So I’m picking up comics yesterday, getting ready to enjoy the hell out of Box Brown‘s Love Is A Peculiar Type Of Thing when I notice it on the wall behind the registers: the DVD of Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Yes! Having seen Joss Whedon as the special musical guest at the recent This American Life movie theater event, I couldn’t wait to hear Commentary! The Musical. Okay, change of plans — read LIAPTOT on the train home (a trifle rushed, but one must), and then the DVD goes in.

Except Erika Moen ruined it.

Waiting for me at home was a copy of her new book: DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary Volume One. I had resigned myself to not getting a copy until SPX, when I could look Moen in the eye, thank her for her awesome work, and maybe get a sketch. And she went and made all that unnecessary with her very kind gift, complete with a sketch that’s beyond awesome in its moustachery. I’m still gonna get a copy from her at SPX, because I know this is a book that, when lent to others, comes back late and in significantly more worn condition. The next copy will be the loaner, this one is mine and you can’t have it.

But now — no Dr Horrible for me. Sad face lasted about twelve seconds until I realized this meant that I now had two diary-style collections in front of me, and the opportunity to look at them both at my leisure was overwhelming.

Both LIAPTOT and D:ASGTSCDV1 tell the stories of their creators, but they come at those stories from different perspectives. Box Brown’s work is filtered through the perspective of Ben, who isn’t Box, but isn’t quite not-Box; there’s a nice one-pager in the book (from which the cover image is taken) that talks about how the fictional character Ben had things more together than the real Box — in love, sober, happier.

And it talks about how Box is becoming Ben. The character that started as not quite so much a stand-in for the creator and more of a metaphor is possibly the real-er of the two, or at least of the unseen Box Brown that speaks with a disembodied voice throughout the book. By the end of the book (and its slow, fits-and-starts progress towards the realization that all of us are just making life up as we go along), it’s tough for me to decide whether Box or Ben is the metaphor.

At times, the journey is melancholy, at times it’s guarded, at times it’s revealing or hopeful, and it gets a zillion bonus points for appropriating a Frank Zappa lyric for a comic title. It’s a masterful piece of introverted storytelling, and if more people (not just comics creators) were able to look at themselves and tell these kinds of stories, we’d probably have fewer therapists and social workers.

In contrast, D:ASGTSCDV1 works from a fundamentally an extroverted point of view; while Erika Moen does talk a great deal about what makes her tick, I think it’s fair to say that hers is a story of living in your skin rather than in your mind. Her comics celebrate experiences, whether they’re happy or sad, miserable or joyous, simple or complicated, and (recurringly) sensual in every meaning of the word.

Moen wants you to know how much she’s attracted to women and (confusingly at first) one guy. She wants you to know that she burps, farts, bleeds, and poops. She has sex, she has compulsions, and strippers dig her. Above all, she has a life that is sometimes good, sometimes bad, and always met head-on in a full-bore attack that says Show me what you’ve got, and I’ll show you mine.

In lesser hands, it would be too revealing, too narcissistic, too much like watching unavoidble “reality stars” go on and on about themselves. From Moen, it feels like you’re sitting next to your most energetic friend, the whirlwind that doesn’t sit still before she starts in on the caffeine, and she wants to tell you about her day and hear about yours and don’t leave out the good stuff.

Reading D:ASGTSCDV1 is likely to leave you slightly out of breath, like you’ve been on a really good roller coaster called The Erikanator, and as luck would have it, there’s no line so you can go ride again. Oh, and Erika? Damn right, twinsies! Rest of you, don’t worry about it — she knows what I’m talking about.

MoCCA Updates!
Press access has come through, so in addition to everything mentioned previously this week, I’ll be able to see:

• Darren J. Gendron: table 410
• The Timony Twins: table 332
• Transmission X: tables 708 and 709 (everybody tell Cameron Stewart how awesome Seaguy was)
• Johanna Draper Carlson, Heidi MacDonald, Rick Marshall, and other fellow pixel-stained wretches, wherever we may be; maybe we ought to set a place to meet, guys?

