John Salzi reboots Little Fuzzy, and taps Jeff Zugale for the cover (which may or may not be used in the printed edition). Sure is pretty, though. Speaking as somebody who loves Piper’s work in general, and the Fuzzy books in particular, I dread seeing a reinterpretation, but will approach with an open mind.

Also speaking as somebody who loves Piper’s work in general, and the Fuzzy books in particular, I hope that Fuzzy Nation (even if it’s abominably awful, which given that it’s Scalzi writing, I doubt that it will be) is an enormous success, leading to somebody bringing Piper’s works back into widespread print. My copies of the Paratime stories fell apart years ago, as did my copy of The Cosmic Computer, and Uller Uprising‘s binding isn’t looking too good.

• Speaking of books, you can get a 10% discount on Paul Taylor’s fourth Wapsi Square collection by typing the code SHOWERS in at checkout; this offer remains good through the month of April.
• Eisner nominations are out (you can read ’em either at the site of Heidi Mac or The Spurge), and we have an answer to the perennial question as to what form the works cited for Best Digital Comic will take. This time, it appears that full-page-updates, long-form, ongoing stories (as opposed to a finished piece of a few dozen pages) are in favor, with Fleen Faves The Abominable Charles Christopher and Sin Titulo getting the nod alongside Bayou, The Guns of Shadow Valley, and Power Out. Congrats to nominees Karl Kerschl, Cameron “She’s Not My Sister, Dammit” Stewart, Jeremy Love, David Wachter & James Andrew Clark, and Nathan Schreiber.
• Because every creator everywhere, everywhen needs to read it, that’s why — a story making the blog- and Twitter-rounds about being asked to contribute to a profit-making work “for the exposure”:
  

  The weird thing is, you’re the only one out of about 100 people we’ve contacted who’s made an issue out of this. Not the first to ask about money, but the first to make an issue out of it. I suspect people play along with us because they’re of Mind One, and as for Mind Two, they think the payoff will be in good karma.

  Anybody starts talking like that to you, run.

Because it’s apparently Webcomics Book Week; the due to release list for tomorrow in your local comic shop contains a half-dozen items, and I may have missed some. Shall we run down the list?

• Dark Horse is dropping Wondermark‘s third volume (Dapper Caps & Pedal-Copters along with Graham Anable’s The Book of Grickle (I know that page says 7 April, but if Midtown Comics says it’s 24 March, then by Darwin it’s 24 March). Not from Dark Horse, but worth mentioning: Gene Yang‘s got Animal Crackers, a reprint of Gordon Yamamoto and Loyola Chin, with a new story, from Slave Labor.

  Not done yet, Bunky. Tom Siddell’s second Gunnerkrigg Court collection, Research is due, in a much more timely fashion than the first. Zuda brings The Night Owls by the Timonys (again, Midtown says it drops tomorrow), and PvP‘s seventh collection appears to be getting back into release channels.

  People, I am working on a budget here.

• Speaking of PvP, Scott Kurtz would like you to know:
  

  I guess it’s official. I’m MCing the Harvey’s again this year. Also, Harvey Award nominations are now open.

• Still on books, the big-publisher edition of Meredith Gran’s Octopus Pie, There Are No Stars In Brookyn, is up for pre-order. I could put up a link to Amazon or some other big retailer for that book (due 22 June), but let’s let Mer tell you herself:
  

  I’m offering the book for sale on this site. If you want your book signed or personalized, this is the only place to get it. All pre-ordered books are signed by me for FREE! You’ll also get 2 super exclusive 1? mystery buttons with every order. Buying it from me directly ensures a portion of the sale goes to me.

  Many online retailers are offering pre-sale discounts, which may be a good option if you’re strapped for cash or a member at these stores.

  Can I be straight with you for a moment?

  This is a crucial time in the success of Octopus Pie. The sales of this book will do a lot to determine whether or not future books can be made. If you love the comic, but have never ordered OP merch before, this is a fantastic way to show your support. Plus you’ll be getting an awesome signed book out of it! [emphasis original]

  Guys, Meredith is the real deal. Her success with this book (both her own sales, and in the broader market) will probably become a significant data point as publishers try to decide how much it’s worth dealing with independent creators. The groundswell of support that she (and others like Raina Telgemeier, Hope Larson, Kazu Kibuishi, Kean Soo, and others) have built will set the stage for the next couple of decades of corporate decisions. I don’t know about you, but I’d kind of like the next couple of decades to be filled with awesome comics easily available to me, so I’m pre-ordering on that basis, and not because I’m an obsessive completist (although let’s be frank, I am an obsessive completist). Join me, won’t you?

