A Go Fund Me campaign was set up to help the Kushner's while Seth was receiving treatment and it's still up to help his wife and son. If you have the opportunity, please consider giving to this fund.
If you're not familiar with Seth's photography, got to GraphicNYC and check out Irving and Kushner's profile on comic creators. The Washington Post's Comic Riff's also has a nice profile and gallery of his photography.
** Jeremy Melloul has put together a lot of information about what people looking to put together funding campaigns can learn from the aborted Archie Kickstarter. As someone who's only on the side of funding campaigns, I'm starting to think about what makes a successful campaign lately. I'm one of those who usually watches campaigns and only contributes when it looks like they'll be successful so maybe I'm part of the problem here. Steve Bryant and Jason Millet's failed campaign for Undead or Alive and what looks like a potentially unsuccessful Broken Frontier anthology campaign (two recent campaigns that I've supported based off of the strength of the creators) I think are demonstrating something about the crowd funding platform but I'm not too sure what that is yet. There are still wildly successful campaigns out there and while I didn't think the Undead or Alive was going to be massive, I would have bet good money that the Broken Frontier anthology would have been a strong one.
(Update: I must have been overly pessimistic while writing this because the Broken Frontier Anthology Kickstarter had a great push on their last day and made their goal.)
** Boing Boing lets everyone know that Mitch O'Connell the World's Best Artist by Mitch O'Connell is now a relatively inexpensive e-book. If you aren't familiar with O'Connell's art, check out the link for a nice sampling of his stuff. This just reminds me that I actually wanted to reread his and Mike Baron's Ginger Fox again. Add that and the art book to the summer reading list.
** Over at Experiments in Manga, Ash Brown writes about TCAF 2015.Ash's write up is a lot to take in and makes me think I need to go to this show sometime.
** Deb Aoki covers some Do's and Don't for creators looking to push their work. I'm relatively small potatoes when it comes to this kind of stuff but this is one of the many reasons I don't follow or interact with a lot of creators on any social media.
** So earlier this week, news broke that Simon Pegg told geeks everwhere to grow up, or something like that.
And the writer of the next Star Trek movie was widely criticized and applauded for this.
I have two semi-conflicting thoughts about this that I'm totally at peace with:
** Boing Boing lets everyone know that Mitch O'Connell the World's Best Artist by Mitch O'Connell is now a relatively inexpensive e-book. If you aren't familiar with O'Connell's art, check out the link for a nice sampling of his stuff. This just reminds me that I actually wanted to reread his and Mike Baron's Ginger Fox again. Add that and the art book to the summer reading list.
** Over at Experiments in Manga, Ash Brown writes about TCAF 2015.Ash's write up is a lot to take in and makes me think I need to go to this show sometime.
** Deb Aoki covers some Do's and Don't for creators looking to push their work. I'm relatively small potatoes when it comes to this kind of stuff but this is one of the many reasons I don't follow or interact with a lot of creators on any social media.
Think of connecting on Twitter as a way to meet and talk with interesting people, not just as a way to advance your career or sell some books. Twitter is best when you're being real, when you
're not just "broadcasting" but doing some reception (listening) and synthesizing/reacting to what you hear, such that you have actual conversations with other people.
Be someone who gives/shares information and ideas, makes people laugh, makes them think, gives them exposure to a point of view that they may not have considered before. Be a friend and you'll make friends -- this is true in Twitter and in "real life.
** So earlier this week, news broke that Simon Pegg told geeks everwhere to grow up, or something like that.
“Now we’re essentially all consuming very childish things – comic books, superheroes. Adults are watching this stuff, and taking it seriously.
“It is a kind of dumbing down, in a way, because it’s taking our focus away from real-world issues. Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys or moral questions that might make you walk away and re-evaluate how you felt about … whatever.
“Now we’re walking out of the cinema really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk just had a fight with a robot.”
And the writer of the next Star Trek movie was widely criticized and applauded for this.
I have two semi-conflicting thoughts about this that I'm totally at peace with:
- Are you really going to let a celebrity tell you what you should and shouldn't enjoy? As I said on Twitter, my parents' entertainment was Dallas, Love Boat and General Hospital. Is that really any more "smarter" or more "grown up" that our current entertainment? It's easy to look back at the past and say "it was better then." Of course it was because it's not now. It's rose color grasses, the grass being greener, the nostalgic haze of memory. Pegg and I are the same age exactly (both born on the same day in 1970) and I think he's fallen into the trap of equating our entertainment with our worldviews. My father's obsession when I was growing up was golf. He's play it; he'd watch it; he'd study it. That was his free time. Is that really any different than what I'm doing?
- He's kind of right, you know. Our entertainment could and should be smarter. That's what he's saying and he's getting in some kind of trouble for it? I just don't get that. Shouldn't we want our entertainment to be smarter?
** All of the Panelling that's fit for Patter this week:
- Chris Schweizer answered 5 question.
- James K. read Injection #1.
- James K. also took a look at ApocalytiGirl.
- Over at The Comics Journal, Rob K. wrote about The LGBTQ Cartoonists and Comics Conference.