When last we saw our brave heroes, they were bravely braving the crowds at the San Diego Convention Center, making their way to the webcomic-related panels of the San Diego Comic-Con. We join them now as they bravely begin the weekend….

Saturday

Sunday

Hey, who wants to see panels that are webcomics-themed at SDCC? Everything on this list either came up with the searchable keyword “webcomics”, or my reading of the description indicated that it would be damn interesting to webcomickers, or it’s just so unrelentingly cool that it deserves a mention on its own. But please be aware that not everything with the “webcomics” tag is likely to be recognizable as what readers of this blog consider webcomicky. For instance, consider this:

Marvel Digital Comics…and Beyond! — Since its groundbreaking November 2007 debut, Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited has been all the Internet rage! It’s the greatest collection of Marvel comics ever assembled online and it’s only getting better. Featuring over 6,000 titles with newly digitized comics added every weekday, the site now features its own line of digital-first exclusive comics. Members of the Marvel Digital Media Group will tell you all about the state of Marvel digital comics, casual games, original streaming video and the future of Marvel’s ever-growing digital endeavors. Room 6DE

… which refers to Marvel scanning old back issues and putting them up behind a subscription wall. Yep, it got tagged as “webcomics”. I’ll be chopping down the descriptions to something less breathless, and if I feel the need to comment further, [I’ll do so in an editor’s note]. Naturally, there are probably omissions and you should feel free to point out other sessions (full listing here) in the comments.

Thursday

Friday

That’s all for now; come back tomorrow for the weekend programming.

Is it a nice day where you are? It’s freakin’ gorgeous out, and after the very wet spring that we had in the northeast of ‘Merica, it might be the first really-damn-nice day of the year. On really-damn-nice days, the last thing I want to do is parse the schedule for SDCC to figure out which program sessions labelled “webcomics” actually have anything to do with webcomics, so we’ll come back to that tomorrow. In the meantime, have some notices about upcoming events.

• PHILADELPHIA! Brian “Box” Brown brings the Bellen bandwagon to the burlesques of the Philadelphia Dr Sketchy’s event this Friday. Can any event advertised under the tagline DAMES, DRINKING, & DRAWING be bad? I think not.
• NEW JERSEY! It’s the third Saturday of the month coming up, and that means that the latest iteration of New Jersey Webcomic Chaos descends on the unsuspecting library of Rutgers University — given that the university community is sad that a planned presidential visit got scrubbed in favor of a larger outdoor venue, this should act as a balm for those who felt deeply the disappointment of fun being cancelled on campus. Contact New Jersey webcomic stalwart Onezumi for details.
• BALTIMORE! THURSDAY THURSDAY THURSDAY! Born of the crucible of the Iron Artist event at Katsucon, Super Art Fight is the webcomics equivalent of THE OCTAGON (GON gon gon … ). Artist will meet artist in a duel to deaaaath!!

  Sorry — mic was turned up too loud. As I was saying, Super Art Fight is, if not the artistic equivalent of bloodsports, at least a full-bore live performance art / rock show with elements of graffiti artwork, improv comedy and wrestling-style drama all rolled into one. Check out last year’s show, and this year’s promos.

  The fourth show kicks off at The Ottobar on Thursday night, as a sort of slam-dance aperitif to the Otakon festivities that start Friday. Expected for the mayhem fun are founders Nick Borkowicz and Marty Day, Jamie Noguchi, and Ross Nover, along with combatants Chris Impink, Garth Graham, Yuko Ota, Ananth Panagariya, and Mohammad Haque, Michael Bracco, Jamie Baldwin, Brian Prindiville and Darren Gendron, and much more. Catch the chaos!

