Alas, a Blog | Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about.

Cartoon: Magic Ball

Posted on February 2, 2019 by Ampersand

If you enjoy these cartoons, please support my patreon! A $1 pledge really means a lot.

It’s pretty common to hear Americans – usually but not always conservatives – lament that life was better back then (whenever “then” was). Less common: Hearing this said by anyone who’s not white (or not male, or not straight, or not cis).

Stephanie Coontz wrote:

Happy memories also need to be put in context. I have interviewed many white people who have fond memories of their lives in the 1950s and early 1960s. The ones who never cross-examined those memories to get at the complexities were the ones most hostile to the civil rights and the women’s movements, which they saw as destroying the harmonious world they remembered.

But others could see that their own good experiences were in some ways dependent on unjust social arrangements, or on bad experiences for others. Some white people recognized that their happy memories of childhood included a black housekeeper who was always available to them because she couldn’t be available to her children.

So this cartoon is about white nostalgia.

When I wrote this, I was thinking of John Rawls, the philosopher who wrote “A Theory of Justice.” Rawls suggested (and I am WAY oversimplifying! My apologies, Rawls fans!) that one way to judge how just a society is, is to ask if people would choose to join that society if they stood a chance of being the least well-off member of that society. In the not so nutshelled form, this is called the veil of ignorance, and although I read Rawls in college mumble mumble years ago, it’s stuck with me ever since.

A cartoon like this could have been done about any number of marginalized peoples – women, LGBT, disabled people, Latinx, and many more. I played around with different wording (“when you get there, you’ll be a disabled lesbian of color,” etc) to be more inclusive, but as is often the case, piling more details on a short cartoon seemed, to me, to make the cartoon hit less hard.

Diversity is important to me, but diversity for me, as a cartoonist, may be best achieved by trying to do a variety of subjects over multiple cartoons.

I went through a variety of wishing props when thinking of this cartoon. I rejected doing a genie because it’s hard to do a recognizable genie in just two panels without relying on racial stereotypes. I thought of doing a wishing fish, a reference to my third graphic novel. I thought of using the magic wish-granting fairy from an earlier cartoon.

But in the end, I liked the idea of a magic wishing ball, because it’s just so out of nowhere. Plus it let me do the open “magic ball” box in the background, and I like imagining this dude just ordered his magic ball from Amazon.

Transcript of Cartoon

This cartoon has four panels, and is colored in various tones of sepia.

Panel 1

A man stands alone in a room, holding out a shiny ball in one hand. He is speaking to the ball. Nearby, an open box with “Magic Ball” written on it lies open on the floor. The man is looking a little anxious, and is dressed in a slightly old-fashioned style, with a bow tie and a vest with thin vertical stripes.

MAN: Oh, magic ball… I wish I lived in the old days. Society was better then. Life was better.

MAGIC BALL: I, the Magic Ball, will grant your wish!

Panel 2

The man continues speaking to the magic ball, now with an overjoyed expression.

MAN: Wow, it works! Thank you, magic ball! It’s been my lifelong dream to live back when everything was civilized!

MAGIC BALL: I’ll send you to any century you wish! But choose carefully, because when you get there, you’ll be Black.

Panel 3

Still holding the ball, the man looks up as he concentrates, his brow knitted.

MAN: In that case, I’ll go to… Please send me to… To…

Panel 4

Dejected, the man walks away, tossing the ball away over one shoulder.

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Race, racism and related issues | 11 Comments

Patreon content for January 2018

Posted on January 31, 2019 by Mandolin

Patreon content for January has just been posted!

$1 and above patrons can read a piece from my recent found poetry kick based on google searches for emotions–in this case, “anxiety.”

$2 and above patrons get to see a sneak peek of a work in progress. This month’s came from a writing game I’m playing where we get various prompts to write a piece of flash fiction every week. This is from the prompt “describe an act of what looks like kindness, but is actually cruelty.”

And for $5 and above patrons, I reprinted my essay “Why We Tell the Story: The Political Nature of Narrative.” The essay first appeared in Timmi Duchamp’s collection Narrative Power, published by Aqueduct Press.

Thank you to all my supporters on Patreon! Your support makes a big difference in my life!

