No Face, No Case

Check out these mfing spreads

Let’s start this newsletter off with something pleasant. Over the winter break, I did some Miyazaki-maxxing with the kids and we plowed through some Ghibli films. Watching Spirited Away (2001) for the first time in 20-some years inspired me to draw No-Face with some screen tones. I dabble with tones whenever I have time and will show off a few more drawings in newsletters to come.

This is on a 9x12 piece of bristol.

Things in the US continue to degrade at a rapid clip. It’s disheartening to watch, particularly through a fully enshitified internet. I spent more time on social media than I usually do anymore watching the reaction to the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis and I have a breaking report: It’s very bad online. Worse than ever, really. X users are doing frame-by-frame forensic murder apologia while Facebook is overrun with fake AI crowd shots, fake AI-authored engagement bait stories, and fake AI images of the ICE shooter’s face.

You can and should turn away from this mind poison, but it’s important to at least understand this is now how millions of people get their most basic information about the world. It probably doesn’t help that most news outlets are totally paywalled. Oh well.

I’m not sure what to even say, except power to those who are out in the streets filming and resisting this shit rather than posting AI memes. Anti-government types seem noticeably absent from all this—or perhaps very present as participants! I was reminded about this cartoon I made in July of 2020.

If you have ever liked my political cartoons, you will want to read the story launching today in Toxic Avenger Comics #6. “Toxie Goes to Washington” is where I’ve put a lot of my ideas, jokes, and frustrations about the US rotting from the inside.

Unlike my political cartoons, however, this is meant to tell a real story—a violently entertaining one, I hope, with turns you won’t see coming, about sicko elites and phony hope in the halls of power. The story was conceived of years ago when I initially pitched the Toxie comics to Ahoy and Troma, though I would certainly consider it… relevant. It all begins when our boy Toxie is summoned to Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate…

I’m blessed to be working with Fred Harper on this, who is turning in career-best stunners. Here are a couple unlettered spreads—Fred Spreads, we call ‘em.

As always, go to your local comic shop and pick up a copy. A lot of times you might have to order them or subscribe to the series—tell them to get your ass Toxic Avenger Comics #6-10 to read this story!

I’ll be signing at the Canadian Comic Bin in Stayner, Ontario, January 31. That is around the release of Toxie Team-Up, the book collection of one-shots from Ahoy pitting Toxie against such culturally influential figures as Jesus Christ and the Justice Warriors.