Please please help! Attention again to discerning comics-readers! Vote for Me!, and tell your friends, too!

The C-Ville Weekly in Charlottesville is having a contest to choose a new cartoon strip to run, and I doubt I will win, but I definitely won't win if no one votes for me. So please, if you dig my strip, help bring it to Virginia! Tell your friends! You could win a free dinner if you live in Virginia (though apparently anyone can vote, so tell everyone, please!). Sadly my fan base isn't that large yet, so I don't think I'm going to make it, but hey... worth a shot, right?

Beige is the new.... BORING.
Yours truly has officially become "soooo last season"

I'm not sure if any of my readers actually care about fashion (except maybe in this sense), but this is just a TRAVESTY.

The Weekend WSJ had a report Friday on designers "Shifting into Neutral":

Where do you go after lime green? After years of wild colors, designers are back to beige. Our reporter on how to wear it -- and not look like a stick of butter.

Elizabeth Westbrook's spring shopping bag has all the color variety of vanilla ice cream. So far, she's bought a white tank top, a cream tuxedo shirt and has plans to add a sweater in a pink so pale the industry calls it "blush."

"Neutrals are tempting," says the 22-year-old painter, who favors designers like Rebecca Taylor and Marc Jacobs. Last year at this time, things were looking a lot brighter -- maybe too bright. Ms. Westbrook bought into splashy colors, with two shocking pink tops that are now destined for charity. "I realized they drew more attention to me than I wanted. With bright colors you have to be on your best behavior."

After five years of searing pinks and blues -- and pushing it to the point of turquoise and orange -- fashion this spring is entering neutral territory...

(Pause as I put down newspaper, clap hands to the side of my face and scream "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!")

I get my color philosophy from my days as a high school punk rocker and from my grandmother Melba, who painted her room pumpkin with turquoise trim and often wore a rainbow-striped caftan ("I like bright colors", she explained unapologetically to anyone who gave her any Looks about it). (She also taught me how to sew and passed on a voracious book-a-day love of reading, but that's another post). Bright, bright, bright! Mix orange and turquoise! Orange and pink! Turquoise and green! Blue and pink! The brighter the better (not 80s fluorescent, mind you, just bright). I may have lived in New York for the past three years, but I never wear all black, and most especially not all white/beige/blush. The last five years have been so good to me. I could go into any old clothing store and buy a bright turquoise shirt, an orange sweater and a pink skirt. (Not that I'd wear them all at once, but still!) I even color my cartoons to match my clothes!

With bright colors you have to be on your "best behavior"? What if I don't want to behave? What if I don't want to fade into the tasteful taupe wall paint? What if I want to dress like Jonathan Adler decorates? Happy! Colorful! Orange! Turquoise! Teal! Red! I want to be bold, not tasteful.

This is even worse than last year's small "black is the new black" trend. According to the piece, designers have declared war on color, because sales are falling and they're worried if color stays in style, customers will wear last year's stuff. So now they're pushing white, cream, blush and beige clothes, which easily stain, have to be replaced on a frequent basis, and bore me to tears. It's a capitalist plot to make me obsolete.

On the plus side, I guess I can save a big pile of money this year since there won't be a single store anywhere selling a damned thing I want to wear. And maybe I'll be more stylish because I won't be wearing the same damn clothes as everyone else. You won't catch me dead in a vanilla dress with a beige bag, not unless I was wearing it with my bright turquoise scarf and chartreuse heels. I WANT to look like a cute, stylish traffic sign in my fuschia dress, damn it! And I certainly have no plans to stop wearing my bright orange trench coat, which goes really well with my bright (dyed) red hair.

OK, totally unpolitical rant over. I will now return to my regularly scheduled outrage over Health Savings Accounts.

Romney's climate change flip-flop

Mitt Romney used to tout his environmentalism, but now that he's hoping to be president he's made yet another about-face. From Salon, ("Mitt Romney's mistake"). If you want to read and you're not a subscriber, you can either watch an ad, or read a piece by (shudder) Bob Novak applauding Romney's ridiculous new position. Which of course comes amid revelations that the Bush administration tried to silence a prominent scientist on climate change, and discussions that it may already be too damn late.

Yeah, happy Sunday to you too.

What happened to the Class of ... 1998?

