Something Old, Something New

Today's Graphical History Tour returns to some of my own cartoons celebrating their decennaries this month, but I'm going to shake things up a bit this time and not take them in chronological order.

I'll start with this cartoon drawn for one of the more liberal of the student newspapers at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.*

in UWM Post, Milwaukee Wis., March 3, 1994

UWM has long had two vocal student groups advocating against each other for Palestine and Israel. The pro-Palestine group posted an inflamatory poster in the student union atrium in response to the Cave of the Patriarch's Massacre, in which American-Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Palestinians worshiping in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, killing 29 and wounding 125.

The Palestinian Human Rights Campaign's poster depicted a sequential cartoon of a Star of David morphing into a swastika. The Jewish student group complained to the chancellor of UWM, John Schroeder, that the poster was antisemitic and should be taken down.

It's an argument reflected in graphic discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at large, and never moreso than today.

If I were to draw a cartoon like this today, I would add a rule that any reference to blood is also out of bounds. You can draw Vladimir Putin as a bloodthirsty monster in Ukraine, or George W. Bush spilling blood in Iraq, or Slobodan Milošević dripping blood in Bosnia. But the moment you try any of that with Bibi Netanyahu, you're trafficking in Blood Libel against all Jews everywhere.

Cartoons by Dwayne "Mr. Fish" Booth and Serge Chapleau

A number of cartoonists have stumbled into the Blood Libel trap since the Netanyahu government's scorched earth campaign to push Palestinians in Gaza into the sea — most recently Dwayne Booth, who draws under the nom de plume "Mr. Fish," and Serge Chapleau of La Presse in Montréal, Québec. Chapleau's cartoon of Netanyahu as "Nosferatu en route to Rafah" was yanked off-line by La Presse this month after howls of protest from the Usual Quarters. The Association of Canadian Cartoonists issued a statement in support of M. Chapleau; he stands behind his cartoon, and La Presse stands behind dumping it.

Mr. Fish's cartoon from last November was singled out as anti-semitic by the right-wing Washington Free Beacon and then criticized by the Interim President of the University of Pennsylvania, Larry Jameson. Mr. Fish has not been fired from teaching his course on cartooning at U-Penn, and no journal that posted "Who Invited That Lousy Anti-Semite" on line has 404ed it with apologies; so I haven't heard any push for the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists to leap to his defense.

for Q Syndicate, March 2004

Moving on: This was a cartoon I drew as a reserve for Q Syndicate, to be released at some later date when I might be on vacation, laid up, or for some other reason fail to get a cartoon in on time. For that reason, the cartoon did not deal with any actual news story; it's not about any particular cartoon syndicate rejecting the work of any particular lesbian cartoonist.

I bring it up today because within cartooning circles here in 2024, some of us are more concerned with the decision by the major newspaper publishing conglomerates to standardize their newspapers' comic pages, because of which decision just about every comic strip currently drawn by a woman has disappeared from print.

Lynn Johnston’s “For Better Or Worse" has survived the purge, but it has been in reruns since 2008. Two other sort-of exceptions are "Luann" by Greg Evans with his daughter Karen as co-author, and "Shoe" currently drawn by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly, widow of the strip's original creator.

As Georgia Dunn noted in her strip "Breaking Cat News," "There are more dead men than living women in the funny pages."

Well, it's Holy Week in the Western Christian calendar, so let us open now our hymnals to page ax².

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., March 22, 1984

Back in the 1980's, conservatives upset by the separation of church and school and encouraged by the presidency of Ronald Reagan, were eager to impose prayer on public school students. Not mandatory, of course, but voluntary. 

Fair enough, I suppose. Turnabout, however, is fair play.

Who could have foreseen that forty years later, some tawdry huckster would be hawking Bibles with the Constitution as Apocrypha?

I wonder how many Corinthians it has.

for Q Syndicate, March, 2014

Speaking of turnabout as fair play, it's been ten years since Mr. Fred Phelps shuffled off his fetid coil. Since he based his entire career on speaking ill of the dead — loudly, through a bullhorn, at funerals — it was only fitting to dyslogize him in like manner.

