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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

East Coast Black Age of Comics, Part 1: The Glyph Awards

Masheka Wood Presents Keith Knight with the Glyph Award for Best Comic Strip (The K Chronicles)
Masheka Wood Presents Keith Knight with the Glyph Award for Best Comic Strip (The K Chronicles)
Masheka and his 2006 quilt panel Kyle Baker dons sunglasses to give his Best Arist Award acceptance speech Cool old ECBACC posters Joseph Wheeler III, Iyabo Shabazz, Jerry Craft, with dagger: "And the Winner of the Rising Star Award is... Spike!" Standing ovation for pioneering cartoonist Larry Fuller Peformance interlude with poet/rapper Grayson Board Masheka Wood and Eye Trauma's John Jennings

(Click any of the above images or view the whole set for my coverage and commentary).

Photos from the Glyph Comics Award Ceremony on May 18, 2007 at Philadelphia's African-American Museum, the kickoff for the 6th Annual East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention. Check out Glyph Awards founder Rich Watson's blog for a full list of nominees and winners and extensive Glyphs coverage. Keith Knight, Kyle Baker and Larry Fuller accepted their awards in person, but one of the highlights was Stagger Lee writer Derek McCulloch accepting one of several awards via speakerphone cellphone (with the help of Prof. William Foster). McCulloch gave a moving speech and joked that he was speaking to us from a bathroom.

My fiancé Masheka Wood was a nominee for Rising Star, and although he didn't win, it "was an honor to be nominated" (and the award went to the amazing Spike, for her strip Templar, Arizona, so hard to be too bummed about it).

Plus we got to present the award for Best Comic Strip to amazing fellow Cartoonist With Attitude Keith Knight, for his strip The K Chronicles (a second-time winner!). Keith took photos of his own butt on the way up to the podium and remarked that it was nice to be at a convention where no one mistook him for Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder. He also later noted that the food at ECBACC (BBQ, meatballs, rice, jerk chicken, fried chicken, and other delights) was far superior to the usual comics convention concessions (typically suspiciously gray hot dogs and burgers).

Masheka and I also got to meet and/or hang out with:

  • Host Jamar Nicholas ("The Jamar Chronicles," "Detective Boogaloo"), who instructed the mostly-non-Philly audience on proper cheese-steak-ordering etiquette.
  • Kyle Baker, accepting the award for Best Artist, said it was nice to be at a convention where he didn't have people asking "Who's Nat Turner?" He also donned sunglasses as a way, he said, of distinguishing himself from all the other guys with dreadlocks--not typically necessary at your average 95% white comic convention.
  • Eye Trauma's John Jennings and Damian Duffy (the curators of Other Heroes and Out of Sequence. They're currently working on their stunning science fiction horror graphic novel about racism and consumer culture, The Hole:
  • Joseph Wheeler III & Iyabo Shabazz.
  • Cheryl Lynn, of Digital Femme (and founder of the rapidly expanding Ormes Society for black women cartoonists), who spoke on a fantastic panel called "Having Our Say: Black Women Discuss Imagery." More on that panel when I post the pictures. For now, here's a recent quote from her blog:
    What do women want from comics?

    The answer isn't important. Here's all you need to know:

    No reader wants to be made to feel that he or she is inherently less than a member of another group when he or she picks up a book to enjoy.

