Sometimes, it’s the details that catch you.

For example, I saw a notification via the Tweetmachine of a crowdfunding for an Eisner-nominated webcomic to get a print collection. Now, I could tell you that the detail was the lovely bit of lettering in the title — The Carpet Merchant Of Konstantiniyya — that jumped out at me. Delicate, flowing, the double-y grabbing the eye. It could be the color, it could be the immediate focus on the cover of a woman of middle age with heavy eyebrows cast as a notable character, although she appears to be behind (perhaps supporting) the likely title character. That guy absolutely looks like a carpet merchant. Or that bat. That bat is gorgeous.

But, no. What caught my eye was something else. Let’s look at that tweet again:

Support my comic’s kickstarter!
If you like POC-centered historical fantasy, a fresh take on the vampire genre, & pretty historically inspired comic layouts, this book’s for you! https://unbound.com/books/the-carpet-merchant-voli …

88 backers, & 15% funded!
(if you buy 2 books you save on shipping)

What caught my eye was the lowercase-k kickstarter, and the link, which is not to Kickstarter, but to Unbound, which crowdfunds books specifically. Reimena Yee might be the first, but she won’t be the last — Kickstarter has just been aspirined, kleenexed, xeroxed, googled. The proper name has become the generic term¹.

Oh, and the comic is damn pretty, too. It’s only at 20% funding so far, but Unbound doesn’t appear to be time-limited like Kickstarter campaigns; the books are funding because the creators pitched to editors, who agreed to take them on. It’s a mix of crowdfunding and traditional publishing, and while I haven’t seen it make inroads into comics and graphic novels (I only found 12 instances in the four or so years of Unbound’s existence), I’m going to keep an eye on it in future.

And, I imagine, somewhere in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, they’re going to be keeping an eye on lowercase-k usages of Kickstarter. Sometimes, being ubiquitous is a lot of work.

Spam of the day:

OFFICIAL, LIMITED EDITION PANTERA MINI-GUITARS AT SDCC

Rumor has it Stryper wanted to do this too, but Pantera beat them to the punch.

_______________
¹ Also on the list of now-generic terms? Comic Con. Just saying.

Here’s the remainder of what looks interesting on the SDCC program schedule this year.

Saturday
Using Graphic Novels To Help Cope With Bullying
10:00am — 11:00am, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
Educators, podcasters, and graphic novelists (Raina Telgemeier, Molly Ostertag, Christina Stewart) talk about dealing with bullying via comics.

Comic Book Law School 303: Beyond Trademarks And Copyrights
10:30am — 12:00pm, Room 11
Part three.

Comics And Geek Items For The Blind And Visually Impaired
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Room 2
Totally blind martial artist, competitive surfer, and unashamed geek Joshua Loya and actor/audio book narrator/writer Scott Brick share what options exist for nonvisual entertainment. I was hoping to see Sky McCloud (geek from birth, and blind filmmaker) on here, but I guess the organizers don’t know her.

The Comics Revolution
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Room 29AB
Mark Siegel built up :01 Books, and he’s just getting started. Come hear what he’s got to say and what he’s looking to do next.

The Adventure Zone Graphic Novel
2:00pm — 3:00pm, Room 28DE
Here there be McElroys, and Carey Pietsch who has dealt with more Tumblr shitheads than can be counted without resorting to imaginary numbers.

20 Years Of Magic: Inside Harry Potter
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 6DE
The artists (including Kazu Kibuishi) and editors of Harry Potter cover & interior art.

Spotlight On Scott McCloud: 25 Years Of Understanding Comics
4:00pm — 5:00pm, Room 29AB
Twenty five years. Twenty five years? Yeesh. Twenty five years.

Bubble: Monsters & Ass-Kicking With Hollywood Stars
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Neil Morgan Auditorium, San Diego Central Library
Are you listening to Bubble? It’s really funny. Featuring a third McElroy, cast members (Alison Becker, Cristela Alonzo, Eliza Skinner, Mike Mitchell), creator Jordan Morris, and America’s Radio Sweetheart, Jesse Thorn.

Studio Ghibli My Neighbor Totoro Screening
7:00pm — 9:15pm, Horton Grand Theatre
I’m guessing this is separately ticketed. If you’ve never seen Totoro on the big screen, you owe it to yourself.

Sunday
A Life’s Work: Long-Term Comic Projects
11:00am — 12:00pm, Room 25ABC
Andrew Farago from the Cartoon Art Museum talks to Lynn Johnston, Jason Lutes, Scott McCloud, and Terry Moore.

Spotlight On Tillie Walden
11:00am — 12:00pm, Room 4
Jen Wang and Tillie Walden had awesome 2017s, and they’ll talk about all of it.

1, 2, 3, . . . 20?! How To Create (And Survive) A Successful Graphic Novel Series
1:00pm — 2:00pm, Room 11
Jennifer and Matthew Holm (Babymouse series, Sunny series), Raina Telgemeier (Smile, The Babysitters Club), and Molly Ostertag (The Witch Boy). Hey, they let Molly out of the library!

