Q Toon: Tragedy at an Alabama Fertility Clinic

Unless you've been living under a rock (or perhaps in a petri dish), you have heard by now that the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos have all the legal rights of living, breathing children. Fertility clinics in the state abruptly halted services to patients who have been using in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures in their desire to become parents.

Several of my colleagues, and multiple memesters, have flooded the internet with jokes about Alabamans no longer being able to distinguish breakfast eggs from chickens... which was worth a chuckle the first time I saw it, but glosses over the fact that your breakfast eggs are unfertilized. They do not contain any chickens, real or theoretical. I wager that most people upon finding cracking open an egg to find a half-formed chick inside would be a little grossed out. (Unless they live on a farm. Or actually ordered the balut.)

Meanwhile, it's just as illegal to poach (in either sense of the verb) a bald eagle egg as it is to shoot an adult bald eagle. 

I don't think one can reasonably dispute that the prospective parents whose frozen embryonic cells were accidentally destroyed by some bozo who had no business messing with them in the first place suffered some degree of damage, although I couldn’t put a dollar figure on it. If one set of parents can no longer produce eggs or sperm together for whatever reason, perhaps the figure should be high. Where same-sex couples may be barred from adopting children, IVF could be a valuable option.

But if parents of a frozen embryo split up, would that make that embryo worthless — at least to one of them?

The Alabama Supremes have nevertheless opened up a Pandora's icebox of embryonic dilemmas. Clinics don't save one embryo per couple, so what of all those embryos who are destined never to gestate into what Genesis 2:7 considers a living baby? 

By the way, one should be careful about using Genesis 2:7 as an argument here. The verse refers specifically to Adam — who is a unique case, since he never spent nine months in somebody's womb but was instead molded out of clay. 

Which technically makes him not a human being, but a golem.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes, all those surplus frozen embryos.

In Georgia, Missouri, and fourteen other states which have laws or pending legislation granting full legal personhood to single-cell protohumans, those zygotes are destined to live forever. 

In eighteen years, they'll even be eligible to vote.

Although in most of those states, officials will want to see proof of gender. Registering as something other than their future birth gender, an embryo could end up tried as an adult and sentenced to prison.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Ask a clutch of cartoonists what they have the most difficulty drawing, and a solid majority of them will probably tell you...

... hands.

Especially performing some function that you won't find in Bridgeman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life.

That's when it's helpful to live in the same house with someone willing to be a hand model.

Or to have a book with over a thousand illustrations of hands in all sorts of activities.

Or you can just resort to trial and error.

The Brand New Monty Python Papperbok, Warner Books

Checking Under the Hood

This week's Graphical History Tour circles back to February, 1924 to catch up on the big news stories of the day:

"Another Victory for the Miners" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, Illinois, Feb. 15, 1924

First, let's check back in at the violence-prone mining town of Herrin, Illinois, where one Glenn Young and A.J. Armitage had led a series of raids against businesses and private homes where booze was served in violation of the Volstead Act. Young and Armitage were backed by a mob, many of whom admitted membership in the Ku Klux Klan. An anti-Klan group calling itself the Knights of the Flaming Circle rose up to battle Young and his Klan Kohorts; others fighting the Klan were the "Shelton gang" of bootlegging outlaws.

When we last left Herrin in Williamson County, Sheriff George Galligan had called in the National Guard in an attempt to restore order. He sent them home when he thought tempers had cooled, but tempers flared back up immediately. On February 8, pro-klan police officers burst into an anti-klan meeting, and in the violence that ensued, one klansman was killed and another injured. 

"The Unanswered Challenge" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 11, 1924

Sheriff Galligan took two police officers into protective custody in another county and called for the National Guard to return. 

After a police constable named Caesar Cagle was shot on a Herrin street and died at a hospital where a wounded anti-klan member was also being treated, klansmen from miles around converged on Herrin, laying siege to the hospital. Firing shots into the hospital, they set up roadblocks around the town, took over City Hall.

Young declared himself Chief of Police and had Herrin Mayor C.A. "Mage" Anderson, Sheriff Galligan, and 38 others arrested for complicity in Cagle's murder. The town council named Carl Nall to replace Anderson at request of the military. A coroner's jury the next day found that Cagle had been killed by members of the Shelton gang.

Young would be charged with "injury to property" and forced to quit his usurped office and leave town. Charges were also brought against klansmen, including some prominent Herrin and Marion businessmen, for firing upon the hospital.

Cartoonist Ellis's declaration of victory would not stand for long. Klan candidates would sweep Williamson County elections in April.

