Border's Books adheres to sharia law.

The Borders and Walden book chain have decided not to carry the latest issue of Free Inquiry on their stands in America because they have reprinted the Muhammad cartoons inside. The threat of Islamic Terrorists ransacking Border's is very high, so I understand their decision.

From SF Gate:

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.

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"What is at stake is the precious right of freedom of expression," said Paul Kurtz, editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry. "Cartoons often provide an important form of political satire ... To refuse to distribute a publication because of fear of vigilante violence is to undermine freedom of press so vital for our democracy."

Border's wouldn't want to offened anyone with what they carry, would they?

Life Drawing

I joined a weekly Life Drawing Session at the local art museum. It was the first time I've drawn from observation in a while and was a good change of pace from the deadline oriented drawing I usually do.

Here's a naked guy:

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New Toon: Sell Out!

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I have sold out the name of my strip to a large corporation. In a post two weeks ago I mentioned I would be doing this along with running classified ads in the panel gutters. That didn't quite work out because at the size the text had to be to fit it was unreadable.

I spent some time last week talking to high level advertising executives of popular sports apparel companies trying to hip them to the idea of buying some cheap ad space in my comic strip. None seemed too interested. Apparently they don't have too much overhead what with their high paid garment workers.

I don't blame them for not wanting to be a part of this, but these people truly live in another world. One particularly odd exchange happened with an ad. exec. For the company I ultimately included in the title. After delivering my pitch:

Brand Chiefton: hmmm....that's interesting. What is this all about, though?

Matt Bors: See, I'm doing a parody of all the strange new advertising trends; forehead ads, tattoos, and the like. And now Sports Teams are re-naming themselves after companies that buy them out.

Brand Chiefton: Really?! (sounds surprised, seems to be jotting down ideas.)

Matt Bors: Yeah, Red Bull just did it wit a soccer team in New York. So my idea is I go through all this stuff and then at the end the joke is that I too have sold my strip's name.

Brand Chiefton: Wait, so this is going to be....funny?

Matt Bors: Yes, Funny!

Brand Chiefton: We don't want to be involved with anything funny.

Become a Republican!

This video makes a convincing case.

The Podcast Post

I spend my days (and nights) shifting between a computer and a drawing table, so over the last year podcasts have become my new best friend. It's such a great medium; they are put out mostly by regular old folks and there's no commercials (yet) . Like the blogosphere there is a lot of half-assed shit you have to swim through to find the good stuff. Here's a selection of the best I have discovered. If you know of any great ones I'm missing, let me know.

If you have the time, wade through this list. There are some gems:

• Blast The Right: While I am partial to Jack Clark's show having worked with him on various projects, I think it is the best progressive political podcast out there. A half hour every week of intelligent commentary. Jack isn't much of a "news of the week" guy. Most podcasts deal with important, broad issues such as the minimum wage, the social safety net, class disparity, GOP tactics, etc. Every episode is filled with the facts behind his arguments instead of the rhetoric of right wingers he frequently deconstructs. Check it out here.
  
• Point Of Inquiry: A weekly show from The Center For Inquiry that looks at the world with a skeptical, rationalist view. It is a secular humanist organization, but the focus is much broader than religion. It devotes long segments to debunking and studying the paranormal, alternative medicine, and psuedoscience. You can listen and subscribe through pointofinquiry.org.
  
• Onion Radio News: A daily 60 second podcast by the Onion. Hilarious fake news reports with Doyle Redland, the best anchor in the biz. Go Listen!
  
• American Dissent Radio: Currently the host is in the process of reading his novel, but usually this podcast is home to some scholarly essays on constitutional matters. A bit dry, but very informative.
  
• The Infidel Guy: An Atheist radio show/podcast by the most informed layman I've ever heard. From what I gather this guy is somewhat of a sensation to the secular humanist internet community (you know, that huge group). There is some high caliber debate going on in this show. Religious scholars, famous authors, and religious fundamentalists all have their turn at The Infidel Guy, usually not to the degree of success they expected. He also created a documentary called "Is The Sky Heaven" which touches on issues of creation and religion I have never heard anyone state before.
  
