I'm a sucker for "Top 100" lists. Seriously. I know they're basically a crock of shit, but I can't help it. Give me an easily-digested, numbered guide to a medium, and I'm all over it. Books.Movies. And most, recently, I've been making my way through Pitchfork's Top 100 Records of the (decade here) lists. They've just posted up their Top 100 of the Seventies list, and I'm working my way through it. I've already sifted through most of the Eighties and Nineties. Yeh, they're the snootiest pack of snobs that ever stuck a nose in the air. But still.
Call it a self-improvement project.
I know it's stupid, but I figure any record, book, etc., that makes its way onto a "Top 100 List " must be at least worth looking at, right? Right?
Why didn't we elect this guy when we had the chance?
It's been interesting to watch the GOP spin machine paint Gore as "rage-filled" and "crazy." I guess the old tactic of "too intellectual" and "dry and boring" just started to seem downright favorable in hindsight.
So I just finished the new McSweeney's "comic issue." It was definitely above par. In fact, at one point while reading it, I had to stop and lament to Eleanor that there weren't more anthologies this good. Before it came out, a large contingent of comics fans were harping on the percentage of reprint and excerpt material in the book. Luckily, when it comes to recent comics, I'm pretty poorly-read (due to lack of funds) - thus, most of the book was new to me!
One thing that did strike a sour note was the preponderance of the "self-loathing" theme... though I suppose I should have expected it with a Chris Ware-edited anthology. And I know it's become a cliche to rant against "sad, sensitive artist" comics! But people just keep pumping them out (not like I'm not guilty of the same offense.)
Ware's book-slip comic was particularly culpable... and you'd think he'd have mined out this particular vein in his work already. On the flip side, his piece from the actual anthology was some of his strongest work to date. Most of the text pieces in the book, like those by Ware, "This American Life's" Ira Glass, Michael Chabon, Glen David Gold, and Chip Kidd, also revolved around the "sad bastard" theme. Several recounted childhood experiences with comics of the life-scarring, painfully geeky sort. Ira Glass's piece even closed with something like "sad, barely-read losers need art (i.e., comics) too." Whew!
The stronger pieces: Kim Dietch's piece on a death row inmate sparked my interest, though he usually leaves me lukewarm. David Heatley's piece was weirdly compelling. Ben Katchor and his pseudo-historical anecdotes are always welcome. The Charles Burns, Joe Sacco, and Chester Brown excerpts cemented my decision to pick up their latest books as soon as financially possible.
On the maybe side: Jeffrey Brown's work is always charming, but he's in a serious rut. We don't need three books about his girl troubles! R. Crumb is a demigod, but even he's fallen prey to the "Sad Bastard" theme in this piece.
So I decided to carry through on my earlier threat, and devote this front page entirely to blog posts and the like. It was just too much of a pain to navigate through the posts with that big Little Trees image at the top of every page. So now Little Trees is off in its own section, and I'll let you know whenever a new page goes up. Plus, now I can redesign this webpage whenever the urge strikes me.
Robert Newsome wrote me and let me know about two comics that I contributed to and forgot to put on my list, "The Journal of Modok Studies" and "Robert Newsome, Internet Phenomenon." Maybe I was trying to forget!
Why not just post it up on the main page? I know a lot of people probably don't read down to the newsposts anyway. Actually, I'm thinking about putting Little Trees on its own page, and devoting the main page just to the newsposts and links.
It's still going to be a while on that new Little Trees page, so here's a comic that I don't think I've put online before. I did it for the Fluke anthology back in January. Fluke is a minicomics and zine festival held every year in Athens, GA. It's pretty awesome. I just wish they'd get a website for it up.
I'm getting email bounces from a couple people who've signed up for the update list, so if you are Stumblebum, Sidney Lingle, Mr. Cracker, or Hope Larson, you might want to check your email settings. Also, if you signed up for the update list, and haven't gotten any updates, check your spam filters - they might not be getting through.
A new "Pup" strip today at Serializer, for your edification and amusement.
The new Little Trees page probably won't be up until next week. The mad crunch on that SPX anthology submission took up most of my drawing time this week! Another thing I'm working on is getting that complete Journal Comic collection together. It's taking so long because I'm putting a bunch of extra stuff into it. This also involves finishing up a bunch of strips from back in the day, that I got half-way through before abandoning them (due to lack of time.) I'll post up the cover in a bit.
Ryan "Peq" asked me nicely to link to his site, so there you go, Ryan. Don't say I never gave you anything.