Posted in Essays, Fiction, Patreon, Rachel Swirsky's poetry | Comments Off

Cartoon: I am not a person who would ever do or say the things I said and did

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Ampersand

Help me make more cartoons! A bunch of people pledging $1 or $2 on my Patreon makes these cartoons – and let’s face it, my life – possible.

For once, I know exactly where the idea for this cartoon came from. A story a couple of years ago about a model who took a mocking photo of a fat woman at LA Fitness:

Mathers, 30, was Playboy‘s 2015 Playmate of the Year. She was banned by the LA Fitness health club chain for surreptitiously taking a photo of a woman in a shower area and publishing it along with the caption, “If I can’t unsee this then you can’t either.”

When it announced the ban, LA Fitness called Mathers’ behavior “appalling.” Saying it had revoked her membership, the company added, “It’s not just our rule, it’s common decency.”

In the fallout that ensued, the model lost her job at Los Angeles radio station KLOS, where she was a contributor. In November, the criminal charge was filed, leaving Mathers facing a potential six-month jail term.

As negative responses poured in at the time of the initial posting, Mathers sought to apologize.

“That was absolutely wrong and not what I meant to do. … I know that body-shaming is wrong,” she said, as member station KPCC reported. “That is not the type of person I am.“

That last quote – “that is not the type of person I am” – has really stuck with me. (I even worked it into panel 2). Because, I mean… You’re exactly the type of person who secretly takes mocking photos of women changing in the locker room. We know you’re exactly the type of person who does that, because you did.

Ms. Mathers, of course, isn’t alone in expressing this sentiment. Every time a celebrity gets into one of these scandals, we hear them saying some variation on “that’s not the type of person I am.”

I think what they mean is, I did do that awful thing, but that’s not all I am. I am more than this one bad thing I did.

And that’s absolutely true. Ms. Mathers is the type of person who’d do this thing – but, if she genuinely works at it, she can become the type of person who wouldn’t do that thing.

But to make the claim – “this isn’t who I am!” – without actually doing the work is evading responsibility. We’ve seen this very recently, of course, with Kevin Hart, who told a series of worse-than-typical homophobic jokes, never once apologized for them, and then took an “I’ve apologized enough, it’s time for the haters to move on!” stance.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg has written about the distinction between forgiveness and repetance in Judaism, and I happened to read that while working on this strip, which seemed very serendipitous. (It’s just a twitter thread; I recommend reading it, whether or not you’re Jewish.)

I had Mel Gibson in mind when I wrote the kicker panel – an antisemitic, racist, wife-beating movie star who not only made a huge comeback, but who has even claimed that he is the real victim.

Artwise, this cartoon (I thought) needed to be very simple to work – one figure, one camera angle, no background. As an artist, this makes things easy for me on one level, but difficult on another – because I don’t want every panel to be alike, and I do want to giver readers something to look at. So I concentrated on varying the expression and body language.

This is something that matters to no one in the world but me, but the biggest challenge of this cartoon, for me, was the last panel, because he’s tipped his head back so the underside of his jaw is facing the viewer. For me, that is the hardest angle of head to draw – but it was also perfect for the attitude I wanted to convey with is body language in that panel. I hope y’all think it came out well!

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus an small extra “kicker” panel below the bottom of the strip. Each panel features a man in a suit, standing at a podium, speaking directly at the viewer.

PANEL 1

The man presses one hand against his chest, in a “this is me” sort of attitude.

MAN: When I got drunk and said all those things about Jews and gays… That’s not me. It goes against everything I believe.

PANEL 2

The man spreads his arms wide, indicating that this is a big sentiment.

MAN: And when I was recorded using the “n word” over and over… That is not the type of person I am. I don’t have a racist bone in my body.

PANEL 3

He raises one index finger, making a concluding point.

MAN: As for pleading guilty for battering my wife… That’s not me. That’s not what I stand for.

MAN: And regarding my many other scandals: Nothing I’ve said or done has anything to do with me, my beliefs, or my character.

PANEL 4

He folds his arms and tips his head back, looking a bit above-it-all and a bit strict. He’s putting his metaphorical foot down.

MAN: And now that I’ve taken full responsibility, it’s time to move on. Let us never mention this again.

“KICKER” PANEL BELOW THE BOTTOM OF THE STRIP

The same man, now smiling and holding up an Oscar.

