Fighting Words Blog

Fighting Words: 7/18/10 Cartoon...

2010-07-19T16:08:00.000-07:00

"Norm Dicks' Earmarks"

Been a while since I posted on this blog, so here's a good opportunity. My latest cartoon did not make it into the Kitsap Sun this time, although it was nobody's fault... circumstances of the story changed a bit after I had finished the 'toon.

Rep. Norm Dicks has a long history of being quite generous in handing out earmarks to local companies, even some to campaign donors such as Port Townsend company Intellichek Mobilisa. Dicks has been under even more scrutiny lately, having emerged from an ethics investigation connected to earmarks, which lead to new self-imposed rules stating that he would "not approve requests for earmarks that are directed to for-profit entities." Of course, Dicks has also garnered attention as the newly-appointed chairman of the powerful Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, taking over for the late John Murtha.

A couple of weeks ago, the HuffPo Investigative Fund released a report suggesting that Dicks was already finding ways around this new rule, by funneling the earmarks to companies via non-profit groups. In this case, although the earmark was directed to the University of Washington, it appeared as though Intellichek Mobilisa was still receiving money, since they often worked closely with UW on such projects. After HuffPo broke the story, both Dicks and Intellicheck Mobilisa rather forcefully denied the report. And then, after the 'toon was done, it appeared that HuffPo was wavering and might not even stand by their own reporting.

I still think Dicks handled the earmark poorly from a P.R. standpoint if nothing else, even if he didn't technically do anything wrong. I haven't seen anyone deny the fact that the language in previous Intellichek Mobilisa earmarks is nearly identical to the UW earmark, which to me just looks bad. With all the increased scrutiny he's been under, I would've hoped he'd have handled it a bit more tactfully...

Fighting Words: 5/3/10 Cartoon...

2010-05-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

"Drill, Baby, Drill"

Fighting Words: 4/19/10 Cartoon...

2010-04-21T14:09:00.001-07:00

"Tea Party Raffle"

Fighting Words: 4/12/10 Cartoon...

2010-04-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

"Behind the Rock Star: Rob McKenna (LOCAL 'TOON)"

Cartoon #5 for the Kitsap Sun...

Fighting Words: 4/8/10 Cartoon...

2010-04-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

"Tax Store (LOCAL 'TOON)"

Cartoon #4 for the Kitsap Sun...

Fighting Words: 4/5/10 Cartoon...

2010-04-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

"Debates on the Environment (LOCAL 'TOON)"

Cartoon #3 for the Kitsap Sun...

Fighting Words: 4/1/10 Cartoon...

2010-04-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

"Eye On the Media"

This is a special cartoon that I did for Seattle paper Eat the State!, done in the tradition of the Onion or the Yes Men (see their classic spoof of an issue of the New York Times). ETS! has been a wonderful supporter of my cartoons for years, and it looked last week like this was going to have to be their last print issue. A bit of good news, though: they secured some last-minute funding, and will be around for at least three more issues, hopefully more.

And, I committed a bit of a cartoonist faux pas in this cartoon. When I was writing and drawing it, I had a cartoon image in my head of Glenn Beck as a blubbering mess, with tears streaming down his cheeks. Turns out there was a reason I had this image in my head... Matt did it a couple weeks ago. I guess this is kinda like unintentionally ripping off a "Ziggy," but not quite as embarrassing because I'm stealing from a much more talented cartoonist...

Illo Dump

2010-03-21T17:01:00.000-07:00

Some recent caricatures of various local figures:

Congressman Norm Dicks, who just got John Murtha's chairmanship of the Defense Appropriations Committee

Congressman Jay Inslee

Governor Christine Gregoire

Olympic bobsledder (and Bremerton native) Bree Schaaf

Server email problems today...

2010-03-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

... if you're trying to get a hold of me. Please try calling, or direct message me on FB or Twitter...

thanks!

Fighting Words: 2/22/10 Cartoon...

2010-02-23T14:05:00.000-08:00

"Republican Response Plan for Health Care Reform"

Fighting Words: 2/8/10 Cartoon...

2010-02-10T22:47:00.000-08:00

"Democracy: The Board Game"

Late 'toon for this week.

I also did Bush once before as Rich Uncle Pennybags...

Fighting Words: 1/25/10 Cartoon...

2010-01-25T23:46:00.000-08:00

"Great Moments in American Jurisprudence"

Funny Times

2010-01-21T16:09:00.000-08:00

Check out the current (Feb) issue of Funny Times... you'll see a Fighting Words cartoon there!

Fighting Words: 1/11/10 Cartoon...

2010-01-12T00:47:00.000-08:00

"Barack 'n Bernanke's Repair Shop"

Fighting Words: 12/28/09 Cartoon...

2009-12-28T21:38:00.000-08:00

"Barack 'n Bernanke's Repair Shop"

New Design Page!

2009-12-24T16:27:00.000-08:00

Check it out...

Fighting Words: 12/21/09 Cartoon...

2009-12-21T23:43:00.000-08:00

"Public Emergency!"

Fighting Words: 12/7/09 Cartoon...

2009-12-07T17:52:00.001-08:00

"Breaking News: Secret Plot to Destroy Journalism"

Fighting Words: 11/23/09 Cartoon...

2009-11-23T21:51:00.000-08:00

"Christmas-Time is Here!"

Fighting Words: 11/9/09 Cartoon...

2009-11-09T20:28:00.000-08:00

"The Republican Guide to Parenting"

State of the Toon Address

2009-11-03T12:11:00.000-08:00

Many apologies for the spottiness of Fighting Words 'toons this year. If you haven't guessed, there's no new 'toon this week, and, for the forseeable future, Fighting Words may have to become a bi-weekly feature while I stabilize my income. That means spending the majority of my time on design jobs that bring in the green stuff.

A few things you can do:

Shoot an email to your favorite local publication and ask them to run Fighting Words...

Hire me to do a web design, business logo, or other design or illustration for you!

Follow me on the Twitter or friend me on the Facebook, and know the minute a new 'toon goes up.

Keep tuning in to check for new developments... including a complete redesign of my website (coming soon)!

Thanks for stickin' with me! I'm not gonna quit the cartoon... I've got too much to say, and I've put too much damn work into it up to this point. But production of the 'toon is gonna be a little inconsistent while I get my business pointed in the right direction...

Fighting Words: 10/26/09 Cartoon...

2009-10-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

"Mysteries of the Bible Revealed!"

Actually supposed to be last week's 'toon, but delayed in production due to work schedule...

Fighting Words: 10/12/09 Cartoon...

2009-10-13T00:46:00.000-07:00

"Gameday"

Kinda similar to one I did a couple weeks ago, but I wasn't really happy with that one...

Fighting Words: 10/5/09 Cartoon...

2009-10-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

"Happyland Tales"

somethin' extra...

2009-09-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

I had to shrink this way down in the 'toon, so I wanted to post it full size. I haven't tried to draw Calvin in over 20 years...

That said, how pissed would I be if a piece of my work was ripped off (as Watterson's has been) to serve as a commonly-recognized symbol of douchebaggery?

Fighting Words: 9/28/09 Cartoon...

2009-09-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

"Rosetta Rock"

Many apologies

2009-09-22T15:11:00.001-07:00

Probably no new 'toon this week. Had mucho web design work to do first...

We'll see... I'll try to whip out 2 by this weekend...

Fighting Words: 9/14/09 Cartoon...

2009-09-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

"Great Speeches in History"

Still no color again...

But dammit, NOBODY puts baby into a corner!!

2 new websites done...

2009-09-15T15:30:00.001-07:00

...for Kurt Smith Photography and The Grub Hut.

Check 'em out! And hire me to do one for you...

Fighting Words: 9/7/09 Cartoon...

2009-09-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

"Pro-Life Town Hall"

Hmmm... just realized I didn't post an update to my blog last week. Just lost track with all the updates on Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, LinkedIn, Digg, Mixx, uggg, suxxx, noggg... etc. etc. Does anybody still read regular blogs anymore?

Anyway, just black & white again this week... hopefully back to color next time.

Fighting Words: 8/24/09 Cartoon...

2009-08-25T01:22:00.000-07:00

"LOCKUP: RAW!"

After 5.5 years, I'm finally trying out a new format... one that's a bit more traditional for editorial cartoons. Let me know what you think!

Fighting Words: 8/17/09 Cartoon...

2009-08-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

"Democrate-do"

Fighting Words: 8/10/09 Cartoon...

2009-08-12T23:52:00.000-07:00

"The NEW Standards of Professionalism"

Only black & white for now... I'll try to come back and do some color soon.

Fighting Words: 8/3/09 Cartoon...

2009-08-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

"PSA: Terrible Illness"

Program Note

2009-07-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

No new 'toon this week... had design jobs out the yin-yang this week.

Or something like that...

Fighting Words: 7/20/09 Cartoon...

2009-07-21T00:42:00.000-07:00

"Party Conversations with Prominent Conservatives"

Fighting Words: 7/13/09 Cartoon...

2009-07-15T23:22:00.000-07:00

"Breaking News: New Details On Bush Admin Surveillance Programs"

Previous similar 'toon:

Changing servers today...

