stonesoup

The Great Volunteerism Conspiracy

I received an odd message from a reader who calls himself Normal Norm. He objects to the storyline I'm doing about Gramma heading off to work for Habitat for Humanity Int'l. in Thailand.

From Norm:

"Since you became political and Obama's mouthpiece on "volunteering" you are no longer entertaining. Perhaps you yourself should go build a house somewhere international for Habitat and leave you (sic) characters alone."

(Well, Norm, I am, in two weeks. But enough about me...)

Add to that a message received from Greg Evans (Luann) regarding a unified effort on the part of cartoonists this month to depict volunteerism, and I'm beginning to wonder about the quality of the character of some of my fellow Americans. 

From Greg regarding our week of volunteerism cartoons in mid-October:

 I want to apologize to any of you who got the kind of irate email I got last week. It never occurred to me that this effort would be viewed with a political skew and that it would be perceived as "kowtowing to Big Government." I just thought we were doing a good thing, not being "commies." So sorry.

Being part of a generation often criticized for being selfish, I'm mystified to now be called a political mouthpiece and a commie. But hey, it's a free country...

 

Helping Kids and Women in Algiers

One of the great things about the trip to the cartoon exhibition in Algiers was having the Cultural Affairs office at the US Embassy set up opportunities for us to visit an orphanage, a troubled child center, and a women's shelter.

My day of food poisoning left me out of the visit to the child center, but I did have a great trip to the orphanage and women's shelter. I don't have pics of the orphanage yet, but it was called SOS-KINDERDORF INTERNATIONAL. They have orphanages in 46 countries and a really great model... the orphanage permanently adopts the kids so that they are not in limbo. They live in sweet little houses, about 8 kids and their "mom", in a green walled compound with a school. They can live there until age 27 and will forever consider their "mom" and the other staffers and kids as their family.

Allan Cavanagh, a caricaturist from Ireland, visited SOS KINDERDORF with me and we drew with the kids. When we drew scenes that called for houses, they drew tents, a common abode in rural Algeria.

Next, I visited an amazing women's shelter, called SOS FEMMES EN DESTRESSE. They offer shelter, psychological help, and training to women in dire straits... from battered women to poor women to women who have made their way as refugees from Sudan and Somalia. These women may end up as prostitutes, so SOS seeks to intervene.

To make their services known they use posters. Recently, they met a young woman trying to escape a forced marriage. She also happened to be a budding cartoonist. They used her to create a poster that informs both men and women of the newly updated Family Laws, designed to offer more protection for women.

 

I really enjoyed meeting the staff of this great organization. Thanks to Wassila (center) from the US Embassy for arranging it. 

Below, the staff of SOS Femme en Detresse who made time in their day to see me. From left to right:

Ms. Benyala Meriem, President of the Association; Ms. Wared Sabrina, Secretary General; Wassila Silarbi from the American Consulate; Moi; Ms. Oudil Rabaiaa, Director.

For some women, computer training is available. As both Algeria and Morocco have low literacy rates, they also offer traditional handcraft training (weaving, basketry) for women as well.

Their computer instructor... Farid Belkedid —

 

All my best wishes to the many great organizations devoted to improving the lives of women and children everywhere.

Cartoonist Party in Algiers

Wherever cartoonists go, they find a way to party and grab a mike. Note the guy who comes in to try and quiet us down. Ha. By the way, all that music is coming from the guy in the right corner with a keyboard.

These cartoonists are mostly from the continent of Africa... Congo, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Madagascar, Kenya... as well as the Middle East, Turkey, France, Belgium, Ireland, Canada and 2 of us from the U.S.

Media in North Africa

We (Daryl Cagle was the other American cartoonist who went to the Exhibiton in Algiers) were lucky enough to get some press while there. We weren't sure if they'd be interested in two Americans, but we had a great press conference with a capable translator. The most difficult thing to translate is a discussion about censorship, a BIG topic there, but between our bits of French, our translator, and the reporters knowing some English, I think we did well.

