FEAR OF BLOGGING SETS A RECORD…

Even for me!  It’s been four months since my last blog!  Verily is my blog called Fear of Blogging!  So let’s start with the most recent, and go downhill from there…

What do you call a room so full of women cartoonists that you can’t toss a cat without hitting a woman cartoonist?  That is, if you are in the habit of tossing cats.

I call it a signing for the Wimmen’s Comix collection, at Green Apple books on April 12^th.In case you didn’t know, Wimmen’s Comix was the first continuing all-woman comic book anthology, lasting from 1972 – 1992, and the collection also includes the very first all-woman comic book, It Ain’t Me, Babe, from 1970.  This is a two-volume boxed set, and it’s a facsimile edition, meaning the reprints look exactly like the comic books, even including ads.  11 of the original wimmen showed up, from all parts of California and parts north, to discuss the book and sign copies for a standing room-only crowd.  I don’t know who had more fun, us or the audience!

Here we all are, left to right: Nancy Husari, Leslie Ewing, Lee Marrs, Sharon Rudahl, Barbara Millikan (was Barb Brown), yours truly, Rebecka Wright, Vida Chan (was Edna Jundis), Caryn Leschen, Lee Binswanger.

The photo is by Justin Hall, Thank you, Justin!) and if you missed us, we’ll have a panel at the San Diego con in July, followed by yet another signing at the Fantagraphics booth.  Come say hello!

And finally, Samantha Meier interviewed some of us for a (mostly positive) great article in the Comics Journal: http://www.tcj.com/an-oral-history-of-wimmens-comix/

Moving forward in time before we move backward: a group of lions is called a Pride of Lions.  A group of ravens is called a Slaughter of Ravens.  But what do you call a group of rabbits?  I decided you call them a Bunch of Bunnies, and there they were, giant rabbits in front of City Hall in April, and here I am in front of one.  A sort of Night of the Lepus, but maybe more like Afternoon of the Lepus. 

A week later, City hall was bathed in purple light for Prince.  It has been a bad year for rock stars.  I have been writing a Wonder Woman story that’s an homage to David Bowie. (look for it in a few months)  What will I do for Prince?

About Wonder Woman: I have been deliriously happy to be writing the occasional Wonder Woman story these past few months, and I have a ten page story in Wonder Woman ’77 #3, which came out in April.  Wonder Woman ’77 is great fun, because the stories take place in 1977, and Wonder Woman is played by Lynda Carter, who as far as I and many other people are concerned, was Wonder Woman on TV in the ‘70s.  And does this mean that Lynda Carter reads Wonder Woman ’77, because of course she’s the star?  If so, be still my heart!  She is reading my comic!

Moving back in time: last February I was a guest at the San Diego Comics Fest, which has nothing to do with the San Diego comics con, the biggest pop culture convention in America.  It’s a small, friendly convention that attempts to bring back some of the warm feelings that the San Diego comic con had back when it was a small con, and everyone knew each other.  It’s always nice to meet face-to-face with people you usually only know electronically, and one of those people is Mary Fleener, cartoonist and musician par excellence.  Mary is the best cubist artist I know except for a bunch of dead French guys.  And here we both are with another friend who I only get to see at convention, Michael Dooley, writer, academic, and cute guy.  And yes, that’s Frida Kahlo on my shirt.  I bought the shirt in Mexico (shoulda bought 3!) and she has become my default convention shirt.

Where will Fear of Blogging be in May?  How about Minnesota, at the MSP con (Minneapolis St. Paul), put on by the MCBA (That’s the Midwest Comic Book Association).  I love these cons, and have been lucky enough to attend 2 of them, and this will be my third.  The con is held in the Minneapolis State Fairgrounds, closed for the winter, and it’s a combination of a ghost town and Oz.  And speaking of Oz, the only thing I’m not quite crazy about at the SP con is the tornadoes, although they definitely add some excitement to the mix, in case it’s not exciting enough.  Come see me, say hello!

So here I am with my good friend Hillary.  This is in no way a political endorsement because the truth is that whoever gets the nomination, Bernie or Hillary, I will volunteer and work hard for them, and we will either have our first woman president or our first Jewish Atheist president, both of which are fine with me.  But the Bernie people, who were out there at my neighborhood farmer’s market, along with the Hillary people, didn’t have any cardboard Bernies for me to photograph myself with.

I will leave you with these words, by Amelia E. Barr, written in 1913.  You can find out more about her here: http://americanbookcovers.blogspot.com/2016/03/happy-birthday-amelia.html?m=1

All my life long I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women.  Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has been not one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a women, but a woman doing a man’s work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done to me.  I cannot forget, for injustice is a sixth sense, and rouses all the others.  If it was not for the constant inflowing of God into human affairs, the condition of women would today have been almost as insufferable as was the condition of the Negro in 1860.  However, the movement for the enfranchisement of women will go forward, and not backward, and I have not one fear as to the consequences it will bring about.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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