CSotD: Money matters
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Before I launch into today's topic, a thanks to David Fitzsimmons for his depiction of the stupidest thing I've come across lately.
I recently cut back my cable and got Roku to save a little money on the stations I actually wanted, and it's changed my viewing habits such that I've been catching news on CNN where everything is BREAKING NEWS, at least on Wolf Blitzer's late afternoon program in which talking heads discuss the latest BREAKING NEWS which may in fact have broken 12 or more hours ago.
About half an hour of Wolf's schtick is enough, because he just keeps shuttling in new groups of talking heads to say the same things about the BREAKING NEWS that the last group of talking heads said.
And I'm so old that I remember when The Daily Show — I think this might even have been in the Craig Kilbourne days — promoted itself with the tagline, "When news breaks, we fix it."
Which is to say, it was a dumb cliche 20 years ago, even when actually applied to news that was breaking.
Wolf, saying your news is "breaking" is like O'Reilly claiming to be in the "no spin zone."
Starving artists
You have to scroll down to get to Hannah Green's commentary on why "Livestock" will be her last graphic novel, but it's worth it (hat tip to Tom Spurgeon) because she complains about money issues well aware of the fact that she's being whiney, which redeems the piece.
Oh boo hoo, Hannah. You’ve got your dream job and you’re grumbling about it! Hold on while I get out my teeny tiny violin!
First of all, that’s very rude of you. Jeez. Secondly, this is a bigger problem than just some pencil-necked chump from Brighton having a difficult time. By comicking terms, I am super privileged: I’m published by Cape, I got an Arts Council grant, after 12 years I’m at a point in my career where I can get paid gigs for speaking, cartooning, illustrating, editing and whatnot, and I have a partner who is both willing and able to support me. I have all of this behind me, and I. Still. Struggled.
A very large part of me has no sympathy at all. "Struggling artist" is such a time-honored term that it's something of a badge of honor, and there are a lot of writers who would rather be marginal and respected than churn out pot-boilers, though, yeah, some money would be nice.
And saying that it takes three years of obsessive work to produce a graphic novel seems a little blindered, in that non-graphic novels often take that long or longer, unless they are genre books which are more "extruded" than written (as are some graphic novels, for that matter).
I was looking for a quote in which Joyce is reported to have said, of Finnegan's Wake, "It took me ___ years to write and I'll be damned if anyone will understand it in less." I didn't find it, but I did find this highly amusing and revelatory piece on him from the New Yorker, which says 15 years for the Wake and eight for Ulysses and a whole lot of years of life on the edge of disaster.
Still, her piece is a good reminder that this stuff doesn't just happen, and she's quite open about the money side of it, which provides extra insight.
I'm of the opinion that anyone who can be discouraged from a life in the arts probably should be, given not just the finances but the costs that don't fit on a spreadsheet.
On the other hand, I'm also of the opinion that you should make sure you don't end up sitting on that rocker on the porch thinking about the things you should have done with your life.
Your call.
At the other end of the artistic finance scale …
Berkeley Breathed reproduced this threatening cease-and-desist from one of Trump's lawyers on his Facebook page yesterday.
It seems bizarre and funny, particularly if you apply it to the political satire in Bloom County.
(UPDATE: It's also total bullshit, but I'm letting the following analysis stand because that isn't.)
However, a closer look reveals that the lawyer is not objecting to satire in the strip — which he acknowledges would be futile — but to an advertisement for T-shirts in which Trump and Putin appear to be wearing Bloom County products (and apparently an earlier, similar piece featuring FLOTUS).
This puts it in a category known as "Right of Publicity," which boils down to the idea that even celebrities have a right to control commercial use of their likenesses, as distinct from use of their likenesses in a satirical piece.
Granted, you'd have to be astonishingly stupid to believe that Trump and Putin are actually endorsing Bloom County T-shirts.
However, there is a slippery-slope argument which is, if you don't object to silly commercial uses, it weakens your ability to object to more credible examples.
There is also the argument that we in general, and certainly this attorney's client in particular, have as yet found no limit to the stupidity of the public.
Mad Magazine artist Tom Richmond has a long but fascinating and well-informed posting on Right of Publicity, as you might expect from a caricaturist.
There are many fine lines to be drawn, but the bottom line is this: It takes a pile of money to fight off even a frivolous lawsuit, and it's rare that a suit like this would be found so frivolous that you would be awarded your costs.
Accordingly, Breathed ran up this cheeky white flag, which was typed, no less. (UPDATE: And presumably also bullshit, since there's no need to respond to a C&D that was never sent.)
Another YUGE legal victory for the most thin-skinned baby in the playpen, but a victory nonetheless.
Be careful out there. (And stop spreading bullshit. Reality is bad enough.)
And another thing
Friend-of-the-Blog Brian Fies' graphic novel, The Last Mechanical Monster, is now running at GoComics, in full-color which the original was not. It's worth following.
Also, he did this, which is truly badass because he truly is.
Now here's your moment of financial zen:
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