2024 matched crowdfunding video

As the video above explains, I have been selected for the rare opportunity to host a government-backed matched crowdfunding project. This means that any donations made to my new campaign page will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Australian government’s arts ministry.

Importantly, Creative Australia will match contributions that are made from people from all over the world, irrespective of nationality. In addition, this is a tax-deductible donation for Australians, who will be issued a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) receipt to claim as a tax deduction on their ATO income tax return.

This is actually the third time that I’ve run a matched crowdfunding campaign, as shown through my grants and fundraising history page. When I ran my past two matched crowdfunding campaigns in 2016 and 2018, I found the government fund-matching aspect was an important motivator that encouraged people to donate to my campaign.

A very big project: my debut graphic novel

As the video at the top of the page highlights, I am funding my debut graphic novel The Town Without Television. As you can imagine, creating a graphic novel is a very time-consuming process. I’ve got a lot of drawing ahead of me, with at least two years more work to go before The Town Without Television is ready to be published. But I am still very motivated by this project, and think it will be a satisfying and thought-provoking book when published. I bet you’re looking forward to reading it too.

Can you donate to my campaign?

Would you consider donating to my crowdfunding page to help this next phase of The Town Without Television’s creation? If so, please donate through my new crowdfunding page, and enjoy the satisfaction of having your donation doubled by the Australian government.

Content Matched crowdfunding 2024 first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

The location: Science Gallery Bengaluru

Science Gallery Bengaluru is part of the network of international Science Galleries, which each holds various artistic exhibitions and lectures with a view to science outreach and art-science collaborations. At present, there are Science Gallery locations in seven cities around the world.

Above: the entrance to Science Gallery Bengaluru. Photo credit: Science Gallery Bengaluru.

The exhibition: CARBON

My comic Peak Oil is being displayed as part of the current CARBON exhibition that is on display in the gallery between 28 November 2023 to 31 July 2024, featuring 36 exhibits by both Indian and international artists and scholars.

CARBON explores our complex relationship with the controversial and fundamental element. While carbon is dismissed as a villain in today’s global warming discourse, the exhibition aims to provide an all-round view of the element.

My artwork: the Peak Oil comic

Peak Oil is one of my two major comics about energy, and the role the fossil fuels play in our modern technology-driven lives. The blurb:

Roughly half of the world’s entire oil supply is gone; half is left. How will our society choose to use the oil that remains?

Australian comics artist Stuart McMillen profiles American geologist M. King Hubbert and his ‘peak oil‘ theory of fossil fuel depletion.

Peak Oil was originally published to my website in 2015, and was later made available for sale as a self-published comic book. It remains one of my most popular pieces that I have published, with readers seeming to appreciate the wide-scope of thinking that sits behind the comic.

As you can see, in CARBON, the entire comic is shown displayed on a wall, the pages of the comic displayed in 5 tiers.

Above: Peak Oil by Stuart McMillen displayed as a wall-sized installation at the CARBON exhibition. Photo credit: Science Gallery Bengaluru.

My neighbouring artwork: Energy Slave Tokens

My Peak Oil artwork was installed in a part of the exhibition next to an art installation titled Energy Slave Tokens, designed by by Disnovation & Baruch Gottlieb.

From the artwork’s description:

The Energy Slave Tokens consists of a series of weights made of bitumen, which are the energy equivalents to specific quantities of physical human labour time (ie. 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, 1 life). This series of weights is designed to present the orders of magnitude that separate the labor power generated by our human bodies from the energy exploited mostly from fossil fuels which powers the technosphere.

The weights are, therefore, a visceral way for gallery visitors to perceive the relative weakness of human bodies compared to the immense power of fossil fuels. We begin to comprehend the vast levels of technological and material resources that simply would not exist human bodies alone were responsible for making our world. For those who want to dig deeper, I have a series of blog posts titled Energy Slaves reflections where I expand on this theme.

(Out of interest, originally the Science Gallery Bengaluru team and I discussed the idea of including my own Energy Slaves comic in this exhibition, forming a direct thematic link with the Energy Slave Tokens. But for reasons that are too lengthy to discuss here, the plan shifted, and we opted to instead display the related Peak Oil in this exhibition.)

Printed copies of my Peak Oil and Energy Slaves books

To add extra context to the installation, printed copies of my Peak Oil and Energy Slaves comic books were available for visitors to read through.




A reminder that these books are available for you to buy through my online store! Professionally-printed in A5 size, the comic books are the best way to read these comics, and feature endnotes with short biographies of the careers of M. King Hubbert and Buckminster Fuller.

Photos from the exhibition

Credit to Science Gallery Bengaluru for supplying me with all of the photos shown on this page. Thank you for the permission to use your images.

Above: Simon Coveney T.D., Irish Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment visits Science Gallery Bengaluru’s CARBON exhibition in 2024, and inspects Energy Slave Tokens and Peak Oil artworks

Videos of CARBON at Science Gallery Bengaluru

My artwork is visible at the 00:24 and 00:34 mark of the below embedded video

My artwork is visible at the 00:36 and 00:50 mark of the below embedded video

Once again, thanks to the team at Science Gallery Bengaluru for reaching out to me, and including my work in such a high-quality exhibition.

Content Peak Oil in CARBON exhibition at Science Gallery Bengaluru first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Energy Slaves on display in Äerdschëff

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

The photos show my comic broken up into six frames, displayed on easels. The frames have since been mounted on the walls, but I do not have any photos of the new installation to share at the moment!

Luxembourg is a country with three official languages: French, German, and the national language Luxembourgish. Besides the three official languages, English is also commonly spoken. The team behind Äerdschëff asked me to provide them with the German-language translation of Energy Slaves (Energiesklaven), and they have printed versions of the English and French language Energy Slaves comics on hand for people who prefer those languages.

About Äerdschëff

Äerdschëff is an environmental learning centre in Luxembourg built using the principles of Earthships, pioneered by Michael Reynolds. (Äerdschëff is the translation of the word “Earthship” in Luxembourgish.) The building is built with re-purposed and sustainable materials, like earth-packed used tyres. The building hosts a variety of workshops and events, relating to environmentally-friendly living.

Images from the construction of Äerdschëff can be found on the gallery page on their website. There is an in-depth 5-minute video about the project available to stream via RTL Play.

Äerdschëff launch event in 2023

Below are images from the launch event, the Low Tech Festival, which served as the opening event for Äerdschëff in April 2023.

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

Photo credit: Peace Advocate Photography

It’s great having my artwork on display on the opposite side of the world! As mentioned, the artwork frames have since been mounted on the walls, and I will post photos of the new arragement ASAP.

Jump across to my next blog post where I discuss my comic Peak Oil being on display at Science Gallery Bengaluru, next to an art installation titled Energy Slave Tokens.

Content Energy Slaves on display in Luxembourg first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

• Energy Slaves
• Peak Oil
• Supernormal Stimuli
• War on Drugs

These four titles join the two self-published comic books that I was already selling:

• Rat Park
• St Matthew Island

The comic books look and feel awesome in the hand, and I am glad to be finally offering them as attractive little books.

Full details of all of these titles are below. Or you can jump straight across to my online store to buy copies.

Energy Slaves

Energy Slaves: publication information, book specifications

General information:

Title: Energy Slaves
Author: Stuart McMillen
ISBN: 978-0-6455060-2-0
Publisher: self-published by Stuart McMillen, Canberra, Australia
Publication date: 1 November 2023 (originally published online on 31 May 2017)
Sales channel: sold through Stuart’s online store
Book format: A5-size perfect-bound comic book
Number of pages: 44 pages

Physical dimensions:

Length: 148 mm
Width: 210 mm
Thickness: 5 mm
Weight: 120 grams

Energy Slaves: description / blurb:

How many invisible “energy slave” workers does it take to fuel our modern lifestyles?

Australian comics artist Stuart McMillen profiles American futurist Buckminster Fuller and his imaginative way of picturing the work that fossil fuels perform for humanity. Going one step beyond ‘horsepower’, Bucky Fuller saw that all work could be measured by the number of imaginary humans that it would take to do a physical task. He coined the unit ‘energy slave’ representing the yearly effort of a single human, and set about showing how many invisible workers are needed to power the everyday tasks that we take for granted.

Originally published to the web in 2017, this thought-provoking comic explores humanity’s heavy reliance on energy, and wonders how our supersized lifestyles will be powered in a post-fossil fuel world. Energy Slaves is best read in conjunction with Stuart McMillen’s ‘sister’ comic Peak Oil, about geologist M. King Hubbert’s 1956 forecast of the looming peak and decline of the U.S. oil industry.

Energy Slaves: cover artwork:

(Higher-resolution versions available as either JPEG or PNG image formats).

Peak Oil

Peak Oil: publication information, book specifications

General information:

Title: Peak Oil
Author: Stuart McMillen
ISBN: 978-0-6455060-1-3
Publisher: self-published by Stuart McMillen, Canberra, Australia
Publication date: 1 November 2023 (originally published online on 13 May 2015)
Sales channel: sold through Stuart’s online store
Book format: A5-size perfect-bound comic book
Number of pages: 64 pages

Physical dimensions:

Length: 148 mm
Width: 210 mm
Thickness: 5.5 mm
Weight: 165 grams

Peak Oil: description / blurb:

Roughly half of the world’s entire oil supply is gone; half is left. How will our society choose to use the oil that remains?

Australian comics artist Stuart McMillen profiles American geologist M. King Hubbert and his ‘peak oil‘ theory of fossil fuel depletion. In 1956, Hubbert was invited to give a keynote talk at an American Petroleum Institute conference. In his talk, Hubbert presented his evidence that the U.S. oil industry was set to peak and decline within the next 15 years. This prediction was contrary to the industry’s prevailing optimistic attitude. However, Hubbert’s forecast proved correct when the U.S. oil industry peaked in the 1970s.

Originally published to the web in 2015, this thought-provoking comic explores the logic behind Hubbert’s peak oil theory, and gives context to the transformational power of petroleum on human society. Peak Oil is best read in conjunction with Stuart McMillen’s ‘sister’ comic Energy Slaves, about futurist Buckminster Fuller’s observations on the fossil fuel ‘slaves’ that perform humanity’s work.

Peak Oil: cover artwork:

(Higher-resolution versions available as either JPEG or PNG image formats).

Supernormal Stimuli

Supernormal Stimuli: publication information, book specifications

General information:

Title: Supernormal Stimuli
Author: Stuart McMillen
ISBN: 978-0-6455060-3-7
Publisher: self-published by Stuart McMillen, Canberra, Australia
Publication date: 1 November 2023 (originally published online on 1 December 2011)
Sales channel: sold through Stuart’s online store
Book format: A6-size saddle-stitched comic booklet
Number of pages: 20 pages

Physical dimensions:

Length: 148 mm
Width: 105 mm
Thickness: 2 mm
Weight: 30 grams

Supernormal Stimuli: description / blurb:

A reptile brain sits deep within us. How much of our behaviour comes from primal instinct?

Why are we drawn to excessively sweet and fatty foods? Why do we find it hard to pull our eyes away from the flicker of TV sets in waiting rooms and cafés? Why are we compelled to check and re-check our inboxes and social media throughout the day?

Australian comics artist Stuart McMillen explores the work of Nobel Prizewinning Dutch biologist Niko Tinbergen, who sought to understand the root of animal instincts. Tinbergen’s experiments into supernormal stimuli showed that instinctual behaviour could be triggered by specific sensations, even if the stimuli was exaggerated beyond realistic limits. In fact, supernormal stimuli can be used to explain many of the problems that humans face in our amplified modern world. But unlike other animals, we possess the skills to control our instincts and silence our ‘inner reptile’.

Supernormal Stimuli: cover artwork:

(Higher-resolution versions available as either JPEG or PNG image formats).

War on Drugs

War on Drugs: publication information, book specifications

General information:

Title: War on Drugs
Author: Stuart McMillen
ISBN: 978-0-6455060-4-4
Publisher: self-published by Stuart McMillen, Canberra, Australia
Publication date: 1 November 2023 (originally published online on 3 October 2012)
Sales channel: sold through Stuart’s online store
Book format: A6-size saddle-stitched comic booklet
Number of pages: 28 pages

Physical dimensions:

Length: 148 mm
Width: 105 mm
Thickness: 2.5 mm
Weight: 36 grams

War on Drugs: description / blurb:

The uncanny parallels between alcohol prohibition and the ‘war on drugs’.

Australian comics artist Stuart McMillen enters the discussion on drug policy, with this thought-provoking comic. McMillen explores U.S. president Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to escalate the country’s drug laws, and the criticisms of this so-called “war on drugs” policy made by economist Milton Friedman.

War on Drugs looks at the laws that we use to try and stop people from taking drugs. By drawing parallels with alcohol prohibition, it shows the futility of criminalising drugs, and how well-intentioned laws can counter-intuitively make problems worse. War on Drugs is best read in conjunction with Stuart McMillen’s ‘sister’ comic Rat Park, about psychologist Bruce Alexander’s late 1970s series of drug addiction experiments using laboratory rats.

War on Drugs: cover artwork:

(Higher-resolution versions available as either JPEG or PNG image formats).

Discounts for bulk purchases

As I mentioned in my article about the Rat Park tenth anniversary comics, my online store offers deepening discounts for purchases of 5, 10, and 20 comic books.

The reason is because there are people and groups who use my comics as educational resources to explain social issues. e.g. Rat Park and drug rehab groups, Peak Oil and environmental groups. I want to help make it affordable for these groups to buy larger quantities of my books.

Use the shopping cart to take advantage of these bulk purchase discounts.

The mega value bundle: all six books at a discounted price

For those who want ’em all, I am offering the mega value bundle, which gives all six comic books, plus bonus postcards featuring the artwork of two comics of your choice.

The beauty of this package is that the total weight is 498 grams, which is below the 500 gram cut-off where Australia Post’s international postage fees jumps from $13.00 to $35.00(!) (This weight requirement is the reason why I can only include two postcards of your choice, rather than the whole set of six.)

Buy the mega value pack via my online store, and be sure to note which two postcards you want with your order! (Use the ‘add a note to the seller’ space in the checkout to add this postcard preference.)

Content Four classic comic books now in print first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

My first full-length book

The book will be a reworked and extended full-length version of the Town Without Television story, about the research of Canadian psychologist Tannis MacBeth. This is a story that I have began telling in 2021 through the following comics on my website: Chapter 1: Notel, and Chapter 2: Unitel.

Naturally, I will be using elements of the text and artwork from these already-published chapters of my story. However, I will also be reworking and finessing my material so that it works well in the context of the book. And there are hundreds of completely new pages of artwork that I will need to compose and draw.

The book will be published by Scribe in Australia, as well as in the U.S.A. and Canada. This is particularly exciting for me to be able to reach readers in my home country of Australia, as well as reaching those who live near to the site of this classic Canadian science experiment.

Video: announcing the news of this publishing contract

Below is a short video of me announcing this news, as well as discussing the next steps that I will be taking.

Crowdfunding support: essential for my upcoming work on this project

As mentioned in the video, I still have thousands of hours of work to go on this project. Can you help me to knuckle-down and work on this project? If so, please make a one-off donation to my FundRazr campaign, or become a supporter of my Patreon campaign.

Donating to either of these crowdfunding campaigns will help to directly fund my work on this project. Your gift will directly afford me the free time to make The Town Without Television the best possible telling of this story that I can possibly manage.

Press release: full details about the acquisition announcement

Below is the press release that Scribe published this morning, announcing this signing.

Scribe signs Stuart McMillen

Scribe is delighted to announce the acquisition of The Town Without Television by Stuart McMillen. Known for his nonfiction web comics about social issues involving science, economics, and psychology — such as the viral hit ‘Rat Park’, describing the famous 1970s study of drug addiction — for his first book-length work, Stuart is taking a deep dive into another classic sociology study.

By 1973, television had swept the world, outpacing researchers’ efforts to measure its impact. So when Canadian psychologist Tannis MacBeth discovered a town deep in the Rocky Mountain Trench that had no access to television, she saw an astonishing opportunity and took it. Through a compelling and accessible graphic narrative, The Town Without Television will tell the full story of the never-to-be-repeated ‘before’ and ‘after’ study of the ways that TV changed an ordinary community, sharing findings that continue to be relevant today.

Senior editor David Golding says, ‘Like many people, I’ve read Stuart’s work online — including the first two chapters of The Town Without Television. His research is impeccable, his storytelling is deft, and I’m excited to be working with him on bringing this story to the page. Scribe has a proud history of publishing popular works on psychology and social science, and this is the perfect book for us to expand that history into the medium of comics.’

Stuart says, ‘I am thrilled to have signed this publishing contract with Scribe. This will be my first full-length book, and I am looking forward to bringing my comics to a new audience. I’m keen to share the story of Tannis MacBeth’s landmark experiment with readers, as well as reflecting on what her research means in the 21st century.’

Scribe will publish The Town Without Television in 2025.

Content Stuart McMillen signs publishing contract with Scribe for debut book first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Image detail: Galah at the Canberra Balloon Spectacular

The bird: Galah

The galah is a member of the cockatoo family. With a distinctive pink and grey colour scheme, galahs are a well-known icon of Australia. In the 2021 annual Aussie Backyard Bird Count, galahs were the #8 most-sighted species from participants in the ACT. From participants across Australia, the galah was the #5 most-sighted species.

Image: Eolophus roseicapilla – Wamboin, NSW by David Cook Wildlife Photography

Image: Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla), Male, Austin’s Ferry, Tasmania by JJ Harrison

Galahs have relatively quiet, chirpy calls; unlike the loud and raucous calls of their noisy cousins the sulphur-crested cockatoos.

The location: the Canberra Balloon Spectacular

The Canberra Balloon Spectacular is an annual event that is held for a week surrounding the Canberra Day public holiday in early March. Locals get up early and head to the Parliamentary Triangle, to see dozens of colourful hot air balloons launching up into the sky.

I’ve been to this event multiple times in the past, and have even shot a few photos and videos of me, with the balloons as a colourful backdrop (see below).

Postcards, greeting cards, art prints

Support my work by buying this artwork as a postcard, greeting card or signed and numbered art print from my online store.
Visit the Galahs at Canberra Balloon Spectacular product range category, or use the following links for these items on my web store:

• Greeting card – Galahs at Canberra Balloon Spectacular (11.7 x 18.2 cm size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of greeting cards
• Postcard – Galahs at Canberra Balloon Spectacular (A6 size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of postcards
• Art print – Galahs at Canberra Balloon Spectacular (various sizes, pigment ink prints on archival paper)

Content Galahs at the Canberra Balloon Spectacular first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Image detail: Bush-stone curlews at Mulligans Flat

The bird: Bush stone-curlew

Image: Bush Stone Curlew – Casuarina Coastal Reserve, Darwin, NT, Australia by Geoff Whalan

Bush stone-curlews are a ground-dwelling bird that live in open plains and woodlands. Curlews are most active at night; they stalk slowly in search of insects and other invertebrates.

They walk with a distinctive peristaltic style. Taking a few steps, pausing to assess the surroundings, then making another move.

One of my favourite things about the Bush stone-curlew is its approach to camouflage. When approached by humans, they will usually freeze, standing still as a way to avoid being noticed. They strike some bizarre poses. The problem is that they often choose very prominent places to employ this camouflage technique!

Image: Bush stone curlews at Tangalooma by Janette Asche

Image: Bush stone curlew hiding by Ralph Green

Image: Bush stone curlew in camouflage pose by Benjamint444

Bush stone-curlew eyes

Bush stone-curlew eyes are comically expressive. They often have either an annoyed or worried look to them, which I tried to capture in my drawing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDClA_zTOEg

Image: Bush Stone Curlew eyes by adustylife

Image: Bush Stone Curlew (Burhinus grallarius) at Edith Falls (NT) by Shoshanabird

Image: Bush stone curlew under the mango tree by John Skewes

Bush stone-curlews have a distinctive call that gladdens me whenever I hear it. Listen to the embedded video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYwRRBL92vQ

The location: Mulligans Flat Sanctuary in Canberra

Image: Drone capture of the woolshed in Mulligans Flat by Alex Humphreys

Mulligans Flat Sanctuary is a fantastic conservation area on the northern fringes of Canberra. 1,253 hectares of endangered Box-gum Grassy-woodland area are managed for conservation by the Woodlands and Wetlands Trust in partnership with the ACT Government. Located less than 20 minutes’ drive from my house, it is on the edge of Canberra’s suburbia in the Gungahlin district of the city.

Unlike most of Australia’s land area, Mulligans Flat is free from predators such as feral cats and foxes. A predator-proof fence was built around the perimeter of the reserve, and the cats and foxes were systematically eliminated from inside the fence. This approach was also applied to other feral animals such as goats, deer, and European rabbits within the fenced area.

This ‘blank slate’, free from invasive competitors, allowed conservationists to introduce vulnerable Australian native animals into the reserve. Species such as eastern bettongs, bush-stone curlews, and eastern quolls have been successfully introduced into the sanctuary, with more species such as goannas planned to be introduced in the future. Other less-vulnerable species such as kangaroos, wallabies, possums, gliders, and echidnas flourish without the need for special wildlife introduction programs.

The sanctuary has entrances protected by double-gates, but is open to the public for free, respectful access 24 hours per day. Excellent twilight tours are available, with the funds from the tours going to support the sanctuary’s ongoing work.

