Q Toon: Yachta, Yachta, Yachta

Brittney Griner's trial has been delayed by another month, so I have taken the occasion to draw a reminder, amid all the war, gun violence, and baby formula shortages, that the WNBA star and Olympic medalist is still in a Russian prison. She has missed the May 6 opening of the WNBA season, and given how the Russian judicial system operates, stands to miss several more seasons.

Griner has been awaiting trial since February, accused of having a vape canister with hashish oil in her carry-on luggage when she arrived at the Moscow airport. When not playing for the Phoenix Mercury, has played on a Russian Premier League women's basketball team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, since 2014. (WNBA players are not paid as handsomely as their NBA counterparts, so many of them play for European teams in the off-season.)

Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department began dealing with her case through its Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, labeling her case as one of "wrongful" detention. The designation means that we are no longer patiently waiting for her legal case to play out in court.

Russian media have suggested that their government might offer a prisoner swap of Griner for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, held since 2012 in U.S. Penitentiary, Marion, in Illinois. If that sounds like an uneven trade, it is; but the U.S. isn't currently holding any Russian Olympians in our prison system.

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What is a Russian lawyer supposed to look like in a cartoon these days?

There was a time when one would just draw a scarfaced apparatchik in an ushanka and pin-striped suit. While that image would still work if the character were a member of the politburo or Russian FSB, it seems to me that a Russian defense attorney would be someone at the beginning of his or her career, perhaps juggling a couple dozen clients at once.

Like the Miranda Rights attorney you get in the U.S. if you cannot afford one.

Those of us in the Entertainment Biz typically let you, the Entertained, know a character is a foreigner by tossing in a word or two from the foreign language into the dialogue — sí, señorita; non, monsieur; jawohl, mein Herr — no matter how fluent in English the character is otherwise. Alas, the lawyer in today's cartoon had no reason to say дa or нет, and it turns out that there is no Russian translation of "Ms." (Russian, moreover, simply transliterates Mr., Mrs., and Miss from English.)

I suppose I could have printed his dialogue with backwards И's and Я's — except that Ms. Griner's name includes both an N and two R's, and doing so would have been equally confusing.

You might, however, try reading his dialogue with a Boris And Natasha accent.