Last week's cartoon

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Paul Berge Q Syndicate Oct 10, 2010 EditorialCartoonists.com

Last week's cartoon was drawn well ahead of time because I would be returning from my vacation on the day that I would ordinarily be drawing the syndicated cartoon. If not for jet lag, I suppose I could have pushed myself to whip off something more timely, but honestly, I could barely stay awake through the afternoon and evening. (Then I woke up around 1:30 a.m. and could hardly get back to sleep. I might as well have gone down to my drawing board after all.)

My editors suggested that I draw something in consideration of October being LGBT history month. With all that might have inspired me from Alexander the Great and James Buchanan; to Tchaikovsky, Rimbaud and Whitman; to the Mattachine Society and Harvey Milk -- I came up with this piece of fluff.

In this age of Manhunt and on-line chat, there may be a lot of gay people who have no idea what the "hanky code" was. Briefly, a guy would have a hanky sticking out of his left or right rear pocket. The color of the hanky corresponded to particular sex acts, and left or right indicated whether the guy prefered to be the one doing the act or having it done to him. There was no semaphore involved.

This cartoon gave me a chance to poke loving fun at some 1970's archtypes. One that I missed, however, was the drag queen -- sorry, female impersonator, or whatever the preferred term is today. The reason for the omission is that I wasn't confident of an image that would be quintessentially of the era. Barbra Streisand? Bette Midler?
Wonder Woman?