Over the five volumes we’ve been edited (in progress on the sixth), we’ve tried to shine a spotlight on this list. As most guest editors point out in their introductions, the selection process, when it gets down to which stories make the cutoff for the volume and which don’t, can be alarmingly arbitrary. Often, we and the guest editors would love to include 50 stories in the published volume, but there just isn’t room. But when you combine the notable list with the stories that are printed, it might be a little more possible to talk about representing what’s we actually think is best in a given year. Also, when looking for good comics to read, why limit yourself? We’ve always hoped readers will delve a bit into the list to find more great stories once they finish reading BAC.

Below, we’ve reprinted the full list of the Notables from the 2012 volume, which was guest-edited by Françoise Mouly. We’ve also added extensive links and images of the covers to intrigue you and  to help you track the works down.

And for two lucky readers: a head start on collecting all 100!

WE WILL GIVE AWAY two sets of  about 10 mincomics and self-published books from this list. Which ones they are will be a surprise! Comment on this post between now and Friday October 12 at 12 pm EST, and you will be entered in a drawing to win one of the two piles. Note: In order to be able to offer this prize to all readers internationally, the winners must pay postage for the package via Paypal. Please enter only if you’re willing to do so. 

Note: we do moderate comments, so if you haven’t commented here before, your comment won’t show up immediately, but it is in the queue! Also, make sure you use a good email address to log in to comment so we can contact you if you win. It won’t show up publicly.

Just to be extra clear, these are not sets of every book on the list, they are sub-sets of several of the minis and self-pubbed books. Good luck!

–Jessica and Matt

Derik A. Badman, Badman’s Cave

Lynda Barry, Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book

Josh Bayer, ROM

Kate Beaton, “1980s Businesswoman Comics,” “Dracula.”  Hark! A Vagrant

Gabrielle Bell, “Sa Vie.” Lucky

.

Nick Bertozzi, Lewis & Clark

Patricio Betteo, Mundo Invisible

Vera Brosgol, Anya’s Ghost

Box Brown, Ben Died of a Train

Ed Brubaker & Sean Philips, Incognito, Vol. 2: Bad Influences

Jan Martijn Burger, Earth and Sky

Mike Carey & Peter Gross, The Unwritten Vol. 3: Dead Man’s Knock

Emily Carroll, His Face All Red

Stephen Destefano & George Chieffet, Lucky in Love: A Poor Man’s History (Vol. 1)

Brian Chippendale, If ‘n Oof

Daniel Clowes, Mister Wonderful: A Love Story

Philippe R. Girard, Killing Velazquez

Marek Colek, Baba Yaga and the Wolf

Stephanie Cragg, Midcentury Modern

Warren Craghead, “A Sound of the World. A Thing.”  www.craghead.com

Travis Edward Dandro, Journal #3

Mike Dawson, Troop 142

Michael Deforge,  Spotting Deer

Michael Deforge,  “S M”

Mickey Duzyj, Miss Chris

Joshua Dysart, Alberto Ponticelli & Rick Veitch, Unknown Soldier Vol. 4: Beautiful World, “Kalashnikov”

CF, Powr Mastrs #3

Edie Fake, Gaylord Phoenix

Ray Fawkes, One Soul

Glynnis Fawkes, The Terrible Story of Kinyras and Myrrha

Michel Fiffe, Zegas #1

Maria Forde, Marlon Brando, Volume 2

Bernardo Fernández (BEF), Espiral

Rick Geary, The Lives of Sacco & Vanzetti (A Treasury of Victorian Murder)

Julia Gfrörer, Too Dark to See

Pascal Girard, Bigfoot

Brooke Gladstone & Josh Neufeld, The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media

Charles Glaubitz, “Crystal Sigil.” Panel to Panel #1

Lisa Hanawalt, “Worst Sandwiches,” “How to get a Haircut.” I Want You #2

Tom Hart, The Dodgers. Suspect Device #1

Jennifer Hayden, S’crapbook, the First Album

Adam Hines, Duncan the Wonder Dog

Jay Hosler, Zander Cannon & Kevin Cannon, Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth

Ari Huff, The Magnificent Osterman Brothers

Kevin Huizenga, “Rumbling“, What Things Do

David Iseri & David Lau, Summer Oddity

Sam Ita, Frankenstein: A Pop-Up Book

Dunja Jankovic, Habitat # 2

Tom Kaczynski, Trans Utopia.

