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A whole bunch of cartoonist heavies will be appearing at the ATTITUDE signing and gallery event in NYC on April 29: David Rees ("Get Your War On"), Mickey Siporin, Tom Tomorrow ("This Modern World"), Mikhaela Reid ("The Boiling Point"), Neil Swaab ("Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles"), Ruben Bolling ("Tom the Dancing Bug"), Emily Flake ("Lulu Eightball"), Peter Kuper ("Eye of the Beholder"), Mickey Siporin, Ward Sutton ("Sutton Impact"), Tim Krieder ("The Pain - When Will It End?"), Ted Rall ("Search and Destroy"), and yes, moi. The event will be held in the evening, time to be determined, at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's new digs in Soho. Come on out and snarf li'l smokies with me.

More details to follow; stay tuned.

From today's Post, about a family that lost a son in Iraq:

From the state of Iowa, the Deutsch family received a perfectly folded American flag that flew for one day in Michael's honor above the Capitol in Des Moines. And from the White House came a letter of condolence signed by President Bush. Two letters, actually.

"The exact same one, twice," Wayne Deutsch noted dryly, sitting at the kitchen table of their wood-frame house in Dubuque's working-class North End neighborhood. "What does that tell you? It was a form letter."

A nice metaphor, I think, for the bigger picture.

...is inspired by the Howard Stern flap (although minus the political angle, in which the Bush-Cheney hacks at Clear Channel are using indecency as an excuse to bring down Howard for his pro-Kerry stance). I prefer to keep the Drooly strips on the light side; sex humor and talk about Republican party operatives don't exactly mix. In fact, please perish the thought immediately.

According to a broadcast I heard by WFMU station manager Ken Freedman, the rules defining indecency are extremely vague and subject to interpretation. At the same time, the FCC can now levy fines of $500,000, effectively destroying a small station. Which means broadcasters are now at the mercy of the FCC: piss'em off, and they can find a way to crush you.

Looks like I will be in NYC April 29 for a big signing/gallery showing to be held at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in Soho. Several cartoonists from the ATTITUDE books will be appearing. More details to follow.

There's a wonderful Tom Toles cartoon in the Post today that says it all. (I hope Mr. Toles doesn't mind my using it here, but I can't find a way to permalink it; his daily cartoon can be found here).



If the Bushies put half the effort into combating terrorism as they do into savaging Richard Clarke, I'd feel very, very safe.

I expected to hear from angry Naderites about this one, but no one has complained yet. A bit of Slowpoke trivia: the last verse was going to be

Ned still waits
for filet mignon
Though he has no tongue
to taste it on.

But in the end, I thought maybe that was a bit too morbid.

Anyway, the point is that I'm very worried about Nader. Most polls show him carrying 2-5%, clearly altering the race between Kerry and Bush.

I cannot put it less bluntly: this election is a matter of life and death. It's a matter of war, of toxic pollutants, of condoms in countries where AIDS is epidemic. It's a matter of exploding deficits that cripple social programs that our most vulnerable citizens depend on. There is a WORLD of difference between Bush and Kerry, and anyone who says there isn't doesn't know the facts.

As Eric Alterman says, "Voting isn't therapy." You have to look at the context. In a life-or-death situation, you don't have the luxury of being choosy.

Oh, and I just don't buy the rationalization that Nader will attract more Republicans than Democrats. Right! By that logic, I hope Pat Buchanan doesn't enter the race, because he might split the left.

Just in case you missed this little nugget:

The official merchandise Web site for President Bush's reelection campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the United States last year to punish its military dictatorship.

Hmm... perhaps the Bush-Cheney "Farm-Ranch Team" (yes, they really are selling merchandise bearing this slogan) should be renamed the "Military Oppressor-Sweatshop" Team.

Most of you outside of Virginia are probably unaware of this, but our state has big-time, California-style budget problems (which is why yours truly has not received a raise at her day job in three years). Virginia bonds are on the verge of being downgraded by Moody’s, the consequences of which would be disastrous to the state’s finances.

