I’m sure that nearly everybody has seen this by now, but the well-regarded and totally free biennial event known as TCAF has decided it can no longer run every other year. So instead, they’re going annual. Festival director Christopher Butcher gives us the lowdown:

That’s right, the next Toronto Comic Arts Festival will be held Saturday May 8th and Sunday May 9th, 2010, at Toronto Reference Library. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. And yes, we know that’s Mother’s Day… All of the cool moms read comics.

What, so soon, you ask? Following up on feedback from our partners, our guests, our staff, and attendees, we’ve decided to build on the incredible momentum of having a new home and incredibly supportive presenting sponsor in Toronto Public Library, and produce our first annual show. This is something of an experiment for us, and I can’t say for sure that we’re “going annual” with the event, but we feel that a 2010 event is the best course of action to ensure that TCAF stays a fun, vital, and prominent festival both within the city of Toronto and in the larger comics community. That’s around the corner so we’ll be running a tight ship, and further details about TCAF 2010 (including exhibitor application & information) will be released later this summer. [emphasis original]

I know that the urge to get in on a good thing is probably overwhelming, but Butcher’s said that details about exhibitor registration, guests, and suchlike won’t be released until August, so please be patient. With PAX coming east, TCAF running early, and NEWW coming back to Eastworks, it’s going to be a very busy spring.

• So apparently a lot of people didn’t get today’s XKCD; via my buddy Brett, Crooked Timber points to what might be called The XKCD Effect — webcomic posts with geekily obscure (but very funny) punchline, and Google Trends lights up. Does this qualify as an “effect”? Mayhap a “syndrome”? Regardless, it’s clear that Randall Munroe wields an influence over the secret masters of the internet that you and I might only dream of. If he ever decides to get into product placement, look for a sudden spiking in wealth in the Munroe Park vicinity.
• Beards. Holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews, the beards.

Busy day, please consider these meager crumbs of infotainment and we’ll see if we can’t do something more substantial tomorrow.

• For those that hadn’t seen it, Chris Hallbeck’s The Book of Biff is preordering the next volume of eyebrow-laden hilarity. Since this is the fourth book in the Biff series, shouldn’t it be The Books of Biff?
• Speaking of eyebrows, nobody does them as funny as Paul Southworth; sorry Chris, I know they’re kinda your thing, but just look at what Southworth does with them. A’course, we’ve been without Southworth on the webcomics scene since Ugly Hill wrapped three months back, but nothing bad lasts forever — that’s right, Southworth is doing cartoons again, and you get to read them.

  Crispy Gamer has invited Southworth to do a weekly gag panel on the topic of computer gaming, but Southworth being Southworth, you don’t have to be a hardcore gamer to enjoy the funny. Enjoy the first You Are Dead now, and come back each week for more.

• It’s always an uncertain thing when a strip changes its primary direction — say, when an autobio/journal type comic that centers on discrete, not-related events decides to tell a longer story. Even if I didn’t know creator Auilix slightly (and by “slightly” I mean “not remotely well enough to know where this story is heading”), I think that the teaser page for the just-started “Senior Year” arc would have grabbed me — there’s a lot of promise in those five panels, and they do a hell of a good job at setting the hook and making me want to see the story through. If you haven’t been reading The Glass Urchin, this might be a good time to start.

You may recall that we at Fleen recently pointed you to AP. Furtado’s newest webcomic, Major Tom. It wasn’t possible to give you a set schedule, since Furtado updates it on a “full chapter when it’s done” basis, but we can tell you that chapter two just hit the webs. If chapter one was about setting and atmosphere, chapter two is all about laying out the plot for the upcoming story. Aside from a touch of black holes don’t work that way! I’m really digging this one.

• From the mailbag, Kory Bingaman would like you to know that her webcomic, Skin Deep (a story about mythical creatures living hidden from humanity), is now going to press over at IndyPlanet. Skin Deep: Orientations collects the first story arc (which ran from November 2006 to last August) and has a real Castle Waiting meets Nothing Better vibe to it.

  By the bye, IndyPlanet runs merch from such respected creators as Jerzy Drozd — not really related to anything, I just like typing “Jerzy Drozd”.

• Speaking of [K|C]orries, Corey Pandolph continues his march towards the title of Most Prolific Cartoonist Not Named Tezuka by launching a fourth comic. Most people would get all the good ideas out of their skulls with just one strip the likes of Barkeater Lake, but Pandolph is not most people. Thus, Greene With Envy, about that weirdest of all suburban creatures, the childless-by-choice couple.

