Back in September, Lucy Bellwood spoke at the XOXO in Oregon. It's a very powerful piece about what she was taught about success, what success feels like (to her), what success looks like from an outside point of view... Well worth your time to listen, in part for the courage she shows by talking so frankly.

One piece that stood out for me is that she considers 2016 to be a very successful year for her. In part because her latest book, Baggywrinkles, has been selling well but as a result of that, she's been able to get off food stamps. That was her big success. Success meant being able to make a living wage as a cartoonist.

Now, I don't know how many of you have been following Bellwood's career -- I first heard of her when she joined Helioscope Studio in 2014 -- but she's been kicking all sorts of ass* from a creative perspective. She's one of the most talented and hard-working young cartoonists I've seen in recent years. Easily the most enthusiastic! And it's still taken her several years of working as a dedicated cartoonist before she could get off food stamps. Basically just enough to earn a living.

How many creators do you know under 30 who can say that today? I can point to a number of webcomic artists who earn a living off their work, but they're all well into their 30s or beyond. I think Erika Moen may have been self-supporting before she got out of her 20s, but I'm guessing a bit there. I'm sure there are others, but my point is that it's not uncommon for a cartoonist, regardless of how financially successful they might appear from an outside point of view, to still hold a job as a barista or whatever throughout their 20s.

And what kind of shit is that? That people who love comics so much they want to dedicate their lives to them, and they have to struggle just to get enough to eat. Would Bellwood have been able to pursue her comics with as much conviction if she weren't able to rely on food stamps for so many years? How many comics aren't we seeing at all because a talented cartoonist can't even do that well?

That's comics makers too! How do you suppose comics news outlets fare? (Let's just say that there's a reason there aren't many dedicated comic news sites.)

Keep in mind, too, that during the past eight years, most economic indicators (GDP, job growth, unemployment rate, etc.) have improved far past what the hole the last recession threw the country into. By most accounts (certainly all the ones economists tend to look at) the economy is the best it's been in years. And yet, for a cartoonist, "success" is not needing food stamps.

I noted a couple weeks ago how I thought we'll see a gutting of social services like the food stamp program that helped keep Bellwood afloat. This is the thin line that cartoonists deal with on a daily basis -- how to get by while still creating comics. If one of those support structures gets pulled out before a cartoonist has stabilized their income as a cartoonist, they're going to switch to extra shifts at Starbucks. This is why those social programs are important. This is how close cartoonists have to skate to the edge to make art. This is why they're thankful for the two dollars you dropped on their minicomic.

No single individual can reasonably support ALL the cartoonists out there. But the few bucks you're able to send towards a cartoonist you like can make a world of difference because, yeah, despite how the world should work, things really are that tight for them.

* Perhaps I should use the more piratical "booty" to keep with her general appreciation of nautical themes.

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

FreakSugar: Fanthropology: A Broadening Base?
http://ift.tt/2fjJ7iO

Kleefeld on Comics: On Business: Freelancer Suggestions
http://ift.tt/2fxskXa

Jack Kirby Collector: Incidental Iconography
http://ift.tt/xLP9rc

Kleefeld on Comics: On History: Bill Gaines, 1991
http://ift.tt/2fnggKi

Kleefeld on Comics: Weekly Comics Links
http://ift.tt/2gAZqJV

FreakSugar: Webcomics Wednesday: Helping Others
http://ift.tt/2fr6U0n

Comics Alternative: Our Fourth Annual Thanksgiving Show

http://bit.ly/CAe215

Kleefeld on Comics: Thanks, 2016 -- Bite Me!
http://ift.tt/2fbh3Q1

Kleefeld on Comics: On Strips: Marketing Question
http://ift.tt/2gHro6N

Here's a screen shot of today's Stone Soup Classics on GoComics.com...

Jan Eliot began the strip in 1995. I'm not sure exactly when this particular strip ran originally, but it's clear between the strip and the Stone Soup header graphic that enough time has elapsed since this particular strip ran that Eliot has changed her drawing style a bit. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; any artist worth their salt should continue to evolve over time.

But what I find interesting is that on the website, they're using her current art to promote her older art. "Hey, you can buy a print of this comic! But we're going to tell you that using art that's different enough that it doesn't look like the same artist!"

It's not just Stone Soup -- many of the "classics" strips they run do the same thing. Garfield, Dilbert, Foxtrot... The promotional art doesn't really match the strip.

I do kind of get it. Most people are more familiar with the current art style, and are going too be more responsive to it, but at the same time, it seems a little misleading. I mean, I know it's the same artist and you're responding to them and their tone and style, even if the actual linework changes a bit, so it's not disingenuous in that sense but it still seems a bit like you're using a 2017 Dodge Charger to sell a 1987 version.

Perhaps more interesting, GoComics doesn't do this with ALL of their "classics" comics. The Wizard of Id has different header graphics depending on whether you're reading the current strip or the old one. Same with B.C. I was thinking that maybe it was just for strips where a new artist stepped in, but The Norm and Big Nate also have unique headers for the old and new iterations.

I suppose that means they're as conflicted on how to approach the topic as I am.

It's popular at this point to say that 2016 really, really, really sucked. It seemed like one disaster after another, with some very, very ugly political campaigns in several countries around the world. What's weird, though, is that personally, I've actually had a good year. I successfully completed the Dopey Challenge in January (that's running a 5k, a 10k, a half-marathon, and a full marathon over the course of four days), my wife and I adopted a rescue dog in March, I got a promotion with a commensurate raise at my day job around July, I was able to sponsor a good number of independent comics projects throughout the year including one of the SPACE prizes... frankly, it was a pretty good year for me personally. And I have to say that I am very thankful for that.