He is risible indeed.

_____________________

* The other main newspapers were the right-wing Times and the Black American Invictus.

Joe Lieberman, R.I.P.

Retired Senator and Al Gore's running mate Joe Lieberman (D/I-CT) has died.

Lieberman ran lukewarm and cold with mainstream Democrats and others on the liberal side of things, so here's the one cartoon I drew of him that best exemplifies that relationship:

for Q Syndicate, December, 2009

Q Toon: D.C. Rider

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson reached across the aisle to cobble together a stop-gap budget deal to keep the U.S. government running until September. The must-pass deal will probably pass the Senate in time to keep the government from shutting down when the last stop-gap budget deal expires at the end of March.

Johnson needed Democratic help passing the bill, because — let's be frank here — when it comes to running a government, today's Republicans are utterly incompetent.

What else could you expect? Today's Republicans are fundamentally opposed to government, so why would they be good at governing? Most of them hate the government and want to drown it in a bathtub of red ink. They are in Washington to get on TV and own libs and get shares on social media, not to pass budgets and accomplish stuff. 

They can't even accomplish stuff they claim they want when they have it handed to them all put together and tied up with ribbons and bows, like this year's border security bill.

What few Republicans who are actually interested in getting the government to do things are leaving town, and not waiting for the next election. The latest departure is Wisconsin's Mike Gallagher, who has represented the northeast corner of the state since 2017. He has had a 100% vote rating from the National Right to Life Committee and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, National Association of Manufacturers, Americans for Prosperity, Freedom First Society, and Gun Owners of America.

His approval ratings drop to 92% from the National Rifle Association, 82% from the Club for Cancerous Growth, and 79% from the American Conservative Union; but still, he's no middle-of-the-road Republican-In-Name-Only wishy-washy Alexander Throttlebottom.

But like Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), Gallagher simply couldn't wait to get the hell out of Washington, and is leaving Congress before his term ends. Democrats, expecting next month to pick up the seat vacated when George Santos (R-Living Island) was expelled, would then be only two votes shy of the majority. In other words, if only one Republican were to break ranks and votes with all the Democrats, the result would be a tie, enough to defeat any amendment, bill, or impeachment.

The previous must-pass stop-gap budget deal only passed because Mike Johnson's predecessor begged for Democratic support, which is why Kevin McCarthy is no longer Speaker of the House. Now Johnson has decided he had no alternative but to follow McCarthy's lead. As if to prove the point that Republicans simply cannot govern, Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Through the Looking Glass) wants to call for a vote of no confidence in Johnson.

And start the tortuous process of electing a Speaker of the House all over again.

Barkeep! A Round for My Friends!

Eric Hovde is vying for Wisconsin Republicans' votes to run against Tammy Baldwin again this fall (he lost to former Governor Tommy Thompson in 2012). He's been out in California lately, so he has been advertising heavily on television this month to re-introduce himself to the voters.

I assume this commercial was not filmed at the "beloved neighborhood bar" he finally succeeded in shutting down after a 25-year effort.

This Week's Sneak Peek

This week's cartoon co-stars someone whom I haven't drawn in a while, and it's not this guy.

That's all I'm going to say about that for now.

Moving on: I've edited a cartoon and blog post from a couple weeks ago to correct an error on my part. An editor questioned my syndicate editors about the name I mistakenly gave Nex Benedict, the Oklahoma teenager who died shortly after other students beat them up in a school lavatory. Somewhere in the process of erasing and rewriting text, I had changed Nex to Dex.

When the question was passed along to me, it came with the suggestion that perhaps I was trying to depict the cluelessness of the politicians talking in the cartoon, or their awkwardness in using Nex's pronouns of choice. 

At first, I thought the editors were confused by the use of they/them pronouns referring to Nex where someone could think the pronouns referred back to "those students." Most of my erasing and rewriting of dialogue had been in effort to steer clear of they/them confusion.

