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[davidessman]

I’m Quitting Political Cartooning

After 18 years and more than 1,600 political cartoons, I’ve decided to retire my weekly comic. This is a decision long in the making, one I’ve slowly walked myself up to over the years, and have recently decided is time to commit to. My last cartoon was two weeks ago.

I will continue to run The Nib in an almost full time capacity, publishing and editing our magazine and daily comics, while making some space in my life for other kinds of comics that I’m excited about but have never had the time to fully pursue.

I want to do more nonfiction cartooning at The Nib— the interviews and journalism I have only been able to do in between the cracks of my deadlines— and I’m actively preparing pitches as a writer on some fiction comics. It’s time for me to work in longer formats and dip into all the kinds of comics I love and want to create. I’ll also be serving as an Advisor for Tinyview, a promising new comics app, where I’ll be bringing in an array of comics across many genres. (You can download it here.)

So I will be staying busy, as always. Something had to give in my life to make room for other things and, frankly, it was an easy decision. I’ve drawn political cartoons every week since I was 19 and feel like I have said everything I can say, often a few times over. I know this may be disappointing to longtime readers, but my creative desires pull me in another direction, one where I hope to create more work on par with what I’ve done in this field. I also owe it to both The Nib’s readers and creators to keep the publication going as long as possible.

I doubt that I have drawn my last political cartoon of all time. I can of course draw them as ideas and time allow down the road, but this is the end of my regular weekly strip and I expect it to be a hard break for quite a while as I focus on other kinds of cartooning.

Thank you for reading all these years. I know a few people who have been reading since the beginning (besides my Mom), through the dark Bush years, the rise of social media, the collapse of alt-weeklies, the rise (and then collapse) of online media. Trump! A pandemic! Here I am. I made it through all that and want to go out on my own terms now.

I doubt I will miss having a weekly deadline, but I know I’ll miss political cartooning in many ways—wrestling with political issues, connecting with readers, whiling away my time at the drawing table. Now I’m going to find ways to do all of those things in a different way.

Sign up to support The Nib, keep that going, and see the work I do there. I’m not above plugging it in a post like this—we’re entirely reader supported. And sign up to my newsletter for updates on anything I do in the future. There will no longer be a weekly cartoon there, but knowing me it won’t be too long before I have something to show you.

[davidessman]

Any comments on the new 2021 episodes?

YES!!

I'm super excited for this last batch of S2 episodes. I'm really proud of how they came out! Chipocalypse Now is insane and I hope y'all like it. And the episodes that follow are a blast. Now that we're deeper into the series, it's been interesting to see what types of story/character decisions can be made in order to "unlock" new types of episodes. Moreso the episodes are fun and silly. It's been a joy to gather a bunch of funny artist/writer weirdos together with the goal of entertaining each other.

On the production end of things, we saw a lot of our long-term crew members step into new roles. Anna O'Brian and Jon Wallach BOTH stepped up to take on a directing role (both were long-time BCG board artists). Monica Ray stepped up into a Supervising Directing role which is amazing (she's also doing a LOT of voice directing). Monica is our partner in crime and has her fingerprints all over the show. Kiana Khansmith guest-directed an episode! Kenny, Carson, and Rachelle were on fire (in a good way) in the writer's room. And in a big move- Kassandra Heller (m'lady) and Steve Lowtwait BOTH stepped into the Art Director role after we lost Romney Caswell to Netflix (a big red "N" fell on him on our walk to lunch one day). Nah, Romney left for Netflix to work on some very exciting stuff that I'm not sure if i can mention so I won't!

I'm so proud of all of these folks because they have worked tirelessly on making BCG the best it can be. A big portion of the work done on this last batch of S2 episodes was done during quarantine and a sudden shift to working remotely. The summer was very difficult but our team really banded together and pushed through. People were working on old computers and Wacom tablets, recording voices in clothes closets, etc. One of our BG designers worked at night bc her AC didn't work and it was too hot to work during the day! We worked through protests, riots, and wild fires. The same dedication can be seen from our two overseas partner studios, Rough Draft Korea and Sugarcube. They care a lot about BCG and did everything they could to minimize delays.

Big City Greens, for many people who work on it, is a passion-project. Our team (and the many Disney execs and departments who support the show) routinely go above and beyond. It's incredible. Personally, 2020 has been incredibly challenging but has also forced me to grow in many areas.

Tons of you have been sending me questions regarding the new episodes as well as other stuff I'm not able to talk about right now. But I LOVE the passion y'all share for BCG. I'm not ignoring your asks- I'm simply delaying my responses. 😉

More news to come! 2021 is gonna be fun!

[davidessman]

Jen Sorensen.

[davidessman]

I’m going to produce and write for this new, independent animated show, Justice Warriors—if it gets funded. It’s a dystopian sci-fi black comedy mutant cop show. Help it get made by pledging a few dollars here!

[davidessman]

I have a few questions about Cheap Show. First of all, loved it, second, what led you to making a bottle episode this season, and third, how’d you get the man himself, Mr. Tom Hanks to grace us with a wonderful and hilarious cameo?

Every week we have a production meeting where we discuss the entire show’s pipeline/crew/schedule/budget. It’s an important meeting but the updates are usually the same: we’re over budget and behind schedule. We ask for more time and budget, and the folks in charge do their best to try and get it for us. But they also ask us questions to make sure we’re spending time/money efficiently. “Do the characters need to go to so many different locations? Your background designers are behind schedule.” or “Why are you writing so many act 3 chase sequences?!”

One day I got frustrated at the same questions and after the meeting I told Shane that we should create the cheapest and easiest-to-produce episode of BCG ever. We talked with Kenny Byerly (BCG’s head writer) about different versions of bottle episodes and clip show formats. It was a lot of fun and all of us had a blast coming up with jokes. A joke I wanted to fit in but couldn’t due to time, was to have the family all sit quietly for about 45 seconds listening to an old radio program like it was the 1940s.

At one point, we had the idea that it’d be funny to try to cast our biggest guest-star to date, only to give the actor one line delivered off-camera. For an episode all about frugality and efficiency, it felt like a great joke to go out on. Thus began our attempt to cast the biggest A-lister we could think of: Hom Tanks. I mean, Tom Hanks.

How we went about this must remain secret for all eternity. All I can say is that he was incredibly kind and generous to do this for the show. He liked the joke and it was a dream come true to have a legendary actor/national treasure read such an incredibly stupid line of dialogue.

[davidessman]

Ivanka, speech defender

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[davidessman]

Get our new collection on Kickstarter!

[davidessman]

Who’s the tyrant?

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[davidessman]

Matt Lubchansky.

[davidessman]

If Republican Supreme Court justices had to follow their own rulings

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[davidessman]

This week’s comic now up on @gocomics - Historical News of the Times: Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor - FDR Calls Attack a “Hoax” - https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2020/04/10 - btw join the inner hive at patreon.com/rubenbolling - and nfn two new tom the dancing bug books at bit.ly/pre-orderTOM

[davidessman]

On sale now!

[davidessman]

Matt Bors.

[davidessman]

Ollie’s Pack Series PREMIERE! 🎒💥

Ollie is here to protect Earth and the monster realm. Meet “the chosen one”, Ollie who’s armed with his monster backpack (and two best friends), right here!

[davidessman]

Breathtaking negligence

As some of my newspaper clients are shrinking or shutting down right now, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service!

[davidessman]

Matt Bors.