2009-07-14T14:08:00.000-07:00

... so I might have an interruption in the site or in receiving emails.

Fighting Words: 7/6/09 Cartoon...

2009-07-09T02:28:00.000-07:00

"A Self-Explanatory Sarah Palin Cartoon, #2"

OK, this one was a bit of a phone-in, but oh well...

Previous episode:

On the news!

2009-07-03T02:31:00.000-07:00

Quite an AAEC convention so far. Had a great panel discussion Thursday, and here's a video of me on the KING 5 local news in a segment set up by the terrific David Horsey.

Shoulda trimmed the beard, though... I look like friggin' Grizzly Adams...

Fighting Words: 6/29/09 Cartoon...

2009-06-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

"Fox News for Cats"

Hey... a new cartoon! How about that!

This one's a little silly, but oh well...

Program Note

2009-06-24T12:32:00.001-07:00

There obviously is no new cartoon yet, but it's there... if you believe it's there! No, actually it's almost done, but I am swamped with graphic design projects at the moment. Of course, by the time I actually get the 'toon done and up, it may be next Monday already anyway... just a fact of life in the dying industry of political cartooning! The gigs that put food on the table gotta come first...

As always, the best way to help circumvent this problem and keep seeing new stuff from me is to: (1) Send an email to nomind@fightingwordscomics.com and hire me to do a graphic/web design job for you, or... (2) Contact your local newspaper or alternative newsweekly and tell them you want to see Fighting Words!

Fighting Words: 6/15/09 Cartoon...

2009-06-16T23:46:00.001-07:00

"Big Pharmaxx"

Fighting Words: 6/8/09 Cartoon...

2009-06-08T20:35:00.000-07:00

"New Toilet Paper Brands for Today's Economy"

Fighting Words: 6/1/09 Cartoon...

2009-06-03T01:38:00.000-07:00

"History Machine: Stories of Reverse Racism"

Fighting Words: 5/25/09 Cartoon...

2009-05-26T14:37:00.000-07:00

"Barack Obama's One-Man Show"

Great paragraph...

2009-05-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

One of the best single paragraphs I've ever read in a column, from Chris Hedges a couple of months ago:

We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.

Fighting Words: 5/18/09 Cartoon...

2009-05-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

"History Machine: The NRA's Top Moments in History"...

New design work...

2009-05-13T00:34:00.000-07:00

I've put up a few more of my recent projects on my design page, including a website, caricature and shirt design... go on and have yourself a gander!

As always, if you like me or my work (or you like me but can't stand my work, or you like my work but think I'm a jerk, or... never mind), there are two big ways you can help my ever-evolving career...

1. Send a nice note to your local newspaper or alternative newsweekly and tell them you want to see Fighting Words, or...

2. Hire me to do a design for you! I do websites, logos, shirt designs, illustrations, a little bit of Flash animation... I'll walk your dog for you, wash your car, mow your lawn... I don't do hedges, though...

Fighting Words: 5/11/09 Cartoon...

2009-05-12T19:42:00.000-07:00

"Breaking News: Actual Mastermind Revealed!"...

If there's actually a 44 year-old Earl Meyers living in Lancaster, PA... sorry dude.

However, if you're really the mastermind behind Bush's crimes and/or you like to wear a Rockstar Energy Drink trucker hat, I'm not sorry.

Fighting Words: 5/4/09 Cartoon...

2009-05-06T04:43:00.000-07:00

"Outbreak!"...

Rule #1 of political satire: if you have no idea, just repeat a bunch of crap said by high-profile crazy people.

Good line

2009-05-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

Stephanie Zacharek, on movies about killer plagues:

In your standard plague movie, news stations can't stay on the air and ultimately fade out with a staticky crackle; newspapers can't publish (though, it turns out, we probably don't need a plague for either of those things to happen).

Update on this week's 'toon...

2009-04-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks a lot Specter... I put you in a crappy cartoon that characterizes you as a dogmatic Republican, and you totally blow it out of the water by switching parties. I'm sure next Boehner will resign his seat in Congress to become head of Amnesty International...

Actually, in the end, Specter putting a "D" next to his name doesn't change much (for the Democrats, anyway). He's still going to vote how he wants to vote on stuff, and he'll probably still use right-wing rhetoric on stuff like torture. And this week's 'toon will still be crappy...

Fighting Words: 4/27/09 Cartoon...

2009-04-28T02:07:00.000-07:00

"Fascinating Scientific Phenomena"...

Meh... sorry...

Fighting Words: 4/20/09 Cartoon...

