Cartoonists With Attitude

Lots of commentary from Pandagon and TAPPED on yesterday’s beyond-absurd Supreme Court ruling that, essentially, declared it perfectly alright for companies to pay women less as long as they get away with it for the first six months. In a stunning two-fer, Alito once again writes a majority that by saying the problem is the employee’s lack of filing a complaint in the alloted time, not that the complaint isn’t valid (it was), suddenly makes this the woman’s fault.

A lot of bloggers, not just feminist-issue ones, have been pointing this out, and it’s something others (especially Democratic candidates) need to start understanding and talking about better: the Roberts majority isn’t just anti-abortion. It’s anti-women. And the sooner liberals and progressives start telling moderate and even conservative women that even if they don’t like abortion, these people also want your daughters to not get the same pay, not get the same education, not have the same chance to play sports or even try and have the same jobs, the better. Because even if a mother thinks abortion is wrong, I doubt there are many mothers who think a judge has the right the tell them their daughter isn’t allowed to do something because she’s a girl.

And Atrios is completely right as well. I find it hard to believe slipping in a provision that fixes this in a major bill will cause right-wingers to try and scuttle it, but I’m even more doubtful that if it’s phrased in the form of “not letting there be time limits on getting equal pay for equal work” opinions on it will lean in opposition. Democrats control both houses of Congress. If their ability to correct this absurdity isn’t the very definition of “checks and balances,” I’m not sure what is.

C.W.A.-ers are leading a revolution in the world of editorial cartooning, and it all starts with releases of high-quality collections of subversive cartoon madness.

Mikhaela’s is out soon, and Masheka’s is below. I can vouch, this is good stuff:

Deep Doodle by Masheka Wood (Preview)

Not much to say about this week’s ‘toon for my weekly “More On…” post (or as some might call it, my “Moron” post… ha-ha-ha… ahhhh). Just me making a few cracks about the spectacular pile of crap coming out of Hollywood this summer. Other people have done better cartoons on this subject than I, but I thought I’d put my two cents in because… well, that’s all I could pull out of my ass this week.

It does bother me, though. Why exactly is it that every movie that is slightly popular these days has to turn into a trilogy? I probably should’ve thrown Shrek 3 and Rush Hour 3 into this week’s ‘toon. Seriously, Rush Hour 3? Why? Did anybody like Rush Hour 2? But what really, seriously drives me batshit insane is the seemingly endless parade of identical pop-”horror” turds that the viewing public is subjected to. My question is: does anybody really care if the hysterical idiots in these movies get killed? Can you imagine if, say, Bruce Lee were in one of these movies, and when the “scary part” comes, he screams like a little girl and runs out of the room with his arms flailing in the air?

OK, back to important stuff next week…

I’m putting these on sale for a limited time, half price.

Each is an original, signed oil painting. Each is one-of-a-kind (not a print). The paint is professional-grade. The canvas is gallery-wrapped, and do not have staples showing on the sides. The sides are painted with the same colors extended from the background, so they don’t need to be framed, are ready to hang, and will look great from any angle.

The first to email me about each one gets it: steph@minimumsecurity.net.
Please include the title in the subject line.

Bunnista in Paris
12″x16″x1-1/2″
$655 Now $327

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Bunnista Angry About Mercury in Fish
14″x18″x1/2″
$378 Now $189

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Bunnista’s Ears
12″x16″x1-1/2″
$288 Now $144

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Damaged Planet
12″x16″x1-1/2″
$288 Now $144

* Who: Angry cartoonists Mikhaela Reid & Masheka Wood
* What: Slideshow/signing for Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela!: Cartoons by
Mikhaela Reid w/ a foreword by Ted Rall and
Deep Doodle: Cartoons by Masheka Wood!
* When: Saturday June 9, 4 p.m.
* Where: Green Brain Comics, 13210 Michigan Ave., Dearborn, MI
* Why: You’ll be sorry if you don’t!
* No, really, why? Because:

“Mikhaela Reid’s cartoons are right *$%@ing on.”
– Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home

“Masheka Wood has powers way beyond mortal cartoonists. Get on his bandwagon now before there’s no room left!”
– Keith Knight, creator of The K Chronicles and th(ink)

Bushies are bum-rushing Cheney’s secret bunker! “Ex-gays” are quaking in their closets! Abstinence educators are shivering in their shiny silver purity rings! Greedy CEOs are heading for the hills! Brooklyn-based cartoonists Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood are on a rampage—and no hypocrite is safe! Slideshow, discussion & signing.