Chef Duff Goldman: Culinary And Fandom
2:00pm — 3:00pm, Grand 1 & 2, Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina
I love Duff Goldman, because he loves what he loves and makes no bones about it. But I probably won’t get to see this because it’s up against the most webcomicky session of the show.

Comics Of The Internet: The Memes, The Myths, The Legends
2:00pm — 3:00pm, Room 29AB
Yep, this one. The title is a distraction, I think. Includes Matt Kolowski and Kiersten Wing from comiXology, with Hope Nicholson, Megan Kearney, Nick Franco, and David Malki ! (whose name in the program listing inexplicably omits the !).

The Keenspot Panel
4:00pm – 5:00pm, Room 7AB
I’m omitting the title, because it’s clickbaity, designed to delight some and enrage others to the disadvantage of both. You can look it up if you follow the link. But it has to do with Trump, and the fact that Keenspot has been doing comics that are OMG pro Trump but wait maybe they’re satirical but maybe they aren’t OMG.

I guess I can admire the unapologetic mercenary crassness of it all, but you know what? Screw that. There’s taking a stand, and there’s trying to ride a wave of cultural divide to the detriment of all just because you can. I’m past that shit and I hope you are, too.

(Cue annual comment from Chris Crosby about how I’m an idiot in 3 … 2 … 1 …)

Spam of the day:

Do U WANT 2 “HANG” OUT WlTH ME??

Those quotes puzzle me. Like in the newspaper strip Curtis, which is about a pre-teen black kid whose stodgy dad always complains about “rap” music — like any late-40s black guy in the world is going to be offended by rap, or pronounce it in quotes to indicate derision. It’s just … weird, man.

Friday looks busy, looks to have multiple interesting panels at the same time, and includes a couple of things that look … yeah. We’ll talk.

Friday
The Power Of Nonfiction Graphic Novels
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 32AB
Thi Bui, Abby Howard, Alex Irvine, Clifford Johnson, and Peter Tomasi in conversation with Travis Langley.

The Black Panel
10:00am — 11:30am, Room 5AB
Okay, there’s some interesting people on this one, but I think they may need to get a bigger room because GEORGE MUTHASCRATCHIN’ CLINTON will be there. He’s gonna bring THE FUNK.

Graphic Novels: From Eisner To Explosion!
10:30am — 11:30am, Room 24ABC
And overlapping with the previous two, Scott McCloud, Jeff Smith, and Emil Ferris on the evolution of the graphic novel and what the future holds with moderator Paul Levitz. Have fun running back and forth.

Comic Book Law School 202: “Someone Just Made Me An Offer. Should I Refuse?”
10:30am — 12:00pm, Room 11
Second session, pure crack for geeky lawyers and wannalawyers.

Publishers Weekly: Crowdfunding Ethics And Evolution
11:00am — 12:00pm, Room 28DE
I don’t believe I’ve seen a discussion of crowdfunding ethics before. This could be interesting. Calvin Reid, Kel McDonald, Josh O’Neil, and attorney Jeff Trexler, with Camilla Zhang from Kickstarter.

Girl Power Comics: Middle-Grade Fiction For Girls (And Boys)
12:00pm — 1:00pm, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
Or I could just stay at the library all day. Gigi DG, Molly Knox Ostertag, Yehudi Mercado, and Jennifer and Matt Holm.

Autobiography In Graphic Novels
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
Still at the library: Raina Telgemeier, Jarrett J Krosoczka, and Tillie Walden.

Spotlight On Jen Wang
3:00pm — 4:00pm, Room 9
While I’m on record that there were issues with The Prince And The Dressmaker, Jen Wang remains one of the best graphic novelists out there. Ask me how much I love Koko Be Good; go ahead, ask me! In discussion with Cecil Castellucci.

LGBTQ Graphic Novels
4:00pm — 5:00pm, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
Library again, with Aminder Dhaliwal, Molly Knox Ostertag, and Ivy Noelle Weir.

Handling Challenges: Bans And Challenges To Comics
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
Library again, and maybe your only chance to hear from Gina Gagliano before she remakes the industry. Also featuring Judd Winick, Charles Kochman (editorial director, Abrams ComicArts), Candice Mack (teen services manager, Los Angeles Public Library), and David Saylor (VP/creative director/trade publishing/editorial director, Graphix).

The State Of The Industry: Animation Superstars
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Room 28DE
With all the shakeups going on in animation right now, particularly with all the women stating that they’ve had it with the shit they’ve put up with for too godsdamned long, I half expect to see a mob forming after this panel, demanding the industry do better. ‘Bout time, too. Includes Brooke Keesling (animation talent recruiter; director of communications and culture at The Animation Guild), Dave Thomas (not the Wendy’s guy, he’s dead), Katie Rice (John K nemesis, and good on her), Jorge Gutiérrez, and Ashley Long.

Best And Worst Manga Of 2018
6:00pm — 7:00pm, Room 4
A couple of my favorite people are on this one: Brigid Alverson and Christopher Butcher, along with Zac Bertschy and Deb Aoki.

