Another Reason I Live in Port Townsend, WA

LB’S NOTE: People keep asking why Gwen the Beautiful and I moved all the way up to the Northwestern Tip of the United States after so many years in L.A. The following article is a fine example:

Local illustrator’s poster features powerful message
by Carmen Jaramillo

With summer events canceled en masse, once vibrant and colorful bulletin boards around Port Townsend now sit mostly empty.

Before the pandemic, real estate on local bulletin boards was at a premium; today it’s a buyers market. Rose Burt, local artist and illustrator, said she hopes her “Attention Citizen!” poster can bring some beauty back into these empty spaces.

Burt’s now-iconic design features what she calls an earth goddess named “Gaia Antonia,” who brings important messages of resilience to the people of Port Townsend.

The first design, which began circulating in June, features a masked and tan woman with flowing black-blue hair and a crown of flowers. She is holding a bouquet of vegetables in one arm and proudly displaying the other in a raised fist.

Burt revisited the design when protests calling for racial justice in policing began to sweep the nation and the local community. Revising the poster digitally, Burt added the words “Black Lives Matter” across the top of the and gave the goddess the scales of justice.

The posters can be found displayed in shop windows and on bulletin boards in Uptown and downtown Port Townsend.

The project started as the brainchild of local author and publisher Arendt Speser, Burt said. Speser commissioned Burt, whom he frequently works with for his publishing company, Andante Books, to create a design for a public service announcement pamphlet series titled “Attention Citizen!”

The goal was simple; a colorful image with very little text that would serve as a call to action.

The first version, titled “Our Lady of the Rona,” was designed to promote mask wearing and was originally intended to be a part of the Jeffco Cares initiative by the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce.

Then Speser began to print and distribute the posters….

Read it all at PTLeader.COM

 

Don’t Miss Mark Evanier’s Cartoon Voice Panel Online TOMORROW!

Entertaining!

Enlightening!

Filled with untold tales of the animation biz!

Who could ask for more?

Why is Hulu’s Streaming Doing So Well? Credit ‘The Simpsons’

According to writer Ben Travers of IndieWire, “The same army of “Simpsons” clones that formed Fox’s Sunday night lineup for years is now helping Hulu become adult animation’s streaming hub.”

Who’d a’thunk?

“The Simpsons,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “Duncanville,” and “Family Guy”

by Ben Travers

Humbly listed at the bottom of recent press release, Hulu revealed a rather startling viewership statistic. In the last year, more than half of Hulu subscribers had watched at least one of its adult animated programs. Further still, nearly 40 percent watch some form of adult animation every month. Based on reported figures, that’s roughly 12 million people regularly seeking out Hulu’s acquired and original animated series.

It’s no wonder the Disney-controlled streamer has invested in making more of its own animated programs, including “Solar Opposites” (the main focus of the press release), which became the No. 1 title on Hulu (animated or otherwise) during its premiere week in May. There’s a growing demand for adult animated content, and Hulu is in a prime position to capitalize. Why? A bulk of Hulu’s high-profile animated content comes from Fox, one of the streamer’s sister networks and a long-standing adult animation hub — that’s showing no signs of turning off the taps.

Fox knows a thing or two about animation. “The Simpsons” became a cultural juggernaut in the 1990s, snagging big ratings while making bigger licensing bucks and hauling in awards to boot. Fox sporadically paired its tentpole animated comedy with new animated offerings, including “The Critic” in 1995 and “The PJs” in 1999, but the network didn’t form a brand name around animation until “King of the Hill” and “Futurama” took off shortly before the new millennium.

In 2005, Fox went all in, launching its first “Animation Domination” lineup with “The Simpsons,” “King of the Hill,” “Family Guy,” and “American Dad.” By then, the initial three programs were well-established and helped draw viewers to Seth MacFarlane’s new show — a strategy Fox has since repeated for more than a decade. The network has rotated in new series like “Sit Down, Shut Up,” “The Cleveland Show,” “Napoleon Dynamite,” and other short-lived animated titles while searching for lasting staples to pair with juggernauts like “The Simpsons,” “Family Guy,” and later on, “Bob’s Burgers….”

Read it all at indiewire.com

 

 

#PublishingPaidMe

Nathan Bransford, one of TVWriter™’s favorite writers and writing consultants is here to talk about the state of publishing and the truth about the advances writers get. In other words, yep, we’re talking about payment inequities, pure and simple. Sigh…

#Publishing Paid Me is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
by Nathan Bransford

[Recently] many authors bravely shared their book advances using the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag started by L.L. McKinney, exposing racial disparities in book advances and, as author Justina Ireland noted, showing that many authors aren’t making as much money as you think they’re making.

It’s important for people to recognize that these disparities are still happening in the publishing industry to this day. It’s equally important to recognize that advances are just the tip of the iceberg.

#PublishingPaidMe by definition only sheds light on the books that were published in the first place.

Until books like The Hate U Give and Between the World and Me became massive bestsellers, there was long a pernicious and self-fulfilling notion that books by and featuring Black people and other people of color “don’t sell.” Even right now, some publishing people talk about diverse books as if they’re a fad.

Everyone connected to the publishing industry has heard about publishers passing on a book by or featuring someone from an under-represented group because “we already have one of those.”

And even for the books that did make it across the finish line to publication, as author N. K. Jemisin notes, because of the way publishers craft offers by anchoring to comparable titles, those past self-fulfilling prophesies about books not selling ooze into the present in very harmful ways.

It affects marketing decisions. It affects the way books are packaged and the covers they receive. It affects expectations about what the authors will write about….

Read it all at nathanbransford.com

Need help with your book? Nathan is available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out Nathan’s guide to writing a novel (now available in audio) and his guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to Nathan’s newsletter!

Last Week’s Most Important Cord Cutting Developments 7/8/20

Cord Cutters News gives us the latest on the cord cutting front! Price Hikes for YouTube TV, fuboTV, ESPN+, and Others. Plus we’ll talk about new additions to The Roku Channel, VIZO TVs, & More!

Cord Cutters Video Channel: https://twitter.com/CordCuttersNews
Cord Cutters Web Site: http://cordcuttersnews.com

Oh, and you can even buy a nifty coffee mug so you can settle back and sip while you watch