Thanksgiving Leftovers Already?

It's Saturday, so time to rummage through the archives and post a bunch of old cartoons; so let's get ready for Thanksgiving.

I thought I had posted a Thanksgiving retrospective of my own cartoons before this —as a matter of fact, I'm 99.44% sure I have— but I apparently didn't give the post a "Thanksgiving" tag. What the heck, then; Thanksgiving is a time for traditions, so let's just go ahead and thaw these turkeys again.

in The Chalice, Racine, Wis., 1977 or '78

This was an illustration I drew for the church newsletter sometime in the late 1970's. It might not even have been for Thanksgiving; the reference is clearly to the parable of Lazarus and Dives. But there is a turkey on the table, so, yeah, let's go with saying it's a Thanksgiving cartoon.

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, Nov. 2003

Here's a more traditional Thanksgiving cartoon, with pilgrims and Wampanoags and more food than you can legally shake a stick at. The story of the First Thanksgiving is acknowledged these days to be a heavily ornamented myth, but one that is firmly ingrained into American culture — and thus the setting of many a cartoon the product of cartoonists and editors needing to get over the river and through the woods with their whole family before the snow starts falling.

for Q Syndicate, Nov. 2006

I have occasionally found ways to make the traditional myths relevant to my readers of the LGBTQ+ press.

in InStep News, Milwaukee, Wis., Nov. 27-Dec. 12, 1996

 

Since Turkey Day follows so closely after Election Day, defeated candidates are an easy holiday target.

Dornan in this cartoon was flamboyantly antigay Bob Dornan (R-CA), a D-list actor elected to Congress in 1984. He publicly outed Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-WI) as gay on the floor of the House, accusing him of having "a revolving door on his closet." Dornan made a laughable stab at running for President in 1996, then lost reelection to his House seat that November. Setting the standard for a certain future presidential loser, Dornan claimed that Democrat Loretta Sanchez only won because of illegal votes cast by undocumented immigrants.

The other turkeys in the cartoon, by the way, are Republicans Mark Neumann, Phil Gramm, Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Jim Sensenbrenner, and Dick Armey.

for Q Syndicate, Nov. 1998

Two years later, when voters failed to reward congressional Republicans for pressing the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, I took advantage of his name to depict Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich as something other than a turkey.

for Q Syndicate, Dec., 2000

Two years later, when an Arizona soup kitchen snubbed the district's Congressman, Republican Jim Kolbe because they objected to his being gay, their eventual apology opened up the opportunity to draw a Thanksgiving cartoon that departed from the usual pilgrims and turkeys.

In closing, whether you will spend your Thanksgiving celebrating with a houseful of family, or on your own over pizza or dim sum, may your holiday be healthy, happy and harmonious!

for Q Syndicate, Nov., 2018

All things being relative.