2009-04-21T03:49:00.000-07:00

"Crusty McCrotchety, Spokesman"...

MORE:

I forgot to post some links to previous Crusty 'toons, as it's been a while since we've heard from him:

Stupidity (STDY) shot up 500 points on the Dow today...

2009-04-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna leave the ball-dipping parties thing alone today...

But what's the deal with the morbid glee that so many cartoonists are taking today in the deaths of the Somali pirates? Last I checked, the rampant piracy there was the result of a collapsed government and years of European ships invading Somali waters to steal their fish and dump nuclear waste. You guys really want a "Yahtzee" on skulls with bullet holes on this one?

And, someone please tell me I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing in this cartoon...

Fighting Words: 4/13/09 Cartoon(s)...

2009-04-14T16:15:00.000-07:00

"Hysterical Whack-Job Monthly"...

...and, just below it, a bonus 'toon...

"Newspaper Tycoon"...

Say That Again?

2009-04-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

I just had to post this quote...

As you may know, one of the right-wing media's favorite things to scream about these days is the conspiracy theory that Obama intends to eliminate the United States of America and place us all under the rule of a "one-world government." So any attempt at international diplomacy is now being pointed to as an indication that Obama wants to subvert us all to the French, or whoever. This is from a recent appearance by John Bolton on the Glenn Beck show:

BOLTON: ...you have to look underneath of it. And it's on a range of issues, not just the money supply, but gun control, the death penalty --

BECK: Global warming.

BOLTON: -- abortion, all -- global warming -- all of which are issues we can and should debate in our -- in our constitutional democratic framework. We don't need to decide them internationally. But that's what the agenda is of many people very close to the Obama administration.

BECK: OK. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Ambassador.

Let's say that again... global warming is not something that should be discussed internationally. This man used to be United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

The Obama years are turning out to be fun for satirists after all...

hi...

2009-04-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm putting more effort into Twitter now... follow me here. Although I still don't quite see the point...

Look for a bonus cartoon from me along with the new one Monday, to make up for my unexcused absence last week...

MORE: actually, it was VERY excused... I was workin' my friggin' ass off. Look for more updates to my design page coming soon!

Program Note

2009-04-06T01:50:00.001-07:00

There will be a new cartoon this week... but not 'til Thursday or Friday.

I'm currently hard at work finishing up a website design job...

Fighting Words: 3/30/09 Cartoon...

2009-03-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

"Making A Budget For Tough Economic Times"...

It's a cartoon about being in an accountant's office... you were expecting something visually spectacular?

Fighting Words: 3/23/09 Cartoon...

2009-03-25T00:06:00.000-07:00

"Inside the Movies: Commonly-Used Plot Devices!"..

Fighting Words News: Graphic / Web Design Page...

2009-03-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

I finally have a separate page up on my website for my graphic & web design work... go look! It includes a website I did recently for a local cafe:

I've got two more website jobs currently in the works, and a couple more lined up after that. While my skills may not be quite as polished as a big-time professional web designer working for a firm, I'm getting better. Also, I think there's something to be said for having an artist's touch on a web design project. If you're interested in hiring me, shoot me an email at nomind (at) fightingwordscomics (dot) com.

Time waster

2009-03-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

Flash Face.

Would you serve this man another Guinness?

Newspaper Blues

2009-03-17T14:47:00.000-07:00

Sad day. The Seattle P-I was a fixture of my childhood, as my dad was a photographer there for nearly 20 years. When I was a kid, a few times I was allowed to sit and watch David Horsey and Steve Greenberg work at their desks, which were adjacent to the photographers' area. I went to Ingraham High School, just as Horsey did, and drew cartoons for the school newspaper. My dad's salary at the P-I would eventually put me through college at the University of Washington.

More than sad though, I am pissed off. There's something that's been bothering me for a long time, which was brought up again by this article in the NYT the other day and its accompanying graphic. I've written longer analyses on the plight of newspapers before, but if you'll permit me, I'd like to indulge in a little angry, superficial, Republican-style ranting about my surface impressions on a complex issue, the finer details of which I have little understanding. I am not an economist. I won't pretend that I have an alternative business model that will definitely work for newspapers, and that they are fools for ignoring this obvious course of action.

However, my read of the landscape tells me that this entire predicament for newspapers basically boils down to the existence of one website... CraigsList. The biggest killer for newspapers throughout this crisis seems to have been the drying up of their classified advertising dollars because of CraigsList. And thus, here's my rant: how in the hell can one little piddling website bring an entire vital industry like this to its knees?! How could newspapers not have a plan for this in their business models? The NYT article has the beginnings of an additional explanation -- that the huge newspaper chains took on too much debt "in a spree of buying other newspapers from 2005 to 2007, just before the bottom dropped out of the business" -- but that still doesn't explain to me the across-the-board tanking that you see in the Times' graphic. Not all failing newspapers are owned by greedy conglomerates.

