The February/March issue of Complex features a gorgeously produced cover story on Childish Gambino, a.k.a. Donald Glover, titled “Know The Ledge,” which allowed the rapper-slash-actor to navel-gaze and wax philosophic about computer science, all while tracking his music career through his latest album, Because The Internet. Glover already supplemented that record with a 75-page screenplay and a 25-minute film, Clapping For The Wrong Reasons, and now, in conjunction with the Complex interview—which also had too many quotes to fit in just one story—he's written and directed another film, “Chicken And Futility.”

The short features Glover reading e.e. cummings in his house—there's his fellow Derrick Comedy alum D.C. Pierson’s novel Crap Kingdom on the table—while his friends play Marvel Vs. Capcom in the background, before talking about his conflicted obsession with Chik-fil-A and the futility of moths’ existence. (It’s a metaphor.) It all plays out like some watered-down ...

Facebook is currently putting the finishing touches on its own mobile news reader service and could launch the product by the end of January, according to a new report from Re/code. The social network's Flipboard competitor is reportedly called Paper — not to be confused with the popular iOS drawing app — and is finally nearing completion after "years" of work. (The Wall Street Journal broke news on the effort last year.) Re/code says it's currently unclear whether Paper will be a standalone app when it reaches Facebook's users; it may instead take the form of a web app optimized for mobile devices.

Much like Flipboard, Paper will reportedly display stories from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications in a visually appealing layout that also mixes in Facebook status updates. CEO Mark Zuckerberg apparently has had direct involvement in the creation of Paper, though it's largely the work of Facebook's News Feed team — including some design-minded talent that came to the company through acquisitions. We're midway through January, so if the rumored timetable is accurate, Facebook should be sharing more details on Paper before long.

In the overwhelmingly male comic book industry, it has been a challenge for some editors and readers to see the ever growing number of talented women currently trying to make a name for themselves. With that in mind, ComicsAlliance offers Hire This Woman, a recurring feature designed for comics readers as well as editors and other professionals, where we shine the spotlight on a female comics pro on the ascendance. Some of these women will be at the very beginning of their careers, while others will be more experienced but not yet “household names.”

Cartoonist Sarah Horrocks may be most well-known for her Adventure Time cover and of course her excellent critical writing for this site and elsewhere, but she’s done a great deal of interior work on her own projects as well, such as Hecate Snake Diaries and Dysnomia, and her work has (or soon will) appear in Brandon Graham’s Image Comics titles iMultiple Warheads and Prophet.  Horrocks usually does every part of the comics process on her projects, from writing to lettering.

ComicsAlliance: What kind of comic creator are you? 

Sarah Horrocks: I am a comic creator. I do whatever it takes to make comics. So I do everything. Writing, penciling, coloring, inking, lettering whatever. I don’t really view those things as necessarily separate things in terms of comics. Like, when I’m writing a comic, I’m thinking about how it’s colored and how it looks. When I’m drawing the pages, I’m still thinking about the story as a whole and where the words are going to go on the page.  Even when I’m inking or coloring, it’s all part of the totality of the comic, and it’s actually weirder for me to think about it in specialized terms. Maybe less so for writing — but definitely art. I have a cover I’m working on now, which someone else will be coloring, and that’s already completely messing with my brain. So much of my planning of a page is in terms of color or non-color.

CA: Do you work on paper or digitally?  Why?

SH: I do pencils and inking on paper, and then color digitally. Lettering is, I guess, a mixture of the two. I prefer to do my pencils and inks in analog because I like having an actual thing when I’m done — it also works well with my process, because I do a lot of sort of brutal things to the paper with how I ink, and, I dunno, I dig that.

CA: What’s your background/training?

SH: I have a BA in English from Tulane University. Everything artistically, I have taught myself.

CA: How would you describe your creative style?

SH: Queer-Techno-Witchy-Art House Horror

CA: What projects have you worked on in the past? What are you currently working on?

