Why haven't you bought my book yet?
Not to mention Masheka's book.

Online sales have been been much slower than usual, so I'm curious, especially since I've been getting maybe 800 visitors per day, but far fewer book orders than usual, despite the low, low price (a mere $3.80 including shipping--cheaper than a sandwich or a latte). I know you can read my cartoons on this site for free, but SIGNED books make great (did I mention CHEAP) gifts and look lovely on your coffee table or bathroom floor. Plus you will keep me from quitting cartooning and going into the far more lucrative ultra-mean fashion blogging business.

And yes, I will be keeping up this "buy my book" campaign National-Public-Radio style (minus the tote bags) until I break even on printing costs.

What I Did At SPX 2005
Not to mention AAEC and AAN!

Jen Sorensen and me at AAN 2005 in San Diego

In my bid to become a slightly less obscure alternative lefty political cartoonist, I attend as many cartooning-related events as possible, from AAEC and AAN to MOCCA, SPX and WAM, among other exciting acronyms. I go partly to hawk my wares (hint, hint) and meet potential fans and editors, but mostly to hang with other cartoonists, talk shop, rant, commiserate, and drink (I'm a lightweight, especially when compared with other cartoonists, but I can manage a weak vodka tonic or two).

Anyway, this past weekend was a pleasant nonexception to that pattern. Masheka Wood (who was attending his first cartoon convention as an exhibitor) and I caught a ride from Brooklyn down to Bethesda with Brian McFadden (of Big Fat Whale fame), who in addition to being a damn funny guy has excellent taste in music (Magnetic Fields, Pixies, the Clash, etc.) On arrival we discovered that we were sharing a table with one of my all-time cartooning heroes/idols, Keith Knight (here's a picture of Keith, me, and Masheka I found via Wasp). Not only that, but we were set up directly across from Harvey Pekar (of American Splendor fame)! Craziness, I tell you!

Most of the exhibitors at the Small Press Expo draw comic books and graphic novels, not weekly political strips, but I still got plenty of love. My enthusiastic sales technique did cause me to almost entirely lose my voice by weekend's end, but it was worth it, as I sold quite a few copies of my new cartoon collectionette, "Good News".

Us alt-weekly cartoonists tend to travel in packs, so in the evenings Masheka and I of course had to hang with Brian, Keith, Jen Sorensen, Matt Bors (goddamn if he isn't as funny in real life as in his cartoons) and August Pollak. And since most of us are Campus Progress cartoonists, you can see photos of our respective booths on the Campus Progress blog. Outside of the altie political clique, I also got to chat with both Nicholas Gurewitch (creator of the twisted and amazing Perry Bible Fellowship) and fellow glasses-wearing New Yorker Alec Longstreth, both of whom won well-deserved Ignatz Awards Saturday night.

I had intended to put in an appearance at the big anti-war protests in nearby DC, but at the last minute I got invited to present one of the Ignatzes, which are a Big Deal. Of course no one in the alternative-comics world had any idea who I was, but maybe that was a good thing, because my voice sounded like I was being strangled, and I forgot to research how to pronounce the names of nominees (such as winner Kevin Huizenga). But it was still fun, especially since Keith emceed the event and required all winners and presenters to down a shot of tequila. Keith himself had about 8 or 9 shots in a half hour--you can see the effects here (scroll down). I didn't have any tequila, but Alec Longstreth's speech almost made me cry anyway.

Oh, and Masheka, Keith and I got to visit with SPX staffer Warren Bernard, who has the most amazing home personal cartoon collection (hundreds and hundreds of books, many of them rare and out of print, many of them signed... totally crazy and awesome!). All in all, an awesome, if exhausting weekend. For more SPX photos and coverage, see the indispensable ComicsReporter.

