Upheaval! Unanticipated change! Things getting all weird before our eyes without any warning! And also, news from webcomics.

• Speaking of chaos, there’s a lot of noise in the infosphere about Patreon changing its terms; this time, it’s to shift some fees from creators to supporters. The intent appears to be to give creators a more predictable level of support, but it may throw a lot of supporter’s calculations about how much they’re giving to creators into the realm of higher mathematics¹.

  Right now, all I’ve got to go on is secondhand reports from creators (who were tipped off by email today); supporters are said to be notified tomorrow. Although, as Matt Boyd observed re: the we’re telling supporters tomorrow announcement:

  My dudes, you notified them today, just secondhand.

  Speaking strictly as an outsider, I see two forces grappling with each other at Patreon right now: the need to perfect things (this change is framed as benefitting creators; the earlier changes regarding adult content), coupled with a reluctance to get buy-in from affected constituencies. Maybe I missed it, but I haven’t heard about Patreon surveying creators or supporters about possible changes, soliciting feedback, or communicating in a fashion that would get people on board well in advance of changes.

  And this is not a problem unique to Patreon; every company that blows up from little idea to Big Deal has to transition from a pure expression of Founder’s Vision to something with institutional structure and professional change management. Effective communications are one of the hardest things to develop (and honestly, in a platform that stresses connection between creator and supporter, who could possibly think that making separate announcements would work?), and their lack results in situations like we’ve seen in the past few months, where Patreon appears (rightly or wrongly) to be flailing.

  This is not a knock on Jack Conte and cofounder Sam Yarn; very few startups succeed into Big Deal status with the same people in charge, because the skills needed for Founder’s Vision and the skills need for institutional structure and professional change management are very, very different, and almost nobody starts out good at both².

  I suspect that within a year, Patreon will be a smaller operation (particularly in light of Kickstarter’s Patreon-alike, Drip; terrible name, but KS are much, much better at their change management and communications) as further impromptu (or at least, seemingly-impromptu-from-the-outside) policy shifts pisses off the less-invested users. Either that, or Conte and Yarn and the other idea-type folks will step back to an advisory role, and the more mangement-inclined will be in charge. Answers on a postcard.

• I am not going to spoil today’s … you know, I’m not sure what it is. John Allison’s webcomic has run at Scary Go Round dot com since 2002, it’s been the home of Bad Machinery since 2009, as well as various shorts, the first iteration of Giant Days, several throwback and current catch-ups of Bobbins, Destroy History, and probably more that I’m missing. The onetime plan to wrap up the Tacklefordverse was running from the points of view of several of those projects in an overlapping fashion, but heck if I know that it has a single name at the moment. The story arc title is Hard Yards, so let’s go with that.

  I am not going to spoil today’s Hard Yards, but oh man, you need to see it. John Allison has dropped in a single panel that explains goings-on from across the history of Bobbins/Scary Go Round/Bad Machinery, and confirmed what we probably all knew down deep in our hearts — his entire fictional universe has revolved around Shelley Winters, and there’s a reason for everything that’s happened to her.

  If he were to put up a post that this had been his plan all along for the past two decades, I’d be forced to believe him. It explains (in that loopy, logic and causality be damned manner that seems to define Tackleford and the surrounding environs) everything so perfectly. If he were to put up a post that this occurred to him as a neat way to tie everything up and it worked by coincidence, I’d also be forced to believe that; quite frankly, I’m not sure which would be the more impressive creative feat — playing a loooong game, or finding a completely (internally, at least) logical payoff for a bunch of different plots that occurred at many different times³.

  Bravo, Mr Allison, and bravo in advance for Giant Days issue #33, which I will be obtaining and reading later today, but which I am willing to preemptively praise as a matter of faith.

Spam of the day:
Naturally You here is transferred I’d have picked up … but it’s you
I’m going to chalk some of this nonsensicality up to the translation from Russian, but only some.

_______________
¹ And that’s discounting, as one Patreonista pointed out on the Twitters, European supporters who already pay VAT on their pledges.

² Or, alternately, can transition from one to the other. See also: Twitter flailing as @jack’s purity of vision runs up against people willing to exploit structural weaknesses for their own agenda. At some point, purity of vision costs you goodwill.

