Up for auction right now: this salaciously delicious portrait of Weapon Brown’s girlfriend Little Red, the subject of that print special I had going on at the NYC Comicon. This art is 11 x 17, pen and ink and watercolor, and will surely get you through those lonely Alaskan nights we all must deal with from time to time.
Following a link first from cartoonist Tom Tomorrow’s website, then to Lloyd Dangle’s, I finally arrived at the source of a screedy little denunciation of alt weekly cartoonists and their current economic plight that comes courtesy of one Ed Decker, a columnist for the San Diego CityBeat.
Decker writes in reaction to an editorial on the website of Red Meat cartoonist Max Cannon, justifiably despairing of the economic iceberg America’s alt weeklies have struck and how cartoonists have been the first ejected overboard, despite the fact that reader polls consistently prove that the comics in weekly papers are a top draw. Cannon’s lament is thoughtful and not at all hostile to the industry, which makes Decker’s riposte all the odder for its sneering tone. Writes Ed:
“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.”
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As a cartoonist, I can assure you that the work has some added challenges that Decker does not to have to contend with, such as pruning shitty metaphors like “pollen dripping from speakers” from my drafts before they reach the public. Otherwise, writing and cartooning for alt weeklies are part of a common artistic grind, and you would expect more sympathy from someone laboring to make his own name this way.
Not so Decker. His “open letter” screams jealousy like a banshee at an opera house. “Let me see if I can’t find a waah-kerchief for you to bawl into”, “don’t tell me about hard times, Mr. Maximillian McWhinyFace!”, “If I were a ditch-digger or a cotton-picker, and I saw your donate button—oh yeah, I’d donate something all right,” is just the dross of his pith.
And all this in response to a plea that comic strip fans contact their local weeklies and express how much they enjoy the comics featured therein. Hardly some elitist propaganda juggernaut.
One steaming load of Decker’s odiferous prose will be enough to assure you that Ed is not benefitting from any such calls on his behalf, and this is doubtless the motivation for his over the top denunciation of fellow freelancers who, after all, are just trying to make a buck in a tough business. Decker’s double-barrel assault on the modestly successful Max Cannon and Tom Tomorrow, his bitchy pronouncement that the fruits of his own talents “can’t even buy me a small bindy of coke and an hour with a bottom-dollar street hooker” are like a planet-sized window into the soul of a failure. So your wings are starting to melt? That will teach you to aim for the sun, Icarus! Welcome back to Planet Crap with the rest of us blow flies!
Ed, I know you are reading this because I sent you a link and because anyone throwing out this much red meat (pardon the pun) could only be doing it to hoover up the short burst of attention that a creative bottom feeder never earns from the work he is actually proud of.
So let me suggest that you actually demonstrate some solidarity with the brothers of your profession instead of evacuating your bowels on them. Because if an alt weekly can’t spare three column inches for Max Cannon or Jen Sorenson, how long do you think its going to take an editor to realize that someone who pens a line like “Maximillian McWhinyFace” isn’t going to be rushing out to buy Pulitzer polish any time soon?
Alright! Finally back on skej and ready to get this crazy enterprise called Whatisdeepfried.com motoring again. So let’s get down to brass tic-tacs here with my past-its-freshness-date post-NYC Comicon wrap up. I’ve gotta lotta links for ya, so get you bookmarks ready! (But first, rev yourselves up by reading this pre-con interview of me conducted by the talented and sexy and easily bribed Jen Contino over at The Pulse. )
On to the show. I was slinging my hash at the Angry Drunk Graphics booth, a cartel of like-minded humor sociopaths, all of us trying to hide from our fans. But, like Frankenstein’s monster equipped with OnStar, many of my devotees nevertheless managed to track me down and drool on my products. Dammit, do I have to change my fucking name too?? Quit bugging me and just mail me your cash!
You have more of the green papers for us, my precious?
