Take the time to read this thread and understand that this is what our terrible country with its reprehensible government are doing to people.

I can't think of anything to say

I get to do a cover reveal today! I proudly present the cover to SOULMATES my debut YA horror-romance graphic novel coming out next year.

James Jean’s art for Guillermo del Toro’s @realgdt.bsky.social @netflix.com #Frankenstein feels like beauty stitched with sorrow — just breathtaking.

It’s Banned Books Week, and I don’t need you to buy my book as a solve for it (but buy it if you want to! That’s still extremely cool of you)—I need you to show up for your public libraries and your schools!

To be clear those guys are all idiots and the fact that people get their news from comedians who are trying to get a laugh and don't care about a single fucking detail of anything beyond that is very bad

Ridiculous and appalling that Open Ai, amongst other GenAi companies, think they can dictate how THEY use OUR works. No, Open Ai, it should not be authors and copyright holders opting out of your exploitative models. It should be you, Open Ai, asking authors and copyright holders to opt IN.

I've been feeling ill and a bit depressed all week and Coates's answer here is so profound and true it's completely turned my feelings around. Sometimes you lose. You are part of something bigger. You try to make the contribution you're supposed to make with the time you're given to have.

Taking some of the money I'm saving by cancelling some subscriptions and putting it toward journalism/media I believe in 👀 @defector.com

this kind of thing coming soon i guess, sigh

Now for the official announcement! (Cover design by @downpourdw.bsky.social)

Chris Cuomo posting a deepfake of AOC the same week that Jim Acosta “interviews” a deepfake of a school shooting victim are both harbingers of how traditional media power players will help usher in the worst of the AI slop era

It still bothers me so much that a painter would rely on AI for reference. Half the fun of exploratory work is finding references. I want to see what other artists are seeing. I want to develop my eye, my tastes. I want to be in communion with some other fussy nerd across time and space!

Awwww shucks. Thank you! Such wonderful imagery and visual inspiration made this cover so much fun!

The peerless @downpourdw.bsky.social designs the covers for @beltpublishing.bsky.social! Here’s his latest

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE. This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined. It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

I know @atrubek.bsky.social did a substack about Belt's covers, but I also had one in the works. I talk how I got started doing book covers, the process, and a general breakdown of Belt's covers! I also made a video of all our covers (minus a few new ones) workdavidwork.substack.com/p/006-making...

Cover(s) of the day

New Substack about making my first feature length film! open.substack.com/pub/workdavi...

Folks call your Senators now!! A ban on any state laws on GenAi for 10 YEARS is gonna do unthinkable harm! For those of you wondering what to say here are two posts you can use to build your own script (use alt script to cut and paste) Need to find your representatives? Here you go: 5calls.org

AI is the ideal technology to accompany the decline of America. It caters to the entitled, to those who have no desire to learn and think they know everything, it destroys creativity and critical thinking, and lays the cultural foundation for fascism. jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/artificial...

"Five years ago, a small Ohio press published a book that would change St. Louis." An extraordinary book by an extraordinary person. www.stlmag.com/culture/lite...

NEW: The Great Lakes hold 95% of all the surface freshwater in the United States. Severe cuts have decimated the NOAA Great Lakes lab. Scientists worry they’ve lost the ability to protect the public from toxic algal blooms, which can kill animals and sicken people. My story for @propublica.org

"As an internet enjoyer, comparing AI to it also irritates me because from where I’m sitting, AI is destroying everything good about the internet. [...] At its core, AI is about replacing humans and devaluing humanity and replacing human connection with a pathetic imitation."

New art series I made: WHILE YOU WERE OUT. Goauche, ink, charcoal, ripped paper, on crescent board.

New substack on starting Downpour (my real, kind of fake, lot of work which makes it real) graphic design studio. I'm also trying to click bait you all with a pic of my studio dog, Omega. open.substack.com/pub/workdavi...

Goose.

Magik in the sketchbook.

"What we are seeing is a purge—of the administrative state, of the universities, of expertise—that is consistent with events like the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s and ’70s, or the dismantling of the tsarist civil service after the Bolshevik Revolution" www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Please, if you love anything about this life, stop using ChatGPT and other GenAI. Just stop. Don't use it to dunk on it, don't use it for a laugh, just stop and let that shit wither.

“The movement to ban books is not a movement of parents, but a movement of partisans who seek to limit our freedom to read”

Dear #portfolioday we meet again! I'm Yorgos and I mostly work on book covers and art that looks like this! ⚔️ www.cotronis.com ⚔️

This is equal to or greater than the budget of five different cabinet departments (Justice, Treasury, Energy, Interior and Commerce). They are building a concentration camp network that dwarfs entire federal agencies.

Don’t remember where I saw this library flyer a while back but it’s great

Unfortunately it appears to be true--Goodbye to the great Brad Holland. Discovered his work in Playboy way back when and it was love at first sight--Always bold, strange, powerful and original--Always an inspiration.

I love this series & am glad to see it covered, but feel the need to point out that if you’re talking about men’s work being adapted more than women’s & you don’t mention that the comic is a collaboration with artist Elsa Charretier (a woman) you are contributing to the erasure of women’s work

I did not know that library workers are oathsworn! I also did not think I could love library workers any more than I already do but there you go. 💙❤️

Live in Ohio? You need to get on the phone and in inboxes ASAP.

👏👏👏👏

I wish more news outlets would stop beating around the bush that the Trump admin just wants to destroy the U.S. education system, from public K-12 to higher ed. They’ve made numerous statements confirming this so it’s not like you’re guessing!

When you look at the list of institutions they want to defund: libraries, museums, the Smithsonian, public schools, PBS, NPR, archives, you can clearly see that the real threat to an authoritarian regime is an informed and educated public

Altman is using Studio Ghibli’s popularity very specifically to push users into OpenAI’s paid tiers, and presumably neither Ghibli the company nor its artists will be compensated in any way.

Coming soon! Two beautiful new Revivals with fresh intros by @ilanaslightly.bsky.social and @allisonlynn.bsky.social. Covers by @downpourdw.bsky.social beltpublishing.com/products/she...

In a world where nothing is free and it’s profitable to control what people can create, art is a revolutionary act

One of the biggest lessons of the past 20 years should be not to capitulate to integrating new and dangerous technologies into every aspect of our lives—and in fact, a lot of people have learned that lesson. That’s why AI had to be forced on us, because people didn’t want it

Immigrant women say they were held "like animals" in ICE detention, subjected to conditions so extreme they feared for their lives. Told by guards to urinate on the floor. Held "like sardines in a jar," as many as 27 women in a small holding cell. www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

New Substack published for this month where I talk about zines! Zines! Zines! Zines! open.substack.com/pub/workdavi...