Mikhaela in the news: "Political cartoonists sing hail to the chief"

My cartoon "Bush vs. My Cat" (above) is currently featured in the exhibit "Bush Leaguers: Cartoonists Take On the White House" (at American University's Katzen Museum in DC, on view through July 29). I've even been mentioned in an article about the piece in the Examiner:

Through “Bush vs. My Cat,” freelancer Mikhaela Reid envisions a battle of wits. One of several women selected for the show, this hot hand is among the growing number of female cartoonists.

Full article here (warning: link is to a PDF).

I was also included in a story in Editor and Publisher about the AAEC convention panel on cartoonists and blogging. I was actually in the audience, but panelist Tom Tomorrow kindly suggested I might have two cents to put in:

Mikhaela Reid, speaking from the audience, said cartoonists such as herself who aren't daily newspaper staffers often want to do a blog because it helps build readership. She added that freelance or self-syndicated creators may not do as many editorial cartoons each week as staff creators do, so a blog can be "a valuable place to vent" when not drawing a cartoon that day.

Which I did.

Mikhaela on Morning Edition Monday

I'm going to be appearing on Morning Edition on NPR Monday at 5:21, 7:21 or 9:21 depending on your local affiliate. How cool is that? Here's the link, which will contain live audio after 9 a.m. Monday....

Mikhaela in the news: "Hitting the funny bone"

Ethan Jacobs has a cool piece in Bay Windows this week about the Life Without Fair Courts contest, with a good dabble of quotes from me. Here's one segment:

Reid said the five finalists took very different approaches to tackling the subject of fair courts. Rall, Fox and Bors all painted nightmarish visions of a world without a fair judicial system, with gay couples exiled to Antarctica and people thrown in jail for either engaging in or facilitating sodomy. By contrast, Johannsen and Cruté used a more personal perspective, showing how a lack of legal protections would impact their own lives as an M-to-F lesbian transwoman and a bisexual woman respectively. Reid said the contest is a great way to acquaint people with cartoonists like Johannsen and Cruté who do not yet have a large following.

And

Reid said that Lambda Legal selected her in part because much of her own work focused on similar themes as the Life Without Fair Courts campaign.

“I have a somewhat dystopian view in a lot of my cartoons of what the future looks like when we have people in charge who do not care about equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people,” said Reid.

Don't forget to cast YOUR vote!

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.

Bechdel Blug

So awesome. Though I'm not sure what the second commenter means.

Mikhaela in the news!

Check it out:

• Metro Times (Detroit): "Drawing Ire" by Sean Bieri
• The Villager: "Cartoonist Mikhaela Reid gets graphic" by Rebecca Cathcart
• Chelsea Now: Cartoonist makes mark with biting political satire"by Rebecca Cathcart
• Between the Lines: "Bi, bi Bush: Cartoonist Mikhaela Reid finds 'boiling point' in political climate" by Cornelius Fortune

Here's a quote from the Metro Times (Detroit) piece. I'm blushing!

If easy jokes or pop catchphrases show up in Reid's strip "The Boiling Point" — which is featured weekly on MT's letters page — it's only because she means to subvert them on her way to striking at the heart of an issue. Doublespeak and spin are among her favorite targets, and she often counters them by mashing them up against images of the ugly truths they seek to obscure. Her cartoons are never glib — they're wordy, meaty; there's a lot going on in them. Even her inky, thick-lined drawings suggest the gravity of her subjects. She's topical but not slavishly so, prefering to address the latest wrinkles in the issues she's passionate about rather than jump on whatever media bandwagon happens to be rolling by. And she's not afraid to make issues personal, even appearing in her own strips from time to time to address the reader directly. In a field of sound-alikes, she's a fiercely singular voice.

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:

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!

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."