Lest auld republic be forgot, let's bring it back to mind:
For lack of a slide-show feature in this here blog, I present here a column of some of my cartoons from 2024. I might have added the cartoon I drew Sunday, I suppose, even though it's not being published until 2025. Perhaps if I remember it a year from now, it will be part of my 2025 retrospective.
So here, at least to jog my own memory, is what the hell we have been drawing about this year:
Well, I could have just reissued this one from almost two years ago, but I wouldn't.
I know of at least one other cartoonist who drew his Carter memorial cartoon yesterday. Clay Jones dislikes memorial cartoons, but came up with a good one; he wrote in his Substack of another cartoonist who confided to him of having three Carter memorial cartoons waiting to go. (Since that cartoonist posted all three of them on Facebook yesterday, is there any point in keeping him anonymous?)
Editorial cartoonists have a love-hate relationship with our memorial cartoons. Our editors and readers love them, but we hate having to draw nice things about people. We also hate it when someone else draws the cartoon of a tear drop on a logo, symbol, statue, building, Uncle Sam, or whatever that we were going to draw.
On the other hand, there is usually awfully little to draw about in the week between Christmas and New Year's. Print and broadcast media have fallen back on reprinting/rebroadcasting favorite stories from the previous year, providing little news for us. Many cartoonists just take the week off as well, or crank out cartoons of people in line taking Politician X in a box to the returns desk at the store — which is kind of the same thing as taking the week off, when you come right down to it.
Welcome aboard today's Graphical History Tour! You’re just in time to bid a fond farewell to the year 1924.
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| "Knock Out" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Dec. 28, 1924 |
Some farewells to Old Man ’24 were fonder than others. Arthur Johnson, for one, was quite happy to see the old year go. German economic, domestic, and foreign affairs had actually begun to look up in 1924, but you couldn't convince Michel Q. Bürger of that any more than you could argue the same to today's electorates.
Instead of replacing it with a larger font, I've kept the caption to Johnson's year-end cartoon just as it originally appeared on the cover of Kladderadatsch. At the time, captions in German were always printed in Fraktur style font; foreign words, in this case "Knock Out" being borrowed from English, were printed in a Roman style font.
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| “Neujahr in Paris” by Hans-Maria Lindloff in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Dec. 28, 1924 |
RHans-Maria Lindloff twits Mme. Marianne over French authorities' arrest of 60 Communists in Paris in December. The existence of French communists shouldn't have come as a surprise to anybody, really. Every country in Europe had its own cadre of reds loyal to the Commintern — Germany, birthplace of Marx and Engels, included.
Besides, the U.S. had shipped hundreds of American communists to Russia after the Great War, few of whom spoke any Russian. Surely some of them would have drifted westward to more fashionable and temperate cities by 1924.
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| "I Guess I'll Call It a Day" by James Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dec. 31, 1924 |
On this side of the Atlantic, Republican-leaning Hal Donahey was fairly satisfied with the events of 1924. Father Time's ledger for the year included a recently completed round-the-world airplane flight by an American crew, the transatlantic flight of the ZR-3 Zeppelin, "better business confidence," the election of Calvin Coolidge as the 30th President of the U.S., and a "greater desire for world peace." Meanwhile, "LaFollette movement" lies in the waste bin of history.
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| "A Review of 1924" by William Sykes in Life, New York, Dec. 25, 1924 |
Bill Sykes's two-page summary of the year for Life magazine covered just about every major news story of the year except for the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb (the "Crime of the Century," and the basis for Hitchcock's "Rope").
Sykes added to Donahey's list the death of Woodrow Wilson, the conclusion of the Teapot Dome investigation, the Dawes Plan for Germany's reparation payments to the Entente allies, the two U.S. major party national conventions, a civil war in China, rising prices of wheat and corn, a visit to the U.S. by heir to the British throne Prince Edward, British suppression of a revolt against England in Egypt, a U.S. income tax cut, and rapprochement between Soviet Russia and France.
And in the center of the second page, Sykes noted that the "prosperity" spoken of by Republicans had yet to fill the stockings of "Everybody."
Having now covered all the news that was fit to sketch, let's turn to the funny papers.
