Animation: Newt is Godzilla (Plus a Bonus)

In this week's animation on Mother Jones, Newt lumbers onto the campaign trail and promptly makes a mess of things.

Written, animated and acted by me.

Link to cartoon on Mother Jones

Ed Helms for the Wall St Journal

A fast one for today's Wall Street Journal, of my favorite character on The Office, who's flogging his new Hangover movie. I gave them two sketches, one of him looking sorta smart and thoughtful and another of him looking like a doof; I'm really glad they chose the doof.

Here's a link to the Wall St Journal article

Judgment Day for the NY Observer

Here's a piece I did for the current issue of the NY Observer, for an article about the nuts who think that this Saturday will bring the End of The World. They are followers of another nut out in California named Harold Camping, who, according to the article, "had predicted the same thing would happen on Sept. 6, 1994, but the complete annihilation of the species disappointingly failed to arrive as scheduled."

I hadn't read the article when I did the illo yesterday but they'd sent me a couple of snapshots of the little group of apocalypsers, which included a determined-looking Asian woman, a wild-eyed guy bearing a spooky resemblance to Charles Manson, a bedraggedly hopeful soul with leaflets...and so I made a character up loosely based on those.

All went smoothly except for a last minute revision on the final art: I'd misspelled "Judgment", having added in an extraneous "e". I considered claiming that I'd done it on purpose to make fun of the proselytizers, but decided to go the righteous route, confess my sin, and seek redemption, which was easy since I work digitally and made the change and re-sent the file within minutes. Now all that's necessary is to wait to see what happens on Saturday.

Link to article

Animation: Big Oil Pumps It Up

Link to cartoon

At the Senate hearing last week, top oil executives, who saw their biggest profits ever, fought tooth and nail to protect their $4.4 billion tax in tax breaks. On Sunday, Mitch McConnell promised not to budge on the tax breaks he's worked so hard to secure for his buddies at the richest companies in the world. Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wrote a piece about it, The Big Oil Money Gusher, here, and there's more here, about Max Baucus plan, and a New York TImes editorial, here.

My husband, Barry Schiffman, does Bad Guy Voice Over Duty. Sound effects from FreeSound.org

Animation: Justice Scalia, Grand Inquisitor

Link to cartoon

This week's cartoon is a look at the conservative push on the US Supreme Court to do away with class action suits. Here's the scoop:

In all likelihood the paperwork you signed when you got a new credit card or signed up for a new cell phone or were hired for a new job had hidden in the fine print a clause that you agreed to settle any disputes through binding mandatory arbitration, a for-profit, backroom process, and barring you from joining a class-action lawsuit.

This sneak attack by big business to undermine the ability of Americans to join together to seek justice in court (and hold corporations accountable for shady business practices) was just given a big boost by their biggest booster on the US Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia, when the conservative majority ruled against class actions in AT&T vs Concepcion.

Yeah, AT&T, the company that was only second to Exxon last year in corporate profits; they gotta protect their $30 rip-offs of the little guy -- after all, it all adds up when you spread it over millions of customers.

Written, animated and acted by me.

Animation: Agribusiness on the Assault

In this week's animation on Mother Jones, a look at our sordid meat production industry where agribusiness has been pushing laws in a number of states that would criminalize shooting or displaying undercover videos that show animal abuse on farms. One such law has already passed the House in Iowa, and would carry a penalty of up to 5 years in jail.

Here's the link to the cartoon on Mother Jones
Written, animated and acted by me. Sound effects from www.freesound.org