Finally, there was one other item in my mailbox yesterday — a notice that the post office needs my signature so that I may claim THIS.

Notice in my mailbox that a parcel is awaiting my signature at the post office … a parcel from Ryan North, containing the only thing better than a grappling hook. Hell, yes.

Keith Knight cuts to the chase, re: syndicated cartoonists and indy/web cartoonists.

MoCCA updates:

• L Nichols of Jumbly Junkery will be at table 328 and Chris Andersen of The Ego and the Squid will be at table 221; see yesterday’s post below the cut for a more extensive list of exhibitors/tables
• NERD Comics have a portion of their table available; direct message @breegeek on Twitter if you’re interested in showing, couldn’t get a table, and can help cover the table fees
• Floor map of the Armory here; the RED ZONE is for loading and unloading only, please do not loiter in the RED ZONE.

Mailbag!

• John Woakes wrote:
  

  I have a little pet project where I put up a webcomic every hour on my site. I have been collecting my favourite web comics for some time. My collection is all over the map. Check it out.

  Checked. Seems to mostly be single-panel gag strips culled from the syndicate websites (each comic I’ve noticed so far today has been from GoComics, a division of Andrews McMeel. Woakes provides full credit and links to the originals, and appears to host the images himself instead of bandwith-leaching.

  Of course, the comics are presented without the context of their home sites, but the random factor does seem to up the chances of serendipitously coming across something that otherwise would have been unknown. Comments on the legality/ethics of this welcome below.

• Kent Vaughn wrote:
  

  I started creating my webcomic Mixed Brood about 6 months ago and have compiled a small archive of around 60 or so comics. I feel like I’m now starting to get the hang of it and improving with each one (which is the goal I guess right?).

  Okay, this shouldn’t be taken as an invitation for every new webcomicker to ask me for full feedback — I get a zillion such requests. But Kent used the magic words with me (and, having used them up, they won’t work in the future — sorry, find your own angle): I feel like I’m now starting to get the hang of it and improving. I don’t think that any comic has launched hitting on all cylinders from day one unless the creator was already crazy experienced — that first six-months-to-a-year is where the most radical improvements are likely to come in.

  And I can see those improvements in Vaughn’s work. Reading from the beginning, I was thinking something about Mixed Brood remarkably similar to what Brigid Alverson wrote yesterday at CBR (she was writing about Zudaentries, but it applies here, and in many, many webcomics):

  Each Zuda page includes a space for a text-only synopsis, and that is where I would often find finely crafted, intricately thought out backstories and alternate universes.

  Unfortunately, that’s not where they belong. They belong in the comic.

  Too often, I see elaborate descriptions of characters that don’t seem to relate to what’s actually in a comic. In Mixed Brood, the three characters (a dog, a goose, another dog) have bios, but didn’t seem to have much in the way of distinguishing characters at first — but that’s changing, especially in the case of Flash, who’s developing what can only be described as a lazily cruel streak. He’s distinguishing himself from the other dog, Barney (who has a bit of Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel in his visual design but as there’s a lot of Groening in all the character designs, I can’t always tell Flash and Barney apart in a quick scan), and is starting to come into his own.

  The joke constructions are starting to tighten up nicely, and Vaughn has even pulled off a rare successful post-punchline extra laugh line, which almost always fails no matter who attempts it. That’s easily a 7.8 on the difficulty scale, and he nailed it. And pleasingly, Vaughn isn’t afraid to set his strip someplace definite, instead of the usual and nebulous a house, somewhere. These critters are Canadian, and prominently so.

  Is it a new masterpiece, a nascent classic that everybody will be studying in the future? Not yet. Maybe someday. But it’s improving, and Vaughn is conscious about trying to make every strip better than the one before, and that’s good enough for now.

With the tax permit thing behind us, anticipation for the MoCCA Art Fest is beginning to take on serious momentum. Although we don’t have a floor map of exhibitors (and to be fair, not every convention does that), we do have a list of webcomickers who now know their table assignments and have shared them with us below the cut. We will update the list as we hear from more creators.

