When cartoons come true: Giuliani gay-bashing edition

Giuliani has continued his Romney-style "evolution" on gay issues to the point where he now opposes civil unions (via Pam's House Blend). I hate it when my cartoons come true. Not that there weren't plenty of reasons to despise Giuliani to begin with, but there was always the "well, at least the dude has gay friends" thing going for him.

I also hear he's now into the Confederate flag, not to mention claiming a Democratic president would cause another 9/11. (Didn't 9/11 happen with a Republican president?)

Sad News: End of "Sutton Impact," The New Standard

Two belated pieces of sad news
• Ward Sutton drew his last weekly "Sutton Impact" strip last week. According to his final cartoon, he's now busy being tortured at Gitmo. Two years ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Ward for In These Times following the release of his Sutton Impact book collection.
• The New Standard is shutting down tomorrow after 3 1/2 years. TNS was a great and supportive outlet for a lot of cool political cartoonists, including me, Matt Bors, Stephanie McMillan, Keith Knight and David Rees. The archives will remain but there will be no new content.

Lively discussion of ridiculous Hillary in blackface cartoon at Pandagon...

August pointed me to a lively discussion of Chris Muir's latest ridiculous cartoon at Pandagon, and I chimed in with a few thoughts, to which August responded with some further thoughts, to which I had a response to his response, and he eventually had the last word on which we pretty much agreed. The end!

New Toons: Abstinence Education, Shock Prez + Apocalypse Bob

A new federal study shows that abstinence education has no effect whatsoever on delaying sexual activity. Shocking!

Also, there really is a (comedy) movie called Killer Condom: The Rubber That Rubs You Out, though I haven't seen it myself. OK, so maybe New York charging cars $8 to cut down on pollution and traffic and improve public transport won't stave off environmental apocalypse, but it's a start. (Personally, I'd rather see NO personal cars in the city—maybe then I'd be brave enough to take my bike into Manhattan!). A sequel to 2005's "Sick Confessions of a Serial Bomber!" I did it before I went away on vacation, and it already feels pretty dated. Ah well.

P.S. Join my weekly mailing list by sending a blank message to newtoons-subscribe@mikhaela.net!

P.P.S. My first book collection, Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela!, goes on sale in just a few short weeks!

Review copies of Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela now available! + tentative release date

So the tentative official release date for Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela: Cartoons By Mikhaela Reid (i.e. the day you'll be able to start ordering it on this here fine web site) is May 11. It may be sooner, it may be later! But I'm going to need some serious help promoting this thing, for several reasons:

• Although it will have a real ISBN and all that, it's self-published, and I'll primarily be selling it through Lulu.com and this website.
• I'm not sure yet if I can actually afford to sell it on Amazon.com, since they charge a whopping 55% commission fee, which would basically mean I was paying them several dollars per copy.
• HOWEVER, if there's enough interest in the book, I can print enough copies to sell it through Amazon and still make a tiny bit of $$ per book. So we'll see!
• I don't have a distributor, and I'm quite nervous about trying to distribute it to actual stores, since that could mean returned and unsold copies I have to refund.
• But I do have tons of postcards I printed up, and I do plan to see if I can get the book into niche/specialty stores--queer/feminist/leftwing and suchlike bookstores would be good. If you know of any good ones, drop me a line! (cartoons@mikhaela.net)

Anyway, if you could do any of the following, my eternal gratitude is yours:

• Since I'm primarily selling it through the web, I'm particularly interested in sending review copies to blogs with lots of devoted readers who would be amenable to its contents. If you believe you fit this category, please drop me an e-mail (cartoons@mikhaela.net).
• But of course I would still love to be reviewed in print! So the above applies to print journalists/outlets as well!
• I would also LOVE love LOVE to do interviews with any blogs or online outlets (and print or radio outlets, of course). So let your writer/blogger/radio friends know!
• I'm nervous about trying to set up any solo events or signings, but I may try to set up some type of joint events or slideshows of some kind with Masheka and maybe other CWA members. Events at nearbyish colleges, bookstores, etc. I'd love to speak to any Gay/Straight Alliances in high schools (or colleges), too. I'm also happy to do entertaining digital cartoon slideshows in the New York/Massachusetts/Connecticut/Philadelphia type area (basically, anywhere I can reach by bus).