• HNN: Monthly secular humanist podcast from the Humanist News Network. HNN runs my comics on their website and I appeared on their fourth podcast to discuss the Mohammed cartoon controversy.
  
• Skepticality: Apparently on hiatus, this show talks about a whole wack of topics relating to skepticality, from bigfoot and UFOs to Ghandi and Jesus to George Bush.
  
• The UnderDog Democrat: A short, to the point (and too infrequent) critique of the Democratic Party from someone who knows what he is talking about. He is very professional, possibly having some experience in broadcasting. Check it out.
  
• Republicans Behaving Badly: "Black Sentinel", as he calls himself, has the fine job of going in to Republican audio chat rooms and recording his conversations. The show is usually extremely long; his comments mixed with long segments of chatting, but the first show is highly recommended. Entitled "Republicans and Race" see how often the host (a black man) is referred to as a 'nigger' by these GOP loyalists.
  
• Pure Imagination: I just started listening to this show. It has a very strange and unique format. Matt Gajewski writes and narrates odd, funny stories with music in the background and his friends playing different characters. Considering he is a college kid the quality is really impressive. The website is here.
  

And while it is actually a radio show

• Democracy Now!: One of the best programs out there. You probably are aware of it by now, but if not Listen at Democracynow.org
• Everything else is starting to be made in podcast format as well: NPR shows, Air America, and Real Time with Bill Maher.
  

The War On Christians

No, not the War On Christmas, the war on Christians. You know, the religion that the vast majority of Americans follow, including the one's that control all three branches of the government. They are under attack from facts, science, and queers day in and day out so they decided to have a conference about it.

The conference is hosted by Vision America and may be the highest concentration of Rapture lovers ever assembled in America; Sam Brownback, John Cornyn, Tom DeLay, Rick Scarborough, Phyllis Schlafly, and Alan Keyes among others.

The titles of the panels they are hosting reflect their unique mindset:

• The Gay Agenda: America Wont Be Happy
• The ACLU And Radical Secularism: Driving God From The Public Square
• Hollywood: Christians Through A Distorted Lens
• Jews Confront The War On Christians [?]
• The Judiciary: Overruling God
• etc, etc, etc.
  

CampusProgress is doing some undercover blogging of it today and tomorrow. They've already reported some great little nuggets:

"The word homosexual was invented. It is an invented word. It goes back to the 1890s to a German psychologist. Second thing is that the word that was used in America was perverted one. And literally in England it was called buggery. Don't bug me." -Spicy and coherent rhetoric from the honorable Rev. Louis P. Sheldon.

Your Friendly Weekend Reminder: Attitude 3

Tom Tomorrow's new book Hell In A Handbasket came out this week. You can order that along with pre-ordering Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists edited by Ted Rall along with through Amazon.

Attitude 3 comes out in June and will feature Idiot Box along with XQUZYPHYR & Overboard, Big Fat Whale, Partially Clips, Fighting Words, Cat and Girl, and Diesel Sweeties among others.

Random Goodness

• The Beast Blog points way to a great N. Korea propaganda video "Fucking USA!"
• Someone at democraticunderground.com has compiled a list of the news articles using the term "recent surge in violence" to describe violence in Iraq. What one finds when examining this is that there was a "recent surge" at least once a month since we invaded. (via TrouBLOGtown)
  
• I've been listening to Pure Imagination, the radio show (and podcast) of Matt Gajewski, and they are pretty good. He wrote the werewolf comic I just finished.
• Deep Fried brings us.....Zoggs.
  

New Toon: Sweet Home Allah-Bomb-Ya

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Iraq is really a forward moving country, eager to get their obligatory Civil War behind them quickly and move on to better things. We waited almost hundred years for ours! They are really showing us up. I bet they beat us to having gay marriage.

It will only be a matter of time though before Iraqi versions of racist shirts pledging loyalty to the side that lost will pop up.

A Different Moon

click to read comic.

A Werewolf comic! Here's a full page strip I illustrated for the current issue of the Miami New Times. They don't seem to have it on their website, so I'm posting it here. It's one of the only times I've ever drawn a strip that wasn't written by me and I had lots of fun doing it. This young guy, Matt Gajewski, has a radio show down there called "Pure Imagination" where he tells all these crazy stories. They were going to do a feature about him, but decided instead on having an artist illustrate one of his stories.

