So, Ian Jones-Quartey, boy genius behind RPG World, since moved on to other things, gave me the go-ahead last night to point y’all to his movie. We’ve mentioned UNFAIR previously, but Ian was keepin’ things kind of close, waiting for his film to appear in some festivals before he unleashed it on an unsuspecting world.

But with a couple of screenings under his belt (seriously, he needs to put some of those curly-olive-branch logos on his poster), he’s shifted thoroughly into distribution mode. So as not to completely swamp his bandwidth, he’s released a Flash port here; it’s probably better when larger, but there’s plenty there to love.

We at Fleen expect great things from Jones-Quartey, including a long and glorious career animating, so now’s the time to check his best work to date and be able to say, “Yeah, I followed that guy from when he was right out of school.” And some day, when he’s on some con panel doing publicity for his fourth feature film, be sure to ask him, “When are you going to finish RPG World?” He’ll love that.

Some few items you may have missed …

Over at Something*Positive, it’s question time as Randy Milholland looks for seven reader questions that he can answer in-strip (as seen previously here). If you have something that’s been burning a hole in your brain about S*P, drop him a line. As an added bonus, Milholland has added links for the previous five installments, which helps to keep storylines accessible.

Christopher B. Wright is overcoming recent Job-like travails that have beset him to kick said travails square in the ‘nads. Or at lest, update Help Desk regularly, which is almost as good.

John Allison is making me fall in love with Scary Go Round all over again today. You have a clash of good vs. evil, a girlfight, Scott Pilgrim-esque videogame visual shorthand (similarly seen in PvP recently), and a punch that’s a total justification for why Esther is my new favorite character. PLUS a panty shot! It’s like fan service just for me.

And if that weren’t more fun than humans should be allowed to have (and my goodness, don’t you think it should be?), Allison informs us that although he will not be in attendance at SDCC next week, copies of SGR Book 4, The Retribution Index, will. Note to self: bring another $20 to Comic Con.

Well gang, I’m off to Europe for a couple of weeks tomorrow, and here’s what I’ve been thinking. What web comics am I going to be able to read while I’m gone? Now, as you could imagine, a fellow who writes for a site such as this reads a lot of web comics. At best, I’ll be confined to over priced internet cafés and half-functional hostel net terminals for the next 16 days, so I have to do some streamlining. I have to decide which comics I can live without and which I can not possibly stand to miss a single panel. 

Even though I don’t think I’ve missed two whole weeks of Sluggy since I was 13 years old, the current story line just isn’t keeping me interested. I might just catch up when I get home, if my brain can handle the shock. 

Questionable Content has me on the edge of my seat right now. Martin has Dora, the coffee shop is busy and Faye is getting her head straight. QC is building toward something; I can’t wait to see what. Of course Jeph is running a guest week for much of the time I’ll be a way, so maybe I’ll just wait this one out too. 

Something Positive is entering into another theatre related story line. I can’t get enough of these. I love SP almost all the time anyway, but I’ve done bits and pieces of acting and crewing in my time and these stories always ring true. 

As well as SP, I might keep an eye on Press Start To Play, just to remind me of home! That should give me more than enough time on European internet terminals to do the things I’m supposed to be doing; like finding hostels, maps, train timetables and lists of laws I’m likely to break. 

Stay cool, Fleeners – I’ll be back eventually! 

Over at Questionable Content, Jeph and Christi are preparing for the SDCC, which means only one thing: guest strip!

Since they are busy packing away t-shirts and such, the friendly chaps at White Ninja offered to give them a hand by drawing the comic today. And let me tell you, it’s a whopper. It features two Ninja Turtles, Splinter, and a heaping dose of revenge. I love it so much it has replaced the Star Wars wallpaper on my desktop.

But don’t fret my friends, regular QC updates will continue tomorrow. Jeph has announced that the offical guest strip week won’t begin until July 24th. He’s just giving you a taste of guest week now, and what a sweet taste it is.

Music updates from the Webcomic world.

Laurie of Count Your Sheep is singing in the shower, a Beatles classic: All Across the Universe. I suggest the Fiona Apple version of All Across the Universe, it’s a heart breaking rendition from the Pleasantville soundtrack.

5ideways has a 5oundtrack, and there’s a new song out. The LJ update says, “If this were a Disney movie, that would be Axolotl’s big song and dance number, a la ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’ from The Little Mermaid or ‘Friend Like Me’ from Aladdin.” Check out the comic and the entire soundtrack.

