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Travel comic in The Oregonian
Now it can be told: I have my first graphic travelogue appearing in Sunday’s Oregonian, filling a full newspaper page and a half in the travel section. But you can see it online now! This is the most ambitious project I’ve taken on in a while, and I loved doing it. I’ll be posting some photos of the trip here soon.
This Week’s Cartoon: “All You Need Is Like”
A little while ago, I was startled to see my Facebook friends popping up on the Washington Post website. More recently, Facebook has added “like” buttons to individual comments, so you can not only like somebody’s post, but the replies to that post. Now, I’ve got nothing against positive reinforcement. I find it encouraging and helpful when people “like” one of my cartoons (which, incidentally, you can do RIGHT NOW on the Slowpoke Facebook page!). But it’s starting to feel like the internet is getting a bit too interactive. Every single infintesimal thing has to be voted upon, commented upon, socially bookmarked, and generally subjected to the fickle whims of the Zeitgeist. And usually, what comes out on top is kitties. Oh, the kitties! Makes me almost yearn for the days of one-way information beams boring directly into your skull. Those were some good times.
Pride and Prejudice Posters now available!
For the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice earlier this year, NPR Books asked me to create a one-page comic version of the story. This was something of an artistic challenge, but in the end it seemed to please Jane Austen fans and scholars, who made it the most-read story on NPR that day.
And lo, just in time for last-minute Christmas shopping (or in plenty of time for the 201st anniversary of Pride and Prejudice), I have prepared for you a lovely poster version of the comic, available hand-signed. The printer did an excellent job; the poster is on heavy stock with a smooth, silky finish that you’ll want to caress as Jane would Mr. Bingley.
What I’ve Been Up To: Reubens! Travel! Lightbulbs!
It’s been a while since I babbled about myself in this space, so here’s a giant autobiographical news dump for you. Last month I took a trip to the Pacific Northwest to get my stuff out of storage, and am happy to report that I have a proper drawing table again after many months of using any available surface. My office is slowly shaping up, as I make my way through a giant crap pile in the middle of the floor. My main problem is that I have no place to put the crap, meaning I need to go out and buy some more crap to put the crap in, and I really have no patience for that sort of thing.
Upon returning from the Northwest, I took off for Pittsburgh for the National Cartoonists Society annual Reubens Weekend. I almost didn’t go, but am very glad I did, because I won the NCS Award for Best Editorial Cartoons! The Reubens are often referred to as the Oscars of the cartooning world, except with none of the media coverage of the Oscars. Here I am holding my lovely plaque, which I look forward to hanging in my office as soon as I buy some nails.
I also had the pleasure of appearing on a panel that weekend with several luminaries from the daily strip world. From left is moderator Hilary Price (she stood on a chair while orating at one point, a technique I will have to try on a future panel), Terri Libenson, me, Cathy Guisewite, and Lynn Johnston.
Photo by Barbara Dale
Never in my wildest imagination as a wee youngster reading the comics page did I think I’d be sitting beside THE Cathy and the creator of “For Better or For Worse” at a conference someday. Afterwards, some of us went out for delicious sandwiches with french fries in them at Primanti Brothers.
A day or two after the Reubens, I found out that I am a finalist in this year’s Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Awards. I can really get behind this award-a-day plan. At risk of excessive horn-tooting, around this time I was mentioned in the New York Times, in a review of Victor Navasky’s book on political cartooning. I’m listed as an omission from the book, along with several prominent cartoonists whose absence from any book on political cartooning is frankly bewildering.
Right now I’m knee-deep in freelance work and home improvement projects without end. I did manage to successfully change the lightbulb in my refrigerator the other day, and now I can see my food again. This has been my greatest recent accomplishment, aside from the NCS Award.
Next week I’m off to Utah for the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention. Yesterday, I was the “guest cartoonist” for my colleague and all-around good guy Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake City Tribune; they ran my gun control strip from a few weeks ago. Stay tuned for further developments from the Beehive State.
This Week’s Cartoon: “2012: A Mad Lib Odyssey”
Three years ago around this time, I was asked to draw a comic for C-VILLE Weekly about events in the year ahead. At first it felt like I’d been asked to predict the future, and I thought it would be difficult. But after a bit of mulling, I found I could write an entire two-page comic addressing many of the “big” news stories of 2009 — Obama’s inauguration! The Star Trek reboot! The First Puppy! — before the year even happened. It made me realize just how much news is formulaic. Not to diminish the importance of good journalism; on the contrary! It is the antidote to normalizing fluff.
So I decided to do a mini-version of my “predictive” comic, in a sense. Just remember it in November when you hear some pundit waxing triumphant about the American electoral process, which will most assuredly have sucked in a thousand ways, no matter who won.