• Still books: Joey Comeau‘s latest prose book, One Bloody Thing After Another, is due for release shortly, and to celebrate he’s release new or missing-from-the-net stories. The first one is here.
• Finally, not books: Blind Ferrett is hiring, both in Montréal and away. Details here.

Everybody saw how the American Library Association announced the Caldecott, Newbery, and Printz awards yesterday, right? Today the Young Adult Library Services Association of the ALA announced their annual list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens. There’s the requisite Huh moments to be found, but on the Top Ten list, one may find two items from the realm of webcomickry: Tom Siddell‘s Gunnerkrigg Court Volume 1: Orientation, and Jeremy Love‘s Bayou. Toss in a mention on the main list of the Dave Roman/Raina Telgemeier-scripted X-Men: Misfits 1 and you’ve got a pretty respectable showing. Well done, all.

So. Dave Kellett. Ignore the weapons-grade punnery that pervaded his strip earlier in the week, he’s got something good to talk about; two things, in fact.

• Thing the First: Dave’s lovely and talented wife, Gloria Calderón Kellett is an actress, screenwriter, and playwright of no mean talent; on Monday, she’ll be reviving her show Skirts & Flirts in LA for One Night Only to benefit the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Both Kelletts are in the show, along with a considerable number of their severely talented friends. Tickets are twenty bucks, and if you’re of legal age you get free vodka. I saw the show when it ran in New York, and it were damn funny. Go.
• Thing the Second: Dave can talk well. That seems like a minor thing, I mean most everybody manages that on their own, but what I mean is that he has one of those moderately rare brains that allows one to organize thoughts, put them into a compelling order, and make them sound interesting on the fly, which is a pretty neat trick. If you read this page, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve heard Dave on a majority of the Halfpixel Webcomics Weekly podcasts (now on indefinite hiatus), but hearing him go one-on-one is a different beast altogether. Tom Racine of Tall Tales Radio did exactly that, sitting down with Kellett for a lengthy, rambling (but not random) podcast interview. It’s worth a good listen.

Just now noticed, and worth a read right now now now: Great, by Ryan Armand, who gave us the sublimely beautiful Minus. Starts here, hit “next” 58 times until you’re caught up.

Sometimes, there’s just a window where it’s all Big Players that announce/do things.

• In terms of audience, influence, and longevity, Penny Arcade is the biggest deal in our corner of the web, no? I figure over the next 1 – 3 years that statement will become less definitive, but for now, they’ve been doing it bigger and longer than anybody else (and get your mind out of the gutter). Having produced the comic, custom content for game publishers, a game series, a scholarship, a convention series, and a multi-million dollar charity, there really wasn’t anyplace else to go besides reality TV.

  So they did that.

  The pilot episode is up now (with what looks like six more episodes in the works), including the year’s biggest Awwwww moment as Jerry Holkins introduces his new daughter to the world. If you enjoy the kind of TV that doesn’t involve pretty people eating gross things and scheming in “alliances” (but I guess Alliances are okay), take a gander.

• In the world of print comickry, DC are one of the proverbial Big Guns, and their move into webcomics has proven to be both more long-lasting and influential than I figured it would be (but, for the record, the interface is still pretty hateful on my browser). There’s a pretty good interview/article (it’s sort of midway between the two) at the blogsite of a Louisiana TV channel with Zudaboss Ron Perazza. Perazza’s a really nice guy, genuine in his goals and intentions (and if he and I don’t have entirely parallel viewpoints on webcomicking, that doesn’t mean that either of us is deluded or wrong). I particularly want to recommend the interview to you because it’s got an unusually good bit of reportage behind it — there’s none of the (hopefully, formerly) obligatory “Biff! Pow!” nonsense, nor the mistaken assertion that comics-on-the-web are a brand-new phenomenon spearheaded by forward-thinking publishers. In fact, I quite liked the second ‘graf:
  

  Today, companies are still trying to find the most user-friendly mode of consumption and more importantly, the right business model. Digital comics, or Web comics as they have become known, have been highly successful for many independent creators with comic strips, but have not been much more than a glorified marketing gimmick to the major players in the industry.

