Greetings and Salutations faithful readers! Your humble Gentleman Cartoonist is taking a break from wiping baby poo to check in for a long awaited update…
*2013: K CHRONICLES 20TH ANNIVERSARY!!
Believe or not, I’ve been cranking out this comic strip for two decades!! I remember when I started, I couldn’t imagine doing it for more than a decade, and here I am 20 years later! I should’ve quit, but I can’t do anything else.
Anyhoo, to celebrate, Ill be posting some seriously old school K Chronicle strips from college and when I first started doing them in the current format as a zine in San Francisco.
*NEW STORE PRODUCT COMING VERY SOON!
Expect a revamped K Chronicles store real soon. I’ll be offering an number of new items including a pdf version of the latest K Chronicles collection, sketch pages, and my long-rumored 25 Steps to a Better Kickstarter zine!
*Me in the Media!!
Dear Mr. Watterson is a documentary about the profound effect Bill Watterson’s classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes had on the world. I was honored to be a part of it. Sadly, I missed the L.A. premiere cuz I was on baby doody.
Check out the trailer here.
*LETTERS/EMAILS OF THE WEEK:
Keef!
I’ll try keeping it short. Traditionally, if an LAPD officer was shot, they would come down like a Mongol horde on the streets and woe on anyone they could find being poor or minority. Their justification was that they had to react strongly and urgently, because they were only trying to protect us. Yes, US. You see, if someone would go as far as shooting a police officer, then they would think nothing of killing random civilians just for funzies. And there was a logic there.
But along comes Dorner, who puts out a “manifesto” vowing to save his good name while taking vengence on cops and their families. He claimed to be a good cop who was sticking up for innocent civilians but was ruined for turning in a bad cop. So what is the risk factor for innocent civilians? Zero. Risk factor for cops? Big time.
So why is the LAPD shooting any innocent civilian who looks funny? Almost as if they don’t give a shit about us and only care for their own.
And suddenly there is a million dollar reward. Usually reward money comes out when the LAPD is done trying and has run out of leads. Not this time… And if you were Dorner, having a bounty on your head would make you more/less likely to kill a civilian who might have recognized you? Yep, more. Thanks LAPD, for thinking of us first!
Yea, Dorner dead is good. But thanks for exposing the truth. And thanks too, Keef.
R.
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Re: SF Pedestrian strip
I want to say before I say anything else, I love your work. All the time,
love love love.
But as a trans woman, I have to be honest and say I’m a little hurt by the
panel in which you describe SF as being a “perfect storm”; the way in which
you’ve laid out the text and image sort of looks like you’re positing
“transvestite hooker” as “some*thing* interesting to look at”.
I think you kinda know already that this is problematic, no? I mean, a) sex
workers aren’t things, and b) trans people aren’t things, and c) how do you
know whether that’s a tranvestite sex worker, and not a transgendered sex
worker, or any of several other people?
Trans people are so often dehumanized in our daily lives, the wretchedness
of which I’m sure a man of colour needs no introduction to.
It might be nice if you were to make a post of some sort ackowledging that
this was kind of a problematic choice? I feel certain this was
unintentional on your part, but (as I know you know) that doesn’t undo the
harm it can do.
Thanks for hearing me about this, whatever you choose. And I really do love
your work, I wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.
Respectfully,
CaitieCat
Waterloo, ON,
Canada
(she’s right on..and I’m glad I got called out on it..-kk)
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I just read your take on democratizing the papacy. Nicely subversive.
I really wanted to say I love the candor in your style. I grew up on MAD magazine and I think your work would have added some class to the joint.
Signed, a typically crazed internet fan.
(I actually do contribute to MAD, though not as often as they, or I, would like!-kk)
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Dear Mr. Knight:
The last panel of this strip, where you said you can learn more black history by talking for 10 minutes to a black person over 65, really resonated with me. A couple of years ago I took a solo road trip and spent a couple of days in Memphis. Of course, I had to go to the National Civil Rights Museum while I was there. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but the way they have the museum built winds you through all of the exhibits and the displays very clearly portray events, personalities, etc. I was standing in front of a picture of the confrontation between school children and police in 1960s Birmingham, and a black man who appeared to be in his 60s or early 70s was standing next to me looking at the same picture. I remarked to him, “Man, when something like that happens to you, your childhood is OVER.” He started talking about his own experiences, having moved to the South from Chicago when he was a kid. We stood there and talked for probably 30 minutes. It was indeed one of the most educational and moving conversations I’d ever had with a perfect stranger. As I thought about it later, and thought about this man’s kind, calm, gentle demeanor, his quiet, deep intelligence and his humility, I had to marvel that despite all the horrors he had been through, his heart was still obviously full of love and hope.
Anyway, thanks for that strip and taking me back to that powerful memory. I am a big fan of yours! Here’s to many, many more successful years of your right-on humor.
B.
Lawrence, Kansas
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I save my alt-papers ’til I get down time to go through ’em, so just read the subject-referenced strip.
As an original TV Trekker (and fan of actual hard core sci-fi – which have occasionally merged, as Harlan Ellison wrote at least one episode of the Shatner/Nimoy ST series) – and who found the original three Star Wars films to be mere barely tolerable shallow pop culture, quest story fairy tales incidentally clothed in sci-fi/FX trappings, and the second three so totally intolerable I started to carry garlic, less I be assaulted by one, I’m nonetheless happy to hear that your “Kick-ass director wish” seems to have been granted (if you’re a JJ Abrams fan), even while fearing cross-contamination back into the far more vital blood stream of ST.
And as a long (long)-time comics nerd – of comics, comix (I have Crumb’s Zap #0 among many others in my collection), syndicated mainstream strips, the pre-“Seduction of the Innocents” Mad Magazine, alt cartoonists (Jules Feiffer, Ron Cobb, Vaughan Bode, et al, ad infinitum), will take the opportunity to note you’re my fave among current practitioners of the art.
In my (admittedly biased) view, generally “never depart from the party line propagandists” sit at the bottom of my list. Using examples outside of the comics world, give me a Christopher Hitchens or Gore Vidal, committed leftists both, but both (unlike nearly all today on the left or right or libertarian or whatever sides) never afraid to bite the hand that fed them.
And while your politics (and entertainment and sports opinions, etc.) are not identical to mine, what I love about your work is its lack of pretention, gentle but simultaneously trenchant humor, taking time to recognize the everyday moments that tap into the deeper themes without hitting us over the head with a sledge hammer), charming self-effacing-ness, and in particular “Life’s little victories,” etc. And (this is a compliment for sure), there is a good bit of Pogo Possum in you.
Anyway, all of that plus the sense you’d just be a good dude to hang out with for awhile at a pub or coffeeshop.
Be well and keep up the good work!
M.
(i’m sooooo lookin’ forward to that new star wars flick..-kk)
*SONG OF THE WEEK
Watched this killer documentary about the great guitarist/producer/ mastermind Nile Rodgers, which explains why I got into bands like INXS, Duran-Duran, David Bowie and more..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVmAXWZu_PQ
and then I found some strange footage of another Rodgers produced hit, channeled through the Wonderous Lynda Carter and Sister Sledge..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-PF2cKAQb0
Cheers!
Keef
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