Creator Origins: A Candid Conversation On How It All Began
6:00pm — 7:00pm, Room 9
C Spike Trotman sighting #3, along with Matt Kolowski and Kiersten Wing (from comiXology), Tim Seeley, Mike Norton, Sam Humphries, Alti Firmansyah, Magdalene Visaggio, Mark Sable, and Kristian Donaldson.

The Passage
6:00pm — 7:00pm, Room 6A
I have no idea what this about, but it says Mark-Paul Gosselaar will be there, and I’ll pay you a dollar if you ask him what he thinks of Zach Morris Is Trash.

#METOO To #TIMESUP: An Action Summit For Comics
6:30pm — 7:30pm, Room 8
Amy Chu, Sarah Gaydos, Taneka Stotts, Lilah Sturges, Aminder Dhaliwal, Pia Guerra, and Joan Hilty are, I suspect, going to give zero fucks and plenty of damns. Those wanting comics to revert to being by, about, and for straight white dudes approach at your own risk.

Breaking In And Monetizing Your Comics With Webtoon
7:00pm — 8:00pm, Room 4
I am deeply conflicted about Webtoon. I’m not sure I can articulate why. The fact that they promote a creators contest (never a good sign) in the description for this session is one reason. The focus on monetization from the beginning, instead of building good work, is another. Your mileage may vary.

Web Comics: The Four Panel Frontier
8:00pm — 9:00pm, Room 29AB
Searching for Alan Truong produces many results for a lawyer in British Columbia, an internist in New York, a choreographer, about ten or twelve other unrelated people, and eventually a guy who hired a PR firm to announce he’d been doing a twice-weekly strip for five years, and referred to himself unironically as Creator and Chief Officer. JR Gervais shows up as a client of A fully licensed management and PR company and with a single issue credit at Comic Vine and another single issue at comiXology. I can’t find evidence of either of them exhibiting at the show either. So maybe take their advice with a grain of salt as they (quoting here) take you through their 20-year overnight success and offer their insight into the limitless potential of this new-old medium.

Spam of the day:

Would you like 5,000 visitors coming to your website in one week?
These are people interested in your business category.
High quality website traffic at an affordable price.

Man, I’ve got traffic. My Project Wonderful balance after having ad boxes up for a dozen years reaches to nearly three hundred dollars. Woo, rolling in it!

It’s that time again, when San Diego Comic Con starts to release schedules for the panel programs that will be starting in, oh, two weeks time. As has been the trend in recent years, the web-specific programming is all but gone, but there’s still going to be stuff that looks interesting, or has interesting people talking. That’s what we’ll be focusing on.

Preview Night
Teaching with Comics: An Interactive Workshop for Educators
4:00pm — 6:00pm, Room 11
And the legal lessons conclude with fan-centered issues: Fair Use, fanfiction, fanart, fanfilms, and fansuchlike.

Real Life On The Page
12:00pm — 1:00pm, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
This is a first — a event on Preview Night that looks interesting. Representatives of Stanford, Portland State, an d Southern Illinois Univsities, along with University of North Carolina, talking with folks from MIT Press and a charter school company.

I’m giving this a recommendation because I think there will be come good talk at this presentation, but please take anything said by representatives of a charter school company (one with a manager from Bain — Mitt Romney’s predatory investment company — on the board of directors) with a grain of salt. If I get over there, I’ve got some questions about why the entire charter industry seems to fail at their primary task while enriching the owners and senior officers of the charter companies.

Thursday
Border Narratives: Voices From Beyond The Wall
10:00am — 11:00am, Shiley Special Events Suite, San Diego Central Library
Art always has been, and always will be, political. San Diego is this close to Mexico in geographic terms, but further away than ever in all other senses. Listen to what people who experience that distance have to say.

Writing And Drawing The Past
10:00am — 11:00am, Room 32AB
History in comics and treating it right; includes Thi Bui, Jason Lutes, Noah Van Sciver, and Jen Wang.

Comic Book Law School 101: “I Have This Cool Idea . . .”
10:30am — 12:00pm, Room 11
As in previous years, three sessions dealing with IP law, and good for 1.5 hours of continuing education credit for California lawyers.

Spotlight On Lynn Johnston
11:00am — 12:00am, Room 32AB
Fun fact: I once sold Lynn Johnston a POOP sign.

Oni Press Presents: Your Best Pitch Yet
11:30am — 12:30pm, Room 8
C Spike Trotman sighting #1, on a panel with Oni Press’s Ari Yarwood (executive editor )and Sarah Gaydos (editorial director of licensed publishing), Christina “Steenz” Stewart (editor, Lion Forge), and others.

Marvel Animation: Marvel Rising
3:15pm — 4:15pm, Room 6DE
I mention this only becuase the panel will include forthcoming Squirrel Girl actress Milana Vayntrub, and I love how all the success Squirrel Girl has had makes the correct heads explode in astonishment and horror.

YA Comics FTW!
3:30pm — 4:30pm, Room 4
The best original graphic novels being made these days are pitched to a YA audience. Panel includes Jen Wang, Scott Westerfeld, Molly Ostertag, and Tillie Walden.

