Yesterday’s post was bigger than one would normally expect, particularly for a Wednesday when it is scientifically proven that nothing of interest ever happens, and yet there we were. Lost in the shuffle were some things which were (and are) worth mentioning.

• The Joey Comeau-penned, Mike Holmes-drawed Bravest Warriors comic has been upgraded from miniseries to ongoing, and that Fionna and Cake will get their own miniseries come January. Per Comeau’s twitterfeed, BW#1 will be available at NYCC (which kicked off for VIP/pro/press day a couple hours ago), and per everybody and their dog, F&C#1 will feature an alternate cover by Becky Dreistadt. Good times, my friends.
• If you look up the words “noble failure” in the dictionary, you’ll be flipping back and forth a lot because there’s probably like 700 pages between the N pages and the F pages, but let’s pretend for a moment they’d be together.

  Anyway, look ‘em up, and down around reference number five or six (out of thirty-seven) there could be a mention of Zuda [no link exists¹], which did some things right (looking for new talent not already working with major comics publishers, an uncharacteristic amount of transparency for a major comics publisher), some things wrong (contests and contracts), and some things inconceivably (formatting requirements and oh lump, that interface).

  While I had some definite opinions on the entire Zudaenterprise, I remain steadfast in my stance that they popularized some damn good comics, and the people that worked there were true in their aims. This is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.²

  We recently noted some of what onetime Zudaeditor Kwanza Johnson has been up to, and this week brings news of onetime head of DC Creative Services Ron Perazza (if memory serves, he stayed on after the shutdown of Zuda, but left DC a while later in the wake of a corporate restructuring about two years back) and what he’s been up to. Namely, a new site in partnership with Daniel Govar (a one-time Zuda contributor), Comic Book Think Tank. The statement of purpose is pretty promising:

  This site is the creative playground of Ron Perazza and Daniel Govar – comic book professionals with years of experience in a wide variety of creative and techincal areas. It’s a place where we can explore what comics are (or can be) and where we can share the results of those experiments with any and all who are interested.

  I’m particularly interested to see what kinds of results Perazza and Govar might produce and encourage everybody with an interest in comics to keep an eye on their experiments. For now, the centerpiece of the site is a self-contained story, Relaunch, with others yet to come. Seems like a half-dozen or so of these stories (30 clicks to finish, but some of that results in overlays on the current page, so web page count <> printed page count) might make an nice anthology? We shall see.

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¹ Zudarest in Zudapeace.

² Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, Scene 1. By the way, do you like SHAKESPEARE? And perhaps do you like things that are FUNNY and/or AWESOME, and relate to webcomics? Watch this page in the next few weeks, because my friend, will we ever have a treat in store for you.

I believe that it is a matter of record that one of this page’s favoritest creators is “Hurricane” Erika Moen, who is funny, brave, honest, and knows her way around risqué material¹ like a champ. It is a matter of record that this page cannot wait for the print release of her latest comic, Bucko (with Jeff Parker), despite the cognitive dissonance this page gets when realizing that Bucko presented juggalos as fully-realized characters worthy of our attention. Honestly, Erika and Jeff — this page may never forgive you for that.³

So it’s understandable that it’s considered newsworthy in these parts to point out that Ms Moen will be part of a three-woman art show in Portland, Oregon this Thursday, 2 August. And because it’s Erika Moen, it’s understandable that the theme of the show is erotic art by comics artists, and perhaps inevitable that the venue will be Gallery Sesso, contained within the walls of Club Sesso, which is owned by Ron “Yes, that Ron Jeremy” Jeremy.

Perhaps you shouldn’t click on those last two links if you’re at work? All the details are available at Moen’s website.

Oh, and about that nickname that I bestowed on Ms Moen? Come 2015, it could be literally true.

Side note for any that missed it: Kwanza Johnson (onetime Zuda editor; while I think that the design and interface of Zuda left much to be desired, there were some damn good comics there while it lasted) has neatly summarized the priorities of [digital] comics creators in one picture. Ignore the numbers at your peril.

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¹ Including when to be classy, instructive, just revel in the smut (or a combo platter of any of the preceding) as the situation dictates.²

² Heh, heh, he said, “dick”.

³ Oh, who is this page kidding — c’mere, you.

How do you feel about words? Particularly words put together to entertain, inform and/or delight? I have some to share with you today.