How could newspapers have allowed this to happen to them?

This is not rhetorical... someone smarter than me please help me out with this...

Fighting Words: 3/16/09 Cartoon...

2009-03-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

"Yuppanzees #2"...

Sorry about the "Classic" Fighting Words this week, folks... as I've been complaining about frequently, I'm having to spend quite a bit of time on website design projects to pay the bills. As a result, the cartooning hours suffer, since the cartoons don't pay for jack right now. So, you might expect a few more "Classics" from me this year than in years past...

OR

...as always, you can drop a line to your local alternative newsweekly and respectfully suggest that, instead of cutting out all their best content in these tough times, they should spend a little money on even more hard-hitting alternative political comic strips such as, oh I don't know, this one I like called Fighting Words!

Anybody who wanted to do that would be totally freaking awesome in my book...

Fighting Words: 3/9/09 Cartoon...

2009-03-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

"The Wall Street Media's Faces of the New Great Depression"...

I'm doing a website job right now for a photographer, so I've got photojournalism on the brain...

Great cartoon business idea

2009-03-03T17:44:00.000-08:00

Doing image research for this week's 'toon, I came across this. This guy takes monsters and other characters in kids' drawings, and develops them into full paintings.

Fighting Words: 3/2/09 Cartoon...

2009-03-02T23:43:00.001-08:00

"Bobby's World"...

Fighting Words: 2/23/09 Cartoon...

2009-02-25T03:27:00.001-08:00

"Big Money-Making Opportunity!!"...

Fighting Words: 2/16/09 Cartoon...

2009-02-17T03:06:00.000-08:00

"Stuff I'd Rather Do Than Watch That Movie, #6"...

Fighting Words: 2/9/09 Cartoon...

2009-02-10T00:55:00.000-08:00

"Drunk News Network: The Economy"...

Are you kidding me?

2009-02-05T18:28:00.000-08:00

Michael Phelps suspended for 3 months by USA swimming.

This kid has been training his whole life to become an Olympic athlete, and won eight freaking gold medals. For chrissakes, LET THE KID HAVE A VACATION!!!

How many people do you know who do nothing BUT smoke weed?

Good 'toon

2009-02-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

(click here to view)

V.C. Rogers
Independent Weekly
Feb 4, 2009

EditorialCartoonists.com

Does my blog still work?

2009-02-04T15:22:00.000-08:00

Just checking...

9 days 'til pitchers and catchers report.

(Might be my favorite day of the year... not because the Mariners are gonna be any good, but because it means we're almost done with another God-awful Seattle winter!)

Fighting Words: 2/2/09 Cartoon...

2009-02-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

"The Republican Recovery Plan!"...

My first post-election shot at Obama...

Fighting Words: 1/26/09 Cartoon...

2009-01-27T22:44:00.000-08:00

"Shady Harbor Retirement Community"...

I'll just date this cartoon for yesterday... don't tell anyone...

Fighting Words: 1/19/09 Cartoon... and the "end" of Bush?

2009-01-19T17:01:00.000-08:00

"Trav'lin' with Post-Presidency George W. Bush"...

Classic Fighting Words this week, as I have been utterly swamped with freelance design work. How, you ask, could I possibly not have a Bush retrospective cartoon on this, the week we're finally rid of him? See last week's 'toon on life in our new Great Depression... gotta pay the bills...

But, in all honesty, one big reason is that I do not plan to stop doing cartoons about him any time soon. I tried for weeks to come up with some kind of "goodbye" comic or special animation. The reality, though, is that most of our biggest problems right now were either directly caused by decisions that he made (Iraq, the degradation of civil liberties and the rule of law) or were problems that were made worse by his decisions (the economy, the environment). So many of the issues that we will be dealing with for the foreseeable future were basically his fault, I don't see any reason why he should automatically disappear from political cartoons just because he's not in office anymore. I would hope that I won't be like some conservative cartoonists who are still talking about Vince Foster and Whitewater 8 years after Clinton has left office, but neither should Bush/Cheney be allowed to ride off into the sunset.

But mostly it's the paying the bills thing... which Fighting Words doesn't really do. Want to keep seeing regular cartoons, from me or any of your other favorite political cartoonists? Write to your local newspaper and tell them!! There are a ton of portal sites like this one with links to all local papers, or you can look up your local Alt-newsweekly site here. If you only read comics like this online because you can't find good comics in the newspaper, write to them anyway and tell them that... maybe they'll finally get the idea that getting rid of all their best visual content may have something to do with them losing so much money.