The other day I got an "Urgent Verification Needed" postcard from the Lowell High School Directory project. I pulled out my high school yearbook, and it got me thinking about an old mystery: what the hell happened to my class? I started freshman year in 1994 with a class of about 1,100, but by the time we reached graduation, there were fewer than 600 of us.

The L.A. Times looked at a similar highschool and figured out the depressing math (Back to Basics: Why Does High School Fail So Many?)

Feinstein filibuster cartoon correction

So last week I drew a cartoon criticizing Senator Diane Feinstein for speaking out against a potential Alito filibuster. Now she's changed her tune (thankfully!), but my cartoon WAS correct at the time, trust me.

WAM: Women, Action and Media Conference 2006!
March 31-April 2 at MIT's Stata Center in Cambridge, MA
Early registration fee expires Tuesday!

For the third year in a row I'll be presenting my cartoons at the Center for New Words WAM conference. If you're pissed off about the dearth of progressive women's voices in the media, WAM is the place to be. If you don't believe me, just check out the awesome list of speakers and panelists. This year's theme: "Making Noise, Making Change!"

E.J. Graff explains why she never misses WAM over at TPM cafe.

25 across

Cartoonist and muckraker extraordinaire Ted Rall made it into the New York Times crossword puzzle. I only hope that someday I can be that notorious.

Attention discerning comics-readers (from Virginia)! Vote for Me!

I don't know if any of you out there are eligible, but the C-Ville Weekly in Charlottesville is having a contest to choose a new cartoon strip to run, and I doubt I will win, but I definitely won't win if no one votes for me. So please, if you dig my strip, help bring it to Virginia! Tell your friends! You could win a free dinner.

HSAs, the latest "F-you" to the Non-Filthy-Rich

Health Savings Accounts: Because what America really needs is more people waiting until it's too late to get treatment for diabetes and cancer.

Serioiusly, what the hell is up with Bush's crazy Health Savings Accounts? More here. here, here, and here. That last is a piece by Ezra Klein from The American Prospect blog:

what HSA's really do is separate the young from the old, the well from the sick. Currently, insurance operates off of the concept of risk pooling. Since health costs tend to be unpredictable and illness isn't thought a moral failing, we all pay a bit more than we expect to use in order to subsidize those who end up needing much more than they ever thought possible. The well subsidize the sick, the young subsidize the old, and we all accept the arrangement because one day we will be old, and one day we will be sick, and no one wants to shoulder that alone.

But HSA's slice right through this intergenerational, redistributionist arrangement: they're a great deal for young, healthy folks because they don't force subsidization. Just don't get sick...

I am really, really, really disgusted. This is totally immoral, and one of the worst examples of "the market takes care of everything" attitude. The market is not going to save your life if you are too afraid to go to the emergency room because you have no REAL health insurance and you have to pay all your medical costs out of a savings account you can't really afford to pay into. The market is not going to magically let you know whether that lump is a cyst or a tumor or just an ingrown hair. The market is not going to treat your diabetes or chronic back problems at a price you can actually afford. The loving invisible hands of the market won't magically reach out and stop you from falling down the stairs and breaking your goddamn leg.

The market doesn't care if you live or die, and neither does Bush. Where did he get the idea that the problem with healthcare in this country is that too many people are going to the doctor for no reason just because they can? Does he really think people sit around drunk and bored and then say to their buddies "Dude, let's go to the doctor and run up health costs by getting colonoscopies and X-rays!" Yes, sitting in a crowded waiting room for hours surrounded by coughing people and being poked and prodded and having cameras stuck in your private bits while wearing weird ill-fitting cotton things that don't cover your ass is the new selfish hedonistic pursuit of choice. I feel a cartoon coming on. Oh, and if you have access to the Wall Street Journal, a very succinct and clear analysis here.

Update: Guess who LOVES the idea of HSA's, just like they loved the idea of Social Security Privatization? Wall Street, that's who. The lobbying is already in full swing.

Update no. 2: More on HSA's from Ezra Klein at TAPPED:

For the lower middle class, to say nothing of the genuinely poor, that's what HSAs will look like: periods of financial calm interrupted by medical catastrophe that rapidly transforms itself into crushing, long-term debt. Currently, more than half of bankruptcies are traceable to medical costs. Let's just say I wouldn't expect that number to go down under a system of HSAs. I do, however, expect the financial industry to post record profits. Silver linings and all that.