So yes... please help an angry cartoonist out! I'll have postcards, web ads, promo materials and emails and other tools that should make it reasonably easy for anyone who wants to help!

Cartoonists With Attitude at APE photos!

(Click any of the above images to see the whole set).

Cartoonists With Attitude totally rocked the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco last weekend. Also, I can't even begin to describe how exciting it was to hold (and sell) copies of my first book (which will SOON be available for sale here, as soon as I get some more copies--I sold out of all the ones I had for APE). Also, the food in San Francisco was predictably amazing.

Masheka and I also had the honor of meeting Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder (see photo of him and Masheka above) and having dinner with legendary Wee Pals cartoonist Morrie Turner and hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang. And I got to chat with Curbside mastermind Robert Kirby! All-around awesomeness, really.

Mikhaela (and Masheka) featured in press on Other Heroes

The Associated Press did a brief piece on the " OTHER HEROES: African American Comic Book Creators and Characters" show currently up at Jackson State University in Mississippi, and they called me today to ask for permission to use a photo of my cartoon from the exhibit.

(Just in case it's not already clear from my photos and self-portraits, I'm not black--I was included in the show because I frequently draw black characters, and the show was about black comics creators AND characters. I explained this to the photographer and suggested he might want to use a different image, but he said he wanted to use it anyway and he was also using images from two of the black cartoonists from the show, Kyle Baker and Mshindo Kuumba).

Anyway, here's the photo of my cartoon "Let Them Eat Toxic Sludge" on Yahoo News. Fun facts: I drew the cartoon at 3 a.m. after coming home from a 2005 Katrina benefit show featuring Dave Chappelle, Q-Tip, Dead Prez and Talib Kweli.

Update: The Freedom Gravy cartoon was also used to illustrate a more detailed story in the Jackson Free Press, and they fittingly discussed my work and Masheka's work (not to mention Keith Knight's work--go CWA!) in the same paragraph:

Almost every viewer should find something in the show that resonates. My favorites include a poster by Mikhaela Reid advertising “Freedom Gravy,” the Bush-family solution to the post-Katrina food shortage in New Orleans and coastal pollution problems all at once. “Let Them Eat Toxic Sludge!” the poster proclaims while a wrinkly, pearl-wearing Barbara Bush offers a green spoonful of Freedom Gravy to a young black girl, saying, “Open up dear—I’m sure this is much nicer than what you people are used to eating.” Also interesting is Masheka Wood’s “Ask CEOs” comic strip, where she asks hideous white male CEOs “How do you spend your $13,000 an hour?” Replies from the executives range from the hilarious—“Imported cashmere wipes for my delicate buttocks.”—to the disconcertingly realistic—“Oh ya know, buying politicians and whatnot.” By juxtaposing both types of answers, Wood asks a pointed question: “Which is more outrageous: Cashmere butt-wipes or buying out politicians who are supposed to represent our best interests?” Also noteworthy for his biting political and racial satire is Keith Knight, whose understated visual style allows his wry observational genius to shine through.

Dr. Alito's Second Opinion

Regarding today's horrible Supreme Court 5-4 decision upholding the ban on D&X abortions, in which Alito played a crucial role, I figured I'd bring this cartoon of mine back: (By the way, I'm posting this from an internet café in San Francisco--I really need to get a laptop one of these days!)

Reminder: Cartoonists With Attitude at APE in San Francisco this weekend!

The Cartoonists With Attitude gang will be out in full force in San Francisco this April 21-22 for the Alternative Press Expo (APE). Confirmed CWAers:

• Matt Bors ("Idiot Box")
• Keith Knight ("The K Chronicles")
• Stephanie McMillan ("Minimum Security")
• Steve Notley ("Bob the Angry Flower")
• August Pollak ("Some Guy With a Website")
• Ted Rall(Silk Road to Ruin)
• Mikhaela Reid ("The Boiling Point")
• Shannon Wheeler ("How to be Happy")
• Masheka Wood ("Not Just Knee Deep")

And in case you weren't aware, you should really read our group blog (also available as an RSS feed or LiveJournal feed) if you want to get all our blogs and most of our cartoons in one convenient place. We also have a not-so-frequently updated Cartoonists With Attitude MySpace page if you want to be our friend.

