I will be among several political cartoonists exhibiting their work this Saturday at Holocene in Portland this weekend to raise money for the McKenzie River Gathering (MRG) Foundation. Several Cartoonists With Attitude will be represented, including local folks like Barry, Matt, and Shannon. Also Alison Bechdel, Tim Eagan, Jim Siergey, and many other great toonsters. Hope to see some local PDX folks there!

Update: I see that Kevin has totally plagerized this post. I can’t beleive that someone would be so lazy as to just cut and paste the text of someone else’s post and try to pass it off as his own. Next time I see that guy I’m gonna punch him one right on the snout.

In case folks wonder, I definitely didn’t mean this as a reference to Bob Hayes; that it might be read that way didn’t occur to me until two seconds ago, as I started to post the cartoon on “Alas.” I just used “Bob” because it’s a funny-sounding name (see: Black Adder), and because it’s only three letters long and so requires so little word balloon space.

Some folks here may remember my online comic, Hereville, which was on hiatus for a few years. This past October I restarted Hereville, which is the main reason I haven’t been as involved on discussions on “Alas” recently (and that’s the way it’ll be from now on, alas).

Anyhow, I want to let folks know that the first Hereville story, entitled “How Mirka Got Her Sword,” is complete — written, drawn, colored, and, earlier today, sent to the printer. Although of course there are some things about it I don’t like — some of the drawing on the early pages makes me wince — on the whole I’m very proud of this comic. I think it’s a significant step forward for me as a cartoonist.

It’s being serialized online at hereville.com, where a page appears every Wednesday. Right now it’s on page 17; the full comic is 57 pages long, so it’ll take until December 2008 to complete serialization. (The second Hereville story will begin being serialized in January 2009.)

For those of you who don’t want to wait, I’ll also be selling “Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword,” as a PDF file, as a CBR file, and as a printed, full-color comic book. The electronic downloads will cost $4 $5 each, and will be available quite soon — maybe later this week, maybe next week. I’ll post an announcement.

The paper version, which will cost $11.95, will premiere at my table at the Stumptown Comics Fest at the end of April. In May I’ll begin selling copies by mail. I plan to accept pre-orders for the printed comic beginning next week in order to help defray the printing costs. I know $12 is pricey for a 57-page comic book, but: (Full-color) + (small print run) = (expensive!).

I’m sorry that I can’t spend the time on “Alas,” or in the blogosphere, that I used to. But after a three-year period of “cartoonist’s block,” when I drew only rarely, it’s almost organismic-ly wonderous to feel driven to spend nearly all my free time creating comics.

The new blog Bad Cartoonist is written by someone who is obviously a political cartoonist, but he’s keeping his name to himself. (Or she. But odds are, given the demographics of political cartoonists, it’s he.)

And he’s pissed off by the laziness, hackery, and lack of imagination that characterizes most political cartooning nowadays. For instance:

Todays lesson is a follow-up on yesterdays lesson on how you too can be a cartoonist with out really trying. Today we’re going to learn from one well-paid, syndicate, award-winning cartoonist; Jeff Stahler.

Yesterday we learned how you can rip off Hollywood or Cnn when realise you don’t have a creative bone in your body. For those of you who are so insipid that you can’t even make a cartoon out of a movie poster we have the following technique. We’re going to call it the ‘Stahler’ because he does it more than anybody else but, keep in mind, every cartoonist on the planet does this, repeatedly. And they all hate it with a passion.

The idea is simple. If you can’t come up with an idea about a news story, just draw a cartoon of people reacting to the news. Most often this cartoon will be of two people, husband and wife, sipping coffee at the breakfast table reacting the newspaper in their hands. The cartoonist must draw the newspaper. No one knows for sure why, but it is a rule that is followed religiously. Subtle variations include: two people at a cafe; two people in front of the TV (in this instance the cartoonist must draw the remote control. Don’t ask why, just do it. It’s a rule.); two people reading a sign and so forth.

