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

Cartoon: A Living Wage For Everybody

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Ampersand

Another collab with Becky Hawkins.

I want to point out that the new cartoon collection, Yet Another Example of Pro-Billionaire Bigotry, is now available on Amazon!

If you like these cartoons, then you’d probably also like running your tongue along a gritty dark staircase bannister, but that sounds gross and people wouldn’t understand so you keep it secret. It’s not a sex thing or anything, it’s more about texture. Also, patreon.

Becky says:

My biggest challenge was drawing hands convincingly holding up the protest signs. I looked up photos of fast food workers protesting. While I was looking for unwitting hand models, I noticed that a lot of the protesters wore their work uniforms and protested outside of their workplaces. This gave me the idea to give everyone matching red and yellow shirts, and to draw the suggestion of a brick fast food restaurant next to a huge parking lot.

I also took photos of myself holding a large sketchbook to mimic the specific sign-holding poses I wanted to draw. (Barry, if you want to show the nice patrons a reference photo, there are a few in the file.) I probably did equal parts tracing and fudging the hands in the end.

Barry and I both go back and forth between drawing big-headed cartoon characters, and people with more naturalistic proportions. Unfortunately, sometimes we go back and forth in the same comic strip. The first version of this cartoon had two big-headed panels and two small-headed panels. I was happy with each individual drawing, but in order to get them consistent, I sized the heads up and down in Photoshop before doing the final art.

(Back to Barry.)

This is so atypical of my political cartoons, because it’s nice. There’s no bad guy, and everyone is happy and friends by the final panel. I’m honestly not sure if I’ve done a cartoon this nice before.

It’s also unusual in having two silent panels. I’m not sure I’ve ever done that before, either.

The moral of the cartoon is, workers are better off banding together against bosses than fighting each other. And that’s true, even if it’s also a really, really, really obvious point.

Unions – the most powerful form of worker solidarity – even increase wages for non-union workers. From an Economic Policy Institute report:

By bringing workers’ collective power to the bargaining table, unions are able to win better wages and benefits for working people—reducing income inequality as a result. …

When unions are strong, they set wage standards for entire industries and occupations; they make wages more equal within occupations; and they close pay gaps between white workers and workers of color.

Even employers who don’t have to deal with a union directly, still have to compete for workers with unionized workplaces, forcing them to raise wages higher than they would if unions didn’t exist.

Over the long term, nothing has been worst for progressives in the US than the decline of unions.

Unfortunately, workers in the US simply don’t have enough protections for the right to unionize. The Protecting The Right To Organize Act (aka the PRO Act) has passed the House twice, and is supported by 59% of likely voters. But business groups oppose it, and because of the filibuster the PRO Act can’t pass in the Senate.

Meanwhile, pursuing non-union ways to improve workers’ situations – like living wage bills in the states that can pass them – is one way we can move forward, despite the filibuster.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, all showing the same scene – a white man wearing a tee shirt (the shirt front features an illustration of a bald eagle) is talking to a black woman holding a sign. Her sign says “Fast Food Workers Need A Living Wage!” She has short dark hair and is wearing hoop earrings and cat’s-eye glasses.

Behind her we can see other demonstrators, with signs that say things like “Fair Pay” and “Raise the Raise” and the like. All the demonstrators are wearing bright red shirts with yellow collars, suggestive of fast food worker uniforms.

A building partly visible in the background has the sort of architecture I associate with fast food restaurants.

PANEL 1

The man is talking to the woman, looking a bit angry and raising a forefinger in a lecture-y fashion. The woman is listening thoughtfully.

MAN: If burger flippers get a “living wage,” they’ll make more than me! How is that fair?

PANEL 2

The man has folded his arms and is listening but with an obviously hostile expression. The woman has lowered her sign a bit and is speaking with a bit of fervor.

WOMAN: It’s not fair! Because if people getting a living wage are making more than you… Then you’re being seriously underpaid.

PANEL 3

The “camera” backs up, so we’re now at a bit of a difference. The man looks extremely taken aback. No one speaks.

