I recently drew some scenes from Stockton California for an infocomic about the city’s bankruptcy. Read the whole piece at the Boston Review.

These past two days I was lucky enough to attend the Freedom to Connect conference in Washington D.C. This is my sketchbook from the event, with ThingLinks to relevant videos, articles and more. I’m experimenting with this and have opened the ThingLinks so anyone can add or change them, so please feel free to plug in what you think others might find useful too.

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.

Besides getting arrested for a second time while reporting on Occupy Oakland, I’ve been actually reporting on Occupy Oakland! For the Guardian, AlterNet, Truthout, Citizen Radio and the East Bay Express, from civic engagement, to lynching, to OPD’s new smarter policing, to Occupy Wall Street West, to January 28th’s “Move In Day,” and to my first part of Occupy Oakland paintings. Of those six pieces, two have drawings, and five are basically wholly written. I’ve also done some sweet “media appearances” with Punching Down, Thom Hartmann and the Alyona Show.

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.

Photo via whipartist, taken October 27, 2011 at Occupy Oakland.

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.

You can buy the paper, ad-free and full of solid local investigative reporting, for just $2, at any of these Bay Area book stores and newsstands.

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.

So no, I’m not asking for donations, because that feels weird — but I don’t have qualms about asking you to give your email address to a reputable non-profit and spend less than one minute filling out a survey that will result in four free dollars for me.

We have just a couple days and $250 left. Seriously, please just do it already, because this is getting embarrassing.

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.

Indie comics favorite John Isaacson and Henry Chamberlain at Newsarama both listed Nine Gallons on their Tops of 2009 lists. Chamberlain even called it “brilliant”! Whaaaat!?

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!