Mikhaela.net redesign sneak preview

Considering that I've done professional web design and information architecture projects, Mikhaela.net has been long overdue for a serious organizational and aesthetic overhaul. Here's a sneak peak at my design in progress:

Mikhaela's animated progressive media map

Recently I got to do a really fun project for In These Times magazine, which was to design an information graphic map thing showing the emerging power of the progressive media. It looks pretty enough in print, but the interactive Flash version is even cooler.

New Cartoon: "Ask Ann Coulter"

Kinda like Ann Landers, except evil and crazy and convinced all liberals deserved to be killed but still getting media attention and press as if she was a reasonable person.

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My new Mikhaela logos

As you can see, I'm working through a long overdue Mikhaela.net redesign, and I thought it might be fun to draw myself a new logo, but I couldn't stop at just one.

Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood to wed; Ted Rall to officiate

Check it out, we got written up on Editor & Publisher, the Daily Cartoonist, and EditorialCartoonists.com ("Reid is Hot -- And Engaged")!

New Cartoon: "Bigot Pride"

Touching, isn't it?

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Mikhaela=Officially Super Hot (but in a feminist and not icky Maxim kinda way)
That's the good news. I also have some bad news.

The results are in, and I'm officially one of the Real Hot (Feminist) 100!

That's the good news. The bad news is that it looks like I'll be losing another newspaper client soon, which really sucks since that will leave me with just three regular newspapers (I had five only a few weeks ago, eek!).

I won't say which paper yet, but again, if you like my work PLEASE write to the papers and websites that run my stuff. If I keep losing clients at this crazy rate, I may have to close up shop and then where would you get your dose of Mikhaela gloomy fun?

Inspired by some Bush admin spokes-idiot who called three suicides at Guantanomo Bay "a good PR move" or some such total awful horrible nonsense.

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Hanging out with Alison Bechdel and other Cartoonists With Attitude

Any regular blog readers know that Alison Bechdel is my favorite cartoonist of all time. So how awesome was it that I got to go have drinks and draw and talk shop with her and Jen Camper ("Juicy Mother") and Joan Hilty tonight? Really awesome!

I also got to see some of my favorite subversive political cartoonist pals at MOCCA a few weeks ago. From left to right: Matt Bors ("Idiot Box"), Stephanie McMillan ("Minimum Security"), Mikhaela Reid (that's me!), Masheka Wood ("Not Just Knee Deep"), Scott Bateman ("Bateman 365"), and Brian McFadden ("Big Fat Whale").

Here comes the cartoonist bride...

You know what's really awesome? Love. You know what's really goddamn stupid and disgusting? Bigotry, hate, and all those nasty people claiming that their anti-gay stupid nonsense is somehow a "defense" of marriage.

That's my Mikhaela way of announcing that fellow cartoonist Masheka Wood and I are going to be getting hitched in September 2007.

Update: Did I mention that Ted Rall will be officiating our wedding? No, I guess I didn't. But he will be. How many brides can say that, huh?

Attention Ohio readers: Attitude 3 book-signing in Cleveland tomorrow June 15!

My dear friends and cartoonists extraordinaire Matt Bors ("Idiot Box") and Brian McFadden ("Big Fat Whale") will be in Cleveland tomorrow signing books. Matt has the details:

This Thursday the 15th, I will be signing copies of Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonist with Brian McFadden of Big Fat Whale at Mac's Backs on Coventry Road in Cleveland (google map) starting at 6pm. If you need more incentive to get out of your house than two obscure cartoonists, we will be set up smack in the middle of the Coventry Street Fair where there will be music, merchants, and food. You can also order a copy of Attitude 3 from my store and I will put a sketch in it.

Meet Mikhaela and Masheka at the MOCCA fest in NYC this Sunday June 11

I should have posted this earlier but I've been ill. Mind you, we're ONLY there on Sunday, and we're not listed--I'll likely be at the Attitude table with Ted Rall, Matt Bors, Brian McFadden and others, and Masheka will likely be at Deven Quinn's table.

MoCCA Art Festival 2006
June 10-11, 2006
Puck Building (293 Lafayette at Houston), New York City

Hours: 11:00am - 6:00pm
Admission is $8 each day / $10 weekend pass (weekend pass only $5 for MoCCA members)

Meet comics and cartoon artists! Get sketches and autographs from Gahan Wilson, Joe Staton, Fly, Paolo Rivera and others at the MoCCA Fundraising Sketch Table! Buy comics, comix, cartoons, graphic novels as well as prints and original artwork! Sit in on our always entertaining and educational panel sessions!

Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

Alison Bechdel has been my favorite cartoonist since I was 14, and her new graphic novel memoir Fun Home is totally amazing. She's even been getting rave reviews and coverage in Entertainment Weekly, People, and the like. And you should buy it right this minute and try to meet her on her book tour. Here's a good profile of Alison in Seven Days, and here's a short synopsis of the book:

This breakout book by Alison Bechdel takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr. It's a father-daughter tale pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings and--like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis--a story exhilaratingly suited to the graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as gay herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift . . . graphic . . . and redemptive.

New Cartoon: "Your Yucky Body: Summer Swimsuit Spectacular"

Somewhat self-explanatory, I'd say. This cartoon is a seasonal sequel to my previous toon "Your Yucky Body: A Repair Manual".

Update: right after I posted this, I found this little article: "Bikini-Season Quick Fixes."

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Not-so-happy birthday: Boston Phoenix is officially dropping my cartoons

This just sucks. Really really sucks. Like I said, they were my most important client, so I'm pretty bummed out about this. I don't know if it will do much good, but please send them a letter if you can to let them know how much you enjoy my strip and miss seeing it in the paper: letters@phx.com .