Postcards for the Mulligans Flat Wildbark visitors centre

After deciding to draw my eight Canberra Birds scenes, I brainstormed local retailers that would be interested in stocking these artworks if printed into merchandise. One possible option was Mulligans Flat Sanctuary. I knew that they had long been planning a new visitors centre, so I got in touch to see if I could supply them with greeting cards. They agreed to this idea. The Mulligans Flat Wildbark restaurant and visitors centre ‘soft opened’ in late 2022, with a full opening due in 2023.

Postcards, greeting cards, art prints

Support my work by buying this artwork as a postcard, greeting card or signed and numbered art print from my online store.
Visit the Bush-stone curlews at Mulligans Flat Woolshed product range category, or use the following links for these items on my web store:

• Greeting card – Bush-stone curlews at Mulligans Flat Woolshed (11.7 x 18.2 cm size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of greeting cards
• Postcard – Bush-stone curlews at Mulligans Flat Woolshed (A6 size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of postcards
• Art print – Bush-stone curlews at Mulligans Flat Woolshed (various sizes, pigment ink prints on archival paper)

Content Bush stone-curlews at Mulligans Flat Woolshed first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Image detail: Gang-gang cockatoos at City Hill

Gang-gang cockatoos: the bird emblem of Canberra

Male gang-gang cockatoos have a distinctive red-coloured head, and red crest.

Image: Gang-gang cockatoo (Male) by Leo

By contrast, females gang-gangs are grey all over.

Image: Gang-gang cockatoo (Female) by Leo

The most obvious way you know that gang-gang cockatoos are nearby is by hearing their voices. Gang-gang cockatoos have a very distinctive call, which sounds like a fishing reel unspooling with the ratchet on. Other people describe it as sounding like a cork being removed from a wine bottle, or the sound of a creaky gate.

Despite being the bird emblem of the ACT, I’ve rarely sighted gang-gang cockatoos within the suburbs of Canberra. It has only been when I’ve ventured into the nature reserves surrounding Canberra that I have encountered these birds. This might just be the luck of the houses I’ve lived in.

Unfortunately, gang-gang cockatoos have declined in numbers by 69% during the three generations through to 2021, and is set to be listed as an endangered species of Australia.

Image: Gang-gang cockatoo pair by JJ Harrison

The ACT Flag controversy: adding the royal bluebell

My scene features a flag on the City Hill flagpole. However, the flag that I have drawn is not the current flag of the Australian Capital Territory. It is a modified version of the flag, featuring the ACT’s floral emblem: the royal bluebell.

Image: the current flag of the Australian Capital Territory

Image: the proposed flag for the Australian Capital Territory, designed by Ivo Ostyn

I am aware that Ivo Ostyn, who designed the flag, is unhappy with his design that was adopted by the Territory in 1993. He says that bureaucrats forced him to put the ACT coat of arms onto the flag. As this brilliant TED talk by Roman Mars outlines, putting coats of arms onto flags is an ugly no-no. Ostyn is proposing a redesigned flag featuring the royal bluebell. My Gang-gang cockatoo scene features Ostyn’s proposed flag design, flying proudly on the flagpole.

Hopefully this is a fun artwork Easter egg for Canberra flag nerds!

The City Hill flagpole: a great Canberra location for my gang-gang cockatoo scene

Gang-gang cockatoos are the faunal emblem of the Australian Capital Territory. This fact is a large part of the reason why I portrayed them near the flag of the ACT in my scene. There is a large ‘Canberra Pride’ sentiment in the city from long-term residents. Many Canberrans feel a specific pride for the ACT and Canberra more so than a general Aussie pride. This is largely to do with the ACT’s progressive policies, in contrast to the general conservatism of Australia on many social issues.

Although most Canberrans probably won’t be able to name it, City Hill is a prominent location in Canberra, situated just north of Lake Burley Griffin, where Commonwealth Avenue meets with Northbourne Avenue.

Image: Commonwealth Avenue, City Hill by Wade Johanson, taken in 2009. Note that the ACT government has since begun densifying the area, replacing the open-air carparks with buildings.

The Canberra ‘love dinosaur’ / ‘love alien’ graffiti tag

I also included the small background detail of the Canberra ‘love dinosaur’ graffiti on a nearby wall. This is a recurring graffiti design which has been appearing around Canberra since 2020. (Personally, I think it should be named the ‘love alien’, but everyone else seems to call it the ‘love dinosaur’.)

Image: the ‘LOVE’ alien/dinosaur character painted on a VDSL cabinet in Bruce – photo by Stuart McMillen

Image: Canberra graffiti by Kieran

Image: the character spray-painted on a fence in Bruce – photo by Stuart McMillen

Image: the love alien spotted in Kaleen – photo by Stuart McMillen

Image: the character spray-painted on a cabinet box near Ginninderra Drive, McKellar – photo by Stuart McMillen

Image: the Belconnen Hungry Jack’s drive thru, tagged with the love alien – photo by Stuart McMillen

Image: the Belconnen district seems to be a hot spot for this graffiti tag – photo by Stuart McMillen

Image: this photo taken not far from the previous one – photo by Stuart McMillen

Image: near the Calvary Hospital, Bruce – in-between the busy lanes of traffic – photo by Stuart McMillen

Image: a more bucolic position for the ‘love alien’ graffiti: on the bike path between Lyneham and Kaleen – photo by Stuart McMillen

At first I’m sure that it was just a single artist who was drawing this Love Dino character. But there seems to be a Foo Was Here / Kilroy Was Here effect happening now, with multiple taggers drawing the Love Alien in their own style. It seems like it has gone well beyond a single artist, with most new instances looking like copycats. It has even been spotted in Melbourne. I prefer the style of the original tag.

Drawing the light rail southbound across Lake Burley Griffin

As mentioned in my other post on the Canberra Birds series, I decided to future-proof my artwork by illustrating the red trams of the ACT’s light rail project into the scene. Currently, the service only runs north of the city, but I decided to imagine what it would be like when the southbound Stage 2 is operational and running southbound over Lake Burley Griffin.

I used this video as a reference for imagining how it might look. I thought this would be a nice visual treat for those paying attention to how the scene differs from real-life.

Postcards, greeting cards, art prints

Support my work by buying this artwork as a postcard, greeting card or signed and numbered art print from my online store.
Visit the Gang-gang cockatoos at City Hill product range category, or use the following links for these items on my web store:

• Greeting card – Gang-gang cockatoos at City Hill (11.7 x 18.2 cm size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of greeting cards
• Postcard – Gang-gang cockatoos at City Hill (A6 size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of postcards
• Art print – Gang-gang cockatoos at City Hill (various sizes, pigment ink prints on archival paper)

Content Gang-gang cockatoos at City Hill, Canberra first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Today is the 10 year anniversary of the conclusion of my Rat Park crowdfunding campaign, which successfully wrapped on 1 November 2012. I took this funding and began work on work on the 40-page comic, which I later published online on 29 May 2013.

Rat Park has been my most enduringly successful comic, with many readers seeing it as a touchstone for sympathetically explaining the topic of addiction. As of 2022, the comic has been viewed over 700,000 times (by over 560,000 unique visitors) via my English language website, as well as over 160,000 times through translated versions on my website. The comic is prescribed as required reading in multiple college curricula around the world, and has even been published as a book in Japanese and featured in a U.S. college English textbook. I am proud of its success, and like keeping its flame alive.

To mark the ten-year anniversary, I am now offering printed Rat Park comics for the first time. Printed Rat Park comic books are now listed on my online store for A$10 per book. There are bulk purchase options available, aimed at addiction support groups who want multiple copies to distribute to their staff or clients. See the product page on my online store for more info.

Read ahead for more information about the creation of this new book, and the reason why I am offering bulk purchase discounts.

A printed comic book at last!

My self-published Rat Park comic (ISBN: 978-0-6455060-0-6) is A6 size, with a cardstock cover to give the comic extra weight and ruggedness. I have made it as close to a ‘book’ feel as I can muster with a 40-page comic.

It is a satisfying little book to hold in one’s hands and flip through, if I don’t say so myself!

Why the long wait? 10 years as an ‘online-only’ comic

Right from the moment I published the comic online in 2013, I have had a steady stream of readers asking whether they could buy printed copies of Rat Park. To cut a long story short, I always put the idea on my mental back-burner and instead prioritised creating fresh comics to publish to my website. As I pushed ahead with new content, I comforted myself with the knowledge that readers would be able to read the comic for free via ratpark.com, even if they couldn’t buy printed copies.

Approaching the 10-year anniversary of Rat Park‘s publication, I sensed that the time was right to prioritise the idea of a printed comic. I had decided to launch my online store and to begin selling art prints and greeting cards in my new Canberra Birds art series. Finally selling physical products for the first time in my career, I saw that it also made sense to sell printed versions of my most popular comic.

Of course, I will keep the comic online for anyone to read for free via my website. This new comic book is simply an extra way for people to access the story.

Discounts for bulk purchases

Over the years, Rat Park has been embraced by people who run drug rehabilitation facilities, addiction support groups, and similar organisations. The people organising these groups have shared Rat Park to offer the optimistic viewpoint that one’s habits are not set in stone. Most often, the experiment’s message is framed to mean that it is possible for a person to feel and act differently if put into a more positive environment.

I know that many groups will want to buy the comics in large quantities, and hand to their staff and clients as an inspiring resource. Because of this, I am offering discounts for bulk purchases of my Rat Park comic books.

My online store offers differing unit prices for purchases of 1, 5, 10, and 20 comic books at a time. If you are considering bulk purchases in quantities greater than 20, I encourage you to email me directly, and we can come to a custom pricing agreement.

Visit my online store product page for my Rat Park comics.

Publication information, book specifications

Since I am self-publishing this book, here are the relevant details of the title:

General information:

Title: Rat Park
Author: Stuart McMillen
Publisher: self-published by Stuart McMillen, Canberra, Australia
Manufactured: printed in Canberra, Australia
Sales channel: sold through Stuart’s online store
Publication date: 1 November 2022
ISBN: 978-0-6455060-0-6
Book format: A6 saddle-stitched comic booklet
Number of pages: 40 pages

Physical dimensions:

Length: 148 mm
Width: 105 mm
Thickness: 3 mm
Weight: 37 grams

Description / blurb:

A thought-provoking comic about a classic experiment into drug addiction science from the 1970s and 1980s. Professor Bruce Alexander from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada wondered whether or not rats would choose to take drugs if given a stimulating environment and social company. Alexander and his colleagues created a large social enclosure nicknamed ‘Rat Park’ in his Department of Psychology offices, and ran experiments on rats using morphine. The team of scientists compared the socially-housed rats’ consumption habits against those of other rats that were housed in solitary cages.

Stuart McMillen’s distinctive comic artwork explains the scientific experiment step-by-step. In short, the Rat Park experiments found that the rats in the cages behaved very differently to the rats in the social enclosure. The rats in social company were far less likely to take morphine than the rats that were held in isolation. The comic concludes with Bruce Alexander grappling with the implications of his research for human drug-use patterns, and addiction more broadly.

First published online in 2013 by Australian comics artist Stuart McMillen, Rat Park has been read by hundreds of thousands of readers, and translated into multiple languages. By popular demand, the comic is now available in print as an attractive A6-sized 40-page book.

Cover artwork:

(Higher-resolution versions available as either JPEG or PNG image formats).

Author photo:

Photograph of Stuart McMillen in 2022, taken by Andrew Sikorski. (Click for higher-resolution version).

Publication history:

This A6 comic is a new edition of the primary work Rat Park. The primary work was originally published as an online comic on 29 May 2013, and remains online to this date. A limited run of A5-sized comics were posted to 80 people in late May 2013, who had supported my 2012 crowdfunding campaign. These A5 books did not have an ISBN, a title page, or an ‘about the author’ page. In hindsight, the A5 books were a less appropriate size than the new smaller A6-size comics.)

Pre-order open now

I am now accepting sales of Rat Park via my online store. As of today, I am still awaiting delivery of my full print run of comics from my Canberra-based printer. These should should be ready by mid-November. Once I receive supplies of books from my printer, I will fulfil the orders as soon as possible, to give the best chance of pre-Christmas delivery.

Content Rat Park printed comic books – now available for purchase first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Image detail: Tawny frogmouths at the Shine Dome

The bird: tawny frogmouth

Tawny frogmouths are a nocturnal species that are similar to—but different from—owls. Whereas owls hunt with their powerful talons, frogmouths have weaker legs and primarily feed with the use of their mouths.

Tawny frogmouths are well camouflaged birds with feathers that often match the trees that they roost in. Frogmouths often strike a pose that makes them look like they are a snapped-off tree branch.

Image: Tawny frogmouths camouflaging on a tree branch by A McDougall, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, 2007

Image: Tawny Frogmouth / Podargus strigoides by Dave Curtis

Image: Tawny Frogmouths in Sydney backyard by C.Coverdale

Image: Podargus strigoides (Wroclaw zoo) by Guérin Nicolas

Apparently, researchers have found that the Tawny frogmouth is the ‘world’s most Instagrammable bird’. In other words, it has facial features that are the most aesthetically pleasing, and most likely to get ‘likes’ on social media platforms.

The location: the Shine Dome

The scene’s background features a sunset scene of the Shine Dome, an iconic building that is located near the Australian National University in the shadow of Black Mountain.

Image: Shine Dome by Petaholmes

Image: Happy 60th to the Martian Embassy! by liam.cbr. My scene is drawn from the perspective of the trees between the carpark and the building with the red roof, pictured on the left hand side of this photo.

Image: Shine Dome illustration circa-1960s from Australian government publication. This has a similar view as the above photograph, but seems to predate the filling of Lake Burley Griffin in 1964.

The Shine Dome was completed in 1959 using 710 tonnes of concrete. The dome holds itself up, without internal walls to support the weight.

(As a Buckminster Fuller fan, I should point out that if the structure had been constructed as a geodesic dome rather than a conventional dome, the total mass of materials needed to construct the dome would have been significantly less than the conventionally-built Shine Dome.)

The Shine Dome is owned by the Australian Academy of Science, and is available to be booked by organisations hosting events of various sizes. the building’s interior features a plush conference chamber featuring nice wood panelling and large comfy seats.

Image: Shine Dome Conference Chamber by Christine Francis

As well as providing space for events, the building’s basement houses storage for the Australian Academy of Science’s historical records.

The location: the Shine Dome, Canberra’s ‘martian embassy’

The Shine Dome is popularly nicknamed the “Martian Embassy“; a reference to both the building’s unusual ‘space age’ architecture, as well as Canberra being the home to numerous international embassy buildings.

I liked this article about Strange but true facts about Canberra’s Martian Embassy, featuring this example of a wholesome uni student prank:

The Canberra Times of July 31, 1964, reported: “Late last night a ‘mysterious object’ was sighted on the dome of the Royal Australian Academy of Science building, Acton, which uncannily resembled a toilet seat.” Some 10 years later the students struck again, this time by painting a series of footprints up the side of the dome leading to a toilet bowl perched atop the dome. Talk about a royal flush!”

Image: Shine Dome by Lesley A Butler

Postcards, greeting cards, art prints

Support my work by buying this artwork as a postcard, greeting card or signed and numbered art print from my online store.
Visit the Tawny frogmouths at the Shine Dome product range category, or use the following links for these items on my web store:

• Greeting card – Tawny frogmouths at the Shine Dome (11.7 x 18.2 cm size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of greeting cards
• Postcard – Tawny frogmouths at the Shine Dome (A6 size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of postcards
• Art print – Tawny frogmouths at the Shine Dome (various sizes, pigment ink prints on archival paper)

Content Tawny frogmouths at the Shine Dome, Canberra first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Image detail: Australian White Ibis at the National Carillon

The bird: the Australian White Ibis

The Australian white ibis is a wading bird of the ibis family. Its black head has a long downcurved bill, which it uses to dig for food such as crayfish and mussels in the shallows of waterways.

Image: Australian white ibis in tree by fir0002

Image: Australian White Ibis head by Toby Hudson

In recent years, white ibises have been increasingly prominent in he urban areas of Australia. Since the mid-2010s, the species has been popularly nicknamed the “bin chicken”, given ibises habits of sifting through rubbish bins. This photo journalism series shows the way that they scavenge for food in downtown Sydney – even snatching food from the hands of unsuspecting tourists.

I’ve long admired how brazen they are at stealing food, undeterred by the presence of humans.

Image: Bin chicken by VMBrasseur

Bird experts have defended ibises from merely taking advantage of what is essentially a man-made problem.

The location: the National Carillon, an iconic landmark of Canberra

My scene is drawn at the National Carillon in Canberra, which is on an island in Lake Burley Griffin. Essentially it is a large tower featuring 57 bells that are played by a musician using a keyboard located in the top of the tower. As demonstrated in this short video:

The background of the drawing shows Lake Burley Griffin in bright sunshine, showing the red autumn leaves of the trees on the south side of the lake. Also visible in the background are the Captain Cook Memorial Jet water fountain and Telstra Tower on Black Mountain. All are highly iconic features of the Canberra skyline.

Postcards, greeting cards, art prints

Support my work by buying this artwork as a postcard, greeting card or signed and numbered art print from my online store.
Visit the Australian White Ibis at National Carillon product range category, or use the following links for these items on my web store:

• Greeting card – Australian White Ibis at National Carillon (11.7 x 18.2 cm size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of greeting cards
• Postcard – Australian White Ibis at National Carillon (A6 size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of postcards
• Art print – Australian White Ibis at National Carillon (various sizes, pigment ink prints on archival paper)

Content Australian white ibis at the National Carillon, Canberra first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Image detail: Crimson rosellas at the NGA Skyspace

The bird: Crimson rosella

Image: Crimson Rosella by Possy’s Pics

Image: Crimson Rosella (Platycercus elegans) by Brian McCauley

Crimson rosellas are one of the most-sighted birds in Canberra, often seen as a fast-moving red flash catapulting from from backyard to backyard. Rosellas are often spotted eating seeds from trees and bushes, as par of their varied diet.

Image: Crimson rosella feeding by Tatters

The location: James Turrell’s Skyspace at the National Gallery of Australia

In the bottom-right of my scene is the James Turrell Skyspace, an art installation in the grounds of the National Gallery of Australia.

Image: James Turrell’s National Gallery of Australia “Skyspace” seen from above. Photo: John Gollings

Image: Interior of Skyspace “Within Without” by russellstreet

The Skyspace is a beautiful location both inside and outside and features a central area with an open-air oculus that allows viewers to look to the sky above. When viewed at sunrise and sunset, a dynamic light show provides a dramatic contrast to the natural sky colours.

There are lots of photos of the Skyspace’s surroundings in this article by Architectre AU.

The Skyspace has a reputation for being Canberra’s number one ‘make-out’ destination for couples on romantic dates! The space is open 24 hours per day, and is specifically designed to be experienced during sunrise and sunset. (The space features heated seats for the cold winter mornings!)

Other buildings in the scene

My scene also features a few other buildings from that part of Canberra. These include Telstra Tower, Questacon, the National Portrait Gallery (featuring its external orange artwork ‘Geo Face Distributor‘ by James Angus), the National Library of Australia, the High Court of Australia, and the National Gallery of Australia.

Postcards, greeting cards, art prints

Crimson rosellas at NGA Skyspace

Support my work by buying this artwork as a postcard, greeting card or signed and numbered art print from my online store.
Visit the Crimson rosellas at NGA Skyspace product range category, or use the following links for these items on my web store:

• Greeting card – Crimson rosellas at NGA Skyspace (11.7 x 18.2 cm size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of greeting cards
• Postcard – Crimson rosellas at NGA Skyspace (A6 size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of postcards
• Art print – Crimson rosellas at NGA Skyspace (various sizes, pigment ink prints on archival paper)

Content Crimson rosellas at the National Gallery of Australia Skyspace first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Image detail: Australian magpie at the National Arboretum

The bird: Australian magpie

Image: Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) by Graham Winterflood

Magpies are one of the most beloved birds of Australia. With an iconic black and white colour scheme and a distinctive song, magpies are one of the country’s most distinctive bird species.

Image: Cracticus tibicen hypoleuca, male by JJ Harrison

The Australian Magpie reached the #3 spot of most sighted birds during the 2021 Australian Backyard Bird Count. For those participating in Canberra, the magpie was the #1 most sighted bird. The species won the inaugural Australian Bird of the Year poll in 2017 following a public vote by Guardian Australia.

Image: Gymnorhina tibicen by Alison Klein

Magpies will stand watchfully in open areas of ground, waiting to spot a worm or insect to eat.

Image: Australian magpie hungry by sandid

Magpies have a very distinctive warbling song, which is a familiar part of the morning soundscape of Australia.

Magpies are most infamously known for their aggressive swooping behaviour during the spring nesting season. As territorial creatures, magpies will actively defend their eggs and juveniles from potential threats that come too close for comfort. They will repeatedly swoop the intruder, with the attacks designed to scare the person out of their territory. Cyclists and pedestrians are often targeted.

Only a small percentage of magpies engage in this swooping behaviour, and the ones that are ‘swoopers’ will often only target a particular type of victim. For example, some will target children pedestrians, and others will target cyclists. Personally, I use the website Magpie Alert to log the times when I have been swooped, and to check my route before cycling to unfamiliar parts of town.

