This Week's Sneak Peek

I've finished Terry Mosher's Aislin's Favourite COVID Cartoons from Around the World, and while I continue to give it an enthusiastic thumbs up, I do have to caution that the Montreal cartoonist does not provide an English translation for the French language cartoons.

I rarely get to use my high school and college French — the one time that comes to mind was when our luggage was misdirected in a Nice hotel — so I didn't mind the lack of Québecois-to-English translation in Aislin's book. Your experience may vary.

From Lebanon to Halloween in Order Categorical

Given the newest war in the Holy Land, it is only appropriate to start our Graphical History Tour of my October cartoons with this reminder of the dangers of getting involved in the region.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers, Wis., Oct. 27, 1983

U.S. Marines were in Beirut in 1983 as part of a multinational peacekeeping force during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Those dates should give you a good idea of just how successful those "peacekeeping" efforts were.

On October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber exploded a truck at the Marines' barracks near Beirut International Airport, killing 241 U.S. Marines, sailors, and soldiers. Another suicide bomber blew himself up at the barracks of the French paratroopers, killing another 58. This coordinated attack, for which Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, was the second deadly attack on Western interests; a suicide bomber had killed 63 at the American embassy in April.

A joint American-French retaliatory strike against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), believed to be training Hezbollah militants, was proposed; but it never came about because of doubts within the Reagan administration that Iran was behind the October 23 bombings. Instead, most of the U.S. peacekeeping force was moved offshore to transport ships. The following February, President Ronald Reagan authorized withdrawal of U.S. troops from the conflict.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 7, 1993

Ten years later, American lives were lost in another civil war, this time in Somalia. Bill Clinton had inherited Operation Restore Hope from the George H.W. Bush administration. U.S. troops were assisting the United Nations operation providing famine relief there when, on October 3, 1993, soldiers loyal to Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed shot down two U.S. Blackhawk helicopters.

Eighteen U.S. soldiers and hundreds Somalis were killed in the crash and ensuing battle. Video of Somali combatants dragging the naked bodies of slain U.S. servicemen through the streets shocked and revolted the nation.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 11, 1993

President Clinton pulled the U.S. forces out of the conflict zone four days later, and from the rest of Somalia the following March. America wanted nothing to do with a distant African nation where all of the warring factions were the bad guys.

The snake imagery in the earlier of these two cartoons echoes two famous cartoons by J.N. "Ding" Darling of a giant German serpent swallowing the world. Darling has not been the only cartoonist to liken war to a giant snake; Pat Oliphant drew at least one cartoon using snake images to represent U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and that country's shape inspired a number of other editorial cartoons.

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Lest today's post get too dark and depressing, let's skip ahead another ten years and sing us Picayune Butler, or something else that's funny.

for Q Syndicate, October, 2003

The U.S. was at war again in October of 2003, but the publications I was drawing for had other priorities. The Business Journal didn't happen to write any editorials about Afghanistan or Iraq that month, and I'd just drawn a cartoon a month earlier for Q Syndicate of religious zealots trying to enlist homophobia in the George W. Bush administration's strategery planning.

My cartoon about the fictional Rock Knuteson was a purely made-up scenario about closeted ball players. We now know of a few bi and gay athletes who were active in professional sports in 2003, but none of them were out to any but their closest friends at the time.

for Q Syndicate, October, 2013

And I couldn't let this post end without a Hallowe'en cartoon.

In 2012, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had vetoed a marriage equality bill passed by the state legislature and had called instead for a putting a constitutional amendment up for popular vote. The legislature failed to override the veto, but didn't pass the amendment measure, either.

Meanwhile, Garden State Equality v. Dow was making its way through the courts, and New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson ruled that New Jersey "shall permit" same-sex couples to marry, effective October 21, 2013. The state Supreme Court unanimously denied Christie's appeal to delay implementation of Judge Jacobson's decision, and New Jersey's first same-sex nuptials were performed at the stroke of midnight.