Three New Toons! Chairman Ford's Way Forward, and two more

I did something this week which I have never done before and am unlikely to do often in the future, which was to draw two cartoons. I don't really have the time, but I wanted to do something specific for my Massachusetts readers about Mitt Romney, and also give a shoutout to my Detroit readers with a cartoon about the horrible layoffs at Ford (above). Plus I forgot to mention a cartoon I did about the Senate Democrats being too wimpy to filibuster Alito. (Which Kennedy and Kerry actually are now threatening to try, but it seems unlikely).

Oh, and you might want to check Bill Ford's stupid speech out for yourself, the Ford plan really is called The Way Forward. Which brings to mind the Billy Bragg song ("Waiting for the Great Leap Forward") which references Communist China's "Great Leap Forward" plan. I guess Bill Ford still hasn't learned his lesson about marketing and PR.

As for the Romney toon, for those of you not in the know, Willard Mitt won the Massachusetts governorship in 2002 on claims he was a MODERATE Republican. Now that he wants to be president, he spends all his time in red states badmouthing Mass.

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

And now for something completely different

I don't usually get much time to doodle in my sketchbook, but last night at my feminist knitting group (well, we started out as a prochoice knitting group but we've sort of expanded to any and all political issues) I wasn't in a yarn kind of mood so I drew this:

If I see another homophobic editorial cartoon about Brokeback Mountain...

... I think I might throw up. Grow up, guys. You might as well be back in high school calling other boys "faggot". It's a great goddamn film and a beautiful love story, and if you don't want to see it, that's fine--I didn't go to see King Kong. But I don't see why you feel the need to draw insecure cartoons to assure the country you are so straight, so so so so so so damn straight that you would just VOMIT at the thought of two men kissing. In fact, you are so straight that you make bad anal sex jokes and compare same-sex love to bestiality and fantasize about John Wayne having a homophobic fit in heaven. Good for you, boys. I sure won't mistake you for a gay cowboy. I bet you all are real real butch and manly.

More (mostly horrible) Brokeback Mountain cartoons here and a few here, though there are a lot of political ones mixed in with the bad homophobic jokes.

I sorta feel like drawing a cartoon about the stupid backlash against the movie, though I might wait til it wins an Oscar, I dunno.

And some much nicer mail...

Meant to post this back at the end of December, this is a response to a republishing of an old cartoon in a paper in Michigan recently:

Hi Mikhaela! My name is Karen S, and I wanted to thank you for a cartoon you did which really, really touched me deeply.

"Shallow Grave", the cartoon about Gwen Araujo's murder that you created in 2002, is very important to me. I want to thank you for it. The paper probably printed it just because of the verdicts in the recent retrials of her murderers.

I too am a transsexual woman, and I see that Gwen's story is something that is subtly changing our community. She is one of our Matthew Shepards, someone who died for trying to be herself. There can be a shame associated with being transgendered, especially male to female, because we lived (and still live) in the shadow of society. Even we felt that we were trying to fool society, even though that's not true, we're really trying to be ourselves.

When a murder happened happened in the old days, from what I can tell, it drove transwomen (especially) further down. Some of us will no longer "take it" though.

Your cartoon was so sensitive yet so empowering. I think that it was very powerful.

I wanted to share with you a letter that I sent to Rolling Stone magazine last spring, after they published an article about her. Bob Moser was the author, and I felt it was important to thank him.

I want to thank Bob Moser for his moving article on the murder of Gwen Araujo. I am so glad that he wrote of her as she was, a young person flowering into her womanhood.

More than talking about her death, Mr Moser for the moment has brought her back to life, as a vibrant young woman who was also transgendered. She had joys, successes, and failures, like all of us. Being transgendered, she was unique, and special, not strange or weird. She made a mistake in trusting certain people, but it was no mistake that killed her.

Her killers did.

If they do not take responsibility for their act, they deny themselves their own humanity, even as Gwen lost her's to their "gay panic."

There should be no death penalty for being transgendered. No "that's what you get when you..." No "gay panic" defense should be available, no more than "black panic", "Jew panic", or any other "ignorant, bigoted panic" defense.

My name is Karen, and I am a woman who is also transsexual. As Gwen was. I have dignity, as Gwen did. I love others and myself, as Gwen did. I am loved, like she was.

