November 18, 2019: THE BUREAU broadcast on KUZU/WOODS went wonderfully. Thank you to everyone who participated.

Many thanks, Dallas Observer:

November 5, 2019: THE BUREAU TO BE BROADCAST ON KUZU 92.9 FM DENTON

DAY SHIFT: The second airing will in REAL TIME, beginning on Thursday, November 14, beginning 8:55am and concluding at 6:30pm. (All times Central Standard Time)

Both broadcasts will also stream on the KUZU.FM website for Global Listening. The site will update throughout with track listings to see where you are in the story as you check in through the day or evening.

FUN GAME: During either broadcast, drive through this map (which indicates KUZU's broadcast range) and expose your mind to THE BUREAU in the air! Dial in at 92.9FM.

 The broadcast will include narration from me, as well, with updates at the 15 minute and 45 minute mark of each hour, respectively.

Here's some radio announcements. The "Citizens of Denton" and "Listeners of KUZU" ones are pretty funny:

 Finally, even if you'll be missing the broadcasts, you might want to update your Bureau collection, as a special commemorative program has been put together for the event. Click http://www.ep.tc/kuzu to download a full PDF of the Bureau book as a radio program. The PDF will include radio-cues and other items not found in the original (now out of print) pressing.

This link will likely be removed after the second airing, making a nicely rare digital item. 

Here's the updated front cover:

THE BUREAU (RADIO PROGRAM) — Airing on KUZU, Nov 9 and 14, 2019

Thanks and happy listening 

Sincerely THE BUREAU DEPT OF PROMOTION

September 23, 2019:

Ahoy! Concluding Run of JOHN WILCOCK begins
today on BOING BOING (Read More)

September 2, 2019:

A Toast to David Berman

I posted a set of three tracks on Soundcloud and Boing Boing today. It’s for a new series of mine called “Spoken Word with Electronics” - The first issue is a tribute to David Berman, who I’d been communicating with this year. David had agreed to participate in a track, and I’d suggested we discuss it in the winter. Time ran out (empathy to him) but here’s a piece about the process: boingboing.net/2019/09/02/my-unfinished-sound-project-wi.html

And here’s the three tracks:

Audio for "The Moon" was completed this month, post-news, as a way of grieving. The audio is from a performance perfectly titled "The Secret Conversation" — One of only four public readings David ever performed. This entire recording, itself just now appearing on the web, is an incredible gift. There's a fragile sense to Berman's performance here from 2016, recorded in Romania, particularly in the last two sets of spoken lines, that would not have been delivered like that in a recording booth.

Thank You to David Berman.

More pieces from Spoken Word with Electronics in a few months, as well as the finishing sections of the John Wilcock comic. But I wanted to post this today. Peace, Ethan.

August 1, 2019:

Side Two of SHORT STORIES now up on Bandcamp:

July 30, 2019:

"Sometimes you have to just say things matter of factly. Modern example: The New York Times might say ‘Mitch McConnell Blocks Another Bill.’ Paul would just cut to the chase and give the same story a different headline, ‘Asshole of the Month.’"

Spoke with Teen Vogue on PK

Wrote this appreciation of P.K. for The Comics Journal.

A NOTE FROM THE REALIST ARCHIVE:

"When eating a sandwich at the delicatessen, be sure to remove the toothpick before taking your first bite." - Paul Krassner

July 2019: In tribute and loving memory to our dear friend Paul. The world has lost a wise one. But he left an amazing treasure of work and an example of how to live life on one's own terms, compassions, and strengths.

Right up to the end, Paul was prolific and gifted. Read his last published piece, published in Variety last week. See his two collections from Fantagraphics.

If the Realist Archive has been of any value to you, please consider a donation to his family through GoFundMe.

Thanks for everything Paul. Like many, I really loved you.

Bit of pain. Just heard Paul has passed away. There’s a page set up as a memorial: https://t.co/4m9uBmDWBu and a gofundme to help family: https://t.co/Stb1ATQG2A - my love & thanks to Paul for being a creative father figure and for kicking ass on life. (cc friends @BoingBoing )

— Ethan Persoff (@EthanPersoff) July 21, 2019

November 1 2018



THE WEEKLY BUREAU - Beginning Today

As stated below, The Bureau is now being serializing as a completed story. You can catch weekly installments on Boing Boing. Each post will be accompanied with a soundcloud playlist of the music for that section, and post at exactly the time indicated in the story.