PANEL 4

Apparently a little time has passed. The man, now smiling, has joined the protestors, standing next to the woman (who is also smiling). The man is now holding a sign which says “A Living Wage for Everybody!”

This cartoon on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Union Issues | 7 Comments

Cartoon: Fat Suits in Movies

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Ampersand

If you like these cartoons, then if you support them you’ll get a warm glow of well-being, fizzling outward from your brain until you can feel it tingling in your toes, and then you’ll feel really confident and cheerful about talking to strangers and then you’ll decide to go out dancing and wait no that’s not supporting my cartoons that’s just being on drugs never mind.

I went back and forth on if the actor in this strip should be female or male. Either way seemed to be too specific. Then I remembered that in Doonesbury – especially in older strips – Garry Trudeau would sometimes draw strips that were four panels of nothing but Mike Doonesbury in an armchair and watching a TV. Because readers saw the TV from the side, we didn’t actually see what was on the TV screen – which somehow made it funnier,

Never let it be said that I hesitate to swipe from my betters.

(I always find it disturbing how close Mike sits to the TV in those old strips. You’re gonna destroy your eyes, Mike!)

(Of course, nowadays we all sit that closer or closer to our computer and tablet screens.)

I also decided to swipe Trudeau’s signature small smile appearing on the character’s face in the fourth panel. Having the character only react in the final panel encourages readers to see the character as a stand-in for themselves, sharing their amusement – or at least, that’s how I interpret it.

And what the heck, I stuck a framed picture of Zonker Harris, one of the Doonesbury characters, on the wall.

(I love Doonesbury, by the way. Very few cartoonists match Garry Trudeau’s record of being consistently funny and good for fifty years. Half of everything I knew about politics in the 70s and 80s, I learned from reading Doonesbury.)

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows a woman at her kitchen sink. Although each panel shows the same scene, each panel is shown from a slightly different angle, which would have required redrawing the perspective every panel. Gosh, that probably was a whole bunch of work by the cartoonist. I’m just saying that as a neutral observation from an objective observer, it’s not like these transcripts are written by the cartoonist himself. Cough. Cough.

The woman is fat, and is wearing blue jeans and a pink tee shirt that shows a planet sticking its tongue out on the back, and has the words “don’t panic” written in large friendly letters on the front. Her orange hair is in a messy bun.

On the countertop next to her is an open laptop, and throughout the cartoon the voices we hear are coming from the laptop. The laptop is positioned with the screen facing away from the “camera,” so we can’t see what’s on the screen.

PANEL 1

The woman is washing a dish over the kitchen sink. Voices are coming from her laptop, but she doesn’t appear to be paying attention.

VOICE 1 – TV HOST: You’ve been on People’s “hottest celebs” list six times… but in your new movie, you wear a fat suit! It’s a ”huge” transformation!

VOICE 2 – CELEB: Ha ha! It was quite a learning experience.

PANEL 2

The woman continues to wash dishes, but glances at the laptop screen.

TV HOST: Interesting! Can you tell us some things you learned?

CELEB: First, it’s disturbing to play a part designed to let audiences enjoy being grossed out by “my” body.

PANEL 3

A close up of the laptop on the counter.

CELEB: Second, I learned it’s exploitative to wear a marginalized person’s body as a costume. And I learned there are plenty of fat actors who’d love this opportunity but weren’t given a shot.

PANEL 4

The woman has stopped washing dishes and is leaning against the counter and watching the laptop screen. She looks amused.

CELEB: Finally, I learned that no one should see this stupid movie. Excuse me, my manager appears to be having a coronary.

This cartoon on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Fat, fat and more fat | 19 Comments

If Mom Hadn’t Gotten That Abortion I Wouldn’t Be Here

Posted on October 16, 2022 by Ampersand

A PoliCartoon by Becky Hawkins and I!

