So again, short items. Probably could have worked through lunch, but when fate gives you an opportunity to eat with Rick Marshall, you gotta grab that brass ring with both hands.

• Most significantly, US Immigration & Customs Enforcement have decided that they like webcomics after all. On the one hand, Dave McElfatrick of Cyanide & Happiness has, after great headache, heartache, and random other organache, obtained permission to come to the US to work with his partners. I was able to see some of the effort that Dave’s fellow C&H creators went to in order to help McElfatrick after his earlier denial by ICE, and believe me that it was tremendous. On the other hand, Kate Beaton has likewise been admitted to the US, and has taken up residence in the teeming metropolis of Brooklyn for the next little while. Everybody feel good for Kate and Dave.
• The PuppyCow plush (as envisioned by Jamie Noguchi and described here as oogy) has hit its funding goal. The highly slightly somewhat disturbing plush collectible will now be going to production.
• Intervention hit the front page of Wired this morning, with a nicely positive piece in the Geek Dad blog; the description of Intervention as being A con that talks about web comics and how to create them. might be a bit too narrow, though. Organizers Onezumi Hartstein & James Harknell have pushed really hard to make Intervention incorporate webcomics, but also be more broadly about all kinds of creativity via the pipeline of the intertubes. Still, lotta notice for what’s still an incoming-freshman con; if the show lives up to all the expectations I’ve seen flying around, it could be mid-sized (4000 – 8000) in just a couple of years.
• All and sundry heading to PAX: safe travels, and remember that you people traditionally are the incubator for the most infectious disease vectors known to health science. If you don’t want to see stuff oozing out of you that really should remain in, wash your hands enthusiastically and often.