Once Bitcoin, twice shy

I worked with AD Josue Evilla for something for Fortune recently. Josue and I go way back to when he was at the Boston Globe. He gave me many assignments over the years, and has always been a pleasure to work with. Anyway, this story concerns the fact that the U.S. government is sitting on millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin, seized after busting smuggling rings and other illegal activities. The problem is that this nest egg is largely hidden from public accounting, and has been mishandled and even stolen from in some cases.

See the article, and a very informative video here. Thank you to Josue!

TIMBERRRRR!!!

This illustration for The Chronicle Review ran this past Sunday. It accompanied a very thought-provoking essay by Mark S. Weiner about the relationship between individualism and government. The old adage that in order for individual liberty to thrive, government must be small, or even nonexistent, is a very familiar line among conservative, and even leftist-anarchist thinking. However, the author contends that efforts to shrink, cut, weaken or dismantle government actually has the opposite effect: it hurts individual freedom.

The author explains that governments need to exist to ensure that individuals' liberties are protected. Rights, as well as goods and services in a democracy are based on the concept of "the public good." In the absence of government, humans tend to organize themselves in clans, where rights, goods and services are instead based on membership in the clan.

I wanted to show how the effort on the part of the individual to dismantle government ends up hurting that same individual. It's a great article, and if you have a subscription to The Chronicle of Higher Education, you can read it here. On a related note, I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from the author, complimenting me on this piece. It's always a huge honor to hear that the person whose work I'm illustrating enjoys it. Thank you to Ellen and Scott, and thank you, Mark, for your kind words.

You Dirty Rat

I finished this cover for a few Village Voice papers last week. It should be in the free weekly newsstands in Seattle, San Francisco, St. Louis and Broward/Palm Beach. The cover story goes over the ten most corrupt loopholes in the U.S. tax system. Corrupt because they allow very, very, very, very, very rich people to pay lower tax rates than the average citizen. A loophole is always viewed as a sneaky way to get around the system, and in an article dealing with lobbyists and politicians, what better way to illustrate that concept than a bunch of rats?

(SF Weekly AD: Andrew Nilsen)
Having the illustration run on the cover of several different titles, it's a little tricky ensuring the type will fit in for all the different layouts, but they seemed to work it out well. Thank you, Tom!
Up next: LMU!