kzsc_Bushwhacker's_Editorial Cartoon Monthly_Comic News_Thom Zajac and John Govsky_20241213

Thom came to Santa Cruz in the 1970s to attend U.C. Santa Cruz, where he majored in (but did not graduate in) Aesthetic Studies (he was one of the last majors); John moved to Santa Cruz in the 1980s, and he now teaches at Cabrillo College (our local community college), digital design, web design; there are 3 iterations of the Comic News: the Santa Cruz Comic News, delivered locally with partial ad support, the Comic News, mailed to subscribers and subscription supported, and TheComicNews.com, subscription supported; Thom was interested in editorial cartoons and tried to sell his own one at a time; he learned about synidcates which, to an editorial cartoonist, are like a record label to a musician; after being inspired by a book of editorial cartoons at Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park, on April Fool's Day 1984 he put out his first bi-weekly paper including stringing together editorial cartoons; helped introduce Nina Paley, who John says was first published in Santa Cruz in the Monthly Planet, a monthly newspaper of the Nuclear Freeze Movement (but Nina might not have been paid); changes in circulation and office space and the internet; Comic News makes money, but not much - both Thom and John have other means of support; the Santa Cruz Comic News was the first, with 7 direct spin offs and dozens of other close followers, including the nationally distributed Funny Times, whose founders came to Santa Cruz in 1985 to check out our Comic News before going back to Cleveland and starting their monthly humor periodical; print is not a growing medium - the future is digital (but AI image generation threatens human artist and cartoonists).