• First up, Chris Sims (of Comics Alliance, the Invincible Super-Blog, Awesome Hospital, and Batmanology fame) has dropped one of his excellent thinky pieces — not that I don’t love the funny stuff, like his justly-famous evisceration of Tarot #53 [as NSFW as you possibly can be], but when he’s serious, he’s as good a writer on comics as we have.

  He’s looking at the question of why comic book publishers aren’t doing webcomics to drive interest in their characters (really focusing on Marvel and DC, since one could argue that Dark Horse has had a setup similar to what he’s described via their Myspace Dark Horse Presents, despite the clunky interface), and while the issue has been discussed many places in the past (including this page), Sims has a knack for cutting through the crap.

  What he’s saying makes sense … it makes all the sense in the world, and there are executive types in executive-type offices that need to be giving his arguments serious consideration. Had Zuda [RIP] follow Sims’s model, it would still be with us and DC wouldn’t be trying the Hail Mary pass of rebooting-but-not-really their entire line.

• In other corners of the internet, Ryan North is talking with Smithsonian magazine’s online arm about … dinosaurs! Yeah, okay, not much of a surprise, topic-wise, but given that Smithsonian is probably the best general-interest magazine being produced in the US today, and given that I’m likely on the low end of the age cohort for their subscriber base, it’s a big deal. Ryan says some words about his creative process, about how his readers teach him about dinosaurs, and some very nice things about Anthony Clark’s Nedroid.
• Speaking of Nedroid, did you see the very calm (far calmer than I would have been) tweet that Clark dropped earlier today regarding a blatant act of theivery?
  

  Reminder: There is no official “Nedroid App,” and if you buy one you are getting ripped off.

  Near as I can tell (Clark, rightly, isn’t giving the perp any links and neither will I), this is in reference to an app at an unofficial iOS market that promises Nedroid Comics for the low-low price of only US$1.99, which would be awesome if it were the developer’s legal right to sell them. While we’ve has the discussion on this page in the past about what constitutes fair vs unfair development of webcomics apps, this one is way over the line.

  It’s not an RSS aggregator. It’s not a fancy skin on the browser that directs you to Clark’s site. Near as I can tell (I don’t have an iDevice, nor would I give the developer any money to test my theory), it’s an entire damn archive of Nedroid comics delivered in one big bolus to your phone. I come to this conclusion because the size of the app is helpfully listed as 136.4 MB, and there’s no damn way a non-thieving app could ever require that much space.

  A DMCA takedown request has been sent, which is good. Better would be finding out it had been honored promptly, the developer suitably chastised, and monies recovered on Clark’s behalf. But if I find that app still exists in public form in, say, 48 hours, I will gladly offer to bankroll whatever further legal measures that need to be taken to put a stop to this nonsense.

• Let’s finish with some happy news. There are words from mad genius toymaker¹ Andy Bell regarding his newest, somewhat fishy, creation. And there’s a sample panel from Chris Eliopolous of his contribution (with Mike Maihack) to a comics adaptation of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller.

  The Storyteller is a particular favorite of his very large body of work (as with a lot of Henson’s late period, it’s animatronic heavy and appealed to a young engineering geek), and the dark nature of original fairy tales (before the Brothers Grimm cleaned them up, way the hell before Disney made them safe) has always appealed to me², so I’m waiting for this one with bated breath. Urge to kill … fading³.

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¹ Or “nightmare maker”, I can never remember which.

² More thoughts on fairy tales vis-à-vis webcomics may be found here; had I been thinking when writing that piece, I would have linked the performance fleece line to this comic.

³ Except for the urge to kill some tasty fish. Mmmmm … sashimi.

The first of October is a big webcomicsversary date, marking nine and six years of Achewood and Girls With Slingshots, respectively. Do yourself a favor and check out those first two links, then do the compare/contrast thing on the second pair; don’t forget to show your work and as always, spelling counts. Oh, and don’t blame me if you end up on an archive binge or two.

