Get ’em while they’re hot.

• So Gordon McAlpin went and made a Multiplex short (the funding of which was mentioned in the beforetimes), and before we get to that, can I commend him on one thing? The Kickstarter in question launched on 9 April; between that day and when the campaign finished on 8 May, McAlpin posted more than two dozen updates on the project. Since completion of the campaign, he’s dropped more than sixty progress reports. That degree of communication with backers is worth noting and emulating. Okay, back to where we were.

  Judging from the topic lines of the updates (most of which are backer-only), the short is done, seeing as how certain backers go the early-access link a couple days before Christmas. Hooray, project successful, all done, right? Nah, that’d be boring. The campaign was just to get the first short done; now it’s time to release the short wide, get shopped around the festival cicruit, and maybe make more. A very modest US$2000 (you read that right, two stinkin’ grand) will:

  [H]elp fund the film festival run, digital release, and promotion of the Multiplex 10 short film, in hopes of reaching the widest possible audience. Although the Multiplex 10 short film stands on its own, it was conceived as a pilot for a series, and reaching a wide audience will give us the best possible chance of producing more Multiplex 10 videos.

  [O]ffer a physical copy of the short for existing (and new) backers who want them, and to sell at conventions, screenings, and other venues. And …

  [I]f we can raise significantly more than the base goal, we can fund additional 2–3 minute Multiplex 10 webisodes, to be released free online. These webisodes will feature Kurt and Jason (and possibly some other familiar faces) talking about a then-current movie or facet of movie culture

  As of this writing, there’s 11 hours left and the campaign has passed the second stretch goal (US$4K), meaning that the USB cards the short will be sold on are 4GB instead of 2GB, and the first webisode will be made. At US$5K, the USB doubles to 8GB, at US$7K a second webisode gets added; at US$8K the USB doubles again to 16GB, and at US$10K a third webisode is produced. If you want to see any of these things happen, now’s the time.

• It’s less than a month since we noted the up-wrapping and comprehensive collection-printing of Plume;; it’s got another week to go on its crowdfunding and is approaching double its US$25K goal. Today, K Lynn Smith announced that since all the financial stretch goals have been met, there will be one more based on backer count.

  1000 backers means that the book plate used for signing the omnibus edition (alas, the earlier single volumes don’t qualify) will have a fancy spot gloss added to it; this is not something I’ve seen anybody do before, and it’s a neat idea. Spot gloss and other fancy treatments get added to the covers of books, but this is a fancification that’s like a secret between creator and fan.

  Okay, that’s probably stretching the point a bit, but it’s a neat idea, and it may drive backers to up their pledges if they weren’t getting the omnibus, so it’s a smart way for Smith to push upsells. As of this writing, there are 903 backers and a bit more than six and a half days. Let’s see if that count can go up by 11% in a week.

Spam of the day:

IT Degrees with SE

Okay, gotta ask — what in the world is SE? Because I’m being offered IT degrees with it, nursing degrees with it, local hot wives not getting enough sex from their husbands with it, knockoff Viagra with it, and credit scores with it. Whatever SE it, it’s very flexible.

Time to get Caught Up, just in time for whichever holiday you celebrate! Some of this is new, some of this was getting ready to be mentioned when the whole Patreon category four shitstorm blew in. In any event, I hope you enjoy.

• Longtime reader Mark V sent along an email pointing out something I’d have missed otherwise: an interesting post by Andrew Plotkin about … well, a lot of things. Firstly, Plotkin is the programmer that helped Jason Shiga come up with an interactive version of Meanwhile¹.

  Meanwhile, in case you’re forgotten, starred the childhood version of Jimmy from Demon, and was a pick-a-path adventure so complex that it required the invention of a new computer language to keep all the branching paths straight. If you’ve never seen it, you’d have eight or ten story paths you could follow on any page, leading to a colored thumb-tab on the side of the page, leading to the next page without requiring printed instructions like GO TO PAGE 37. It was a work of art. It also lent itself to computer-based implementations like whoa.

  Now that we know who, let’s talk about the what; Plotkin talks about starting a new job, about his many creative projects, and about all the insanely cool things he has/is/will be/wants to resume worked/working on. He’s exactly who we want to be out there, making neat stuff. And he spends a good deal of the post talking about the tax bill coming up for a vote in the Senate tonight, and how it pretty much guarantees there will be no more independent creatives like him in the new tax regime.

  If you love comics, love games, love art, do remember this (those of you in the US) and make it just one more reason that you make sure you register to vote and then fucking vote out the vultures that admit they’re only in power to benefit their donors.

• But because we, as a species, retain the ability to look past imminent doom towards a somewhat distant future and make plans, please know that MoCCA Fest 2018 applications are now up over at the Society of Illustrators site. The deadline is 31 December, so a little less than two weeks. MoCCA Fest will take place 7 & 8 April, returning to the Metropolitan West events space, hard by the USS Intrepid on the west side of Mahnattan.

