The Stumptown Comics Fest is this weekend and I’ll be on the panel “Comics and Politics” with Bill Ayers, Sarah Mirk, and Breena Wiederhoeft to discuss how we “craft comics that make politics funny and relevant, day after day, and what lines [we] won’t cross in pursuit of a punchline.”
Come see us on Saturday at the Oregon Convention Center, 5:00pm in room B114.
As if the government didn’t have enough power to send missiles down on people, including US citizens, in pretty much any country they desire (ones without the political or military clout to object), the CIA has requested an expansion of those powers to include everyone they don’t know. You know, just in case.
Securing permission to use these “signature strikes” would allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior, such as imagery showing militants gathering at known al-Qaeda compounds or unloading explosives.
If we learned anything lately, it’s that using lethal force on people exhibiting “suspicious behavior” always ends well.
Wednesday: Romney’s Outreach To Women Voters
In hopes of making up for the lack of a new comic today, I bring you a pinup I just finished for the next Bob The Angry Flower collection. For those unfamiliar, Bob is a hilarious, long-running, underappreciated gem of a comic strip by Stephen Notley and I was honored to be asked to draw his characters.
A little setup here: The collection is titled “How To Operate A Chair”, there were no rules, and so I thought “Liefeld meets Notley. It must be.”
I’m in the middle of a work hole involving editing, drawing, traveling, promotion, and helping with the upcoming Stumptown Comics Fest (I’m on the board) and placing in the Pulitzers Monday was the (welcome!) addition that took things past my ability to stay caught up. There’s no second toon this week.
But I’m taking these wins and focusing even more on my work over the next year with the goal of doing three cartoons a week more often than not and finding a regular outlet to be their primary home.
Sarah Jaffe reviews Gonzo: A Graphic Biography Of Hunter S. Thompson at Cartoon Movement:
And it’s an incomplete story, like all biographies, but the tale it tells is, I think, an important one. It’s the story of the man whose work matters to me and to so many other journalists who left the myth of objectivity in the dust, who can’t help but let the anger and passion we feel show in our work. There’s a number of us, who have taken from Thompson not his style or his habits but the feeling that rang in every line of his (best) prose. It’s telling that the worst imitators always want to rewrite Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but the real legacy of Thompson the journalist is in stories of politics and intrigue, freedom and fairness, not in drug binges and outlandish metaphors. [Read the rest.]
People of New York! This Saturday, April 21, Union Docs is hosting “Reportage in Balloons: The Emerging Field of Comic Journalism” with myself, Josh Neufeld, Seth Tobocman, Brooke Gladstone, and Bill Kartalopoulos.
We’ll discuss out work, have a panel discussion, and a Q&A. Things kick off at 7:30pm and there’s a $9 suggested donation. The address is 322 Union Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. More info here.
Man, I can’t believe what’s going on. I was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize this year. Congrats to the winner, Matt Wuerker, and Jack Ohman, my fellow finalist and close friend.
George Zimmerman was finally arrested and charged with murder for killing Trayvon Martin. This following a week where Zimmerman set up a website to solicit money and was publicly dumped by his lawyers. Seeing as to how this guy can never enter the general population of a prison without being murdered, things aren’t looking up for him.
Remarkably, there are still those who insist “we don’t have all the facts” to make any sort of call here and this is a media-driven witch hunt – captured beautifully in this Mike Lester cartoon. (Dig that execution metaphor!)
As I said before, it really looks as if people are going great lengths not to identify with a black victim. Whenever an issue involving race comes up, there’s a certain contingent who will always rail about the involvement of Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson (not that I’m the biggest fan) as if it is the most outrageous aspect of what has transpired. I mean, an obscure rapper put an image of Zimmerman on a shirt along with the word “cracker” so that’s obviously where their outrage is directed. That would come in at approximately minute 7 of the skipped conversation in the comic.
Today at Cartoon Movement we publish the third installment of Army Of God by David Axe and Tim Hamilton. This chapter focuses on Farruccio Gobbi, a Catholic priest working in Congo and his experience during the massacre in Duru in 2008.
Read the previous chapters at our Army Of God project page.
Matt,I find your brand of ‘humor’ to be the lowest form of ilk. You comment on matters in whch you have no depth or breadth of knowledge. I hope that in time you will see how asinine your comics really are. Here’s to your future wisdom! PayPal donations?? That says a lot about your product. All I ask is that you genuinely think about some of the criticisms you receive before just blowing them off as the rantings of some right wing nut.Have nice day,Frank Kozina
Matt Bors is an editorial cartoonist with United Feature Syndicate and editor at cartoonmovement.com. He is based in Portland, OR.
