Click on the cartoon to see a larger version…

I really don’t like the way the art came out in this one; the figures look stiff and overworked. Oh, well; the next one will be better. (I hope.)

I’m too tired now to remember who sent me the link to this Reality Machine cartoon, so apologies for the lack of credit, because this cartoon totally rocks.

Sugarshock is Joss Whedon’s free on-line comic. If you haven’t read it yet you should: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

It’s an extremely silly, story about a band called Sugarshock. Made up of Dandelion who hates vikings and is authorised to use deadly force by the secret government agency that she works for, Wade, who likes groupies, Robot Phil, who is a robot and L’Lihdra, who seems rather robotic until her absolute awesomeness is made clear. Their music is fantastic (well we only get the lyrics to one song, but they’re hilarious - and I really want to hear ‘God bites Man’ even if Dandelion is off key). After an emissary from another planet falls on their car they enter the international battle of the bands it just gets stranger and there are stoves, squirrels, and lathes in places you’d least expect them.

I’m a big fan of Joss Whedon; I can (and sometimes do) go on at great length about the metaphors, characters, and meaning of his work. Sugarshock isn’t one of those moments, this is more like Doppelgangland - he’s having heaps of fun, throwing in more and more silliness, and it’s joyful.

If that wasn’t enough the art doesn’t suck. There’s a woman in it whose body looks like it might actually move if you touched her. I didn’t even know that was possible in comic book form.

So go read it - it’s free and it’ll make your day better.

Update: Some students at CCSU have started their own blog–Take Back the Recorder– in opposition to the paper’s editorial staff. Go show them your support.

Last February we heard the story of a college newspaper in Connecticut that printed an article saying “rape is a magical experience” and “rape only hurts if you fight back.” The author claims he was trying to satirize rape, which he clearly did not achieve. ¹ Well it looks like this bunch is at it again and more emboldened than ever since they managed to survive their last go round. This time, among other offensive diatribes, the Central Connecticut State University newspaper has published a cartoon about urinating on a 14 year old Latina, who is locked in a closet.²

I found out about this debacle from a comment left in the thread on the West Virginia rape and torture case over at Feministing. A commenter named prof/activist provided a link to the PDF copy of the paper. The offending cartoon can be found in its original context if you scroll to page 16, the final page of the PDF file. The cartoon consists of two figures one triangular and the other square. The triangle says that his urine smells like honey after he eats certain cereals, and the square asks if it tastes like urine. Then the triangle says, he doesn’t know he’ll have to ask the Latina girl tied up in the closet. Then, it jumps to the final frame where the square says, “Tell Juanita I said Hola.” The cartoon also has a sentence printed under it that says, “The Recorder Does Not Support the Kidnapping of (and Subsequent Urinating on) Children of Any Age.” I was going to repost the cartoon here, but it’s not worth the bandwidth. You can open the PDF file above to read it.

Students and faculty members, disgusted by the paper’s racist and sexist reputation, protested the cartoon on Friday. The story was covered in the local paper and it received national attention. Here’s a quote from the AP article in the New York Times:

The university’s president vowed on Friday to cut off advertising in the paper, and its critics have planned a protest on Monday on campus to push for reforms, including the ouster of the paper’s editor, Mark Rowan.

“We believe the climate here at Central is one that fosters this kind of behavior,” said Francisco Donis, a psychology professor and president of the university’s Latin American Association, “so we want more systematic changes to create a welcoming environment for everyone to feel safe and secure.”

About 5 percent of the 9,600 undergraduates are Hispanic, according to university figures. The campus is in New Britain, a racially diverse city of 71,000 about 12 miles southwest of Hartford.

Mr. Rowan, 21, was the editor in February, when the newspaper was criticized for publishing a satirical opinion piece titled “Rape Only Hurts if You Fight It.” The satire called sexual assault a “magical experience” that benefits “ugly women.”

The author of the article lost his position at the paper and apologized, but Mr. Rowan was allowed to retain his post.