MAN: And in conclusion, I’d like to thank the academy for this award…

Posted in Cartooning & comics | 136 Comments

Cartoon: How The Climate Change Hoax Works

Posted on January 20, 2019 by Ampersand

If you like these cartoons, please support my Patreon! A $1 pledge helps keep me drawing cartoons.

I drew this one back in June, but as far as I can tell, I never got around to posting on “Alas.” Oops!

“I die and the spirit of science dies with me!” cracks me up, but I have no idea if readers will find it funny or not.
The debate over climate change exhausts me. Because while we should be debating what’s to be done about climate change, or how to mitigate climate change, we’re instead stuck endlessly debating if climate change exists or not.

And I always wonder – what do climate change deniers believe is happening among climatologists? Why, in their view, has virtually the entire scientific community in this field chosen to mislead the public and perpetuate a hoax?

Artwise, this was a fun one. I amused myself by sticking nonsensical “science stuff” in the backgrounds – a reel-to-reel tape recorder, a big lever, a portrait of Al Gore (I swiped the “celebrity photo in the background” gag from the beautiful comic strip Bloom County). The mad scientist character’s design looks unlike my usual characters and I really enjoyed that (I had a “eureka! moment when I realized how much better he’d look if he had no neck or chin).

I’m especially pleased with how the dude in the final panel came out. I’m usually pretty conservative with how I use coloring, but for that dude the coloring is really carrying the drawing, and (to my eyes at least) it looks good.

Transcript of Cartoon

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

Two scientists are talking. We can tell that they’re scientists because they’re wearing lab coats and there’s sciency-looking equipment in the background. Also a reel-to-reel projector and a photo of Al Gore. The Young Scientist is talking animatedly to the Older Scientist; Young’s eyes are wide and naive.

YOUNG: Doctor Goldberg, I know it’s my first day on the job, but I found data proving that global warming is a hoax!

PANEL 2

Older Scientist holds a hand high in the air, gesturing towards a brighter future. Young Scientist turns away, looking up in a noble fashion, his left fist clasped over his heart.

OLDER: It’s true, we made it all up! But play along and you’ll be rich!
YOUNG: Never! The people have a right to the truth!

PANEL 3

OLDER has produced a handgun and shoots YOUNG in the back; YOUNG is in great pain and looks like he’s about to fall over.

OLDER: What a shame.
YOUNG: AAAGH! I die and the spirit of science dies with me!

PANEL 4

Two completely different characters, a man and a woman, in a completely different scene. (We know it’s different because there’s no longer science stuff in the background, and because the color scheme has changed). The man is telling a story.

MAN: …So that’s what I think happens.
WOMAN: It does sound more likely than global warming being true.

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Environmental issues | 27 Comments

Abortion in Jewish Law

Posted on January 17, 2019 by Richard Jeffrey Newman

I started to write a response to this comment by Limits of Language (LoL) on the A Record 102 Edition open thread, but my response got so long that I decided to make it a separate post. LoL wrote:

My suggestion is that the actual end state of a liberal and free society may not actually be the legalization of very late abortions [in the absence of medical necessity: do I have that right?] but instead that very late abortions are quite immoral and support for it is indicative of very dangerous rationalizations that also enable (other) human rights violations.

LoL is, of course, entitled to this belief, and I respect it, but it is, in the end, rooted in the notion that there comes a point when the life and personhood of the fetus takes precedence over the life and personhood of the person in whose body that fetus resides. I don’t know whether or not LoL is Christian, but, in my experience, this belief–even when held by non-religious, secular people–devolves from a Christian understanding of when life begins and what it means to be considered a fully human person. There are other traditions, also deeply rooted in a moral concern for human life and the nature of personhood, that see this issue very differently. The one I am most familiar with is the Jewish tradition.

What I am going to write below is based on my reading of two books that I would highly recommend to anyone who is interested: David M. Feldman’s Marital Relations, Birth Control and Abortion in Jewish Law (Schocken Books 1968) and Rachel Biale’s Women & Jewish Law (Schocken Books 1984). (There may be newer editions of both books; I have linked to the editions I have on my shelf.) I am going quote a little bit from Biale’s book, but for the most part I’ll be summarizing. So, for those who are interested, the relevant pages are: Biale, 223–225; Feldman, 289–294. These pages discussion what Jewish law has to say about non-therapeutic abortions, but that discussion is rooted in the “clear distinction [Jewish law makes] between the woman and her child: the woman is a living person…and anyone who…kills her [has committed a capital crime]…The fetus is not a person in this sense” because the fetus has not yet become an individual; it cannot live independently outside the womb and so is not understood to have the same status in legal or moral/ethical terms as the mother (Biale, 220).

