This Week's Sneak Peek

Tune in later this week for a completely serious cartoon about a totally serious topic for sober, reasoned discussion.

Meanwhile, here's something not to tell your Republican uncle who gets all worked up about imaginary aliens voting in U.S. elections: while searching through Canadian newspaper articles about the West Middlesex special election, I came across UFO vote totals. 

The first references I found assumed that the paper's readership knew what the UFO was; I had to do a little searching to come up with the answer.

The United Farmers of Ontario Party (founded 1914, dissolved 1944) actually won enough seats in the Ontario Legislative Assembly to form a coalition government with the Independent Labour Party from 1919 to 1923. According to Wikipedia, "The UFO platform called for the abolition of political patronage, better educational opportunities in rural areas, cheap electric power, conservation of forests, proportional representation and "direct legislation". The UFO also favoured prohibition [passing it into Ontario law in 1919; prohibition was repealed in 1927] and budgetary restraint."

Its last member in the Ontario Legislative Assembly joined the Liberal Party in 1940, well after the UFO had become a spent political force.

As West Middlesex Goes

Today's Graphical History Tour checks in on the Canadian political situation a century ago.

"So Long As All Hands Keep Their Party Oars Going..." by Arthur G. Racey in Maclean's, Toronto, March 1, 1926

You will, of course, recall that the parliamentary election of November, 1925, left no party with a majority. The incumbent Liberal Party and its partner Progressive Party both lost seats to the Conservative Party. 

Of the 245 seats in Parliament, Arthur Meighen's Conservatives won 115; William Mackenzie King's Liberals hung onto 100 (King losing his own riding but then getting elected to a vacated seat elsewhere), and Robert Forke's Progressives held 22. The number of seats needed to achieve a majority, however, was 123, just out of reach of the three major parties.

"Pretty Polly" by A.M. Barstad in Toronto Globe, March 29, 1926

King and Meighen both courted Forke's Progressives; Meighen needed to persuade only eight of them, whereas King needed all of them plus any of the eight minor party members. But on one of the Conservatives' major issues of the day, higher tariffs against U.S. goods, the agrarian Progressives stood with the Liberals. Most of the splinter parties were to the left of the larger three parties, further handicapping Meighen's chances.

"After Monday's Vote" by D.H. Russell in Daily Province, Vancouver BC, March 30, 1926

Premier King's appointment of John C. Elliot to be Minister of Labour required Mr. Elliot to run in a by-election for his parliamentary seat representing West Middlesex, Ontario. The riding was a reliable Liberal stronghold, where Elliot had been in elective office since 1908.

"Slipped Again" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, March 30, 1926

Perhaps the Conservative Party hoped to confuse voters by selecting Thomas E. Elliot as their champion to challenge John C. Elliot. If so, it didn't work; the Liberal Elliot outpolled the Conservative Elliot in every district.

"On the Way to Political Red Lake" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, April 3, 1926

To explain the reference in Sam Hunter's cartoon, Red Lake in northern Ontario was anticipating a rush of gold prospectors as the ice broke. From later headlines, I take it that prospectors ended up being as disappointed as Hunter predicted Mr. Meighen would be. 

"Taking Willy for an Airing" by Arthur G. Racey in Macleans, Toronto, April 1, 1926

Blaming a lethargic voting public for Canada's political predicament, Conservative cartoonist Arthur Racey portrayed the Progressives' Forke at the wheel of Government, with a diminutive Premier King in his lap. "Willy, you sit still and stop trying steer," Forke says, "or I'll throw you out!"

Q Toon: A Little Song, A Little Dance

Phoning in to the Fox Noise panel program "The Five" last Thursday, Donald Commodius Trump made the bizarre claim at the heart of my editorial cartoon today.

“Now I think I did very well with the gay vote, OK? I even played the gay national anthem as my walk-off, OK? And I think it probably helped me. But I did great. No Republican’s ever gotten the gay vote like I did and I’m very proud of it, I think it’s great. Perhaps it’s because I’m from New York City.”