The university created a task force that recommended providing more training for its student journalists, buying libel insurance and creating a student-run alternative paper or Web site.

Mr. Rowan, who is set to graduate in December, said lingering anger over that controversy was adding to outrage over the cartoon. He said he did not know if he would be asked to resign.

Rowan and his cronies have caused enough trouble for the University, ushering the school into the national spotlight on two separate occasions. It seems clear that Rowan lacks the ability to judge the quality and appropriateness of the paper’s content. Both pieces in question were not only offensive, but they also were of poor quality. Petroski’s rape article didn’t succeed at being satire, and this cartoon didn’t succeed at being funny. In fact, only a person like Ted Bundy would find either of these articles amusing, which makes me wonder if there are some sociopaths running this paper.

Mr. Rowan has shown poor judgment, and has allowed the student newspaper become a bottom feeder with little journalistic integrity. Right now Mr. Rowan holds two journalism related positions. He’s an editor of the CCSU student paper, and he has an internship with the Hartford Advocate, but at the rate he’s going he may never have another position in journalism. How is he going to explain these gaffes to potential employers? Who would want to hire someone, who routinely brings negative attention to their publication? He hasn’t learned his lesson, and that’s going to come back to haunt him in the future. A good editor thinks about getting the story, and getting quality material, not just pushing his political agenda and publishing anything that comes across the desk.

I know the retorts that the student editors will have–We have free speech. We didn’t mean to offend. Lighten up, it’s just a cartoon. You’re being too sensitive. I hear these arguments every time someone engages in offensive behavior like this. Rather than taking responsibility, they try to deflect the criticism by condemning the condemners. At this point, it’s pretty clear, that the University needs to step in and revamp the paper. If the student editors are unwilling to do this themselves, it is incumbent upon the University administration and the majority of students to oust the paper’s editors. This surely doesn’t represent the school, its administrators, and the vast majority of its students.

1. If you want to see real rape satire, go here to Marcella’s site. (back)
2. The writers and editors clearly haven’t learned their lesson. While scrolling through the electronic copy of the paper I found an article written by Justin Kloczko. The primary purpose of the article is to taunt a local reporter who is leaving the New Britain Herald to write for the Hartford Business Journal. The taunts and insults are directed at this reporter because he was one of the people who brought the February rape article to light. The article appears next to a picture that says “Crotch Shots, Nipple Slips, Cellulite Legs! The Recorder is not looking for the above, but is looking for dedicated photographers to cover local and campus events. Contact us at ccsurecorder@gmail.com and make us forget that Britney picture.” (back)

UPDATE: So I fixed a number of things about the drawing. The big thing is that I redrew the SARWM’s right arm and related areas, just because they were very badly drawn the first time.

But I also changed the shorts from having polkadots (which did make them look like boxer shorts, as Robert pointed out) to looking more like jeans. Then I added polkadots to the shirt of the woman in the foreground, because the sad truth is I just like drawing polkadots. Then I tried to make SARWM’s shoes look like shoes rather than socks, and I added glasses to a character, in response to Dianne’s comments. And I played around with a couple of other small details.

Am I responsive to reader comments or what? No, no, don’t thank me. A medal is enough.

So here is (I think) the final drawing. The original, pre-changes version is below the fold.

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I’m in.

I was undecided about whether the comic book was ‘Buffy’. I accepted it was cannon, Joss says goes. But I just wasn’t sure whether I was going to treat it like Buffy. I’m not a comic book person, and a month is a long wait. To treat it like I treated the show I needed it to be like the show was when it was good, not the last few seasons with flashes of brilliance within miles of boring.

Someone actually commented on one of these posts that it must be a new season of Buffy because everyone’s complaining about how the quality has gone downhill. There’s definitely some truth in that. While I have a lot of affection for all the Joss-penned opening episodes, beginnings are not Joss’s forte. They always feel a little like a reintroduction. #5 was, of course, the best comic ever written, with a two page spread which is up there with the end of Becoming II or that bit in Chosen. But I wasn’t convinced it wasn’t a sign of things to come.

