Comics By Request: People, Places In Need Of Funding

By Tom Spurgeon

* I hope that in the spirit of giving which remains one of the best parts of this hopelessly over-commercialized season that people will pay attention to charitable efforts like the campaign for cartoonist Kate Beaton's sister Becky, an effort to expand the family's ability to find appropriate clinical trials worldwide.

* this is a good time to put some money into traditional comics charities, most of whom have a specific holiday-related campaign going if you look around a bit, or ask. Those non-profits include the traditional comics charities CBLDF and Hero Initiative, many of our educational institutions and related enterprises like Center For Cartoon Studies and the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. Look around. Comics has a culture of maximizing consumption. Taking a step back and aiming your money in a different direction, in a considered, thoughtful way, there is really no more enlightening way to participate in comics, to be a part of things. I recommend it to everyone.

* if you're one of the wonderful people that donates to your favorite cartoonists and makers on Patreon and can afford to do so, you might wish to temporarily boost one or two of those recipients that's particularly important to you. Until alternatives are found and/or the policy change in question that has added a fee to small donations as well as large is reconsidered, some of your favorites, particularly younger artists, may be taking a hit in terms of money that's very important to their ability to continue making work. This was not up to the donors to correct, nor is it up to you to fix, but it's a definite structural shift that some of you may have missed and I figure worth mentioning here.

* finally, I'm so happy that there will be a round two of Creators For Creators, and the sizable grant they supply a working cartoonist towards completion and support of a project. I'm encouraged every day by comics' moves towards a more generous assistance and aid landscape, and this is about as high-profile and substantial a development as we've seen in the last 36 months. You have until the end of March.
 
posted 3:25 pm PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives