a very cool thing returning for another go.

• If you’ve read Fleen ever, one indisputable fact will jump out at you: Ryan Estrada doesn’t do things by half measures. We’re on the eve of release of his new collaborative graphic novel, Banned Book Club (co-written by Estrada and his wife, Kim Hyun Sook; art by Ko Hyung-Ju), based on his wife’s experiences in the former South Korean military dictatorship. Not content to rest on any laurels (a mountain of glowing press, and continually-increasing pre-orders of the book count as laurels), Estrada decided to launch his latest project: a podcast of sorts.

  Big deal, I hear you cry, everybody and their dog is startin’ a podcast during quarantimes. To which I reply, a) Estrada’s experience of quarantine is very different from yours and mine, as he and his wife live in Busan, South Korea, which has managed the pandemic better than probably anyplace else on the planet¹ and b) it’s not a podcast. It’s a series of radio plays based on the sequels to A Christmas Carol that Dickens wrote and the world promptly forgot about. Let’s let Estrada tell it himself:

  I’m the new writer/host/director of BeFM Drama!

  I’m turning Charles Dickens’ 22 weird forgotten Christmas Carol sequels into brand new radio plays for Korean radio. Not direct adaptations, but kinda like how Clueless is based on Emma.

  Please enjoy episode 1 of my new radio show!

  This one is about a man who has such a bad day that he wishes he didn’t exist. But he reconsiders his position when he’s tricked into believing he’s already dead.
  https://youtu.be/XFRFP0kkzcs

  Yep, sounds weird. The Riverside Chimes is a bit under 20 minutes, and if you like it, there’s three more stories already posted to the Tubes. And if that doesn’t satisfy you, BeFM Drama has a few dozen audio adaptations of Sherlock Holmes and other classic English language short fiction for your listening pleasure.

• Also kicking off, The Nib is partnering with Reveal, the investigative reporting project from The Center For Investigative Reporting; the new series is called In/Vulnerable, and it’s chronicling the ways that the COVID pandemic is hitting all layers of society, where billionaires are demanding everybody else go back to work with insufficient protections.

  Up today: the story of Manuel, a refugee from Cuba who’s been in prison humane and efficient temporary detention for more than a year, and is watching the threat of the virus creep closer. Whatever your views on immigration, you cannot possibly argue that fleeing a repressive government (it’s even one that Screamy Orange Racist Grandpa hates!) is a crime merits being thrown into inhumane conditions until a deadly disease kills you.

  And if you do argue that? Do me a favor and leave my page and never return. I make it a policy not to consort with sociopaths.

• Lastly, the :01 Books virtual comics show, Comics Relief, has announced sign-ups for its second session:
  

  Comics fans, mark your calendars for Comics Relief: June 2020 on Saturday, 6/6 from 12pm-4pm ET! Click here to register for the next virtual :01 festival: https://bit.ly/2WFlTcs #ComicsRelief

  Four sessions this time, with a discussion of space comics at noon EDT (Maris Wicks! Jim Ottaviani! Alison Wilgus!), a discussion of Maker Comics at 1:00pm (Falynn Koch! JP Coovert! Sarah Myer! Robyn Chapman!), a discussion of documentary comics at 2:00pm (Box Brown! Calista Brill!), and a talk about whatever’s on their minds at 3:00pm (Clint McElroy! Leuyun Pham! Mark Siegel!). Sign up at the link above, and I’ll see you in the conference on the 6th.

Spam of the day:

New project started to be available today, check it out [redacted].com/?renee

I’m including you because you listed out a series of porn genre terms, and one of them was tannie. Assuming this is a new genre based on, I dunno, well tanned people gettin’ it on, okay for giving people what they want I guess?

But if you managed to misspell the derogatory term for trans folks, then you get double my normal dose of contempt, which I assure you is both well merited and considerable.

_______________
¹ Which is what happens when your country demands competency from its leaders, and learned the lessons of the SARS outbreak and determined to never fail in pandemic response again.

By which I mean 2020 is a good year for Matts over at The Nib. First, Matt Lubchansky was the finalist for the Herblock Foundation’s annual prize for editorial cartooning (although the promised gala at the Library of Congress was postponed, perhaps indefinitely, from April due to friggin’ coronavirus), and now Matt Bors has been revealed as a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.

I know it’s traditional to say that it’s an honor just to be nominated, but look at the other names on the ballot: Lalo Alacaraz, Kevin Kallaugher, and winner Barry Blitt have between them dozens of awards, including previous Pulitzer finalists, Herblock Foundation awards, Thomas Nast awards, and others in the US and Europe. Bors himself was a Pulitzer finalist in 2012, and took the Herblock award that same year. It’s a distinguished group, and if Matt & Matt haven’t gotten the actual Big Prize form any of these outfits for their work at The Nib, they’ve got a damn impressive track record of recognition and something maybe more important.