Regarding non-therapeutic abortion, the relevant text can be found in Tractate Arakhin in the Babylonian Talmud. There, the rabbis perform a thought experiment, and I want to stress that this is a thought experiment designed to allow for a discussion about the status of the fetus, not a discussion about death-penalty policy. Imagine, they say, a pregnant woman who has been sentenced to death. Should her sentence be postponed until her child is born? Or should it be carried out immediately, essentially murdering an innocent child for her crimes?

The rabbis’ answer–and I am skipping over a good deal of discussion here–is that the sentence should be carried out immediately, unless the birth process has started, because “at this point the fetus has become ‘a separate body’ (notice, not yet an independent life!) and is no longer part of its mother’s body” (Biale 224). Why, with that exception, shouldn’t the sentence be postponed? Because

a delay between sentencing and execution is a form of torture, innui ha-din [a concept in Jewish law which prohibits] delay in carrying out the sentence [so as not to add] unwarranted anguish to the punishment. A person sentenced to execution should not be tormented psychologically by having to await and anticipate his end. (Biale 225).

In other words, respect and compassion for the doomed woman’s humanity/personhood, i.e., she should not be subjected to torture, takes precedence over respect and compassion for the fetus (as long as it has not yet descended into the birth canal). She is understood to be an individuated person; the fetus, with that one exception, is not.

There are a couple of points worth further clarification: This ruling holds only when the woman’s pregnancy is discovered after her sentence has been pronounced. If she is known to be pregnant beforehand, the sentencing itself is postponed until after the birth. “In this case, waiting is not considered innui ha-din because the woman can hope for acquittal or a lesser punishment” (Biale 225). I also don’t know what the ruling would be if the condemned woman were to ask to be allowed to give birth before being put to death, but even if the ruling were that her desire should be granted, note that it would be granted out of respect for her choice, not the status of the fetus.

Biale goes on:

The practical importance of the ruling in Arakhin is not of course for cases of execution, but for cases where the mother is in great distress due to the pregnancy. It is possible to deduce from Arakhin a general principle that a fetus may be aborted to avoid mental anguish (any condition analogous to innui ha-din or disgrace to the mother. (225)

Now, this is not to say that there is in Jewish law an argument for anything resembling what we understand when talk about a pro-choice position, much less abortion on demand right up to the moment of birth. In fact, in practice, women who follow Jewish law would need to obtain a rabbi’s permission to have an abortion. (Indeed, there is in one episode of Shtisel, which is on Netflix, a very interesting scene in which the rabbinic approach to abortion and the contemporary pro-choice approach come into conflict.) My point in writing this very long response to LoL’s comment is simply to demonstrate that there is an argument for legalizing very late term abortions—no less rooted in a moral, religious tradition than the Christian or Christological argument against the practice—that is not, as he suggests, “indicative of very dangerous rationalizations that also enable (other) human rights violations,” but is instead rooted in a deep sense of compassion and respect for the humanity of someone who is pregnant.

ETA: There is one other point that I think is worth adding about the status of the fetus in Jewish law. One of traditional Judaism’s strongest prohibitions is against violating the Sabbath. Indeed, one of the only reasons such violation is not merely permitted, but required, is in the interests of saving a life. It is important to note, therefore, that Jewish law does not simply permit, but requires one to violate that Sabbath in order to save a fetus that would otherwise die. In other words, the fact that Jewish law privileges a pregnant person over the fetus that person is carrying does not mean that Jewish law treats the fetus, as LoL said elsewhere, as “mere bits of tissue.”

Posted in Abortion & reproductive rights | 58 Comments

Mash It Up, an excerpt from my class on How to Write Retellings

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Mandolin

Explicitly or subtly, writers are always building on the stories that came before us. For a couple of years now, I’ve been teaching a class on retellings at Cat Rambo’s Academy. It’s always a good time to see what people come up with.

Here’s an excerpt from the class, on one of the many strategies for retelling stories — the mash-up.

