Funny with an asterisk
Open letter to alternative-weekly cartoonists
After nearly two years of debilitating cuts, the community of alternative-weekly cartoonists suffered another setback when Village Voice Media (VVM) suspended publication of all comic strips.
This is a devastating blow to cartoonists such as Max Cannon, Tom Tomorrow, Jen Sorensen, Derf, Lloyd Dangle and others. They see this as the beginning of the end of their industry, or so they say on their various blogs and message boards.
Derf (creator of “The City”) wrote, “We have reached the apocalyptic final struggle for the future of cartoons.”
Tom Tomorrow (“This Modern World,” which can be found in CityBeat) has been commenting on what he perceives as a general lack of appreciation for alt-weekly cartoonists: “The only way cartoonists could get even less respect would be if we presented our work in the form of handmade knit doilies thrust upon random strangers on the street.”
And then there’s Max Cannon (“Red Meat”), who wrote the central essay of the debate. It’s an open letter called “The Alternative Comic Apocalypse Has Begun,” which starts with Cannon complaining that he has “slaved for many years” to bring us his comic strips.
Now, I love alt-comics as much as the next guy, but, really, Tom Tomorrow, you don’t get no respect? Let me see if I can’t find a waah-kerchief for you to bawl into. And Max, dude, did you actually say that you “slaved” over your work? Are you for real? You’re not picking cotton under a blazing Mississippi sun, man. You’re not digging ditches in pools of raw sewage. You draw cartoons. If cartoon-drawing is anything like column-writing, you sit at your desk with your wine and your weed—Big Sonic Chill dripping its pollen from your speakers—and an expensive computer doing all your heavy lifting.
Slaved?
Max Cannon averages $15 for each cartoon sold. Multiply that by the 70 plus newspapers in which Red Meat appears, and you get more than $1,000 per strip.
Wow.
I won’t reveal how much my column earns, except to say that it can’t even buy me a small bindy of coke and an hour with a bottom-dollar street hooker. I have to choose one or the other, so don’t tell me about hard times, Mr. Maximillian McWhinyFace!
Not that I’m complaining. I am grateful for this column and its modest earnings. Because there are a bizillion artists out there, writing, drawing and sculpting in obscurity, never to be paid a dime for their labor of love, or receive fanfare—going out of their effin’ minds every day craving something that resembles an audience or a paycheck.
“The stark reality,” continued Cannon in his “Apocalypse” post, “is that very soon, there won’t be any of your current favorite alternative comic strips for you to read at all—not even online. Here’s why: none of us make our living from our website.... Our websites are like a free gift to you....”
Well, thank you so much, Max-o. Thank you for this gift that allows us, your humble subjects, to frolic in the electronic treasure trove of your genius.
Pffft.
You keep a website because it makes good business sense. You keep it to maintain a presence on the web. You keep it because, like most artist-writer-sculptor types—you need to be seen. You are the classic example of a narcissist, and the more you hawk the idea that your website is for our benefit, the more it proves what a wildly unchecked egotist you are.
Get this. Some cartoonists have even taken to asking for donations, such as Lloyd Dangle (“Troubletown”), who wrote that his website will now have to be viewer-supported. “That’s why I’ve added the Donate button,” he explained.
Well, how ’bout that? A mother-jumpin’ donate button!
Dude, Lloyd, don’t you see the folly of your ways? You are asking strangers—who are probably broker than you—to support your little hobby so that you won’t have to go out and get a real job like ditch-digging or cotton-picking. If I were a ditch-digger or a cotton-picker, and I saw your donate button—oh yeah, I’d donate something all right.
In defense of alt-weekly comic-strip writers, most of them understand why the newspapers need to make cuts. They just don’t think it should be them who gets cut.
“… [C]omics always appear in the top five of what readers turn to first….” argued Max Cannon in “Apocalypse.”
“Weeklies should be adding… cartoons, which are both popular and inexpensive,” complained Derf on his blog.
And Jen Sorenson (“Slowpoke”) wrote that if comics disappear, “they’ll just stop picking up the paper.”
These cartoonists are all carriers of a disease that I call Adult Onset Self-Importantitus, which causes the sufferer to have delusions about their value to their employer and to society.
Heed these words, Max, Jen, Tom and everybody else who stumbles upon this paragraph: You are all expendable. No matter how smart, how capable, how integral you think you are, you are not. And the sooner you understand that, the sooner you’ll lose your Go-ahead-and-try-to-make-it-without-me attitude—the sooner you will stop looking like the tantrum-throwing child-mayor of Bitterville.
Perhaps you don’t care what I think. But I tell you what, I will never view those cartoons in quite the same way ever again. The next time I read “This Modern World” or “Red Meat” or whatever, no matter how funny it is, it will only be funny with an asterisk.