³ Honestly, it’s like if somebody had come to a conclusion for Lost or Battlestar Galactica that tied everything together in a perfect little bow.

Well, everything except for The Captain Beefheart Story. That one will always stand on its own.

Frank Zappa, in his autobiography, recounted the story of playing his then-favorite R&B tune for his high school music teacher and asking why he liked it so much; the reply was Parallel fourths. That was his introduction to twelve-tone theory and understanding why music works the way it does.

Similarly, when I read a comic and can’t figure out why I like it, there are a few people that I trust to make it clear — Zainab Akhtar, David Brothers, and Oliver Sava are at the top of the list. Sava heads up comics writing at The AV Club, and has gathered other writers that also get comics.

Today, they (that would be Sava, joined by Caitlin Rosenberg and Shea Hennum) talk about the best of the year, and there’s a significant representation of webcomics, and comics from people that cut their teeth in webcomics. Sava holds forth on Julia Wertz’s Tenements, Towers & Trash, Giant Days by John Allison, Max Sarin, Liz Fleming, Whitney Cogar, and Jim Campbell (respectively: words, pencils, inks, colors, letters), and Squirrel Girl by Ryan North, Erica Henderson, and Rico Renzi (words, art, colors).

Rosenberg adds Tess Stone’s Not Drunk Enough, Wilde Life by Pascalle Lepas, Noora Heikkilä’s Letters For Lucardo (via Spike’s Iron Circus Comics¹), and Abby Howard’s Dinosaur Empire! Hennum’s additions are slightly further removed, but include offerings from Retrofit Comics (founded by Box Brown), Koyama Press (friend to indies everywhere), and 2d Press — Hennum’s definitely further into art comics than I usually read, but the writeups are making me revisit that decision.

The point here being, much like Mark Siegel promised his Macmillan overlords that :01 Books would contend for literary prizes within ten years of launch³, this recognition’s not just for bragging rights. It offers credibility, visibility, and the opportunity for further work, not just to the creators that have been called out by one of the premiere popular culture sites, but to their contemporaries and colleagues as well.

On a day that I noticed some chud on Twitter (no link for him … of course it’s a him) declaring that Andrew Farago was irrelevant and that real geeks don’t care about some museum in San Francisco, and it’s not like he’s Scott McCloud or anything⁴, it’s just further proof that comics is becoming more and more about new creators, new voices, new kinds of stories, and (crucially) new points of view, and the old stereotypes of what comics are/who reads them are slipping further into irrelevance. It’s a good day to read about some great comics, and an even better day to read some great comics. The list by Sava et alia is a damn good place to start.

Spam of the day:

Girls battle for your heart: choose Veronika or Kristina

Mail order bride spam, or anime series episode title? I can’t decide!

_______________
¹ Separate from the best of the year list, Rosenberg also reviews Crossplay, presently funding on Kickstarter, also from Iron Circus².

² Speaking of Iron Circus, Spike spent some time today pre-announcing ICC’s 2018 offerings, and it comes to at least six books (two of which are anthologies); Banned Book Club, previously announced, is due in 2019. Let that sink in — a one-plus person shop is making plans more than a year out, wrangling at least seven books in that timeframe. Try to deny her achievements, I dare you.

³ It actually took less than a year to break out the tuxes at the National Book Awards for Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese.

⁴ McCloud on Twitter in response: Andrew Farago is a prominent authority on comics and a good guy. Anyone saying otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Take that, chud!

We have two things for you today — a piece of writing (originally for 280 character Twitter) that you can read, and a piece of advice for freelancers. Let’s get crackin’.

• Readers of this page are now doubt familiar with Gigi DG of Cucumber Quest (which is adorable, and presently undergoing a comprehensive, multi–volume printing from :01 Books¹), and also for radically different (melancholy, scratchy, nearly monochrome, adult in topic and treatment and mood) work like Lady Of The Shard. For fans of the latter, today is your lucky day.

  Ms DG spent a chunk of time yesterday writing a story (with accompanying illustrations), geared towards the longer tweet limits; at the conclusion of the story (titled The Idle Divination), DG collected the entire thing< to itchio. Okay, the platform is nominally for indie games, but there are categories for tools, books, and comics, so no surprise that DG uses it to host her longform work².

