Lots of call-backs today.

• Re: Rich Burlew’s Kickstarter, which we are trying mightily to mention only when it hits a significant landmark: how does half a million dollars/900% of goal sound? Burlew has now claimed the #6 all-time spot on Kickstarter¹, has cemented the all-time top creative work, and bested the previous comics Kickstarter by nearly five times over. Oh, and he still has almost two weeks to go. Sheesh.
• I believe that everybody knows that the Ryan North-written Adventure Time comic debuts tomorrow in comic shops everywhere. Did you know that as a result of like five tweets, Mike Krahulik will now be doing a cover for a future issue? And did you know that there will be a launch party for Adventure Time at children’s comics offshoot of The Beguiling, Little Island, on Saturday afternoon? And did you know that at this party, you can do crafts with Ryan North and Steve Wolfhard? It’s true!
• I only remember about three things² from high school French class, but I remember this: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Proof: David Malki ! dug up the SOPA/PIPA/ACTA debate of its day from the 1870s, and damn if a lot of the arguments aren’t familiar. Give it a good read, then resolve to stay ever-vigilant because it’s just a matter of time before the same arguments we just defeated come around again.
• Final thoughts: I think that Kris Straub is not going to a very good climbing gym³. Everybody knows the archer should only be trying to pick off top-ropers.

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¹ Yes, I know that we said he was approaching #5 before, but the threshold for that — some US$486,000 — did not take into account an active Kickstarter campaign, which doesn’t show in a casual inspection of top funding achievements. Burlew knew it, Gendron and I missed it. Slot #5 is now believed to be around US$556,000, which at current rates should be achieved by end of the week. Slot #4 is probably north of US$800,000, which Burlew will only reach if I publicly doubt he will, so I’m doubtin’ away.

² I’m of the opinion that if you know enough of a language to buy food, beer, a room for the night, and a train ticket, you’re functional in that language.

³ Re: “buttocks only”; I have been on gym routes that specified you had to climb with your back to the wall. Damn right I used the larger holds as butt-rests.

As we start can I note that two new Achewoods in two days is a trend that should be encouraged? Yes, I believe I can.

• Also worth encouraging: the previews of forthcoming graphic novels that we’re getting a page (or so) at a time. Things like the really fun Cow Boy, giving us four or so pages of Boyd Linney (ten years old, bounty hunter, righting the wrongs of his family) in each update. If you haven’t been reading it, now’s the perfect time to jump on, as the thirty pages that have been released so far have brought us to what’s sure to be a pretty epic shootout.

  Likewise, the always-delightful team of MechaYuko-Ananth are using the next several updates of Johnny Wander to tease us with pages from their forthcoming Oni project, Lucky Penny. One page so far with the promise of another eight pages in February, which should be just enough to whet one’s appetite for the full book, which doesn’t yet have a release date (boo).

• As mentioned earlier in the week, Scott C opened a series of readings/drawing demos for kids in Princeton, NJ last night, and lucky for us Kate Beaton was there to document the evening. The crowd appears to have been held in rapt attention by the dynamic Mr C, and by the possibility of coloring¹. Did the young lady with the caterpiller realize she was being sketched? Surely Matthew and Jessica must have suspected, since at least one of them joined in with the arting.

  I’m not entirely sure what the odds are that any of those kids will remember last night’s fun times as one more encouragement that helps make drawing a life-long pursuit, ultimately leading to pro-level cartoonings; probably not great, but you never know. I just like to imagine one of them finding those images in twenty years or so and realizing I met Scott C and Kate Beaton when I was six? Dang.

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¹ Although Beatoun has made soume public mentioun of mouving back tou Canada in the near future, oune can see that she’s “goune native” froum her time in Broouklyn. Spelling “colouring” without a “u”? I think that’s almoust enough to get your Canadian passpourt revouked.

Today, many are creating a comic (simple is fine) to describe what you’ve been doing each hour of the day. Haven’t been reading them? Pick a webcomicker, check their twitterstream, there’s a good chance they’ve got the comics there. My favorites today have been from Anthony “Nedroid” Clark, even though (as of this writing) he’s only up to 1:00pm. Special notice should, as always, should be given to John Campbell, probably the most prolific practitioner of Hourly Comics, as he’s spent the majority of days in the months of January 2006-2012 drawing them.