You may have seen the list of SDCC programming events went up late last week, but did you notice that this year the programming is searchable by keyword? Some of what shows up under keyword webcomics is stretching the definition a bit, but we’ll run a list of sessions likely to be of interest to webcomickers a bit later this week. In the meantime, some things to keep you occupied:

• Book four of Digger has gone to press, and can be in your hands in consideration of a small amount of money. Two tranches of signed copies will go on sale here at 8:00am and 8:00pm CDT (UTC-5) on Wednesday.
• In case you didn’t see the picture I tweeted from the book launch party Saturday afternoon, Jon Rosenberg’s newest tchochke is in the prototype stage and should be available at SDCC. “Doughboy” courtesy Goats, Chris Yates, and Nikki “Bride of The Dreamcrusher” Rice.
• Some of you may have seen the announcement in Shaenon Garrity’s Livejournal earlier today, but I was conflicted about bringing the news up, lest a deluge wash away her husband, Andrew Farrago, aka curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. However, Mr Farrago assures me he can handle a flood or two, so read on if you’d like to be part of a museum exhibit on webcomics:
  

  The Cartoon Art Museum explores the digital revolution in its latest exhibition, Monsters of Webcomics, a showcase of some of the best and boldest work published on the World Wide Web.

  Cartoonists choose to work on the Web for many reasons. For some, it’s an opportunity to reach readers directly without going through editors, publishers, or syndicates. For others, it’s a chance to explore the artistic possibilities of the Web, whether that means working in a format that would be impossible in print, tackling subject matter most comic-book publishers won’t handle, or taking advantage of the rich palette available with digital coloring. Others simply want to share their comics with as many people as possible.

  The comics by the ten artists featured in this exhibition run the gamut from four-panel comic strips to full-length graphic novels and include comedy, drama, history, science fiction, and sociopolitical commentary. As varied as this work is, however, it represents only a very small sample of the comics available on the Web.

  If you are a webcartoonist and would like to participate in the virtual gallery component of this historic exhibition, please e-mail C.A.M. Curator Andrew Farago at gallery [at] cartoonart dot org.

  Let’s be perfectly clear — the roster of featured artists is set, anybody that emails to say Me! Me! Over here, pick me! and is accepted will be part of the online presentation only. That being said, your reputation could do worse than for your name to be found via future Google search in proximity to Jesse Reklaw, Kate Beaton, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Dorothy Gambrell, Nicholas Gurewitch, Jenn Manley Lee, Dylan Meconis, Chris Onstad, and Spike.

  So if you think that in that august company your webcomic need not feel ashamed, by all means drop the museum and line and make yourself known. It’s a big world out there, webcomics, and your strip is a part of it.

‘Nother day, ‘nother book goes up for pre-order — Starslip volume 3 this time — and Topatoco scores another client. Honestly, it might be easier these days to tell you when Topatoco doesn’t pick up a prominent webcomic as a client. Understand I’m firmly of the opinion that Topatoco is one of the best thngs that a webcomics creator not determined/business skilled/time-blessed enough to run their own merch line can have in their corner, and I’m still surprised by how rapidly (yet smartly) they’ve grown.

I’m really wondering how long it will be before a boutiuqe internet-creator merchandise company becomes a legit media company with a reach and influence equivalent to, say, Dark Horse. Best guess? Five to ten years. Three years if Jeff and Holly can find somebody to keep Weedmaster P occupied. I think I’m going to have to ply them with liquor in San Diego and see what I can get them to commit to on the record.

In other news — and if I’m asked about this in the future, I will deny it all — reports now indicate that a major trove of intelligence data are nearly compiled, and should be complete in less than a week. The shadowy (perhaps fictional, perhaps they only want you to think he’s fictional) operative known as Agent Eben07 has been linked with a dossier of information dating back more than 40 years that could have lasting impact on the world’s geopolitical situation. All are encouraged to … did you hear that? Listen carefully — burn everything, and I was never here! The one-eyed dog barks at midnight! The one-eyed dog barks at mi~~

See, today was going to be easy. The last twelve hours brought the announcement of two webcomics book-launch parties, which combined with reminders one already in the news would give me a post that writes itself. Quick compare and contrast (slightly grimy basement bar with vengeful barmaids vs. Preview Night party at San Diego Comic Con complete with DJ vs. the beautifulest of the Hollywood beautiful people sipping effortlessly elegant drinks by a fire), throw in an offhand title about how there ain’t no party like a webcomics book-launch party (why yes, I am the whitest guy on the planet, thanks for asking), boom, finished.

