There’s some really neat stuff for you today, kids. Let’s jump into it.

• More details on the Capture Creatures gallery show in June, which we teased two weeks back. First off, you may have noticed that said Creatures are appearing on the website at a furious pace, Becky Dreistadt having finished all 151 paintings some time ago; today’s installment is #121, meaning only 30 to go, meaning 17 creatures will still be unposted when the show/book pre-launch hits on 1 June:
  

  LA’s Gallery Nucleus will host the early book release and gallery show on June 1st at 7:00pm: all 151 creature paintings will be on display and available for purchase, along with a yet-to-be-announced resin ?gure, prints, and larger mystery pieces. Opening night features both Becky and Frank signing, as well as complementary drinks, snacks and secret musical guests; the show itself runs through June 23rd.

  That’s from a press release, so no link, but party details are at the Gallery Nucleus site. Unfortunately, the show was scheduled for a time when it was anticipated the book would be done but some delays hit and it’s not done. However, given the track record that Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson have on their books, not to mention the fact that it’s coming from the quality factory of Benign Kingdom¹, I’m not terribly concerned about anything other than the fact that I don’t already have the book in my hands right now.

  Also, Becky and Frank need to get one of their gallery shows to launch in New York already so I have a chance at purchasing paintings before they’re snapped up by other people; on the off chance that your favorite Creature isn’t snapped up by somebody else, chances are you can purchase it from Dreistadt’s artist page at Gallery Nucleus.

  In the meantime, Gibson was kind enough to share with Fleen readers an as-yet unseen Creature, Bechder, who may be spied at the top of the page. He’s all badgery, so I’m guessing he’s an Earth type, but with that smoke/steam coming from his mouth there might also be some Fire in his makeup. Am I doing this right? I never got into Pokémon so I’m new to all this lingo.

• Speaking of B9, it’s well known that lurking just behind the scenes is a tactical genius named George Rohac. As it happens, George² and I happened to be talking about ten days back under social circumstances; nothing formal, no notes taken, and we were having some excellent drinks, which is why I didn’t share with you the news he shared with me that night.

  However, Heidi Mac is all over the story today so you probably ought to know that George has left Oni Press (where he got a passel of webcomickers to do projects) for What Pumpkin Studios, aka Homestuck Intergalatic Headquarters. Just in case you were wondering how Andrew Hussie could conquer the internet even more than he already had, there’s your answer. Between WP and B9 and all the side advice that he hands out, George is practically synonymous with webcomic-related Kickstarts, with an estimated 30+ campaigns under his belt and (by my rough accounting) somewhere north of US$4.0 million in total funds raised.

• Two pieces of merch to point you towards, one real and one hypothetical. Firstly, let me point you towards the LympheDIVAs, which markets specialty clothing for survivors of breast cancer — a side effect of treatment can lead to swelling and chronic inflammation in the arms. There’s no treatment for lymphedema, but compression sleeves can help control the condition and help prevent it from progressing.

  Like a lot of medical clothing, compression sleeves tended to be uncomfortable and ugly, and there’s no reason to put up with that nonsense. Comfortable, fashionable sleeves and gauntlets are what LympheDIVAs set out to make, and the designs are visually stunning.

  They’ve just launched a new product family designs by mad pixelmancer R Stevens, with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network³ getting a portion of each sale of 8-Bit Owl, Pixel Hearts, Pixel Skulls, and Red Robot. It’s not easy to make a stretchy garment retain a blocky, pixel look when it can be pulled in various directions, but it appears that Stevens and LympheDIVAs have done so (not that I should have doubted — my Red Robot socks look great, even on my weirdly asymmetric feet). Here’s where I’d send you all to a store and tell you to buy, but I sincerely hope that you never need to.

  On the theoretical end of things, I think that Hurricane Erika simply must — must — make the smiley-face panties shown halfway down the latest entry⁴ at Oh Joy, Sex Toy [probably NSFW]. For those not willing to click the link, here’s a clip of the relevant panel [almost certainly SFW]. Just get the little Yay! speech balloon on the front and your sexytimes will get 37% sexier.

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¹ Unofficial motto: Makers of fine qualities since 2011.

² While the Fleen Manual of Style dictates that on second and subsequent references, individuals should be predominantly referred to by their family names, there are exceptions to every rule and George is one of them. It just doesn’t work to call him Rohac, or Mr Rohac, or even Éogeorge of the Riders of Rohac. He’s just George.