Fighting Words: 1/12/09 Cartoon...

2009-01-12T21:39:00.001-08:00

"As the Depression Turns"...

I'm a horrible, horrible blogger right now... hopefully I'll get in with something this week...

Fighting Words: 1/5/09 Cartoon...

2009-01-05T20:45:00.000-08:00

"Billy, the Boy Who Knew Too Much #5"...

It's hard to put into words just how disgusted I am by these stories...

Fighting Words: 12/29/08 Cartoon...

2008-12-29T18:30:00.000-08:00

"The American Dick-tionary"...

Animation FYI

2008-12-27T18:23:00.000-08:00

So you may have noticed that the little animated additions to my weekly cartoons have disappeared. They've been a casualty of an increase in my side freelance work... (Money is good. I like money.)

Not sure how much excitement there was for those little animations anyway, since they were sort of crude. However, some of the other stuff I'm working on involves that damn Flash computer program, so my skills with this should be getting more gooder...

In other words, when I get back to doing regular animations, maybe I'll be able do something worth looking at!

Yes... I still hate the Yankees...

2008-12-23T17:22:00.000-08:00

I was a little worried after last season, when the Yankees failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 1993, that I would have to stop hating them... that they might become, like, the underdogs now or something.

Nuh-uh. Nope.

With today's signing of Mark Teixeira, their off-season spending spree is now up to $423.5 million. ESPN news just ran a graphic showing some other things that could be bought with that kind of money, including something like 25% of the entire General Motors Company. But an even more galling figure is $1.3 billion -- the price tag for their brand new stadium opening up in April:

The new stadium on the north side of 161st Street is 63 percent larger than the old, with four merchandise stores instead of one, and 13 restaurants, lounges and food courts for the public, including a martini bar and a steak house that figure to become a destination for Wall Street's elite. There are 51 available luxury suites priced from $600,000 to $850,000 each, up from 19 at the old ballpark.

I say every other team in baseball should slash their ticket prices in half for games against the Yankees next year, so everybody who's struggling through our new Great Depression can go "explain" to them exactly how we feel about this.

Fighting Words: 12/22/08 Cartoon...

2008-12-23T00:37:00.000-08:00

"Wild Planet, #6"...

Yeah, I'm pretty sick of the snow now.

A typical Seattle winter day of about 40 and rain actually sounds pretty nice right now...

Dog In Snow

2008-12-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

Can't really get out to get much work done right now, here in the Great Northwest Snowstorm of '08!!, so I took the opportunity to play with my dog in the snow a bit...

Fighting Words: 12/15/08 Cartoon...

2008-12-15T20:16:00.000-08:00

"A Christmas Carol"...

Fighting Words / Art News

2008-12-12T14:12:00.001-08:00

Been a while since I did one of these posts, so let's catch up shall we?

I did a workshop this morning at an elementary school in Kingston, WA, where I talked to some teachers about how to show kids how to do comics. You know what they say: those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach... um... try to show other people how to teach.

I have a decent little presentation put together, so if any other schools in the Puget Sound area want to bring me in to give a talk, send me an email at nomind (at) fightingwordscomics.com. And if you want to pay me to do it... well, I know how all you teachers here in Washington state are rolling in dough these days!

Someone also sent me a great link recently for a group called "The Comic Book Project," which seeks "to help children forge an alternative pathway to literacy by writing, designing, and publishing original comic books." Check it out...

I've updated the "Commercial Art" post to include a finished logo and sign design that I did for a local restaurant that's opening up soon, and I also put up a link to some Flash slideshows that I'm doing for clients of my dad, a wedding photographer. The slideshows are probably the classiest thing I've done as a designer (they include great music by a local musician)... if you're a freelance photographer looking to add a new product or promotional tool, send me an email at nomind (at) fightingwordscomics.com.

I've also started taking website design and construction jobs (links coming soon), and I'm even doing a tattoo design for a friend of mine. Someday, I'll do a page on my site with all of the non-Fighting Words projects that I've been working on...

Fighting Words: 12/8/08 Cartoon...

2008-12-08T23:53:00.000-08:00

"The Reign of Big Beta"...

I had to do a little cultural research on this one... the Betamax/VHS format war was a bit before my time. For most of my life, "VCR" just meant "VHS."

Of course, if you got the point I was really driving at here, you know the cartoon itself has very little to do with videotapes...

Mark Fiore already did a great 'toon a few weeks ago on the lack of innovation in the auto industry, but I thought I'd go ahead and follow through with this take on the issue that I had been planning.