So I bought some "King Vitaman" cereal the other day, and the box had some half-hearted riddles on the side, as such cereals are wont to have. "What runs around King Vitaman's castle? Mice! Which of King Vitaman's knights weighs 300 pounds? Sir Lunchalot!" But then there's this one: "What's the king's favorite cereal? King Vitaman!" Well, jeez. You weren't even trying with that one. If someone's reading those riddles, they've already bought the cereal. You're not going to convince them to buy more with a lame "riddle." Asides from that, the cereal was inoffensive.
Eleanor gets back from Arizona in less than two days!
Well, I got my submission for the SPX Anthology done - a day early, even. Four pages in three days... Thus I've successfully proved to myself that I could indeed draw a monthly comic, if for some reason I wanted to. That was some pretty intense drawing, though... I was holding a Rapidograph in such a death grip that the little dent on the side of the tip of my middle finger was aching... You know, that part where you rest the pen when you're writing or something?
Anyway, we'll see if the anthology accepts or rejects this bad boy. If they don't want it, I'll post it up here. Even if they do, I'll probably end up posting it eventually, but probably long after the book comes out.
In other news, you should check out this website - it has dozens of music videos of the persuasion MTV used to dub "Breakthrough." Makes me feel like a sucker for buying those Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham collections...
Last night I got the wild notion that I should submit a story to this year's SPXPO anthology. The only drawback - the deadline is on the 15th! So that gives me four days to get a four page story done. Not impossible...
If I don't get it done on time, I'll finish it up anyway and post it here. Ditto if they reject it.
But hopefully, you'll see it in the book!
In other news, I'm also contributing to one of the upcoming Flight anthologies. I wasn't going to announce it yet, seeing as how I've barely even started on my piece, but Kazu already let the cat out of the bag, so what the hell.
Also, you should check out my friend Matt Bogart's site.
Protest Pt. 2, or how Drew got detained and searched!
So after the protest I was wandering on down to City Market, to stop by Antar's ice cream shop and get a cone. As I'm passing the civic center, I noticed that the entire parking lot was filled with police cars. "Hmm," I thought. "This will make a great picture." I went over to the gate (blocked off by a low rail) and snapped a picture. Instantly a female riot cop strode up and barked "What are you doing?"
"Just taking a picture," I responded.
"No pictures. Get out of here." She pointed.
"Jeez. I thought this was a public sidewalk," I remarked, and sauntered along my way. I was cutting across the street beside SCAD's Oglethorpe House (about a hundred yards away) when I heard some shouting behind me. "You! Stop!" Four or five armed riot cops were briskly marching toward me. I stared at them. "What, me?" I said, honestly surprised.
"You. Don't make me run after you. I'm not doing that. Come over here" said the leader, a middle-aged, mustachioed fellow. I sort of hesitantly made my way over. "Me?" I asked again, just to confirm.
"What were you taking pictures for?" the man asked. The other cops made a sort of circle around me.
"Uh... I don't know... I've just been taking pictures of all of the hoopla," I said.
"We're going to have to ask you to come over here for a bit," the cop said. They led me over to the grassy area in front of the civic center. "Please raise your arms," they told me.
"Uh... alright. What's the problem here?" I asked.
"I think you know what the problem is," the cop said. "Why did you take those pictures? You took them even after you were asked to stop. Then you wouldn't stop when you were told to."
"Uh... I only took one picture. When the lady told me to stop, I did, and then I left."
"Can I take a look through your bag? Keep your arms up! Do you have any weapons in your pockets?" I let him look through my bag (a sketchbook, a cellphone, a pencil case, and a bottle of aspirin.)
"May I please take a look at that camera?" I handed it over, and showed the man how to go through the pictures, mostly out of a fear that they'd accidentally erase them. Actually, I was afraid that they might "accidentally" erase them anyway. The cop seemed especially interested in the photos I'd taken of mounted police, squad cars, and the like.
"I've been taking pictures all over," I told him. "I was down at the march in the park earlier taking pictures of the protestors."
"Yeah, I know you did. I'll bet you've got lots of friends on the internet that are interested in these pictures. I'll bet they'll be real useful in your plans," playing some kind of "bad cop" routine, I guess.
"I'm not sure what you mean, sir. I just wanted to take some pictures," I said.
"Sure. Lots of 'independant news sources' on the internet will pay some money for pictures like that," his voice dripping with innuendo.
"I'm not a member of the media. I just wanted to take some pictures of all the excitement."
"If you wanted pictures, you could get them off of the internet. Lots of pictures at Savannahnews.com."
"Uh... it's not quite the same."
"Can I see some ID?"
