Silly me, I didn’t get a screen shot of the parking page that greeted readers of Fleen earlier today as the renewal was making its ways around the world. While the fleen.com email service saw no interruptions, for a few hours I was assured that this page would make a perfect address for auto dealers, auto loans, and all your auto needs. Sadly, people that may have wanted to snag the domain weren’t greeted with the sensitive yet handsome dude, the beautiful yet computer-savvy lady, or the couple that for some reason you just want to slap. Sorry ’bout all that.

• Having dipped her foot¹ into the world of e-self-publishing, A Girl And Her Fed creator K Brooke “Otter” Spangler has been noting some distinct similarities between that world and the earlier, what the heck are we trying to accomplish? days of professional webcomicking, and she’s been kind enough to share her observations with you.

  Having also spanned the world of webcomics self-publishing, and actual-publisher publishing, Otter’s buddy (and Fleen Fave) Ursula Vernon² has her own take of the astonishing Webcomics/SelfPub parallels, and likewise holds forth with useful opinion. They are are pair of sharp ladies and to paraphrase Otter, BUY THEIR BOOKS.

• Oh my, yes, please: Jess Fink’s so very delayed, I thought I might never see it released, can it really be true? time-travel self-makeout epic, We Can Fix It, finally has a release date! Of course, we’ve heard this before (more than three years of hearing it before) but this time it’s certain because Fink has the actual books in her hot little hands, meaning she’ll have them for TCAF in a few weeks. For those of you not going to TCAF, you can exchange money for this book in a variety of places, including by pre-ordering from Top Shelf directly. Go do that now.
• Did somebody say most prestigious awards in comics? The Eisners nominations are out, the superheroes are relatively absent, and webcomickers and their natural allies are well represented. How well represented? Enough so that there’s simply too many names to track down all the web addresses and put the links in the text³. Let’s just take them from the top down, shall we?
  Best Single Issue or One-Shot
  The Mire, by Becky Cloonan (self-published)

  Best New Series
  Adventure Time, by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, and Braden Lamb (kaboom!)
  Bandette, by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain)

  Best Publication for Kids (ages 8-12)
  Adventure Time, by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, and Braden Lamb (kaboom!)
  Amulet Book 5: Prince of the Elves, by Kazu Kibuishi (Scholastic)
  Cow Boy: A Boy and His Horse, by Nate Cosby and Chris Eliopoulos (Archaia)

  Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17)
  Adventure Time: Marceline and the Scream Queens, by Meredith Gran (kaboom!)
  A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle, adapted by Hope Larson (FSG)

  Best Humor Publication
  Adventure Time, by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, and Braden Lamb (kaboom!)

  Best Digital Comic
  Ant Comic, by Michael DeForge
  Bandette, by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover
  It Will All Hurt, by Farel Dalrymple
  Our Bloodstained Roof, by Ryan Andrews
  Oyster War, by Ben Towle

  Best Adaptation from Another Medium
  A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle, adapted by Hope Larson (FSG)

  Best Graphic Album —- Reprint
  Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel (First Second)

  Best Penciller/Inker
  Becky Cloonan, Conan the Barbarian (Dark Horse); The Mire (self-published)
  Colleen Coover, Bandette (Monkeybrain)

  Best Coloring
  Colleen Coover, Bandette (Monkeybrain)

  I’m particularly excited to note the presence of Bandette in the Digital Comic category, but also represented in other categories against print comics. And I would be remiss if I didn’t note that Comics Alliance, Robot Six, and The Comics Reporter have all been nominated as Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism, and they are the homes of such webcomics-friendly folks as Chris Sims, Brigid Alverson, and The Spurge. Best of luck to a very strong and deserving field, and let’s hope that we see such good nominations in future years.

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¹ Up to about the knees, actually.

² We at Fleen loves us some Digger.

³ On account of the fact I am a lazy, lazy man.

You get to do that when you’re an unpaid internet opinion-monger, you know. Even though nobody has to actually honor the Day in question, I have a feeling that you’ll be willing to do so in this case¹ because the books in question are very cool.

Today is the release date for both Hope Larson’s A Wrinkle in Time (The Graphic Novel) and Mark Siegel’s Sailor Twain (or, The Mermaid in the Hudson), both of which have earned your attention and time. But Gary, I hear you cry, I am of but limited means and cannot afford to obtain both books for myself, what should I do? Look, you can sell plasma² like twice a week, just read them both and thank me later.

