Blue Doodle Cartoon Hoodie

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OK, ok, I know--enough with the baby stuff. But this is cartoon-related--I sewed up a little blue hooded sweatshirt this weekend with Masheka's cartoon doodles on it (fabric printed via Spoonflower).

I didn't have a baby-sized mannequin or doll to put it on, so Masheka kindly used it as a puppet here.

And, by the way, this is a gender-neutral item (baby is a Mystery Baby right now)--I don't believe in "blue is for boys", etc. I love blue, so whatever.

Doodle fabric designs!

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Masheka and I spent the evening making fabric designs out of some of his doodles. Fun, no? We're going to order the fabric through Spoonflower to make stuff for this year's MOCCA art festival (June 6 and 7 in NYC).

Toon: Hipster Hobbies of Tomorrow

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I don't actually know if anyone really knits from human back hair, though there are books available about how to knit from spun dog and cat hair.

I'm not hating on crafts or DIY culture, by the way--quite the opposite. I'm obsessed with making things--I love to knit and sew, and I obsessively read Craft and Readymade and a whole host of sewing, knitting and crafting blogs. I love that there is a resurgence of interest among youngerish people (i.e. 20s, 30s and younger) in knitting and sewing stylish and modern garments and accessories. I love browsing on Etsy and going to the Renegade Craft Fair and the Bust Craftacular and I love the Stitch & Bitch knitting books.

What I AM poking gentle fun at is how many weird hoops some craftsters jump through to give crafts with a fuddy-duddy reputation an "edgy" or "subversive" makeover. Like knitting skulls onto things or making fauxhawk hats. This often results in a sea of lookalike "subversive" projects all made from the same exact pattern.

But whatever. That's still better than purchasing a mass-produced skull-adorned product at the mall. And if a knitted skull is what it takes to get someone to pick up some yarn, then more power to them.

The real point here is that I just wanted to do a cartoon about crafting because I'm sick of the elections.

New Toon: Crafty Racists

Noose Incidents
Originally uploaded by M1khaela

Another cartoon from December.

I haven't actually observed any such exchanges in person, but there were plenty of wacko online blog commenters whose first reaction to a noose incident is always to claim that the victim faked it for publicity. By the way, were you aware of just HOW many noose incidents there have been lately? And how many were in NYC? Crazy.

I'm sure they'd argue that Emmett Till beat himself to death for the attention, too. Jerks.

Three new toons: Trans workplace discrimination, NYPD spies & predatory credit-card lenders

My goodness, I don't know what I was thinking but I did three this week (four if you count one for Lambda Legal that will be up soon)! Yikes! Here we go:

This cartoon was inspired by the recent re-firing of longtime Largo, Florida City Manager Steve Stanton after Stanton announced he planned to transition to life as a woman and change his name to Susan. (I only say "he" because Stanton is, as I understand it, still using that pronoun for now.) I say "re-firing" because the Largo City Commission held a hearing after its initial discriminatory decision to fire Stanton, and made the same bad decision again despite testimony in his favor.

Stanton's firing is far from unusual, so I decided to make the cartoon about anti-transgender workplace discrimination in general, rather than focus on that case. I'm not sure how many people realize that in most places in this country, employers are legally permitted to fire transgender and gay employees on the basis of their gender identity or sexual orientation. We need a national ENDA (employment non-discrimination act) and now!

I haven't seen the new documentary "Maxed Out" yet, but I did just read a terrifying must-read investigative series in the Boston Globe, "Debtor's Hell: Preying on Red-Ink America", that takes a close look at unscrupulous debt collection practices.

Finally, it came out in the New York Times last week that the NYPD spent tons of time and money placing spies in non-violent peace groups around the country before the 2004 RNC. The cartoon was inspired by this bit:

Marco Ceglie, who performs as Monet Oliver dePlace in Billionaires for Bush, said he had suspected that the group was under surveillance by federal agents — not necessarily police officers — during weekly meetings in a downtown loft and at events around the country in the summer of 2004.

“It was a running joke that some of the new faces were 25- to 32-year-old males asking, ‘First name, last name?’ ” Mr. Ceglie said. “Some people didn’t care; it bothered me and a couple of other leaders, but we didn’t want to make a big stink because we didn’t want to look paranoid. We applied to the F.B.I. under the Freedom of Information Act to see if there’s a file, but the answer came back that ‘we cannot confirm or deny.’ ”

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