Tom Kaczynski,”The Cozy Apocalypse”. Mome #21

Ben Katchor, The Cardboard Valise

Kazu Kibuishi, Amulet #4: The Last Council

Alex Kim, “Night Machine“

David King, Lemon Styles

Aidan Koch, The Whale

Blaise Larmee, “2001“

Sharon Lintz  & Nicholas Breutzman, “Photo Meetings”. Porn Hounds 2

Sharon Lintz   & Nathan Schreiber, “Cancer”. Porn Hounds 2

Jason Little, Motel Art Improvement Service

Jonas Madden-Connor, “The Most Gripping Mind-Exploding Triumphantly Electric of our Time”. Papercutter #15

Benjamin Marra, The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd

Jed McGowan, Lone Pine

Kagan McLeod, Infinite Kung Fu

Carla Speed McNeil, Finder: Voice

Max Mose, All Aboard

Annie Murphy, Truth: Stranger than Fiction. Gay Genius

Nate Neal, The Sanctuary

Tom Neely, The Wolf

Audrey Niffinegger, The Night Bookmobile

David Ortega, Abuela y los Dead Mexicans

Jim Ottaviani &Leland Myrick, Feynman

Jason Overby, “2101“

 Pat Palermo, Live / Work #1

Nate Powell, Any Empire

Lauren Redniss. Radioactive

Jesse Reklaw, N.Y.D.I. #1 (No, You Do It)

James Romberger & Wallace Stevens, “Madame La Fleurie,” Hooded Utilitarian

Simon Roy, Shipwrecked with Dan the Gorilla

Greg Rucka and JH Williams III, Batwoman: Elegy

Yumi Sakugawa, Mundane Fortunes for the Next Ten Billion Years

Seth, Palookaville #20

Matt Sheean & Malachi Ward, Expansion #1 & #2

Mahendra Singh & Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark

Jeff Smith, RASL #11

Grant Snider, Incidental Comics

Bishakh Som, ”Untitled,” Pood #2

Leslie Stein, Eye of the Majestic Creature #6

Karl Stevens, The Lodger

Matt Sundstrom,  Second Chances

Matthew Thurber, 1-800-Mice #5

Mark Todd & Esther Watson, Nubbin & Nutz

GB Tran, Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey

Noah Van Sciver, Blammo #7

Connor Wilumsen, “Rich Richmond,”  Pood #2

Brian Wood & Becky Cloonan, ”The Waking Life of Angels.”  Demo #2

Zach Worton, The Klondike

J.T. Yost, Losers Weepers #3

Dan Zettwoch, “Motor Lodge,” Root Rot

Kriota Willberg is the partner of cartoonist Bob Sikoryak and thus knows first hand (well, second hand) what are all the ailments that come from making comics. She’s also a dancer, massage therapist, and teaches anatomy for Pilates teachers, yoga teachers, and cartoonists, and so has a good idea how to treat injury with posture and exercise. She’s pretty amazing. Last year, Bob and Kriota were a visiting teachers at the Center for Cartoon Studies. Seeing how many of the dozens of cartoonists around her were injured inspired Kriota to try her hand at cartooning while there. The result is a fat little tome that should have a place on every cartoonist’s shelf, (NO) PAIN! The mega-mini comic. 

In Kriota’s description: “(NO) PAIN! gives the basics of injury prevention targeted specifically to cartoonists. It explains how injuries happen and what injuries commonly affect drawing professionals.”

That’s it. Buy it from her website with Paypal, and be well.

(P.S. if you’re in New York, you can still probably get into her anatomy for cartoonists workshop at MoCCA, starting July 10.)

Shujaaz is a monthly comics magazine plus radio show that launched in Kenya in February 2010, and won an International Digital Emmy Award just this April.  Shujaaz (which means “heroes” in Kiswahili) involves print, radio, and sms media to get educational and empowering messages out to the youth of Kenya. Rob Burnet, the social entrepreneur of Shujaaz, says, “We use multiple-media communications to inspire and motivate an audience of some 5 million young Kenyans to take action to improve their lives and engage with urgent issues that shape their future. This is done through stories following the lives of four fictional young Kenyans.”

