State of DisUnion

Here, have a political cartoon sketch.

Well hello there. It has been a while. I hope everyone is hanging in their

I bring a quick little sketch of New York and Georgia here

While this could apply to a lot of things, yeahbit is Coronavirus.

I try not to do too many political /current event cartoons for SoD, but as a resident of a State opening up despite rising cases, this was on my mind, and I needed to art vent.

Stay safe, Stay inside

I hope everyone is hanging in there. A little bit of humor to try and cheer us up, but not to minimize this.

While, we are doing ok here, a family member lost someone in her extended friend network from this.

39 called in sick, too young to be treated. Found dead at home a few days later. This is no joke.

Avatars: West Virginia (also Inktober #3) A WILD WEBCOMIC HAS APPEARED!!

Did you know that there have been new Moth-man sightings as of 2017? Not in West Virginia this time, but in Illinois. But I wanted to drew Westy here, as she is  . .  easier to draw than Illinois (I have two kids now, sorry for the lazy!)

Anyway, if anyone does not know, Moth-man is a Cryptid who was sighted around point Pleasant Wet Virginia around 1967, up until the Silver Bridge collapsed, killing 46 people. One of the legends surrounding the mysterious Moth-man appearances was that he was foretelling the disaster of the bridges collapse . .  by scaring the beejeesus outta people I guess . . . 

The cause of the collapse was found to be a single defect in an eyebeam, (a defect that could not have been detected with the inspection equipment at that time); however,  the collapse did draw needed attention onto the disrepair of a lot of other bridges. 

Except not for long American infrastructure is aging . . badly. We are in dire need or repairs.  The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the US needs to spend some $4.5 trillion by 2025 to fix the country's roads, bridges, dams, and other infrastructure. The ASCE rated our bridges a C+, our Dams, Levees, Drinking Water, hazardous Waste storage, Ports, Roads, AND SCHOOLS all  “D” 

I realize it has been a bit since my last post, the last month of pregnancy what's particularly hard, and now I found out it was because my little guy wanted to come two weeks early!

Back From 10 year marital anniversary+ sick as all get go haitus.  Opted to Feature a State rather than a sketch comic: I have so far hugely underused: Indiana! (And don’t forget, you can always ask questions about here, or other states, here or at the ask blog:)

Indiana is another somewhat reclusive and introverted Midwestern State.

Other States (colonies at the time) became aware of her after the Britain’s win during the Seven Years War. She was very young and so the British Colonies assumed she appeared around that time, ignoring the fact that  Mississippi had mentioned her a few times when trading, and Louisiana had met her once or twice prior to the area being Ceded to the UK. However, no one paid her much attention until they went out to check on the avatars the might exist post their wining the Revolutionary war. Indiana was names the first of the new Territories and she was admitted as the 19th state in 1816.

Avatars Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida

History: So yes, the first Mardi Gras celebrated in North America was in Mobile Alabama, the recorded date being 16989. So Mobile can boast the longest Mardi Gras tradition here. 

However, New Orleans is (as probably most know) the city that is now known for Mardi Gras, and usually makes top 10 destinations, where as I have never seen Mobile hit any lists . .  thought maybe it is just not as internationally well known. 

Florida had to get the last word in. While I have never seen a Florida celebration make any top 10 lists, New Orleans usually ranks for lower than any Caribbean festivals, most South American ones,  and sometimes lower than England’s- which was apparently brought over by immigrants from Trinidad and Tobago in the 60′s so I am counting that is Caribbean (though I did very little research the English Carnival celebration, I just noticed in passing . . .so please correct me if wrong!)

Avatars involved: Alabama and the Hate Bugs

History: In 1956 then Attorney General John Patterson  used a technicality to ban the NAACP from Alabama. In response, Minister Fred Shuttlesworth helped to form the Alabama Christian Movement for Civil Rights the name was very carefully chosen. For example, Alabama was included because part of the Technicality that got the NAACP banned was they were from out of state).

This group would work closely with the  Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King and together are responsible for just about every Civil Rights protest you hear about in Alabama in school. They were *hugely* influential and important to the Civil Rights movement, and ironically, would never have existed had Patterson not banned the  NAACP. 

When Alabama says “despite the Violence” here is some of the violence. Shuttlesworth’s home was bombed with him in it, and later when he and his wife tried to take their daughter to an integrated school they were attacked and beaten by the KKK. And that is only the tip of the ice burg.

Shuttlesworth continued to fight for Civil Rights his whole life, despite the violence, and arrests. In 2001, he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal from Bill Clinton, and in 2008 the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport was named in his honor. He died in Birmingham Alabama in 2011.

Patterson had a short political career. After serving as Attorney General, he became Governor of Alabama (with backing by the KKK) from 1958-1963. Not even kidding, his term was considered “progressive” at the time. After that he taught American Government at Troy State university.  As an interesting note, In 2008 he endorsed and supported Barack Obama for President, explaining his pro-segregation stance had been politically necessary in the 50′s . . . .