  Don’t worry, Zudafans, the remainder of the piece focuses on how the majors reacted to that state of affairs; in fact, the majority of what’s in the piece won’t be a surprise to anybody that regularly reads this page, but it’s the first I’ve seen out in the wider world that acknowledges that there are different approaches to comics+internet that will work differently for different constituencies of business, creators, and readers. Hell, that’s something that we at Fleen could stand to be reminded of from time to time.

• One of the larger hosting companies out there, at least in that it hosts an unusually large number of webcomics, is Dreamhost. Unfortunately, that can create what paranoid types like me call a Single Point of Failure, and problems there can have outsized consequences. Late last night (or early this morning, or perhaps a bit past tea-time, depending where you are), Dreamhost did a wobbly and while the core failure seems to have been contained in about three hours, lingering aftereffects were reported a good twelve hours after initial report. If you couldn’t get to your preferred free entertainment last night (or this morning, or tea-time), give it a while. And as this isn’t a new occurence, there may be some shifts of provider in the near-to-medium term.
• Finally, it’s well understood that the world’s greatest (indeed, the Cartoonist Extraordinaire) is Bill Connolly. His videos on how to draw have inspired more people than Bob Ross and Commander Mark put together. Now, a bunch of artists have created a new website in tribute to Connolly’s most well-loved lesson of all. Thus, the Beautiful Asian Lady Collection is ready for your adoration and participation (thanks to Yuko Ota for letting the world know about this marvel).

So much good to get to; let’s jump straight in, shall we?

• As we mentioned yesterday, the new Tastefully Done calendar is now on sale, and it’s chock full of webcomicky nudery. Quick clarification, though — yesterday we mentioned some of Mike Rouse-Deane’s previous projects in support of Make-A-Wish International, but the TD series of calendars supports Cancer Research UK.
• New resource for librarians, from the library-themed webcomic: Unshelved Answers. Pretty full-featured forum that’s been put together, too, complete with badges indicating the accomplishments of the poster, and a reputation score. Interestingly, as of this writing, Unshelved writer Gene Ambaum has a reputation of 238, and Unshelved artist Bill Barnes has a reputation of 98. In cold, hard, objective, numerical terms, this means that Ambaum is 2.429 times as worthy a person as Barnes; sources familiar with both persons agree that’s about right.
• Hooray, gonna get married — Fleen sends congratulations to Striptease creator and Punch an’ Pie artist Chris Daily.
• Hooray, a new kid — Fleen sends congratulations to DC VP of Creative Services (and ultimately, Boss-King of Zuda) Ron Perazza and his now larger family.
• Hooray, the get-out-the-vote campaign worked — Commissioner James Gordon Hastings is now in the finals of the Cutest Dog Competition. Three of the four finalist dogs will be awarded $5000, and one — the Official Cutest Dog — will take home one million dollars (over three decades or so, don’t expect him to get a pimped-out water dish or anything). At this point, it’s all down to the judges, who will announce the winner in two weeks; in the meantime, I think we can all agree on one thing: Gordon good boy!

Let’s get you updated, Lightning Round style!

• Item! Brigid Alverson turns her attention towards webcomics news & info blogging, and I can tell you right now that she’s going to do this much, much better than we at Fleen do. She’s a terrific, well-informed writer, and I urge you all to check her out daily. Just remember to come back when you’re done, ‘kay?
• Item! MoCCA Fest 2010 dates and table availability announced. Back to the Armory, but earlier in the year, so hopefully people won’t be dropping in the aisles from fever & ague. Exhibitor tables are $410 for a full table and $260 for a half until 31 December, with discounts for MoCCA members (hint: membership’s about $35). Prices go up on New Year’s Day, and registrations will be accepted on a first come, first served basis beginning 21 October by fax, mail and in-person (applications on the website). The fax option may help alleviate the problem last year when people from around the country got shut out by locals walking in their applications.

  But here’s my question, because I’m not a creator and have never taken a table anywhere — is that a really high table cost for the size and duration of the show? It seems like it to me. Given all the problems that last year’s show had, I’m guessing that MoCCA has one, maybe two years at most to turn things around and get a really good show together before they start seeing exhibitors abandoning in droves. MoCCA has always been one of my favorite shows of the year, so here’s hoping that they get it really right next April.

