Sigmund Freud once said that in order to be truly happy in life, a human being needed to acquire two things: The capacity to work, and the capacity to love.

“EVIL PLANS” is really about being able to do both, at the same time.

This is my tenth year blogging. I’ve done a lot of stuff since I started. Published cartoons, sold wine, sold suits, pimped Microsoft, sold art, written e-books, ranted on endlessly about marketing and all sorts…

But looking back, I realize it all served a served a common purpose: to unify work and love.

Then I notice, the people who read my blog the most avidly, and the bloggers I tend to read most avidly, hell yeah, they’re mostly trying to do the same thing too, in their own way. It’s a definite pattern.

To unify work and love. Are you one of these people? If not, don’t you think you should be? I mean, after friends and family, what the hell is there?

Just askin’…

To mark the occasion we created nine prints, “The SXSW 2010 Series”. We were showing them at the trade show booth and yeah, they were selling like hot cakes.

For 2010 we designed another “Austin is The Killer App” print- you see it here on the left, or click here to see it enlarged etc.

Anyway, if you had a great time at SXSW ‘10 (like I did) this print series will make for great little souvenirs. Rock on.

Spent the first day talking to people and signing drawings. Feel free to stop by my trade show boot # 1302 and say “Hello”…

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys are having a great time receiving the newsletter. I’m sure having a blast sending it out!

Obviously, as a cartoonist I like people reading it. So equally obviously, I want to grow the list.

In terms of growing it, I’ve got my own ideas, certainly. But then I thought to myself, maybe it would be more fun and interesting to reach out to you instead. This is “social media”, after all. And even though I’ve doing it for years, this “open source” stuff is still REALLY interesting to me.

So here’s what I’m asking: You guys receive the newsletter. You guys are a savvy crowd, and you will have plenty of opinions of your own.

So what do I need to change? What could I do better? How could I improve the layout? What new ideas or tools could I be using? And perhaps most importantly, what could I do to make it easier for you guys to share it with your friends?

If you’re already a subscriber, feel free to leave a comment below of send me your feedback at gvdailycartoon@gmail.com. Thanks a lot!

UPDATE: Since I first posted this an hour or two ago, the comments have POURING in below. Thanks, Guys, this is REALLY helpful!

Tomorrow I head for Austin, for the annual 5-day drunken orgy that is South By South West Interactive. Here are some thoughts:

1. SXSW is the only “MUST ATTEND” event on my calendar. It’s the one show I never miss, ever. Unless you’ve already been, it’s hard to convey JUST HOW MUCH more fun, interesting and full of business opportunities it is, compared to other shows. I can’t emphasize enough, if you’re into the Internet, just how much you’re missing out if choose not to attend. Sure, the price of going [entry fee, plane fare, hotel bill, taxi rides etc] might be quite daunting for some of us, but compared to the business and networking you could EASILY end up doing there, that cost is minuscule.

2. So you thought last year was crazy? Last year had ten thousand attendees. I heard on good authority from somebody inside the org that this year’s numbers have doubled. Hope you got a good hotel booking.

3. I’m on a panel on Monday. I hope you’ll come see us. All the other panelists are good friends of mine, so it should be fun…

4. I’ll be signing books. Barnes & Noble will have a little micro store on the fourth floor of the convention center, selling books written by some of the attendees. I’ll be there to sign copies of “Ignore Everybody” on Monday, March 15th at 5.20pm. My signing will last for 30 minutes.

5. Free Booze! Free Sex! A lot of companies sponsor parties, so as long as you have a pass, it’s pretty easy to go the entire five days without ever paying for a single drink or meal. Plus with all the young singles everywhere, everybody’s trying to get laid. X-thousand geek twenty-somthings trying to hook up en masse is pretty entertaining to watch. By Sunday or Monday everybody’s a basket case. Which is why the veterans are always telling the newbies, “Pace Yourself”.

6. Creating an island of calm in a sea of bodies. It’s going to be a madhouse this year, so to make ourselves easier to find,  gapingvoid has hired a trade show booth for the event. If you want to meet up, that’s where you can find me. I’ll be selling art, doing business, signing drawings and exchanging business cards. My focus this year will be much more about business, than my usual hallway wanderings.

7. I’m better organized, this time. Pretty much all the parties and events I’m planning to attend are already in my calendar. In past  years I just turned up and went with the flow. It was exhausting after about three days. Never again.