If ‘No Future For You’ is a sign of things to come, then I’m sold.

I don’t have particularly strong feelings about Faith - I don’t dislike her, but she’s not one of my favourite characters. This story is good, and that’s what matters. The opening is brilliant, really capturing the horror and aloneness of Faith’s life.* The scene between Giles and Faith captures both their characters spot on (plus Giles was wearing a Yellow Submarine Jersey)**

I’m loving the plot. As the title of my blog suggests, I’m generally pretty pro-Buffy plots where the ruling-classes are the bad. As a metaphor it works for me. Pygmalion is a tad over-done, but going undercover as upper class to kill them, rather than to show your worth works for me (plus there are a few more nice moments of undercutting).

Just over 20 pages a month is still woefully unsatisfying. But I can’t wait to see where we go next.

There are still some issues of course. The dialogue was trying a little bit too hard. Faith never just said anything without turning it into a Faithism. It was almost like Buffy fanfic where every second sentence from Giles contains the word ‘wanker’.*** I think it’s probably justified in this episode from a character point of view, because it’s a sign Faith is on her guard with Giles, she’s thinking before she speaks and acting defensively, but if it continues it’ll get old really fast.

You notice how I haven’t mentioned the drawing yet? I’m putting it off. Actually this was the first comic strip where I felt the art added much to the script. There were a couple of frames where the expression on Faith’s face really captured something about her character and conveyed the complexities of her feelings (I’m thinking ‘So, who is this evil bitch, anyway?’).

But, and there’s always a but, women’s breasts are not balls. They are not round like balls and they’re not solid like balls. While I do appreciate that there was no random female nudity this episode and two characters wore an outfit that wasn’t a crop top (which is some kind of record), the breasts on the cover and the last page bug me. I wonder what it’s about, why comic book artists think that that’s what men would most like to see? Why would men like to see that. I don’t see that it can be a sexual fantasy thing in any real sense. Isn’t the way breasts move a large part of the fun? Obviously it’s partly about turning women into objects, in a very real sense, the less comic book girls look like people, the easier it is to dehumanise them, and then in turn dehumanise actual women.

I’m not saying that this is necessarily going to Geroges Jeanty’s mind when he draws the script (and I choose to believe it dosn’t go through Joss’s mind when he approves it). Just that comic book art must have developed this way for a reason, and I don’t get it. Anyone else got theories.

* Except the fact that Robin Wood is also running a team of slayers. I find it more than a little bit problematic that every male character who survived the season finale is running a team of slayers (even Andrew!). While we have yet to see a female character do so, except Buffy (unless the black dreadlocked slayer from last issue was supposed to be Rona, even so she didn’t appear to be running it alone).

** Although only the second coolest top in the issue - gotta love Xander’s Sunnydale swim team t-shirt.

***Not that I’ve read that much Buffy fanfic. Honest. If we were talking X-files fanfic I would be lying when I said I hadn’t read much. But Buffy fanfic never worked for me. Possibly because every second sentence from Giles contained the word wanker.

Can’t decide if I like or hate the backgrounds.

I actually did draw a cartoon last week, but it’s slated to appear in Dollars and Sense, so I’ll have to wait a few weeks before posting it online.

Anyhow, the cartoon I drew last week (which I haven’t posted) was rather grim, so this week I went for just being silly.

I kinda like how her skirt came out, except in the first panel, but I’m feeling too lazy to redraw that.

I’m trying to do less detailed pencils, instead drawing more in the “ink” stage (”ink” in quotes since I draw the whole thing on computer anyway). Hopefully this leads to a more spontaneous line and a looser feel.

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I’m still not certain if I like this caption; if I think of a better one, I might change it.

I’ve gotten several lovely emails in response to the “White Lies” cartoon. This one is notable for its rigorously narrow focus:

Your looks are jewish, your work is jewishily inspired and intended. The results of your agitprop are of benefit to jews alone. You are a jew.