    That sums up a large part of ECBACC's mission, as does the work of...
  • Professor William H. Foster III, whose current exhibit at MOCCA NYC is called "Looking for a Face Like Mine." From MOCCA:
    Blacks were deliberately left out of comics and American society for many years,” Foster noted. “On those rare occasions when we were included, we were misrepresented as savages, cannibals, simpletons, and worse. My research documents this important history both fair and foul, for all time, while there are still traces of it left.”
  • The tireless Rich Watson, Glyph Comics Awards founder and editor of the excellent new Urban Voice of Comics magazine (which describes itself as "Wizard meets Vibe.")
  • Underground comics legend Larry Fuller, who accepted the Glyphs Pioneer Award.
  • Our table buddy, Ayo (more on him in the Saturday post). Ayo was a bit bummed out by his ECBACC sales, but I think that had more to do with our poor choice of table location than anything else--we got there really early and thought it'd be great to be right by the door, but folks walked right past the door to get to the main convention. Oops.
  • Syndicated cartoonist Jerry Craft (Mama's Boyz), who was the only presenter to open his envelope with a dagger.
  • Dwayne McDuffie, of Static Shock fame, and Dwayne McDuffie forum moderator Stephanie Brandford (mutate20).
  • Omar Bilal, of the Museum of Black Superheroes.
  • Vampire Huntress author L.A. Banks.
  • And many more awesome comics artists and writers and fans, some of whom I will mention tomorrow.

For more ECBACC coverage, see The Heroic Times (which has some Larry Fuller images), Eye Trauma, Cheryl Lynn's Publishers Weekly report, Keith Knight's blog and Glyphs.

Coming up: photos from the convention itself (including one of me asleep with a Keith-Knight-penned "please buy my comics" sign pinned to me), and photos and coverage of the panel "Having Our Say: Black Women Discuss Imagery."

Update: See "Part 2: Convention Photos."

P.S. Buy Masheka's book, Deep Doodle!

Labels: appearances, awards, black, cwa, ecbacc, events, glyph awards, philadelphia, photos, race and racism


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posted by Mikhaela at 8:00 AM 2 Comments Links to this post   

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Cartoonists With Attitude at APE photos!

Masheka, Mikhaela, guacamole Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder and cartoonist Masheka Wood Keith Knight, Morrie Turner, Aaron McGruder and Jeff Chang APE 2007: Mikhaela Reid visits the Bob the Angry Flower booth APE 2007: The Cartoonists With Attitude Table Ted Rall and August Pollak at Susie's Diner Attack of the 50 Ft. Mikhaela: Cartoons By Mikhaela Reid arrives! Masheka with Deep Doodle book and postcard APE 2007: Hungry Cartoonists With Attitude hunt for food in vain

(Click any of the above images to see the whole set).

Cartoonists With Attitude totally rocked the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco last weekend. Also, I can't even begin to describe how exciting it was to hold (and sell) copies of my first book (which will SOON be available for sale here, as soon as I get some more copies--I sold out of all the ones I had for APE). Also, the food in San Francisco was predictably amazing.

Masheka and I also had the honor of meeting Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder (see photo of him and Masheka above) and having dinner with legendary Wee Pals cartoonist Morrie Turner and hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang. And I got to chat with Curbside mastermind Robert Kirby! All-around awesomeness, really.

Labels: appearances, cwa, events, photos


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posted by Mikhaela at 12:19 AM 5 Comments Links to this post   

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Reminder: Cartoonists With Attitude at APE in San Francisco this weekend!

The Cartoonists With Attitude gang will be out in full force in San Francisco this April 21-22 for the Alternative Press Expo (APE). Confirmed CWAers:

  • Matt Bors ("Idiot Box")
  • Keith Knight ("The K Chronicles")
  • Stephanie McMillan ("Minimum Security")
  • Steve Notley ("Bob the Angry Flower")
  • August Pollak ("Some Guy With a Website")
  • Ted Rall(Silk Road to Ruin)
  • Mikhaela Reid ("The Boiling Point")
  • Shannon Wheeler ("How to be Happy")
  • Masheka Wood ("Not Just Knee Deep")

And in case you weren't aware, you should really read our group blog (also available as an RSS feed or LiveJournal feed) if you want to get all our blogs and most of our cartoons in one convenient place. We also have a not-so-frequently updated Cartoonists With Attitude MySpace page if you want to be our friend.

