February Shorten Suite

Today's Graphical History Tour steps back forty, thirty, twenty, and ten Februaries ago to check out what I was drawing back then.

1986

in NorthCountry Journal, Poynette Wis., February, 1986

I can't remember the exact point of the editorial that accompanied this cartoon in the environmentally-focused NorthCountry Journal, but it's not difficult to guess the general drift. 

Drawing architecture is not one of my favorite pastimes; I must have used a straightedge to draw so many parallel lines, and somehow managed not to smear any wet india ink. There is, miraculously, no white-out on the original of this particular cartoon.

1996

Rummaging through my cartoon files from 30 Februaries ago, I first found a cartoon likening reactionary GOP presidential contender Pat Buchanan to Nazis — which I still think is valid — but then I came across this one.

in UWM Post, Milwaukee, February 29, 1996

Lamar Alexander, a former Governor of Tennessee and Secretary of Education in the George H.W. Bush administration, was considered by the professional punditry to be one of the moderates in the GOP presidential field.

Which just goes to show how long the positions he espoused in my cartoon have been mainstream in the Republican Party. Abolishing the Department of Education since became GOP platform boilerplate, so the Lawless Trump Regime's destruction of the DOE is no longer anything new or surprising.

Alexander's proposed "new military department responsible for drug enforcement" and "dealing with illegal immigration," put forth more than five years before 9/11, is now the Lawless Trump Regime's Department of Homeland Security.

2006

for Q Syndicate, February 2006

But enough about politics.

Awards season affords a welcome opportunity to step away from the news out of Washington and whatever politician is trying to capitalize on homophobia at the moment. Movies with Oscar nominations in 2006 included Brokeback Mountain, TransAmerica, and Capote, promising one of the most LGBTQ-centric ceremonies since, well, 1960. 

By the way, do I have to explain now where these women are and what they are doing? Naah, not gonna do it. Go ask your mother.

2016

for Q Syndicate, February, 2016

Staying with Hollywood, my cartoon ten Februaries later remarked how straight actors win praise for playing LGBTQ roles, but out LGBTQ actors can get pigeonholed having to play LGBTQ roles exclusively.

There have been some notable exceptions to the practice in the last ten years, notably Jonathan Bailey as Bridgerton heartthrob Anthony, Neil Patrick Harris as How I Met Your Mother's Barney Stinson, Jim Parsons as Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper, and Matt Bomer in role after role after role.

Theater has a long history of white actors playing Parts of Color (from Othello to The Mikado to Apache), but that's decidedly out of fashion these days.

There are some who advocate that only LGBTQ actors should portray LGBTQ characters; but there is little chance of that as long as actors such as Rami Malek, Nick Offerman, Brendan Fraser, and Ewan McGregor keep winning awards for gay roles.

🌈

Rev. Jesse Jackson passed away this week, so I'll close today's Graphical History Tour in his memory with one of the cartoons I drew of him during his 1984 presidential campaign.

January, 1984

My cartoon, drawn after Jackson led a delegation of Black faith leaders who secured the release from Syria of U.S. Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, seems not to have been published. The UW-Parkside Ranger instead printed a cartoon I drew in which a stack of papers on Secretary of State George Schultz listed a number of pending foreign policy issues, including suspended nuclear disarmament talks, yellow rain, a Korean passenger plane shot down by the U.S.S.R., and the 241 Marines killed in a Beirut suicide bombing.

One might argue that the 52 U.S. hostages freed by Iran on Reagan's first hour in office outweigh the one seaman freed by Syria; but I would argue that Reagan was responsible not for achieving but for delaying the Iran hostages' release, so that doesn't count.

In any event, freeing Lt. Goodman, who had been shot down over Lebanon, captured, and taken to Damascus, established Rev. Jackson as more than a special interest candidate in the 1984 Democratic primaries. He was among the front runners for the nomination four years later, then concentrated on leading his PUSH/Rainbow Coalition.

In spite of being visibly afflicted with Parkinson's disease, Jackson came to Kenosha to march in a Black Lives Matter protest a month after the 2020 riot there, and spoke at the church where I was working at the time. I did not get to meet him, but here's a photo of him at Grace Lutheran Church with an assistant and Greater Milwaukee Synod (ELCA) Bishop Paul Erickson, and another of some of the local television coverage.