Christie has a mixed record on LGBTQ+ issues, but a considerably better one than most Republicans. As governor, he favored civil unions for same-sex couples prior to legalization of marriage equality; he also signed a bill outlawing conversion therapy for minors. 

Now making a second run for the presidency, he spoke out against his party's bans on gender-affirming care, telling Brian Kilmeade on "Fox and Friends" this past June, "It's more of a parent’s decision than a governor's decision for goodness sakes, Brian. You really think that [Arkansas Governor] Sarah Huckabee Sanders should be making this decision for children in Arkansas?"

Toon: Perhaps Ivermectin Would Help

Sigh. I've finally given in and drawn Donald Joffrey Trump again.

Try as I might, I just couldn't ignore him any more.

Heck, Stephen Colbert started referring to him by name again when The Late Show came back from the writers' strike. I guess I at least held out longer than Colbert did. 

Q Toon: She's Got a Little List

 

The Holy Land is erupting in war, bringing horror, misery, and death to innocents of all ages on both sides.

After weeks of dysfunction, Requblicans in the House have finally found a Speaker who is acceptable to both the plutocratic and fascist wings of the party. 

So naturally, my cartoon this week is based, loosely, on a weird little news story that broke while I was busy with the AAEC convention earlier this month.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama public library mistakenly added a children’s picture book to a list of potentially inappropriate titles because the author’s last name is “Gay,” the library’s director said.

Read Me a Story, Stella, a children’s picture book by Canadian author Marie-Louise Gay, was added to a list of books flagged for potential removal from the children’s section of the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library because of “sexually explicit” content.

But the book, which is about a pair of siblings reading together and building a dog house, should not have been on the list and was only added because of the keyword “gay,” Cindy Hewitt, the library’s executive director told AL.com on Sunday.

Once the library's ridiculous book censorship made news, the library sheepishly admitted that they had overreacted to a list of "explicit material" generated by AI (i.e., Alabama Intelligence). Their excuse was that they had merely erred on the side of hysteria.

No harm done, right?

Kirsten Brassard, Gay’s publicist at Groundwood Books, said the episode sends a “hateful message” coming from a public library,

“This proves, as always, that censorship is never about limiting access to this book or that one. It is about sending the message to children that certain ideas — or even certain people — are not worthy of discussion or acknowledgment or consideration,” Brassard told the news outlet.

It's not clear from the news accounts that I've read whether the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library even had Read Me a Story, Stella in the children's section in the first place, let alone whether anyone on the staff had ever read it. Perhaps, as a gesture of goodwill, they will now get themselves a copy.

No doubt with a "Parental Advisory" sticker plastered over the author's last name.

This Week's Sneak Peek

A page of character sketches drawn in advance of this week's cartoon:

Before posting Saturday's review of May It Amuse the Court, I did take care to check whether John Cassel's given name could possibly have been Ino Casals, as he is credited in the book.

Although the New York Evening World referred to him by his initials "J.H." and later as "John Cassel," his signature does appear as if it were "Jno Cassel" or even "Gino Cassel."

"More" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, April 20, 1919

If he were a first or second generation immigrant, as several other cartoonists of the late 19th and early 20th Century were, it is conceivable that some official at Ellis Island summarily Anglicized his name, or a parochial school nun decided to just change his name to that of a saint. Ellis Island officials and nuns were the coffee baristas of their day.

"After the Downpour" by John Cassel in New York World, November 10, 1922

I did not find a great deal of biographical information about Cassel, but contemporary sources all name him John. My guess is that what appears to be a lower case "o" in his signature is supposed to be a period: "Jn. Cassel."

Incidentally, the illustration credit for the cartoon in May It Amuse the Court is listed as "Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch." Cassel quit the New York World in 1927 over disagreement with management regarding New York Governor Alfred E. Smith's presidential campaign. After that, he was distributed by McClure Syndicate, quitting in May of 1929 to "devote his time to etching and experimental art work." 