Afghan Faces Death Penalty for Converting to Christianity: Judge Says He Could Escape Punishment If He's Ruled Insane

Now that's the type of headline that makes my morning! Er, until I realize we "democratized" that country four years ago and they are still executing people for apostasy.

Found via Americablog, Here's some of the article:

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 20, 2006 - Despite the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban government and the presence of 22,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a man who converted to Christianity is being prosecuted in Kabul, and a judge said Sunday that if convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Abdul Rahman, who is in his 40s, says he converted to Christianity 16 years ago while working as an aid worker helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Relatives denounced him as a convert during a custody battle over his children, and he was arrested last month. The prosecutor says Rahman was found with a Bible.

Since our installment of Hamid Karzai as President after the overthrow of the Taliban, he is often jokingly referred to as the "Mayor of Kabul" since most of the country is still run by insane warlords. But this isn't happening in some remote village; It's happening in Kabul. Can someone explain? I mean, considering how Karzai is essentially this Administration's bitch, you'd think they would pressure him into making sure stuff like this didn't happen. Unless Afghanistan is way more fucked than anyone wants to acknowledge.

Presiding judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah tells ABC News a medical team was checking the defendant, since the team suspects insanity caused Rahman to reject Islam.

...

"We will ask him if he has changed his mind about being a Christian," Mawlazezadah says. "If he has, we will forgive him, because Islam is a religion of tolerance."

mmmm.

Comics To Check Out

• Jen Sorensen created my favorite comic so far on the S. Dakota abortion ban.
  
• Mikhaela liberates children from Queer adoption.
• This Angry Flower is pretty funny.
• little kids find out about sex: both don't have permalinks, but these comics by Neil Swaab and Wulffmorgenthaler are great.
  
• Lloyd Dangle points way to a cool new comic by the Pentagon. Must be a joke...must be.
  

Go Listen: MLK Speech

One of the many podcasts I listen to every week is Blast The Right, a great progressive show loaded with facts and logic. I regularly speak with the host, Jack Clark, and am designing the logo for the show, so I may have a bias, but last week's show featuring a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. is something everyone in America needs to hear. I'm planning a huge podcast post for next week, but for now, go listen to MLK speak about the war on terrorism.

It's not the usual speech that you are used to hearing quoted when everyone talks about what a great leader MLK was. It's a speech that, were it given today by any Democrat or Progressive, would be denounced as an Anti-American, terrorist sympathizer, praying-for-the-death-of-american-soldiers ranting of a loon by the knee-jerk right. On his blog comments, I saw this by an Iranian:

Hi Dear Friend,

I have discovered your podcast and listen to it every week. But I was never this much touched by a podcast till I managed to listen to your recent episode (32). America needs men like you to be loved and not hated. I say this because I love America before, more than I loved my country, I spend 9 years of life in America, but now, I hate it more than anything else in the world. Don't misunderstand, I don't hate Americas, I hate as MLK Jr. said, the evil government, interest groups, companies of America that beat on war drums.

Soon our countries will end up face to face, aiming their guns at each other; Such a horrible thing that I need to defend my country against people whom I once called Family (Americans).

"Enough is enough. I've had it with these snakes."

Q: Just how did hundreds of deadly snakes get onto an airplane?

A: Who gives a shit?

New Toon: PNAC: The Halo

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I mean to keep Products For A New American Century non-political (see previous the PNAC comics Speedstick and The Divine Iron.), but this was too good to pass up. The ankle tracking device for pregnant women wasn't my idea, though. Unfortunately, it was a legitimate suggestion by right winger I ran across on some blog comment somewhere.

The whole South Dakota ban isn't getting as much attention as I'd like, but don't worry, the whole abortion debate is about to get a lot uglier: Pat Robertson has received word from God that another Supreme Court vacancy is on its' way.

Special Delivery

My younger brother received this in the mail the other day, which had the word "Air Force" real small in the return address. Their new recruitment tactic appears to be convincing teenagers that anything they want to do beyond high school is just a joke.

