Mission Accomplished!

This Modern World

A few days ago, I mentioned a Kickstarter project to support the publication of a two-volume, 1000+ page collection of the complete works of Tom Tomorrow’ (aka Dan Perkins), who has been creating brilliant and insightful (and FUNNY) political cartoons for the last 25 years.

The funding deadline was at 4 PM yesterday, and the project succeeded far beyond Perkins’ expectations.

His original goal was $87,000.  (“Now, I know:  $87K is a big ask,” he wrote at the start of the campaign.)  That goal was met in the first day.  By yesterday’s closing, 3,098 backers pledged $310,537 to help bring this project to life.

The books will be published in early 2016.   There will be a book launch party at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, which is probably the most appropriate place on earth to celebrate Perkins’ particular sensibility and genius.

The Original UnReal, Also sans Adam Sandler

The highly addicting UnReal, the scripted dramedy about what goes on behind the scenes on shows like The Batchelor,  may well be the best American TV show of the Summer of 2015.

Its main competition is Mr. Robot, which, despite having the stupidest title on TV, absolutely slayed in its first episode.   UnReal has only one remaining episode, and has stayed strong since it began, while Mr. Robot is only about half way through its season, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, who spent three years as an associate producer of The Bachelor, is the show runner for UnReal.   Back in 2013, she used Kickstarter to help finance a 20-minute short film called Sequin Raze, which went on to win a SXSW Grand Jury Award.  The short, about the behind-the-scenes reality of a hit “reality” TV reality show, caught the attention of several networks, and eventually mutated into UnReal.

Here’s the trailer for Sequin Raze:

That’s Anna Camp, btw, probably best known for her role as Sarah Newlin, the evil, deranged televangelist (forgive the redundancy) on True Blood.

You can buy the full version of Sequin Raze for 99 cents at the linked site.