The lead character is Boyie, a 19 year old who finished secondary school but couldn’t find a job (neither could any of his friends) and is left wondering what to do.  Boyie has a secret, and that’s the fact that he has an FM radio station in his bedroom, where he hacks into the frequencies of other radio stations and broadcasts his show, Shujaaz FM, as DJ B.  His radio show is all about what it means to be a hero, encouraging people to step up and think about what they can do.  The other characters in the Shujaaz comic are listeners of his show.

What I love about this project is how 4th-wall-breaking it is: the radio show in the comic exists in real life. Shujaaz FM is syndicated across 25 FM stations across Kenya, and very often, people call into the stations and ask for DJ B, who is a fictional character.  DJ B has thousands of fans on various social media, who communicate with DJ B and each other about their lives and what’s happening in Kenya. There’s something really interesting about a comic that crosses the line into readers’ real lives in some way, and, possibly because of that crossover, the positive messages in the comics seem to have a lot of concrete impact. I’d also be interested to find out how much greater reach the project has because it’s not dependent on access to print magazines, or, for that matter, a computer for internet access. The radio is pretty democratizing. In fact, in trying to put this post together I kept getting stuck on what this thing is: is it a comic? A show? A movement? An online community? Still don’t know. I’d love to see this kind of thing being done elsewhere.

Shujaaz started because the creators felt that there was a lack of positive, youth-focused media or a platform for young people to share their ideas with each other. They wanted to create a world that was very much like the real world, a place that the readers could identify and connect with.

Here’s a snippet of a recent article written by Rob Burnet for The Kernel about the project:

By partnering with experts and researchers, scientists and innovators, we make sure Shujaaz delivers proven and practical ideas that can really make a difference to our audience. In this way, Shujaaz is working constantly to nudge a vast and vital community towards new ways of working, thinking and acting.

But do the Shujaaz stories deliver real change to the audience? In a recent independent Kenya-wide survey of secondary school students, 62 per cent said they follow Shujaaz every month. We have an audited regular audience of over more than five million.  More than 30 per cent of the audience report having taken action based on stories they found in Shujaaz. A similar number talked about Shujaaz ideas with friends—further widening and deepening the reach.

You can learn more about the project by watching this video: Shujaaz: Empowering Kenyan Youth

our first ever sale of Mastering Comics, at TCAF 2012

Mastering Comics has been out for over a month now, and we’ve been receiving interviews about it and seen many good reviews around the web.  Here are some of the places you can find out more:

In our interview with MTV Geek‘s Danica Davidson, we were asked about the differences between Drawing Words and Writing Pictures and Mastering Comics and who we want to reach out to.  We explain that as well as a bit about some of the categories we cover in the new book. We’re in this post by A.V. Club on the latest graphic novels and art comics, we have a review by Internal Correspondence v.2, and Mastering Comics is mentioned in Matt’s 15 Questions interview with Julinda Morrow on Sequential Highway. Another interview with Matt just appeared on Robot 6 where he talks about the title “Mastering Comics”, issues around publishing, and the potential of webcomics. Over on his blog, Matt made a more personal appeal to readers about the new book.

Looking ahead, we’ll have interviews out soon on The Comics Reporter, The Comics Journal online, and more.

Here’s our Goodreads page where those who’ve read our book can post their own reviews and ratings, so you can check that out as time goes by as well.

It’s been snorting at the starting gate for a few weeks now, and after a brief warm up run around the course at TCAF, today Mastering Comics: Drawing Words & Writing Pictures Continued is officially released barrelling and sprinting into the world! Please buy a copy from your favorite bookseller, ask your library to order a copy or two. Thanks for all of your support and cheering up to this point, now let’s see how this baby handles on the open road (oops, switched metaphors!).

