Current mood:	busy
Current music:	Jamie Lidell is God.

SWINDLED
A good friend of mine is working as an AD on Shepard Fairey's magazine, SWINDLE. THis friend asked me if kozy and I would like to do a comic strip for the magazine. Now, bear in mind that kozy and I have never done a comic strip before, but people have ALWAYS asked us when we would. So we decided, why not? Let's give it a try. We have always had ideas in mind for comics - even have them written down and planned out, but never got around to producing them. So we did it. We had to do two pages for SWINDLE and decided to make a separate strip for each page. We finished the first one and sent it to our friend who loved it. He showed it to his boss. His boss quickly noted that it needed to be changed. The characters must be covered up so as not to give the impression that they were nude.


a large image of the whole strip

Kozy and I were shocked. SWINDLE was going to censor our comic strip because of one tiny cartoony image depicting non sexual nudity? This is Shepard's magazine, right? Why? I was IMing with my friend who was in turn communicating with his boss.
His boss' response:

im really sorry but i cant help it. im happy to talk to them if you want. i know its a 1% chance it would offend a national advertiser we are going after but its not worth the chance. we dont haev teh revenue to back it up


So we told our friend:

look - you guys aren't paying us for this, and we have little time or need to be in this magazine, so he can talk all he wants, but we aren't going to change it.

Our friend was on our side and told his boss:
they don't want to run it edited, they will take it to another magazine
i dont understand though roger, last issue we ran a 6 page story about a neo nazi punk band, and now we cant run a half of a drawing of a cartoon dick?"

so jew/black haters are cool, but dan's cartoon schlong is controversial???

To which he got silence. I thought my friend made a good point. I think it is kind of sad, and also telling of the venomous forces at work in this "Christian" country. A land where hate and death and violence are ok, even celebrated, but a little nudity is evil. Obviously SWINDLE is not the root of the problem. I do understand their view point. A magazine is a business venture after all. We were just surprised that we had to make our first censorship stand with a magazine with a pedigree like SWINDLE's. I guess I never realized how far the grasp of the Christian Right could reach. Boiled down in a nutshell (because i don't really feel like going into a lengthy tirade and ensuing debate about the polarization of our country): Christian Right groups boycott advertisers who advertise with any entity that has anything the Christian groups deem offensive. So advertisers are running scared, thus tying the hands of TV networks, magazines and the like. i just never imagined this chain would reach a magazine like SWIINDLE. Sigh.

In the end we had to pull the comic strip completely and will not be doing another for them.

Some notes:

Showed the strip to Eric Nakamura of Giant Robot, to get his thoughts. He didn't see what the big deal was an d said we could run it in GR if we'd like. (Maybe we will)

Shepard Fairey himself was not around, and not in on the conversation, so I cannot say what his views might have been on the subject.

I have no ill will towards SWINDLE and understands the decision, but I am a bit disappointed with their lack of spine.

The comic strip itself is not great probably, seeing as how we've never made one before. i think perhaps it may not make sense to anyone besides kozy and I, but take it from me - if you WERE kozy or me - the strip is HI-larious!