Craving some hard science fiction spaceships, or some Western cowboy hats? You don’t have to move your story into space or a ghost town and write completely in that new genre—you can do both at once. Sometimes you have to get that chocolate into that peanut butter. Mix things because you love them, or because they go together, or because they should never go together, or because they went together in that weird dream you had the other night.

Some combinations play up the contradictions. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is funny because it makes you imagine all those staid regency ladies juxtaposed with B-horror movie makeup. The retelling thrives because the combination is both ridiculous and delightful.

Other match-ups are about synergy instead of clash. A common blend is fairy tale characters who are under criminal investigation. Fairy tale characters have made many appearances in court room dramas. These days, I mostly see the combination as fairy tales written in a Noir style. Although the genres don’t pair well to me, they appeal to many readers. Perhaps it’s a way to tease out the motivations and complexities of the original, simple stories. The author wants to know “why did this happen?” and poses a fictional detective to find out.

You can mash up whole genres–but you can also just mash individual stories. When superhero comics have big crossover arcs where characters from different parts of the universe all interact, they aren’t changing genre. They’re still superhero comics, just ones without their normally distinct lines.

It’s entirely possible to mash together as many genres and stories as you want. More doesn’t usually mean better–but it can.

If this sounds interesting to you, consider signing up for my class this Saturday, or checking out the On Demand version.

Posted in classes, old tales into new | Comments Off

Cartoon: Forced Kidney Donation

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Ampersand

If you enjoy these cartoons, help me make more by supporting my Patreon! A $1 pledge really helps.

In 1971, the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson wrote “A Defense of Abortion,” in which she used the example of a person waking up in a hospital, with medical equipment attaching them to a world famous violinist, to illustrate a point: Even if we accept that a fetus is a person with rights (which I don’t), it doesn’t follow that enforced childbirth is morally acceptable. It might be nice of me to allow the violinist to use my body for nine months, because that’s the only way to save the violinist’s life, but a world in which such extreme charity was enforced would be a nightmare.

This cartoon is an attempt to make that nightmarish aspect of what pro-lifers want visceral. It’s ironic, of course, that one way to make the nightmare clear is to imagine a man being put in the position that pro-lifers want to put women in.

* * *

This cartoon was written in a swimming pool. I usually go to a aqua fit class at a gym two or three times a week, and one of the ways I pass the time while exercising is to try and write political cartoons in my head.

Usually it doesn’t work; aqua fit isn’t really an ideal environment for brainstorming. (The best place for me to think of ideas is sitting on a public park bench watching kids play; because of that, it’s easier for me to write in warm weather. Seriously!) But sometimes an idea comes to me, and this is one.

I remember I described the idea to Emily, who I think is a patron here (hi Emily!), and from her reaction I thought it could be a good idea.

An idea isn’t enough, of course. There’s a lot of editing and refining. In this case, I got very far along in the process – actually finishing the pencils – before I decided to restructure the cartoon in a major way. Here’s the earlier version of this cartoon:

At first I was tickled at how much I’d managed to fit into just six panels. But then it started feeling cramped to me. And I couldn’t help thinking that the final panel should somehow be different than the others.

Then I thought about longtime patron Bonnie Warford (hi Bonnie!) commenting that she likes it when I break out of the grid. So I started to think of how I could do that with this comic, which eventually led to the idea of the first six panels being a giant word balloon, indicating that this was a story being told by the main character in the final panel.

The way the cartoon is set up, I think this cartoon will “work” even for readers who miss the “giant word balloon” aspect. But for me, that aspect adds a lot to this cartoon, visually.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has seven panels, arranged in a grid of six small panels (three across, two down), followed by a final panel which is quite large.

Panels 1-6 are colored in a minimalist color scheme featuring shades of brown and yellow.

PANEL 1

Panel 1 shows a close-up of man with a van dyke beard with his head on a pillow, snoring. A voice speaks from off-panel.

MAN: Zzzzz…
OFF PANEL VOICE: Wake him up.

PANEL 2

Panels 2 and 3 have a continuous background, showing a bedroom. In panel 2, Man is still asleep in bed, but a man in a solider-or-guard-like uniform is standing over him, with a hand on his shoulder.

SOLDIER: Get up! You’re going to the hospital!

PANEL 3

The man is now out of bed, with another soldier handcuffing him. The man is dressed only in a tee shirt and underwear. In front of him, a middle-aged woman, wearing a jacket and skirt, with a bun and a clipboard, is addressing him.

