For those of you that keep up with such things (which I would hope would be all of you), Child’s Play has crossed the $260,000 mark, with 24 days yet to go. Good start people, but let’s see if we can crack the official goal of $600,000 with some more to spare. Speaking of Child’s Play, David Malki ! would really like you to know that he supports Child’s Play, and he’s making good on that support with auctions of original art:

I’ve designed three unique Wondermark poster prints that I’ve personally matted and framed, and I will be offering them on eBay, one after the other. These are brand new, never-been-seen one-of-a-kind Wondermark pieces that will look handsome on someone’s wall. (They’re beautiful copperplate engravings — they’ll look like ART, for God’s sake. Until you read the captions.)

100% of the proceeds from all three auctions will be donated to Child’s Play.

While we’re on the topic, I’d like to draw your attention to one of the hospitals in this year’s Child’s Play network: Children’s Cancer Hospital, in Cairo, Egypt. As you may have read in our interview Kristin Lindsay, Children’s Cancer Hospital is in exteme need; they don’t have paint on some of the walls. Want to change the world? Give what you can to your preferred local hospital, then give just five bucks to CCH. Can’t do five? Three. ONE.

If everybody that gives to Child’s Play gives just one extra dollar, think of what it would do for the reputation of gamers, webcomics readers, Westerners. We aren’t a government, we’re just individuals — and we can say, “We’ve never met you, but we think your children deserve better than they’re getting, and we’re willing to help.” I’m making a donation in the name of each of my nieces and nephews, and I hope that some of you reading this will be willing to do something similar.

In other news, it’s been six years of Scandanavian naughtiness at Little Gamers; celebrations include the announcement of a third book (in color, this time), and undoubtedly some drunken debauchery. Skaol, guys.

And I note with interest that Achewood is now hooked up with Oh No Robot, meaning that the world is a mere 700 200 transcriptions away from being able to search for their favorite Beefism any time day or night. Get typing Nice job, people.

The news brings us sad tidings, of the passing of two well-beloved webcomics.

After five years, Justin Pierce finds that he’s no longer in love with Kilroy and Tina, and will be wrapping the strip at the end of the current story arc. From his blog:

I really love the characters, the premise, the overall storyline… but I also haven’t been making progress at the scale I wanted to, and to be quite frank, after years of barely denting the epic story, I’m burned out. I don’t want to be doing this thing when I’m in my thirties, and with the current format and pacing, I can’t foresee any other outcome. I’ve been dealing with this on-and-off for about a year now, tried tweaking with new storylines, techniques, and more, but it’s just not eliminating the fact that this thing is taking me forever.

So the plan as it stands is this: I will finish Chapter 15 because it’s the right thing to do. That’s about nine or ten comics out, which closes the chapter around the beginning of February. Then I’ll step back from Killroy and Tina, and do… something. I’m not sure what. I haven’t really had an open Tuesday night in half a decade. Guess I’ll figure something out.

I’ve been reading this one since the beginning, and I’m going to miss it something fierce, but at least I still have The Non-Adventures of Wonderella to keep me warm at night.

Meanwhile, from the other side of the Atlantic, Ali Graham’s HOUSD finishes up its run tomorrow, which correspondent Michael Kinyon notes, marks a daily run since 28 March 2003, with a total of 61 missed days before 10 Dec 2004, and none since. It’s a marathon accomplishment, which Graham notes:

I’m not too sure what the past four years of my life would have consisted of without the comic. It gave me structure and most importantly a tangible and highly gratifying outlet.

Although HOUSD is essentially me, there are so many people who have helped and supported me through the years, without which I don’t think it could have existed. I’ve made and lost contact with countless people, but every person who has ever emailed me, or chatted at a convention genuinely made my day, all 1284 of them.

Thus ends Chapter 1 of my online comic saga. I hope you’ll stick around, plenty more chapters to be written and read.

HOUSD was always on my list of comics to “read through the archives when I’ve got time, get caught up, make it a regular thing …”, which I guess will be a one-shot deal now. 1284 comics is one hell of a marathon, and we at Fleen salute Graham on the accomplishment; since he notes that there’s bigger and better projects coming up, I guess I’ll just have to get in on the ground floor of those.

No response yet to the letters I wrote to my local paper, asking them to pick up Diesel Sweeties. I am this close to giving out that guy’s email and inviting the masses of the internet to convince him that it’s good manners to reply when sent a polite missive. Anyway, the battle against comics-page crapitude continues.

In other news, Winterview #3 is up, starring … Rich Stevens! Watch them play Nintendo! See the future of the world, in pint-sized, eleven-year-old girl form! I’ve been in close personal proximity to Winter McCloud, by the way, and trust me when I say there’s been some careful editing to make her somewhat less full-bore than you see in person. She is a proverbial hoot and a half.

And in other other news, we have the reason for the season: the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Morningstar, and Lord of Dark­ness! Yes, you could get a present (or a lump of coal!) from … Rich Stevens, merely for bandying his name about the blogosphere. Rules for Secret Satan 2006 here.

