This seems to be signal boost week...

... although the latest is one that I'm sure will succeed: Studio Foglio is doing a Kickstarter to print Girl Genius Volume 12. I suspect a lot of folks will want to support this one, especially since it opens the window of opportunity to buy the hardcover edition.

For those who might not have read it yet, the comic is highly recommended -- one of my all-time favorites, and coming from me that's saying a lot. GG was influential in the rise of steampunk, and is a lovely blend of melodrama, comedy and Weird Science. (I wrote a big Girl Genius LARP as the headline game for Intercon G: I am a *very* serious fan of this book.)

You can read the entire comic for free online (although you need to start this one from the beginning -- jumping into the middle makes *no* sense whatsoever), but personally I think it reads better in dead-tree form, and the paper copies are how the creators make most of their living. So I commend the Kickstarter campaign to y'all, and I'm looking forward to the results.

Ah, it's pleasant to see a lawyer doing his job well

For those following the JonMon debacle, I commend to you this letter from Ron Newman's attorney to JonMon's lawyers. It is *not* short, but it's magnificently detailed, and kind of a fun education in various aspects of legal theory.

It's much too polite to come out and actually say, "What the *fuck* are you people thinking?", but goes through the matter point-by-point, detailing why it's essentially nonsense from a legal perspective -- frequently mis-applying the laws in questions, often outright lying, sometimes just not even making sense. (With a particular emphasis on the way that JonMon is essentially attempting to sue Ron for everything bad anybody has ever said about him online, ever.)

And it finishes with the point that this whole thing has been handled so abysmally, it probably opens JonMon (and maybe his counsel) to a much better-supported countersuit. One especially interesting detail is that JonMon's threating letters, demanding that comments be taken down, can be constituted as suborning spoilation of evidence, which I gather the courts frown upon.

It goes into particular detail about a point that's been gradually emerging: that JonMon's new *business* is about identifying people without going through the usual processes, and this whole thing may have been an incredibly poorly-thought-out publicity stunt. He's been making a big point of finding the real-world info about all of his targets, apparently without any court orders, and handing them legally-threatening letters. The business idea might actually have been a bit clever, but it's hard to think of a more idiotic way to demonstrate it.

Anyway -- it's long and dense, but rather a fun read. Recommend for those interested in the realities of the laws concerning defamation, online conversation and the like, or simply if you enjoy a well-executed smackdown...

Not getting notifications

I just noticed -- ever since the emergency maintenance started a day or two ago, I don't seem to be receiving email notifications of comments. Y'all might want to pay attention to that yourselves. And please email me directly if you have anything important to comment on. Thanks...