What does it say about Rich Stevens that, even as he’s being strong-armed by cease-and-desist letters, he finds the presence of mind to sneak in a quote from The Big Lebowski?

Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer. But it seems to me that an obviously affectionate, highly-stylized, or abstract to the nth degree design that does nothing to diminish the worth of intellectual property, and causes no confusion in the minds of a reasonable person, should not be subject to this sort of treatment.

But then again, when has something like logic ever bothered a lawyer with a C&D template? It’s a good thing that by yelling at people who reinterpret existing ideas, you can ensure that they’ll never be seen again, ever. And I’m certain that thanks to this action on the part of Lucasfilm against that dastardly villain Stevens, nobody will ever appropriate intellectual property in wrong ways, either. Nope. Especially not where they might be noticed by a rights holder.

From Steve Raikow:

Normally I’m more reserved than this and shy away from the whole shameless self promotion thing. But, I recently stumbled into your site and saw that you solicit this sort of thing, so I’m saying what the hell. I’ve recently started a new online graphic novel called NODE which I update weekly. NODE is a science fiction story about technology and how it could have intriguing consequences for human consciousness. Its my goal to do something that’s a bit more serious than the average fare that I’ve encountered online. I want it to be provoking and possibly disturbing, without being gratuitous and violent. Anyway I thought that I would throw it out there. I welcome all to come on over and take a look!

Glad to, Steve, and sorry about the delay; Steve actually wrote us about a month ago, but given that he only updates weekly, I wanted to let a little more story build up before linking it. As it is, the story is building up nicely — there are a lot of interesting hooks that are being set up in the prologue.

Up next, Shishio says:

This news is a little over a month old, but it seems to have slipped under the radar, so I’m taking it upon myself to inform you of a new collective in webcomicdom. There’s some good stuff there.

Indeed, Cornstalker does include some good stuff. Have a browse around.

And from Roderick Leermakers:

Ahoy Fleen! Captain August has entered its third year and an excitable year it’ll be! I won’t spoil too much already, but be sure to read the press release that you can download here in perfectly safe and awesome GIF-format.

Thanks for your time and pirate greetings!

Ahoy, indeed. And please, nobody tell Dr McNinja that we’re consorting with pirates; even dead, he’s one bad muther.

That’ll wrap up the mailbag for today; we have some requests for full reviews that are still to come, as soon as we have time to go through the archives in a comprehensive manner. In the meantime, if you have news about your webcomic that you’d like to share, the link’s up there to the right.

So the word on the street is that Dr. McNinja is dead. Manny has shown up to take his spirit, so surely he is wormfood, yes?

Well, no. This is a comic, and this is the titular character we’re talking about here. Surely the rational explanation is that McNinja has two spirits, one doctor and one ninja, and they are  going to be granted permission by death to avenge their sticky end. I mean surely that much was obvious.

All that trivial business is, however, just a distraction from the “meat” (NOTE: this is a clever pun) of this week’s McNinja story, which answers that age old riddle: Gorrilla or Raptor?

Will Dr McNinja resume corporeal form? Which exotic species will emerge triumphant? How can a skeleton have a moustache?

All these questions to be answered in up coming issues of Dr McNinja (I hope), Stay tuned!

I still haven’t heard back from my local paper about picking up Diesel Sweeties, but I’m pleased to report that the whole RS3-in-newspapers thing really is real. Check it out — promo kits! There’s still time for you to pester you local paper to pick up DS (even if you don’t read it regularly … tell them that you will if they add your favorite strip).

We’re a bit more than a month into the Applegeeks reboot, and while I expected a shift in Ananth Panagariya‘s story style (it’s been moving between characters and plot threads pretty freely, and pretty smoothly, I gotta say), I don’t think I was prepared for the shift in art style. Mohammad Haque‘s characters and look are still the same, but the panel layouts and especially the POVs seem to be much more varied and creative than before. Check out the current issue, and tell me it doesn’t scream “cinematic”. Nice job from the AG crew, and I’ll be sure not to fuck with your muffin yo.