Currently available:

The First Edition of The Weekly Bureau
Introduction (November 1 at 8:55am, PST)

The Second Edition of The Weekly Bureau
Soma Lyra 8 (November 7 at 10:03am, PST)

The Third Edition of The Weekly Bureau
Metasonix Modules (November 14 at 10:53am, PST)

The Fourth Edition of The Weekly Bureau
President Jung Thug (November 21 at 11:39am, PST)

The Fifth Edition of The Weekly Bureau
RF Nomad Shortwave Receiver (November 28 at 12:38pm, PST)

The Sixth Edition of The Weekly Bureau
The History of Telepathic Infant-Based Mind Control of U.S. Presidents (December 5 at 1:21pm, PST)

The Seventh Edition of The Weekly Bureau
Lockdown (December 12 at 2:18pm, PST)

The Eighth Edition of The Weekly Bureau
The Bombing of Building #4 (December 19 at 3:22pm, PST)

The Ninth Edition of The Weekly Bureau
"Your Sandwich Speaks!" — with SBaGen-based Digital Drugs (December 26 at 4:08pm, PST)

The Tenth Edition of The Weekly Bureau
"Your Sandwich Speaks!" — with SBaGen-based Digital Drugs (January 2 at 4:54pm, PST)

The Eleventh Edition of The Weekly Bureau
Hallucination Hardware (January 10 at 5:46pm, PST)

The Twelfth and Concluding Edition of The Weekly Bureau
THE END — Thank you! (February 7 at 6:09pm, PST)

---

Ethan Persoff's comix , "The Bureau" is as mad as a bag of badgers but I quite like it :D https://t.co/jmauKkRZX7

— ReadersGroup (@StreathamComics) November 23, 2018

Late October 2018



THE BUREAU dailies are complete!

Whoo boy, in what continues to be one of the most difficult projects I've ever done, the daily project THE BUREAU completed its first run on October 26.

Over ten months of posts: Minus one or two outages, managed to keep schedule for daily posts of comic art every day, M-F, since January 1st. Over two hundred separate audio tracks, for nine and a half hours, along with a complete day's worth of story.

There's a plan now to tidy up the art for final presentation, which you'll begin seeing starting this week as weekly installments. Check back here for more at November 1, 2018, 8:55am (PST) - And thank you for keeping up with The Bureau this far.

September 2018



Celebrating John Wilcock's Life

September was a tough month for a moment, as our longtime friend John Wilcock passed away. John, of course, is the subject of the biography comic that Scott Marshall and I have been working on for some years now. One of the goals of the comic was that John remain alive for its completion, but things didn't work out that way. Nonetheless, the project will complete in 2019. Scott and I have a bunch of nearly finished pages in the second series that will appear soon on Boing Boing, which will complete the second volume of comic strips.

Speaking of John and Boing Boing, I wrote this small piece on John on the morning of his death, Sept 13. Additionally, helped contribute to a few obituaries, read:

New York Times on John Wilcock

The Guardian on John Wilcock

All Journalism on John Wilcock

And this terrific piece from The Village Voice


Our love to John as we finish this book celebrating his work and life.

FOUR FULL ALBUMS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE:

---

January 24 2017 - A few press items and other materials

Our talk at Parsons School of Design at the New School

Returned from New York in November, after speaking at the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium on November 7th. I love that city. The night was a lot of fun, in a two hour talk that detailed Comics with Problems, The Realist archive, and the John Wilcock comic. I'll post photos or video soon, as it was recorded for their spoken history project on cartoonists and their work. Thank you genuinely to all that came out for the talk. Local hero (and genius/hero of mine) Robert Sikoryak was in attendance and captured some terrific sketches of the event. See all four pages of Sikoryak's wonderful sketches here. (They actually capture the mood and sequence of the presentation, in full)

---

Item: THE REALIST NOW IN Text-Searchable PDF FORMAT

Our thanks go out to Jason Witherspoon, who has provided The Realist Archive a set of text searchable PDFs of each issue. This vastly improves the searchability and usefulness of the archive itself. It's presently on me to add the PDFs in, and I'm doing so in order, from 1 til 146. You can presently access PDFs on the first seven issues (Begin with issue number one) I'm taking this opportunity to also add a 'Next Issue' and 'Previous Issue' button to each issue, which will allow scanning through the set much easier, as well. Our thanks to Jason for such impressive work on this. All issues will be set up with PDFs soon.

---

Item: BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2017

Very happy to mention the John Wilcock comic has been included in this year's BEST AMERICAN COMICS (amazon link) — Reviewing the volume, the Washington Post commented that Wilcock is "A deftly presented bio-comic that illuminates New York’s underground press movement at midcentury." (link) - Much appreciated, thank you.