It’s Philosophy, Ho! time over at Irregular Webcomic today, with a lengthy discussion on the nature of art from David Morgan-Mar. Those of you looking for punning snarkery and Lego constructions may want to check back tomorrow.

In other webcomics news, you gots Andy Bell, solo-showin’ machine, getting his gallery schedule off to a fast start for 2007. Those of you in Chicago, you got about five weeks to clear your calendar and check out the show. Now if he could just remember to bring my ZLIKS figure to me at the Pub …

From the nearest titty bar, you gots Wiz Rollins, formerly of Bad Shape, informing us that he’s teaming up with DJ Coffman as the new co-writer of Yirmumah. Look for Rollins to add erotical pole technicians to approximately every third strip.

Over Webcomics Nation way, you gots Grant Thomas announcing the first minicomic for My Life In Records, available through Lulu.

Also at Lulu, you gots Gabe Strine of Brinkerhoff fame, releasing a book of the full three-year run of his online-and-print strip, The Zoo.

In Great Britain, you gots the launch of chapter four of the online graphic novel Shades, courtesy of Broken Voice Comics.

At Otaku Generation, you gots the creative team behind Onezumi interviewed for podcast#75, and also at Sequential Tart.

And finally, from deepest space, you gots David C. Simon pointing us to his sci-fi strip, Crimson Dark, wherein it’s shown that you can do 75 strips (and counting) of a renderish art style without falling into the Uncanny Valley (even if he can’t spell “Tyrrell” correctly, dammit.)

Go check it out.

This week, I’m speaking with Spike, the creative dynamo behind Templar, Arizona and a couple of other real gems of comics. It’s a fascinating discourse into puppies, ink wells, and a few easy tips on how to be the cover of a Tom Waits album…

(more…)

(See, this was what I was planning on writing about, before all the birthday/anniversary/animation news cropped up).

Bang Barstal is back from hiatus; as noted about 10 weeks ago, creator The William G (not just any William G, but The William G!) has decided to deliver the story to us in chunks; for such a plot-driven strip, the 12-pages-at-once model works nicely. This means that you get a full half of a story arc, all in one big heapin’ helpin’.

Part two of “The Dead” will be dropping on 23 December, and then reverting to a weekly schedule on the first Saturday of January (we’ll see how big the story chunks are in the new year). If you aren’t reading Bang Barstal, this is a good place to start.

I’ve got a job, people. Anyway, Scott Kurtz has major news today — PvP is going animated. This is one of those ‘value-added’ deals that digital comics are capable of, one of the things you hear about all the time at San Diego panels, but don’t often see carried through to completion. In this case, it will involve traditional 2D animation (not Flash), with production and a voice-acting cast from Blind Ferret Entertainment (which is the shop of Ryan Sohmer, of Least I Could Do fame). From the esteemed Mr Kurtz:

Ryan [Sohmer] called on three separate occasions to talk to me about making a PvP animated seires.

And three times I said “No way!�

Saying “no� has been my default answer to anyone inquiring about animating PvP. Over the last five years I’ve had a lot of offers and inquiries from people in show-business, and had a total of four different representatives pitching PvP around Hollywood at various times. But, as always, I would rather bypass the normal route and do it myself. I want to retain ownership, start small and grow big. I want to learn the process. You can’t do that in Hollywood. But, I can do that with Blind Ferret. It just took Ryan a couple months to finally convince me of it.

Kris [Straub] and I are co-producers and co-writers on PvP The Series. We write the scripts, determine the direction, look and pace of the show. This is an incredible opportunity to learn the process, get our hands messy, work with animators, direct voice actors, learn script writing, work post-production and sound…all of it. This is a chance to take PvP and make a whole new animal with it, without having to sell it away to a faceless studio who doesn’t really understand it.

An opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime; how could we not take it?

PvP: The Animated Series is going to be a subscription feature, and it’s going to depend in large part on pre-orders to pay for all the animators and voice actors and production. Pricing for a year’s subscription will be $19.95 until January 1st, then jump to $29.95; the program is due to launch on February 1st.

Sight unseen, it’s too soon to determine if this is going to be a roaring success, a noble failure, or something in between, but given the pedigree of those involved, I’m tending more towards the “success” end of the scale at this time. We at Fleen will do our best to bring you interviews with the principals, and keep you up on the progress of the show.

For those of you who haven’t met Mr Jon Rosenberg, there is a remarkably accurate self-portrait in today’s Goats, which by the way is strip #2000.

To ensure that he makes it another 2000 strips, I encourage all and sundry to click through, enjoy a hearty laugh at Hoggle‘s antics, and resolve to contribute anew to Rosenberg’s deep sense of self-loathing. That’s where comedy comes from!

From page 16 of issue 183 of Wizard magazine: props for PA, DS, DC, SGR, and G.