Original Graphic Novels: From Concept To Creation
5:00pm — 6:00pm, Room 9
Ideas, everybody that creates stuff tells us, are the easy part. See how to execute with Aminder Dhaliwal, Emil Ferris, Thi Bui, Tillie Walden, and Larry Marder, moderated by Jessica Tseang.

Karoke Komix: Sing Along With Bob The Angry Flower!
5:30pm — 6:30pm, Room 4
Webcomic-adjacent panel! Sort of!

Superstars In Children’s Graphic Novels
5:30pm — 6:30pm, Room 26AB
Molly Ostertag again, with Nina Matumoto, Jarrett Krosoczka, Aron Steinke, Ian Boothby, and some guy named Jeff Smith, did something called BONE?

Comics PR And Marketing 101
6:30pm — 7:30pm, Room 8
C Spike Trotman sighting #2, with Chip Mosher from comiXology, Elsa Charretier, Hope Nicholson, Richard Starkings, and Abigail Jill Harding.

The Annual Comics Journalism Panel: Chronicling The New Comics Canon
7:00pm — 8:00pm, Room 23ABC
Included because it was one of two (2) programs I found so far that mention the word webcomics. Panel includes With Heidi Mac, Valerie Complex, Rob McMonigal, Kat Overland, and Fred Van Lente.

Webcomics Advocates And The Webcomics Gathering
8:00pm — 9:00pm, Room 23ABC
And this was the other.

Spam of the day:

MultipleEeyoregasms 648 factors uploaded 1 month ago sent by Jesuspet

I am honestly at a loss to decide which part of that text is creepiest.

Okay so our Friends To The North celebrated their big holiday already, and we here in ‘Merika won’t until tomorrow, but the holiday doldrums are well upon us. Not much going on, but there is one thing to keep an eye out for in the coming weeks:

On July 17 we’re Kickstarting The Nib Magazine, a 100 page print quarterly. The first four issues — Death, Family, Empire and Scams — have been in the works all year and we will hit send to the printer the second it’s funded.

All new comics every issue — journalism, strips, Nib crew, Intercept journalists, names from mainstream comics. I can’t wait to drop who is on board.

That from The Nib editor and driving force Matt Bors, who’s shepherded the editorial/reportage comics site from (intermittently neglected) Medium section to big-ass book to recurring calendar to animated series, the contributors to which keep showing up in consideration of various awards.

You’ve got two weeks notice. Be prepared.

And I just realized that I haven’t discussed this year’s Eisner nominations, on account of they came out while I was at Camp. As we’ve seen in the past forever or so, the distinctions between Best Digital Comic and Best Webcomic are confusing and/or confused, and which are described as:

For the Best Digital Comic category, works must be longform — that is, comparable to comic books or graphic novels in storytelling or length. Webcomics similar to daily newspaper strips, for example, would not be eligible. Digital comics should have a unique URL, be part of a webcomics site, or otherwise stand alone (not be part of a blog, for instance).

So webcomics are defined by what they aren’t rather than by what they are, but for the most part they’ve come to largely be creator-owned work without publisher gatekeeping (although there are a couple of fascinating exceptions in the Best Webcomic Category. This year’s nominees are:

Best Digital Comic

• Bandette, by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain/comiXology)
• Barrier, by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin (Panel Syndicate)
• The Carpet Merchant of Konstaniniyya, by Reimena Yee (reimenayee.com/the-carpet-merchant)
• Contact High, by James F. Wright and Josh Eckert (gumroad.com/l/YnxSm)
• Harvey Kurtzman’s Marley’s Ghost, by Harvey Kurtzman, Josh O’Neill, Shannon Wheeler, and Gideon Kendall (comiXology Originals/Kitchen, Lind & Associates)
• Quince, by Sebastian Kadlecik, Kit Steinkellner, and Emma Steinkellner, translated by Valeria Tranier (Fanbase Press/comiXology)

Best Webcomic

• Awaiting a Wave, by Dale Carpenter and Nate Powell, features.weather.com/us-climate-change/arkansas (The Weather Channel Digital)
• Brothers Bond, by Kevin Grevioux and Ryan Benjamin, www.webtoons.com/en/action/brothers-bond/list?title_no=1191 (LINE Webtoon)
• Dispatch from a Sanctuary City, by Mike Dawson, https://thenib.com/dispatch-from-a-sanctuary-city (The Nib)
• The Tea Dragon Society, by Katie O’Neill, teadragonsociety.com (Oni Press)
• Welcome to the New World, by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/26/opinion/sunday/welcome-to-the-new-world.html (New York Times Sunday Review)

I’ll go out on a limb and say that Carpenter & Powell, and Halpern & Sloan were doing Work For Hire; I’ll also note that O’Neill’s The Tea Dragon Society is functionally indistinct from what the Eisners call a Digital Comic — to the extent that she and it are also nominated in the category of Best Publication for Kids (ages 9–12).

