Johnny Damm

@johnnydamm.bsky.social

182

Posts

Comics & Abolition.

"I'M A COP" Vols. 1 & 2, RIOT COMICS: TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK, FAILURE BIOGRAPHIES, THE SCIENCE OF THINGS FAMILIAR. johnnydamm.com

Posts Replies Media

crying studies 1/2

1960.: J. Edgar Hoover on “outside agitator” infiltration of student protests. From the in-progress next issue of “I’m a Cop,” which examines the history of the “outside agitator” trope as an authoritarian method to discredit protest movements. 1/2

For the fourth: Chicago police union president John Catanzara summing up U.S. patriotism and U.S. cop mentality. (From the first issue of "I'm a Cop")

I've been working on some new "I'm a Cop" pages on the history of police (& government & media) using the "outside agitator" trope to delegitimize protest. Here's 2 examples. The first is Birmingham police chief George “Bull” Connor describing civil rights activists in 1963. 1/2

crying studies

From the “Coda” of MONSTER CRIME. After about three years of promoting the retail crimewave lie, lobbyists abruptly retracted the centerpiece of the lie: their wholly fabricated data.

The next page in MONSTER CRIME, which finishes this Gavin Newsom quote. Sigh.

I usually make a point to not look up photos of the people I quote and depict in my comics, but of course, I knew what CA governor Gavin Newsom looked like when I made this page from MONSTER CRIME. Quite enjoyed choosing this vampire look-alike for these words...

Reposted by

Johnny Damm

“We are going to hurt you”: A brutal, nine-hour, multi-agency police assault against unarmed protesters at UC Santa Cruz shows the university would rather use violence against its own students than address demands to divest from genocide. #Palestine #Israel

“We are going to hurt you”: UC Santa Cruz chancellor unleashes police mayhem against student protestersmondoweiss.net A brutal, nine-hour, multi-agency police assault against unarmed protesters at UC Santa Cruz shows the university would rather use violence against its own students than address demands to divest from...

crying studies

crying studies, summer vacation.

Santa Cruz

Reposted by

Johnny Damm

This is an historic show of labor solidarity with Palestine. Today, 12,000 academic workers and members of UAW Local 4811 at UCLA & UC Davis are striking over unfair labor practices, joining 2,000 already on strike at UC Santa Cruz. inthesetimes.com/article/uaw-...

Absolutely wild to consider that I’ve put out all 4 of these comics in under two years. MONSTER CRIME is the longest (48 pages) and perhaps the most ambitious. I'm incredibly grateful to have readers interested in such weird, challenging work. johnny-damm.square.site

MONSTER CRIME is here! My real-life horror comic on the mythical U.S. retail crimewave (c. 2021-2023) uses the words of retail execs, the press, and politicians combined with images from 50s horror comics. It asks, ‘Who profits from our fears,’ and ‘Where does the real horror lie?”

Reposted by

Johnny Damm

this is from a release about a record DECREASE in violent crime www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo...

100,000 more cops. Fucking hell.

Reposted by

Johnny Damm

Reminder

Reposted by

Johnny Damm

I found this moving.

We need an exodus from Zionism | Naomi Kleinwww.theguardian.com We don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name

The three featured characters of my new real-life horror comic, MONSTER CRIME. Using the words of retail executives, reporters, and politicians, the comic book traces the spread of retail crimewave lie and its consequences. johnny-damm.square.site/product/mons...

Working on a new MONSTER CRIME page using a quote from Gavin Newsom, and I ended up depicting him like this.

Reposted by

Johnny Damm

Seeing Through Stone (ias.ucsc.edu/exhibits/vis...) opens TODAY and the Anguilla Prison Massacre Quilt created by Rachel Wallis with me is featured in the exhibition. I hope folks who are near Santa Cruz will visit the exhibition which runs until next January 2025.

Seeing through Stone — Institute of the Arts and Sciencesias.ucsc.edu The eighty-one artists and collectives in Seeing Through Stone, including currently and formerly incarcerated artists as well as those without that lived experience, are from different sociopolitical ...

1/3 Two more pages from MONSTER CRIME depicting politicians who seized on the fictional retail crimewave narrative to increase police funding and pass new laws to keep people in prison longer. Text from North Carolina state senator Danny Earl Britt Jr., speaking in 2022.

The last section of MONSTER CRIME shows how the fictional retail crimewave resulted in very real legislation and increased police funding--a clear example of how fabricated narratives of "criminal" threats directly promote the police state and mass incarceration.

Beginning in late 2020, news outlets began to report a terrifying new crimewave sweeping the U.S. “Organized Retail Crime” was devastating communities and forcing retailers to close stores and lay off workers. Except this crimewave never happened. johnny-damm.square.site/product/mons...

*clears throat johnny-damm.square.site/product/mons...

Reposted by

Johnny Damm

Crystal Mason, a Texas woman who was sentenced to 5 years in prison after she tried to cast a provisional ballot in 2016, has been acquitted She has always maintained she had no idea she was ineligible and only tried because her mom urged her to

Crystal Mason: Texas woman sentenced to five years over voting error acquittedwww.theguardian.com Appeals court rules Mason, now 49, did not know she was ineligible when she voted in 2016 and throws out conviction

Reposted by

Johnny Damm

This is amazing!! Kudos to the activists who made this happen. www.palestineaction.org/tamworth-shu...

Palestine Action permanently shut Elbit down in Tamworthwww.palestineaction.org Images of actions at Elite KL are available here Relentless direct action has secured another victory in the fight against Israel’s arms trade, as Elbit Systems are forced to sell […]

Another page from MONSTER CRIME using August Pfluger's opening statement from the Dec 2023 House hearing on "Organized Retail Crime." Note how Pfluger links the fictional shoplifting crimewave to "soft-on-crime" policies and "open borders."

Currently packaging 3-comic bundles, my regular bestseller: both “I’m a Cop” issues and Riot Comics: Tompkins Square Park. Plus a couple stickers. Incredibly thankful that folks continue to discover this work! johnny-damm.square.site/product/comi...

A second page from MONSTER CRIME using August Pfluger's opening statement from the Dec 2023 House hearing on "Organized Retail Crime." By this point, retail lobbyists had been forced to retract their false data, and it was clear that there had been no "surge in retail theft."

At the height of the manufactured hysteria around the mythical shoplifting epidemic in Dec 2023, the House held a hearing called “From Festive Cheer to Retail Fear: Addressing Organized Retail Crime.” The text of this page is from Chairman August Pfluger's opening statement.