• Skin Horse, by contrast, is a bit less than three years old. But if you add it to the five and a half plus years of its predecessor, Narbonic, you’re going back a good decade or so. And furthermore, Skin Horse’s second book is newly released, at least for those who backed it with Kickstarted pre-orders. Everybody else, I imagine copies will go up at the Couscous Collective store eventually, but not until after I have my copy, moo-ha-ha-ha. Anyway, pick up Volume 1, and by the time you’re done with it, you can probably get Volume 2. Also, book launch party at Borderland Books in San Francisco on Saturday the 23rd at 5:00pm (or see if Shaenon & Jeff will sell you a copy at APE the week before).
• Marissa’s Bunny has popped up again, this time with the Blind Ferret (although it’s been there for a good long time, I hadn’t noticed until Sohmer’s post on same). Previously seen at PAX and Tim Buckley’s house, the little lapin is emblematic of a need for your attention and generosity (and if there’s one thing that webcomickers are, it’s generous to those in need). Thanks to Jordan Anderson for the head’s up.
• Amazing coincidence department: Colleen Doran is apparently running a Project Wonderful button ad on Fleen today, and I was going to draw your attention to a tweet from Mike Russell this morning recommending you head over to Ms Doran’s site and check out her epic tale of Bad Publishers:
  

  If you’ve never read Colleen Doran epic (and instructive) saga of bad-publisher perfidy, remedy this oversight here

  Ms Doran has recently made said tale of perfidy (what a great word) much easier to follow, and it contains much wisdom for those of you looking to make your comicking into a business. I was once taken to task by Mr T for asserting that [A]ll contracts are inherently about ensuring that — if needed — you can cut the other guy’s heart out and he’s legally obligated to provide the blade; a quick read over Ms Doran’s experiences with Bad Publishers provides a plethora of anecdotal evidence.

Update to add: make that 20 — Dr McNinja is five today.

Okay, so Angela Melick does a webcomic, knows her way around the right-hand rule, and married a guy with a talent for website development. End result: Webcomictweets, a combination Twitter reader, aggregator of statistics, and single point of contact for what’s going on in the webcomics world (once the list of included folks is sufficiently beefed up, that is). It’s got a lot of on-page functionality, it doesn’t turn up its nose at my (admittedly niche) browser of choice, probably isn’t blocked from your place of work (yet), and it’s fast. Heck, if not for the fact that I follow a few folks outside of webcomics, I’d probably make it my new Twitter client.

Submit your site for inclusion (or heck, just submit webcomics superfan Mike Kinyon‘s lists of webcomickers — comics and creators only, we bloggers would only clog up the place), and start following the community.

• Label dead, comic continues: High Moon has been a critical darling for the (just about) three year of its existence, and the disappearance of home base Zuda be damned, creators David Gallagher and Steve Ellis still have stories to tell. If you haven’t checked out High Moon yet (with the Zuda imprint no longer extant, the publishing of future volumes on paper would seem to be up in the air), you can always check ‘em out at ComiXology. Expect to see other Zuda refugees over there in the immediate short term.
• October Events: MoCCA is continuing its series of comics classes, with topics such as anatomy (general) anatomy (hand), writing, collaboration, plotting, animation teamwork, and more. Details at MoCCA’s education page.

  On the other side of the country, the Cartoon Art Museum will be having a party in conjunction with APE, with proceeds to support the museum’s mission. Special guest will come from the featured artists of the concurrently-running Storytime! exhibition, and will include Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, Amy Martin, and Keith Knight. Check out the CAM booth at APE for a complete list of attendees.

Yeah, okay, sometimes the Theme Of The Day doesn’t come together quite as strongly as I’d like. Mea culpa.

• New York Comic Con will be here in just a few weeks, and while the panels & screenings schedule is a little behind anticipated release, we do have at least a few hints of what’s coming down the ‘pike. For instance, the always-entertaining combo deal of Brad Guigar and Scott Kurtz will be doing an intensive, workshop-type session on Sunday morning. The description at Webcomics Dot Com is behind the subscription wall, but El Guigaro Magnifico has the gist of it at his own site:
  

  [A] one-on-one bootcamp for aspiring webcartoonists. Brad and Scott will present a lecture on the art and commerce of webcomics and then take their class through a collegiate-level critique of their work.

  This is a limited-attendance seminar. Students will be asked to bring examples of their work for critique, and be prepared to take and offer constructive criticism in the hopes of bettering each other’s work.

  So, interesting — not a portfolio review, and not seeking to attract attendees so much as participants. Given Guigar’s previously-stated dislike of sessions where the audience involves itself to the detriment of the speakers, the limited enrollment makes sense. If you attend, expect a small room, a large table, no podium, to work with your peers to improve everybody’s work, and for the ending time to be highly flexible. And as seems to be usual these days, Guigar has negotiated a discount on the enrollment fee, with WDC members getting in for $30 rather than the standard $50. Exact time and location to be announced.