• For your consideration: Rich Stevens is making plans:
  

  I guess it’s time to see if I can Kickstarter a humongous comprehensive ebook edition when I hit comic #3,000.

  That strip he mentioned, number 3000? Number 2992 went up today and he updates like friggin’ clockwork, so you can expect it on Monday, 13 February 2012. Mark your calendars, bet the farm, bet the kid’s insulin money — it’ll be there, and then we’ll see what a 3000-comic collection looks like. My guess: pixelicious¹!

• Speaking of countdowns to things happening on Monday the 13th: Reptilis Rex launches then. The mysterious protection-program participant known as “William Tallman” will be teaching us all about secrets of the lizard-men from the hollow earth. Looks educational.
• Finally, in today’s BurleWatch™, sometime in the past 10-12 hours, the Order of The Stick reprint drive crossed the US$343,416 mark, making it one of the Top Ten of All Time Kickstarter projects. As of this writing, it’s nearly ten thousand dollars further on (US$355,223 to be specific), and probably in the 8^th or better slot.

  Near as I can tell, the top fundraiser of all time is this (admittedly cool) design project from December of 2010, with a total of US$942,578 from more than 13,000 supporters. I’m not quite sure that Burlew can hit those kinds of numbers, but he is more than a third of the way on both money and supporter count in about a third of his allotted time, so I’m not counting anything out at this point.

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¹ Shut up, it is too a word.

Answer: a whole damn lot. In the less than 24 hours since I last posted, Rich Burlew has added more than 500 supporters and US$63,000 to his already-impressive numbers so my prediction of tapering off to 325 large as a final tally? Busted. Let’s just shoot the moon and call it a cool half-mil. And yes, I know I said the widget was so I wouldn’t have to keep coming back to it. But it’s just so compelling.

• Speaking of dollars and the passage of time, let’s talk Jin Wicked for a moment. Ms Wicked was the creator of the much-missed Crap I Drew On My Lunch Break (entertaining for a half-decade but gone lo these near-four years) and continued her daily autobio comickin’ with A Dollar Late and A Day Short (for about two years, ending in September 2010 with a meditation on dying). She’s back, with A$L&ADS turning in what is hopefully the first of many new updates.
• I’m particularly glad to see A$L&ADS come back, as it may nicely fill the gap that will be left as Bucko hits its 102nd and final update, precisely filling one year with the self-described dick and fart joke murder mystery. At least, it started as a murder mystery, and it really turned into something much deeper. The journey that Bucko and his friends took was really about crossing the boundaries of enclaves (in this case, Portland hipsters) and learning about other tribal groups (bike fixers, steampunkers, Suicide Girls, juggalos, cops, and book fetishizers), each of whom was given that which we generally deny the Other: a chance to be seen as their own people, each with virtues and reasons to like them. Guys, this comic made me consider the possibility that juggalos are actually people and for that I will both thank and curse Erika Moen & Jeff Parker in equal measure.

  I have just one quibble with Bucko, and it’s not forcing me to reconsider my prejudices regarding murder-clowns. It’s that the “murder mystery” part of the story kind of fell by the wayside. I mean, that dude is still dead in the bathroom (although presumably they moved the body), and it never got resolved. The Scooby Gang would have figured out it was the crooked land developer who stabbed the guy before making plans for group sex, not that that is a disturbing mental image in any way. Anyway, guy’s dead and the cops are too busy gettin’ it on in the cruiser, which means the ultimate lesson of Bucko is, Whatever life throws at you, make sure you sex it up, which you have to admit is a pretty good moral. Carry on, Parker & Moen, I rescind my complaint.

• Let’s finish up with a quick schedule of appearances for Scott C, who will be doing drawing and craft demos around the New Jersey/New York area for the next couple of weeks, starting this Thursday, 2 February, at the Barnes & Noble on Rt 1 southbound in Princeton. Unfortunately, there’s no way I’ll be able to get from work to that store in time for the 6:00pm start, so everybody say hi to Scott for me, hey?

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Hmmm, no footnotes. Weird.

So frontloaded, in fact, that we have to get a milestone comic (SMBC #2500, woo!) and the launch of an established creator’s third daily webcomic out of the way in the intro just to get to everything that’s happening today. Don’t blame me if the rest of the week is quiet.

