Kickstarter

AxeMan (who will be 70 in the year 2010) is a faux graphic memoir. A cartoon character (my alter-ego) takes you on a journey, in this illustrated book. The narrative is based on my own experiences. AxeMan spends 40 years under supervision (jobs). He faux retires in 2007, bent on proving that septuagenarians can start life anew, cranky and wise, outside the box of golf, gardens, tennis and bingo.

AxeMan's journey begins just before the McCarthy Era. In 1952 he discovers Mad Comics, volume one, number one. It colors everything for him, creating a subversive universe invisible to his oblivious parents. It endows him with a very jaundiced eye through which he comes to see life and eventually art and politics. His life is full of minor accidents, but each leads him to a new and interesting place. In his quasi-hippie period he stumbles upon the rise and fall of Christo's Valley Curtain and again at Christo's Running Fence in Marin County. He lives for a time in the shadows of the Beat poets in San Francisco at the exact moment that Patty Hearst has been kidnapped by the SLA. He also has an oblique connection with Karen Silkwood just before her death; a connection that draws him into the dwindling American Labor Movement. He imagines and then kidnaps Phillip Guston's klan-like ghost, embracing him as an imaginary friend. He releases him unharmed to his dad and goes his un-merry way, coast-to-coast-to-coast, eventually plopping down in Manhattan. After three decades he emerges on the banks of the Hudson River in upstate New York in 2007. His journey is full of bewilderment and quixotic moments, never quite knowing if he is a quitter or a seeker. He never truly knows what kind of artist he is, but the journey leads him to a place where he begins to understand the choices he has made as well as the price he may have paid for his decisions.

This volume, when printed, will be the table-setter for the next phase/volume, Life After Medicare, Post AARP. So many axes to grind, so little time to do it. With a little luck and your support, kickstarter will help get the process rolling.

The money for this project will go directly to printing (maybe Lulu). An edition of 125 is what I am hoping to print. Every $15 means another book gets printed, so just because the goal is close, you can keep supporting. If the project sounds interesting, tell your friends. If one of your friends is a printer or a publisher, well tell them to check it out and help find an alternative to Lulu. The dimensions of the full-bleed, perfect bound, full color book are 9" wide by 7" high. If you click on axeman.info you can see the entire book (almost, because there is text which does not appear yet but will come as an update).

Hope you like it.