Two illustrate “the Stahler,” he posted this image, which was created by overlaying two different cartoons by Stahler which were published less than a month apart.

I don’t share all the values of Bad Cartoonist; I think you can be a good political cartoonist without being good at caricatures, and for some styles of cartooning repeating images works. But I think that whatever style you work in, any good cartoonist strives to be creative and demonstrate good craft within the parameters of that style. Within the style he’s working in, Stahler — like way too many successful political cartoonists — displays virtually no creativity and cheats on the craft. Which is why political cartooning — and in particular, the kind of political cartooning most often found in mainstream newspapers — has lost almost all creative vitality.

Not my teeth — Rachel Nabors’ teeth. Rachel, winner of a Kim Yale award, specializes in girl-friendly comics (not that I think she’s trying — she’s just a naturally girl-friendly person), and her mouth is going kablooey.

Rachel writes:

My surgery and braces will cost between $15,000 and $25,000 dollars. At the encouragement of others, I have set up a special PayPal account that will be used exclusively to pay for the costs of surgery and follow-up care. Leigh Dragoon has kindly agreed to audit. We are hoping to give away shirts with $25+ donations, so please specify your shirt size in men’s or women’s. Also, if you donate $100+, I’m going to send you an art card to a say super-big thank you.

More details and the donate button at the link:

Use this thread to post whatever links you want (self-linking is encouraged), and to discuss whatever you’d like.

Bean sent me this “Subnormality” strip which totally cracked me up. Click through to see the whole thing.

I also liked this story on Boing Boing:

The Star Tribune reports that dozens of bars in the Twin Cities are holding “theater nights” and declaring everyone in the bar to be an actor. By law, performers are allowed to smoke during theatrical performances.

I’m fond of this loophole, and hope it leads to the logical outcome: Vice cops grimly viewing a bar full of “actors” to confirm that they’re all really playing characters, not being themselves enjoying a smoke, while drunk smokers break out into desperately improvised musical numbers.

Comic book and animation writer Steve Gerber — most famous for creating “Howard the Duck” — died yesterday at the age of 60.

I loved “Howard the Duck” when I was a kid (I’m talking about the comic book Howard, the real Howard, not the awful movie that was made in the mid-80s).

But what makes Gerber especially notable for a political blog like “Alas” is the essential role his struggle for ownership of “Howard the Duck” played in changing how comic book creators in the US viewed issues of copyright and creative rights. The character of “Howard” was created as a walk-on gag character in an issue of “Man-Thing” Gerber wrote. It was thus “work for hire,” and the legal creator and owner of “Howard” was Marvel Comics.

Gerber found that he was able to express himself effectively though “Howard the Duck” in a way that was both satisfying to himself and resonant with an audience; soon Gerber was writing both a “Howard the Duck” daily newspaper strip and a “Howard the Duck” comic book. But Marvel Comics fired him from writing the “Howard” newspaper strip and then, when Gerber announced he was going to contest Marvel’s ownership of “Howard,” fired him from writing the comic book. A series of replacement writers proved unable to make “Howard” concept work, and the newspaper strip and then the comic book were canceled.

From The Comics Reporter:

“What disgusts me even more, though, is that I think the writers and artists have largely brought this on themselves,” [Gerber wrote] in 1978. “They don’t want to know about the business end of comics. They prefer to remain ignorant. They’ve allowed the publishers to convince them that they’re a bunch of no-talent bums surviving on the goodwill of the companies. Very few people in this industry really believe that their work has any artistic merit, or that it’s sale-able elsewhere. Or that they deserve more than they’re getting. You will actually hear them defend the publishers’ ownership of their creations, the low page rates, the cowardice of the companies to explore new markets. That’s why it’s startling when someone like Gil Kane or Neal Adams or Don McGregor or Barry Smith — or Steve Gerber — shoots his mouth off. People in the industry find it disturbing that one of their number might actually take his work seriously, take pride not only in being fast and dependable, but in the work itself.”

