Two bits of news from my drawing board. First of all, my new page of Dicebox (filling in for Jenn Manley Lee while she takes a much-deserved break) is up. You can read it here for the next six days, until it’s replaced by my fifth (and final) Dicebox page.
Second, I’ve decided to quit doing the weekly political cartoon.
I don’t mind that doing a weekly political cartoon hasn’t been terribly rewarding, financially. But lately it hasn’t been all that rewarding from a creative point of view, either. Putting it bluntly, I’m in a rut. It’s a comfortable rut – a rut in which I’ve produced some work I think is pretty darn good – but a rut, nonetheless.
I’m certainly not going to quit cartooning – but I want to concentrate on projects that are either more rewarding artistically, or financially, or (perhaps someday) both.
Meanwhile, I haven’t abandoned political cartooning entirely. Dollars and Sense magazine has just (after a three-issue tryout) given me a permanent slot in their pages, illustrating their “Short Run” feature with a new political cartoon every issue. I’m very excited and proud to join the D&S staff. Plus I may still do the occasional political cartoon just for the fun of it.
(There’s actually another magazine I just began what I hope will be a long-term association with, which I’m very excited about, but it’s too early to talk about it in public.)
But political cartoons will not be my primary creative outlet anymore. Sometime in the next several months, I hope to premiere a full-scale comic book which will be published in the “new page each week” format; something with an ongoing plotline, and continuing characters. Working on Dicebox this month has reminded me that longer-form fiction was what I originally wanted to do when I became a cartoonist, and it’s time I got back on that track..
I’ll miss your political cartoons. But I look forward to a long-format work. Is that going to have a micropayment system? Anyway, congratulations on the new outlets. I’m sure you will soon be waist deep in filthy lucre.
I, too, will miss the political cartoons, but congratulations on your new gig, and here is hoping the other one works out just as well.
Not to knock your political cartoons, Barry, which rock–but welcome back to the narrative side of the Force. We missed yez.
:)
But… how can you say it wasn’t rewarding when you got that trophy-plaque thingie ? No one else I know has gotten one yet ? ;)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! WHY, BARRY, WHY? WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, though, way to get some of your comics published and such. Good luck in the future.
Damn. I wish my blog was working so I could commemorate this decision with a lengthy diatribe decrying the loss to our peculiar artform posed by the demise of your political strip. So I’ll just settle for breaking your fingers the next time we meet.
Kidding! I would never hurt you, you callous insensitive clod. Now I am all alone in the world. Well, me and twenty-odd other ZNet cartoonists. And hundreds, if not thousands of gag-oriented mainstream political cartoonists. And hundreds of thousands of zinester-blogster minions spewing venom at the established order. The problem is: Your stuff is good and different and an improvement on the artform, and all that hi-falutin stuff.
Yet in the end, despite shedding my small tear, I wholly support your decision. Cuz, like Kip implied, your longer narrative stuff rocks. Maybe next year we’ll see the fruits of this new direction up on the wall at Pushdot.