"The Newest State Capitol Decoration" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Feb. 15, 1924

Meanwhile, in Missouri, the Klan held a rally inside the state capitol. The official who granted the permit for use of the capitol building claimed that he had no idea that the persons who made the request, an engineer with the State Highway Commission and a labor commissioner, were acting on behalf of the Klan. "However," Commissioner of the Permanent Seat of Government Harry Woodruff told the press, "it would have made no difference if I had known the meeting was a gathering of the Klan, for I would not have denied them use of the hall."

Woodruff's protestations of innocence were disputed by Heber Nations, the labor commissioner. According to Heber, Rev. Z.A. Harris, a national representative of the Klan, had heard that "a lecturer for a secret religious organization, speaking in the House chamber two weeks before, had made slurring remarks about the Klan and its principles. I mentioned the request to Mr. Woodruff, who wanted the hall and what for, and he gladly granted it."

According to press reports, a crowd estimated in the hundreds listened to Harris preach on "Americanism and the Ku Klux Klan," calling for limiting immigration "in order to prevent an influx of ideas of the ideas of internationalism."

"Knights of the Double-Crossed" by J.T. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Feb. 28, 1924

If you've been following these Graphical History Tours, you may recall that the Klan was split between factions led by self-styled "Colonel" William J. Simmons, founder of its 1920 iteration, and the more radical Hirman Wesley Evans, whose supporters dumped Simmons from their leadership. Simmons then founded a rival group, the Knights of Kamelia.

The latest offshoot was the Knights of the Mystic Clan, launched in Atlanta but establishing its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. The KMC forswore masks and secrecy, and declared that it "the order is not connected in any manner with the Ku Klux Klan, Hiram Wesley Evans, or William Joseph Simmons."

Like that of the Klan, KMC membership was limited to qualified men who are "white and of the Protestant Christian faith." John R. Jones of Kansas City was elected temporary chair of the splinter group, and chapters were set up in Atlanta; Kansas City; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Tulsa, Oklahoma; El Dorado, Kansas; Durham, North Carolina; and Russell, Kentucky.

I'm finding that by April, KMC headquarters had moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma under the leadership of one H. Tom Kight. In February, 1925, someone claiming to represent the KMC left a letter on the doorstep of the Tallequa, Oklahoma Arrow Democrat — anonymously. "To protect our order and to make our enterprise possible, we maintain the utmost secrecy in our operations."

Their secrecy was pretty darned utmost; I have yet to find any mention of the Knights of the Mystic Clan after that.

Turning now to other major news:

"Every Day Is Washday for Some" by Dorman Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Feb. 29, 1924

Teapot Dome was not the only scandal coming out of Washington in February, 1924, but it was by far the most prominent. Every day seemed to bring new revelations, including against at least one of the senators making hay of the scandals. Interior Secretary Albert Fall at the center of the Teapot Dome scandal was already out of office; the scandal also ensnared Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby and Attorney General Harry Daugherty.

"His Nice New Cowboy Hat" by Burt Thomas in Detroit News ca. Feb. 14, 1924

Republican-leaning cartoonists played up the involvement of Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company founder Edward Doheny in a separate oil leasing deal with Interior Secretary Fall at Elk Hills, California. Doheny was a benefactor of Democratic presidential candidate James McAdoo (McAdieu in Thomas's cartoon), which was enough to fuel a lot of Whataboutism.

"Can't Stem the Flood" by Orville P. Williams in New York Evening Graphic, ca. Feb. 27, 1924

Roosevelt in this cartoon is not FDR, but Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (the son of the late president, obviously). Smoot would have to be Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Reed Smoot (R-UT), better known for the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act of 1930 that worsened the Great Depression.

"Thank Goodness, They're Not All Like That" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Tribune, Feb. 23, 1924

Finally, amid a flurry of cartoons on the theme of They’re All Crooked (They’re Politicians, Aren’t They?), “Ding” Darling’s stands alone for offering readers a list of government officials he thought they could still look up to.

Darling was an admirer of Herbert Hoover and Agriculture Secretary Henry C. Wallace; he approved of the statecraft of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, who did not share the isolationism of many other Republicans. President Coolidge allowed the investigation into the Teapot Dome scandal to proceed without interference, effectively inoculating himself from any taint of corruption.

Q Toon: Tuckerview with a Vladimir

Useful idiot Tucker Carlson went to Russia to fawn over the clean subway and the Aldi-style shopping carts, and to interview President for Life Vladimir Putin last week. 

In the days after the interview was posted on X, an Egyptian journalist asked Carlson why he hadn't asked Putin about the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny, unjustly imprisoned in a Siberian concentration camp, or about the murder of dissident journalists, politicians, business leaders, and Putin's own military generals. Tucker whinged, “Every leader kills people, some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people, sorry, that’s why I wouldn’t want to be a leader.”

