Random Book Love: Aya of Yop City, James Tiptree, Jr.

I read. A lot. Mostly science fiction, but some non-SF, some fantasy, some nonfiction, some graphic novels. Generally 1-4 books per week.

Some books (comics and non) I've read (or reread) and loved lately:

Aya of Yop City (pictured above) by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie. The second graphic novel in a light-hearted series about the adventures of three young women growing up in 1970s Ivory Coast. Abouet's writing and characters are a delight and I could stare at Oubrerie's lovely line- and colorwork in envy all day.

James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips. I read this amazing, dense, beautifully-written 400+-page biography in a several day fever-dream ending in eyestrain and tears. Publisher blurb:

James Tiptree, Jr., burst onto the science fiction scene in the late 1960s with a series of hard-edged, provocative stories. He redefined the genre with such classics as Houston, Houston, Do You Read? and The Women Men Don't See. For nearly ten years he wrote and carried on intimate correspondences with other writers--Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, and Ursula K. Le Guin, though none of them knew his true identity. Then the cover was blown on his alter ego: "he" was actually a sixty-one-year-old woman named Alice Bradley Sheldon. A feminist, she took a male name as a joke--and found the voice to write her stories."

Thanks to journalist Beth Schwartzapfel for the tip about the biography--she's not even a science fiction fan at all and she loved this book!

By the way, Sheldon inspired the annual James Tiptree, Jr. Award for the best gender-exploring science fiction.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Wonderful young adult book about kids in a dystopian far-future who are forced to compete in a brutal battle-to-the-death reality show for the amusement of the rich. (Yes, it's similar in plot to Battle Royale and The Long Walk, but totally original in execution).

The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick. The life of a changeling girl in a brutal post-industrial have-and-have-not fairyland. I have read this book four or five times and I never get sick of it. I can't believe it's out of print!

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. Another beloved reread. Science-fiction classic about a complex planet called Winter, whose people are genderless except during their mating cycle.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie; illustrations by cartoonist extraordinaire Ellen Forney. Alexie's first YA book is the story of Junior, a wouldbe cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation.

And a few of the 170+ books on my urgent to-read list:

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy. Anthology edited by one of my all-time favorite SF writers, Nalo Hopkinson.

The City & the City by China Miéville.

Nation by Terry Pratchett. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr.

Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel.

Filter House Tiptree-Award-winning short story collection by Nisi Shawl.

P.S. Sadly, Masheka and I were unable to attend the always-awesome East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention this year, but I plan to check out many of the books nominated for Glyph Awards (Aya of Yop City being one).

Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela Official Release Date Pushback to August 6

So I haven't had time to submit Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela to any reviewers or distributors yet, which means that although you can buy direct from the printer via Lulu.com and go to my early book tour events, the official release and distribution date is now August 6. I know this is confusing, but I've been advised by folks in the know that no one will review it unless I delay distribution until after I send out review copies. Good thing I haven't sent out my press releases yet!

The Cartoonists With Attitude DC event on 7/7/07 will be my last book event for a while, as Masheka and I are planning our wedding. The tour will restart in Boston in September.

Heads up, DC: Cartoon Extravaganza with Ted Rall, Keith Knight, Ruben Bolling, Mikhaela Reid & other Cartoonists With Attitude July 7!

More info here.

apologies for the silence, I've got the flu

I know today was supposed to be the big launch of my book, but I've been bedridden for the last three days with a horrible flu (I got it for my birthday on Friday and initially thought it was just a result of too much birthday karaoke). you can buy my book already, though (and Masheka's too). more cartoons and posting when I get better!

Update: over four days of yuck now and not feeling any better. Went to my doctor and looks like it's strep throat or something. Penicillin time! Hopefully I'll be better by Thursday in time for our book tour kick-off in Detroit Saturday. You can read last week's cartoon on GoComics.com, where I debuted on Monday. Back to bed!

Buy it now: Deep Doodle by Masheka Wood!

Deep Doodle by Masheka Wood (Preview)

Attention Detroit and Dearborn: Mikhaela and Masheka at Green Brain Comics on June 9!

Please feel free to steal this image/text/links and help us promote this event!

• Who: Angry cartoonists Mikhaela Reid & Masheka Wood
• What: Slideshow/signing for Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela!: Cartoons by Mikhaela Reid w/ a foreword by Ted Rall and Deep Doodle: Cartoons by Masheka Wood!
• When: Saturday June 9, 4 p.m.
• Where: Green Brain Comics, 13210 Michigan Ave., Dearborn, MI
• Why: You'll be sorry if you don't!
• No, really, why? Because:

"Mikhaela Reid's cartoons are right *$%@ing on."
-- Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home

"Masheka Wood has powers way beyond mortal cartoonists. Get on his bandwagon now before there's no room left!"
-- Keith Knight, creator of The K Chronicles and th(ink)

Bushies are bum-rushing Cheney's secret bunker! "Ex-gays" are quaking in their closets! Abstinence educators are shivering in their shiny silver purity rings! Greedy CEOs are heading for the hills! Brooklyn-based cartoonists Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood are on a rampage—and no hypocrite is safe! Slideshow, discussion & signing.