AAEC and AAN 2005

Both of these conventions took place way back in June, but I've been busy. I don't have time to describe the fun in detail, but here are two short photo galleries:
• AAEC 2005 (Sacramento) slideshow, featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger (a convention guest speaker), Steve Notley, Ted Rall, Mark Fiore, Leilah Rampa, Clay Bennett, Cindy Procious, Morrie Turner and many more.
• AAN 2005 (San Diego) slideshow, featuring Jen Sorensen, Ted Rall, Andy Singer, Max Cannon and more.

Odds and Ends
Cartoons, news, ephemera

I've been a busy girl, what can I say? But here are some odds and ends worth checking out, in no particular order:

Cartoons
• Keith Knight has a historical take on the devastation in New Orleans.
• Emily Flake has an awesome new book collection, and it's only $9.95!
• Speaking of which, why haven't you bought my book or Masheka's book yet? We're even cheaper ($3.80 and $1.75 respectively) and ours are SIGNED! Come on... I know you can read our cartoons for free, but signed books make great (did I mention CHEAP) gifts and look lovely on your coffee table or bathroom floor.
• August Pollak explains how to pound all the pork out of the federal budget.
• Mark Fiore reminds us that, horrible as Hurricane Katrina was, there are other things going on, such as war, starvation, genocide and nuclear proliferation.
• Mike Thompson wonders about politicians' oddly selective outrage over poverty...
• Ted Rall is going to host a radio show for the first time in five years! More details to come...
• Matt Bors cautions us not to mess with NWA (Neocons with Attitude).

Blogs, articles, news
• Body and Soul has some essential posts about abandoned prisoners and exaggerated reports of crime in New Orleans.
• Naomi Klein writes about developers' dreams of purging the poor from New Orleans.
• Over at This Modern World, Greg Saunders notes Bush's ridiculous attempt to link Katrina to 9/11.
• The family of Jean Charles de Menezes (the innocent Brazilian man hunted down and executed by British police in a subway in July, see my cartoon) is crying out for justice.
• Billmon welcomes us to hell and explains why he now supports withdrawing the troops from Iraq.
• A new study clearly shows the racial imbalance on death row--killers of whites are much more likely to get the death penalty. Shocking, huh?
• Amnesty International reports that U.S. police target, abuse and selectively enforce laws against gay, lesbian bisexual and transgendered people.
• In an interview with Campus Progess, Jonathan Kozol notes that "Charity is not a substitute for systematic justice."

New Cartoon: Asking for It

I said I was going to do a followup cartoon on the murder of Gwen Araujo, and here it is. I decided not to talk about the specifics of the trial, but more about the general societal bigotry and ignorance that allow these kind of hate crimes to happen so often. Murderers' lawyers wouldn't try to use the "transgender panic" (and "gay panic") defenses if they didn't know that they often worked--if not to get murderers off scott free, then at least to get mitigated sentences (like the second-degree murder convictions in the Gwen Araujo and Matthew Shephard cases). These defenses feed on the prejudices and bigotry of juries.

P.S. Buy my new book and join (or rejoin) my mailing list!

P.P.S. SPX wrap-up to come soon!

Buy (signed copies of) my new book!

Spread the word! Tell your friends! (and if you've got a blog, let your readers know!)

Good News (click to enlarge book image) is my third self-published cartoon collection, featuring 40 pages of my best cartoons from the past year and a half or so (from "Operation Heterosexual Freedom" to "Let Them Eat Toxic Sludge"). Available only from me--get your signed copies with cute little sketches of me or the guitar-playing vacationer-in-chief while they last. Yellow cover (interior is black and white).

Buy now for $3.00 + 80 cents S&H each via PayPal:

Dedicate books to:

And while you're at it, why not buy a signed copy of Masheka Wood's first ever cartoon collection, What Masheka Did, a 16-pager featuring his latest strips (like "New Fall Shows" and "Duh vs. Doy!") and some gems and rarities from the Masheka archives not available online.

