TODAY in DAN GROSS’S column in the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS:

Author Marisa Acocella Marchetto will be honored at The Wellness Community of Philadelphia’s Evening in the Park gala Friday. Her book “Cancer Vixen” was recently optioned by Cate Blanchett for a film. NBC 10’s Lori Wilson will introduce Marchetto. B101 owner Jerry Lee and wife, Ellen, will accept an award on behalf of B101.

Former Sixers coach Larry Brown and wife, Shelly, are expected, as is teen actress Sarah Steele, who played Adam Sandler’s daughter in “Spanglish” and who can be seen in theaters now in Nicole Hofcener’s film “Please Give.” The event, which also honors the Wellness Community participant Bernie Brody, takes place at the organization’s headquarters at the Suzanne Morgan Center at Ridgeland, in West Fairmount Park.

Tickets are $350 and benefit the programs and services provided to cancer patients and their families. Call 215-879-7733 for tickets, or visit twcp.org for info.

ME AGAIN:

See ya in Philly!

Love, Peace and Perfect 7-inch Pumps!

Marisa

In case you were asleep and not keeping up with the news, or just keeping tabs on the tabloids, The United States Preventive Services Task Force said Monday that women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, and that doctors should stop teaching women to examine their breasts on a regular basis.

Women of America, we must fight!

As a breast cancer survivor, and a cartoonista/activista (yes I am) who wrote a graphic memoir about surviving breast cancer, and someone who’s travelled all over the world talking to women who’ve had breast cancer and survived it because they caught it earlier before it was too late, I couldn’t disagree more. There has been a consistent reduction in the rates of death from breast cancer in every country—including the United States—that has instituted a regular screening program.

We must fight.

Mammograms, while not perfect, do detect breast cancer.

If you catch breast cancer early, you have a 98% survival rate.

If you don’t test yourself until you’re 50 – then you risk receiving a later diagnosis, which could lead to death. To be blunt: it could kill you. A higher death rate from breast cancer is unacceptable in the United States of America.

We must fight.

More alarming, 80% of Women find breast cancer themselves, yet the USPSTF urges doctors to stop teaching women how to give themselves a self-exam. Another stark example of how incredibly irresponsible the USPSTF is, and how they are endangering the lives of every woman in America.

We must fight.

Dr Larry Norton, Breast Cancer Research Foundation Scientific Director; Chairman, BCRF Executive Board of Scientific Advisors, had an 11 year-old patient with breast cancer. We’re hearing about women and unfortunately, now girls diagnosed at a younger age, and now they’re raising the age for women to get screened. How could this possibly make sense?

We must fight.

I caution what the next step is: the government will not pay for your mammogram unless you’re 50 and over. This is common in Europe,

where medicine is socialized so the government doesn’t have to pay for it. If this is the case, It’s only a matter of time before not just the uninsured will have to pay for a mammogram, but each and every woman in this country who does have insurance and is under 50. We’re in a recession. Paying for a mammogram is a deterrent for something that no one wants to do in the first place. It’s just one more reason not to do the very thing that can save your life.

We must fight.

I started the CANCER VIXEN FUND here in New York City for women who are uninsured so they can get free mammograms. (When I was diagnosed, I was uninsured.) I believe that each and every woman has the right to live. The Cancer Vixen Mission: No Breast Left Behind. We’ve done over 600 mammograms and have saved two lives at least.

I can say with absolute certainty that mammograms  do work.

We must not let the USPSTF change the guidelines for mammograms.

We must fight for ourselves, our mothers, our sisters, our cousins, our aunts, our friends, our frenemies (good karma points there) and

every single woman in this country.

We must fight for our lives.

I am so excited that Cancer Vixen has such long and lovely legs - and no cellulite!

Just like me (yeah right!)

Anywho, I’m off on tour starting today - I’m going to Washington D.C. with Evelyn and the BREAST CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION folks - the genuises who WILL cure cancer in our lifetime!

Check this website for my whereabouts - and maybe we can meet at a city near you.

In the meantime,

Peace, love and healthcare for All!

Marisa

I got an email this week from WABC Senior Producer Jeelu Billimoria:

Happy to inform you that we won an Emmy last night for “Breast Cancer: New Thinking & New Therapies”!
Thanks so much for your help & cooperation with the program.

Well, I was happy to be part of that amazing program. It aired in October 2007, and I was happy to be in that amazing show!

Congrats to Jeelu!

It’s easy to blame John Edwards – AND WE SHOULD. But what about Rielle Hunter? (Love the name…it says it all — she’s REALLY, or should a say RIELLE a HUNTER!)