SH: The most notable thing in terms of something people have heard of is an Adventure Time cover for BOOM!, but I also have self-published two books digitally, Hecate Snake Diaries vol. 1 and vol. 2, which are still available for sale. I also drew the barcode on Brandon Graham’s recent Multiple Warheads collection. I have a backup coming up in the book he writes for Image, Prophet. I also have a two-page short in Frank Santoro and Andrew White’s Comic Workbook Magazine. I also have done work with the Witch House audiovisual collective Mater Suspiria Vision. I have a book that they put out through Phantasma Disques called Dysnomia. It is like a Jean Rollin film in comic form.  It is my most cohesive statement in comics to date. It is sold out now, though, but I will probably have some copies with me at Emerald City Comic Con, if people are so inclined. The book has its own soundtrack. It was a lot of fun. I like working with those people.

Currently I’m working on some cover work, and a long form comic album called Morganth Yaari, which is basically The Thing meets Akira meets Solaris –if those things weren’t about dudes and had way more robots. I will also have another Hecate Snake Diaries anthology in August for sale digitally.

CA: Approximately how long does it take you to create a 20-page issue?

SH: 300 hours tops?  Four to six hours to pencil, two-to-four hours to ink, color is one-to-four depending on how annoying my computer is being… oh, I didn’t add writing to that.

CA: What is your dream project? 

SH: Well, I basically started learning to draw so I could make this epic intense cosmic barbarian epic comic, and I’m just kind of waiting until I’m mature enough as an artist to handle the material. It’s like this epic Black Metal/Red Sonja/Dune type thing that in my head looks like Gustav Dore meets Blade of the Immortal in a dense oppressive Blame!-type world. That’s my dream project. I have a ways to go before I can draw it how I see it.  Right now Morganth Yaari is my dream project, though. That’s the great thing with being an artist is that everyday can be your dream project.

CA: Who are some comic creators that inspire you?

SH: Brandon Graham, Emma Rios, Tsutomu NIhei, Taiyo Matsumoto, Alberto Breccia, Jose Gonzalez, Hiroaki Samura, Sloane Leong, Hiroaki Araki, Philippe Druillet, Roque Romero, Sergio Toppi, Enki Bilal, Guido Crepax, Inio Asano, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Frank Frazetta, Barry Windsor Smith, Arthur Ranson, Simon Bisley, Ashley Wood, Luis Garcia, Esteban Marotto, Fernando Fernandez, Brendan McCarthy, and Guy Peellaert

CA: What are some comics that have inspired you either growing up or as an adult?

SH: Salammbo by Philippe Druillet, Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei, Takemitsu Zamurai by Issei Eifuku and Taiyo Matsumoto, Bianca by Guido Crepax, Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano, Sharaz-De by Sergio Toppi, Rob Liefeld X-Force comics, Alberto Breccia’s Lovecraft adaptions, Blade of the Immortal by Hiroaki Araki, Oyasumi Punpun by Inio Asano, and Indian Summer by Hugo Pratt and Milo Manara.

CA: What’s your ideal professional environment?

SH: Alone at my house in the early morning hours before the sun comes up, with a pencil in my hand, my dog asleep behind my chair, and good music creeping out of the speakers.

CA: What do you most want our readers and industry professionals to know about your work?

SH: The work speaks for itself and you either dig it or you don’t.

CA: How can editors and readers keep up with your work and find your contact information?

SH: Twitter and Tumblr. I update both often with all kinds of things, and there are tabs on my Tumblr to filter the site through. People can hit me up on either of those formats and then continue on over to email if they want to. That seems to work the best.

If there is a woman you’d like to recommend or if you’d like to be included in a future installment of this feature, drop us a line at comicsalliance-at-gmail-dot-com with “Hire This Woman” in the subject line.

That recent deal granting Louis C.K. the right to bring pretty much any funny person through the FX door and give them a show has yielded its first pilot order. The network announced today that it’s picked up an original comedy from Zach Galifianakis, who will star in a new show co-written and executive produced by C.K.—though those are all the details on hand. What format the show will take, what it will be about, and where it will fit into the busy schedules of both men are all details that have yet to be announced or possibly even figured out, as the mere announcement of a new FX show from Louis C.K. and Zach Galifianakis is understandably enough to stir interest on its own. We can probably rule out aerobics instruction and a show about the crew of a high-tech military helicopter—because they already did that, and ...