Write to ed@sdcitybeat.com. For more, visit www.edwindecker.com and pull the, um, “donate” lever.
Comments
I know someone gets paid to evict people from their houses, but I didn't know you could make a living mocking people whose livelihood is threatened. But unless you've got a desk and a computer, I guess you're a sucker.
Losing your income isn't a tantrum. Cartooning for these folks isn't a hobby. Installing a donation button on your website isn't about egotism. You'd know this if you'd turn off the iPod your dad bought and look around. That's going to be the hardest part about the downturn - prying people's heads out of their backsides when they seem to enjoy the view so much.
Look around, Edwin - glib pseudo-hip a**kissers aren't immune. I've read the cartoons listed above and would gladly pay for them. The only difference between you and them is you won't be missed.
"Dude." "Pffft." "McWhineyFace." Christ... you must've been the top wit at your high school paper. If I want to read this level of retread idiocy, I'd watch SNL where the performers KNOW they sound like imbeciles (you knew that's the joke, right? That people don't really talk or write like this?).
It made me sick to my stomach to read this. I've read and respected Tom Tomorrow's work for years. It's not some g*dd*mn kiddie comic book side project. Unlike your bilge, it's WORTH it!
How dare you?
I can't believe your editors find your work of any worth, and This Modern World gets the boot.
Unbelievable. "Dude."
Count me among the many who only pick up the dead tree version of these alternative weeklies for the cartoons. I certainly would waste my time picking them up to read crap like this joker writes.
Edwin, your little attempt at being "too cool for school" is pretty much the perfect Exhibit A for why newspapers (alternative or not) are failing left and right. That the people in charge actually think anyone is the least bit interested in reading your adolescent brain farts is depressing beyond words. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised if you have a book deal coming soon. After all, we live in a world where trash like Ana Marie Cox gets a primo gig as a political writer for the once respected Time Magazine.
What a sad joke journalism has become. Here's hoping that the last laugh will be ours and at the expense of smug fools like this Decker person.
"Dude, Maximillian McWhinyFace"? If the cartoonists wrote like that, they'd be grateful for a pittance too.
Whoever you are, you're overpaid.
Your thoughtful words have inspired me. As a cartoonist and fellow traveler in the alt-weekly slog, I offer my own:
http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/2009/02/1...
Wow, Spy Planet, I guess you just skimmed my column, because it is ever so clear that you didn't read it. Had you read it you would've noticed that I am very aware of the downturn and the fact that it is ALL AROUND US, which is exactly the reason why I was annoyed by Cannon's whiner piece, because HE is the one who seems to not realize we area all suffering this downturn since he focused more on HIS losses, than the losses of others.
And duh, yes, of course I realize my column could be next. I'm just not going to complain about it - not like that. Because I feel lucky to have ONE paper publish my (let's call it "attempt") at art. And I would NEVER used the word "slaved" to describe an artistic endeavor that I got paid for. Not when people are out there busting their asses digging ditches for minimum wage.
As for your sign out, where you wrote, "I can't believe your editors find your work of any worth, and This Modern World gets the boot. Unbelievable. "Dude."
Wrong again. (Have you tried a reading comprehension course?) This Modern World did not get the boot. TMW is published in 70+ papers, AFTER the so called cartoon apocalypse. I am in just one. That is not a complaint. Just don't tell me that poor old old Tom Tomorrow is suffering in a unfair world that targets him while the talentless, terrible Ed Decker continues to thrive.
Ed Decker wrote:
"And I would NEVER used the word "slaved" to describe an artistic endeavor that I got paid for. Not when people are out there busting their asses digging ditches for minimum wage."
--
Your overwhelming sympathy with the working class is touching, but art is work also, as is writing (though I dare say you are still one road to Damascus short of that revelation).
Are you supposing that most alt weekly cartoonists have a swimming pool full of diamonds to live off of when the work suddenly dries up? I assure you, we do not. Ditch digging may suck, but at least it often comes with health care benefits.
I read just fine, Edwin. I just read more than you do, because I turn the pages.
It's true San Diego City Beat hasn't axed Tom's stuff - to their credit. But he and other cartoonists are losing papers, and somehow I don't find that funny. Insightful journalism is getting hammered, while a one-note like you tells us they're just self-important.
Alt cartoonists, musicians, writers, artists, etc. don't have unions or human resources departments. If you expect to hear an indy paper is going under from mainstream media anytime soon, you're smoking too much pollen. Or something.
Maybe you should read your own article. You listed five cartoonists by name, "and others." If it was just one guy, that's a shame - but it isn't JUST one guy, is it? Even if it was you complaining about losing your job - believe it or not, I'd sympathize. But if you AND your buddies were getting axed, it's downright cold to call you a crybaby. Cannon isn't talking only about "HIS losses"! As you so wittily put it: "duh."