• Item! By all accounts, Scott Kurtz killed as the MC of the Harveys. Along the same lines, a very nice, heartfelt, gracious post by Kurtz up today about his re-evaluation of Zuda and his feelings about it. Well done, sir (now I retire to my blogger’s desk and gather up the gold-plated instruments with which to twirl my moustache in a self-satisfied manner).
• Item! Randall Munroe, via sales of xkcd: volume 0, and tickets to his brief book tour, has raised enough money to build a school in Laos. Holy crap.

I’m fine, but let’s say that a near miss happened today to someone I know and it’s got me in a mood; if the news about the x0,000 phished Hotmail, etc. accounts weren’t enough to make you reevaluate your approaches to password discipline (mine verges on clinical paranoia), then hey — awesome. You’re the soft target, not me. With that bit of entirely callous disregard for the well-being of my fellow netdwellers out of the way, let’s get some quick news items in.

• Speaking of bad people, Ryan Estrada has launched a new daily webcomic about them; okay, his are more the “costumed bad guys” and less “disaffected programmers working for various ethnic mafias”, but you get the idea. Chillin’ Like Villains launched with a full 24-page story in the archives, and after a one-day chapter splash, kicks in with fresh adventures today. Reached for comment about the new competition in the supervillain-themed webcomics sphere, Brad Guigar bellowed, Fools! I will vanquish every one of you puny mortals and lay all your works to waste! After pausing for breath, Guigar continued, Moohahahahahaha! and fiddled with what appeared to be some kind of nullifier, or possibly a mind-control beam.
• Speaking of insane rantings, Jeff Rowland would have you believe that he is prone to such outbursts; in fact, he is a pretty savvy businessman who’s managed to negotiate his way to a modest (if possibly accidental) empire of internet merchandisery, which he talks about at Comic Alliance:
  

  It’s still the friggin’ wild west out here; if you can get 20,000 people to read your comic about a dog that huffs paint, there is a way to make a living from that.

  Much like our own interview with TopatoCo VP Holly Post, Rowland talks about webcomics giving you slack for being weird, TopatoCo’s growth curve, and their unique corporate culture:

  I got David Malki [!] running promotions and propaganda and that dude is an idea dude to the marrow. Most days I just spin him around on this big board and decide what to do from what thing his feet point at.

  People, I have stood in TopatoCo HQ, and I am fully prepared to believe that Rowland is telling the truth. If you want to make good business decisions, your course is clear — obtain your own David Malki ! and revolve him until gravity tells you what to do.

• Speaking of interviews, Zudaboss Ron Perazza had one with David Gallaher a couple days back at CBR; full disclosure: Gallaher is the creator of High Moon, which was one of the first Zudawinners. The interview is full of interesting stuff, and whatever your views on Zuda, the Zudacontests (I’m decidedly meh on them), the Zudainterface (hell meh), these are some talented guys and it’s worth your time to listen to them. Besides, I can’t be the only person who swooned upon learning that Gallaher has written a graphic novel of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar!.

  What do you mean, you never heard of YT,JD!? It was an awesome radio drama about a fabulous freelance insurance investigator … a freelance insurance investigator with an action-packed expense account! Look, if you live in or around Washington DC, WAMU does this multi-hour block of old radio programs on Sunday nights, and YT, JD! is often in the rotation. It’s cracktastic.

Some interesting bits of information have been hitting the aether since yesterday.

• Rumor has it that Paul Southworth is up to something. There are subtle hints scattered here and there, dark rumors whispered in darker places. Then there’s this:
  

  I can’t wait to show you this new strip and website , guys. Oh man oh man oh man not much longer now

  So yeah — screw subtle hints, this is Southworth shouting from atop a pile of overturned, burning cars (comparatively speaking). You Are Dead is nice and all, but the thought of Southworth returning to stripping (insert joke here) with ongoing characters and plots and all is making me happy today. Nothing’s broken today, and it would be kind of weird to launch on a Friday, so smart money says watch Southworth very carefully for the next couple of Mondays.

• In other, more clearly defined, news, it appears that this year’s Estradarama is a no-go; reports that Christmas has also cancelled are premature, and we remain cautiously optimistic. But back to Ryan Estrada, and what’s up with the nascent tradition of guest strip carpet bombing:
  

  Well, I’m very pleased to say there is no Ryan Estrada Day today. There was a lot of criticism of last years’ offerings, and all of it absolutely correct! It was fun as a stunt, but taking 2 months off work to prepare for one day, then being so swamped catching up with my paid work that I can’t draw any other personal stuff for the rest of the year is silly.