If you like these policartoons and would like to help us make more, go join a secret government facility where you’ll go through intensive training to become a highly effective and remoseless assassin. Be prepared to have your current identity wiped out and your fingerprints burned off. Be prepared to show you’re serious by killing your junior high school principal. Then, once you’re fully trained, break out of the facility, leaving bombs behind to wipe out your trainers and all the other assassins, then go on a killing spree murdering all political cartoonists aside from me and my collaborators, so I’ll have no more competition. You better make all the deaths look like accidents, though, so no suspicion falls on me. That would be really helpful, thank you in advance.

Becky says:

For some reason, I read this script and immediately decided it takes place in a food cart pod. We’re still having pleasant weather in Portland leading up to the rainy season, so I guess sunshine and picnic tables are on my mind. Also, it makes sense as a place where a child might be unattended for a minute, while the parent is waiting for the food to be ready.

Barry’s stage directions in panel 4 say, “The girl’s parent shows up. There’s a few ways to take this – one is having the parent be a big, intimidating looking guy, maybe like a biker.” I modeled him after a coworker at my day job, because when I think of a combination of “nurturing” and “could probably wrestle a bear”? Children’s theater stage crew!

I thought about defining “food cart pod” for those of you who don’t live in Portland, but then I realized there’s no need: Becky’s drawing makes it perfectly clear what a food cart pod is. I don’t know how many food cart pods are in Portland – dozens – but they’re wonderful. Like mall food courts but with better food (more variety and almost all independently owned) and your foodie friends won’t refuse to go.

It always frustrates me when I hear pro-lifers make the “what if your mom had aborted you argument?”

Partly it’s that obviously, if my mom had aborted me, I would never have known or cared. That’s what never existing means.

But also because most people who have abortions are also parents (either currently or in the future). For many, they’re not choosing never to be parents; they’re choosing to control when they become parents.

Two people I love – probably more than two overall, but two that I know of – would never have been born if their mother hadn’t been able to control the course of her life by having an abortion.

Sure, any aborted fetus might have grown up to be a wonderful unique person. But any aborted fetus could also mean that a different but also wonderful person will be born later on. Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t see any reason to consider one potential life more valuable than another.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows the same scene: A bright sunny day, a seating area with several round picnic tables with attached seating, and in the background many brightly colored food carts. In the foreground, a little girl – to me she looks about nine years old – is sitting at a table, talking with an adult man with orange hair, who is carrying a sign that says “PRO LIFE.”

PANEL 1

The little girl is sitting facing a table, but turning around to face the pro-life guy, who is earnestly talking to her.

PRO LIFE DUDE: Have you ever thought about if your mother had an abortion? The wonderful, unique person who is you wouldn’t exist! Isn’t that sad?

PANEL 2

Now the little girl is earnestly talking to the pro-life dude, who listens, surprised by what she’s saying.

GIRL: Years before I was born, my mom did have an abortion. That’s why she could go to college and meet my dad. I exist because mom got that abortion!

PANEL 3

The girl, smiling, waves one arm enthusiastically and points to herself with her other thumb. The pro-lifer grows angry.

GIRL: So since I’m a wonderful unique person, isn’t it good that my mom had the abortion?

PRO LIFE DUDE: NO! No one should ever have an abortion!

PANEL 4

A huge man – he’s very tall and also has very thick, strong-looking arms, and has a thick beard all the way down to his broad chest – is walking up to the table, his arms laden with food from the food carts. He’s smiling amiably. The little girl has turned to the huge guy and is shrugging. The pro-lifer is smiling as best he can but also comically trembling with fear.

HUGE GUY: Hi Munchkin! Who’s your friend?

GIRL: I dunno, but he was just saying I should never have been born.

This cartoon on Patreon

Posted in Abortion & reproductive rights, Cartooning & comics, Feminism, sexism, etc | 4 Comments

“Scientific” Racism

Posted on October 14, 2022 by Ampersand

If you blah blah blah money blah blah blah support blah blah link.

As a social fact, race is real. What race we’re seen as makes an enormous difference to how we’re treated, our odds of being in poverty, and a ton of other factors.

But as biology, race is a fiction – or, rather, it’s an incredibly crude proxy for geographic ancestry. But the proxy is so crude that it has little correspondence to actual genetic diversity.