By 1932, he had resumed drawing editorial cartoons, now at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. (It would have been odd if he had quit one Joseph Pulitzer newspaper, the Evening World, only to go to work for another, the Post-Dispatch. The St. Louis newspaper did, however, reprint Cassel's work occasionally when Daniel Fitzpatrick was on vacation. The Daily Eagle is correctly listed in the text of May It Amuse the Court as the original publication for the Cassel cartoon.)

The Knee Jerk Review of Books

Your humble scribbler couldn't go to this month's convention of the AAEC without coming home with a couple of books (what, only two this time?), so instead of the usual Graphical History Tour today, I herewith present my highly amateurish book review.

The cover

I spotted May It Amuse the Court: Editorial Cartoons of the Supreme Court (H.L. Pohlman and Michael A. Kahn, Hill Street Press) in the bookstore at the Cartoon Art Museum and knew right away that I would have to buy it. The fellow manning the register told me that one of the authors was supposed to have attended our opening reception but had been unable to make it.

I have editorial cartoon books that focus on presidents, on foreign policy, or on specific wars; this is the only one I've seen devoted to the Court and the Constitution. The text is generously illustrated with editorial cartoons dating back to the mid-19th Century. Thankfully, most of those early cartoons are well-reproduced, considering that many of the original drawings no longer exist.

From the book: "Waiting" by James Albert Wales in Puck, April 20, 1881

Each chapter focuses on a specific constitutional issue: for example, the Civil War constitutional amendments, labor law, women's suffrage, Prohibition, New Deal legislation, and mid-20th-Century civil rights. The chapters are presented chronologically, but the chronology of the cartoons overlap from one chapter to the next.

The book came out in 2005, so there are some chapters that deserve updating — particularly the one on abortion rights — and there is only passing mention of LGBTQ+ rights. Certainly Republicans' denying President Barack Obama his nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court nearly a year before the 2016 election and then ramming Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett through barely over a month before the 2020 election in order to pack the court with a right-wing supermajority should merit a new chapter.

If an updated edition ever comes about, there are a few cartoonists from past eras whose names need correction: Winsor McCay is in the book as Winsor Mecay; John Cassel is misidentified as Ino Cassals. Other cartoonists whose signatures are difficult to read, such as Al Frueh and Edwin Marcus, aren't identified at all. Of course, many of the earliest cartoons are unsigned and essentially anonymous. Properly and consistently crediting the rest would be an improvement. An index listing of the cartoonists would also be helpful, as would an index of the several court cases referenced by name in the text.

The authors' habit of describing each cartoon within the text becomes a little grating over the course of the book. Useful when discussing some of the more difficult-to-read and obscure cartoons in the earliest chapters, it seems superfluous in the later ones. Perhaps not in the audio book, if there is one.

Those are minor complaints I have, which I mention at the risk of dissuading someone from seeking out the book — well, that's the trouble with quibbles. 

On balance, I can heartily recommend Pohlman and Kahn's work to anyone interested in cartooning, the Supreme Court, or constitutional law.

From the cover of Terry Mosher's book

The other book I brought home was Terry "Aislin" Mosher's Aislin's Favourite COVID Cartoons from Around the World. Mosher was giving away signed copies of his book, originally published to raise funds for Community Healthcare in his hometown of Montréal. The cartoonists in this 336-page collection all donated their work for the cause.

I would gladly have donated a cartoon or two if I had been asked. For that matter, I would gladly have paid for this book ($30CDN).

I've read less than a third of the book so far, but it's a wonderful sampling of cartoons about the pandemic representing Canada, the U.S., China, Israel, Iran, Norway, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Philippines, Mexico, Mosher's native Canada, and many more.

