Illustration commission for @cottagetwilight for their partner as an anniversary present! A redraw of the original Mulan poster, focusing on Ping a bit more than Mulan. I had so much fun with this, a joy to work on!
(The MTA deities are Elder Gods: elemental, ruthless, demanding, and vain. MTA is a syncretic religion; it is an occasionally ill-fitting combination of three smaller pantheons: the IRT, BMT, and IND. As a result, the MTA gods are jealous gods and fights between them are frequent and frequently legendary. New Yorkers are never sure if a subway problem is the result of the gods being unhappy with their supplicants or simply squabbling among themselves, although it’s generally assumed that the century-long delay in consecrating the first of the subterranean shrines along Second Avenue after removing the sky-based temples is the reason that the locals and expresses never have their doors open at the station at the same time so you can switch.)
The scene: a crowded evening rush-hour train, two women sitting next to each other on the bench, nowhere to stand. The lady next to me, twice my size, asks me to move the straps on my backpack because they are touching her. I comply, then go back to my doze. A stop later, she’s at it again, complaining that they are still touching her. The only strap in her general vicinity is the one still on my arm and I don’t feel the contact, but I pull my elbow in a little for show – there’s nowhere for my arms to go, either. It’s not enough. She complains a third time, elevating her voice along with her indignation. I suggest that she should lower her personal space expectations during rush hour, which is not what she wants to hear, but she’s not interested in escalating it to physical confrontation and goes back to watching something on her phone. I go back to my doze again, but first silently wishing her a lifetime of sitting next to small, loud, hyperactive children on every ride.
The MTA gods are capricious and capable of great kindness and great cruelty, sometimes both at once. They love blood sacrifice and whimsy in equal measure. And so on a day when they rattled their immortal chains with some fury, I had my plea answered favorably.
At the next stop, even more people get on and I first hear and then see a little boy, maybe six years old, board with his harried mother. He’s bouncing all around in his three inches of allotted space and I smile and thank the MTA gods for their boon. I then offer the mother my seat – she accepts very gratefully. A moment later, I see why: the boy is one of two. There is a little brother, maybe three.
“Good luck,” I tell the lady next to me as I get up, all virtue and NYC solicitousness, as the two overstimulated kiddies climb up into the space that had once been occupied by a snack-sized adult dozer. The look on her face as she realizes what I’ve done warms the dark cockles of my soul.
My mother had three pregnancies, and two children. She had a miscarriage, between my brother and I, in that four year span between our births, there was another pregnancy, another child desperately wanted, who didn’t live to term.
My mother had her pre-natal care, and her post-miscarriage care, at Planned Parenthood.
Because it was the best place for her. Because at the time, she had a two year old child and a bike and they were living just around that nice little sweet spot between ‘desperately poor’ and ‘almost have enough to consider a savings account.‘ And when you are poor, and female, and need health services, Planned Parenthood is there.
And my mother walked past the protesters, walked past the people who screamed at her about not killing her baby, about how she was a whore, and she was going to hell. My mother, in mourning for a child that she had lost, blaming herself, hating herself for failing at this most feminine of things, walked through that, to care for herself, to get the medical care she needed. So that someday, two years later, she could have me.
I cannot speak to the courage that must have taken. But that path is walked by thousands of women. Every single day.
She donated to Planned Parenthood until her death. And she said to me, that the people who screamed at her saw her only as a vessel for a baby. They didn’t care about her, they didn’t care about her baby, either. They were pro-birth, not pro-life, because none of them would be there after her baby was born, to offer help and support and care.
The protesters didn’t care about her. And the medical professionals inside did. It is the right of every woman to have access to safe, affordable, quality health care, no matter where she comes from, what her income is, or what choices she makes with her life. And that is what these kind of bills are attempting to take away.
So, since this has now popped up on Reddit and Facebook and countless other sites, le trolls have returned. Hi! If you’re here to tell me my mom was a horrible person, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree. I knew her a little better than you did, you see.