–Matt and Jessica

Among the numerous hats Matt and I wear, we are the series editors for the Best American Comics (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). That means that, every year, we try to get our hands on every comic published by a North American cartoonist (which is the USA, Canada, and Mexico), or anyone who makes his or her home here, and then read them all to sort out the best 100 or so comics of the year. Of course, we can’t possibly see everything, but we try. These best 100-120, we then hand on to the year’s guest editor, who picks his or her favorite 25-30, which go into that year’s volume. Then, Matt and I get to make our list of everything else we think comics readers should have read that year. It’s called the Notable Comics list, and it comprises virtually all the comics we sent to the guest editor that weren’t picked, as well as a number of others that we think are noteworthy for various reasons, but that we didn’t send to the guest editor.

Over the now-four volumes we’ve been involved with (we’ve just wrapped selections for the fifth, but they’re still top-secret), we’ve tried to shine a spotlight on this list. As most guest editors point out in their introductions, the selection process, when it gets down to which stories make the cutoff for the volume and which don’t, can be alarmingly arbitrary. Often, we and the guest editors would love to include 50 stories, but there just isn’t room. But when you combine the notable list with the stories in the volume, it might be a little more possible to talk about representing what’s we actually think is best in a given year. Also, when looking for good comics to read, why limit yourself? We’ve always hoped readers will delve a bit into the list to find more great stories once they finish reading BAC.

Below, we’ve reprinted the full list of the Notables from the 2011 volume, which was edited by Alison Bechdel. We’ve also added extensive links and images of the covers to intrigue you and  to help you track the works down. And for a lucky reader: a head start on collecting all 100!

WE WILL GIVE AWAY a set of  about 25 mincomics and self-published books from this list. Which ones they are will be a surprise! Comment on this post between now and Friday December 9 at 5 pm, and you will be entered in a drawing to win the pile. This prize is available only to US readers (sorry!). Watch for a second giveaway this coming Monday, Dec 12.

Note: we do moderate comments, so if you haven’t commented here before, your comment won’t show up immediately, but it is in the queue!

Edit: just to be extra clear, this is not a set of every book on the list, it’s a sub-set of a number of the minis and self-pubbed books. Still, it’s a lot of great!

–Jessica and Matt

Jason Aaron, R.M. Guéra, Davide Furno, and Francesco Francavilla, Scalped: High Lonesome 

William Ayers and Ryan Alexander-Tanner, To Teach: The Journey, in Comcs 

Darryl Ayo, “Enemies with Benefits,” anyANYway #1

Rina Ayuyang, “Arroz Caldo,” Whirlwind Wonderland

Derik Badman, 20 out of 30 days (from the 30 day project)

Liz Baillie, Freewheel vol. 1

Alison Bechdel, “A Story About Life”, McSweeney’s Issue 33

Nick Bertozzi, Persimmon Cup, The Act-i-vate Primer

Joe Boruchow, Stuffed Animals: A Story in Paper Cutouts

Adam Bourret, I’m Crazy 

Nicholas Breutzman, You Can’t Be Here

Box Brown, Everything Dies #1 & #2, “Alpha” and “Omega”

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, Criminal: The Sinners

Mike Carey and Peter Gross, The Unwritten vols. 1 & 2

Martin Cendreda, “Copy”, Stories vol. 2

Sean Christensen and Amy Kuttab, Labanotation: The Center of Weight

Marian Churchland, Beast

Seymour Chwast, Dante’s Divine Comedy

Daniel Clowes, Wilson

C.C. Colbert and Tanitoc, Booth

Al Columbia, Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days {Artifacts and Bone Fragments}

Josh Cotter, “Migraneur”, Driven by Lemons

Evan Dahm, Rice Boy (buy)

Mike Dawson, Troop 142, nos. 1-3

Michael Deforge, Peter’s Muscle

Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites

Joshua Dysart , Alberto Ponticelli, and Pat Masioni, Unknown Soldier: Easy Kill

Glenn Eichler and Nick Bertozzi, Stuffed!