Buy now for $1.25 + 50 cents S&H each via PayPal:

Dedicate books to:

(click above image for larger cover) I also still have plenty of lovely copies ofAtittude 2: The New Subversive Alternative Cartoonists, edited by Ted Rall. The work of 21 of America's smartest and funniest alternative weekly cartoonists is collected in this 2004 anthology, which features interviews with each artist, examples of their work, and personal ephemera never before published elsewhere. Includes cartoons by and interviews with Keith Knight, Alison Bechdel, David Rees, and Aaron McGruder (of Boondocks fame. Not to mention Barry Deutsch, Emily S. Flake, Marian Henley, Tim Kreider, Kevin Moore, Stephen Notley, Eric Orner, Mikhaela Blake Reid (yeah, that's me), Neil Swaab,Tak Toyoshima, Shannon Wheeler, Jennifer Berman, Max Cannon, Justin Jones, Greg Peters, Brian Sendelbach, Jason Yungbluth. Sadly, I can only sign for myself, but if you track these folks down I'm sure they'd be happy to add a drawing and signature.

Via MediaMail (2-9 days) Buy now for $14.00 + $2.50 S&H for first book, $1.00 for each additional:

Please dedicate/sign book(s) to:

P.S. A few reasons to buy Good News (and Attitude 2!):

"Mikhaela B. Reid is, at the start of a promising career, already one of America's sharpest political cartoonists." --Ted Rall

"Mikhaela Reid rocks!! She's where i steal most of my ideas from!!"
--Keith Knight ("the K Chronicles", "(th)ink")

"Mikhaela Reid's cartoons are right *$%@ing on."
--Alison Bechdel, "Dykes to Watch Out For"

"Mikhaela Reid has what every great editorial cartoonist needs most - passion. Her work is insightful, inventive, and unambiguous. She is way too good to be so young."
--Clay Bennett, Editorial Cartoonist, The Christian Science Monitor

P.P.S. Please join or rejoin my mailing list!

Are you on my mailing list?

Due to a horrible error, my internet service provider lost all of my email and all the addresses on my email mailing list a month ago. So if you were on my mailing list (weekly cartoons and the occasional announcement of events or signings), I'm afraid you'll have to add yourself again by sending a blank message to newtoons-subscribe@mikhaela.net. And if you weren't on the list, I encourage you to join, as I often send cartoons and announcements out by email before they appear here.

New Cartoon: "Let Them Eat Toxic Sludge!"
Otherwise known as a "A Modest Toxic Sludge Proposal"

I can totally imagine some guy sitting deep in the bowels of the Heritage Foundation, thinking to himself "New Orleans has thousands of gallons of toxic sewage water that have yet to drain and thousands of hungry poor people. So why not kill two birds with one stone?"

Honestly, considering the conservative approach to rebuilding the Gulf Coast (no-bid rebuilding contracts for Halliburton instead of local contractors; paying less than prevailing wages; suspending environmental protections; vouchers, etc... see Paul Krugman and William Greider for more), and the Bush administration's complete and total disdain for poor black people (aside from the occasional photo op hug) I wouldn't be all that shocked if someone actually suggested this for real.

P.S. Jeanne over at Body & Soul has must-read posts about blaming the victim and looters (in this case, an elderly woman who spent more than two weeks in jail for supposedly stealing $63 worth of food from a deli).

Kicked in the head, girl-power style

As you might have noticed from my bio page, I am really fond of angry politically-minded-type music--bands like the Dead Kennedys, the Coup, Sleater-Kinney, Public Enemy, Billy Bragg, Bikini Kill, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, and of course, feminist electronica rockers Le Tigre. I went to see Le Tigre tonight in NYC and the show was amazing (especially fun when they put on their matching "Stop Bush" outfits halfway through the show)... except for the part where I got KICKED IN THE HEAD.

Or more precisely, kneed in the head. I'm sitting down in front of the stage between bands when suddenly some guy in a blond mohawk and wireframe glasses and a girl with blond pigtails come barrelling through the crowd towards the stage. Before I know it Blond Mohawk Guy's knee has connected hard with my head knocking my glasses off, and he just keeps running, ignoring the fact that I'm lying on the ground moaning.