Outside the immediately applicable categories, you’ll find Giant Days (John Allison, Max Sarin, and Liz Fleming) nominated as Best Continuing Series, Spinning (Tillie Walden) in both Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17) and Best Reality-Based Work, What Is Left (Rosemary Valero-O’Connell) in both Best Single Issue/One-Shot and Best Coloring, and Elements: Fire (edited by Taneka Stotts) in Best Anthology¹.

The Eisner Awards will be presented on Friday, 20 July, as part of San Diego Comic Con. Best of luck to all the nominees.

Spam of the day:

Only here the choice of young girls for every unique guy and completely free! They are wettest slaves, they will and want implement everything you command !

I’ve often wondered if there was some way to make Russian mail-order bride spam not the ickiest thing in the spam filters, and … ick. Just ick.

_______________
¹ Presumably, if it wins, Stotts will have Shing Yin Khor devise some means of breaking up the statue into components that can be distributed to the contributors.

Hey, y’all. Time for the SDCC floor map and guide to Webcomickers (and similar-thinking folk). The San Diego Comic Con’s exhibitors list and floor map [PDF] are up, and it’s time for the annual trawl to figure out where people will be. As usual, the map at the top of the page runs from low booth numbers to high, North to South, right to left, and we’ll be zeroing in on the usual cohort of folks.

The North Half Layout Is The Same
It’s on the right side of the overall floor map, and apart from a logo change or two, the booth numbers and major players correspond to the same layout as last year:

The Webcomics, Small Press, and Independent Press Pavilions remain reasonably accessible from the “B” lobby. Let’s break ’em down.

The Last Stand Of Webcomics?
It’s entirely the same as last year: centered roughly on booth #1332, you’ll find a majority of the webcomickers who will be at the show within about a 1.5 aisle radius; some are slightly outside the orange area, but not too far. Those that return are all in the same spots, barring any changes to the map and listings.

Notes:

• No news yet on which TopatoCo creators will be along; we’ll update once we know.
• Hachette (1116), Harper Collins (1029), (1117), and Simon & Schuster (1128) remain in Publisher’s Row; :01 Books (2800) and Macmillan Children’s Publishing (2802) continue to colonize the corner with the bend, where their lines (remember, Check, Please! and The Adventure Zone: Here Be Gerblins are both about to release) will not obstruct main aisles.
• 1232 and 1235 remain, as last year, assigned to Flex Comics (muscle bros hang out there) and Pulsar Entertainment LLC (whose home page prominently features the words MONETIZE YOUR BRAND!), respectively. Inertia, I guess.
• Dumbrella this year will only be Rich Stevens and Andy Bell; much like last year, another exhibitor will be sharing the space, but the name is not announced yet. It’s kind of like gong to a concert, and each band has fans that thinks their favorite is the headliner and the other is the opening act.
• Word on the street is that C Spike Trotman will be at the show, but not tabling. In other news, Hell freezes over.

Small Press Abides
Right by the Webcomics section is Small Press. Here you should find:

• It appears that Ben Costa, of Shi Long Pang and Rickety Stitch fame will be sitting this one out.
• Shing Yin Khor has said she’s gonna be there — who are you doing to believe, her or, the exhibitor list which presently omits her? is listed in the Small Press area under The Center For Otherworld Science, which actually makes perfect sense.

From the Small Press section, you’re close by:

Notes:

• Gallery Nucleus will feature arty types when they aren’t hanging out at Mondo down in booth 835. Keep an eye out for your Scotts C, your Beckys and/or Franks, and alumni of the various Flight anthologies. Oh, and they’re listed in the guide as Nucleus Studios.
• No confirmation yet on which webcomickers will be at the BOOM! booth when, but I’d expect a pretty strong rotation.

Now head back toward the “B” Lobby into the Independent Press area and you’ll find Terry Moore at Booth 2109, which is split (in accordance with tradition) with Jeff Smith (who remains the best). You’re also not too far from the Jack Kirby Museum at Booth 5520 which, yes, is a very large number but is actually just inside the B1 entrance. Weird, right?

Going back to that larger map of the northern half of the exhibit hall. Wedged in between the Marvel and Image megabooths you’ll find Keenspot in Booth 2635.

The Far End Is Exactly The Same
There’s still some neat stuff if you keep wandering past the video games, Star Wars, Legos, and suchlike.

Give yourself half an hour or so, try not to spend all your money on Copic markers (Booth 5338), and you’ll find both Udon Entertainment, and The Hero Initiative (at Booth 5003). Katie Cook will be at table HH-17, but she’s one of the holdout folks in Artists Alley — it’s mostly comic book types these days. Even Jim Zub won’t be around this year, but considering he’ll still be sleeping off the jetlag from doing a show in South Africa, that’s understandable.

Offsite
Every year for the past half-decade the amount of stuff you can see outside of the exhibit hall has grown; I’m guessing we’re only a year or so away from complete parity. If you know of anything especially good, let us know and we’ll add it here. Otherwise, just wander the city and see what you got.

Spam of the day:

SDCC 2018 Exclusives: Game of Thrones® Pop! Funko and Dorbz

Sorry, plenty of dead-eyed, soulless homonculi wandering around the hall, don’t need to add any to my luggage.

