I’m starting to gather material for my annual Year in Review cartoons, and as always, your suggestions for memorable, and memorably stupid, highlights of the year are eagerly solicited. (Last year’s installments are here and here, to give you a sense of the sort of thing I’m after.) If I use your contribution, I’ll send you a signed print of the cartoon; in the event of multiple submissions of the same item, first one in gets it. Email to tom-dot-tomorrow-at-gmail-dot-com, and use the subject line “Year in Review”.

You can see a larger version here (watermarks not on actual posters, of course).

No promises, but I’ll probably be selling a signed and numbered edition of these sometime early next year, around February or so. They’ll be available as complete sets of four only, and I haven’t figured out the exact price yet. In hopes of keeping this sale a bit more manageable than the last one, I’m going to take names for a waiting list – if you’re interested in a set, send an email to tom-dot-tomorrow-atsymbol-gmail-dot-com, with “Philly waiting list” in the subject line. Please note, you are not placing an actual order, and I’m not taking any money at this time — but when I do the sale, priority will be given to those on the list.

UPDATE: Waiting list is now full, but I’m sure there will be some attrition through cancellations and whatnot, so you can still send your name if you want, and I’ll keep you on the standby list.

Update 2: Okay, at this point, a lot of people would have to cancel out for everybody on the list to get a set of these, so I’m going to stop taking names for now.

Also via Bors:

MAD Magazine artist Tom Richmond has been working on an iPhone app with movie director/entrepreneur Ray Griggs that allows users to search a database for contact information of every congressman. Tom did 540 caricatures – one for every representative in union and territories – for the app. Unfortunately, they have learned that Apple has rejected the app based due to “content that ridicules public figures.”

Full story here. I’ve looked into the possibility of a TMW iPhone app, but this is one stumbling block I didn’t anticipate: that the gatekeepers in Cupertino would be sent to their fainting couches by — heavens! — the very thought of political satire. And this wasn’t exactly hard-hitting content, as the artist himself acknowledges:

These caricatures aren’t mean or very exaggerated. They are simple, fun cartoon likenesses of the politicians and the purpose of the app is a informational database. There is no editorial commentary involved at all.

Doesn’t bode well for the likes of me or Bors or Rall, which is unfortunate, given the iPhone’s market dominance.

Via Bors:

KURTZ: Did one of the founders — did I get this right — of Google ask you why you didn’t just publish your book online?

AULETTA: Yes. In my second interview with co-founder Sergey Brin, he came in on his rollerblades and he threw his knapsack down on the table and he said, “Ken, let me ask you a question.” He said, “Why don’t you just publish a book for free online and get a much larger audience for it?”

And I said, “Well, I might get a larger audience, but who’s going to pay me an advance so I have money to live on since I’m on leave from “The New Yorker” to do this? And by the way, Sergey, who’s going to edit my book and who’s going to do an index? And who’s going to market it? And who’s going to pay for my expenses to come out here as many times I’m coming out here?”

And, of course, at that point, Sergey Brin changed the subject.

A startling announcement from the prestigious Institute for the Advancement of Conservative Science.

Long time since I’ve posted here, but I hope this is worth the wait: I’m just about to depart for Peru and Bolivia, a trip marking the first leg of my work on a new book about microfinance for Bloomsbury.

Since the start of 2009, I’ve made nearly 1000 small business loans in the developing world via Kiva, Babyloan, and similar platforms, and I’ll be spending chunks of the next 18 months or so basically going out to see the results. And along the way I’ll be writing a book about the whole experience.

After South America (and some time at home catching up on my own life), the next stop will probably be India. Then Southeast Asia. Then Eastern Europe. Then East Africa. And so on. Or that’s the plan, anyway. Which will definitely change as this goes.

If I can find time and a signal, I’ll be posting entries here at TMW as well as my own site. When both are in short supply, I’ll at least try to squeeze up short notes and links via my Twitter feed, which you can also easily access on the right side of my own blog.

Next stop: Ollyantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, near Cusco…

I just noticed that The Very Silly Mayor is #41 in the Amazon category of Books > Children’s Books > Animals > Birds > Fiction.

The only thing standing between me and #1 is those damn Pigeon books, I’ll bet.

– An article on The Very Silly Mayor, from the Wilmington NC Encore, here. (The Mayor, of course, can be ordered here — and now that we’re past Halloween, isn’t it time to start thinking about the holiday gift-giving season? You bet it is!)

– I talk cartooning with Jen Sorensen, here.

– And: a small me-related moment from Saturday’s PJ show can be seen at the start of this YouTube video.

Joe Lieberman, the most important politician in all of human history. (Link leads to legible version of cartoon. My friends at Salon still seem to have a few bugs in their redesign.)