Update to add: new info!
Speaking of MoCCA, Neil Swaab will be premiering his new Rehabilitating Mr Wiggles book (that would be #3) at the show; after the weekend, it will be available via Amazon and some comics stores in New York and California, starting on 1 July. If you want it before then, your only real option is to buy directly from Swaab’s store or come see him in person this weekend.

Finally, don’t forget to Drink and Draw Like a Lady, if you are a) a lady, who likes to b) drink and c) draw. Dudes, you will have to find a way to contain their disappointment at not being ladies once again.

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When not busy crushing dreams, David Malki ! apparently busies himself by totally dominating webcomics news for random weekends, such as the one just past.

• You got your new, live-interactive podcast with Kris Straub.
• You got a promotional tie-in for fans of The Sound of Young America.
• You got the revelation of portending disaster at this weekend’s MoCCA Art Fest, leading to a flurry of investigation, hypothesizin’, resolution of sorts, and root cause analysis. Come to the 69th Regiment Armory this weekend and see if Mr Malki ! is hauled away by revenue agents of the state government. I’ll be there with my camera.

In a rare piece of non-Malki ! related happenings over the weekend, Ryan North (who, okay, partnered with Malki ! in that last exchange) has now covered all your grappling needs. Seriously, this is like the untold story of when Indiana Jones met MacGyver and their secret love child is an enormous Canadian.

Okay, really non-Malki ! related, I have one word for you. One. Word. It will bring a smile to your face, or you are dead and soulless inside. And that word is: Spacemonauts. Wednesday cannot come soon enough.

Shall we talk milestones? Yes, I believe that we shall.

• Twisted Musings, Australia’s finest in single-panel-gag webstrippery, has just hit 300 updates and two years without blowing deadline even once. Woo! Similarly, Business Casual just passed six years of funny-bringing. Congrats to creators Jason Frazer and Joe Combs.
• Of course, some people aren’t satisfied with just one creative endeavour. Case in point: AP. Furtado has variously produced ‘TWEEN and Elf ‘n’ Troll, both of which simply ooze a Vaughn Bodé aesthetic (complete runs of which are now available in non-electronic form).

  But now Furtado’s got a new webcomic, with a very different feel: Major Tom eschews the wizardy/fantasy feel of the earlier works and goes straight into space with a nod to Jodorowsky, Moebius, and all those cool Métal Hurlant stories that somehow seemed less classy when translated to Heavy Metal.

  Right now, chapter one is up and chapter two is pending, with an update schedule of “whole chapters go up at once”. That means it’ll be timed irregularly, but you’ll get a nice big chunk of story all at once — fair tradeoff if you ask me.

So, do you read Mark Evanier‘s stuff? He’s been in various parts of the comics/animation/TV/you name it industries for longer than a lot of you have been alive. He’s a consummate storyteller, and very, very funny. He’s also scary-smart, in that way you only become after having seen a lot of mistakes (some of them yours) played out in front of you. I’ve been reading his stuff for a long-damn-time.

But Krishna Sadasivam linked to a piece of Evanier’s that I hadn’t read in way too long, and it’s too good not to share. In fact, if the only thing Evanier had ever written was The Speech, he’d still be one of the smartest observers of the entertainment biz that’s ever lived. If you’re creative, dream of being creative, or really do anything of any sort whatsoever, and want to break into your Dream Job, you need to read it. Don’t worry that it’s nearly ten years old on the web (and far older if you know Evanier in person) — it’s timeless.

• MoCCA information is coming fast and furious these days — an exhibitor list is now up (webcomics-related types include ACT-I-VATE, various Dumbrellites, Comics Bakery, Lucy Knisley, Kate Beaton, David Malki !, Spike, Meredith Gran, various New Jersey reprobates Canadians tall dudes, New Zealand expats, and viewers like you), and programming information is below the cut. My apologies to anybody I might have missed — too many names on that page. Also of interest is a new piece of information this year — where to eat in the neighborhood (although it’s on the same page as the sure-to-be-horrifying news that there is no WiFi at the venue).
• And for those of you who like awesome comics, please join me in wishing Digger creator Ursula Vernon a very happy birthday.

