Disney used to be such a tough, litigious company. Now they bend the knee to a wannabe dictator illegally threatening them, and then they bend back the other way after boycotts in protest. What a bunch of spineless losers! Glad they made the right decision to bring back Kimmel, anyway.

Yeah. Trump was mentored by Roy Cohn, a lawyer who worked for Joseph McCarthy. That's how recent McCarthyism is. There are people still alive now who were alive then. Good Night and Good Luck is a great movie, and they used actual footage and audio of McCarthy.

If you hired a human employee who did this with this much regularity, you'd fire them

Urasawa interviews Otomo about Domu on Manben! Two manga icons. And they mention Yasujiro Ozu, my favorite Japanese filmmaker. www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/...

THE HYPOCRISY IS THE POINT!!

Cartoonists, artists, writers, etc.: You might be owed money from the lawsuit just settled by generative "A.I." company Anthropic stealing your work. You can search the database LibGen.li to find out if they copied anything of yours without permission. www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

The Comics Journal's interview with Josh Pettinger on his hilarious and nightmarish comics: tcj.com/an-interview-with-josh-pettinger-i-dont-have-control-of-what-comes-out

Remember that the line between Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump is only one person long, and his name was Roy Cohn.

Robert Redford (1936-2025) His most important legacy is the Sundance Film Festival, a place for independent films to find audiences and distributors. But if you want to watch what's right now probably his most timely film, take in All the President's Men: www.criterionchannel.com/all-the-pres...

Small Press Expo SPX 2025 haul Day 1 : Day 2

SPX was physically tiring (I'm 44 years old!) & creatively inspiring. Great to talk with so many cartoonists I know & meet some new ones, & I got lots of intriguing new comics. Hope to table next year! I'm tabling at Philly Comics Expo next month for the 1st time & DC Zinefest in Nov for the 2nd.

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

TIP FOR CONSERVATIVES: If you are bereft over the gun shooting of Charlie Kirk, just pretend he was a kid in an elementary school, and you will forget about the whole thing within a minute.

If you haven't voted for the Ignatz Awards yet, you can sign up for a ballot here: www.smallpressexpo.com/ignatz-ballo...

"I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights." - Charlie Kirk, two years before becoming a victim of gun violence Congrats, you fascist piece of shit - you got what you wanted!

Cartoonists, artists, writers, etc.: You might be owed money from the lawsuit just settled by generative "A.I." company Anthropic stealing your work. You can search the database LibGen.li to find out if they copied anything of yours without permission. www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Lynne Ramsay is one of the most interesting filmmakers working today. Her new movie stars Jennifer Lawrence & Robert Pattinson - should be a good combination. Cool that Martin Scorsese helped her get this film made. It's called Die My Love. youtu.be/1Z5Gnnddss4

I'm going to be tabling at Philly Comics Expo! I'll be selling my comics and art prints. The show is 10am-6pm on Saturday, October 4 at Old Pine Community Center: 401 Lombard St, Philadelphia, PA. Free to attend.

I hope the justice for these ICE criminals happens in my lifetime.

Off the top of my head: Muddy Waters in The Last Waltz, David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth, & Tom Waits in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs ("How high can a bird count, anyway?").

I just found out I'll be tabling at DC Zinefest again this year! 11am-4pm Sat Oct 26, free admission, MLK Library in DC. Last year I sold dozens of comics, plus a couple of art prints and a painting or two. Hoping to have a new comic done before this year's show. Looking forward it!

This is what happens when you order delivery in DC right now.

It's my 44th birthday, and I'm running a sale at my Etsy shop! Use code BORN44 to get 44% off my comics, drawings, paintings, original comic art pages, and art prints through the end of the month: michaelavolio.etsy.com?coupon=BORN44

The New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium schedule for the rest of 2025 is here. Meetings are free and online. I'm especially interested in seeing Jordan Crane's presentation and hearing Fahmi Reza interviewed on satire against power. More info: nycomicssymposium.substack.com/p/fall-2025-...

Highly recommended: @silentfilmmusic.bsky.social's The Silent Film Universe, a very informative, erudite, and creative primer on what makes silent film so special. Articulates its production and presentation that, for me, explains that lovely, almost intangible, special feeling the era's films have.

Indie comics publisher @fantagraphics.bsky.social is being robbed of millions of dollars' worth of merchandise by the distributor Diamond to pay for the latter's bankruptcy. Fantagraphics is running a sale to help cover these costs - 30% off everything on their website through Mon: Fantagraphics.com

Happy National Potato Day, I guess. I gotta admit, my heart's just not in it this year.