After a few email exchanges, I realized where I had been in error, so I corrected the cartoon and sent replacement files to Q Syndicate in case any client papers are still interested in it now that an official cause of death has been declared.

I apologize to all concerned for my mistake. 

AYBOTYWFYA

Most of my Graphical History Tours of vintage cartoons take us back a hundred years, occasionally fifty. When I dig through my own work, we go back forty, thirty, twenty, and ten years.

But the Big Question facing us today is this: Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?

In no presidential election year since FDR has the answer to that question been so stark.

Perhaps you remember March of 2020.

I have very personal reasons for continuing to be upset by the advent of COVID-19: after cancelling regular visits to my parents out of concern about potentially exposing them to the virus, I soon reversed that decision when Mom's cancer returned, and she chose to forgo further treatment.

Waiting in vain for the outside world's crisis to end, we had to postpone her funeral for month after month after she passed.

for Q Syndicate, March, 2020

There are a million other such stories out there, but now you know where I was coming from.

At first, Vice President Mike Pence was put in charge of the U.S. government response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Center for Disease Control's Dr.  Fauci, well-known in the LGBTQ+ community as one of the early responders to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980's, became familiar to millions of Americans as a leading authority on how "novel viruses" spread and what is involved in creating a vaccine.

for Q Syndicate, March 2020

By the time this cartoon appeared anywhere, hair salons were already shutting down. As were schools, houses of worship, movie theatres, bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, late night talk shows, and — at the height of the presidential primaries — campaign rallies and polling places.

So too was Q Syndicate. Its client publications, dependent on advertising from businesses that were shutting down, suspended publishing, meaning there was nobody to whom to sell my cartoons. 

Turning now to the sports page:

March Madness (the NCAA basketball version) was cancelled five days before the games were scheduled to start. Major League Baseball cut the pre-season short and put the regular season on indefinite hold. (When the MLB season finally opened in July, games were played at first to empty stands and later to cardboard cut-outs.)

Daily newspapers had no news for the sports section other than speculating what teams might have won or lost if they hadn't sent everybody home. I don't know how ESPN, Fox Sports, and all the Tennis/Golf/Soccer/NASCAR/Poker channels managed to fill 24 hours of air time every day; even the ten minutes allotted to sports in every local TV news program seemed a lot to compose.

But they managed to do so anyway.

In spite of having no publisher, I kept drawing cartoons, if only to keep in practice.

And to vent. Venting was vital. It still is.

Gun nuts weren't the only people stockpiling.

Anticipating a breakdown of the nation's supply chain, Americans stocked up on whatever was rumored to be on the verge of short supply — a self-fulfilling prophecy. It started with toilet paper and quickly moved on to bottled water, hand sanitizer, PPE masks, flour, yeast, and even bicycles.

Vice President Pence more or less disappeared from view once Donald Trump started taking the podium at the nearly daily announcements to the media and the nation on the pandemic. The problem with that, of course, is that Trump seems to believe that anything he wants to be the truth can be true if he but says it aloud.

So he stated firmly that the pandemic would be over in time for Easter. "Like a miracle."

Reporters would then ask questions of the health experts standing beside him, who had to come up with ways of telling the nation that the President didn't know what he was talking about without saying that the President didn't know what he was talking about.

What mattered more to Donald Trump was that, while he was starved of the adulation of adoring crowds at campaign rallies, he could crow on Twitter that his press conferences were "a ratings hit" with "'Monday Night Football' numbers."

The pandemic was not under control by Easter. People who still had jobs were still working from home. People whose jobs disappeared couldn't go out in search of new employment. Assisted living facilities closed their doors to all visitors. Soon only hospital emergency rooms were busy. And morgues...

We all remember it, don't we?

Don't we?

Q Toon: Beware of the Leopard

The state of Florida reached a settlement with a coalition of concerned families, civil rights agencies, and educators who had taken the state to court over Republicans' "Don't Say Gay" law. 