What do you do for an encore? Tell people they're just whining, if they've got $250,000 for a house in the first place?
But we can both agree when you say you don't "slave" over your work. Based on your foot being firmly planted on the pulse of America, I don't think you give very much a great deal of attention.
Another thought: since your reading skills are so much better than mine, please point out your sensitivity to current economic conditions as expressed in your article.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I count only three references, passing at best:
1) "After nearly two years of debilitating cuts..."
2) "You are asking strangers—who are probably broker than you—to support your little hobby.."
3) "...most (alt-weekly cartoonists) understand why the newspapers need to make cuts..."
Unless you include your OWN complaining, over whether to buy a coke or a prostitute. Good luck with your dilemma.
Oh my, Spy, you continue to highlight your 3rd grade reading skills. Ok, do me a favor, scroll up, read the sentence about buying coke and a prostitute. Then read the sentence immediately after, you know, the one that says, "Not that I’m COMPLAINING. I am grateful for this column and its modest earnings."
I have nothing but sympathy for these guys, and anyone suffering in this economy. But for Max Cannon to write a piece, for any average, broke-ass Joe to read, about how tough things are in his business, and how his job is like slave labor, is like the CEO of Home Depot INC complaining to the guy who runs the coffee cart outside their main office that they had to close a couple of stores.
But... you ARE complaining.
Let's try your logic: I'm not saying your comparison of alt-cartoonists to the CEO of Home Depot isn't a BIT of an exaggeration. But it's a BIT of an exaggeration. It doesn't cease to exist just because you deny it in the same paragraph!
Just like saying they've got nothing to worry about doesn't make it so, nor does your claim "I care when people's livelihood is threatened" when you write this junk.
When I imagine a group of people who'll never have to worry about money, it's cartoonists, especially alt-weekly-cartoonists. Why are you the only one who thinks these folks are rolling in dough, and that will never change? What color is the sky on your world?
Are you going to bother addressing my points, or anyone elses'?
Congratulations are in order. Why? Because a heated debate has been inspired that, while uncomfortable and personal, is also giving many of us an opportunity to consider where we stand in our hour of fear. I make my living from my art and the business I've created around it, so I have had to face my fear nose to nose these past few months; work has never been so bad.
I do, however, find that in an article like this one, there's a poking-fun at all of us who are so lodged in our fear right now that we forget; the majority of us in this country are still among the most affluent in the world.
There ARE people, all around us, working hours and hours for a Non-living wage who are much, much worse off.
Does this negate our angst that our worthy art isn't being given the support and space it deserves? Of course not.
It does, however, for me, hold out the option that I remember in the midst of a popular panic that I am not slaving. This is true. And it's good. And it DOES offer valuable perspective. Because besides the grace that comes from not seeing myself as a victim, it's a much more empowered place to be in as an artist.
Holy crap Spy, what are you talking about? I've come in here three times now to address points. Really, are you even reading these things, or just looking for keywords.
You want a point by point response to your last post, here it is -
1) If i'm complaining, it's about a small group of people who are insensitive the greater tribulations of others. I am NOT complaining about my own stake in this world, and what I have or don't have. I am overjoyed by the, let's call them "gifts" that have been given to me in this world, least of all - a space in a weekly music magazine to voice my opinion.
2) I never said they have nothing to worry about. They, like everyone else, have a great deal to worry about. You really have to stop putting words and ideas into my mouth and keyboard. Again, my argument was, simply, that it is unbecoming to complain about what one does not have when one has so much more than so many other people. It is only a very lucky, select few people who actually get to make a living making their art. And at 1000 bucks per strip (in the so called "apocalyptic times!) I'd say that's a damn good living. There are thousands of other freelancers out there of all sorts who make considerably less, but are not using their public forum to bitch about it. I just wish Cannon and the others would taken the same, more noble path.
3) I do not think alt weekly cartoonists are "rolling in the dough." I am just saying, BY COMPARISON, that their lot in life is just infinitely better than so many other people's lots in life. Look around and see how many people get to make a living from drawing comic strips, or playing music, or writing poems - it's rare rare rare.
Now, have i addressed your points comprehensively enough for you?
MARIE - YOU ARE A WISE AND LOVELY SOUL
Perhaps a larger point of view might see in all the "complaining," that it's yet another art form on the way out or at least under recognized. As long as art is viewed as some form of entertainment and not food for the soul whether its cartoons or writing, it will always be expendable. Artists, writers et al need to establish their own intrinsic value that is recognized by other economic factors as valuable and worthy.
Marie (et al.), I really don't think the tact Ed takes is one of "poking fun". More like schadenfreude.
I wrote my own response to Ed's remarks on my website, which he was generous to take on point by point. You can see both, as well as my concluding rebuttal, here:
http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/2009/02/1...