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| "Polly and Her Pals" by Cliff Sterrett for Newspaper Feature Service Inc., Dec. 31, 1924 |
Prohibition was now in its fifth year, so some folks such as Polly and her pals, who might have longed for the days when one rang in the new year with a glass of bubbly, made do with alternative libations instead.
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| "Andy Gump" by Sidney Smith for Chicago Tribune Co., Dec. 31, 1924 |
If Polly's Pals had to make do with hypnotic suggestion for their holiday merriment, Andy Gump was able to partake of the real sauce.
The hooch came from his wife's Uncle Bim, the mustachioed fellow at the table, who had saved a carton of spirits since 1912. In spite of having vowed to himself to remain "as dry as the Congressional Record," Andy put on quite a show for the New Year's Eve party he arranged. He would renew his broken vow the following morning.
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| "That Guiltiest Feeling" by Clare Briggs for New York Tribune, Dec. 31, 1924 |
As for the law-abiding citizens eschewing the devil's brew, you may be wondering how they passed the time without it. I've run across several cartoons toward the end of 1924 remarking on the brand new crossword puzzle craze sweeping the nation (you might remember John Knott's from my Thanksgiving weekend post). Clare Briggs seems not to think highly of the puzzles.
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| "The New Year Puzzle" by Oscar C. Chopin in San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 31, 1924 |
Here's a typical crossword puzzle reference from the editorial page. I don't think Oscar Chopin quite grasped how crossing words actually works.
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| "What's the Trouble Here" by Harrison Cady in Life magazine, Dec. 25, 1924 |
This Life magazine cartoon doesn't have anything to do with the old or new year, but perhaps it explains Mr. Briggs's beef with crossword puzzles.
It's a good thing he wasn't around to witness Sudoko and Wordle.
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| "Toots and Casper" by Jimmie Murphy for King Features Syndicate, Dec. 31, 1924 |
Returning to the comics page: if boozing it up wasn't an option for everyone on New Year's Eve, an enthusiastic tradition of noise-making was certainly available. You can make out a few noisemakers at Toot's party; banging on pots and pans was an option almost anyone could afford.
Just stay clear of Mother's favorite cast iron skillet, if you know what's good for you.
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| "Keeping Up with the Joneses" by Arthur "Pop" Momand for New York Herald, Dec. 31, 1924 |
I had not been familiar with the work of Arthur Ragland Momand (1887-1987), or with the practice of taking one's New Year resolutions to one's lawyer.
Following through on Al McGinis's annual resolution could have resulted in a breach of contract with his creator, the premise of Momand's entire strip being his efforts to keep up with the Jones family. "Keeping Up with the Joneses" ran from 1913 to 1938, so I'll have to find out how the Joneses and McGinises kept up during the Great Depression.
Here's a strip you're more likely to remember:
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| "Little Orphan Annie" by Harold Gray for Chicago Tribune, Dec. 31, 1924 |
Harold Gray paused Little Orphan Annie's story to recap the year — perhaps as a favor to any newspapers taking the day off or picking up the strip anew. The day's installment serves as a reminder that there was a Mrs. Daddy Warbucks.
"Little Orphan Annie" debuted on August 5, 1924; and yes, it was Mrs. Warbucks who first brought Annie home from the orphanage — but with no intention of letting her stay at the Warbucks estate. Mrs. Warbucks sent Annie back to the orphanage or simply kicked her out onto the street several times in the early years of the strip, only to have her husband retrieve or rescue the girl after returning from his frequent business trips.
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| "Gasoline Alley" by Frank King for Chicago Tribune, Dec. 31, 1924 |
"Little Orphan Alley" wrapped up its 86-year run in 2010; but "Gasoline Alley" is still with us, as is 130-something-year-old Walt Wallet, heading his five-generation family. Its present cartoonist, Jim Scancarelli, gave fans a start earlier this year when he introduced a plot line that seemed to portend the end of the strip. It turned out instead that politicians at city hall within the strip planned to update the name of Gasoline Alley, and the extended Wallet clan banded together to stop the change.
At the end of 1924, Walt was the single father of a three-year-old who had been abandoned on his doorstep, so I don't know whether he had been invited to Mr. Wicker's New Year's Eve party. Little Skeezix had a nursemaid, Rachel Brown, a Black woman who presumably had no personal life outside of the Wallet household; thus I assume Walt would have been free to go ring in the new year with the boys.