  It’s a bit off the beaten track, but there’s good food and snacks at Met West, it’s only $5 per day to get in, and the panel venue remains the swanky Ink 48 hotel around the corner. I’ve been to every MoCCA Fest that there’s been, and I’ve covered every one for the years Fleen has been in existence, so I’ll be sure to see you there.

• Another Kickstarter fulfilled — this time, Anatomy Of Animals by Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett — another chance for those of you that didn’t get in on the campaign to get caught up. And unusually for a Kickstarter that’s just finishing up shipping, AOA is already in Kellett’s store, and may I point out for less than I paid for it during the crowdfunding campaign?

  Yup, it appears that I have subsidized latecomers, as it cost me US$30 + S/H for my copy, and LArDK is now selling them for US$29.99. A sucker is me, right? Well, okay, I did get a spiffy stretch goal in the form of a Gandalf Airlines fridge magnet, so I guess I’ll let Kellett off the hook this time. But there’s something I want you to do for me:

  LArDK included a flyer in the box, with a coupon code for the Drive book on one side² and an advert for the Sheldon Store on the other side; you can see it in the photo up top. But what’s that? Computer, zoom and enhance!

  

  Announcing now: show me proof that you tried to order Crisco, lettuce, or a 40-lb tub of Ovaltine from Kellett’s store, and I will give you a dollar; on the Crisco, that’s a 21 cent profit, my friend.

Spam of the day:

I saw you tweeting about reading and I thought I’d check out your website. I really like it. Looks like Gary has come a long way!

Everything is, in fact, coming up Gary.

_______________
¹ Launching on Steam in a month’s time.

² Not sharing that code; it’s not up to me to give y’all a 30% discount.

The countdown to pie is go, repeat, GO.

Kickstarter Alert #1: The folks at Cloudscape Comics (including but by no means limited to my favorite comicking engineer¹) do regular print anthologies of the best of British Columbia cartoonists. They’re great! But the latest anthology, on the topic of music, meant to be the 10th anniversary anthology, is lagging a bit in its funding. As of today, they’re at about the 23% mark, and not quite halfway through the funding period. Don’t sleep on this one, and if you don’t believe me, listen to your Auntie Spike. Pledge!

Kickstarter Alert #2: Just launched on the Kicker, Habibi: A Muslim Love Story Anthology. This one looks seriously interesting, and from a POV that’s broadly underrepresented in comics at the moment. The names of the contributors aren’t familiar to me, but that’s kind of great? There’s nothing like an anthology for getting exposed to a bunch of creators you wouldn’t otherwise see, and a couple of them will be great and your new favorites. For US$15 (early bird) or US$20 (regular), you can’t miss the discovery value. The anthology is being based on an extremely modest estimate of 350 copies in the first print run, so this is likely your one shot at getting a copy.

Once In A Long Damn Time Alert: I don’t recall ever seeing Raina Telgemeier put original art up for sale previously, but she’s done so now to support the Southern Poverty Law Center. Seventeen pieces are now up at eBay, with the auctions running another eight days. Want a complete set of Raina, her parents, and her sister Amara? Maybe Cat, Maya, Carlos, and Uncle Jose from Ghosts? Five members of the Baby-Sitters Club? The cast and crew of Drama? This is your shot.

Averted Crisis Alert: John Allison told us back in April that he was wrapping up Tackleford and all the comics that take place there. Over the summer at SDCC, he told me that it would happen at the end of the year. If not all-Desmond, all the time, it looked at the very least like we’d be getting some Robert Cop and that’s all right. But plans sometimes take a backseat; when your brain wants to stay on its current course, you listen, and thus there’s an announcement at the top of the page over at Bad Machinery:

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Scary Go Round has been un-cancelled. Stories will now continue in 2018. Danger averted.

For the record, I have zero problem with this.

Spam of the day:

This guy reveals how to get a ?rock hard? boner in less than two weeks

Really? I can usually manage in no more than 3-4 hours. This is not to brag

_______________
¹ Sorry Keen Soo, Jorge Cham, and Dante Shepherd. Y’all are great, but Angela’s got swords, corgis, and moustaches.

Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin has been out committing acts of journalism¹, this time from the Saint-Malo Comics Festival. He shares with us his report from Day One below.

Friday, day one of Quai des Bulles, the Saint-Malo comics festival, was not a professional day: everyone could come, though of course that included a lot of children (it was a school holiday) since not everyone can afford to take a day off work. While the day started slowly (not much was scheduled in the morning), it had very interesting programming:

• One hour with Marion Montaigne, an interview by Arnaud Wassmer, on the topic of her latest project In The Space Suit of Thomas Pesquet, which is entirely transcribed below.
• An interesting panel on the latest developments of knowledge/world discovery comics. In fact one of the panelists, Anne-Lise Combeaud, the author of Philocomix, told she came from the blogs BD world, and that influenced how she created the comic (trying to experiment within the constraints of the page in particular), and we were able to discuss that experience in the signing that followed at the publisher’s booth (Rue de Sèvres).

