Cartoonists With Attitude

The awesome LGBT rights organization Lambda Legal has put together a beautiful 2008 calendar featuring the cartoons from the Life Without Fair Courts Series (most drawn by me, but also some by Greg Fox, Ted Rall, Matt Bors and others!). Learn about a different crucial Supreme Court victory each month--and what might have happened had it gone the wrong way. The money raised goes to Lambda Legal's vital work, of course.

I designed this simple little kitty-cat Chanukah card to send to my relatives. If you’d like to buy some for yours, they’re for sale in packets of 10 here. There are no words inside.

P.S. Don’t worry, he’s not singing his whiskers, I would never allow either of my real cats to light the menorah.

In a last minute plot twist, I managed to snag a table at MOCCA’s 2007 Art Festival June 23rd & 24th with Mikhaela Reid, Brian McFadden and Ayo Brathwaite. Come see us at table C21 (right next to the Mens’ pooper) and buy my book “DEEP DOODLE” for the special convention price of $8!!!!

Much thanks to my friend Devin Quin who supplied the table to me when he had to bow out (due to his band, The Scurvy Pirates, performing in the Mermaid Day Parade at Coney Island this Saturday).

Mikhaela and Masheka’s Books:

Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela! Cartoons by Mikhaela Reid (Foreword by Ted Rall).

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 and Minutemen are bolting for the border! Cartoonist Mikhaela Reid is on the rampage—and no hypocrite is safe! Attack features 150 of Reid’s greatest cartoon hits, plus rarities, odds, ends and behind-the-scenes commentary! Available June 4 at Lulu.com!

Deep Doodle: Cartoons by Masheka Wood.

Masheka Wood takes you deep into the warped, candy-colored recesses of his brain as he tackles a variety of social, political and just plain grody targets. Here are Wood’s “Not Just Knee Deep” cartoons, assorted illustrations and a delicious dose of old-school comics. Prepare to lose your mind—or your lunch! Wood’s work has appeared on MTV, The New Standard and Jackson State University’s art exhibit, “Other Heroes: African American comics creators, characters, and archetypes.” He is a 2007 Glyph Comics Award nominee for ‘Rising Star.’ Available now at Lulu.com!

Mikhaela and Masheka’s Book Tour:

Click on any of these events for more details or view the calendar here.

Your RSVP would be ever so kindly appreciated. And please feel free to steal this image/text/links and help us promote this event! Please!)

• Who: Angry cartoonists Mikhaela Reid & Masheka Wood
• What: Slideshow/signing/book launch bash 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: Tuesday June 12, 7 p.m.-9:30 p.m.
• Where: Bluestockings Bookstore & Café, 172 Allen Street between Stanton & Rivington.
• 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 & party. Tasty treats available for purchase from the Bluestockings Cafe!

ABOUT THE CARTOONISTS
• Mikhaela Reid’s cartoons have appeared in The Guardian, The Villager, Chelsea Now, The Phoenix, Bay Windows, Metro Times, 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 also a Glyph Award nominee for black cartoonist “rising star”. (www.whatmashekadid.com)

Non-NYCers, here are the other dates/locales planned: May 19: Philly @ Temple U. ; June 9: Detroit @ Green Brain Comics; June 12: NYC @ Bluestockings. Soon to come: Boston, DC and more!

Too many hats! In addition to being a cartoonist, I’m currently trying to be my own publisher and publicist. Here are some locations that I’m going to try to get to–I don’t have definite spaces or dates for any of these events yet, but I’m working on it! I’ll announce final dates soon. If you live in any of these cities, I’m going to need help getting publicity, media, attendees to these events once I have firm dates/locations!

May
• May 19: Philly: Not an official Mikhaela booksigning/show, but I will be signing and selling books at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention at Masheka’s table.

June
• Detroit: going to try to set something up the weekend of June 8 if possible.
• New York: Not sure when this would be yet… probably a weeknight sometime. This would most likely be a joint event with Masheka.
• Portland, OR: This is EXTREMELY tentative!

July
• Washington, DC: Not sure of date, but there will likely be a joint event with Cartoonists With Attitude at which I will have books for sale.
• Boston or Cambridge, MA: Haven’t set a firm date or location yet, but this would be a weekend slideshow/signing event of some type.

August (or maybe July or late September, who knows)
• Philly An actual booksigning/show event.
• Northampton, MA: Thought this might be a good place to hit, what with all the LGBT comics I do. I’ll see what I can do.
• Lowell, MA: Hometown! Don’t even know if I should try this, but I’ll be around Lowell in August quite a bit anyway.

So the tentative official release date for Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela: Cartoons By Mikhaela Reid (i.e. the day you’ll be able to start ordering it on this here fine web site) is May 11. It may be sooner, it may be later! But I’m going to need some serious help promoting this thing, for several reasons:

• Although it will have a real ISBN and all that, it’s self-published, and I’ll primarily be selling it through Lulu.com and this website.
• I’m not sure yet if I can actually afford to sell it on Amazon.com, since they charge a whopping 55% commission fee, which would basically mean I was paying them several dollars per copy.
• HOWEVER, if there’s enough interest in the book, I can print enough copies to sell it through Amazon and still make a tiny bit of $$ per book. So we’ll see!
• I don’t have a distributor, and I’m quite nervous about trying to distribute it to actual stores, since that could mean returned and unsold copies I have to refund.
• But I do have tons of postcards I printed up, and I do plan to see if I can get the book into niche/specialty stores–queer/feminist/leftwing and suchlike bookstores would be good. If you know of any good ones, drop me a line! (cartoons@mikhaela.net)

Anyway, if you could do any of the following, my eternal gratitude is yours:

• Since I’m primarily selling it through the web, I’m particularly interested in sending review copies to blogs with lots of devoted readers who would be amenable to its contents. If you believe you fit this category, please drop me an e-mail (cartoons@mikhaela.net).

• But of course I would still love to be reviewed in print! So the above applies to print journalists/outlets as well!
• I would also LOVE love LOVE to do interviews with any blogs or online outlets (and print or radio outlets, of course). So let your writer/blogger/radio friends know!
• I’m nervous about trying to set up any solo events or signings, but I may try to set up some type of joint events or slideshows of some kind with Masheka and maybe other CWA members. Events at nearbyish colleges, bookstores, etc. I’d love to speak to any Gay/Straight Alliances in high schools (or colleges), too. I’m also happy to do entertaining digital cartoon slideshows in the New York/Massachusetts/Connecticut/Philadelphia type area (basically, anywhere I can reach by bus).

So yes… please help an angry cartoonist out! I’ll have postcards, web ads, promo materials and emails and other tools that should make it reasonably easy for anyone who wants to help!

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:

Here’s a sneak preview of the cover of my first book. Preview copies available next weekend at APE in San Francisco!