It must have been around 1993. I was at the height of my minor league fame. And the USA TODAY newspaper sent a reporter and a photographer to interview me at my studio apartment in Berkeley for an article in their esteemed national newspaper.
And i remember the photographer spent an hour taking hundreds and hundreds of photographs of me at my “drawing board.” I had a table in the kitchen of my studio apartment where I drew all my comic strips.
And when the article came out in the USA TODAY, the editors had picked the WORST photo — of the hundreds of photographs that the photographer had taken — to run along side the article. This photo taken from a distorted angle that made me look particularly freakish. Because that was the angle the USA TODAY newspaper wanted to play up with this particular article “Weirdo Underground Artist Ace Backwords.”
If they had wanted to play me up as a heroic figure, they would have picked one of the photos where I looked really cool..
Or if they wanted to play me as an evil person, they would have picked one of the photos where I looked dark and sinister.
That’s how the media game works.
Generally the media doesn’t “report” the news. They try to “create” the news.
.
Acid Heroes 