So here, finally, is my first solo comic in about 5 years… And it probably took me a year to do from conception to photoshop finish. The initial goal was to see if I could complete a mini comic quicker by combining elements of my traditional drawing style with photoshop. This experiment has proven to be a failure. But whatever, made comic.

This is also the first time in a long time that I’ve made a comic with any of my Nihilville universe characters (outside of cameo appearances in group MMC titles). Rasputin and Winfrey get some character development here and the notion is established that they know each other, further bringing Rasputin and Sanity’s worlds a little closer. I hope to be able to do more comix expanding the universe, but I have barely had enough time to play catch up with the current Mission Minis.

Speaking of not having time, I’m going to be posting a slew of me and Mike’s solo mini comics up here for the next couple weeks in preparation for an undisclosed project. Shh, it’s a secret. But it’ll blow your brains out if (and when) it comes to fruition.

Here at Mission Mini-Comix, we spend a lot of time working on and talking about comix, but there’s a lot more art going on then that. I wanted to spend the week showcasing some of the paintings that we’ve done for the past Anti-Valentine’s day artshow by MMC members and allies, and to also hype the upcoming artshow being put on by the tight as fuck Cameron Forsley featuring pen and ink drawings by many of the same participants (and more!)

Here’s the flier, the show starts at 7pm at Mission Comi(x)cs on April 6th:

And here’s some paintings by Mikey from our last artshow:

dropping more boom from the maestro of gloom & doom

and some paintings by Spencer Gray (I think he sold the wood grain one at the Anarchist book fair already) from the same show:

some paintings to savor from the player who never wastes his flavor

and from myself from the same show (the robot one ‘Object of Affection’ has already sold):

more visual upchuck from the schmuck with the yuks (& the yucks)

and some prints from Justin showcasing his “sensitive side” (from same art show, natch):

more quality prints from MMC's prince of wince

and now some paintings by Sy Wagon (I don’t think this was even all of them from the artshow):

some visual rock to clean your clock from the grand dame of schlock

and some truly dope-ass pieces by the talented Jose Gabriel Angeles featured in the same show:

Some top-shelf greasy steezy from the crown prince of sleazy

Raaaaw… and last, but definitely not least, some work by our homie Cameron Forsley (who you might remember way back from when I was pimping his artshow at the top of this piece):

some crazy screens from the psychadelic machine that shoots ink like morphine

Apologies to Orson and Chrissy Snail and Audrey (although she sold all her paintings before I could take crappy camera phone pictures of them anyways) who were also in the artshow, but I have the organizational fortitude of a honey badger with ADD who decided to self medicate with crystal meth. Fuck the formatting and dpi. And thanks to Jenn, for bringing the rock to the whole shindig, and to her and Mikey for organizing the whole thing. You interested in any of these artistries, write to us at minicomix@gmail.com and I’ll make sure it’s forwarded to the interested parties.

Hope you enjoyed the pics, kids… be backs soon with more comix.

I promise.

So, it seems like we’ve made a couple hundred of these already, but if the problem hasn’t gone away yet, why should we? But let’s see if I can add anything that hasn’t been said a million times on the subject (probably not).

Besides the superficial criticisms of hipsterism (the shallowness, the pretension, the focus on fashion, the ideological void), there is the very real and very deleterious effect that hipsters have on culture, both locally and globally. Hipsters, in my eyes at least, are primarily passive consumers. They are attracted to arts and culture like moths to a flame, but instead of moths, they’re more like a kudzu, growing over, drowning and pushing out the objects of their attraction. It’s great to have an audience (and I’m sure we have a hipster fan or two), but what’s even better is to have a broad and rich ecosystem of artists all creating, collaborating and enjoying each others efforts. It’s easier to passively consume, enjoy, ironically commentate or criticize… It’s much harder to put a lot of thought and effort into the act of creation, to take a hard ideological stand and put yourself out there for criticism, but at the end of the day, without those who do, those who criticize would have nothing but there own sad and empty lives to reflect on.