The law remains in place, but the settlement clarifies that students and educators can discuss LGBTQ+ topics, given those conversations are not part of formal curriculum. The clarifications also state that students can write about such topics in their academic work.

Notably, the settlement includes clarification on library books, stating that library books with LGBTQ+ themes may not be banned under the legislation so long as they are not being used for instruction.

Nor does the law apply to extracurricular activities and groups, such as Gay-Straight Alliances, some of which disbanded after the bill became law.

Governor Ron DeSantis nevertheless claims that the settlement is a victory for his side, because at least LGBTQ+-positive curricula still cannot be required in Florida classrooms. And homophobic parents can still opt their kids out of whatever offends their sensitive sensibilities.

To be sure, not everyone on the educators' side of things is happy with the settlement.

Teaching math at her alma mater in Florida, Katie Wood wants to leave Lennard High School better than how she found it. But under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, Wood’s future as an out trans woman at the school hangs in the balance.

“I can’t even call myself Ms. Wood,” the 3rd-year educator said, noting that her gendered title is one of several things she is barred from using solely due to her being a transgender person. “In many ways, I’m being forced to be back in the closet.”

Ms. Wood is not exaggerating. Elsewhere in Florida, a non-binary teacher was fired for titling themself "Mx." rather than Mr., Mrs., or Ms. The high school science teacher, AV Vary, had been using that honorific for 15 years; but when "Don't Say Gay" became law, their school claimed to have no choice but to send them packing.

In a related court case, a three-judge panel has ruled against another of Florida's attempts to enforce right-wing orthodoxy in education. The so-called "Stop WOKE Act" virtually forbade discussion of not only gender issues but also anything having to do with race. (Heaven forfend that Florida students ever hear anything about Rosewood and Ococee.)

The 11th Circuit Court found that the Stop WOKE Act constituted "the greatest First Amendment sin," but the DeSantis administration is considering appealing that ruling.

Because, as all Republican scholars remember from their schooldays, the Constitution begins and ends with the second half of the Second Amendment.

You Know the Number; Look Up the Name

 

This Week's Sneak Peek

Last week's cartoon about radical right-winger Mark Robinson winning the Republican primary for governor in North Carolina overlooked the tandem victory of radical right-winger Michelle Morrow, who unseated incumbent Superintendent of Schools Catherine Truitt in the Tarheel State's Republican primary.

Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who last week upset the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina’s Republican primary, expressed support in 2020 for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama and suggested killing then-President-elect Joe Biden.

In other comments on social media between 2019 and 2021 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Morrow made disturbing suggestions about executing prominent Democrats for treason, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and other prominent people such as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.

“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” she wrote in a tweet from May 2020, responding to a user sharing a conspiracy theory who suggested sending Obama to prison at Guantanamo Bay. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”

In another post in May 2020, she responded to a fake Time Magazine cover that featured art of Obama in an electric chair asking if he should be executed.

“Death to ALL traitors!!” Morrow responded.

In yet another comment, Morrow suggested in December 2020 killing Biden, who at that time was president-elect, and has said he would ask Americans to wear a mask for 100 days.

“Never. We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!! #JusticeforAmerica,” she wrote.

CNN reached out to Morrow and her campaign multiple times but did not receive a response. Following publication of this story, Morrow defended her previous tweets, claiming Obama committed treason. 

When cartoonists who, like me, are alarmed by seeing the completely unhinged kooks who have taken over the Republican party, are asked why we don't draw more cartoons attacking Democrats, this is why. 

Remember Somewhere Our Union's Sewing

In the interest of observing Women's History Month, today's Graphical History Tour returns to 1924 and the Chicago Garment Workers Strike.

Today's cartoons are all by Fred Ellis, cartoonist for the Daily Worker and the monthly Labor Herald, both published in Chicago by the communist Trade Union Educational League (TUEL). The Daily Worker accused the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily News, and Hearst newspapers (the American and the Herald Examiner) of ignoring the issues of the garment workers strike; I can only confirm that neither Carey Orr or John McCutcheon addressed the strike in their cartoons.