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Check out the website whatamigonnadonext.com. You can choose "career paths" that will let you know how you end up. Strangely, everyone I tried leaves you a loser living with your parents. But guess which career won't?.......The Air Force! They'll clue you into that only after playing around on the website for a while. This is an interesting attempt to appeal to the kids who don't respond to the ads I've been seeing lately featuring Snowboarding/Fighter Jets/Testosterone (like x-treme sports? You'll love bombing raids!).

Make sure to click on the student ID and follow the career path. According to the Air Force, nothing good can come of college.

Idiot Box Sells Out!

In thinking of ideas for a strip based on my previous post I came up with literally selling off parts of my strip, starting with those wasteful blank spaces between the gutters. I'll be running some classified ads in those panel gutters in an upcoming strip and they can be yours for only a dollar. Have a message you need thousands to see? e-mail me and reserve your spot today.

It's prime real estate with a lot of potential views. Idiot Box is printed over 125,000 times a week in all the papers it runs in and is seen by thousands on the web. Everything is--and must be--for sale, so I will consider selling you a panel if you offer enough and will be auctioning off the name of my strip to a company soon. Consider it a real life experiment in advertising extremes.

I was just going to make up stuff to be funny and rename the strip as if some company bought it out, but then I realized I'd be giving them free ad space. I take up valuable newsprint. What a gold mine I'm sitting on! I'm hoping this leads to bigger and better things for me and my strip; product placement, endorsements, a career as a recording artist, etc.

Blecky Yuckerella

Found via the Flog, the Portland Mercury refused to run Johnny Ryan's recent strip for being objectionable. It is the only weekly paper that runs the strip now that the Seattle Stranger dropped it. Eric Reynolds at the Flog writes "This strikes me as weird, given that the Mercury is owned by the Seattle Stranger, which was one of the few American newspapers to run the Danish editorial cartoons that have caused so much insanity." I agree to an extent. As Editor I wouldn't have spiked the strip. I don't find it offensive, it was just what Ryan does every week in Blecky Yuckerella; relying on the old wiping the ass with/pissing on/shitting all over/impaling you with my penis jokes.

Also, be sure to check out this strip where he oh-so-hilariously cracks on weekly political strips. I guess weekly papers just don't recognize Ryan's genius of scrawling out piss and shit jokes 52 weeks a year.

The Cleveland Slim Jims vs. Buffalo Bank Ones

Red Bull buys MetroStars, renames team

NEW YORK - The MetroStars never reached the championship game in their first 10 Major League Soccer seasons. Now their history is but a memory.

Energy-drink manufacturer Red Bull Company Limited purchased the MetroStars on Thursday from the Anschutz Entertainment Group and renamed the team "Red Bull New York," effective immediately.

Monday's comic will be about the South Dakota abortion ban (in a way), but now that I see this I may have to pump out two to speculate on the name changes of other sports teams as this trend expands. What's next? band names? Human Beings themselves? Don't laugh, it'll happen.

The article is complete with an ad for the new five bladed Fusion razor that claims it is "the best shave ever." I'm about to sue them for false advertising, the Divine Iron has been proven in multiple test-studies to be the smoothest.

New Toon: Headlines

There's so much in the news these days I tried another USA Today parody to fit it all in (here's the first).

As of this week my strip can be found in the Cleveland Free Times and I can finally see my work in print every week as I'm at the fringes of their distribution range. So, new comics will be posted on Thursday from now on, mainly because I don't want it appearing online days before it does in print and I now have enough papers to warrant this-maybe even to consider myself a bonafide print cartoonist.

You can see the two articles that are too small to read by clicking here.

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Idiot Box: Vermont's least hated comic

Seven Days Vermont, a paper that runs Idiot box along with a slew of other strips, recently had a contest to determine the paper's worst strip so they could strike it from the paper. I tied with Troubletown cartoonist Lloyd Dangle for last place, making us the least hated in the Burlington area! Maakies initially came in #1. Congratulations!

It had a dual public service purpose: to get rid of a crappy comic and educate the masses on instant run-off voting.

Here's how it went:

In the initial round of voting, which represents everyone's first choice, "Maakies" took the loser lead, with 50 votes -- a full 19 votes more than "Mr. Grieves," which garnered 31. In a traditional race, that would be the end of it: "Maakies" would be declared number one, with 28.7 percent of the vote. But Instant Runoff requires the winner to receive more than 50 percent of the vote. So we kept on counting . . .