And for all of you readers of Video Game comics… I feel I must inform you that you should go out and hear a symphony if you are in the Detroit, Philly, or Vienna (VA) areas. Play! A Video Game Symphony is an international tour. Go get cultured. I’ll be there tonight in Detroit.

Walking to work this morning, I passed a rather attractive young lady wearing this shirt, which seems to me to be as good an excuse as any to discuss the forthcoming line of ZLIKS figures from Dead Zebra. “But who is this Dead Zebra?” I hear you cry. DZ is the toy-making and merch-producing subsidiary of the demonically creative Andy Bell. Let’s let him tell the tale, shall we?

The ZLIKS are coming! Finally! I got the good word that the boat has landed and that they will be offloaded and through customs by tomorrow! Wow, two years of work almost over … what a ride it’s been.

There will be a ZLIKS promotional site going up tomorrow on dyzplastic, and I will start pre-selling a limited quantity of 6 variants on shop.deadzebra.com tomorrow to a select few. The bad news is that I won’t be able to ship them until mid-August when I return from a wedding in Europe.

If you are coming to comic-con I should have a few sets to sell there!

Since Andy wrote his notice two days ago, you’ll kindly note that the promised site is now live and awaiting your attention. So go forth, my minions, go forth and CONSUME!

Have you seen all the merch Penny Arcade is dropping? If I wasn’t so poor right now, I would be totally excited. As I understand it, not all of our readers are poor – so I thought I should share.

Mainly, I’m stoked about the new books. I picked up Bacon Robots as soon as it dropped and I’m really glad that the guys aren’t hanging around with the release of their next books. If you haven’t picked up the first collection, it looks like they’re putting out a pretty sweet looking hard cover. I think it would be the perfect beginning to any PA merch collection, but if you don’t feel like buying one yourself how about buying me one, eh?

Yirmumah is known for it’s gag-a-day social commentary that has come to make me laugh fantastically hard at every update. But D.J. Coffman has decided to take his comic down a different path with the new set of strips titled “Prologue 1: Dad”.

D.J. has wanted to get those story-line demons out of his head for some time, and now he’s finally letting them loose on an unsuspecting public. I’m planning on joining Club Yurmumah so I can get all the weekly strips at once, because I’m intrigued into where D.J. is going to take the story.

All we know so far is that a mysterious, moustache-laden biker stops into a bar and starts reminicing about when he was a child, his dear mother would take in hobos and feed them. But as we all know, you can never trust a hobo.

 If you were wondering, Yirmumah will return to its normal format eventually. But for now I recommend the new Yirmumah because it’s not everyday that a web comic takes the brave leap from gag-a-day to story-driven dialogue. I support you D.J. because you have the balls to do what you want, even if it means smushing hobos with trains.

If my memory serves me correctly, it’s now the third year that SDCC has been bunching together the webcomics crowd into what Rich Stevens once dubbed the sexy lagoon. Check out the map: Dayfree all right next to Flight, with PA near Keenspot and Blank Label and Dumbrella; lobbing a grenade into this section of the convention center could destroy webcomics as we know it. But what’s that?

Right there in between Keenspot and BLC, where it says, Billy West? Sweet mother of Slurm, the voice of Dr Zoidberg is right in the center of the sexy lagoon! Billy West is going to spend his days staring across the aisle to where Jeff Rowland has a tattoo of a character he (West) voices inscribed on his (Rowland’s) body. Bets are now being accepted to determine precisely how cool this is.

Friendly Hostility is sporting a trio of summer-themed storylines.

One: Fatima is in a bit of trouble. She’s dragged her brother away from his summer of lovin’ to fight with her in a team freestyle cage fight to clear her debts get ahead in life. The shocker so far? Fatima is capable of love.

Two: Arath, who couldn’t talk to Collin at first about him being gay, invites Collin to come to Mexico with him. Collin has been banned from Mexico. The twist? It’s an election year.

Three: Bootsy has turned 18 years old, the age of legality. Collin and Fox being gone, she celebrates with The Demon, who invites her to stay the night to get away from paint fumes. And she confesses her love for him. Why, oh why?! It’s so awkward.

Each of the story lines has, in my opinion, a freshness to them because they have such a limited time frame: Summer. They won’t drag on forever, and they have to have a cleverness that comes of conciseness, and the variety also works well.

The storylines are also brilliant in the way that they highlight very important characterizations: Collin as an aspiring dictator, Fox as a loyal brother who respects his family’s… erm… traditions, Bootsy as a romantic, and Fatima as someone who plays by her own rules. The situations that are developing — the Mexican incursion, and what the Demon will say to Bootsy — provide good vehicles to reveal essential things about these characters.

Well played, Friendly Hostility. Well played.