Also, Masheka and I will be debuting our new, real, color-cover book collections this week:

Labels: appearances, cwa, events, merchandise


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posted by Mikhaela at 10:09 AM 0 Comments Links to this post   

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Other Heroes Art Show Opening today in Jackson, Missisippi

Cartoonists With Attitude members Keith Knight, Masheka Wood and myself all have work in this show, though Masheka and I won't be able to get to Mississippi to see it. Here are the details from the curators:
Other Heroes: African American comics creators, characters, and archetypes opens today, on Thursday, April 5th! There will be an opening reception for the show Apr. 5 from 4-6pm in the Jackson State University Gallery, located in the Dollye M.E. Robinson School of Liberal Arts Building, Jackson, MS. It will feature a gallery talk by the curators of the show, John Jennings and Damian Duffy. Everyone's invited. If you can make it, bring yourself and some guests. We can guarantee this will be an unprecedented and outstanding exhibition of comics art. With artists like these how could it be anything but?

Meanwhile, the Other Heroes Catalog is ON SALE NOW! Available for purchase online, and chock full of all the fantastic art from the show, the catalog also features essays from a serious line up of comics creators and scholars. The contents are:

  • -intrOH!- Damian Duffy w/ John Jennings
  • -E. Sims Campbell: Comics Pioneer - R.C. Harvey
  • -Da Rise of Da Blackuns and Da Black Age of Comics - Turtel Onli
  • -Jackie Ormes Biography - Nancy Goldstein
  • -Here Come the Sisters! - Prof. Bill Foster
  • -Somewhere Between Here and There is Me - Alex Simmons
  • -Finding Other Heroes - John Jennings w/ Damian Duffy

178 pages. $50.00. All proceeds past printing costs donated to Scholarship America's Disaster Relief Fund, helping low income students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita seek post secondary educations.

We're excited to finally get it all together, and we hope you are too. Please help spread the word about the show and the catalog. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to contact the curators: Damian Duffy, duff@eyetrauma.net, 217-355-8569 and John Jennings, jayjay@uiuc.edu, 217-244-8539.

Labels: art, cwa, events, exhibits


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posted by Mikhaela at 8:20 AM 0 Comments Links to this post   

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

WAMtastic!

CWA at WAM 2007
The women of CWA

Freelancers + Feministing at WAM 2007
Freelance writer Courtney Martin, Feministing executive editor Jessica Valenti, freelance political cartoonist Mikhaela Reid (me!) and Feministing editors Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Vanessa Valenti

WAM 2007 partyWAM Party 2007

Full set of photos here.

Last weekend the three women of Cartoonists With Attitude (Jen Sorensen, Stephanie McMillan and Mikhaela Reid) spent the weekend in Cambridge, MA at the Center for New Words' fabulous annual Women, Action & the Media (WAM) conference. We attended fantastic panels and hang with/meet fabulous women such as the editors of Feministing.com, Bitch magazine, Campus Progress, In These Times, The American Prospect and other assorted fine publications. And we did our panel thing with a slideshow called Resistance Through Ridicule, which even featured a surprise guest, cartoonist/illustrator Jennifer Cruté.

The overall experience was, in Jen's words, completely "Wamtastic!" As you can see from these photos.

I should note that we also had drinks with the one and only creator of Big Fat Whale, CWAer Brian McFadden, but I neglected to capture him on digital film.

I will concur with Stephanie that it only took five minutes of being in the same room before Jen, Stephanie and I found ourselves talking about fonts and PhotoShop. Oh, cartoonists!

Labels: appearances, cartoonists, cwa, events, photos, WAM


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posted by Mikhaela at 12:09 AM 6 Comments Links to this post   

Friday, March 30, 2007

Bay Windows Interview With Ted Rall about Ann Coulter

Bay Windows (my longest-run newspaper comics home!) has an excellent interview with my good buddy and fellow Cartoonist With Attitude Ted Rall about why he disagrees with the HRC campaign to get Ann Coulter's column dropped over her use of the word "faggot" in a recent speech. (Remember: Ted despises Coulter and even considered suing her for lies she told about him in a previous speech. But he has also been the target of successful right-wing campaigns flooding editors with fake "I'm going to cancel my subscription unless you drop that evil Ted Rall" letters).