  Speaking as half of such a couple, never knowing the joys of small creatures urping up their breakfast all over us or screaming for half the night, allow me to explain to our parental friends that while Pandolph may portray the no-kid lifestyle as relaxing, glamorous, and awesome, in reality it is much, much better than that. Take a glimpse of what awaits you in 18 to 25 years and start dreaming of the quiet (in those random moments of sleep that the replicant permits you).

• Speaking of kids, I’m reliably told that they have some good features, such as you can share your geekly tendencies with them and they might not rebel by growing up to be accountants and Republicans. If you find yourself in such a position, may I recommend the latest GeekDad column at Wired, which features an interview with Dr McNinja creator Chris Hastings? Why yes, I believe I may.

Received: Peloton. Lots of status-quo up-shaking in this stack of Scary Go Round stories, as major players are taken off-stage (Shelley) or changed in fundamental ways (Amy, Ryan, Le Garçon); chaos and silliness ensue, complete with a little Allisonian love for my place of residence. Also, since I pre-ordered, there was a minicomic detailing the ultimate fate of Erin Winters (who was sucked into hell and forgotten by friends & family) … this being SGR and she being a Winters, it turns out pretty acceptably for her.

Two words for you: Beard photos. There is a booth that makes photos of you with a beard. This wonder of modern alchemical science may be found in the vicinity of one Mr David Malki !, Esq., proprietor of the Wonder-Mark etheric humors, and patron of a grand entertainment in honor of said japery to-morrow night in the Beverly Hills of California.

Revelation of the day: Johnny Wander. Why did I not know about this comic before today’s guest strippage and link from Jeph Jacques? I mean Ananth Panagariya is mentioned in these pages enough and I’ve casually followed Yuko Ota’s earlier work even, and it’s terrific enough that I had to do a freakin’ archive crawl today. I do not have time for another webcomic in my day, so please stop giving us stuff as majestic as the ant shower, ‘kay? Thank you.

So I got an email from a creator asking me to check out a strip over at Comics Sherpa aka Your Guide To Undiscovered Comics. For those not familiar with it, CS is a we’ll give you exposure instead of money service of GoComics, which itself a subscription service of Universal Press Syndicate (who claim to be syndicating the now-deceased William F Buckley Jr) and which also has no problems inflicting James Dobson and Ann Coulter on our nation’s once-proud newspapers, and thus not an environment likely to make me want to visit.

But dang it — the email came from Bob Scott, Pixar animator, and it’s pointing to a strip that’s pretty good. Molly and the Bear has been running five days a week since January, and it occupies a spot midway between Little Dee (in that a kid and an animal interact in an all-ages appropriate manner) and (of all things) the Least I Could Do Beginnings strips on Sundays (which have a very similar, ’60s-era gag cartoon feel to the artwork).

Scott’s bio points out that he’ll be including MatB in the forthcoming Afterworks 3 anthology (by various talented animators), some of which you can see previewed here; some damn good work there, and perhaps Scott will take the opportunity to put up his own website and get clear of the corporate master with his personal project. In the meantime, give it a look.

• Hey, who wants to win stuff? Max Riffner wrote:
  

  I do a webcomic called DRUNK ELEPHANT COMICS (I also draw Kevin Church’s The Rack spin-off, LYDIA). Anyway, I thought your readers may want to know about a little contest I’m doing on Twitter. Tell me your best drunk story — you can win an iPhone from me. Use the hashtag #bestdrunkstory in a tweet.

  Remember, that’s in a tweet, with the hashtag, so keep it brief.

• Speaking of iPhones, a creator who wishes to be anonymous wrote to point out something found during a web crawl:
  

  I am surprised to see so many copyrighted titles in the non-Net comics list, though. I’d be very interested to learn the sticky ins-and-outs of royalties and copyrights if someone has just lifted a bunch of RSS feeds or whatever and turned them into a single collected iPhone app.

  For the record, the developers of that app are charging $3.99 … I suppose it’s no different that somebody convincing you to buy an RSS reader, then restricting it to display only certain RSS sites. Speaking of which, there appear to be perfectly good RSS apps for the iPhone for $0.00, so I guess what your four bucks buys is the knowledge that the developer really likes certain comics. If your choice is spending it there, or shooting smack into a vein, I guess it’s not a bad use of your money. Then again, I’m told that an armful of horse is pretty sweet. Up to you, I guess.

