Animation: A Very Republican Thanksgiving

I liked doing this one: nice and gruesome and bloody. I think watching my dad paint Mars Attacks and Civil War bubblegum cards back when I was a kid planted a fertile seed of fascination with all things grisly: the bloodier the better! So if this horrifies you, it's all Norm Saunders' fault!

Link to the cartoon on Mother Jones
Written, animated and acted by me. Burp from www.freesound.org

New York Observer

A lotta redheads, eh?

Did this one over the weekend for the current NY Observer. The article is about a movie premier party for Ron Howard's (very preggers) daughter's new movie, whatever.


The best part of the article was the account of the relentlessly panting Jill Zarin, late of the Real Housewives of NY. The writer describes Zarin's outfit as looking like it was ripped from the closet of Cher Horowitz in the movie Clueless, and Jillzy's fake tan and her meepy l'il tears over the movie: see? She's got heart! So I threw her in there, just for laffs.


It's been a long time since I did a Big Head caricature, and I forgot how much fun it is to do them. Now I feel like Big Heading everyone on the planet. I'm just that kinda girl. 

Animation: Big Tobacco's Freedom of Speech *cough cough*

Last week a federal district court blocked the FDA from requiring tobacco companies to put graphic warning labels on their cigarette packages, citing their First Amendment right to free speech. This one hit home for me: my father died of emphysema and I was, myself, a 3-pack-a-day smoker for many years before I was finally able to quit.

Watch the cartoon on Mother Jones:

Written, animated and acted by me.

Here's a link to the FDA's website with a slideshow of the warning labels the court blocked

Nico Muhly for The Wall Street Journal

In today's paper, composer Nico Muhly. I sent them both versions. They chose the white one.

The Secret Life of Fireplugs

These are some of the portraits I've painted of the plugs I've seen all my life, poking out of the buildings and sidewalks around New York City. I love all things mechanical in general, and all things New York in particular, so these curious little plugs scattered across the city landscape have always attracted me.

To see them up close and personal, and read their stories, click each of the images:

The Hydra

Curtain Call

Trapped!

The Sentinels

Dive!

The Valet

Secret Society

Birthday Buds

http://www.zinasaunders.com/pages/illustration/images/secret-society.html

A Couple Assignments

For an article in the current issue of The Nation about the Great Green Wall, an idea proposed by the president of Nigeria back in 2005, to plant a 10 mile wide strip of trees across the width of Africa in order to prevent the Sahara from expanding southward.

And this one for The Christian Science Monitor, about secondhand books being sent to schools in Zimbabwe. I always like doing illustrations about Zimbabwe, because of project about the (now-defunct) all-female bicycle messenger company made up of AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe; I made a website about them called Africa Closeup. Here's the CSM illustration in color, though I think I like it better in the black and white sketch...

Sketch:

Animation: The Mississippi Assault on Women

On Nov. 8th, Mississippi will be voting on Amendment 26, which would redefine a fertilized egg as a full-fledged person with legal rights, which, by extension, makes women walking incubators. If this passes, it will mean that anything that is done to impinge on a fertilized egg’s rights (which could include a miscarriage, IVF, and various forms of birth control) could land a lady in the hoosegow. Here's the animation, on Mother Jones:

Link to cartoon

Written, animated and acted by me. Sound effects from www.freesound.org

Here are some more links worth reading:

Fertilized Eggs Are Not People

Articles About Amendment 26

Recent Work

A few recent assignments...

Pianist Yuja Wang for The Wall Street Jounral

Disparate regions in America for The Christian Science Monitor

Musicians on the Titanic for The Christian Science Monitor