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Remember what I said yesterday about getting to know new webcomics? Got that in spades today. First up, a missive from Elan’ Rodger Trinidad who wrote:

I’m an Eisner Nominee for Best Digital Comic

Quick pause here — Trinidad’s nomination is for Speak No Evil (subtitled Melancholy of a Space Mexican) and it’s some really great work. The story is imaginative and compelling, and the art reminds me of reading third-hand, months-old issues of 2000 A.D. back in the late ’80s. It’s less than 40 pages long, and you should go read it now. I’ll wait.

Back? Okay, good. On with the email:

and I just wanted to share with you my newest project: God™- (the abridged title).

Me again. The full title is God™-^©2xx8 [blurred] Incorporated. All rights reserved. God and all related characters, titles, names and documents are trademarks of [blurred] Incorporated. No similarity between any of the names, characters, persons and/or institutions in this deity with those of any living or dead person or institutions is intended and any such similarity which may exist is purely coincidental. Keep an eye on where it says [blurred] and be prepared to read between the lines:

Some day the intellectual property of God will be owned by a media, entertainment, and theme park corporation that rhymes with “Malt Crispy”. The Apocalypse is looming and it’s up to Reverend Joeb Kim, an ordained minister in the Sacred Order of Accounting, to stop it.

Trinidad says he’s going for a Hitchhiker’s Guide vibe, and he pretty much succeeds in conveying the absurdism you’d find in the Nerd Bible, but his corporate satire is sharper than what Douglas Adams wrote. I’m picking up overtone vibes of Snow Crash and Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!; just check out the sequence where our hero has to decide whether to order the Very Large Coffee Franchise‘s new offering, Dirt in Hot Waterâ„¢ … or decaf. Click forward for the next few pages and revel in the adspeak. This is the sort of satire that is designed on a genetic level to appeal to me.

By the way, webcomic creators are eligible to vote for the Eisners. I know your money is on Carla Speed McNeil, but if this news about webcomic creators voting is new to you and you want to let everyone know it on your blog, at least do me a favor and do a fair review on one of my comics.

Done, and done! Trinidad’s right that my non-existant vote is for Carla Speed McNeil, but if you’re eligible to vote give Speak No Evil all due consideration because it’s damn good (and slightly nightmarish) work. And God™? Going to be keeping a very close eye on this one — I get the feeling that when Trinidad sets his sights on a target ripe for ridicule, his Wacom stylus transforms into something like a surgical scalpel grafted onto a blunt weapon. A+++++ WOULD TAUNT LARGE CORPORATE ENTITIES AGAIN.

Speaking of new strips, may I point you to Much the Miller’s Son? Think Groo the Wanderer starring one of the minor characters of the Robin Hood legend, with an art style that crosses Aragones with ’70s-era Peyo; right now it seems that the links to the first chapter (The Good, The Bad, and Much), but the second chapter (The Archery Contest) is a real treat, so please enjoy. The site’s been a little wonky for me, but that may be a side effect of the massive re-tweeting it got yesterday.

Okay, so that’s three webcomics you have to get caught up on or we can’t be friends. You didn’t have anything important to do at work today, did you? Awesome.

First Krishna Sadasivam, then Onezumi & Harknell — one more webcomicker in a motor vehicle accident, and it’ll officially be a meme with its own Livejournal page. Remember kids — always buckle up and assume that everybody else on the road is a suicidal idiot without the least idea how to operate a vehicle and thus best given a wide berth.

Happier thoughts: Johanna Draper Carlson has a copy of Erika Moen‘s new book, and has reviewed it up better than I ever could. Also, I am a lazy, lazy man who hasn’t gotten around to ordering a copy of DAR volume one yet despite my clear instructions that you do so. Lame excuse: I prefer buying things directly from artists when I can; it’s much more enjoyable that interacting with Mr PayPal … but really I just keep forgetting, and will likely forget again until I actually see Moen and stacks of the book in front of me. Unfortunately, she and I will likely not be in the same place at the same time before SPX. On the plus side, this means that I will probably have forgotten the much better reviews of DAR by then, and can write about it myself in good conscience.