It’s bad enough to have to hear about a woman hitting on a married man, but to do it when the wife is going through a life threatening illness and brag about it, to put your friends up to talk about it on your behalf on national television, to accept payment of campaign funds, to get paid off (and we all know what that implies) is just about the lowest of the low in human behaviour, especially when you’ve been through what we’ve been though.

I should know, it happened to me one night while the hubster Silvano and I were having dinner outside at Da Silvano, in 2004. Apparently word had gotten out I had just been diagnosed. (In New York, good news always travels fast.)

“So, how’s your cancer?” A woman asked me, whom I’d never met.

She quickly handed Silvano her number and said“ Here’s my card, I’m not sick…”
And then…

Yes, Silvano took her card, which ironically was pink, and he fed it to a dog. (For the record, I have a photographic memory, and that’s exactly what she looked like.)

Even though my husband’s response was phenomenal, and humorous: her number as dogfood? Ha! I still shake with rage when I think about her. Not the kind of peaceful, healing emotions that you should have when you’re trying to heal yourself and survive. I can only imagine what Elizabeth Edwards is going through.

So, if anyone knows anyone who is engaging in this kind of behaviour, tell them to stop.
Be a sister to one of our sisters, even if the bitch ain’t.

This is my favorite piece, AND it got rejected.

But I wanted to show you guys anyway because I really love it.

The hat was designed by Philip Tracey for Alexander McQueen, who designed the suit.

Too fashion-forward for Plantronics, but just my style.

As yours truly was pulling all-nighters at the ol’ drawing board, The Hubster (aka Silvano) was working 15-hour days at the restaurant. Tired and stressed out in cold, grey New York, we decided to stretch out on a lounge chair in the sunny Caribbean.

After checking into the hotel, we made a necessary trip to the gift shop. We had nothing but the clothes on our backs and what we carried on the plane, which, by the way, isn’t how we started. Thank god I packed Silvano’s heart meds and my Tamoxifen in my handbag.

So much for our desperately needed R’n'R. In fact…

Enter Sheryl Crow, into the hotel gift shop…

For the ENTIRE POST, check out: mybreastcancernetwork.com and huffingtonpost.com

Hi all you young toonists, I am looking for an assistant. I need web-savvy and industrious. You need someone to show you the ropes. If you’re out there, please contact me ASAP! (That means, right now!)

THE 2008 ANGOULEME FESTIVAL has chosen CANCER VIXEN (under the title CANCER IN THE CITY, which is how it was released in France) as one of the 50 nominees for graphic novel of the year.

Ok, this is HUGE news.

According to Bart Beaty, www.comicsreporter.com “Angouleme produces, arguably, the most notable comics prize in the world.” He also writes that “the nominees are a veritable who’s who of Big Name Cartoonists: Chris Ware, Peter Bagge, Joe Matt, Robert Crumb, and Jules Feiffer among them. At the same time, newer voices are being singled out for praise, including Marisa Acocella Marchetto for Cancer and the City, Shaun Tan for The Arrival, Linda Medley for Castle Waiting, and Gene Yang for American Born Chinese. Throw in a few others, like Jason, Rutu Modan and Ralph Konig, all of whom have work that is well-known in English, and you can see for yourself that this is a very strong list of contenders.”

I am so honored to be in that excellent list of nominees. (I also love that at 47 and a career in cartooning that has spanned years, I am one of the “newer voices”! Hahaha!)

The Festival will chose the winner January 22-24.  Bonne Chance!

I originally posted my story December 31 about turning 47 and how ecstatic I was
about being alive… and the next day, this ran in New Year’s Day’s NEW YORK POST’S PAGE SIX:

Older’s Better For Beauties

FORTY-something stunners Laura Linney and Daryl Hannah are getting older - and it’s fine with them. “It’s really about being realistic. No one is going to be an A-list movie star and make millions of dollars forever, you’re just not,” Linney, 43, the star of “The Savages,” tells Britain’s Observer about actresses who worry about age. “It’s also about the fact that I think we’re lucky we got to be 40. There are so many people out there who die way too young, so [to] all of this ‘Boohoo, we’re getting older,’ I’m like, ‘Well, there is an alternative.’ ” Meanwhile, Hannah, who starred in “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman,” tells The Telegraph: “I hated being young. Everyone says how wonderful it is to be a young person. That is far from the case for many people, but they dare not say it at the time. Aging is great. Maturity has brought me peace of mind. When I look back, I could have saved myself so much anxiety.”

Me again.
There’s something special in the air, gals.

I think 2008 is going to kick ass.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!