Career
In 1998 Perkins was asked by editor James Fallows to contribute a bi-weekly cartoon to U.S. News and World Report, but was fired less than six months later, reportedly at the direction of owner Mort Zuckerman.
In 1999, Perkins had an animation deal with Saturday Night Live and produced three animated spots that were never aired. In 2000 and 2001 his online animated series was the top-billed attraction in Mondo Media's lineup of mini-shows, in which the voice of Sparky the Penguin was provided by author and Jeopardy champion Bob Harris. Perkins has also collaborated with Michael Moore, according to a 2005 interview with Santa Cruz Metro, in which he stated, "(T)his never got to actual animation, but I did work on a script with Michael Moore for a year. It was right after Bowling for Columbine, and there was this French guy who wanted to give him the money to do another documentary. But Michael wanted to do this animated piece that we were working on. It was kind of set in the moment, right after 9/11 and as we were gearing up for the war in Iraq. If you read my cartoons about the small cute dog in the parallel universe who accidentally becomes president—it was basically a movie about the small cute dog, except that he gets lost and ends up in this war zone. And a character who bore an uncanny temperamental resemblance to Bill O'Reilly was sort of the central character. And lots of zany things happened."
In December, 2007, Keith Olbermann devoted the closing segment of an episode of his show to a reading of "Bill O'Reilly's Very Useful Advice for Young People," a two-page cartoon/cover story by Perkins for the Village Voice.
In 2009, Village Voice Media, publishers of 16 alternative weeklies, suspended all syndicated cartoons across their entire chain. Perkins lost twelve client papers in cities including Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York and Seattle, prompting his friend Eddie Vedder to post an open letter on the Pearl Jam website in support of the cartoonist. The band enlisted him to make art for their 2009 album Backspacer.
Read more about this topic: Tom Tomorrow
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