Or perhaps he was overjoyed to stay home with the boy.
After all, he had already taken him to another party in Sunday's comic.
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| "'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dunn for George Matthew Adams Service, Dec. 31, 1924 |
"Cap" Stubbs and his buddies joined in the noisemaking in Edwina Dunn's strip. Do you think Grandma actually let him run loose on the streets at midnight?
I'll close out our farewell to 1924 with Winsor McCay's final Sunday episode for the year of Little Nemo in Slumberland — with my apologies that I can't present it to you in the size Mr. McCay intended for it, or in color. I invite you to embiggen these as your device will allow, and imagine the colors as best you can.
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| "Little Nemo in Slumberland" by Winsor McCay for New York Tribune, Dec. 28, 1924 |
I had hoped Monday morning that I was getting this cartoon out in time for monthlies' January issues, but at least one of my client publications had already gone to press over last weekend. 'Tis the season everybody wants to take a couple weeks off, you know.
The odd couple of MAGA Max and Liberal Leo debuted here last July in the offices of their couples therapist — Maybe I ought to her a name. Heck, this cartoon is the first time anyone in the cartoon has said Max's name, and Leo wasn't called by name until a few weeks ago.
For the time being, Max gets to be insufferably smug. Today's cartoon, however, was my excuse have Leo voice my firm belief that "Fascism has never made any country great."
Miriam Webster defines a fascism as "a political philosophy or system that exalts nation and race above the individual and suppresses opposition." To paraphrase, it's "Make America Great Again" by suing media for reporting Dear Leader's criminal activity and tasking the FBI with persecuting politicians with the temerity to stand up for constitutional democracy, and the military with shipping non-white residents out of the country.
If someone has an example of some country achieving greatness through fascism, I'm willing to entertain the notion. It was tried by Germany, Italy, Spain, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in the last century, none of which approached greatness because of it.
Putin's Russia? Orbán's Hungary? Anyplace run by a Generalissimo or a President-For-Life? Hell no.
Fascism does, however, have a track record of making a country a kleptocracy.
And a pariah.
Enjoy your smugnitude while it lasts, Max.
If we don't catch up with each other for a while, happy Posadas, Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, and Irish Constitution Day!
Welcome aboard today's Graphical Holiday History Tour, working backward in time through some of my December cartoons from years ending in four.
Our first stop: 2014.
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| for Q Syndicate, December, 2014 |
Vlad the Defenestrator has been on his antigay crusade for over a decade now, harnessing the power of the state against any perceived threat from "homosexual propaganda."
Among the musical sine qua nons of the Christmas season (besides "All I Want for Christmas Is You") is the Nutcracker ballet of Pyotr Illych Tchaikowsky. It no doubt irritates Mr. Putin that Tchaikowsky was gay, although the fact that the composer was miserable about it probably mitigates Putin's pique.
The Nutcracker ballet has not yet been banned in Moscow, but I wouldn't expect to see Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo's rendition of it there any time soon.
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| for Q Syndicate, December, 2004 |
In the dawning days of the 21st Century, there was no Grindr, no Scruff, and no Chappy.
What gay men had way back in 2004 were on-line chat rooms. Well, everybody had chat rooms; but as was the case with gay bars before them, specifically gay chat rooms were around for those who knew how to find them. A few operated as places, as one would expect, to chat — about theater, or cartooning, or politics, or drag pageants, what have you. But nearly all were used sooner or later for the same thing as their successor apps: hooking up.
Early on, chat room users couldn't see what the guys they were chatting up looked like except by asking for a pic to be sent. Nor, unless a hometown were in the chatter's screen name, could they tell how many feet away the other guy was. I imagine that finding out that the other guy was all the way up at the North Pole would have been a deal-breaker for most men.
Santa, however, would have been at an advantage. Not only could he get to your place really, really quickly if he were up for it, he had already seen you while you're sleeping.
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Departing momentarily from the Christmas theme, this next cartoon comes with a trigger warning that it's about deadly serious criminal activity and might stir up unpleasant memories for some in the greater Milwaukee area. But it's a propos in light of the lionization — herofication, if you will — of Luigi Mangione, Daniel Penny, and Kyle Rittenhouse.