Maybe the best movie & performance from Terence Stamp (1938-2025) is The Limey, Soderbergh's 1999 crime drama. Stamp is an old cockney gangster investigating the death of his daughter in LA. Stylized & sharp. Great cast includes Luis Guzmán & one scene of Bill Duke. www.kanopy.com/en/product/1...

Aside from everything else, think about the security breach it is to have a former KGB agent and current dictator of Russia inside the vehicle the President of the United States rides around in regularly. But hey, if Putin takes him off our hands...

"There's a reason why you separate military and the police. One fights the enemy of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people." Battlestar Galactica

Will no one rid us of this meddlesome president?

Grocery stores that have been eating the cost of tariffs are about to pump the brakes. Some are looking to be more transparent about the coming price hikes. Starting tomorrow, new tariffs of 15% to 50% hit a wide range of food items. If you’ve got a household food budget, this is a must-watch.

Criterion's Eclipse imprint returns, with Imogen Sara Smith as series editor! Wonderful news. Eclipse was always a way for Criterion to release sets of less expensive, more obscure films. www.criterion.com/current/post...

Sorry to hear that "DOGE" guy was attacked and survived. He helped kill tens of thousands of sick and starving children with the illegal freeze on USAID funds, still ongoing. All the "DOGE" monsters deserve the same fate as they've given those kids. And anyone who defends "DOGE" can join them.

Richard Widmark should pay a visit to Governor Abbott.

The Comics Journal interview with Raina Telgemeier & Scott McCloud on their new graphic novel, The Cartoonists Club: www.tcj.com/what-do-you-...

A few of Seth's covers (& his logo) for the magazine Canadian Notes & Queries.

Monk, an hour-long 1968 Thelonious Monk film, is free to watch for a week at the Le Cinéma Club website: www.lecinemaclub.com/now-showing/...

Jesse Ventura tried to get wrestlers unionized back in the day, but Hulk Hogan undermined the attempt by snitching to Vince McMahon, whose incompetent wife is now the Trump-appointed head of The Department of Education. Hogan was also a Trump cultist. I'm glad he's dead.

Daniel Clowes has an unspeaking cameo near the end of Eddington.

The Rain People (1969) A serious, understated drama about a married woman who wakes up unhappy on a quiet rainy day and begins a solo road trip to get away and think about things. My Letterboxd review of the film Francis Ford Coppola made just before The Godfather: boxd.it/amEmkv

"...an American girl. You can tell she was raised on promises." - Francis Ford Coppola, Dementia 13, 1963 "She was an American girl, raised on promises." - Tom Petty, "American Girl," 1976

Reminds me of how he said Diet Coke "doesn't work," apparently thinking it was supposed to be some kind of weight loss tonic instead of just a calorie-free alternative to a product loaded with high fructose corn syrup.

Jaime Hernandez talking process for about 45 minutes. (The beginning and ending of the video are in Spanish, subtitled in English, but the rest is in English, subtitled in Spanish.) youtu.be/EHgmA8hiX-w

Yeah. If I know anyone who watches the new Jurassic movies, I'm unaware of it. I thought people hated Jurassic Park 3. The Jurassic World legacyquel was about 15 years later. I can understand the nostalgia driving ticket sales for that one, but it's weird to me people are sticking with the series.

Championing this weak and poorly attended parade to celebrate our authoritarian president while casually including a photo of a fascist traitor in a J6 hat without comment makes me glad I already cancelled my subscription to this once-great newspaper. Pathetic and shameful work here, Post.

If Abrego Garcia committed a crime, he should be charged and tried. I wondered reading this headline why they didn't just do this in the first place, and then read the article to discover that they only began the investigation in April, after he was deported.

The play by Conor McPherson with Bob Dylan music, Girl From the North Country, is available to watch on the PBS website: www.pbs.org/video/girl-f...

Bob Dylan is 84 today! Here's the audio from the first time I saw him in concert, back in 2000. Dylan and his band were outstanding, and the setlist combined classic hits with eclectic rarities. youtu.be/nhvYKrKHoiY

In today's bizarre news, I found out there's an audiobook of the famous grammar guide The Elements of Style (Strunk & White). I'm glad to own a paperback copy of the book (gifted to me by someone in a creative writing class I took over 25 years ago), but I can't imagine it makes for good listening.