Once, sitting around with various Dumbrellites, I revealed that my dream was for them to be so successful that some day, they could obtain an island booth in San Diego, roll out Astro-Turf®, erect a white picket fence around the perimeter, and spend five days in rocking chairs yelling You kids stay the hell off my lawn.

Starting today, a small part of that dream is coming true. Yeppers, it’s Connecticon kickin’ off today, with more webcomickers than you can shake a stick at, including Jeff Rowland and Aaron Diaz lounging on lawn furniture at the Topatoco booth. Coming less than a week after San Diego isn’t the best timing for a con, but they sure do like webcomics (even if they did leave Brooke Spangler off their list).

For future reference, I would also accept webcomickers lounging around a car on blocks. That would be awesome.

It’s Guest Strip Season:

• Paul Taylor’s running this year’s Waspi Square Guest Week a mite early, taking some well-deserved family time the week of 11 August. Not to worry, he’s got plenty of talent lined up to keep you amused.
• Similarly, the end-of-story Dr McGuestravaganza kicks off today at Dr McNinja.
• And over at The Guest Strip Project, it’s the August Donateathon — 31 days, 31 guest strips. Who says there’s no holidays in August?

Fast stuff to fill out the week:

• Shaenon Garrity’s writing a book on CLAMP!
• Alien Loves Predator, going the way of all cool New York neighborhoods, to be demolished to make way for Starbucks and cookie boutiques!
• Xaviar Xerexes handing out beta codes to the new version of Buzzcomix.net; email him if you want in on the beta!
• And via David Malki !’s sharp eyes (and how ’bout that color in Wondermark today, huh?), news that Garfield Minus Garfield is getting a book deal, with the approval and cooperation of Jim Davis.

  Now let’s see if the Garfield Randomizer, Silent Garfield, or Malki !’s own Comic Strip Doctor essays on Garfield get similar attention in future instead of the syndicate C&Ds they got in the past.

Finally, I was gonna write about how Ted Rall has gone all cranky-pants again about this newfangled In-tar-net thingy, but I decided not to. I’ve become convinced that he’s purposefully stirring up controversy to drive traffic to his (oh, irony!) website. Cynical of me, no? So no more Rall until he does more than repeat the same let’s-turn-back-time arguments he’s been making about “online” and “free” since forever.