One Hour With Marion Montaigne
After introducing Montaigne, Thomas Pesquet, and the project, it took the form of an interview:

Who came up with the idea?
Around September 2015 Montaigne was busy on the Prof Moustache animated project as well as with its latest collection, and wanted to escape this character a bit; and at the same time she wanted to deal more with space matters and for this purpose started meeting with people working for CNES (France space agency), such as the teams who have instruments on the Mars Curiosity rover … or the people in charge of answering UFO sighting mails.

And in particular, astronaut coaches. And it turns out the training to become an astronaut is quite hard. Then Pesquet came up in the conversation, and it turned out he had commented once on one of her notes to confirm that it reflected his experience. Let’s invite him! After a first missed connection, he was able to come to her studio, about one year before he was to take off, which means he was already intensely preparing for it.

The book itself: how can the whole experience be rendered on paper?
Montaigne got to travel and watch the training in Cologne (where the ESA, European Space Agency, training center is located), she had to go to Russia as well, etc. And then have it be proofread. Her aim is to give back to the public what she was told or able to witness: the astronauts through their experience.

Was it a pedagogical intent from Pesquet as well?
He has, by contract, to explain what he does. And while it is not obvious to shoot (staging for film is hardly compatible with the training realities, e.g. when in a centrifuge), and even documentaries have a tendency not to show some unglamorous realities, such as showing classroom time or Russian revision time, comics have no such limitations: they can more easily show more down to Earth aspects that are an important part of daily life.

Is it a childhood obsession?
It is clear this is a job for which you have to have incredible motivation. And And this preparation takes up their whole life, even for those who end up being rejected in the end, which represents most candidates. Not to mention space life represents but about 1% of the total time on the job.

Are the test designers as sadistic as seen in the book?
Both Montaigne and Pesquet came up with this representation; but it has to be said the tests themselves are weird: the version shown in the book is in fact when it is still easy! And the psychological tests are designed not have any discernible logic so as to be unsettling.

One collective test, not shown in the book, involved candidates from multiple nations trying to solve a math problem: a boat in low tide has to rely on a ferry to load cargo, but at the same time the tide rises so conditions change, then there is the matter of the trains that take up the cargo … the result is that after 20 minutes they had not made any progress, and the aim was not to see who could take the lead, because that is not necessarily the kind of player they want in the teams.

So, they are not looking for astronauts with a devil-may-care attitude and an oversized ego …
Don’t get her wrong, Pesquet is on the level. But it is true the prototype of the 60s astronaut (usually the best Air Force test pilots) who left for one or two days by themselves is no longer what they are looking for. Here they have to live in reduced space with five other people for six months: they can’t very well go out for a walk. So they are looking for people who are confident in themselves but easy going with others, and with conflict resolution skills. For instance, they practice with serious video games which have simultaneous competitive and cooperative aspects.

How to represent tests?
One of the issues is showing the time scale of the tests: they take place over months, even years, there are cutoff stages, and they do not necessarily know which tests they will be training for next.

How about the way they learn Russian?
They go in space in a Russian rocket, so they have no choice but to learn the language in the course of a year. They do so in an old mining town about one hour away from Cologne, and they, about 35-40 years old, end up in the same classroom as the local students.

Is the vision of NASA as space’s Hogwarts really Pesquet’s vision?
Everyone has a vision of NASA as that mythical institution, which to be honest they maintain themselves with museums for instance. While there, she was able to see space suit testing rooms, as well as the gigantic pools where astronauts train on different modules for space work.

Which makes sense, because everything has to be relearned in space.
Including the most insignificant, such as the fact they have to wear diapers, and since their bodies will be put to the test in space, they have to be put to the test on the ground and sometimes it is their bodies that fail them.

While NASA feels like Top Gun, for the Space City in Russia the imagery is rather that of Gagarin.
Indeed, in there Gagarin is Serious Business. Russians are in general very superstitious and so have a number of rituals, from the watching of an old, boring documentary The White Dawn, up to urinating one last time at the side of the road just where Gagarin is said to have done so just before leaving for space.

Pesquet first participated in missions where he was a backup.
Indeed, the others from his class where chosen as main participants before him, up until 2014 where he was selected as main for a future mission that ended up taking off in 2016.

And so he joined the club of those who cannot wait but take off again.
Well, maybe not right the day after he landed, but indeed there is something of an elite sportsman in them, in that they see these as challenges to do again or even do once better.

Let’s talk about the centrifuge.
It is used to prepare for takeoff and landing, which are the two most dangerous phases, and so the most anguishing ones, they have to manage the buttons while being subjected to enormous accelerations (up to ten times normal gravity), or sometimes just a joystick when they can’t lift their arm any more; sometimes they use a stick.

