That is all.

So Scott McCloud and family pulled into Midtown Comics in Times Square last Friday, for the first signing of the year-long Making Comics tour. This is just the start of a long-haul marathon, so be sure to keep your eyes open for when they’ll be coming through your town. For example, McCloud will be travelling within a few miles of Fleen Central in about a month, and it’s hoped that we can get a little interview in.

In the meantime, check out the photos! A continuous line of people waited for the opportunity to buy a book, get an autograph, and thank McCloud for his creative works (look for a review in the coming day or two). McCloud and family were well-nourished with cupcakes, leading to what The Greatest Theoriest of Comics to called The Money Shot. Fleen is offering a small reward to anybody who can identify the goofball tossing ‘the horns’ there behind Winter and Sky.

Local webcomics mafiosi (the print comics folks seemed to all be in Baltimore) in attendance included (left to right) Rich Stevens, Phillip Karlsson, and Chris Hastings. Most ironic moment: an earnest young man was speaking excitedly to McCloud about micropayments in the world of Korean on-line games; McCloud then looked up to see that the next person in line was a demonically-grinning Jon Rosenberg (shown here with the most patient woman in the world). The moment was tense, but then they all laughed like at the end of an episode of Super Friends.

Also, because I love you people so, please enjoy this podcast of the interview Scott did on launch day with Leonard Lopate of WNYC in New York. A little on the short side, but it’ll tide us over until Sky can get her computer fixed and mix up some Winterviews.

Speaking of Sky, you may have heard that she’s looking to get signatures from as many artists whose work is excerpted in Making Comics as possible. At the end of the tour, she’s donating the book to the CBLDF for auction, so if you’re an artist who might be in the book (and there’s about 50 webcomics artists represented on page 200 alone!), be sure to offer to sign. And if you’re not one of those artists, go to the signings anyway — you won’t find a smarter, more humble, gracious guy in comics than Scott McCloud, and you can tell him I said so.

Ok, so today I just thought I would point out that the second part of “Origin” has begun at Yirmumah. I’m glad it’s continuing on the mother, with an interesting introduction. I always love it when the Grim Reaper of Death is involved. The artwork in the fourth page featuring the mother is disturbing; well at least to me it is. A close up of someone’s face as they beg to the Grim Reaper to let them live is kind of chilling. If you missed the first part of “Origin” there are links to the backlog where you can find the colorful past of the father.

Hey, where are you gonna be in, oh, eight hours or so? If you’re anywhere near New York City, and you don’t feel like dealing with the vast crowds of contrived hipsters, smelling of too much money and other people’s effort, get over to Midtown Comics Times Square location. From 5:00 to 7:00 this evening, Scott McCloud and family will be holding court, with a signing of Making Comics; I got my copy yesterday and I’ve started my first pass; initial impressions are that it’s brilliant (but be honest, we all suspected that).

McCloud has promised that every signing he does eventually turns into a Q&A session, so no worries if you missed last night’s event at SVA. Come early, stay late, and let the man know that you appreciate his work. Word is you might be able to congratulate Rich Stevens on his syndication deal, too.

Also, contrary to scurrilous lies told elsewhere, cupcakes are delicious.

Editor’s note: R Stevens, creative madman behind Diesel Sweeties, is heading to the newspapers! There have been lots of questions in various places around the web about what this means for Stevens, for DS, and for webcomics in general. As part of Fleen’s continuing series on syndication vis-a-vis webcomics, we present the following interview with Stevens; it’s a bit lengthy, but the guy is just too quotable to edit to any measurable degree.

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I was going to mention this yesterday, but all the Diesel Sweeties hoopla kinda shoved it to the back burner. No matter, still worth mentioning that Mohammad Haque and Ananth Panagariya have done a soft reboot on Applegeeks. Rather than retconning the previous strips and starting in a whole new direction, they’ve accelerated the slow evolution of what was once a wacky-hijinks comedy fest into a deeper, richer, more character-oriented work.

In case you hadn’t been reading, comic #300 ended with an earth-shattering kaboom, followed by a week or so of downtime while the new site (version 3.0) was brought up. Monday started out bright and clear with comic #301, and the revelation that six months have passed.