At the main press conference I found myself without a way to give electronic images to the media... but had a load of stickers in my pocket. (Made for me a few years ago by a Stone Soup fan and all-around great guy Rick Cricow.) I took these along to give to kids and art students... but it worked amazingly well for the journalists, too... El Watan scanned the stickers!

And from the Arabic Daily El Khabar (no I can't read it either, but it's just too cool)

And then from L'Opinon in Morocco ...

 

Note that I am in the above article "Jean Eliot". Apparently "Jan" does not translate well, and have accepted often being called "Jane" or  "Jean". 

C'est la vie.

Oh, by the way, I only speak a minimal smattering of French. And when tired, well... one night in the Hotel D'Aljazair I ordered room service. When the kitchen guy said "Oui, Madam, tout de suite" I gave him my room number. (He was saying yes, madam, immediately).

Well, I got a laugh.

Home from North Africa

Well, looking over my previous posts from ALgiers I now see the danger of 

1) blogging late at night after drinking with cartoonists

2) said blogging from an iPhone

So, sorry for the late night spelling impaired blathering.

Now that I'm home with a real keyboard, I find myself without words. It was incredible, absolutely incredible, to meet cartoonists from all over the world, largely from the African continent.

To set the scene a bit, here's a few of pictures of Algiers:

 

Lower Casbah...

 

Casbah marketplace

I went to Algiers to attend the 2eme Festival International de la Bande Dessinee... and international cartoon festival that drew from all over the African continent, the Middle East, Europe, Canada, New Zealand... but mostly from countries in Africa.

(for more on this festival, go to www.bdalger.net)

As part of the exhibition, I served on a panel of women cartoonists, each of us talking through translators about our careers. Some of the women speak 3 or 4 languages... so they helped out the linguistically deficient American.

 

From left, Gihen Ben Mahmoud from Tunisia (writes romance/adventure comics and speaks French, Italian, Arabic and English); Marwa Kamel from Egypt (TV Animation / programs and magazines for kids); Jussi Lamathd, comics, and the first and only woman cartoonist of Congo Brazzaville; me, Titane Laurent from New Zealand (comic strips); Gea Ferraris from Italy (comics) and Lena I. Merhej, animator, illustrator and designer, and winner in the juried competition.

It was a real honor to meet these and other women cartoonists at the exhibition. It was an honor to meet all the other cartoonists as well... all with their own version of cartooning, most of it politcally driven. Comic strips for amusement and social comment, like Stone Soup, are not very common there.

Cartooning is serious business in places where civil war reigns, leaders are despots, rights are trampled, censorship is everyday and jail is not at all out of the question. Many of these cartoonists do not live in their home countries because there are warrants out for their arrest... or because they simply can't function there. This was true for several of the cartoonists I met. Gihen from Tunisia lives in Rome. Tayo lives in Britain. Many take flight to Paris, or Italy, or Spain.

Communication was not always so easy, since French was the local language (along with Arabic). We English speakers were in a big minority. 

But... there's always drawing on a cocktail napkin (universal cartoonist's language). When I asked Masin from Yemin what people dress like in his hometown, here's what he drew:

The women's outfits vary and I think the percentages were to note how common each is... but a couple of beers and 24 hours of plane travel later I don't remember. Note that despite the seemingly retro outfits, Mazin has a hotmail address. 

We cartoonists were treated to a little touring... here are some pictures from a trip to Tipasa, a Roman ruin on the Mediterranean Sea. I'll just float some images here so you can see a variety of people and scenery. Everyone you see is a cartoonist.

Tayo Fatunla (Nigeria / residing in Great Britain)

Eventually, there's a trip to a fishing wharf and lunch...

Where cartoonists of course draw on the paper table cloth...

Gihen of Tunisia and Simon Dupuis, a French Canadian illustrator.

 

Ersin Karabulut of Istanbul...

 

Days end, a late night party that ends up with a cartoonist (from Congo) grabbing the mike. Of course.