I managed to mumble out a "Hey, what the hell?" His response?

"Well, you shouldn't have been sitting down, it's your own fault."

He then dove back into the crowd with his girlfriend and flipped me off with both hands from a safe distance. If I was a more violent woman I might have done or said something, but ineffective pacifist that I am I sat there whimpering in shock and holding my unfortunate bruised head, feeling vaguely grateful that my glasses weren't broken.

Anyway, it was the setting that made it particularly weird. I'd expect that kind of behavior from dumb drunk Limp Bizkit (*shudder*) fans, not from a guy bouncing up and down to songs about butch lesbian visibility and loudly singing along (as I saw him doing) to lyrics like "feminists we're calling you/please report to the front desk!" I'm not familiar with any branch of feminism that involves kicking girls in the head and not apologizing for it, but maybe this guy's trying to broaden the field.

I felt like I was back in high school at one of those punk shows where there were always two or three guys there for the sole purpose of elbowing people who actually wanted to enjoy the music in the eye. Or maybe like I was back in elementary school being called "four-eyes". Ah, nostalgia. I guess the moral of this story is: rude violent assholes can have good taste in music, too.

Masheka's Katrina cartoon, "New Fall TV Shows"

My friend Masheka tends to draw more about pop culture than politics, but he made an exception this time, so go check it out (click to enlarge the image) and leave nice comments.

And DC-area folks, don't forget to catch me and Masheka at SPX (in between your anti-war protesting, of course)!

Chicken Soup for the Abandoned, Poverty-Stricken Corpse's Soul
And other Katrina cartoons

David Rees is depressingly brilliant, as always (thanks to Raznor for mentioning this in the comments). Matt Bors tackles Katrina reconstruction, Reaganomics-style. Jen Sorensen dissects presidential photo-ops. Ward Sutton explains why government is the problem.

Keith Knight has a dream. Aaron McGruder thinks back to the election. Scott Bateman has an animated episode of George W. Bush, P.I. Joel Pett tells us not to worry.

Mike Luckovich takes on resumes and the evacuation. Jeff Danziger admires Condi's good taste in shoes. Tom Tomorrow explains What Went Wrong. Ted Rall explores the damper Baghdad. And last but definitely not least, Ruben Bolling presents the Lucky Ducky Poor Person's Guide to Hurricanes.

Poverty, race and class? Who knew!?
The media suddenly "discovers" racial and economic inequality...

Walking past a newstand last night, I noticed both Time and Newsweek ("Poverty, Race and Katrina") used closely-cropped images of unhappy black faces on their covers this week for stories on what went wrong in New Orleans.

On the one hand, it's a good thing that the media and the country as a whole are finally, in their own limited way, noticing that poor black people exist and that hell, maybe we should try to deal with poverty and racial discrimination. On the other, it's frustrating that they weren't paying attention before, and I can't help feeling they'll quickly lose interest and move on to something else. Bush's mention of racial discrimination in particular felt like lip service, especially since he framed it as a historical, not a current, problem. For a much more indepth analysis, see Jeanne's post over at This Modern World and Earl Ofari Hutchinson over at Alternet.

Update: Billmon over at the Whiskey Bar has a must-read post that relates to a lot of this, about Bush as the "Big Spender."

Two of Gwen Araujo's murderers found guilty...
...but only of second-degree murder, and the hate crime charges are rejected...

I've been following and cartooning about this story for a while, so like many, my feelings about this verdict are really mixed. This was first degree murder, plain and simple. These men planned to kill 17-year-old Gwen Araujo for the "crime" of being herself, of being transgender. They brutally beat her to death, buried her in a shallow grave, and tried to cover it up. If that's not a first-degree murder and a hate crime, what the hell is?

