Here’s the skinny, folks; I asked and prayed for a miracle and I got one. So permit me to straighten the general public out on a few things.
I am officially shuttering the unfortunate phase of my life wherein I described myself as “unemployed”. The reason is not whether or not I have found a job; the reason is because I was an imbecile to let even a single person online know that my newspaper cartoon job ended last March. That was the result of my depression and the truth is that I should never have told any goddamn one of you.
Let me tell you a little secret about being unemployed as a professional artist. I can count on one hand how many people didn’t give up on me. Everyone else has treated me like a delusional idiot who thinks he’s too good to clean toilets. Hey- you know what most artists my age in my situation have done in the last five years? Died or killed themselves.
That’s what happens when people you thought were your friends just give up on you. Literally, thank God I’m now on the path I’m on. I was literally gonna walk off and kill myself, and let you assholes clean up the mess. You already think I’m a piece of shit; what difference does it make if you have to clean up my brains, too? Think of how cathartic it would have been, throwing my life’s work in the dumpster. You could grumble out all your resentments as you close the book on my legacy.
Hey, good thing suicide is the ultimate sin. Sorry I deprived you of the fun of gossiping about what a shady pussy I was, as you chat with my other “friends”.
Seriously folks; I’m angry on a level you have never imagined. This is all I can do to not tell the entire world to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.
So it’s like this. I am not, nor will I ever claim to be again, an “unemployed cartoonist”. The people nice enough to care about what I create, most of whom subscribe here, can tell you that except for eight months in that hated fucking year of 2024, I have been consistently creating cartoons. It was stupid of me to let anyone see me at my weakest, and I’m paying the price for being stupid. But let me tell you something right now, for goddamn free.
I’ve always known what I’m doing and what I need to do. The problem has always been when I can’t do it and/or when people decide to get in my way. No one under 40 years of age knows a goddamn thing about cartoons or art. If they did, they’d do something other than be little backstabbing quislings on social media all day, every day. But that’s all they do.
Here is a list of the only people qualified to criticize what I do or how I live my life:
1. Established artists or cartoonists older than 50 years of age
2. Art dealers, editors, or publishers older than 40 years of age
That’s it. I don’t have to acknowledge a goddamn word from anyone else about who I am or what I do. Everyone else abused their station. That “Be careful- everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about” shit makes my sides split. No one gives a fuck about your private battles. If anything, people want to know about your private battles in full detail, so they can diminish them and mock you for clout. No one has empathy or sympathy for you. They want to know you failed so they can feel justified for not trying.
Well guess what folks- if I failed, you wouldn’t be reading this. And PS: making real art won’t make you rich. So we can just quit with the false equivalency that if something doesn’t turn a profit, it’s worthless. Okay?
Is it not appalling how everyone has turned into a little internet grifter, trying to squeeze shekels out of “content” and “views” and getting absolutely nowhere? It’s been like a fucking Fool’s Gold Rush since the Dawn of the Podcast. Hey- has anything gotten better? No, huh? Gee golly pardner it’s such a mystery why that is.
I know how to fix it. As soon as the world cuts me a big enough check, I will. Until then, you figure it out. I’m busy drawing cartoons and art that people will actually give a shit about in 100 years. That’s on faith that civilization makes it for another 50, which I doubt, but I’ll be dead by then, so I absolutely don’t even give the slightest fuck.
Thanks sincerely to my supporters here and elsewhere. My work lives on thanks to you. If it wasn’t important to me, I probably wouldn’t have devoted over 50 years of my life to it. I will truly never grasp why some people can’t understand that.
Those of you out there who treated me like a spoiled child unwilling to work a menial, pointless job to survive, during the worst, most depressing chapter of my existence thus far; if you can find her somehow, go ____ your mother. I’m being semi-nice for the benefit of my supporters and guests, who’ve endured more than enough invective at this point, and you don’t even deserve the uncensored version of my insult.
Herewith concludes the final time I will share any details of my personal and/or professional life on social media, any website (including my own), or online whatsoever. Any person who claims a positive benefit from engaging in such practices is a moron. Thus endut the lesson.