It’s probably my own ambivalence issues with authority, or maybe my impatience with “the system,” but I love the DIY culture we’re living in right now, so three articles caught my eye recently. Two are personal victory stories, and one maybe points to a different kind of future. (Impatient animators can scroll downwards to the graphic novel story at the bottom.)

A lot of people come and pitch me projects and get annoyed when we don’t agree with them on the quality of their work. I usually counsel for them to do them independently, though often that just annoys them more. But, more and more often creators are doing it for themselves. It’s not like I think we know what’s good and what’s not, just what strikes our fancy. Any artist probably knows more than we do, and the people in these stories prove that point in spades. 

Artist and illustrator Molly Crabapple is a friend of my ex-partner Tim Shey and with the help of the web has figured out how to avoid the whining in a fading business. Now she’s using Kickstarter as a patron to give herself a 28th birthday present, a Week in Hell. Pulling together then community she’s built for Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School she asked for $4500 and today is closing with over $20,000 in funding. 

Even better is the New York Times article about my hero of the month, Amanda Hocking of Austin, Minnesota. Like many of you she’s been writing stories since she was a little girl, but at 21, dejected by publishers’ rejections she took to self-publishing e-books on Amazon.com. It wasn’t that easy, she had to work hard to make her writing more attractive to her readers, and now she’s made over $2 million. 

Hocking is at a loss to explain the phenomenon. “I’ve seen other authors do the exact same things I have, similar genre, similar prices” — like many self-published authors, she prices her books radically below what traditional publishers charge; typically hers cost between 99 cents and $2.99 — “and they have multiple books out. And they all have good covers. And they’re selling reasonably well, but they’re not selling nearly as well as I am.”

Talent helps, but it seems to me Amanda worked hard for people to like her books.

Sad that regular folks couldn’t buy her stuff in the places books sell, like Walmart, Amanda just signed a traditional publishing deal with St. Martin’s Press. 

Lastly, a couple of weeks ago Todd Allen at Publisher’s Weekly crunched a few number and imagined the possibilities: Is Kickstarter the #3 U.S. Indie Graphic Novel Publisher?  Sure, he admits it’s apples vs. oranges —“It perhaps isn’t natural to look at Kickstarter as a publisher. Functionally, it exists somewhere between a direct-to-consumer pre-sales program and a PBS/NPR pledge drive.”— but there’s something happening here. 

What’s all this add up to? Well, to me it means get out of your own way. In the world we’re living in, if you don’t get something made and in front of an audience there finally no one else to blame but the person in the mirror. If you’re talented, don’t wait for someone else to tell you so. Go out there, find your own audience. They’ll tell you what they think, and after all, aren’t they more important than Viacom, or DC Comics, or Random House? You’ll have satisfaction in doing what you think is right, and if you hit the bull’s eye you’ll make some money too.

“The young … have no reference for the time before hip-hop: when rappers couldn’t get their records played on radio or show on TV; when Black artists of any genre were asked, literally, to make their music sound and make themselves look Whiter; when Black actors and actresses didn’t star in summer blockbuster films; when Black women who actually looked like Black women didn’t grace the covers of magazines; when Black men and women didn’t own multimillion-dollar companies based on selling their own culture to the nation and the world.”   
–from Dan Charnas‘ The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip Hop

Most of the books I post about here are about the cartoon business, though on rare occasions I’ll let you in on what’s on my personal bookshelf. Rarely, seeing as my reading tastes are often off the beaten path of cartoons; fiction-wise I read mysteries almost exclusively. But in non-fiction I spend a lot of time (too much time) reading about pop culture (including a lot of animation), with a lot of focus on the behind-the-scenes machinations on the business behind the culture. (It probably explains why, when I stopped playing piano, I flipped onto the other side of booth and started recording music, which eventually led to producing television and film.)

Today, a twitch from Mark Zuckerberg makes headlines, but back in the day a simple rock star’s simple statement could shake the world. Before internet philosophy came to dominate world thought, music culture –more than movies, television, and yes, sadly, cartoons– defined American culture and therefore, at least in our last century, world culture. And, of course, to anyone who’s paying attention, whether one loves The Beatles or Megadeth or Josh Groban or Fela Anikulapo Kuti, or even the Monsters of Folk, the defining force in music (and back around, for the whole world’s culture) for over 100 years has been American black music.

Last year, my obsession was Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock ‘n’ Roll Pioneers (Music in American Life) by John Broven, about the indie pop record business in the second half of the 20th century, which, along with Arnold Shaw’sHonkers and Shouters, gave me a thorough view of the cutting edge of pop culture. Both those books trailed off before hip hop, the last defining black musical –and cultural– explosion of the century.

Dan Charnas has done a great job reporting the cross currents of “joy and pain, triumph and failure, grace and greed” (Jeff Chang) that created, nurtured, and eventually, got the better of hip hop. I’ve tried to read a lot of hip hop histories over the years, but inevitably been turned away by the terrible writing, editorializing, and inaccuracies. But the final chapters Tony Fletcher’s excellent All Hopped Up and Ready to Go: Music from the Streets of New York 1927-77 and Jay-Z’s Fresh Air interview last month whet my appetite for more and Charnas delivers the first book that makes me want to get over my listening limitations (after Rapper’s Delight I was a big fan from“Sucker MC’s” through the mid-90s, but I pretty much got lost at Wu-Tang).

Whether you care about hip hop or not, if you’re reading this blog you’re involved with pop culture. If you want to know more about what makes it what it is, read The Big Payback. If you like to read, you won’t be disappointed.

Bonus track: Here’s what started the whole thing, the Sugarhill Gang’s original 12″ of Rapper’s Delight.

Book cover illustrated & designed by Carlos Ramos

OK, here ’tis on Amazon.com, Original Cartoon Title Cards from Frederator Studios, before Christmas, as we hoped. Not sure if they can actually deliver it by next week, but you can check. The official release date is in March, so at least you can get a head start on everyone else. In the meanwhile, you can preview the whole book below to see if it’s worth it to you.

Here’s the blurb (and here’s the entire introduction):

Please, consider the unconsidered art of the original cartoon title card.

For almost a century, the art of the cartoon title card has not been disparaged, disregarded, or dismissed. It has been completely ignored. And by the 1970s it had almost completely disappeared.

Over 200 full color original title cards from hit Frederator cartoon series, including The Fairly OddParents, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Fanboy & Chum Chum, Adventure Time, and eight more.

Frederator loves you.

Original Cartoon Title Cards from Frederator Studios