• Speaking of Hope Larson, her husband has done some comics that a few people have read, and he’s done a really smart interview with Andrew Hussie about Homestuck, the Homestuck Kickstarter³, and all the odd interactions that constitute “fandom”. Highly recommended.
• Speaking of crowdfunding campaigns, Matthew Inman declared his favorite part of the recently-concluded Operation: Let’s Build A Goddamn Tesla Museum to be a bit of mathematical elegance. If you feel like talking about things that are divisible by three with Inman, you’ll be able to ask him in person at New York Comic Con next week.
• Speaking of NYCC, the rundown on when you can find Messers Clark, Hastings, and PseudoNorth at the ShiftyLook booth has been posted, along with the fact that the “booth” is actually a freeplay arcade. If it’s anything like the arcade that ShiftyLook put together for a party at SDCC, it will be awesome.

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¹ Or “these cases”, as the case may be.

² Or do experimental drug testing, or sell organs. Whatever.

³ Sitting at US$2.07 million and just about 48 hours exactly to go as I’m writing this; final prediction: US$2.3 million +/- US$100K depending on whether or not the end-of-campaign bounce materializes. It usually manifests in the last week of a campaign, but this one has been atypical in so many ways.

Boo! Did I startle you? No? Well, it’s good that you have a stout heart, as today is full of scarifying scares that are very scary. Boo.

• First up, Spike has decided that the natural followup to her phenomenally successful and dirty (in the best possible way), filthy (ditto) Smut Peddler anthology is to shift from the erotic to something a bit more thanatotic: a horror anthology to be entitled The Sleep of Reason. Much like Smut Peddler, The Sleep of Reason¹ will feature an open submission process, with details around Halloween, so if you have ideas for spooky stories, now’s the time to start developing them.

  But don’t get too far ahead of yourself — while Spike’s made it known that she’s looking for full-page comic work (and legit scary, please) — things like minimum or maximum lengths are still unannounced. Since it’s Spike that we’re talking about, it’s paying work, with contributions due in May 2013, and publication to follow (judging from Smut Peddler’s example, probably around November or December). So if you think that you can bash together a visual story as disturbing as, say, Emily Carroll’s work, keep your eyes on Spike’s twitterfeed for further news.

• Know what’s lost some of its original, terrifying nature? Mermaids. Lure you to your death beneath the waves, or to be dashed upon the rocks? Lost to time, reduced to shilling Starbucks. The menace of mermaids is lost to nearly everybody, with only occasional reminders that mermaids were not always very nice. Still, it can’t all be doom and gloom, and Mark Siegel’s decided to celebrate the imminent release of his own menacing mermaid story with a goofy little story, complete with double entendre title.
• Sometimes, the monsters are real. They lay in wait, they demand their tolls, and then they … do nothing, actually. If! You! Dare! read the story of one brave man, the abyss he stared into, and the monstrously indifferent treatment that he received, treatment that would have driven a lesser man to madness, despair, and death! It’s seriously spooky; no, really.²

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¹ Per Spike, the title is taken from a piece by Goya entitled The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. Creepy, but I always was more of a Hieronymus Bosch man myself; standing before his magnificent Last Judgement in the Groeningemuseum you simply cannot look at the center panel and not take away deep meaning. For me, the principal lesson was Screw not with the bunnies of the Apocalypse. Don’t even get me started on The Garden of Earthly Delights Heck of a weirdo, ol’ Jerry B.

² Okay, not that spooky, but c’mon, it’s Guigar. PS: Boo.a href=

Now that Apple isn’t making everybody sit in front of their computers and hit compulsively refresh their browsers every ten seconds, maybe we can talk about some webcomics things?

• Yesterday saw the debut of a very impressive Big Round Number:
  

  It only took 8 1/2 years, but I’ve finally created 2000 puzzles!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/30135689@N05/7980598350/

  Let’s do the math to properly indicate just how busy Chris Yates has been: eight and a half years and 2000 Baffler!s comes to 1.55 Baffler!s per day, and while some of them are pretty simple, that doesn’t preclude monsters like ol’ 2K here, with its more than 550 pieces spread out across nine fields and eight layers.

  In that time Yates was also making ghosts and POOP signs¹ and SLÜGs and t-shirts and prints and the designs for mass-market Baffler!s and the iPad Baffler! app and a few zillion Baffler! commissions not to mention a whole mess of terribly excited photocomics.

