AMERICA GONE WILD: CARTOONS BY TED RALL

Not only is my new Central Asian travelogue/graphic novel/current affairs analysis SILK ROAD TO RUIN coming out this summer, there’s another treat for fans of my cartoons.

AMERICA GONE WILD will come out this fall. It’s a 160-page cartoon collection similar in format to SEARCH AND DESTROY, collecting my work from 2001 until now and featuring an introduction by hard-hitting UK Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell. A special bonus is my extremely lengthy behind-the-scenes discussion of the media shitstorms surrounding my most controversial cartoons, including “Terror Widows”, “FDNY 2011” and those about Pat Tillman. Here for the ages is the hate mail and death threats I received, my personal interactions with personalities like Bill O’Reilly, etc.–all the dish you’ve always wondered about. Do I go too far? Find out in AMERICA GONE WILD.

Book Tour Shout-Out

If you live in one of the following cities and are connected to a bookstore, media organization, politically active organization or college that invites speakers, please e-mail me at chet@rall.com. I am planning my summer and fall book tour and am trying to determine whether appearances to these places are viable:

Washington
Boston
Seattle
Portland OR
San Francisco
Chicago
Los Angeles
Philadelphia
Boise
Las Vegas
Denver

If you live somewhere else, don’t despair! I’ll go anywhere provided there’s a sponsor willing and able to cough up travel expenses and an honorarium. (Total cost, for those who wonder about these things, usually runs about $5000.)

Coulter Update

Short answer: There is none. My lawyer’s still working the research. More later.

Memorial Day No Show

There will be no Ted Rall Radio Show this weekend because of the Memorial Day holiday.

SILK ROAD TO RUIN: IS CENTRAL ASIA THE NEW MIDDLE EAST?

Years in the making, my upcoming book “Silk Road to Ruin” is finally done. A follow-up of sorts to TO AFGHANISTAN AND BACK, SILK ROAD TO RUIN is part travelogue, part current affairs, a comprehensive look at the “Stans” and why Central Asia will be to the 21st century what the Middle East was to the Middle East: the lynchpin and perrenial hotspot that will keep American and other Western foreign policy makers jumping. I’ll post more about this book in the weeks to come. Total page count is 304, of which 200 pages are prose chapters of analysis and essays about what makes Central Asia so important and fascinating and 100 pages are in graphic novel format. Included is an introduction by Ahmed Rashid.

You may advance order SILK ROAD TO RUIN from Amazon; early orderers should receive their books in July 2006.

Why It’s Best to Turn Off Your IMs

I hate instant messaging. If you want to contact me, send an email. I was doubly reminded of why and how much I hate IMs when a computer crash reset my privacy settings so that anyone who wanted to send me an IM could. Apparently there are right-wingers who are so sad and pathetic and creepy-stalky that they added me to their buddy lists with the express purpose of sending me nasty tidings if and when they were to see me online. Generally I pride myself in being available to anyone, including critics, who wants to engage me in conversation. But I can’t be completely open. For example, I don’t have a comments section on my blog, as much as I’d want to, because I’ve learned the hard way that it only takes a couple of right-wing turds to ruin such forums for everybody. Here, for your edification, is a classic example of why it doesn’t pay to make yourself available in real time:

GBPckr8: WHAT THE JAHOOSAFUDGE
GBPckr8: YOUR THAT GUY WITH THE TALKIE SHOW THINGY
GBPckr8: YOU AFFENDED ME PEOPLE
GBPckr8: AND YOUR CARTOONS SUCK
GBPckr8: BIG FLOPPY DONKEY DICK TED
GBPckr8: i knew u were too antichrist to talk

As you were.

Please Stand By

Sorry about the lengthy absence. I’m finishing my book Silk Road to Ruin and still awaiting word from legal research about Ann Coulter. More next week, probably.

ATTITUDE 3 Signing in NYC Thursday

A group signing for ATTITUDE 3: THE NEW SUBVERSIVE ONLINE CARTOONISTS will take place Thursday night (April 27th) in New York City. I’ll be on hand, along with leading webcomics luminaries Dorothy Gambrell (CAT AND GIRL), Richard Stevens (DIESEL SWEETIES), Ryan North (DAILY DINOSAUR COMICS), Eric Millikin (FETUS-X), Nicholas Gurewitch (PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP), Rob Balder (PARTIALLY CLIPS), and Dale Beran and David Hellman (A LESSON IS LEARNED BUT THE DAMAGE IS IRREVERSIBLE). There will be a panel discussion about webcomics.

Don’t miss this thrilling gathering of some of the most talented cartoonists in the United States!

Kim’s Mediapolis
Broadway at 113th Street
New York City
1 or 9 subway to 110 Street
M4 or M104 bus to 113 Street
Admission FREE

Seven Days in April

Another retired general says Donald Rumsfeld should resign. Another general ought to shut up.

My position on Rumsfeld is clear. He should be clapped in irons and put on trial for war crimes for his role as one of history’s greatest genocidal maniacs, a man who pushed for the mass murder of more than 150,000 innocent Iraqis and Afghans and who recklessly squandered the lives and limbs of tens of thousands of American and Allied soldiers. He is a monster, pure and simple. He is stupid, arrogant and vicious.

Military men, however, should continue to respect the traditional separation the armed forces have from civilian politics. As we saw most recently with the intimidating letter sent by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Washington Post about (ironically, a pro-military) cartoon by Tom Toles, generals no longer seem content to stay out of politics.

This is a dangerous trend.

More and more, our civilian society is being militarized, with troops being dispatched to keep order in disaster zones where humanitarian workers used to go to provide help. Former generals who voice their opinion about whether their top civilian leader, the Defense Secretary, ought to keep his job, continue this terrifying trend–one that is accelerating in view of the growing vacuum of leadership in Congress and the judiciary.

We still have civilian rule in this country–thank God. Rumsfeld (and Bush) should go. But the military should have no say about either.

It’s out! The first copy of my webcomics anthology arrived at NBM Publishing yesterday and it’s a beauty. Fans of the first two ATTITUDE anthologies will be amazed that I found 21 more cartoonists of the same high caliber and talent. And if you’re into or interested in finding out about webcomics, this is the ONLY primer out there. If you order from Amazon now you should have your own copy hot off the press within a week or two. Be the first on your block to own this incredible collection of cartoons by, interviews with and ephemera about some of the most ass-kicking Internet-based cartoonists.

P.S. There’s a group signing and panel discussion of ATTITUDE 3 cartoonists in New York City at 7 pm on April 27: Kim’s Mediapolis, Broadway and 113th Street.