Tommy Siegel
Cartoonist
Tommy Siegel is an LA-based cartoonist, musician, animator, and author of two books I Hope This Helps: Comics and Cures for 21st Century Panic (Andrews McMeel, 2020) and “Candy Hearts” (Andrews McMeel,2021.) His cartooning career began in 2018 when he challenged himself to draw and publish a comic every day for 500 days, with remarkable results. Hundreds of his comics went viral across social media outlets and he gained a fanbase of over half a million followers. Tommy is also a singer, songwriter, guitarist and bassist in Jukebox the Ghost, an internationally-touring pop band with a rabid cult following. In their 15+ years together, they have produced six studio albums and played over 1,000 shows.
COMICS AND CURES FOR THE 21st CENTURY: Navigating the pitfalls of making art in the social media era
In 2018, after a lifetime of drawing comics casually, Tommy decided to take things more seriously with a personal challenge: to attempt to draw (and publish) a comic every day for 500 days. Though the cartoon gauntlet was a success, achieving hundreds of thousands of followers by its end, this exhausted and internet-addled cartoonist was left with a nagging question in its wake: how do you sustainably create art in the social media area without being destroyed by it?
He’ll talk comment section trolls, algorithms, drawing for the New Yorker, and his best attempts to safely navigate the maelstrom of Mark Zuckerberg’s strange universe, while accompanied by his ascerbic and witty comics.
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