Uncaptioned, by Ilya Katz, Israel

What is not represented, quite intentionally as Mosher told us, are cartoonists who are COVID skeptics, antivaxxers, and conspiracy fabulists. Their opinions may eventually be of interest to future generations marveling at the hysteria of our own, but they have no place in a book dedicated to health care professionals who have been at the front lines throughout the crisis.

✍

Daily Cartoonist reported last night the death of British cartoonist Tony Husband, whose book America in Cartoons I reviewed here six years ago. (The link to his books at my 2017 posting is broken; Daily Cartoonist has a better one.)

My review of America in Cartoons lamented that there was nothing about Watergate or the impeachment of President Clinton in it; the Pohlman & Kahn book reviewed today has chapters on both.

Q Toon: Goblins, Ghouls, and Grifters

With all that's going to hell in a handbasket in the world today, it may seem frivolous to focus this week's cartoon on the cartoonish Congresscretin from Long Island. And maybe it is.

On the other hand, it's important, at least to his constituents on Long Island, not to overlook the astounding degree of grift and fraud of which George Santos stands accused. According to the federal indictment:

“As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign.  Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen,” stated United States Attorney [Breon] Peace.  “This Office will relentlessly pursue criminal charges against anyone who uses the electoral process as an opportunity to defraud the public and our government institutions.”...

“The defendant — a Congressman — allegedly stole the identities of family members and used the credit card information of political contributors to fraudulently inflate his campaign coffers,” stated District Attorney [Anne T.] Donnelly.  “We thank our partners in the US Attorney’s Office and the FBI as we work together to root out public corruption on Long Island.”

Those of us who did not personally donate to Mr. Santos's 2022 campaign may have to wait until a court of law has judged the case against him, but apparently people who did donate are not granting him the benefit of the doubt. Newsday reports that his 2024 campaign is deep in debt, refunding donors more than it receives.

So let's just say that he certainly appears to regard the leader of his party as a role model. From the indictment:

[B]etween approximately December 2021 and August 2022, Santos devised and executed a fraudulent scheme to steal the personal identity and financial information of contributors to his campaign.  He then charged contributors’ credit cards repeatedly, without their authorization.  Because of these unauthorized transactions, funds were transferred to Santos’s campaign, to the campaigns of other candidates for elected office, and to his own bank account.  To conceal the true source of these funds and to circumvent campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely represented that some of the campaign contributions were made by other persons, such as his relatives or associates, rather than the true cardholders.  Santos did not have authorization to use their names in this way.

For example, in December 2021, one contributor (the “Contributor”) texted Santos and others to make a contribution to his campaign, providing billing information for two credit cards.  In the days after he received the billing information, Santos used the credit card information to make numerous contributions to his campaign and affiliated political committees in amounts exceeding applicable contribution limits, without the Contributor’s knowledge or authorization. To mask the true source of these contributions and thereby circumvent the applicable campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely identified the contributor for one of the charges as one of his relatives.  In the following months, Santos repeatedly charged the Contributor’s credit card without the Contributor’s knowledge or authorization, attempting to make at least $44,800 in charges and repeatedly concealing the true source of funds by falsely listing the source of funds as Santos himself, his relatives and other contributors.  On one occasion, Santos charged $12,000 to the Contributor’s credit card, ultimately transferring the vast majority of that money into his personal bank account.

But unless Santos turns out to be Joe Biden's bastard son, he's likely to remain in Congress until 2025. Even, that is, if he gets found guilty on all charges. Miss Thang knows no shame, and Gym Jordan (or Paul Gosar, or Marginal Taylor Greene, or whomever the MAGAverse vomits up next as its next candidate for Speaker of the House) needs his vote, and Santos knows it.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Dang it, I really should have devoted a proper blog post to the AAEC convention, because there's still one more thing I want to mention in case it somehow fades from memory.

It wasn't something at the convention itself, actually, but on our trip back home.

My husband and I landed at O'Hare Sunday night, retrieved our checked luggage, and followed the overhead signs until, around 8:00, we finally got to the exit where the hotel shuttles pick up arriving passengers.

