New Toon: Colonial Porn Pamphlets

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Here is the one that was supposed to go out last week. Colonial Porn. What more can I say?

Check back often this week. I'm going to be posting a whole bunch of new comics.

Democrats are Pussies. Case File#3462

Bob Casey, the Pro-Life Democrat running against Rick Santorum , was recently given a $2100 check from Seattle Stranger editor Dan Savage...only to give it back! Sorry Dan, Democrats don't like money to win campaigns with. Didn't anyone tell you? They want to be a whining minority party forever.

Savage is a huge opponent of the anti-gay fanatic Santorum and famously defined his name as "the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex" (the #1 search result in google). Despite Casey's anti-abortion stance, Savage donated, explaining:

electing Casey could help Democrats take back the Senate, which will go a long way toward protecting choice, abortion rights, and other sexual freedoms—despite Casey's stance on choice. Electing one or two pro-life Dems is the price we're going to have to pay to put reliably pro-choice Dems in positions of power all over the Senate.

So, why was the money returned? Their fear is that they will have to explain why they accepted money from someone who smeared Santorum so viciously. Well, isn't the answer obvious? Because they share a common goal: getting Santorum out of office! It's money. Take it. You don't owe Dan Savage anything for it. He isn't a special interest group or a corporation.

If Democrats had some balls, maybe they would hold more seats in this government. Republicans take money from anyone with a heartbeat. They don't give a fuck about conflicts of interests or what someone said or did. They just take gigantic donations, spend a bunch of money smearing their opponent as un-American and then win. If they get called on something they just give the money back and say "oh, I had no idea."

Some might say it's reasonable. The possible fallout wouldn't be worth the $2100. I say stop being a trembling coward in the face of Right-Wing smear tactics. If you want to beat someone as prominent as Santorum, you're going to have to learn to fight dirty...or maybe just learn to accept money from people who don't like your opponent.

Savage is redircting the money to some progressive PACs Pennsylvaniania.

Second-Quarter Scorecard

This illustration of Kenny Boy and Zarqawi boy is one of several I did for an article in the Boston Phoenix entitled What Smell? 2006: A second-quarter scorecard — summer fiction bonanza written by political satirist Barry Crimmins.

It’s always summer to George W. Bush, our lazy, hazy, crazy commander in chief who puts in shorter presidential work weeks than Woodrow Wilson did after he was paralyzed by a stroke. Having stolen his way into the Oval Office what now seems to be several bad lifetimes ago, GW has treated us to a scorching five years that have inflicted on the world a pandemic of son burn. We have been continually baited and switched by an administration that promises sinsemilla and delivers oregano. Read On.

hmmm.

Condoleeza's gap teeth are caricatured almost as viciously as Bush's chimp face and big ears, but this is just too much. Her eyballs are in her hair!

New Toon: Blastocyst Buddies

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Our sweet culture of life continues with our latest moves to protect embryonic stem cells. Here's another cartoon on stem cells I did last year, which is in the last Idiot Box collection The Sluts of Guantanamo Bay.

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Starving For Attention

Following up on their post about the Bring the Troops Home Fast, The Buffalo BEAST has an article in the latest issue featuring the hunger strike diaries of the brave Hollywood Heroes who are enduring a grueling 24 hour fast in the name of ending the Iraq occupation.

Susan Sarandon, Hour 3:

The pain in my empty stomach is almost unbearable. This must be what it feels like to get shot in battle. I am now a true warrior for peace. My hunger and suffering has brought me a mental clarity, which I have never known. For instance: I just realized I am married to Tim Robbins the actor and not Tom Robbins the novelist

My current comic touches on this and Cindy Sheehan's juice diet.

New Toon: Pro-Life Field Guide

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This one would actually be going up next week, but I'm showing it now because in a week everyone will have forgotten how Bush used his first veto to halt scientific research and instead be focusing on World War 3. I wish I would have been ahead of the curve on the stem cell veto so these would have been in print last week. The Idiot Box cartoon this week also deals with these sacred clumps of cells.

Bush, displaying his knowledge of what stem cell research is, declared "These boys and girls are not spare parts."

For a truly amazing editorial cartoon supporting Bush's decision, check this one out. These "Pro-Lifers" actually think killing a stem cell is the moral equivalency of murder, slavery, and genocide. I suppose if your belief is that fetuses have souls then it is logically consistent to oppose stem cell research on those grounds. To make an exception you would have to determine when the soul enters into the picture. Is it when you are a blastocyst? a zygote? a fetus? Of course, for that to make sense, you would have to show some evidence of a soul in the first place.

New Toon: Hunger Pains for Peace

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Yes, I'm making fun of Cindy Sheehan. Yes, she lost a son in Iraq. No, that does not prevent me from criticizing her when she does ridiculous things like claim to be fasting to end the war (until September 21st!) and then writes this at Political Affairs Magazine:

I find traveling out of the country very challenging being on a fast. When I was on a layover in Madrid on my way to Venice, Italy yesterday, the closest thing I could find to a smoothie to get a little protein was a coffee with vanilla ice cream in it.

