Cartoonists With Attitude

Everyone take a moment to think happy thoughts for Steve Gilliard, who is undergoing another round of heart surgery.

I came across this image while researching a project I’m working on.

Helpful advice to major Bush donors raising thousands of dollars for him in order to get cushy ambassador spots: it is good advice to not donate $50,000 to a smear group devoted to destroying the presidential campaign of the senator who now gets to prevent you from becoming an ambassador and then suck up to him in your confirmation hearing hoping he might, I don’t know, forget about it or something.

Because, you know, it turns out he won’t.

In today’s cartoon, Kranti isn’t a bit jealous of Nikko’s pizza. Not a bit. Click on the fragment below for the full cartoon at comics.com:

The more you click on my cartoons at comics.com during 2007, the better the chances they’ll appear in daily city papers in 2008. If you like Minimum Security, please see a new cartoon each weekday!

The Children’s Defense Fund (who I work for) launched a new campaign on Tuesday to raise awareness of the lack of health care for millions of children in America. If you think the lack of health care in America isn’t a critical issue, then you don’t read stories like this:

Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.

A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.

If his mother had been insured.

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

If Medicaid dentists weren’t so hard to find.

If his mother hadn’t been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.

By the time Deamonte’s own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care, the Prince George’s County boy died.

Dental health care coverage would have fixed Driver’s teeth for less than a hundred bucks. If opponents of universal health care don’t care at all for the agonizing death forced on a 12-year old boy because of this country’s “best health care system in the world,” then maybe they might be alterted to the additional fact that Driver’s final days were spent exhausting almost $250,000 on emergency care.

Eighty dollars versus a quarter of a million and a dead child. Yeah, this is an important issue.

I’ll be appearing in Cambridge, MA at the Women, Action, & the Media (WAM) conference on April 1, 11a.m. along with cartoonists Mikhaela Reid and Stephanie McMillan. Lots of fun publishing types will be present. More details

I’ve been a member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists for a while now (maybe a year?), but never got around to putting my profile or cartoons on the site. I’ve finally done that. If you like cartoons, there are many many great ones on that site.

I’ve been sort of kicking this idea around for a while, and it seemed appropriate for the time when I would actually be visiting Hollywood, just before the Oscars no less. Not that my trip had anything to do with that. I actually liked LA quite a bit — what I saw of it, at least. I find its general wackiness refreshing. I’m sure I would grow disgusted if I spent more time there. Or maybe not. The weather was awfully nice. I wanted to weep with gratitude.

Seriously, though. Why should actors get all the credit? Why should they get to live in Malibu palaces while the poor schlub writers tap away at their keyboards in dank hovels littered with Carl’s Jr. wrappers and desiccated gummy bears stuck in the carpet? (I’m sure plenty of screenwriters live better than this, but please indulge me my rhetorical flourishes.) Hell, I can’t even keep up with all these new actors. Where are you, Molly Ringwald? Judge Reinhold? I’m dating myself, aren’t I?

Here’s a draft of the graphic novel cover. There are already several changes planned, but this is basically what it will probably look like:

Two more versions are .

A new poll reveals how incredibly ignorant and callous many Americans are.

Americans unaware of Iraqi death toll

Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.

When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000.

—–

Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower.

The real number is, of course, much higher. There’s no official number, but one study put at 650,000. I don’t think an honest observer could put it below 100,000–The U.N. reported 34,000 deaths for 2006 alone. And just think, for every respondent who gave a figure in the hundreds of thousands it would take dozens of people answering absurdly low figures to average down to 9,000.

Add in the amount of people who were injured and the 40,000 Iraqis that are now leaving the country every month and you can start to understand the scale of devastation. Even another factor is the size of the population in proportion to ours. They have (had) 25 million people upon our invasion to our 300 million. Increase the death toll by a factor of 12 to get an idea of what a similar situation in America would be.

Another poll reveals our Anti-Troop Troops:

An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey shows.

One thing: The poll was taken one year ago this month, meaning three quarters of the troops would already like to see us out of Iraq. Looks like the vast majority of the military is even ahead of the Democrats.