• TCAF, which just might be the consensus choice for Everybody’s Favorite Con (and it’s free!) announced its slate of guests and exhibitors today, and hoo boy will every other show of 2012 have a hard time matching this lineup. I was going to try to just list out the most notable attendee for each letter for the alphabet, but by the time I hit “B”, I was already confronted with Bá, Beaton, Becan, Bechdel, Brosgol, Brown, and more Brown. Also, there’s nobody listed under “I”, “Q”, “X”, or “Y”.
• Know who else has a name starting with “B”? Rich Burlew. Know what he did today? Upended his storyline, getting rid of a supplementary villain that’s been around for a few hundred updates/coupla years, and recasting The Villain’s Sidekick as The Guy Who’s Been Pulling All The Strings All Along. Burlew’s always been a master of the long game, and he proved it today. If you don’t read The Order of the Stick, you’d have to go back to update #457, or maybe #446 to get the full impact of what he’s been doing; the fact that today’s update is #830 should not deter you in the least.
• You know what else starts with “B”? Cow Boy, at least the second part of it; it’s coming in print this spring from Archaia, but for the moment writer Nate Cosby¹ and artist Chris Eliopolous² have put the first five pages up, and it’s a beaut. It’s got the potential to go really dark, but for now the visual incongruity of a ten-year-old bounty hunter in the Old West is great.
• “B” is also for “backdated”, which is what you’ll find if you take a look at what Jim Zub is doing with Skullkickers. Long story short, there’s now two short stories, a cover gallery, and the start of serialized Swords ‘n’ Sorcery mayhem, rerunning from the beginning of the Image series, five days a week.

  There are precedents to be found in series like Girl Genius, A Distant Soil, and Finder, all established creator-owned works which have engaged in variations of running old stories online to reach a new audience/run new stories online until there’s enough to fill a trade collection. It’s premature to say if Zub is looking towards such a future for Skullkickers, and he’s got twelve full issues in print already (with another 6-issue story due to launch in two months or so) to get through before that decision point gets reached. But others have found it economically preferable to get away from printing floppies, and we may see the same for Baldy and Shorty.

  I would also be remiss if I didn’t note where the Skullkickers reruns are rerunning — not on the main Skullkickers page, but at Keenspot. I may have missed something in the two years or so since the Great Keenspot Realignment, and I don’t recall any new properties being added to the Keen banner in that time that weren’t from creators associated with the Crosby-centric Blatant Comics. A’course, Skullkickers isn’t just any property, it’s got a huge mindshare and a lot of goodwill among those that comment on comics (although how much that translates into actual rent-and-groceries in indy comics is anybody’s guess), so the Keeners would have had to have some pretty good reasons to not want to partner up with Zub.

• One last “B”, although I can’t tell you everything on this one while we wait for Kickstarter to release the details of the project: Benign Kingdom. There will be four 32-page saddle-stitched art books from four creators/creator teams, and a limited-edition hardcover collecting all four. The creators involved are ____ & ______, _____ & _____, ____ ____, and __ _____³ with an assist from the newest challenger for the title of Nexus of all Webcomics and Heck Regular Comics Too Realities, which just means that neither Ryan North nor Shaenon Garrity are involved (as far as I know) since they’re the ones defending the title. Let the guessing begin.

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¹ Not the one with the Jell-O Pudding Pops.

² The one you were thinking of, unless you were thinking of the other Chris Eliopolouos.

³ Full names to be revealed once Kickstarter makes things public.

In which some various things are elevated.

• What could possibly validate your nerdy idea as being Entirely Worthy more than to have fan-fiction written about it? David Malki !, Ryan North, and Matthew Bennardo have an idea:
  

  OMG Kirk/Spock #MachineofDeath fanfic. It’s … it’s beautiful. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7752812/1/Machine_of_Death

  bucket list several entries shorter, not even joking

  If that story gets SOPAed out of existence someday, I will chisel it myself in the marble of the Capitol steps.

  To be completely clear, the fanfic in question is legitimately Kirk slash Spock in the traditional sense, but is rather restrained on that point. Take a few minutes and revel in what is (as near as I can determine) the second MoD crossover story — the first would appear to be a MoD/House crossover from November 2010, which you may read here (it’s very short).

