Minimum Security

The people who bought my label printer have a business making chocolate! How lucky is that? Sally and Jonathan are so nice — they sent me some amazing chocolate as a gift. I inhaled the amazing truffles all in one sitting, and then went to work on the bar of Rattlesnake Island chocolate, which contains cayenne pepper and has a wonderful sharp bite. 10% of their profits go toward the conservation of the lake they live next to. Anyway, if anyone is looking for some great chocolate, I can certainly recommend this: http://winnipesaukeechocolates.com/.

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Overused words and phrases that make me cringe with loathing:
- “Staycation”
- “Tumbled” or “soared,” when applied to prices
- “Hunkered down,” when applied to economy or hurricanes
- “Green,” when applied to any manufactured product
- “One (fill in the blank) at a time.”
- “Shut up!” When said by Stacy on “What Not to Wear”

News: Minimum Security is not syndicated in print at United Media (I hope that will happen in the not-terribly-distant future), but one newspaper contacted them anyway, and now I have my first daily paper! They started running the strip on 7/1.

For print, I have to draw four weeks ahead. To catch up, I drew 10 last week, and for the next two weeks I’ll draw 10 each week, for 30 strips in three weeks. Right now I’ve drawn them through 8/1. I have to be an extra week ahead before my trip to San Diego (for the Comic-Con) in two weeks. I haven’t drawn so much all at once since I worked on the graphic novel.

After the obit panel I moderated at the AAEC convention, I guess I have obit cartoons on my mind. Anyway, I could not help myself — as soon as I thought of this I had to draw it. And isn’t it swell how the whole country is setting off fireworks tonight in celebration of him being reunited with his Lord?

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”

– Frederick Douglass, 1852

Here’s one more ebay auction for today, a collection of rabbit heads, a vengeful angry “Bunny Gang.” The leader is Bunnista, of course.

I made these one afternoon when my brother and I were playing with Sculpey. It was a lot of fun!! I’m selling them all as one group.

I’ve been going through more of my stuff, trying to get rid of most of it. Books and CDs go on Amazon, zines go to the Barnard Zine Library, and I have a few more things for ebay today. These auctions last 7 days.

I want to make a preemptive apology to anyone who gave me anything that I’m getting rid of, in case they notice it’s on the block. It’s not that I don’t like it; I just can’t keep everything.

A collection of Bollywood music DVDs:

A Mexican candelabra:

A Bangladeshi tapestry:

And the scale is relisted because the person who won it earlier disappeared, along with their ebay account:

There’s a wonderful class being given by Derrick Jensen focused on his book Endgame, and run through the Derrick Jensen discussion group.

There are many ways to approach each weekly assignment, and he offers choices of what to write about. For the first assignment I answered the question: “What are some of the fundamental lies of this culture?” with a drawing:

I’m back from a trip to San Antonio, for a convention of the AAEC (Association of American Editorial Cartoonists).

One funny thing I heard was Mike Lester’s response to people who ask him why he never draws positive cartoons: “Those are called greeting cards.”

Another hilarious moment was when Ted Rall presented Clay Bennett (who wins every cartoon award imaginable) with a huge trophy with a cheerleader on top, called something like the Clay Bennett Award of Incredible Distinguished Excellence for Winning Awards as Clay Bennett. (There was some other, funnier, adjective instead of “incredible” but I forgot what it was).

I moderated a panel discussion with Joel Pett (Pulitzer Prize-winner from the Lexington Herald-Reader) and Mike Thompson (of the Detroit Free Press). They both gave great, interesting (and of course funny as hell) presentations. Here’s an article from Editor & Publisher about the panel:

AAEC Speakers Take Dead Aim at Obit Cartoons

By Dave Astor

Published: June 26, 2008 11:51 PM ET

SAN ANTONIO Some readers live for them. Some contain ideas that have been done to death. They’re obituary cartoons, and the bad and the good ones — including recent tributes to George Carlin and Tim Russert — were autopsied during a Thursday session at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) convention.

One panelist, Mike Thompson of the Detroit Free Press and Copley News Service, offered a “12-step recovery program” to avoid weak obit cartoons.

