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Tier 3 of the Mountain Top Removal comic, guest starring Mother Nature. For the start of the comic, skip back 2 days. News on the chaos that erupted in Ecuador yesterday below.
Chaos erupted in Ecuador yesterday as members of the police and military protested budget cuts proposed by the government. 150 troops occupied Quito (Ecuador’s capital) airport to contest the move made by Congress, but it was when President Correa became involved that things truly got ugly. At an address to the disgruntled police and troops outside the Presidential Palace, a volley of tear gas canisters were fired at the President’s entourage, and members of the police were caught on video attempting to assault him. Clearly struggling to breathe from behind his gas mask, the President was bundled from the scene to a nearby hospital, where he was treated for tear gas inhalation. He immediately responded to what many have commented on as the early tremors of a coup attempt:
PRES. RAFAEL CORREA (VOICEOVER TRANSLATION): If you want to kill the president, here I am. Kill me. Kill me if you’re not happy. Kill me if you’re brave. But we will continue with one policy, one of justice, dignity, and we will not take one step backwards.
Thankfully, Ecuador didn’t follow Honduras’s lead (for more on the 2010 military coup that ousted President Zelaya, visit the Honduras page) as one of the top military chiefs has come out in defense of Correa. Let’s hope he doesn’t go the same way as Chilean Army Chief of Staff Rene Schneider, who was murdered in a bungled kidnapping attempt co-sponsored by the CIA for standing behind Chilean President Salvador Allende. His death led the way for Augusto Pinochet to take the reins and lead the now infamous coup that plunged Chile into a military dictatorship. To read that story in comics form, click here. For an interesting debate on the US’s level of involvement, read this post from Foreign Affairs.
Courtesy of SOAW (School of the Americas Watch):
In his radio address the President did talk about this being a Coup attempt lead by the Police, Military close to an ex-President, but also by the Opposition and the ex-President Lucio Gutierrez. He stated that there is an attempt to destabilize the democratic citizen revolution that has happened in Ecuador. At this moment, the pro-democracy movement is gathering in the thousands in the capital but in all the plazas across the country. There are also people marching to the hospital to protect the President.
For more on the story, check out Narco News’s coverage here.
As I’m currently working on my Knight project these days, I thought I’d point you towards some of my earlier work you may not have seen – a piece that ran in Bash Magazine a few years back. Go here to read the whole comic, hidden as it is under the US Politics tab at the top of the page. Remember to RT/share it around it if you liked it, or -even better!- head to the Archcomix store to order your hard copy. ($5 plus shipping/P&P). More news after the jump.
As I’m currently working on my Knight project these days, I thought I’d point you towards some of my earlier work you may not have seen – a piece that ran in Bash Magazine a few years back. Go here to read the whole comic, hidden as it is under the US Politics tab at the top of the page. Remember to RT/share it around it if you liked it, or -even better!- head to the Archcomix store to order your hard copy. ($5 plus shipping/P&P).
Our Kickstarter time limit ran out 30 mins ago, by which time we had successfully sprinted past our funding goal finish line! Thanks to everyone who contributed and supported us, we literally could not have made this happen without you. Stay tuned for more updates and ways to stay involved in the project.
If you missed out but still want to order your copy, fear not! You can order through the Archcomix store here.
NB the image is a celebratory screenshot, there is no embedded video link!
We did it! A predictable sprint to the finish line, but we made it (see above for our triumphant screenshot – the video is NOT a live link!) and you supportive pledgers will be receiving your comics, posters, badges, pdfs, special feature packages and original artwork (depending on what you chipped in, of course) soon. A massive thank you to everyone who pledged, tweeted, shouted from the rooftops, mentioned it to their mates, wrote about it, you name it – your efforts buoys us independent creators who can once again prove to the world that it is possible to use art to effect social change.
For those of you who want a copy but have only just heard about the project, there are still plenty of ways to pre-order your copy – I’m just adding Borderland to my “store” page now, plus there should be a link to Borderland Comic’s paypal site too: $10 for your own full-colour copy.
One final chance to help us reach our Kickstarter funding goal – click here to pre-order your comic through Kickstarter and help us cover our print and distribution costs.
For more info, visit the official Borderland Comics website or here for a preview of some of the stories that are in the comic.
Any help in chipping in, retweeting, forwarding or shouting the news of the Kickstarter deadline is appreciated – deadline is 1045 EST tomorrow morning!
Thanks in advance and to those who have already helped us to get where we are (now at 90%!!!),
Dan and Olga
and help us support the IOM in the fight against modern day slavery. Last day today!!!! We need to raise $8000 or all of the money raised will be returned! Check out the preview below. More Archcomix news below the fold.
Thanks to all of those who came to see Olga and I speak at Stanford’s d.school on Thursday evening. About 40 people showed up to hear about how the project came together and discuss the challenges and obstacles creatives face in using their work to instigate social change. Journalist Cynthia Haven did a great piece about the event for Stanford, which you can read here. You’ll also notice that our fundraising tally is up – we’re at 76%, with less than 24 hours to go! Please RT and share the link to our Kickstarter page on digg, facebook, wherever – if you didn’t already know, Kickstarter will return all funds collected so far if we don’t make it to our $8000 goal by this time tomorrow.
Last week was also my first full week of classes at Stanford, which was simultaneously challenging, exhausting, exhilarating and fascinating. Running around to find my classrooms/lecture halls on the first day was surreal, but a week later I consider myself a veteran, though I’m still wrestling with some of the e-classroom/syllabi that we’re expected to attend or sign up for online. I consider it slightly ironic that my data visualization assignment took me almost as long to post to the course wiki as it did to complete. Teething troubles aside, I’ve really enjoyed throwing myself into new projects and classes that are clearly outside of my comfort zone: Human-Computer Interaction; Data Visualization; Beginner’s German; and Multimedia Production are my main courses this semester. Needless to say, good ol’ introduction to cognitive neuroscience didn’t even get a look in past week one – too many lectures to get to as it is! The project’s also coming along well, especially with the news that the Knight News Challenge is definitely on this year, so expect more about that in the next few weeks as I put my application together.
Welcome to Archcomix – if you’re new here, take a look around by clicking on the tabs above. Some have drop-down menus for individual stories under that theme. See what I’m working on at the moment as part of my John S.Knight Fellowship here and please support my Borderland comic through Kickstarter here – less than a week left to raise our money or it all gets returned. And we wouldn’t want that. Also, check out the new comics journalism page I’ve set up.