Chuck Forsman, Wolf

Alexis Frederick-Frost, Courtship of Ms. Smith

Alexis Frederick-Frost, Voyage

Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell, The Sandman: The Dream Hunters

Rick Geary, The Terrible Axe-man of New Orleans

Robert Goodin, “The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung”, Mome Volume 19

Brandon Graham, King City, vol. 2

C. Geoff Grogan, Fandancer

Gilbert Hernandez, The Troublemakers

James Hindle, Unsettled

James Hindle, Little Wolves (buy)

Ursula Murray Husted, Drawing on Yourself

Christopher Hutsul, A Very Kraftwerk Summer

Kathryn Immonen and Stuart Immonen, Moving Pictures

Alex Jansen, Jason Gilmore, and Nick Marinkovich, Kenk

Mat Johnson and Simon Gane, Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story

Ben Jones, “Chocolate Gun”, Mome, vol. 16

Tom Kaczynski and Dash Shaw, “Resolution”, Mome, vol. 17

Megan Kelso, Artichoke Tales

Victor Kerlow, “This is the Story of a Man Who Could Not Die”, Rabid Rabbit’s Tall Tales and Magnanimous Myths

Victor Kerlow, Big Empty Space

Matt Kindt, 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man

Matt Kindt, Revolver

Michael Kupperman, “All About Drainage” and “Books Are Stupid,” Tales Designed to Thrizzle #6

Joseph Lambert, “Tantrum”

Tim Lane, “Spike”, Hotwire Comics, vol. 3

Hope Larson, Mercury 

Brendan Leach, “Summer Internship”, Four Comics

Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim, vol. 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour

Jason Little, “Bee in… the Ramble”, MySpace DarkHorse Presents #36

Stuart Livingston, “7:42 a.m.”, Popgun vol. 4

Jesse Lonergan, Joe and Azat 

Cathy Malkasian, Temperance

James McShane, Archaeology

Lane Milburn, Death Trap 

Tony Millionaire, Billy Hazelnuts and the Crazy Bird

Corinne Mucha, “Future Dreams”, Is It the Future Yet?

Pranas T. Naujokaitis, Beard

Sarah Oleksyk, Ivy (chapters 5 and 6)

Onsmith, “Dispossession by Tornado”, Hotwire Comics, vol. 3

Jason Overby, “Untitled”, Shitbeams on the Loose #2

Jesse Reklaw, “Toys I Loved”, Dope Flounder

Grant Reynolds, “Where the River Meets the Sea”, Comic Diorama

Hans Rickheit, The Squirrel Machine

Sean Micheal Robinson, “Much of What We Said Wasn’t Anything at All”, The Art of Lying

Jim Rugg, Rambo 3.5

Johnny Ryan, Prison Pit, Book One

Joe Sacco, “The Unwanted” parts 1-2, VQR

Sam Sharpe, “Change Your Name”, Pinstriped Bloodbath

Dash Shaw, “Blind Date”, Mome, vol. 16

Jason Shiga, Meanwhile

Anuj Shrestha, “True Tales of Kitchkanni” vol. 1, Rabid Rabbit’s Tall Tales and Magnanimous Myths

David Small, Stitches

Andrew Smith, Sausage Hand

Nick St. John, How I Came to Work at the Wendy’s

Conor Stechschulte, The Spirit World

Conor Stechschulte, Held Sinister

Aron Nels Steinke, Neptune

James Sturm, Market Day

Sully (Sherwin Tjia), The Hipless Boy

Raina Telgemeier, Smile

C. Tyler, You’ll Never Know, Book 2: Collateral Damage

Chris Ware, “Putty Gray”, McSweeney’s Issue 33

Tracy White, How I Made It to Eighteen

Mack White, “Roadside Hell”, Hotwire Comics, vol. 3

Chadwick Whitehead, “The Myth of Ice Cream and Race Cars”, Rabid Rabbit’s Tall Tales and Magnanimous Myths

Matt Wiegle, “The Orphan Baiter”, Papercutter #13

Jim Woodring, Weathercraft: A Frank Comic

Belle Yang, Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale

J.T. Yost, Losers Weepers

Jeff Zwirek, “The Chicago Typewriter”, Pinstriped Bloodbath

from Austin Kleon's slideshow-cum-book

Austin Kleon, blogger and author of the book Newspaper Blackout presents a blog post version of a slideshow talk he gave to college students called “How to Steal Like an Artist (and 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me)”. He is currently developing it into a book.

Cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt (I Want You) simply posted a list she stuck on her studio wall to motivate herself.

Phil McAndrew illustrates how to build muscle through creativity

And cartoonist and illustrator Phil McAndrew posted his “Super Obvious Secrets That I Wish They Taught in Art school” list in response to questions he regularly gets from younger colleagues and students.

