Capes-n-Babes

Last night I wrote a State of the Strip post where I tried to explain where I have been and where this strip might be going. In it, I tried to convey to anyone that might have read it that Capes & Babes was never going to be only about the funny and explained there’s a specific reason why there’s a werewolf dating a vampire in this strip. But it’s one thing to make social commentary using werewolves and vampires. It’s something completely different doing the same in the political realm.

That being said, I very often tend to avoid drawing political cartoons simply because I can never sustain my rage or frustration over a particular issue. I also feel genuinely bad when someone tells me I’m not being fair about a particular issue. Believe it or not, that’s actually something I try to do with this strip. Only part of it is to make the funny, so to speak. Some of it is to raise questions I’ve always had or questions that have come about because of some sort of event. In fact, that was the very reason Red was created and why I reached out and got in discussions with various female friends when the whole #yesallmen thing erupted. I didn’t fully 100% agree with that view but I wanted to do a few strips about how difficult – for me – that particular issue was. How do I look at it from both sides? How do I give everyone an equal view? And how do I show the good, bad and sometimes unyielding views on both sides and still somehow try to be fair?

In the end, that’s how and why Red and The Hippy Mummy were created. I don’t know if I was successful or not. I just tried to create strips that made me question myself or tried to throw a different perspective on the discussion while still trying to be respectful in some creative way.

I also don’t always know where I am going with the strip either. It is VERY rare that I plot the strip out more then a week at a time. I certainly am not one of those super organized cartoonists that already knows what’s going to happen to the strip three months down the line. I’m just not wired that way. So if you’ve been thinking that the strip will now always be political or you have to stop reading until after the election, you’d be wrong because I don’t even know what it will be 15 strips from now.

All I can say is if you have a different view of whatever “side” is presented in this strip, please, by all means, add a comment in the comment section and let’s discuss it. And let’s see if we can at least try to see each other’s side.

Case in point… I was told today that Friday’s strip was completely unfair because I painted an ENTIRE political party in a bad light and why that was. I needed to know the why part to fully understand but once I did, I got it. And the comment (and criticism) was fair. It was not my intention of painting ALL the candidates with the same brush – just three of them. The ones who made buffoons (my new favorite word) of themselves on National TV.

John Kasich was the only dude that night that looked presidential and even though I may disagree with him on a lot of things, I’m not above or beyond saying thus far, in this Republican presidential race, of the four of them, he’s the only one I personally believe looks and behaves presidential.

But… I would not have been able to say those words had it not come to my attention. And it didn’t come to my attention via yelling, screaming or insulting each other. It came by a respectful discussion(I thought) with each other.

Yes, it can be done folks.