"This Modern World Needs Your Help" - Note from Ed

arthurdent

The lead crime reporter for the paper I used to work at... yeah, he now works as a bail bondsman :(

CranMalReign

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

Just because things weren't as bad before, doesn't mean they won't get bad tomorrow. Plus, people were less apathetic than they are now. Unless someone proves me wrong.

Your first point is 100% true. Just as true as it is for the mildly insane panhandler on the street wearing "The End is Nigh" signs. Just b/c the world didn't end yesterday, doesn't mean it won't end tomorrow. Sure, there's always a chance, but history does play at least a teensy weensy role in anticipating future events.

Your second point, well, why does someone have to prove you wrong? Can you prove yourself right? Where's your hard proof that people have been so keen and focused on political and social issues during previous crises but now, well, we're all drooling pop culture cyborgs? I think that society, as a whole, throughout the generations, has needed someone to spoonfeed them opinions. I don't know that there's any more reason to think it's worse or better now than any time before.

All of the world leaders are aliens from Andromeda. Unless someone proves me wrong.

cookies

I don't think this is just about his friend. It may be more about how art and music are the ones who are always cut when things are going bad. They are saying that these things are not needed. And they are. Your moral is what gets you going its what makes you want to try harder when you are down. Cutting comics out of the newspapers is no different then taking music and art away from the schools. And if we can make a stand now would be the time. I appreciate music and art I would be lost without it. I am forever in debit to the people who create it. And when a person picks up a local paper to find a job because they just lost their check out a comic that might changed the way they feel or a comic that made them laugh a little. It lightens the burden a little. Comics are needed. So this is not just about a friend it is about the moral of this country. Just like a song can open your eyes a picture can take you places a comic can keep you going. Laughter is very powerful and important to life

Cookies
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CranMalReign

cookies wrote:

I don't think this is just about his friend. It may be more about how art and music are the ones who are always cut when things are going bad. They are saying that these things are not needed. And they are. Your moral is what gets you going its what makes you want to try harder when you are down. Cutting comics out of the newspapers is no different then taking music and art away from the schools. And if we can make a stand now would be the time. I appreciate music and art I would be lost without it. I am forever in debit to the people who create it. And when a person picks up a local paper to find a job because they just lost their check out a comic that might changed the way they feel or a comic that made them laugh a little. It lightens the burden a little. Comics are needed. So this is not just about a friend it is about the moral of this country. Just like a song can open your eyes a picture can take you places a comic can keep you going. Laughter is very powerful and important to life

Cookies
ôjô

I understand all of this. But the capitalist aspect (you know, the one that runs our nation and society) dictates otherwise. Comics are great, until the paper goes bankrupt or there aren't enough employees left to run it. Again, exageration, but things are dictated by the bottom line, and when that bottom line is shrinking, the first things to go are those that boost that line the least. They'll be back when things turn around. In the mean time, artists are a creative bunch. They perservere. There will always be a place for them, even when newspapers cease to exist (which I'm surprised they haven't already... what a waste of trees).

Yellow Bedwetter

Brendan Adcock wrote:

What are the chances of the new album being 'The Modern World'?

Seems like an appropriate title!

wowww that'd be a sickkkkk title

zootown

I, for one, happen to really dig Tom Tomorrow's stuff-oftentimes its' the only thing I read in the local Indy paper- I haven't checked today's edition to see if his cartoon is gone- but if it is, I will be making a call! Im not doing it to save Tom Tomorrow's ass, Im doing because of my own interests....

arthurdent

CranMalReign wrote:

Comics are great, until the paper goes bankrupt or there aren't enough employees left to run it.

You think you're exaggerating... but you're not :(

editorandpublisher.com
Next week, the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer will probably stop publishing, following the Rocky Mountain News into oblivion. After its demise, the Tucson Citizen will probably be the next to go.

The NYT, which recently had to sell its office space and promise to rent it back, says that by next year all "two newspaper" markets could be "one newspaper" markets — and "one newspaper markets" will probably have no newspapers at all.

sweet adeline

i sent an email to the local paper here in SB that runs Tom's cartoon, the Santa Barbara Independent asking that they keep his comic in the paper. I'll let you know what sort of response i get, if any.

Doodah972

he mentioned Minneapolis, maybe thats a sign.

heidihi

Hello I thought that I would offer a different perspective on the importance of the political cartoon. I am a History teacher in Australia and the political cartoons that have been around for centuries are an essential and valuable component of the study of History. They often reflect more of the popular opinions of the people of the time or the readership of the papers and the students are 99% able to understand very complicated ideas via the study of them (rather than boring ho hum History books). If they are simply available on the internet, the problem arises where you can no longer differentiate what were the more valuable cartoons. (We are already starting to have this problem!) I value and respect these political cartoonists and hope that it is an artform that we can save. In 100 years students studying these times will have a polluted version if we do not save these cartoons. The study of History is also dying. The internet and the need it would seem for 'instant gratification' is killing off many things....just a side rant that i thought might fit here!!

I have not banged off a letter as it might be strange to get a letter regarding this from Australia and so far I have not noticed political cartoons vanishing but I will look into it!

dontknownothin

CranMalReign wrote:

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

I think some of the detractors here are missing Ed's point, which is a good one that anyone with a minimum of artistic sensibility or understanding of art's social force should be able to grasp. This isn't about Ed "and his kooky blog", which no-one said but one or two implied. This is about the future of political art. If it can't survive in alt-weeklies, we're really in trouble. More than a million ephemeral column-inches, we need art as a mirror up to our nature, in order to understand who we are. If the artists lose their platform in a recession, we're all lost. Art is worth more than journalism. It lasts longer in the mind, too.