Non-Detroit folks, here are the other dates/locales planned: June 12, 7 p.m.: NYC @ Bluestockings (both Mikhaela and Masheka); June 22, 7 p.m.: NYC @ Think Coffee (Planned Parenthood book event with Mikhaela, Jessica Valenti and Amber Madison). Soon to come: Boston, DC, Brooklyn and more!

ABOUT THE CARTOONISTS

Mikhaela Reid is a cartoonist for the Metro Times whose works has also appeared in The Guardian, The Villager, Chelsea Now, The Phoenix, Bay Windows, In These Times, Women’s eNews, Ms., Funny Times, Campus Progress and Bitch. In 2006, Reid was named one of the Girls in Government/Feministing “Real Hot 100″ and was featured in the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art exhibit “She Draws Comics: A Century of Women Cartoonists.” Ted Rall calls Reid “an insurgent cartoonist: smart, irrepressible and unpredictable.” (www.mikhaela.net)

Masheka Wood grew up in Boston where he was warped by MAD, Night Flights, Garbage Pail Kids and Tex Avery cartoons. His lettering, cartoon and illustration work has appeared on MTV and in The New Standard. Wood’s cartoons were featured in a recent exhibit in Jackson State University, “Other Heroes: African American comics creators, characters, and archetypes.” He is a 2007 Glyph Comics Award nominee for “rising star”. (www.whatmashekadid.com)

In my recent comic Abstinence Facts I tried to lampoon Abstinence-Only proponents’ belligerently made up statistics characterizing condoms as unsafe by saying, “Russian roulette is safer than pre-marital coitus with contraceptives.”

But in Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg I learned that’s not an exaggeration of their position at all. I was reading the book this last week and on a section dealing with Sex-Ed and Crisis Pregnancy Centers I came across this:

During her talk at Reclaiming America for Christ, Stenzel announced, “There is no way statistically that you can have sex with someone who is not a virgin and not get a disease.” Choosing the Best, one of the most widely used abstinence-only curriculum, compares sex with a condom to Russian roulette and says, “there is a greater risk of a condom failure then the bullet being in the chamber.”

These people make satire difficult.

This comic was mainly made of jokes that for reasons of taste or space couldn’t fit into my next comic for the ACLU, which is on Abstinence Only Education. That should be up by next Monday.

My thoughts on the Democrats’ cave last week on the war funding bill are a little more complicated than this cartoon suggests, though it reflects my overall belief that the vote was politically disastrous. Instead of being overcautious about seeming too forceful, the Dems need to start worrying about appearing too weak; and that is exactly how they came off by giving Bush a blank check to continue the Iraq gorefest until September. More than anything, Americans want leaders with convictions. For better or worse, it matters less what those convictions are than the strength of those convictions.

I find myself more perplexed than anything. What the hell were they thinking? It almost seems like there has to be more to the story than what we know. The thing that confused me most was that my own Senator, Jim Webb, voted for passage — and not only has he opposed the war from the beginning, but he has a son in Iraq. More than anyone, he doesn’t have to worry about accusations of “not supporting the troops.” An excerpt of his statement on the bill:

I worked very hard to try to persuade the Democratic leadership to include clear, restrictive language in this Supplemental. I did not succeed, and was disappointed in many of the provisions that remained. However, we are working under the reality that, on the issue of Iraq, this Senate does not have a Democratic majority. From the outset, we are a minority of 49, given Senator Lieberman’s position on the war. This reality dictates our conduct.

The fact that he mentions Lieberman intrigues me, because I was just speculating that that obnoxious tit could be at the center of all of this. He recently backed away from his earlier promise not to go Republican, which would end the Dems’ control of the Senate. Given Webb’s statement, I can’t help but think Lieberman factored in more heavily than most reporting on the bill suggests.

Personally, I was more upset when the Dems declined to filibuster radical wackadoo Alito, because I think the consequences of having him on the Supreme Court for the next three decades could be worse than a few extra months of involvement in Iraq, as bad as that will be. But they still deserve a kick in the pants.

Thank you so much to gillen for pointing me to my grandfather’s best animated film, “Die Ferwitterte Melodie” (Weather-Beaten Melody, 1942) on youtube!! Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dKQLUqgB-0
It’s about ten minutes long.

For those who’d like more background, here’s a long excerpt from a pretty interesting article about him: “Resistance And Subversion in Animated Films of The Nazi Era: the Case of Hans Fischerkoesen.”

Another great thing this morning: the first passion fruit of the summer! It was so good!! There are many more on the vine ripening.

In Tuesday’s cartoon, Nikko is at a total loss. 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!

“Stuff I’d Rather Do Than Watch That Movie, #4“…

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