He told the story of an astronaut he personally knew: following a bad separation her capsule had a slightly incorrect reentry angle, resulting in them taking 10G of acceleration and a landing rough enough that their capsule burned a field in deep Kazakhstan … so they have to be prepared for the worst.

So the artist has to show the reality behind the communication.
More generally render their personal experience: spinning seat, centrifuge, etc. That they take as a sports challenge.

And there is the matter of learning how to move in in microgravity.
Movies tend to show a misleading image of that: you can go quite fast in microgravity! So they have to deliberately pace themselves. Nevertheless they go through a learning phase when they hit walls, etc.

And how is it to represent that for the artist?
It’s interesting, you have a number of interesting situations, such as the collective meal where they are all eating at the table, and some are around, and some are shown below and above it.

And what about the contents of mission itself?
Many photos, but it is only a slight portion of their work: they work a lot, but during the weekend they play and don’t have a lot to do. So he ends up sending his photos with the captions over the weekend and they are published all through the week by the public communication teams while he is in fact working. It’s about the only interesting thing they can do …

The mission itself ends up not taking a lot of space in the book.
First of course Montaigne couldn’t take up very much of his time while he was there (and of course no way to go there for a documentation trip), and besides the work is quite routine and ends up compressing well.

Did his photos help for documentation?
Indeed, and in fact he is not the only one who takes them; he has to work sometimes.

So explain how the artist tried here to render one of his vehicular exits.
The aim was to try and render the experience of a vehicular exit with in particular the immense scale of the station. Not directly represented is the fact it turns out spending time (about seven hours) in the space suits is far from ideal: the decreased pressure means they end up releasing gas, they sweat a lot, etc. And of course his fellow astronauts omitted to tell him about it beforehand …

And here we see them back on Earth
When they are back on Earth they are really white, he was not that badly out of shape but they do take some punishment in the landing phase, which they compare to a car crash (flips, etc.); once on land they compare their state to a hangover to the tenth power … and meanwhile all the cameras are on them.

Did he recognize himself and his experience in the book, in the end?
He does have a sense of humor, or he would not have accepted in the first place … he meant for these kind of issues (important or not) to be represented.

No self-insertion?
No, that was not the matter, as there is already a lot to tell, and it was not obvious how to do so anyway: which way to put herself? So rather than directly retelling how she herself was informed, might as well build a narrative.

Did the author have to remove sensitive information, e.g. top secret stuff?
No, she did not have to remove anything of the sort, she assumes she was not told of such things in the first place. Some intimate aspects where not told, but that’s it.

Spam of the day:

Life Insurance Rates Quicker

Are you trying to tell me something?

_______________
¹ He journalised.

I swear that title actually means something in context.

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith were at Strand Boooks in Manhattan last night, kicking off their monthlong book tour in support of Soonish. For those of you that don’t want to read, the talk was recorded for C-SPAN and will appear as part of their books series in a couple weeks, and Zach did a solo interview with ABC today that that went over many of the same points. Everybody else, onwards.

Here’s the thing about Soonish that you should know — it was a joint effort that played to both authors strengths (Kelly: scientific interviewing and bibliographies; Zach: wide and deep self-taught curiosity about nerd stuff and also dick jokes), that would have absolutely destroyed a lesser marriage.

Each of the topics that they examined took a solid month of research and writing and interviewing and doublechecking — and keep in mind that they did the full workup on more than the ten technologies that made it into the final book¹. Much of it took place while Kelly was particularly busy². There were Nobel laureates to talk to, agents and editors to keep happy, and a looming deadline.

For those that are interested in the mechanics of making the book and their working process, they’ll be recording a podcast on that topics in New York City tonight, but the short version is (per Zach) For any task, somebody has to be in charge. It doesn’t matter who, and it switched back and forth for each chapter, but somebody has to be the one that make the decision to alter direction, kill the project, take responsibility. That, and recognizing it’s not personal, is how they got through the process.

But when you get to write a book about all the ways that things that look great (spaceflight for US$500/kg instead of US$20,000!) will actually kill us in foreseen (whoever gets it first can just hang out in orbit with a bunch of tungsten rods that they drop onto Earth with the force of nuclear bombs!) or unforeseen ways (and in order to do it, you have to have perfect understanding of the weather patterns of the globe, predict them with 100% accuracy into the future, and build a 100,000 km long chain of carbon atoms with exactly zero of them out of place or it all fails spectacularly!), that process has its perks.

That’s before they get to how humanity will voluntarily let itself be slaughtered by robots in exchange for cheap cookies, or just the reassurance that the robot is trying hard to help while the smoke and toxic gases are getting closer. As a species, we are often not very smart, which means maybe we shouldn’t be allowing people to create their own viruses for fun and profit?