  The Idle Diviner is charming, and sad, and hopeful, and silly all at once. Gigi DG is a treasure, and if she feels like spending her own idle moments on stories like this, we will all be lucky.

• Speaking of luck, somebody said once that we make our own, or that luck is indistinguishable from preparation, or some such. Whatever it was, it was vague and trite and — worst of all — absolutely true (except when it isn’t … friggin’ aphorisms).

  In any event, there’s huge uncertainty about what the US tax code will look like in a few weeks, and how badly everybody who isn’t a billionaire or a corporation will make out (poorly, if the ruling party has anything to say about it). But there’s a damn good chance that the more structure and formality you have around your business, the less you are a filthy insignificant individual just trying to get by, the better off you’ll be.

  Thus, this advice from a marine biologist who, like too many of us, has been forced to become a one-person lobbying shop for their own interests:

  Freelancers, in the midst of everything else going on, you should probably create your LLC before the new year.
  No idea what the final tax bill will look like, but 100% it will favor an LLC over a self-employed freelancer.

  For freelance-type work, there’s a lot of good reasons to do business as an LLC, regardless, but there’s about to be a whole lot more.

  https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1122-should-you-become-a-corporation …

  It’s the S Corp part of your incorp that’s providing the tax benefits. You can also get an EIN as a sole prop.

  For [California] in particular, you have to do more corporate feng shui, but you can’t become an S Corp without first creating an LLC.

  If you want to know the differences between a single proprietorship, an LLC, an S-Corp, and a C-Corp, you could do far worse than to make a call to Katie Lane³, who knows these things and can probably save you an amount of frustration equal to two or three times the dollars you pay her for her guidance. Preparation, people. Some think you aren’t worth worrying about, but preparation means they have to take you into account. Do it for self-protection, do it for spite, do it for whatever reason makes sense for you.

Spam of the day:

Asking questions are actually nice thing if you are not understanding anything totally, but this post presents fastidious understanding even.

That even at the end made me read this spam in the voice of Snagglepuss.

_______________
¹ The first volume of which is delightful, and features color that really pops. I wondered if all the delicacy of Ms DG’s work would be reproducible on paper, but :01 have come through. Thanks to Gina Gagliano and all at :01 for the review copy.

² Although I’ll make a philosophical observation here — any platform that hosts your stuff that you don’t own? Make copies. Multiple copies. In multiple locations. Because you never know when it’s going to go away.

³ Light-ning LAW-yer!! She explained this to me using a Capri Sun pouch and two water bottles.

I’m not even talking about the gears of justice grinding finely today, I’m talking about webcomicker news. To the Newsmobile!

• Readers of this page may recall that I have a high opinion of Hope Larson and have for some considerable time. Today, something that I asked her about last year is one step closer to an answer, as it turns out that Goldie Vance is getting a big-screen treatment, from Kerry Washington and Rashida Jones, no less:
  

  The project, being designed as a potential family-film franchise at Fox, will be based on the graphic novel series, created by writer Hope Larson (who’s also created graphic novels of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and DC’s Batgirl) and artist Brittney Williams (Patsy Walker) and published by Boom! Studios.

  Jones will adapt and direct the film version, which Washington will produce under her Simpson Street production company banner, which is overseen by Pilar Savone. Also producing are Ross Richie and Stephen Christy for Boom! Studios. Boom!’s Adam Yoelin will co-produce. Daria Cercek and Jon Wu will oversee for Fox.

  Here’s hoping (har, har) that BOOM! getting the Hollywood money payday means that they can stop nickel-and-diming their creators, and also that Larson and Williams are getting nice chunks of change from the deal¹. We at Fleen are obligated to remind everybody that Hollywood moves slowly, and there’s no guarantee that Goldie will see the screen anytime soon (or even at all), but it’s a nice recognition of a great story.

• Speaking of good news, thanks to GeekDad for finding out what Ben Hatke will be up to for the next while:
  

  First up, next fall (2018), First Second will be releasing a Zita the Spacegirl box set! It will combine all three bestselling Zita graphic novels into one volume–plus an all-new poster! Seriously, if you haven’t yet jumped on the Zita bandwagon, you’re missing out.