Vivian Chou writes:

A landmark 2002 study by Stanford scientists examined the question of human diversity by looking at the distribution across seven major geographical regions of 4,000 alleles. Alleles are the different “flavors” of a gene. For instance, all humans have the same genes that code for hair: the different alleles are why hair comes in all types of colors and textures.

In the Stanford study, over 92% of alleles were found in two or more regions, and almost half of the alleles studied were present in all seven major geographical regions. The observation that the vast majority of the alleles were shared over multiple regions, or even throughout the entire world, points to the fundamental similarity of all people around the world—an idea that has been supported by many other studies.

If separate racial or ethnic groups actually existed, we would expect to find “trademark” alleles and other genetic features that are characteristic of a single group but not present in any others. However, the 2002 Stanford study found that only 7.4% of over 4000 alleles were specific to one geographical region. Furthermore, even when region-specific alleles did appear, they only occurred in about 1% of the people from that region—hardly enough to be any kind of trademark. Thus, there is no evidence that the groups we commonly call “races” have distinct, unifying genetic identities. In fact, there is ample variation within races.

Ultimately, there is so much ambiguity between the races, and so much variation within them, that two people of European descent may be more genetically similar to an Asian person than they are to each other.

The sentence “Stop cancel culturing me!” made me laugh aloud when I thought of it. It’s always nice when that happens.

Regarding panel six: Anytime you have to draw people clustered together in a cartoon, height differences are your friend.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels, plus an additional tiny “kicker” panel below the bottom of the cartoon. The first five panels all show the same person, a white man wearing a light yellow polo shirt; he has glasses and a “van dyke” beard and mustache. He’s standing in front of a blank background.

PANEL 1

The man seems to speak directly to the reader, looking annoyed, holding up a forefinger in a “let me just make this one point” gesture.

WHITE MAN : It’s not fair to say I’m racist just because I’m being scientific!

PANEL 2

The man looks a bit hurt and shrugs.

WHITE MAN: Just because I say certain races (like mine) are inherently more intelligent than certain other races (like Blacks)…

PANEL 3

Now he looks thoughtful, looking up into the air and placing a hand over his chin.

WHITE MAN: And just because I say high I.Q. people deserve all the best jobs and we should pay them (us) more and let them run everything…

PANEL 4

He folds his arms and looks, frankly, quite snotty.

WHITE MAN: And just because I ignore when “scientists” say society’s racial categories don’t really correspond to actual human genetic groupings…

PANEL 5

The “camera” has rotated around the man, but he hasn’t turned to remain facing towards us. Instead, he now seems to be speaking to someone off-panel. He’s looking worried and is holding the fingertips of a hand to his chest, indicating himself.

WHITE MAN: Just because of all of that, is it fair to call me a racist?

PANEL 6

The “camera” has zoomed out, and we can now see that he’s talking to three people. All three people are people of color (in my interpretation, two are African-American and one is Indian-American). All three are looking annoyed as they speak. The white man is angry and frustrated as he yells at them.

Instead of a blank background, we can now see that all four characters are standing on a city sidewalk, with closely-packed houses and a utility pole in the background.

TALL BLACK MAN WEARING A TIE: Yes.

SHORT BLACK WOMAN WITH A STRIPED SHIRT AND A GREEEN SKIRT: Definitely fair.

INDIAN WOMAN WITH GLASSES AND A SHORT FASHIONABLY CHOPPY HAIRCUT: Yup yup.

WHITE MAN (yelling): STOP CANCEL CULTURING ME!

TINY “KICKER” PANEL UNDER THE BOTTOM OF THE STRIP

The short Black woman from panel 6 is talking to the white guy. He looks calm now but still a bit annoyed.

SHORT WOMAN: So who do you think it’s fair to call racist?

WHITE MAN: The guy who made this cartoon.

This cartoon on Patreon

Posted in anti-racism, antiracism, Cartooning & comics, Race, racism and related issues, Racism | 1 Comment

Pete in a Pot

Posted on October 14, 2022 by Mandolin

Cat drawing! We did not make Pete stew.