8. Follow me on Twitter if you want to see what I’m up to on the day. Heck, that’s what everybody else uses, too.

9. SXSW makes me proud to be Texan. I’ve seen this a lot: People come to Texas for the first time to attend SXSW, and “fall in love with the barbecue”. Texas has always been a very misunderstood State, if you ask me. SXSW does a great job of helping to fix that, at least with my crowd.

These days I’m finding myself writing less about my usual sex/angst/alienation shtick, and more and more about business and entrepreneurship, hence the cartoon above. As my interests evolve, so does the subject matter. It’s really that simple.

I want to draw cartoons that entertain people, sure, but perhaps more importantly, I want to draw cartoons that push people in the right direction; the direction they wanted to go in, anyway.

That’s what all my favorite artists have always done for me, after all. Their work always gave me a wee nudge etc. I’m just trying to follow their example.

Whether we’re talking Rembrandt, Shakespeare, The Rolling Stones, Charlie Brown, or the unknown graffiti artist from the wrong side of the tracks- that’s what “Art” is really all about, at the end of the day. The Wee Nudge.

And even if you’re not an “Artist” per se, whether you’re a techie, salesman, consultant, plumber or whatever, surely the work you do should somehow give people that same “Wee Nudge”, in your own unique way? If not, what’s stopping you? What’s stopping anybody?

I think it’s career suicide not to, frankly…

This one is called “The Intense Longing”. The latest from the “Moleskine” series [Click here to enlarge etc].

Friday night I was in Marfa, hearing my favorite local band, The Doodlin’ Hogwallops, play a gig at Padre’s. Because I was driving, I wasn’t drinking any alcohol, so I just stuck to black coffee the whole night.

Once the caffeine started kicking in I got out my drawing pen…

“Longing” is a lovely idea to wrestle with, because from the moment we become sentient beings, our lives are utterly saturated with it.

The longing to be closer to God. The longing to be closer to Nature. The longing to feel more alive. The longing to love and to feel loved. The longing for truth, beauty, goodness, sex, experience, poetry, art, strength, music, friendship, family, affection, desire, magic, power, laughter, joy, meaning, resonance…

It never goes away, no matter how smart, sexy, witty or successful we become. It’s the broth we spend our whole lives stewing in: The longing to touch that which can never be touched.

Which is why I think it’’s a REALLY good idea try to express it somehow, even if the results will be invariably mixed…

["Successful", which I sent out recently in the newsletter. You can get the signed print here etc.]

While writing the first draft of EVIL PLANS, I wrote about “The Hunger”- that primal drive we all have to do something meaningful with our lives.

The Hun­ger will give you everything. And it will take from you, everything. It will cost you your life, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

What do I mean by “Everything”?

Well, pretty much what I said. Anything worth doing takes forever. And if time is all we have have, then QED, time is “Everything”.

Only you can decide if it’s worth it…

Random thoughts on being an entrepreneur. [Originally posted January, 2007]

I wouldn’t say I was an authority on entrepreneurship, certainly not in the same league as people like Fred Wilson or Jason Calacanis. That being said, the last couple of years haven’t been too shabby, either. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts I have on the subject, in no particular order. The list, by the way, is far from complete- I’ll probably be adding to it sooner than later etc.

