Category: Cartoons

Three weeks ago I had an idea for a collaborative comic book that would bring a few artists together to depict positive actions that anyone can take when faced with hard political times.

I suppose I imagined nine or ten of my comics friends jumping on board. If I was lucky, I thought, some of the bigger small press fish might get involved. We might do a little good.

Fast forward to the present moment, and we have 130 artists signed up. Thanks to the daisychain effect, where my contacts have other contacts who have more contacts, some of them are very big fish indeed. The past few weeks have passed in a blur of Facebook posts, spreadsheets, emailing and copy writing.

We have a committee (thanks so much for all your help, Graeme, Zara, Karrie). We have a new plan: an online presence first, then the book.

The artists all received their briefs this week. Matching them together turned out to be a labour of love: originally, the plan had been to do it entirely randomly, but it soon became evident that the variety of style and the diversity of actions meant that we’d get much better results making our selections manually. Some artists have told me they are thrilled with their picks. That is a very nice feeling.

So, that’s where we are now. Hopefully there’s a bit of breathing space before the submissions start coming in and we have to get them uploaded to our brand new website.

Except that — oh yes, I allocated an action to myself. I’d better get drawing.

Over the past few days, I’ve seen a lot of my friends, here in the UK, and around the world, reacting with shock to the US election. For liberal-leaning folk on this side of the pond, their messages have a ring of familiarity.

“I’m scared for the poor, the marginalised, the oppressed”, “These values are not my values” and “We have to organise, take action” — these are all sentiments that UK citizens have already seen two times around: once with the election of our Conservative government and once after the Brexit referendum.

Well, here’s an something we can do. I’m crowd-sourcing ideas for concrete actions anyone can take when the prevailing political atmosphere is one they don’t agree with. They can be small, simple actions like putting a poster in your window, or bigger ones like volunteering for a cause that needs your help — or even standing for election.

At the same time I am collecting comic artists together who will illustrate these actions. We’ll create a week-by-week action plan for anyone who feels lost as to how they can make a difference in these times.

How you can get involved

There are several ways to get involved. We’re discussing logistics on this Facebook group (apologies to those who hate Facebook, but there’s no denying it makes this sort of project a lot easier).

If you’re a comic artist

Please add your name to this spreadsheet if you’d like to be considered for inclusion. A small committee of artists will ensure a uniform quality to the project by helping me assess the applicants.

If your application is successful, I’ll be contacting you between 5 and 11 December to let you know what text you are illustrating, and to give details of proportions, colour requirements etc.

All artists will retain copyright of their own work and will of course be credited in the book. We’ll also cost up the project to ensure that you get at least one copy of the final book for yourself.

If you would like to contribute ideas for actions

We’re brainstorming ideas on this document – feel free to add more. The kind of actions we are looking for are:

a) Universal: they can be applied by anyone, no matter where they live.

b) Non-partisan: yes, we happen to be living in a time where power is leaning to the right. But if you can look at your action and see how it could be applicable even if the political situation were reversed, then it’s particularly suitable for inclusion.

In short, this will be a book about how to take action against inequality, unfairness, poverty, hate, and discrimination, no matter where or how it arises.

If you would like to support the project

Hold tight. We’ll be launching it as a Kickstarter once we’ve got all the logistics bolted down, and I will of course be sharing details here as soon as they are ready.