As part of its new foray into original programming—and as part of the general craze for biblical shows that's led to everything from NBC's A.D. to David Mamet's Seven Deadly Sins project—Cubs-and-reruns network WGN America has hired a slate of high-profile directors and Michael Cera to direct a 10-part series based on the Ten Commandments. (The actual commandments handed down by Moses, not the Charlton Heston film about them).

No word yet as to which director is taking on which "Thou Shalt Not...," but the list of auteurs is impressive, as it includes Gus Van Sant, Jim Sheridan, Lee Daniels, and Wes Craven. Also on board is actor-turned-first-time-director Michael Cera, so get ready for a backlash of criticism that all his graven images are basically just George Michael. It also remains to be seen how Van Sant will handle directing ...

A manager fired by Oracle is suing the company for discriminatory practices. Ian Spandow, a former senior regional sales manager, claims he was fired because he complained about the company’s practice of “paying Indian employees wages that are substantially lower than those paid to Caucasian employees,” according to a lawsuit filed January 7.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that Spandow joined Oracle in 2005. Last year, he sought to bring a seven-year Oracle employee in India to California and made a request to Oracle human resources for an offer at the same level as comparable US employees with the same experience and track record. He says that he was told to offer significantly less, with the salary director allegedly saying that $50,000 to $60,000 was “good money for an Indian.”

In his lawsuit, filed in US District Court in San Francisco, Spandow—who is Irish and was working for Oracle in California under an L-1 visa, claims that when he complained about that directive, he was fired. Spandow is claiming wrongful termination and unlawful discrimination under federal and California labor laws.

OnAir

The Federal Communications Commission has taken another incremental step toward allowing in-flight calls and access to mobile data while aboard aircraft.

In a formal 68-page filing (PDF) with the Federal Register to be published on Wednesday, the FCC noted that these new proposed rules would be "subject to applicable Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) rules, the choice of whether to enable mobile communications [including data] services using an Airborne Access System and, if so, which specific services to enable."

As we reported in December 2013, the DOT is already looking to ban in-flight voice calls. In a statement, DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx told Ars that because the public is "troubled" about annoying in-flight callers, the agency will "determine if allowing these calls is fair to consumers."

First-person simulators are cool. Cats are cool. Indie title Catlateral Damage brings together these two cool things to make something even cooler: a cat simulator. You're a cat trapped in a room. Your mission? Knock as much stuff off the shelves as you can within two minutes.

Originally created for the August 2013 7DFPS game jam, Catlateral Damage lets you live the cat experience first-hand. Punch and swipe things with your paws, sending them tumbling to the floor below. The game comes in downloadable versions for Windows, OS X, and Linux, but you can play it in the browser with the Unity plugin as well.

Gameplay is admittedly a little limited, but then again, the life of a cat is pretty limited. You sleep, you eat, you troll your owner. Rinse, repeat. If you enjoy this in game form, you can vote for Catlateral on Steam Greenlight.

Google's bombshell $3.2B acquisition of connected-home company Nest Labs makes simple sense on paper: Nest CEO Tony Fadell says he'll gain the ability to scale his business without worrying about cash or infrastructure, while Google gets a company at the leading edge of the difficult smart-home market and a team skilled in building well-designed products that combine hardware, software, and services. (And how: before Nest, Fadell and co-founder Matt Rogers led the iPod and iPhone teams at Apple.) It's a win-win, and Nest's investors sound ecstatic. "It's a fantastic return," Lightspeed Venture Partners' Peter Nieh told The Wall Street Journal.