Steve Gerber did not win back Howard the Duck. He settled with Marvel and even returned to the company by the mid-1980s, although not in as devoted or prolific a fashion. Although the terms of the settlement were sealed, he told Art Cover in 1985 that, “It’s no secret how mad I was during and before the lawsuit. The terms of the settlement are such that I am no longer angry.” […]

The notions that Marvel would take a character away from a creator, even the one best suited to it, and that a creator might fight back, became powerful ideas among a growing tide of younger creators asserting a series of creators’ rights in regards to their work with big, mainstream comic book companies or their moves to smaller companies or self-publishing where rights might be attained. One element of the cautionary story was that Marvel was more interested in keeping and controlling the character than it was in fostering a relationship with the creator, even when the benefits were obvious to both. Also, the fact that Gerber had created Howard in an offhand manner but that the character had come to be a valuable mouthpiece for the creator became a key part of the thinking of a lot of creators rights advocates, and spoke as a powerful counter to an argument often expressed that some characters you created for the big companies and some characters you kept for yourself. As many have cautioned in a thousand hushed conversations since, you never know.

And from a 1986 panel discussion with Gerber, Mark Evanier (whose obituary of Gerber is here), Frank Miller, and Jack Kirby:

EVANIER: One of the reasons Steve settled when he did - he’s too modest to mention this - is that the comics industry at the close of the suit was not the same as at the beginning of the suit. One of the things that prompted Steve’s suit in the first place was that at one point he wanted to try and work out a settlement with Marvel on parts of his contract that had been left dangling. I sent him to an agent of mine, and the agent phoned the appropriate people at Marvel, and they said, “We’re not going to deal with you.” They didn’t recognize the rights of people to speak on behalf of artists and writers.

MILLER: We’re talking about an industry that until maybe ten years ago, a contract could not be negotiated in the office of the publisher of a major comic book company, because the writer showed up with his attorney. The publisher just got up and walked out. This is a true story; I know the writer, I know the attorney, and I know the publisher. We’re talking about the Dark Ages here.

EVANIER: It was 1978, I believe. (laughter) Largely because of Steve’s lawsuit, and because of other people who said, “We’re not going to take it anymore,” the comic book companies grew up a little. They have yet to make proper redress on all of the old offenses, but they’re now dealing in a more mature manner. They will talk to attorneys, and they will draw up legitimate contracts. They now realize they can not conduct major comic book company business like a lemonade stand. Steve’s lawsuit was one of the main reasons for that.

Current comic creators — especially those who work for big, mainstream companies — owe a lot to Gerber’s work and activism.

Marvel has done a reprint of some of Gerber’s “Howard” comics, although unfortunately they expunged the ones with swear words and nudity. I read somewhere today that Image Comics is going to reprint “Destroyer Duck,” the protest/fundraising comic Gerber and Jack Kirby* created (Kirby, who co-created almost all the core Marvel comics characters, was also engaged in a nasty legal struggle with Marvel Comics).

If you haven’t already, check out Leigh Dragoon’s cartoon series about “Nice Guys (TM)” (although she calls them “Nice Guys (R)”).

Last year, Leigh created three of these nifty cartoons: part one (pictured above, but the linked one is bigger), part two, and part three.

This year, Leigh’s doing a new two-pager in the series, written by Lisa Jonte. You can read page one here; I hope she’ll post page two soon.

Dave Sim is one of the greatest living cartoonists, and his work has been very influential on my own approach to cartooning. Over the decades he’s also become an extreme, extreme anti-feminist. In a recent discussion on the Sequential Tart website, Dave wrote:

The last I heard roughly 80% of the women in our society work outside the home at outside the home jobs…forty years ago only 20% of women worked — most of them in a period between graduating from high school and getting married and then getting pregnant. Sixty years ago maybe 6% worked.

Since the run-up from 20% to 80% was largely unimpeded…

The point about percentages is really my best attempt at the collapsing of what I have to say to white dwarf size. We are definitely plowing forward to 100% of one and 0% of the other … Used to be 6% became 20% is now 80%…where do you THINK we’re going? … I don’t think it’s a good idea and I don’t think we’re well served in not examining it.