Add a quick addendum about how (speaking of San Diego Comic Con) Alice Bentley is again compiling a list of webcomickers in attendance (and since nobody’s mailing me their info to run, Alice is once again our best resource … please drop a comment in her LJ) and we can all get on with our day.

Then John Allison had to go and get all newsworthy:

This is a brief announcement to say that Scary Go Round will be ending in September. The eighth collection will be the last. Goodbye is the final story. I’m sure a lot of you had worked this out already.

Well, shit.

If your claw-like fingers are rending your clothes to rags as we speak, I would ask you to be calm. I have a new project in mind and, like the transition from Bobbins to Scary Go Round back in 2002, it won’t all be new, all different. I could probably have got away with making the change with no fanfare at all and kept the name the same.

Oh, well that’s all right then.

I don’t want to talk about my new project yet as it would spoil the current story, but you can rest assured that there will be plenty that you recognise about it. I’m not sure about the exact end date of Scary Go Round, and there may be something transitional in between, but expect no interruption in service.

I take great pleasure from entertaining and surprising people, writing and drawing are a continual source of joy to me and I will endeavour to do both for as long as I am able.

I actually left a bit out from what Allison wrote, about the economics of webcomics and how the landscape has changed for even one of the long-respected exemplars of the genre. All those who take interest in this medium and its vagaries will find it required reading.

Maybe on the event itself, but the discussion rages on.

Firstly, I’ve received helpful communiques from both Xaviar Xerexes and Lore Sjöberg on the matter of case law. X-man (who, unlike myself, is a lawyer) shares that there’s plenty of case law on Fair Use and threatens his already-stretched family time with the notion of putting together a primer on the topic. Sjöberg helpfully pointed me towards Dr Suess Enterprises v Penguin Books USA, which both corrects my belief that there isn’t case law concerning third-party parody, and settled the question against such being protected by Fair Use.

But the more interesting communication came last night (well after deadline) from Kelsey Armstrong, identified as the infringing party. An excerpt you may find enlightening:

I already appologized to Scott Johnson yesterday right after I saw what happened. I had no intention to rip anyones work off … I just started making shirts and stuff for some fun. Every now and then I would find stuff on google and just post it. I googled “geek” and came up with 56 Geeks. Not bothering to check where I got it from for the owner, any copyrights, etc., I just naively took it from google and posted it….

Like I said, I apologized to Scott for this whole thing and he seemed to understand where I was coming from. I was just being stupid with the power google gave me.

Salient points: it was more from a lack of understanding than from design practices that encourage the rapid development of visuals without regard to origin (cf: “artists” who pay others to come up with designs for them, then produce the work in question for large dollar figures; figures as notable as Todd Goldman engage in this practice) that caused this situation, and Ms Armstrong realizes her mistake.

I feel really stupid for this whole thing, and … although many people seem to think of me as the biggest asshole on the planet, I hope at least you can see me differently, as I hope Scott Johnson does now that I have emailed him. And no, I wont be a repeat offender lol.

Just a thought here, take it as you will. Ms Armstrong has learned a valuable lesson, and it’s one that I think a lot of teens can stand to learn at that age: the ability to recognize when you do something dumb is a valuable life skill. Anybody that’s tossing barbs towards her might do well to remember what idiot things they did at that age (I you don’t look back to that age and realize that you did dumb stuff, you’re fooling yourself) and back off. It took some considerable courage to:

• Contact and apologize to Scott Johnson
• Resolve the situation so quickly
• Reply to my email with a sense of responsibility and desire to do the right thing

In some ways, it would have been much easier for Ms Armstrong to be a defiant jerk all around, and that would make it easy for all of us to dogpile on and hate her. As it is, let’s agree to chalk this one up to a mistake, and at least take the comfort that the example may teach others the lesson about what you can ethically and legally sell, and what you can’t. In the long view, this turned out pretty well all around.