Damn straight my looks are Jewish! At least some of my work is directly inspired by my Judaism. I’m fine with my work benefiting Jews (although I’d be kinda disappointed if no one else benefited). And yup, I am a Jew.

So I’m guilty on all counts, and yet… was any of that supposed to be derisive? It’s as if someone told me off by emphasizing how handsome, likable and well-groomed I am. If that’s the best you can think of for an insult — then for God’s sake, insult me some more.

Along similar lines, one of the folks on this racist site comments:

“Oh, its just another fat liberal man who was deprived of attention during childhood and does whatever he hs to to get his fill, just like Micheal Moore!”. JUST like the big MM.

Oh noooooo – I’m likened to an incredibly successful and popular Oscar-winning movie director! Oh, the horror, the horror!¹

Next they’ll insult me by telling me how great I smell…

1. And thank goodness only stupid right-wingers would respond to a cartoon they don’t like by making fat jokes about the cartoonist! Good thing us feminists would never do that, right? Right? Oh, uh… never mind. (back)

I’ve decided to take a leave from blogging so that I can spend more times on other things in my life.

Partly, I’m taking more time for my health. I’ve been exercising about 43 minutes a day¹, but once you include the time spent preparing, showering afterward, etc., it’s over an hour a day no longer available for blogging.

Mainly, though, I’m spending more time cartooning. I could say I’m more valuable as a cartoonist than as a blogger — and that’s probably true — but I don’t really choose my priorities that way. The truth is, after years of feeling more driven to blog than to draw comics, I’m now feeling the reverse.

I’ll still post my political cartoons here on “Alas.” And occasional cartooning-related posts. But although I won’t disappear from “Alas” entirely, I won’t be writing any non-cartooning blog posts. Nor will I be fully participating in the comments, because that turns into a huge time-suck. (But I do read all the comments left about my cartoons, and I really appreciate the large majority of them.)

It’s been a delightful five years (!) of blogging; I thank everyone who’s made it so great. And maybe I’ll feel like blogging again, someday. But for now, I’m more excited by the prospect of a good ink line than a good link farm.

1. Precisely the length of an hour-long TV show once the commercials are cut out — what an amazing coincidence! (back)

(Larger version can be viewed here.)

This is actually a cartoon from years ago, which I just redrew this week. Here, for comparison, is the original cartoon:

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This one took forever to draw, much longer than I expected even given the number of panels. That I kept on having to interrupt drawing so I could go to “work” definitely didn’t help.¹

Probably I should color this cartoon, and maybe I will someday; but that would be at least another day’s work, and right now I can’t face that. :-P Anyhow, I think it looks good in black and white.²

I’m gonna put off posting this on ZNet for a day or two, since once a cartoon’s up on ZNet there’s no way for me to modify or correct it. So if you notice any misspellings please let me know.

1. I was originally going to have all of last week off, but then the Unitarian Church’s wedding coordinator got sick so they asked me to substitute for her for a few weddings. Yes, that’s right, I’m a wedding coordinator for a living. (back)
2. Although, as regular “Alas” readers know by now, I always like my cartoons for the first few days after I draw them; the horror and “oh my god, what was I on when I drew that?” will come later. (back)

(The cartoon these folks are discussing can be read here.)

Laurie and Debbie at Body Impolitic (a blog I’m a fan of) argue that the cartoon is “the politics of hypersimplification.”

…The reason the two characters in the cartoon appear to agree is that their positions are hypersimplified. We seem to be living in a time where most political/social/gender opinions and expectations have been reduced not just to the sound bite but to the bumper sticker. Oversimplified opinions lead to false agreement and false disagreement.