My response to Dave:¹

Dave, you’re basing your stated argument here on some factual errors. If your main concern is that we’ll be in trouble when we reach 100%, then I’ve got good news for you: It’ll never happen. In fact, we’ll never even reach 80%. Or 70%.

In the USA, about 59% of women are in the paid labor force, including both women actively looking for paid jobs, and those who currently have paid jobs.

Forty years ago, in 1968, about 40% of women were in the labor force, not 20% as you stated. Sixty years ago, in 1948, about 33% of women were in the labor force — not 6%.²

So, at least in the US, women didn’t used to do paid jobs as little as you’re claiming, and they don’t currently do paid jobs as often as you think. But can’t we say you’re correct about the overall direction of the trend, even though you’re mistaken about the specific numbers?

No, you’re mistaken about the trend too — because the percent of women in the paid labor force isn’t climbing anymore. It’s leveled out. Fifteen years ago, it was about 58%; in 2001, it peaked at 60%; and in 2005 (most recent year I’ve seen data for) it was at 59%. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting (based on demographic changes, economic changes, etc) that it’ll still be about the same in 2025. (That’s only a guess, of course, but it’s the most educated and well-founded guess anyone has at this point.)

So there’s no need to worry about what happens when 100% of women are in the paid laborforce. It will never happen. Nor is that news that disappoints feminists, as far as I can tell. In recent years, the approach among feminists is to work for not only equal access to all paid jobs, but also for more respect and economic security for people who do unpaid caring labor.

(By the way, did you know that men are working less than ever? In 1950, 86% of men had a paid job or were looking for one; today that’s gone down a bit, to 75%. The statisticians expect that number to keep dropping, to a predicted 69% in 2025. A bit of this change is due to a small, growing number of men having the freedom to stay home and take care of their kids, if that’s what they want).

* * *

You also wrote “Since the run-up from 20% to 80% was largely unimpeded…”

Women’s labor force participation was about 20% back in 1900. The run-up since then has not been unimpeded; indeed, the legal right for women to own their own paychecks had to be fought for. As recently as the 1970s, “help wanted” classified sections in many newspapers were still divided into “women” and “men” sections. Open discrimination against female workers was legal until new laws in the 70s and 80s, and a lot of less open discrimination still goes on today. (Just last year the Supreme Court of the US ruled that women who are systematically paid less than male co-workers for the same work can only sue within a few months of being hired or getting an unequal raise — after that, the employer’s discrimination is free and clear of legal repercussions.)

* * *

I don’t think that feminists want 100% of women (or men) in paid jobs. What is it feminists want?

Well, I’m a feminist. What I want is for people to have as much freedom as possible to choose a mix of home life and work life that suits them, without having to lose economic security, and regardless of if they’re female or male. I think very few people really want to be at the job 40-60 hours a week for 40 or 50 years (although there are some, but most of us don’t have interesting, creative jobs); and very few people really want a life that consists of nothing but their home and family. (For one thing, kids grow up, so that’s not really a whole-life plan.)

Over the last century, the lives of women and men have gotten a lot more similar; women have more access to paid jobs, including decently-paid jobs, than they used to (although it’s still not where it should be, especially for poor women and women of color). Men are spending less of their lifetimes at jobs, and they’re freer than they used to be to prioritize time with their families if that’s what they want (although there are still too many barriers). Wage discrimination against women, and safety discrimination against men (especially non-white and immigrant men), still exists — but it’s gone down.

I think those are all positive trends, and — speaking for this one feminist — I hope they continue.

1. I posted this response on Sequential Tart, then edited it a little before posting it here. (back)
2. Citations: You can find simple info about women’s labor force participation by clicking here. You can find a more complex essay discussing this stuff, including predictions for where labor trends are going, by reading this essay, but it’s a pdf file. (back)

The sky has been falling for a long, long time….