  Second, the following fall (2019) will see the release of the third Mighty Jack graphic novel. The third entry in the series will be a big crossover spectacular wherein Jack and Lily team up with none other than … Zita the Spacegirl (and her friends) for the adventure of a lifetime. This is the big one!

  We at Fleen are on record as digging both the Zita and Jack series, and I was hopeful that the post-credits reveal at the end of Mighty Jack And The Goblin King meant that we might see a crossover, but it was ambiguous enough that I wasn’t banking on it.

  The only thing is, Hatke’s a machine; by my count he’s done more than one book a year at :01 (three Zita, two Jack, Nobody Likes A Goblin, Little Robot, Julia’s House For Lost Creatures, plus four books illustrated for other authors), and while the box set next year is exciting, it doesn’t require a year’s work. I suspect we’ll see at least one more book between now and the Zita/Jack crossover, which I am eagerly awaiting already.

• The one thing I get every year at this time? The Wondermark calendar. I love that thing, year after year. David Malki ! dropped the news all low-key that this year’s version is up for order, so if you require a means to tell the passage of time in the coming year, grab a calendar and stand, or just a set of calendar refills, over at the Dry Goodsery. You’ll be glad you did. I mean, I’m glad that I did, and that’s the same thing, right?

Spam of the day:

Heya! I’m at work surfing around your blog from my new iphone 4!
Just wanted to say I love reading through your blog and look forward to
all your posts! Keep up the great work!

An iPhone 4, “scat_female”? I think you’re a little behind the times.

_______________
¹ I’ll put it another way; since Goldie Vance is creator-owned, Larson damn well better be getting the lion’s share on the deal.

There will be a “Ask Me Anything” on the reddit website on Friday at 2pm Eastern with @kcgreenn and @dril, top minds responsible for this thing

This thing being the Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff book by KC Green, Andrew Hussie, and Dril, gods help us all. Oh, and did we mention? It’s made goal and will be produced, gods help us again. All we can do is pray that a significant number of backers are actually jerkbag griefers who will cancel their pledges at the last minute for the “loolses”. Then again, the worse act of trolling would be to ensure that this abomination is birthed into the world, we all helpless before its vile might.

Let’s go across the ocean, far from the impending monstrosity, and see what Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin is up to:

• We know you are all interested in Marion Montaigne’s latest, so you’ll be happy to know In The Space Suit of Thomas Pesquet was released on November 24^th. And while I don’t think I would have been able to come anyway, I’m a little jealous of the journos who got to attend a launch press conference where the hero himself was present.
• We at Fleen have been covering Pénélope Bagieu’s Les Culottées (to be published in English as Brazen) for more than a year now, but all the while it was not possible to point you to a version you could read (which is what webcomics are all about) if you couldn’t read French. Until now. The Lily News will run excerpts of the book leading up to its English publication in March 2018, so now you can finally see for yourself what the fuss is all about.
• And if you can’t get enough of French webcomics that (horror!) do not feature autobio or self-insertion, Jo is back! After the artist had to take an extended break, Jo resumed on November 6^th. And it now features a set schedule: one update every first Monday of the month, so you can look forward to the next one this next Monday, December the 4^th.

Everybody thank FSFCPL, because I read that excerpt of Brazen t’other day, and totally spaced on mentioning it here.

Spam of the day:

No one expects you to stop on your own – get addiction help

I refer you to the statement of one Mr Z Harris, 6 August 1973.

I told Molly Ostertag once, during the time when the Kickstarter that would fund the second volume of Strong Female Protagonist was being planned, that I was looking forward to the book eagerly, as I can only read the story in large chunks. Like, book-length chunks, because SFP is a story that takes its time.

This was abundantly clear in the chapters that made up Book One¹, which took their time in laying out the world where Alison Green is a retired superhero and college student — writer Brennan Lee Mulligan takes his time in establishing characters, relationships, plot, choices, and consequences. It’s not a story I can follow in twice-weekly updates.

I didn’t know how true that was until Book Two arrived (ahead of the promised fulfillment date) just prior to Thanksgiving. I had a long day of bread-baking and interstate travel ahead with a stupid early start, and I spent half the night reading more than 300 pages of nominal superhero story², which are regularly packed with dense dialogue. Personal philosophy buts up against ethical crises and social justice theory for pages; rigorous philosophical arguments in full Socratic mode can occupy dozens of consecutive pages, and it works.

