An Event Apart: DC is running at this very moment. I am not there, sadly, but I am living the experience vicariously through A Feed Apart (which is awesome and you should check it out now) Via that very feed, I learned of applause, as unlikely as it sounds, that Dan Cederholm led the crowd in for IE9. Today’s comic memorializes that event, and also includes Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman, the two dudes without whom this awesome conference would not exist. (It turns out they’re also very awesome in person. Really. They don’t bite or anything.)

Seriously, if you ever can get to an AEA event, I implore you to go. It’s an awesome experience being surrounded by like-minded web geeks getting leading edge advice and techniques for that thing we do with making the web.

Look, let’s drop the issue of tribe for the moment: IE9 is a better browser than IE8, period. I won’t make it my steady gal, but it’s helping push the web in the right direction by getting Microsoft’s behemoth back on track with everyone else. I’m glad someone at AEA decided to lead the crowd in acknowledging that fact.

Today’s comic continues my tradition of being a fansquirrel of An Event Apart, which is currently enjoying the second day of its Minneapolis 2010 event. It features Eric Meyer (who happens to have gorgeous eyes as you will all notice), the squirrel, and the sort of nightmare we all have involving a complete lack of trousers.

The photo comes from John Morrison‘s Eric Meyer Word Caption Contest, and the comic itself is my entry into that fun little affair. Some of you may ask: “Kyle, why does the squirrel care if he’s not wearing pants? He never wears pants!”

Why does Donald Duck cover his crotch, which is always exposed, only after he loses his shirt? There’s a subtle mystery to the whole affair of comic characters and pants that we should probably not try to dig too far into for the sake of our own sanity. It’s right up there with wondering what goes in your grandmother’s meatloaf.

I’m sure I could have made a nut joke, but I chose the high road.

If, like me, you’re not at An Event Apart, you can follow along with the wisdom, humor, and community at A Feed Apart. Which. Is. Awesome. I’m enjoying several of the new features that the feed supports, including Flickr appearing in the stream, session-based archives, etc. It’s all very sweet. Check it out if you’ve got the chance.

Today’s comic finishes (finally) the An Event Apart “storyline” that starts here, and has part #2 here. It features AEA speakers Andy Clarke, Nicole Sullivan and Ethan Marcotte. It also features Naepalm, the chinchilla alter-ego of Janae, one of my fellow Mindfly Web Studio designers. The comic also has a brief cameo by everyone’s favorite archaic browser complication: the dreaded hasLayout.

It’s been a long journey to crank out these three comics, which highlight some very important points. First, continuity in a web-design commentary webcomic is difficult at best. Second, that cheese tidal waves represent the best of all possible worlds. Finally, that An Event Apart: Seattle was an awesome extravaganza and Janae and I are still trying to squeeze out all the drops of precious information we absorbed into Mindfly’s waiting arms.

One of my favorite presentations was Ethan’s Dao of Flexibility, which discussed adaptive layouts and fluid grids in detail, opening my eyes to the real power of the world of media queries. I’ve been tinkering away in my acorn-filled lair since the conference, working away at a new design for this site that harnesses these arcane techniques for my own dark purposes. From time to time, I have to pause and laugh with evil glee.

Thanks, AEA.

We’ll now return to my regular schedule of making fun of HTML5 politics and Opera.

Today’s comic, the first in a small An Event Apart related storyline, features Andy Clarke, Nicole Sullivan, Pete LePage and Naepalm in a future where rogue browsers must be “retired” by browserrunners.

It touches on what people may find hard to believe: Microsoft (like us) wants IE6 to die, already. In less than two hours after I post this, Pete LePage is going to get in front of the AEA audience and tell us that very thing.

I’ve got to get back to listening to more awesome speakers. Enjoy! (And if you’re at AEA, feel free to say hi to the guy in the CSSquirrel shirt. I don’t bite.)

Today’s comic features the Squirrel, mentions the forthcoming An Event Apart: Seattle, and hints at the sobering difference between the spec for HTML5 and the reality of its adoption speed.

The comic is also the creation of the winner of my Dribbble invite give-away/AEA-theme guest comic contest, Miro Keller! Congrats, Miro! In addition to his comic filling the #59 spot for all eternity (or at least a year after I die and my hosting goes offline), he will also receive an invitation to Dribbble and will appear in a CSSquirrel comic this April!

I’m sure when interviewed on his success, he’ll declare his intent to go to Disneyland.

His comic won for a couple reasons. First, it showed the squirrel’s skeleton, which is no easy task. Secondly, it feels like the sort of thing I’d make a comic about, and was funny to boot. HTML5 is going to be awesome, I’m sure, but it’s not exactly to the point where we’re throwing Flash install discs into burn barrels. IE9 will be a great boon towards adopting those features, not because they’re first, but because so many people use their product… but a lot of people are -still- using IE6, even after its funeral.

So let us all remember, we may need a fallback plan for that lovely <video> tag for a while yet.

In addition to Miro’s great victory, there’s two other winners today. #2 in the contest is the entry of Ryan Parr. Warning, parents, he uses swears. #3 is from Mihai Petica. Congrats to both of you as well. You’ll be receiving Dribbble invites as well as appearing in a future CSSquirrel comic this April.

Let’s celebrate these heroes with a round of applause.

P.S.: I don’t know exactly what’s going on in Morten Gresseth’s entry, but despite its failure to mention AEA it was so darn odd that I just had to link it here. Does anybody know what this is referencing? Morten?