| Occupy Comics | |
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Promotional art for Occupy Comics. Art by Anna Wieszczyk featuring Soledad from Godkiller. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publication date | 2012 |
| Editor(s) | Matt Pizzolo |
Occupy Comics: Art & Stories Inspired by Occupy Wall Street is a currently-in-production, deluxe comic book anthology funded on Kickstarter and seeking to articulate themes of the Occupy Wall Street movement through comics as well as to fund-raise on behalf of the protesters.[1][2]
As Bleeding Cool described it:
Some of the biggest names in independent and mainstream comics have come together for a social-networking funded comic book anthology to tell the story of the Occupy Wall Street protest that sidesteps the 24 hour news media’s desire for sensationalism. The money raised will pay the creators for their work – and they will then donate all that money to the Occupy movement, especially through the coming winter months.[1]
Wired explained the perceived relationship between Occupy Wall Street and art:
Pizzolo said the project makes sense because the Occupy Wall Street movement was launched by a piece of art. "Adbusters created a really powerful image of a ballerina atop the Wall Street Bull with protesters in the background, and that was enough to set this off,” he said. “Then Anonymous brought in the Guy Fawkes masks, and U.S. Day of Rage created more art challenging the relationship between Wall Street and Washington. So this is an art-inspired movement, and that’s part of what makes it so viral. It’s not intellectual, it doesn’t need a manifesto. People are banding together around an idea, rather than an ideology."[3]
Contents |
The project was officially announced by organizational spearhead Matt Pizzolo in Wired Magazine on October 13, 2011, several weeks after the occupation of Zuccotti Park began on September 17, 2011.[4]
According to Wired:
Pizzolo's Occupy Comics was originally designed to bring public awareness to the Occupy Wall Street movement. But a combination of growing protests, as well as possibly illegal police pushback, solved the exposure gap. Now Pizzolo is interested in providing illustrative and material support to protesters through a Kickstarter project whose contributors would donate all proceeds to the Wall Street occupiers. “I think it’s cool to expand the Occupy movement out of physical spaces and into abstract spaces like comics, so its culture can start occupying shared mindspaces as well as cities,” Pizzolo said. “The occupation has to be as pervasive and immersive as possible.”[4]
Occupy Comics launched on Kickstarter November 9, 2011 with a minimum funding goal of $10,000 USD and a roster of 30 professional artists and writers, including Charlie Adlard, Marc Andreyko, Kevin Colden, Molly Crabapple, J.M. DeMatteis, Joshua Dysart, Brea Grant, Joe Keatinge, George Krstic, Joseph Michael Linsner, B. Clay Moore, Steve Niles, Laurie Penny, Matt Pizzolo, Steve Rolston, Riley Rossmo, Douglas Rushkoff, Tim Seeley, Simon Spurrier, and Ben Templesmith.[3]
Shortly after the Kickstarter campaign launched, Wired released a follow-up article which explained the project's funding goals and strategy:
What do we want? Funding! How will we get it? Comics!That’s the goal of the Occupy Comics Kickstarter project... The plan is to graphically document the Occupy movement with the help of a roster of respected comics creators and artists, then funnel the proceeds directly to the protesters taking hits and making history for the 99 percent.
“Comics is at the root of this thing,” Halo-8 founder and Occupy Comics organizer Matt Pizzolo said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Just look at Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta masks at every protest. A Guy Fawkes mask is now a more iconic image of street protest than a gas mask.”
Occupy Comics contributor Molly Crabapple ... lives a block from Zuccotti Park, where the Occupy Wall Street movement got its start. She said she visits the site, where hundreds of people have encamped to protest economic inequality, almost daily.
“It’s a beautiful community, almost a mini-city, complete with library, kitchen, free store, coffee, compost and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream scooped out by Ben himself,” Crabapple told Wired.com in an e-mail. “But the media wasn’t portraying this. So I started drawing the protesters to show the diversity down at Zuccotti. Later, I did more blatantly political work in response to attacks on unions and police brutality in Oakland.”
Occupy Comics overall plan is pretty simple, which is how Pizzolo wants to keep it, in the interests of transparency. But some workarounds have been needed. “You can’t fund-raise for charity on Kickstarter; you can only use it to fund a creative project,” Pizzolo said. “So Kickstarter itself is funding the creation of a hardcover anthology graphic novel about the protests, and through that everyone is being paid, then donating their pay to the protesters.”[3]
Early in the campaign, the project got an unexpected boost when Frank Miller attacked Occupy Wall Street in a controversial and polarizing blog post.[5]
As the campaign closed in on its funding goal, 13 additional contributors were added to the roster, including Vito Delsante, Dan Goldman, Amanda Palmer, Darick Robertson, Mark Sable, and Salgood Sam.[6]
The campaign passed its funding goal and was guaranteed its budget on November 20, 2011, 11 days in on its 30 day funding period.[7]
Shortly after passing its funding goal, six additional contributors were added to the roster, including Mike Allred, Shannon Wheeler, Eric Drooker, Ryan Ottley, Dean Haspiel, Guy Denning, and David Lloyd.[8]
In the final week of its Kickstarter campaign, Alan Moore joined the roster.[9]
Although not an official reunion, the participation of Alan Moore and David Lloyd was considered significant to many observers of the Occupy movement, as the duo's V For Vendetta originated the Guy Fawkes mask that has become emblematic of the movement. Moore and Lloyd have not worked together since V For Vendetta was completed in 1989.[10][11][12][13]
Alan Moore further boosted Occupy Comics' profile when, during an interview with Honest Publishing, he responded to Frank Miller's attack on the Occupy movement. The conflict led to mainstream news coverage of Occupy Comics in The Huffington Post, Deadline Hollywood, MTV, Entertainment Weekly.[14][15][16][17]
On December 9, 2011, the Occupy Comics Kickstarter campaign ended with $28,640 raised from 715 backers, earning 286% of its funding goal.[18]