ABOUT THE CARTOONISTS
• Mikhaela Reid is a cartoonist for the Metro Times whose works has also appeared in The Guardian, The Villager, Chelsea Now, The Phoenix, Bay Windows, In These Times, Women's eNews, Ms., Funny Times, Campus Progress and Bitch. In 2006, Reid was named one of the Girls in Government/Feministing "Real Hot 100" and was featured in the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art exhibit "She Draws Comics: A Century of Women Cartoonists." Ted Rall calls Reid "an insurgent cartoonist: smart, irrepressible and unpredictable." (www.mikhaela.net)
• Masheka Wood grew up in Boston where he was warped by MAD, Night Flights, Garbage Pail Kids and Tex Avery cartoons. His lettering, cartoon and illustration work has appeared on MTV and in The New Standard. Wood's cartoons were featured in a recent exhibit in Jackson State University, "Other Heroes: African American comics creators, characters, and archetypes." He is a 2007 Glyph Comics Award nominee for "rising star". (www.whatmashekadid.com)

Non-Detroit folks, here are the other dates/locales planned: June 12, 7 p.m.: NYC @ Bluestockings (both Mikhaela and Masheka); June 22, 7 p.m.: NYC @ Think Coffee (Planned Parenthood book event with Mikhaela, Jessica Valenti and Amber Madison). Soon to come: Boston, DC, Brooklyn and more!

Reminder: "Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela" and "Deep Doodle"

Mikhaela and Masheka's Books:

Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela! Cartoons by Mikhaela Reid (Foreword by Ted Rall).
Bushies are bum-rushing Cheney’s secret bunker! Ex-gays are quaking in their closets! Abstinence educators are shivering in their shiny silver purity rings! Greedy CEOs are heading for the hills and Minutemen are bolting for the border! Cartoonist Mikhaela Reid is on the rampage—and no hypocrite is safe! Attack features 150 of Reid's greatest cartoon hits, plus rarities, odds, ends and behind-the-scenes commentary! Available June 4 at Lulu.com!

Deep Doodle: Cartoons by Masheka Wood.
Masheka Wood takes you deep into the warped, candy-colored recesses of his brain as he tackles a variety of social, political and just plain grody targets. Here are Wood’s “Not Just Knee Deep” cartoons, assorted illustrations and a delicious dose of old-school comics. Prepare to lose your mind—or your lunch! Wood's work has appeared on MTV, The New Standard and Jackson State University’s art exhibit, “Other Heroes: African American comics creators, characters, and archetypes.” He is a 2007 Glyph Comics Award nominee for ‘Rising Star.' Available now at Lulu.com!

Mikhaela and Masheka's Book Tour:
Click on any of these events for more details or view the calendar here.

Cartoonist/cat goofballs: Masheka, Riley, Mikhaela

Cartoonist/cat goofballs: Masheka, Riley, Mikhaela Originally uploaded by M1khaela.

My awesome photographer best friend Márta Fodor took a bunch of photos of Masheka and me this weekend to use in promoting our books. This had to be my favorite, but you can see a bunch more of the best ones here.

Also:

Attention NYC: You are Cordially Invited to Our Book Release Party

Your RSVP would be ever so kindly appreciated. And please feel free to steal this image/text/links and help us promote this event! Please!)

• Who: Angry cartoonists Mikhaela Reid & Masheka Wood
• What: Slideshow/signing/book launch bash for Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela!: Cartoons by Mikhaela Reid w/ a foreword by Ted Rall and Deep Doodle: Cartoons by Masheka Wood!
• When: Tuesday June 12, 7 p.m.-9:30 p.m.
• Where: Bluestockings Bookstore & Café, 172 Allen Street between Stanton & Rivington.
• Why: You'll be sorry if you don't!
• No, really, why? Because:

"Mikhaela Reid's cartoons are right *$%@ing on."
-- Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home

"Masheka Wood has powers way beyond mortal cartoonists. Get on his bandwagon now before there's no room left!"
-- Keith Knight, creator of The K Chronicles and th(ink)

Bushies are bum-rushing Cheney's secret bunker! "Ex-gays" are quaking in their closets! Abstinence educators are shivering in their shiny silver purity rings! Greedy CEOs are heading for the hills! Brooklyn-based cartoonists Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood are on a rampage—and no hypocrite is safe! Slideshow, discussion, signing & party. Tasty treats available for purchase from the Bluestockings Cafe!

