Cartoonists With Attitude

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It’s a classic.

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I’m off to Seattle and the annual AAEC editorial cartooning convention. In the meantime, I leave you with this tasty morsel.

Longtime “Alas” readers will recall a long-ago co-blogger, my friend and housemate Bean, who still posts a very occasional comment here, plus I often use Bean’s photos for kid blogging.

Sydney and Maddox were recently flower girls at the wedding of Bean to a lovely, quirky guy named Dan.

Many more pictures — not only of the girls, but also of a few other folks of interest to the “Alas” community — below the fold.

I love Maddox’s expression in this pic. “Why is Sydney holding hands with that boy?”

I’ve always found Sydney extremely easy to take nice pictures of; Sydney has a tendency to arrange herself well and to have camera-friendly expressions. Maddox looks almost exactly like Sydney did two years ago, but is mysteriously harder to take good photos of; her eyes are always closed, or she’s making a face that doesn’t look like herself, or she’s just moving too fast to get anything but a blur. (Bean says that you can capture Sydney with a photo, but it takes a video to get Maddox.)

I’ve taken nice photos of Maddox over the years, but it’s more effort. With Sydney you just point the camera in her direction and nice photos appear. The photos Bean got from the pro wedding photographer seem to prove that it’s not just me; there are tons of nice photos of Sydney, but not that many of Maddox.

Another pretty picture of Sydney.

Sydney explains to Bean that she (Sydney) is a spy. When Bean later repeated this to me, Sydney got quite annoyed, since she had been a secret spy.

The entrance of the flower girls. As far as Sydney and Maddox are concerned, this moment is what the whole wedding was about.¹

Of course, the girls weren’t the only “Alas” related folks present at Bean’s wedding….

The newly married couple of Bean and Dan. Huzzah! And in the background, the officient is me, Ampersand. I’m happy to report that I didn’t have to moderate Bean or Dan even once during the wedding ceremony. But I wish I had straightened my tie.

“Alas” co-moderator and frequent comment-writer Charles, wearing what I always think of as his puffy poet shirt, contemplates a flower girl bouquet.

Frequent “Alas” comment-writer Jake Squid, puffing on that newfangled e-cigarette of his.

Kevin Moore, whose political cartoons I’ve occasionally linked to, and who has occasionally left comments here. Looking at this photo, you may think Kevin is drunk. And for all I know, he was drunk. But the sad truth is, he always looks like that.

When I checked with Kev that it was okay for me to post his photo, he replied:

Here are my restrictions: It’s okay to publish my photo, unless I am naked. But if by some random chance/miracle a pic of me naked looks good and/or hot, then publish it. However, no photoshopping in bestiality. Unless the animal in question is really hot, then go ahead.

Another shot of me, because face it, I look sweet in a suit.

And one last shot of Bean and Dan. Sydney and Maddox, whenever they see photos of Dan and Bean kissing, will scream and cover their eyes, and Sydney will cry out “it burns, it burns!” (We’re not sure where she picked that up from, but it’s awesome.) In fact, Maddox in particular so enjoys this process, she specifically seeks out photos of Bean and Dan kissing, so she can object to having seen them.

Maziltov, Bean and Dan!

1. ”There are no small roles, only small actors.”

New cartoon. It’s a little like the last one. I like repeating a theme – gives me a chance to play with it a bit more. One of the benefits of not being in too many papers is that I feel ok about being a little self indulgent.

Speaking of self-indulgent. I need to get someone to update my Wiki page to include my New Yorker credit.

Here’s one a recent rejected cartoon. I felt like it was almost a joke but not totally there. I want to make fun of Twitter’s new popularity. Matt Bors did a “great American Twitter” joke a couple weeks ago, damn him. Much funnier than my attempt.

As usual, use this thread to post or link whatever you’d like. Self-linking is entirely welcome.

1. Raising a child to be neither girl nor boy, just “Pop.” Unapologetically Female and Feministing both comment.
2. It’s like a sick Onion headline come to life: Texas police raid gay bar on 40th anniversary of Stonewall. One bar patron is seriously injured.(Via.)
3. Ten things wrong with the President of France’s wanting to eliminate the burqa.
4. And at Global Comment: “Banning women from wearing the burqa is not about freedom, it is about the normalization of the Western performance of femininity.” (Via.)
5. Like a dictionary, but better, and crowdsourced: Wordnic. (Via.)
6. Ezra on Obama, taxes, and giving in to the Republican framing.
7. My God, who wouldn’t want a wife? (I wish she had posted this on “Alas.”)
8. If we wipe out the financial managers, that would solve many problems.
9. How Spike ruined Buffy, and Buffy ruined vampires. (Via.)
10. Israel has made some improvements in response to Obama.
11. How Obama’s big speech in Egypt gets a “C” at best on women’s rights. Although unlike Cathy, I’m not against mentioning that America has problems too; I don’t believe that Obama makes an equivalence just because he mentions them both in the same speech. (It’s a matter of contextual analysis, however, not a hard-and-fast rule.) In the end, the real question is: How could Obama have put it that would have been more likely to make a positive difference? I’m not sure what the answer is.
12. Womanist Musings on prison rape.
13. Unexpected allies department: The Corner gets it right on prison rape.
14. Posted because it’s of interest, not because I agree with all of it: Does it make sense to “ally” with Iranians when I have no idea what I’m talking about? (Via.)
15. Evolutionary psychology is still nonsense.
16. On being a Christian who wants to treat lesbian and gay people justly.
17. No, the financial crash was not caused by the Community Reinvestment Act. It really wasn’t.
18. Little Wheel. You’re a robot trying to wake up a dozing robot city. “Nothin’ too complicated, not really what I’d call a “game”, more like an animated story with a bit of interactivity, but nevertheless, beautiful and enjoyable.”

I’ve opened comments for everyone, including anonymous users, but I will approve them before they go up to avoid spam and the odd crazy person. We’ll see how it works.

Democrats have a habit of ceding things to the other side before they even sit down to discuss them. I’m glad they weren’t around during the Revolution–they would have wanted to take it off the table.

I guess if enough celebrities die in a given week, you’ll hit one you’ve drawn in a cartoon…