THIS MODERN WORLD

A cartoon from Spin magazine, circa 1994, that’s been floating around online lately. Holds up depressingly well. (Click to embiggen).

Forget about Black Friday! Visit TT’s fabulous online emporium, where you’ll find something for everyone, if by “everyone” you mean “diehard fans of an obscure alternative political cartoon.”

As most of you probably know, it has become a sort of tradition for me to close out the year with a couple of Year in Review cartoons, which mainly serve the purpose of letting me get far enough ahead on my work that I can take off some time at the holidays like a normal human being. (Last year’s examples here and here.) As always, reader input is actively solicited! Please send your nominations for the most absurd/outrageous/head-exploding stories of the past year to tomtomorrow (at) gmail. To sweeten the pot a little, when the cartoons are done I’ll select a name at random to receive a signed print, or something similar.

The legendary comics publisher hit a rough financial patch after the recent death of company co-founder Kim Thompson, and they’re holding a Kickstarter to try to make up the shortfall.

Last summer, I had the privilege of writing an introduction to the 1991-1992 volume of their Complete Peanuts series (to be published in May). I have every one of the previous volumes; Peanuts was one of my earliest and most profound influences, and was essentially the comic that taught me to love comics. Being asked to contribute to one of those books felt like one of the highest honors I’ve ever received.

One of the Kickstarter incentives is a copy of that volume with a bookplate signed by me. I feel a little odd about that — it feels a bit like a street grafitti artist being asked to tag the Sistine Chapel — but I was also happy to help out in any way I could.

Anyway, please consider contributing to keep Fantagraphics afloat. My shelves are full of their books, and probably yours are too. The world would be a poorer place without them.