He said don’t draw Pearly Gates scenes “unless there’s a twist,” don’t draw a tear coming out of something (like the cartoonists who drew a crying NBC peacock for Russert), don’t place just-deceased celebrities in heaven just because they’re celebrities, and don’t do a celebrity obit cartoon unless the person merits one (that leaves out Anna Nicole Smith, he noted by way of example).

Thompson also said it’s OK to put politics into an obit cartoon, and that you can be negative about people who passed away. “You can’t offend them; they’re dead,” he observed wryly.

But often the most cliched obit cartoon is wildly popular among readers, noted another panelist, Joel Pett of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader and New York Times Syndicate-marketed CartoonArts International.

Much of the time, said Pett, he gets mail saying things like “we hate you” and “you don’t deserve to live.” Then he does a sentimental obit cartoon, and for a day the comments are “we love you” and “you’re a genius” — as was the case when Pett drew an image of Barbaro the horse in the sky.

“You can’t get enough beating of a dead horse in Kentucky,” was his deadpan explanation.

Panel moderator and “Minimum Security” cartoonist Stephanie McMillan cited a cliched George Carlin obit cartoon she saw that showed the comedian — famous for his seven words that couldn’t be said — at the Pearly Gates with Saint Peter stating: “You can’t say those words here, either.”

Thompson, who gave an elaborate computer-generated presentation, spoofed the overuse of Saint Peter by showing a sketch of Saint Peter entering heaven — but there was no one there to greet him at the Pearly Gates.

The Free Press cartoonist also displayed a sketch of John Denver at the gates of hell, wondering why he ended up there. The reason? He had sung “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” while alive.

Obit cartoons praised for their originality during the session included one by Jim Borgman (Cincinnati Enquirer/Universal Press Syndicate) showing the ashes of a dead Nazi scattered into the sea as fish swam away in disgust, and another by Matt Davies (The Journal News, White Plains, N.Y./Tribune Media Services) marking the first anniversary of 9/11 with a tribute to a neighbor he knew who had died in the World Trade Center.

Also praised was a cartoon by Steve Sack (Minneapolis Star Tribune/Creators Syndicate) picturing Enron’s corrupt Ken Lay swiping death’s wallet as death took him on the boat trip to hell, a drawing by Bruce Plante of the Tulsa (Okla.) World showing Don Knotts locking himself into heaven (as he’d lock himself in jail in “The Andy Griffith Show”), and a cartoon by John Cole of The Scranton (Pa.) Times-Tribune showing seamstress/civil-rights icon Rosa Parks sewing black and white pieces of cloth together (Many other cartoonists did a cliched scene of Parks riding a bus to heaven.)

And one more cartoon praised was a drawing by Ben Sargent (Austin American-Statesman/Universal) showing the grave of Creators columnist Molly Ivins with the word “Farewell” on it. Sargent, playing on the name of one of the columnist’s books, had someone near the grave say: “Molly Ivins can’t say that, can she?”

Possible future obit cartoons? Among those shown was a sketch by Mike Keefe (Denver Post/Cagle Cartoons) of Dick Cheney telling death “F— you” and one of a Corel Painter software package shedding a tear for Corel user Nick Anderson (Houston Chronicle/Washington Post Writers Group). Anderson is also president of the AAEC.

Dave Astor (dastor@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.

The comics on this site run one day behind. Click on the fragment below for today’s comic at comics.com:

I’ve been making some progress getting rid of stuff from my move. I can’t believe how much useless paper I’ve collected! I dumped it all in boxes to move quickly, and now I’m going through it to throw most of it away. It’s a Mt. Everest of crap! Those 1989 check stubs — you think I can throw those away? The manual for a grill I no longer own — think I’ll ever need that again?

My favorite find: an old work annual review that said I need to learn how to take criticism better. Straight into the garbage! Dozens of rejection letters from a wide array of newspapers, magazines and syndicates. I threw those away too.

I’m getting a lot of material from my own life for upcoming comic strips about Bunnista’s housing troubles. Not today’s strip at comics.com though.