³ Pancreatic may be the most miserable, evil bastard in the cancer family, if I may be allowed a moment of unwarranted anthopomorphization. It has poor treatment options, fast progression, aggressive metastasizive tendencies, and it kills in amounts that even Red Robot #C-63 would find excessive. It’s not particularly linked to lymphedema, but if Stevens wants to take a chunk out of pancreatic cancer, I say more power to him; I hope he gives it a good curbstomping.

⁴ So to speak.

I’ve been wondering when the first really big Strip Search-related splash would be made and last night Lexxy Douglas launched a Kickstarter to get her webcomic started. In the order that they occur to me:

• Less than 90 minutes after launch (and about an hour after the first public tweet), Douglas had cleared her US$7500 goal.
• Reading the campaign pitch the money raised is to let Douglas turn down otherwise-paying work so she has the time to launch the comic; this stands in contrast to most [web]comics-related Kickstarters that are going to succeed, in that a request to make something that nobody’s seen yet generally doesn’t do as well as a request to merchandise something that already has an audience.
• Douglas, of course, has an audience (via social media) and is well integrated with webcomics creators, not to mention the fans she’s garnered in her time on Strip Search. Last night I thought she’d timed the launch of this KS campaign well, given that she was still seeing an uptick in attention from people that felt her elimination from the show was a travesty. #TeamLexxy will be all over this.
• This morning, I think that her timing is absolute fucking genius [A/V mixed with a liberal dose of holy crap!]; seriously Lexxy, that is some Khoo-level strategy you pulled right there. Bravo.
• As of this writing, Ms Douglas is on the cusp of just north of US$21,000 and the Gary’s First Law of Kicktraq Projections has her finishing in the US$50K – 100K range.
• Stretch goals are presently defined up to 50K; better think up a couple more and ones that don’t require physical production/shipping, on account of you’ve already got a couple hundred packages to mail.
• It appears that George helped Of course he did.

Speaking of Kickstarts, what may be the most logistically-challenging [web]comics Kickstart in history¹ is making progress, and dropped some references to a pledge-management system² called BackerKit, which you may as well get used to seeing, as I suspect it will be a standard part of Make That Thing campaigns.

I can’t give you a comparison with the previously-mentioned After The Crowd as I don’t have access yet, but the screencaps and video make it seem roughly equivalent. The one key differentiator that I noticed is that BackerKit appears to give you continuous access to manage your pledge/information, where After The Crowd gave you a time-limited, one-shot access (with the ability to request re-access later if needed).

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¹ Fulfillment will involve the wrangling of literal dozens of webcomickers, wood craftsmen, printers, translators, musicians, delicious adorable kittens, and more.

² It’s only a matter of time before the enterprise software industry reduces that to “PMS”.

I ain’t Elisabeth Kübler-Ross but I do know something about the stages of grief, such as when Achewood (the once-unstoppable behemoth of absurdist-realist philosophizing) sputters to a near-halt¹. As noted previously, Chris Onstad is not my bitch and however he may find joy in producing aspects of Achewood that I may then consume, it’s all good. I get to share that particular creation that he lets loose on the world whether it’s once a day or twice a year, and however much I may miss it, I cannot complain too much about not getting free entertainment on a my desired schedule rather than that which Onstad can accommodate given the shape of his life.

So it is with a mixture of excitement and don’t-get-too-excited-yet that I noted his first Achewood-related bloggance in more than a year:

Hi. I’m back. I have some good news for you. It’s been a long time coming. A lot has changed since I fell off the face of the earth.

First and foremost: I’ve been working with a team of artists, engineers, and producers to bring Achewood to life. To give it the voices, richness, and opportunities it never had as a comic strip.

I’m flying to Los Angeles today to begin a week of network pitch meetings. If things go well, we’ll find a home for our show. Please cross your fingers for us, send us your good energy. And please, share this clip with your world. I’m very proud of what we’ve done.

There are many other things I want to share with you. About Achewood, about this, about all the loose ends, and about my plans for it going forward. This is the tip and the bulk of the iceberg, but there is much more. It’s been a very busy couple years, full of life-size tragedies, manifold germinations of happiness, and surprising rebirths—just like Achewood.