So they took my ID information down. Then they told me they were waiting on "an identification team" to come by and check me out. So we stood there in the shade of the Civic Center for twenty minutes. Occasionally one of the cops would ask me a question - seemingly harmless things, but obviously with the intention of trying to slip me up in my "story." Where I lived. Why I was in Savannah. (I live here, unlike you.) What I did for a living. They even looked through my sketchbook.
The lead, mustachioed cop occasionally made little "voice of authority" comments, interlaced with interogation: "You know, besides 9-11, most other terrorist acts are carried out by domestic agents... Do you ever read any terrorism-related sites on the internet?" "We've been waiting for what, twenty minutes? What's twenty minutes out of your life? What's your schedule for today? No schedule, I thought so. So you're not missing anything." "You think we're overreacting? You know, it was local police that caught Eric Rudolph, the bomber? We're going to be checking anybody we can check this week." Finally, some city-official-looking fellows showed up and asked me a couple more questions. The lead cop showed them a couple pictures on my camera. "He's been taking pictures. We've got a couple of level twos and threes here." The conferred for a while longer. Finally I was told I was free to go. As I walked away, one of the officials called me back.
"Yes?" I said.
"Why were you taking those pictures?"
"Jeez, I just wanted some pictures of all of this hoopla. I've got some friends out of town right now, and I just wanted something to show them when they get back."
"Alright. It is legal to take pictures. All right? You ARE allowed to take pictures. So if you're taking pictures and the police stop you, just tell them why you're taking them. "
"Thanks." I finally walked away, half an hour later. If I was allowed to take pictures, why was I stopped, searched, and interrogated for 30 minutes? I was on a public sidewalk! When they asked me to stop, I did.
I guess legally, I could've refused to answer most of their questions, and refused to allow the search. But it's kind of hard to demand your rights when half a dozen armed cops are encircling you and giving you the treatment.
So I'm back from the first official day of the G8 summit protests.
The official plan: A protest march, starting in Forsyth Park at 10am, followed by speeches and music in the park afterwards.
The expectations: 30,000 to 100,000 protestors from around the country. Possible violence.
The preparations: Boarded up windows. Downtown businesses closed. 10,000 to 25,000 cops mobilized from around the country. Metal barriers erected around public building. Georgia in an official "State of Emergency."
The outcome: 100-200 protestors, mostly local punk kids and the "hippie" crowd. Something like 300-500 reporters and camera crewmen. A straggling sort of march is held, a couple people speak, and everyone goes home.
And I manage to get detained by the police and searched for half an hour! More on that after my little "photo essay."
The media converge on Forsyth park, looking for protestors.
Are you a protestor? Can we talk to you?
Setting up the stage.
Where's all the protestors?
There's one! Everybody get in line to interview the protestor!
There's another two! So, that makes three protestors... and a couple hundred reporters.
Even the Army's filming this event!
Wait, here come some more! These guys have BANNERS. They're serious.
More banners! Let the rioting commence!
There they go...
The protestors and camera crews converge in the middle of Forsyth.
This girl's banging on an "Anarchy Drum."
These guys are serious. They even got dressed up. The guy in the middle is wearing a dress. A peace dress.
Getting some good shots here...
"Pro-Life Anderson" arrives on the scene!
These ladies have a message.
Protestor dudes.
It's just not an event until the "Stop the Lie" guy shows up.
"Anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 protestors are expected."
The guy in the back has a Che Guevara quote he needs to share with you.
Pro-Life Anderson holds forth with a young lady who's not having it.
This man surely has something interesting to say.
Some more protestor dudes. What can I say?
This guy's phone conversation went roughly: "Yeah... no, hardly anyone's showed up. No, it's pretty much deserted. Yeah, I guess it's good practice!"
Those guys in the masks are supposedly "anarchists." At least, that's what I heard.
Georgia Peach! No, I'm not sure what's going on on that sign.
It's a clearing house for anyone with a sign!
A local news crew. Their conversation (roughly) - Him: "I think a lot of them stayed home because of the police presence." Her: "That's no way to be a protestor!"
I smell a Pulitzer here!
These giant dollar bills are pretty clever. They say things like "The United States of Anarchy."
Japan's NTV crew flew all the way here for THIS?
This reporter was from Britain, I think. He had some sort of damn accent.
Quick, something's happening! The protestors are sitting down in a circle! Get the cameras over here!
They're playing "Duck Duck Goose!" Thank god we flew all the way here to cover 12 kids playing "Duck Duck Goose!"
This picture doesn't even need a caption.
He's saying (roughly,) "Everybody move this way! If we don't start this parade by 10am, we'll lose our license!"
She's saying (roughly,) "And what was most remarkable about the protest wasn't the amount of protestors, but the amount of news coverage."
