Update #5: Heading Toward the Finish
My plan to return to Afghanistan this summer is halfway there--more than 140 backers have put up 50% of the $25,000 I will need (I'm also going to spend about $10,000+ of my own money) to get there and around. War zones are crazy expensive, and this is actually the bargain rate for this sort of journalism, particularly when one isn't backed by a major publication or broadcasting company.
This is the do-or-die phase. I'm halfway there, but there are less than two weeks left. Unless the pace of pledges accelerates, I won't make it. If you have been considering whether or not to participate, please think about it now!
As always, I remain ready, willing and able to answer any and all questions, comments, concerns, etc. about this project.
211
Backers
$25,999
pledged of $25,000 goal
0
seconds to go
Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on April 5, 2010.
Pledge $10 or more Pledge $10 or more
Receive blog updates about the project, dispatches from Afghanistan in real time, plus updates about the book and resulting articles after I return (this applies to all larger awards)
Pledge $100 or more Pledge $100 or more
Get a copy of the book, personally signed with a sketch
Pledge $500 or more Pledge $500 or more
You'll be personally thanked in the Acknowledgments section of the book, plus signed copies of the new book as well as To Afghanistan and Back and Silk Road to Ruin
Pledge $1,000 or more Pledge $1,000 or more
You get the signed book, the thank-you in said book, plus an original piece of artwork from the book, plus signed copies of the new book as well as To Afghanistan and Back and Silk Road to Ruin
Pledge $5,000 or more Pledge $5,000 or more
Pledge $5000 or more and I will meet you for dinner or drinks (and pick up the tab) anywhere in the New York City metropolitan area. Plus the books, thank-you, and original artwork!
Pledge $10,000 or more Pledge $10,000 or more
Pledge $10,000 or more and I will travel anywhere within the continental United States to meet you for dinner or drinks. If you'd like, I'll present a talk and show about my experiences in Afghanistan to you, your friends and/or a local organization. Plus the books, thank-you, and original artwork.
Project By
Connected as Ted Rall (2716 friends)
Ted Rall is an award-winning author, political columnist and editorial cartoonist whose work has been internationally syndicated for over 20 years. He has worked as a war correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has hosted radio talk shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Twice the winner of the RFK Journalism Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Rall is the author of nearly 20 books, most recently The Anti-American Manifesto (2010) and The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt (2012).
Rall is an uncompromising and forceful advocate for radical change both in his work and in the real world. He is active in the Occupy movement.
Inspired after meeting pop artist Keith Haring in a Manhattan subway station in 1986, guerrilla editorial cartoonist, editorialist and war correspondent Rall began posting his cartoons on New York City streets. In 1991, Rall's cartoons were signed for national syndication. He has been with Universal Press Syndicate in 1996; his cartoons have appeared in hundreds of publications around the United States, including Time Magazine, Fortune, Rolling Stone, Esquire, the Los Angeles Times, Tucson Weekly, Willamette Week, Newark Star-Ledger, Village Voice and New York Times.
Rall is a neo-traditionalist who uses a unique drawing style to revive the aggressive approach of Thomas Nast, who viewed editorial cartoons as a vehicle for change. His focus is on issues important to ordinary working people--he keeps a sign asking "What do actual people care about?" above his drafting table--such as un- and underemployment, the environment and popular culture, but also comments on political and social trends.
From August 1998 to October 2001, Ted hosted his highly-rated, twice-weekly talk show on KFI Radio in Los Angeles. Highlights of Ted's show included "Stan Watch: Breaking News from Central Asia," which was simulcast by both National Public Radio and the BBC, and caustic interviews with such figures as former Klansman David Duke. Ted often broadcast his radio show from overseas, and made American radio history by airing the first live talk radio shows from Cuba, Uzbekistan and the frontlines of the war in Kashmir Province. Ted's live from Afghanistan reports for KFI Radio and written dispatches for the Village Voice was called "some of the best war reporting from Afghanistan" by The Nation.
Books
Non-Fiction/Prose
2010—The Anti-American Manifesto
2006 — Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?, graphic novellas and essays
2004 — Generalissimo El Busho: Essays and Cartoons on the Bush Years, essays and cartoons
2004 — Wake Up, You're Liberal!: How We Can Take America Back from the Right, prose non-fiction
2002 — Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan, prose non-fiction about the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project
2002 — To Afghanistan and Back, graphic travelogue about Ted's experiences covering the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001
1998 — Revenge of the Latchkey Kids: An Illustrated Guide to Surviving the '90s and Beyond, Generation X manifesto/essays and cartoons
Anthologies edited by Ted Rall
2002 — Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists, interviews with and cartoons by 21 alternative political cartoonists
2004 — Attitude 2: The New Subversive Alternative Cartoonists, focuses on alternative gag cartoonists
2006 — Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists, focuses on webcomics
Cartoon Collections
2006 — America Gone Wild, cartoons from 2001 to 2006
2001 — Search and Destroy, cartoons from 1996 to 2000
1995 — All The Rules Have Changed, cartoons from 1992 to 1995, Rip Off Press, ISBN 0896201198 (out of print)
1992 — Waking Up In America, cartoons from 1987 to 1992, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312085184 (out of print)
Graphic Novels
2009 — The Year of Loving Dangerously, a memoir of bedhopping, homelessness and despair in the 1980s, with art by Pablo G. Callejo
2001 — 2024: A Graphic Novel, a parody and update of George Orwell's 1984
1998 — My War With Brian, autobiographical look at Ted's junior high experience being bullied
1996 — Real Americans Admit: The Worst Thing I've Ever Done!, collected depictions of personal confessions, NBM Publishing, ISBN 1561631574 (out of print)
Awards
1995 — Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
1996 — Finalist, Pulitzer Prize
1997 — First Prize, Firecracker Alternative Press Award, for Real Americans Admit: The Worst Thing I've Ever Done!
1997 — First Prize, Deadline Club Award, Society of Professional Journalists
2000 — Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
2001 — Best Book of the Year, Amazon.com, for 2024: A Graphic Novel
2002 — Best Book of the Year, American Library Association, for To Afghanistan and Back
2002 — James Aronson Award for Social Justice Graphics
2007 — Second Prize, Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Awards
2007 — Second Prize, Lambda Legal's "Life Without Fair Courts" cartoon contest
2007 — First Prize, New York Book Festival Competition, for Silk Road to Ruin
2008 — Ohioana Citation for Art and Journalism
2010 — Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, Finalist
2011 — First Prize, Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Awards
Upcoming Projects
Rall will publish "The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt," in prose and cartoons, in late May 2012
