THE INFLUENCING MACHINE animated book trailer!

Influencing Machine

The very brilliant animator Ben Arthur has created an amazing promotional video for The Influencing Machine (my new collaboration with radio journalist Brooke Gladstone). With Brooke narrating, and using my art as the jumping-off point, Arthur (with producer Steve Colca) has created a really outstanding cartoon. Music! Special effects! Austrian accents! Exploding heads! Check it out…

The book debuts May 23.

Earth 2100 — ABC next Tuesday

Publicity, Work

Earth 2100When ABC News’s Documentary Group approached me last fall to collaborate on a motion comic for an upcoming primetime show about climate change called Earth 2100, I was excited. Through an imagined future scenario — intermixed with interviews with scientists, a global summit simulation, and user-generated videos — the two-hour special explores the effects of catastrophic climate change, and educates viewers on possible solutions. Earth 2100 will air nationwide next Tuesday, June 2, from 9–11pm. (Here’s a promo.)

Earth 2100’s producers asked me (and my new studio Dojo Graphics) to create characters and scenarios that would put a human face on the hot-button issue. For me, this was a perfect match. Throughout my cartooning career (A.D., Titans of Finance, A Few Perfect Hours, and American Splendor), I’ve been drawn to documentary-style storytelling. And for my wife and collaborative partner Sari Wilson, this was an opportunity to use her strengths as a fiction writer and comics scripter to breathe life into my concepts and characters.