And what do you do when people will inevitably engage in acts like hate crimes in augmented reality, while doing nothing in actual real reality? Then Pokémon Go came along and planted Pokestops at the Holocaust Museum and the sites of concentration camps, and we saw how maybe we haven’t anticipated all the outcomes just yet. I’m not saying that we’re good at planning for unexpected contingencies, but we’re at least starting to get used to the idea that we haven’t thought of all the side effects in our whiz-bang future tech utopias. Like Kelly said, Nintendo did the right thing because … well, you know.

Highlights:

• The very nice woman that owns the Strand introduced Kelly and Zach, but pretty obviously was not familiar with the work of the Whiner-Schmidts.
• There were multiple questions about SMBC comics and how Kelly looks grumpy in them, which I should really dispel. Kelly is one of the bubbliest, most excited to share knowledge, funniest people you’ll ever meet. Okay, so she doesn’t get the whole single-use unlubricated monocle thing³, but she is no more the scowling cartoon than Zach is the feral, unclothed crazy person he draws himself as (although, on second thought …).
• Since Zach got a couple of solo questions about his work, I asked one to Kelly: Favorite parasite and why? After taking a moment to reassure the audience that studying parasites is her actual job and she’s not just a weirdo, she proudly recounted the story of the parasitoid — it must kill its host to complete the reproductive cycle — that her team discovered. Eudurus set, the Crypt-Keeper Wasp, is a remarkably nasty piece of work and Kelly positively shines when describing it.
• Asked about what they’re working on next, Kelly mentioned getting back to her day job research, and Zach mentioned that he’s teamed up with economist Brian Caplan to illustrate a graphic novel that argues the economic benefits of immigration.

Soonish is available in bookstores everywhere. The book tour continues apace.

Spam of the day:

SqrtnAmy16 wants to know if you’re free this week

No lie, I am running around like an alligator on fire this week. Thanks, though!

_______________
¹ They started with 50, but at book length, that didn’t allow any more depth than a mildly amusing Wikipedia article. They chopped down to 25, then 11, eliminating topics that rely too much on magic, or unrealistic economics, or are so far advanced that minor incremental changes will get us there.

The eleventh was quantum computing, which they abandoned late in the game for not being able to do a sufficiently good job explaining it. The longest surviving chapter in Soonish is ~10,000 words, and QC had more than 30,000 that didn’t do justice and would have only grown further in time and word count. Ten’s a good round number anyway.

² Asked in the Q&A how they dealt with news breaking that disrupted what they’d already written — which happened with both Cheap Spaceflight (thanks, Elon Musk!) and Augmented Reality (thanks, Pokémon Go!) — Kelly responded, I’d say drinking, but I was pregnant while we were writing it.

³ You’re buying them in 25 packs! Why? How? I didn’t mention it to her afterwards, but I did in fact make use of such a monocle to look dapper as fuck at my niece’s wedding.

But before we get to the newsy type deals, allow me to offer props to Randall Munroe for today’s xkcd, wherein he anticipated my critique in the alt-text. Of course Munroe knew about the Great Boston Molasses Flood, as famously catalogued by Milk and Cheese. Of course. It’s comforting, in a way, to have it proved that you are not cleverer (or at least more well-versed in obscure historical trivia) than Randall Munroe.

• Soonish debuted yesterday, and although I don’t have my copy yet (it will be coming soonish in fulfillment of Zach Weinermsith’s Kickstarter Gold project), I’m eagerly counting down the days. Not just until I get to read the book in physical form, but also to see Kelly and Zach Weinersmith on their book tour next Monday evening; it’s been years since I’ve seen Zach, so this’ll be fun.

  Also fun: hearing Weinersmith & Weinersmith get five minutes of precious airtime on the nation’s premiere daily economic issues program, Marketplace. It brought into relief how much of technology is really dependent on finding an economic niche it can exploit, which did not occur to me when I had the chance to read through a late pre-final copy of the book last year.

  Give it a listen, get your copy of Soonish, and don’t forget to use the entire situation spice up your sex life: The Marketplace Interview — listen to the mellifluous voice of Kai Ryssdal through your radio, touch him on the penis.

• As of this writing, we’re about 2.5 hours out from the end of the Kickstarter for the omnibus edition of Girls With Slingshots, which has been running for the past month. Apart from giving us a new case study to re-evaluate the validity of the Fleen Funding Formula, Mark II and the McDonald Ratio, it’s significant for a couple of other reasons:
  • For the past week or so, it’s been the all-time highest funding Iron Circus project, dethroning the 2014 edition of Smut Peddler.
  • It is currently a little above US$250,000.
  • It thus contributed to the fact that Iron Circus has now raised, across 14 projects, more than one million US damn dollars.

  This is why anybody in indie/webcomics with their head screwed on straight is listening to Spike; it’s why Kickstarter basically adopted her as an evangelist¹. And we’re up more than US$3000 in the time it took me to do the math in the footnotes.

