pearljambackspacer4Six months after City Pages and other Village Voice Media papers “suspended” all comics, including his, liberal cartoonist Tom Tomorrow yesterday wrote that he felt like his career had been “kneecapped” and that he could’ve “spent the next six months moping and feeling sorry for myself.” Instead, he’s got good news to report, which he characterizes as “one of the great adventures of my professional life.”

Tomorrow has created the album-cover art for Pearl Jam’s next release, due out September 20. Fans can get a free downloadable mp3 of a track from the album, Backspacer, by doing a sort of “internet Easter egg hunt,” as Wired puts it, searching for all nine of Tomorrow’s images in order to get the freebie.

In January, City Pages editor Kevin Hoffmann told the Minnesota Independent he hoped the economy would improve enough to bring back cartoons in the second or third quarter of this year — i.e. approximately now. I emailed him to see if strips like “This Modern World” might be coming back.

His reply:

Sadly, as you know from watching the news, the economy has not improved as fast as Obama (or any of us) hoped, so we’re still in cost-reduction mode. That means hiring and wage freezes, a continued 10-percent salary cut for both me and the publisher, and, unfortunately, no Tom Tomorrow for now (though I continue to be a fan of his work and hope to include him in the paper when the economy improves).

City Page’s annual “Comix Issue” comes out August 19, and local artists are encouraged to submit work. Unlike Tomorrow, these artists will get paid, according to a communique by City Pages art director Nick Vlcek: $25–50 per piece.

Here’s all nine of pieces of the cover art:

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