Notices by Glenn Fleishman (glennf@twit.social), page 4

Musk is as funny as a self-driving car careening off the road.

Hire Liz Truss
https://mastodon.scot/@Peternimmo/112192734660529758

@thomasfuchs I commuted with such a Mac and such a case to and from college for a few years in the late 80s.

What the ever lovin’ https://www.kezi.com/news/man-narrowly-escapes-death-as-runaway-saw-skids-towards-him-from-construction-site/article_58063274-ee1c-11ee-ac34-b3b71866b8e4.html

(this is in my hometown. @suzisteffen what is going on down there!)

@thomasfuchs @aleen I am hoping that I will get to learn more about newspaper cartoon culture elsewhere—there are precious few materials I’ve found in searching. I have some Swedish ones and I saw some in Paris as part of an exhibition of an amazing publisher/designer/store last year.

Wowzers! Thank you all who participated, promoted, or gave support and comfort! (And 40+ hours to go!) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made

Now over 70% funded with just under eight days to go! I have so much to share that you’ll love if you love comics and/or history… https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made
https://twit.social/@glennf/112004543167309282

@thomasfuchs Irony all the way down!

One of the stories I’ll tell in *How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page* is about a sheet of Doonesbury printing molds (called flongs) from 1973 that I purchased from eBay a few years ago. In fact, these strips are probably the precipitating act that led to this book—and the current Kickstarter campaign!

This is a sheet of six dailies (Monday to Friday) a syndicate would send out to newspapers (see book excerpt as image).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made

When I looked up these Doonesbury strips, I found an odd situation: they hadn’t run on the week in question. Somebody at the Hartford Courant (see penciled notation on sheet) had pulled them when replacements were sent and then held on to the sheet. Eventually, it seems like an estate sale or other transfer happened to the person I bought them from.

Why were they pulled? John Ehrlichman resigned!

These were strips for May 7, 1973, and Garry Trudeau told me via an email interview that up until that point he worked with a six-week advance schedule. “To avoid another Ehrlichman incident—and to enhance timeliness, I started cutting it closer and closer until the strip was finally distributed only one week in advance,” he wrote. He says he would have tried to salvage any storyline he could from material he had to dump. In fact, you can find a few of these reworked later in the year.

If you are too young to remember Ehrlichman or never studied Watergate in depth, he served a couple of roles in the Nixon administration and was convicted of several charges in 1975 related to the cover-up of the Watergate break-in, serving about 18 months in prison.

Trudeau told me something fascinating about Ehrlichman: the guy would write cartoonist asking for originals of strips about him, even excoriations!

Ehrlichman wrote two letters to Trudeau that are preserved in Trudeau’s archives at Yale. This letters from May 18, 1973, on White House letterhead asks for the original of a previous strip (which one is unclear). The handwritten note says:

“I hear my resignation fouled up your following series – Sorry – Next time (!) let me know whaty ou’re planning and I’ll try to cooperate – JE.” He was convicted 19 months later.

Ehrlichman in his office: https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/former-white-house-special-assistant-on-domestic-affairs-news-photo/615291646

Chekhov’s Gun is the theatre maxim that if there is a gun in a play, it will be used.

Jerkoff’s Gun is the social maxim that if a gun is held by a professional law-enforcement officer in anything other than an active confrontation with a shooter, it will be used incorrectly and the victim will be blamed.

(image via Bluesky)

Ten minutes left to get in at the early bird pricing on my new book How Comics Were Made over at Kickstarter!

$59 for the print book + the ebook!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made

Fascinated by how comics pass from an artist’s hand through to the printed page—or a display? I’ve spent years researching, interviewing, and developing *How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page*.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made?ref=3pmfzo

It’s now live on Kickstarter! If you’d like to a rich history of 130 years of newspaper cartooning told with original art, printing artifacts, and much more, help me make it a reality and get youself a copy!

If you’re a “Zippy the Pinhead” or “Peanuts” fan (or both), I have two very exciting higher-tier rewards that are absolutely unique.

Bill Griffith has authorized me to produce a 1991 strip about the horrors of digital scanning as a re-creation of flong and a letterpress print. That’s right: ARE WE HAVING FLONG YET? We are, indeed. This is a $500 tier due to the cost of production, licensing, and special nature of the thing.

Read more at the campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made/rewards#reward-UmV3YXJkLVVtVjNZWEprTFRrM01EWTBPRFk9

Flongs (or mats) of comics haven’t been made since probably the 1980s. Working with letterpress printer, artist, and educator Jessica Spring, we’ll be using a lush handmade paper to produce a print that has both the mold re-creation and the letterpress print in a very limited quantity. The image is a preview; the final print will include a metal typeset label and be on a single sheet, suitable for framing. Behold the rich depth!

For Peanuts fans, you can get an absolutely wild thing: a four-piece set of color separations in mat or “flong” format for a Peanuts Sunday comic in the 1970s. I have 25 sets available; I’m not sure any complete sets exist in the world (even single sheets are rare). At that tier, in addition, you get two copies of the print and ebook, two book plates, and you are DRAWN INTO THE BOOK! (or someone you love and obtain a model release from) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made/rewards#reward-UmV3YXJkLVVtVjNZWEprTFRrMk9EZ3hNakU9

@tsturm Correct. I have written or further developed three.