Image: Magpie in flight, female by fir0002

The location: the National Arboretum Canberra

My scene is pictured at the National Arboretum Canberra. This is an extensive site that is roughly 10 minutes drive from the centre of Canberra. The arboretum is planted on land that was burned during the 2003 Canberra bushfires. Within the bounds of the arboretum, there are over 100 sections, which each contain extensive plantings of a single species. The Arboretum’s plantings focus on threatened, rare, and symbolic trees from around the world.

Image: View from Dairy Farmers Hill, 2018 by Jim Hoffman

I drew the Arboretum’s excellent Village Centre and Margaret Whitlam Pavilion in my artwork. And, although the scene is drawn at sunrise, I drew a large crowd of people flying kites near the amphitheatre.

Adding details: future-proofing the artwork

I decided to future-proof the artwork somewhat by drawing the trees of the Arboretum with an extra 20 or 30 years of growth. The National Arboretum was opened in 2013, with most trees having been planted in the years immediately before that date. Thus, the trees currently are small in size, and sparsely-spaced.

Top image: by Thennicke

I used the Arboretum’s species map, along with online image searches of the various species, to imagine what the trees will look like when they are more mature. For example, the pink blossoming trees in the foreground are Mediterranean Redbud.

Postcards, greeting cards, art prints

Support my work by buying this artwork as a postcard, greeting card or signed and numbered art print from my online store.
Visit the Australian magpie at the National Arboretum Canberra product range category, or use the following links for these items on my web store:

• Greeting card – Australian magpie at the National Arboretum Canberra (11.7 x 18.2 cm size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of greeting cards
• Postcard – Australian magpie at the National Arboretum Canberra (A6 size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of postcards
• Art print – Australian magpie at the National Arboretum Canberra (various sizes, pigment ink prints on archival paper)

Content Australian magpie at the National Arboretum Canberra first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

If you join my Patreon campaign pledging US$15 per month or more, I will immediately send you eight greeting cards featuring my artwork. Your bundle of greeting cards will include 4x cards with the design Rainbow-created cockatoo, and 4x cards with the design Girls collecting frogs. (Look closer at these designs in this recent blog post).

This offer is designed to be a win-win for both me and my supporters. My supporters get to receive some tangible products featuring my artwork, and I get an opportunity to build the supporter base of my Patreon campaign.

In my experience, the primary reason why people join my Patreon campaign is because they want to help me and my comics first and foremost. I expect that this will still remain the main motivation that inspires people to become my Patreon supporters. The greeting cards are simply an extra incentive to nudge people towards getting on board.

The income raised from my Patreon campaign will go to fund the ongoing creation of the social-commentary comics that I periodically publish to this website. By donating to this crowdfunding campaign, you are essentially giving me some of your time, so that I can do this ongoing work on your behalf.

Please join my Patreon campaign, at the US$15+ membership level, by following this hyperlink.

FAQs about this offer

Is this offer available to anyone in the world?

Yes. I will fund the cost of posting these parcels to people located anywhere in the world, for the same price.

Do you honour pledges equating to US$15 that are made in other currencies?

Yes. Equivalent pledges in other currencies that equate to US$15 will also be honoured. At the time of writing, this amount converts to A$20.75 (Australian dollars), C$19.05 (Canadian dollars), €13.35 (Euro), and £11.20 (United Kingdom). Use an online currency converter to learn the value in other currencies.

The Patreon website adjusts the currency depending on the country that you view the site from, so the rewards may already display in your local currency.

The safest bet is to use this hyperlink to join this specific ‘rewards tier’ that features the greeting cards as the designated ‘reward’.

How long do I have to be a Patreon supporter for, before you will send me the greeting cards? How long do I need to remain a supporter for?

After seeing that you have made a pledge at the appropriate value of US$15 or more, I will send you the greeting card bundle during the next business day.

From that point, there is no obligation to stay subscribed for any particular length of time. Of course, I hope that you do continue as my Patreon supporter!

The idea is that the greeting cards are a frontloaded reward for joining my Patreon, and the ongoing reward is the knowledge that you are helping to fund my work and helping me to sharing my thought-provoking comics with the world.

What if I want to continue receiving printed rewards from you on an ongoing basis?

I encourage you to join my ‘Postcard penpals’ membership level, which is US$20 per month and above. Supporters on this tier receive rewards such as handwritten postcards and blank greeting cards from me on an ongoing basis.

By joining on the ‘Postcard penpals’ membership level, you get the best of both worlds. I will immediately send you the 8-pack of greeting cards upon you joining my Patreon page. And I will periodically send you my handwritten postcards throughout the year, as your membership continues.

Why did you choose these two card designs?

My comics are known for delving into some of the darker aspects of our culture. Whether it is fossil fuel depletion in Peak Oil and Energy Slaves, drug addiction and rat experimentation in War on Drugs and Rat Park, or the injustice of hidden sweatshop supply chains in What the Dumbwaiter Hides.

People like these comics as thinkpieces, but my sense is that they wouldn’t necessarily want this sort of imagery on a greeting card that they were handing to someone on their birthday!

Because of this, I featured two of my illustrations that are colourful, and convey a sense of fun or wonder. Hopefully they will appeal to recipients of all ages, including those who have never read my comics before.

I am reading this blog post in the future. Is this offer still valid?

The offer is still valid if you are reading this sentence. If it ever changes, I will update this FAQ to reflect the end of the offer.

Content FAQ about my new Patreon greeting card offer first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

For this initial run of greeting cards, I have chosen two of my more uplifting and colourful designs: Rainbow-crested cockatoo, and Girls collecting frogs.

I’m putting these cards on sale at a discounted price that is designed to get the cash register humming. Available for $5 each, the most economical way to buy these greeting cards is to buy a pack of 8 cards for $30, which works out to be $3.75 per card.

Knowing that timing is of the essence with pre-Christmas mail services, I’ll be posting orders as soon as I receive them. And my store is open for business right now!

This online store is my latest experiment to find ways to finance my comics like The Town Without Television, so please use this as a way to support my work, while stocking up on greeting cards that you can use for family and friends. Visit my new online store, and see for yourself.

Thanks in advance for your support. Cheers,

Stuart

PS: My offer that I shared in my most recent email newsletter still stands. If you join my Patreon campaign at US$15 per month or more, I will immediately send you one of these 8-packs of greeting cards. Bargain! Read more about this offer in a separate blog post.

Some more photos of the two greeting card designs

Rainbow-crested cockatoo

Girls collecting frogs

Content My new online shop: greeting cards, prints + more! first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

As with past years, I am using this as an opportunity to declare my favourite books that I read during the past two years. Here’s my Top 5 countdown of the best books that I during the period 2019-2021:

#5: Working Class Boy (2016) by Jimmy Barnes

Jimmy Barnes is well-known to Australians as the frontman of Cold Chisel, as well as a solo artist with the highest number of ARIA chart-topping albums. His self-destructive habits of drug and alcohol abuse were part of the “Barnesy” rock star image that accompanied his musical career. In 2016, Barnes released his memoir Working Class Boy that told the tale of his life before he entered the public spotlight. This memoir covers the period from his birth in Scotland in 1956 up until the time he joined Cold Chisel in 1973 as a teenager.

This book is impressive for the sheer amount of specific memories that Barnes was able to recall about his childhood, especially given the self-destructive turns that his life would take. Alcohol and violence are recurring themes in Barnesy’s life, that were prevalent in his native Glasgow, as well as in the South Australian town of Elizabeth that he moved to at the age of five. Poverty, domestic violence and intergenerational trauma are illustrated through the eyes of a boy trying to make sense of the world. In response to these circumstances, Barnes began getting drunk at the age of 10, and spent his teenage nights roaming the town’s streets with other wild characters.

Some of the most memorable passages are Jimmy recalling the experience of being a poor classroom student: underslept from the bloodbath that happened at home last night, a hungry stomach that had not been fed all day, unable to concentrate in class because the holes in his shoes had let water seep in and chill his feet. He describes how the parents of other children in his street would ban their kids from playing with his family, due to their chaotic ways.

Barnes ends the book as he loads his gear into Cold Chisel’s truck, as they drive away to embark on the band’s first tour. An second memoir, Working Class Man, would be released the following year, describing later events in Barnes’ adulthood. But there is something of the rawness of this unflinching first memoir that makes it my top recommendation of the pair.

#4: Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir (2020) by Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan rose to fame with his band Screaming Trees, who emerged as part of the Seattle ‘grunge’ scene of the early 1990s. This gritty memoir details Lanegan’s life up until his early thirties, a period that was defined by his raging heroin habit. As with Jimmy Barnes, I had merely a passing interest in Lanegan’s music prior to reading this memoir, knowing some of the most notable songs and projects that he was responsible for. I was far from an aficionado of either man’s careers.

Lanegan is honest about the internal workings of Screaming Trees, whose first four albums were dominated by the songwriting of guitarist Lee Conner. Lanegan characterises Conner as a petulant man, prone to tantrums and embarrassingly childish behaviour. After enduring six years under the leadership of Conner, Lanegan finally insisted on greater creative influence on the band in 1992, a decision which lead to their breakthrough album Sweet Oblivion.

Lanegan positions himself at the centre of the major players of the Nineties rock scene. He was close friends with Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) and Layne Staley (Alice in Chains), as well as friendly associates with Chris Cornell (Soundgarden), Mike McCready (Pearl Jam). For the rock trainspotters, other celebrities criss-cross the memoir: Johnny Cash complements Lanegan for his performance, Nick Cave arrives at Lanegan’s flat to buy drugs. And an entire chapter is spent describing the war between Lanegan and the obnoxious manchild Liam Gallagher during Screaming Trees stint supporting Oasis’ 1996 U.S. tour.

The power of this book is Lanegan’s revealing descriptions of life as a heroin addict. Lanegan describes addiction with a clarity that few writers have captured, painting a picture of a lifestyle that is consumed by the never-ending quest to buy drugs. As the decade rolls by, Lanegan’s drug habit intensifies to near-fatal levels. He describes his 1996 tour of a blizzard-affected Europe, and the extreme effort required to constantly score drugs in the unfamiliar cities he visited. His minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour descriptions of desperation are brutally gripping.

Mark Lanegan and Jimmy Barnes’ memoirs are both recommended reading, even for those unfamiliar with the musical output of the artist. They stand up on the sheer power of the vivid accounts of the lives that the creators needed to live and survive to tell the tales.

#3: The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory: A Memoir (2019) by Corey White

Australian comedian Corey White’s memoir The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory is the story of a life characterised by family abuse and the failed foster care system.

The book has a clearly-written, engaging way that lets you see life through Corey’s eyes at each stage of his life. The childhood sections have a heartbreaking naivety to them, showing the perspective of a boy who is unaware of the problematic elements of his upbringing. Both his Mum and Dad are poor at parenting, and are successively sent to prison, with his mother dying of a heroin overdose when Corey was aged 10.

Corey is placed into the care of Social Services, and is bounced between the care of various foster parents before being assigned a placement with the diabolical Tracey. Tracey has both her own biological children and foster children, and runs a household that cruelly favours her biological children. Corey is constantly hungry, ill-clothed, and is repeatedly denegrated by his foster mother. In time, Corey is asigned a caring social worker who encourages him to apply for a scholarship to the elite boarding school Nudgee college. Corey excels at high school, working with a laser-like focus. But his young adulthood is tinged with a mixture of alcoholism, depression, and self-loathing. Through the lens of stand-up comedy, Corey finds a way to make sense of his past, and to heal his inner child.

Despite the numerous harrowing experiences that Corey experienced in his life, the book is written with a humorous and hopeful touch. He writes with the clarity of someone who has made through the other side of his trauma, and has found ways to redirect his experiences into making himself a better person. I recommend listening to the Wilosophy podcast conversation with Corey White: it covers separate territory to Corey’s book, but carries the same tone of this impressive memoir.

I am aware that the above three books have covered similar themes: memoirs of writers describing their painful coming-of-age stories. I truly appreciated each of them, and found them hard to separate into a meaningful order of ranking. By contrast, the following two books on this list are on quite different topics.

#2: Hostage (2016) by Guy Delisle

My favourite comic that I read during the last two years is Hostage by French Canadian cartoonist Guy Delisle.

Hostage depicts the real-life 1997 kidnapping of Médicins Sans Frontières administrator Christophe André. André was captured in the middle of the night, driven across the border to Chechnya, and kept in solitary confinement in the spare bedroom of an apartment building. Guy Delisle interviewed Christophe André about his experiences twenty years after his release, drawing the story as a graphic novel.

André was held in a room with his arm handcuffed to a radiator. Once or twice a day he was allowed to use a toilet down the hallway, and to eat meals delivered to his holding room. His kidnappers did not speak his language, as so there was never any explanation as to why he was kidnapped, though he assumed that it was to extort a ransom payment from his employer.

Speaking as a comics artist myself, everything about this book is brilliant from a technical perspective. The panel-by-panel artwork is an effective way to communicate the events of André’s kidnapping, as well as the boredom and uncertainty of being held as a hostage.

Being a hostage is worse than being a prisoner. This is because at least prisoners know the reason why they were jailed, and know how long their stay will be. They can count down the days to their release. By contrast, hostages have no idea how long their ordeal will last.

The comics medium brilliantly contrasts the static life of a hostage, with the inner workings of André’s mind, as he endures his stay. Remember, he was alone in the room without even a book, or a notepad to keep him occupied. That is a long time to spend alone with one’s thoughts, and Delisle’s comic shows how this solitude can psychologically play out.

In this context, minor events became magnified in André’s mind. For example, one time his captor spilled a small amount of soup when handing him his bowl. Uremarkable on any normal occasion, the soup-spilling became a weird focal point that repeated in André’s mind.

The 432 pages of artwork can be easily devoured in a 90-minute sitting. In fact, the final chapter of Hostage is the single most heart-pounding experience that I have had as a reader in a very long time! I won’t spoil the ending, but Delisle did a masterful job depicting the nerve-racking way that André’s hostage experience came to an end.

Along with other classics like Maus and Fun Home, Hostage is a story that could not have been told as effectively through any other medium besides comics.
Do yourself a favour and invest in reading Hostage by Guy Delisle.

#1: The Disaster Artist (2013) by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell

If I had to narrow it down to just a single title, my favourite book that I read during the last two years was The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell.

The book is an insider’s account of the making of The Room, a cult classic film that has been described as “the best worst movie ever made”. I have been a fan of The Room since I first saw it ten years ago, and always marvelled how writer/director/”actor” Tommy Wiseau ever managed to get his film off the ground. This book, written by the film’s co-star Greg Sestero is a rollicking ride that shows the depths of bizarre that sat behind all of the Tommy Wiseau’s head-scratching decisions. It shows that Sestero and all other cast and crew members knew how awful the film was while making it, repeatedly suggesting changes, yet the deep-pocketed Wiseau was determined to bring his peculiar vision to the screen.

Wiseau and his idiosyncrasies are fodder for much of the entertainment in this book. For example, take this description of Tommy’s fashion sense: “I still can’t unsee Tommy’s outfit: nighttime sunglasses, a dark blazer as loose and baggy as rain gear, sand-colored cargo pants with pockets filled to capacity (was he smuggling potatoes?), a white tank top, clunky Frankenstein combat boots, and two belts. Yes, two belts.” Sestero reveals so many facts about Tommy’s peculiar past and bizarre habits. Particular attention is given to Wiseau’s period managing the shoot of his film, which Sestero describes as “as horrifyingly transfixing as watching a baby crawl across the 405 freeway.” Despite the information brought to light in this book by his best friend Greg Sestero, the secretive Wiseau remains a fascinating enigma to this day.

Of all the books in this year’s list, The Disaster Artist was the most joyous it was to read. I was given this book as a Christmas present and read it during a family holiday at the coast. While reading the book, I repeatedly laughed-out-loud, and felt compelled to quote the book to whoever was within earshot. This book comes highly recommended, with the film adaptation of The Disaster Artist as a suggested accompaniment!

Full list of books read 2019-21

For my sake as much as yours, here is the list of all the books I’ve read in the last 2 years. This follows on from my previous six reading lists: 2008-09, 2009-10, 2011-13, 2013-15, 2015-17, and 2017-19.

Fiction

• “Cedar Valley” – Holly Throsby (2018)
• “Goodwood” – Holly Throsby (2016)
• “My Sister Rosa” – Justine Larbalestier (2016)
• “City of Thieves” – David Benioff (2008)
• “Norwegian Wood” – Haruki Murakami (1987)
• “The Day of the Triffids” – John Wyndham (1951)

Biography

• “The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster” – Sarah Krasnostein (2018)
• “Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine” – Joe Hagan (2017)
• “Eyes On The Street : The Life of Jane Jacobs” – Robert Kanigel (2016)

Comedy / humour

• “Funny on Purpose: The Definitive Guide to an Unpredictable Career in Comedy” – Joe Randazzo (2015)
• “Even More Bad Parenting Advice” – Guy Delisle (2014)

Architecture / design / urban planning

• “Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of the Death and Life of Great American Cities” – Glenna Lang and Marjory Wunsch (2009)
• “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” – Jane Jacobs (1961)

Economics : universal basic income

• “The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future” – Andrew Yang (2018)
• “Bullshit Jobs: A Theory” – David Graeber (2018)
• “Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World” – Rutger Bregman (2017)
• “Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen” – Guy Standing (2017)
• “Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy” – Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght (2017)
• “Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream” – Andy Stern (2016)
• “Why the Future Is Workless” – Tim Dunlop (2016)

Environment / energy / sustainability / economics

• “How Did We Get into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature “ – George Monbiot (2016)

Essays

• “On Father” – John Birmingham (2019)
• “On Hate” – Tim Soutphommasane (2019)
• “On Violence” – Natasha Stott Despoja (2019)
• “On Aunty” – Jonathan Holmes (2019)
• “On Fairness” – Sally McManus (2019)
• “On Us” – Mark Scott (2019)
• “On Artists” – Ashleigh Wilson (2019)
• “On Identity” – Stan Grant (2019)
• “On Patriotism” – Paul Daley (2018)
• “On Disruption” – Katharine Murphy (2018)
• “On Mother” – Sarah Ferguson (2018)
• “On Sleep” – Fleur Anderson (2018)
• “On Mutiny” – David Speers (2018)
• “On Travel” – Tony Wheeler (2018)
• “On Lust & Longing” – Blanche D’Alpuget (2018)
• “On Rape” – Germaine Greer (2018)
• “On Quiet” – Nikki Gemmell (2018)
• “En Garde” – Sarah Hanson-Young (2018)
• “On Humbug” – Robert Dessaix (2010)
• “On Beauty” – Susan Johnson (2010)
• “On Doubt” – Leigh Sales (2009)
• “On Privilege” – Julian Burnside (2009)

Finance / money / investing

• “The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns” – John C. Bogle (2017)
• “The Barefoot Investor: The Only Money Guide You’ll Ever Need” – Scott Pape (2016)

Memoir

• “Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir” – Mark Lanegan (2020)
• “The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory: A Memoir” – Corey White (2019)
• “Your Own Kind of Girl” – Clare Bowditch” (2019)
• “Get Up Mum” – Justin Heazlewood (2018)
• “How Not to Be a Boy” – Robert Webb (2017)
• “Working Class Man” – Jimmy Barnes (2017)
• “Working Class Boy” – Jimmy Barnes (2016)
• “The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book about Relationships” – Neil Strauss (2015)
• “The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made” – Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell (2013)
• “The Year of Magical Thinking” – Joan Didion (2005)
• “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists” – Neil Strauss (2005)
• “Down and Out in Paris and London” – George Orwell (1922)

Society

• “Humankind: A Hopeful History” – Rutger Bregman (2020)
• “See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Violence” – Jess Hill (2019)
• “Stop Being Reasonable” – Eleanor Gordon-Smith (2019)
• “Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life “ – Eric Klinenberg (2018)
• “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” – Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017)
• “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” – Yuval Noah Harari (2011)
• “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and generosity in a connected age” – Clay Shirky (2010)

Relationships / love

• “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing “ – Bronnie Ware (2012)
• “The Five Love Languages” – Gary Chapman (1992)

Science / medicine

• “Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” – Matthew Walker (2017)

History

• “The Library Book” – Susan Orlean (2018)
• “Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall” – Anna Funder (2003)
• “The Orchid Thief” – Susan Orlean (1998)

Comics / graphic novels: fiction

• “Stepping Stones” – Lucy Knisley (2020)
• “Sabrina” – Nick Drnaso (2018)
• “Through the Woods” – Emily Carroll (2014)
• “Market Day” – James Sturm (2010)
• “Pride of Baghdad” – Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon (2006)

Comics / graphic novels: non-fiction

• “Gender: A Graphic Guide” – Meg-John Barker (2019) and Jules Scheele
• “Hostage” – Guy Delisle (2016)

Comics / graphic novels: memoirs

• “Relish: My Life in the Kitchen” – Lucy Knisley (2013)
• “Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City” – Guy Delisle (2012)
• “The Impostor’s Daughter: A True Memoir” – Laurie Sandell (2009)
• “Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China” – Guy Delisle (2006)
• “Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea” – Guy Delisle (2005)
• “The Fixer and Other Stories” – Joe Sacco (2003)

Content Two years of reading (2019-21) first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

A surprising death: Tannis MacBeth, 1942-2021

Two weeks ago I was surprised and saddened to learn that Professor Tannis MacBeth had died at the age of 78.