Also, Masheka and I will be debuting our new, real, color-cover book collections this week:

"They Call it Pollution, We Call it Life"

This is not a Daily Show parody, but a real pro-pollution ad from the Competitive Enterpise Institute. I heard about this bizarre "pollution is good for you" ad campaign via NPR, and had to share.

Gwen Ifill vs. Tim Russert on Meet The Press

The News Hour With Jim Lehrer used to be the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. Why not the Ifill/Lehrer News Hour?

(And yes, this is my first attempt to use YouTube on this blog...).

Masheka's book cover: Deep Doodle

Shhhhh, I'm on Masheka's computer so I can give you a sneak preview of his book cover! Click to enlarge and see if you can find the tiny Masheka, Mikhaela and Riley (our cat) doodles.

164 pages of scientific proof that abstinence-only education doesn't work

If we had a reality-based government or media, this federal report would be a big story, especially since so many millions are spent per year promotiong and/or mandating abstinence-only education and silencing methods of STD and pregnancy prevention that actually work. But it doesn't fit in with the agenda of the Christian Right, and so it gets buried. From the AP:

WASHINGTON --Students who took part in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress. Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes that were reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes. And they first had sex at about the same age as other students -- 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc. The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education. Critics have repeatedly said they don't believe the programs are working, and the study will give them reinforcement...

New Toons: Operation Solar Freedom, Imus/Coulter, plus some thoughts on Imus

Bush no longer asks for war funding, he asks for "funding to protect our troops in harm's way." Otherwise known as "funding to KEEP our troops getting killed for no damn reason." War is peace, freedom is slavery, my head is spinning. I drew this several days ago, when it just looked like Imus would get a two-week suspension. His attempt to apologize on the Al Sharpton radio show was ridiculous, including the lovely phrase "you people." And yes, a while back he referred to black journalist Gwen Ifill as a "cleaning lady" (see her excellent Times Op-Ed on the matter). Some thoughts, in no particular order.

• So yeah, nasty hate speech. Totally disgusting, worthy of outrage and protest and probation. But I don't know about firing, and not because I'm worried about Imus' right to get paid $10 million a year for hate speech. I'm worried about the right of left-wingers and progressives and feminists and anti-racists and LGBT people and humanists to push the envelope on the other side without being accused of, say "anti-Catholic" or "anti-Christian" bigotry.
• I'm not crying for Imus, or for Ann Coulter for losing newspapers whose editors should have had the good judgment never to run her column. My concern is about these kind of instant massive firing mobilizations in general, which I worry can make it dangerous for left-wingers and progressives to try to make a living pushing the envelope in over-the-top art/comedy/commentary/satire without worrying the rightwing attack dogs will take some out-of-context comment or image they made and turn it into a “destroy him/her!” campaign. By using these same tactics, I think we might be justifying them. And provoking the righties into going after leftwing commentators for “revenge."
• Sure we can clearly see the distinction between Imus’s hate speech and, for example, the firing of Bill Maher after 9/11 for making a comment that didn't fit the gung-ho patriotic Bush-can-do-no-wrong atmosphere at the time. But the rightwing attack dogs are all about playing the “gotcha” game, and they are happy to cry “hate speech” and “bigotry” at anyone who expresses anti-religious or “anti-Christian” views, for example. Or to cry “treason” at anyone expressing anti-Bush views. Think of the way rightwing Catholic groups launched a major smear campaign against the two feminist Edwards bloggers for their supposed history of “anti-Catholic bigotry” (i.e. feminist prochoice commentary), or the many campaigns that have been leveled against cartoonist Ted Rall. Many people who make a living from left-wing commentary and cartooning have been in fear for their livelihood due to massive campaigns of outrage based on words or images taken completely out of context or misinterpreted.
• I completely support censuring the haters and raising voices against hate speech and making it loud and clear that it’s not acceptable. In fact, that's pretty much what I've dedicated my entire cartooning career to.
• But there needs to be room for radical dissent and controversial content... and it'd be hypocritical of me to say that privilege only belongs to speech I agree with or don't find hateful or offensive.
• Not that there isn't a line somewhere, or that people shouldn't be fired for being openly bigoted assholes, and not that Imus shouldn't have been fired. When Trent Lott revealed that he wanted to see a segregationist United States Strom Thurmond KKK style, he should have been out on his ass. Instead he's now Senate Minority Whip.
• Sharpton said he wasn't trying to bring down Imus, he was trying to "lift decency up." But is emphasizing that all we want from our media is cleanliness and decency the way to make it more progressive? Or is just going to encourage editors to choose content based primarily on safety?
• The market and advertisers played a big role in this, and I'm not going to celebrate that (scroll down for reference). These same market forces don't make supporting or backing marginal progressive forces or voices a priority and they haven't squat to diversify who gets precious TV and radio airtime and audience: the same old bunch of white guys. They were happy to support Imus for years of similar comments, and only bailed when it became a PR problem. Would these same advertisers bail from a gay program if targeted on a massive scale by rightwing Christian activists?
• All that said, what I really want to see in the media is real race/gender diversity and some strong progressive voices, instead of a wall of hatemongers like Imus/Lou Dobbs/Limbaugh/Glenn Beck/Hannity/O’Reilly and a bunch of meaningless centrists.
• Obviously Imus's departure hardly marks the End of All Things Sexist and Racist on the Radio. But do we really want to get out big scrubby erasers and start making lists of who needs to go? And why didn’t Media Matters mention Lou Dobbs on their list of other racist commenters still on the air? His crazed xenophobic rants about Mexican immigrants trying to destroy the white middle class certainly qualify as topnotch racism. I still hold that he is an Evil Martian Overlord.
• End disorganized bundle of thoughts.
• What do you think?