UPDATE: Hey, how about that... Ford actually did come out with a car they called the "Futura"...

Note to self

2008-12-03T00:11:00.000-08:00

I was up very late the other night examining a masterpiece... an unparalleled example of human creativity at it's highest levels.

Here is a note that I scribbled to myself, verbatim:

Take relatively simple idea and present it with the utmost imagination, holding the audience's attention at every moment. The genius here is in the minutia, the subtle ideas of movement, timing, atmosphere, sound, music, and the perfect mix of obvious and unexpected, usually with a deeper literary or allegorical meaning that is only slightly alluded to.

Was I watching an experimental dance of some kind? A ballet? A beautiful foreign film?

Hell no:

Chuck Jones = super-genius.

Fighting Words: 12/1/08 Cartoon...

2008-12-01T21:42:00.000-08:00

"Change Has Come"...

Meh... take a week off and it's like I haven't done one for a year...

By the way, it's sort of a sequel to this one:

Flash poster

2008-11-26T00:48:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting use of Flash in a "poster" for the upcoming Terminator: Salvation. I like short, relatively simple but interesting uses of Flash like this (that aren't confined to pop-up ads)...

I really hope this movie doesn't suck, by the way...

Sorry about your job... here's a blog!

2008-11-25T22:41:00.000-08:00

I am a believer in the idea that the internet will be the future of newspapers, but something about this doesn't sound quite right:

The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program offers recently terminated bloggers and journalists a free pro account (worth $150 annually) on the company’s popular blogging platform. In addition to the free yearly membership, the 20 to 30 journalists who are accepted will receive professional tech support, placement on the company’s blog aggregation site, Blogs.com, and automatic enrollment in the company’s advertising revenue-sharing program.

I'm sure TypePad is just trying to do something nice for recently laid-off journalists, and someday this might be a really cool offer. But at this point in time, it would just seem to add fuel to the Huffington Post way of thinking about the internet... like, "hey, exposure is just as good as money!"

I suppose the conclusion to draw is that it's just a shame newspapers have allowed their industry to get to this point, and haven't made more progress in making their product work on the internet (maybe, by extension, helping to make the internet a more reputable and profitable medium in general). Of course, it's harder to do this when you've laid off all your talent.

Fighting Words: 11/24/08 Cartoon...

2008-11-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

"The Skeptics"...

Classic Fighting Words this week -- doing a little recharging this weekend...

Fighting Words: 11/17/08 Cartoon...

2008-11-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

"Chez Newspaper"...

Three more editorial cartoonists lost their staff jobs at daily papers last week. Among the many reactions to the layoffs, Jimmy Margulies did a pretty ingenious mock news article which reported that Harper's Weekly had eliminated the position of Thomas Nast.

I did a bit of analysis on the challenges facing the newspaper industry (and by extension my chosen profession) in this post last year. However, I think this article by Philip Meyer is a must-read. Here's a few highlights:

The endgame for newspapers is in sight. How their owners and managers choose to apply their dwindling resources will make all the difference in the nature of the ultimate product, its service to democracy and, of course, its survival.

...

It is now clear that [the internet] is as disruptive to today's newspapers as Gutenberg's invention of movable type was to the town criers, the journalists of the 15th century.

...

Robert Picard, a media economist who looks at newspapers from an international perspective, believes that [newspapers] try to do too much. He expressed this view in June at the Carnegie-Knight Task Force conference on the Future of Journalism at Harvard University. Newspapers "keep offering an all-you-can-eat buffet of content, and keep diminishing the quality of that content because their budgets are continually thinner," he said. "This is an absurd choice because the audience least interested in news has already abandoned the newspaper."

If they should peel back to some core function, newspapers would still have to worry about the Internet and its unbeatable capacity for narrowcasting. The newspapers that survive will probably do so with some kind of hybrid content: analysis, interpretation and investigative reporting in a print product that appears less than daily, combined with constant updating and reader interaction on the Web.

...

[I]t is possible to envision a scenario in which newspapers trim down to a specialized product and survive by serving a narrow market well. They are already trimming down. But what are they trimming down to? Have they thought about what's left after all the shrinkage?
One of the rules of thumb for coping with substitute technology is to narrow your focus to the area that is the least vulnerable to substitution

...

I still believe that a newspaper's most important product, the product least vulnerable to substitution, is community influence. It gains this influence by being the trusted source for locally produced news, analysis and investigative reporting about public affairs. This influence makes it more attractive to advertisers.

It's pretty clear to me what major industry in this country is most in need of a "bailout"... the question is: would they know how to use it right?