  For those interested in seeing exactly how damn much art one can cram into 3105 days, there’s a photo archive for your perusal. If you should see Mr Yates this weekend at SPX, tell him I said hi, be sure to smile for any photos you end up in, and ask him when the hell he sleeps.

• Know who else is gonna be at SPX? Well, a whole damn lot of people, but for the moment I’m thinking about Becky and Frank, who will but a week later make their way back LA-wards for a book launch at the world-famous Secret Headquarters. Tiny Kitten Teeth’s print version has been a long time a-bornin’ but now it’s here and it’s going to be gorgeous and you can get in on the fun of the launch at 3817 W Sunset Blvd (also known as Historic Route 66) in Los Angeles at 7:00pm on Friday, 21 September. Books, prints, fun times, and sophisticated adult beverages will be present in copious amounts.
• Speaking of book launches, (in this case, literally so), I believe it is a matter of public record that this page is fully in the tank as far as Sailor Twain goes, as it is beautiful, and melancholy, and atmospheric in a way that few comics manage. It’s still a few weeks before the very handsome and substantial print collection drops, which makes this the perfect time to note that there will be a special to-do to mark the launch of the book.

  Even more exciting, this celebration will be taking the form of a sunset sailing trip aboard the Clearwater, a replica of the mighty Hudson River sloops of the 18th and 19th centuries. A sloop that was dreamt up, built, and launched by the legendary Pete Seeger² to act as a literal platform to remind people of the need for clean waters in general, and the Hudson River in particular.

  The Sailor Twain Sail departs from the 79th Street Boat Basin in Manhattan at 5:30pm on Friday, 5 October.

• New site, tangentially related to webcomics in that David “It’s!” Willis did the logo, and also because it’s the brainchild of webcomics friend Josh “The Comics Curmudgeon” Fruhlinger. Hail to the Slash [Not Safe For Anything] is devoted to … well, let’s just quote Josh on this one:
  

  2012 has been one of the most homoerotic presidential elections since JFK completely discombobulated DIck Nixon with his sexual charisma live on television. This site is a repository of the same-sex presidential fan fiction our nation needs right now.

  Also:

  [I]n the days leading up to the 2008 U.S. presidential election, this civility broke down as a number of nasty political fights broke out. In attempt to stave off further unpleasantness, I demanded that my readers funnel their political passions into Taft/Roosevelt slash fiction, because it was the only thing I could think of off the top of my head.

  This worked better than I could have ever imagined, both in terms of stopping arguments and in producing legitimate masterpieces of Taft/Roosevelt erotica. I always had in mind that, come 2012, I would return to the idea. This site is that return.

  In case you still have some shred of innocence in your soul and are casually wondering if Mr Fruhlinger could really put together something truly depraved and soul-searing, consider this description of the very first entry at HttS:

  Heart and Soul (Cheney/Bush/Cloned Cheney/Crown Prince Abdullah; WARNING: EXTREME HORROR)

  Cloned Cheney. I’m warning you, there isn’t enough bleach in the world to get that image out of your brain. So tread carefully and if y’all will excuse me, I’ll be over here with the jumbo bottle of bleach and the cleansing fire.

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¹ It will remain one of my life’s most cherished memories will be the time I watched Lynn Freakin’ Johnston try to convince a complete stranger to buy a POOP sign. The only thing needed to make that day perfect would have been for that stranger to be wearing some form of “Roadside” clothing.

² One of America’s great social consciences, a musician of incredible importance (largely responsible for the preservation of folk music and the modern development of the banjo), hell-raising for all the right reasons still in this, his 93rd year.

As a professional communicator, a colleague once opined to me, the most important tool you have at your disposal is silence. He turned out to be kind of a weird guy, but he had been an announcer for the CBC in his youth, so I imagine he had that part right. It fit with my own experiences in radio oh so long ago, and was almost word-for-word something that Ira Glass said about a year later:

I like Harry Shearer, who does a show on KCRW in Santa Monica that’s syndicated to some stations around the country. Listening to his show taught me that it’s okay to pause however fucking long you want to in the middle of a sentence on the air.

So — silences are good; keep that in mind as I talk about three books today, which have in common a couple of things:

1. Copies were gifted to me by the respective authors on the floor of SDCC
2. Each of them approaches its story with a unique appreciation for silence

We’ll start with DRAMA by Raina Telgemeier, read in an uncorrected proof edition, and available 1 September. Like her earlier, autobiographical Smile, DRAMA takes place in middle school, and Telgemeier’s ear for the early teenage years — the rhythms of speech patterns, the small dramas that loom so large within the framing story of a drama club’s spring production — is as sharp as ever. Callie, Jesse, Justin, Liz, and all the others aren’t facsimiles of 7th- and 8th-graders, they’re living, breathing, scheming, hurting, striving, entirely alive people that just so happen to have originated somewhere in Telgemeier’s imagination.