The second Photo is not actually from Alabama, but rather the 1948 Detroit protest over the killing of black teenager Leon Mosley by the police. he was handcuffed and beaten with clubs and flashlights. I man who tried to stop this was arrested for “resisting a police officer.” Mosley was shot as he staggered away. The evidence was two damning, and there was a trial for manslaughter, but the officer was found not guilty. 

Avatars Involved: Missouri and Oregon

History This gives a brief run down of some of Oregon’s Exclusion laws- laws specifically designed to discourage or outright prevent black settlers from moving into the Oregon territory, and later the Oregon state. The white settlers enthusiastically supported them on their State constitution, even as they were also enthusiastic in being a free state. So further proof that anti-slavery did not always mean pro-black. 

That said, the law was rarely enforced and in fact, three of the four times it was, the white settlers protected the black settlers and kept them from being forced out. 

However, it did have the desired effect of discouraging black settlement in the area as most moving west avoided the territory/state 

And yes, as Oregon states at the end, a lot of this was at the hands of those formerly from Missouri, who had disliked competing with African Americans, both free and Slaves, and who wanted to not have the competition in their new place. 

Featured Avatar: Michigan

History: No History here. Just Minn/Mich cuteness Way back in 2016, I used to do little sketch comics in between the more detailed history-centric ones and I want to go back to that. I still plan to work on the Black and white character pieces, but these little sketch comics were always a good way to get character development going, and since I had an anon ask if Minnesota and Michigan were in a relationship, yes they are, and now it is canon. 

Avatars Featured: Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York

History: While humans have been using glittery stuff as decoration for . .  well basically forever, the modern stuff we know as glitter was invented in New Jersey by American machinist, Henry Ruschmann. During WWII, the Germany produced glass glitter became unavailable, and Mr. Ruschmann accidentally stumbled over a way to to create glitter from scrap plastics right when there was market demand. He founded Meadowbrook Inventions in New Jersey, which still makes industrial glitter to this day.

The other huge Glitter production plant is the Glitterex Corporation, also in New Jersey.

Rhode Island is consistently voted as one of the top 10 states with the most positive LGBT representation. I am not sure where New Jersey falls on the list. He isn’t in the top 10, but he isn’t in the bottom 10 either. 

Currently New Jersey’s nickname is “The Garden State” which often gets mocked because there are seriously heavy industrialized parts of the state, but it does have parts that live up to the name. However, honestly, “The Glitter State” IMHO sounds awesome. 

Originally Rhode Island’s line was”youth” Culture, but I very strongly associate glitter with the LGBT culture (in a positive way) and I wanted to highlight his very strong LGBT population, so I changed the line. 

Featured Avatar, North Dakota

North Dakota has a bio written for him  North Dakota’s Bio To sum up, he is - as you can see- one of the younger states. he has a rivalry with South Dakota but she is also his good friend and he sees Minnesota as a Mother figures. Other than that, he doesn’t get out much, preferring to stay in and play with toy planes and play war games either on a board or on a computer (north Dakota is the least visited state!)

He is immature and overly eager to solve problems with weapon, often suggestion missile strikes or nuclear weapon deployment over the smallest insults from other countries . . . or even other states. He was devastate when the treaty with Russia forced the remove of all (or most) of his Nuclear Missiles.  He is quite resilient in the cold, and often mocks other states for not being able to deal with it. 

And finally, he takes his snowball fights far too seriously. 

North Dakota he has made several appearances in the comics so far:

A Quiet Moment

National Threat part 1 of 2

National Threat Part 2 of 2

Taking Charge

Avatars involved: Uncle, Texas, Oklahoma, Massachusetts

History: So for those not up on Football history, Oklahoma’s comment is a reference to “Deflategate”. Tom Brady, the Patriots Quarterback, was accused of ordering the deliberate deflating of footballs used  in the 2014–15 NFL playoffs. He ended up being suspended for four games, the team was  fined$1 million and losing two draft picks.

This was done because in honor of my sister who is living in New Orleans. Plus it is always fun to go into how crazy certain states are about football. 

BTW, if you did not know, the City of new Orleans is boycotting the super bowl and holding second line marches (the jazzy funeral lines you see on TV in like any show that has an episode in New Orleans or every other episode of NCIS New Orleans) instead. 

Yes!!!

Not a very well developed one yet, I am afraid, as it was not planned. It came about because of a sketch I did of them in related Halloween costumes (which got destroyed before I could post it I think).

Avatars Involved: California, Nevada, Kentucky, DC, and Texas

History: This comic briefly mentions the Chinese Exclusions Act, the Japanese Internment Camps, and the Communist Witch hunts (notably as they affected Hollywood.

I mentioned in California’s original bio that he dyed his hair blonde because of repeated mistreatment due to not looking “American enough” for the other states, but I wanted to canonize that in an actual strip, so here that strip is. 

It’s not really funny, and it isn’t meant to be. I have finally excepted that not every strip needs to be, or even can be, funny, because some aspects of American History just aren’t .

Side note: I continue to love to write for Nevada