The "gay national anthem" Trump referred to is the Village People's "Y.M.C.A.," one of the staples of his 2024 presidential campaign appearances (including the one where Trump appeared on stage and called for a 34-minute impromptu concert, after the crowd had already been standing for hours listening to music while waiting for him to arrive).

For dropping their cease-and-desist order to stop playing their music at Trump rallies, the Village People were rewarded by landing the gig to perform "Y.M.C.A." at Trump's "Make America Great Again Rally" and the Turning Point USA Inaugural Ball on January 19, 2025. 

I hope they were paid enough to be worth it, because I would argue that "Y.M.C.A." can no longer be considered the gay national anthem. Not only is it now a staple along with "Mambo #5" and "Electric Slide" of different-sex wedding receptions, the Village People front man and co-author of the song Victor Willis has disavowed its gayness:

“There’s been a lot of talk, especially of late, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem. As I’ve said numerous times in the past, that is a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay life. 

“This assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently being used as some sort of gay hangout and since one of the writers was gay and some of the Village People are gay, the song must be a message to gay people. To that I say once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not."

Don't count on being able to convince Secretary of Excursions Pete Kegsbreath to enlist "In the Navy" as a recruitment tool, however.

There are plenty of other nominees for Gay National Anthem, any of which is unsullied by association with the Absolutely Corrupt Trump Regime. There's "Born This Way," "I Am What I Am," "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," or "Supermodel (You Better Work)" — just for starters.

Dozens of new ones come out every summer, and I haven't even gotten around to the Lesbian National Anthems, Bisexual National Anthems, Transgender National Anthems, Queer National Anthems, and all the Plus National Anthems.

If you saw Monday's sneak peek, you will have noticed that I completely changed the last dialogue balloon. Originally, I had Trump "weaving" to the topic of his pens, the subject of a five-minute monologue during a recent televised cabinet meeting.

After I had nearly finished inking the cartoon, it occurred to me that it would be better to have him show off his ability to identify the five Village People. Just in case you thought he knew their actual names.

Inking on top of white-out doesn't work very well, so I wrote the substitute dialogue on a sheet of bristol board that I have used for drawing backgrounds for repetition in multi-panel cartoons. What I failed to consider was that the sheet of bristol board was from a bundle susceptible to bleeding. Instead of staying where I draw it, ink spreads out along the fibers of the paper. 

Not far, but not neat.

That's fine for backgrounds, which aren't meant to be in focus anyway. Lettering has to be neater, though, so I ended up spending a considerable amount of time cleaning up that lettering in PhotoShop.

So if someday you notice that I've switched over to using Comic Sans, cut me some slack. I'm not planning to do it, but lettering is probably the least favorite part of any cartoonist's job.

Holy Week's Sneak Peek

Well, to be perfectly honest, you won't find this in this week's cartoon.

Here's something else you won't find in this week's cartoon: The Roman Emperor Commodus (reigned AD 180 – 192) was an incompetent ruler, devoting most of his rule to self-glorification. 

He had himself minted onto imperial currency, which wasn't unusual. He festooned Rome with countless statues of himself as Hercules, which was only slightly out of the ordinary. Then he renamed the city "Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana." He further renamed the months of the year, the Roman legions, the fleet, the senate, the imperial palace after himself, and even decreed that each and every citizen of Rome must change their name to Commodianus. 

Within a year, he was assassinated, and the names were all changed back.

Edwina Dumm, Dog Lady

Comic Con has announced new inductees to the Will Eisner Hall of Fame this year, including Edwina Dumm (1893-1990), one of the earliest women in the field of American cartooning. The Graphical History Tour highlighted Dumm in our Women's History Month episode a few years ago; since she is about to be enshrined in a hall of fame, let's highlight her again.

Dumm started out drawing editorial cartoons (among other things), as reported in the May 7, 1921 edition of The Fourth Estate, a publishing industry journal: "Edwina started her career at the Columbus (Ohio) Monitor, a weekly at that time and later a daily, now defunct. At that time she drew political cartoons."