A lot of the current crisis can be traced to the former governor, Republican Jim Gilmore, who busted the budget with unaffordable tax cuts. Somehow we managed to elect a good guy as governor, Mark Warner, who has tirelessly labored to straighten out the mess. But his proposal to restructure the tax code – which would actually cut taxes for people with moderate incomes – has been blocked by anti-tax zealots. Now Virginia House Republicans refuse to do anything, poising us for a major meltdown (if the bond rating gets dropped, it will cost the state millions).

Since it's the anniversary of the start of Iraq war, I thought I might share with you an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to my husband, who was doing research abroad at the time, on March 21, 2003.

Saw footage of devastating explosions in Baghdad, as I'm sure you have as well… I also saw a picture of a soldier replacing an Iraqi flag with the US flag. What the hell is that about?

The more I think about it, this weapons of mass destruction business strikes me as a red herring. Not that Hussein doesn't have chemical or biological weapons; but I don't think that's the real reason we're going to war. On the other hand, I don't think this is a simple oil grab, either. What this war is about is transforming the political landscape in the Middle East, and *stabilizing* the oil supply for years to come… this whole thing strikes me as more of a geopolitical master plan than a simple confrontation over banned weapons. 9/11 and fear of terrorism simply provided the opportunity to do what many in Bush's administration have wanted to do for years… This whole thing is much more about strategy than is being let on to the public.

Suffice it to say, I was ahead of the curve.

This Face the Nation footage of Rumsfeld squirming after being caught in his own lie is priceless.

Speaking of damning video footage, if you haven't seen Bush's deer-in-headlights non-reaction to being told America is under attack on 9/11, the Memory Hole has it here.

There are no "liberals" and "conservatives." There are progressives and regressives.

To be what is called "liberal" in our society is to actually be conservative. We want to conserve our environment, our clean air, our public health. We want our country to act prudently -- yes, conservatively -- when deciding when war is necessary. We disapprove of radical, unilateralist (shall we say liberal?) foreign policy. We want to preserve Social Security, not dismantle it as the extremists now running the country would have it. We are against an irresponsible budget that plunges the country in to the deepest deficit it has ever known. We believe in conserving our civil liberties and right to privacy, as opposed to living in a "big-government" Total Information Awareness police state.

In short, we are the new conservatives. So it's time we abandoned this confusing terminology. There are progressives and regressives: people working towards the improvement of our country, and people who are working towards its decline.

Rumor has it you can see a Slowpoke book in an episode of "Queer as Folk" from the third season. I have yet to see the show, but will have to rent the DVD at some point. If anyone knows which episode, drop me a line.

More silliness from the Bush campaign website:

Wouldn't Interstate W actually lead to a giant smelter or something? At the very least, the mountaintops should be shown getting blown off by a mining company.

If you're in the mood for a little amusement, surf around the Bush campaign website. They're going all-out to brand Bush as the essence of authentic Americana. You'll find lots of ridiculous images like this:

Yes, the Toxic Texan himself, who's doing everything humanly possible to trash scenic vistas like this if they'll turn a penny's worth of profit, is being ludicrously equated here with the natural beauty of the American West.

Basically, the site attempts to market Bush as a Ford Explorer. And in a sense, it's a very appropriate metaphor.

So my cartoonist colleague Ted Rall has been booted off the NYTimes online because they don't like his "tone." Oddly, one of the cartoons the online editor finds so offensive is this one satirizing the commercialization and crass political appropriation of Ground Zero (neatly presaging the new Bush campaign commercials). So for making fun of such indignities, the cartoon gets labelled undignified? Frankly, the RNC's use of NYC as the site of their convention in early September is far more offensive.

This reminds me of another issue that's been on my mind, and that is a fear that alternative newspapers -- truly the media's last bastion of reason (along with some public radio and TV programming) -- are going to feel pressure from right-wing activists to mellow their "tone." To the industry's credit, I haven't seen any signs of this happening yet, though it may well be in some markets.

Once in a blue moon, as a cartoonist, you get a check in the mail that you weren't expecting. It's always a red-letter day when that happens. Well, I got a small check last night from Nickelodeon, for reprinting a couple Xmas gags I did last year in the U.K. version of the magazine (I didn't even know there was a Nickelodeon U.K.). I just like the thought that my little drawing of dung beetles exchanging a ball of dung for Xmas was probably seen by lots of tots in London and Glasgow.

... is in the works. I'm shooting for October-ish, though it all depends on how soon I come up with a title and cover concept.