  All of which merely begs the question: what is the most bizarre, inappropriate MoD crossover possible? I’m betting there’s a brony out there ready to rise to the challenge.

• Guys, I have a confession to make: although I appreciate things like the Capture Creatures project, I have no real knowledge of Pokémon. Oh, sure, I’m familiar enough with the concept — one can’t have lived in Western culture for the past twenty years and not be — but I’m of an age where the initial videogame, card game, and animation weren’t pitched at my age cohort, resulting in me never having really gotten on the Pokétrain at the beginning. I have never caught one of them, much less “them all”, don’t know what evolves into what, and have no opinion on how Snorlax is or is not awesome¹.

  I am, however, familiar with the basic idea of Pokémon — having been away in Western culture for the past two decades pretty much guarantees that — and understand that any attempt to present artistic interpretations means coming up with potentially hundreds of images. To move beyond this is my favorite to a comprehensive treatment of merely the first tranche of 151 Pokémon² is a serious undertaking. Trying to put together a group show of 151 artists each portraying one critter is certifiably insane.

  So naturally, that’s what’s happening in April. The Light Grey Art Gallery in Minneapolis isn’t even open yet, but for the second show they are wrangling 151 artists to each produce an 8×8 inch representation of a Pokémon (presumably, their favorite, or close to it) and calling the whole thing Pokémon Battle Royale. The list of participating creators features plenty of well-known veterans of web- and indy comics³, 150 of whom were somehow convinced not to pick Charizard⁴. Watch the PBR page for news, and check back in April for your chance to to purchase one of the originals.

• As of this writing, just over 60 minutes remain to get in on the Monster Alphabet Kickstarter. Also as of this writing, the fundraising total is less than US$200 from US$25,000; the original $US500 goal has managed a mindboggling 4967% success. I cannot speak for Darren Gendron, but I’d imagine that if you were the person that put him over 5000%/US$25K, he might slip a little extra something in your fulfillment package.

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¹ Although I imagine that some of you have opinions on the matter.

² Is the plural the same as the singular? Is it Pokémons? Pokémen? Surely it’s not Pokémans.

³ Note: it’s Chris Eliopolous, not Chris Eliopolous. They get that a lot.

⁴ Even I know that Charizard is super-popular.

Despite a lack of support from the White House, and an indefinite shelving in the House, the US Senate is still due to consider Roll Over And Play Nice For The Music And Movie Industries legislation¹ in the immediate future; as a result, tomorrow is set to be a wide-ranging day of protest with many of the internet’s largest sites going dark. One may reasonably conclude that especially geek-related webcomics² may be motivated to do likewise (see how many you can find in this list, which was the most comprehensive I could find).

• In fact, the one webcomicker I’ve found that publicly stated he won’t be going dark (Darren “Dern” Gendron of Hello With Cheese) is only doing so because he can’t reasonably black out his site for 24 of the last 30 hours of his Kickstarter campgain. We at Fleen would be remiss if we didn’t point out that said campaign, for a children’s alphabet primer featuring woo scary monsters is currently at 4260% of goal (no missing decimal, that’s more than 40× the original US$500 goal) and 990 backers with just over two days to go.

  I do not mean to imply that Gendron could easily coast on his Kickstart because he’s obliterated the goal; I want to congratulate him because holy crap that is one monster-sized³ success. Also, future Kickstart campaigns should study what Gendron did very, very closely⁴ because dag, he might actually clear 5000% of goal by the time things are done. Tune in Thursday and we’ll find out together if it happened.

• Pointed out to me by Box “Box” Brown: Study Group, the online presence of Study Group magazine, an “anthology/criticism hybrid”, featuring a pretty substantial webcomics section. I’m still going through all the ongoing stories and one-shots, which come from a wide and impressively talented group (Xeric winner and indy-comics luminary Farel Dalrymple is merely the name most well known to me from the list of contributors).

  In all, it strikes me like a constantly-updating version of what Brown’s doing with his Retrofit Comics, bringing indy creators together under a common banner for the increased mindshare that a single branding can provide. You’re pretty much guaranteed to find something here that you like.

• Finally, it appears that I was not alone in my response to Heidi MacDonald’s annual comics survey, at least with respect to Person of the Year. Kate Beaton had a stellar 2011, and I can only imagine what she does from here on out⁵.

