Why draw cartoons: A letter

My pal Warren Bernard had this very kind thing to say regarding my "Why Draw Alternative Political Cartoons?" post:

MR,

Hey, well, I was disappointed in your list of reasons to keep doing cartoons. You missed three reasons that should be at the top of the list:

1. Disappointing all your fans if you stop.
2. You would cause my moral compass to point to supporting McCain, listening to Limbaugh and joining the American Enterprise Institute.
3. If you stop, it would mean The Man has gotten to you. You cannot let the sexist barriers he has set up to prevent women from becoming political cartoonists stop you.

Oh, please spare me that dastardly Right Wing fate and continue cranking out those cartoons. I really do not wanna be a Republican...

Here is virtual hug of lefty support,

Me

Why draw alternative political cartoons?

No, really: why draw alternative political cartoons?

Dear readers, forgive your cartoonist for having an existential crisis, but I've been asking myself this question a lot lately, and you may have noticed this blog and the email list have been relatively quiet as a result. I've been drawing the cartoons as usual, but have been slow to post or email them due to aforesaid existential cartooning funk.

Some arguments FOR drawing weekly political cartoons:

• To make a difference. I don't have any illusions that political cartoons will change the world or end the war or have a huge mind-blowing impact, but I really love the awesome fan mail, especially in regards to my cartoons on LGBT issues and transgender issues. Clearly my cartoons are making a lot of people happy. I'm just not sure how happy they're making me!
• To vent my personal anger and outrage and to have an outlet for my views/voice. This was the main reason I started drawing The Boiling Point, as the name implies. It's still a pretty good damn reason, as I'm a pretty damn angry cartoonist. I'm a passionate person and I need an outlet.
• Because drawing is cool/fun. Well, sometimes it is. Still, I could draw a lot of more fun things than George W. Bush. Like really adorable kittens.
• Because being a cartoonist and hanging out with other cartoonists is awesome. This is a really, really good reason. I love hanging out with my fellow Cartoonists With Attitude, and I've made some of my best friends in the world via cartooning.
• To make money. Just kidding! If I drew a sci-fi webcomic featuring snarky hipster video game romance in space*, maybe I could sell some T-shirts and figurines and live off that. But there's little to no money in alt-weekly cartoons unless you've got a slew of papers. Many papers pay as little as $5/week. NOT JOKING. (See this depressing comments thread on the Daily Cartoonist for more on this topic--the basic conclusion is that there's no money in online editorial cartooning).
• It builds an audience... that could later support me should I pursue other projects I care about, like a graphic novel or children's book or what-have-you.

Some arguments AGAINST drawing weekly political cartoons:

• It's a lot of work for very little pay/reward. This is my main beef. I'm a big believer in the "less work, less stuff, more of what matters" philosophy espoused by Juliet Schor and Your Money or Your Life. I believe Americans work too much and have too little quality leisure time. I believe Americans spend too much, save too little and own too much stuff. And I believe in fair wages.

  SO WHY DO I SPEND SO MANY HOURS SITTING ALONE BEHIND A DRAWING BOARD OR AT THE COMPUTER FOR WHAT AMOUNTS TO LESS THAN MINIMUM WAGE WHEN I COULD BE OUT RIDING MY BIKE OR SPENDING TIME WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY OR DOING ACTIVIST WORK? (I work an awesome full-time job in addition to cartooning, in case you're wondering). Where's the light at the end of the tunnel? Sorry for E-shouting, but I ask myself that question a lot. I feel like such a hypocrite sometimes--my life philosophy is in direct opposition to my life reality.

• It's damned depressing. War, genocide, injustice, bigotry, hatred, bombings, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, power struggles, Dick Cheney, repeat, repeat, repeat. Following the news so closely and being engaged with it so deeply while feeling I'm having so little practical impact is incredibly demoralizing.
• It has no future and nothing to look forward to. Newspapers are in trouble and slashing budgets left and right, and editorial cartoons and editorial cartoonists get no respect. Graphic novels and animation seem to be where it's at right now.

OK, end whiny rant. And no, I'm not quitting, just venting. But I sure could use some supportive comments! I promise to have a bunch of cartoons and other cool stuff up for you all soon.

*This is not a slur on sci-fi webcomics. Science fiction is my favorite genre (I love you Octavia Butler and Battlestar Galactica). I'm only bummed because it seems like pretty much everything is more "monetizable" than political cartoons. Also, I hate the word "monetizable."

Email bankruptcy!