• One of these days, I want to be so accomplished that when I change jobs, it makes the industry press; then again, when it comes to webcomics hack pseudojournalism, I pretty much am the industry press, so I guess I’ll let you know.

  But today, that distinction belongs to three colleagues at Workman Publishing who are hopping ship to Macmillan to start a new imprint in the children’s book group; they include publisher Daniel Nayeri, editorial director Nathalie Le Du, and art director Collen AF Venable — onetime designer at :01 Books (the majority of their entire catalog still designed by Venable, despite her being gone for three years), one time Fluff In Brooklyn webcomicker, and force of nature in book design.

  Being an art director recognized by the publishing industry for the revolutionary things you’re doing for kid books is great. Getting in on the ground floor of a new imprint, able to put your philosophies into practice as guiding principles? Even better.

  The as-yet unnamed new imprint is, I’m confident, going to do amazing things. And, in one of those cases of things coming full circle, Venable will now be returning to Macmillan, which is the parent company of :01, and doubtless see her old co-conspirators around the halls. Congrats to her and her esteemed colleagues, and I can’t wait to see what they do.

Oh, and with 86 minutes to go? GWS is above US$256,000. Yowza.

Spam of the day:

Bouquets for less bucks

No offense, guys, but the visual design of the graphics in this spam is very mid-80s, and reminds me of a newspaper ad I saw back in college for a luv-ya bookay. It was painful.

________________
¹ And let’s consider that of the seven Kickstarter Thought Leaders, there are as of today 35 projects to their names (one of which was unsuccessful), raising a total of approximately² US$3.7 million.

Spike’s responsible for more than US$1 million of that, and 14 of 35 projects. She’s the second-most successful of the creators, beaten only by a three-project design shop (representing two of the seven) that raises US$300K to US$700K on beautiful, pricey art objects.

² Approximately because the GWS campaign is still open, and two of the other Thought Leaders are reported in foreign currencies.

Still ramping back up into what’s happening in webcomics these days. I expect it’ll be a while before I’m fully caught up.

Erika Moen & Matt Nolan’s Oh Joy, Sex Toy is very nearly always educational for me. I learn about things that people do in ways that I do not that sound awesome. I learn about things that people do or like that have no interest for me, but which makes me more empathetic — just ’cause I’m not into it, don’t mean it’s a bad thing is a lesson we can all stand to learn. But best of all (for me) are the sexual health lessons, because I almost always learn something useful.

Today, I learned something that in retrospective is blindingly obvious, but which had never been taught to me or occurred to me before. I happened to have a reasonably complete and comprehensive sex education experience when I was in high school — it was the mid 80s, AIDS was poorly understood, and at least my school district decided to respond with the best, most up to date information possible. None of this abstinence-only nonsense — here’s methods of birth control and STI prevention, here’s the odds they work as intended, here’s the ways you can mess up using them and cause bad outcomes. In retrospective, it was great.

There was also a really good anatomical component each year (starting back in fifth grade, as I recall), and one of my teachers being a breast cancer survivor, there was a no-bullshit discussion of self-exams with absolutely no snickering tolerated from the male portion of the class. This is how you catch things as early as possible; this is how you keep from dying was her message. But we never got the message that came near the end of today’s update, where Moen’s character delivers this exhortation:

So get familiar with your funbags (or where they used to be) and keep an eye out for anything that looks or feels unusual for them! [emphasis mine]

or where they used to be encompasses both survivors who’ve had mastectomies and those undergoing gender transition. Trans* issues wouldn’t have been taught to me back in the mid 80s because it just wasn’t a topic of discussion; the gradual increase in trans* visibility means that where they used to be is perfectly logical¹. It’s actually the concept of survivors and recurrence that caught me flat-footed. We were taught you lost your breasts to cancer and that was it; you might get other cancers in the future, but not breast cancer again.

It’s a sobering thought, delivered in an almost offhand manner. It’s made me think a lot. It’s a hell of an accomplishment for six words. And that’s why I love what Moen and Nolan are doing, week after week.

Spam of the day:

HURRY_UP! Online dating that is worth your time.

The partially-clothed young woman pictured in this spam has been Photoshopped to render her incapable of fitting her breasts into a mammogram scanner without the aid of industrial sedatives and a forklift. Reminding myself about the bit above re: just ’cause I’m not into it but jeeze. I’m surprised anybody thinks she can stand upright.

_______________
¹ In the notes below the strip, there’s also links and resources not only for assigned-male-at-birth transwomen, but also cisgender males. Fun fact, a small (but measurable) fraction of breast cancer cases are in cis-men, which often are not caught until disastrously late because they don’t do self-exams or get mammograms. Heck, most penis-havers can’t be bothered to do self-checks for testicular cancer, so they really aren’t checking their manly pecs for breast cancer. Once again, knowledge to the rescue.

