Q Toon: Disaster Exclusion Insistence

Your friendly neighborhood cartoonist being inspired by our most recent Graphical History Tour, Jim Beautron returns for this week's Q Syndicate cartoon:

The idea I pitched to Q Syndicate required a congressman being interviewed on TV; so I decided that in the ten years since he first sprang forth from my pen, Jim Beautron has parlayed a seat in his state legislature to a seat in Congress.

There he represents every Republican who has decided that the deadly fires ravaging homes and businesses near Los Angeles are an irresistible opportunity to complain about irrelevant issues Republicans hate.

Because Los Angeles's Chief of the Fire Department is not just a woman but a lesbian one at that, Trumpster activists pounced on the idea that the fires were somehow caused by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs.

Billionaire Elon Musk helped circulate screenshots of the Los Angeles Fire Department's four-year-old 'racial equity action plan,' writing "They prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes."

The city's fire chief, a 22-year veteran firefighter, happens to be the first woman and openly gay person in that role. The chief, her fire department and the city government quickly became targets in right-wing media.

"When you focus your government on diversity, equity, inclusion, LGBTQ pet projects, and you are captured by environmentalists, we have been warning for years that you are worried about abstractions, but you can't do the basic stuff," Charlie Kirk, founder of the Trump-aligned nonprofit Turning Point USA, said on his podcast this week.

Just in case the American public might see that as a little far-fetched, Republicans in Congress, led by the Speaker of the House from frequent federal disaster assistance recipient Louisiana, added their own favorite woke boogiemen to the barriers to federal aid. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said Monday that “there should probably be conditions on that aid” and pointed to disagreements about California’s “resource management” and “forest management mistakes.” ...

Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) said California and other Democratic-controlled states would need to atone for “bad behavior” if they wanted federal assistance. ...

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-California), whose district has suffered some of the worst damage, told The Washington Post that rebuilding could cost more than $150 billion.

The death toll from the fires is up to 24, and thousands of homes have been destroyed. More than 100,000 residents have had to evacuate to flee the blazes.

Lawmakers typically approve federal aid after natural disasters without requiring states to change policies first....

"The country expects that the federal government will come in and help people,” Sherman said. “Look, I voted for aid for Hurricane Sandy and Maui and Hurricane Laura in the delta in Louisiana, and the idea that something my party wanted would be part of that, it didn’t occur to me. No, we just provided the aid.”

And no natural disaster would be complete without this: squawking on Trump Social, the Felon-elect accused Newsom of refusing to sign a non-existent "water restoration declaration that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California." 

Perhaps from now on, Democrats need to stop being so altruistic when disasters strike Red America. 

So the next time a hurricane levels the Floribama shore, or tornadoes hit Kansas, or the New Madrid fault flattens Tennessee, or Texans freeze or fry because their electrical grid collapsed, let's insist on granting unconditional citizenship to every immigrant who identifies as Latinx.

Too much? Okay, we'll settle for raising the debt ceiling.

The Ass in a Lion's Skin

Aesop's Fable Updated

 An Ass found a Lion’s skin left in the forest by a hunter. He dressed himself in it, and roamed about in the forest amusing himself by frightening all the foolish animals he met in his wanderings. All took to their heels the moment they saw him.

The Ass was so pleased to see the animals running away from him, just as if he were King Lion himself, that he could not keep from expressing his delight by a loud, harsh bray. 

A Fox, who ran with the rest, stopped short as soon as he heard the voice. Approaching the Ass, he turned to the other animals and proclaimed: "Behold! Here is Lion, King of the Beasts, here to Make America Great Again!"

The Muskrat twittered Xcitedly, "All hail King Lion!" And he leaped and  jumped for joy.

The Zuckerbird agreed. "Whatever you say!"

Then the canary chirped, "But he's an ass!"

The Wapopotamus and the Raccoon-cheong turned sharply to her. "Be quiet!" they grunted and hissed. "Are you trying to get us in trouble?"