It’s not yet entirely known who survived, who didn’t, and who changed; give it a couple of strips, and we ought to be able to see how the new direction will play out. My guess? Fewer Ramadan hunger dreams and Mac fetishisms, more personal conflict. And if it took a big-ass asplosion from a robot Mac girl destroying a giant mechanical Godzilla to provide the necessary hook to shift to the story to what Haque and Panagariya want to explore, well I’m all for that.

Only part I don’t like? The archive strips don’t show titles anymore. But the transitions are cool. Nice job, lads.

I hope Mitch Clem isn’t messing around when he said on his LiveJournal that he’ll be going pro pretty soon. That man is way too talented to be working in a Starbucks of all God damned places. Anyway, pre-congrats to Mitch from Fleen, but he needs to know that if he goes pro we shall be much harsher on him, since he’s making money and we’re not.

Just kidding, Mitch. We aren’t that bitter and/or haggard yet, are we ladies (and Gary)?

Actually, maybe I am. But only when it comes to Mac Hall. I used to love Mac Hall. Well, I still do, but they just never call anymore. It was almost a month between the last two comics and I’m starting to loose hope. Ian has his new job and everything so even if it keeps going, it won’t be a college comic anymore anyway. Maybe it’s time to wrap it up and work on something else? It would be a shame to see Ian and Matt drop off the scene altogether, but what do we think;

Is Mac Hall dead?

I don’t know if any of you realized it, but I crossed the pond. Maybe you’re in the same school of thought as Gary, and don’t believe I’m real, but I assure you, I am. I wouldn’t be paying this much for the tube if I weren’t.

So, I’m minding my own business, reading my comics while eating digestive buiscuts for breakfast, sipping my English Breakfast tea, and I read Scary Go Round as I do every morning. And it hit me. It’s supposed to be read with a British accent. Forgive me if you’ve had this particular relevation before, but seriously. It makes it about ten times as funny, if only because they pronounce all the vowels without an American drift and it’s different.

Some hints, if you want in on the hilarity: vitamin is pronounced veet-a-min, not vite-a-min. Quasi is quay-zi not quoi-zaye. And of course you know about the crazy lack of z (which is “zed” not “zee”) in words like organization.

Oh! This also means that I will be trying to catch the McCloud Tour in London on November 10th. Anyone want to join me?

This is just another post about the wonders of R. Stevens and his love child, Diesel Sweeties. Not only is R. Stevens walking tall with his sweet ass syndication deal, but he was recently interviewed by the magazine of gods, Wizard. Stevens speaks of how he decided to draw in pixel-format, what it’s like having an extensive comic-book background, and what he would do if he had control over Iron Man.

In other words, he talks about how amazing-tastic it is to be R. Stevens. And who could blame him? Not I sir, not I.

Too much to think about, so just quoting this one verbatim. From the very sexy R Stevens 3:

Starting on January 8, 2007 Diesel Sweeties is going to be running in newspapers through United Feature Syndicate. These syndicated strips will also be showing up on comics.com, A.K.A. the best URL ever. Web-only and archived strips will still be here, same as always. We signed the papers a couple weeks ago and I’m still kind of shell-shocked. I’m working hard to finish the sample strips. The newspaper comics are going to be all-new strips with the same characters, seven days a week.

It’s a pretty cool deal: I get to do newspaper comics, while still maintaining my own copyright, website and t-shirts. The best part for me is that there will still continue to be new comics here on the DS site! A big part of how I maintain my “sanity” is by staying up late writing comics and posting them the moment they’re done. Continuing to have that flexibility in addition to working weeks in advance for syndication is really important to me and I’m extremely glad to still have it.

I’m psyched to get to do the one job I really wanted as a kid, while still maintaining my identity as web cartoonist. Throw in a pony and I’ll have burned through all three wishes in one go.

I still get chills every time I think about making Sunday comics. I just finished my first two last week and it was … surreal. They were Sunday comics, but I got to write and draw them. Insane. I honestly never thought I’d ever have a chance to be in papers. You readers should make out pretty well, too. There’ll be more comics to read and hopefully I’ll grow as a writer by working in new formats. Your thoughts are welcome, as always.

We at Fleen will be attempting to get a proper interview with Mr 3 as soon as possible, as we have a bit of interest in the idea of webcomics/syndication ’round these parts.

But judging from the initial announcement, I draw your attention to the key phrase maintaining my own copyright, website and t-shirts. The best part for me is that there will still continue to be new comics here on the DS site. Ladies and gentlemen, this may be the webcomics version of The Golden Temple of the Himalayas right here.