Tannis was a brilliant scholar, powerful communicator, dedicated champion of human rights and gender equity, and an impeccable scientist. She contributed to creating social justice change at local and national levels in the field of psychology.

As you probably know, Tannis was the subject of my recent comic The Town Without Television, which I had published less than four weeks earlier.

Obviously, when publishing my comic, I was unaware of the fact that Tannis was so close to the end of her life.

Feeling a need to write something marking her passing, I published a blog post that reflected upon Tannis’ career from my perspective as someone who admired her, but had never had the opportunity to be in touch with her directly.

An even more surprising offer

In the days following Tannis’ death, I was approached by Tannis’ colleagues and family with a wonderful invitation.

I was gladdened to learn that they had read The Town Without Television, and were touched by the way that I was capturing Tannis’ academic career through my comics. They were amazed that there was a young guy from the other side of the world who was recapping her research from almost 50 years ago – using comics, no less!

They suggested that we create a memorial fund that would be dedicated to helping me to complete this comic about her career-defining Notel experiment.

The Tannis MacBeth Memorial Fund

With this kind invitation, I worked to establish the Tannis MacBeth Memorial Fund crowdfunding page. You can visit it here.

The fund was listed in Tannis MacBeth’s Vancouver Sun obituary as the suggested donation option for those who admired Tannis and her science, and wanted a way to continue her academic legacy.

As I publish this post, we have already raised $3,205 for this project, but we hope to raise much more.

A welcome fundraising opportunity

As you know, my comics are self-directed projects that I create as labours-of-love. The primary way that I fund my work is through an ongoing Patreon campaign that allows keen readers to pledge recurring monthly donations.

While I’m grateful for the 167 people currently supporting my Patreon fund, the fund is currently underperforming my expectations. If you check the ‘goals’ section of my Patreon page, you will see that my budgeted goal for ‘The bare minimum’ that I need to viably exist as a full-time comics artist is US$2,100 per month. I’m currently on $1,002 per month.

Where does the shortfall come from? I take on other projects that sap my focus from my self-directed comics. Or I write arts grant submissions and cross my fingers. More often than not, I simply live a low-expense lifestyle that is a fraction of the median Australian income.

This new crowdfunding campaign is a one-off fundraiser, running in parallel to my Patreon campaign. It is a welcome way to boost my income, attracting one-off donations to my arts practice.

The two campaigns will run side-by-side until August 2021, at which point I will revert to my Patreon campaign being the primary fundraiser for my arts practice.

Please donate to help me to continue my work on The Town Without Television

Up until now, The Town Without Television has been a labour of love that I have been creating from my own initiative. Over 500 hours of work went into Part 1, and I have been using funds from sources like my Patreon campaign to afford the time to work on the remaining chapters.

Despite this, I had recently been wondering how I would fund the rest of my work, given that I need to draw at least 200 more pages to properly encapsulate the Notel experiment in a fitting way.

This fund is a way for you to directly help me to focus on completing the remaining parts of this comic.

With your help, I can highlight the work of a trailblazing female scientist. I can create an engaging graphical summary of a fascinating Canadian research experiment. I can take my own career to the next level.

I’m excited to get to work completing my comic about the Notel experiment, but I need your help to fund the remainder of this work.

Please donate to the Tannis MacBeth Memorial Fund

Please help me to continue my unique graphical storytelling. Power my work by donating to the Tannis MacBeth Memorial Fund, and funding the remainder of The Town Without Television.

Donate now via https://fundrazr.com/tannismacbeth

Content My amazing opportunity: the Tannis MacBeth Memorial Fund first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

As you know, I am covering her work through my non-fiction comic The Town Without Television, which I am publishing online at http://TownWithoutTelevision.com/

In the world of research psychology, Tannis was probably best known for her work into the effect of television. Her Notel experiment, that I cover in my comic, was the kind of iconic research project that most academics only dream of having. It truly was a groundbreaking research project which exemplified so many of her best qualities all at once.

Identifying the potential of Notel, the town that did not receive television signals until 21 years after the rest of North America, was a lucky break for Tannis. But her true masterstroke was having the foresight and ability to coordinate such a large and complicated research experiment with mere months to plan and execute the project. It is testament to her qualities that she was able to beat the deadline, and complete such a multifaceted project in this way.

Though she conducted the fieldwork of the Notel experiment in a relatively short burst between 1973 and 1975, she spent the best part of the next decade fully analysing and interpreting its results. This ultimately culminated in the publication of The Impact of Television: A Natural Experiment in Three Communities in 1986, which left absolutely no stone unturned. Written with full academic rigour, it is surprisingly accessible and readable even to a layperson like me. Reading her words, I get the sense that Tannis wanted her work to be understandable to the everyday person on the street. I’m told that she remained highly grateful to the residents of Notel for the rest of her career, knowing that it was their generous participation in her study that was crucial to her career.

I never got the chance to speak with Tannis directly, but by all accounts she was an outstanding academic with an impressive mind, an impeccable attention-to-detail, and a glamorous sense of style. She was someone who was loved by the many people whose lives she touched, including in the UBC’s Department of Psychology.

I hope that Tannis would have appreciated what I am attempting to do with my comic recapping her iconic Notel experiment. It has been wonderful using her source material as the basis for this science communication comic, and I feel grateful to be her ‘academic descendent’, so to speak.

In time, I will share some of the interesting newspaper clippings of her work which have informed my comics’ research. I welcome any of Tannis’ friends and colleagues to reach out to me and to share any reminiscences about her life which might help to colour my comics about her life and work. In my own way, I’ll try and keep her flame alight.

Hopefully a full obituary will soon be written by those who knew her best, but I am heartened to see that UBC’s webpage for Tannis has been updated, and mentions my comic as an example of the way her groundbreaking academic legacy is being kept alive into the present day.

Vale Tannis MacBeth, 1942-2021

A postscript: July 2021. Following the publication of this blog post, the family and friends of Tannis MacBeth and I have established the Tannis MacBeth Memorial Fund, which is dedicated to allowing me to keep Tannis’ memory alive through my comics. Read more about how this idea came to be in my new blog post, and read Tannis MacBeth’s obituary that was published in the Vancouver Sun, featuring a reference to my comic and the Memorial Fund.

Content Vale Tannis MacBeth, 1942-2021 first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Content The Town Without Television first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Image detail: Rainbow-crested cockatoo near the Telstra Tower, Canberra

Background story behind the scene

The ‘rainbow-crested cockatoo’ imagery grew out of an artwork commission that I was offered in 2020. Canberra-based podcaster Nicole McCabe had received an ACT government grant to create a LGBTQI+ podcast titled A Community in Isolation. Nicole commissioned me to draw the artwork for her podcast. I have an entire other blog post dedicated to the experience of creating that commission.

As I explain in my other blog post: I created the ‘rainbow-crested cockatoo above Canberra’ imagery as a part of my podcast artwork… …and then deliberately hid huge sections of the scene behind the foreground elements! I did this knowing that I would later strip back the foreground elements and feature the bird scene on its own.

Rainbow-crested cockatoo: an original idea?

I drew the cockatoo quickly, as a late addition to the aerial scene of Canberra that I had already composed. After drawing the cockatoo into the scene, I backtracked to see whether anyone else had already drawn a ‘rainbow-crested cockatoo’. The idea seemed too good to be unique. Surely this idea had already been done to death by other illustrators, right?

To my surprise, this did not seem to be an idea that anyone else had developed to any great extent. After researching the idea via image search engines, I could only find two obscure artists [one, two] who had ever published an illustration of a rainbow-crested cockatoo. I was amazed that such an idea wasn’t being capitalised on!

Telstra Tower: a Canberra icon

The visual counterbalance to the cockatoo in the top-left of the scene is Telstra Tower in the bottom-right of the scene. Telstra Tower, also known as Black Mountain Tower, is one of the most distinctive landmarks of Canberra.

Image: Telstra Tower in Canberra by Chondryma

Image: Black Mountain Telecom Tower by Pascal Vuylsteker

Image: Telstra Tower by Jordan Hatch

Once per day, all of Canberra’s public servants are required to stand in a position with a clear line of sight of Telstra Tower. Like an all-seeing eye, the tower scans the minds of the public servants and forgives them for any bureaucratic sins that they have made in the last 24 hours. I am told that this is a cleansing experience.

Image: Lake Burley Griffin and Black Mountain Tower by Neuroxic

Braddon’s rainbow roundabout: a Canberra icon

The most commented-upon feature of the scene is the rainbow roundabout in the bottom-left corner. The is a representation of the real-life rainbow roundabout of Braddon.

Image: Canberra’s rainbow roundabout by Greg Nelson, ABC News

The roundabout in Braddon was painted rainbow in the week after the results of the 2017 same-sex marriage survey were revealed. This recognised that the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) recorded the highest ‘Yes’ vote of any Australian state or territory – 74% voted in favour of same-sex marriage. Choosing this as a landmark is also a nod to Canberra’s reputation as the “roundabout capital of Australia“.

Image: Rainbow roundabout in Braddon January 2018 by Nick-D

Drawing a city: real Canberra versus cartoon Canberra

Drawing an aerial cartoony version of Canberra was an interesting creative challenge. It was an exercise in exaggeration and reduction.

Compare my cartoony view of Canberra with a realistic view of Canberra over the shoulder of Black Mountain, and you’ll see how flat and spread-out the real cityscape is.

In this view, you can see that landmarks such as Parliament House, the Australian War Memorial, and the National Carillon are barely visible, whereas the rainbow roundabout would be smaller than a single pixel. Here is my drawing again:

It is fun to think about how readily our minds will willingly accept such grossly distorted scenes as ‘acceptable’!

Postcards, greeting cards, art prints

Support my work by buying this artwork as a postcard, greeting card or signed and numbered art print from my online store.
Visit the Rainbow-crested cockatoo product range category, or use the following links for these items on my web store:

• Greeting card – Rainbow-crested cockatoo (11.7 x 18.2 cm size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of greeting cards
• Postcard – Rainbow-crested cockatoo (A6 size) – also available four-pack and eight-pack bundles of postcards
• Art print – Rainbow-crested cockatoo (various sizes, pigment ink prints on archival paper)

Content Rainbow-crested cockatoo above Black Mountain Tower first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Although I have been out of the listening demographic of Triple J for a while, I decided to treat it as a fun exercise to wrap up a decade of listening. (Double J radio is now my jam, and I highly recommend it).

My Top 10 songs of the decade 2010-19

Here are my top 10 favourite songs of the decade:

• Tropical Fuck Storm – “You Let My Tyres Down” (2018)
• PJ Harvey – “The Glorious Land” (2011)
• Gotye feat. Kimbra – “Somebody That I Used to Know” (2011)
• Infinity Broke – “Monsoon” (2014)
• The John Steel Singers – “Evolution” (2010)
• Sleater-Kinney – “No Cities to Love” (2015)
• Arcade Fire – “Reflektor” (2013)
• Kurt Vile – “Loading Zones” (2018)
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – “Push the Sky Away” (2013)

Probably the only song from that list that has a realistic chance of making the actual Triple J top 100 countdown is “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye, but it was a fun personal exercise for me to compile the list.

My favourite song of that list would have to be the mighty “You Let My Tyres Down” by Tropical Fuck Storm. It has a magnificent guitar riff that is kept hidden like a secret weapon until being deployed two-thirds of the way through the song at the 3:25 mark. See a great dissection of the song’s lyrics through the annotations on Genius.com, and hear a great chat with band leader Gareth Liddiard via the podcast The Bottom of It.

Playlists

I created a Spotify playlist and YouTube playlist of those Top 10 songs, for you to listen to. Additionally, I have a Spotify playlist of my 52-song longlist that I culled the top 10 from – good to put on ‘shuffle’ play.

My Top 10 playlist is also embedded below:

Content Hottest 100 of the decade: my votes first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Further reading

• Who Owns the Million Dollar Baseball?: the full 56 page comic that this Doing It All Alone comic was excerpted from.
• Setting the foundation: the overlooked public factors of individual success: my blog post more fully exploring the themes of the comic. Including why I drew the “self-made” businessman to resemble the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos.
• My Patreon page: Support my comics by joining my crowdfunding campaign via Patreon. Feel good about yourself as you become a patron of the arts!

Content Doing It All Alone first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Last year, I was the guest on the podcast Utopian Horizons, talking about my hero Buckminster Fuller.

Utopian Horizons is a podcast about various flavours of utopia or dystopia that have been proposed over the years. The topics range from fully automated luxury communism, to the apocalypse ‘prepping’ of Silicon Valley millionaires in New Zealand, as well as the philosophical outlook of the video game Grand Theft Auto V.

My topic: the life and work of Buckminster Fuller

I was asked to speak about the life and work of Buckminster Fuller. As you might remember, Bucky Fuller was the protagonist of my Energy Slaves comic, and is a figure who I have studied extensively.

Most famous for inventing the geodesic dome, Bucky also designed many other inventions such as the three-wheeled Dymaxion Vehicle, and affordable housing concepts such as the Dymaxion House. Perhaps more significantly, Bucky was an early advocate of sustainability, and the potential for humanity to ‘do more with less’ through efficient engineering.

Although he was often dubbed a designer, architect or inventor, Bucky Fuller referred to himself as a “comprehensive anticipatory design scientist”. Living to the age of 87, he worked incredibly long hours right up to his death, and used the following question to focus his efforts:

“How do we make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone?” – Buckminster Fuller

The podcast interview: Bucky Fuller’s life and legacy

Listen to the podcast as I discuss Bucky Fuller’s proposed ‘design science revolution’, including his three-wheeled Dymaxion Car and geodesic domes. I also discuss some of Bucky’s more outlandish concepts, such as his floating Triton City in Tokyo Harbour, and his Cloud Nine spheres that would float in the atmosphere above the Earth’s surface.

Listen to the podcast episode via Soundcloud, iTunes, or via the below embedded player:

Content Podcast interview about Buckminster Fuller on Utopian Horizons first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

The dumbwaiter is a compelling metaphor for the way we hide the unpleasant parts of our supply chains. This essay expands upon the ideas of my most recent social commentary comic: What the Dumbwaiter Hides, which I am releasing today:

What the Dumbwaiter Hides
Thomas Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter to hide the slaves that he used to run his mansion. Today, we use the ‘dumbwaiter’ of globalisation to hide the dark parts of our supply chains.
http://stuartmcmillen.com/comic/what-the-dumbwaiter-hides/ [54 pages]

Go and read the full comic, then come back here to read this discussion piece.

Thomas Jefferson: inventor of the dumbwaiter

As well as being the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was a keen inventor. Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter, and other devices that allowed food and drinks to be cleverly transported throughout his Monticello mansion.

Although Jefferson was intellectually opposed to slavery, he was still a slave-owner with dozens and dozens of slaves working on his property at any one time.

My comic is about the double-life that the dumbwaiter allowed Jefferson to live. The dumbwaiter allowed the enslaved workforce that prepared the food to remain unseen by the guests in his dining room.

Thus, the dumbwaiter was a device that allowed Jefferson and his guests to cloak their involvement in slavery.

The dumbwaiter hid it all away.

The ‘dumbwaiters’ of modern life: what is hidden from our view

In my comic, I extend this ‘dumbwaiter’ analogy to modern life.

I argue that the geographic distance of globalised capitalism allows us to shield ourselves from the unpleasant parts of our supply chains, that we would rather pretend didn’t exist.

Sweatshops, repetitive jobs, mining, clear-cutting. These are the things that the ‘dumbwaiter’ of geographic distance hides from us.

Sacrifice zones: a powerful term

In my comic What the Dumbwaiter Hides, I use a powerful term: ‘sacrifice zones’. This is a term that I first came across in Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything (2014). A quote from pages 169-70:

Sacrifice zones … [are] … places that, to their extractors, somehow don’t count and therefore can be poisoned, drained, or otherwise destroyed, for the supposed greater good of economic progress. […] In order to have sacrifice zones, you need to have people and cultures who count so little that they are considered deserving of sacrifice.

In my comic, I depict some of the sacrifice zones of Earth: the polluted and disrupted sites that provide the resources to feed the industrial machinery.

I also show some of the hot, noisy, repetitive, demeaning jobs that are used to create many of the products that enter our lives.

All of these are invisible to us, hidden behind the ‘dumbwaiter’ of our globalised economy.

My own dumbwaiters: I’m guilty too

This probably goes without saying, but I know that I use ‘dumbwaiters’ in my lifestyle. I’m as guilty as anyone else.

Everything from the clothes I wear, through to the cookware in my house features a long supply chain hidden behind dumbwaiters. I am also aware of the huge numbers of invisible ‘energy slaves’ that power my lifestyle, as described in my comic Energy Slaves and its accompanying essays.

Rather than declaring myself holier-than-thou, I want to acknowledge my part in the problem. Then I want to understand and improve the supply chains that feed my lifestyle. Hopefully if we all embark on this journey together, the world will be a better place.

My inspiration for What the Dumbwaiter Hides

My direct inspiration for this comic came from two places. Firstly, a reference to Jefferson’s hypocritical use of slaves on pages 1-2 of Andrew Nikiforuk’s The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude (2014). I read this book during the research for my Energy Slaves comic. Secondly, Douglas Rushkoff mentions ‘the dumbwaiter effect’ on page 19 of Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity (2016), specifically referencing Jefferson’s invention and use of the dumbwaiter. I highly recommend both of those books.

Further inspiration came from my favourite comedian Damien Power‘s podcast Power to the People, which discussed the hypocrisy of righteous people who are ‘offended’ on social media. In episode 34 of his podcast, Damien discusses the blindspots that ‘social justice warriors’ have to their own culpability. He gives the specific example of people who use their iPhones to vent about injustices, while ignoring the brutal labour conditions in the supply chain of their iPhone. Listen to that excellent podcast.

Interesting reading: from my Dumbwaiter research

Finally, here are some other interesting pieces that I read during the research for What the Dumbwaiter Hides:

• I read an excellent longread piece by Lisa Hix titled Why Aren’t Stories Like ’12 Years a Slave’ Told at Southern Plantation Museums? Hix’s piece describes the experience offered by plantation-house museums in America’s South. Visitors are allowed to tour the house and gardens of these opulent manors, marvelling in their splendour.
  
  Above: Thomas Jefferson’s mansion Monticello, in Virginia. Photo by Nashpaul. Licence: CC-BY-SA-3.0

Yet, in the words of Lisa Hix: “Many of these museums let visitors walk away without considering that all of these exquisite things were accumulated through the violence and forced labor of slavery.”

Above: Inside the female slave quarters of George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation. Photo by Tim Evanson. Licence: CC-BY-SA-2.0

Hix notes that “Visitors touring plantation-house museums are generally expected to admire the rich, white enslavers and sympathize with their plight.” Visitors to these colonial manors are invited to “imagine themselves belonging to this extravagant, exclusive world”. To identify with the worldview of the slave-owners, rather than to identify with the plight of the slaves.

• The Thomas Jefferson Foundation has a short video about the dumbwaiters that Jefferson employed in his Monticello mansion. Note that ‘dumbwaiters’ were a term that also applied to ‘self-service’ tables, and a revolving door, as well as the more familiar ‘wine dumbwaiters’ that Jefferson used in his manor. I appreciate that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation is going to lengths to emphasise Jefferson’s questionable history with slavery, as evidenced by the commentary at the end of that video (embedded below).

• I was interested to read that an actor, Bill Barker, has been portraying Thomas Jefferson for over 25 years. Barker appears “as” Jefferson at functions, and speaks about the world in a way that Jefferson would have done. That is one hell of a niche career!
  
  Above: Bill Barker as Thomas Jefferson. Photo by Laura A. Macaluso, Ph.D. Licence: CC-BY-SA-4.0
• In the comic I make the following statement:
  

  Half of the people on Earth live on less than $3 per day so that we can have our Western lifestyles.

  My source for this quote is from extending Do Something’s statistic on global poverty: “nearly half of the world’s population—more than 3 billion people—lives on less than $2.50 per day“.
  Another eye-opening statistic from that factsheet is that 80% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 a day. In other words: less than US$3,650 per year. Yowch.
  

• When researching photographs of the ‘sacrifice zones’ of Earth, I came across the striking photos of Chinese photographer Lu Guang (卢广). For decades, Lu has taken stunning photos of the toll that China’s industrialisation is having on the people and ecosystems of China. Those are some disturbing photos, that encapsulate the term ‘sacrifice zone’ perfectly.

  Worryingly, Lu was captured by Chinese state security agents in November 2018, and has presumably been held in a ‘re-education camp’ since then. As I write this, Lu is still missing.
  
  Above: Chinese photographer Lu Guang, photographed in 2009. Photo by 大杨. Licence: CC-BY-2.0

Help to fund my future comics

My comic What the Dumbwaiter Hides is a self-directed project that I researched, wrote, drew, and published myself. But it is made possibly because of the generosity of my readers who admire my work. My passionate readers pledge recurring monthly donations that fund my work. Right now, I have 168 individuals who are pledging a cumulative US$1,037 per month to my Patreon crowdfunding page. But, I need that amount to be higher if this is to be a long-term sustainable career for me.