MAN: What’s HAPPENING?
CLIPBOARD: We’re taking your kidney.

PANEL 4

A close-up of Man and Clipboard. Man is wide-eyed with shock and fear; Clipboard is officious.

MAN: What? WHY?
CLIPBOARD: Your son is ill. He needs your kidney to live.

PANEL 5

We’ve changed locations; Man is now strapped won to an operating table. His tee-shirt is gone, and he’s yelling, futility. Two people in surgical gowns, gloves and masks – one of whom is Clipboard – stand over him. Clipboard is pointing to something on her clipboard.

MAN: But I don’t HAVE a son!
CLIPBOARD: You do. He’s from a one-night stand 20 years ago.

PANEL 6

No dialog in this panel. We see Man’s terrified face and, in the foreground, a gloved hand holding a scalpel.

The bottom border of the above six panels forms a word balloon, which is pointing to MAN in panel 7, indicating that the first six panels are a story that Man is telling in panel 7.

PANEL 7

The same man from the first six panels. He is now standing in a parking lot in front of a building, cheerfully telling a story to another man. Man and his friend are both holding signs that say “PRO LIFE” in big letters. They are surrounded by at least five other protesters, both men and women, also holding “PRO LIFE” signs.

Unlike the first six panels, this panel is in full color.

MAN: And that’s when I woke up. Thank goodness it was only a terrible nightmare!

Posted in Abortion & reproductive rights, Cartooning & comics, Feminism, sexism, etc | 29 Comments

Fosta-Sesta and The Art Of Not Listening

Posted on January 8, 2019 by Ampersand

If you like these cartoons, please help me make more by supporting my Patreon! A $1 pledge really matters.

This is sort of a “guilty obligation” comic. :-p

By which I mean, it makes me furious that our pundit class – particularly those who pat themselves on the back for their commitment to free speech – spends an enormous amount of time worrying about the threat to free speech of wealthy campus speakers facing rude student protesters, while ignoring far more dire threats to marginalized groups, like undocumented immigrants, prisoners, and sex workers.

But then I had the thought, “have I actually done any cartoons focusing on free speech threats to undocumented immigrants, prisoners, and sex workers?” A line of thought which eventually led me to this cartoon. (Doing cartoons about free speech and undocumented immigrants, and free speech and prisoners, remains on my “to do” list.)

As a Democrat, it’s embarrassing to me that every Democratic senator aside from Ron Wyden voted for Sesta. It’s a terrible law, that assaults free speech on the internet and hurts those it claims to help. And because the group it’s attacking is so marginalized, who knows when or if the damages will ever be repaired.

Really, I could have done this same cartoon (or a very similar one) about either prisoners or undocumented immigrants. A danger of putting any group outside the law is, there’s very little motivation for politicians to think about, or care about, their well-being. That’s why the free speech rights of sex workers is so easy to crush – while the free speech rights of people like Christina Hoff Sommers and Charles Murray, while important, are not in any substantive danger.

And that’s what the “kicker” panel below the strip is about. The problem isn’t that politicians don’t know better. It’s that, even if they did know better, they still wouldn’t have any incentive to care.

When I see pundits get into a free speech panic over Charles Murray being protested, while people actually being shut up by the law get ignored, it’s hard not to see this as what Noah Berlatskycalls “chattering-class solidarity.”

When pundits denounce student speakers, they are engaged in a kind of chattering-class solidarity. Free speech, for pundits, often is indistinguishable from a call for free speech for pundits. They are saying, in so many words, People like me should be able to talk without interruption from people like you.

Pundits can easily imagine themselves being in Charles Murray’s shoes, but can’t imagine being an undocumented immigrant, a sex worker, or a prisoner. And that makes the very mild threat to Murray’s free speech seem much more urgent, to pundits, than the objectively much greater threat to the free speech of marginalized people.

From a technical standpoint, what worried me the most, drawing this cartoon, was establishing character recognition. The cartoon simply wouldn’t work if the senator in the fourth panel wasn’t recognizable as the same character from the previous three panels.

That’s why his head is odd. In the original drawing (see below), I drew him with the same globe-shaped head the other characters have. For me, globehead style is a very easy, natural and fun way to draw characters. But I decided to change his head shape entirely, to make it easier for readers to pick up on him being the same character. That’s why his head is shaped like a finger in the final cartoon.

