Kleefeld on Comics

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: On Business: Make Work & Show It

http://ift.tt/2rMHWeP

Kleefeld on Comics: On History: When Did Ben Grimm Take Up Flying?

http://ift.tt/2tJhRyC

Patreon: MTV Geek Classic: Kleefeld on Webcomics #6: The Difference Between Webcomics and Digital Comics

https://t.co/geK7cq5sNS

Kleefeld on Comics: Weekly Comics Links

http://ift.tt/2sPnkGL

FreakSugar: Webcomics Wednesday: Teaching Webcomics

http://ift.tt/2sTAIuq

Kleefeld on Comics: On -isms: KS Gold

http://ift.tt/2stWEuu

Patreon: MTV Geek Classic: Kleefeld on Webcomics #7: Creating a Webcomic

https://t.co/geK7cq5sNS

Kleefeld on Comics: On Strips: What a Crappy Thursday!

http://ift.tt/2t1YuUY

So here's what I caught in the news yesterday...

This was all yesterday, and that's just the bullshit I happened to catch! I was stuck in meetings literally all day. I am so pissed at everything right now, I don't have any real capacity for cogent thoughts on comic strips. So instead, today, I'd like to share some of the day's strips that I tried to use to make me not feel like leaving the planet...

OK, I just went through the day's comics and didn't even crack a smile. Probably more reflective of my mood than the talents of the creators. So instead, I'll post those comics that I found interesting, clever, and/or insightful. Hopefully, the country won't have completely collapsed by Monday, and I'll be in a better frame of mind to talk about comics.

This week, Kickstarter launched a series of special "Kickstarter Gold" projects. Basically, they went back to the folks behind successful campaigns and asked if they wanted to revisit their projects. They run the gamut from comic books to music to technology to typography. Here's how Kickstarter describes their "Gold" concept...

From June 20 through July 31, we’re spotlighting new projects by exciting artists and makers who use Kickstarter to sustain their creative independence.

Why? Because repeat creators are an integral part of the Kickstarter ecosystem. In fact, a third of all pledges to successful projects —over $1 billion since 2009 — go toward projects by creators who have run two, three, four, or even 100+ projects.

We selected Kickstarter Gold creators for their creativity, ingenuity, and success using the platform. They’ll be making new works inspired by their past projects, so backers can discover extra-amazing ideas, plus special rewards that aren’t available anywhere else.

Now, what I find interesting is that a number of the projects are the creation of traditionally sidelined groups, i.e. everybody except straight white men. What I don't know, but would be interested to discover, is how the demographics of these creators lines up with the demographics of all successful KS creators. That is, are POC (for example) more represented in the "Gold" category or is there simply a higher percentage of POC creators utilizing Kickstarter than the overall population.

Either way, the answer would be interesting and enlightening, I think. If there are more minorities represented in "Gold" than we typically see in Kickstarter, that would suggest the people at Kickstarter themselves are intentionally trying to foster inclusivity and diversity by selecting minority creators. If, on the other hand, the overall population of Kickstarter creators tends to favor minorities more than broader population demographics would suggest, this would imply that these minorities aren't finding other venues where their ideas might be accepted, and have turned to crowd-funding because traditional gatekeepers are keeping them out. This would further suggest that Kickstarter itself is a very agnostic platform; they don't care who you are, just do something cool.

Again, either way, the answers would be interesting, since Kickstarter is one of the top comic publishers these days.

The "Gold" projects seem to all be doing very well in general, but I'll end today with a specific plug for one of my favorite projects that, as of this writing, hasn't quite met it's goal yet.

Tina Vaden interviews Margaret Atwood about Angel Catbird and the upcoming graphic novel adaptation of The Handmaiden's Tale.
Dan Gearino has an upcoming book about comic shop retailing called, appropriately enough, Comic Shop. "The book explores the present-day landscape by spending a year with some of the best comic shops in the United States and Canada..."
Thirteen minutes of Chris Ware in "Chicago".

The basic history of the Fantastic Four is relatively well-known. Four people, experimental starship, cosmic rays, super powers. Pretty simple and straight-forward. The story was fleshed out over the years. Reed Richards and Ben Grimm were revealed to have been college roommates. Dr. Doom was included in the mix later. Reed having met Sue Storm when he was boarding at her aunt's house came later still.

It was in Fantastic Four #11, though, that we first learned that Ben was an accomplished pilot before their fateful starship ride. Later stories would expand on the adventures he had in the Air Force and/or Marines (both have been cited at various times) and we've seen a pre-cosmic-rays Ben fighting alongside Logan, Carol Danvers, Nick Fury, and Capt. Savage at various points. By pretty much all accounts, Ben was a very talented and famous pilot. His adventures with Capt. Savage came about because he was specifically targeted and captured for his skill in shooting down enemy aircraft. So that Reed would come back to his friend years after college to fly this starship makes sense.