If you enjoyed the 54-page reading experience of What the Dumbwaiter Hides, and would like to read more comics like it, please donate to support my work. Support my ongoing comics creation by joining my Patreon crowdfunding campaign now via crowdfundstu.com.

Content Behind the Dumbwaiter first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Here are 12 things you didn’t know about me:

#1: I’ve been cartooning as my primary job since 2011.

After working various ‘normal’ office jobs, I took a leap of faith, and tried being a full-time artist in 2011. Since then, I’ve found various ways to fund my art, including crowdfunding, commissions, and arts grants. I keep my website up-to-date with the various ways I’ve funded myself.

#2: I work from an art studio in the historic Gorman Arts Centre

After years of working from home, and then working in a coworking space, I now work from an art studio at Gorman Arts Centre in Canberra (above). I keenly ride my bicycle to the studio every weekday. I’ve compiled a list of ambient music that I like to work to while in the studio.

#3: I’m an Aussie artist

The fact that I am an Australian is something that feeds into my work. In 2016 I attempted to shoot the “most Aussie crowdfunding video ever” (above), which was something that I followed with my 2018 tongue-in-cheek threat to quit cartooning and become a parking inspector.

#4: I avidly write down ideas for comics on index cards

Since 2014, I have been writing down interesting ideas, facts, and quotations on a series of index cards.

I call this resource my ‘Personal Knowledge Bank’, which now has over 2,000 cards in the collection (see above). You can see detailed photos of some of the cards in this photo album. I also regularly post photos of certain cards on my Instagram feed.

#5: My comics about fossil fuel energy have a cult following

I drew two major comics called Peak Oil and Energy Slaves about fossil fuel depletion’s role in the future of humanity. These have cult followings in the energy industry. One petroleum industry consultant tells me that when he receives new interns into his office, he orders them to spend 10 minutes reading Peak Oil, as a quick crash-course.

#6: My comics are fan-translated into multiple languages

When designing my website, I deliberately included support for multiple languages. You can change the language of my website using the drop-down menu in the top-right corner. Currently I support 12 languages.

Doing that will allow you to view some of my comics in languages as diverse as French, Spanish, Czech, and Russian. All of these translations are hand-crafted by fans who wanted my comics to be accessible to readers who speak their language.

#7: Positive feedback from the ‘stars’ of my comics

I have had the opportunity to receive feedback by the people who I profile as characters in my comics. For example, Professor Bruce Alexander (above) was delighted to see himself as the protagonist in Rat Park, and updated his website to include a prominent link to my comic as a summary of his work. Similarly, Professor Ken Gergen emailed me to congratulate me on depicting him and his psychological research in Deviance in the Dark.

#8: Podcast interviews about my work

I’ve spoken about my comics on various podcasts over the years. Some good interviews to begin with are:

• Playgrounding (mostly discussing my comics Rat Park and Deviance in the Dark)
• The Wholesome Show (mostly about my comic Energy Slaves)
• Utopian Horizons (about the life and work of futurist Buckminster Fuller)
• ABC Radio Queensland (mostly about my comic I Used to Be Racist).

#9: I published a readers’ guide to my favourite comic books

I released a YouTube video series called Top 10 Essential Graphic Novels, which is my recommendations for the best comic books for new readers. Watch the videos and get some ideas for your next book purchases!

#10: music and movie references in my artwork

The page 1 artwork of each of my comics is a reference to an album cover, movie poster, or similar cultural icon.

For example, page 1 of Tagging Public Spaces is a reference to Rage Against the Machine’s The Battle of Los Angeles. Similarly, page 1 of Rat Park is a reference to Led Zeppelin IV’s iconic artwork The Hermit. See above for side-by-side comparisons. See how many more you can recognise in my other comics!

#11: Led Zeppelin references in my Rat Park artwork

I took this ‘musical reference’ idea even further in Rat Park. From page 31 to page 36 of that comic, my artwork contains panel-by-panel references to each of Led Zeppelin’s album artwork in chronological order. From Houses of the Holy, to Physical Graffiti, to Presence, they’re all there!

#12: my life outside of cartooning

Outside cartooning, I am active in my local community as a volunteer. These include organising my local Green Drinks events (2009 to present), as well as organising my local Sunday Assembly (2016 to 2017). (Sunday Assembly is a secular, non-religious community gathering featuring guest speakers and singing). I wrote a blog post about the pleasure I get from organising these community events.

Content 12 things you didn’t know about me first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

As with past years, I am using this as an opportunity to declare my favourite books that I read during the past two years. Here’s my Top 3 countdown of the best books that I during the period 2017-2019:

#3: Boy Swallows Universe (2018) by Trent Dalton

Long hailed as one of Australia’s best feature writers, Trent Dalton wowed me with his debut novel Boy Swallows Universe.

The book is about a Brisbane family in the 1980s. This is territory that Dalton knows well, having himself grown up in a housing commission property in Brisbane’s Bracken Ridge. The family at the centre of the book is poor, and involved with drug dealing and alcoholism. But the family members are held together by love, and the protagonist Eli has a heart of gold.

Trent’s sparkling prose wonderfully illustrates the sights, sounds, and smells of Brisbane during that naive time. This is a book that drew me in deeper and deeper as I went. Glued to my bed, I read the gripping final hundred pages in a two-hour session!

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton is the best fiction book that I read during this period.

#2: Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography (2007) by David Michaelis

Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz died in 2000, but writer David Michaelis waited seven years before publishing this wonderful biography. It was worth the wait. This book is everything that a biography should be, with exceptional research feeding into extremely readable prose.

An only child, Schulz’s life was profoundly affected by the untimely death of his mother when he was aged 20. Schulz was a sensitive soul, but followed his family’s Midwestern tendencies to bury his feelings. Though identifying as a polite small-town son of a barber, he harboured competitive drive to succeed as a cartoonist and prove himself to the world. All of these things came out through his cartoon character Charlie Brown, who served as Schulz’s avatar in the Peanuts universe.

Charles Schulz drew 17,897 strips of Peanuts, a talk that he refused to delegate to others. Michaelis calls it “arguably the longest story told by one human being”, as Schulz was the only person to write, pencil, draw, and letter the strip. As a cartoonist, Schulz broke new ground to redefine what comics could be. The humour of Peanuts drew from the melancholy of Charlie Brown, Schulz’s stand-in character.

As biographer, Michaelis uses amazing X-ray vision to see what was happening beneath the surface of the Peanuts strips. Very often, the themes of the strips symbolised events that were occurring in Schulz’s own personal life. The overbearing character of Lucy van Pelt came to symbolise the cartoonist’s first wife Joyce, who left Schulz in the early 70s. Michaelis’s description of the events in Schulz’s life are frequently juxtaposed with relevant cartoon strips that Schulz drew at the time. The strips show how Schulz reflected his experiences through his characters.

Reading the book, I was amazed at the level of detail that Michaelis was able to dredge up about Schulz’s life. Particularly the description of Schulz’s extramarital affair with a 25-year-old woman, which is recounted in vivid detail. I also particularly like the three page section explaining Schulz’s daily routine inside his cartoon studio. Below is part of the flavour of those pages.

Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis is an exceptional biography, and was a pleasure for me to read.

#1: Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements (2016) by Bob Mehr

Topping this list is Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements by Bob Mehr, which profiles the infamous Minneapolis rock band.

Let me add myself to the chorus of reviewers calling this one of the best rock biographies ever written. Bob Mehr went to extraordinary lengths as a biographer, taking seven years to chase up 230 interviews with people who were only tangentially connected to The Replacements. For example, as Mehr told Jon Wurster at a book launch, tracking down the owner of the obscure venue that hosted the band’s disastrous first gig.

The book is a mixture of sorrow and hijinks. All members of The Replacements came from troubled backgrounds, and drank heavily to mask their pains and insecurities. Their road antics were legendarily self-destructive. Important gigs for music industry bigwigs were intentionally sabotaged with bad performances. On the flipside, unexceptional venues were treated to transcendent performances that left lifelong impressions for its audience members.

I was continuously delighted by the sheer number and diversity of road antics that Bob Mehr was able to compile for this book. Memorable highlights include: the surprise transformation of drummer Chris Mars into his drunk alter-ego “Pappy the Clown” during occasional gigs; the time when the band members decided to start a fire inside their tour van(!) to overcome boredom while travelling on the freeway; and ordering wallpaper to paper-over a dressing room that was covered in autographs by famous musicians. All members of the band shine through with their own distinctive personalities. Mehr’s writing leaves the reader simultaneously impressed and appalled by their behaviour.

But of course, the main reason we still remember The Replacements is the strength of their songs like “I Will Dare”, “Alex Chilton”, and “Can’t Hardly Wait”. As well as chronicling the band’s antics, Mehr also illuminates the creative decisions that led to the band’s songs and albums.

Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements (2016) by Bob Mehr is my favourite book that I read during 2018. Indeed, it probably edges out Pat Gilbert’s Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash as my favourite rock bio of all time. Grab it.

Full list of books read 2017-19

For my sake as much as yours, here is the list of all the books I’ve read in the last 2 years. This follows on from my previous five reading lists: 2008-09, 2009-10, 2011-13, 2013-15, and 2015-17.

Fiction

• “Boy Swallows Universe” – Trent Dalton (2018)
• “Barracuda” – Christos Tsiolkas (2013)
• “The Slap” – Christos Tsiolkas (2008)
• “The Body Artist” – Don DeLillo (2001)
• “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” – Haruki Murakami (1985)
• “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” – Philip K. Dick (1962)

Biography

• “Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography” – David Michaelis (2007)

Architecture / design / urban planning

• “Wrestling with Moses : How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City” – Anthony Flint (2009)
• “City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village” – David Sucher (1994)

Environment / energy / sustainability / economics

• “The Growth Delusion: Wealth, Poverty, and the Well-Being of Nations” – David Pilling (2018)
• “Dead Right: How Neoliberalism Ate Itself and What Comes Next” [Quarterly Essay 70] – Richard Denniss (2018)
• “Curing Affluenza: How to buy less stuff and save the world” – Richard Denniss (2017)
• “Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming” – Paul Hawken (2017)
• “Game of Mates : How Favours Bleed the Nation” – Cameron Murray & Paul Frijters (2017)
• “Kenneth Boulding: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness” [Great Thinkers in Economics] – Robert Scott (2014)
• “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” – Thomas Piketty (2013)
• “Our Common Wealth: The Hidden Economy That Makes Everything Else Work” – Jonathan Rowe (2013)
• “The Self-Made Myth: And the Truth about How Government Helps Individuals and Businesses Succeed” – Brian Miller and Mike Lapham (2012) (2013)
• “Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics” – Kalle Lasn and Adbusters (2012)
• “What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth” – Wendell Berry (2010)
• “Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class” – Robert H. Frank (2007)
• “Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough” – Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss (2005)
• “Growth Fetish” – Clive Hamilton (2003)
• “Luxury Fever : Weighing the Cost of Excess” – Robert H. Frank (1999)
• “Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth” – Marilyn Waring (1988)
• “Creative Tension: The Life and Thought of Kenneth Boulding” – Cynthia Earl Kerman (1974)

Memoir / essays

• “Detours” – Tim Rogers (2017)
• “Woman of Substances” – Jenny Valentish (2017)
• “Reasons to Stay Alive” – Matt Haig (2015)
• “The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help” – Amanda Palmer (2014)
• “How to Be a Woman” – Caitlin Moran (2011)
• “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” – Haruki Murakami (2007)
• “Man’s Search for Meaning” – Viktor Frankl (1946)

Music

• “Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements” – Bob Mehr (2016)
• “Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock” – Jesse Jarnow (2012)
• “This Is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl” – Paul Brannigan (2011)
• “See A Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody” – Bob Mould (2011)

Politics

• “Trigger Warnings: political correctness and the rise of the right” – Jeff Sparrow (2018)
• “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny” – Kate Manne (2017)
• “Depends What You Mean By Extremist: Going Rogue with Australian Deplorables” – John Safran (2017)
• “The Luck of Politics: True Tales of Disaster and Outrageous Fortune” – Andrew Leigh (2015)
• “Decolonizing Solidarity: Dilemmas and Directions for Supporters of Indigenous Struggles” – Clare Land (2015)
• “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets” – Michael J. Sandel (2012)
• “Culture Jam: How To Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge – And Why We Must” – Kalle Lasn (1999)
• “No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies” – Naomi Klein (1999)
• “White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness” – Ruth Frankenberg (1993)

Psychology / society

• “The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction” – Matthew Crawford (2015)
• “The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy” – David Graeber (2015)
• “The Tyranny of E-mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox” – John Freeman (2009)
• “Technopoly : the Surrender of Culture to Technology” – Neil Postman (1993)

History

• “Inked: Australian Cartoons” – Guy Hansen (2019)
• “Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future” – Neil Postman (1999)

Money / finance

• “Your Money Or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence” – Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez (2018)
• “Early Retirement Extreme: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Financial Independence” – Jacob Lund Fisker (2010)

Miscellaneous literature / fiction

• “120 Banned Books : Censorship Histories of World Literature” – Nicholas Karolides (2005)
• “The Fine Art Of Small Talk : How to start a conversation in any situation” – Debra Fine (1997)

Creativity / the process of writing

• “Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction “ – Chris Bailey (2018)
• “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” – Cal Newport (2016)
• “How to be a Writer” – John Birmingham (2016)
• “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” – Elizabeth Gilbert (2015)
• “Funemployed: Life as an artist in Australia” – Justin Heazlewood (2014)
• “Poke the Box: When Was the Last Time You Did Something for the First Time?” – Seth Godin (2011)

Comics / graphic novels: fiction

• “Body Music” – Julie Maroh (2017)
• “The Sculptor” – Scott McCloud (2015)
• “The Underwater Welder” – Jeff Lemire (2012)
• “Blue Is the Warmest Colour” – Lars Martinson (2010)
• “Asterios Polyp” – David Mazzucchelli (2009)
• “Tonoharu: Part One” – Alison Bechdel (2008)
• “The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For” – Alison Bechdel (2008)
• “Bookhunter” – Jason Shiga (2007)
• “Good-Bye, Chunky Rice” – Craig Thompson (2006)
• “The Snake Pit Book” – Ben Snakepit (2004)
• “Transmetropolitan, Vol. 2: Lust for Life” – Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (1999)
• “Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street” – Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (1998)
• “Preacher, Volume 2: Until the End of the World” – Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon (1997)
• “Preacher, Volume 1: Gone to Texas” – Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon (1996)
• “City of Glass” – Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli adapting Paul Auster (1994)

Comics / graphic novels: non-fiction

• “Twists of Fate” – Paco Roca (2019)
• “Theft: A History of Music” – James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins (2017)
• “Footnotes in Gaza” – Joe Sacco (2009)

Comics / graphic novels: memoirs

• “Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama” – Alison Bechdel (2012)

Television, television’s impact on communities

• “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” – Jerry Mander (1978)
• “Broadcast Television Effects in A Remote Community” – Tony Charlton, Barrie Gunter & Andrew Hannan (2002)
• “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” – Neil Postman (1985)
• “How to Watch TV News” – Neil Postman & Steve Powers (1992)
• “The Impact of Television: a Natural Experiment in Three Communities” – Tannis MacBeth Williams (1986)
• “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” – Robert D. Putnam (2000)
• “The Plug-In Drug: Television, Children, And The Family” – Marie Winn (1977)
• “Children & Television, second edition” – Barrie Gunter & Jill McAleer (1997)
• “Television and the American Child” – George Comstock & HaeJung Paik (1991)

Content Two years of reading (2017-19) first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

The public factors that influence private successes

Too many people overlook the role of broader society in an individual’s success. But consider this: would it have been possible for the Boston Red Sox to win a title if there was a civil war, or rioting occurring during their season? What if there was a pandemic, or public health crisis? If the transportation network failed? How about if the electrical grid or telecommunication network failed? If there was a disruption to the food system? Mass strikes of teachers, nurses, or other workers?

Because well-functioning systems are invisible, we often forget that they are there. But it is the silent, efficient public systems that allows the members of a society the chance to succeed as individuals.

Brilliant because we let them: the social support that builds billionaires

How much work would Mark Zuckerberg be able to do if he had to empty the bins in his office? If he had to shop for stationery, make his own coffees, and fix the photocopier? What if he had to do the family’s grocery shopping, educate his children, and coach their sports teams? Zuckerberg does not have to do any of these jobs, because there are other people in his company, other people in society, to do these jobs for him.

The success of any one individual is hugely reliant on the smooth functioning of the rest of society. It is because there are people emptying bins, delivering food, minding children, and fixing roads that individuals can become successful in other fields. If there weren’t people doing those other jobs of society, ‘brilliant’ individuals would never have the chance to display their brilliance. They would simply be too encumbered by the chores that broader society relieves them of.

Because of this contribution that other members of society make to the lives of its wealthiest members, it is reasonable that we can claim some percentage of their income as taxation. By filling the other roles of society so that they don’t have do, we give them the chance to do their final masterstrokes on behalf of us all.

Jeff Bezos: inspiration for the businessman

It is no coincidence that the selfish businessman that I depict looks like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos is by far the wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of US$131 billion. This is simply a staggering amount of wealth to have in the hands of a single individual. His personal wealth is greater than the GDP of the world’s poorest 48 countries combined.

Unfortunately, Bezos and Amazon are notorious for opposing modest taxes on their wealth. Their attitude is emblematic of the selfish “did it alone” mentality that I rail against in my comic.

Jeff Bezos came to my attention after his company Amazon opposed a modest corporate tax that would be used to fund homelessness solutions in Washington State. Despite earning $1.6 billion of profits per quarter in 2018, the company baulked at a tax that would have only shaved $20 million from its profits.

Consider the hypocrisy here. Amazon’s business model is underpinned by public investments into road networks, the postal service, and the internet. Without this publicly-funded infrastructure, Amazon simply would not be able to operate as a retailer.

Their private success is only possible because of public investments by the taxpayer. Yet the company sees itself as free from any responsibility to the society that spawned it. This is despite its’ high-paid workers driving up the cost of housing, and thus contributing to the homelessness problem. Despite the correlation between Amazon’s presence and homelessness, the company forced Seattle to repeal its public housing tax plan one month after introduced in 2018.

For context to the scale of Bezos’s personal wealth, let’s look at some back-of-envelope calculations. Jeff Bezos is wealthy enough to personally buy every single homeless person in America a new house at median market price, and still have $19.2 billion left over.

A likeness of Jeff Bezos is my stand-in for my businessman who “did it all himself”, without appreciation for the circumstances that allowed him to get to his position.

See the full story by reading my comic Who Owns the Million Dollar Baseball.

Hitting upon the theme: the role of society in an individual’s success

The theme of the comic was inspired by me reading books like Our Common Wealth, The Self-Made Myth, and Governomics. These books speak of the easily-overlooked public factors that are critical for individuals to thrive. Factors like law and order, clean drinking water, and telecommunication networks set the publicly-funded platform that private successes build from.

Although the truth of the Mientkiewicz story was elevated beyond reality (as discussed in my previous blog post), I love the Red Sox ball story as a broader analogy. An analogy for the way that we distribute the wealth of our society. It speaks to the warped worldviews of the so-called “self-made men” who “did it all themselves” without any sort of society to help them.

Jonathan Rowe: how I learnt about the Red Sox analogy

Finally, a tip of the hat to Jonathan Rowe, the writer whose work alerted me to this Red Sox baseball story in the first place.

I first learned about the World Series ball scandal through a blog post about the commons by Jonathan Rowe, which was co-written by David Bollier. Jonathan’s writings such as If the GDP is Up, Why is America Down? challenge conventional economics ideas of economic growth equalling ‘progress’.

Jonathan Rowe died in 2011, and it was only after his death that I became aware of his work. I’ve read his brilliant back-catalogue of essays extensively, as well as his posthumously-published book Our Common Wealth: The Hidden Economy That Makes Everything Else Work.

Expect to see me publishing more comics on these themes of society and economics in the future. Join my email newsletter to learn about my new comics as I publish them.

Help to fund my future comics

My comic Who Owns the Million Dollar Baseball? is a self-directed project that I researched, wrote, drew, and published myself. But like the analogy of the comic, it is made possibly because of the generosity of my readers who admire my work. My passionate readers pledge recurring monthly donations that fund my work. Right now, I have 165 individuals who are pledging a cumulative US$1,191 per month to my Patreon crowdfunding page. But, I need that amount to be higher if this is to be a long-term sustainable career for me.

If you enjoyed the 56-page reading experience of Who Owns the Million Dollar Baseball?, and would like to read more comics like it, please donate to support my work. Support my ongoing comics creation by joining my Patreon crowdfunding campaign now via crowdfundstu.com.

Content Setting the foundation: the overlooked public factors of individual success first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

My references for ‘ballgate’

I used multiple sources when researching the incident. My principal sources include: ESPN (2011), the Dan Patrick Show (2013), Sports Law Blog (2006), Boston Globe 1 (2005), Boston Globe 2 (2005), Boston Globe 3 (2005).

I am not a baseball fan, but enjoyed researching the history behind the Boston Red Sox and their beloved 100 year old stadium Fenway Park.