Then Navalny turned up dead at the age of 47, three years into his 19-year prison sentence.

Even the National Review and Wall Street Journal were embarrassed for Tucker Carlson. 

By the way, I added the name of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to this cartoon at the last minute while inking it, and I should have fact-checked first. I have since learned that toward the end of the interview, Carlson did in fact ask Putin to release Gershkovich "as a sign of your decency." Putin, after complaining of a lack of "decency" from the West, suggested the possibility of trading Gershkovitz for some unspecified "reciprocal steps." 

My bad. I won't argue if editors choose to omit Gershkovich from the cartoon (or to replace him with ballerina Ksenia Karelina, arrested for treason after Tucker left Russia).

On the other hand, I think it's important to keep all these names in the public mind. Editors who leave mention of Gershkovich in the cartoon can just pretend that later, Tucker noticed that he had a couple minutes left for his interview and decided to risk bringing the Gershkovich case up as long as his getaway car was warming up outside anyway.

Getting back to the part that makes this cartoon relevant to the worldwide LGBTQ+ community, Russian courts have begun convicting citizens arrested under new laws criminalizing so-called "extremist" LGBTQ activity.

Russian courts have issued the first known extremism convictions arising from the 2023 Supreme Court ruling designating the “international LGBT movement” as extremist, Human Rights Watch said today. The Supreme Court ruling, which was handed down on November 30 but became public only in mid-January 2024, indicates that many more convictions may follow.

The Supreme Court ruling also declared the rainbow flag a forbidden symbol of the “LGBT movement.” Displaying the flag is the basis for administrative penalties in at least three cases that courts have tried in recent weeks. In late January, a court in Nizhny Novgorod sentenced a woman to five days detention for wearing rainbow-colored earrings after an individual accosted her and her friend in a cafe. Also in late January, a judge in Volgograd region handed down a fine over a rainbow flag published on a social media page. In early February, a court in Saratov fined a woman for posting a rainbow flag on social media.

A police investigation of supposedly extremist LGBTQ propaganda at a "My Little Pony" fan convention in Moscow forced organizers to shut down their event this week. Police apparently were unable to find any My Little Ponies with rainbow manes, or whatever was allegedly perverting the morals of impressionable little Russians.

Russia's LGBTQ+ community is, of course, not the only target of the Putin regime's eradication campaign against whomever it slaps an "extremist" label on.

Since a court banned three organizations affiliated with political opposition leader Aleksey Navalny as “extremist” in 2021, Navalny and five of his supporters have been sentenced to prison on a range of extremism charges for legitimate activism, while dozens more have received fines and short-term jail sentences. Six members of Vesna, a democratic youth movement, have been in pretrial custody since June 2023 on various spurious charges, including extremism. Hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been jailed since the organization was banned as “extremist” in 2017.

And now, of course, the ballerina who raised funds for a charity aiding bombed-out citizens of Ukraine.

But at least Putin makes the trains run on time. And so clean besides!

Address Change for the Wallets

At the end of my Valentines Day post a couple Saturdays ago, I included the February 14, 1924 installment of Frank King's "Gasoline Alley." I'm not aware of any newspapers, including its parent paper, the Chicago Tribune, that run "Gasoline Alley" in print, but I remarked that it's still available on line at GoComics.com.

In the weeks since then, its current cartoonist, Jim Scancarelli, has been teasing some Big News in the strip. The characters have been excitedly asking each other whether they have heard the news, and every one of them seems fairly upset about it. The dramatic tone led many readers in the comments section to wonder if Scancarelli were planning to bring the 106-year-old cartoon — described by Pierre Couperie and Maurice Horn as "the first Bildungsroman in pictures" — to an end.

Today's installment reveals that the Alley's fate is probably not quite as dire as that:

Will it be "The Wallets"?

"The Rectangle"?

"Das Bildungsroman in Pictures"?

"Electric Plug-in Court"?

This Week's Sneak Peek

 
What could these two be talking about?

By the way, I'm on Bluesky now at bergetoons.bsky.social and still hunting down folks I used to follow before they fled X.

The February of Our Discontent

Today's Graphical History Tour reminisces about my own cartoons — mostly — from Februaries ten, twenty, thirty, and forty years ago. First stop: the Windy City! Remember when Rupert Murdoch bought the morning tabloid?

in UW Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., February 16, 1984

Under Murdoch, the previously Democrat-leaning Sun-Times editorial stance veered sharply to the right, and the news hole became infested with lurid, and not necessarily factual, sensationalism. Sun-Times columnist Roger Ebert complained about the paper featuring photos of bikini-clad "Wingo Girls," and deeply flawed "news" stories such as one accusing a North Shore rabbi of keeping a sex slave. Nor did he like the rather ugly headline font, which I aped in my cartoon.