So, it all started a bit less than 20 hours ago (as of this writing): Scott Johnson of Extralife noticed a Zazzle store (it’s kind of like CafePress, except they can also print postage stamps) was selling a mug and a mousepad (and possibly other items) that lifted the art from his 2007 print, The 56 Geeks.

Word spread rapidly, as it is wont to do on Twitter. The store in question led to minor information about the proprietor, which led to a MySpace page and eventually a store page with contact info (note that depending on your browser settings, that last page may either immediately roll over to Zazzle, or just close). A sample of that store page, to give you an idea what we’re dealing with:

Here at Poison Art, YOU are what matters. The loyal customer, the one who appreciates the genious [sic] behind the artwork. At Poison Art we are all about supplying you with some of the most random, but most attention grabbing shirts, shoes, accesories, and more. There is no real theme to our products, just COOLNESS, so that you too can be cool. We are fairly new, and still getting ourselves organized, so the products are especially random at this point in time, but please, bear with us! When we get more products out there, it will be easier to sort through and create more understandable categories of merchandise.

If you would like to navigate our zazzle site, you can go directly through that link above, or use the quick links below. Hope you enjoy =)

-Poison Art Designer- Kelsey Armstrong

Okay, so Kelsey Armstrong is not so much of a “genious”, not much of a designer, and 18/F according to MySpace. Given that teens with access to the internet aren’t always up on the latest in intellectual property ethos, I sent a quick email (address withheld; no need to abuse the girl):

I followed some links at Zazzle to get this contact address. There appears to be a remarkable similarity between a design that you are selling and a print by webcomic artist Scott Johnson of “Extralife”. Any comment?

No reply as of this writing (about 19 hours), but as of 15 hours ago, the offending designs had been removed from the Zazzle store without comment. Contacted for comment, Johnson replied:

I get so disenchanted with “the system” when stuff like this happens, but then I remember, the system is a great big chaotic freak show, and I am lucky I don’t find that sort of thing every day. :)

What is it exactly that makes people think that because they found content created by someone else online, that they really liked, they have license to use it as if it were their own and sell things based
on it? It seems completely insane to me. For example, it’s one thing to share songs online with other people, it is another thing entirely to sell CD’s, t-shirts using other people’s music.

At this time it’s unknown whether Ms Armstrong actually made any money off of Johnson’s design (and it’s probably safe to assume that the use of Johnson’s work was more from ignorance of how artists rights work than from actual malice aforethought, thus we are unlikely to see her as a repeat offender), but we can at least take some lessons away from this:

• Regardless of law, policy, or common courtesy, it will in all practical respects be up to the owners of IP to hunt down those who would appropriate from them.
• The willingness of people to back their favorite creators and take appropriators to task means that time from discovery to resolution is shrinking. The Great Todd Goldman/Dave Kelly Contretemps Of Aught-Seven took 30 days to shake out (from first report to press release that everything was settled).

  The Great Jess Fink/Hot Topic Unpleasantness of Aught-Eight took 11 days. This one took about five hours from discovery to resolution, and hopefully each time we go through this, the word leaks out a little more — take inspiration, but draw your own goddamned art if you’re going to sell it.

• We desperately need some case law to settle exactly what constitutes “Fair Use”; clearly, any reasonable reading of current US law (those of you in less freedom-loving countries are on your own, and in any event, I Am Not A Lawyer) would say that you can’t just life an image and sell it as if it’s yours. But what of transformations, or visual quoting? I’m thinking here of Jeff Rowland’s Internet design, which got a C&D from the photographer that originally captured the image now known as the ORLY owl.