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¹ Also known as the Stop Internet Online Piracy Act (House) and Protect IP Act (Senate). Edited to correct typo.

² That is, all of them.

³ So to speak.

⁴ My guess is it’s driven by the uniqueness of the item in question and the low buy-in point — $US12 — to get a copy of that item.

⁵ I’ve pretty much given up hope that I can ever convince her to sell me the original of either strip #40 or #208, but one never knows. In this case, one never knows when Beaton will draw a comic that I want to own even more than those two.

In a land not quite so far from here sore lacking in etiquette, many did wander from poor behavior to poor behavior, wandering until they had worn out three pairs of iron-bound shoes, wandering until their eyes grew dim with none to instruct them in the ways of interpersonal interactions. In this land was a prophecy, hidden in a gem, the gem hidden in a duck, the duck locked away in a great wooden chest, a prophecy that contained all the secrets of Please and Thanks-You.

A pair of wise queens proposed to find the chest and in the chest the duck and in the duck the gem, and to share the knowledge with all the land, and the wise queens found among the people those willing to aid them in their quest, and they set out to let people know to Stop Doing That Were You Raised In A Barn Or Something¹. They cast their knowings to all who were smart enough to desire them, and that is how Nerddom became just a bit less rude and more considerate.

Okay, that’s harder than it looks. How about something a little less grandiloquent for the rest of today’s news?

• Appearing tomorrow, live and in person, the Ryan ‘n’ Joey Occasional Roadshow² hits Trinity College at UToronto from 7:00 to 10:00pm with fun and excitement and really wild things. Those of you in the GTA, do drop in.
• Jeff Zugale takes a break from both shouting Woo! in inappropriate circumstances and painting Wil Wheaton in awesome circumstances to draw some webcomics for Bill Barnes & Paul Southworth featuring Desmond in pantless circumstances. Smart move making this the first strip of Zugale’s stint on Not Invented Here, as poor Desmond is so freaked out by this memento mori that he doesn’t even notice that he looks different now.
• I recall a conversation with Robert Khoo wherein he denied that Penny Arcade was a webcomic endeavour at all; rather, it was a content-creating company focused on the videogame industry, with the webcomic just one part of it. Granted, the comic is the dominant part, but he didn’t commit to that always being true. Today, PA takes another step towards the comic being just another item in the content portfolio, as Ben Kuchera (formerly of Ars Technica) makes the jump to Penny Arcade with a publicly-described brief of:
  

  [W]riting about the gaming industry for Penny Arcade

  So that’s multiple comics, publishing, tie-in games, a charity, multiple internet TV series, a merch-design house, exposition services, custom branded content service, a scholarship, and now generalized editorial content. While we’ll never see PA challenging, say, Disney for pan-media dominance, I fully believe that’s only because Khoo wouldn’t be able to keep his hands in all aspects of such a broad enterprise. I also fully believe we’re within two years of PA going fully international, most likely with PAXEurope and/or PAXAsia, but I wouldn’t count out satellite offices creating original content in other languages for local consumption.

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¹ This was a somewhat unusual land for such tales, as it turned out that none of the people had, in fact, been raised in a barn and thus had no excuse.

² Occasional in the sense that they occasionally put on a show, not that they are occasionally Ryan and Joey, which they are pretty much all of the time.

R Stevens 3, of course. He’s following the tradition of hobbits and giving you presents today, the day of his birth. Also, he has now met the legal requirements to be President of the United States of America.

• Remember how I talked about all the stuff Becky Dreistadt & Frank Gibson were doing, and how not all of it had been revealed yet? Two more pieces have been, with a gorgeous, limited edition two-piece Adventure Time screen print coming out sometime tomorrow from Mondo Tees (watch their blog and/or twitterfeed for the exact on-sale time, and expect the 185 sets to go quickly). Mere hours later, the Adult Swim themed show at Gallery 1988 opens with a reception¹ from 7:00 to 10:00pm at the Melrose branch; Becky’s contribution pays homage to The Venture Bros².
• Welcome return, or cruel toying with our affections? Tweet Me Harder drops episode #76 nearly ten months after the purported series finale [MP3]. Dare we hope that this marks a return to TMH glory?³
• Eisner nominations are now open, with the criteria for Best Digital Comic not looking significantly different from prior years:
  

  The best digital comic category is open to any new, professionally produced long-form original comics work posted online in 2011. Webcomics must have a unique domain name or be part of a larger comics community to be considered. The work must be online-exclusive for a significant period prior to being collected in print form. The URL and any necessary access information should be emailed to Eisner Awards administrator Jackie Estrada: jackie@comic-con.org.