But outside of the players directly involved in the deal, there was a second, more visceral reaction: disappointment. Nest was the first in a new wave of hardware startups built by engineers and executives eager to apply their experience building smartphones to new markets — a mission captured perfectly by Fadell's irrepressible upstart spirit in interviews and appearances. But by selling Nest seems to have undercut the optimism those companies represented, and perhaps not coincidentally, underlined a growing distrust of Google itself — a distrust shared by regular consumers, tech investors, and privacy advocates alike.

Although Fadell says Nest will remain mostly independent, with its own identity, team, and even offices intact, it will most certainly become a part of Google. "It's somewhere between YouTube and Motorola," Fadell said yesterday, describing two of the search giant's more famous acquisitions. Motorola has remained almost completely independent, "firewalled" away from Google's Android team, while YouTube has become more and more integrated over time — with a recent outpouring of anger when its comment system was tied to the niche Google+ social network.

So what will happen to Nest? Fadell called any speculation "totally premature" yesterday, but that hasn't stopped customers from worrying — and most seem to think Google will "ruin" Nest in a variety of ways, with Google+ integration standing in for a host of potential sins. Others worry that Nest will fall victim to the ongoing platform war against Apple, although Fadell says the company will continue to support iOS.

Still others wondered, perhaps a bit facetiously, if Nest would become yet another in a long line of companies acquired by Google in a flurry of hype only to disappear years later.

Viewed at a distance, the reaction is similar to Avis buying Zipcar: the fear that a slower, less innovative giant will kill the spirit and pace of a beloved startup. The difference, of course, is that Google is itself one of the richest and most innovative companies in the world. That it carries even the whiff of a lumbering giant is odd — especially since for tech investors, the Nest deal smacks of coldly efficient dominance.

Consumers aren't the only ones feeling some angst over Google's purchase of Nest. Yesterday's news caused a big question to boil up among Silicon Valley venture capitalists. How do you play the game when Google is one of the biggest investors in tech and also one of the biggest buyers of tech startups? "The purchase of Nest was a big win for us, of course," said one of the company's investors, who asked to remain anonymous. "But at the same time you have to wonder, could this company have been 10 times bigger had it continued to go things on its own?"

can Google Ventures be trusted to keep its founder interests separate from its backers?

Entrepreneurs face a similar pickle. Google has said that its venture arm is completely independent from core business, but that always seemed like wishful thinking, and yesterday's purchase will only strengthen the perception that taking an investment from Google Ventures ties a startup closely to Google itself. "It sends some really mixed signals," said another Nest investor. An entrepreneur might look at this and see the upside: an investment from Google Ventures means an acquisition by Google is more likely down the road. But for the truly ambitious entrepreneurs who want to take on tech titans like Google and Facebook the question now is, can Google Ventures be trusted to keep its founder interests separate from its backers?

The question of trust is perhaps most important of all. Fadell once described the Nest thermostat to me as nothing more than an on / off switch with a lot of nuance — nuance gained by collecting huge amounts of data about your living patterns and energy needs. Adding that data to Google's formidable collection of information about nearly everyone who uses the internet struck immediate fears with privacy advocates and a growing base of skeptics who contend Google's ad-supported business model creates an anti-privacy culture.

And the timing wasn't great for the counterargument: hours before the Nest announcement, Google clarified that a controversial plan to let Google+ users easily email nearly anyone on Gmail would be more private for "high-profile" users. It's another in a long string of confusing messages about privacy from Google, and the Nest team did little to alleviate the concerns.

give Google the chance to acquire more data, and it usually will

Co-founder Matt Rogers wrote that the company "takes privacy seriously," and that its privacy policy limits the use of customer data to "providing and improving Nest's products and services." But those services could arguably be improved by integration with other Google products, and the implications are unclear — give Google the chance to acquire more data, and it usually will. Fadell wouldn't rule out future changes yesterday. "At this point, there are no changes to our terms of service, and that's it. That's all I can say."

It's a strange set of affairs: an innovative young company led by some of the best engineers and executives in the business being acquired and validated by one of the great American businesses of the past 20 years should be a slam dunk of good PR. Instead, there's a chorus of concern — some sincere, some contrived, but all of it grounded in fear of an unchecked Google.

Additional reporting by Ben Popper