Just inside those doors, lying, sitting, and milling about among their sleeping bags, blankets, and personal belongings, were dozens upon dozens of families clearly prepared to spend the night there between the walkway and the windows. Black drapes along the opposite side of the walkway concealed, what? Even more stranded passengers?

No, these were not travelers whose flight had been delayed. These were immigrants, refugees, with no place to go.

This WGN-TV report about the asylum seekers stranded at O'Hare — when they could all be hidden behind those curtains — is over a month old. 

As are the hateful remarks left at the top of the comments.

Well, Rachel, if you would rather live under a miserable federal government no better than the ones in the countries these people are fleeing, go ahead and vote for Trump.

Revising and Extending Yesterday's Postscript

My P.S. yesterday about attending the annual convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and Association of Canadian Cartoonists went on a bit longer than I had thought it would; but one thing I neglected to do was to link to the "others [who] have said just about anything I had in mind, and said it better than I would have."

So first of all, here's a link to Mike Peterson's report at Daily Cartoonist, and D.D. Degg's daily coverage here, and here, and here.

And here's the account Graeme MacKay posted today from his Canadian perspective.

And Guy Badeaux on being one of the awardees of this year's Townsie.

I'll come back and add any more as I find them.

A couple of personal notes: I took half a gazillion photos at the convention to share with any of my colleagues who were interested in them. I winnowed them down to about 150 on my Flickr page, and even further to three dozen on Facebook. I mostly used my good Nikon camera, but switched to my iPhone as Mike Peterson was accepting the Ink Bottle Awards for his Daily Cartoonist colleagues; I wouldn't have opportunity to upload the Nikon photos until Monday, and I figured the gang at the Daily Cartoonist would want a photo they could use before then.

AAEC President Jack Ohman and Mike Peterson

One of the Nikon photos was better.

My husband and I got to enjoy a side trip to Napa wine country on Friday of the convention with Graeme MacKay, Mike Sicilia, David G. Brown, Deb Milbrath and Wing Bruce, and Marci Brané and Sarah Alex of the Herb Block Foundation. 

I was so happy that we had the chance to make this tour. Chris and I make wine from juices as a family project every year, and I think we are justifiably proud of what we bottle. When my then-future-husband and I had visited San Francisco twenty years ago, Napa wine country was a planned highlight of that trip.

But it was very shortly after we had been in a motorcycle accident that left Chris badly injured (I was merely scathed), greatly hampering our enjoyment of any aspect of the vacation.

In most of our posed photos, Chris stands with his right arm, in a sling, hidden behind me.

This time around, I was the one standing in the back. Just a bit of carpal tunnel to complain of.

Sarah, Alex, David, Mike, Deb, Graeme, Wing, your humble scribbler, and Chris. David Brown's photo

Try to Get Over the Toons of October

"And Now for the Latest Stunning Development" by Tom Darcy in Newsday, Long Island NY, October 1973

I've been seeing a lot of cartoons this week echoing the sentiment of this one by Tom Darcy half a century ago.

October of 1973 was a momentous month, and not in a particularly good way. Last Saturday's deadly surprise attack by Hamas targeting Israeli civilians as they celebrated Sukkot called to mind the Yom Kippur War almost exactly 50 years ago, when the Israeli military was caught similarly unprepared.

"Hello? Mr. Nixon? Mr. Brezhnev?" by Pat Oliphant in Denver News, October, 1973

After the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel had pre-emptively anticipated attacks from its neighbors on all sides and ended up seizing the Golan Heights from Syria, the Western Bank from Jordan, and the entire Sinai peninsula from Egypt, the Israeli military was seemingly invincible. But the Yom Kippur War would be, in the words of a Newsweek headline, "a war that broke the myths."

