This Cannot Get Buried

This is too important to allow it to be eclipsed by certain other also-important subjects. Lea Hernandez is starting a grant program to help women who want to make comics on their own terms and still make them available to people to read. Here's the goods:

In order to foster women publishing independently, with economy, and as owners of what they create, I will award three grants annually, of a year's free hosting at WebComicsNation.com, to women making webcomics. The recipients will have unlimited data storage and bandwidth, the ability to choose to support their work with ads, and a storefront for selling merchandise.

Being able to make comics at no cost to yourself is like the equivalent of getting paid at any other job, so this is a big deal. Keep an eye out for the details, which should be coming next month. Lea's got a good eye for talent, as evidenced by the Girlamatic roster, so these recipients should really be people to watch. Another thing that'll be fun to watch is when guys start complaining that it's only available to women. Yeah, I wish I could believe that wasn't going to happen, too.