Flier

My friend's band is playing in Towson next week. I drew up the flier.

Iraq veterans are having trouble getting in-state tuition at UMd

"It's just a slap in the face."- Diamondback article on the issue.

Yay, he's president! Now, what's on tv?

Three Big Flat Tires

Here's hoping I won't offend gay people.

Turkey delicious.

Felon folly

The Savvy Student...is a douche.

Scooters on Campus

Our stimulus package is bigger than your stimulus package

Slots referendum passed

Slots Referendum

Polls

Ted Stevens

People getting upset

I've been drawing a comic strip called Professor Gorilla in The Diamondback for several weeks now and I finally got proof that folks are reading it. Though that proof did come in the form of a guest column in the paper about how sexist and racist it is.

Here is the column link and text (special note - I write my comic strip under the pen name "Ted McTinder."):

Guest Column: The 800-pound gorilla
Kumudha Kumarachandran
Issue date: 10/27/08 Section: Opinion

It's been 43 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964; 88 since women got the right to vote; and 143 since the abolition of slavery. You would think that by now we have come a long way as a more unified society, right? Well, when I see cartoons like Professor Gorilla in The Diamondback, I feel the need to take a step back.

I am referring to the four-part series featuring Professor Gorilla's substitute and his obsession with Jung Sung's "talking" breasts. While I am certain that Ted McTinder meant for the cartoons to be in good humor, they are sexist and racist in nature. They isolate women, who make up 50 percent of this campus, and Asians, who make up about 14 percent. Like all racism and sexism in today's media, it is subtle and can be defended as satire so that we don't fight back, or even realize we are being discriminated against.

Jung Sung is sexy, but also extremely intelligent. She also has a very Asian-sounding name. In those three simple details about her, I can already see three incredibly strong stereotypes that face Asian Americans in the media every day. First, there is the hyper-sexualization of Asian women. You've seen this image before: an East-Asian beauty decked out in a revealing silk robe or dress. You'll be sure to see it during Halloween, when hundreds of girls sport their "Sexy Geisha" and "Dragon Lady" costumes. While it is regrettable that the media promotes this perception, it is worse when it is played out in real life as a "joke" that alienates people on this campus.

Second, there is the Model Minority Myth, the stereotype that all Asian Americans are incredibly intelligent and hardworking and do not need government assistance. You might pick up on this in TV shows, when you notice that Asian actors are usually playing the nerd in class or a doctor. This stereotype often deprives underprivileged Asians of getting the resources and help that they need.

Finally, there is the Forever Foreigner stereotype that insists on a specific idea of Asian people as the "Other" in society, who are never really seen as American. The cartoon further perpetuates the idea of the foreign Asian girl who becomes the exotic "other." In fact, Asian Americans have a long and diverse history in this country that dates back to the early 1700s. It is a history of people that have fought long against racist perceptions that have caused much injustice in the community.

Although the racist nature of the cartoons is subtle, the sexism is definitely more pronounced. The substitute professor ignores Jung Sung's intelligence because he is too busy looking at her breasts. I understand this is supposed to be the joke behind the strip, but is it necessary to take a cheap shot at all the women on this campus by telling them their minds are secondary to their bodies? We are at an institute of higher learning, and I would think the students would be able to utilize intelligent humor and know better than to further the oppression our society lays out for us.

It is funny to me that our generation is so adamant about rallying for change, but when it comes down to eliminating simple forms of language and humor that are tools of oppression, we write it off as being in good fun. We'll chant "Yes, we can," but when it comes down to it, we don't care enough to actually do something about it. John Mayer might make it seem acceptable for us to be "waiting on the world to change," but change will never occur if we apathetically sit on our asses.

Kumudha Kumarachandran is a senior government and politics major and is head of the AASPIRE committee of the AASU, which focuses on Asian American women. She can be reached at Kumudha.Nadine@gmail.com.