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| in UWM Post, Milwaukee Wis., Dec. 1, 1994 |
On November 28, 1994, a fellow inmate at the maximum security Columbia Correctional Institution attacked and killed notorious serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer and another inmate, Jesse Anderson. Anderson's case had received much local media attention; he had murdered his wife and sent police and media on a wild goose chase by claiming that two unknown black men had done it.
There were some people who promptly hailed Dahmer's and Anderson's killer, Christopher Scarver, as a hero. He was no such thing, and it surely must have grieved the family of Steven Lohan, the man he was convicted of executing in cold blood during a robbery at the Wisconsin Conservation Corps, to see Scarver lauded as such.
Would I be happier if Dahmer and/or Anderson were still languishing in prison today? No. Nor do I find any pleasure in that Scarver remains in prison, with two more murder convictions added to his sentence.
I had forgotten about this cartoon and only ran across it while trying to find the date of another cartoon I was considering for today's blog post. The original drawing of this cartoon might have gotten lost before I returned to the Post office with the following Tuesday's cartoon; it's not in my files and I can't recall pulling it out since. But since my mother was saving all my printed cartoons in a scrapbook I now have, here it is again.
Okay, folks: the trigger warning is no longer in effect. I'm going back to lighter material and you may resume reading.
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| in UW-P Ranger, Somers Wis., Dec. 13, 1984 |
Here's a cartoon I did for the UW-Parkside student newspaper's last issue of 1984, as printed on its front page.
The hearth in the cartoon is based on my parents'; in the living room between two bookcases, with a stone Viking ship mounted over the mantle. But that is not our dog.
I'm not sure why there's a teaser for "1982 reviewed" on the top of the page. I don't believe that the Ranger had any AARPgenarians on staff who still couldn't wrap their heads around it being 1984 already, let alone that it was soon not to be.
Well, that brings us to the end of our tour. Please return your tray tables to their upright position, make sure you have all your personal items with you, and have a happy holiday of your choice!
I've got time for just one more Christmas cartoon this year, so here goes:
Five years ago, my cartoon on this subject lampooned a Christian Nationalist trouble-maker who, in a fit of pique and self-promotion, had presented the Hallmark Channel with a petition demanding that it cancel production and broadcast of Christmas Holiday movies with LGBTQ+ central characters.
Controversy and outrage erupted in conservative circles after a November 15 interview with Hallmark Channel CEO Bill Abbot for The Hollywood Reporter's TV's Top 5 podcast. Abbot stated that he would be "open" to the idea of a gay-themed Christmas movie, although the channel has yet to produce one and has no immediate plans to do so. The channel is said to be releasing over three dozen Christmas-themed films this year, none with gay major characters.
Since then, Hallmark has added LGBTQ+ fare to its holiday offerings at every year, as has Lifetime. Netflix joined the party in 2021.
Hallmark has cut back somewhat on making the Yuletide gay this year, however. I'm told there is only one holiday feature that includes a LGBTQ+ couple, and only as one plot line among several in a sequel about some sort of AirBnB/Vrbo/hostel where love is in the air ducts.
That's one couple, in one movie, among 50 new Hallmark holiday movies this season. With a repressive regime in complete control in this country next year, I wouldn't expect any gay-friendly Hallmark treacle for Christmas, 2025.
So, of course, the Hallmark movie in my cartoon is completely made up, as are Ty Askew and Casey Rossera. The Catholic Censorship League would have a fit over any TV show depicting a closeted priest succumbing to the charms of an atheist guy under the pagan mistletoe; perhaps Ron Reagan Jr. and the Enforced Freedom from Religion folks would file their complaints as well.
Unless the professional complainer class decides it's not worth it to give the Christmas movie factories the free publicity of a formal protest. It's not as if any of what Hallmark, Lifetime, or Netflix has actually extruded for the holiday is apt to rival Shakespeare anyway. Or Dickens.
Whether The Bishop's Wife or Die Hard or Elf or Red One is more your style, we wish you a merry Christmas.
Instead of the usual rough sketch or snippet from this week's cartoon, here's the first panel from one that came up in my Facebook Memories the other day:
Sondern laβt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere!
Since Trump was dreaming about annexing Canada as a 51st state, today's Graphical History Tour's first stop is with our northern neighbors for a quick reality check.
Tell us how you really feel, Johnny Canuck. And don't hold back.
