Link roundup

1. Ryan Estrada and Dorothy Gambrell Chart Their Income as Webcomic and Freelance Cartoonists.

2. Art suggestion: Make a poster for the rumored remake of Fear with Justin Bieber playing Mary Mark's role.

3. Interesting experiment the rest of the month at Gawker (which has a new EIC):

This week, the writers of this site have all agreed to participate in an obnoxious, but worthwhile exercise. Each day, a different staff writer will be forced to break their usual routine and offer up posts they feel would garner the most traffic. While that writer struggles to find dancing cat videos and Burger King bathroom fights or any other post they feel will add those precious, precious new eyeballs, the rest of the staff will spend time on more substantive stories they may have neglected due to the rigors of scouring the internet each day to hit some imaginary quota. The writers not relegated to traffic-whoring duty will still post, just less frequently than many of them are probably used to.

The purpose of this is to make it perfectly clear to the staff of Gawker (and to the readers, hopefully) that just because this is technically a "blog," there is plenty of room for other pieces that aren't aggregated and repackaged with block-quotes and snappy snarky snarking snark-snark shit. Those posts still have their place on the site and Gawker's traffic is still a priority, but as we go through this molting period, it's time to let the writers take their time and think beyond their personal news feeds. They deserve it. So do you. My hope is that while half the site is being rocked with SEO bomb-throws, the others will all be doing, oh... more.

There are rules for the traffic-whoring days:

1. No galleries.
2. No pornography
3. No racism
4. None of the stories will be splashed on the front page.
5. One personal essay, rant, or list is required.

Other than that, they are free to add things to the site they presume will make the little Chartbeat meter freak out. It will be like seeing each writer's id on the page.

Change is happening, people. You see it, you feel it, hopefully you'll embrace it in your loving arms like a baby koala bear some day. Please be patient.

For now, here's the lineup:

01/23, Monday: The Daily ME?
01/24, Tuesday: John "SEXY CELEB BEACH BODS" Cook
01/25, Wed: Brian "OMG OBAMA SEX SCANDAL" Moylan
01/26, Thurs: Maureen "BOING-BOING UPSKIRT" O'Connor
01/27, Fri: Max "BIEBER BLOW JOB" Read

01/30, Mon: Hamilton "DOLPHIN FISTING" Nolan
01/31, Tues: Jim "CRAZIEST SK8 CRASH EVR!!!" Newell
02/01, Weds: Adrian "/4" Chen
02/02, Thurs: Leah "BLUE IVY NIPPLE SLIP" Beckmann

4. New preorders at the BBTS - - the Figma Samus and 3 3/4" Starcraft 2 action figures. If this is correct, the first wave is:

James Rayner, confederate soldier
Tychus Findlay
Protoss Zealot
Protoss Dark Templar (and variant)
Zerg Zergling Two Pack
Zerg Hydralisk

5. Last chance to win a copy of Island of Secrets.