The UAR in Pat Oliphant's cartoon refers to the United Arab Republic, at the time a proposed union of Syria and Egypt that never actually came about. The two nations attacked Israel simultaneously, taking many Israeli soldiers captive. Egypt recaptured much of the Sinai; Syria, despite backing from Iraq, was soon driven back out of the Golan.

"An Eye for an Eye" by Corky Trinidad in Honolulu Star-Bulletin, October (?) 1973

There was an Arab-language cartoon at the time that mocked Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who had lost an eye during World War II, wondering whether the outlook for Israel would be worse with two eyes, but I've been unable to find what book or scrapbook I have it in. Suffice it to say that Corky Trinidad's cartoon here riffs on an oft-cited biblical saying in discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by referencing both Dayan's eyepatch and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat's signature sunglasses.

Trinidad's cartoon expresses a view that both sides in the conflict are to blame for the cycle of violence that seems as never-ending now as it did half a century ago.

"You Guys Are Breaking My Back" by Ralph Yoes in San Diego Tribune, Oct. 1973

Ralph Yoes was not alone in suggesting, however, that there was plenty of blame to go around beyond the immediate belligerents. The United States was selling weapons and fighter planes to Israel, and the Soviet Union was arming the Arabs.

"Latter-Day Israelites Wandering 40 Years in the Wilderness" by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, Oct. 21, 1973

Wherever one has chosen to allot the blame, there has been one party who has consistently been, and remains, the victim. For way, way over that 40 years now. 

"Hell No, I Won't Go" by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago Today, October, 1973

Meanwhile, a U.S. District Attorney's investigation of corruption of Baltimore, Maryland officials discovered evidence linking Vice President Spiro Agnew to kickbacks from state contractors while he had been governor, and continuing after he was elected Richard Nixon's Vice President. Citing as precedent an 1826 House of Representatives investigation of Andrew Jackson's Vice President John C. Calhoun, Agnew argued that a vice president was immune from indictment by the criminal court system.

Deferring to the charges filed by the D.A., Speaker of the House Carl Albert (D-OK and third in line for the presidency) declined to open congressional investigation of the charges. As you may already know, both the House Judiciary Committee and the Nixon administration were quite occupied with other important matters in October of 1973.

"Yes, Thank You for Your Support, Mr. President" by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, October, 1973

Agnew pleaded no contest to felony charges of tax evasion and resigned on October 10. Mike Peters's cartoon the next morning referenced a novelty watch and Agnew's dashed presidential hopes.

No caption, by Mike Peters in Dayton Daily News, Oct. 11, 1973

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, passed after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, authorized the president to nominate a new Vice President, in this case Congressman Gerald R. Ford, subject to confirmation by the Senate.

"I Hate to Criticize the Framers of the Constitution" by Phil Interlandi in Los Angeles Times, Oct. 23, 1973

Thus the nation turned its eyes back to Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal, and just in time for the "Saturday Night Massacre."

"Sure I Did It" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, October 22, 1973

Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, working for the Department of Justice, convinced Federal Judge John Sirica to subpoena nine White House tape recordings, the existence of which had been made public in Senate testimony that summer. In a bold attempt to quash Cox's investigation, Nixon demanded that Attorney General Elliot Richardson fire him.

Instead, Richardson resigned, followed by his Deputy, William Ruckelshaus. The next in line, Solicitor General Robert Bork did Nixon's bidding.

"Simple" by Tom Darcy in Newsday, Long Island NY, October, 1973

Blowback was swift. Time magazine and newspapers across the country called for Nixon to resign. At last, Nixon relented, promising to allow Judge Sirica to listen to the tapes...

"Well, First Let Me Emphasize My Complete Faith in Judge Sirica" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, Oct., 1973

... then announced that two of the subpoenaed tapes were missing. And it only got worse from there.

✍

I had originally intended to post today a report of last week's joint convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and our Canadian counterpart, but others have said just about anything I had in mind, and said it better than I would have.