My mother was raised Catholic, and married at 18 to a man going off for military service. She was the first person in her family EVER to go to college, even if she took a 12 year break between starting and finishing. Having babies slows things down, she said to me. But it doesn’t have to stop you.
She was a scientist, her final published paper before she retired and shortly before she died, was on advances in cellular regeneration that could help repair traumatic spinal cord injuries. Her name is on four patents, and dozens of papers.
Before that, she spent years working at a breast milk bank, to help babies who couldn’t take commercial formulas grow and thrive, even if their mothers couldn’t produce enough to keep them healthy.
She raised two children, often under less than ideal circumstances, and she always, ALWAYS mourned the child she lost. And she defended, without flinching and without a second thought, the right of every woman to make the choice that was right for her and her life.
And I donate to Planned Parenthood in her name. And every time one of you decides to come here and tell me my dead mother is roasting in hell? I’m going to add another dollar to that donation.
Universal Pictures to “The Force Awakens” Team (2015)
I really, really like this. It shows that great filmmakers have respect for others in their field. Enough to acknowledge when another film beats a record their own movie set.
Unicorn on a Roll: more comics in the tradition of Calvin and Hobbes
The first collection starring Phoebe and her unicorn friend Marigold Heavenly Nostrils was the strongest new syndicated strip I’d read in years; with Unicorn on a Roll, Dana Simpson demonstrates that she’s got plenty more where that came from.
It alarms me to think that I almost skipped this series. The publisher sent me the first book and I stuck it in my daughter’s room, thinking we’d try it at bedtime. But it got shelved, and then every time I looked at the spine, I thought, “gah, not more dainty-girly stuff” and pass it over.
But my daughter rescued it (and me) because she’s smarter than her old man. By the time I noticed that she was reading it to herself, she was basically finished with it, but wanted me to re-read it to her at bedtime. Dubiously, I picked it up and started reading, and in seconds, I knew she’d found a winner.
Phoebe isn’t just a female successor to Calvin – I think I like her better than Calvin. Like Calvin, she’s precocious and funny and has this amazing imaginative internal life. But unlike Calvin, she’s not a jerk to kids of the opposite sex, and she’s introspective in a way that’s healthy without being mopey (and is the source of a lot of sweet humor that adults and kids can both enjoy).
Book two starts a year after Phoebe meets Marigold Heavenly Nostrils, freeing her from paralysis brought on by being unable to look away from the beauty of her own reflection (unicorns, right?). In that time, Phoebe’s parents and frenemies have come to grips with her new invisible (usually) friend, who can project a field of uninterestingness that allows her to mix with humans with impunity.
Phoebe is growing as a character (another satisfying departure from the usual kids’ comic formula), as is evidenced by the first major plot-arc of the book: her decision to free Marigold Heavenly Nostrils from her duty to be Phoebe’s best friend (naturally, Marigold rewards her by sticking around of her own free will). The amazing thing is that this piece of relatively moral philosophy manages to pull off a bunch of extremely funny gags in several modes – some aimed square at the grownups, some at the kids, and plenty that both can enjoy.
The book is a perfect mix of ongoing stories – largely about Phoebe’s relationship with her rival/pal Dakota, and Max, the boy she’s friends with and who acts as a kind of foil for her strongest characteristics – and one-off gags about things like nose-picking, rainbows, generation-gaps with parents, and how awesomely cool a unicorn looks on roller-skates (hence the title).
The ongoing stories – Marigold falls in love with a unicorn so humble he won’t let anyone see him lest he be admired; Phoebe competes with Dakota for a part in the fourth grade play; the other unicorns summon Marigold for an intervention to get her to unfriend Phoebe – cover some heavy ground, but always with a sprightly touch, and never without great comedy.
In case there’s any doubt: I plainly love this strip, and I love the books. The short intros (the first by Peter “Last Unicorn” Beagle; this one by My Little Pony rebooter/creator Lauren Faust) make it clear that there are plenty of others who can’t get enough of Phoebe and Marigold. And the aftermatter – glittery unicorn poo cookies recipes and tutorials for drawing Phoebe and Marigold – are great, too.
Tumblr Exodus 