There was a line around the block to vote, but the line for my precinct was 5-10 minutes. So do not be disheartened.

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We know everyone will be sad to see the election end, so here’s one last tribute to the folks who made the last two years a “feel good” time of lighthearted fun. Via John K’s Political Toys: three vinyl figurines limited to a run of 3,000 each that will help you commemorate the great personalities who helped us laugh and love through this long, strange journey. The Meltblog caught up with the man:

What toy do you remember breaking and how did you break it?
Well I don’t remember a particular one, but every year on Firecracker Day we would purposely try to blow up all our favorite toys. Nutty Mads were indestructible though. They would just get black burn marks on them but refused to explode or even melt.

We had one great explosive kit called “The Burning Schoolhouse”. It was a cardboard box in the shape of a house with flames and horrified teachers hanging out the windows printed on the box. The box came filed with all kinds of fireworks and made quite a display at night. We would fill these with army men and cowboys and whatever other toys we had and we named each toy after a teacher. Then we would light the box up and watch our teachers melt and give off toxic spumes as we enacted all their screaming cries for mercy. The Nutty Mads always survived the carnage.

Perhaps this scene will be recreated tonight.

Don’t forget to vote! If you’re stil undecided, we suggest this alternate candidate.

A comic strip by African-American cartoonist Keith Knight that used the N-word has caused an apology at Montclair State University. The episode of Knight’s syndicated weekly comic, The K Chronicles, adapted a real-life incident that used the racial epithet in relation to Barack Obama. The appearance of the strip in the school paper upset readers.

Angry students have complained to the university’s dean of students, other campus officials and the editors since the strip ran Thursday in The Montclarion, which has a circulation of about 4,000.

“My heart just dropped when I read it,” said Tamar VanDerVeer, 21, a senior who serves as secretary of the Organization of Students for African Unity, a campus group. “I’m trying to find something positive in the situation, but being a senior at Montclair State, a very diverse school, the ignorance is really uncalled for. They really hurt us.”

Knight issued a statement about the incident at his blog, which reads in part:

Is it offensive? Yes. Is it sad? Sure. But that’s the reality of the United States and this very unique election.

We have the first African-American candidate for president who could actually win. And folks of all colors are coming face-to-face with bias and race issues they didn’t know about, have ignored or pretended didn’t exist. Neighbors, co-workers, and family members are learning a little more about the society we live in.

The comic is pointing out one aspect of it. Straight-up racists are prepared to pull the lever for a black man. While some folks out there, who never thought they were prejudiced, aren’t going to vote for him because of his skin color.

Should we ignore stuff like this? I don’t think so.

Should it be in a comic strip. Yes!!

Nevertheless, Bobby Melok, the editor of the paper, issued an apology, explaining that since the strip came through a cartoon syndicate, it hadn’t been checked for content.

“Many of you have voiced your displeasure with this cartoon, as is your right,” Melok wrote. “It is never The Montclarion’s intention to offend its readership, and we sincerely apologize to all who were upset with this comic.”

Read the strip for yourself in the first link.

We’re used to reading all the interviews about the series that are coming but, but Kiel Phegley at CBR presents a rare look at an idea that didn’t make it with Joe Casey’s EXECUTIVE POWER, which would have plunked a real-life politician down into the Marvel U. It’s an interesting behind the scenes look at how ideas are developed at the Big Two:

“Honestly, my original notion was for it to be a fictional President in the Marvel U,” Casey told CBR. “But, the more I thought about it, and in initially talking to [Executive Editor] Axel Alonso about it two years ago, it made much more sense — on several levels — to make it about the actual President — which, back in the summer of ’06, obviously no one had any idea who the candidates would be, although that didn’t really matter for the purposes of this pitch. At that point, it suddenly morphed into possibly the most commercial idea I’ve ever come up with for a work-for-hire series. And Axel was into it. In a lot of ways, he’s probably the most forward-thinking editor at Marvel. His track record certainly shows he doesn’t shy away from controversial ideas, approaches or stories. I think he knew right away that this would be a lot more substantial a project than merely some gimmick book.”

Casey’s probably right that putting real life governators into a comic book would have gotten lots of press — look at the play IDW and Bluewater have gotten for their candidate bio books — but it’s also the kind of thing Marvel and DC really tend to shy away from. In one way, it’s understandable. Rights issues and complaints are a big concern, and real world commentary is usually left to the satirists, as Mad Magazine shows.

Via Boing Boing, Mad Magazine’s take on Shepard Fairey’s now iconic Obama poster. Fairey has a gallery of parodies of the poster, but apparently it’s been boing boing’d and is down for a while.