  Personal opinion, Rowland’s design quoted the owl (and ceiling cat, and the general look and feel of the Ouija board), but in the service of commenting on/parodizing general internet culture, which is Fair Use. Or it’s not. There’s zero case law on third-party parody (c.f.: Penny Arcade and American Greetings) and we need it settled; unfortunately, the way to get case law is to first have a case, which means somebody gots to get sued.

In any event, this situation has resolved itself quickly enough (and about as well as could be possibly expected), so let’s call it done. Barring a repeat from Ms Armstrong, it doesn’t even require the coining of a The Great ____ of Aught-Nine to enshrine it in the annals of webcomics.

Quick addition to yesterday’s item on Xeric winners with award work online — although I didn’t find it, Alexander Danner pointed out that Tymothi Godek‘s “!” was published online in its entirety, and that the thumbnails for “!” may be found online (Blogspot and Livejournal flavors), along with a writeup of what “!” is about. Fleen regrets the omission.

Know what’ll perk you up today? NUNFIGHT! Okay, very little to do with webcomics (aside from the fact that this little gem ran on The Sound Of Young America, which is very webcomic–friendly, and that it’s crying out for webcomickers to draw their impressions of the battlin’ nuns — that’s right, I’m calling for a meme to get started here), but dang is it funny.

Okay, webcomics:

• Ima come right out and say it: one of the highlights of my day is Skin Horse, because what can possibly be wrong about a webcomic that deals primarily with paranormal-managing government bureaucrats who subtly recall the less-well-known Oz books and gets regularly cranked up to about 14 on the Insane-o-Meter? Unstoppable zombies, talking dogs, killer robots, crystalline entities, baby cobras that only want hugs, opera-loving silverfish, a likely-undiagnosed-Asperger’s brain transplanted into a military airframe, and a transvestite psychologist who bags all the babes?

  And it’s drawn by Shaenon Garrity, the one person able to compete with Ryan North for the title of Nexus of All Webcomics Realities? The first year’s worth of strips are collected into a book which is now set for pre-order and it is worth your time and money so much that it hurts.

• Everybody saw that the latest round of Xeric Grant awardees got announced last week, right? It’s not always the case that the Xeric winners have been sharing their work online (either before or after the grant), but in this crop it appears that Adam Bourret and Joshua Smeaton have made their work available for your perusal. Please enjoy Bourret’s I’m Crazy and Smeaton’s Haunted.
• Do you know any DJs in San Diego? Tweet @topatoco if you like to work parties.

Can you feel the America-ness?

• Melting pot: Tails has recently relaunched as a webcomic; written and illustrated by Ethan Young, it was a 3 issue print comic that originally debuted in late 2005, detailing the semi-autobiographical misadventures of Ethan, a young, quirky Asian vegan living with his parents while struggling to become a cartoonist. The web version features an updated and re-edited version of the original story, along with new stories.
• Freedom: Comico was one of the original upstart comics publishers back in the 80s; in its day, it published a lot of comics by creators that are today well-known talents (most notably, Matt Wagner’s MAGE and Grendel). Then they went away. But now former Comico partners and publishers, Bill Cucinotta and Gerry Giovinco are taking another shot at the whole crazy game, utilizing the free and open spaces of the web.

  CO2 Comics is structured less like a traditional webcomics collective, more like a dead-tree publisher, and appears to clearly treat updates as placeholders on the way to print publication but still — very interesting. And any website that can get me fresh Bernie Mirault? That’s worth a look.

• Commerce: Jimbo (I think I’m genetically predisposed to like anybody that actually goes by “Jimbo”) Hillin’s Wireheads is ramping up for San Diego, complete with a new book at Lulu and a promise of much swag available in return for your banknotes at the convention.
• Public service: J Baird of the Create A Comic Project is rolling into Otakon in a couple of weeks, and will be running sessions on Make A Manga! (room: Workshop 2). First session runs Friday the 17th from 4:00 to 6:00pm and the second on Saturday the 18th from noon to 2:00pm. Baird’s bringing along creators Kittyhawk and Erin Ptah, and would welcome the participation of any webcomickers who happen to be around.