So it seems that Scott Kurtz (who does an obscure little indy-themed webcomic you may have heard of) has been invited as one of the Guests of Honor to San Diego next year (alongside fellow art-comics creators like Bechdel and Sfar). To my recollection, this is the first time a webcomics type has reached GoH status at a show as large as SDCC. Fleen congratulates Kurtz, and we look forward to seeing him a) kick ass, and b) take names in San Diego.

In other news, God/Fate/Whatever seems to have it in for the merry lads and lasses of Dayfree Press. First, hiatuses announced for A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible and No 4th Wall To Break, and now Jeph Jacques has injured his drawing hand (and with some server troubles, that direct link to today’s strip/blogpost may not be displaying the story; if need be, check the main page for details). Lucas TdS wrote to wonder if all these changes mean that Dayfree might have an open slot, but judging from the recent events I’d say that joining up with a cursed collective would be a scarier thing than Halloween in Dr Vampire‘s subconscious.

In the meantime, Fleen wishes Jacques a speedy recovery — don’t stress the hand by pushing it too hard, and do what your doctor tells you. The siren call of a daily update is a harsh mistress, and you don’t want to lose functionality down the road because you got too aggressive now. Take your time, and your readers will still be there when you’re better.

If you missed Tim Demeter’s announcement on Graphic Smash this morning, let me repeat it here:

Where have all the good heroes gone? And where are all the vaguely Greco-Romanic gods?

I mentioned last week I had one last comic to unveil, and it’s not quite what you might expect. It’s pretty evident why, right from the title, The Non-Adventures of Wonderella.

They may be non-adventures, but there’s Nazis, and tanks, and 500 bears and other such staples of ACTION. I can also promise you what Wonderella is, is the funniest new comic I’ve read in a long time. Fans of Killroy and Tina will recognize the byline, and know that Justin Pierce is no stranger to comedy in his comics, but he’s pulled the cork off with this one. It’s absolutely, unabashedly, hilarious. (Also no worries KnT fans, I’m just making Justin do TWO comics now.)

If you like anything on Adult Swim, (and I know you do) you owe it to yourself to read this comic, which you can totally do right here on Saturdays.

Don’t drink anything while you read it.

The current link for Wonderella at Graphic Smash leads to a placeholder, but those of you in the know have been reading it from the link at Pierce’s K&T page, right? In any event, go check out Wonderella archive, and learn what a superhero really is. Also, I’ll never think of “Hello Kitty” the same way again.

In other news, that sound you heard earlier today from the northeast corner of the nation was Eric Snark squeeing about being right with his Narbonic predictions; good call, Eric!. Makes me wonder if Shaenon Garrity put all these hooks in intentionally years ago (the Whedon/Rowling model), or makes it up as she goes along (the Lost model). I’m leaning towards the former, but I imagine it’ll be a topic of vigorous debate for webcomics historians in coming decades.

In other-other news, A wee email exchange with a one Mr Lewis Powell, who wrote:

I’m not sure if this is up your guys’ alley, but I, along with a couple of other individuals, have a webcomics blog Wax Intellectual, and am seeking more regular contributors. Unlike Fleen, I would allow contributors that are also creators, but that isn’t a requirement.

I understand if this isn’t the sort of thing you guys would mention on your blog, but I figured there was a chance it might be, so it couldn’t hurt.

If this isn’t something you’d post about, but, being a webcomics blog, have advice about how to try and find other writers, any advice you might have would be appreciated.

Thank you.

No problem, Lewis! The more people writing about these crazy-ass entertainments we call webcomics, the better! As for advice, I can reduce that to two things:

1. Write, write, write some more. There’s no quality time in developing your voice and place in this community, just heaps of good ol’ quantity time.
2. Have a thick skin. Rest assured, somebody who only clicked on the link to your blog 20 seconds ago already hates you and everything you stand for.

Oh, and Lewis? It’s TYRRELL. Two “L”s.

If you can’t make SPX (starting today in Bethesda, MD), or the ZLIKS party (tonight in SoHo), or Stumptown (coupla weeks in Portland, OR) (and at least two of those events feature booze + webcomics artistes), there are a few things you might want to look into.