After all the other votes were redistibuted Maakies was edged out by some comic called Mr. Greives. If you want educated on how all that works you can start here and work your way through the contest. I'd have to advise against it though. It's all very confusing and made me pee myself when I first looked at because I thought Troubletown and I were getting the axe.

New Toon: The Right To Be An Idiot

Look at all those idiots
Ooh, look at all those boobs
An office full of morons
A factory full of fools
Is it any wonder that I'm singing, singing the blues!

-Mr Burns
The Simsons Sing The Blues

A New Poll shows that Americans have an easier time naming the Simpsons than their First Amendment rights. Not that suprising--half the country doesn't vote and the Simpsons are a worldwide phenomenon--until you see how it breaks down.

• Only one in four could name more than one of the five freedoms it upholds but more than half could name at least two members of the cartoon family.
  
• About one in five thought the right to own a pet was one of the freedoms.
  
• Another finding from the poll, a telephone survey of 1,000 random adults with an error margin of 3%, was that 22% of Americans could name all five Simpson characters.
  
• Just one in 1,000 people could name all five First Amendment freedoms.
  

One in a thousand. Worse than pathetic. It's something so demoralizing as a human being there isn't even a word for it. I even feel bad typing this because out of every 1,000 people reading I'm making fun of 999 of you.

Another poll on Soldiers in Iraq had some great new info about our intelligence:

85% said the U.S. mission is mainly to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks, 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.

What?! Sadly a third of Americans still think this also. I'm gong to have to blame the media on this one for uncritically echoing the lies and misdirections of the Bush Administration for years, then devoting a few minutes to the fact that the 9/11 commission confirmed what intelligent people already knew. Saddam's role in 9/11 seem to be a matter of opinion these days. The poll also said this:

An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately.

My God, how many would want to leave if they didn't think Saddam attacked us on 9/11?

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Site Updates

• I've disabled the archives before September 2005 , which means 138 comics are gone for good. The best ones, however, are available in my self-made collections The Sluts Of Guantanamo Bay and A Pamphlet For Torture Enthusiats. Buy 'em. They're cheap.
  
• I've added some overdue additions to the links pages including Bob The Angry Flower, Perry Bible Fellowship, Bad Reporter, and Masheka, among others.
• My bio now has four short sentences instead of just one and still contains no pertinent information.
  

Your Weekend Comics Reading

• An awesome new comic from A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible.
• Mikhaela wants to stop republican adoptions.
• Rad Reporter: "At least our ports weren't sold to gays or blacks."
• Perry Bible Fellowship takes on the world.
  

Amazing Book Deal: Run, Don't Walk

You can now pre-order Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists edited by Ted Rall along with Tom Tomorrow's new book Hell In A Handbasket through Amazon.

Attitude 3 comes out in June and will feature Idiot Box along with XQUZYPHYR & Overboard, Big Fat Whale, Partially Clips, Fighting Words, Cat and Girl, and Diesel Sweeties among others.

New Illustrations

This first one is the current cover of the Portland Phoenix (in Maine) and is another parody of American Gothic (here's my first). The cover story is about Maine's two female pro-choice Republican Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who recently voted to confirm Alito. Did they betray women?

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This is the front of my new promotional card for illustration that I've been sending out to Art Directors. The original(on the bottom) is a photo illustration and was a proposed design for a T-shirt for beawitness.org, a project of The Center For American Progress, which is trying to raise awareness about Sudan. I really liked the image and didn't want it to go to waste so I drew it in my illustration style. The back reads "Let's go away together!" and has my contact info. If you want one, e-mail me your address.

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The Polyethylene Terrorist

From Yahoo News:

A 12-year-old visitor to the Detroit Institute of Arts stuck a wad of gum to a $1.5 million painting, leaving a stain the size of a quarter, officials say.

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The museum's conservation department is researching the chemicals in the gum to decide which solvent to use to clean it.

Why are there chemicals in chewing gum? and just how much research needs to be done on it? Can't they call the gum company and ask them what they are?

Furthermore, is that little kid going to be bitch-slapped or what?