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| "The Black Hand of Foreign Domination" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Star, Dec. 5, 1924 |
100 Decembers ago, U.S. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover endorsed a "Super Power Project" to meet Atlantic states' growing energy needs with power from Canada's hydroelectric dams along the St. Lawrence River. The Montreal Star fretted that "These official prognostications from across the boundary will sooner or later be directed upon Canada with pressure that any government will find it difficult, if not impossible, to resist."
That the project would benefit states far from the river and its watershed, such as Massachusetts, rankled some Canadians. These days, there is a compact among states and provinces bordering the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River; it is still exceedingly rare for Canadian interests to scuttle any U.S. plan to bend the rules of the compact in its favor.
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| "Ye Merrie Yuletide" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, Dec. 10, 1924 |
Racey returned to the theme of Yankee bullying of his home country a few days later; this time in the timber industry.
In his chapter of Sketches from an Unquiet Country: Canadian Graphic Satire 1840-1940, Christian Vachon put forth the case that the popular image of Uncle Sam was invented by Canadian cartoonists and copied by Thomas Nast. Here, Racey appears to have copied his personification of "American Interests" from U.S. cartoonist Frederick Burr Opper’s turn-of-the-century characterization of the Trusts.
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| "Wahlnot" in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Dec. 7, 1924 |
In case you have been overwhelmed by the constant barrage of campaign fund-raising emails that continue unabated regardless of the election having past, consider the plight of der geplagte Michel 100 years ago this month. Germany held elections for the Reichstad on December 7 — for the second time in six months. Nazis, Communists, monarchists, Social Democrats, and "Catholic Centrists" all competed for voters' affections.
At least none of them had discovered Mailchimp.
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| "Die beiden Unzufriedenen" in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Dec. 21, 1924 |
When the ballots were counted, the parties on the left and right extremes had lost seats in the Reichstag; the Social Democrats under Hermann Müller gained almost as many seats as the Nazi party and Communists lost combined.
I haven't been able to definitively credit these two cartoons, initialed rather than signed. Kladderadatsch had abandoned its occasional practice of printing a credit above its cartoons; with the prospect of one or another radical element coming to power, it's understandable that a cartoonist might want some degree of anonymity.
Of Kladderadatsch's regular cartoonists, Oskar Garvens, Werner Hahmann, Arthur Johnson, Hans-Maria Lindloff, M. Richter, and the occasional Egon Erwin Kisch, I would rule out Hahmann, who initialed his cartoons in the same style as his signature, and Johnson, whose drawing style doesn't match. The signed cartoons of Czech-born Kisch have a quickly sketched quality to them, but some of his other published work is more thoroughly polished. I can't dismiss Lindloff, Garvens, or some other cartoonist.
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| "A Confiding Old Gentleman..." by William Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 9, 1924 |
Turning to U.S. cartoonists, here's William Hanny's take on the news from France, which arrested and deported 60 members of the French Communist Party in December.
Hanny's cartoon makes reference to the supposed "Zinoviev letter" that had helped bring down the first Labour government of British Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald in October. Although the letter is now believed to have been forged, it was still widely accepted as genuine at the time.
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| "Declaring Himself In" by William Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 13, 1924 |
British-French relations also come up in another Hanny cartoon a few days later. The British government announced that it would like France to repay $3 billion in loans to finance the Great War, which concerned the Coolidge administration because the U.S. was waiting for France to cough up $4 billion to repay loans from America.
The French, for their part, were impatiently expecting reparations from Germany, anticipated to be facilitated under the Dawes Plan, namesake of the U.S. Vice President-elect.
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| "Who'll Get the Short End" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Dec. 14, 1924 |
As illustrated by J.P. Alley, the U.S. concern was that France would be unable to meet its obligations to both the U.S. and Great Britain, necessitating negotiation of a deal more favorable to France than the one already in effect regarding repayment of British wartime loans from the U.S.
Retiring French Ambassador to the U.S. Jean Jules Jusserand promised that his country's debt to the U.S. would be repaid "to the last cent," but protested that five sixths of the money borrowed was spent in the U.S., and besides, "I think you will not forget that we spent more blood than any of the Allies, much treasure, and further, that we were the only country that supplied a battlefield."