Click on the image to see a larger version.

This is a the latest of a series at my blog, usually consisting of an amusing visual image about disability. Visual descriptions are meant to both assist those who cannot view the image well, and encourage discussion when others see something different.

Visual description: A one-pane comic, drawn very simply. A stick figure stands next to a sign posted on a wall that reads “Third Floor Office” with some Braille just below those words. At the top of the comic: “I learned to read Braille a while back, and I’ve noticed that the messages on signs don’t always match the regular text.” The stick figure touching the Braille signage has a thought balloon translating what she reads: “S-I-G-H-T-E-D P-E-O-P-L-E S-U-C-K … Hey!”

Comic source

h/t to Andrea at Andrea’s Buzzing About

Cross-posted at The Gimp Parade

I really love chapter 1 of Vulcan and Visnu, which simply shows the two characters building a bridge, and makes it oddly fascinating.

Hereville – remember Hereville? — I draw a comic called Hereville – is back on. It’ll be a little while before I officially post any of the new pages — but barring absolute disaster, I can promise that when new pages start appearing, they will appear once a week, without ever missing a week, until the story is finished. (And due to the long lead time this gives me, I can probably promise that for the next Hereville story, too.)

That’s a lot of the reason I haven’t been posting as much on “Alas, a Blog” lately — too busy drawing.

I’ve begun reposting the old pages (with minor art and dialog fixes) on webcomicsnation. You can always find the most recently posted page here (it’s currently on page 5), and you can read it from the start by going to the Hereville table of contents. The webcomicsnation “Hereville” page will be updated with an additional page every Wednesday. And, once again, I promise: there will be no missed weeks from now until at least the end of “How Mirka Got a Sword.”

(”How Mirka Got a Sword” will be 59 pages long when finished. 43 of those pages are now complete, and 14 of the remaining 16 pages are already penciled, which is why I’m confident I won’t miss any weeks, despite my - cough! - poor past record in this regard.)

For those of you who are interested, here’s a sneak peek at some of the new art — a double-page spread from later in the story than anything I’ve posted in public. Click on the thumbnail to see the big-sized version. (Minor spoiler warning, I guess.)

More proof that Toles is the best mainstream political cartoonist…

In contrast, see Pat Oliphant’s very sexist take on the same material.

My friend Kevin Moore, another cartoonist, criticizes Oliphant as well, and discusses my criticism of one of his own cartoons about Clinton, which I had told him was sexist. Kevin seems to have come part of the way to my view on his cartoon: “The image itself - Clinton sobbing in the arms of her husband - resonates far beyond my own intentions and serves to subvert my criticism.” I agree with that; it doesn’t matter how what the cartoonist’s intentions were, when the image used plays so powerfully into sexist stereotyping.

To conclude my three day Joss-a-thon I’m going to review Tales of the Slayers. This is a collection of short comics about the lives of 8 slayers in different points in history. Although my reviews are usually spoiler-ific this review will be much more spoiler free. The very shortness of the stories means they rely on their plot twists, so while I do talk about the set up, I’m not going to tell the endings.

What stands out from me, particularly compared to season 8, is how interesting the art is. Very different styles of art are used for different stories, and they reflect often reflect the times the stories are set in. This is particularly effective with the story set in 1930s Germany.

The quality of the stories is extremely mixed. Two of Joss’s story’s are brilliant. The first is very short, and is about the first slayer. It is just one moment in her life, and sets up the rest of the stories.

Joss’s second story, set in the middle ages, is written in verse (which I bet made Joss very happy). It is a simple story, told from the point of view of the Watcher, but is very effective

Jane Espenson’s Regency era slayer is beautifully done. The author’s voice is deliberately modelled on Jane Austen, and works perfectly. Jane and Joss were the only authors who used the literary forms of the time they were writing about, and it makes their stories much stronger. I think they also both understood the limits of the space, and had the right sized story for a very few pages. Really the authors only had time to set up two characters, and one plot turn, and Jane and Joss both do this very well.

