january (Patreon)

hey mates. it’s definitely HAPPENING - here’s some undeniably good AI art that’s floating around, stuff that i think humans wld rly struggle to do ourselves, and that are actually pushing art into interesting new places. i half hate to see it but credit where its due i spose!!!!!! 😅

there's also this amazing page on Instagram full of AI images making fun of the inner north of melbourne i'm obsessed

there’s also this extremely popular Palestinian guy who does all his political cartoon kinda art using AI, oop. full respect to him ofc, not rly my kind of aesthetic but noteworthy i reckon, and definitely helping that struggle. it’s definitely all....... happenninng. will leave it to smarter ppl to draw conclusions about AI and art cos honestly i dont rly know exactly how the fuck i feel about it all !!!!!!

“Get yourself a labour movement so big and powerful that it doesn’t matter who is in government” is a line that sums up a lot of people’s thinking about worker power. my friend Rosie Scroggie has a good way of seeing the world, and of speaking it into being.

pls don’t share this drawing around, it will be published formally by Overland.org.au soon

An engaged and militant union movement can act as a safety mechanism against tyranny, and could secure us a greatly expanded form of democracy. some positive reforms have been passed by right wing governments when they were forced into it by a groundswell of labour organising. and on the flipside, a lot of terrible legislation has been passed by notionally “left” parties, when the labour movement was busy sleeping. the takeaway, i think, is that a powerful workers movement can get pretty much whatever it wants, if it cares to take it. if we build a strong enough labour movement, the government will have to follow us <3

I recently took some time off my day job to focus on art stuff, and cos i had a good friend visiting from the US. it was an….. eventful time to be ~physically~ absent from work. hard to discuss such spicy, job-threatening things in a medium like this, always happy to discuss IRL tho, maybe i'll draw about it all some day, will see. meanwhile here are some drawings i’ve done at work lately:

top requests for drawings are my workmates bashing each other, or the machines having sex with each other lmaoooo, red salute

If anyone here works in any of the CFMEU or MUA’s industries, made this poster spruiking the comic i made for overland about our unions involvement with the issue.

Let me know if you’d like a high resolution version of the file to print for your breakroom, the comic is meant to be accessible to rank and filers who might not have thought a whole lot about Palestine just yet.

Back in May 2022, i put it to a vote here which big project I should work on next. One option was voted twice as popular as the next preferred idea - sorry it’s taken me a while to get to it but wheels are finally in motion now. It's called 'Townsville Watchouse Experience', this is the spiel I put in that earlier update, and the overview holds up for what we’re currently working toward:

“One of my oldest dearest friends Kyle was recently put in a Queensland prison for mounting an Adani pit train, shutting it down for 20 hours, shovelling coal out of one of the open-topped carriages. He had a range of interesting interactions with other inmates when he was imprisoned, many who had worked directly for the mine site (an adani railway worker, adani security guard/spy, adani boiler maker etc). they were *universally* sympathetic to his actions, which some ppl might find suprising. we are thinking of collaborating and making a long form comic essay about these overlaps."

working out how to draw Kyle, trying not to go full Tom of Finland

We are working on a four-part old school floppy comic series, which will be published by the angels at the worker-owned publishing and printing operation, Glom Press. The first issue is going to print in February and should be out soon after that, will keep yas posted.

A couple of rough draft pages from early on in the first issue of the comic:

While we are on the topic, i got alot out of this short documentary, ‘The Coal Miners Defending the Worlds Most Controversial Coal Mine’, if you’re looking for something to watch.

The lejjens at my publisher Scribe have sorted a discount code for Patreon supporters, if anyone wants to pre-order the ‘12 Rules for Strife’ book. I’m sorry if you already ordered it before this! The code is TANGLES, you can enter it at checkout to get 20% off from here .,

It looks like I’m heading to the US to spruik the book when it comes out late April / early May. Excited to be presenting at the Labor Notes conference in Chicago in April, if you’re going let me know, or if u have any ideas for West coast places or ppl who can help hype the book pls hit me up! Hoping to do a string of events to help back the book and its public arguments.

For ages now I have been trying to finalise this scrappy initial design, still in draft form for now:

Once I get it right, i’m going to screenprint it on to some thick offcuts of wood. I thought that’d make a nice object, will make them available to Patreon supporters as a priority. 

Also planning on getting some mugs made w my drawings on them to get to you guys, can’t tell if that’s cringe / too “merch-y” tho 🤮 I think i’m gonna do it anyway!!!!!

Designed this masthead banner as a gesture of solidarity with a new grassroots publication called ‘School Work: Public School Educators Organising for Change’:

“School Work is written by a group of public school educators working and organising in Victorian public schools. We are rank and file members of our union, the Australian Education Union [join today], who believe in the need for transformative change. We are organising in our workplaces to build the density, structure and relationships required in order to strike for change.” You can read their publication, and join their efforts at schoolworkbulletin.au 

Me and my old friend Nicky Minus collaborated for the first time (!!?!) on this poster for the Global Day of Action for Palestine:

Made the above quick one for my old friend Michael Fikaris exhibition happening at Backwoods Gallery in April, celebrating the beloved gas-masked character that he has been drawing for a billion years.

also drew this stupid ‘888 / hammer and sickle’ bike patch a while ago and forget to share:

i fucken love biking and doubly so in a big gang, if ur into cycling also and based in narrm lmk, wanna do more big group cycles this year.

love u guys hope you’re all doing okay, free palestine!!!!!!! <3