Tagged: John Odum

“Mindy Newell (veteran of Wonder Woman, Daredevil, and just about everything else) noted that she originally thought ‘SJW’ stood for ‘Single Jewish Woman.’” • Comics for Causes: Planned Parenthood at the New York Comic Con • John Odum • Bleeding Cool, October 7, 2017

At my family’s celebration of Rosh Hashanah – Food! Lots and lots of food! And much imbibing of the alcohol of your choice! – shortly after 9/11, the conversation that we all had been avoiding finally arrived with the dessert and coffee. A lot of anger, a lot of sadness, a lot of fear, but no historical context until I opened my big mouth:

“This is what happens after nearly 100 years of the West treating the Middle East like pieces on a chessboard.”

Silence. My father is shaking his head.

“Hello,” I said. “The break-up of the Ottoman Empire? The Sykes-Picot agreement? Ignoring, discounting, millions of people with their own history, their own ethnic and religious and tribal identities?”

“You’re not excusing what they did, are you?” someone said in astonishment and horror.

“No fucking way! But, and I’m sorry, guys, we are not innocent in any of this, either.”

A fight was about to start, but someone, I think it was my cousin, quickly changed the subject.

Later on, driving home in the car, everybody else fast asleep in the back seat, my dad said, “When are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut?”

“You don’t think I’m right?”

“You were absolutely right.

“So?”

“Just don’t say it at work or anywhere else. People don’t want to hear it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

I’d like to say that I listened to my dad, who was a very smart man, but *sigh* I guess it’s still a work in progress. I have a very hard time “keeping my mouth shut,” even at work, especially when I get fired up.

And, oh, boy, was I fired up on Saturday at the NYCC, where I was part of the Comics for Causes: Planned Parenthood panel to inform and also celebrate the coming publication of the Mine!: A Celebration of Freedom and Liberty anthology put into production through fellow ComicMixers Joe Corallo and Molly Jackson to benefit the Planned Parenthood organization, which is now being attacked more brutally than I can ever remember, and is in very serious danger of being defunded by “you-know-who” and “you-know-who”’s administration and the Repugnanticans. (Just a week ago today, Tuesday, Oct 3, the Repugnantican-controlled Senate passed this, ignoring the law of the land that Roe vs. Wade has become.

Nobody counted, but my use of F-bombs might have set a record at this NYCC, and quite possibly every other comics convention on record. John Odum of Bleeding Cool even made note of it here. First time I’ve ever made it into Bleeding Cool… as far as I know.

I’m not apologizing. I meant every single one of those F-bombs. I meant every single thing I said.

My dad must be spinning in his grave. But I also know that he’s also proudly thinking:

“That’s my Mindela.”