  Fair enough; I liked seeing Estrada’s take on so many different characters (both visually and from a writer’s perspective), and I enjoyed the hunt aspect of tracking ’em all down, but you know what? Ryan Estrada is not my bitch, and no desire for free entertainment on my part trumps any decision he makes on his part to engage or not engage in providing said entertainment, particularly not at the expense of paying work. And it appears that the paying work is coming to the fore:

  From now on, I am in the business of making quality work, and trying to make a living off of that work, rather than trying to squeeze it in between commissions. I have a list of projects that I’ll be doing over the next year, and when they’re ready, you’ll get the chance to see them! Here’s what’s in the works:

  • Villain (a new daily webcomic, starting 1 October with a nice fat buffer)
  • Aki Alliance (first half online, second half to be bundled as a graphic novel and submitted to publishers)
  • The Kind You Don’t Bring Home to Mother (animated feature from the comic that lost the Zudacontest by one vote)

• Can there be more than one new sci-fi comedy webcomic? Apparently so, according to Culture Pulper Mike Russell’s Twitterfeed:
  

  Getting sneak peek at Chris Baldwin‘s forthcoming comedy space-opera webcomic. It’s adorable, but w/ lasers. Prediction: hit.

  Adorable and lasers? I’m there.

Did you catch this? David Morgan-Mar ((PhD, LEGO®©™^etc), educator of scientific notions and webcomicker of note, got stopped and mildly searched on his holidays in London on suspicions of terrorism for photographing one of the most-photographed landmarks in England. What’s that? You wanted proof? Here y’go, Sparky. Of course, it’s possible that officer in question wasn’t really so officious as to detain Morgan-Mar on such idiotic grounds — it’s possible that he was a time-traveller, and well aware of the hideous pun that was about to be foisted on the world, and rightly decided it was weapons-grade. For shame, fear-based society, and for shame, Dr Morgan-Mar.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s look at another kind of interesting times: I recently had the opportunity to talk with Holly Post, VP of Special Projects at TopatoCo (“the world’s largest webcomics merchandise company, and probably at least in the top 20 of the hemisphere’s best internet e-stores in general”) about the company’s recent growth, plans for the future, and whether or not they can stay weird and still deal with more serious businesses.

(more…)

Well, there’s another San Diego Comic-Con come and gone … some planned things didn’t happen as I wished, some unplanned things popped themselves up, and a whole lotta people came and went. Let’s do our last wrap up (and there may not be a posting as such tomorrow, seeing as how I haven’t really read any webcomics since last Tuesday, but you’re still up a couple posts so that’s all right).

• Continuing on from yesterday’s rushed-for-press-time missive, I got a chance to head over to the IDW booth and ask about the Bat Boy thing. I spoke with Chris Ryall, publisher and editor-in-chief, who described himself as a big fan of the Peter Bagge/Danielle Corsetto Bat Boy strip that ran in the late, lamented Weekly World News (a fan to the extent that Ryall had purchased two of Bagge’s originals the week before). Ryall said that he wanted to shift the pretty whimsical strip (where, among other things, Bat Boy was President of the United States) into a more traditional comic book type universe.

  But, and this is the important part, Ryall wants more people to see the original strips, and wants to run them as a backup feature — he’d been talking with Bagge about this but hadn’t obtained Corsetto’s contact information, which I was happy to supply. Danielle, if you don’t hear from him after the Con rush settles, drop me an email and I’ll make sure you crazy kids get your heads together.

• Changes at Keenspot are in the air. Rumors were travelling the show floor that John Troutman had either precipitously left, or been asked to leave, Keenspot; the circumstances described in the stories varied, but agreed that it came down to an It’s personal situation. We at Fleen haven’t had a chance to speak with Troutman directly for his side of the story (and will endeavour to do so), but when contacted for comment Keenspot CEO Chris Crosby provided the following:
  

  John Troutman’s Keenspot membership has been terminated, but we have no comment on the matter otherwise and wish John the best of luck.

  Take that as you will; as of this writing, Troutman’s Flat Feet and High Heels is still linked on the main Keen page, and in fact was highlighted in the spotlight position at the top of the page when I browsed there a moment ago. I was unable to make it to the Keenspot panel yesterday, so I don’t know if the Troutman issue was brought up; when asked prior to the panel if there were any big announcements planned, Keenspot’s Bobby Crosby hinted at the possibility of more Hollywood deals but wouldn’t make any definitive declarations. Anybody with first-hand reports of the panel is invited to chime in below; please don’t bring any Well, I heard from my friend that he heard from a guy at a booth that he heard from a passing cosplayer … “facts”.