• New book alert! Gordon McAlpin (my sporting bet nemesis — and by coincidence that link leads to a post with a picture of a looming Brad Guigar … much like Chickenman, he’s everywhere) has announced that his first collection of Multiplex strips, Enjoy Your Show, is now available for your purchase consideration.

  Unfortunately, ushers will not be walking through the aisles to offer EYS prior to the start of the movie (Will Rogers has that distribution channel locked up, and dead or not, he ain’t giving it up without a fight), so you’ll have to make a quick trip over to his internet-facing booksellery.

• Within yesterday’s DC Comics wholesale restructuring announcement(s) was the somewhat unusual news that Zudacomics is to be closed. Or perhaps more closed than it already was? I know that I wasn’t exactly a fan of the entire Zudaproject, but even I never proposed killing it twice. During the prior … I dunno, pre-closing? anouncement, I wrote:
  

  It’s no secret that I thought that the competition model of Zuda wasn’t the best thing that [web]comics could develop, but everybody I’ve met associated with Zuda has been an absolutely stellar, professional, admirable person. Here’s hoping that in the condensation of the the imprint into regular ol’ DC, the individuals find their way to stable, rewarding work quickly.

  When news of wholesale bloodletting didn’t come through, I breathed a sigh of relief for the Zudafolk. But now that it appears 20% of DC staff may be cut, I would guess that those working at a twice-killed imprint are nervous, and my good wishes go out to them doubly.

• Smut Peddler, comics porn by ladies, is lookin’ for contributors. Details here, a nice long submission deadline (31 December 2011), and plenty of people whose work I like means I have to start thinking up justifications for a future purchase that my wife will accept. Just one thing, though:
  

  And finally, there’s a difference between “porn” and “naked people telling jokes.” We want porn. Filthy porn.

  As the creators of Oglaf [NSFW, yo] will tell you:

  This comic started out as an attempt to make pornography. It degenerated into sex comedy pretty much immediately.

  Ain’t nothin’ wrong with sex comedy. And please, please, do what ever you have to in order to get the Oglafistas in on Smut Peddler. That would rule so hard. Err, so to speak.

Brian “Box” Brown (or Trip-B as he was known in his brief, but well-regarded, gangsta rap career) has released a new webcomic yea upon the internets, Everything Dies. A continuation of/supplement to his print comics of the same name (note to self: must buy issue #3, and #4 is due out soon), Everything Dies concerns itself primarily with The Big Questions of Life, Death, Religion, Faith, ans Suchlike.

On launch day alone, Brown has three stories (each more than 10 pages long) on mortality (i.e.: how he wants his funeral to go), public exhibitions of religious fervor (i.e.: an incomplete Jesus-themed theme park in Arkansas), and the (non-)existence of God (i.e.: what would constitute definitive proof of such).

And, in case a bigger justification for the title of Everything Dies were needed, Brown today wraps up his long-running series, Bellen!, the only way possible: a final declaration of identity and purpose.

• Con season still has a few last hurrahs before it wraps for the year, and two of them are coming up quickly: Intervention and SPX kick off in just over 10 days, and programming info is now available. Intervention’s got more than 75 panels, plus gaming and separate-registration-required workshops, covering a lot of ground.

  If you were, as I was, perhaps a little surprised to see multiple sessions that amount to Gettin’ Laid (Dating Advice from Hot Geeky Chicks, Sex Farm: A D00DZ Guide to Getting Chicks Through Nerdy Enterprise), well, there are plenty to balance it out on the more serious side (Act Locally, Promote Globally: A Conversation with Molly Crabapple, Copyrights for Artists, The Economies of Small Scale, and Revenue Streams: How to Make Ten-Tenths of a Living look particularly promising). Descriptions here, schedules here.

  By contrast, SPX has never been heavy on the programming, preferring to give attendees plenty of time to schmooze and talk with creators (and minimize the chance that you’ll have to decided between panels). You’ve got something kicking off pretty much every half hour, staggered between two rooms (Brookside Conference Room at the top of the hour, and White Flint Ampitheatre at the bottom), with pretty much a laser-like focus on indy comics and their creators.