Very little time today, so let’s jump to it:

• Howard Tayler starts his tenth year of daily cartoonin’ (with no skipped days or guest strips) over at Schlock Mercenary tomorrow. Wow.
• David Malki !’s release party for the newest Wondermark book is Wednesday in the city of angels.
• In light of Brigid Alverson’s thoughts on the Eisner nominees for Best Digital Comic (i.e.: webcomic), and how they pretty much don’t rely on anything that would be unique about the web, please consider the Andrew Hussie guest strip at Dinosaur Comics today. Take your time.
• Finally, if you wanted to get a copy of Kate Beaton’s newly re-available book, get it quickly. The review panel at The AV Club (for my money, the best collection of media commenters and reviewers on the planet) got their mitts on it and were pretty damn effusive:
  

  The young Canadian artist has turned a history degree into a non-stop laffs-generating machine, as her book Never Learn Anything From History (TopatoCo) illustrates; the great leaders, military figures, artists, and philosophers of the past are her usual subjects, but they’re usually portrayed as consumed by petty ego and expressing themselves in the freewheeling, dismissive argot of snotty adolescents. Add to that a keen sense of the absurd (in her footnotes, Beaton herself cannot explain why a weeping Napoleon stuffing his face with cookies while Josephine carries on a wild affair is so damn funny, but it is) and you’ve got a book full of comics that are generally hilarious even for those who don’t fully recall the history behind the stories. Beaton’s art is likewise impressive; her neat linework and terrific grasp of simple caricature and facial expression sells a lot of the best strips, including Sasaki Kojiro meeting an undignified end, Jane Austen and Nikola Tesla being pestered by their fans, and Lord Byron muttering “Bitches, man” to a grieving Percy Bysshe Shelley. A-

We’re approaching the middle of June in the Greater Manhattan Metrosphere, and the only word I can use to describe today is dank. It’s grey, drizzly, chilly, and other thinks that end in -y, and absolutely the weather that I would normally associate with late March. Bleh.

But at least it’s not Too Damn Hot, which is a recurring theme in the discussion of the just-concluded MoCCA ‘09 which we will now mention for (promise!) the last time. Short form: yes, the fact that it was sauna-ish matters, and the museum really needs to think about that for the future — between the physical atmosphere and the costs of the show, you have challenges to the festival’s long-term viability. Next year could be make-or-break for them.

• This is just the season for webcomics books, isn’t it? Krishna Sadasivam has finished layout for the first PC Weenies trade, as well as having a proof copy of the PCW/Uncubed sampler comic. Note to self: buy an extra-large bookshelf.
• Tintin Chris Yates appears to be somewhat lukewarm towards Jon Rosenberg’s Random House debut book. Working on the review of that particular opus, as well as several other books.
• Last chance to vote for the Eisners! Polls close on Monday, and webcomics creators are eligible to cast ballots. Also, I can’t help but notice this notice:
  

  You also have the opportunity to write in votes if something you wish to vote for wasn’t nominated.

  If a webcomic creator were to perhaps decide that the Best Digital Comic category was not particularly representative of our medium’s brightest stars, well, there’s your place to make your opinion count.

• If you missed the exchange on Twitter earlier in the week, I left a freshly-purchased copy The Eternal Smile on Box Brown’s table on Sunday, and by last night it was already back in my hands. People, that is what we call customer service, and I wasn’t even a customer. Just sayin’, if you were to order something from Box, you’d probably get it really fast.

Whoo, lots of book news for you today — Raina Telgemeier’s SMILE is now street-dated for February, Hope Larson’s Mercury for early January, Chris Baldwin’s third Little Dee collection went off to the printer yesterday, and Chris Hastings (helped ably as always by Kent Archer, Carly Monardo, and Anthony Clark) will soon be able to give us a date for the third Dr McNinja collection. Note to self: buy more bookshelves.

• Everybody see where Penny Arcade has a job opening posted? As of this writing, it appears that applications have probably passed the 500 mark.
• So for those of you wondering if you could ever have enough comics shows in your life, there’s a new one on the block: this October will see the first iteration of the Long Beach Comic Con, perhaps filling the void of the defunct Wizard LA show. New show, unknown at this time how the “feel” of it will play out, but I was encouraged by this bit from the show’s homepage:
  

  We love everything about the medium and the message - from Silver Age bottle cities, to indy mini-comics based on poetry. We want you to experience it all. That’s why we’re lining up more than the trendy guests and sneak peeks that Hollywood wants you to see (though we’ve got that, too!).

  We’re getting the best, the coolest, the most experimental and the … well, quite simply, the grooviest stuff we can.