The pitch meetings mentioned are to explore the possibility of an Achewood-related animated series? special? film? project of some sort, the teaser of which makes me smile. Because I’m totally in the tank for Achewood, I’ve been parsing through those 19 seconds of sound and motion² for any clues they might offer³. Because I’m a realist, I know that even properties with a constituency within an entertainment company can be optioned, paid for, and spend years or decades in development without ever coming to fruition. At this time, possibilities exist — which is more than was true last week.

• Poorcraft 2, on the topic of traveling on the cheap, is well in production and on Saturday Poorcraft bookrunner Spike dropped some news on it. While P2 will see Diana Nock returning for art duties, Spike herself will be stepping back from writing duties as Ryan Estrada — webcomics own Marco Polo — handles the script. Or handled, as the book is well into the gettin’ drawed stage, meaning that Estrada’s work is largely done. Can’t wait to see how Poorcraft: Wish You Were Here turns out.
• Updating our EmCity seating information, news comes this morning that a fairly substantial chunk of Artists Alley island F will be given over to Benign Kingdom. The official exhibitor’s list mentions B9 occupying seat F-16, which is also listed as the home of Johnny Wander. However, word is that B9 will actually occupy seats F12-F16, of which three seats are listed as occupied, and two not listed, which tells me that Grand Vizier George is probably planning to have people rotate into the space seats throughout the show, as well as giving the usual occupants a little more breathing room than is normally found in Artists Alley.
• Given that various Strip Search parties have said that the show will be launching this month, and that the Strip Search site lists the show as running Tuesdays and Fridays, and there’s only one of those weekdays left in the month, Im’a keep a browser window refreshing tomorrow. If nothing else, I’ve been very impressed with the Artist interviews that have run, and how well the Strip Search producers (possibly Khoo) are at stirring up shit in such a blatant fashion. If there’s a reunion show, we may see murder yet.

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¹ To wit: five strips in all of 2011, twelve in the first six months of 2012, and zero since.

² As opposed to Sound and Motion.

³ Such as the 0:11 mark, where it appears that Teodor has been retired in favor of Roast Beef as Ray tests his Whiskey á la Mood sampler. It also appears that Ray is the centerpiece of this teaser, which makes me wonder if he still sounds the same as when Onstad voiced him.

First, watch this.

Second, tell people you know to watch this.

Third, maybe drop a line to George Rohac and tell him he’s a goddamn hero.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that You Can Do Good has the potential to become the next It Gets Better, and it’s important for all the same reasons. You heard the man: I figured I’d go first. First in saying mental illness challenges me, but it’s not who I am; I’m more than what my mind tries to shoehorn me into being; I can prevail over this, and so can you.

It’s a cliche that greatly creative people have a touch of madness about them; it’s a truth-fact that in the eight or nine years I’ve spent getting to know webcomics creators, I’ve met more people with various diagnoses and medications to help control psychiatric conditions than I’d ever known in the first 35 years in my life. Could be because they’re mostly younger than I am, and were more likely to be diagnosed that people my age; could be they’re just more willing to talk about mental illness and a huge number of my contemporaries are in the psychiatric closet.

What I can tell you is, this move to destigmatize mental illness can only help things; I literally watched George’s video for the first time last night five seconds before my EMS pager summoned me to help the second patient in three hours having a psychiatric crisis. Undiagnosed, untreated, unacknowledged, these conditions eat away at lives and leave people damaged to the point of ruin. Getting help¹, not letting shame or contempt prevent that help — so many lives can be improved and saved.

Like I said — a goddamn hero, and all of his considerable contributions to comics aren’t as important as what he’s started. We can all do good; get doing.

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¹ Which in large part is going to require us all to demand that those who need help have realistic means of getting it.

So it’s approximately the Fleeniversary ’round these parts; the official announcement of my entrée into semi-abusive opinion-mongering occurred in the old Goats forums on 22 December 2005, but I’d been banking postings as far back as 5 December, and was really into the daily posting routine (even though nobody was reading yet) around the 15th or so. Which is a long way of saying — today is as close to seven years of what the masthead calls The webcomics blog about webcomics as you’re gonna get.

If I’ve got all my dates right, at this time seven years ago Jon Rosenberg¹ was not yet staring down 40 and had never changed a diaper. Seven years ago, people were somewhat more justified in thinking that Yuko Ota was in her early teens. Seven years ago, Jeff Rowland had proved himself unkillable by mere killer spiders and had started the great and vast TopatoCo Empire, even tangling with weird t-shirt company perverts.