§ Gawker predicts hard times for political cartoonists if Obama is elected. Part of the problem is that caricaturing the African-American candidate could draw accusations of racism. What’s really interesting about the piece is this bit about famous illustrator/cartoonist Thomas Nast (who invented Santa Claus, among other things):

Master cartoonist Thomas Nast proved political cartoons could be used to subvert racism, as in this classic satire of whites congratulating themselves for the emancipation of slaves from an 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

Nast’s cartoons not only crucially challenged the way people saw political issues — coming as they were in a time with significantly less media — but they consistently fought against racist caricatures of black people.

The idea that in 1863 a great artist was actively campaigning against racist caricatures (in a country where slavery was a current event) comes as a bracing reality check for those who defend racial caricatures that have lasted right to the present day as an innocent reminder of a happy time when folks just didn’t know any better.

Guess what?

Folks have always known better.

§ In this heated election season, it’s only natural that candidates would use the power of comics to deliver their messages. In California, state senate candidate Hannah-Beth Jackson has put out a cartoon flyer:

On the comic-book cover of the mailer, a woman expresses shock at a paper’s headline, “Hannah-Beth Jackson kidnaps Elvis!!” The inside of the flier explains how “Tony Strickland has been making some pretty wild charges about Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson.” Another illustration shows a man reading a newspaper with the ridiculous headline, “Jackson voted to tax puppies!”

§ Not so innocently, in the heated Minnesota Senate race, incumbent Norm Coleman has been forced to repudiate a comic book attack on opponent Al Franken:

Sen. Norm Coleman doesn’t like the tasteless comic books attacking Al Franken sent out by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to Minnesotans, notes the Pioneer Press blog Political Animal, and the senator said so in a message to the group:

“The piece itself is something that simply should never made it to the mail. The direct mail piece, which comes in the form of something that looks like a comic book, focuses on Mr. Franken’s repeated efforts at comedy using jokes about rape, child abuse and other degrading commentary during his career,” Coleman wrote.

Guess ya gotta draw the line somewhere.

§ Manga-loving Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso — who is actually not all that popular, and whose championing of manga and other youth culture stuff is an attempt to curry favor with voting youths — now finds little time to read comics because he’s so darned busy running the country:

“It’s hard to read comic books as my time is now restricted,” a smiling Aso told an audience of hundreds in his first street speech since taking office on September 24. The conservative, often gruff lawmaker has eagerly sought to soften his image in recent years by casting himself as one of Japan’s “otaku”-nerds whose hobbies border on obsession.

Aso used the speech in Tokyo’s Akihabara district to hail Japan’s subculture, notably comic books, as a key export from the country. “Japan’s subculture of animation has been overwhelmingly accepted in the world,” Aso said.

§ Meanwhile, over in Norway, the head of a language group, encouraged kids to read Donald Duck comics to learn Scandinavian languages.

Jan-Erik Enestam, Secretary General of the Nordic Council, encouraged Icelanders and Finnish-speaking Finns to read comic books to get better at the Scandinavian languages. Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers, Halldór Ásgrímsson, also underlined how important Donald Duck had been for his interest in language when he was young. The comics were not always translated into Icelandic, so he was therefore very keen to read the Danish version.

§ Finally, yet more evidence of Barack Obama’s ties to unrepentant comic book readers, via this remembrance from a childhood friend:

At the time, my father and President Sukarno were the only people in the country with Cadillacs, and both were presents from my grandpa, who was the richest man in Indonesia. Grandpa bought me all the DC Comic books, and I was the only one who had them, so Barry and Yanto would borrow the books and copy pictures of Batman and Spider-Man out and ask me to judge which was better. Barry was always better than Yanto. Even Yanto always agreed with that. Barry had a great eye.

Who knows what influence these superheroes have had on Obama in the past, which is something we really need to consider as he runs for president. Do we REALLY know what we’re getting into?

Michael Cho has some fun.

[Thank you again, Kevin Melrose]

Saracuda is getting her own comic book, following in the footsteps of John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. But sadly, after getting flak for using an awkward cover pose for their Hillary comic, Bluewater has gone for a medium body shot, missing the chance to showcase the only major party nominee with legitimately great gams. PR follows:

Following the announcement of a new comic book featuring Senator Hillary Clinton, Bluewater Productions is following up the effort with a biographical title based on the life of current Republican vice-presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin.

Palin’s life story from PTA president to the Alaska governorship to her surprise nomination as John McCain’s running mate is scheduled to be the second story in the recently announced “Female Force” comic. A final chapter is yet to be written.