She uses silences in all the expected ways — montage, reaction, actions that don’t feature anybody talking — but also as gutters. The gutters, Scott McCloud taught us, are where the reader has control of the story and determines what happens that isn’t being explicitly shown. The difference here is the actions are being shown (without words) at big emotional beats; where one panel would have more than adequately gotten across the mood of the story, flipping the page and finding two, three, four more panels, spread across as many as two pages, serves as an extended moment of audience interaction.

Callie is {humiliated | lost | abandoned | embarrassed | other} — choose from your own experience, the mood that resonates with the reader has no choice but to build over the time it takes to traverse all of those “extra” panels. Those silences are uncomfortable, not because we’re told they are, but because Telgemeier makes us remember every time we’ve ever been in those situations. Bravo.

By contrast, Makeshift Miracle Book 1: The Girl From Nowhere (available now, although the comics in this volume only finished online three days ago) by Jim Zub (Mr Zubkavich, if you’re nasty) uses silence as a counterpoint to internal monologue. Some of you may have read about Colby Reynolds and the mystery girl, Iris, in Zub’s original treatment, The Makeshift Miracle, collected in book form in 2006; back then, Zub handled both writing and art chores, and while Zub would be the first to say that the new, full-color art by Shun Hong Chan is an improvement, I always thought that the original made for an intimate, singular POV in the story.

But this is a different story, not just different art. Story beats have been rearranged, the narrations (from the explicit perspective of a diary written after the fact) have largely been replaced with an in-the-moment reactive monologue. Most importantly, the story has been given much more room, by a factor of 50-100%, with single pages being replaced by two, three, or more where necessary. Colby doesn’t have that much more to say, thus — silences, and plenty of them. The additional room gives the ability to show more and tell less, making the story less Let me tell you what happened to me and more Come along and see what’s going on in my life.

The otherworldly, mysterious interactions of Colby and Iris give the story the space to breathe. It’s not just an exercise in decompressed storytelling, it’s taking the opportunity to stop and smell the weirdness that the characters otherwise would have been too nonchalant about. If you have a copy of the earlier The Makeshift Miracle, don’t look at the new edition (which isn’t complete, in any event) as a replacement; these are the same story, but different treatments that deserve to be evaluated on their own merits.

Finally, Sailor Twain, or, The Mermaid in the Hudson (collecting the now-completed webcomic, and generally available 2 October) by Mark Siegel, also known as the editorial director of :01 Books (which, as previously noted, is pound-for-pound the most celebrated graphic novel publisher in the world). Here, along the Hudson River from Manhattan to Albany, amid Gilded Age wealth and decadence, silence is almost a force of nature.

Things that should be noisy — violent storms, enormous side-wheeler steamships, Civil War battlefields — are rendered with barely a sound effect or indication of shouting. The effect is striking, particularly in a story that emphasizes the dangers of sound, and which for the longest time dances around what the most hazardous of them all — the mermaid’s song — might sound like.

Sounds of the industrial age, sounds of ancient enchantment, sounds which deafen, and sounds which drive men to die or to kill are implied in the moody, delicate pencil and charcoal drawings, but are for the most part left to the imagination of the reader. Like the other books above, this makes Sailor Twain an intensely reader-driven experience. Peruse it slowly, carefully, and maybe stay away from sad songs while you do.

Yeah, I know, I said not to expect anything today, but I’ve got a few minutes to kill before dinner, so I get to tell you (as if you needed me to) that :01 Books are stellar people. I had the pleasure of meeting :01′s editor, Mark Siegel, and telling him what a great job he’s doing; he deflected all praise towards his staff, and was kind enough to gift me with advance copies of the new Zita the Spacegirl and his own Sailor Twain. It is now pretty much certain that I will not be getting any sleep on tomorrow’s flight home.

At some point, I still have to tell you about the Kickstarter panel that took place yesterday, various plans involving various creators that still need some fact-checking, and I want to write up some conversations I have with people that make Comic-Con happen, but don’t usually get any notice — door monitors, cops on crossing duty, booth babes, waitresses in the Gaslamp, convention center medics. I found them to be uniformly gracious, polite, and entirely appreciative of a crowd that might try that patience of the best of us. Watch for those in the next couple of days.