Continuing our look at programming for this year’s San Diego Comics Con.

Friday Programming
Biographical And Autobiographical Comics
10:00am — 11:00am, Room28DE
Sonny Liew, Box Brown, Sarah Glidden, and more, on nonfiction comics.

Cartoon Network: OK KO! Let’s Be Heroes
10:00am — 11:00am, Indigo Ballroom, Hilton San Diego Bayfront
Ian Jones-Quartey may have moved on from Steven Universe, but his new show is getting loads of attention right now. I’d say this was my chance to see him in a session panel without having to line up, oh, now, except for the fact of what’s in the Indigo Ballroom immediately after, and how many people are going to attend this one (not all of whom will have an interest) to have a better shot at the next one.

Comic Book Law School 202: Help Is On The Way
10:30am — 12:00pm, Room 11
Continuing the series from yesterday with a focus on where the money gets involved: licenses and transfers of rights, publishing, manufacturing, merchandising, and distribution agreements, including contracts and incorporation.

Cartoon Network: Steven Universe
11:00am — 12:00pm, Indigo Ballroom, Hilton San Diego Bayfront
Yeah, here’s the next thing in Indigo. Rebecca Sugar, Deedee Magno-Hall, Michaela Dietz, Estelle, AJ Michalka, and Zach Callison (respectively: creator, Pearl, Amethyst, Garnet, Stevonnie, and Steven). Gonna be a madhouse.

Taking Comics From Web To Print
11:30am — 12:00pm, Room 24ABC
Simon Hanselmann and Liz Suburbia talkinga bout how to get from web to print. Seems an odd topic for Hanselman since his pre-publisher career was dominated by self-published minicomics, and a weekly comic run by VICE, which is pretty much a publishing deal that’s merely not on paper.

Handling Challenges: Bans And Challenges To Comics
12:00pm — 1:00pm, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
Raina Telgemeier, Candice Mack, Gina Gagliano, and David Saylor talking with Betsy Gomez about people that have nothing better to do than to police what other people are reading.

Condemned To Repeat?
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Room25ABC
This is like the third time that Box Brown is on a nonfiction-focused panel, right? I think it’s third. Andrew Farago moderates, Nathan Hale, Sarah Glidden, John Holmstrom, Lewis Trondheim, and Brigitte Findakly talk.

Read Like a Girl: Middle-Grade Fiction for Girls (and Boys)
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
The SDCL is where you want to be if you want to see Raina this show apparently; this time she’s talking with Nidhi Chanani, Shannon Hale, Jenni Holm, Molly Ostertag, and moderator Brigid Alverson. Lotta smart on this panel.

Spotlight on Marguerite Bennett
1:00 — 2:00pm, Room 28DE
I have to quote the official description for a bit: Do you like sassy broads in good dresses mouthing off about storytelling? If your answer is, “What a weird panel description,” then come see Ryan North interview Marguerite Bennett on comics, craft, work ethic, process, representation, feminist wrath, queer culture, comedy, kissing, storytelling, and more! I can’t decide if that was Bennett, North, or the two togther that wrote that description; either way, awesome.

Nonfiction and Memoir in Graphic Novels
2:00 — 3:00pm, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
Box Brown nonfiction comics panel count: four. Panelists include Thi Bui, Nathan Hale, Tillie Walden, and Alison Wilgus.

Spotlight on Gemma Correll
2:00pm — 3:00pm, Room 4
Oooh! Gemma Correll!

What’s New With Terry Moore
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 28DE
Because Terry Moore is freakin’ awesome, and because Strangers In Paradise is back in 2018.

Monetize Your Comics On LINE Webtoon Discover
7:00pm — 8:00pm, Room 4
Quoting here: LINE Webtoon’s Tom Akel will walk you through how to publish and promote your own IP on the Discover platform, and Patreon’s Heather Wilder will provide details on the partnership between Patreon and LINE Webtoon and how creators can take advantage of the Webtoon creator investment program. Hear from creators who have published their work through Discover while building huge audiences, including Kaitlyn Narvaza, Stephen McCranie, Tiffany Woodall, and Sarah Andersen. This is really how SDCC sees webcomics: a means of getting to a point where you can involve an IP company; outside of that, nothing. Interested to see what Patreon has to say, though.

The World Of Drive
9:00pm — 10:00pm, Room 9
Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett will be talking Drive which is a damn shame because I’m obligated elsewhere on Friday night and who thinks you’re going to get a panel crowd at 9:00pm? The Eisners are happening, there are screenings, but a panel? Dumb. Which is a shame, because I really want to hear what LArDK has to say about one of my favorites, in a rare panel actually dealing with a webcomic.