But I digress, the real danger of hipsterism to culture is that as they swoop in like locusts to consume the “latest thing”, the hippest art, the newest underground band, they end up overpopulating an area until the makers that made the area great are priced out. Speaking as native San Franciscans, we’ve seen the best and the brightest of this town move to the East Bay, Southbay, Portland etc as the prices in this city has continued to rise. Eventually, when all the artists have been driven to cheaper pastures, the last vestiges of creativity and innovation in culture will be erased and the whole town will start to resemble the upper haight… a disney-fied tourist attraction acting as a pale imitation of what was, with none of the activity or energy that made it attractive in the first place.

Passive consumption and ironic smug self-satisfaction is worse than the hardest drug. It’s a slow spiritual death of comfortable mediocrity, never improving, ever watching, ever modeling themselves off of others, like photocopies of photocopies… Because the consumption is not just passive, but inspired by trends and not passion. Although “geek” might be “hip” now, at least geeks are genuinely passionate about the things they consume. Hipsters are just into things that others have deemed hip, have crowd sourced for them. That’s why they’re all continually obsessed with being into something earlier than anyone else. When everyone is just a bandwagon hopper and no one is creating anything worthwhile of their own, the sole object of competition is who was the first. Like those weird people who comment on blogs or articles just to say “First”, the emptiness of their lives is displayed by this weird ritual of striving to be the first to have consumed something.

But hey hipsters (any of you that have gotten this far), it’s still not too late for your sorry asses! Start a project, make a book, learn an instrument and start a band… Stop passively consuming and start actively making! Stop ironically enjoying things and start really enjoying them! Realize you don’t have to pursue art and culture, you can BE art and culture!

And stop wearing flannel. That’s my thing.

/rant

This one was conceived by Jen, drawn by her, Mikey, Justin and me.

So this comic is a bit of an oldie, but still made within the last year I think. You can tell it’s a little oldish because it follows the old MMC comix mold of having a loose subject with everyone jumping in and offering a viewpoint/gag/tragedy rather than contributing to an overarcing narrative, like we (try to) do these days. Also, Audrey signed her panel, which she only did when she first started drawing with us, before she fully embraced our quasi-anarcho-syndicalist organizational model.

I’m pulling it out of the backlog of comix we’ve finished that I’ve never gotten around to putting up on the website, for two reasons. Firstly, it’s a dope mini-comic. Secondly, we have an Anti-Valentine’s day artshow coming up organized by Mikey and Jen, and this is one of the many comix that is going to be featured in our special “Valentine’s” mini-comix packs, along with the new, double sized “Breeder Armada” and a homemade anti-valentine’s day themed button. Me, Mikey, Audrey, Justin and Spencer will all have new pieces up in the show, as well as MMC compatriots Cameron Forsley, Jose Angeles, and Sy and Orson Wagon.

It’s on Valentine’s Day starting at 7:30 or 8 at Sub/Mission Gallery at 2183 Mission Street (between 17th and 18th). Check out the deets on Facebook.

Also bands will be playing, so it will totally rock. You should go.

Oh yeah, this one was drawn by Antonio, Spencer, Audrey, Sondra, Mike and me.

We all have one (or two… or two dozen) in our family. A relative, old, as that seems to be the most easily targeted demographic for this particular intellectual short sale, who just seems to accept the proclamations of the industrial entertainment complex at face value. Because that’s all that tv news is anymore, entertainment. Gone are the days of Walter Cronkite and the idea that a news anchor could be the most trusted face in the country now seems like the deranged rantings of a dementia ridden 102 year old. Hell, even the Fox news anchors that so many older, conservative people interpret as direct liaisons to god’s mouth have shown they’re much more eager with turning a buck than accurately reporting the truth to their slavish devotees. That’s why so many conservatives were in such shock after Barack Obama one, their trusted news sources were literally just telling them what they wanted to hear to sell books and get higher ratings.

In fact, lying to conservatives has become it’s own cottage industry. But I digress. Although it would be satisfying to let them labor under the delusions they have payed so handsomely for for years, at Mission Mini-Comix, we do see ourselves as having an obligation to the truth, no matter how nasty… Especially if it’s nasty. And I’m not saying it’s all on one side of the aisle either. All tv news (and newspapers) are owned by giant corporate conglomerates whose vested interest necessitates portraying a pro-corporate slant to anything reported. Despite all the “freak storms” and “natural” disasters we had last year, the amount of times global warming was even mentioned on the three network news stations last year can be counted on one hand.