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While at the show I went on a whirlwind tour of Podcasters Alley and gave one interview after another to all of fandom’s top podcasters (which is like boasting that while on the road you slept with all of Best Western’s top middle-aged Mexican housekeepers). But publicity is publicity, and I came back from the show itching with the publicity lice I acquired. Here’s the first of what I’m sure will be many spoken interviews that will be clogging the infosphere soon, courtesy of Ian Levenstein at Comic Timing. Feel free to skip every other part and go straight to 46:50 to hear my segment.
I hope you will pardon my French when I tell you that I zold zee merde out of zee Weapon Brown! Yes, the show was pretty friendly to me and my wee little comic books, and fortunately the configuration of the table I sat behind prevented me from wandering the floor too much, sparing me my usual beatings by costumed deviants, and perhaps that is why this has only occurred to me for the first time: attend any comic convention you wish and you will most likely fall into the gravity well of some over-plump Batman or the most zaftig of Wolverines, yet you never meet anyone with the honesty to dress up as the Blob. I mean, why did Stan Lee even bother creating a role model for these porkers if they aren’t going to take advantage of it?
You don’t scare me, Nightmare Bear! The pills make you go away!
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This guy wanted to show me his other power ring, but I demured when he told me where it was.
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Returning home, I found that Benjamin Hayden, one of my most prolific thralls, had cranked out some new artwork based on my characters. Â Here’s exhibit “A” of my copyright lawsuit.
If Ben’s crime wasn’t bad enough, it turns out that The Reefer Den a website that endorses the consumption of illegal and extremely enjoyable narcotics, is using my work to promote their anti-family agenda. If you decide to go to their website, you will find my work in the “Sites” section. Just make sure that before you visit you stuff a towel under your door.
Phew! All caught up. Now, pay attention: that “Brown History Month” announcement in my banner isn’t just for show. I know you love me, because you tell me so every time we make love. But real love comes in the form of clickable links!
So if you have not yet told your friends, your Twitter followers or your chatroom roleplay companions about Weapon Brown, now is the time to do so! Eventually all this hard work is going to be turned into a graphic novel for purchase by what remains of our consumer economy after the recession is done consuming it, and I will need as many eyeballs coming to my site on a regular basis to make that effort a success. Do your part, Unmerica! tell the world what I am doing here so they don’t have to find out about it the hard way (the “hard way” being a little advertising technique I am developing called “laser anal grams”).
Also! I am pleased to see how many of you return again and again to leave comments, yet saddened at how few of you have Gravatars. Gravatars are 80px x 80px avatars that follow you around on the web and automatically appear whenever you comment on a Gravatar-enabled website (like mine). It’s a free service, and very easy to use. And, so that you may tell the world that Deep Fried is your beastmaster, I have created a few custom Gravatars for you to use (or not, no pressure. S’not like, y’know, we’re best friends or sumthin’…). Just drag em’ off the screen to wherever you keep things like these and use them at your leisure!
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I am back from what turned out to be one of the most profitable shows of my career. The New York Comicon, although held at the pitiless Jacob Javitz Center (no working PA system for show announcements and they shut off the escalators at load-out, making life a bitch for everyone) ate up Weapon Brown with a spoon, and I would have sold every copy but that I had to bring some back for you greedy bastards who pre-ordered your copies months ago. Why are you trying to keep me from becoming famous???
I will offer a meatier update later this week. Right now I have to finish unpacking, get those orders in the mail and explain to my brain that all those THC crystals interfering with my synapses right now are there for its own good.
The occasion of the New York Comicon is upon us, as you should all know by now. I’d like to give any fans of mine from the Big Red Fruit a chance to sound off and let me know how much mulled cider I should have waiting for you at the Angry Drunk Graphics booth. If you’re going to be at the show this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday, drop me a comment!
I will be debuting Blockhead’s War #1 in New York, and I will also be selling a show exclusive, the last ten of my Well Heeled prints, which will come sleeved with an all new print, a one-of-a-kind gander at Weapon Brown’s girlfriend, Little Red. Like Well Heeled, Little Red is 11″ x 17″, and this particular edition of the print, in bold red, white and black, signed and numbered, will only be available at the show. I’m not saying you should initiate a Wal-Mart style crushing stampede to get yours first, mind you. But then, when have I ever discouraged you from stepping on a person’s face either?