It works because Mulligan has a stellar artist in Ostertag, and she can made pages that might be dead from text overload sing. Look at this one page and do me a favor — read out the text aloud. It’s a good minute and a half, two minutes. It’s dense with information as Alison gives voice to all the uncertainty and contradiction she feels. And instead of a slog, it reads clearly, with a sense of rising urgency, each word balloon building on the previous, and the page before it, and providing the foundation for the page to follow.

It’s also doing something that superhero comics almost never do: it’s considering the collateral effects of allowing your world to be populated with relatively plentiful powers. It asks if the mainstays of the genre — punching stuff until it explodes, mostly — is really effective in making a better world.

It asks about where the really helpful superpowers — energy generation, food production, cancer cures — are, and why only the visible, damaging ones get our attention. It explores the line between altruism and villainy, and the sociopathy of power (whether super, or just the plain ol’ garden variety money kind). It’s thinking.

And at its beating hearts, a swirl of self-contradictions named Alison “Megagirl” Green tries to figure out the right thing to do. Not the simplest, not the most efficient, or even necessarily the best. She’s trying to come up with the Vulcan solution: the greatest good for the greatest number, minimizing the hurt to the least number of people and the least degree. She’s trying very, very hard to be smart about it, but the thing she’s best at?

Punching stuff.

She wants to leave that behind, but sometimes the only way to solve a problem — or worse, to convince somebody else to solve a problem — is to break things and hurt people until it’s not a problem anymore.

Her powers (which, like many others, appear to be growing in breadth and strength) might not physically or mentally destroy her (as is starting to happen to others), but this emotional conflict, the helplessness that comes with not being able to punch the world to a better place, is trying its damndest to do so. She might be invincible to whatever the outside world can throw at her³, but the questions on the inside are equally powerful.

Get SFP Book One today; get Book Two as soon as Make That Thing is done with shipping to the Kickstarter backers and it gets added to the store. And then ask yourself why “adult” superhero comics featuring more swears, violence, and sex, and not so many smart looks at the consequences of powers. Strong Female Protagonist is the best, serious, adult cape comic being written today (and it looks great), and it’s being given away for free, Tuesdays and Fridays.

If you can stand to read it in single-page chunks, that is. Figure I’ve got another 2-3 years before I get Book Three.

Spam of the day:

Learn how a Reverse Mortgage loan may change your life

Given the predatory and fraudulent nature of much of the banking system these days, I’m guessing not in ways that are very good for me.

_______________
¹ Issues 1 through 4 in the archive, which is easily navigable but which lacks a direct link.

² Issues 5 and 6.

³ It’s implied the government has contingency plans for if she goes rogue, and they appear to be only halfway kidding when they state that the planetary evacuation ships are due for testing the next couple of years. Her self-doubt, conscience, and good fortune to have been raised by earnest, altruistic people probably spared us the use of a nuke or two.

Phonetics! It’s basically enough to drive all reason from the language center of your brain! Let’s get some quick items out of the way.

• The Beguiling is known for a few things: being one of the finest comics shops in the Western World (even if longtime manager Chris Butcher has moved on), being closely associated with TCAF (founding showrunner: Chris Butcher … coincidence!?), and having a kick-ass holiday party. Guess what? Holiday time!
  

  OH HEY It’s almost time for our annual Dinosaur Comics/Beguiling Holiday party!!!
  Special guests Nicholas Gurewitch (debuting his new book!) and Erica Henderson!
  More info/rsvp here: https://tinyurl.com/dinoholiday

  Whoa, hey, new book from Nicholas Gurewitch? That would be Notes On A Case Of Melancholia, as previously noted. Those of you in The TO on Monday, 11 December, drop in and have a damn good time.

• Twofer from C Spike Trotman: First up, the last Iron Circus Kickstart of the year is live, and it’s for some good old-fashioned smut. Crossplay by Niki Smith has comfortably cruised past its goal and is on its way, with physical books available down to the US$15 level.

