Dan honored our request for a very reasonable speaker's fee and was very accessible in planning the event. He delivered a professional performance, but one that was also down to earth--he interacted with the crowd, answered questions, signed books, and hung out with members of our group before and after the talk. He was very entertaining, as he was able to successfully transmit the wit of his comic strip into his speech. While helping us laugh, his work also provides a much-needed perspective of our own society, ultimately contributing to a more realistic understanding of ourselves.
I suggest Dan Perkins as a speaker for any group or organization that is looking to increase political interest and activism in their community.
Jesse Littlewood '03
Haverford College, Haverford PA
Mr. Dan Perkins (if that is his real name) swung into our little college with an iBook and a mission. Eminently professional (and smartly dressed!) Dan kept a packed auditorium laughing and thinking. From his more-sophisticated-then-you'd-expect-from-a-comic skewering of
George W, Bill C, and the emergence of "cool conservatism," the audience was taken though
an uproarious and thoughtful wax-museum tour of guilty-as-sin politicians past and present.
With its trademark logic, This Modern World has always helped to clear the air of media
double-speak and the hypnotizing effects of the spin-doctors. It's also damn funny.
Going beyond his chosen medium of comics, to animations and muckraking photojournalism of
the 2000 Democrat and Republican Conventions, Dan gave us a slice of how truth is often far,
far stranger then the funny pages.
Dan gave a professional presentation, and for a very reasonable fee from a man of his stature (must be at least eight feet tall). The comics and slides were great, the crowd banter pleasantly raucous, and he even answered a tough question from my thesis advisor. I appreciated the time he spent signing books and talking with the after-performance crowd before he zipped up his leather jacket, got on his Harley, put Sparkey on the back, and rode
off into the sunset.
I would recommend Mr. Perkins's presentation to any group of politicos in search of revitalizing humor, clarity and inspiration.
(For a more straightforward account from Haverford's student newspaper, click here.)