The Victims in Aurora, Colorado

Normally a post like this would be directed to my personal blog, but you’ll see in a moment why I’m posting it here.

Friday morning, I awoke to the news like we all did of the shooting at an Aurora movie theater during the midnight showing of the latest Batman film. My heart sank immediately. The word senseless would echo in my brain for quite awhile. It would reverberate more as I heard the man responsible is said to have proclaimed himself The Joker, Batman’s arch nemesis.

My geeky side is no secret, and even though I have barely read any comics over the past few years, there will always be the side of me that was weened on Superheroes and four color artwork. There’s still a piece of me that identified entirely too easily with the victims who went to enjoy Batman on the big screen and never made it out. And a piece of me that is inexplicably irked that the person responsible tied comics into his sickness even if he did choose a psychotic villain.

At any rate, it’s been days since I was able to watch or read about it. I had my fill of the reports fast, and while I certainly hope specialists can comprehend what made the man tick, in the end, it boils down to what I knew Friday morning, a sick person took and damaged lives, and there are no superheroes to fix it.

And this event hits at a time when I can ill afford to offer much to any charity, but the idea started rattling around in the dark reaches of my brain that I would like to do something to help if I could. It was then that I remembered one piece of my artwork that has always reminded me of Batman. In fact the title of this New York City image was very much a nod to the comic book hero.

I took the photo this textured picture is based on from the top of a night-time tour bus during my first visit to New York City. And at the time, I remember thinking what was missing was the dark figure of a caped crusader on the silhouetted rooftops. I considered several times adding that missing figure, but now it just feels right being left to the imagination.

Anyway, this is my long way of explaining that I want to give a portion of the proceeds of any sales of this image through the end of August to charity. At the moment, I’ve identified the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance as the likely charity, but I welcome other suggestions.

My initial plan was to give all proceeds, but then I started thinking about tax time, and realized that even if I give every dime to charity, I’m still responsible for paying income tax, so I’ve settled for 80% of the profits to charity since starving artists have not yet attained non-profit status. Similarly from your side of the fence, it’s not a tax deductible donation. If you just want to donate, I suggest the charity above, but if you’d like a piece of art and to help me give a little at the same time, please consider taking this opportunity!

And please, would you all pass this along to your friends via email or the social network(s) of your choice? I don’t normally make these kinds of efforts and I would feel really blue in a month if I’d raised a big fat goose egg. Even if you’re not interested, I hope you may have friends who are.

Addendum: In addition to sales via my main shop, sales on other sites and formats will also be rolled into this. I also offer sales of prints and cards of this artwork on  Redbubble.