Though each of these three artists is coming from a different place and made these lists for different reasons, I find it edifying how much their concerns and principles jibe and overlap. (Lisa even links to Austin’s post [and two other advice posts] at the bottom of her post—I’m getting dizzy!)

• Oubapo-America is a website put together by Matt, Tom Hart, and Jason Little to introduce anglophone comics fans to the French group Oubapo, the Workshop for Potential Comics, of which Matt is the US correspondent. The site has explanations of the history and practice of constraint-based comics (for example, a comic where each panel can only show an extreme close-up of a hand) as well as numerous examples of constraints and their solutions.

an abstract comic by Grant Thomas (using Oubapian constraints) from the Abstract Comics blog

• The Abstract Comics blog accompanies the very interesting eponymous anthology edited by Andrei Molotiu. The book is fascinating in the way it mines a mostly-overlooked juncture of comics and abstraction. The blog continues in the same line, with regular updates of new pages. Any number of the comics here can serve as the springboard for new work or discussions about the language of comics
• Scott McCloud is a one-man idea factory, constantly questioning and pushing at the boundaries of our medium. His website has numerous examples of his experimental webcomics as well as descriptions of two of his influential comics inventions, the 24-hour comic and 5-card Nancy, both discussed and adapated in DWWP.

Experimental comics are international and there is lots of material available in foreign languages (remember incidentally that with their combination of text and image, comics are a great tool for teaching languages):

an acrostic comic by Etienne Lécroart

• Oubapo member Etienne Lécroart has examples of his formidable comics experiments on his website. (in French)
• The inspiration and mentor-group of Oubapo is Oulipo, Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle. The site posts a “constraint of the month”, a great source for writing and cartooning challenges. (in French)
• Tahipo: Taller de Historieta Potencial is a Spanish-language blog inviting South American cartoonists to contribute to monthly constraints. Many of these are based on the work of Oubapo and Oulipo but they have also made their own contributions, such as the very challenging “Around the world in 10 panels” constraint. (in Spanish)

an early iteration of Revista Beleléu's "domino" comic

• The Brazilian Revista Beleléu features an on-going jam comic in the form of an ever-expanding domino game (meanwhile, two American cartoonists have done something similar, likening it to a crossword puzzle). (in Portuguese)

Tender Kisses by Hilary Florido (gradudate of SVA)

This week we are listing the handful of comics-specific degree programs we are aware of. If we have missed any please let us know, as we will be adding this information to our links page soon. We will aim to do a separate post about workshops and intensive programs later on (please send inof about those as well!).

Undergraduate-and graduate-level programs–these are schools that have programs specifically dedicated to comics, not just a comics class or two (although that is welcome, too, of course). The links are to the corresponding schools’ comics program overview pages.

School of Visual Arts, New York City. BFA in Cartooning & Illustration; MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay.

Center for Cartoon Studies, White River Junction, Vermont. MFA program; one- and two-year certificates.

Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, Georgia (also Atlanta, Hong Kong, and eLearning). BA, BFA, MA, or MFA in Sequential Art.

Minnesota College of Art & Design in Minneapolis, Minnesota. BFA, MFA in Comic Art

Many of the schools above also have continuing education/general education programs–these are open to the public at various ages and levels.

Here’s information on contracts, agents, and selling your book from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s of America. You can find a list of comics-friendly agents via Niki Smith.

Comics writing and screenwriting have a lot in common. Three screenwriters you should read about the script-writing craft and the business of TV and film: film writer John August, and TV writers Jane Espenson and Alex Epstein. John August, especially, is worth reading for all kinds of writing-related tidbits, like he led me to the Bechdel Rule.

It’s easy to get so involved in productivity maximization that you stop actually producing anything, but still, a bit of Getting Things Done by David Allen with a dash of Merlin Mann’s archives, and a pinch of correction from Productive Flourishing will help you make your comics-making life go more smoothly. (That last site discovered via cartoonist Kevin Huizenga’s blog about the cartooning process, New Construction)

And, finally, an online resource for teachers of writing Nobody Writes Like Me—featuring a video interview about process and editing with me, excerpted on their preview page.