"The Strike Is On" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, Feb. 29, 1924

The Chicago chapter of the International Ladies Garment Workers union went on strike on February 27, unable to negotiate a satisfactory agreement with management over a 10% increase in pay; a 40-hour, five-day work week; and establishment of an unemployment fund for workers.

Under the headline "Riots, Slugging Mark Strike of Dress Workers," the Tribune did report the next day on page 3 that

South Market street, between Van Buren and Adams streets, the center of Chicago's dressmaking industry, became a riot zone yesterday. Sluggings, a stabbing, and window smashing followed immediately after the calling of a strike of union garment workers and their attempts to force nonunion workers to join in the walkout.

The reported stabbing victim was the owner of Bloom and Templar, who told police that strikers had attacked him and a colleague in his office with knives and clubs.

"Jailed" by Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 10, 1924

The legal crackdown by state authorities came swiftly. Cook County States Attorney Robert E. Crowe (better remembered for prosecuting the Leopold and Loeb murder case) filed for an injunction against the strikers picketing or molesting nonunion workers, which was granted by Judge Denis E. Sullivan on March 4. Women on the picket line were arrested and hauled off to Cook County Jail, often after having been roughed up by the employers' goon squad and/or the police themselves.

"Know-Nothing Dever" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 11, 1924

Chicago Mayor William E. Dever was a reformist Democrat who served a single term bracketed by those of the flashier "Big Bill" Thompson, Republican. He doesn't seem to have played a major role in the CGLU strike. He has been called "Chicago's forgotten mayor," and, by Studs Terkel, "Chicago's Calvin Coolidge."

"So far as I know, there has been nothing wrong with the handling of the strike by the city police," Dever told the Daily Worker over the phone from his home. "I have no information to the contrary. I have asked for a report."

"Remember Sophie Altschuler" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 18, 1924

"Sophie Altschuler, one of the left-wingers and and active militant, was beaten up by policeman #3181 so badly as to be confined in bed for some time. Dozens of other girls have felt the policeman's fists and clubs and bear their marks. Nine of them have been convicted of violating the Sullivan injunction, and one of them, Florence Corn, has already been sentenced to thirty days in the county jail." — I.L. Davidson in Labor Herald, Chicago, April 1924

"The Girls Want to Know" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 20, 1924

The strike came at a time when leaders in the labor movement, particularly American Federation of Labor President Samuel Gompers, were actively purging member unions of the communists in their midst. That purge had included several TUEL members of the Chicago Ladies Garment Workers the previous August and would continue at the IGLW's national convention in May. Both factions were nevertheless active in the Chicago Garment Workers strike, yet the AFL and TUEL both thought the other was damaging to the cause.

Ellis's cartoon suggests that other unions were reluctant to support the CLGU strikers. They were, however, joined on the picket lines by carpenters, printers, and members of the Amalgamated Clothing Union ... but not by Oscar Nelson, vice president of the Chicago Federation of Labor and an alderman on the Chicago City Council. He was also a member of the CFL's "Committee of 15" and the ILGU's lawyer. He offered the Daily Worker his excuse that he needed to avoid giving offense to the court.

"Crowe—State's Attorney" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 21

With the dress manufacturers backed by all the power of law enforcement and refusing arbitration offered from Washington D.C., the strikers were at a distinct disadvantage.

"Students Show 'Committee of 15'" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 24, 1924

The strikers did receive some support from a group of University of Chicago students who defied Judge Sullivan's injunction to join the picketers. University Liberal Club President Ida Terbush organized the student picket squad. The Daily Worker didn't report how many students showed up, but did report that two, Eugene and David Siskind, were arrested.

"The So-Called Majesty of the Law" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, April 1, 1924

The strike lasted through April and at least into May. I haven't yet come across any reporting on a settlement; what press coverage there was after that focused on the trials of strikers for violating Judge Sullivan's injunction. One such account in the May 9, 1924 Daily Worker quoted one of the manufacturers' lawyers, Charles Hyde, telling Judge Charles Foell, "Unless this picketing is stopped, the injunction might better never have been issued."