This is one of the images I used in Scragamuffin, the chapbook I released as October’s exclusive Patreon reward. I thought it might be fun to release the pictures with the photos that inspired them.

This was a very difficult photo to draw from because of the low resolution. It took me a while to get the image to look like *Pete* and I think it still has an element of “generic cat” to it. Drawing the crockpot was ironically much easier, and kind of fun, even though I usually prefer to draw living things.

Posted in art, Cats, pete | Comments Off

Cat Pictures! Zephyr Hugs Couch

Posted on October 7, 2022 by Mandolin

Cat drawing! Somehow the “hugging the couch while I nap” cat pose always makes me laugh.

Posted in art, Cats, zephyr | Comments Off

Check Out My Big Idea About January Fifteenth!

Posted on October 5, 2022 by Mandolin

Hi all,

My novella, January Fifteenth, has been out in the world for three months now! It’s continued to get good attention. Thank you, everyone, who has read it!

It’s been a bit since this came out, but I wanted to share a guest post I did for John Scalzi’s blog series “The Big Idea” where I got the opportunity to talk about how this book came into being and explore some of the questions I was pondering as I wrote.

Here’s a snippet:

Sometimes, when we ask what looks like a single question, we’re actually asking dozens or hundreds or thousands.

What would it be like if the United States of America had Universal Basic Income?

Tens of thousands of questions.

What kind of Universal Basic Income? How would it come about? How would it be regulated? Dispersed? Who determines eligibility? Who determines amount? Are there restrictions for felons? Does it come along with other social services or replace those systems entirely? Is there a trial run? How long will it last? Can it be canceled? What institutional forces might try to influence the project or hijack it for themselves?

Continue Reading

Of course, I could never comprehensively cover everything in one book–but hopefully I struck some compelling notes.

Anyway, you can read more of my thoughts on John Scalzi’s blog, along with the rest of his excellent content.

If you’re interested in reading more of my thoughts on the book, you can find more January Fifteenth thoughts here or visit my website. To purchase a copy of January Fifteenth, visit any of the links below.

Tor.com
Powells | Booksamillion
Indiebound | Barnes & Noble
Amazon | Bookshop

Posted in January Fifteenth, John Scalzi, Writing | Comments Off

Cat Pictures! Zephyr and Pete

Posted on September 30, 2022 by Mandolin

Drawing of two tabby cats sitting and looking up.

Cat drawing! One thing I will always miss about Pete now that he’s gone is the way that he and his brother, Zephyr, hung out and cuddled.

This was hard to draw because there’s so much detail, especially on Zephyr’s side. When Zephyr was younger, he was spotted in places. It’s faded out to stripes or solid fur now. The angle on Pete is also strange; I ended up changing the shape of his breast bone so the image is more legible. I like the way the cats are looking up at the photographer (Mike) like, “…so, what do you want?”

Photo of two tabby cats sitting and looking up.

Posted in art, Cats, pete, zephyr | Comments Off

Cat Pictures! Wander Sleeps

Posted on September 23, 2022 by Mandolin

Drawing of sleeping tabby cat.

Cat drawing! It’s so easy to snap pictures of the buggers while they’re sleeping. I’ve always thought this was a cute close-up of his contented face.

Photo of sleeping tabby cat.

Posted in artwork, Cats, wander | Comments Off

The Free Speech Absolutist

Posted on September 13, 2022 by Ampersand

Please, please pass me that water, he said. Oh sure I said but first have you considered supporting my Patreon? Water for God’s sake just pass me the water he said. Absolutely! But by the way, you can pledge really low amounts, I’m talking just one dollar. God dammit I don’t care about your patreon I’m literally on fire burning to death here, he said. And doesn’t that make you want to support some swell political cartoons?, I asked. Then he died.

I’m sure there’s a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” out there who actually is concerned with free speech issues other than the ones that culture warriors most frequently argue about. After all, there are probably tens of thousands of “free speech absolutists,” and the dozen or two I’ve discussed these issues with are obviously not a random sample.