Piny at Feministe responds:

Radical-feminist transphobia is not distinguishable from conservative Christian transphobia because they’re both transphobia. I hate to be as uncharitable as Amp here, but my experience has borne that out in many cases: tap the facade of philosophy and/or tradition and it cracks to reveal a deep and powerful current of simple hatred. All of the positions argued by the characters in the cartoon are shortened, but they’re not actually all that hyperbolic, and they don’t actually distinguish themselves in the longer version; take the “silencing/transsexual agenda” concurrence, for example.

Meanwhile, Littoral Mermaid suggests that I’m beating a straw radical feminist. She and I debate the question in her comments. Other comments on this post range from a smart criticism from Cellycel (whose blog I like, mainly because it’s well-written, but also because it includes references to role-playing games and “Avenue Q“) to impressively venal anti-fat bigotry from someone whose name I’ve forgotten.

Anyway, here’s a quote from my exchange with Cellycel:

Why compare it to the Christian right? Isn’t transphobia bad because of things like say, oppression and discrimination? Not “Because Conservative Christians thing it’s bad, so it must be good. Also radical feminists agree with conservative Christians. That makes radical feminists bad.”

I think this is the most substantive criticism of the cartoon I’ve seen so far. (A few people have made it, including my “Alas” co-blogger Maia). The cartoon would have been better if it had somehow closed off this interpretation.

My intent with this cartoon wasn’t “conservative Christians are bad, therefore anyone who agrees with them on anything is bad.” That would be a ridiculous argument (is giving to charity bad because Christians do it?), and it’s not what I believe.

My intended point was that transphobia is wrong no matter who the speaker is; and that if these arguments are bigoted when they’re coming out of a conservative Christian’s mouth, then they are still bigoted when they are spoken by feminists.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Click on the image to see a larger version. (I think the drawing is nicer than my usual on this one). (Of course, it’s still new; in a month I’ll probably hate the art.)

Comments will be tightly moderated on this one; insulting comments are subject to being deleted at my whim.

I don’t expect from Joss’s openings, they’re not as strong as his endings. Every Season (except possibly Season 6 where Joss wrote neither the first episode or the last) the first episode has been much weaker than the last, and less satisfying than many of the episodes in between.

Now I’ve read all of it, I’m not that impressed with The Long Way Home. I’d say it was about on par with Lessons, possibly slightly better than the season openers not j. But much worse than Anne, When She Was Bad or Sunday, which were more concerned with letting us see where the characters were, than setting up a whole bunch of new plot. Because setting up plot is often boring, and should be done really slowly.

A lot of the on-going ideas I really like I’m really looking forward to more Giant Dawn, and the army hating them. But there’s too much that is just a little bit off. Amy and Warren bear only the most superficial resemblence to the people they were on the show. Dawn’s ’she’s like a Mom to me’ about Willow doesn’t reflect the relationship we saw, and certainly not the events of Season 6.

I’m really unsatisfied with what had happened between Willow, Xander & Buffy. Even if we don’t know now what happened to Willow (and there’s no reason we shouldn’t, except contrivance, because surely Willow would tell Buffy & Xander as soon as battling stopped), we should at least know what happened from Buffy’s point of view (remember number one rule, we should go through what the characters go through).

I hope that the writers who wrote on the show soon get tired of the thrill of an unlimited budget. Just because you can now have battles of hundreds doesn’t mean that two battles (and a practice fight of dozens) are that interesting. Likewise the five spirits added less than nothing to the comic as a whole.

I’ll buy the next one, and I’ll probably buy the Faith arc. But so far the story has been more about the cool things they can do than people, and that’s not Joss at his best.

This cartoon is years old, but it’s one of the best political cartoons I ever did. Donna reminded me of it last month (you can see the black-and-white version at her post), and I decided it would be a fun exercise to color it. I was tempted to redraw the whole thing, too — the original is very crudely drawn, which I realize is part of its charm, but occasionally it reduces the effectiveness (particularly in facial expressions) — but instead I just redrew all the faces and some of the hands.

“Subprime mortgages.” Boy, I sure pick exciting topics, don’t I?

There’s a larger version of this cartoon on Znet.