Super Candidates

It's because he's Hawaiin

Voter Registration ends October 14

FiscHole Responsibility

My Views on a shuttle bus

Stock Brokers, Congress and the Almighty Market

Jack Perry wants English to be College Park's official language

This issue is local to College Park, Md.

Another cartoon about the economy!

I've been on an economy cartoon binge, three in a row on the same topic. That's bad news bears for someone who wants to keep his jun fresh and edgy. But with this, I'm not concerned. News on the economic crisis changes daily, it has been lede story for the past week and opinion pieces on the matter reflect that. As should my cartoons. So as soon as the economy settles out (not soon) I can get back to the presidential election, or global warming, or any other of those stock issues we cartoonists shamelessly rely on for inspiration.

Stock Market Plummets, Fed loses it in the sun

Capitalism don't fail me now.

It's a scary thing when capitalism stops running smoothly. This year has been a disaster, but the government has managed to step in and prevent the economy from collapsing when major investment firms have fallen into financial ruin. As a result, there were a lot of funny cartoons about banks asking for loans from tax payers.

However, the Lehman Brothers are seemingly the first major firm denied the federal helping hand and we're seeing how destructive financial mismanagement actually is. The Lehman Brothers are about to be liquidated. Like a mattress store shutting down. Everything must go. This will probably happen to several more corporations this year. It will suck.

Cartoon Response

A letter to the editor ran in Friday's Diamondback about my cartoon a few days ago. It went thustly:

Skepticism on slots

Congratulations on your Sept. 9 editorial cartoon! You should reprint it every day from now to November. The cartoon says it all: Why stop with gambling, when there are many other socially undesirable practices that could be set up under state sponsorship and made to generate revenue? Of course, nearly half the slots revenue will go to the private firms that operate the racetrack and the business. And, of course, even legal gambling generates all kinds of unsavory (and sometimes illegal) sideline activities. The bulk of the funds will come from the pockets of poor people who are hoping for a lucky windfall, and therefore gambling is an even more regressive way to generate revenue than a sales tax. But nevermind: There may be some pennies left over for "education" (whatever that actually turns out to be). I am disgusted and ashamed the Board of Regents have been browbeaten into supporting the slots initiative, and I hope the student body will repudiate this support.
Lee E. Preston
Professor
business school

Here's a link to the original.


It's not often you get positive response to a cartoon. It's nice though. I'm looking forward to inciting negative criticism this year as well. We'll see what the future holds.

Lipstick

This cartoon doesn't send much of a message, its more of an acknowledgment that "lipstick" has been a real buzz word in the campaign. I don't like that we're using rhetoric about putting makeup on animals as points of debate, but I suppose we have to argue about something. Just hope the lipstick thing doesn't go any farther. Maybe move on to blush or eyeliner.

Slot machines

Slot machines were an issue when I was in high school, back when Robert Ehrlich was governor of Maryland. He championed the things, but the Maryland legislature shot him down. Now it seems O'Malley has support to legalize what was deemed immoral four years ago. We're sliding into the gutter, I suppose. I drew a cartoon about slots for my high school paper. Later, if I can find the thing, I'll post it.

Palin BABY mania!

I don't care that Sarah Palin's daughter is having a baby. It's a wonderful thing even, especially if this baby inherits its grandmother's good looks.

On the topic of grandchildren, there hasn't been a "first grandchild" in a while, has there? I suppose Barbara and Jenna Bush were H.W.'s grand kids during his term.

Palin mania.

I hope this makes sense.

Creativity Song

I've taken a bit of time to work an animation for the pilot episode of "Sunflower Express" a childrens show set to air of Bowie public access channel...sometime.

Flier

It's been a while since I've designed a flier, so I wanted to make this one good. My friend Jack, who plays bass for the College Park band The Summary asked me to draw something for their next gig. I agreed to. If you're in College Park August 8th, try to check out the show.
Oh yeah, this one I sketched in pencil and inked digitally with my wacom. Here's the original sketch.

Naked Bush

I'll write something about this cartoon later. It's 5am and I work tomorrow.