Also, why did this come to my personal email address, and not the one I supplied to SDCC for my press credentials?

The latest atrocity has struck, and in the interests of not devolving into a gibbering puddle of rage, we hack webcomics pseudojournalists will not be trying to find meaning in the meaningless. We will, however, take a moment to name those actual journalists who were lost for the crime of truth-telling, earning enmity of powerful and the petty, both equally unhinged.

• Rob Hiaasen
• Wendi Winters
• Gerald Fischman
• John McNamara
• Rebecca Smith

Remember their names. And yes, nitpickers, Smith worked in sales. Doesn’t matter.

And now, so that something can make sense, we turn the post over to Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, who lives in a society where weapons laws are not a godsdamned disgrace.

Today, we are going to look at a creator without equivalent among crowdfunded creators in the French-speaking world.

For more than one year now, Yatuu has been working independently of any publisher, substituting publisher advances with revenue from her Tipeee page, that she manages like a recurring, monthly crowdfunding campaign just like Team Maliki does (complete with illustration available as an ex-libris that changes from month to month).

But, while encouraged towards going that way by Team Maliki itself, she is not doing it for the exact same reasons. The current overproduction crisis in French bandes dessinées, while it hurts the revenues of individual creators, does mean it is relatively easy to get published … in general. But as Yatuu explains in her Doubts (French-only, but pretty expressive), when she tried to present her latest project to a publisher, an heroic fantasy saga, he was OK to go with it … in one volume.

And even getting to start a multi-volume series is no guarantee either, as she relates the story of a fellow creator who had to cut short her story with an improvised ending in volume 3, as there would be no volume 4: the publisher wouldn’t approve it. Without this being an isolated case. Quick aside: while I try not to eavesdrop in comics festivals, I can confirm I have heard this kind of conversation between creators and readers on multiple occasions

Of course, money is an issue too: she observed that it was only after about five years as a professional that she finally earned out on a book and started getting royalty checks; meaning that while in theory creators are only paid by royalties, nowadays royalties are earned so slowly that creators end up making a living solely on advances which are rarely completely recouped, making a mockery of the system.

So she said: screw that. She is going to make her project as she wants it developed, and only readers will get to decide if it keeps going or not … in practice, by contributing to her Tipeee: If they keep doing so, she will have the funding to work on it.

This project, Erika et les princes en détresse (French only, though the title really needs no translation) is interesting in itself; it keeps exploring her favorite themes of gender and gender expectations, but this time in a completely fictional, fantasy setting (with all the world building that implies) rather than the fictionalized setting of junior high in Sasha or the autobio stories of Pas mon genre (untranslatable play between “Not My Gender” and “Not My Style”).

This is all the more risky as there is no punchline at the end of updates, no self-contained story: it is only rewarding in the long run; while other such French-language online comics exist, she was the first to try and make a living with such a story. Not to mention she’s had doubts and hesitations along the way: for instance in the middle of the story she decided to switch to (almost) black and white updates, because she was not satisfied with how fast she could draw the story compared to how far ahead she was thinking about it.

But what is most interesting to me is her behind-the-scenes updates where she gives a frank, raw look at her doubts and fears and anxieties, reminiscent of our favorite mechanical engineer; here for instance for the process of deciding to crowdfund the paper collection. Furthermore, we can see on another occasion that she had to overcome internalized inhibitions about it being “dirty” to discuss money with readers.

Personally, her materializing her character Erika to give her a kick in the ass to get moving speaks to me; anyone who think I am spontaneously outgoing or organized or eager to get around to recontact people (for a promised interview, for accreditation, etc.) is sorely mistaken … but the Ideal of Pseudojournalism keeps me going.

In short, she is definitely worth keeping an eye on (maybe one day I’ll convince her to have her work be translated¹). The first collection of Erika et les princes en détresse is now funding on Ulule](https://fr.ulule.com/erika-tome1/) for a few hours still, if you are interested.

Many thanks to FSFCPL, and for those that either want to work on their French, or just like helping creators out, Yatuu’s Tipeee may be found here, and will accept your largesse even after the close of the Ulule campaign.

Spam of the day:

I have a project that I would like to execute with you. This is going to favour two of us. Kindly confirm your willingness to partner with me so that I can furnish you with full details of the project.

I’m sorry, attempts to swindle money from me are only accepted between the hours of 11:43am and 11:44am, on alternate Thursdays in months with an “r” in them, and only when accompanied by the appropriate form 27b-stroke-6. Please take your proposal, and the associated forms, fold them until they are all sharp corners, and insert them into your excretory passage of choice. We’ll be along to assist you approximately never.

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¹The name of her squire may be significant in English, though. It would certainly match her description.

It’s tough times, friends, but there’s always little bits of humor, hope, and a third thing that starts with h that I can’t think of at the moment. Let’s dive in.

• Via my onetime sporting bet nemesis, news that the Multiplex 10 short-inspired and Multiplex 10 web series will continue … with your help:
  

  Since January, we’ve produced NINE videos in all (plus a couple of promotional things like the pitch video), with a tenth on its way in the next week or two.

