Salgood Sam's Blog

As a secular leftist anti-Zionist Jew, I am always anti all things nationalistic, and as a result loath what the star of David has come to represent in my mind and to many others. It was never THE central Jewish Symbol, until promoted by Zionist to adorn their flag. But for many it means a lot.

And symbols are powerful. Thinking about that last May, I put on my designer’s hat and explored ideas around an icon that rejects Zionism and isn’t visually defined by that or all the baggage, and instead works to be an affirmative table setting for inclusive community building outside of the garbage the ethno-Nationalists have contaminated our culture with and the walls of fear and hate they erected against our closest living ethnic relatives, Palestinians.

Later I saw and signed ‘A Global Jewish Manifesto for Collective Liberation’ from Global Jews for Palestine, which closely resonated with what I was going after here.

Re my flag/banner/crest here: The goal was to come up with something that was both not Nationalistic, AND not Religious while acknowledging the role spiritual practice plays in our culture.

To be an icon for a constructive path for a Zionist free Jewish culture, in solidarity with Palestinians as our closest cultural and genetic cousins.

The only overt nod to religious ideas is the Hebrew text for Tikkun olam, which for me was presented early on as a Jewish secular vision of the call to leave the world better than you found it, work for social justice, the environment and ecology, a better future and human rights. “It’s an old idea that’s grown beyond the fait into secular Jewish culture.

The pomegranate in the center means something to both Palestinians and Jews. The seeds of the pomegranate symbolize the 613 mitzvot (sacred obligations) attributed to the Torah, and it’s an icon for righteousness, knowledge, wisdom, and fertility.

And given they are the direct descendants of the ancient Hebrews, it should be no surprise for Palestinians the pomegranate is ALSO a symbol of fertility, abundance, heritage and traditions, prosperity, and the continuity of generations.

The fruit is associated with the land’s agricultural heritage, as are the olive branches here, representing peace, wisdom, vitality, and hope. And, for Palestinians those I read are a symbol of identity, heritage, and resilience. The both have some hint of importance to the religious but work as secular ideas we share.

The central form is a deconstructed take on the Star of David, which is a symbol of Jewish identity and culture that predates the modern state and it’s flag, but has become the central one of the colonial project. So I was looking to get away from the angles and heavy single line, and reimagine it dramatically. Pushing away from the authoritarian air Zionism has brought to it, while also being largely responsible for making it a popular central icon.

As I mentioned at the start It was not nearly as central before and rising to importance first in 17c European Jewish communities. I wanted that there as the key overt deconstructive element, but It was something I wanted to explicitly re present in a constructive form leaning into unity. Instead of interlocked WALLS, a Jewish fortress. Instead It’s become the flowing forms of waves, energy, and movement. Ideally towards progress and solidarity.

The white blue red black and green of course, is a use of ALL the past cultural nationalist movements both Jewish and Palestinian. But they have been made subordinate to the off white field of the flag.

The blue lines on the Israeli flag are references to the blue lines of tallit, here I intertwined double lines of one part of the star form with the green white and black of the Arab Independence movements, including the Palestinian flag. Because the idea is to show them in relationship and partnership as cultural themes, together to form the whole form of the deconstructed star of David.

I don’t want this to be a nationalist icon but, it is ment to promote peace and cohabitation in the land and in the world.

And again, BOTH cultures see the white of their flags as being about “purity” and “noble intent and actions”. Don’t love the ‘purity’ part of that but the rest is a note I was going for. And because the purity thing bugs me a bit, and I wanted it to pop less and have the third white lines of the sign waves of the star stand out more, I added a very slight ivory/cream/gold back fill instead of pure white for the background field.

It’s ment to be a Jewish cultural flag, but welcoming to and inclusive of Palestinian culture, a people who’s genetic heritage is a direct line back to the ancient Hebrews who remained on the land, only converting to other faiths over time. So both cultures are present while having the past icons of either not dominate and instead assemble to suport something new.

Please feel free to share and use freely in the sprite it was created in, as outlined here. It’s covered by CC BY-SA 4.0 – Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

#FreePalestine #endthegenocide #NotInMyName
~Max

Hey all, I’m just packing, doing the day before dance. Good thing I got a noon bus, so I can sleep in a bit. I seldom get to sleep early the day before a show or travel.

I got my table info a yesterday, so for June 7 & 8 you’ll find me at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, 50 Carlton Street, Toronto, On. I’m at table 233A in the Ice rink near the Zamboni gate on the north west corner of the rink in the old gardens! Looks like I have the spot at the end of my row so easy to find!

By the by TCAF is fundraising to help pay for the new space and related expansion and keep the show free, go here to do that!