I will say that it was a pleasure to meet with others in my beleaguered profession. That includes some, such as Al Goodwyn, whom I met for the first time at this convention. I know his work mainly because GoComics places him alphabetically first on its page (until Aaron Abelard comes along), and his views there are invariably opposed to mine. 

The AAEC had seen an exodus of conservative editorial cartoonists in recent years — perhaps because liberals like me keep getting elected to the governing board. But the purpose of the AAEC is not now, nor has it ever been, to push an ideological agenda. It exists first and foremost to promote editorial cartooning — right, center, or left — and to stand for professionalism and honest debate.

Nowadays, vulture capitalists are bleeding newspapers dry, reducing them to withered husks of what they used to be. The bean-counters at McClatchy summarily dismissed three Pulitzer-prize-winning editorial cartoonists in the months leading up to our convention; another was fired from a prominent position less than a week before our gathering. 

So discussion always turns to: if not newspapers, what? Patreon? Books? Television? Movies? Bar coasters? (Seriously. Bar coasters.)

In our element at the Cartoon Art Museum

One final note: I was excited to find a book of Vaughn Shoemaker's editorial cartoons in this room of the Cartoon Art Museum during our opening reception. I hoped that it would include the cartoon featuring my father when he was 5 years old. Unfortunately, the cartoons in the book dated from the 1950's, two decades too late. Aw, shucks.

Laps in Judgment

Drawn before I left for last week’s convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in San Francisco, this cartoon should have, by all rights, been utterly out of date by today.

But never fear: the state legislature in Wisconsin has just joined the clamor of red state Republicans attacking transgender youth, filing bills to criminalize gender-affirming medical care, deciding for kids what pronouns they must use, and, of course, prohibiting transgender girls from participating in sports.

Rep. Barbara Dittrich [R-Oconomowoc], who authored AB 377, the anti-trans school sports bill which, by her own count, would apply to six kids throughout the state, explained in a hearing Wednesday that the issue is much bigger than that, because “63,000 females … participating in female sports don’t want to see a naked male with their penis hanging out in their locker room.”

While Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha), an author of the bill against medical care, disingenuously promised, “To any transgender individual who may be listening today…I want to say you matter and you contribute to the state of Wisconsin,” it was plain to see that these Republicans are telling everyone else "listening today" that transgender youth are a bunch of Chesters the Molesters, and so are their trusted medical professionals.

Three Democrats who have transgender family members, Rep. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove),  Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), and Rep. Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), testified against the bills; and Governor Tony Evers has promised to veto them. 

Despite their best gerrymandering, Republicans are just a vote or two short of a veto-proof majority in either house of Wisconsin's legislature. Yet this could be an issue where some Democrat might waver, intimidated by possible attack ads depicting him/her as Norman Bates attacking Marian Crane in the shower.

(If I start seeing a bunch of right-wing cartoons depicting exactly that, I swear I'm gonna draw your guy as Lars Thorwald!)

This Week's Sneak Peek

In case you didn't catch the double meaning in last week's sneak peek, I've just returned from attending the annual convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in San Francisco this past week; so my cartoon will be one that I drew before I left home.

I'm now spending the day culling through the seeming thousands of snapshots I took as the self-appointed official photographer of the convention (also the self-appointed bellow this meeting to order guy — I have to have duties besides filling a quorum at board meetings, you know). Come back to read all about it when I figure out what I have to say.

In the meantime, here is a roomful of cartoonists showing off their work.

The Invisible Empire Strikes Back

Our Graphical History Tour returns today to Oklahoma in 1923, when Progressive Democrat Governor John C. Walton resorted to martial law to combat the Ku Klux Klan.

"The Outcast" by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News-Tribune Oct. 3, 1923

When we left Oklahoma last month. Walton had put the military in charge of Tulsa and Okmulgee Counties to put an end to the Klan's reign of terror there. Walton then extended martial law to the rest of the state, censoring the press, and widening military authority to investigate and prosecute crimes of the Klan.

