This is a video of me and many others being kettled by the YMCA. My favorite part is the cop yelling at me at the end to “get out the building” as we were all standing on the sidewalk.
In light of being left off my own goddamn union’s list of arrested journalists this week because I am a freelancer, I have to link again to this piece I wrote a few months ago about why I am a cartoonist — and why I am still a journalist. I’ve kind of given up on people understanding that I can do multiple things, though, so from now on I guess I just have to go with “journalist” for clarity.
Today my first piece for the Atlantic went live, which is pretty exciting. Please check that out. And then hire me to write long in-depth pieces all the time because goddamn do I love doing this work even though it means a life of poverty.
I was excited to wake up this morning to my piece “Appropriart!” — on Boing Boing! Back in August I researched, wrote and drew this piece for the Grantmakers in the Arts reader (with production help from the awesome Yolanda Hippensteele at the Media Democracy Fund). It’s nice to see it now has an online home — click through for the full thing.
I’ve spent a bit of time this week at Occupy Oakland, and I’m putting together a painted piece over the next few days, so stay tuned for that too.
Today I published my first cartoon for the international syndicate Cartoon Movement. You can check it out on their site, alongside the work of many other talents from around the world. I’m excited about Cartoon Movement and what they’ll be doing for comics journalism with their Euros, so stay tuned. I especially like that one of their first cartoon collections is dedicated to hunger.
I think this is about as close to a classic editorial cartoon as I’ve ever gotten. Please don’t expect any labeled donkeys and elephants from me any time soon, though…
I will probably be posting again before the New Year (there is so much in the pipeline!), but if for some reason I find myself waylaid by drink and revelry: thank you so much to everyone who has been reading all year, and expect much more in 2011! New illustrated work for the SF Appeal and the Awl, plus other more secret projects are very soon to come…
The SF Public Press newspaper came out on Thursday and it looks great — I’m very happy with how the graphic turned out, especially since it is so freaking huge. Really, it’s such a delight to see my art blown up to broadsheet size, and with very nice four-color registration to boot.
The only problem is that I am going to be paid about $6/hour for the work I put into it (I’m splitting the take 50-50 with my collaborator).
I used Spot.Us to fund my McSweeney’s-killed Mid-Market story back in March with some excellent results. But this round of fundraising has been much tougher going, and I’m left wondering why. I have a few theories, but what I’m most afraid of is that journalism people don’t like funny pictures in their newspapers. But you’re reading this blog, so surely you don’t agree with that nonsense.
Stumptown was super great and I am super fried. I’ll be writing up a piece on the festival this week for the Daily Crosshatch, as well as, I’m sure, some extra blogging here. But for now, I leave you with this little gem. Not too awkward, right? Sorry, Comic-Con.
I think I’ll publish a second issue even though I swore I’d never do another legal-sized comic again (those things are expensive). This is causing some awkward rewriting but I think it’ll be worth it, as it’s more of the ethics and conflict chapter after the introduction. However! There won’t be a third issue, mainly because the first and second issues are taking a lot of things out of order and a third issue wouldn’t make any sense. Pro tip: don’t ever write slice-of-life comics with delicate, overwrought bell-curve narratives that sorely depend on delicate, overwrought senses of timing without clearly rendered chapter endings and then try to chop them up into self-publishable chunks. (Chances are you haven’t and won’t have this problem but just thought I’d share.) So I’m aiming for #2 to be done for Stumptown if not the Anarchist Book Fair in March! And if no one wants to publish the book then the continuation of the Great Recession into 2010 will have to be enough real-life first-person awful shit for you, I’m sorry.
Also, if you’ve ordered a copy of #1, I’m reprinting a new crop with a new hand-watercolored cover next week, along with a new This is What Concerns Me. I know I’ve been leading you on with promises of new comics these past weeks but they’re happening, they just haven’t become acquainted with my scanner just yet… Yet!
So I didn’t get the Xeric grant to publish Nine Gallons as the 96-page paperback book I’d like to. I’m not sure how I feel about the Kickstarter business plan (especially since I’ve already got a Spot.Us project in the works, and one should only have so many hats on the ground) — so I was wondering what my readers might suggest for a next step? Would you like to see the second chapter of Nine Gallons as a minicomic? (The story is kind of disjointed so this would require some storytelling finesse that I’m not sure I have.) Would you prefer to see the whole book by the end of 2010? And if the latter, um, know anyone with about $2500 they’d be willing to part with to publish it?
This seems like kind of an odd public request, but this book takes on some pretty odd subject matter, and I’d really like to get some feedback as to how salable it may or may not be. And FYI, spoiler alert, I don’t draw myself nude or in underwear at any point in the rest of the book, so take that fact into consideration in your answer.
And then I shall reward you all with some new downer This is What Concerns Mes!
A week and a half after its debut and the glittery halo has faded a bit on McSweeney’s 320-page full-color San Francisco Panorama newspaper. While most have been quick to point out how lush and lovely the thing is, Choire Sicha at the Awl breaks down the actual logistics of such a project — and with some devastating results on the financial (read: reality) side of things. Basically? Even when charging $16 and paying writers 12 cents per word or less, McSweeney’s more or less breaks even on the paper, in the event that they pay their in-house staffers less than minimum wage. Still, and this is what continues to baffle me, the common reaction is: So? It’s pretty! (The color infographics, that is — not the future of journalism, ha-ha!) So thank god for this commenter.
Sure, when you gather a bunch of amazingly talented people and don’t pay them and charge a premium price you will have a great product. Don’t you think we already know that? The challenge is to produce a product with a variety of talent and employees that need to eat. And need medical insurance. Also, you have to get advertisers. And subscriptions.
Dave KNOWS that it is almost impossible and that’s why he ain’t gonna do it. It’s easy to have all the most talented people working for no pay and then saying “look at me look what we made why can’t you be like us?”
Yes, why can’t you? Where’s your trust fund, little reporter?
For their part, D. Eggers’ public comments lately have been considerably more humble than they were back in June, when he announced the project. Plus I think it’s interesting that McSweeney’s started off calling the Panorama a “prototype” and lately refers to it more often as an “experiment” — more forgiving of these sorts of problems, and with no expectation of a follow-up.
The SF Public Press newspaper came out on Thursday and it looks great — I’m very happy with how the graphic turned out, especially since it is so freaking huge. Really, it’s such a delight to see my art blown up to broadsheet size, and with very nice four-color registration to boot.