Quitting Time celebrates two years of retail hell this week, wrapping up its DizzyDome ("two moms enter, one mom leaves") plot on Monday with a double-comic and publishing a special extra-long anniversary comic in celebration.

The past year has seen a ton of changes from us -- we moved off comicgenesis and onto our own Comic Press-powered host, gave the site a complete visual overhaul, and doubled our staff with the addition of an editor/letterer (me!).

Fans of the romping Norse epic Brat-Halla will be elated to know that its creators are considering increasing their update schedule to twice a week if they receive enough positive reader feedback about the idea.

Hmmm... last week's posts didn't continue as I'd intended: flu 1, cr0wgrrl 0. So I'm going to combine what were originally a series of short posts into one or two longer ones, focusing on some great female characters in webcomics. First up: Leeza Blake from Terinu, Alanna Wollf from Supernatural Law, and Izzy Lehane from Home on the Strange.

I went to Wonder-Con this past weekend, and overall had a pretty good time -- a lot of interesting folks, intriguing conversations, and comic discussion panels, some better than others. One of the less-than-stellar panels was Girls Kick Ass! Female Protagonists in Print and Beyond. But instead of complaining about it here -- at least for the moment -- I'm going to spend the week telling you about some of my favorite female webcomic protagonists who do, indeed, kick ass.

First up: Reagan, from Templar, Arizona.

I've been following DC's All New Atom series with a lot of curiosity. Writer Gail Simone has a lot to juggle with Ryan Choi, the young Chinese supergenius who has stepped in to fill the tiny but nonetheless very imposing shoes of Ray Palmer.

I've heard a lot of positive and negative things said about the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards. Since the 2007 awards were just announced, you'll hear all that criticism and support regurgitated once again -- but not here. But I do look forward to seeing the awards every year, for one specific reason: Every year, I find at least one new webcomic to read and love.

My experience with incorporating representation comes from desktop publishing rather than comics, but over the years I have figured out and been taught a few rules of thumb.

Let me state up front here that I'm not telling anyone they have to do any of this. These are my guidelines for myself and for those who are interested in this.

Tokenism is the practice of inclusivity through exclusivity. It is the half-hearted attempt at ethnic or gender diversity by adding in one character of the missing type (South Park riffs on this practice by outright naming one character -- the only black child -- Token).

This weekend marks the last time you'll be able to say, "A Miracle of Science -- yeah, I was following it back when it was first published." Next week, the strip -- about a pair of officers tasked with discovering, defusing and arresting scientists suffering from SRMD (Science Related Memetic Disorder, i.e., mad science) -- draws to a well-earned close after six years.

So if you have a need to be part of the hip in-crowd (whatever that means) or just really enjoy a great sci-fi story, now's the time to catch up before next week's finale.

A few years ago at the Alternative Press Expo, I encountered a comic called How to Be Bulletproof, by Kirt Burdick.