Still, on the bright side, the "transgender panic" defense (that a straight man just would naturally be driven so mad by the idea he'd had sex with a trans woman that he'd have no choice but to spend hours brutally murdering and torturing her) was rejected. From the SF Chronicle:

The Bay Area's transgender community was both heartened and disappointed with the verdicts in the Gwen Araujo murder trial Monday, praising the jury for delivering justice but wishing all three defendants had been found guilty of murder and a hate crime.

Leaders in the community said the jury's rejection of a "transgender panic" defense -- in which Araujo's gender identity absolved the men of some guilt in the crime -- represented significant progress.

"It sends a message that you can no longer blame the victim for what happened," said Cecilia Chung, deputy director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco. "You can't blame a transgender person for being who she or he is."

Gwen Smith of the Remembering Our Dead project has some more thoughts. (See also the Gwen Araujo murder case blog).

And as reading her website reminds us, this is all much bigger than one murder case. Brutality, violence and disrespect towards trans people is epidemic, and certainly not limited to one or two well-known incidents. Expect a cartoon on this from me soon.

New Cartoon: Conservatives look on the brighter side of...
Hurricane Katrina

Man, these folks find silver linings wherever they go. Check out Laura Bush's complaint that we're only hearing the BAD NEWS about Katrina. Call me crazy, Laura, but I find it hard to see the positive in the fact that THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIED because your husband was too busy eating cake, playing guitar and enjoying his vacation to do his goddamned job. Just saying.

Mikhaela and Masheka at SPX Expo Sept. 23rd and 24th
In Bethesda, Maryland

Here are the details and a list of exhibitors (some highlights: Keith Knight, Matt Bors, August Pollak, Brian McFadden). Come say hi and buy our comics...

P.S. I hear the big guest this year will be Harvey Pekar, of American Splendor fame.

New cartoon: Questions

I actually did this cartoon nearly a week ago, but I've been too busy to post it. It's still relevant, anyway.

Obviously, there are a gazillion cartoons about this issue floating around, but here a few must-reads: Mark Fiore has a really powerful animation (with some horrifying audio) called Whoopsi Gras, Ted Rall explains Bushist disaster relief, Matt Bors wonders what would have happened had Terri Schiavo been in New Orleans, and David Rees hopes Trent Lott's house can be rebuilt in time for the next disaster.

On a totally diffrent topic, here's a followup piece on the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes.

EditorialCartoonists.Com Site Launch

As you might have noticed, I'm a member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, and my cartoons (along with those of Ted Rall, Mark Fiore, and many, many others) appear on www.editorialcartoonists.com. One of the coolest things about the site is that you can search for cartoons by keyword. Anyway, it's all live and ready to go now, so check it out.

Oxfam America Hurricane Katrina fund

My dad pointed me to this Katrina-specific relief fund from Oxfam America (whereas I think Red Cross donations are more general, not quite sure). Anyway, they need all the help they can get, so turn out those pockets.

Tax cuts for the rich threatened?

The Republicans are worried their plans to permanently cut taxes for the rich might be hurt because the country is too busy worrying about the hurricane devastation and high gas prices. Aw, poor babies... Cause what we really need to do when thousands of (mostly poor black) people are dying and stranded and homeless is to give money to rich white folks.

Horrors

Crooks and Liars has some horrifying video of Fox News correspondents reporting from the hell of the Superdome and angrily rebuffing Hannity's ridiculous attempts to suggest that everything is OK and plenty of food and water has been delivered. (They also have the Kanye West footage).

New Cartoon: Gay Marriage, the Sordid Aftermath

This week's cartoon here.

New Orleans

I don't feel that I have any unique insights to offer about the horror and tragedy in New Orleans at the moment, I'm still just in shock. So I will point you to This Modern World, Xoverboard, Daily Kos and Alternet, and of course encourage you to donate to the Red Cross.

I'd post the drawings I did of the city when I was there a few months ago, but I think that would just be weird and sad.