  Second up: Iron Circus will be delving into autobio comics in 2018, with the amazing true story of students opposing a military dictatorship via the power of … reading? Oh, and it’s by Ryan Estrada:

  I am so excited to be writing this book with my amazing badass wife Hyun Sook, and art by @kevin9143

  People that weren’t alive then don’t realize how dictatorial South Korea was for about 40 years. I was studying national security politics with a guy that used to teach at the Army War College in the late 80s, and we paid a lot of attention to the utterly undemocratic (yet oddly rules-bound) military government in Seoul¹. Heck, it wasn’t until 1998 that a peaceful change of government between parties took place. This is gonna be a good read.

Spam of the day:

She ain’t the hottest, But She’ll Meet You Tonight

Congratulations, I think that’s the first time I’ve gotten a spam that simultaneously negs and slut-shames. Asshole.

_______________
¹ There was a ritual to the college student protests — they’d get noisy in the streets, the water cannon and tear gas and beatings would start, they’d run back to the campus gates, and the cops would stop there. One day the cops didn’t stop and continued their beatings on the campus grounds, and that was one of the events that forced popular change.

Know what? It’s my birthday. More than that, it’s a Big Round Number birthday. I’ma take the day off. See y’all tomorrow.

Spam of the day:

Strongest Charging Cables Ever

Fancy-ass cables with magnets and such? Does it protect against Goddamn Martians?

_______________
¹ Book Two of Strong Female Protagonist, which will presumably be added to the store soon enough. SFP is a comic I can only read in big chunks, so every one of these pages is new to me. And, because I only read it in big chunks, I pulled down Book One to refresh myself. I may have spent more than a few hours that I should have been sleeping. More on this in another day or two.

Readers of this page will know that I’ve been mocking the spam I get in nearly every post for years now, and it’s only today that I come across one so perfect that it gets a dedicated post. Enjoy this as you are digesting.

Lagies and jenglefenz, I present to you the tactical Christmas stocking:

It doesn’t appear to come with the hatchet, multitool, locking-blade knife, or shotgun shells shown, but the clips and velcro and MOLLE webbing are all there. It’s the ultimate expression of pure, distilled toxic masculinity in pog holiday form!

For all those for whom travel and gluttony will occupy much of the next 72 hours¹, have a little tidbit before you get started.

• David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc) has launched the Kickstarter for the second print collection of his LEGOcentric Irregular Webcomic. The first, Burning Down The Alehouse, tiptoed up to the issue of IP rights re: interlocking brick building systems by centering on the storyline that uses painted D&D miniatures instead of minifigs. Having navigated those waters successfully, it’s full sail ahead for book two, albeit not with the storyline that actually features full sails.

  This time around, it’s the Indiana Jonesesque Cliffhangers that get their adventures chronicled, provided backers can come up with the AUS$5000 (approx US$3800), which in the half-day since launch has hit approximately the 60% mark. With such a modest goal (and Morgan-Mar engaging in every trick in the book to keep shipping costs minimal²), he should be funded by tomorrow, with stretch goals knocked down with relative ease. Treat yourself to a present to be delivered in the depths of winter (northern hemisphere) or the sweltering days of summer (southern hemisphere).

• Speaking of Kickstarts, Book 2 of Stand Still, Stay Silent is about one backer away from US$100,000, aka the fifth (and last so far) stretch goal, since launching on Monday. Time for some predictions! Now granted, this project may fall into the “pent up demand” exception for the FFF mk2, but it appears so far to be following a fairly standing tail-off, so I’m gonna run the numbers.

  It’s looking like about US$1.8M at the 24-30 hour mark per Kicktraq, giving a prediction of US$360K to US$540K; it’s early for the McDonald Ratio, but of of right now (about 2.6 days in), we’re looking at at least US$300,072 (it, uh, cleared the 100K threshold while I was typing this paragraph), and that’ll still be going up. I’ma guess that it’s a success.

Okay, that’s it for today. I wish you all safe travels, good times, and righteous remonstrance with racist relatives.

Spam of the day:

Monitor Your Steps, Heart Rate, BP And More

When are makers of knockoff FitBits going to learn that the perfect ad copy has already been written?

________________
¹ [Raises hand]

² Including undercharging certain international rates. Stand-up guy, our Morgan-Mar.