So, please, go ahead and share this with your older relative, the one who keeps sending you chain emails about how the Socialist Kenyan is coming to take all the guns and how Al Gore is single handedly causing global warming so he can say he was right. Tell them Mission Mini-Comix has their back.

Oh yeah, this comic was written by Audrey, and illustrated by her, Mike, Justin, Jen and me.

Stay tuned for our relationship mini comic later this week, where I hype our upcoming Anti-Valentine’s art show at Sub/Mission.

So another year has come and gone… 2012 was a great year for Mission Mini-Comix with us seeing our comix appearing in a number of print publications for the first time and our books being sold to art libraries and featured in art shows. It was also a shitty year for a few of us personally for myriad reasons I don’t really feel like getting into anymore. Here’s to some cautious optimism about 2013. You better not suck 2013.

I thought the best way to ring in the new year would be to feature ‘The Art of Letting Go’ a comic started by Erin Ruch that really has more to do with shitty break ups, but is a fitting tribute to acknowledging the shittier aspects of 2012 and letting them go for a clean slate in 2013. My new years resolution is to draw a little bit each day and get a tad more regular with the website updates. It might just be once a week, but that would be an improvement of the rate that I’ve been doing (and we’ve kinda been building up a backlog of comix I haven’t been putting online).

Erin drew the first, second and last panels, Sondra drew the 3rd panel, new MMC-er Jen drew the 4th and 5th pages, I drew the 6th page and Mikey drew the 7th. This might also be the first Mission Mini-Comic where female contributors outnumbered the male contributors, so that’s pretty rad.

So, I’m taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming to put up one of my old solo comix and to celebrate the fact that me and Audrey were published in the SF Weekly’s first comix issue! Mikey and 16th and Mission comix up and comer (and one day MMC contributor) Cameron Forsley were also featured on the online version. Very cool for all involved. I’m hoping this was a very successful issue for them, because every since the Bay Guardian stopped it’s annual cartoon contest in the late nineties, the Yay area has been suffering a severe lack of venues for underground and striving cartoonists to showcase their works.

The cartoon I’m posting today is an older and uncensored version of the comic the SF Weekly printed.  Maybe they would have printed the whole thing anyways, but the dimensions were off, so I’d have to have redrawn it anyways, so I decided to go with something a leeeetle more family friendly (on the notion that even a savvy paper like the SFweekly might balk at printing a half page panel of bunnies and kittens going at it Cinemax style). But that’s no reason to deprive you, our audience of the kind of underground debauchery and feral hijinks that have made Mission Mini-Comix the virtual non-entity in the cartooning world that it is today. Compare it to the one that ran on the SF weekly’s cartoon site and let me know which one you like better.

And for all of the fans of our political stuff, we have a bunch more comix on that tiff that I’ll be putting up soon, but sometimes us underground cartoonists just gotta get a few kinks out of our system.

First off, (just got to get this off my chest):

WE WON!!!!1!

Not only did Proposition A pass in San Francisco, but Proposition 30 passed in California, marriage equality was passed in two states and passed important hurdles in two more, recreational marijuana was legalized in two states (you know, if you’re into that kind of thing), our first Hindu was elected to the House of representatives, our first Asian American was elected to the Senate in Hawaii, our first lesbian was elected to the Senate in Wisconsin… Everything pointing towards a tipping point in the struggle to make America a more sane, tolerant and progressive place. Oh yeah, and some guy named Barack Obama won reelection to the presidency of the United States. Word.

But anyways, we’re not resting on our laurels or smug senses of satisfaction. No, we’re back in the trenches just in time for Black Friday to remind people of the important contributions unions have made through out history. With Hostess and Walmart so big in the news, it’s important to remember that unions are not, in fact, the devil, and are actually the most important step to protect workers from being treated like property since the destruction of slavery.

So as we’re giving thanks for so many victories this November, let’s also remember the continuing struggle of workers the world over to exercise their rights to organize. Please stand by Walmart strikers this Friday by boycotting Walmart on Black Friday… In fact, I’m a big proponent of celebrating Buy Nothing Day during this zenith of consumerist culture, but to each their own.