These guys take issue with the concept of capitalism.
The parade begins!
The police have blocked off Drayton.
There go a couple dozen kids marching down the street.
It's a "Hummer" powered by bikes! This is cool, no joke.
The Army stands by, in case the mob runs wild.
That's Dick Cheney on the sign.
The mounted police stand by, in case anyone attempts to stray from the parade route.
We're filming a couple dozen kids walking down the street!
The news crews rush to get the opinion of the locals.
Hey, look at those crazy kids, walking down the street!
Just give me a reason!
Reaching the end of the parade route.
That way.
You can hardly see it, but that's about two dozen riot police hiding in the background.
Back at the stage. "Ladies and Gentleman, don't take the brown acid..."
Bigger than Woodstock!
Public speakers incite the crowd to violence.
The picture that almost got me arrested!
An hour or two after the parade, local bands play a public concert for the throngs.
Something I posted on the Failure board 2 days ago...
So the G-8 summit starts this week 80 miles south of here.
And now we're all waiting for the crowds of dirty, godless, pinko hippy protesters to descend on our beautiful downtown Savannah. I was downtown yesterday, and it was eerily deserted. Except for the cops. We can't forget the cops. There was a couple of geared-up riot cops on almost literally every corner. Every couple of minutes a helicopter with a sniper hanging out of the window buzzed by overhead. While we were walking down Bay St., a phalanx of at least twenty squad cars rolled by. You'll also find military hummvees parked in strategic locations throughout.
It makes you wonder - are we expecting protesters, or terrorists? Well, according to the good people of Savannah, there's no difference! And there's more rumors flying around than in a junior high classroom - "The police already found and disarmed a couple of car bombs! They're just keeping it quiet to avoid panic!" "A bunch of terrorists have already infiltrated the city, and they're planning to sell unsuspecting people gasoline bombs disguised as teddy bears!"
Just today, Antar called me and told me that they'd found a suspected bomb downtown. It turned out to be a harmless manilla envelope somebody dropped in a mailbox. And then they evacuated Vinnie Van Go-Go's because a homeless guy left a bag behind.
According to the paper, they're expecting anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 protesters to come down. So they brought in 25,000 cops. It makes you wonder if they'll assign a cop "buddy" to every protester or two.
This city is pissing itself. It'd be almost funny, if it weren't so retarded.
I plan on taking a tour about the city tomorrow to see if anything interesting actually happens. Pray for me, guys!
----------------------------------------------
And thus, a little photo essay...
Metal barriers across Whitaker St. barely stem the tide of protestors.
The Gap, of course, was one of the first stores to be looted and burned.
Traffic cones help organize the massive crush of protestor's automobile traffic.
More cones. Not the metal barrier and soldiers around the Radisson in the background. Will they be able to hold back the crowds?
Flatbeds move in more temporary barriers.
Stacks of temporary barriers. Will they be enough?
Crowds of police and soldiers assemble the barriers.
Another view.
An NBC truck captures the action around City Hall.
The aforementioned "action."
A picturesque view of City Hall. Note the crowds of chanting protestors.
A couple of our nation's troops at their posts.
The beautiful Westin hotel, across the river on Hutchinson Island.
A line of newsvans on River St., transmitting the events of the day to an eager, news-starved public.
A clever vendor takes advantage of the crowds of protestors by selling that one commodity that never loses demand - water. Not the sign that spells water in several different languages.
An armed Coast Guard skiff patrols Our City's waterway.
A police boat follows close behind.
And our last line of defense - the "Stop the Lie" guy. His sign says "Jesus or Death" on the other side.
Our Nation's troop interrogate a suspect.
More barrier-erection.
"You can't park there! Or... maybe you can."
Even the chaos can't stop Gregory "The Famous Artist" Myrick from making a sale.
Starbucks, of course, did not survive the onset of fire-bombing protestors. The barristas were dragged outside and lynched.
A steel fence protects a city government building.
This is as close as you can get.
Pay no attention to that open gate!
Cops patrol Whitaker St. behind the fence.
He's carrying a "303" - essentially, a heavy-duty paintball gun. Don't mess with this guy!
The federal building on Oglethorpe, near O-House.
A Humvee patrols SCAD's Orlean's Hall. Thank god all the students got sent home and didn't suffer this chaos.
A hotel near Forsyth Park boards up its windows.
Nothing can penetrate our plywood armor!
The angry crowd's surround the Forsyth fountain. Yes, they're peeing in it.
Cops keep a wary eye on the crowds of protestors in Forsyth, from the seat of their golf carts.
