[P2P-F] Fwd: "Occupy Comics Kickstarter project"

Fri Nov 11 12:26:44 CET 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 4:39 PM
Subject: "Occupy Comics Kickstarter project"
To: econowmix at googlegroups.com

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/11/occupy-comics-kickstarter-campaign-raises-funds-for-protesters/

( Via Erminio ) - Pasted Below

What do we want? Funding! How will we get it? Comics!

That’s the goal of the *Occupy Comics* Kickstarter
project<http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1817933359/occupy-comics-art-stories-inspired-by-occupy-wall>,
launched Wednesday by transmedia studioHalo-8 <http://halo8.tv/> and
explained in the video pitch below. The plan is to graphically
document the Occupy
movement <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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*<http://occupycomics.com/2011/10/11/the-blueprint> organizer
Matt Pizzolo said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Just look at Alan Moore and
David Lloyd’s *V for Vendetta
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 <http://mollycrabapple.com/>,
whose work can be seen above and below, 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<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/04/occupy-oakland-second-veteran-injured>
.”

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.”

The longer version is that *Occupy Comics* contributors Steve Niles, Joshua
Dysart, Douglas Rushkoff, J.M. DeMatteis and many more are creating art
inspired by the protest movement and compiling it into an extensive art
book in the tradition of similar releases like *Peace Signs: The Anti-War
Movement Illustrated<http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Signs-Anti-War-Movement-Illustrated/dp/3283004870>
*and *Green Patriot Posters: Images for a New
Activism<http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/11/green-patriot>
*. Artists and execs donate all pay and profits to assist with the
occupiers’ amenities and necessities. The revolution is visualized when *Occupy
Comics*‘ limited-edition anthology arrives in mid-2012.

Pizzolo said the project makes sense because the Occupy Wall Street
movement was launched by a piece of art.
 ‘We’re all connected in the cloud now, and you can’t fight that with
pepper spray.’

“*Adbusters* created a really powerful image of a ballerina atop the Wall
Street bull <http://www.adbusters.org/content/ballerina-and-bull> with
protesters in the background, and that was enough to set this off,” he
said. “Then Anonymous
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_%28group%29> brought
in the Guy Fawkes masks, and U.S. Day of Rage <http://usdayofrage.org/> 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.”

That band is heavily fortified by technology and social networking, which
continues to sustain the Occupy movement and increase its support. While
the protesters are consumed with everything from corporate
personhood<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood> to
the widening gap between the rich and the
poor<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/income-gap-widens-census-_n_741386.html>,
they are taking their concerns to Twitter and Facebook as well as the
streets, using the internet to mobilize and inform the movement’s ranks.

“During the late-’90s globalization
protests<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Organization_Ministerial_Conference_of_1999_protest_activity>,
which were about many of the same issues, we had to be brought into a group
and trained in protest methodologies,” said Pizzolo. “But when I stepped
into Zuccotti Park for the first time, I had all the information I needed
just by following Twitter. We’re all connected in the cloud now, and you
can’t fight that with pepper spray. This movement is about art and
technology connecting people. That’s new, and really exciting.”

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