You’ll also be able to look for my distinctive new rack! Care of Andre-Guy Landry’s Sinister Rabbit Studio! Looks good eh? I think I’ll paint the bottom front plate white though and do my sig over in black paint to make it really pop. I was able to send him some custom spects for what it would look like and with a few tweeks he pretty much exactly did what i was thinking of. :D

Most of my books are with Luc from Pow Pow who’s by the way, one of the nicest people I know here in the Montreal Comics sene. But I’ll have to carry my prints because my cloths’ go in the same bag LoL. Should be fine.

True North Country Comics Podcast’s John Swinimer did a interview with me about Mind Engine and things that if all goes well will air Saturday so watch this space!

I need to book more of those, so if you’re seeing this and do interviews or reviews of comics, give me a holler?

I’ve been commenting on things where people use GenAI that one of the worst aspects is the lack of connecting with other people let alone any community building that goes into getting that slop generated. On top of all the other things about it I don’t like. Most of the good stuff and luck I’ve had has been thanks to the help of other people! Good thing to remember in these times.

Ok I need to get things packed and ready to go! Hope to see anyone who can make it at TCAF!

PS if you can’t wait until then or won’t be at the show, you can get the digital edition from my gumroad store now FYI!

Cheers!

Hello all! Hope this finds you well, I’m here wrapping up mind engine and getting ready to launch it at FBDM/MCAF next weekend!

So I’m pretty hyped if not a little nervous because I’ve left the printing so late. But I’m just doing it small press style, with a local printer I’ve used before. I’m confident given the short runs I’m doing they can get it done in the couple days I’ll have. 

Today I’m using my home printer to do a mockup proof, for going go through it and having my wife give it a look over with a highlighter to try to catch any errors and make sure everything falls into place.

One of the perks of small runs is there will only be 50 or so copies with those errors in them? LoL. I’ve not sorted out what if any Print on Demand/drop shipping option there will be for it, but a digital copy will go up at my gumroad shop next weekend.

I’ve taken the next week off so I can focus on getting that printed Tuesday, and getting things ready for the show as well as attending some of the events leading up to the weekend Festival. 

Also a little over a week ago I got very last minute news that I’ve been granted a table at TCAF!

I’d been put on a waiting list and given how close the show is getting – in early June – I’d kind of written off attending but I guess with all the unfortunate issues around crossing the Canadian border from the states for some creators spots came up free? Lucky for me I’ll be able to present my newest book there as well!

I don’t have information about where I’m going to be on the floor but soon as I do I’ll update this post with that and of course the weekend of share it on social media so you can find me.

I’m going to cross post this update to my substack which is for now still up and I remain a little uncertain as to what to do with all that. I’m pretty confident I can recreate most of the functionality right here on my own home site the way I was thinking in the last post I shared here, but it’s going to take some time, effort and research that I just haven’t had room for. 

I don’t want to have to keep moving my mailing list looking for the best fit, and setting my own up will take a little work, so that’s why I haven’t made the jump yet. But as soon as I sort it all out expect to see updates coming from probably my own mailing list and dot com domain? 

Hope to see you at the festivals,
stay safe and keep making things!
– max

A peek at the inking on the new layout of pg10, not a ton will get done this weekend it looks good so far I think.

It continues to be interesting to work over the digital versions of this art I’d done in clip studio. It’s so overly detailed!

Click to embiggen! Click to embiggen!

Some of the details when I do want to keep them, I’m doing with my draftsmen’s lamp but even then, I can only do about half the level of detail I was zoomed way in on my tablet.

And this is good, I was getting way too tight really.

This wasn’t my primary reason directly for backing away from working that way, but also these look FINE this way, it was unnecessary I think, and bogging me down. I think a lot of my peers get enamoured with the feeling of control and refinement it gives them but it slows us way down I think and in my case was constantly a fight to keep things from getting stiff.

I had a simple hack using a dot grid as my temporary backdrop with it set to on dot per half inch so I can sort of tell how close I was based on how many dots I could see. But even with the temptation to go in and clean this up more was always there. So back to paper and my old school, friendly feeling tools.

Makes drawing like a hug again. Which, we all could use right now I’m sure.

Click to visit the hub, check out the members and how to join!

In other retro news, I’ve just joined a webring! Both this blog and Sequential are now part of WEBLOG, set up by writer Greg Pak!

You can see the link in my sidebar and feel free to use it to surf over to the next one in the ring when you’re done here!

In keeping with my thoughts in this recent post I love this as part of a move away from the walled gardens a bit. Maybe a lot, if people are brave and join us in numbers.

Randomly this reminds me of themes in my old short ‘Where the Wind Things Were’, you can read that here or get it in print in Revolver One.