And the forest bowed and prayed to the Lion King that brayed.

Tjugondag's Sneak Peek

Why invent a new character when an old one will do?

Lycklig Tjugondag Knut to all my Scandihoovian readers out there: time to haul that juletre out to the curb!

P.S.: Tune in again Tuesday for a free cartoon that came to mind while I was drawing this one for Q Syndicate.

Quel Hommage

Today's Graphical History Tour dives into the archives in my basement and comes up with a quartet of cartoons from Januaries from decades ago.

I mentioned earlier this week that some of my fellow editorial cartoonists mimicked Ann Telnaes's drawing style in their #StandWithAnn cartoons, while I and others had not. I've drawn a number of cartoons over the years in the style of other artists, particularly when appropriating their ideas. Other times, I have simplified the drawing, as in this one:

in UW-P Ranger, Kenosha Wis., Jan. 31, 1985

I was referencing a nearly 75-year-old cartoon drawn by Puck cartoonist Johannes Keppler when then-President William Howard Taft was having similar problems getting his legislative agenda through Congress and the courts.

"I Must Have Been Dozing" by Johannes Keppler in Puck, June 22, 1910

I didn't include anywhere near as much shading, the window, the doorway, or anything outside the room, but I kept the Capitol sewing basket, the table it rested on, and two of the cats.

Now, there was a problem with my cartoon in that hardly any of the Ranger's readers would have had any reason to be familiar with the original Keppler version. Not even the professors would have had a subscription to Puck magazine in 1910; only someone else with The American Presidency in Political Cartoons 1776-1976 (Peregrine Smith Inc., 1976) could possibly have caught the reference.

The message of the cartoon still applied, and should have been understood by anyone paying any attention to current events; but as a tribute, the cartoon was, frankly, just stealing an old idea.

Reusing someone else's old cartoon works best if the original cartoon is (or ought to be) well known: Thomas Nast's "Who Stole the People's Money," or Charles Schulz's cartoons of Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown. I am reminded, however, of a recent cartoon by a fellow editorial cartoonist that referenced a specific episode of The Simpsons. According to the reader comments, I wasn't the only person who had missed that particular episode and therefore the reference.

Then there was the time that I drew a cartoon for the NorthCountry Journal relying on a reference to "Calvin and Hobbes," a very popular comic strip running in many newspapers at the time. The NCJ editor and publisher, however, had never seen "Calvin and Hobbes," so I had to explain it to her and assure her that her readers would get the cartoon.

By the way, the credit line under my signature in my Ranger cartoon says "again," because I had drawn a cartoon the previous November about Ronald Reagan's reelection, based on a Keppler cartoon celebrating Teddy Roosevelt's 1905 inauguration. I don't suppose many Parkside students or faculty were familiar with that cartoon, either.

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in UWM Post, Milwaukee, Jan. 30, 1995

I include this cartoon in part to set up a subsequent homage cartoon. Dick Armey (R-TX) was the new House Majority Leader in the 104th Congress, and one of the architects of the 1994 Republican Revolution.

During a January 20, 1995 radio interview, Armey referred to fellow Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), the only out gay man in Congress, as "Barney Fag." The quote, verbatim, as Armey was discussing a possible book deal, was: “I like peace and quiet and I don’t need to listen to Barney Fag, [pause] Barney Frank, haranguing in my ear because I made a few bucks off a book.” 

The slur was reported by several radio networks, and Armey blamed the media for reporting on what he claimed was an audio glitch, not a slip of the tongue or intentional insult.

Rep. Frank refused to accept Armey's excuses, saying, “There are a lot of possible ways to mispronounce my name but that one, I think, is the least common, ... I turned to my own expert, my mother, who reports that in 59 years of marriage, no one ever introduced her as Elsie Fag.”