So many of the tools and services we take for granted in webcomics were missing; at that time, there was no Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Kickstarter, Project Wonderful, or :01 Books. Seven years ago, George Rohac had not yet sprung fully formed from the forehead of Zeus.

Return to Sender had only been on hiatus for a year, TCAF had only started to conquer the world, Commissioner James Gordon Hastings had not been whelped, the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge had been going for less than a year, we had only just met Dan McNinja’s moustache, and the Great Outdoor Fight was still a month away from its stealthy beginnings, and further from its legendary majesty.

Rich Stevens was exactly the same, endless and unchanging, save only he is now married and likes dogs.

They say seven years in is when you get tired of things, but I have to say, I still enjoy the heck out all of this, so I hope you’ll join me as I start Year Eight of working out my thoughts on various matters — mostly webcomics, but no promises — where you can hear them. Also, if you happen to be in north/central New Jersey tomorrow, do drop by to see the webcomickers at Wild Pig Comics from noon to 4:00pm, won’t you?

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¹ Who, Svengali-like, planted the seeds in my head and made them bear the desired brainfruit that I should be writing all of this stuff.

Couple of quick notes for you before we get to the main discussion today. One, I’m on Pacific Time this week (and with intermittent internet access), so expect less-timely-than-usual postings. Two, congrats to webcomicky types Darryl Cunningham and John Allison for their nominations in the British Comics Awards (for Best Book and Best Comic, respectively), to be presented in a month’s time at Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds. Also thanks to the BCAs for pointing me towards Josceline Fenton, nominated for Best Comic for Hemlock, a webcomic with which I was not previously familiar. Fenton is also nominated as Emerging Talent for broader body of work, which is going to bear some examination in the very near future.

Okay: George (it is the general policy of this blog to refer to people by their full names on first reference, and to prefer family name thereafter, with first name used to make thing read well, but really — “George” is the only way to name this fine gentleman).

He doesn’t make himself the center of attention, but he’s a significant guy in the world of web/indy comics. When he’s not scouting for talent and finding people for projects at Oni, he’s the behind-the-scenes make-things-happen guy in the Benign Kingdom, and may understand Kickstarter better than Kickstarter does (I believe he may have been involved in more campaigns than anybody else on the planet at this point). But apart from the day job, the Kingdom appears to be his major avenue for world domination right now, so that’s what we talked about. With the second B9 collection getting ready to ship, I wanted to find out what the future directions for the Kingdom might be.

First of all, I have to change the terminology I’ve been using, because “B9.5″ isn’t going to cut it much longer; it worked when there was an original book, then a second book, but plans are for two more artbook collections every year (Spring and Fall), so I’d be running out of decimals pretty quickly. Like the Fall 2012 collection, these new books will be:

• collections of four artists
• by invitation (please, no unsolicited submissions)
• ongoing for the forseeable future

That last one is pretty important — the original four creators (Ota/Green/Dreistadt/Dahm) won’t be returning until 2014, which means that the intervening 18-24 months are already planned out and the respective details are already being worked out¹. George wouldn’t spill as to who the contributors to the 2013 books would be “until pen’s on paper”, but he was quite interested in knowing who I would want to see included. I dropped some names² on him, carefully looking for tells that I’d guessed correctly, but he gave away nothing.

More than just having a beautiful book of your best/favorite work, being in one of the biannual collections means that a creator is now “part of the Kingdom”, with the ability to do other projects that strike your fancy; the Kingdom means having a structure to arrange for the logistics of production and fulfillment, as well as serving as a guarantee of quality. As the number of projects from the Kingdom increases, expect to see an ever-wider audience that was not familiar with the creators in question³ to dominate the purchasing, based on a string of previous projects, each successful and full of positive feedback from backers.

These projects can be solo or in combination with other creators (George allowed that there will be an Exquisite Beast/Capture Creatures tandem project), and I can think of a few other projects that I’d love to see — I’ve mentioned more than once that Aaron Diaz should do an artbook of dinosaurs, and I all but begged Anthony Clark over the weekend to revive his collaboration with Emmy Cicierega, Laserpony Studios. Heck, while casually talking with Evan Dahm and Frank Gibson, we accidentally came up with an idea for a Kingdom book that would be awesome and unique and I’m not sure I should talk too much about it.

So there you are — the Kingdom is an ongoing concern, it will continue to expand as makes sense, it’s got a plan for convention appearances, and a store is on the way. The foundations are solid, in part because nothing (not even more Big Gay Ice Cream than you could eat in a lifetime) can distract George when he has a goal in mind. Also, never forget that he has the power to end the world, so let’s all make sure that he meets those goals — it’s safer for all concerned.