Rupert Murdoch's ownership of the Chicago Sun-Times turned out to be short-lived; he sold the paper in 1986 in order to buy its sister television station, WFLD channel 32, upon which he built his Fox television network.

The consequences of Murdoch's media empire in the U.S. have proven to be more serious than grinding out his brand of tabloid sensationalism. By pushing an ever farther right-wing agenda in print and on television, and pretending that it is "fair and balanced," Murdoch has devoted his life to fanning the flames of insurrection and bringing the U.S. to the brink of fascism.

"There Goes Jesse to Syria" by Jack Higgins in Chicago Sun-Times, January 3, 1984

Since I've brought up the Sun-Times, I have to take note of the passing this week of its editorial cartoonist Jack Higgins at the age of 69. 

Higgins had started drawing for the Sun-Times a few years before Murdoch bought the paper, so you can't blame the Aussie for his later turn to the right. Drawing about Chicago politicians for two decades is bound to do that to a cartoonist. Chicago liberals, however, grew discouraged that only Higgins remained as leftist stalwarts Jacob Burck, John Fischetti (a legacy from the Daily News) and Bill Mauldin disappeared from the Sun-Times editorial page. 

Higgins's work eventually disappeared, too; until running a cartoon on the front page to announce his death, the Sun-Times hadn't printed an editorial cartoon for years.

Still, during the '80's, Higgins remained an equal opportunity critic. During the 1988 presidential campaign, Higgins drew a cartoon of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Dan Quayle "playing through" Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack (a parody of a famous photograph). The paper caught some local flack for printing that cartoon...

"Mind If I Play Through" originally in Chicago Sun-Times August 24, 1988

... but it won him and the Sun-Times the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., February 28, 1994

Returning to my own scribblings, but sticking with the topic of offensive cartoons, I drew this cartoon after an Israeli-American doctor, Baruch Goldstein, shot and killed 29 Palestinian worshipers, wounding 125 more, at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. This terrorist act took place during Purim and the holy month of Ramadan on February 25, 1994.

Goldstein was a member of the extremist Kach Movement of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. The movement agitated for the forced removal of all Palestinians from their homeland, and creation of a theocratic Jewish state in which only Jews would be citizens with the right to vote. Kach leaders issued statements in support of Goldstein's actions, and Kach was banned as a political party by the Knesset as a result.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been a touchy issue at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, which has vocal Jewish and Islamic student organizations. My crude ethnic caricatures were overshadowed by controversy over pro-Palestinian students posting in the student union a banner which included the Star of David to represent Israel.

Published on my old GeoCities page, February 2004

Jumping ahead to February of 2004: Vietnam War veteran John Kerry was the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. His campaign touted Kerry's military service, which stood in contrast to President George W. Bush's wartime service in the Texas National Guard.

Where Jack Higgins referenced the "Napalm Girl" photo to twit Dan Quayle's wartime service in the Indiana National Guard, I referenced "Operation Dewey Canyon III," in which a group of Vietnam veterans, including Mr. Kerry, tossed their service medals and ribbons at the U.S. Capitol to protest our army's incursions into Laos.

The Bush campaign succeeded in neutralizing the war service disparity thanks to scurrilous allegations against Kerry by a group of so-called "Swift Boat Veterans" — allegations played up and magnified by Rupert Murdoch's media empire. As a result, Kerry has the distinction of being the only Democratic presidential candidate since 1988 to receive fewer popular votes than his Republican opponent.

Can't we discuss something more pleasant?

for Q Syndicate, February 2014

I love watching the Olympics. Even the Parade of Nations, which runs so long that whichever network is broadcasting the games usually takes a dozen commercial breaks between parade leader Greece and the host nation bringing up the rear.

Part of the fun is checking out the flashy, occasionally garish, outfits the athletes are wearing. And how many nations will follow Tonga's lead in wearing body oil instead of a shirt.

You can also make a game out of figuring out which nation is going to come next. Most of the nations enter in alphabetical order, but that's dependent on the alphabet of the host nation. When Tokyo hosted the 2022 Olympics, Iceland and Ireland came in ahead of Azerbaijan and Afghanistan; Germany was between Denmark and Togo; and Peru entered between Belize and Belgium.

This summer in Paris, the U.S. would enter somewhere among Eswatini, Micronesia, and Fiji, except that by virtue of hosting the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, we'll come in near the end instead.

Q Toon: But Only One at a Time

 

An interviewer from La Stampa asked Pope Francis about objections raised by conservative cardinals, bishops, and scholars in Africa and the U.S. to his approval of clergy blessing same-sex couples. I've included part of his reply verbatim (very slightly edited at the ellipsis).