So, until I find the outcome of this strike, I'll leave you with this exchange between Prosecutor Coleman and defendant Mrs. Caroline Heim, as reported in Daily Worker of May 10, 1924, and let a woman have the last word:

Coleman: "You admit your were walking up and down May 2. Why did you walk back and forth?"
Heim: "Because the police told us to keep moving."

Q Toon: The Roidsemblance Is Striking

This is Mark Robinson's second appearance in my cartoons.

The Republican Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina has a long track record of hatred toward LGBTQ+ citizens, women, and civil rights. He has announced that homosexuals are "filth," "maggots," and "what the cows leave behind." He called transgender people are "demonic," and threatened trans women with arrest or "whatever we go to do to you" if they dare to use a women's rest room. Houses of worship that display the LGBTQ+ Pride flag "make me sick every time."

And echoing Trump's spurious birtherism and secret Muslim accusations against Barack Obama, Robinson claims that Michele Obama, despite having given birth to two children, is somehow transgender.

This has clearly endeared him to the Tangerine Scream, who pointed him out at a Trump kundgebung in North Carolina last week:

"This is Martin Luther King on steroids. Now, I told that to Mark, I said, I think you're better than Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King times two. And he looked at me, and I wasn't sure, was he angry because that's a terrible thing to say? Or was he complimented? I have never figured it out. But I'm telling you, he's one of — right? — when I said that to you, you looked like, I don't know if I like that comment! You should like it."

Given that Robinson has defended his own Facebook posts dismissing Rev. Dr. King as an "ersatz pastor" and "communist," it's no wonder he appeared put off by Donald Trump comparing him to the only Black person he could think of by name whom he didn't suspect of being a rapist and murderer.

Trump's low opinion of Blacks, whether American or from "shit-hole countries," appears to be shared by Mr. Robinson. Seven years ago, Robinson posted on Facebook the following screed:

Someone asked me if I considered myself part of the "African-American" community.
I told them NO!
They asked me why and I said;
"Why would I want to be part of a "community" that devalues it's fathers, overburdens it's mothers, and murders its children by the millions? Why would I want to be part of a "community" that sucks from the putrid tit of the government and then complains about getting sour milk? Why would I want to be part of a "community" that allowed itself in the 1960s to walk right back to the very plantations it was freed from in the 1860s? And why would I want to be part of a "community" that celebrates the very lawlessness and violence that is killing it's future right in front of them?
Why would I want to be part that?
WHY?

If you think Robinson was just having an off day or two, don't be so sure.

In 2014, Robinson quoted Hitler on Facebook, and in 2018 he compared protesters tearing down a Confederate statue to Kristallnacht, a night of Nazi destruction that proceeded the Holocaust. That same year he also speculated Marvel's Black Panther was created by an "agnostic Jew" to profit off of Black people (he actually used a Yiddish slur instead of Black people).

But wait, there's more!

There was the time he called school shooting survivors “media prosti-tots” for advocating for gun-control policies. The meme mocking a Harvey Weinstein accuser, and the other meme mocking actresses for wearing “whore dresses to protest sexual harassment.” ...

Robinson asserted on a 2018 podcast that the political left is going after “the Harvey Weinsteins and the Bill Cosbys” to replicate Soviet-era intimidation.

[Commercials by a GOP primary rival highlighted] Robinson’s 2022 suggestion at a church that men, not women, are meant to be leaders. Acknowledging that he was “getting ready to get in trouble,” Robinson exclaimed to the congregation: “Called to be led by men!”

When “it was time to face down Goliath,” he added, God “sent David, not Davita.”

Lately, Robinson's campaign has tried to place more emphasis on traditional bread-and-butter issues while castigating the media for reminding voters of the peppery red-meat language that endeared him to Trump's MAGA minions in the first place. Make no mistake, however: Robinson is in no way apologizing for or disavowing any of his past. (Except for that one time he paid for a girlfriend's abortion.)

