Another Hilary-ous reason to keep fighting Obama

Here is my latest endeavor in the field of political cartooning. I think I like drawing political cartoons in a looser style to give them more of a New Yorker feel.

Additionally, this is a study I did of an Obama caricature by Rick Meyerowitz on Stephen Heller's NYT blog.

Finally, I've found that even though he is quite a bit more conservative than I am, I love the art of Michael Ramirez. When I was in grammar school, my mother used to get this opinion paper called the Conservative Chronicle that was littered with Ramirez's work. Since I've long since formed my own political values, it's really refreshing to be reacquainted with him.

My second ever political cartoon

Update: NPR reported this morning that the Nashville City Council has in fact approved the budget that would decimate its bussing system. As a reaction, I sketched this during my lunch break today.



I have found that I am letting myself get more and more riled up by politics these days, so I have recently tried to direct some of that agitation into something constructive. Thus, a political cartoon. I am going to have to practice drawing Barack Obama a lot more before I can start doing cartoons about national politics. I've got Generic Terrorist Guy under control, and I'm still working on George Bush.

My first ever political cartoon (in case you were wondering, because I know you were) I made about eight years ago regarding the 2000 election controversy. I will probably never see it again, because I made it when I was ten. Just thought I'd let you know that I have experience in this kind of work.

In other news

Also at work today, I decided that my office is pretty vulnerable to a zombie attack. I do my work on the second floor, but zombies have been shown to have little difficulty climbing stairs. My potential weapons arsenal includes:

a)The miniature flag I have of Hong Kong beside my desk (don't ask me why it is there, it just is).
--This would have to be a pretty close-proximity weapon, and if I didn't jam into the zombie's skull at exactly the right place to penetrate the brain, I would be boned.

b)My telephone with all the fancy features
--This is fairly heavy and would probably do damage if there were only one zombie. However I fear that flailing it around would cause the part you hold to your face to get tangled up somewhere, thus making use of the heavy base really inconvenient.

c)The keyboard to my computer
--This is the one I finally decided on because it has the greatest combination of mobility and weight. If I yanked it up real quick and it did not easily detach from my PC tower, I would be toast, but when zombies attack, you sometimes have to take risks.

A portrait of Felicity

This didn't really turn out the way I expected, but hey, what does? After I lettered this I realized it might not make any sense. Felicity is talking about her unborn child. Jason is her ex-lover. Just making sure its crystal clear.

Space Patrol

Our body is basically a tool for processing energy and releasing it back into the world. When the body processes nutrients it must exert the energy it receives back out into the world. Human beings do not simply emit raw energy though. Our bodies must find some context in which to put this energy. Athletics is one such context. It provides high rates emission, and is composed largely of simple repetitions, thus requiring little complexity. Social engagements are another method. Creative expression is my personal favorite.

All of these contexts rely on contraction and relaxation of the muscles. Contraction is the withdrawl of energy and relaxation is the release. With mental contexts such as creative expression and social engagement, it requires the contraction of the brain, which is a muscle just like any other, followed by the relaxation that releases the energy. We refer to contraction of the brain as thought. This is why one cannot simultaneously try to remember the names of all seven dwarfs while holding a conversation about Walt Disney's career. One cannot think and engage simultaneously.

Private thought, masterbation, fat conversion, are all internal methods of energy use. They recirculate the body's energy inside the individual. Thought requires high levels of complexity, while fat conversion requires no complexity. Obesity is generally observd to be a negative trait in humans because we identify a fat person as someone keeping all of his energy inside himself.

School provides humans still developing their methods of contraction and emission with ways in which to organize their energy into forms that will lead to a life both productive to society and satisfactory to the individual.

Eventually, the agent will find a method of energy use he feels comfortable with, and will allign himself with this context for the duration of his life, settling into its patterns and rhythms, while becoming more and more familiar with the nuances and details of his chosen emission path, thus increasing his skill at navigating these patterns. This is what we call a career.

The energy exerted must allign itself with methods previously identified for productive energy emission. If a person reads a lot of books, he will want to write his own. If a person talks to a lot of poeple, she will get good at interacting herself. This is a basic input/output function. The creator needs to put what he is expressing into contexts similar though distinct from the content he has consumed.

The point of all this is, I have been eating a whole lot, and then sitting a desk for the entire day exerting minimal energy. This is why I have been arting like a madman during my free time.

Here is a picture.

The decline of Nashville's mass transit.

As a Nashvillian who relies on the Metro Transit Authority to get to and from my jobs, I feel some responsibilty to preserve this important service in my city. Yesterday I attended a meeting led by a representative of the MTA, explaing to the public that city budget cuts leave it short about 2.9 million dollars. To get around this the MTA is considering several options:

Eliminating Service on the weekends.
Eliminating Service at night.
Eliminate about a third of the routes.

I ride the night bus home on weeknights. I ride the bus on Saturdays and Sundays as well. It is PACKED. If these bus routes are cut, that means all those people will be unable to get to and from work.

This budget cut comes at a time when more people are relying on public transportation than ever. From 2004 to 2006, the number of people who used Nashville's MTA increased by about 250,000 people. From 2006 to 2008, the MTA gained 1,500,000 new riders. That brings current ridership up to 8.5 million people.

Most cities have a tax that funds their MTA, giving it a steady source of income. Nashville does not. Only about half of the MTA's income comes from the city, and only twelve percent is from is from the state. These numbers are far lower than the national norm for busses.

Most of the city council members head wealthy families and the MTA does not appear to directly concern them. About 80% of the people that ride the bus come from low income families. When the budget was being drawn up, most of the concern went to

a) Education
b) Police protection
c) Fire protection

Most of the people affected by this change ARE NOT EVEN AWARE OF IT.

If you live in Nashville, please come to the Public Hearing on June 3 at 6:30pm at City Hall. Your very presence will weigh on the minds of those in authority.

Based on a childhood memory

I'm dabbling in a new style with this one. Drawing scratchy/messy requires a lot of confidence in what you're doing.

I originally thought I was taking most of the influence for this from Natalie Kocsis, an artist I only recently discovered online. Then I realized my high school pal Jobathan has been drawing like this all his life.



A new bill is facing congress right now called the U.S. Orphan Works Act of 2008. If it passes, it would require that artists register every single image they produce with a private company or their work becomes public domain. The bill also loosens the rules for creative property. This means if someone finds something you drew online, and the image is separated from your name, the finder can use it for his company and make lots of money from it, and the artist will never see a dime.

Our contemporary economy is driven by creativity; companies everywhere have realized this and now understand the need to catch their clients' eyes. If this bill passes, visual artists will be left with fewer rights than they already have.

Following the memery

A few days ago Dave Valeza posted a challenge on his livejournal to draw your teenage self. The responses have reached the hundreds.

Okay so technically I am still a teenager (19 in August), but I mean come on, I am not a high school kid anymore.

ANYWAY, inked up this morning and posted above, is a portrait of me at age sixteen. God I can't believe I used to smoke. I want to hit myself for it.