I also wanted to draw sex workers that looked more like real-life sex workers I’ve seen interviewed on TV, than like the sex workers on TV dramas – in other words, not 100% young, white and thin.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four main panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel below the bottom of the cartoon.

Panel 1

There is a large caption saying “THEN“.

Three women — one wearing a hoodie, one wearing a leather jacket, one wearing a pony tail and a “casual nice” office outfit – are talking to a middle-aged white man at a desk, who is wearing a vest and necktie. The women are of various ages and races, and are all looking at the dude in the necktie, who is a Senator. The Senator is holding up a finger in front of Pony Tail in a “wait just a sec” gesture, while he turns in the opposite direction and speaks to someone off-panel.

PONY TAIL: Senator, if the Fosta-Sesta bill becomes law, it’ll harm sex workers like us – the people this bill is supposed to protect!
SENATOR: Julie, bring me a sandwich, please.

Panel 2

The same set-up, but now Hoodie is speaking.

HOODIE: We use the internet to avoid pimps and screen clients. Fosta-Sesta will censor all that. Some of us will be forced onto the streets.
SENATOR: Make it roast beef.

Panel 3

Same set up, but now Leather Jacket speaks, looking angry and holding her hands extended, palms up, in a “come ON!” sort of gesture. The Senator is now holding a sandwich, which he eyes warily.

LEATHER: Fosta-Sensa will make more vulnerable to predators of all kinds. This bill will help pimps and traffickers!
SENATOR: Julie, there’s no mayo on this, is there?

PANEL 4

There is a large caption saying “NOW“.

The Senator is pictured on his own, reading a newspaper. We can see a huge headline on the front page – “Report: Fosta-Sesta Helping Pimps and Traffickers.” The Senator, with a mildly distressed expression, has turned his head and speaks directly to the viewer. (The newspaper’s masthead says it’s called “The Useful Trope.”)

SENATOR: No one could have known this would happen!

SMALL KICKER PANEL BELOW BOTTOM OF STRIP

The three women are again talking to the senator, the women looking stern, the Senator responding cheerfully.

HOODIE: So NOW will you listen to sex workers before making laws about us?
SENATOR: Definitely not.

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Elections and politics, Free speech, censorship, copyright law, etc., Sex work, porn, etc | 11 Comments

Writing Round-up and Eligibility Post for 2018

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Mandolin

It’s that time of year again! Old snow, down coats, tenderly nascent blooming new year’s hopes which will inevitably be both fulfilled and disappointed… and year-end “here is what I wrote this year” posts.

This is both a list of my recent work, and also a list of my pieces that are eligible for the various awards like the Hugo and the Nebula.

I’m really glad to be writing more again. I mean, for one thing I’m writing at least twelve pieces of poetry and/or flash fiction a year, because of Patreon. (Obligatory plug: You can get one new piece of my work each month for $1!) Some of my work has been noveling, and some isn’t out yet, so it’s not all visible in this list– but I am really happy to enjoy prose again.

This year, I’ve been thinking a lot, and writing a lot, about disability. I feel like my interests right now are moving into this really internal, psychological place.

Here’s what I’ve written that is eligible this year:

Short Story:
“Birthday Girl” (2,800 words) in Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, Sept 2018.
A bipolar woman attends her niece’s birthday party a year after her sister cut off contact.

Read the story here.

Bella and her sister stood awhile in silence, toeing the dirt. Her sister crossed her arms over her chest. She kept trying to smile, but awkwardness wiped it from her face.

Bella’s sister spoke first. You didn’t make her sick.

Bella snapped back. You’re the one who said I did.

Novelette:
“Seven Months Out and Two to Go” with Trace Yulie (8,400 words) in Asimov’s, Feb 2018.
A pregnant rancher mourning the loss of her husband has an alien encounter.

The story is not online, but Trace and I did a Q&A about our collaboration here.

“Red, what are you doing out here in the dark? How did you get out? Is the calf in trouble? Get back to the barn so I can look at you.”
Big Red turned toward her, and impossibly, her silhouette morphed and bloated. Legs absorbed into a huge, gelatinous ovoid taller than Kate. Light pulsed within its mucus-like, translucent flesh, rippling and glaring and burning.
“Home,” said a voice, or perhaps voices. The strange, distorted sound was an uncanny chorus. Kate’s heart drummed in response.