I don't want to die as she did. I just want to be happy, as she wanted.

Many, many of us hold her memory very dear in our hearts, the little sister we lost. Thank you, Bob Moser, and Rolling Stone, for bringing her back, if only for a goodbye kiss.

Karen S
Ann Arbor, Michigan

I think your cartoon, in a few short panels, also restored her as person, a young woman who wanted to live her life as her own, and was brutally killed for it.

I am not going to write much more in this letter, because I am running out of words that match what I'm feeling.

But thank you so much for listening. Thank you for your cartoon, and your support.

Karen S

No, thank YOU. And keep the letters coming folks.

From the hate mail bag

Jalelaine05 writes (with the subject line "u suck"):

your dry, unwitty, tired, boring stabs at people suck, u suck, your a complete failure. Your worthless being should be anihilated. May u rot in hatred hell forever....

Yeah, I love you too. ...while I'm posting anyway, I'm constantly reminded of why Body & Soul is such a vital blog. Check out Jeanne's excellent and depressing post about civilian casualties.

How Will You Celebrate MLK Day?

An awesome new cartoon from Masheka Wood.

What are your favorite 2005 Mikhaela-toons?

I'm applying for a cartooning contest or two, and I'm just curious--if you had to pick a few of my cartoons from 2005 as your favorites, what would they be? I'd list my favorites, but that might prejudice your picks. The oldest cartoon that's eligible is "The Saved Children" (just click the left-hand arrows to see later ones). The most recent is "2005 in Review."

New Cartoon: $AD MONEY! w/ Susie Poorman!

I am of course, referencing financial-advice programs like the "Suze Orman Show" and CNBC's "Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer" (a popular show described by Businessweek as "Louis Rukeyser meets televangelism meets Pee-wee's Playhouse"). Not that Suze Orman doesn't have sound financial advice, because she does--budget, save, invest, take realistic vacations, etc. (Jim Cramer, on the other hand, just strikes me as off his rocker, telling people to invest in crazy random stocks, but hey, what do I know?)

All of that is all very well for middle-class people (although maybe not as well as it could be when you think about college tuition and other skyrocketing costs). But there's only so much people can do personally when they're in really, truly horrible money situations and the social safety net has been pulled out from under them (see "How Tax Cuts for the Rich Can Help You!").

With cuts to federal student aid, health-care programs, child-care programs, retirement programs, etc., the burden falls more and more on individuals. We hear more and more about individual responsibility to save for health-care, for retirement, for college. But you know what? When you make barely enough to feed your family, that's a goddamned cruel joke. Expecting people who can hardly pay their rent in the moment to put away for the future is just bizarre. The math just doesn't add up. There's only so far you can squeeze a penny.

And these same jerks in the Bush Administration and Congress who are cutting the social safety net (didn't they learn ANYTHING about poverty from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?) are happy to spend billions on the Pentagon, which then uses the money that could have gone to education and sound investments in the future of our country to bomb the crap out of innocent civilians in Iraq.

I'm not saying Americans are totally devoid of personal financial responsibility. Plenty of people who make plenty of money spend more than they earn (thanks, consumer culture!) Plenty of people who could save, don't. Of course, at the same time as the government tells us to save, we're also told that shopping to keep the economy strong is our patriotic duty.

Wow, that was a poorly-organized little rant. But you get the idea. For more indepth coverage of this topic, see the Village Voice's excellent series "Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young".

Update. Check out the New York Times magazine's excellent piece, "What is a Living Wage?"

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

New Cartoon: Talking Doll

Mattel immediately backtracked, of course. But I really doubt it was meant as a pro-transgender thing in the first place.

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

Genderqueer Barbie?

Concerned Women for America (a group which seems to have a lot of male spokespeople, which one might say could also promote the type of gender "confusion" they are so worried about), is very upset that the Barbie website allows three gender choices. Yes, if children aren't forced into strict gender identities by the Barbie website, who knows what horrible things could happen!

I feel a cartoon coming on. Item found via 365gay.com ("Barbie promotes 'Gender COnfusion', Conservative Group Claims".)

Game of Four

I saw this meme on This Modern World and a few other places. No one actually tagged me, but I'll play anyway.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: ice-cream waitress, UPS package handler, Harvard College library stacks assistant, information graphics artist.