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in Business Journal, Milwaukee, Jan. 21, 2005

A propos the Washington Post editor's excuse for spiking an Ann Telnaes cartoon on the grounds that it reiterated past and future opinion columns, here's one of the many cartoons I drew for the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee reiterating the editorial it ran alongside.

That was, in fact, the role I was expected to fill at the Business Journal from 1996 to 2005. I was brought in to replace conservative cartoonist Craig DuMez, who had often drawn whatever was on his mind. The editors at the Business Journal were interested in having editorial cartoons that reflected the week's editorial — which weren't always as far to the right as DuMez was.

Or, in this case, political at all.

I've never met the guy, but DuMez might have chafed at having to draw as many cartoons about hospital expansions, mergers, and construction as I had to do in my nine years with the Business Journal. This editorial had something to do with an addition to Froedtert Hospital, which the Beej hoped wouldn't be tarted up with a bunch of fancy frills — the sort of things one assumes architects dream about and hospital planners hope will make patients feel they're in a five-star hotel.

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for Q Syndicate, Jan., 2015

Finally, 2015 was going to be the year that the Supreme Court discovered that criminalizing same-sex marriage discriminated against same-sex couples, so Republican legislatures around the country were desperately preparing mechanisms to keep unconstitutional discrimination legal.

This is one of my cartoons in which the characters are not based on real people, even if their actions or opinions are based on those of actual persons. My clue to the reader that I've made up the person in the cartoon is if their name is somehow a pun.

You might find Lauryl's name in the list of ingredients on your shampoo bottle. Senator Beautron can be found overlooking a sports arena and displaying scores, stats, and replays.

I was considering last names for my latest recurring characters, MAGA Max and Liberal Leo, whom I named purely for the alliteration. "Headroom" has already been taken, so perhaps Max's surname should be K. Passidy. Or something less obvious, like Carpone. How about O'Delay, Leo?

I'll have to get back to you on that.

Q Toon: On the Road Again

I have to admit that it's tough coming up with cartoon ideas these days.

It's not for a dearth of topics. Congress is back in session. A dishonest grifter who led an insurrection against democracy is about to take over the U.S. government. Our broligarchy is falling all over itself to kowtow to the new Trumpreich. Justin Trudeau's government is collapsing. Warfare against civilians continues in Gaza and Ukraine. Islamist radicals have toppled Russia's client in Syria. Blizzards are blanketing parts of the U.S., and fires are raging around L.A. A couple of "Once a Marine, always a Marine"s decided that their New Year’s resolution was to go out as terrorists.

It's no wonder that, according to a recent poll, people are sick of paying attention to the news. I'm not immune to this particular malady, either.

I turned on the news Tuesday afternoon around lunchtime, and there was Donald Berzelius Trump, having himself a live press conference, blathering on about bathroom showerheads and dishwashers and toilets. So I immediately turned it off and missed the part about declaring war on Greenland, Denmark, Panama, Canada, and the Gulf of Mexico.

By the way, not to be overly crass, but when Trump complains about having to flush his toilet 15 times, it's because there's no way in hell he'd ever touch a scrub brush.

And when he summoned the media on Tuesday to share his oral diarrhea with us all, it was because he's jealous of a dead president getting all the attention.

Anyway, since I haven't come up with an LGBTQ+ angle on any of that yet, this week's cartoon is about Pete Buttigieg packing up his stuff and vacating the office of Secretary of Transportation. 

I for one will be sorry to see him go, and interested to see what his next steps are. He has been the Biden administration's most effective spokesperson, the guy who has held his own and then some going up against the Fox Noise angers anchors. He might end up in one of the other news channels' stable of talking heads, but it would be a shame if that limits him to talking to a friendly audience.

He has been mentioned as a candidate for office in Michigan, where he and Chasten now reside with their family. How Michiganders would feel about a Hoosier asking for their vote is open for discussion.

Buttigieg might consider running for president again in 2028. He should probably ask Liddy Dole whether being a former Transportation Secretary is a sufficient credential for the Oval Office. 

