Matt Bors curates a space for alternative cartooning and traces the roots of the webcomic

Matt Bors (https://thenib.com/author/matt-bors/) started drawing editorial cartoons for his student newspaper while attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. His work has since appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Village Voice, and The Daily Beast, among others. His first graphic novel War Is Boring was a collaboration with journalist David Axe. It came out in 2010 from New American Library. More recently, his hysterical and pointed collection of comics entitled We Should Improve Society Somewhat (https://cloverpress.us/products/we-should-improve-society-somewhat) came out in June 2020 from Clover Press. We talk about both books at length here; we also discuss Matt’s current and upcoming projects, his decision to leave editorial cartooning, and why he’s pursuing different artistic goals in the wake of the nightmare of Trump’s authoritarian populism. Incredibly, he is embarking on these projects while doing all of the labour required to keep The Nib (https://thenib.com/) going. The Nib is an online daily comics publication and a crucial space for comic strip interventions on contemporary issues; it features political cartoons, graphic journalism, essays and memoir. We cover a lot of ground in this conversation. Matt expands on what it meant to enter publishing at what he calls the “tail end of print,” only to find that while social media seemed to be a new frontier for publication, it was basically impossible to make a living by “being online.” Now, though, of course, using a hybrid method, The Nib is showing how comics can thrive and find new audiences. Matt, perhaps more than most cartoonists, has had to deal with the volatile nature of contemporary political discourse. He’s also witnessed first-hand the sort of state violence that organized protest can provoke. He describes the horrifying experience of being in Portland in 2020 and witnessing the realization of Trump’s fascist rhetoric in the form of police and federal agents “warring” with protestors, as he puts it. But the interview ends on a positive note--perhaps somewhat unusual for this podcast--Matt feels that, as a public, we have reached a level of “political education” where far more “understand the problems now” and routinely engage with the reality of a “hell world.” The challenge now would seem to be redirecting the “frustration” and “resignation” people feel at not being able to act quickly or collectively into meaningful mass movements.