The other stories, set in Revolutionary France, America at the time of colonisation, Nazi Germany and 1970s New York, are less successful. The most dire is Sonnenblume, set in Nazi era Germany. It’s slightly less subtle than being hit over the head with a mallet (which is a real shame, because, like I said, the art is very good). I found the Revolutionary France story similarly trite, possibly because it was trying to deal with something very big in a very small space (or possibly just because Amber Benson doesn’t have very interesting ideas about revolutionary France). The story set in America at the time of colonisation, works for the first few pages, but relies on simplistic statements as a substitute for character development, and in the end appears to be making an argument for assimilation. Nikki’s story is OK, but not particularly interesting.

The comic ends with another Joss story, this one about Fray. By itself this short piece isn’t even a story (and I was disappointed, because after several stories of in period or practical clothing, Fray is wearing a very short, loose, cut off top, which you absolutely wouldn’t be able to fight in. I guess I should be glad no-one found a place in the story to have a bath). But it ends with Fray finding, and reading the Watchers diaries of previous slayers.

In the end despite the mixed quality of the stories, I would definitely recommend this to any Buffy fan. Because what it does do so nicely is expand on the idea, implicit in the Buffyverse, that struggle has a history and each generation in that struggle is connected to those that have gone before it.

The latest Buffy comic has a backstory. Last year Darkhorse ran a competition inviting 100 word essays on ‘How Buffy Changed My Life’ - Joss would chose the winner who would then appear in one of the comics. The winner was Jarrod’s essay, he wrote about his wife’s schizophrenia, and how they’d watched Buffy as she was getting sicker and sicker. Robin appears in this story, she is a minder who has to guard unstable reality fields (or possibly demons). It’s well done, and the more I thought about it the more sense it made. Although I don’t know that much about schizophrenia, so I don’t know how well the storyline reflects reality.

Overall I liked this comic, although I remain unsure about the genre. I’m going to like any comic which has Buffy and Willow talk about their relationship. Of course, the bitter part in me, that does believe in showing not telling, would have rather that they’d had Buffy and Willow have a relationship in season 6 an 7, than explain to us with small words what’s going on.

I loved the little details of this story, the ever developing ‘Anywhere but Here’ was really fun (and a nice little bit of continuity). I loved that we found out where the money was coming from, because it really annoys me when fiction ignores economics. I love even more that Buffy is stealing from Swiss banks, not being particularly fond of banks and all.

I wasn’t so happy about the Dawn revelation, if this is the final twist (and it may not be) it does bear a striking resemblance to her being punished for having sex. I love giant dawn; I love her giant suitcase of clothes. I don’t love punishing female characters for having sex.

The comic ends with Buffy and Willow walking off separately. It’s clear that this season is going to be about stripping Buffy of her allies. I can’t help but feel that we’ve seen that before and, like I said in my last review, these plotlines would be anchored better if we had more idea what normal was for the relationships between these characters.

On the art front, this is the first story arc in a Buffy comic which hasn’t involved a female character taking a bath. It was almost comical how hard the artists appeared to work to draw Robin so that she didn’t look like a comic book girl.

So I’ve got behind on my Buffy comic reviews, so I’m going to review the last three episodes of the Faith arc together. As expected Faith becomes close with the evil slayer who is a member of the English aristocracy (mostly by fighting the gargoyle), and then (again not suprisingly) Gigi is trying to kill Buffy.

It was well done, Faith was well captured, and Gigi worked as a character. Gigi’s Warlock friend seemed very much a cardboard cut-out, but that’s all he needed to be I guess.

And in the end the story wasn’t about Gigi at all, but Faith, Giles & Buffy’s relationship. But there were serious problems in the execution. This plot-line lost a lot of its power because we had no idea of what Buffy and Giles or Buffy and Faith’s relationship had been like since Sunnydale hit into a hole, so it wasn’t anchored to anything.