First, he'd have to get the Democratic Party nomination, of course. 

And as the past three presidential contests have shown, Democrats have higher standards for nominating a presidential candidate than RepubliQans do.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Since I didn't quite get my #StandWithAnn cartoon posted here before midnight Sunday night, I've delayed posting This Week's Sneak Peek until Tuesday.

When I read the AAEC’s call for cartoonists to post “finished” versions of Ann Telaes’s rough sketch, I took it to mean a call to put forth basically the same cartoon. I see, however, that many of my fellow ink- and pixel-slingers have taken the core concept of her cartoon and taken it in novel and creative ways.

My own was pretty rough — I didn’t spend as much time as I normally would tweaking caricatures and varying the weight of line. And the only substantive variation I made on Telnaes’s concept was replacing the plutocrats’ money bags with their heads. (Which Dave Whamond also did.) 

Oh, and I added Elon Musk.

A few cartoonists mimicked Telnaes’s style, and good for them. I didn’t try that approach, and I’m not confident that I could pull it off. Her work has such a wonderful fluidity and animation to it — even in still images.

More on mimicry later.

Anyway, back to the cartoons in support of Ann Telnaes: At some point, once this #StandWithAnn thing has played out, someone is going to post a collection of the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all. I’m sure I’ll post a link to it when it happens.

P.S.: Here’s that link. https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2025/01/07/dozens-of-cartoonists-so-far-hashtag-stand-with-ann-telnaes/

Or via Christian Vachon: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1E4ukpRYCu/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Post Waste

Editorial cartoonists have been buzzing this weekend over a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize winning Ann Telnaes that was spiked by her employer, The Washington Post, causing her to quit the job. The cartoon would have portrayed Post owner Jeff Bezos, Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, Facebook-Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, AI CEO Sam Altman, and Disney's Mickey Mouse prostrate before a colossus Donald Trump, offering him/it bags of cash.

Telnaes explained on her Substack, where you can also find her rough sketch of the cartoon:

“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable,” Telnaes wrote. “For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’”

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) came to Telnaes's defense with a strongly worded statement:

"… The AAEC condemns the Post and their ethical weakness. Editorial cartooning is the tip of the spear in opinion, and the Post’s cowering further soils their once-stellar reputation for standing up and speaking truth to power. We weep for the loss of this once great newspaper…

We request that all editorial cartoonists do a finished version of her rough and post it in solidarity with Ann’s brave and sadly necessary decision. Please use the hash tag #StandWithAnn…"

I therefore add my two cents to the conversation:

The bruhaha has been reported all over the internets. I suppose, in fairness, one should let the head honcho at WaPo have his say, too.

The Post’s communications director, Liza Pluto, provided The Associated Press on Saturday with a statement from David Shipley, the newspaper’s editorial page editor. Shipley said in the statement that he disagrees with Telnaes’ “interpretation of events.”

He said he decided to nix the cartoon because the paper had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and was set to publish another.

“Not every editorial judgement is a reflection of a malign force. ... The only bias was against repetition,” Shipley said.

As any editorial cartoonist will tell you — and several already have — editors have never shied away from printing an editorial cartoon that buttresses an editorial column in the same newspaper. Good God, man, that was my entire job description with the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee.

I had not been among the thousands canceling subscriptions to the Post last fall when its management spiked an editorial endorsement of Kamala Harris for President. That was in large part because I appreciate and enjoy Ann Telnaes's cartoons.

I'm now subscribing to her Substack. Soon, the newspaper publishing model for our profession will be dead and we editorial cartoonists will all be trying to live off each others' subscriptions to our own Substacks.

Meanwhile, if you want to subscribe to the Post, it continues to publish the cluttered, right-wing editorial cartoons of Pulitzer Prize winning Michael Ramirez, and editorial cartoons about mulled wine, neither of which risk getting Mr. Bezos on Donald Trump's Enemies List.