Sunday purchases: None, but given the two books noted above.

As we hurtle headlong into next week’s San Diego Comic Con, now is as good a time as any to remind you that postings next week will be on their own schedule. Cool? Cool.

• Previously noted, the hands-down best publisher of graphic novels, :01 Books will be at SDCC, but now it’s time for me to share with you some of who and what they’re bringing (many thanks to Gina Gagliano at :01 for passing along the info, as well as numerous advanced copies throughout the year).

  To start, I realize that some of you may object to that “best publisher” claim that I made, so check out the Eisner nominees from :01 this year: Nursery Rhyme Comics (Best Publication for Early Readers and Best Anthology), Zita the Space Girl (Best Publication for Kids), Anya’s Ghost and Level Up (Best Publication for Young Adults), and Zahra’s Paradise (Best Graphic Album — Reprint). Bascially, a :01 publication has a one in three shot of being recognized by the most prestigious awards in comics.

  Second, check out who will be visiting the booth: Jorge Agurre and Rafael Rosado, Vera Brosgol, Zack Giallongo, JT Petty, Thien Pham, Nate Powell (also an SDCC Guest of Honor), Dave Roman, and Jen Wang. They’ll all be signing at least a couple of times during the show, so drop by the booth for the schedule. Also check out the program guide for the many :01 creators and staff that will be talking about various topics near and dear to their heart; if nothing else, try to catch up with Colleen AF Venable to tell her how awesome her book designs¹ are. Among those book designs: the just-received, not-yet-released Sailor Twain, which I can’t wait to get my hands on (October, can you come quickly enough?).

• Know what you won’t be able to pick up at SDCC? The Schlock Mercenary boardgame. When my evil twin told me that his game guys wanted to send me a review copy, he didn’t mention it was going to be the single largest item ever delivered to The Fleenplex for review. This thing is heavy, on account of it’s stuffed full of thick cardstock pieces, in a box that is far more solid than anybody used to American boardgames would ever consider necessary. Those of you that like Euro-style games, it probably feels right at home.

  So yeah, all those pieces (which, by the way, are double-sided) — gonna be a while before I get the chance to punch ‘em all out but when I do, I can tell that the good folks at Living Worlds Games love me and want me to be happy, because one of the items in the box was a little bundle of sealable bags to sort those pieces into. Just saying, I had to make a trip to the supermarket for Zip-Locs when I bought Settlers of Catan.

  My only complaint being (and this is preliminary, as I haven’t punched out all those double-sided pieces yet), the designers put in such necessary play-pieces as banana peels and cursing, but didn’t manage duct tape or an ominous hummmmmm? Priorities, man! On the other hand, the entire purpose of the game is to be recklessly violent and make a bunch of attorney drones go Pop! Mostly; the rules (which I have had time to read through) feature different styles of gameplay, from kill people and break things to retrieve the macguffin without dying. With all the characters, tools, objectives, floor layouts, and game styles, it’s going to have a hell of a lot of replay value.

  Schlock Mercenary: Capital Offensive is up for pre-order at Game Salute, or you can get it from Howard Tayler at GenCon Indy (mid-August) or ChiCon 7/WorldCon70 (end of August), and eventually at his store.

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¹ You could also note that she’s got the Best Tattoo Ever, but if you lead with that it could come off creepy.

Where to start, where to start? With the announcement of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s new book, Seconds? Or with pictures of Kate Beaton’s D&Q offering, which is either enjoyed by very small people or is a giant book? Or perhaps about the hot, new game that’s sweeping SDCC, courtesy of Marshall Willenholly? Or heck, why not the book trailer for Amulet 4, due this fall from Kazu Kibuishi?