Will North Carolinians be fooled by the new toned-down Mark Robinson?

Trump's comparing Robinson to Rev. Dr. King might very well have been a cleverly disguised insult Trump can refer back to if Robinson loses the election in November. 

This Week's Sneak Peek

He's ba-a-ack!

For the record, the last cartoon I drew with Trump in it was back in October.

By the way, I was honored to have Daily Cartoonist lead off Sunday morning's post with Saturday's Graphical History Tour. So here's a reciprocal link with my thanks.

Pursuit of the Naked Truth

If you've been following these Graphical History Tours of mine since the centennial of World War I, you know that most of my posts are about whatever was in the news 100 years earlier. But every once in a while, I like to come forward a bit to discuss some of the major news events from fifty years ago that I can actually remember: the Vietnam War... the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy... Apollo 11 landing on the Moon and Apollo 13 making it back to Earth... the Watergate break-in... the Six-Day War...

So let's take a look at this monumental, life-changing news story from March, 1974:

"The Nudity Crisis" by Cyrus Hungerford in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 9, 1974

Streaking.

Spring was just around the corner, so college students naturally shed their winter parkas and started running around au naturel, as one is wont to do. 

And news media loved it. Catching snapshots of studly students and comely co-eds dashing through the quad in their birthday suits was a welcome break from reporting the news of rising oil prices, a looming recession, and the criminal indictment of seven of President Nixon's closest aides.

"They Say Streaking Is a Phenomenon Directly Related to the Pressures and Frustrations of Our Society. Was That Who I Thought It Was?" by Don Wright in Miami News, March 5, 1974

I remember the Chicago Tribune, Time, and Newsweek devoting entire pages to streaker photos. (I recall a large photo in the Tribune spread of a guy with one leg in a cast streaking on crutches!) Television had to be a bit more careful about what got caught on camera, but bare all they did. Which begat more streaking, which begat more photo spreads, which begat more streaking... The fad was seemingly everywhere … even on stage at the Oscars!

"The Object of 'Streaking'..." by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, March 8, 1974

Certainly the nation's editorial cartoonists were eager to join in the fun.

"Again Eluding the Congress and the Courts..." by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, March 6, 1974

We editorial cartoonists fancy ourselves to be serious journalists, speaking truth to power. Distilling important news down to its bare essence! Exposing hypocrisy and corruption! But deep down, we are also the kid in the back of the class drawing pictures of the school principal saying "Poop!" in our notebooks.

(Ask Clay Jones to show you his.)

"Streaking" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, March 6, 1974

Even the great Herblock in the capital's newspaper of record couldn't resist dashing off a cartoon of the President in the altogether.

"Good Grief..." by Jeff MacNelly in Richmond Times-Leader, ca. March 11, 1974

Likewise Jeff MacNelly, then early in his newspaper career. What he got right in this cartoon was that many collegiate streakers protected what was left of their modesty by pulling a balaclava over their face.

Had enough of Nixon in the nude? Yeah, me too.

"Senior Streaker" by Lou Grant for Los Angeles Time Syndicate, ca. March 14, 1974

We can now be grateful to Lou Grant for putting Richard Nixon in a streaking cartoon yet mercifully leaving him fully dressed.

"Streaking through 1974" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, March 7, 1974

With the Watergate scandal and economic hardship dominating the news, Republicans were taking a beating in local elections. That included losing the House seat of newly-minted Vice President Gerald Ford.

"We've Been 'Streaking' for Years" by D. Edward Holland in Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1974

For cartoonists (or their editors) who were leery of depicting the President of the United States in the nude, a safer alternative — especially for the dwindling number of Nixon defenders such as Ed Holland — was to draw John Q. Public stripped bare by the Internal Revenue Service.

"Streaking" by Gene Basset for Scripps Howard Newspapers, ca. March 14, 1974

Or one could draw Jane Q. Consumer losing everything to Inflation Bar Sinister.