I’ve also been posting short stories, flash fiction, and poetry on Patreon. Anyone who pledges $1 a month gets new words every month and access to all the previous content. The stories I’ve posted in 2018 include:

“When I Sit on the Fish Tank” Parts One and Two: A cat and her obsession.

“Love Is Hot and Brief”: The star-crossed romance of coffee and cup.

“The Diary of a Woman Outside Time”: Life, fragmented.

“The Stubborn Granny”: Sometimes the Grimm fairy tales are too grim. A rewritten tale.

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Cartoon: Debate THIS, Libtards! (Or, The Difference Between Effective and Marginal Tax Rates)

Posted on January 6, 2019 by Ampersand

If you enjoy my cartoons, please help me make more by supporting my Patreon! A $1 pledge really matters to me.

So earlier this week, new Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was interviewed on 60 Minutes. In the course of the interview, Cortez laboriously and correctly described marginal tax rates:

Once you get to the tippie-tops, on your $10 millionth dollar, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60% or 70%. That doesn’t mean all $10 million dollars are taxed at an extremely high rate. But it means that as you climb up this ladder, you should be contributing more.

Many Republicans seized on this as “the Democrats want to take away 70% of everything you earn!” This included comments from highly placed Republicans, like Steve Scalise, who tweeted:

Republicans: Let Americans keep more of their own hard-earned money
Democrats: Take away 70% of your income and give it to leftist fantasy programs

Congressman Scalise is the House Republican Whip – the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives.

Does Scalise really not know the difference between effective and marginal tax rates? Or is telling the truth just completely alien to his value system?

And why does being either dishonest, or an ignoramus, seem to be a formula for rising high in the modern GOP?

The “kicker” panel at the bottom more and more reflects how I’m feeling, alas.

Ocasio-Cortez’s suggested 70%, by the way, is both moderate and reasonable policy.

Usually I avoid doing cartoons based in the current news cycle; I prefer to do cartoons that will last. But this one is both; it’s got a story in the current news cycle, but the underlying issues will remain relevant for years to come.

I’m pleased with how this comic came out. It’s very basic, visually, but often the very basic comic strips are the ones that look best. Looking at it now, the only thing that makes me wince is that I drew the guy’s left arm in the same pose in panels 1 and 4; I usually try to avoid that, since having them move around from panel to panel makes them look more lively.

Although it’s not important to the strip, the woman in the strip is visually based on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and that was fun; I don’t often do caricatures in my strips.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus an extra fifth “kicker” panel, with much smaller artwork, below the bottom of the strip.

Panel 1

Two people, a man and a woman, are standing inside some sort of building, talking. He has neatly combed and blow-dried blonde hair, and is wearing a polo shirt. She has dark hair combed back into a bun, and is wearing a simple pale dress with a dark belt. He is grinning in a somewhat mocking way; she is responding seriously, arms spread a bit.

POLO: I hear liberals want to raise income taxes to 70 percent! How stupid can you guys be?

BUN: I know it sounds strange, but top tax rats of 70 percent or higher were normal until the 1980s.

Panel 2

A close-up of Bun, with a bit of the back of Polo’s head in the foreground. Bun is smiling and holding one palm up in an “explaining” gesture.

BUN: The 70 percent rate we’re talking about would only apply to the ultra-rich. And even the ultra-rich would pay much less than that on their first 10 million dollars of income!

Panel 3

Another closeup on Bun, who is still talking with her hands, and now has a serious expression.

BUN: When top tax rates were at 70 percent – or even 90 percent – the rich didn’t stop working or flee the country. Anyhow, shouldn’t billionaires start paying their fair share?

Panel 4

A shot of Polo and Bun. Polo is laughing. A third man, wearing a necktie, has come in and is talking to Polo while pointing at his watch. Bun is startled by what Necktie says.

POLO: Ordinary workers can’t live on 30 percent of their income! You’re stupid!

NECKTIE: Congressman, sorry to interrupt, but you’re due on Fox News in ten minutes.

Kicker panel below the bottom of the strip

Bun speaks to Polo.

BUN: I should go, too. I’m getting “do not engage” tattooed inside my eyelids.

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