  Particularly good-looking descriptions include Comics and Worldbuilding (panelists include Evan Dahm, Liz Baillie, Aaron Diaz, Carla Speed McNeil, and Spike Trotman), Telling Stories (with Heidi MacDonald, Meredith Gran, Roger Langridge, and Jon Lewis), and Kate Beaton and Julia Wertz in Conversation (with special guest Dustin Harbin). Descriptions, times, and locations here.

Quick bits:

• Reality TV meets vampires meets furries meets cyberpunk meets book one of The Last Res0rt.
• New twist on the superhero tropes: with mondo-powered beings flying around every damn way, somebody’s going to have to handle the PR and marketing, and that’s where The Hero Business comes in. Of course, who is more evil and venal? The nominal villains, or the skeezy marketing types working for the heroes? Episode 1 done, episode 2 coming soon.
• Launching tomorrow: the all-new home of In Maps & Legends, which had been running on Zuda when Zuda closed up shop.

It started off so innocently, with an unsolicited tweet from Jon Rosenberg:

@fleenguy when you read tomorrow’s SFAM, you may have a question. The answer to that question is “Yes”.

Which naturally left me wondering what the question should be; top contender when I went to bed was, Will you buy me a case of hard liquor and a cupcake for my birthday? Then this morning, the full impact of what Rosenberg meant became apparent: I am Gary!

With those three words, the question obviously became, So Jon, is this a naked attempt to get me to pimp your new reader-participation voting rules for Scenes From A Multiverse, debuting tomorrow (Thursday 26 Aug 2010, that is), in the hopes that my little seemingly-genderless cosmic-unicorn-destroying avatar will finally displace the hated Sciencemaster Adler from his throne?

So, yeah. Everybody be sure to vote for “Gary” in the next poll. And damn you for your manipulative ways, Rosenberg. I shake my fist at you in impotent rage, thusly!

• In other, less me-abusing news, ’tis the season for webcomickers to travel o’er the oceans wide, landing in the far antipodes. Cases in point: Howard Tayler, who leaves for Melbourne on Saturday, and is doing a meet & greet to celebrate; also, Kaja & Phil Foglio, who are already in Fair Oz and did a signing in Sydney, and will be kicking around various corners of the continent for the next ten days-two weeks. Could it be a coincidence that Foglio & Foglio and Tayler are Down Under in the same time frame as the 68th World Science Fiction Convention (this year in the form of AussieCon4), where they are nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story? Could be, rabbit. Could be.
• Speaking of conventions, Baltimore Comic-Con hits this weekend in Charm City, with the Harvey Awards again containing a category for Best On-Line Comics Work, with mostly the usual suspects nominated. Special props to Scott Kurtz who will again be hosting the awards (and who killed last year), and who is openly campaigning for votes this year (which, let’s face it, everybody does). If Kurtz doesn’t win, I’m imagining a scene like that at the Emmy Awards almost 30 years ago when Eddie Murphy had to announce that he lost in his category, looked straight into the camera and deadpanned, They told me if I hosted, I was gonna win.
• Lastly, Where the Typos Og heads off into the sunset before wearing out its welcome; Sylvan Migdal’s various projects always go out when at their creative peak, so that’s good. For those more interested in the creator than the specific project, Migdal’s new series starts 6 October at his website.

For example, there’s this, which is totally not related to San Diego — Marvel (yep, that Marvel) is looking for a web software architect, with the relevant description being:

As a Web Software Architect, you will help define the architecture for Marvel’s interactive digital products, consisting primarily of the Marvel.com collection of Web sites and various mobile offerings. You will be involved in the design and development of cutting-edge Web applications, defining system architecture to achieve scalability and reliability goals, and researching new technologies for our evolving business systems.

Which, once translated from jobpostingese (subdialect: I know a bunch of different business phrases and think I can translate that into IT-speak) sounds somewhere between “you just have to overhaul our main site” and “we’re a year or more behind comiXology and LongBox Digital, and you have to catch us up”. Combined with the recent de-Zudafication over at DC, it looks like the big publishers are trying to figure out what they want webcomics to be (which isn’t necessarily what webcomics are). Many thanks to Friend o’ Fleen Brett “Small g, no period dammit” Porter for the story tip.