• Finally, the sad, sorry history of webcomics scrapers has hit a new low, as some bozo on Facebook is scraping content, redelivering without permission, and soliciting donations of cash which will totally be given back to the original creators, no really, promise it’s totally not a scam⁴. Randy Milholland has the details, and after a little preliminary digging at Facebook (I don’t have an account, so I could be wrong on this), it appears the category those getting hosed sideways can file a complaint under would be Intellectual Property Rights Infringement.

  Or it might be on grounds of Impersonation (since the app leaves the impression it’s associated with the comics in question) or Scams & Spam (since funds are being sought). Hopefully, Facebook doesn’t make each creator jump through these hoops and brings down the wrath of Zuckerberg quickly. In the meantime, I’m pretty sure the dipshit pulling this little game is thinking exactly like the person who recently plagued Jamie Smart so.

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¹ Read: booze and snacks.

² Unrelated, but last night in Providence, Rhode Island, while on my way to enjoy a quiet evening¹ with Fleen publisher (and Dumbrella Hosting impressario) Phillip Karlsson, I passed an industrial-looking building for rent with what looked exactly like the Venture Industries logo. I tried to get a picture, but it was too dark.

³ Probably not.

⁴ It’s a scam.

Once again, I’m assuming that most of you have seen this by now, but there’s been an amendment to the requirements of the new NCS award in the Online Comic Strip Division. Namely, the requirement:

5. Creator must earn the greater part of their living directly from the strip/property

has been altered to:

5. Creator must earn the greater part of their living directly from cartooning in order to adhere to the NCS criteria that creators under consideration must be either full members or eligible for full membership

It wasn’t the intent that nominees in this new division be required to meet more stringent requirements than in the others; I don’t think any of us on the committee were reading the old #5 as meaning anything other than the new #5, but in situations like this it’s important to make sure that what you write is as unambiguous as possible. Thanks to Tom Richmond for clarifying, and don’t be surprised if other clarifications become necessary¹.

• As long as we’re on the topic, I feel it useful to point out a couple of thinky pieces written since yesterday’s post on this award and the focus of this blog; thanks to Dave Kellett and Holly Post, respectively, for their wise words. Dave and Holly both opine that the use of “webcomics” as a word that distinguishes from “comics” is silly², as it distinguishes a model of distribution as being distinct from medium itself³. I fully expect that I will continue to use The W Word well past its generally-accepted sell-by date, turning into a latter-day example of your embarrassing great-uncle whose vernacular is stuck 50 years in the past; I apologize for any future offense I may give.
• In fact, let’s broaden out from “webcomics” by pointing out that Pittsburgh’s ToonSeum has an interesting show opening next week, one whose press release scared the crap out of me because the subject line read
  

  Funky Turns 40 at the ToonSeum

  which immediately made me think it was an exhibit of Funky CancerCancer. In fact, it’s about the first wave of positive black animated characters in the 1970s, which means one thing: Fat Albert, possibly including the early episodes which borrowed heavily from Cosby’s standup routines⁴. Funky Turns 40 is co-curated by Pamela Thomas of the Museum of Uncut Funk, which is the greatest name for a museum ever; the show opens 18 January and runs until 10 March.

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¹ But please do spare me any See? They’re just making it up as they go along in order to screw over [insert grievance here]! We’re doing our best to work out kinks (cf: yesterday’s post, the part about perfect and done), and you can bet that every other NCS division award went through these stumbles, but it was so long ago that nobody remembers.

² A opinion I have expressed myself in the past and am entirely sympathetic to, if only I could come up with a short, obvious word that identifies the things that I write about here. I love all kinds of comics, but this page concerns itself almost exclusively with independent, creator-owned, self-distributed examples of such, and a signifier is just useful. I swear, come up with a term (or even an acronym) that’s brief, and I’ll use it.

³ Not that such distinctions are always worthless; I listen to a fair number of radio shows as podcasts.

⁴ Rousing game of Buck Buck, anyone?