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| "It Was 'Nearly Over With'" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Dec. 17, 1924 |
The London Post opined that U.S. pressure on its allies over wartime loans was out of line, and that it was America that owed a debt to the Entente powers: "Is it sound morality or even good business to mulct France of sums lent to her for helping to save America, and incidentally the Monroe Doctrine, from the clutches of Germany?"
Maybe we should've just sicced tariffs on them all instead.
Or, The Pastors' Prorogue.
In the interest of drawing about anything that has nothing to do with the impending Even More Corrupt Trump Administration, or the Republican campaign of persecution against transgender Americans, I present to you my annual Christmas Holiday Cartoon.Prattville, Alabama, population just under 38,000, celebrated its annual Christmas Parade down East Fourth, Wetumpka, Northington, and Main Streets last Friday, with "lights, marching bands, dancers, candy, beads and trinkets" per the town's web page, but not without a bit of litigious drama.
The town's LGBTQ+ group, Prattville Pride, paid their $30 entry fee to have a float in the parade, only to have their application rejected by Mayor Bill Gillespie, Jr. Prattville Pride took the city to court to be allowed to march in the parade. With mere hours before the parade was to start, they won their case.
In his order, U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker of the Middle District of Alabama wrote: “While there are areas of unprotected speech, such as incitement of violence, the City makes no argument and provides no evidence that Prattville Pride has engaged in any speech or behavior that would remotely fall into an unprotected speech category. It is undisputed that Prattville Pride has complied with the City’s regulations.”
“The City removed Prattville Pride from the parade based on its belief that certain members of the public who oppose Prattville Pride, and what it stands for, would react in a disruptive way. But discrimination based on a message’s content “cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment,” the order continued.
Toleration, as it turned out, was in somewhat short supply.
Two participants pulled out of the parade after Huffaker’s order: St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, which initially backed out after Prattville Pride was included only to reverse course after the city’s ban, and Drive-In Park, the headquarters of “mobile movie evangelists” Drive-In Ministries.
“Unfortunately we are back to our original stance of having to forgo the parade since the pride float with their drag queen is back in it,” said Father Den Irwin, pastor at St. Joseph’s. “I am sincerely sorry for any inconvenience. We were trying to support the City after they boldly removed the float. However Prattville pride challenged the ruling in court and won.”
Drive-In Park said in a social media post it was “disappointed” that it had to pull out of the event.
“Our convictions at Drive-In have guided us to decide that we should not participate this year due to the inclusion of the Prattville Pride float,” the post read.
Congregants of St. Joseph and Drive-In Park who had put in so much work putting their floats together were no doubt crestfallen, although I'm pretty sure at least one of them has a parking lot they could parade around and around in.
As for the town's official parade, I have not been able to find any reports of any further disruption thereto. Neither fire nor brimstone has rained down upon beautiful downtown Prattville, according to the latest from the Weather Channel.
Just beads and trinkets.
This week's Graphical History Tour is yet another book report: just in time for the 150th anniversary of Winston Churchill's birth, cartoon historian Tim Benson offers over 300 editorial cartoons from the British wartime leader's career in Churchill: A Life in Cartoons.
Back in October, I was curious about an Arthur G. Racey cartoon from 1924 that held up Churchill's propensity for wearing hats as something out of the ordinary, even though just about everybody wore hats in those days. The mystery is explained in Benson's introduction to the book: at the dawn of Churchill's career, cartoonists thought that unlike his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, he lacked "the features which lent themselves to easily recognisable conventional treatment" (— cartoonist Francis Carruthers Gould, August, 1904).
Benson writes that heeding the advice of Gould and other cartoonists,
"Churchill started wearing a variety of hats, all of which were distinctive in that they were too small for his head. Churchill once claimed that this was a deliberate strategy, beginning in 1910 when he caused a stir by donning a felt cap several sizes too small in front of photographers."
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| "Our Choice of Political Leaders" by Victor Weisz in News Chronicle, London, Nov. 23, 1945 |
He later adopted the cigar (never smoked down more than an inch) and the V symbol for the same reasons, although by then cartoonists had sufficiently honed their caricatures of the man that they really didn't need the extra clues. But, as Donald Trump is always drawn with an extra-long red tie, the cigar was de rigueur in any Churchill cartoon.
