After 8 fabulous years of producing cartoons for the online version of Harper’s Magazine and accruing vast numbers of friends and enemies in the process, I’m sad to report that Mr. Fish is being discontinued on the site as of next week. Harpers.org will be relaunched and taken in a new direction by management hoping to provide content that better reflects the editorial tenor of the magazine. Again, it was a tremendous run and I wish only the best for everybody at Harper’s. That said, Mr. Fish is available for hire by any organization desperate to make ladies cry and doggies howl and riffraff stomp its putrid widdle sneakers in praise of what he does.
When I first saw your work at Harper’s online, I was stunned. Then I laughed — a *lot*. It was the visual equivalent of hearing Lenny Bruce for the first time, or anything by Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention.
It was stumbling across a creative voice that told the truth — and in a culture where the dominant powers depend upon a national, collective cognitive dissonance to maintain control, finding that kind of voice doesn’t happen every day.
“Harpers.org will be relaunched and taken in a new direction by management hoping to provide content that better reflects the editorial tenor of the magazine. ” What the fuck?? I thought Harpers immune to this. What happened? The Koch Bros buy ’em just to shut them down?
I have learn a few just right stuff here.
Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how a
lot effort you place to make this type of excellent informative website.
I discovered your work through Harper’s online and having been brought there by the excellent work of Scott Horton. Over time you have become somewhat of a beacon, smart, corageous and with outrageous talent. I stopped following Harper’s and kept on following your worn on Clowncrack and ThruthDig. Your voice is unique in today’s journalism. More power to your quill!
sounds like the “new direction” will be a misstep of management. your work is strong, intelligent, and relevant. hope the best for you and your work now and in the future
Sorry to think you’ll not be part of Harper’s online. I hope this doesn’t mean the magazine will have a dramatic change in its approach and content in print. We’ll see I guess. Anything planned as your last contribution? Thinking of this reminded me of Martin Ronsom’s last cartoon for the London Times when thy gave him the bums rush. He talked about it during a glorious chit-chat about the history of political cartooning, which as you know thrives in some of the UK print media [just an observation: I think you seem to be the only real North American equivalent].
A link to the end of the chit-chat on a, close to mothballed, blog, of mine:
http://j.mp/SWw1be
Thanks, Pangloss. And, no, nothing planned for a last contribution. The whole thing was handled like I was being fired at the home office of Wal Mart by my boss who offered to walk me out because he was afraid that if I’d been given fair warning that my job was ending I would’ve stolen a fucking stapler. Silly. Thanks for the link. Groovy stuff.
I have been a subscriber to Harper’s for a few years. I look to Clowncrack every day for inspiration and fortification against the madness. I always went to the Harper’s site to click on your work there just so they could count clicks, knowing how important it is to your support by them.
Looking at the cover of the magazine you’re holding reminds me of a certain edge they lost after losing Roger D. Hodge. I don’t find articles now there as good as the prescient “Barrack Hoover Obama” article and Michael Hudson article that brought me into subscribing to Harper’s, instead of just reading it in my public library. And this happened right at the same time I quit subscribing to the The Nation.
Any magazine I can subscribe to today with both Mr. Fish and Hodge?
Thanks for that. And I wish that there was a magazine that ran both me and Roger. He was a ballsy editor with a high standard for honesty and excellence and seeing him booted out was most certainly a dark day for the publication. In fact, it was he who green-lighted my weekly appearance on the site.
Is there a distinction to be made between Online and Print in this case?
& still open to receiving work for the magazine?
Yeah, sure. Happy to contribute to the print version, though cartoons are never seen in the magazine anymore. I think I might’ve been the last one to publish one there, sometime in the super early 2000s.
You should also be syndicated in newspapers, but American newspapers that cheerlead for illegal wars can be compared to commanders in the Brando quote below.
“We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won’t allow them to write “fuck” on their airplanes because it’s obscene.”
─Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in Apocalypse Now
Idiots. Oh, well. Call Murdoch yet?
Maybe it’s time to cancel my Harpers subscription…
Common stomping riffraff – what once made America great, or at least less putrid. Any progressive publication with a modicum of enlightened sanity should be featuring your work, though I’m not sure many such publications still exist. You’re an equal opportunity offender and your work would be praised by riffraff like Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and Mencken. Too bad they are not still with us – we could use some additional enlightened sanity in these dark and troubling days.
What are they thinking? I found your cartoons through Harper’s as well and I would imagine many others did.
Here, Dwayne, a friend and long-time member of the riffraff you «accrued» through your contribution to online Harpers. Thanks for your contributions to the journal, the «new» direction of which I fear in the event it includes such unfortunate steps as cancelling your contributions !…
Henri