Labels: cartoonists, cwa, freedom of speech, LGBT


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posted by Mikhaela at 7:58 AM 1 Comments Links to this post   

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Welcome new CWA member Steve Notley!

A warm welcome to Cartoonist With Attitude's lucky 13th member, Steve Notley (of "Bob the Angry Flower" notoriety!). The infamous Mr. Notley will be hanging with the CWA crew at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco next month (April 21-22).

Labels: cartoons, cwa


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posted by Mikhaela at 8:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post   

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Updated: Mikhaela, Jen, Stephanie and Feministing's Jessica Valenti at WAM 2007!

WOMEN, ACTION & THE MEDIA 2007
March 30 - April 1, 2007
Stata Center, MIT, Cambridge

Keynote Talks by Ellen GOODMAN & Thenmozhi SOUNDARARAJAN

Over 60 featured SPEAKERS & PANELISTS, including: Cynthia ENLOE, Loretta ROSSm E.J. GRAFF, Sonali KOLHATKAR, Lyn Mikel BROWN, Caryl RIVERS, Jessica VALENTI, Liza FEATHERSTONE, Gloria FELDT, Rita HENLEY JENSEN, Rebecca TRAISTER and more.

Over 30 PROGRAM SESSIONS, including: Making the Most of Digital Media, Why Journalism's Ethos Distorts News, Packaging & Selling Out Girls, Feminist Action for Media Accountability & Justice, The Freelance-Editor Relationship, Becoming a Citizen Journalist, The Web as a Site for Black Girls' Resistance, Making Documentaries for Social Change, Big Coverage, Big Cash, Women Using International Media, Sell a Book Proposal Without Selling Out, Promoting Justice Through Hip-Hop, and of course...

  • Resistance Through Ridicule: Cartoons & Humor in Activism.
    Sunday, April 1 @ 10 a.m., featuring Mikhaela Reid, Stephanie McMillan ("Minimum Security"), Jen Sorensen ("Slowpoke") and moderator Jessica Valenti (of Feministing fame).

    Humor can be serious stuff. Last year cartoonist Stephanie McMillan turned anti-choice politician Bill Napoli's support for a near-total abortion ban against him by encouraging women to call him for help with the most minor of decisions; her "Call Bill" cartoon became so popular she auctioned it off to raise money for a reproductive health clinic. Subversive women cartoonists are claiming space in male-dominated alternative and daily newspapers, and using their cartoons to help make change. The popular blog Feministing mixes anger with irreverence, turns a familiar symbol inside out with its logo of a busty mud-flap girl making a rude gesture, and got props from a mainstream magazine for making feminism "fun again."

    Can humor and cartoons make activism accessible and reach audiences that might otherwise might be apathetic? How can writers, bloggers, activists and editors use humor and art as political tools? Are art and humor a form of activism? Cartoon-filled slideshow and discussion, anger & laughter guaranteed.

Labels: appearances, cartoonists, cwa, events, feminism


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posted by Mikhaela at 9:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post   

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Welcome new CWA member Ruben Bolling!

The latest addition to the Cartoonists With Attitude crew is the elusive genius Ruben Bolling, of "Tom the Dancing Bug" fame.

Labels: cartoonists, cwa


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posted by Mikhaela at 10:54 PM 1 Comments Links to this post   

"Mikhaela B. Reid is an insurgent cartoonist: smart, irrepressible and unpredictable. "
--Ted Rall

"Mikhaela Reid's cartoons are right *$%@ing on."
--Alison Bechdel

"Mikhaela Reid rocks!! She's where i steal most of my ideas from!!"
--Keith Knight

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