Things have been busy over here at the Boiling Point in the past few months. you may have emailed me, and wondered why you never heard back. I've removed myself from every possible marketing list and email list and list serv and whatnot, and installed spam filters, but the email onslaught continues unabated. So I'm afraid I've just had to delete 3,000 unread emails from my inbox. If you desperately needed to reach me, please try again.

Still trying to learn Flash animation...

Here's my first attempt at a walk cycle... And here's a failed but educational attempt to make it walk funnier and slower, with arms: I'm still a little ways off from an animated talking sperm, but I'm getting closer...

Where do I sign up for the cartoonists and bloggers union?

Creators deserve to be paid for the use of their content online, whether they're TV writers or bloggers--or cartoonists. Ted has a great column (When Media Content is Free, It's Worth Every Cent) on this subject, the first in a three-part series. Here's one key bit:

The Huffington Post, capitalized to the tune of $10 million, employs 43 full-time employees, all of whom presumably receive actual cash money, and health benefits, and maybe even a 401(k), for their efforts. But, USA Today reports, "it has no plans to begin paying bloggers. Ever." Ken Lerer, company co-founder, former Time Warner executive, and probably himself in it for the money, says: "That's not our financial model. We offer them visibility, promotion and distribution with a great company."

It's hypocritical for moneyed and supposedly progressive outlets like HuffPo asking writers to opine on subjects such as labor issues for no money whatsoever. (Smaller blogs run by unpaid editors are another matter). What would Arianna Huffington say if she heard about a factory in which workers were paid in internet exposure? Some other choice points:

Hardly a day passes without finding a pitch from some wannabe freeloader in my e-mail. "Our magazine doesn't have a budget for content, but we'd love to use your cartoon about…" "We can't offer a salary per se, but you would get amazing exposure to thousands of discrete users if…" Content is still king. Online leeches just don't want to pay the kingmakers.

I can relate to this 100%. Outlets seem shocked that I don't want to work for free--after all, don't I want exposure FOR MY CARTOON ABOUT OPPRESSED WORKERS?
Finally, Ted tries an experiment:

I called the bank that holds my mortgage. "I don't have a budget to pay you per se," I cooed. "But think of the awesome prestige your corporation receives just by being associated with a cartoonist and columnist whose work is literally read by millions of--" Click. Citibank (Bangalore), Ltd., signing out. Back to work!

The only reason this website doesn't lose money is my Google Ads. I did have hopes when I first put out Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela! that all that magical exposure I've been getting would help me sell enough books to make up for the work I put into designing it, but so far, I haven't quite broken even. Hint, hint...

Trying to learn Flash...

Here's my first random awful little attempt at animation. If I can figure out how to do this better and faster, I may do some animated political cartoons soonish. Click to view:

Yeah, yeah, I'm still drawing...

Cut me some slack folks, it's a crazy summer--my younger brother is getting married today (I'm sure I'm going to bawl my eyes out!) and Masheka and I are getting hitched in a few short weeks. CRAZY CRAZY. Anyway, I'm still drawing every week, just been to busy to post them here. I have tons more AAEC pix too, but those are also a lower priority than tying the knot and stuff.

Our Newly Rescued Orange Manx Kitty: Octavia

Rescued Orange Manx Kitty: Octavia
Originally uploaded by M1khaela.

Masheka and I are off to Washington, DC for the 50th Anniversary Convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. We'll be hanging out with the Cartoonists With Attitude crew (AAEC Vice President Ted Rall, plus Keith Knight, Jen Sorensen, Matt Bors, Brian McFadden, Stephanie McMillan, Ruben Bolling, August Pollak, Ben Smith) and a huge convention of famous-type editorial cartoonists (Tom Toles, Joel Pett, Clay Bennett, Signe Wilkinson, Rob Rogers and many many more!) plus special guests like Tom Tomorrow, Duncan Black and the Comics Curmudgeon. I may even bring a laptop and blog about some of the panels.

In our absence, I leave you with this photo of our newly rescued cat, Octavia, kneading me with her claws as I try to finish up the Cartoonists With Attitude Slideshow for our event this Saturday.

We've felt for a while that our other cat Riley was lonely and just too friendly and social and playful to stay home by himself while we're at work. A rescue group in our neighborhood saved this little orange fuzzball from the euthanasia queue at Animal Care and Control. We barely had her home for a few hours before she decided she had to sit in one of our laps 24/7.