  West coast creators of indy/web comickry, take note.

• If memory serves correctly, one of the criticisms that Mr T made about the state of webcomics in his book (three years back, which is about 37 lifetimes in this medium) is that too many webcomics didn’t take the opportunity to provide more cultural context for their world-wide readerships.

  I wasn’t convinced that such ambassadorships are a necessary thing to occur, but the argument came back to me as I started flipping through Odori Park, which tells the story of an American/Japanese couple and their multilingual toddler, and which bears absolutely no relationship to the life of the creator, who is part of an American/Japanese couple with a multilingual toddler.

  Specifically, I thought that this comic might make both me and T happy in its approach to such cultural issues — they’re addressed, but in a nicely organic way that serves the story rather than being explicit exposition. Hooray for middle grounds, and check out Odori Park — it’s good. (time from publication to T showing up in the comments starts: now!)

Edit to add: TIME! 13 days, 9 hours, 34 minutes. You’re slipping, T.

As you might imagine, I’m horribly behind on webcomics news as a result of MoCCA; I’m not even going to weigh in on the whole Marketplace Morning Report thing except to say that the reporting oversight was pretty thoroughly refuted. Reports on MoCCA itself that I particularly recommend include Dave Roman’s and Evan Dorkin’s; gotta say that it’s a real treat to see a guy as unrelentingly positive, level-headed, and pleasant as Dave Roman refer to a show as a “death camp”. He and Dorkin are right on the money though, regarding the improvements that MoCCA needs to make if it’s going to be a viable show in two - three years.

Book news! Digger volume 4 will be available for preorder on 10 July; Kate Beaton’s book is back in stock at Topatoco. And Aaron Diaz is offering a limited-edition softcover of Hob, and there are even (as of this writing) still some left from last night’s announcement. Go get ‘em.

Pictures! How to sum up MoCCA ‘09? It was hot, leading to a weary, but still game crowd. It’s not a t-shirt intensive show, but books, prints, promises of sex, and interesting knick-knackery do well (even when they’re just preview items). In any event, moustaches and beards rule, Dylan looks better in a suit than you do, Magnolia is willing to get her photo taken with random vagrants, and outside air was good. Also: there were visitors to our shores from the far antipodes and the near frozen north.

Photo guide! Roughly in order of the links above, you had crowd shots, merch selections from various creators, printed-on water bottles from QC, fair-trade, microfinanced Red Robot dolls, Andy Bell’s newest toy (availabe at SDCC), Jon Rosenberg’s first major-publisher book (available in a few weeks), Dern rockin’ the Snidely Whiplash, David Malki !, Dylan Meconis, Magnolia Porter (with Kris Straub), Bernie Hou & Rick Marshall, Becky & Frank and Joey Comeau. Please note that the red-eye filter was working in that last photo; the residual eye weirdness is because Joey’s evil.

Walking with Heidi MacDonald towards the end of MoCCA ‘09, she asked me about the takeaway for the event. What one thing summed it up, more than anything else? That was a tough one — there wasn’t a standout book that dominated the show, or an event, and there was (it’s fair to say) a measurable amount of disorganization on Saturday that threw off the cadences of the show for the day. And there’s your theme for the show — determination.

Despite the lack of some very capable people who left the MoCCA board back in October, the Museum was determined to put on the show. Despite organizational problems that prevented the show from opening for its first hour on Saturday, the attendees stayed in line (around the corner and down the block), determined to enter. Despite that late opening making a jumble of the programming schedule, the audiences determined the new times and packed the rooms. Despite the dead air circulation and lack of A/C, all concerned were determined to have a good time.

Lots of exhibitors spoke to me about selling out or nearly so, and if there was a lot of expressed nostalgia for the recent TCAF show, nobody I spoke to was hating on the show — at least, not after getting some air outside. As somebody lucky enough to be a booth sherpa during setup on Saturday morning, the dead first hour gave me an opportunity to connect with creators I’d met previously but didn’t know very well, and to have the time to enjoy it without blocking fans from seeing them. I got to compare notes with MacDonald, Rick Marshall, and Johanna Draper Carlson. I got the lowdown on the previous night’s Drink & Draw Like a Lady and the inside scoop on the dudes who tried to crash the party. Not a perfect show, but a mess o’ fun nevertheless.

Oh, and by means of skillful reportage, I can now let Fleen readers know exclusively that a significant creator has plans to create a new model of webcomicking that will change everything from this point forward — money will be made, competitors will be crushed, and life as we know it will never be the same. I know! Shocking!