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¹ One of the key things to realize about George: the man pays attention and has a plan at all times. The first B9 collection shipped a month early, and the only reason the second isn’t going out early is that a quality issue made the first printing unacceptable, causing a delay to merely “at the time we promised”. George is ready to go to press the day the Kickstarter ends, because he’s planned for submissions and layout before he announces the project.

² In no particular order (and keeping in mind that the goal of B9 is to provide a channel for creators to do artbooks separate from their usual work, so creators already working in an artbook mode like Scott C don’t really need the Kingdom): Carly Monardo, Dylan Meconis, Ursula Vernon, Erika Moen, Vera Brosgol, Emily Carroll, Karl Kerschl, Cameron Stewart, and man oh man I’d kill to see a book of Randy Milholland’s watercolors. I have no idea who on that list would have the time/inclination, but there you go — more than enough people for 2013 and beyond.

³ This is already occurring. The first B9 collection had about 20% of the backers come from Kickstarter itself rather than from the established audiences of the creators; for the second collection, it was over 60% from people searching out KS projects to back.

Seriously, internet, you need to refine your personal index of suspicion when something potentially outrageous comes across your screen. Take a breath. Consider the source. Ask yourself, Is it possible that maybe this isn’t meant to be taken seriously? And think twice before you decide to make with the complaints and virtual lynch mobs because, well … yeah.

• Let’s talk about something more pleasant, shall we? As noted yesterday, the Hour of Truth is rapidly approaching for R Stevens, and you can follow along his own personal Grand Guignol online. If anybody has access to an emergency services scanner in the Easthampton area, maybe listen for dispatches¹ and let us all know if things go wobbly? Time to smoky, salty, delicious danger is (as of posting), approximately 22 minutes.
• The New York Comic Con is in three weeks, and they’ve done us the service of listing programming, albeit in a pretty inconvenient format. I’ve gone combing through for sessions that are related to webcomickry in general, and have found the following for you; please note that times and locations are subject to change.

  Thursday, 11 October
  Surviving the Public (Unshelved)
  12:00-1:00pm, Room 1A08
  Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum of Unshelved get things off to an early start on Press/Pros/VIPs day, before the show floor opens even, with a keynote on customer service (library focused, naturally) and the immutable truth known to anybody that’s ever dealt with the public: the customer is seldom right.

  Friday, 12 October
  Webcomics – From Hobby to Business
  6:30–7:30pm, Room 1A08
  If you camp out in the room long enough after Gene & Bill, you can see Ryan Sohmer and Lar de Souza recount the story of how they got to a multimedia empire from a humble start in the Canadian comics mines. Bonus: you can probably get Sohmer to talk about his personal ascent into healthy, clean living from the hell of Red Bull addiction. It’ll be like Behind the Music only without Jim Forbes narrating.

  Scott C and The Great Showdowns, from Ripley vs the Alien Queen to Han vs the Green Fellow!
  7:00–7:45pm, Unbound Stage
  Scott C gets the brand-new Great Showdowns book off to a roaring start; this one is going to be so fun you guys.

  UDON Crew: New Titles & Tributes
  7:45–8:45pm, 1A06
  Jim Zub and his studio are all over the damn place these days, what with tribute books, webcomics, licensed properties and every damn thing. The secret to this is that they, like the great and magnificent shark, never stop moving. Okay, they do sometimes (sharks, I mean), but Zub & Co don’t; come find out what they’ve got on tap next.

  Saturday, 13 October
  Kickstarter and Indie Comics!
  4:00–5:00pm, Room 1A08
  Benign Kingdom. George Rohac. Secrets of successful Kickstartering. Just remember one thing: George might teach you everything you know about Kickstarter, but he won’t teach you everything he knows.

  Sunday, 14 October
  I got nothin’.

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¹ Key words to listen for: Man down, smells delicious. If they have to slap paddles on him and shout Clear!, I’ll bet he sizzles.

I thought I was so smart this morning before work, figuring out that today’s xkcd is 165,888 x 79,872 worth of pixels, and determining Randall Munroe’s tile naming scheme, which would allow me to explore the entire, massive environment at my later leisure. Naturally, others had reconstructed the entire image before I’d had my breakfast, including at least one zoomable image of the whole damn thing. For the record, I discovered the secret UFO base by manual clicking and dragging. I think the one thing we can all take away from this experience is the fact that Munroe is never bored if he’s got the time to do stuff like this on random Wednesdays.