It's one thing to be broke. It's another thing to be broke and clueless, with no barometer or voice out there, gauging the measure of the times.


Ed's not just helping a buddy. He's not meaning to be insensitive to plumbers and bricklayers in testing times, by saying "My middle-class artisan chum hasn't anywhere to publish his work." You could spin his words like that, if you want to. However, if you value art with a bit of bite, that challenges you or pisses you off, whatever side of the political fence you stand, you owe it to yourself and to your children to protect the artists from extinction.

Show the demand, and the supply will be maintained.

I hear what you're saying, Fins, but seriously... everyone who thinks art is going extinct due to a 2 year economic downturn, raise your hands.

Did art go extinct in the 90s recession? Did art go extinct during the 80s S&L debacle? Did art go extinct after the Great Depression? I know my references are largely US-centric, so forgive my unworldliness, but art is not going away. Maybe certain traditional media outlets are transforming, but Ed's boy (and his colleagues) getting their comic cut from 12 out of [unknown number of] total papers is not the death of political satire.

You have to draw the line somewhere. What good is having your stinging, digging satire in a newspaper if people are spending their paper money on a box of minute rice for the week? Also hyperbole, but you get the point.

you have a good point, although i don't know that you can compare this growing economic crisis (predicted 50mill jobs lost globally this year) with the 90s recession and 80s S&L debacle. and as to the great depression, as part of the new deal roosevelt invested HEAVILY in artists, resulting in some of our country's greatest art, and helping to boost morale in the process.

and i applaud ed for not asking for taxpayer money to go to this cause, or even for you to send that dollar you otherwise would have spent on your minute rice. just a call. when money's tight, you set your priorities. he's just asking to consider this issue as a minor one.

not to jump on your post, just thought it was a good entry point for me to toss my two thoughts in.

BTW, some great discussion in this threat, including the post above that i'm quoting.

Sprunkn7

I'm well known at work for posting political cartoons up so the patients can read them. I live in a very "Republican" area and get sh*t all the time. I love it. Conversation city by my desk! Busier than the water cooler

sagapo1

I worked at the Cleveland Plain Dealer as a graphic artist for almost a decade.
I know how Ed feels -- his friend is in trouble.
I know journalists that are in their 50's wondering if the Plain Dealer is even going to be a daily in the next few years!! Where in the hell are they going to work?
Unfortunately, newspapers are becoming obsolete. ARE obsolete. Young people do not get or read the paper every morning. Do you?? (political cartoonists, it's all the same)
An e.mail will not help at this point.
It makes me sick.
There's something about getting the paper, holding it in your hand, something tangible, and reading your local news before you "see" it on the news. Or "watch" it on a screen.
It's bullshit. That's the problem I have with technology. It's too much.
I know it's his livelihood -- but it's bigger than anyone can imagine.

P.S. I just read everyone else's comments. I don't think someone should be criticized for trying to help a friend.

Brisk.

I think its funny how people totally misinterprete things.

heidihi

Who wouldn't support a friend in this way if you could???

Gary Carter

sagapo1 wrote:

Unfortunately, newspapers are becoming obsolete. ARE obsolete. Young people do not get or read the paper every morning. Do you?? (political cartoonists, it's all the same)
An e.mail will not help at this point.
It makes me sick.
There's something about getting the paper, holding it in your hand, something tangible, and reading your local news before you "see" it on the news. Or "watch" it on a screen.
It's bullshit. That's the problem I have with technology. It's too much.
I know it's his livelihood -- but it's bigger than anyone can imagine.

P.S. I just read everyone else's comments. I don't think someone should be criticized for trying to help a friend.

i agree with everything you say. denver just shut down of there papers as did seattle. i work as a collator for newsday and we are hurting badly.

Danimal

I think they need to bring back Calvin and Hobbes.

Porters Dad

redrock wrote:

CranMalReign wrote:

.... I think it's a little "self-centerd" in a way to use your powers of influence over a devoted fanbase on behalf of this one cartoonist whose paycheck diminished somewhat and, oh, just happens to be a friend of yours.

It's not JUST about Tom, but the 'industry' as a whole. He is not asking for us to write to tell us to give Tom his cartoon space back - it's far more reaching. He is talking about the art and 'voice' the political cartoon has and how this 'voice' will not be heard by the general public if not published in papers with a general distribution.

Thats' all.

A drop in the water, but a drop nevertheless in the ocean of shit this world is in. Ed is just fortunate enough to be able to write/say something and have people listen to him/read what he writes. No different than touring for change, lending your voice/image to a charity, etc. If one can use his/her celebrity status for such things, I don't see the problem. Lots of famous people do so.

Well put....is it really that hard to understand what he's trying to say?

TiaMija

Check out Tom's blog. You can link to his comics, comment, buy something, donate: all other good ways to give him support, if you feel so inclined.
http://www.thismodernworld.com/

PureandEasy

sagapo1 wrote:

There's something about getting the paper, holding it in your hand, something tangible, and reading your local news before you "see" it on the news. Or "watch" it on a screen.
It's bullshit. That's the problem I have with technology. It's too much.

I totally agree. Especially on a Sunday. Nothing like spreading out the paper on the living room coffee table and enjoying a nice lunch while reading the actual newspaper.

As far as what Ed did, I can see points on both sides here, him using his influence to make this request of his fans . . eh, it's questionable. But, it really is your decision if you choose to act on it.

The problem is, some people will do it just because Ed requested it.