Ok, have to go update Sequential with something, and wrap up for the night. Back to the animation mines doing props in Harmony 24 in the morning!

~Max

Did some editing and finished inking pg 9 over the week. Started lettering 9, cut the next page, and compressed the next three after into one.

Revised the work I had from what was planed before into new blues, and starting inking 10 now. Doing the panel boarders is a sacred ritual at the start if inking of a page.

Nuts is a sequel to Dream Life, but it will have it’s own feeling for sure. My sensibilities and wants have changed too much since I worked on the first one.

I’m still posting these to Cara by the way, and link to it or my site here on other socials.

I’m all for boycotting & counter tariffing as strategic leverage against Trump’s BS.

But there is a certain palpable, corpse ridden murderous hypocrisy, to this contrast in stances.

I’ve been reflecting on the issue of ethical and unethical platforms for publishing your work and promoting it.

Without getting too into the weeds most of you know about the issues with xtwitter. I closed all my accounts there several months ago and frankly was never a avid or heavy user so I don’t claim that that was a great sacrifice.

But I’ve backed up all my meta data and have prepared for the possibility that I’ll be shutting down my Facebook and Instagram accounts at some point in a foreseeable future. It’s the year of the snake after all isn’t it!

Some of the current WIP on my desk as eye candy!
Scroll down page or click to open the slide show for more!

I started link blogging on sequential directly again, posting new C-Lists once a week. And set up accounts on BlueSky [sequential] and Cara over the last year. Others as well but those ones are my prefered options and seem to be doing well. I’m not prepared yet to leave Meta, and I feel similarly about Substack for the moment. But to varying degrees they are both up for consideration now.

I don’t think Zuckerberg has ever been an ethical actor but he’s taken a turn for the worst more recently. And I feel that Chris Best is at best, being foolishly ideological about his idealized notion of absolute free speech.

His recent statement on Substack Reads, I take issue with giving Elon any credit at all for standing up for free speech. That claim is either knowingly disingenuous, or he’s trying to diplomatically differentially opacificate his critiques with faint praise.

The fact that once he took over, the only actual free speech is that which praises him or agrees with him underlines the point. I left a note stating my thoughts but I’m sure that’s lost in the flood of comments there. Many have expressed their issues with his position, I will be watching what they do next.

Unfortunately I do like the platform and the independence journalism that’s thriving on it. And follow several like Drop Site and Zeteo that I find invaluable right now.

And really, I don’t want them to get into moderating, so as to maintain the unfettered journalistic landscape evolving there either frankly. I don’t think a more active hand in gating what is published is the right call at all.

But I do think morally, he should demonetize Nazis and hate based ideological content creators at the very least. It’s not so much a question of free speech but facilitating the financial profiteering off fundamentally antisocial ideologies that break the social contract intrinsic to tolerance in a free Society. Demagoguery for profit should not be allowed.

So all to say I was pondering to myself what should I do for mailing lists, and media blogging?

A look at the first 7 [8 if you count page 0 here] from Nuts,
the second book of Dream Life | a late coming of age.
Hopefully te first chunk is to be published in may of this year!
I’ve set myself this as a goal.

I’m embarrassed to say it took me several days to simply think ‘oh that’s right I used to do that on my own site didn’t I!‘. An old writer acquaintance reviving webrings got me going on that tack of thinking finally. So obvious this side of it.

So I’ve moved the link for my work blog back to the  top of the menu list to reprioritize that aspect of this site! There will be things to consider like increased server demands again but I think for the time being that should be fine.

And I think what I’ll do is continue to use the substack as a way to update but the body of the post will mostly direct here. But in time I can set up my own native email list via this domain too.

I think its time

we flee the walled gardens

and venture back into

the wild webs,

don’t you?

More to come soon
but this will mark the official rebooting of my old workdiary,
the precursor to the processpod! 

Stay safe and see you soon.

~Max

When you’ve drawn 10 pages of a story digitally in clips studio, but then a full-time day job in animation and the rise of generative AI turns you off working on personal stuff digitally nearly so much?

So you decide to use those first 10 as pencils and do the rest traditionally from this point on out! I’m going to do just inks with no tones for mind engine, but for this story will probably come back to it to add the tones, like I did for the first book once collected.

I have a two and a half month crunch to get a bunch of this done and a few other things to put together a book for the Summer festival season, so when putting up the schedule in front of me everywhere I work. I have a more involved Substack post about all this going up mid day Monday here.

My alternate

portfolios on Cara.

It’s been fun posting stuff to Cara, without all the emphasis on tweaking their algorithm for advertising! So this is just a little flag pointing to that new outpost where I’m posting a lot of old work and building up my portfolio there.