• Updates to the SDCC Webcomics Locate-o-Tron continue apace, particularly concerning the news that Doug TenNapel tweeted that his booth will be hosting a certain officer of the law with a stick-mounted cleaver.
• Speaking of tweeting, Christopher Hastings mentioned that Some kid named Malachai sent me a story to draw?, which led to much speculation confirmed by Ethan Nicolle: Axe Cop and Dr McNinja team-up!
• Speaking of San Diego, Scott Kurtz promo’ed his show merch debuts, and much as the vinyl figures look awesome, the line that jumped out at me was:
  

  PvP book 8 will be debuting at the show. This is your first chance to pick up the latest volume of PvP and I’m very proud of this collection. It collects all the strips from 2008 and is the first PvP collection I’ve self published since 2001 (more on that at a later date). [emphasis mine]

  That “later date” turns out to be today, as the press release has been seen all over the comics blogosphere today (for example, with Brigid Alverson). Somewhere in my stacks, I still have Kurtz’s previous self-published work, and I always wondered in the back of my head how long it would be before he returned to the world of DIY.

  With a wealth of experience and advice from his studiomates to call on, I imagine that the mechanical presentation will be better than we’ve seen in the past, and since it’s all on him, I suspect that he’ll push himself to a schedule that’s both regular and on a short delay from on-line presentation. Self-publishing can be a headache, no doubt, but every self-publisher I’ve spoken to is pretty glad to have that control.

• Oh, yeah, and there’s the return of The Webcomics Section, this year coordinated by Jorge Cham, who’s so dedicated to the idea of a webcomics-themed giveaway that he did the wrangling work despite the fact that he won’t even be at San Diego. Four pages of four-color goodness on genuine newsprint, yours for the grabbing pretty much anywhere in webcomicland for the duration of the show, or until we run out.

Best wishes to the entire Canadian contingent of webcomicdom — it seems that every other person I know in this crazy community is/was/will be Canadian one way or another. Happy Canada Day to them all, and to you non-Canadians as well. In the heart of hearts, we’re all Canadian.

• News broke in the past few hours that Zudacomics has folded, effective now-ish; Zuda ended its competition format about two months back, and it looks like the new submission format won’t take place, at least not under the established name. From Ron Perazza’s blog post:
  

  It is the new DC Co-Publishers’ plan to expand submissions beyond just Zuda Comics and the Online group into a larger, more comprehensive system that covers all of DC Comics’ wide variety of needs, skills and interests. Jim and Dan are very excited about bringing in and developing new talent so look for more information about that from them as plans develop.

  As for the site, from here on out, Zuda Comics will be folded into DC Comics’ exciting, new Digital Publishing initiative. Expect more Zuda series to be released through the DC Comics and comiXology Apps, the Sony PSP and on both the comiXology website and, eventually, the main DC Comics website as well. You’ll be able to read all of your digital editions and manage your entire library in one place, whether DCU, Vertigo, WildStorm or Zuda. The goal there is convergence of technology and convergence of editorial.

  Not an unforseeable action to take, but I have to admit to a certain amount of … trepidation about that last sentence: The goal there is convergence of technology and convergence of editorial. While I haven’t seen anything announced regarding Zudastaff being shown the Zudadoor, I’ve worked for big corporations long enough to pick up on euphemism in public announcements, and right now convergence of editorial sounds a hell of a lot like Bob has decided to pursue other interests.

  It’s no secret that I thought that the competition model of Zuda wasn’t the best thing that [web]comics could develop, but everybody I’ve met associated with Zuda has been an absolutely stellar, professional, admirable person. Here’s hoping that in the condensation of the the imprint into regular ol’ DC, the individuals find their way to stable, rewarding work quickly.

• Speaking of uncertainty, something I saw yesterday may be of interest to those of you that process credit card transactions — starting today, small merchants are compelled to participate in a data-security initiative:
  

  From 1 July small and medium enterprises using electronic point of sale terminals and e-commerce systems need to reach basic compliance with an entry-level version of the standard or face higher merchant fees or, in extreme cases such as in the aftermath of security breaches, the withdrawal of merchant statuses.
  …
  Requirements include a mandate to build a secure network and protect cardholder data. Compliance is achieved by self-assessment for mom and pop shops processing less than 20,000 e-commerce transactions a year and compulsory external audits for e-commerce heavyweights.

  Those of you using Google Checkout or PayPal, it would appear the onus is on them, as they would be the actual payment processors. Creators with their own swipecard merchant accounts (hello, Square users) might think that 20 000 transactions a year is a lot (more than 50 transactions a day, after all), but they could add up quickly. If you’ve reached the point of establishing your own merchant account, make sure you read the fine print.