  If we meet the $20,000 base goal, we can afford to produce at least TWENTY minutes of new animated content—(at least) FIVE new episodes of Multiplex 10: The Web Series and (at least) FIVE new movie reviews—to be released every one or two weeks, starting … well, as soon as possible. Minus approximately $1,800 for payment processing and Kickstarter fees, the base goal translates to a little over $900 per minute for design, animation, voice acting, sound, and music.

  That is super cheap for animation; in fact, it may be below the theoretical lower limit for animation costs. Details at the Kicker, do consider helping.

• Via Comic Tea Party, the book club/discussion group/movable colloquium, a survey about comics and your habits in reading them. I’m very eager to see the results, so take a couple of minutes and let them know how you’re interacting with indie-slash-web comics, which you can do at the Google Form.
• Via she’s been on hiatus for too long, welcome back to regular webcomicking, Danielle Corsetto dropped some news when I attended her Q&A in Philadelphia, part of her Big Ass Book Tour. She’s partnered up with Monica Gallagher to do a new webcomic that has as its focus providing solid sex info to young people that would otherwise not get much (or, sad to say, any truthful) sex education. The focus of the strip will be some recent high school grads learning how their bodies work.

  And, because it’s Corsetto, the learning will come courtesy of the dead sorority girl haunting a bottle of tequila in their house.

  BOO! It’s Sex launches today on Webtoons, with the first five episodes. Gallagher’s art is crisp, Mae Keller (who joins on the fifth episode) adds colors that do exactly what they’re meant to do (make the art pop without drawing too much attention to themselves), and Corsetto is just getting down to the facts as the fifth episode wraps. Time to learn about the clit, kids! At least, we will starting Tuesday, as the strip settles into its Tuesday/Thursday schedule.

  The only thing lacking? Corsetto admitted that she hadn’t thought about including her paranormal investigator characters in BOO! It’s Sex, but maybe we’ll get a cameo down the line. Come for the possibility of Ghost Kitty, stay for factual information about sex, reproduction, pleasure, health, and consent.

Spam of the day:

Wish you could touch this ass? You can! CLICK HERE

Unless haptic feedback has gotten a hell of a lot better in the past week or so, clicking is a poor approximation to touching an ass.

So yesterday I wondered in a footnote about the possible impacts of the looming Trade War With China on webcomics. Here’s the crux of what I said:

Thought that just occurred to me. What with the whole trade war with China stupidity going on now, we aren’t shipping as much stuff to China, we won’t be getting as much stuff from China, is this going to take container ship capacity away (as they’re redirected to other trade routes) or make it more plentiful/cheaper (as there may be an excess of space/ships)?

My thoughts were almost entirely in terms of the raw costs of container shipping; if we aren’t sending soybeans to Shanghai in the immediate term, will there be freshly unloaded ships waiting to be loaded up with stuff for the holiday selling season? Would things not specifically on the threatened tariffs list (which is a moving target, day to day) be impacted as collateral damage? I figured there was only one person to ask.

Readers of this page know the regard that we at Fleen have for George Rohac: slayer of problems, fixer of systems, arranger of logistics. He’s overseen maybe more Kickstarts than anybody else, to the point that they recognize him as an official Expert. He knows the sausage-making end of getting things made, especially via print. SO when I asked, I was unsurprised that he’s been thinking about it, but a bit surprised that he’s looking at things from another angle. To quote:

So for now, it isn’t hitting anything. But as with anything in the world of Trump, that could change on a dime. I haven’t seen/heard anything happening with regards to more frequent customs crackdowns, so right now its basically business as normal.

Not capacity/logistics, but the possibility of policy decisions mess with things. If the order comes down to make every Customs inspection of everything from China extra specific, time and costs (storage, brokerage, etc) go up.

That said I am encouraging people to just factor in an extra 25% as a trump tax in case stuff gets fucked. This I’d recommend regardless of where you’re manufacturing. Since he’s hitting Canada the plants people use in Montreal often could be hit, and also US plants that are part of global multinationals could wind up having trickle down cost increases.

Again, not the shipping end of things, but the possibility that Screamy Racist Orange Grandpa decides to suddenly slap worldwide tariffs on paper, or finished printed goods, or whatever. Planning ahead for extra costs also seems to be smart planning in that if you get hit with unexpected expenses, you’re covered; if you get lucky and the costs don’t materialize, you’ve suddenly got more money and that’s not a bad thing.

A quote will typically have a “price good until X date” so if you’re printing in that window, fine, if not, then build in buffer.

And here’s where George’s long experience with printing comes in — if your printing proposal doesn’t have a timeframe on the pricing, any unexpected costs could be passed along. The last thing you want is a profitable project suddenly turning into a break-even or money-losing project. If I were to summarize George’s answers, it would be Do your due diligence, get everything in writing, and assume your unexpected costs could be even greater than your past calculus. Much like planning now for the potential of a USPS shipping rated increase in six months¹, this is going to be a careful balancing of probabilities, optimism, and pessimism.