But still.

It’s not that I don’t see any “culture of free speech” concerns with issues like corporations owning sites like Twitter and Facebook, which are the most important “public square” that currently exists for public discussions. And I also see concerns with an overly judgement, unforgiving climate on campuses leading to chilled speech, and other so-called “cancel culture” issues.

But for so many “free speech absolutists,” these are the only free speech issues they know or care about. And it’s not a coincidence that these are the issues that impact some of the most privileged people in society, whereas free speech issues impacting the most marginalized people, like prisoners, are the ones that get ignored.

I was actually really confident I’d get this cartoon finished way sooner than I did. What happened? Well, partly, I had trouble getting started. But there was also this:

Six Steps To Making A Simple Cartoon Take Much Longer

Step 1: “I’ll take it easy, I’ll just draw two characters on a blank background. I’ve done strips like that before and they look good. Plus, it passes the Calvin and Hobbes test.”

Step 2: “Eh, this layout looks dull. I’ll just have them walking through a park instead. A couple of trees, it’ll take no time at all.”

Step 3: “Actually, wouldn’t it be neat if the first three panels formed a single continuous landscape image, with the characters walking through the landscape and getting closer to the readers with each panel?”

Step 4: “Might as well throw in an evergreen.”

Step 5: “That evergreen looks stupid on its own. Let’s throw in some more. And maybe some mountains behind the evergreens. And a house. And a bunny.”

Step 6: “Now that I’m almost completely done, what if I experimented with a new technique of doing the linework for the backgrounds? That could look cool, and how long could it take?”

The good news is that – for now, at least – I’m really proud of how this comic strip looks. I just hope that I don’t look at in and wince a year from now.

By the way, the next book collection is getting very close to being done. This one will have about twice as many cartoons in it as the previous collection.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels. Each panel shows the same two people walking through a hilly park area while talking.

One character, who I’ll call “Glasses,” is wearing glasses (imagine that!), a cable knit sweater, and black jeans with the cuffs rolled up. She has long reddish hair falling in front of her shoulders, and some of it is in a bun on top. The other character, who I’ll call “Hat,” is wearing a light green hat with a black band and a brim. She’s also wearing a button-down collared shirt, in off-white, and a black skirt. She has curly black hair falling down the back of her neck.

PANEL 1

Glasses and Hat are walking on a path through a hilly park area, talking cheerfully as they walk. They’re walking one in front of the other, not facing each other.

HAT: I’m a free speech absolutist!

GLASSES: That’s great! Me too!

PANEL 2

Glasses is talking eagerly, while Hat shrugs, looking a little bewildered.

GLASSES: So you speak out against prison censorship?

HAT: I’m not sure what that is.

PANEL 3

Glasses eagerly raises a forefinger, as if to say “this is it,” while Hat (still not looking back at Glasses) has a neutral to bored expression.

GLASSES: Okay… So you want to stop copyright law being used for censorship?

HAT: Meh.

PANEL 4

Glasses now looks a little puzzled rather than happy, rubbing a hand against her chin. Hat glances back, now looking a bit annoyed.

GLASSES: Do you want labor laws protecting workers from being fired for off-work speech?

HAT: Nah. But the people criticizing the speech should shut up.

PANEL 5

A much closer shot of the two of them; in fact, Hat is mostly off-panel, and we only see the back of her head. Glasses is looking annoyed, and leans forward a bit towards Hat’s back to press her point.

GLASSES: Immigrants targeted by I.C.E. for their speech? Sex workers silenced by credit card companies?

HAT: Don’t know, don’t care.

PANEL 6

The “camera” pulls way out, so we’re seeing both characters in full figure. They’re on the top of a hill, with blue sky behind them. Glasses has shoved her hands into her pockets in a glum way, while Hat is grinning and raising her hands into the air, clearly energized and excited by her issue.

GLASSES: Er… So what makes you a “free speech absolutist?”

HAT: I want Twitter punished if they ban me.

This cartoon on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Free speech, censorship, copyright law, etc. | 15 Comments