• Paul Taylor’s sculptors brought some stock of the one-run-only Monica statue over to the Blank Label booth. It’s a lovely piece of work, Taylor was clearly thrilled with the outcome (and I’m sure he’d love to have a Shelly sculpture to go with it, so make with the pre-orders). The other person impressed: David Willis, who’s decided to do his own Shortpacked figure(s) with Patch Together. First up: Amber. Question I forgot to ask: corset version or non-corset version?
• The Zudapanel kicked off yesterday with a bang — it was standing-room only (with a posted capacity of 403), and the panelists were taking questions both from the floor and via Twitter (cool idea, but a little wonky in practice — Ron Perazza (director VP of Creative Services at DC … unless his title’s changed in which case let me know, Ron thanks, Laura!) told me afterwards that trying to keep up with the conversation/questions on the handheld while also speaking/paying attention to the conversation was more awkward than anticipated. I missed the first half and the explanations of how the panel would run, which means there was only about 15 minutes left before I was really up to speed as to the mechanics of the session, and I’m not able to fairly comment on the whole thing.

  I’ll say this — that portion of the panel that I did see didn’t really change my mind about Zuda and its operations; I think that the service is a corporate version of an independent production model, and philosophically I prefer the indy approach. It’s not that Perazza, or Kwanza Johnson, or David Gallaher, or any of the other people I’ve met from the Zudaworld are bad or wrong people — as I’ve written before, they’ve been unfailingly polite to me in all our dealings, especially given the skeptical approach I’ve taken to their production model. It comes down to the fact that we have different mental definitions of the word webcomics.

  This is not a problem unique to this discussion — any time I’m contacted by somebody wanting a quote, a primer, or an interview about webcomics, the first thing I have to do is try to come up with a working definition of “webcomics”, and I’ve had a hell of a time developing one that’s both consistent and practical. Hell, last night David Malki ! told me that he hates the word (and even the word comics) so much that we should stop using it. His suggestion: Electric Joy. I think that if we were to come up with a new word, we need to find one that doesn’t invoke mental images of AC-to-DC power supplies and safe words, but hey — that’s just me.

  But getting back to the point, I think we need to have a broader discussion one of these years on the relative merits of the independent model (the creator must really do all the ancillary jobs) vs the syndicate model (all that grunt work done for you, but at a significant cost in rights, and the web is viewed fundamentally as a place to content locked away) vs the Zudamodel (embracing the web, but still functioning as a publisher). For now, you can decide for yourself — the entire discussion was recorded for podcast (which should be over here sometime today), and the Twitter conversation is right there at hashtag #makecomics (Perazza and the other panelists were going to continue to answer questions via Twitter after the session ended, so there’s quite a lot there).

Up today: the long haul that starts at the airport. On the other hand, I managed to get everything packed up, so no box o’ books to ship home, hooray.

Photos: Some catching up to do, so these go back a couple of days. On the floor one might have seen the coolest mobility scooter ever, the saddest clown in the world, and the awesomest fan gift in history (I’m told the guy who made that little clank is approaching retirement and will thus have lots more time to play in his metal shop … I shudder to think what he’ll come up with next; I mean, I like Phil a lot, he’s a terrific guy, but I don’t want him to have a death ray or anything).

Lots of Venture Bros cosplay, with Dr Mrs The Monarch being popular this year (saw another with an absolutely perfect costume, but as casually walking by the booth she was in prompted her to try very hard to sell me a calendar of cosplay fetish photos, I opted against snapping a pic and for moving along as politely as possible; for reference, showing me a photo of a zombified naughty schoolgirl in a total of 18 square inches of fabric and exclaiming, And this is my little sister! is a tad bit creepy). Also slightly disturbing, the pair of cosplayers who appeared to be a couple that were dressed (just about perfectly, I might add) as Dr Orpheus and his daughter Triana (pictured here with the life model for Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose … somebody ask Chris Sims to analyze that one, ’cause I ain’t going near it).

For reference, the Dumbrella Hobo Party booth accepted foodstuffs in exchange for goods (the guy that brought these obtained stickers). Also: orphans, but making change was really messy. We weren’t able to get Iron Chef Sakai to do anything with the beans, but we tried. And there was some adorable animation at Top Chef, as Owly and Wormy went looking for lunch.

That’s it. See you next year.