*Edit - 07/30/08 12:26pm*

I'm at work now, and I'm pissed, but I don't want to talk about it. I want to talk about this cartoon. This is my favorite version of Bush to date. Thank god I got a good one in, because there's precious little time to do him anymore. Mike Luckovich draws my favorite Bush. He small and clueless (I just spent ten minutes trying to write a sentence explaining why I like Luckovich's Bush, but my brain's not working today. There's more to it, I'm just having trouble expressing it).

The lettering is a custom font I created using the wonderful free tools available at fontstruct.com It was a pain to make and still needs work, but its worth it to avoid handwriting everything.

I cheated on the oval office, and my wacom made it possible. I pulled a photo into photshop and traced the outlines on a separate layer, removed the photo and completed the shading freehand. Now you know my dirty secret.

RSS is super

I've finally understand Really Simple Syndication and have started subscribing to my favorite bloggers' feeds through Google Reader. Realizing how much I enjoy aggregating all my favorite internet material prompted me to make the luxury available to anyone who reads my blog. The folks at www.feedburner.com made creating an RSS feed easy and even provided a sweet little link icon. Look at it, over there, on the left side of the page.
Anyhow, if you enjoy the pleasures of aggregation, now you can subscribe to El Blogo de Mike O.

wacom-generated editorial cartoon 3

I'm getting better with the wacom, faster at least. Today's cartoon comes from an idea I picked up reading August J. Pollak's blog. He's smarter than me and did a better cartoon on the subject. I got to draw a dude barfing though, and that's probably the best side-view of an apartment building I've ever done.

Okay, I'm blogging from...

Okay, I'm blogging from the couch right now. So, we're gonna take this out a little bit on the Internet once we get up frim the couch and look on the Internet. And, go look at my blog, do a demonstration on it. How great it is to blog just like talking to your phone. All right, see you there. listen

Powered by Jott

wacom-generated editorial cartoon 2

Here's my second digitally-drawn cartoon. I wanted to do something on Budweiser because I've lately grown fond of the beer and finding out that the company is selling to InBev unexpectedly made me feel as loss of pride. Its a shame we're losing competitive edge in the world economy, but I suppose its years of American arrogance and worldly ignorance coming back to bite us in ole' tuckus. Whatever the case, here's my cartoon.

wacom-generated editorial cartoon

This here is my first go at a cartoon created completely on my computer. I am very happy with the art, because it achieves the sketchy "luckovichian" style I've been striving towards for a while now. It also pisses me off a little that I haven't been able do do this with traditional pen and ink. It means i'm a pussy in the physical world. I wouldn't take risks with pen and ink for fear of the tedious touch-ups and re-dos I'd have to do if I made mistakes. None of that with the wacom tablet--I screw up as much as I want and just erase over whatever's wrong. It's wonderful, but again, an unwanted reminder of my pussyness.

What with that, I'm not sure this cartoon is a good one for the message it sends. I think you have to be too much inside my head to get at the bigger idea I want to portray. Seeing as most viewers aren't telepathic, this cartoon will likely bomb.

Whatever.


Wait...one more thought. Handwriting is a bitch on the wacom.

Janitor sketch

It was something like 3am. I couldn't sleep and went out for a walk around the office building near my house in Fredericksburg. Noticed some lights were on inside. When I walked past the front door I saw a janitor fella squeezing a mop out and getting to work. It was 3am. Thought it was poetic. Sketched a bit before going to bed, and here's what it was.

Boy MonsterI

I have not posted much lately, but that's ok because no one reads my blog anyway. Ha ha. But I just received a Wacom Intuos3 drawing tablet from the mailman today and got to draw something directly on my computer. No pencil ink eraser, just me and photoshop. Made me figure that not posting art I made and like on the computer is very lazy. No scanning to do. Just save the file for web and upload it. So here it is. A creepy baby sketch for my comic book thats coming, Boy Monster.

-O.