• Catching up: the Joe Shuster Awards were given out over the weekend; this page is on record that the Canadian comics awards are consistently well-curated in the breadth and depth of their nominees, and particularly find good webcomics to recognize. That streak remains intact, as the Shusters regonized Emily Carroll for her body of work in 2011 as Outstanding Web Comics Creator / Créateur de bande dessinée web exceptionnel for the second year in a row. Following up on his recent Harvey Award win, the award for Outstanding Comic Book Cartoonist / Auteur de bande dessinée exceptionnel went to Ramón Pérez for Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand.
• Looking forward: rumblings in the twitosphere indicate that the time is nigh. R Stevens, in accordance with the unholy pact he made for the sake of US$1332, and is about to eat two pounds of bacon. Much like ancient samurai would have a trusted retainer act as their second when committing seppuku, Stevens has engaged Anthony Clark and KC Green as witnesses to what is to happen, and may glob have mercy on us all.
• Intriguing: TopatoCo are apparently continuing their march to dominate all in their path:
  

  Just submitted an offer to BUY A TOPATOCO BUILDING.

  With George Rohac heading east to represent his employers, the possibility of collaboration — one might say conspirations — between these superstars of webcomics-related success-shepherding exists, and who knows how this will all shake out. I for one intend to be on the right side of history, and I welcome our new, space potato overlord.

Nothing, I tell you!

• Okay, maybe this, from a little before midnight (EDT) last night:
  

  ONE. MILLION. DOLLARS.

  Mister Smiley refers, naturally, to this — only the twelfth million-dollar project in Kickstarter history — which is actually accelerating the pace of pledges instead of dropping as would be usual at this point. Chalk that up to the addition of several more supporter tiers (mostly incorporating the now-legendary SNOUTPACK) in the high-dollar range and stretch goals getting revealed.

• Two pieces of really neat comic work that’ve gone up in the past day or so that I want to recommend to you. On the one hand, Renée French’s Baby Bjornstrand is subtle, moody, spare, and plays with your head in all the right ways. Even better, it looks like it will be a continuing story!

  On the other hand, Lucy Knisley’s Vanishing Into My Head has a bright exterior, and a chewy center of memory, philosophy, identity, and the desire to be truly understood by another. They’re both top-notch examples of what can be done in comics that can’t be done elsewhere.

There’s something about Lord Baltimore’s stomping grounds that just grabs hold of comics in September and won’t let go. Three weekends, three shows, serving three different constituencies. Let’s run ‘em down.

• Up first, this weekend brings the return of Baltimore Comic Con to Charm City, with its big-name companies in a comics-centric show. With an awards ceremony and Stan Lee, it’s got everything the very largest shows have, with the exception of a million media companies crowding comics off the floor and a non-PDF programming guide. Lotsa people from the webcomicky world listed as showing, including your Brads and Sohmers and Braden & Shellis and Cubes and Speeds.
• One week later, Bethesda hosts the indy- and art-comics types at SPX, with the Ignatz Awards and more webcomickers and their natural allies than you can shake a stick at. I know I missed a lot of people from the list (including repeats from BaltoCon) so give it a good going-over, yes? On the off chance you don’t find somebody you want to meet in person, you can see some of the brainiest comics panels around or hit the handy hotel lobby bar.
• One week on, Intervention hits, also in Bethesda, and less “comics” than “things made on the internet”, with a real focus on programming late into the night, but with a preponderance of webcomics types on the guest list, including some repeats from the prior two shows, and a rare East Coast sighting of webcomics resident West Coast Tiki Queen and one third of the Nexus of All Webcomics Realities¹, Shaenon Garrity, and her Skin Horse writing partner, Jeffrey C Wells.² I don’t know if there’s a lobby bar, but it there is and any of the drinks come in glasses with faces on them, don’t get between them and Shaenon if you value your life.
• A little further in the future, Matthew Inman and the Little Gamers crew will continue webcomics traditions in 2013 by, respectively, presenting at the next SxSW Festival and driving from London to Ulan Bator. Gonna be a busy year next year.

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¹ The other two thirds being The Tall Man and The Smiling Man.

² I’m pretty sure I just set a record for the longest single sentence at Fleen.