My thoughts on Doug Mientkiewicz

I hope my comic shows my fondness for the man at the centre of the scandal: Doug Mientkiewicz. Doug seems like a good-natured guy. All of the interviews I’ve seen of Doug make him seem like a down-to-earth man with a good sense of humour. It seems that the whole “scandal” ballooned into a big misunderstanding from some obviously tongue-in-cheek comments he made to a journalist. Unfortunately, the journalist took his comments out of context. After the initial story broke, the echo chamber of commentators amplified the story to absurd proportions. Doug retold the story on the Dan Patrick Show six years after the controversy:

Despite knowing how the ‘ballgate’ story was inflated beyond reality, I couldn’t resist retelling it in my comic. It simply is a fascinating anecdote, and I liked temporarily casting Mientkiewicz as the villain.

In retelling the story, I wanted to avoid further dragging Doug Mientkiewicz’s name through the mud. In my comic, I refer to him as “the first baseman” during the early part of my comic, describing the controversial elements of the story. I only refer to Doug by his name during that latter parts of the comic, when I describe his decision to donate the ball to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Hopefully this is a way to tell the story without overly tarnishing Doug’s name.

The final scene at the Baseball Hall of Fame

My comic ends with Doug Mientkiewicz’s 2006 decision to donate the baseball to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

As far as I know, there never was any official ceremony to commemorate Doug’s donation of the ball. Nor did I find evidence that the ball was ever exhibited in a stand-alone display case in the Hall of Fame’s museum. But I decided to draw an imaginary ceremony into the final pages of my comic!

The penultimate image of my comic is Doug and the young fans looking into the ball in the display case.

The final image of the comic is the baseball in the display case with a dutch angle twist. This is a closer crop of the previous scene. By blurring the foreground ball, I change the focus of the scene to emphasise the expressions on the boys’ faces.

I wanted to linger on the power of Doug Mientkiewicz’s gesture of returning the ball to the public. Returning the ‘wealth’ of the ball to the ‘commons’ that nurtured his talent as a young player.

The broader themes of Million Dollar Baseball

So far in this blog post, I’ve discussed the facts of the 2004 ‘ballgate’ scandal, and how I chose to depict them in my comic. In another blog post, I discuss the broader themes of Million Dollar Baseball. That blog post is titled Setting the foundation: the overlooked public factors of individual success.

In Setting the foundation, I argue that the success of any one individual is hugely reliant on the smooth functioning of broader society. That the ‘brilliant’ Zuckerbergs, Gateses, and Musks would not be able to display their brilliance if it wasn’t for the numerous other people of society doing the myriad other tasks that their lifestyles rely on.

Read my full argument, and see more artwork from Million Dollar Baseball, in my blog post Setting the foundation: the overlooked public factors of individual success.

Content Ballgate: reflections on my Doug Mientkiewicz comic first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Whereas my previous blog post discussed a particular page of artwork that successfully employs this technique, today I will discuss the technique more broadly.

Let me step you through some notable examples of how I have used this technique.

Supernormal Stimuli egg-painting scene

The first time I used this technique was in Supernormal Stimuli (2011). Page 11 of the comic (below) shows my facsimile of a photo of Niko Tinbergen painting bird eggs. I composed the page so that it was three evenly-sized panels, with the image of Tinbergen split across the top two panels.

Note the extra ‘beat’ that the worldless middle panel provides to the flow of the story. Silence has the effect of removing a panel from a particular span of time, encouraging readers to linger on the artwork a little longer. If I had simply drawn the Tinbergen image as a single panel taking up two-thirds of the scene, we would not get the extra moment of suspense before the reveal of “Human beings” in the bottom panel. Little moments like these can subtly affect comics readers’ experiences, and should be strategically employed by comics artists.

I must note that Supernormal Stimuli was the first comic that I drew digitally with a graphics tablet. By comparison, my earlier pre-2012 comics were drawn with pen and ink. Drawing digitally allowed me greater flexibility for experimentations with panel arrangements, and the use of reference images.

War on Drugs comparison scenes

The premise of my War on Drugs comic is that there are great parallels between the harms of 1920s alcohol prohibition, and modern day drug prohibition.

From page 20 onwards, I use the ‘split panel’ effect on a few pages, to emphasise the comparison between the harms of 1920s prohibition and modern drug prohibition laws.

I particularly like the comparison between the dead alcoholic wearing 1920s period clothes, and the dead drug user wearing an Adidas tracksuit (see above). I composed the scene so that the human figure is in the same pose in both panels.

Earlier in the comic—on page 14 (below)—I used the ‘broken into panels’ effect to show Milton Friedman at a globe. Friedman is considering the international effects of American drug policy on the world. Again, note how the splitting of one scene into multiple panels acts as ‘punctuation’ to break up the reading experience.

Of particular note is how the largest panel focuses on North America on the globe, providing pause to think about how the United States influences the other countries of the world.

Rat Park

Page 19 of Rat Park (below) is a comparison between the way that rats behaved inside the ‘Rat Park’ drug experiment’s enclosure, versus the way that the caged rats behaved.

After I decided that I wanted this page 19 scene (above) to be a single image broken into smaller frames, I composed an arrangement that works with the reader’s natural tendency to read from top-to-bottom, and left-to-right. Comics artists should always consider the innate way that readers will automatically tend to read the page. Don’t fight your readers’ instincts, embrace them!

There are a few other examples of this split into multiple frames effect in Rat Park, but my absolute favourite is page 37 (below). This scene of Rat Park shows Bruce Alexander walking along a Vancouver street with the Harbour Centre tower in the background.

Something about this composition has always seemed really pleasing to my eyes. Including the way that the lamplight is isolated into its own panel for no particular reason.

Peak Oil

Again, I used the technique multiple times in Peak Oil. A prominent early example is on page 5 (below), showing the geologist M. King Hubbert getting upset at the execute assistant from his employer Shell Oil, who urged him to cancel his speech about fossil fuel depletion.

By breaking up one image of Hubbert’s angry face into multiple panels, we get the impression of the rapid-fire series of thoughts that would have run through Hubbert’s raging mind. Time is both sped-up and slowed-down at the same time, depending on whether the reader focuses on the individual panels, or the whole face.

Later, on pages 68-69 (below), I use the technique to layer two pieces of information onto the same page. In this case, we see oil company executives sitting in the lobby of a hotel, as well as diagonally-tilted panels showing Hubbert’s 1956 paper “Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels”.

As you can imagine, it takes a lot of planning to ensure that the key elements of these illustrations are visible, and not outside the borders of the panels!

Also, on pages 76-77 (below), I showed an under-shot of an American flag blowing in the wind, broken into multiple panels. The shape of the flag—and the composition of the panels—matches the bell curve shape of Hubbert’s predicted ‘peak oil’ phenomenon.

My Billboards comics

So far I have published three comics of my Twenty-Five Arguments Against Billboards collection. Here are the times that I’ve used this ‘split into panels’ technique so far:

In The Crudest Form of Advertising, I use the effect to show how billboards lurk on the walls of our cities, occupying visual real estate. On pages 7-8 (above), I show a Maggi Noodles billboard that I am blissfully unaware of, until I finally turn to notice.

As explained in far greater detail in my other blog post, I used the ‘split into panels’ effect in the Dolmio pasta sauce page of my Tagging Public Spaces comic (above). The primary reason for doing this was to draw the reader’s eye up towards the sky, towards the billboard. A side-effect is that it also looks more visually interesting than a single unbroken scene would have.

The blank space between the panels gives your brain something to do, as it mentally fills in the gap. We imagine the missing overhead power lines, the car windshield, or the shape of the woman’s torso that are between the panels (above), and it feels good to use our imaginations.


I use the visual trademark twice in Litter on a Stick. The first is in my page featuring the Red Rooster ad (below). I composed the scene so that the image shown in each of the four panels corresponds with the text in the caption that appears above each panel. So that the young boy is having an idea imprinted upon him when he sees the burger billboard. And the “Hey Fatso!” billboard is an example of the anti-social nature of billboard advertising.

Think about how the separation of the image into four panels amplifies the effect of the text. Below is a version of the scene where I show the four text boxes floating inside one large unbroken double-page spread.

Personally, I prefer the first version of the page, which is broken into the four panels. Something about isolating the artwork in this way encourages the reader to linger a little longer on each point.

The other example from Litter on a Stick is my Anzac Day scene (below). Click on the image to zoom in, as it is a quadruple-page spread! Here, I tried to contrast the sombre mood of a war memorial service, with the most inappropriate billboard ads that I could imagine.

Above is the final image that appears in my comic. It took me over 35 hours to draw (and followed a first draft of the scene that I abandoned after 24 hours of effort).

Let’s compare how that scene would have looked if I had instead displayed it as a single, unbroken scene.

There is something about the division of the scene into panels that freezes the scene for closer inspection. We examine each of the sub-components, such as the wreaths resting at the bottom of the statue.

We see the billboard for $10 Chicken Schnitzels frozen in time (below), as an element for us to momentarily consider in isolation. We think about how the image of the bikini contrasts with the dignity of the female soldiers who we have just seen outside the panel.

And, continuing the theme from earlier pages, we see a littered XXXX Gold beer can, and a Gold Lotto lottery ticket on the ground. Seeing these isolated in the panel reinforces my comic’s argument that ‘billboards are litter’.

The effect reminds me of the ‘freeze frame’ effects in Beck’s iconic music video for “Devil’s Haircut” (1996) – see below.

Bringing back the visual trademark

Although many readers consider it my visual trademark, I shied away from using the effect for a number of years. For example, my three comics from 2018—Not Talking About Capitalism, Deprived of Religion, and I Used to Be Racist—are built almost entirely of unbroken double-page spread artworks. (In hindsight, I was overusing double-page spreads between 2016 and 2018, and they became less special than when I used them more sparingly pre-2015).

Having seen the recent success of my billboards pages with the ‘broken into panels’ effect, I am going to consciously re-introduce the visual trademark into my future comics. You have been warned!

Join my email newsletter to learn when I publish new comics to my website. Better yet, become my crowdfunding supporter on Pateron, and co-invest in my creation of these thought-provoking social commentary comics!

Content My visual trademark: detailed scenes broken into panels first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

After 12 hours of brainstorming, arranging, and drawing, I walked away feeling satisfied and proud.

Afterwards, for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about that page.

Because I am so happy with how it turned out, I decided to write this blog post explaining my satisfaction.

The final artwork

For a start, here is the page that I like so much:

It is the p9-10 double-page spread of my latest comic Tagging Public Spaces.

Now, let’s dig deeper into why I like the page so much.

The best comics page, not the best illustration

Let me emphasise that I am proud of this page as a work of comics art, rather than as an illustration.

In other words, I am proud of the particular combination of these elements:

• caption boxes
• panel borders
• panel arrangement
• negative space (the white space between the panel borders)
• the illustration
• the way that this page fits into the overall 26-page comic story

To show what I mean, let’s have a look at the illustration itself, with all of the borders and text removed:

The illustration is nice. But it is also pretty run-of-the-mill. Without the text and borders, it lacks the purpose that it serves in my Tagging Public Spaces comic.

Let me explain further what I mean by the purpose of a comics page.

Thinking in comics: the purpose of a comics page

My job is not a cartoonist. My job is not an illustrator.

My primary job is a comics artist.

There is a difference. Comics is about storytelling. Comics is about the panel-by-panel communication of an idea to the reader.

In other words, the illustrations are just one of the many simultaneous elements that comprise a comic. The text, panels, spacing and arrangement are equally as important as the illustrations themselves.

Because of this, illustrations are a relatively minor component of a comic. Illustrations that do not serve the story of a comic can be a detriment to the reading experience.

This page in context

Every page that I draw is experienced by the reader in context with the other pages of the comic.

My readers read my comics by scrolling from from left to right, as you can see for yourself. So I have to think about how each page relates to the previous and subsequent pages.

Here is a look at how this Dolmio page fits with its neighbouring pages:

As you can see, the reader finishes the previous page with their eyes near the bottom of that page, where the black caption box is. And the reader will begin their next page with their eyes in the black caption box at the top of that page. So with this page, I needed to span that gap.

Guiding the reader’s eye

As a comics artist, my job is to guide the reader’s eye across the page.

As the reader’s eye travels, I must use the combination of text and artwork to reveal information about the story that I am telling.

Here is the path of a reader’s eye across this page of artwork:

Please note how all elements of the page help to guide the reader’s eye from the bottom-left to the top-right:

• the text boxes step up, as we move from left to right
• the arrangement of the panels gradually creeps upwards, as we move from left to right
• I use the ‘negative space‘ of white in the top-left and bottom-right to guide the eye away from those parts of the page.
• I composed the illustration so that the two major elements were located in the bottom-left, and top-right. These were brightly-coloured for emphasis. I also included the face of the young woman in the top-right as a feature that draws the eye.

The initial read, and the second-pass

After this initial read, the compositional elements encourage the reader to scan across the page one more time.

After reading the four large panels, the reader notices that there are three smaller panels that reveal more part of the artwork.

These encourage the reader to circle back towards the spray-painted wall in the bottom-left, and to then have one more scan across the page.

Negative space: the gaps between the panels

My primary reason for breaking the scene into panels was to raise the viewer’s gaze towards the sky, as though they were looking up towards the billboard. Each panel provides a ‘step’ in the staircase towards the next destination. To create those steps, the gaps between the panels become important compositional elements.

As Scott McCloud famously highlights in Understanding Comics (1993), it is the spaces between the panels that most engage the reader’s imagination.


The blank space between the panels gives your brain something to do, as it mentally fills the gap. In this Dolmio scene, we imagine the missing arrows on the spray-painted wall, the missing car windshield, or the missing overhead power lines (above), and it feels good to use our imaginations.

The broken-up scene simply looks more visually interesting than the single unbroken scene does. (Again, see the comparison at the top of this page).

Working with the page’s purpose

Another reason why I like the page is because the composition matches the purpose of the page.

My comic, Tagging Public Spaces, draws a comparison between billboard advertisers and graffiti artists. Earlier in the comic, I argued that billboard advertisers claim the visual spaces of our cities in the same way as the ‘tags’ of graffiti artists.

Above: image from the Tagging Public Spaces comic criticising billboards as being corporate ‘tags’ similar to graffiti ‘tags’

Yet, the purpose of the Dolmio page was to go one step further. The purpose of this page was to argue that actually billboard advertisers are worse than graffiti artists. Billboard advertisers are worse because they claim the skies with their structures.

Knowing the purpose of the page was important, because I knew that I needed to directly compare a graffitied wall with a billboard tower.

Since we are so used to reading from top-to-bottom, I needed to find a way to make the reader’s eye move from bottom-to-top. As described earlier, I used the text boxes, panel arrangement, and composition to do this work.

I’m so glad that I could create artwork that served the purpose of the page with such effectiveness.

Doing the work for the reader

I understand that most readers of Tagging Public Spaces would not have noticed these compositional factors when they read my comic. To them, the page would have looked relatively unremarkable.

That is largely because the role of the comics artist is to do as much work as possible to make sure that the reader has a smooth reading experience. If you are skilled, the reader will not even notice the subtle decisions that you made when composing the page.

I am reminded of a scene in the fantastic documentary Tintin and I, where Hergé claims that he only drew two panels that he really loves. At first glance, those two illustrations look relatively run-of-the-mill and unspectacular. But on closer inspection they are expertly composed.

Above: Hergé’s two favourite Tintin panels. Watch the documentary to hear him say why he likes them so much.

In the immortal words of Mr. Plinkett, you might not have noticed, but your brain did.

Wearing the Dolmio grin

I was inspired to write this blog post after mentioning how happy I was with this ‘Dolmio’ page on social media. My reader Brian asked if I could explain exactly what it is about this page that especially pleases me.

My satisfaction with this Dolmio page has directly inspired me to re-conceptualise some of the pages of my upcoming comics from my Twenty-Five Arguments Against Billboards series.

Hopefully this article explains why I like this page so much, and gives insights into the deliberate choices that sit behind my compositions.

If you’d like to fund me as I continue drawing my billboards comics in this thoughtful way, please become my crowdfunding supporter via my Patreon page.

Content Artwork analysis: my favourite page of comics art first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Background: the international Green Drinks concept

Green Drinks is an informal networking event where environmentally-minded people meet over social drinks. It was started in London in 1989, and currently exists in over 500 cities globally, with international events coordinated through greendrinks.org.

Deciding to volunteer: my involvement with Green Drinks

I first read about the Green Drinks concept in 2008, learning about how it had chapters in international cities like London, Paris, and Chicago.

The idea struck me as a simple and interesting way to meet like-minded people working in the environmental space – particularly as I was hoping to move to a ‘green collar’ job in the sustainability sector. However, a quick search of greendrinks.org revealed that my town was not on the list of cities with its own local Green Drinks chapter.

After dwelling on the idea for a few months, I decided to “be the change that I wanted to see”, and contacted the international team to ask if I could be the local Green Drinks organiser in Brisbane. (Note: this was an important early act of volunteering initiative that would later inspire me to serve on various other organising committees for other community organisations in subsequent years).

The formation of Green Drinks Brisbane

The international coordinator, Edwin Datschefski, told me that two other people had recently expressed interest in organising a Green Drinks event in Brisbane. So I decided to join forces with the others – Holly and Morgan.

We walked the streets of Brisbane, looking for appropriate venues that could host Green Drinks. We asked pub managers if they would be able to accommodate our group by offering small incentives, such as a reserved area for our group, or the provision of free potato wedges and chips.

Since we were proposing holding Green Drinks on the usually quiet night of Tuesday, several of the pubs recognised the benefit of giving us little incentives such as these, to recognise that we were bringing them extra patrons on a weeknight.

After choosing a venue, the three of us invited as many of our environmentally-minded colleagues as possible. And reached out to sustainability-themed organisations, including exhibitors who who had recently exhibited at the ‘Greenfest’ event in Brisbane’s Botanical Gardens. The idea was to cast the net as wide as possible, and invite a crowd through word-of-mouth.

One afternoon, I quickly drew a logo for the event using pen and ink.

Our first event was on Tuesday 24 March 2009, in a now-closed venue named Ashala Bar at 138 Albert Street near the Timezone arcade. We had roughly 25 people at our first event, and settled into a monthly groove from that point onwards. Here are some photos from that original Albert Street location, taken in October 2009:

Life as an organiser

On one hand, the role of an organiser is quite easy and straightforward. You need to be the one who decides the dates and times of the events, books with the venue, and informs the membership base via website, email newsletter, and social media. It helps to give as much notice as possible, and to send timely reminders about upcoming events.

Equally importantly, the organiser needs to make sure that they arrive at the venue early, and serve as a friendly face to facilitate conversations between the guests who arrive at the event. The organiser needs to help attendees ‘break the ice’ with each other, and settle into conversations.

Learning to master both the ‘back-end’ logistics of scheduling events, as well as the social skills of hosting Green Drinks events have been worthy personal development projects over the last 10 years. I find that acting in the ‘role’ or Green Drinks organiser gives me a quiet confidence on the night, one that makes me feel comfortable and purposeful.

Oh, and it helps to bring along some sticky name labels for people to attach to their shirts. This simple act allows the guests to freely mingle with each other, without the worry of forgetting someone’s name.

My move from Brisbane to Canberra

After four years of organising the event, I moved from Brisbane to Canberra in 2013. Coincidentally, my move aligned with the former host of Green Drinks Canberra leaving town. So I was able to inherit the Canberra mailing list, and immediately continue in my role as Green Drinks organiser – in a new city.

Continuing to organising Green Drinks in Canberra

Although my Brisbane and Canberra events were both purely freeform networking, since 2016 my Canberra events have featured guest speakers as a monthly drawcard. The monthly speaker talks for 10-15 minutes on their topic, with opportunity for Q&A afterwards.

Featuring a monthly speaking gives each event a certain theme, and is a way to encourage people to keep coming month after month. We have had speakers on sustainable architecture, going ‘plastic-free’, the security implications of climate change, light rail as a transportation solution, and many many more topics that are listed on our website.

Photos of Green Drinks Canberra

The Canberra event was originally at local brewpub the Wig and Pen, until that venue closed for relocation in 2014. Since then, I have hosted Green Drinks Canberra at King O’Malley’s Irish Pub, near the Civic Bus Interchange on the second Tuesday of each month.

Here are photos from recent events in Canberra:

Above images feature Edwina Robinson from SEE-Change speaking to Green Drinks Canberra at King O’Malley’s Irish Pub in June 2018.



Above images feature political puppeteer Matthew Armstrong and his ‘Real Big Malcolm’ and ‘Real Big Tony’ heads at Green Drinks Canberra in September 2018.

Those photos feature the ‘guest speaker’ component of the events. But a major part of the Green Drinks events is the freeform discussion that happens before and after the main talks. Every 15 minutes I ring a bicycle bell to encourage punters to swap seats and go speak to someone different!

What I have been up to since leaving Brisbane: cartooning

Those who knew me when I organised Green Drinks Brisbane will remember that I am a cartoonist, specialising in long-form comics about social and environmental issues. After all, I designed both the Green Drinks Brisbane and Green Drinks Canberra logos!

