Last month I mentioned that Jake Parker had launched a Kickstarter project to raise money to create a hard cover collection of some of his short stories. The estimated amount he’d need was $6,000. With one day left he’s raised over $77,000. If you haven’t checked out his work, I encourage you to do so. Throughout the process Jake has been adding a lot of extras to the project when the pledges hit certain milestones – which I think is pretty clever to keep donations flowing. Watching Jake’s project for the last month has taught me two things: set your pledge goal high enough to cover any of your actual costs if the project is funded but low enough that it is more likely to be funded.

It probably doesn’t hurt to have hordes of fans.

They blended the skills of a caricaturist and the mind-set of a columnist. They were entertainers and ink-stained jokesters. They were newsroom denizens and deadline artists who churned out five or six cartoons a week that received prominent display. If they possessed power, it was that they drew players, owners and managers in ways that reporters could not with their words.

Sports cartoons were usually more amusing and informative than critical, which reflected the times when the sports section was the fun-and-games department.

“When I was a kid, I remember always seeing cartoons in Reader’s Digest Canada,” Cope said. “The magazine is freelance-based. You’re up against a lot of competition, so when you get in there on your first try, it’s pretty cool and that inspires you to keep going.”

Cope has gone on to see his creative characters published in a variety of print and online media.

In addition to devising gag cartoons for Reader’s Digest Canada magazine, he also illustrates the educational comic, WebVoyagers, for the Canadian Reader, published by LesPlan Educational Services Ltd. The comic features three siblings who travel to different locations in Canada by pressing the ‘Enter’ key on their magic computer. During their adventures, they find out more about a region or place and then return home with a press to the ‘Home’ key.

Brian Fies (Mom’s Cancer and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow) is helping organize the third international conference on Comics & Medicine that will be held July 22-24 Toronto, Canada. Keynote presentations this year will be by comics creators Joyce Brabner (Our Cancer Year) and Joyce Farmer (Special Exits), as well as a talk by comics scholar and friend-of-the-conference Paul Gravett.

From Brian:

This event builds on two very successful conferences held in London in 2010 and Chicago in 2011, all organized by the same group. The idea of “graphic medicine” is that cartooning and healthcare have some interesting intersections and overlap that can benefit both: patients, caregivers and medical professionals telling their stories and using comics to communicate experiences and information in ways no other medium can. Think of work like Stitches, Epileptic, Psychiatric Tales, Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person, my book Mom’s Cancer, and many more.

Organizers have put out a Call for Papers and are looking for presenters on any of the following topics.

• Graphic pathographies of illness and disability
• The use of comics in medical education
• The use of comics in patient care
• Depictions of the illness experience from the perspective of loved ones and family caregivers
• The interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
• Ethical implications of using comics to educate the public
• Ethical implications of patient representation in comics by healthcare providers
• Trends in international use of comics in healthcare settings
• The role of comics in provider/patient communication
• Comics as virtual support groups for patients and caregivers
• The use of comics in bioethics discussions and education

If you feel you have something to contribute, please it their blog for more information.

http://dailycartoonist.com/?p=11651 Cartoonist and illustrator John Lara has passed away at an early age of 57. His cartoons appeared in many Southern California papers and nationally.

Away from the drawing board, he served as master of ceremonies for the Brooks Street Surfing Classic and was a guest speaker for “Let’s Hook Up,” which referred to fishing in those days. Fishing was another of John’s preferred activities, and he taught fishing classes as a volunteer.

He was the leader of the famed “Walk-Around,” the bar-to-bar perambulation that celebrated the end of the tourist season in Laguna until it became too popular with out-of-towners and the tradition withered.

As part of her residency, Barry will offer four free public lectures about cartooning and writing featuring renowned guests Ivan Brunetti, Ryan Knighton, and Dan Chaon, with special guest Chris Ware. A full schedule is included below.

Watch for public lectures starting on February 15.