March (Patreon)

hey mates

time in perth boorloo has been going great, been smashing through art stuff here, and this new book project, it feels GOOD. great to get to know a new place, and different layers of the left.

did a big public lecture the other day that went alright tho i do shit my pants with such things. i probably went overboard writing the thing, it was an hour and fifteen minutes long fucken woops. it's a broad presentation about art in grassroots social movements, it's the kind of presentation i'll be able to dust off and do again which will probably be handy to have on hand

got one more public event here, this thursday night at the CFMEU bar, an 'in conversation' type event with author Robbie Wood. if u or anyone u know is based in Perth plz encourage them to come along if u think they might be interested, more info here.

below is my monthly Overland piece, it will come out soon i just finished it yesterday:

it celebrates Solidarity Park (formerly the Workers Embassy), one of only two labour monuments in Western Australia. and a special monument it is imo, being an alive place, still very much embedded in peoples lives. 

I went there to sit and draw last week and there were three middle aged trans women there, looking like they had come to debrief after the counter rally that took place here in opposition to that fuckwit transphobes speaking tour.

on that topic i drew this yesterday, not sure what to do with it as its a bit intense but it was cathartic to draw after the nazis filling melbourne streets in support of trans phobic pieces of shit:

etc

i’ve started prioritising doing drawings directly for rank and file workers who contact me, more than going through unions. it feels more immediate and can lead to some looser work which feels good. also it’s a good use of this patreon $. here are some of these 'direct' type pieces i’ve done lately.

the below piece is for workers at ACCA (the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art), who are about to go public with their unionisation efforts:

below is a workplace poster i made for my mate who works at the Bureau of Meterology. sounds like a cooked place to work at the moment, which the bosses tried to bandaid by....... renaming the BOM as "The Bureau" recently, which addresses a total of zero workplace issues. also the staff (along w everyone else) rly like the name the BOM :

this was drawn for the residents of Barak Beacon public housing estate in Port Melbourne (near the water.....too nice for public housing residents!!!!!!) who are being pushed out of their beautiful building:

their petition to the State Government closes today, if u have a minute to sign it that would be greatly appreciate: https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/view-sign-e-petitions/details/12/485 You can read more about whats happening in The Age today: 'They’ll have to carry me out’: The residents fighting to save their public housing estate

On housing stuff, im excited to be working with academics David Kelly and Libby Porter on adapting some of the outcomes from last year's Forum for Dwelling Justice into a comic over coming months (the above poster is available for cost-price $20 from here). A few days ago the big write-up / dispatch about the forum was released, recommended reading: https://arena.org.au/dispatches-from-the-forum-for-dwelling-justice/ its basically an edited version of some of the speeches and panel presentations if u didnt make it on the day.

donated this german adaptation of this old drawing in the colours of the kurdish flag, to a fundraising effort to support people and animals in Syria after last months earthquakes. if those of u in europe want to support these efforts u can buy a black shirt with this design on it at black-mosquito.org or from here, all $$$ go to either 'the Kurdistan Organization for Animal Rights Protection' or 'Heyva Sor Kurdish Red Crescent'.

i posted on social media the other day that my publishers at Scribe recently got some of these big posters printed, with the 'labour definitions' section of my book splayed out across it. i have one to give away, i will give it to a random Patreon supporter that clicks "like" on this post. or if you work for a union, if u get them to buy 10+ copies Scribe will send you a big poster along with the books. 

here are a couple of newish pieces, one is for veterinarians, a workforce that is experiencing an epidemic of suicides, i had no idea:

and this one for the Australian Services Union, which was a fun headache to draw, they needed the piece to suit different printed outcomes so i had to make it so it cld be rejigged in a few different ways:

below is the drawing i did for Overland last month, i sent through the rough draft in my last update on so figured i'd send through how the finished piece ended up looking. i'm not heaps happy with it, way too turbo and busy, but everything is practise.
disappointing to see that the Liberal party might be taking better gambling reform policies than the Labor Party to the NSW state election this week?! fortunate that we don't have to vote for either of them tbh

Last month we lost Paul Richardson, a great (and often behind-the-scenes) union leader. he is the person who hired me at the National Union of Workers when i started working there a decade ago. when i left the union and came to draw full time, he championed the art and rly helped it to reach workers, and he helped me to be able to function in a few different ways. he was an absolute skullcrusher, i had him both for and against me at different times and my god u FELT IT either way. u guys paid to print 5 big copies of this print for his family and his union so cheers for that.

and cheers to Paul <3 we lost a great fighter

never got around to sharing these pics of the banner and placards that me and Nicky Minus painted with some young'ns from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition late last year. endlessly repulsed by the Labor Party sneakily approving over 100 new gas & coal projects the other day 🤢 just absolute ghouls.

below is a quick playful drawing from a couple of days ago, im realising as i make this post how many of these drawings exist just so i could vent hahah, very grateful for the outlet tbh, cld be a worse pressure valve

ok ill leave it there, thankyou for the support!!!!!!!!! come to the event on thursday if u live in Perf, it will be nice the CFMEU bar is beautiful, it's in the basement of the old Trades Hall here which has been fully restored (which the CFMEU had to buy back themselves, after the Labor Party sold it off (bit of a trend in this email lol) <3