That is something that I have continued for the last six years, with my comics hosted at stuartmcmillen.com. My current project is called Twenty-Five Arguments Against Billboards>, which I am sequentially publishing to the URL ComicsAboutBillboards.com

Reflections on Green Drinks

I love that Green Drinks is an international concept that anyone in the world can organise, if they follow a few simple guidelines that are listed on greendrinks.org. In fact, there are currently Green Drinks chapters operating in over 500 cities worldwide.

My personal philosophy is to keep my Green Drinks event as politically unaligned and agenda-free as possible. I want my Green Drinks events to be welcoming spaces for people interested in environmental issues to meet other like-minded people, and to learn about other events and groups that they should join. Thus, Green Drinks serves as a friendly front door for people who are curious about a city’s environmentalist subcultures.

You can read the full blurb on my Green Drinks Canberra website. Other international organisers are free to borrow choice wordings from this page.

Conclusion: a worthy part of my life

Organising and hosting Green Drinks has become a worthwhile addition to my monthly routine. It gives me great joy to be in a room of 20 or 30 people who are in conversations that would not have existed if I had chosen not to arrange the event.

Congratulations to the subsequent and current organisers for having kept Green Drinks Brisbane going for the six years since I left town. There have been a string of different organisers over the years. It is nice to look back and see that the event still continues – albeit on a Friday night now, rather than my night of Tuesday.

If Green Drinks sounds like a good idea, use their website to see if there are any events in your city. If your city isn’t yet listed, why not volunteer to organise an event yourself?

And if you are in Canberra, I’ll see you at tomorrow’s event for my tenth anniversary. Our guest speaker is talking to us about edible insects as an environmentally-friendly protein source.

Stuart McMillen
Canberra, Australia
11 March 2019

Content Ten years as a Green Drinks organiser first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

I recently published my blog post Beyond distraction: books about workflow, concentration, and productivity. In that post, I recommended four books about the threats to our self-control by internet technology.

This is a similar list of book recommendations, aimed at artists and those who do creative work. All of these titles explore the challenges that threaten to stop artists from doing their important work.

My reading list: books about the challenges of artists and freelancers

Funemployed: Life as an Artist in Australia by Justin Heazlewood

An entertaining and wise book, Justin Heazlewood charts life as an artist in Australia. He outlines the rewards and pitfalls that artists can expect to encounter on their journey. This includes everything from creative struggles (“second album syndrome”), self-confidence problems (“selling yourself”) and monetary problems, through to the mental health challenges (“the black dog”) and professional jealousies (“the black cat”) that artists often face. There is even a chapter (“Giving Up” about artists who have made the decision to cease working as an artist, and find other vocations.

The book was later turned into the ABC podcast Funemployed, which features interviews with notable Australian artists like Tim Rogers, Judith Lucy, John Clark, and Jen Cloher. But I highly recommend the full depth of the book Funemployed even for those who absorb the podcast.

More information about Funemployed: Life as an Artist in Australia (2014) by Justin Heazlewood
Wikipedia | Goodreads

Daily Rituals by Mason Currey

Haruki Murakami rises at 4:00 am, and writes for 5 to 6 hours straight. Thomas Wolfe wrote from midnight to dawn, standing in his kitchen with a typewriter placed on top of his refrigerator. Beethoven composed while walking outdoors, with sheets of music paper in his pockets ready for inspiration to strike.

Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals compiles the work habits of many famous figures: from Dickens to Darwin, Tolstoy to Twain. Currey’s profiles range from those with rigidly consistent work patterns throughout their career, through to those for whom variety was key. (Cutely, Nicholson Baker changed routine for each project, changing both his writing hours and writing locations for each book.)

For me, the benefit of reading Daily Rituals is thinking about the importance of the conditions that cultivate creativity. The special places and special routines that have allowed the great works of art to emerge from the minds of their creators onto the page.

Use Daily Rituals like a menu of possibilities. Borrow and steal some of the best ideas, as you create your own work habits.

More information about Daily Rituals (2013) by Mason Currey
Goodreads | Buy new via The Book Depository (affiliate)

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Julia Cameron’s classic twelve-week course for identifying and removing one’s “creative blocks”, and nurturing your inner artist.

Some of the suggestions that Cameron makes includes beginning the day with “the morning pages”: three pages of handwritten stream-of-consciousness writing. This taps into ideas from the subconscious, and ‘gets the ball rolling’ for the creative work that will follow later in the day. The exercise helps us to get past what Cameron calls ‘The Censor’ of our minds, that prevent unfamiliar (and potentially valuable) creative ideas from occurring to us.

Similarly, Julia Cameron advocates continually “restocking the pond” of your imagination. Artists cannot create art without constant stimulus for inspiration. Cameron recommends treating yourself to attending art exhibitions, taking thoughtful strolls, and other self-care activities that add “fish” of inspiration to the “pond” of your mind.

First recommended to me by cartoonist First Dog on the Moon during a coffee catch-up in 2014, The Artist’s Way served an important stepping stone for me settling into the role of ‘artist’ and taking myself more seriously. The Artist’s Way was a big seller when released in 1992, so it should be easy to find a copy of this book.

More information about The Artist’s Way (1992) by Julia Cameron
Wikipedia | Goodreads | Buy new via The Book Depository (affiliate)

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Although I have not yet read one of Stephen King’s novels, I love this memoir about his working habits.

King speaks about writing as though he is a palaeontologist excavating the bones of a Tyrannosaurus skeleton. Writers are in a sort of “creative sleep” when they work, according to King. He imagines that the idea is all there before he begins the process. His job is to carefully and patiently expose the bones of the story.

King warns against artists who wait around for inspiration to strike. He says that the most important thing that you can do is to simply show up every day, and begin working:

Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you’re going to be every day from nine ’til noon. Or seven ’til three.

King says that if you adopt this habit of arriving at work every day, sooner or later your muse will know when to show up.

More information about On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000) by Stephen King
Wikipedia | Goodreads | Buy new via The Book Depository (affiliate)

Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon

This is a short book that can easily be read in 20 or 30 minutes. I keep it on hand to dispense to any artistic friends who are feeling creatively uninspired.

Kleon urges us to “steal like an artist”: to unashamedly copy from the artists and heroes that we admire. Importantly, we must steal from multiple, diverse artists. Borrowing from so many artists at once means our output will not sound derivative. It will be transformed beyond recognition into something unique.

I appreciate the section entitled “Step Away from the Screen”, which features a photograph of Kleon’s studio. His studio is divided into a ‘digital’ half dominated by his computer, and an ‘analogue’ half dominated by pens, paper, scissors, and other tactile objects. Dividing your time between computer and non-computer tasks is a great way to reinvigorate your creativity.

I really recommend that you read Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon.

More information about Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative (2002) by Austin Kleon
Wikipedia | Goodreads | Buy new via The Book Depository (affiliate)

The War of Art, Do the Work, and Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield

A lot of people rate The War of Art (2002) by Steven Pressfield as their go-to motivational book.

For my tastes, I think Steve surpassed himself with his two follow-up books Do the Work (2011), and Turning Pro (2012).

In these books, Steven Pressfield describes the supernatural feeling of procrastination that stops us from working on the most important things that we should be doing. He calls this force “Resistance”.

“What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”

In these books (and you might as well get all three, and read them in order), Steven provides the solution to conquering Resistance. The solution is “Turning Pro”, and the mindset that comes with this decision. His concise summary: “The amateur tweets. The pro works.”

Creative pursuits—be they art or entrepreneurial—are hard. Invest in these three books to fuel your creative fires.


More information about The War of Art (2002) by Steven Pressfield
Wikipedia | Goodreads | Buy new via The Book Depository (affiliate)

More information about Do the Work (2011) by Steven Pressfield
Wikipedia | Goodreads | Buy new via The Book Depository (affiliate)

More information about Turning Pro (2012) by Steven Pressfield
Wikipedia | Goodreads | Buy new via The Book Depository (affiliate)

All photos taken from my Personal Knowledge Bank cards that I share on Instagram

If you wanted to know more about those books, or to purchase them, I have included Wikipedia, Goodreads, and Book Depository links under each title. I receive referral commissions from any purchases you make from the Book Depository after clicking those links.

Want more book recommendations? I have another blog post titled Beyond distraction: books about workflow, concentration, and productivity which features books about the threats to our attention spans from procrastination and internet communication technology.

Content Finding inspiration: books about the challenges of artists and freelancers first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Here is the pile of books, which I will discuss in more detail below.

Background: my history with self-control

As you might remember, this is a topic that I covered with my 2016 Sunday Assembly talk on distraction, as well as my comics Blocking My Reptile, and First Got the Internet.

Despite my best intentions with those pieces, I found my self-control slipping earlier this year. It was time to re-remind myself about the importance of productivity and focus.

My reading list: books about concentration, workflow, and productivity

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

This book is a full-length expansion of Carr’s much-cited 2008 Atlantic article Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Carr’s book masterfully—and alarmingly—outlines the way that internet-enabled multitasking is affecting the way that we think. Our brains’ neurons are literally being rewired in a way that makes it harder for us to concentrate on the deep reading and deep thinking habits that many of us cultivated before our round-the-clock connection to the web.

This is the best of the ‘books outlining the problem’ that I have listed here.

More information about The Shallows (2010) by Nicholas Carr
Wikipedia | Goodreads | Buy new via The Book Depository (affiliate)

The Tyranny of E-mail by John Freeman

This is arguably the least essential book on the is list, but is still worth reading.

Freeman discusses the “4,000 year journey to your inbox”: the long-term evolution of the postal system and telegraphy that preceded the internet. Things have gotten faster and faster. The increased pace of email communication versus paper communication encourages us to place a higher priority on fast responses, rather than thoughtful responses than we would have in previous eras. Freeman also notes how email is a technology that is homogenising our communications, forcing all types and lengths of messages arrive to arrive in the same inbox.

At the end of The Tyranny of E-mail, Freeman provides a 10-point manifesto for limiting the negative impacts of email on your life and workflow. (Cal Newport’s book Deep Work includes a similar manifesto, which is written with a more forceful and stirring tone).

More information about The Tyranny of E-mail (2009) by John Freeman
Wikipedia | Goodreads | Buy new via The Book Depository (affiliate)

The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew B. Crawford

Crawford argues that our attention spans are the “scarce resource” of our modern age. Distraction technologies and marketers constantly fight to interrupt our attention spans with their interruptions and messages.

The subtitle of the book is “On becoming an individual in an age of distraction”. Crawford argues that we need to actively fight this barrage of distractions if we are to truly exist as a “coherent self”, who makes thoughtful decisions about how we wish to live our lives. If we do not fight for this mental clarity, we will simply live auto-pilot lives, following the cues left for us by marketers and social media services.

Crawford’s book takes the reader on some unusual tangents during the middle chapters, that I felt unrelated to the core premise of the book. I wish that he would have stuck to the tone and subject of his opening chapter, which you can read online in this extract that was published in the New York Times. That piece, The Cost of Paying Attention is an outstanding self-contained read.

More information about The World Beyond Your Head (2015) by Matthew B. Crawford
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Deep Work by Cal Newport

Of all the books I’ve listed here, the capstone is Deep Work by Cal Newport. It is the one that inspired me to write this blog post.

Newport argues that our culture prioritises “shallow work” at the expense of the “deep work” that we should be spending our time performing. Our bosses and peers encourage us to continuously check our inboxes and social media accounts, and rapidly respond to their messages. Newport argues that this hyper-connectivity is incompatible with the single-minded focus that is required to produce creative breakthroughs.

Deep Work is an inspiring call-to-arms, that encourages us to face the uncomfortable fact that our bad habits might be preventing us from yet producing our best work. Newport is a sympathetic author who acknowledges the cultural norms that we must fight against to reclaim our time. His book outlines a specific plan for restructuring one’s life to “wring every last drop of value from your current intellectual capacity” By working in this focused way, Newport argues that we can actually enjoy more leisure time than most of us experience through today’s unfocused workplace norms.

More information about Deep Work (2016) by Cal Newport
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All photos taken from my Personal Knowledge Bank cards that I share on Instagram

If you wanted to know more about those books, or to purchase them, I have included Wikipedia, Goodreads, and Book Depository links under each title. I receive referral commissions from any purchases you make from the Book Depository after clicking those links.

Want more book recommendations? I have another blog post titled Finding inspiration: books about the challenges of artists and freelancers which goes deeper into this topic of how to make the most of our time and attention.

Content Beyond distraction: books about workflow, concentration, and productivity first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

But before we get into my Top 10 tips, I’ll give a quick recap of my history with crowdfunding platforms.

My crowdfunding history: a recap

I have earned a lifetime total of over $43,000 from crowdfunding campaigns that support my comics. Here’s the breakdown of that income as per my current Grants and Funding page tracker:

• Pozible campaign (2012): A$6,000.
• Australian Cultural Fund (ACF) campaign (2016): A$10,000.
• Patreon campaign (2015-present): A$27,000+ (US$20,000+) from this ongoing campaign, as of June 2018

In short, I have decided to swap from ‘one-off’ crowdfunding campaigns to an ongoing Patreon campaign because of the way that recurring crowdfunding matches the rhythms of my comics’ creation. As you can see, I have earned far more income from Patreon than from those other one-off campaigns. The approach is working, although I still not quite at my ‘minimum viability’ financial goal of US$2,100 per month, let alone anything higher.

Above: screenshot from my third 2018 crowdfunding video, showing the daily cartooning rituals that my readers can fund. I wanted my readers to feel like they could personally help me by pledging

And now for my tips:

Tip #1: Crowdfunding supporters mostly donate because they like helping artists.

This might seem like an obvious statement, but it is worth thinking about deeper.

The primary motivation for donors is usually the deep human desire to help an artist who is creating positive work.

Importantly: other trinkets offered as rewards—postcards, tea towels, books, etc—are secondary motivators.

Above: screenshot from my third 2018 crowdfunding video, showing me riding my bike to work.

Above: screenshot from my third 2018 crowdfunding video, showing me parking my bike upon arriving at work in the morning.

In my case, I publish comics stemming from my environmental and social convictions. My crowdfunding supporters see a little piece of themselves in me. They endorse my worldview, and want me to prosper.

Think about how this applies to you and your cartooning. What about your sense of humour, your political stripes, or your aesthetic appeals to your readers? Translate that audience-artist connection into a fundraising link.

Above: screenshot from my third 2018 crowdfunding video, showing me walking down the hallway upon arriving at work in the morning.

Above: screenshot from my third 2018 crowdfunding video, showing me arriving into my office and unpacking in the morning.

Tip #2: Cartoons and comics are uniquely suited to crowdfunding.

We cartoonists have two opportunities to connect with our audiences.

Firstly, every cartoonist has a personal artistic style, distinctive and idiosyncratic, which is instantly-recognisable to our readers.

Secondly, the ‘person behind the artwork‘ is equally compelling to our readers. Readers are fascinated by the interesting creatures who create their favourite cartoons!

If they like the cartoons, they will seriously consider helping the cartoonist who produces the artwork that they enjoy so much. And vice-versa.

Above: screenshot from my third 2018 crowdfunding video, showing me working in my art studio using a standing desk.

Tip #3: Overcome the fear of asking for help.

Most people never reach out and ask for help. Instead, we sit around and hope that things will magically work out.

Australians are often particularly hesitant when it comes to fundraising. Fearing ‘tall poppy syndrome’, we shy away from asking.

I, too, baulked at asking for help prior to my first crowdfunding campaign in 2012. But I went ahead and asked anyway. To my delight, 117 of my readers donated to the campaign.

Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. Realise that your audience wants you to succeed. All that you need to do is ask.

It’s not that scary after you’ve done it. So, do it.

Above: screenshot from my first ever crowdfunding video, which I released in 2012. This was the first time I appeared on camera, and you can see that I was far less polished than today. However, I importantly learned that asking for help isn’t so scary.

Tip #4: You are the one responsible for planning and running your crowdfunding campaign.

Platforms like Kickstarter, Patreon, and Pozible will gladly host your campaign on their service. But they will do zero promotion work for you.

You need to drive the fundraising effort yourself. Consequently, the vast majority of your donors will come from within your existing circles of friends, acquaintances, and readers.

Treat it as a happy surprise if random strangers donate to your campaign. But don’t count on it happening.

Above: screenshot from the secret 2018 video that I only shared with the 171 people who supported my 2016 crowdfunding campaign. I recognised that this was a special group of existing “customers” who I should treat extra specially, with an acknowledgement that they are already my generous supporters.

Tip #5: Do the maths.

Your crowdfunding campaign should not be a guessing game.

Quite the opposite: you should sit down and list all of the people in your life. For each person on this list, write a dollar estimate of how much you think they will likely to donate to your campaign. Be conservative!

Do a similar thing with your audience base. Put numbers on how many people are in your fan base, and then run realistic numbers about how many people are likely to donate $5, $20, $50, etc.

Above: screenshot from my first 2016 matched crowdfunding campaign, showing me visually demonstrating the fund-matching offer with two $100 notes.

Instead of hiding yourself from the numbers, you need to honestly assess whether or not you are likely to succeed.

If these calculations show that you are far from succeeding, you need to reassess whether you should actually launch your proposed campaign.

Tip #6: Create a master plan for your crowdfunding campaign before beginning.

How many weeks will it last? When will you communicate with your audience? How much will your rewards cost to produce and send?

Again, be conservative with your budgeting. Build buffers into your costs and time frames.

Pre-plan all of the communication that you will release during your multi-week crowdfunding campaign. Pre-write your email newsletters and press releases. Pre-shoot your videos.

You don’t want to play ‘catch-up’ in the middle of you campaign, when the clock is ticking.

Above: screenshot from my second 2016 matched crowdfunding campaign, which featured a humorous approach in contrast to the more serious first video.

Tip #7: Don’t publicly launch a crowdfunding campaign with “$0” as the current pledge total.

Understand donor psychology. No one likes being one of the early donors to a campaign. No one gets excited by pledging a donation that will take a campaign from 3% funded to 5% funded. Yawn!

On the other hand, people love being one of donors in the later stages of the campaign. They want to be the person who can push you from 93% funded to 95% funded. Now that is exciting!

Think about that: how the same donation creates different psychological reactions in the minds of your donors.

How do we get around this problem? My biggest tip is to privately ‘soft launch’ your campaign to close friends and supporters before you publicly announce your campaign. Ask them to take you to at least 25% before your campaign begins.

In 2016, I encouraged early donations by shooting an informal video that I only shared with my personal friends. In this short video, I spelled out this donor psychology phenomenon, and asked my mates to help me by becoming an early ‘icebreaker’ donor.

An alternative is offering extra goodies for the early donors who take you to 50% of your target. Mail them handwritten postcards, or similar nifty gifts.

Above: Screenshot from my “friends only” crowdfunding video that I used to informally ask my personal friends to become early donors to my 2016 campaign. It worked: my mates got me to 20% funded before I publicly launched my campaign.

Tip #8: You need a crowdfunding video.

Statistically speaking, crowdfunding pages without videos are far less likely to succeed than those with videos. So, don’t fight against the odds: shoot a video.

It doesn’t need to be too flash, but it should be competently shot and edited.

You, the creator need to appear in the video, as the primary focus. No exceptions!

Keep the whole thing well under 3 minutes, and get to the point as soon as possible. If we don’t know your ‘elevator pitch’ within the first 20 seconds, you have failed.

Reflect on Tip #1 from this list. Your video should remind your readers of how much they enjoy your art, and make them think about how good they would feel if they became your crowdfunding supporter.

Importantly: at the end of the video, remember to directly ask for help, rather than leaving it up to the viewer’s imagination. You would be amazed how many people fail to actually invite the viewer to help them by pledging. Yes, you do need to actually ask the question!

Above: screenshot from the first video that I released for my 2018 crowdfunding campaign. With this video, I straight-forwardly explained the premise of my campaign, with a colourful backdrop.

Tip #9: You need to re-boot your marketing material in the middle of the campaign.

Here is more Donor Psychology 101: you need to ask people multiple times before they will decide to act.

Keep mentioning and re-mentioning your crowdfunding campaign. But, remember that no one will watch a video more than once.

Think of creative ways that you can revive your marketing materials midway through your campaign.

I recommend multiple videos, staggered through a crowdfunding campaign. Change the tone from ‘serious’ to ‘silly’. Change the backdrop from ‘indoors’ to ‘outdoors’. Anything to make the person decide to watch your new, updated video.

Eventually, after multiple exposures, the person will hopefully finally decide to pledge a donation.

Above: screenshot from the second video that I released for my 2018 crowdfunding campaign. This was my deliberate attempt at humour, and is the video that most people mentioned when they described their decision to donate.

Tip #10: Steal good ideas from other crowdfunding pages.

Have you seen a good crowdfunding video? Seen a great blurb?

Analyse the underlying reasons why you think they are successful…and then steal them for yourself!

You might as well borrow ideas from the best. After all, if it appeals to you, it will likely also resonate with others.

This article originally appeared in the Austrlian Cartoonists Association‘s Inkspot magazine: Issue 81, in autumn 2018.

Content Words of wisdom: my top 10 tips for planning a crowdfunding campaign first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

That’s a wrap! I have just finished my Australian Government-backed matched crowdfunding campaign.

As I announced two months ago, I was fortunate to be one of 25 artists selected for Creative Partnerships Australia‘s Match Lab 2018 program. The program encouraged artists to fundraise from their supporter bases by offering a matched funding incentive.