Lest one mistake the Pope for Revrunt Marryin' Elvis at Our Lady of the Las Vegas Strip, he explained his reasoning in the interview:

"The Gospel is to sanctify everyone," he said. "Of course, there must be goodwill. And it is necessary to give precise instructions on the Christian life (I emphasize that it is not the union that is blessed, but the persons). But we are all sinners: why should we make a list of sinners who can enter the Church and a list of sinners who cannot be in the Church? This is not the Gospel."

His explanation did not sit well with the bouncers of the Roman Catholic Church. A group of 90 of these conservatives published a hysterically-worded letter this month, bemoaning that with this Pope's stance, "The threat does not become smaller but more serious, since the error comes from the Roman See, and is destined to scandalize all the faithful, and above all the little ones, the simple faithful who have no way of orienting and defending themselves in this confusion."

There is a long tradition of Popes summarily making sudden, unilateral changes to church guidelines. Not frequently, of course — consider how long it took them to realize that an omniscient God ought to be able to understand languages other than centuries-dead Latin. But sudden, significant changes in praxis date all the way back to St. Peter, the OG Pope, abruptly deciding that more people would be attracted to his religion if it ignored all those rules about not eating shellfish and pork.

Official changes to Catholic doctrine is not what blessings are all about, according to Father Chris Ponnet, chaplain to the LGBT ministry of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

"The church continues to maintain that the sacrament of marriage is between a man and a woman for the rest of their life," he says.
Ponnet, who is the archdiocese's chaplain to its gay and lesbian ministry, says he always declines to attend the civil weddings of same-sex couples he knows because he doesn't want there to be any confusion. He says the church is clear that it does not condone or recognize such marriages and that his presence could lead people to think "it's all OK."
What the pope is allowing, he adds, is similar to how priests bless all sorts of things, such as homes, a new school year and pets.
"It's simply saying that we who believe in blessings," Ponnet says, "should be instruments of blessings to others."
And he says it's important to be clear and precise about exactly what priests are blessing and what they are not blessing. "We're not blessing the relationship," he says. "We're blessing the individuals in front of us. And I appreciate the pain that that causes, and I don't know how to get around that." 

It may take more centuries than Fr. Ponnet nor you nor I are likely to witness, but I have faith that someday, even the Roman Catholic Church will figure out how to get around that. 

Remember That You Are Dust, With Love

It's Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day all at once, O gentle reader. Really bad planning if your sweetheart is trying to give up chocolates for Lent. Or red roses.

I drew this cartoon the last time the calendar had this horribly bad planning six years ago; the pastor at one of my churches liked it so much we put it in the newsletter this time.

It will be a propos once again five years from now, but not again until sometime in the 22nd Century. After that, we'll have switched over to using Star Dates, and with its decimal system, nobody will be able to figure out when Februaries and Wednesdays are.

By that time, I, for one, shall have returned to dust anyway.

Gather ye rose buds while ye may.

This Week's Sneak Peek

I included a cartoon by Nell Brinkley in Saturday's Graphical History Tour. When I read her advice to young women of her time, I always hear in my mind's ear Annie Lennox singing a song from 1933, "Keep Young and Beautiful."

Keep young and beautiful!
It's your duty to be beautiful!
Keep young and beautiful
If you want to be loved.

Happy Valentoons Day

Our Graphical History Tour has been wrapped up in scandal and death lately, so it's time to lighten up a little bit. Let's check out what love notes the cartoonists had in store for their readers on Valentine's Day 100 years ago, when my grandparents were newlyweds!

"St. Valentine's Day" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Gazette, Feb. 14, 1924

And fortunately for me, they all abstained from the jakeloo new divorce craze sweeping their generation.

"To Our Valentines" by Rube Goldberg for McNaught Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

I don't know what 1920's-ese is for "snark," but Rube Goldberg has plenty of it in his Valentine. It is, however, a wonderful study in fashion styles of the time.

I tried looking up the phrase "the alligator's vest," coming up mostly with advertisements for actual alligator-skin vests, and a zillion posts of the following Dad Joke:

Q. What do you call an alligator in a vest?
A. An investigator!

Let us now get back to the topic at hand. Quickly.

"A Few Valentines We'd Like to Deliver" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., Feb. 14, 1924

Good gosh, such violence! Smith's was not the only "Outbursts of Everett True" sort of Valentines Day cartoon I came across while gathering today's assortment. What on earth had these cartoonists so cranky? Was this really what Valentines Day was all about in the heart of the Roaring '20's?