Four movies you could watch over and over: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Brazil, Beetlejuice, The Wiz

Four places you’ve lived: Lowell (Massachusetts), Cambridge (Massachusetts), Chelsea (neighborhood in Manhattan), Brooklyn

Four TV shows you love to watch: Arrested Development, The Daily Show, What Not to Wear, Futurama

Four places you’ve been on vacation: London, New Orleans (obviously talking BEFORE the hurricanes), San Francisco, and Pickwick, Tennessee

Four websites you visit daily: Eschaton, Apartment Therapy, EditorialCartoonists.com, Overheard in NY

Four of your favorite foods: sushi (particularly shrimp tempura rolls or eel and avocado rolls), homemade goat cheese pizza, banana pakoras, falafel

Four places you’d rather be: Actually, I really love Brooklyn and wouldn't want to be anywhere else for the long-term. But if I had to take some short-term trips: San Francisco, Barcelona, London, Prague

Four albums you can’t live without: Oh god, this is really hard, and it always changes. For now, though: At Folsom Prison (Johnny Cash), 69 Love Songs (Magnetic Fields), Shake the Sheets (Ted Leo), Singles Going Steady (Buzzcocks). And since it's truly horrible that I haven't listed any women artists there, I'm going to break the rules and add Bettye Swann (Bettye Swann), and This Island (Le Tigre). Who else wants to play?

New Year's Resolutions...

Good things from last year
• Made a lot of new friends in Brooklyn.
• Joined a feminist knitting group that meets every other week in various bars around Manhattan and Brooklyn.
• Threw pasta/movie parties, pizza parties and a bigger dessert party (vegan chocolate rum cake!).
• Spent two wonderful weeks in California at the AAEC and AAN conventions.
• Moved to my new apartment, and finally started decorating it and organizing it.
• Saw a lot of great movies for the first time via Netflix: Harold and Maude, Heathers, They Live, The Dead Zone, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Trading Places, Better Off Dead, Falling Down, Control Room, Miracle Mile, among others.
• Saw some great live bands, particularly Le Tigre, Ted Leo, and X.
• Purged a ton of random junk and clothes and books that had been weighing down my life since, like, high school.
• Got the best roommate ever, my childhood friend Márta, a photographer and all-around amazing person.
• Got an awesome cartoonist boyfriend, Masheka Wood.
• Picked up some new cartooning clients, including Detroit's Metro Times the Minnesota Women's Press, and Girlfriends, and got a cartoon into the Los Angeles Times.
• Appeared on Rise Up Radio and the Ted Rall radio show.
• Did a lot of home cooking with whole foods, tried many new recipes, stopped eating lots of microwaved meals, cut back on meat.
• Started sewing again.

Bad things from last year
• After becoming debt-free by the end of 2004, ran up over $2,000 in debt on cartooning-related trips and conventions. It's down to $500 now, but still... I'm going to have to cut back on those trips this year, at least until I have more cartooning income to support them.
• Failed to get a submission together in time for a comics anthology I was supposed to contribute to. Didn't spend any time trying to get new cartooning clients (aside from attending the AAN convention and WAM conference).
• Neglected this blog.

And my resolutions for 2006...

Things to do
• Start exercising again. I've got a gym in my freaking apartment building.
• Totally redesign my website and do more blogging here.
• Open a web store with more Mikhaela Toons products that will hopefully actually sell (T-shirts, buttons, whatever).
• Do at least one mailing of cartoon packets to potential client newspapers. I've never done this and that is bad.
• Travel to Europe or Latin America or Hong Kong, since I've only ever left the country TWICE (once spent a week in England, once spent 3 hours in Tijuana. Have never been even to Canada. Really)
• Organize my room and art supplies and cartooning paperwork.
• Go to bed earlier, get up earlier.
• Get out of the house more, get to more events in the city, but ones that don't cost big $$$.
• Do life-drawing and other things to hone cartooning and art skills.
• Single-handedly bring down the Bush administration (I kid, I kid. But wouldn't that be cool?)

Things to stop doing
• No more credit cards--debit cards only.
• Put down the Tivo. Just put it down. Down. I've gone from being a totally TV-free girl to a digital cable Tivo addict.

I'm sure there's more, but whatever. Happy New Year! What are your resolutions?