1. Everything takes three times longer than it should. Especially the money part.
2. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
3. People want what they can’t have. In fact, that’s pretty much all they do want.
4. Once you become an entrepreneur, you find the company of non-entrepreneurs a lot harder to be around. You’ve seen things they haven’t; the wavelengths alter, it’s that simple.
5. In a world of over-supply and commodification, you are no longer paid to supply. You’re being paid to deliver something else. What that is exactly, is not always obvious.
6. Word of mouth is the best advertising medium of all. The best word of mouth comes from disrupting markets.
7. People buy your product because it helps fill in the narrative gaps in their lives.
8. You can either be cheapest or the best. I know which one I prefer.
9. Some people think that once they secure venture funding, their problems will be over. Wrong. That’s when your problems REALLY begin.
10. It’s better to be underfunded than overfunded.
11. If an average guy in a bar can understand what you do for a living, chances are you’re halfway to becoming a commodity.
12. It’s easier to turn an ally into a customer than vice versa.
13. If you’re happy in your career before the age of thirty, you’re probably doing something wrong. Heck, if you’re happy in your career before the age of seventy, you’re probably doing something wrong.
14. Smart, young, artistic people are always asking me which is a better career path, “Creativity” or “Money”. I always answer that it doesn’t matter. What matters is “Effective” and/or “Ineffective”.
15. Write the following on a piece of paper, have it framed, and stick it on your office wall: “Have you hugged your customer today?”
16. People will always, always be in the market for a story that resonates with them. Your product will either have this quality or it won’t. If your product fails this test, quit your job and go find something else. Just making the product incrementally cheaper or better won’t help you.
17. Products are idea amplifiers. The molecules and/or bytes are secondary.
18. People remember the quality long after they’ve forgotten the price. Unless you try to rip them off.
19. Markets serve entrepreneurs better if the latter can keep the former undersupplied. Oversupply is the kiss of death.
20. I personally know a former CEO who, once he attained control of the company, ran an EXTREMELY profitable business into the ground in less than two years. From a market cap of $100 million to ZERO, just like that. Why? Short answer: He loved being “The” CEO, but he didn’t much care for being “a” CEO.
21. In terms of becoming an entrepreneur, probably the most useful thing I learned in the last twenty years was how to enjoy my own company for long stretches of time.
22. One successful entrepreneur I know well has a wonderful quality, namely that he never, ever compares himself to other people. He just does his own thing, which actually serves him rather well. Just because his competitor has bought himself a bigger motor boat, doesn’t mean he feels the need have a bigger motor boat. This quality helps him to build his business the way he sees fit, not the way the motor boat people see fit.
23. Running a startup is full of extreme ups and downs. Which is why so many successful and happy entrepreneurs I know lead such normal, stable, unglamorous, “boring”, family-centered lives. Somehow they need the latter in order to balance out the former. Extra-curricular drama looks great in the tabloids, but that’s all it’s ultimately good for.
24. MBAs are conditioned to use their brains in much the same way as sex workers are conditioned to use their genitals. Nice work if you can get it.
25. Bill Gates may have a million times more money than me, but he isn’t going to live a million times longer than me, watch a million times more sunsets than me, make love to a million times more women than me, drink a million times more fine wines than me, listen to a million times more Beethoven String Quartets than me, nor sire a million times more children than me. Human beings don’t scale.
26. F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “There are no second acts in American lives.” F. Scott was a drunkard and a fool.

[The "CFA" print. One of my favorite all-time cartoons. For sale here etc.]

“Blogging about Blogging” was an early phenomenon in the early Blogosphere.

It was such a new medium for us early-adopters, it was very exciting to us.  The possibilities it offered us seemed almost endless, and we wanted to explore those possibilities, and share what we learned with our fellow bloggers. So a huge percentage of our blog posts ended up being just about blogging- at the expense of other stuff- art, politics, literature, science etc.

But we all know what happened- after a while we got sick of hearing about it. We’d been doing it for a while, a lot of these “blogging about blogging” posts started sounding like old news, started sounding the same.

So a lot of us early bloggers pretty much stopped talking about it a couple of years ago. We had moved on to new adventures, as one does.

But recently the subject has gotten interesting to me again.

Why?

I’m beginning to notice a lot more new blogs online- a next generation, as it were. More specifically, I’m noticing a lot of artists and entrepreneurs suddenly getting the blogging bug. Highly-driven, smart people trying to sell their work online, as opposed to more traditional avenues. Paintings, software, freelance gigs or bathroom tiles, who cares? It’s the worldview that matters.

Like I said in my previous post, blogs are old news in Social Media circles, but that doesn’t mean that they’re still not an extremely interesting, powerful medium, that millions of artists and entrepreneurs could do very well by figuring out how to use them properly, even if they weren’t “early-adoptors”.

I’ve been blogging a long time, I know a lot about it- what works, and what doesn’t. Google my ass if you don’t believe me.

i.e. I’m in a perfect position to help these artists and entrepreneurs with their blogs- “Share what I love” etc. Why not? It would be an interesting conversation, at least.

Thoughts?

["George", which I sent out in the newsletter recently. You can get the signed print here etc.]

I was thinking back to “The Golden Age of Blogging”, whenever that was. Say, six or seven years ago… when it hit that sweet spot between still feeling like virgin territory, yet just on the verge of reaching critical mass.

Back then the Blogosphere was TINY. We blog nerds were a minority. We were cultural weirdos. But we knew we were on to something, even if the rest of the world didn’t see it yet.