"The Leap Year Valentine" by Charles H. Kuhn in Indianapolis News, Feb. 14, 1924

American editorial cartoonists must have used up their Sadie Hawkins ideas earlier in the year (see John McCutcheon's and Sam Armstrong's cartoons back in January); Chas. Kuhn's valentine for Mr. Voter from Miss Presidential Year Politics is the sole example I ran across published on February 14 that year.

"Those Coolidge Valentines" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 14, 1924

Carey Orr crams a front-page's worth of headline news into his Valentine's Day offering, from Teapot Dome and tax cuts and federal farm aid to dunning European nations in debt to the U.S.

"A Valentine" by Thomas E. Powers for Star Company, Feb. 14, 1924

But enough of politics! Valentine's Day is a day for l'amour (And a famous massacre, but not for a few years yet.)

"Somebody's Valentine" by Magnus Kettner for Western Newspaper Union, Feb. 14, 1924

Leaving politics, scandals, vamps, and divorces behind, many of the Valentines Day cartoons in 1924 celebrated the early pangs of love experienced by pre-teen lotharios. We lead off with the most straight-forward of the bunch, by Magnus Kettner, a well-established cartoonist who supplied his syndicate's mostly rural papers with a choice of political cartoons and homey, nostalgic stuff as this. 

By the way, how strange that Kettner didn't finish drawing the house in the background — only the overhang continues to the right of that tree!

"A St. Valentine's Day We'll Never Forget" by Bob Satterfield for Bonnet Brown Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

Bob Satterfield's work used to appear regularly in these century retrospectives when he drew editorial cartoons; but 1924, he was focusing instead on gag cartoons and strips. The above cartoon was part of his "Days We'll Never Forget" series for Bonnet Brown Syndicate. Before long, he dropped the panel in favor of a strip, "The Family Next Door," which lasted less than two years. 

Bonnet Brown Syndicate would be a casualty of the Great Depression, going bankrupt and out of business in 1933.

"Life's Darkest Moment" by Harold T. Webster for New York Tribune Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

H.T. Webster was considerably more successful with (and dedicated to) his series of panel cartoons, which regularly cycled the themes "Life's Darkest Moment," "The Thrill That Comes Once in a Lifetime," "How to Torture Your Wife/Husband," and "The Timid Soul." For that last one, he created the character Caspar Milquetoast, who was spun off into a very early television series and whose surname entered the English vernacular.

"Gee Whiz Junior" by William Holman for New York Tribune Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

Here's something that has been missing from the last several cartoons: the object of Gee Whiz Jr.'s affection actually has a name!

"Gee Whiz Junior" was one of Bill Holman's many short-lived attempts at creating a comic strip before he eventually hit the big time with Smokey Stover (1935-1972). You young whippersnappers may never have heard of Smokey Stover, but some of you might appreciate that he was the OG Foo Fighter.

I did want to make sure to include the woman's point of view today. Failing to find Valentines Day cartoons by Fay King or Juanita Hamel, here's a woman's point of view of a little boy's point of view:

"'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dunn for George Matthew Adams Service, Feb. 14, 1924

Sticking with the women but returning to the adults' table, Nell Brinkley ends up more interested in expressing some fella's viewpoint than a woman's:

"His Saint Valentine" by Nell Brinkley for International Feature Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

"Saint Valentine was a gentleman," Brinkley begins, "a venerable man, in those gone days when bright St. Valentine's Day used to be taken so seriously that men did battle under their loves' windows... But Bill's Saint of Valentine's Day is a girl. ...

"'I don't believe in men-angels, anyway,' says Bill, as he ties to his offering of dark, fragrant, purple violets, his name with his love and his hope. 'Angels are girls. I know my Saint Valentine is a girl — all girl.'"

"Pop" by Gaar Williams in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 14, 1924

And just like that, we're back to the menfolk. Perhaps this anxious fellow in Gaar Williams's cartoon explains why some of the cartoonists at the top of today's post were in such a foul mood over the holiday.

"Gasoline Alley" by Frank King for Chicago Tribune Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

Finally, of special note to classic cartoon fans, Valentines Day 1921 was the day that infant Skeezix was left on Walt Wallet's doorstep, creating a family saga out of a strip that up to then had been entirely devoted to men and their jalopies. Over the years, Skeezix grew up, married, and had children and grandchildren of his own.

Because of the forced homogenization of newspaper comic pages by Gannett, McClatchy, Lee, and the other (aptly named) chains, you probably can't find "Gasoline Alley" in your local newspaper — even the Chicago Tribune doesn't run it any more — but 103-year-old Skeezix and 130-ish Walt are still out there on line.

Q Toon: The Dating Game

Is there time before the Superbowl™ for one more cartoon lampooning magazoid Swiftophobes and fusty oldsters who somehow don't remember Beatlemania?