"The Zero Hour" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Oct. 2, 1023

Outraged by Walton's actions, the state legislature scheduled a popular referendum for Tuesday, October 2, asking voters to approve an amendment to the state constitution allowing the legislature to convene a special session — something up to then only the Governor could do — for the purpose of impeaching Walton.

"Which" by Loring in Daily Oklahoman, Oct. 2, 1923

In my post a fortnight ago, I commented that it's a shame there were no local editorial cartoonists in Oklahoma; but I have since found an apparently home-grown editorial cartoon. It ran on the front page of the Daily Oklahoman on election day, and appears to be the only Loring cartoon to appear in the Daily Oklahoman all October. (Their editorial page ran "Ding" Darling cartoons nearly every day.)

"When Night-hood Was in Flower" by Butler in Oklahoma Leader, Oct. 5, 1923

The Farmer-Labor weekly Oklahoma Leader appears to have taken on a cartoonist named Butler for a series of front-page cartoons titled "When Night-hood Was In Flower." (The klansman's wife in the above cartoon is saying "—My very best sheet, too!")

"When Night-hood Was in Flower" by Butler in Oklahoma Leader, Oct. 12, 1923

Butler's cartoons, at least those in October, were more focused on mocking the Klan than having anything at all to say about the governor or the legislature.

"Sitting on the Lid" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, October 2, 1923

Meanwhile: Walton threatened to send out 22,000 armed officers to prevent the election from being held, and there were brief confrontations in Tulsa the day before the election. Officials in Cimmaron, Bryan, and Harper Counties ignored the legislature's call to open polling places, voting was heavy, however, in Oklahoma's remaining 74 counties — in spite of heavy rains.

"I'm Still Governor" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, October 3, 1923

When the votes were counted, Walton lost decisively throughout the state, including in Red River Valley counties where he had found his strongest support in the previous year's election. The legislature proceeded to call its special session.

"The fight on the Invisible Empire has just started," Walton defiantly told reporters. "I am still Governor of Oklahoma." 

Walton then turned to the state Supreme Court, asking it to nullify the October 2 election on the grounds of being unconstitutional.

"It Doesn't Look So Bad Today" by Bill Sykes for Philadelphia Public Ledger, October (?), 1923

The Daily Oklahoman ran this cartoon on its front page on October 4; I don't have its original date of publication in Philadelphia, so there is a possibility that it predated the election. In that case, the caption may have been the creation of the Oklahoman's editors rather than the cartoonist.

This next Sykes cartoon was certainly drawn after the election results were known.

"Logical Results" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger, by Oct. 11, 1923

If, other than the Louisville Courier-Journal's Grover Page, out-of-state cartoonists who had earlier praised Walton for standing up to the Klan were now silent, perhaps they saw his ends as admirable, but the means indefensible. Yet one could hardly criticize the governor without seeming to sympathize with the Klan, which was, of course, actively supporting impeachment proceedings. Editorial cartoons are not particularly well-suited to nuance.

The Klan's influence inside the Oklahoma legislature was a known fact. Some of the representatives in state government were not merely sympathetic to the Klan, but members of it. Oklahoma-based Harlow's Weekly editorialized on October 6: "[T]he responsibility of Klan members of the legislature to be certain that everything they do is absolutely justifiable by facts made clear to the people of the state and the rest of the nation, is multiplied many times. No impeachment of Governor Walton which is based merely upon the fact that he is attacking the Klan can be made to stand up in the public's mind."

"Job" by Dennis McCarthy in Fort Worth Record, Oct. 18, 1923

Interrupting Oklahoma's political upheaval, those heavy rains that dampened the October 2 election kept pounding the state over the next two weeks — unleashing a horrific flood on Oklahoma City in mid-October. Thousands were left homeless.

The Oklahoma House would, a week after the flooding, vote to impeach Governor Walton.

"All Set for the Big Show" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Oct. 14, 1923