• Tomorrow and Sunday in Memphis, TN, it’s Con-Sequential, with Steve Troop representin’; drop by and let him know what you think of the 24-hour comic experiment he’s running.
• Do you like food? Because also in the great expanse of flyover country, Dave Kellett will be at Monty’s Gourmet Foods in Kansas City. Not really a comics-kinda deal, but Kellett designed labels for the sauces and salsas, and will be on hand from noon to six on Saturday. When you go, be sure to challenge Kellett to a rousing game of Eat That Taco (I can’t believe I found that strip).
• The Lancaster Comics Convention in Lancaster, UK hits on the 28th; webcomickers expected in attendance include Liz Greenfield, Ali Graham, James Turner, and the Mancunian Dreamboat himself, John Allison. Ladies, please! One at a time!
• In today’s Why Was I Not Informed Of This Earlier category, a quick disclaimer: the words “fan fiction” usually give me the jibblies pause, so why am I so taken with Serenity Tales? There’s some pretty damn good webcomics over there, set in the context of a pretty damn good story, with names like Mike Russell and Bill Mudron contributing. If you can’t make any of the events coming up and like things that are awesome, you could do worse than spending some time here.
• Finally, and appropos of nothing, I got a real kick out of the first panel of today’s Two Lumps. Cats know they’re superior to us, and sometimes they’ve got good reason to feel that way.

Noted on the front page of Modern Tales:

American Born Chinese nominated for National Book Award
October 11th, 2006
Posted By: Joey Manley
The book collection of American Born Chinese (one of the original Modern Tales strips) by Gene Yang has been nominated for the National Book Award in the category of “Young People’s Literature.â€? This is a very big deal. It’s probably the most prestigious American literary award. When I was in creative writing school, anyway, everybody I knew (teachers and students alike) all paid a lot more attention to the National Book Award than, for example, the Pulitzer. Congrats, Gene! Good luck!”

To add to what Manley said just a little, the National Book Awards have never previously recognized a piece of graphic literature for consideration — not MAUS, not Blankets, nothing. This is not just a presitigious situation that Yang has earned for himself, it’s unprecedented. My only quibble (and it’s a minor one) is that somebody at the National Book Foundation may still be hung up on the idea pictures = kids, with the result that the nomination was not in the category of “Fiction”.

If you haven’t read ABC yet (and why the hell not?), you’ve been missing a real treat. I don’t know if any mention of the fact that it’s a) graphic fiction; or b) originated on the web will make it into the awards ceremony next month, but we know the score. Please add your congratulations to those of Manley and the Modern Tales family, Fleen, and all those who love this crazy medium. I can’t think of a more deserving nominee.

Ok, so I don’t have much to write today because I’ve been studying like crazy for two exams and a practical that take place next week. October is the Punisher of the academic calender. I’ll show you October; you’ll be my bitch after next week.

Anyways, I thought I’d point out today’s A Softer World comic. It makes me chuckle in a twisted, sadistic way…which basically is my typical laugh. The idea of bringing a cooler filled with alcohol to watch sea mammals die is oddly entertaining to me. If it isn’t to you, then you must have one of those things called a “soul”.

As promised yesterday, the Third Annual Stumptown Comics Fest is kicking off at the end of the month in Portland, OR; as a relatively new event, this one has fallen a bit below the radar, but to me, it seems like a Pacific Northwest version of MoCCA. Check out the attendees list, which includes Christopher Baldwin, Vera Brosgol, Kazu Kibuishi, Jenn Manley Lee, David Malki !, Dylan Meconis, Kevin Moore, Los Bros Smith, Colleen AF Venable, and Chris Yates. Plus, the other Dinosaur Comics.

If you make it to SPX in Bethesda this weekend, something you might want to check out would be the stage production of Get Your War On, playing in DC through Saturday. Yesterday’s Washington Post had a hell of a good review of the show.

And if you can’t make it to SPX this weekend, there’s a good chance it’s because you’re at the launch party for Andy Bell‘s new Psycho Zliks toys in Manhattan. It’s a little early for Halloween, but knowing Bell’s work, you’ll still have that creeped-out, not-so-fresh feeling in 2½ weeks.