I have not been able to find any on-line archive of the Columbus Monitor, but I have found two of her editorial cartoons in Cartoons Magazine. She was the all-purpose cartoonist for the Monitor from its first edition in August, 1915, (her editorial cartoons went unsigned until that November).

This is from an article in Cartoons Magazine's January, 1916 edition introducing her to her colleagues.

"Adrift and Handicapped" by Edwina Dumm in Columbus Saturday Monitor, ca. Dec., 1915

"It is not often that the ladies make a success of political cartooning, but Miss Edwina Dunn [sic.] of the Columbus Saturday Monitor, refuses to be handicapped by precedent. No subject is too big for her to wrestle with, and she interprets world events in real masculine cartoons."

In a feature article one year later, Cartoons Magazine got her name right.

"Father, Dear Father, Come Home with Me Now" by Edwina Dumm in Columbus Daily Monitor, ca. Dec., 1916

"She had always wanted to be a cartoonist, so she went to work to pay for an art education, thus showing a lot of spunk and independence. She is quite old, being in her early twenties, and is the daughter of a newspaper man."

According to her biography at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum, at the start of her cartooning at the Monitor, Dumm relied on her father — the paper's editor — for political information. After he suffered a stroke, she found inspiration from her friends, including some serving in the military. She later told an interviewer, "I thought you had to know a lot about the politics of the past... [but] all you had to know at that time — and possibly today — was what was going on that day and the policy of the paper."

The Monitor ceased publication in 1917, whereupon she moved to New York City and pitched a comic strip she had drawn for the Monitor to the George Matthew Adams Syndicate. "The Meanderings of Minnie" was about a tomboy and her dog; she and the editors agreed to change the girl to a boy, and "'Cap' Stubbs and Tippie" was born.

"'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dunn for George Matthew Adams Service, March 4, 1918

ibid.

A Local Girl Makes Good article in Marion [OH] Daily Star on Feb. 20, 1918, states that "now she will have a daily comic strip in some of the leading newspapers of the country, including the Boston Globe and the Pittsburgh Post. ... It deals with kid life, humor, thrills, action and human nature." The earliest examples of the strip I can find were in neither of those two newspapers, but both published on March 4, 1918: the top one in Rock Island [IL] Argus, the lower one in Beaumont [TX] Journal. 

(This was not at all unusual for comic strips when the cartoonist didn't write a date in the cartoon. Editors received a bundle of cartoons at once, perhaps a week's worth, and printed them in whatever order they wanted.)

Advertisement in Morning Post, Camden NJ, March 8, 1926 (also in Camden Courier, March 6, 1926)

100 years ago this month, her comic strip, "'Cap' Stubbs and Tippie," was finding a new home in the Morning Post of Camden, New Jersey. In a note to Morning Post readers, Cap, the boy starring in the strip, explained, "You know, we useta live there at the Currier [sic.] about 4 (four) yrs. ago. Well, we come back today, but we ain't gonna live at the Currier, but at the Mornin' Post, which I hears is a New Brother to the Currier, or something."

Women cartoonists being very much a rarity in the 1920's, The copy headlined "Meet Edwina, Too" leaned into her gender as a selling feature:

"You can regard this as confidential or not, as you please. Edwina, who draws ‘Cap’ Stubbs, is a girl.

"The male members of the comic profession are falling over flat on their backs to see a MERE girl running off with the honor of what is undoubtedly the truest-to-life humorous strip depicting the every-minute experiences of a boy and his dog.

"When we reveal Edwina's identity to anybody who has studied her comic strip for several weeks, the usual comment is, 'Impossible! A girl couldn't draw such a good strip about boys and dogs!'

"All we can say is, 'Well, she does.'

"And how Edwina can draw dogs! Your ordinary newspaper cartoonist can only draw one side of a dog, and that's all. Most of them can draw a dog going South. But Edwina can draw the ANATOMY of a dog.