One of the nicer side-effects of banging out this vaguely informative prose each day is that I get exposed to a lot of new webcomics. A lot a lot, and while many don’t grab me (or fold between me getting the email and slotting them into the posting schedule), some grow and thrive and hit milestones of success. There’s an almost indefineable quality to some of these webcomics, where you can almost see the satisfaction that their creators derive from doing them. So let me point you towards one of those today, which hit a milestone recently:

Ravilob, the little town that awesome built, turned a year old recently. In that time, it’s grown from a four panel black and white humor comic to a full page in color; it’s not the most polished art or most complex story you’re going to see, but both are developing nicely and creator Casey Williams is clearly pushing himself to improve his first attempt at an ongoing comic. And there ain’t a damn thing wrong with that.

Emergency cookout at my place, so you get something really brief, those three of you actually reading this.

• Erfworld goes double-size, with an end-of-book strip encapsulating a significant moment. Nice job, all around guys. It’s currently here, but will soon be in the archives here.
• Also, if you were to ask me who my very favorite webcomics character is RIGHT NOW, I think I’d have to say Fuschia Devil-Girl. Yesterday’s Sinfest was an absolute treat.

I have two brief stories to tell you, and they intersect in a way that’s been turning over in my head of late; time to get the ideas out where they can play in the sunshine.

I saw something at a comics show (no names, but it was a big one) that’s bugged me ever since — a pretty famous comic book illustrator (pencilling, covers, you name it) for the Big Two was showing/selling pages and originals from this comics work, and had a steady stream of fans wanting to talk about how great his work was and how much they loved it. He also had some art there from a side project — a webcomic, all his, not playing with characters that have been around for fifty or sixty years. Beautiful, personal, wonderful stuff … and the capes fans were having none of it.

He’d point it out, talk about how much he loved doing it, and the attention immediately went back to the splash panel of famous characters beating the crap out of each other. They were fans, absolutely, but it seemed they were fans of the book or the character, or the artist’s particular interpretation of the character. The disconnect between their interests and his was practically tangible.

POV shift: some years ago, I was flipping through a Free Comic Book Day issue of something or other, and on the inside back cover, there was a list of TV shows and movies, paired with comics. The idea being, if you knew somebody that didn’t read comics but liked a particular story, here is something they’d probably dig. It was an attempt to bridge the disconnect between non-comics-readers and the world of comics; IF YOU LIKE X, it said, TRY READING Y (and Y: The Last Man was one of the recommendations, for fans of Lost).

That bridging has happened a few times … Stephen King and Buffy fans have (respectively) buoyed sales of the Dark Tower adaptation and the Joss-approved “Season Eight” comics. But I keep coming back to that one artist who couldn’t bridge what should have been a much smaller gap — after all, the difference between comics and webcomics can’t be that great, can it?

I prefer to think at this time, it’s a matter of education. If a fan of JLA or The Avengers doesn’t know that there are webcomics they might enjoy, we can’t expect them to check them out. So I’ve been throwing around a mental list of IF YOU LIKE X and TRY READING Y, which I submit for your consideration and suggestions; it’s down below the cut.

Before you check out the list (and help me out, because there’s a whole lot of suggestions that I’d never come up with on my own), there’s a a quote I’d like to point you at, from the 3rd part of Shaenon Garrity‘s Ghibli trip report:

Now I’m back in the States, and my friends all want to know what Hayao Miyazaki was like. My friends are cartoonists, writers, artists, editors. They are amazing people. Not a single one has not been touched by Miyazaki’s films and comics. He is loved by top animators at Pixar. He is loved by struggling webcartoonists. There is such love in his work. It makes you see the joy of living, and the joy of making art, and that these two things are not so different. It makes you want to live and build.

Someday, yes, Miyazaki will die. And when that happens we will pick up our pencils and brushes and Wacom styluses and carry on his work. There is only one Miyazaki, just as there’s only one Totoro with the umbrella. But the sky is full of Totoros. All different.

Have a good weekend, and those of you in Freedomland, enjoy the holiday on Monday.
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