Wondermark

THIS SUNDAY: National Cartoonist Society Art Auction in L.A.

June 29, 2023November 10, 2016

(Click image for a closer look)

I know it’s short notice BUT: this very Sunday, November 13, at the very swanky and celebrated home of late cartoonist Mell Lazarus, will be a fundraiser art auction hosted by the Los Angeles chapter of the National Cartoonist Society (of which I am a member).

The auction will be hosted by cartoonist Dan Piraro (of “Bizarro”) and there’s going to be a lot of cool animation and cartoon art for sale, from comics and cartoons and animation — including some from Disney productions and The Simpsons.

I’ll be there too, lurking in the corner or whatever!

You can see some of the featured artwork to be auctioned at the NCSLA website here.

And if you’re an L.A. local who’s active in comics, animation, or the arts, this event — or our other, monthly NCSLA meetings — are great opportunities to meet local artists and trade tips and all that kind of network-y stuff.

Email me (dave at wondermark dot com) or leave a comment on this post if you want me to forward you info about the next NCSLA meeting! They’re usually in Hollywood, on a weekend evening.

Here’s my Election Day Bingo Card

June 29, 2023November 7, 2016

(Click for a closer look.)

Here’s where to verify the location of your polling place. You don’t need me to remind you, but just for that one dude who forgot, please go vote, Jeremy.

Here’s some Wondermark comics about voting from years past:

Participants in Democracy
In which Progress looks likely
In which Politics exhilarate
In which a Dog wants a Sticker
In which it’s All Over

…And a palate-cleanser about Daylight Savings:
In which the Time changes

Fiction: Dispatches from the Mirror Universe

June 29, 2023November 3, 2016

I got to thinking about how dispiriting it must be to be a principled Republican right now, forced to choose between a candidate you can’t comprehend supporting (Clinton) and a candidate who is a total sleazebag maniac.

And I think people who support Clinton might just have easily been the target of Trump (or someone like him) ginning us up and telling us whatever we wanted to hear. We are not so smart that we would never possibly fall for it, and we would happily rationalize away all their flaws.

And I marvel about the place we’re in as a nation where Clinton is so hated that she could even lose to TRUMP, I mean c’mon, and also Trump is such a trashfire that he might even lose to CLINTON, hated as she is.

So I wrote a news report from an alternate universe where Trump decided he wanted to be a Democrat instead, and principled liberals were faced with the choice of either buying into his sales pitch despite his manifest terribleness; or voting against him, which would mean reconciling themselves to the prospect of voting for someone they loathed — his opponent, Dick Cheney.

Now, I think Democrats had something like a promise-the-moon candidate in Sanders, and clearly that didn’t work out. I’d also like to think that Democrats would be less accepting of abhorrent personal behavior than Trump’s ardent supporters seem to be.

The point of this piece isn’t quite “Trump could have fooled Democrats instead, had he chosen to.” The point is to try and give Hillary supporters a visceral way to feel what many conservatives are feeling right now:

“Imagine what it must be like to have to choose between someone your party canonically hates, and Donald Trump.”

Read the whole piece on Medium:

DISPATCHES FROM THE MIRROR UNIVERSE: Republican Dick Cheney and Democrat Donald Trump each remain the only presidential candidates that could possibly lose to the other

Archive Deep Dive: Five Notable Wondermark Firsts

June 29, 2023November 1, 2016

For folks on Patreon (and everyone else too), I wrote an ARCHIVE DEEP DIVE post that looks back at the early years of Wondermark, and some things I learned along the way, from the cold, harsh perspective of 2016:

I started making Wondermark comics in 2003. Luckily, virtually nothing about the world has changed between then and now – not me, not the world, not the Internet, and certainly not what we all find funny.

I’m now being told that is incorrect. Fine! In that case, and in case you haven’t been around for the whole lifespan of Wondermark, or haven’t been paying attention if you were, I think let’s spend some time on an…ARCHIVE DEEP DIVE™®©!!!

Since it’s the first post of this type, I thought we should look back at…

Five Notable Wondermark Firsts

Although the post is on Patreon, this particular post is FREE for everyone to read! I think it is pretty interesting but then again I think EVERYTHING I do is interesting, so.

Essay: The Junk Mail Candidate

June 29, 2023October 17, 2016

Today on Medium: I wrote an essay about what I’ve learned from subscribing to every presidential candidate’s email list.

I occasionally tweet interesting tidbits from the emails I receive, but today’s essay is a longer, sustained dive into an observation that struck me as interesting…

In February, I subscribed to all the presidential candidates’ email lists.

Since then, I’ve gotten over 1,000 requests for money. Today is the 17th of October, and so far, this month, I’ve heard from Hillary Clinton’s campaign 32 times and Donald Trump’s 53 times. (Carly Fiorina chimed in once in support of Trump, too.)

Sometimes I hear from them many times in a day. “Let’s bug our subscribers incessantly,” the theory seems to go, “so they’ll be more inclined to give us money!”

The emails become an interesting lens through which to examine each campaign’s opinion of its supporters. Do they think they’re the type of people who’re driven by hope, or by fear? By sincere human appeals, or by stern orders? By pleading, or by threats? Or like Jeb!, by just being pathetic?

You can read the whole thing on Medium: The Junk Mail Candidate, by David Malki !

Previously in candidate correspondence: A Poem I Made from Jeb Bush’s Emails
Previously by me on Medium: I grew up in San Bernardino.

#1565; A Cold Stare From a Tall Bookshelf (Part 4 of 4)

— May 1st, 2025