There will probably be people that offer to help cropping up in greater numbers than in the past, and it’ll be important to ensure that they know what they’re talking about before paying them money, or tying the success of your project to their supposed expertise. I’m not saying they have to have George-level experience², but I am saying that there’s a difference between a company that’s done this before and one that’s assuming it can do this³.

Just as for every Make That Thing there’s several dozen companies whose ability sits somewhere between aspirational and completely fictional, there are going to be newcomers and fly-by-night operators in this facilitation space. Choose carefully. Or, if we’re lucky, George (or somebody like him) will do some seminar-type training on how to navigate these challenges on your own. Like somebody that I just made up in my head once said, Trumpian chaos is just another way to say opportunity.

Spam of the day:

What Company is #1 Rated Overall for Home Security?

The answer suggested by this spam is bestcompany™, which appears to not be a home security company, but rather a directory of all kinds of companies. It’s some pretty mixed messaging

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¹ Never mind what would happen if SROG’s stated intention to privatize the US Postal Service actually gains steam.

² Only George has George-level expertise, pretty much by definition.

³ Fun fact that came up in an unrelated conversation today; when you fly into Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, all the usual airport ads for car services, hotels, etc, are entirely replaced by ads for contract logistics and merch-management companies, whose entire pitch is Hire us if you want to be less screwed by Walmart. Some of them tout years or decades of experience navigating the Walmartian minefield and others … do not.

Ahhhhh, Barbarous by Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh, could I love you any more? No, no I could not. And the between-chapters bumper is a delight, three pages where the most important action takes place off-panel and is still perfectly clear. It — the bumper that is — starts here, and the story starts here and if you haven’t read it, you’ll love it.

If you haven’t read it, come to think, you’ve got an easy way to a) catch up, and b) support the comic just now. Hirsh and Ota haven’t finished the story, not by a long shot, and they’ve released the first chapter as a short print collection — some three dozen pages — in an oversized trim. If you didn’t pick it up at the time, the only place it’s currently available is as part of the rewards package for the Kickstart for the second chapter.

Same deal as before — slim volume, Euro trim size, lots of extras as they hit the stretch goals. Best of all, it’s a sure deal since they’re nearly 50% over goal with two weeks left to go, so all you have to do is pledge and wait for the print edition to come in¹.

• Speaking of Kickstarts, there have been recent conclusions of both the 17th Iron Circus project and the third collection of gay college hockey bromance/comedy. How’d they do?

  FTL Y’all was predicted by the Fleen Funding Formula, Mark II to raise US$50K +/- US$10K, and came in at US$51,432; to be entirely honest, the Iron Circus projects have been a dominant contributor to the math of FFF mk2, and they nearly always fall right in the center of the range. I’m starting to think that for Spike-affiliated projects, it would be possible to narrow the margin of error by a factor of 3 or 4.

• Check, Please!: Year Three was funding too rapidly when we wrote about its launch, and further skewed it’s day one/day two totals by doing a stealth launch to Patreon backers, with a sudden, later surge when the campaign went public; as noted in the past these situations don’t track well with the FFF mk2. According to the straight application of FFF logic, the prediction would come to US$336K – US$504K, but that incorporates the surge. If we go the second full day, the numbers drop to US$250K – US$375K; the actual total was US$353,764.

  That would be at the high end of the range for a surge-ignoring calculation, and at the low end of the range for a surge-ignoring calculation, neither of which is particularly satisfying from a predictive POV. There may need to be a further change to the FFF mk2 logic² to maybe look at a point midway between a Day One peak and a Day Two relaxation³? Further experiments will need to take place, but there will be a Year Four down the line, after all.

  Curiously, Year Three, did not clear the US$398,520 that Year Two raised, but I’m chalking that up to people having information they didn’t have in the Fall of 2016: that :01 Books is printing Check, Please! as two volumes; some people may have decided to trade-wait and get Year Three combined with Year Four next year.

Spam of the day:

Have an invention idea? Where do I start – Free Info Kit!

In fact, last week I had a zillion-dollar invention idea, and I did the only rational thing with it: I gave it to Rich Stevens, because if anybody can execute on it, he can.

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¹ Thought that just occurred to me. What with the whole trade war with China stupidity going on now, we aren’t shipping as much stuff to China, we won’t be getting as much stuff from China, is this going to take container ship capacity away (as they’re redirected to other trade routes) or make it more plentiful/cheaper (as there may be an excess of space/ships)?

I have no idea how this might shake out, it could plausibly go either of two entirely opposite ways. But you know who probably does know? George, who just happens to work closely with Ota & Hirsh. I’ve got an email into him to get his thoughts and will report back.

² Take the 24-30 hour trend value from Kicktraq and divide by four; that’s the center of the predicted range. Divide further by five, and that’s the margin of error. Exception: low-backed projects (fewer than ~ 200 backers) are not predictable.

³ Doing so would have given us US$290K – US$435K, with a centerpoint of US$362.5K; that’s much tighter, but it’s also a case of poking around the data until finding something that fits. Many more trials will be needed.