When I ordered this book, I expected it to be full of David Low cartoons (like the one on the cover), but Benson has deliberately sought out cartoons which, according to the back page, "have not seen the light of day since they were first published." Low is not overlooked entirely, but you'll find many more cartoons by George Whitelaw, Victor "Vicky" Weisz, Clive Uptton, and Leslie Illingworth.
There are also plenty of cartoons from the United States, Germany, Italy, Australia, and the U.S.S.R.; even a few from Brazil, India, South Africa, Netherlands, and Mexico. What struck me, having just read and reviewed a book about Canadian editorial cartoonists, is that there is only one cartoon in this book from Canada. (The book has no index; if anyone finds a second Canadian cartoon in there, please let me know.)
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| "Das Alte Lied" ("The Old Song") by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Sept. 12, 1943 |
The cartoons published in nations that were Britain's enemies, such as this one by Arthur Johnson (sadly, not in color in Benson's book) in which it's the U.S. flag that Churchill is obliged to carry, serve as a welcome counterpoint to the patriotic wartime cartoons from the homeland. Benson notes as an aside that this is one of the few German cartoons that alluded to Franklin Roosevelt's polio — an absolute no-no in U.S. and allied cartoons, photographs, and reportage.
If I have any complaint about the book, it is that there are a few cartoons that, when printed two per page, include print that is too small for these old eyes to read. Typically, that involves labels identifying politicians who are long forgotten or simply unknown this side of the pond. Since the text accompanying every cartoon does a more than adequate job of explaining their context and external references, my not being able to identify the Labour councilman from Westgloughingham is a very small point.
Churchill: A Life in Cartoons helps greatly in the understanding of the two World Wars from a British point of view (especially as distinct from the U.S. perspective). With a half century of cartoons dating from 1904 to 1954, including a number drawn by cartoonists who have graced our Graphical History Tour over the years, Benson's is a remarkable and praiseworthy contribution to the celebration of Churchill's sesquicentennial.
Now, I'm not one to tell you to run right out and buy this book. But Christmas is right around the corner and you might have someone in your life who is interested in cartooning, or history, or England; and perhaps that is something they would tell you.
The odd couple of Liberal Leo and MAGA Max return to discuss a Trump cabinet nominee nobody else is drawing cartoons about.
Drawing for the LGBTQ+ press, I feel obliged to highlight President Re-Elect Donald Trump's naming of an out gay man to his cabinet. Scott Bessent stands out from Trump's other appointments not so much because of his sexual orientation, but more because in contrast to the rest of them, he's so normal.
Yes, he's a billionaire, not Mr. John Q. Public. But he's no worm-brain-addled RFK Jr., or Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard, or pardoned blackmailer Charles Kushner, or sexual harasser Pete Hegseth, or snake oil huckster Doc Oz, or fascist weasel Steven Miller. Nor did he shoot his own dog, as Secretary-designate for Homeland Security Kristi Noem did. Or come to Trump's attention via World Wrestling Entertainment, like his choice to head the Department of Education, Linda "But We Asked Our Pederasts to Please Stop" McMahon.
As important as the post of Secretary of the Treasury is — being fifth in the line of presidential succession and all — you might not hear much about him during his time in office, unless he joy rides in an Air Force jet as Trump's last Treasury Secretary was wont to do. (Quick: without looking at the money in your wallet, who has been Treasury Secretary during the Biden years?)
Do I really think that Scott Bessent is a diversity hire? Not really. His financial support of Trump and the MAGA movement would have a lot more to do with his appointment. Trump may want to burn Justice, Defense, Interior, Education, Health and Welfare, and Veterans Affairs to the ground, but he has a vested interest in keeping his Secret Service detail paid so they can afford his hotel room rates. (Didja know that the Secret Service is part of the Treasury Department?*)
To be honest, I suspect that if Bessent leaves the Even More Corrupt Trump Administration early, it will not be because he was the token gay hire.
But when the Trump tariffs and draconian Muskaswami budget cuts push us into a new recession and eggs are still $4/dozen, somebody is going to have to be the scapegoat, and it's going to be the person who doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the Cabinet of Misfit Toys.
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*Correction: The Secret Service was transferred from the Treasury Department to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security in 2003. The "U.S. Secret Service Mission Improvement and Realignment Act of 2020" would have returned it to the Treasury Department but died in Congress without coming to a vote.