Webcomics Advocates: The Webcomics Gathering
9:00 — 10:00pm, Room 32AB
And just in case webcomics weren’t being disregarded enough, let’s bury two separate panels in the death timeslot against each other, on the far sides of the San Diego Convention Center to make it practically impossible to hop between if you found both interesting. Anyway. As in previous years, you get 30 seconds to deliver a pitch about your webcomic.

Spam of the day:

Hello every one i want to share my testimony
on
how i belong to Illuminati member,

Bonus points for the irregular spacing and tortured English — makes me think you just might be an isolated secret master of … well, something.

Know what else is awesome? One of the greatest, most enabling guys in [web]comics, Christopher Butcher, is getting a new job. He’s been great at managing one of the best comics shops in North America, and he founded one of the great comics shows in the world. Now he gets to hunt out new talent in North America and Japan, and Publishers Weekly has the story:

Chris Butcher, longtime manager of The Beguiling comics bookstore and founder and artistic director of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, is leaving The Beguiling and has been named a consulting editor-at-large for Viz Media.

In this new consulting role for Viz Media, Butcher will scout acquisitions and new talent and new publishing projects, while splitting his time between North America and Japan. In addition Butcher will also scout for original non-Japanese comics projects.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer, more qualified guy. Congratulations to Butcher, and to Viz for recognizing skill when they see it.

In other news:

• New animation from The Nib.
• Matt Furie is reclaiming Pepe from fucking Nazis.
• Tickets are now available for Marian Call’s SDCC-adjacent concert.

There’s, uh, not a lot extra to say about any of those. Enjoy ’em.

Spam of the day:

Search free coupons for toilet paper discounts

How much toilet paper do you think I use?

We’ll get the sixth one out of the way first.

• I woke up today with one of my all time favorite Something*Positive strips at the forefront of my brain, and wanted to go read it again. Here it is — Lizard-Happy. Man, what a great little moment Randy Milholland wrote there. I’ve loved this strip since I first read it what, two or three years ago?

  Nope. More than seven. How the crap did this strip run more than seven years ago and it feels so much more recent? Pretty sure this is proof that time is accelerating, a situation for which the laws of physics make no allowance¹.

  The conclusion is clear: physics — mayhap the universe itself — is broken, and all is about to come crashing down. Time, space, mass, energy all coalescing into a monobloc and everything we’ve ever known or love erased not just from existence, but probably from ever having existed in the first place.

  Not sure how that happened, but it’s probably something one of Milholland’s very performative I used to be your fan until I found out [something completely irrelevant] type followers did, just to spite him². Either that, or I’m just older than I thought.³

• Five things, then. Katie Lane⁴ dropped one hell of a resource on the creative community via twitterage earlier today:
  

  New Post!! 5 Things to Know Before You Sign Your Publishing Contract

  Which turns out to be the first of five topic-specific emails from an online training course that Lane is offering on understanding publishing contracts. The First Thing is this:

  In any publishing deal, you’re in charge. That’s because a publishing contract is you giving the publisher permission to use your work. They need permission and you’re the only one they can get it from.

  Man, I love that; no matter how a publisher may try to spin things to where you act out of fear, the lesson is that it’s not a failure to say no; it’s an inalienable right, and your ultimate protection. Key thoughts from Lane:

  Every term in the contract is a request:

  • May we have the right to make merchandise?
  • May we publish your book for a royalty that’s 10% of the cover price?
  • May we have the right to publish the next book you write?

  Just because they ask doesn’t automatically mean you have to say yes. With every request for permission in the contract, ask yourself:

  • Do I want to give them this permission?
  • Do I trust the publisher to use these rights effectively?
  • If I give the publisher my permission, and I don’t like the results, what options does the contract give me?

  [emphasis original]

  Much more, as the kids say, at the link. The Next Thing will be Only give them the permission they need, and can use, but if you want to see that, Lane requires you to do something. I’m not saying that she’s following the smack dealer model of first taste’s free, but to get Things Two through Five, you’ve got to sign up for the course. And if she is, she’s a pretty bad smack dealer, because the entire course is free. If you’ve ever signed a contract, may sign a contract in the future, or are possibly signing a contract right this very minute⁵, jump on that link and get smart.

Spam of the day:

Check out hotkate97
Kate posted naked pictures and selfies of herself so you can decide if she has the type of body that you would be willing to make love to. Her selfies and pics will be available for you to view until tomorrow morning around 10:15. Kate is allowing you to see her naked pics until tomorrow: Again, Kate is not wearing clothes in any of these pictures that she wants you to view.

Whoever is sending out emails for hotkate97 is more than a little desperate.

_______________
¹ Trust me on this, I just read all about what time is.

² They flock to him, like nobody’s business. I think he needs to hand out more beatings, as a warning to others.

³ Nah, definitely the broken universe.

⁴ Light-ning LAW-yer!

⁵ To whatever degree the concepts of past, future, and present mean anything now that Milholland pissed off that used-to-be-reader and got spacetime all broken, that is.