 

No meeting of cartoonists is complete without a great bar to meet in (and bar napkins to draw on). For those of us staying at the hotel El D'jazair (frequented by Edith Piaf, Hemmingway, Camus, de Beauvoir and more once upon a time) this great bar was waiting.

Finally, on Algiers... a photo of our guide parking. He was convinced that we should not change money at the hotel, that we could get a better rate "in the street".

You think that's a "Currency Exchange" window of some kind? Guess again. Observe guy out window with wad of cash.

We passed.

Tomorrow or so... the trip to Morocco.

More fun in Algiers

Today we were treated to the discovery that 5 Algerian newspapers have done articles about the two American Cartoonists here in Algier, Jan Eliot and Daryl Cagle. Both French and Arabic newspapers, with good-sized articles about our visit here, our work, our impressions of Algeria, and of course, questions about censorship in the US. It is difficult to explain the difference between the "censorship of the market" and government cencorship. In the US, the greatest consequence of doing a cartoon that is objectionable, either politically or in bad taste, would be that you wouldn't sell it to publications that object to what you are doing.

You might be able to read it at this website...www.elwatan.com.

Now, I am off to visit a women's resource center. More late!

Hello from Algiers

As you know if you've read previous posts, I'm at a cartoon exhibition in Algiers. "2eme Festival Bande Dessinee" in French, which is what's spoken here. I'm posting from an iPhone so I am not going to list all the attending cartoonists names... But meeting cartoonists from all over the African continent is amazing. And from Europe, Canada, the Middle East as well.

You can't get more different from Kansas than Algeria. The air smells like jasmine and oranges at night... I hear the call to prayer from the minorets five times a day...my cartoonist friend from Yemen has offered to wake me up at 4am for the first call.

Today we were treated to a tour of an old Roman city called Tipaza. It is on the edge of the meditteranean... Imagine 30 or so cartoonists being expected to listen to the tour guide when all they wanted to do was take pictures of each other against the backdrop of the ruins and the sea.

In the middle of all this I had a break and checked my email. Anne from New Jersey was on her commute to NY, reading the comics. She read that my character Gramma has been invited to join a Habitat for Humanity Intl Build in Thailand. The real me is going next month as well. Anne wrote to say that she will be on the same build in Thailand, and that she Is looking forward to meeting me there.

So... I am in Algiers reading an email from a fan in NJ who is going to be in Thailand on a Habitat build when I'm there next month...

The world is a wondrous place.

Meanwhile, the exhibition here in Algiers is wonderful, our hosts are wonderful, the cartoonists are incredible... And it's only just begun!

After that long ramble... Goodnight!

Looking For Calvin And Hobbes

There's a great new book out by Nevin Martell, titled "Looking For Calvin And Hobbes".

Nevin interviewed many cartoonists and industry people for his book, including me. I was honored to talk about someone I so thoroughly admire...Bill Watterson is an idol for many cartoonists, someone we have all been inspired by and learned from. Few have met him, however, since he is extremely private. This may be the next best thing. I think it should be a great read for all.

Adventures

Well, I leave for Algiers and Morocco on Saturday, I still have twelve comic strips left to finish, I haven't packed...

...but ready or not I'm heading to North Africa, to meet cartoonists from all over the world in Algiers at the 2009 Festival International de la Bande Dessinee d’Alger... to meet the other women cartoonists from places like the Congo... to talk about my career and hear about theirs... what an incredible opportunity.

Two weeks after returning, I fly in the opposite direction to Thailand. I am going to have to learn to be creative on an airplane. 

With luck I'll be able to add some posts while I'm away. Meanwhile, I've had to work double-time to meet my deadlines. One approach I decided to take, to capitalize on what's going on in my life, is to send Gramma on a trip to Thailand. Like me, Gramma will be volunteering at the Carter Work Project in Chiang Mai in November, on a Habitat for Humanity Women Build. 

I'm hoping that all my travels will inspire some great strips.

Stay Tuned!