That would be the respect one gets from one’s peers for paying cartoonists for their work. When the news broke yesterday, I could scarcely keep up with the heartfelt congratulations from Nib contributors, because they know that Bors and Lubchansky not only have keen editorial eyes and will give them a place to present their work, but they’ll also provide the cash money that makes cartooning a more viable career.

Speaking of viable careers, here’s a just-released book you might want to check out, from a cartoonist that’s got an body of work like nobody else. Lucas Elliott draws things under the sea. Sometimes that’s a warrior starfish, and sometimes it’s manly mermen. We’re here about the starfish today:

FRIENDS!

I’m happy to finally announce BATTLE STAR #2 is finally available for purchase through my shop!! I had hoped to have these ready for #eccc, but life happens.

Head to my shop, http://lucaselliottart.storenvy.com to get your copy!

#art #comic #storenvy #alaska

The life that happened was, naturally, COVID-19 disrupting the crap out of everything, so his journeys to ECCC and VanCAF (and the commerce that would have happened there) didn’t/ain’t gonna happen. But you can jump in on a comic that has right here (along with some earlier work, it’s all great). If you don’t want to take my recommendation, perhaps you’ll check out his A-Z Star Wars fanart challenge, his Revenge of the Fifth fanart¹, or follow his daily contributions to daily contributions to #MerMay.

And, at some point in the future when we can all get together in groups again, should you meet Elliott in person, do not be scared of his massive beard. He is a gentle sort, and rumors that smaller friends and fans have been devoured by the beard and never seen nor heard from again are almost certainly not true. Probably.

Spam of the day:

We’d like to introduce to you our explainer video service which we feel can benefit your site fleen.com.

Huh. I could spend the US$159 to get a 0-1 minute video telling everybody I’m awesome and also explaining what this “blog” is about, or I could give that money to creators in exchange for their work. Decisions, decisions.

_______________
¹ What can I say, dude likes Star Wars.

Now that it has, we can spend some time rearranging that week in July, be mad for the opportunities lost, and start to move on. And bonus? No hotel rodeo to negotiate this year.

In the meantime, let’s consider some good news:

• The Excellence In Graphic Literature Awards have spent the past couple of days releasing the names of winners, and they’re nearly ready to announce the Book Of The Year. But so far they’ve shared the following:
  • Children’s: Akissi: More Tales Of Mischief by Marguerite Abouet and Mathieu Sapin.
  • Middle Grade (Fiction): White Bird: A Wonder Story by RJ Palacio.
  • Middle Grade (Nonfiction): Guts by Raina Telgemeier.
  • Young Adult (Fiction): Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable and Ellen T Crenshaw.
  • Young Adult (Nonfiction): King Of King Court by Travis Dandro.
  • Adult (Fiction): The Hard Tomorrow by Eleanor Davis.
  • Adult (Nonfiction): A Fire Story by Brian Fies.
  • Mosaic Award: recognizing a work that serves diverse, underserved audiences, Kiss Number 8 by Venable and Crenshaw.
  • Book Of The Year: Not yet announced as of publication time. I’ve been stalling, hopingn they’d announced before I hit Publish but nothing yet. We’ll update when we know; wouldn’t bet against KN8, though.

    Update to add: White Bird by Palacio.

  Congratulations to all the honorees; it’s all terrific work.

• Hey, need something to do this weekend (and yes, it is about to be the weekend)? Matt Bors has you covered. He’s made two print issues of The Nib free to download for the month of April. Specifically, you can get the Family and Empire issues (the second and third of five so far), with comicky goodness from the likes of Alison Bechdel, Emily Flake, Joe Decie, Andy Warner, Keith Knight, Sarah Glidden, Eleri Harris, Kendra Wells, Nomi Kane, Matt Lubchansky, Jon Rosenberg, Gemma Correll

  Paragraph break! That was getting long!

  … Joey Allison Sayers, Ben Passmore, Niccolo Pizarro, Masha Gessen, Whit Taylor, Ellen T Crenshaw, Kasia Babis, Brian McFadden, and more. If you like them and would like to encourage Bors to make more (not to mention getting in on that awesome Nib magazine ink smell), drop by the store and pick up the physical thing.

Okay, see you on Monday with highlights from the :01 Books virtual con that runs tomorrow. Still time to register if you haven’t! But I did just get an email saying that there’s been a huge response and the conferencing solution might actually max out. In which case, wait for somebody else to leave, check out the livestream on the :01 Facebook page, or wait for the recordings to be released. It’s just like an SDCC panel room that gets too full!

Spam of the day:

Why is your website – fleen.com not featured on Google’s first page for most of your keywords?

It is. Get lost.