Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: One is free, one is not, both are worth it

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Mike Peterson Published: October 24, 2012 1 minute 0 comments

Political cartooning is not only not dead, but, even as some good veteran artists hang up their pens and retire, there are some good young practitioners emerging.

I've said before that one of the unspoken factors in the shift from print to not-print is that, just as when movies began to supplant live theater (which did not entirely disappear) and when talkies supplanted silent films (which did and yes I know they made one last year), it isn't simply a matter of all the players from the previous medium updating their skills and moving on over.

Some, including some who had been excellent in the old medium, simply don't have the right chops for the new way of doing things. And some newcomers will emerge who would not necessarily have done well under the old model but are well-suited for the now-current one.

F'rinstance, here are a couple of artists who seem to be handling this transitional period pretty well, and here's how you can get some of their work for your very own:

Jen Sorensen is working under a grant from the National Women's Law Center to produce a series of voter-education posters. Here's the other one she has posted so far:

You can get larger PDF versions or print-quality copies here, where they also have other resources you might find of interest.

I hope Jen does some more posters, because the clock is running on this election cycle, but, meanwhile, these are pretty cool and you can't argue with the price.

And I hope she gets more similar work from similar groups. Seems like a win-win-and-win for artist, organization and public.

And print certainly isn't dead, but funding print has had to find some new directions, the most widely publicized of which is Kickstarter, where creative types appeal for money to complete projects, the important part being that, at least with Kickstarter (others vary in policy), no money changes hands until the project is fully funded.

That is, you pledge now, but if it falls short, your credit card is never charged.

As with actors going from silent films to talkies, not everyone can simply decide to do this and have it work out. The artist has to have established a sufficient following in the on-line community that a goodly number of people will not only pledge but will also help spread the word.

Like I'm doing, and as I did for the Kenosha Festival of Cartooning, which was funded largely on Kickstarter. And which then happened gloriously. 

So now comes Matt Bors, who has often been featured here, pitching the idea of his first cartoon collection not to a book publisher but to his potential readers.

A tease, and a reminder of some of his past CSOTDs:

He has promised that his trip to Afghanistan will be included:

And, of course, his most noted cartoon of the recent past, in which he skewered both Pearly Gates cartoons and the deification of Steve Jobs:

You'll note he's already halfway to his goal, but that doesn't mean anything except that a lot of enthusiastic fans jumped on as soon as the project was announced.

It's a bit like weight loss, in that the first bit goes fast and then you hit the plateau and the real work begins. You should jump in, if nothing else, at a level that will get you a copy of the book, which you would have bought if some publisher had fronted the money, right? Right!

If you can do more, feel free. He's offering some cool incentives.

Here's his video pitch:

That project again, is here.

Thanks for your support. Now, let's get back to "People Reading Diary Entries in Hushed Voices To Lugubrious Fiddle Music While Ken Burns Shows You Some Old Photos He Found" …