rattled by the rush
Oh, look, my brain is thoroughly beaten, must be another day drawing comics. Ooh, short term memory loss. Where’s my skillet? Status update: am frustratingly slow with this next comic but it is 2x normal length plus contains enormous revelations about many of the characters you have grown to know and mock over the however long you’ve been suffering me. I have to finish it soon because next in the pipeline is a Valentine’s Day comic, of sorts. Then I plan to cozy up on V-Day with my display panel and my rental copy of There Will Be Blood. So warm!
Also trying to keep up with cleanup work. Failing, but you know. You may not be familiar with my art blog, for which I don’t blame you, since I haven’t updated it in ages, until today. There are a couple of images there that have gained a modicum of internet currency. Before the possibly dire film comes out, I have seen fit to modify one of them: my sterling rendition of Chibi Rorschach. Kekeke! _ I am a card I am. Anyway, get psyched, sort of.
COMICS INDUSTRY RULE NUMBER 4080
So for those of you who don’t follow the latest in Shitty Comics News – and who could blame you – last month Village Voice Media, who runs the dominant chain of free alt-weeklies in the US, announced a three-month “suspension” of all comics in their papers. Alt-weekly comics are not so much an industry as they are a niche, but those guys are like half the people on my sidebar so I feel obligated to pipe up about it.
The general sentiment from the world’s most boring internet cartoonists seems to be “sucks, dude” but I am not quite so sanguine about it, because, for whatever structural reason – sharp gatekeepers, talent, lack of editorial restraints, reasonable schedule, greater space to work with, I have theories – alt-weekly comics are the most consistently good place to find good comics in this country. And by this, I am setting the very very low bar that in alt-weekly comics – as opposed to daily newspaper comics, New Yorker cartoons, superhero comic books, indie comics, and good god wide-audience webcomics – only in alt-weekly comics do you not read a large chunk of the offerings and go, what is this fool even doing here? WHY DOES THIS CARTOON EXIST?
I’m not even claiming that they’re always hilarious or touching, just that all the alt-weekly comics authors have, at least, that minimum amount of game that, yeah, this person has business drawing cartoons. It would be a shame if we lost that. And it is, likely, true that alt-weekly newspapers may fail entirely – but even so, it would be nice to buy these cartoonists some time to change up if they can.
I mean, I wanted to draw an alt-weekly comic someday.
A brief history on Tom Tomorrow’s website. If you’re in a position to, contact your local alt-weekly about it.
INTERIM COMEDY STIMULUS PACKAGES
I swear only a Congressman can make double entendres about the phrase “stimulus package” without immediately imploding from the shame of it.
Jason Bourne is kind of a dick.
Join a cult! They have comfortable robes.
There are funny stories – and weird ones – in this 100-word short story blog I have found.
I think I had some other sites to note – I’ll put ‘em here if I think of them.