We named her Octavia to (a) pay tribute to the late great science fiction writer Octavia Butler and because (b) she seems like one of the weird alien creatures from Ms. Butler's books, with her giant orange eyes, her taillessness (she's a Manx cat, and apparently this is how many of them are born) and her weird bunny-style gait.

Her political affiliations are yet to become clear, but hopefully she'll be more progressive than our other cat.

I must add that lazy and unapologetic as other other cat is, he'd never have pardoned Scooter Libby.

Spam-tastic embarassment

So an acquaintance of mine sent me an email from some ridiculous site called Tagged, which I will not link to. It seemed to be a legit MySpace/Flickr-type social networking site, so innocently enough I decided to use the feature of checking my gmail address book on the site to see if any friends had profiles.

Well, the site AUTOMATICALLY EMAILED AN OBNOXIOUS "Mikhaela has tagged you ;)" email to EVERYONE I HAVE EVER EMAILED EVER via Gmail, including important editors of magazines and newspapers, journalists, my bank, my website host, all my friends and relatives, coworkers, ex-coworkers, managers, you name it. I feel embarassed, gauche, spam-tastic, awful, and worried that important journalistic and editorial contacts will now find me incredibly obnoxious and add me to their spam blockers.

This SUCKS. If you receive emails from this site IGNORE THEM or FACE THE PERIL.

Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela Official Release Date Pushback to August 6

So I haven't had time to submit Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela to any reviewers or distributors yet, which means that although you can buy direct from the printer via Lulu.com and go to my early book tour events, the official release and distribution date is now August 6. I know this is confusing, but I've been advised by folks in the know that no one will review it unless I delay distribution until after I send out review copies. Good thing I haven't sent out my press releases yet!

The Cartoonists With Attitude DC event on 7/7/07 will be my last book event for a while, as Masheka and I are planning our wedding. The tour will restart in Boston in September.

Defend your cartoonist!

The Boiling Point launched on GoComics.com three weeks ago, but so far the only readers who have seen fit to leave comments are not exactly fans. Why not put in your two cents?

Meta: About those Google ads for Ann Coulter...

I installed Google AdSense a while back to see if I could pay for my webhosting and domain costs. But I was horrified the other day to click on my cartoons page and see that my little Google text ads had merged into a big Ann Coulter ad. I'm assuming that Google thought that because the words "Ann Coulter" were in one of my cartoon captions, my readers might be interested to read her hate-filled screeds. Google also seems to think you folks like John McCain.

Despite my annoyance and inability to target the ads (is there some way to do that?), I think I'll keep them around. I get a little bit of money every time someone clicks on an ad (I'm not allowed to click on my own ads, for obvious reasons). So far I'm making a measly 70 cents a day on average, and there's been a few days where the site actually earned a whole $4. Which means I'm on target to not actually lose money on the site, barely.

Update: Turns out that although I can't specify that I want liberal or progressive ads, I can block ads from specific website. I've just blocked the Ann Coulter ad so hopefully it won't show up again.

apologies for the silence, I've got the flu

I know today was supposed to be the big launch of my book, but I've been bedridden for the last three days with a horrible flu (I got it for my birthday on Friday and initially thought it was just a result of too much birthday karaoke). you can buy my book already, though (and Masheka's too). more cartoons and posting when I get better!

Update: over four days of yuck now and not feeling any better. Went to my doctor and looks like it's strep throat or something. Penicillin time! Hopefully I'll be better by Thursday in time for our book tour kick-off in Detroit Saturday. You can read last week's cartoon on GoComics.com, where I debuted on Monday. Back to bed!

Update your blog bookmarks to mikhaela.net

It's long overdue--I got rid of my splash page, and moved this blog over to plain old www.mikhaela.net. Please update your bookmarks and blogrolls accordingly!

Testing new blog look/title--thoughts?

I'm trying to do a redesign of this whole site in preparation for my book launch (which will probably happen sometime in June...) so I'm testing a new look and name for the blog. It used to be "Mikhaela's News Blog", then it became "Boiling Over", but that didn't make much sense unless you knew my comic strip was called "The Boiling Point." So I may just give it the same name as the strip. Thoughts?

My current annoyance is that the image now up top of this blog is awfully large, file-size-wise, and takes time to load. I'm going to work on slicing it up or reducing it somehow.

Also, I'm pondering a switch from Blogger to WordPress. I briefly tried to do the Expression Engine thing a while ago, but I don't have time to code from scratch and there really aren't nearly as many templates and plugins for EE as there are for WordPress, plus WordPress is free.