P.S. Join my weekly mailing list by sending a blank message to newtoons-subscribe@mikhaela.net!

Kurt Vonnegut, permanently unstuck in time at 84

Kurt Vonnegut, November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007.

I was up at 4:00 a.m. last night working on my book when I heard about Kurt Vonnegut's death. THAT REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKS. First Molly Ivins, now Kurt Vonnegut!

After picking up my parents' copies of Slaughter-House Five and Cat's Cradle one summer in junior high, I spent two feverish weeks reading two Vonnegut books per day until I had exhausted my local library's collection. Masheka and I just saw the excellent movie version of Slaughter-House Five for the first time last week.

I just hope no mainstream editorial cartoonists draw any misguided tribute cartoons showing Vonnegut arriving in Heaven or meeting St. Peter or whatever--he was a famous secular humanist and socialist and anti-war activist and proud of it, and that would be really disrespectful to his memory, not to mention idiotic.

Here's a great Vonnegut quote, from a column in In These Times:

By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas in December.

UPDATE: I stand corrected. August Pollak tells me that as an atheist, Vonnegut said it would be hilarious if people talked about him going to Heaven!:

Do you know what a Humanist is? I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We Humanists try to behave well without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community.

We had a memorial services for Isaac a few years back, and at one point I said, ''Isaac is up in Heaven now.'' It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ''Kurt is up in Heaven now.'' That’s my favorite joke.

Book covers, nearly done now!

Sorry I haven't posted my new cartoons lately, but putting together a collection of cartoons like this in less than a week is no joke. When it's all done I'm going to sleep for about two days then post all my cartoons for your viewing pleasure. Meantime, here are the front and back cover + spine of my soon-to-be-released book (click to enlarge, of course).

Quasi-final book cover design...

This is my last post for the night. I need some sleep! (See previous posts for sketch and earlier version of the drawing).

Book cover in progress, phase 2

The final art is finally done. Not sure of the color scheme or typography yet... See previous post for what the drawing looked like a few hours ago...

And no, I don't normally sit home drawing on a Saturday night, but when a deadline calls...

Book cover sketch in progress

So after years of selling little black & white mini-comics xeroxed booklets of my cartoons, I'm finally graduating to a Real (albeit self=published) Book Collection. It'll have a full-cover cover, perfect binding and nice interior grayscale printing. Content-wise, it will feature over 100 of my best cartoons, plus extra bonus cartoons, drawings and historical Mikhaela material never reproduced on this website or in my previous booklets. And an introduction by Ted Rall!