Actually, I can sympathize with any Baby Boomer who took his girlfriend to see the Beatles and she spent the entire concert screaming at the top of her lungs. But at least he didn't pay current TicketMaster prices to get his eardrums split.

But frankly, I just can't understand what Clyde and his buddies have against Travis Kelce dating Taylor Swift. I mean, don't they want their macho football star to be seen with a pretty blonde white girl, a country singer to boot?

Okay, I get it that she's not joining you in the Cult of Trump; and yeah, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are available. But be reasonable. He's Travis Action Movie Star Lookin' Kelce with the perfect pearly whites gleaming through an effortlessly virile beard. If Clyde here had his choice of those three women, I don't think he'd pick either of the congressional harridans.

Just turn to the Talladega Channel, Clyde. Maybe they'll have a shot of Kid Rock and Ted Nugent in the stands for ya.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Here's this week's snippet.

Thank you for your patience. 

Toon: Border Line

We interrupt today's regularly scheduled Sneak Peek to bring you this special breaking cartoon:

The Senate is reportedly poised to pass a bipartisan, hardline anti-immigration bill in answer to the surge of refugees crossing our southern border. It's an issue that Republicans, especially in Texas and Arizona, have been telling us for years must be addressed forthwith.

But Donald Trump told his minions in the House to vote down whatever bill came out of the Senate, no matter how urgent a crisis we have at the border, because he wants to run on the issue this year. 

Aside from wreaking revenge upon his personal enemies, it's the only issue he's got.

So of course, Speaker Mike Johnson, with his ephemeral two-vote majority, dutifully promised that the House would not consider any border security bill, regardless of what is in it, even if the entire population of Latin America comes charging across the Rio Grande during the next twelve months flinging fentanyl at passers-by and forcing your children to marcar dos para español. 

After all, Governor Abbott can just declare war on our southern neighbors and send the Lone Star State Air Force to commence bombing at will, can't he?

Lenin and Wilson

Graphical History Tour pauses this week to commemorate the passing 100 years ago of Vladimir Illyich Lenin and Thomas Woodrow Wilson.

"Lenin †" by Ernst Schilling in Simplicissimus, Munich, Feb. 11, 1924

Vladimir Ilych Lenin (deadname Ulyanov) died on January 21, 1924, nine months after suffering a stroke — his third — that left him partly paralyzed and unable to speak.

"The Inexorable Law He Could Not Defy" by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News-Tribune, Jan. 24, 1924

Neither man's death came as a shock to the world. Lenin contemplated suicide even before his first stroke in May of 1922, and Wilson spent the last year of his administration as an invalid.

"The Headless Horseman" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, Jan. 29, 1924

Yet neither man had adequately prepared his country for transition to a successor. Wilson (or at least Mrs. Wilson) entertained the notion that he could run for a third term as President of the United States despite being bedridden. For his part, Lenin didn't trust any of his fellow Bolsheviks enough to give any of them his blessing, and effectively undermined each of the more promising candidates.

"Jettisoned" by Albert T. Reid for Bell Syndicate, Jan. 30, 1924

He had felt strongly that Josef Stalin was ill-suited to leadership, but was apparently unaware of Stalin's moves behind the scenes to bolster his own position within the party. Leon Trotsky, whom Lenin regarded off and on as perhaps the best choice for Russia's future, was convalescing in the Caucasus and missed Lenin's funeral — later alleging that Stalin had sent him the wrong date.

"Changed in Name Only" by Fred Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 30, 1924

Other potential successors then are obscure trivia now. One of the politburo members who spoke at the funeral was Grigory Zinovieff (who looked nothing at all like Fred Morgan drew him), chairman of the Communist International. He and Lev Kamenev allied with Stalin against Trotsky, eventually to turn against Stalin two years later. Things did not turn out well for him in the end.

The empires of old had primogeniture; the representative democracies that grew out of the Enlightenment had popular elections. The world waited to see how the Soviet Republic would select the next Red Father.

"Zeremoniell bei den Neuen Kroningstagen in Moskau" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, February 24, 1924

Two weeks after Lenin shuffled off his mortal coil, Woodrow Wilson died at home in Washington, D.C., 100 years ago today.

"His Eternal Resting Place" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Feb. 4, 1924

Roy James gives us a rather tepid, neutral eulogy for the former president. Although he was not completely alone among editorial cartoonists, most expressed gratitude for a man who, while unable to "keep us out of war," led us successfully through that war once we were in it. And left the nation in a much better position than the countries who had been fighting it for years before our boys arrived Over There.