But it just dawned on me that there's a weird little wrinkle that was added back in 1983. In Thing #1, they elaborate on Ben's backstory considerably, going into detail about seeing his older brother killed and his time in the Yancy Street Gang before eventually getting to college. It then covers Reed and Ben's first meeting and, as they're introducing themselves to one another, we get this exchange...

So, I got to thinking: why suggest that he'd fly it? Of all the ways to respond that would provide some level of snark, why specifically "I'll fly your rocket ship"?

If someone tells you something you deem far-fetched, it's not uncommon to respond with something you might consider equally implausible. And typically, you'd want to keep your comeback thematically similar...

"I'm a Saudi prince."
"Yeah, well, I'm the king of Spain."

"I build car engines that run on water."
"And I make solar powered flashlights."

"I'm dating Chris Hemsworth."
"And my wife is Scarlett Johansson."

You keep the same idea in your retort. Whatever it is that you claim to do or be should follow the same line of thinking as the original statement. So if Reed says, "I'm going to build a rocket," a typical retort might be "And I'm going to build a Mars rover" or "I'm going to build a space station." (Bear in mind that both of these were still science fiction in 1983.)

The other likely response is to extrapolate and exaggerate your own self to the same extent that you think the other speaker is. If someone claimed they were going to be a first round draft pick in the NFL next season because they play high school football now, you might come back with the claim that you're going to win the Noble prize for literature because you got an "A" on that short story you wrote for Mr. Reynolds' English class last semester. Or if someone says they're going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because they play in a shitty bar band, your response might be that you're going to win an Olympic gold medal for figure skating because you're a pretty good player on the local ice hockey team.

It's the second concept that seems to be where Ben is coming from since he certainly isn't mimicking Reed's basic structure. But if Ben's suggestion that he fly a starship is an extrapolation/exaggeration of his current abilities, he must have some flying ability at this point, right? If you had zero experience flying anything at all, you wouldn't make that joke. Being a football player, he might've gone with, "You build that rocket an' I'll punt it into space myself!" Or maybe going back to his Yancy Street days, "You build that rocket an' I'll cut anyone who keeps ya from launchin' it!"

But, no, he went with the notion of piloting it. This would suggest Ben already knows how to fly a plane at this point. Perhaps he didn't have his actual pilot's license, but at least the basic knowledge and skill with only some additional flight time and/or a written test remaining.

Although Reed is later identified as being 18 when he met Ben, Ben's age is never expressly noted. Presumably, he's around that age as well, but given his problematic days as a youngster, he may have been held back a year or two in school. (It's also possible that he took some time off between high school and college, but given that he had a football scholarship, this strikes me as unlikely.) Ben's expressly noted as having a layabout father who didn't bring much money in, so flying lessons seem out of the question before his parents died and he was taken in by his Uncle Jake.

So was that something his Uncle Jake did for him then? Give him or pay for him to take flying lessons? Did Ben actually have a pilot's license as a teenager? Did years of experience flying before even getting into the armed forces help propel him up the ranks faster than others that entered around the same time?

It's an absurdly minor character point, and based off one line of dialogue that was probably written with more foreshadowing in mind than anything else, but an interesting notion to think about nonetheless. Well, interesting to me at any rate!

This past weekend saw the sixth annual East London Comics & Arts Festival (ELCAF) and publisher Broken Frontier hosted a panel entitled "Comics and the Micropublishing Revolution." The panel, hosted by EIC Andy Oliver featured Tillie Walden, Sanita Muižniece, David White, and Peony Gent.

Jenny Robins was in the audience and took notes in her sketchbook, which she then posted on Twitter. I wouldn't necessarily call all this business advice, but it's interesting that all of these creators boiled things down to more or less the same central idea...

Some of the comments she's written down (if you're unable to read them) include:

Put some brilliant alternative work out there.
Big publishing works really slowly. Micropublishing is quick.
The scene is usually supportive.
Distribution is the biggest challenge. Distributors need 6 months notice.
The only way to stay engaged is to do a lot of difficult things.
Advice:
- Sanita: Make a website.
- David: Make work and show people.
- Peony: Believe that it's worth showing people.
- Tillie: Finish what you start -- nothing better to show a publisher than commitment.

Robins summed things up nicely in her Tweet:

The drawing I made at the @brokenfrontier @ELCAFest yesterday. Great lineup, good advice that basically boils down to: make work and show it pic.twitter.com/YYgFAvVWyC
— jenny robins (@jennyrobins) June 18, 2017