"And so there is real drawing in 'Cap' Stubbs, and in the other people in Edwina's pictures. None of the tricks and short cuts of conventional comic art are evident in her work."

I have no idea what ordinary newspapers cartoonist Ms. Dumm (a "MERE girl" of 32 years) or her publicist were dissing. 

"'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for Geo. Matthew Adams Service, March 1, 1926

Dumm's strip occasionally spread a story arc over several days, as in a series of strips in which Cap's mother and grandmother had been planning a tea party. In these cases, it did make a difference in what order they were printed.

"'Cap Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for Geo. Matthew Adams Service, March 2, 1926

Other times, the day's strip was a one-off. Either way, it's unlikely that the Cap Stubbs fans in Camden New Jersey needed much time catching up with the four years of Cap Stubbs strips that they had missed after the Courier had dropped the feature.

"'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for Geo. Matthew Adams Svc., March 8, 1926

Cap was a sometimes ornery boy who got into minor trouble every so often, always with his dog by his side. A girl friend of his appeared in the strip from time to time, but Cap was a bit young to have a girlfriend. The women in his house figured more prominently than his father, mostly because they were around the house most of the time and Milt Stubbs had a job somewhere.

"'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for Geo. Matthew Adams Service, March 18, 1926

You may have noticed that the credit line for Cap Stubbs was always "By Edwina." That was certainly intentional, and she kept it that way throughout her career. 

Dumm was not the only woman cartoonist in the 1920's, as remarkable as her accomplishment was. Fay King was perhaps the most famous in the day; Juanita Hamel and Nell Brinkley drew stylish panels for newspapers' "Women's Page"; Barbara Shermund achieved fame as the "flapper cartoonist" for several popular magazines; and Virginia Huget would be the artist behind the comic adaptation of  Anita Loos's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" debuting on June 7, 1926.

"'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for Geo. Matthew Adams Service, March 31, 1926

Tippie didn't have much to do in these strips from 100 years ago. He didn't speak, you can't read his thoughts, and he didn't fantasize about flying a Sopwith Camel in World War I. He pretty much just followed Cap around on his adventures.

"'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for Geo. M. Adams Service, March 29, 1926

Dumm's strip was a Monday-through-Saturday feature to begin with. Once a Sunday color comic was added in 1934, the additional newspaper real estate opened up more opportunities for Tippie to take center stage.

"Tippie and 'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for Geo. M. Adams Service, March 29, 1956

Eventually, Tippie got top billing in Edwina Dumm's strip. Even if the basic gags had similar premises.

"Tippie and 'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for Geo. M. Adams Svc., March 31, 1956

Although apparently the dog wanted to go to Washington D.C. for some reason.

Meanwhile, in 1931, Dumm launched another canine-centric cartoon feature, "Alec the Great," a one-column-wide drawing of a little puppy (very similar to the later, shaggier Tippie) over quaint little couplets written by her brother Robert. The Miami Herald introduced it to readers in 1936: 

"Alec the Great is a puppy. A rollicking happy-go-lucky, awkward pup that steals his way into your heart, and makes you want to cuddle him or give him a piece of hamburger and a pat on the head. Alec is waiting to welcome you on the editorial page of the Herald. He's a regular there."

"Alec the Great" by Edwina & Robert Dumm for Geo. M. Adams Svc., March 29, 1936

The Herald was one of several papers that used "Alec the Great" to break up the type on their otherwise gray editorial page; other papers relegated it to the classified ads for the same purpose.

"Alec the Great" by Edwina & Robert Dumm for Geo. M. Adams Svc., March 30, 1936

As if Tippie and Alec the Great weren't enough, Dumm also contributed cartoons about a dog named Sinbad to Life magazine. If it's Sinbad in this 1929 cartoon, it was before a readers' contest gave him a name.

"Gee, I'm So Hungry, I Could Eat a Sandwich Man" by Edwina Dumm in Life, Jan. 18, 1929

Here's Sinbad, and I have to say he looks mighty familiar. So does Grandma.