I decided to stick with the Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela concept I've been using for my website, but completely redrawing and retooling the image (still using the pretty hilarious photos my friend Stephanie took where I pretended a Beanie Babie alligator was a tiny George W.)

Other Heroes Art Show Opening today in Jackson, Missisippi

Cartoonists With Attitude members Keith Knight, Masheka Wood and myself all have work in this show, though Masheka and I won't be able to get to Mississippi to see it. Here are the details from the curators:

Other Heroes: African American comics creators, characters, and archetypes opens today, on Thursday, April 5th! There will be an opening reception for the show Apr. 5 from 4-6pm in the Jackson State University Gallery, located in the Dollye M.E. Robinson School of Liberal Arts Building, Jackson, MS. It will feature a gallery talk by the curators of the show, John Jennings and Damian Duffy. Everyone's invited. If you can make it, bring yourself and some guests. We can guarantee this will be an unprecedented and outstanding exhibition of comics art. With artists like these how could it be anything but?

Meanwhile, the Other Heroes Catalog is ON SALE NOW! Available for purchase online, and chock full of all the fantastic art from the show, the catalog also features essays from a serious line up of comics creators and scholars. The contents are:

• -intrOH!- Damian Duffy w/ John Jennings
• -E. Sims Campbell: Comics Pioneer - R.C. Harvey
• -Da Rise of Da Blackuns and Da Black Age of Comics - Turtel Onli
• -Jackie Ormes Biography - Nancy Goldstein
• -Here Come the Sisters! - Prof. Bill Foster
• -Somewhere Between Here and There is Me - Alex Simmons
• -Finding Other Heroes - John Jennings w/ Damian Duffy

178 pages. $50.00. All proceeds past printing costs donated to Scholarship America's Disaster Relief Fund, helping low income students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita seek post secondary educations.

We're excited to finally get it all together, and we hope you are too. Please help spread the word about the show and the catalog. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to contact the curators: Damian Duffy, duff@eyetrauma.net, 217-355-8569 and John Jennings, jayjay@uiuc.edu, 217-244-8539.

Doonesbury tackles Mitt Romney

Doonesbury has a great sequence going where radio DJ Marvelous Mark is congratulating Mitt Romney for his principled gay-friendly stance, and Mitt is trying to explain his new positions. And Trudeau also had a great Sunday page summing up the bizarre "support the troops" logic that seems to be predominating in Congress.

WAMtastic!

The women of CWA

Freelance writer Courtney Martin, Feministing executive editor Jessica Valenti, freelance political cartoonist Mikhaela Reid (me!) and Feministing editors Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Vanessa Valenti

Full set of photos here.

Last weekend the three women of Cartoonists With Attitude (Jen Sorensen, Stephanie McMillan and Mikhaela Reid) spent the weekend in Cambridge, MA at the Center for New Words' fabulous annual Women, Action & the Media (WAM) conference. We attended fantastic panels and hang with/meet fabulous women such as the editors of Feministing.com, Bitch magazine, Campus Progress, In These Times, The American Prospect and other assorted fine publications. And we did our panel thing with a slideshow called Resistance Through Ridicule, which even featured a surprise guest, cartoonist/illustrator Jennifer Cruté.

The overall experience was, in Jen's words, completely "Wamtastic!" As you can see from these photos.

I should note that we also had drinks with the one and only creator of Big Fat Whale, CWAer Brian McFadden, but I neglected to capture him on digital film.

I will concur with Stephanie that it only took five minutes of being in the same room before Jen, Stephanie and I found ourselves talking about fonts and PhotoShop. Oh, cartoonists!

No more anonymous comments...

As a busy cartoonist, I don't get much time to blog, and so don't get too many comments. Most I do get are positive, or if critical are signed. The other day, however, I got about 7 or 8 mean, random, misspelled nasty anonymous comments, and in light of the recent extreme harassment of woman tech blogger Kathy Sierra I've decided to eliminate anonymous commenting.