Perkins was first published in the
San Francisco-based
anarchist magazine
Processed World. He adopted the subject matter of the consumer culture and the drudgery of work, a theme shared by the magazine, and entitled his comic strip
This Modern World when it was launched in 1988. (Like many of the magazine's contributors he adopted a
pseudonym to avoid retribution from potential employers.) In 1998, Perkins was asked by editor
James Fallows to contribute a bi-weekly cartoon to
U.S. News & 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. Perkins has also collaborated with
Michael Moore, according to a 2005 interview with the
Santa Cruz Metro. 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 thereby 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. Vedder and Perkins had become friends after meeting at a campaign rally for
Ralph Nader in 2000. The collaboration between Pearl Jam and Perkins continued with an invitation to submit cover art for the
Backspacer album in 2009. After being selected to provide the cover art for
Backspacer, Perkins went on to create a series of Halloween-themed posters for the concerts supporting the album. In 2015, Perkins was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize and later in the year, ran a
Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $300,000 to publish a career retrospective,
25 Years of Tomorrow. ==
This Modern World==