Creative Partnerships Australia was kind enough to allow me to be a ‘guinea pig’, and be the first Match Lab artist to use Patreon as my fundraising platform. With Patreon being a platform built around regular monthly donations, my campaign was different to the one-off crowdfunding campaigns that Match Lab had typically supported.

Campaign results

In short, my campaign was a hit! An additional 101 people generously joined my Patreon campaign. These new supporters are collectively pledging US$1,762 per month. This amount sits on top of my pre-existing funding base of $426 per month.

Assuming all of my new supporters continue their newly-made pledges, it means I now have an additional A$28,708 to support my cartooning each year, on an annualised basis. That is huge!

I was particularly pleased to see so many supporters who made sustainable pledges that they are likely to be able to maintain into the future. As you know, I am keen to continue this cartooning for a long time, so I was chuffed to see so many people keen to support me along this journey.

Oh, and in addition, all of these pledges allowed me to reach the maximum available Match Lab grant of A$10,000!

Of course, not all of this income will go to me directly. As my budget shows, a large percentage of this money goes straight into paying small business expenses, such as paying for studio rent and web server fees. But it is still welcome income that allows me to continue my ‘public interest cartooning’.

Median Australian income? Not yet.

As I stated on my crowdfunding page, I aim to be the first Australian artist to earn the median income from crowdfunding. My campaign allowed me to reach my ‘minimum viability’ goal of US$2,100 per month, which allows me to break with my current lifestyle expenses. But I remain far beneath my ‘median Australian income’ goal of US$7,452. Achieving that goal will have to be a long-term goal. It is one that my readers can help me work towards at any time by pledging to my crowdfunding campaign.

From my experience, I know that ‘donor churn’ is a constant factor with Patreon-style crowdfunding campaigns. Each month, a certain number of donors choose to cancel or reduce their donation pledges. So every month, new donors need to step up to increase their pledges, or make fresh pledges. Can you help me by getting on board my crowdfunding campaign now? If so, pledge now through crowdfundstu.com.

Activity during the campaign: 3 new comics

During my two month campaign, I released three new comics: Not Talking About Capitalism, I Used to Be Racist, and Deprived of Religion.

I felt it was it was important to release comics with top-notch artwork, on three deliberately different topics. Excitingly, each of those comics were about subjects that I had not covered before.

Activity during the campaign: 3 new videos

Intermixed between these comics, I also released three distinctly different crowdfunding videos:

Having held crowdfunding campaigns before, I know that videos are one of the most important marketing elements. A persuasive video will go a long way towards convincing a person to donate to a crowdfunding campaign.

My personal philosophy is that crowdfunding campaigns should have multiple videos, with each using a distinctly different style to communicate the idea. Each video gives you an ‘extra bite of the cherry’ towards convincing your potential donor, as you twist the way you present your message. Each video is an additional opportunity to turn the viewer into a supporter who will pledge cold hard cash.

In my case, my three 2018 videos used the ‘earnest, straightforward’ approach (Canberra Balloon Spectacular video), the ‘humorous oddball’ approach (Cartoonist or parking inspector?), and the ‘serious, cinematic’ approach (A day in the life of Stuart McMillen, cartoonist).

It was great working with my videographer Jason Macqueen, who I recommend to anyone wanting to create the results evident in those three clips. (We were particularly happy with the cinematic look of the third video, including the drone shots of me cycling along the Canberra bike path).

Activity during the campaign: speaking and media appearances

During the campaign, I used press releases to arrange media opportunities. This led to TV news coverage:

Also, these ABC Radio interviews:

I was featured on ABC News Online, and in my home town newspaper:

I also did some public speaking to promote the event, including a talk at Green Drinks Canberra, and a 60 second pitch at Canberra Innovation Network’s First Wednesday Connect night, where I also displayed the I Used to Be Racist comic ahead of launch:

And I held an open studio at Gorman Arts Centre’s Autumn Revel event.

Each of these opportunities seemed to result in people who were willing to support my crowdfunding campaign.

Conclusion: thanks to my supporters!

My overwhelming feeling right now is one of gratitude. I am grateful to those 101 people who stepped up to join my existing base of 84 Patreon supporters.

This Match Lab campaign has taken my Patreon campaign from a base ‘proof of concept’, to something that has genuinely allowed me to quit the part-time job that I was working 10 hours per week. Consequently, I will be dedicating more of my focus to my comics.

Once again, thanks to all of my Patreon supporters. If this essay has inspired you to join my campaign, pledge now via crowdfundstu.com.

Content Match Lab 2018: that’s a wrap! first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

For context, the next highest average is 61.87, with most batsmen having averages well beneath 40. This chart illustrates how Bradman towers above all others:

Don Bradman and journalism

We can be very sure that Don Bradman really existed, and that he really achieved his cricket scores. Why? Journalism.

There were dozens of journalists at the sports field, documenting Bradman’s matches. Radio stations broadcast his matches live, and the newspapers followed with coverage the following day. There is footage of Bradman playing cricket. He was available for interviews, and so was everyone else in his circles.

Above: Don Bradman and Stan McCabe at the WACA in Perth, 1938.

Jesus Christ and journalism

Let’s contrast Donald Bradman with Jesus Christ, who existed in a time before journalism.

We have no newspapers, or other contemporary media sources to verify the events that took place in Jesus Christ’s era.

Furthermore, the New Testament itself wasn’t actually written until many decades after the events it describes. The Book of Matthew, describing Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount, wasn’t written until the year AD 70 at the earliest. That is the most generous estimate, with many non-fundamentalist biblical scholars estimating that the work may not have been written until AD 110.

For context, that is like writers waiting until the 21st Century before first writing about Donald Bradman’s final 1948 cricket match.

Above: Miracle of the Bread and Fish, by Giovanni Lanfranco

The existence of Jesus Christ

Personally, I think it is extremely likely that Jesus Christ was a real bloke who actually existed on Earth. To doubt the existence of Jesus of Nazareth would be akin to doubting the existence of Cleopatra or Julius Caesar.

Above: The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, by James Tissot

However, where I differ from Christians is believing the claims about Jesus Christ. All the supernatural stuff.

Why do I disbelieve? Let’s think about how the story of Don Bradman would have been communicated in an era without journalism.

If Bradman had existed in a time before journalism

Donald Bradman was a great cricketer, who really did score an average of 99.94 runs. But what if we hadn’t bothered to write about him until 40 to 80 years after his career had ended?

In other words, what if Don Bradman’s sporting career was documented in the exact same way that Jesus Christ’s career is documented?

My guess is that the tales about Don Bradman’s career would have become more and more exaggerated in the intervening years. Maybe the stories would omit references to the 14 test innings that Bradman failed to even score above 10 runs. Maybe the stories would say that he always scored at least 50 runs per innings. Maybe he always scored at least 100 runs each innings?

Above: Donald Bradman batting, circa-1930s or 40s

Maybe the stories would exaggerate the importance of Bradman’s famous final innings. In reality Bradman was dismissed for 0 during his final innings, after facing two balls. Maybe the stories would say that he was dismissed on his first ball. Maybe the stories would say that Bradman died straight after his final innings, in a selfless gesture to the future cricketers of the world.

The point is, if we waited many decades before we wrote about Don Bradman’s career, the kernel of truth—that Bradman was a great player—may have bloomed into an exaggerated tale.

Above: Smiling study of Don Bradman, 1930s.

Conclusion: the tales of Jesus Christ predate journalism

So, that’s my view as a journalism-loving agnostic. Jesus Christ probably was a real bloke, who gave some inspiring speeches, and lived a life dedicated to good deeds. Actually, he mostly sounds like a political revolutionary in the vein of Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.

My view is that the supernatural tales (walking on water, being born from a virgin mother, etc) are probably the exaggerations that crept in during the decades between his life and when the New Testament was written.

My view is akin to that of US President Thomas Jefferson, who created his own version of the Christian bible, which contained only Jesus’ moral lessons. Jefferson discarded the parts of Gospels which do not pass the common sense test, including talk of miracles, resurrections, and other supernatural occurrences.

Like Jefferson, I have no chip on my shoulder. Just a quiet disbelief without better evidence.

Above: Christ Walking on the water, by Julius Sergius Von Klever

Postscript: The Life of Brian

My views on this subject are influenced by my favourite film, the comedy Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

In the film, Brian is a hapless character who is born in the manger down the road from Jesus, and is later mistaken for the Messiah by a crowd of followers.

When writing the film, the Python team realised that it was simply not funny to mock Jesus Christ. In the film, Jesus is shown as an honourable person, dispensing valuable wisdom. By contrast, the humour of Life of Brian comes from mocking the silliness of everyone else who surround Jesus and Brian. This includes characters who start arguing over the meaning of “blessed are the meek”, immediately after the words have been spoken.

This 1979 BBC television debate between Python members John Cleese and Michael Palin, and Malcolm Muggeridge and Bishop Mervyn Stockwood is entertaining viewing, for those who value critical thinking and scepticism. The incredulous reactions of Cleese and Palin are priceless.

PS: I am a crowdfunded cartoonist. If you like my worldview, or my comics like Deprived of Religion, please support me by joining my Patreon crowdfunding campaign via crowdfundstu.com.

PPS: Update: 22 March 2019. I note that the podcast Skeptoid has recently posted an episode titled “The Historicity of Jesus Christ“. In that episode, host Brian Dunning could not find convincing arguments to support either that Jesus Christ did or did not exist. His conclusion is that Jesus Christ was probably a figure like Nostradamus: a relatively unknown person during his own lifetime, who notoriety has grown dramatically in the years following his death.

Content Donald Bradman and Jesus Christ first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Those were the questions that I asked myself when I wrote my comic Deprived of Religion, in a 30 minute burst in February 2018.

The seed of the idea:

The idea for the comic stemmed from a short conversation with my brother Andrew in December 2017. We discussed the simple fact that, because we weren’t forced to attend church at a young age, religion simply has no appeal to us. I jokingly said “yeah, we missed our only chance!”

Two months after the conversation, I revisited this idea in my mind. I decided to plainly list the ideas and thought patterns that I was taught by secular society, that are at odds with religious thinking. I wrote the first draft in a passionate 30 minute burst.

Draft 1, ‘Inconceivable Religion‘: a defiant tone

My working title was Inconceivable Religion, and the initial tone of the comic was defiant.

In short, stark sentences, I proudly stated the virtues of investigative journalism, the scientific method, and similar ways of evaluating evidence. I advocated secular thinking, free enquiry, and empiricism.

Put simply: the reason I am not religious is because other ideas entered my mind before religion. And those other ideas are what prevents religion, or similar superstitions, from ever entering.

The snarkiest part of my first draft was the double-page scene of me standing beneath the Muttaburrasaurus skeleton. In contrast to the articulated reasons that came before, this page was supplemented with a stark one-word sentence: “Dinosaurs.” In other words, dinosaurs—and evolution—as a rebuke to religiosity.

Above: how the dinosaur skeleton page would have looked, as per my original draft. Below: the revised version.

Tweaking the idea

I revisited the draft comic a month after my original writing burst. Although the original comic was a love letter to secularism, it veered too far towards a de-facto attack on religious people.

I deliberately write comics in a way that avoids “us versus them” arguments. I see little point in publishing comics that will simply encourage people to dig into their pre-existing opinions. So I decided to make some edits.

Accordingly, I decided it would be more interesting to explore the idea in a way that put myself under the microscope.

It was interesting to consider that the “Christians only believe in God because they were raised that way” argument also applies to me. After all, my worldview was influenced by the culture that I was predominantly exposed to. Is it possible that I am missing something, in my inability to experience faith?

In my rewrite, I decided to reframe the comic with a more ambiguous tone. After brainstorming a replacement for Inconceivable Religion, the title Deprived of Religion stood out as a ponderous option. I liked that the title painted me as the one who was missing out on something.

The final comic: a thoughtful Rorschach Test

Let’s not kid anyone. This comic is unlikely to sway anyone’s mind on the topic of faith and religion.

Yet, hopefully my comic can be useful for religious people who are struggling to understand why non-religious people don’t share their belief in an afterlife. We simply have different worldviews.

Though religion is a topic that ignites passions, I tried to write the comic in a neutral way. It is a simply a dispassionate list of reasons why blind faith doesn’t appeal to me.

The final line of the comic—”I missed my only chance”—remains the same between the first and second drafts of the comics. But it becomes more of a Rorschach Test in the published comic, without the “dinosaurs” bite that the first draft carried.

Introducing the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Readers will note the parody of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam that I slipped into the artwork for Deprived of Religion.

For those unfamiliar with the creature that I have depicted, it is the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I have drawn a take on Arne Niklas Jansson’s artwork Touched by His Noodly Appendage.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is a supposed deity who is mock-worshipped by followers of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a religion that is also nicknamed “Pastafarianism” (a combination of the words ‘pasta’ and ‘Rastafarianism’). Followers of Pastafarianism assert that their claims about the FSM are as equally as valid as claims made by religious people about their invisible and undetectable gods. By using a colourful—reductio ad absurdum—example, It helps us to see that the burden of proof lies upon those who make unfalsifiable claims.

Read the Wikipedia article for Flying Spaghetti Monster for more fun.

Touched by His Noodly Appendage by Arne Niklas Jansson

Final thoughts

Deprived of Religion is my first ever comic touching upon faith and religion. It is an opportunity to nail my colours to the mast. It is also a test for whether I can navigate the topic in a thoughtful way.

I remain a militant agnostic. I am simply unable to comprehend the certainty that religious people have for their beliefs. Talking with certainty about things that, by definition, are unknowable.

It’s the supernatural claims that I baulk at. The invisible, undetectable supreme being, who we are told to accept without evidence. It would simply take an inconceivable personality shift for me to believe any of that stuff. I simply missed my chance to ever believe.

Yet, I’m not relishing my inability to find faith. Religious people often seem to have a personal motivation that drives and comforts them. The big question is whether people without faith can lead lives with similar purpose.

That is the spirit of Alain de Botton’s thoughtful book Religion for Atheists (2012), which advocates cherry-picking the best parts of religion (community, philosophical life guidance), and discarding the supernatural bits. That was the sort of spirit I tried to emulate when I co-organised the secular community gathering Sunday Assembly Canberra in 2016 and 2017.

And now, I’ll probably get back to drawing comics about my usual stable of topics. Y’know: environmentalism, society, psychology, et cetera.

Ramen.

I am a crowdfunded cartoonist. If you like my worldview, or my comics, please support me by joining my Patreon crowdfunding campaign via crowdfundstu.com.

Content Inconceivable Religion: the making of <em>Deprived of Religion</em> first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

This post is mostly for those who have come here from my Patreon crowdfunding page, and are curious about how I determined my budget. I will keep things to-the-point, and about the logic behind the numbers.

Median Australian income, not average Australian income

Rather than aiming for the average income, I decided to aim for the median income as my goal. Why?

‘Average income’ statistics are typically higher than ‘median income’ statistics, because they are inflated by the astronomical incomes of the super-wealthy. Because of this, statisticians tend to prefer talking about median incomes, rather than average incomes, because it is more representative of the real incomes that are actually earned by people in the population. By definition, the median income represents the actual dollar income that was earned by the actual person in the middle of the country’s income spectrum.

My logic for wanting to earn the median income comes from the fact that artists typically earn less than the median income. It is historically an under-paid field of work. So, aiming for the median income means aiming higher than the typical working artist.

Since I live and work in Australia, I will use Australian statistics as the basis of my goals.

What is the median Australian income, anyway?

So, the next question becomes “what is the median Australian income?”

To learn the answer, I turned to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Their relevant report is Employee Earnings and Hours published in May 2016, based on an ABS survey. (Another report is due later this year, in 2018.) Based on this 2016 survey:

• The median weekly wage of all employees is $1,056.00 per week ($54,912 p.a.).
• The median of full-time employees only is $1,398.00 per week ($72,591 p.a.).

These are both pre-tax incomes, excluding superannuation.

(Yes, these statistics only include the incomes of employed people. It does not count those who are living on benefit payments, such as the age pension, disability pension, or unemployment benefits. If they were included, these ‘median income’ figures would be much lower.)

Since I am a full-time worker, I decided to aim for the median full-time income of $72,591 p.a.

Thinking like a small business: my extra costs

Knowing that I wanted to personally earn the median income of $72,591 p.a., I begun to understand the amount that I would need to earn as a small business to be able to afford to take home this income.

In other words, I knew that there were other small business costs that I needed to understand, and stack on top of my desired personal income.

(This is something that most waged employees don’t fully appreciate. They fixate on the dollar amount that their company pays them, without understanding that their total cost of employment is often an extra 40% or so above this nominal amount. These on costs include things like their employer paying for their office, utilities, employee training, superannuation, and similar hidden expenses).

Budget: fixed expenses

The table above lists my fixed expenses as a small business. It is divided fairly evenly between items like my physical office expenses, paying for my web server expenses, technology upgrades, as well as the cost of hiring people to do work like web design and video editing. It is a slim budget, but I’ve also included some personal development items, such as attending the Australian Cartoonists Association’s Stanley Awards and member conference.

The sum total of these fixed business expenses is a conservative $8.373.25 per annum.

Budget: variable expenses

Then we look at variable expenses.

My budgeting shows that I have a (COGS) (Cost Of Goods Sold) of 25% that I need to factor into calculations. This COGS represents the variable expenses that subtract from each dollar that I earn. It includes the cost of fulfilling all of the crowdfunding rewards to my Patreon supporters (i.e. video editing costs, printing costs, postage costs). This represents an extra 25% that I need to earn.

On top of this is the 9.5% superannuation that I would otherwise be earning as an employee, as well as the costs of transacting through my crowdfunding platform Patreon.

The big numbers

Above is the total Australian dollar and US dollar amounts that I need to earn as a small business, in order for me to personally earn the median Australian income.

Yes, you can see that in order for me to earn my goal of $72,591 p.a. as an individual, I need to actually earn $113,428 p.a. as a small business. Therefore, I need to earn an extra 56% on top of my goal.

I have converted at an exchange rate of 1 AUD = 0.78843 USD, which is a mid-range assumption. I use US dollars, because that is the currency that my crowdfunding platform Patreon uses, and also because it is a common currency that is more familiar to international supporters than Australian dollars.

Therefore, my monthly crowdfunding goal is US$7,425. You can see how I am currently tracking toward this monthly goal at any time, by visiting my crowdfunding page, and looking at the left-hand goals section.

Conclusion

That is enough for one blog post, explaining the logic behind my Patreon goals, and sharing my budget.

Finally, if you value my work as a thought-provoking comics artist, please support my crowdfunding campaign. Pledge a monthly gift via crowdfundstu.com.

Content Budget: earning the median income as a self-employed comics artist first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.

Creative Partnerships Australia: Match Lab 2018

The particular agency which is giving me this opportunity is Creative Partnerships Australia. I am one of just 25 artists from across Australia who has been selected for this particular opportunity.

Match Lab 2018 aims to help Australian artists encourage their supporters to fund their work. It does this through a matched crowdfunding offer, meaning that all crowdfunding donations are ‘topped up’ by a matched payment to the artist by Creative Partnerships Australia. This program is designed to encourage everyday people to become patrons of the art, and philanthropically donate to Australian artists.

(My long-term readers may remember that I was selected for a similar program in 2016. However the revamped Match Lab 2018 program features additional elements, such as a two-day intensive workshop about fundraising as an artist, which I attended in early February.)

Matched funding with a twist: Patreon as the platform

The twist for 2018, is that I have been approved to use Patreon as my crowdfunding platform.

This is the first time that Creative Partnerships Australia has allowed an artist to use Patreon as their Match Lab platform. They are using me as a ‘guinea pig’ to see whether donors are willing to join a recurring crowdfunding campaign.

This is great news for me, as I think that Patreon is the best funding platform for me to buckle-in for a sustainable career as a thought-provoking cartoonist. The recurring nature of Patreon pledges allows me greater certainty when budgeting ahead and planning large projects. It is a model that recognises the value in the ongoing process of creating art, including the deep background research that feeds my comics.

The mathematics of matching: multiply by 12!

If you pledge a donation to my Patreon campaign before 31 May 2018, Match Lab will multiply that pledge by 12. That multiplied amount will be the value of the matched donation that I am given by Creative Partnerships Australia.

This is because Patreon allows supporters to pledge a recurring monthly amount. So, we are multiplying by 12 to recognise the value of that pledge over a one-year period.

Let’s look at an example of how this works.

Example: a $30 per month donation

For example, if you decided to establish a US$30 per month pledge, Creative Partnerships Australia would multiply that pledge by 12, to calculate its annualised value.

In this example, Creative Partnerships Australia would give me a one-off fund-matching payment of US$360, recognising the annualised value of that recurring $30 per month donation.

This offer is open to anyone who pledges a donation to my Patreon campaign before 31 May 2018, including donors who are based outside Australia. Can you help by creating a pledge today?

Crowdfunding videos for Match Lab 2018

Your number one source of information about my Match Lab 2018 campaign is through my crowdfunding page: crowdfundstu.com

However, for posterity, below are some of the crowdfunding videos that I have released to promote this opportunity.

Video #1: Stuart at the Canberra Balloon Spectacular

Once again, please help support my comics by making a pledge before 31 May 2018 through crowdfundstu.com

Content Matched crowdfunding drive 2018: multiply by 12! first appeared at Stuart McMillen comics.