"Sinbad/I'm Sorry" by Edwina Dumm in Life, Aug. 8, 1930

Edwina Dumm never married. When she first moved to New York, she roomed with and collaborated with singer-composer Helen Thomas, and you can a make of that (and "The Meanderings of Minnie") what you will. Living in New York has never been inexpensive. 

She retired from cartooning Tippie and Alec in 1966.

The last installment of "Tippie and 'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dunn for Washington Star Syndicate, Sept. 3, 1966

Inducted into the National Cartoonists Society in 1950, she received the Gold Key Award from the NCS Hall of Fame in 1987, the first of only two women to receive this honor. (The other was Bunny Hoest of "The Lockhorns," in 2013.)

Edwina Dumm died in New York on April 27, 1990, at age 96.

Q Toon: Tea and Bessentpathy

You have, of course, heard about Donald Joffrey Trump bleating on Trump Social, “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!” (Unless you’re a Fox Noise junkie.)

There is no bottom to the depravity of the nasty, brutish, and short-tempered man befouling the Oval Office and the nation. Many have come forward this week to condemn this indefensible shitpost.

So instead, I'm condemning the lickspittles who are defending it.

Meet the Press host Kristen Welker concluded a contentious interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on March 22 by asking him about Trump spitting on Mueller's grave before the body was even cold:

Kristen Welker: "Do you think it's appropriate for the president of the United States to celebrate the death of an American citizen, someone who's a Bronze Star, Purple Heart recipient and who served in Vietnam?"

Bessent: "Kristen, I was with the president in the green room at Davos and there was a video playing of the — what may have been an illegal raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago. They are going through his wife’s wardrobe. And I watched the look in his eye, and I think that neither one of us can understand what has been done to the president and to his family."

Welker: "But to the question of the president’s post, I mean, Robert Mueller didn’t order that raid. Is it appropriate for the president to celebrate the death of any American citizen –"

Bessent: "Again —"

Welker: "– Mr. Secretary –"

Bessent: "I think that given what has been done to President Trump and his family it is impossible for either of us to understand what he has been through."

Welker: "So, you don’t think that there’s anything wrong with the post, saying, 'Good. Robert Mueller’s dead.'”

Bessent: "Again, I think that we should all have a little empathy for what has been done to him and his family."

Welker: "All right. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, thank you as always for being here."

Think about that one for a second. Retired FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed in 2017 to conduct the investigation into candidate Trump's collusion with Russia, and published a report in 2019 that was immediately mischaracterized by then Attorney General William Barr as exonerating his boss. Mueller had nothing to do with the 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago when Trump was refusing to return presidential papers illegally stored there.

By the way, kudos to whoever it was at the 2026 Davos seminar whose brilliant idea it was to have video of the Mar-a-Lago raid playing on the television in the green room while Trump was in it. Well played! Maybe next year you can put together a montage of courtroom sketches from his 2024 fraud trial.

So anyway, Mr. Secretary Bessent behooves us to muster up some empathy — which I thought was one of those woke mind viruses Republicans want to stamp out — for the most amoral, ill-mannered, foul-minded, self-absorbed, overgrown brat ever to escape the clutches of the law and the Peter Principle to ascend to the Presidency of our late Republic.

Personally, I hope that Donald Commodus Trump lives long enough to see the next occupant of the White House demolish his precious ballroom; and if a giant sinkhole swallows up Mar-a-Lago at the same time, that would be bonus. But I have wondered many times over the past couple of years what we editorial cartoonists will draw (if there are any of us left) when he at long last faces the Grim Reaper like nobody has ever seen before.

Now I know.

This Week's Sneak Peek

There's gonna be some mansplaining in this week's cartoon.

I posted a new cartoon at the end of Saturday's Graphical History Tour of cartoons I had drawn decades ago. I suppose I could have posted it separately, especially since I devoted much of that post to pointing out the flaws in the older cartoons. 

On the other hand, I could have used the occasion to discuss why adding boar tusks to my Trump caricature would have detracted and distracted from the facial expression I was going for in the new cartoon.