Really, Mom?

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Hellblazer #252:  Scab (Part 2):  “Phoebe tries desperately to keep a door between her and the scabby child-thing that’s appeared in her home. She tells it that she had the abortion when it was no more than a handful of cells and that she doesn’t want it, but it smashes through the door anyway…John finds the scab-child crying in his flat. It asks for a cup of tea with two sugars – the same way Phoebe likes it – and says that all it wants to do is get to know her. John tells it it’s not a real person and it says that it has memories and emotions. But they’re Phoebe’s memories and Phoebe’s emotions, and John isn’t having any of it, so he smashes its head in with a decorative African statue before burning it.”

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We Are Women March wants you to unite against the war on women.

Let’s zoom in on the upper left there:

Now let’s zoom in on that little red dot, just for clarity…

That’s an embryo at around 54 days; a little short of two months into pregnancy, well within the first trimester.  Maybe not a person – I mean, who’s to say what makes a person a person, really?  But definitely not just a little red dot.  I can make out a head, a torso, arms, legs, hands, feet… why, it’s almost like that figure that the little red dot is not equal to!

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An ad for this showed up in my inbox yesterday:

I’m not complaining, mind you.  I get the effectiveness of using babies as horror devices.  This particular use plays on the fear of every parent that something is wrong with the baby.  Alphonse plays on a different fear.  Spread the word.

“Their primary outreach is aimed towards young and low-income women, to whom they offer free pregnancy tests and convenient locations.”

Just in case anyone’s curious and hasn’t seen it yet:  Chapter One of Alphonse is available as a free download here.  It’s in black and white (I’m hoping to do the full graphic novel in color), and it lacks the prologue that will open the graphic novel, but it should give you some idea of the shape of things.  Spread the word.

“If the Catholic League thinks there are too many plays about gays, they should put on their own productions about gay Antichrists-or anyone and anything else they like, or don’t like.”

- Todd Gitlin, writing in the New York Observer about the play Corpus Christi, which depicted Jesus as homosexual.

That was in 1998, but I remember reading it and thinking there was something to it.  Alphonse is my attempt to put on my own production with regard to abortion.

…otherwise, it’s just a lecture.

Garry Trudeau is justly famous for Doonesbury, of course.  But that doesn’t mean he should get to do all the edgy comic work on abortion:

Oooh, a scarlet letter.  Subtle.  Some folks are upset.  Some papers are refusing to run the strips.  I say, there’s a conversation to be had.  Let’s get Alphonse out there.  Please consider donating, and spread the word.

I’m just gonna keep at this.  Little by little.  Thank you so much to everyone who has donated.  Keep spreading the word.  On my end, I’ll try to do better about updates that aren’t about money.  Thank you.

It’s a lot of money, I know.  Here’s how it breaks down.

I’ve already got about 40 pages of black and white art.  So I need only 100 more for the full graphic novel.  So far, I’ve been able to get away with paying $150 a page, which is a bargain by industry standards.

100 x $150 = $15,000

Coloring each page is an additional $150, but it’s totally worth it.

140 x $150 = $21,000

Lettering is around $20 a page.

100 x $20 = $2,000

The remaining $2,000 goes to pay for layout and uploading of the pages to the printer, plus some tiny slice for marketing.

And there it is.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.  Please spread the word.