• Okay, how about here — a couple of weeks ago, Chris Sims (professional Batmanologist and surprisingly astute analyst of pressing issues in comics) wrote a piece about how DC and Marvel should adopt aspects of webcomics. In reaction, a bunch of creators talked about what they’d pitch to the Big Two for ongoing, daily, fun-chuckles. Webcomickers invited to the party included Brad “The PUNisher” Guigar, Curt Franklin, Justin Pierce¹, Lucy Knisley, Shaenon Garrity, and the if-he-stops-comicking-he-dies Ryan Estrada². Each of these pitches that doesn’t happen is a wasted opportunity on par with Lois Lane, Girl Reporter.
• A couple of days ago, David Malki ! was “kind” enough to share an earworm with the world on Twitter (DO NOT CLICK HERE if you don’t want it to be stuck in your brain all day), so now I’m going to return the favor. David, check out what Kris Straub is doing in the current Starslip storyline. Now you have the Dick Wolf cash register sound³ in your head and can’t get rid of it! Ha ha, my evil plan worked!
• Last notes. Readers of this page may recall the name Øyvind Thorsby, who does webcomics that are funny, make creative use of space (click through the next dozen or so strips), and are (to be kind) populated with enormous heads. Thorsby dropped me a note that I wanted to share:
  

  Remember me? My latest comic is The Accidental Space Spy. It’s reached 100 strips. First strip here.

  Not remember somebody with maybe the metal-est name this side of Toki Wartooth? Heaven forfend! Anyhoo, the “space” in The Accidental Space Spy refers to the “outer variety with galaxies and aliens and things”, not the “let’s get creative with all the dimensions and mess with the readers heads” type (again, funny, make follow the link and click through to the end of the chapter). Thorsby’s line is thicker, smoother, and more assured, and the heads have settled on a size that’s less “disturbing” and more “quirky”. I’m going to enjoy catching up with this one.

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¹ Just give him Wonder Woman and let him write it like Wonderella; can’t be worse than most of what WW’s been subjected to for most of 70 years.

² Much like sharks must keep swimming in order to breathe.

³ Credit for that term must go to Richard Belzer. Also, be glad I gave you a link that doesn’t repeat the sound a bunch of times — after a half-dozen or so, a certain hypnotic insanity is known to occur in up to 19% of the population.

What with the big stage show last night off his plate, David Malki ! ran the risk of having free time, so it only makes sense to announce that Machine of Death 2 is in the works.

What with the guy in charge making Sailor Twain and hosting Zahra’s Paradise, :01 are now even more fully in the webcomics biz.

The sparse net access that I had yesterday would go away, leaving my tapping at my phone to post.

Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps the greatest animation director that ever lived (and understand that I have multiple Chuck Jones originals hanging in my home, so I set the bar pretty damn high) turns 70 today. Aside from the fact that I was once close enough to reach out and touch him (I did not), my relationship with Miyazaki is based purely on the astonishingly high quality of his many animated films. His works have made me laugh until I cried, cry until I laughed, and think until my thinker was sore.

Although to the best of my knowledge Miyazaki has never worked in webcomics, it’s entirely meet and proper to salute him today on this page for a few reasons:

• The quality of his work is near-universally acclaimed, and his influence is apparent in the work of many who do produce webcomics
• His approach to his creations is rather webcomicish — although Studio Ghibli is big enough to merit its own museum, it doggedly pursues personal projects guided by almost singular vision, rather than having a market research driven, corporatized approach to its creations
• It’s my damn blog and I’ll salute whoever I want to

We’ll also mention that, in conjunction with Miyazaki’s birthday, the ToonSeum in Pittsburgh is hosting a series of screenings of his movies this month; anybody in Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, or that weird little finger of West Virginia that sticks up rudely that hasn’t seen Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, or Princess Mononoke on a bigger-than-TV screen, don’t let this opportunity pass you by. Laputa runs 7pm on Thursday the 13th, Totoro 3pm on Saturday the 22nd, and Mononoke 7pm on Thursday the 27th; admission is by donation.

• Recent long-form comic read-it-in-big-chunks catch-ups: Go Home Paddy, Zahra’s Paradise, Sailor Twain. All are just about to cross that point where getting all caught up is slightly inconvenient. Also, a huge re-reading of about two thirds of A Girl And Her Fed, because … well, never mind why. If you haven’t read it previously, it’s only about four dozen strips since the big jump in the storyline (part one finished, part two is “five years later”, you can get caught up here) and now’s a good time.

  The Guigster made a comment the other day at Webcomics Dot Com (subscription required) that he thinks 2011 will be the year of the longform story webcomic, and with contributions like these, it’s hard to dispute him.

• Finally, the TCAF ’11 website is now live, and wowsers just look at the list of exhibitors. Aside from the minor detail that the partnerships of Frank Gibson & Becky Dreistadt, and Ananth Panagariya & Yuko Ota only list the first half of each team (by coincidence, the writerly halves), there’s pretty much not a damn thing I’d change about this lineup. Now to see if the sovereign nation of Canada will let me across the border.