Pride and Prejudice posters in Etsy shop
I’ve opened an Etsy shop for my “Pride and Prejudice Illustrated” posters. For those of you who are new to the blog, I was commissioned by NPR Books to draw Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” as a one-page comic for the 200th anniversary of the novel. Let me just say these are the perfect gift for the Jane Austen fan in your life. 
Yes, it’s the entirety of “Pride and Prejudice” condensed into one comic strip, printed on heavy paper stock with a soft, silky finish, and hand-signed by the cartoonist herself (er, me). Ships within 1-3 business days. Order now to get one by Christmas!
This Week’s Cartoon: “Union Envy”
As unions grow less and less powerful in the US, it seems we’re losing our collective memory of why they are important, and also of what a decent job looks like. As one young person put it recently in the NYT:
More typical was Brett Stephens, 23, who had worked in more jobs since he was 15 than Ms. Rollins has in her lifetime. He had jobs at a snack shop, as a lifeguard, at Little Caesars restaurants in South Carolina and Florida, at a Limited clothing store, with a temp agency, and most recently as a cook in a diner.
He did not go to college, he said, because his grandmother, who raised him after his mother died when he was 9, could not afford to send him. Now he scrapes by on $10 an hour, unable to afford health care for his two children. It is covered by welfare.
“I think they should stop crying,” he said of the protesting union members. Everyone was working hard and tightening their belts, he said, so why should unions be different?
I empathize with anyone trying to support a family on crap jobs like that — but this also illustrates how the working class plays right into the hands of the very elites who want to do away with unions. First, eliminate the good jobs that allow workers their fair share of the nation’s wealth; next watch them turn against each other. On the Slowpoke Facebook page (only 5 more likes till 900!), one reader alludes to a crab bucket, an analogy often used by writer Terry Pratchett:
Anyone as experienced in handling seafood as Ms Pushpram knows that no lid is necessary on a bucket of crabs. If one tries to climb out, the others will pull it back. Crabs fall considerably lower on the evolutionary scale than primates and, certainly, people, so this this seems to be a basic force of life. Petty jealousy or a reluctance to see anyone do better has probably slowed the development of civilisation more than anything.
Fortunately, polls show a majority of Americans support workers keeping their bargaining rights — so our case of crabs is not an epidemic, as some billionaires might have you believe.
Comic on Immigrant Activist Danilo Lopez
I’ve been meaning to share a one-page comic I drew recently for Vermont’s Seven Days altweekly, which publishes a cool annual cartoon issue full of stories rendered in comic format. I teamed up with News Editor Andy Bromage to create this piece about a local activist for undocumented farm workers, Danilo Lopez, whom you could justifiably call the Cesar Chavez of Vermont.
Danilo was ordered to self-deport by July 6. Not long after the comic was published, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement granted him a “stay of removal” that postpones his deportation for at least another year. While I doubt that the comic affected the ICE’s decision, I’m right proud of it nonetheless.
Japanese Snow Monsters!
If you enjoyed my Oregonian story about the snow ghosts in Whitefish, Montana, you might want to check out these totally cool photos of the Japanese equivalent — snow monsters!
(To give credit where credit is due, the above photo was originally posted here, prior to the snow monsters page linked above.)
Thanks to reader John A. for the link.
Additional thoughts on Obamacare comic
I’ve appended some follow-up thoughts on my Kaiser Health News comic to this week’s cartoon, below. (Posting this to cycle it into the blog section of the front page).
This Week’s Cartoon: “The Color of Welfare”
You’d think that decades in politics would knock the racist claptrap out of someone like Newt Gingrich, but, well, this is the GOP we’re talking about. Instead, he just substitutes polite-sounding phrases like “African-American community” and “demand paychecks” for “those lazy blacks.” How does one go about demanding a paycheck, anyway? I’d like to be able to do that, and have one show up. That would be cool.
The dialogue in the third panel refers to Ron Paul’s Paranoid Kook Reports, which contained the theory that the LA riots only came to a halt because everyone went to pick up welfare checks. And right-wing noise machine poopshoveler Brent Bozell said on Fox News that Obama looked like a “skinny ghetto crackhead.” Rick Santorum has also made similar comments to Newt’s.
To be clear, my point here was not to pick on poor whites, but to criticize the singling out of one group when poverty cuts across multiple demographics. For data on food stamp usage, I looked at this USDA report (big PDF, via the ThinkProgress article linked above; page 75 has the breakdown) and this, which documents disproportionate rural usage, largely by children.
Slowpoke Meets Rhymes With Orange
My week as guest cartoonist for Hilary Price’s “Rhymes With Orange” has begun! I’ve been a fan for years, and am honored to be entrusted with the strip. It’s one of the smarter ones you’ll find on the comics page these days. Check your daily newspaper or read it at the official RWO website.
