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Strollerderby
Weinstein's work ranges from touching to hilarious.
It’s trite and a huge understatement to say that your life changes when you have a child, and yet how else can one succinctly explain what it feels like, for example, to have your writing interrupted by, let’s say, a 6-year-old staying home from school because last night she had a fever of 102.2 (but now she’s wearing her new favorite lip gloss at a tea party with her dolls and stuffed animals and asking to have a playdate this afternoon) looking up at you with a mouth full of bagel, mumbling, “Mommy, by accident my bagel got crusty again.” So you microwave the bagel she’s been nursing since morning for 10 seconds so it will be soft again, and you sit down at your laptop hoping to be able to finish recounting the incident before another interruption comes your way?
Yeah. Motherhood changes your life. But does it change you, fundamentally? Motherhood has cajoled me into making choices I wouldn’t otherwise be forced to make, and the result of those choices have been beneficial for both my daughter and I. But there are paradoxical feelings that come with the accommodation of a child. In some ways I feel like a smarter, faster, wiser, better version of my old self, yet I also feel sluggish, run-down and slow. For example: My brain is mush, but I know how to prioritize now in a way that I didn’t before. Or, I still want to party, but my body won’t let me stay awake past 1 am. That sort of thing.
It’s difficult to convey these ideas in a concise format, but somehow Lauren Weinstein has done so in her somewhat dark and often hilarious cartoons. Weinstein’s books include Girl Stories, The Goddess of War and Inside Vineyland. Her work has been published in An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, The Best American Comics of 2007 and 2010, and Glamour. She used to live in Brooklyn and “is still recovering from having a baby and moving to the suburbs of New Jersey (it’s been two years).” To keep herself amused during her child’s naps, she draws comics about motherhood and has agreed to share some of them here. Her style is raw, her commentary is real, and her work is full of heart: Continue reading »
A still from the opening of "Miss Devine"
Our regular readers know I love it when The Rauch Brothers team up with StoryCorps. If you’ve enjoyed the shorts Danny and Annie and No More Questions, you’ll appreciate the newest RB/SC animation, Miss Devine. In it, cousins James Ransom and Cherie Johnson recall their formidable Sunday school teacher, Miss Lizzie Devine, the only woman who scared them more than their grandmother. Set in the small Florida town of the cousins’ memories, this animation will have you laughing out loud and reminiscing about the ominous authoritarian figures from your own childhood. Times were different then, weren’t they? Our kids will never understand how we had to walk to school uphill both ways… Continue reading »
Do you like the updated versions of cartoons from our childhood or do you wish they were like they used to be?
Just the other day I was browsing our cable’s On Demand kid show selection and came across My Little Pony. I was so excited to watch it with my almost-3-year old and to my horror found that it was NOT the cutesy My Little Pony of the 80′s that I remember watching… it was a new computer animated freaky looking My Little Pony much like a lot of the “re-made” cartoons from our childhood. Continue reading »
All those hours your kids spend watching Spongebob Squarepants might not be a waste after all.
An 8-year-old New Jersey boy saved his 5-year-old friend from drowning when the younger boy accidentally slipped into deeper water.
The kerfuffle over child stars as they begin to grow up always floors me – and I’m not just talking about Miley and her penchant for stripper poles.
We have adult actors and actresses in kids movies all the time – and we’re fine turning around the next day to watch them hack up a body in a horror film or play a prostitute on SVU. College Humor has taken that point and magnified it to hilarious effect, making Aladdin, Buzz and other beloved cartoon characters talk like the comics who voice them. Continue reading »
So apparently there’s a big controversy over Thomas the Tank, the seemingly innocuous train engine that always reminds me of a frantic bus driver trying to stay on schedule.
According to the pretty funny web site Canadian of the Week, there’s a new theory arguing that Thomas offers lessons in gender inequality and class struggles.
The site quotes University of Alberta professor Shauna Wilson, who apparently watched 23 episodes after coming to the conclusion that Thomas is a rather conservative figure and not particularly a great role model, especially for young girls. Continue reading »
If anyone was wondering why Popeye was on the Google homepage today, Entertainment Weekly has the answer. Continue reading »
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