ABOUT THE CARTOONISTS
• Mikhaela Reid's cartoons have appeared in The Guardian, The Villager, Chelsea Now, The Phoenix, Bay Windows, Metro Times, In These Times, Women's eNews, Ms., Funny Times, Campus Progress and Bitch. In 2006, Reid was named one of the Girls in Government/Feministing "Real Hot 100" and was featured in the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art exhibit "She Draws Comics: A Century of Women Cartoonists." Ted Rall calls Reid "an insurgent cartoonist: smart, irrepressible and unpredictable." (www.mikhaela.net)
• Masheka Wood grew up in Boston where he was warped by MAD, Night Flights, Garbage Pail Kids and Tex Avery cartoons. His lettering, cartoon and illustration work has appeared on MTV and in The New Standard. Wood's cartoons were featured in a recent exhibit in Jackson State University, "Other Heroes: African American comics creators, characters, and archetypes." He is also a Glyph Award nominee for black cartoonist "rising star". (www.whatmashekadid.com)

Non-NYCers, here are the other dates/locales planned: May 19: Philly @ Temple U. ; June 9: Detroit @ Green Brain Comics; June 12: NYC @ Bluestockings. Soon to come: Boston, DC and more!

Mark your calendars: book signings in Detroit (June 9) and New York (June 12)

Attention Detroit/Dearborn-area Mikhaela fans! I'm going to need your help to promote this event and get some word of mouth going, as I do not live in your fine city and am not plugged in to any friendship groups therin. I'll be making up ads and flyers for the Detroit event ASAP and text you can paste into an email.

And NYCers, I still need your help, just not as desperately. I'll have an e-mail you can send around and ads and images as well.

May
• Saturday, May 19: Philly: Masheka and I I will be signing and selling books all day at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention at Temple University.

June
• Saturday, June 9: Detroit: Slideshow, talk & signing at Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan.
• Tuesday, June 12: New York: Slideshow, talk, signing & book release party at Bluestockings bookstore on the Lower East Side.

Possible stops along the Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela book mini-tour route...

Too many hats! In addition to being a cartoonist, I'm currently trying to be my own publisher and publicist. Here are some locations that I'm going to try to get to--I don't have definite spaces or dates for any of these events yet, but I'm working on it! I'll announce final dates soon. If you live in any of these cities, I'm going to need help getting publicity, media, attendees to these events once I have firm dates/locations!

May
• May 19: Philly: Not an official Mikhaela booksigning/show, but I will be signing and selling books at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention at Masheka's table.

June
• Detroit: going to try to set something up the weekend of June 8 if possible.
• New York: Not sure when this would be yet... probably a weeknight sometime. This would most likely be a joint event with Masheka.
• Portland, OR: This is EXTREMELY tentative!

July
• Washington, DC: Not sure of date, but there will likely be a joint event with Cartoonists With Attitude at which I will have books for sale.
• Boston or Cambridge, MA: Haven't set a firm date or location yet, but this would be a weekend slideshow/signing event of some type.

August (or maybe July or late September, who knows)
• Philly An actual booksigning/show event.
• Northampton, MA: Thought this might be a good place to hit, what with all the LGBT comics I do. I'll see what I can do.
• Lowell, MA: Hometown! Don't even know if I should try this, but I'll be around Lowell in August quite a bit anyway.

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!

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.

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 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.)

Mikhaela featured in new book about killed cartoons

Killed Cartoons: Casualties of the War on Free Expression by David Wallis (Editor).

Here's the promo text:

In KILLED CARTOONS: CASUALTIES FROM THE WAR ON FREE EXPRESSION (W.W. NORTON), which features nearly 100 cartoons and illustrations, editor David Wallis gives you the chance to see what major magazines and newspapers tried to suppress. The collection, heralded by cartoonist Gahan Wilson of the New Yorker as "amazing in its range," includes spiked art about everything from the Iraq War to teen fashion trends. Works by renowned contemporary artists such as Garry Trudeau , Steve Brodner, Edward Sorel, Doug Marlette, Ted Rall, Paul Conrad, Matt Davies and Anita Kunz are displayed alongside unearthed gems by legends like David Low, Herblock and Norman Rockwell.

It's a very cool collection, with killed gems from all over the ideological spectrum. And editor David Wallis also wrote a piece for Women's eNews focusing on killed prochoice cartoons ("Editorial Pages Nix Toons Mocking Abortion Foes"), here's some of his interview with me from that:

Last year, Reid, a self-syndicated cartoonist, created "Every Sperm Is Sacred," a strip about the morning-after-pill. In Reid's dystopian America of 2020, the Supreme Court has upheld a "Spermy Protection Act," a show of power by the "sex-cell rights movement." ... . The idea for the strip was formed in Reid's pro-choice knitting group, "which sounds hippie and granola but it's not," she says. "It's a mini women's think tank."

"Every Sperm Is Sacred" reflects Reid's anxiety about the crusade not only to overturn Roe v. Wade, but to limit the availability of contraception.

"They are saying that the morning-after pill is abortion, which it is not," says Reid. "RU-486 is the abortion pill; the morning-after pill is a contraceptive . . . They are saying that the rights of the sperm and the egg override the rights of the woman."