I think maybe it’s a problem with the genre, because there seems to be a lot of ‘telling’ rather than showing going on. Characters explain exactly what their motivations are, whether it’s Twilight or Faith. The ratio of fight scenes to conversations is so much higher than it was in the TV, so there doesn’t seem to as much space for character, which I miss. I do enjoy the comics, and like the ideas, and where the characters are, but I’m just not convinced by the way it’s told.

Talking of problem with comic books. The baths! Never in the history of literature have female characters been so disproportionately cleaner than their male counterparts. Why do Faith and Gigi make plans in the bath?

No, I know the answer, it just pisses me off.

Tomorrow I’ll review the ‘Anywhere But Here’ and then maybe I’ll review Tales of the Slayers (which I got ages ago). I’ve been remiss in the Joss content for a few months.

Steinem’s op-ed can be read here.

From Angry Black Bitch:

After reading Steinem’s Op-Ed I felt invisible…as if black and woman can’t exist in the same body. I felt undocumented…as if the history of blacks and the history of women have nothing to do with the history of black women.

When I read “Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).” I felt both attacked and ignored at the same time.

I think of the women and men in my family who were not extended the protected vote until 1965. I wince at the lack of acknowledgment for the black women of Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery who had to march with their brothers in the 1960s to attain the vote because the suffrage movement abandoned them in a Southern strategy to get the vote in 1920.

And there it is again…that invisibility; like a brutal weight that I am so bloody tired of carrying.

When I consider Steinem’s “So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?” I’m left confused.

What country does Gloria live in where race barriers are taken seriously? I’d love to know…shit, maybe I’ll move there. But I’m a black woman and this is America where none of my barriers are given more than a token consideration and I’ll present this Op-Ed as exhibit A in that argument.

From A Woman’s Ecdysis:

Look, I’m not going to go head to head with Steinem and argue what is most pressing for womyn in America - race or gender. What I do know is that as a US womyn of color living in this country is that the two are so inexplicably interlaced that I resist ANY individual that pitts once against the other, especially a White mainstream feminist. What I find most often, too, is women like Steinem (White liberal women) call gender over race. Let’s rally all the women together once more because we’re all being denied the right to vote and the men of color are making it into the boardroom before any of us are.

There’s a reason why I use the word gender/ace as one entity. I cannot separate the two.

More folks posting on this subject: Reappropriate, The Debate Link, Diary of an Anxious Black Woman, Pandagon, Feminist Law Professors, Jack and Jill Politics, Tiny Cat Pants, and Silence Isn’t Golden. And Side Notes and Detours. (If you’ve posted about this, or know of a post about this you think is good, feel free to leave the link in the comments.)

UPDATE: This isn’t the first time Steinem has discussed race during a presidential election — one of her “top ten” reasons for opposing Ralph Nader was Nader asking an American Indian, Wyona LaDuke, to be his running mate. Steinem bizarrely saw this choice as an anti-Indian move on Nader’s part.

This would normally be too sentimental for me (not too mention far too large an image to post on “Alas”), but what the heck, it’s the last day of the year. So by posting this drawing, I’m wishing all you wretches lots of hugs in 2008. Mwah!

Wasn’t that sweet? The drawings are by cartoonist Xiao Lei (門小雷) of Hong Kong. You can see a bit more of her work, and a slightly larger reproduction of the hug drawings, at startdrawing.org.

From now until 2008, I’m gonna have a little fun and post images. Some of them I’ll have comments about, others I’ll just be posting to say “Hey, cool, look at this!”

I don’t know who drew this. I do know that it was commissioned by an ad agency in India, to advertise a health club, which is too bad because it implies that the image is intended to be mockery. I don’t read the drawing that way; it seems to me that the illustrator actually drew Batman with a great deal of sympathy. I like this drawing.

Other ads in the series included a fat Superman and a fat Spiderman. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they didn’t do a Wonder Woman; I think the far harsher way our culture views fat women would have made it impossible to do a Wonder Woman ad that didn’t seem mean-spirited.