Fyi - no animation quite yet on this 'toon again, but if you missed it, I did do a little something for last week's. I'm kinda liking this schedule of getting the static 'toon done and posted on Mondays, and then coming back to the animation later in the week (when I can take my time and put some thought into it).

Viaduct Revisited...

2008-11-14T14:09:00.000-08:00

The Seattle P-I has some really cool graphics illustrating the differences between the various plans for the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which I blogged about in this post last year. State officials have said that they will make a final decision by the end of the year.

Now, if you live in Seattle, you probably know all about this already. If you don't live in Seattle, take a look at the pictures (especially the "Waterfront view") and tell me which option you would choose for your own city. The differences in the images are glaring. This area has the potential to be one of the coolest (and most valuable) parts of the city. It makes absolutely no sense to spend so much money on another giant concrete slug running through there... especially if it's just to save a couple minutes on a trip to the airport for people who just have to drive their cars everywhere. The alternative option of an elevated freeway dressed up with grass and other development just looks odd to me, and extremely expensive. The tunnel options all seem extremely dangerous given the crumbling seawall.

Take that money, invest more in Metro buses and streetcars and light rail, make the streets surrounding that area easier to travel on, and let the citizens enjoy that area finally. Boom, I just solved Seattle's biggest problem.

Good God that's cute...

2008-11-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

I hate "cute" stuff. It's all "nice" and... um... "cute." I like stuff that kicks ass, like death metal and raw sewage!!

Of course, when it comes to dogs (especially my dog), I am probably the biggest softie on the planet. And damned if this isn't about the cutest thing I've ever seen...

Fighting Words: 11/10/08 Cartoon...

2008-11-10T23:45:00.000-08:00

"Letter From 2012 in Obama's America"...

This was one of those cartoons where doing the artwork was like going back to drawing in class in middle school... like, "kick ass, I'm gonna draw a TERMINATOR now!"

If you haven't seen the letter that was the inspiration for the 'toon, do yourself a favor and check it out... pure hilarity! Just a harmless piece of fearmongering propaganda that was apparently being circulated by James Dobson's Focus on the Family before the election. It's an invented letter from the perspective of an imaginary person from 2012, telling the story of the horrific world we'll live in after 4 years under the thumb of the tyrant Barack Obama. It is a world where U.S. cities are getting attacked by terrorists left and right, Israel has been nuked by Iran and forced to cede most of its territory (apparently, Israel didn't feel like retaliating that day), and the Boy Scouts of America no longer exists because the new liberal Supreme Court was trying to force young boys to sleep in the same tents as homosexual scoutmasters. The "tipping point" for all this horror, and the reason the Court was now stacked with liberal oppressors, was Justice Scalia's surprise resignation in 2009 due to "health reasons." Uh-huh. I'll bet just about anything I own that Scalia will keep a death grip on his seat until the moment he breathes his last breath.

By the way, no animation on this one quite yet, as the coloring took for-ever...

My Palin Admission

2008-11-07T18:01:00.000-08:00

Now that that's over...

I have an admission to make regarding the popular perceptions about Sarah Palin. I don't expect to do any more cartoons about her, so I'll blog about it now. Here's my admission:

I DO think that it's possible that there was an element of sexism in how people evaluated her, in one respect only...

Yes, she is an incredible moron, who is in no way qualified to hold higher office. Yes, she's an extremist nut-ball who has no business making decisions for the rest of us on important stuff. And yes, she deserved to get hammered for these things in the media.

But these things were also true of Bush. This should have been abundantly clear before the 2004 election, and yet people gave him the benefit of the doubt and put him in office for a second term.

Sexism? Who knows...

All I know is I won't be giving up the chip on my shoulder over the '04 election any time soon...

From the Neglected News Dept.

2008-11-07T01:23:00.000-08:00

... in the "how in the hell am I just now reading this?" division...

On Tuesday, Mexico's Secretary of the Interior (their #2 official, the equivalent of Vice President) was killed when his Learjet crashed into "a posh Mexico City neighborhood" amidst rush hour traffic. Nine people on the plane and five people on the ground were killed. According to the Yahoo story, speculation is widespread that "the drug cartels were to blame."

Am I missing something here? Aside from being a rather important news story, it's at least interesting, wouldn't you say? Yeah we've had other stuff going on this week, but...

Thankfully, almost every news site on the web has among their lead stories that one of Hugh Hefner's ex-girfriends is getting married.

Obamas considering rescue dog

2008-11-05T19:45:00.001-08:00

Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with why anyone would support Obama (the politician) on anything...

But it would be yet another really, really cool side-story in this whole great saga.