“Regardless of your opinion, Governor Palin is a phenomenon. Her historic nomination has helped shape the national debate of arguably the most important presidential election in over 75 years,” said Bluewater president Darren Davis. “No matter what happens in this election, people will still be talking about Sarah Palin, she is indeed a female force!”
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Via everywhere on earth:

“Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.”

– Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, during humorous remarks at a charity dinner.

PS: the above famed picture is old, and Obama definitely has had this whole Superman identification thing going on for a while. We’re sure someone somewhere online has done a thorough examination of this; this post is not it.

§Fed head Ben Bernanke who could use the powers of Shazam as he leads the world through the wreckage of the post-housing bubble crisis, is also a fan:

As a schoolboy in the mid-1960s, Ben Bernanke followed the usual rites of passage in tiny Dillon, S.C. He waited tables at South of the Border—a roadside attraction on Interstate 95—and played sax in a high-school garage band (”We murdered ‘Light My Fire,’ his fellow band member Johnny Braddy recalls). Inevitably, young Ben and his friends found themselves gathering in the afternoon around the comic-book rack at the Jay Bee Drug Store, which was run by his father and uncle and where he worked after school. “He was very efficient,” recalls his Uncle Mort Bernanke, but “he loved to be in that comic-book section.” Asked now what superhero he most identified with as a kid, Bernanke laughs and allows that he was partial to the stalwarts of the DC Comics group, especially Superman and Batman.

§ Liberal media it-girl and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is just another comics reader:

By her bed: Comic books. I read comics sometimes and graphic novels. I appreciate that genre.

§ Writer/actor/director Eric Bogosian had been rumored to be doing a graphic novel for some time, but he seems to have run into roadblocks:

“The problem is,” Bogosian explained when we caught up with him at the Directors Guild Honors in New York on Thursday (October 16), “what they want to do is make a deal to do the graphic novel, which would be great, and there’s no money there, which is fine — obviously you’re doing it for the fun of it — but if a movie comes out of it, then they guarantee that they will not pay you for it, that they will screw you.” Because of Vertigo/DC’s ties to Warner Bros.? “I’m not saying those guys specifically,” Bogosian said, “but it’s very hard to make a deal where you can make it all work.”

Comic Industry for Obama has a big eBay auction up, including a Jaime Hernandez drawing of Maggie in an Obama T-shirt. What are you waiting for?

And in this corner, John McCain as the Penguin.

Drew Friedman in The New York Observer. Hey, it’s better than the picture of Obama riding a narwhal that’s making the rounds…we think.

[Via Flog]

WE can’t see much interest in this topic; can you?

Come see the best Bush bashing, Republican ripping, McCain mangling and best of all, Obama backing cartoonists in America!!!!!

Outside Looking In: Alternative Political Cartooning in 2008 will be held this weekend, Saturday, October 4 from 11AM to 7PM and Sunday, October 5 noon-6PM at The North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Admission is $8 for a single day and $15 for both days and is good for both Outside Looking In and the Small Press Expo the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comic books, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons,

In celebration of this most historical election, Outside Looking In has gathered the best alternative political cartoonist from across the United States for a special two days of panel discussions, interviews and autograph sessions.

Information on the panels, interviews, directions and exhibitors can be found at http://www.spxpo.com.

Here is a partial list of the political cartoon guests at this special event:

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Bluewater has corrected the number of stripes on the American flag on the cover of their Hillary bio, and redone it so it looks like her, but it still looks a lot like some other books. Oh well…collect ‘em all. PR follows:

Bluewater Productions has replaced the cover art for their forthcoming comic book featuring Senator Hilary Clinton. The reason for the change is to correct an error in how the American flag was portrayed.

“It was my fault, and I take full responsibility for releasing the incorrect version of the cover,” said Bluewater president Darren G. Davis. “We meant no disrespect to veterans who bravely served our country, Senator Clinton, or to any other American who was offended by the incorrect portrayal of our most cherished American symbol.”

According to Davis, the earlier version of the cover portrays the American Flag as having 14 stripes instead of 13. This version was included with the electronic press release announcing the release of a comic book featuring Senator Hilary Clinton.

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Bluewater Productions sent out some PR yesterday about a new comic based on the life of Hillary Clinton — guess this political thing is so big even the comics are getting in on it. If we could we would just reproduce Kevin Melrose’s post at Blog@ Newsarama because he has a lot of fun with this story, from the typo-ridden release to the fact that the cover is a direct rip-off of IDW’s Obama and McCain comics.

“Too facetted”?

The comic, called Female Force: Hillary Clinton, features a woman on the cover who doesn’t much resemble the senator. At all.