It turns out she's drinking protein smoothies from Jamba Juice. What a fast. Most of the other fasters don't have the determination of Sheehan, so they are doing a "rolling fast". This involves not eating for 24 hours, then "passing" the fast to Sean Penn or Daryl Hannah or any of the other celebrities participating in this embarrassing activism.

The Code Pink press release dares to compare these people to some of the most important activists in human history:

The organizers call on a long history of fasts for political purposes, claiming their place among the Suffragettes, Mahatmas Gandhi and Cesar Chavez.

This isn't the first thing Sheehan did that doesn't make sense. She was on Hardball recently and said she would rather live under Hugo Chavez than George Bush. When you say that on national TV, what do you expect to happen except to receive an offer within 5 minutes from a right-wing blog to fly you over there?

The Beast also wrote on this subject.

New Illustration

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Here's an illustration I did for the Anchorage Press for a story about a girl who grew up without her dad. He was alive, just not involved in her life. The various things in the illustration are the few things she remembered/knew about him. It's in a similar style to an illustration of Charles Bukowski I did for them recently.

New Toon: Cultural Studies

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New Toon: Megalomaniacal Melons

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This one is going up early, as I am preparing my mind and body for a trip to the cesspool of corruption that is our nation's capital. I'm headed to the Campus Progress 2006 National Student Conference. Barack Obama is the keynote speaker. I'm looking forward to playing poker at the Watergate myself.

Not much to say about this comic. It may suck. I'm not quite sure.

If you come to the site often you see the Attitude 3 ads. I hate to flog something, but you really should be buying it. If you are into political/alternative/webcomics stuff at all, this has something for you. Interviews with and work by 21 cartoonists all compiled by Ted Rall. The book has everything from clip art, pixel comics, and people who still draw with ink and papyrus such as myself....plus I will do a sketch in your book using this arcane method of creation. Check the store.

And do I even need to mention my Bodaciously Valued Comic Pack?

New Toon: Hemp Is A Moral Fiber

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Here is my first strip of the new weekly comic I'm doing for the Seattle Stranger. The series doesn't have a title, but will be appearing here every Monday.

American Green

My recent Lawn Order comic was printed in the Anchorage Press next to a review of a book called American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn by Ted Steinberg, which led me to buying it. As boring as lawncare is, the book seemed interesting and funny.

I picked up the book thinking our obsession with lawn mowing was a ridiculous waste of time and meaningless status symbol to most Americans. I finished with an amazing amount of insight into just how the desire for an unrealistically green lawn--that is completely free of weeds-- came about (chemical companys and the proliferation of golf courses) and the staggering environmental effect it has. A few choice facts from the book:

Using a gas-powered leaf blower for half an hour creates as many polluting hydrocarbon emissions as driving a car seventy-seven hundred miles at a speed of thirty miles per hour.

In the process of refueling their lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and other garden equipment, Americans spill about seventeen million gallons of gasoline every summer, or about 50% more than marred the Alaskan coast during the notorious Exxon Valdez disaster.

A single golf course in Tampa, Florida--a state that leads the nation with over a thousand of these emerald green creations--uses 178,800 gallons of water per day, enough to meet the daily water needs of more than twenty-two hundred Americans.

Positively reassuring, is it not?

New Toon: PNAC: The RZR

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Finally taking a little break from the politics to address a most pressing issue in today's society: the ever-shrinking phone. I think I am the last American over nine years old to have never owned a cell phone. This has to do with the fact that I work from home, thus am at my land line most of the day, and that I am a loser. The technology in these phones is pretty cool, I admit. It seems clear that in a few years we will have a device that will handle calls, stream internet, radio, television, takes pictures, and hold a trigagig of music. When those come out, I'll cave in and get one. When the price comes down.

Check out previous PNAC strips here, here, and here.

And pick up the Idiot Box collections in the store.

I Like To Do Drawings

I did I ever mention I do commissions? I can draw whatever you want for a very reasonable price. Here's one I did for the Silverfish gallery. The guy likes Silverfish! Want an original drawing from me of Donald Rumsfeld in a dominatrix outfit spanking Jeff Gannon? e mail me and we'll work out the details (setting, positions, piercings, etc.)

Spinzone

Spinzone comics is a new website that is a webcomic collective that features six political cartoons: Monkey Law, Line Item Veto, Cosmic Awareness, Death of the Party, fellow Attitude 3 alumni Fighting Words, and myself. There will be a group blog on the front page...check it out.

Odds and Ends

• For our 4th of July needs, check out this video: USA=#1. via BFW
• Cartoonist buddies Mikhaela and Masheka are tying the knot. Congrats to them! And Ted Rall is officiating the wedding!
• Speaking of Rall, here is a new interview with him.
• My buddy Ed Piskor is wrapping up a graphic novel with Harvey Pekar called Macedonia. Here is a profile of him and the upcoming book.
  
• Bwana Spoons has a funny comic in the Stranger's Gay Pride issue.