I'm also thankful for some of the ongoing status quo aspects of my life. My wife, of course, tops the list; she remains a beacon of light and encouragement for me. Also, she's a fantastic cook! She encouraged me to fully invest in, and build out my personal comics library, which lets me work in exactly the way I'd been hoping to for decades! I'm thankful to have no significant health problems for me or my wife; we're both overdue for new glasses, and my knee hasn't healed quite enough to get back to running yet, but that's it.

Despite all that positivity, though, 2016 still sucked. Because while my life was good, and even though most of my family and friends had at least an okay year personally, those political events are already casting ugly shadows on 2017. A lot of hate has been stirred up. Against pretty much everyone who's not a cis-hetero white male. The proposed policies, if enacted (besides being horrible on general principle) will impact a good percentage of my family and friends. Many of them are justifiably scared, and are actively planning "escape routes" to countries where they still have family in case things get go even further south. That shadow looms heavily over all of us, and colors our perceptions even if, as I said, we individually had a good year.

And then, geez, the losses to the comic book community this year have been harsh...

Alvin Buenaventura
Paul Ryan
SV Padmanabha
Jess Johnson
Jok Church
Mell Lazarus
Darwyn Cooke
Frank Modell
Nine Culliford
Noel Neill
Geneviève Elverum
Jack Davis
Gaspar Saladino
Richard Thompson
Gary Glasberg
Gary Reed
Michiyo Yasuda
Jack Chick
Steve Dillon
Marc Sleen
Jerry Dumas
Cory Adam
(And probably a lot of others! I know this is a very American-centric list!)

There's a lot of talent in that list, and a good number of people were impacted no less than when Prince, David Bowie, Gene Wilder, or Muhammad Ali died.

I'm very thankful this pervasive cloud of darkness hasn't really impacted me too directly yet. (White privilege in action!) I'm even more thankful that I was able to make some downright positive accomplishments this year. But you know, I'd trade all this year's personal progress in if it could eliminate the hate and viciousness promoted most noticeably by Trump here in the states and Brexit proponents in the UK, that has caused so many people so much harm -- in some cases death -- this year. Thanks, 2016, for letting me off the hook, but fuck off! You've brought way too much hate and fear into this world and it's a nastier, uglier place for it.

• Despite being partially blind in both eyes, Arizona State student Marieke Davis recently published her first comic: Ember Black.
• An anonymous donor just gave his collection of roughly 9,000 comics to the Peru, IL public library.
• And perennial great-thinker-about-comics Neil Cohn has a new paper out analyzing how page layouts have changed "across eight decades of American superhero comics."
  
  

I've never seen complete footage of Bill Gaines' 1953 Senate testimony, just snippets in documentaries. But I did find that Gaines once appeared on Later with Bob Costas in 1991. The audio is decidedly out of sync and there's lot of VHS artifacting, but he starts talking about the Senate hearings at around the eleven minute mark. There's nothing new here -- I'm sure this has been viewed by everyone who's done any real research on MAD -- but it's still fascinating for those who haven't seen it to hear it directly from Gaines' own mouth.

A lot of people have become credibly concerned about the prospect of living under President Trump. His rhetoric during the campaign was not only divisive, but pointed to a lot of policies and ideas that would make things dangerous for a lot of people, primarily minorities. In light of that, a number of articles like this one have begun popping up talking about various things you can do to help make your online life at least a little more secure.

But what I haven't seen much of -- at least not yet -- are pieces that discuss helping to make your financial life a little more secure. In regards to a Trump presidency at any rate. There are always pieces out there regarding financial stability more generally -- heck, people like Suze Orman have made a living off providing that type of advice!

So beyond the typical get-out-of-debt-as-quickly-as-you-can, get-a-6-to-12-month-buffer-of-savings, put-away-as-much-as-you-can-for-retirement mantras that you often hear, I'd like to reiterate a piece of advice I put out there a few years ago. Namely: follow the webcomics example.

My argument at the time was many large corporations were still seeing record profits during the recession. They'd figured out that by switching full-time employees to freelance contractors, they could save some money by not having to pay for benefits and such. ("Your job may not be outsourced overseas, but it will be outsourced, even if it's being outsourced to you.") Because of that, it would behoove us as individuals to follow the basic webcomics model of getting several revenue streams going at once. In most cases, none of those would, by themselves, be enough to sustain a living for us, but collectively they would.
Why I think that's increasingly important going into 2017 is that, while Trump's proposals thus far have been primarily (and rightly) criticized for potential human rights violations, I think a secondary concern is that things will get more difficult for both freelancers and true entrepreneurs. The people who are trying to build their own businesses from talent and an idea. Regressive tax policies like the ones being proposed are going to make it harder for someone like a Spike Trotman to become a publisher. It will become harder for independent press folks to make enough to actually pay their creators, and when they will be able to, it won't be as much as they deserve. I think more full-time employees are going to get relegated to contractor status, meaning they'll have to shell out more of their own money for things like insurance and office supplies.

Make no mistake: the human rights issues are more significant and more important, but unless you have a cushy job pulling in six figures or more, I think you have a right to be concerned. And I think you should look into diversifying your income streams as they likely will start shrinking or drying up entirely.