Seriously, the Bluewater book even imitates the IDW poses. Come on, now! That’s not innovation we can live with.

§ Woot! Secret Chester Brown zombie comic. Marvel zombies, what are you waiting for?

§ Japan gets a manga-loving PM, but how long will it last? Also who will be in his cabinet? We’re holding out for Umezu, Ken Akamatsu and Moyoco Anno!

§ Why choose between being a rock star and writing comics when you can do both? Gerard Way yaks about the new UMBRELLA ACADEMY:

We want the series to last a while. It would’ve been jumping way too far ahead in the larger story, and I’m not the type of person (and neither is Scott) to hold on to ideas – one of the best pieces of advice Grant Morrison have me was to not hold on to ideas, to just use them all, paint yourself into a corner, and come up with new ideas – and I’ve definitely held on to that way of thinking, but the original story that we were thinking of telling in this second series will now be series four, which is more or less the midpoint of the entire story as a whole. So it needed to wait.

In saying that, there are a lot of things that changed from working on series one – a lot of things happened – we ended up caring about these characters a great deal, readers ended up caring about them a great deal…weirdness started happening – not arbitrarily, but if I was inspired to write a scene, I’d write it, and now those scenes are now growing in the larger parts of the story.

§ Clip ‘n’ save: Johanna talks about How to Break Into Writing Comics and she pretty much covers all the bases we use when we get asked that question.

Breaking into comics as an artist is relatively easy. You make up some samples, you show them around, you take the advice you’re given, and you persist until you get work or find something more responsible to do. It’s hard work, but it’s a simple plan to follow.

But breaking in as a writer… that’s difficult. There are a lot more wannabes than ever will find work in the field, everyone thinks writing is easy, and most people have ideas for their favorite characters just waiting. Plus, you can’t easily show your work. So how do you start getting paid to write comics? There are four and a half ways I know of.

§ This fellow has been so incensed by recent Marvel comics that he made a coat out of them! That’s showin’ them!

But if you are one of those unfortunate souls who bought all the New Avengers and Mighty Avengers tie-ins and then realized you’d wasted over twenty bucks, don’t worry! Just do what I and my good friend Lisa McMullan did. With a little creativity, you can take those pages and make yourself a very smart looking jacket! Now you’re not a sucker, you are actually quite fashionable!

§ This very long and detailed history of comics in San Diego gets up to Todd Loren and ROCK ‘N’ ROLL COMICS:

I was amazed when that first issue of Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics, on Guns N’ Roses, sold almost 10,000 copies in just a few short weeks. Those were big numbers, even in those days of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Todd would call me every time a big order came in, and then he’d call to tell me every time the comic was mentioned in some major mag or newspaper, which was happening almost every day. “Someday, we’ll be selling millions of comics,” he’d say. I was doubtful, but I allowed room for the possibility.

Rob Tornoe on what happens when an editorial cartoon is based on an erroneous story.

Ted Rall sent us a link to his first cartoon, “Obama’s First Day.”

Rall wrote, drew and designed the characters for “President Obama’s First Day,” a tongue-firmly-in-cheek look at liberal Democrats’ fantasies of how an Obama Administration would instantly change things for the better. The animation was done by David Essman.

“There are some great Flash-based edittoons out there, but they take a different approach than I do. I see each animated cartoon as a skit, as a mini TV show,” Rall said. “I hope people enjoy watching ‘Obama’s First Day’ as much as David and I enjoyed making it.”

We enjoyed that cartoon but along the way we discovered this one, “Presidential Election Meets Pokemon McCain Vs Hillary & Obama,” which is like…

…maybe the greatest thing ever in history. Or at least since Lasagna Cat. Or this:

It seems that famed Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, 48, is running for Parliament — as a libertarian. The Beguiling is supporting his effort with a drive to get enough signatures to allow his name to get on the ballot. This got a little play on comics blogs this week, but now it’s got more in the local paper. Brown is running as a Libertarian:

Brown is nonetheless planning a genuine run for Member of Parliament in the Trinity-Spadina riding, a job currently held by NDP celeb Olivia Chow, where he would be the closest thing the Libertarians have ever boasted to a star candidate — taking time out for campaign events between working on his follow-up to 2003’s Louis Riel, a 200-page chronicle of his experiences paying for sexual services, which is about one-quarter complete, produced with the assistance of a $16,000 grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Not all of Brown’s peers support his run:

“Seth told me that, after he heard I was into this, that something died within him.”

We say, that with Chet’s avowed habit of paying for sex, he fits right into the political scene!