Oh yeah, this one was written by Audrey and drawn by Audrey, Mikey and me.

So, this is another comic that attempts to tackle local San Francisco issues. We do tend to do this every couple years or so, with mixed results, but we’re normally drawing a comic against whatever legislation is being voted on. In this case, we’re happy to do a comic supporting Proposition A and City College of San Francisco.

City College is a very personal issue for me. Not only are my mom and god-cousin teachers there, but I got my AA degree and most of my job skills training there which did end up setting me up well with a career in the tech industry (newsflash, cartooning doesn’t really pay the bills) and I’d like to see every young person in this city, county and larger bay area have access to the same opportunity and resources I did. This goes to the larger issue of where our priorities are in this country, with trillions being spent on our military, foreign wars and tax cuts for the rich while schools at home are literally falling apart (both physically and financially). Even in the liberal “hotbed” of San Francisco, we’re seeing the same tired arguments that are being trotted out all over the country to justify the systematic dismantling of public education.

“Teacher’s are getting paid too much!” “It’s all the Teacher’s Unions’ fault!” I see this sentiment getting echoed with infuriating regularlity in the Chronicle and in online news sources such as SFGate, but it doesn’t really mesh with the actual facts of life for City’s teachers, who have seen their classes double in size (twice the work) with many not having seen a raise in 5+ years. Having California cut money to education every year isn’t helping things. CCSF is being starved for funds and then the fact that they can’t meet their budget is being used as an excuse to take away their accreditation and/or close them down. Teachers are being painted as being greedy when every year they are getting less and having to work more.

Meanwhile, crushing education is going to have long term negative impact on local and national economies as our schools prepare less kids with the skills they need for technical and skilled jobs. People getting paid less means there will be even less government income to pay for things in the next budget and having a less skilled workforce will only lead to more jobs getting outsourced to India and China. It’s a vicious cycle pulling our economy down the drain, but some can’t see beyond the latest budget or the need to invest in our (and our children’s) future.

Proposition A on the San Francisco ballot and Proposition 30 on California’s ballot both seek to raise funds and prioritize education and I hope y’all be voting for them. And if you aren’t registered to vote yet, go get yourself registered, son! California now has online registration so you can be ready to stand by our schools and CCSF’s mission statement for a affordable and high quality education to be available for all. Registration deadline is October 22nd and voting is on November 6th

Oh yeah, I almost forgot our own accreditations, but this comic was written by me with a lot of help and input from Robin Roth, Leslie Simon and Amber Straus (and my wife Beth came up with the subtitle) and was drawn by me, Mike, Audrey and Justin.

We did this comic as part of the Little Bird Project kick off event art show we’re contributing art to being put on by Sarah H. at the Mama Cafe in the outer Mission on Oct. 13th (see details of art show). The show will attempt to address the subject of street harassment through the arts, focused in San Francisco and specifically the Mission district.

Although this comic deals with the very serious subject of street harassment towards women, we tried to approach it in a humorous manner (we’re always cartoonists first, activists second). It’s always difficult to try to bring humor to such sensitive topics, but hopefully what we achieved with this was a funny comic that will help start a dialog in men’s minds and get them to think about how they interact with women in the street. We had a long talk/interview with Sarah before coming up with the script for this comic (which me and Mikey wrote together) trying to think of an angle to address the comic. We decided on the format of a conversation between two bro-ed out Catbirds (the theme of the art show – a little grey bird that makes the stereotypical catcall sound) because we thought it would be important to have the discussion come from a male’s perspective, so male readers wouldn’t feel like they were being lectured with a feminist message and “throw down the book before they got the message”. Plus, bro speak is just kind of inherently funny, so a lot of the comedy just wrote itself. There were plenty more points we wanted to make about street harassment, but we’re limited by the 8 page mini-comic format… Maybe a sequel someday, maybe even have him interact with Happy Bunny in the Shady Brook universe.

Oh yeah, this comic was drawn by Mikey, Audrey, Justin and myself based off a script inspired by talking with Sarah and written by Mike and me.