It’s pretty simple, we need a healthy planet in order to sustain healthy life all around. Take our oceans, they seem vast and mighty but they’re also vulnerable. As cartoonist and conservationist Jim Toomey points out, there’s a delicate ecosystem we need to protect. For example, consider forage fish. These little guys, such as herring, menhaden, and sardines, play an essential role as food for an array of sealife: sharks, whales, seabirds, tuna, seals, and sea lions. But, you guessed it, humans have managed to muck up the system.
And there is so much to say on marine topics! With Jim Toomey, the cartoonist for the popular comic strip, “Sherman’s Lagoon,” as your guide, you can learn a lot in only a few minutes. The Pew Charitable Trusts has joined forces with Jim Toomey to present a lively and fun look at our vital ocean life in “Cartoon Crash Course.” You can see all 10 new short films right here!
The Vital Role of Forage Fish
Watch these humorous cartoons and come away with a better, and more animated, understanding of what it means to take care of our oceans! Learn more and get involved by visiting our friends at The Pew Charitable Trusts right here.
“The Minimum Security Chronicles: Resistance to Ecocide” is full of whimsy and wisdom as it follows its characters on a journey to save the planet. It’s all up to a group of friends to figure out if they can smash the capitalist system or just give up and go shopping. What makes Stephanie McMillan’s comic strip such a page-turner is her ability to find the right mix of humor and intelligent discourse.
Stephanie McMillan’s sense of urgency and comedy is irresistible. She has placed a whole new generation with the burden of saving the planet but they’re pretty clueless. There’s Kranti and Bananabelle, who just barely know the struggles from the past. Kranti, an African-American, is quick to join a protest rally and yell, “By any means necessary!” And Bananabelle, intuitively, recognizes that won’t go over well with the “mainstream liberals.”
Then there’s Kranti’s brother, Nikko, and his lover, Javier. They are both at the mercy of the current economic tide. Nikko manages to just get by with his design work. Javier, has let things slip in pursuit of his art and relies on Nikko’s meager income. All four of these unlikely heroes will be stretched to their limits as they try to do the right thing.
Guidance and advice comes from Victoria, a theorist guinea pig; and Bunnista, a trigger-happy rabbit. Each of them, in their own way, have some wisdom to share but they are still working on the ultimate answers. Victoria is uncompromising in her ideals. Bunnista is too eager to blow things up.
As the story unfolds, we find ourselves exploring the available options to make this a better world: everything from community gardening to murder is on the table. What is really compelling about this comic strip is just how far it is willing to go. If Kranti and Bananabelle didn’t appreciate what was meant when someone said, “By any means necessary,” they certainly do by the end of this tale.
One of McMillan’s goals with this particular story is to raise awareness of how corporations are raping the environment, specifically with bio-engineering. She is seeking answers. And the one thing she keeps returning to is the unequivocal need to rid ourselves of global capitalism. But, at every turn, she shows us how futile that effort appears to be. The great contradiction is that we have no choice but to fight the system, a fight that may appear to be too big to win. All life on the planet hangs in the balance. The only sure thing is that we must persist, live to fight another day. It’s a cliffhanger to the story of life that we must all live with.
And just how do you end capitalism? Well, that is an ongoing discussion. This current comics collection makes that clear. The subject is too vital and complex to address in just one book. For instance, McMillan has a guide to the people’s struggle, “Capitalism Must Die,” that will soon come out. For now, “The Minimum Security Chronicles: Resistance to Ecocide” provides an educational and entertaining look at what happens when people must confront the system.
“The Minimum Security Chronicles: Resistance to Ecocide” is published by Seven Stories Press. This book is a 160-page trade paperback priced at $12.71 and is set for release on October 8, 2013. Be sure to visit our friends at Seven Stories Press here.
That amusing Spock vs. Spock ad for Audi, with Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto competing with each other, led me to the Audi Connect ads.
I think the spokesperson for these Audi Connect ads is a very charming young woman. She can appeal to a wide audience. And the car, from what we see of it, looks pretty cool. But what exactly is the focus here? So, Audi Connect is supposed to be a jaw-dropping leap into the future? Well, far be it from me to completely dismiss something that sort of makes driving safer. Sort of. It is less of an investment of your attention to talk to your car than to navigate your phone.
But, for all the bells and whistles, the scenario in this ad finds the young woman looking for a gas station after her mom has prompted her. Gasoline? In this day and age? Why not have this forward thinking consumer in an electric car already? Well, let’s give Audi a lot of credit for working towards that. They’ll get there. But first, they just wanted to focus on the most luxurious method to find your way to a gas station on your way to Los Encinos Park.
Audi used the A3 wagon to test its electric power train, in what could be its first production e-car (Credit: Wayne Cunningham/CNET)
Check out details on Audi’s development of its own e-cars, HERE.