And we were looking VERY HARD for business models to support our new, beloved medium…

I remember when a guy landing a well-paying job just on the merits of his blog, was considered big news.

I remember when a girl landing a book deal just from her blog, was considered big news.

I remember when Robert Scoble blogging on behalf of Microsoft was considered big news.

I remember when Gawker or Techcrunch making $10K a month on advertising, was considered big news.

A blogger making good money selling art- Well, that’s what I do now for a living- back then that would have been considered HUGE. Now we take that kind of thing for granted. Book deals, $10K monthly advertising revenues, dream jobs, celebrity Microsoft bloggers, nowadays that’s no big deal, either.

I remember when blogs first became “News”, when that Businessweek story hit in early 2005. It was a very exciting, validating, heady time for us early-adoptors.

Eventually the buzz and the hype died down, of course. Along came Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and whatever; the story moved on. “Blogging” got boring….

But to paraphrase Clay Shirky, a technology doesn’t become truly useful until it becomes boring, until it’s no longer “News”.

We may miss those early days, when blogging was new, exciting and “Hot”.

But for me and a lot of my early-adoptor friends, our blogs are making us A LOT more money now, than they ever did then.

“Boring” is underrated…

[The "Glob" cartoon that went out on the newsletter recently. You can buy the print here.]

People’s morning coffee is damn important to them. And your newsletter is competing with that. Never forget it. Ever.

Earlier today, Nikki Gore kindly remarked that my daily newsletter to her was “as important as my morning coffee”.

Heh. Thanks, Nikki, that’s a lovely compliment.

Her remark got me thinking…

It seems to me, most people read the newsletters they subscribe to first thing in the office. Sure, a lot of it is for the “Useful Content” itself, but a big part of the equation is, it’s part of their “Daily Sacred Begin-Work Ritual”.

That thing we do every morning, that gets our head in the right frame of mind, so we can begin getting down to the stuff we actually get paid for. It can include things like checking your emails, drinking your coffee, exchanging gossip with the guy in the next cube, checking your diary, checking your phone messages… and reading your favorite blogs and newsletters.

The thing is, it’s a very important part of the day for most people. It’s “Sacred Time”. And if your newsletter is part of somebody else’s Sacred Time, you should damn well treat it as sacred, too.

I never had this attitude when I was just blogging; it never quite felt so time-sensitive. It didn’t feel like my work was cutting into such an important part of the day as much, even if it was. But since I started the newsletter, I’ve become more aware of it. Live and learn…

We launched the “Linchpin” Series on February 8th. I wrote about it here.

Just to have a little fun, we launched it with a $65 intro price- roughly half of what we normally charge for an 11″x”14 “Cube Grenade”.

That deal ends this Friday, the 26th, at 5pm, New York time. After that the price goes up to the regular $125.00.

Subscribers to the newsletter will have a little bit extra time, though. One of the perks etc.

Thanks to everybody who bought one so far. Your support has been fantastic! Rock on.

[The "Wolf vs Sheep" print. One of my favorites...]

I’m working on a new series of cartoons; earlier today I made a list of the desired adjectives to describe it:

Smart. Bright. Explosive. Witty. Acerbic. Colorful. Aspirational. Inspirational. Spiritual. Entrepreneurial. Fun.

i.e. Not too unlike the “Wolf vs Sheep” print. Or “We Need To Talk”.

I think spending all this time in the sunny West Texas desert has had an effect on me. I’m not sure all this dark, Northern doom & gloom I spent articulating rather well in my early London and New York days, is as interesting to me as it once was. Things change.

Expect to see a new direction happening over the next few months. I can already feel it growing inside me.

No going back…

[N.B.  As of January, 2010, I am no longer publishing new cartoons on gapingvoid. From now on, "Hugh's Daily Frickin' Cartoon" is the place to see them, Thanks!]

[The "Die Trying" print. Sent out on the newsletter Jan. 20, 2010...]

Of course, once people saw this cartoon, I got a lot of people saying, “Hugh, you should make that into a t-shirt. I’d wear one!”

Eh. I don’t do t-shirts. Too much hassle. Learned that a long time ago…

Still, it’s a nice idea. One thing I know about me and my audience, is that we’re not interested in doing stuff just for the paycheck. We’re trying to do stuff that matters, even if it kills us…

“Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing” -Cormac McCarthy