Comic Strip With Some Autism Themes in Syndication to Major Publications Clear Blue Water by Karen Montague-Reyes
It's been five months since the introduction of Clear Blue Water, a comic strip about a multiracial family in the throes of some serious life changes, and already, cartoonist Karen Montague-Reyes is seeing success at the end of a long journey that brought the mother of five to national syndication. You can see the strip here:
http://www.ucomics.com/clearbluewater/
As far as I got back, it looks like the thread starts at ...
http://www.ucomics.com/clearbluewater/2004/11/09/
You haven't seen the least of it, try checking out some parenting boards where parents of 5 wk olds and such come and ask if their baby has autism and such.
I had a quick look at one of those, its pathetic that they have no better humour than a parent wanting to commit suicide with the prospect of another autistic child.
Seeing how some children are treated, and the section we have on murder of autistics and aspies, and the suicide/murders of a parent and their autistic child, it is sickening to see such supposed humour.
I didn't laugh when I read it. It seems the girl (sitting on the right to the boy) is the only one who likes autism even the least bit.
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Mich :?:
The only laugh I got while viewing this came from the television that was on, not the comic. Seriously, my fish could write better comics than that. Why don't I just drop a pen and some paper in their tank and see what they come up with?
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mICH :?:
I have sent the following e-mail -
I am writing to you about the comic strip here
http://www.ucomics.com/clearbluewater/ I work with an autism civil rights group called aspies for freedom, one storyline in particular is very upsetting, where the father and mother say they will commit suicide by jumping off the balcony as they think she may have another autistic child. Compare that with this recent news story of a couple who had a suicide pact, as they felt unable to cope with their daughter who was on the autistic spectrum.
http://tinyurl.com/3p2x8
I respectfully request that you remove the strips that depict autism in such a negative and biased way, it is an insult and degradation to us. Thank you, Amy Nelson, of
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com
I have received this reply from Karen regarding her comic-
The parents in my strip are upset. Their child has JUST been diagnosed with autism, which is not something they know a lot about at this time, but what they do know is very negative. They are grieving. They will come out of it eventually and become advocates for Seth but this is a time of sadness and fear for the future. The final panel where they want to hurl themselves off the balcony is in response to feeling overwhelmed that not only will they soon have infant twins (a HUGE handful in itself!) but now they also have to add in a TODDLER with a very difficult disability, and the prospect of maybe one or BOTH of their unborn children inheriting the disorder as well. Not many parents would be overjoyed about that prospect, I can assure you, and they don't know how they will cope. They are blowing off steam, not contemplating suicide. They were KIDDING and I have a hard time believing that you TRULY believe otherwise.
I have a 9 year old, low-functioning autistic child. He is both loved and WANTED and he's also a RESPECTED member of our family. I am actually an ADVOCATE for people with autism. I am trying to honestly tell the story of a diagnosis, and to do that I have to have some bad feelings exposed. To not do so, to make everyting happy happy joy joy would be unrealistic.
I am sorry if you were offended by my cartoon, but I don't share many of the views expressed on your website. There is a very big difference between Aspergers and low functioning autism. A close family member of mine has Aspergers and he doesn't even consider that he's got a disablity. And for him, it isn't. I wouldn't change him for the world. ... BUT, I WILL fight for a cure for my son forever and I WON'T apologize for that. I stand behind my cartoon.
Karen Montague-Reyes
I have sent this mail to karen in return-
Dear Karen, thanks for your response, I have asperger's, and I have a son who was diagnosed LFA, and at 12 is now regarded as HFA, I have a daughter too.
My group represents everyone on the autism spectrum, not just those with asperger's, we have members who are autistic too, we are fully inclusive.
I could not possibly assess that the parents were kidding having only read two strips, knowing nothing of their character, and having a few words to go by, that is them explicitly saying that they are contemplating suicide.
It is often said to myself, and members of my group, that we can't speak for those with LFA, as we are higher functioning, yet those same people are NT parents, and at an "average" functioning level and feel that they can perfectly well speak for LFA's and say that they need a cure.
Did you see the one of our main concerns is that a cure wont be found, but that pre-natal testing techniques are already being worked on, and are a much more likely possibilty, and autism would be treated as Down's is now. Did you know that 90% detected in the womb are aborted, also following this screening, all work on a cure for Down's has ceased.
I dont know how you feel about it, but one of our tasks with AFF is to educate and increase awareness of these issues.
Did you also know that we have many parents who are on the spectrum who have had their children either removed from the home, or the threat of that placed on them. There is great discrimination of parents who are auties/aspies.
Maybe you could look into some of these issues and highlight these issues in a positive sense, one day the children grow up, become autistic adults, and want to have some opportunities.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write to me, I hope you can understand something of our viewpoint too.
Amy Nelson of Aspies for Freedom
I received a mail back from karen and this is a portion of it, talking about the characters in her comic strip-
I do plan to make Seth much higher functioning than my own son is, and so I will highlight some of your concerns as Seth ages. I will get into the bias and the rejection... all of it. If my strip survives that long, that is!
I am sorry that you didn't get that my parents in my strip were kidding. Perhaps you did need to know that they have a very sarcastic, black sense of humor to get that, and coming across that strip without any backgrond on the characters must have been upsetting. For that, I am sorry. I will try to be a little less ambiguous in the future and think things out a bit better.
Take care.
Karen
I can see it now. The aggressive intervention makes Seth miserable throughout the years and he starts acting all NT. He becomes a miserable gumsnob, and, when not at school, harms himself and screams so much the mom starts thinking about giving him to one of those CAN-sponsored experiments and he... :cry:
I sure hope Karen is going to make them get used to him and learn autism is actually better than Gumsnobbery Disodor (what many NTs at my school are afflicted with). It would be horrible to see them talking about sending him off to a research center, or even to anything equally horrible-sounding.
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Mich :?:
A few things irritating me here:
1. The old LFA/HFA distinction being used in the sense of a power struggle. As always.
2. The apparent idea that only so-called HFA people face discrimination.
Not better than the first three I reviewed at all. Maybe by a tiny bit, but not more. I'm beginning to think we need to go further than e-mails and see if she is a CAN member or something, personally.
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Mich :?:
No comment this time.
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Mich :?:
I have no idea what that means. Is it a US thing? :?