Webcomics types in attendance and/or showing included (in no particular order) Bernie Hou, Magnolia Porter (who was slumming with an incognito Kris Straub), Rosemary Mosco (who was not showing, but always a pleasure to talk science with her), Hope Larson (who has excellent new hair and plans for more DDLL in the future), Frank Gibson & Beck Dreistadt (all the way from New Zealand!), Cat Garza (who has found that his recent student advisee at CCS has him thinking about new approaches to comics), Cameron Stewart (who made what’s maybe the single greatest contribution to the Beards & Moustaches theme sketchbook), Darren J Gedron (who waxes ’stache with the best of them), Ami B & Bree Rubin (who are clever, young, talented, and just starting the show circuit), Spike (whose books are very heavy by the case), John Keogh, and Ian Jones-Quartey (whose unfinished opus, RPG World, got its return pushed back by a year when I enquired when it would finish).

Over on Webcomics Island, one would find Andy Bell, Jon Rosenberg (whose first major-publisher book is hitting the pre-release circuit … we’ll be having a giveaway soon), Sam Brown, Steven Cloud, Rich Stevens, Meredith Gran, Ryan North (whose new book we may see by end of the year), David Malki !, Chris Hastings (whose new book we may see by San Diego), Jeph Jacques (whose first book is still missing a few strips, as the original high-res files have gone missing), Randall Munroe (who for the first time found his table space slightly blocked by another creator instead of being the blocker, and whose update today should provoke groans and beatings), Kate Beaton (who is totally awesome in person and whose crowd was going elbow-to-elbow with Munroe’s), Dave Roman (who wonders if there will ever be another general-interest kids magazine on the newstand racks), Raina Telgemeier, Dylan Meconis (who looks sharper in a suit than I ever will), Kean Soo (who, sadly, I spaced on coming to the show, and didn’t bring my copy of Jellaby 2 for sketchin’ & signin’).

Other things to note:

• Scott Campbell’s Double Fine Action Comics volume 1 is a trip and a half; he’s thinking about doing a children’s book with images from the recent HOME SLICE gallery show, with little lift-up doors to reveal everything in the homes. Also, once he gets a definite story idea, an Igloo Head & Tree Head book!
• Box Brown’s girlfriend Sarah (and inspiration for “Ellen”) has totally got the patient cartoonist spouse/partner thing down; she was a delight to meet, and it’s obvious why Brown finds her such an inspiring muse. Brown also had one of the cooler table items at the show, an eight-page newsprint comics section, filled with strips (daily and Sunday) for the proposed Bellen! syndicated strip, which didn’t end up happening. Similarly, the Transmission X collective found that a simple postcard with their names and comic titles wasn’t working, but a full-color newsprint broadsheet with full strip samples of each of their work is a terrific attention-getter.
• Dylan Meconis’s Bite Me! might be my favorite purchase of the show. Ask me in a week when I’ve had a chance to read everything, but any book that provides a “Revolution Starter Kit” in the form of a drawing of Marie Antoinette’s head (Tab A) and a guillotine (Slot B), with instructions to insert A into B? Genius. Possible competitors: And Don’t Forget The Droids and Only What You Take With You, sequels to last year’s Harvest Is When I Need You The Most — whimsical takes on the minutae of the Star Wars universe. How does one apologize to Lord Vader? What does it mean to “bulls-eye womp rats”? How can a whiny farm-boy upset the economy of moisture farming, and what happens if you do kiss a Wookie?
• But then, Frank & Becky’s Tiny Kitten Teeth book (and portfolio of Becky’s paintings) looked better than any printed material has a right to, and was more adorable (in an acid-flashback whirlwind kind of way) than human eyes can tolerate. Catch them on their tour of the US, culminating in San Diego next month.
• Drink & Draw attracted 70 - 75 ladies, much fun was had, and the dudes trying to sneak in from the unrelated speed-dating event elsewhere in the bar were dealt with summarily. Organizer Hope Larson definitely will repeat the event next year (hopefully with sponsors), and wants to expand to at least a West Coast iteration for those that couldn’t make it to New York. Asked about the possibility of running DDLL prior to SPX, Stumptown, APE, TCAF, and other indy-friendly shows, only the amount of difficulty in arranging things long-distance seemed to deter her. Give it a year or two, there’ll be these things popping up all over.
• I totally forgot that I met you, and I’m sorry. Also, I spelled your name wrong. I suck, but I promise to make it up with some pictures tomorrow, and with book reviews in the coming days.