"Streaker" by Don Hesse in St. Louis Democrat, ca. March 16, 1974

Or heck, why not draw about inflation and taxes? There's no limit to the kinds of major expenses that you could draw stealing the shirt off your back and the pants off your tush.

But you can leave your hat on.

"Like Father Like Son" by Jim Lange in Daily Oklahoman, March 7, 1974

Returning whence the fad began, I'm not sure whether Jim Lange was commenting on the economy in general or college tuition in particular. But I do know that the tuition grant I was awarded a couple years later, a significant amount at the time, would barely cover the cost of one semester's textbooks today.

The average college tuition in 1974 was $1,650/year for a public college, $3,420/year for a private college. Today, adjusted for inflation, that would be $12,155 and  $21,395, respectively. With the proliferation of fees since the '70's, looking at the actual cost of college today is like comparing apples and fruit salad; but the average cost for a four-year public college last year was $21,878, and for a private college, it was $47,961.

"Vulgar Indeed, Miss Finch..." by Clyde Peterson "C.P. Houston" in Houston Chronicle, ca. March 9, 1974

That's enough math and calculus. I'll bring today's NSFW romp to a close with a couple of cartoons that expressed relief that college and university students were blowing off steam in harmless, frivolous ways, in contrast to students of only a few years prior. 

(Side note: I've seen the C.P. Houston cartoon with the word "mirthfully" instead of "joyously"; I do not know which word appeared in the Houston Chronicle. And the Doug Marlette cartoon below must have been drawn for national syndication in place of the local-issue cartoon of his with a streaking theme that appeared in the Charlotte Observer.)

"Once a Campus Revolutionary..." by Doug Marlette for Charlotte Oberver, ca. March 13, 1974

P.S.: If you caught a Joe Cocker earworm a couple paragraphs back and would rather get rid of it, try this one.

Q Toon: A Death in Oklahoma

Note: This cartoon and commentary have been edited to correct the name of the deceased.

No, I am finally offering my say on the death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old student in Owasso, Oklahoma who identified as non-binary and died on February 8, a day after being beaten by other students in the girls' bathroom at their school.

Authorities are being somewhat cagey in addressing the cause of Nex's death; they had been released from the hospital after being taken there after the attack. Final autopsy and toxicology reports remain pending as of this writing. The Office for Civil Rights division of the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation this month into the Oklahoma school district following a complaint filed by the Human Rights Campaign.

Nex's family says that Nex had been bullied at school for a over a year. When they reported this assault to the police, the officer asked why they had not reported the bullying to the school, and Nex replied "I didn't really see the point in it."

My cartoon this week leads off with Oklahoma's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, who expressed his empty sympathy for Nex's family, but who, along with the state's other elected leaders, shares responsibility for the conditions that led up to this tragedy.

"Oklahoma lawmakers have put restrictions on gender-affirming care and barred transgender students from using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Walters recently hired a rabidly anti-trans out-of-state social media figure to serve on the state’s Library Media Advisory Committee, a grotesque political stunt and a blaring insult to every LGBTQ+ person in the state."

That out-of-state social media figure is Chaya Raichik, a hate-monger in charge of the rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ "Libs of TikTok." Last year, a post by Raichik compelled an Owasso High School teacher whom Nex "greatly admired" to resign.

No wonder Nex saw "no point" in reporting bullying to the remaining staff at the school.

At a legislators' forum with the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce on February 22, State Senator Tom Woods, Republican, said that while "his heart goes out" regarding the teen's death, "We are a conservative state —  supermajority — in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn't want that filth in Oklahoma."

Woods's statement reportedly met with applause.

The Trevor Project conducted a national survey of LGBTQ+ youth in 2022 regarding their mental health, breaking down the results by state. Here are some of the responses from Oklahoma:

The Trevor Project

Oklahoma can and ought to do better by these kids.

But naah. They're "a conservative state." So they won't.