"Undying Fire" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb. 4, 1924

"Among Presidents Woodrow Wilson achieved one supreme distinction. If it cannot today be said of him, as Stanton said of the murdered Lincoln, 'Now he belongs to the ages,' it can be said that at the height of his power he dominated world affairs and world thought as no other president ever did in the history of the Republic. In its moral and physical aspects the crisis he faced was the gravest that civilization ever confronted, but he is dead before his work in meeting it can be fully measured." — Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb. 4, 1924

"His Work Shall Be Finished" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Feb. 6, 1924

Harding and Alley can be counted as generally sympathetic to the Democratic Party, and their cartoons convey admiration for Wilson's ideals, particularly his commitment to establishing an international forum to maintain global peace. 

"Woodrow Wilson" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Star, Feb. 5, 1924

Despite clear evidence that his League of Nations was already proving incapable of that task, it was Wilson's intentions that mattered to Canadian cartoonist A.G. Racey. His Clio penned "He who activated by a noble purpose and a high resolve. He worked for peace."

"We Mourn a Truly Great Leader" by Harold Wahl in Sacramento Bee, Feb. 4, 1924

Harold Wahl's memorial cartoon of Warren Harding had said that the late Republican had "the respect and love alike of enemies and friends." From the viewpoint of today, his eulogy cartoon for Wilson is equally overstated.

But death will do that. Just weeks before, Wahl had drawn a cartoon with a fairer estimation of Wilson's postwar legacy:

"As Simple as a Mother Good Rhyme" by Harold Wahl in Sacramento Bee, Jan. 29, 1924

My point, however, is that whatever their political differences, until fairly recently, Americans generally set them aside when the Grim Reaper came calling. Here are a pair of cartoons by editorial cartoonists whose Republican Party bona fides were without question.

"The Chief Joins His Legions" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 4, 1924

I can think of quite a few of my colleagues who will have great difficulty coming up with anything nice to draw when Jimmy Carter or Joe Biden are called Up Yonder. I myself cannot imagine coming up with a respectful cartoon when Donald Trump goes the way of all flesh.

"That Peace Which in Life Was Denied Him" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Feb. 4, 1924

I will note here that despite his Republican inclinations, "Ding" Darling approved of Wilson's designs for a League of Nations for world peace. Thus it is Peace herself left to grieve his loss. Are Death, Wars, and Hatred retreating into the heavens, or are they left to roam free throughout the cosmos?

Wilson's reputation has sunk considerably in the past few years. It is true that he held racist attitudes and opposed women's suffrage until that position was no longer politically feasible. But you won't find 100-year-old cartoons criticizing him upon his death.

Unless you look into some of the satirical German magazines.

"Wilson vor seinem Richter" by Theodor Th. Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich, Feb. 18, 1924

For a cartoon critical of Wilson's legacy, we have to turn to Germany and this cartoon of Wilson arriving before the devil; a demon displays Wilson's Fourteen Points as the evidence against him. 

Coincidental with Wilson's death were leaks ahead of publication by the French government of a "yellow paper" which would claim that French President Georges Clemenceau, Britain's Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and Wilson secretly agreed that France should occupy the Ruhr. This allegation was denounced by Clemenceau and Lloyd George, both by this time out of office. Lloyd George said that he was not in Paris at the time of the supposed pact; Clemenceau stated flatly that no such pact existed.

"La recherche de la paternité est interdite" by Oskar Theuer in Ulk, Berlin, Feb. 29, 1924

Wilson appears in a draped portrait on Marianne's wall in Theuer's cartoon, above portraits of Clemenceau and former Italian Prime Minister Antonio Salandra, whose government had brought Italy into World War I against the Central Powers.

An aside here: I've translated "Sieges-Rausch," literally "rush of victory," rather loosely; yet I think I'm getting close to the gist of the cartoon, since rausch can indicate euphoria or intoxication. (For that matter, the French "interdite" can also mean "dumbfounded" rather than "forbidden"; but if you see that word on a sign, assume that it's ordering you not to do whatever the verb next to it means.)

"Monuments of History" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune,  Feb. 5, 1924

Orr didn't attribute his poem, which I haven't found on line. Either it was so popular at the time that citation was unnecessary, or he made it up himself. You can judge for yourself whether time has left Wilson's boulder larger or diminished it instead.

Unfortunately, I have no examples of editorial cartoons from the suffragette or Black American press to include today. Instead, I will close with this from an editorial assessment of Wilson's legacy from a Black American newspaper:

"If Woodrow Wilson had been free to live up to the spirit of the letter he wrote to Bishop Alexander Walters before his elevation to the presidency, he might truly have been known as the 'President of Humanity.' But his southern antecedents and connections were too binding. Unfortunately some of the evils that grew out of these connections were handed down as a legacy to the Republican administration, which still suffers them to exist." —The New York Age, February 16, 1924